text:
Lessons Learned from Quitting Kickstarter as a Creator, Part 2
15 December 2016 | 41 Comments
Before I bookend this tale of transition that began on Monday, I want to be clear about two things:
I will continue to write about crowdfunding twice a week until I have nothing more to contribute. I haven't had a live project on Kickstarter for over a year, but I've written 100+ articles about crowdfunding during that time. It continues to fascinate me, and hopefully the posts will continue to add value for my fellow creators.
These posts are truly not meant in any way to discourage creators from using Kickstarter. My business wouldn't exist at all (or in its current form) if I hadn't used Kickstarter to start and grow Stonemaier. Unlike this article, these posts are geared towards creators who have grown to the point where the reasons I list in Part 1 have become significant concerns.
Let's start with the story of the Scythe expansion, our first new product for which we didn't run a crowdfunding or pre-order campaign.
When I decided about 5 months ago that I was going directly to distributors for Invaders from Afar, I quickly realized that it meant two things:
I needed to make a lot of copies to satisfy what I hoped the demand would be (I determined this number to be 30,000 copies).
I needed to only make one version of the expansion, with any add-ons made as promo items sold separately (power dials and metal coins).
I also wanted to have as close to a simultaneous worldwide release as possible, so I reached out to a few distributors in Europe, Asia, and Australia/NZ to see if they would be interested in buying directly from the source–our manufacturer in China. There was plenty of interest, and the remaining copies (a substantial number) were sent to the US in three shipments.
What should have happened was supply would have met demand, with all expansions released by retailers in each region at the same time in late November. Here's what actually happened in chronological order:
The first shipment arrived in the US around November 10. My broker in the US should have shipped them to distributors the following week, but there was a miscommunication that resulted in hardly any copies being shipped when they should have.
Meanwhile, the European shipment was taking longer than expected. It wouldn't end up being available to retailers until the first week of December (it's still arriving at some of those retailers). Asia was fine, and Australia/NZ is still a work in progress.
Back in the US, the second shipment had arrived, and Thanksgiving week was upon us–not a good week for freight shipping. Our broker prepared the shipments for several distributors, but FedEx Freight didn't pick up anything until the following week.
The freight shipments were finally picked up, one day after another. It was a big shipment, and big shipments take a while. Our broker wasn't quite equipped for it in terms of manpower, which we talked about and will fix in the future.
I made the mistake of not issuing a release date–I told retailers that they could sell the expansion as soon as they received it. This created an inequity between retailers whose distributors received their games first and retailers who received their games last (our broker can't send everything simultaneously).
During the week of November 28, our broker shipped all orders to distributors. At that point, because I had listed on our website that the expansion would be available from retailers sometime between December 1 and 8, customers were frantically calling their preferred retailers trying to get copies. But most of those retailers didn't have copies yet, and their distributors didn't have any information about them (there seems to be a breakdown in communication between distributors' purchasers–all of whom knew that their shipments had been sent–and their sales team, who mostly just care when the product has arrived at their warehouse).
In Europe, it was revealed that demand exceeded supply, requiring "allocations" for many retailers (they only receive a portion of their order). The good news is that we still had the third shipment of the expansion en route to the US. The bad news was–and still is–that US customs randomly flagged it. That was 2 weeks ago. They still haven't even started the inspection of that shipment.
Look at all those layers. With Kickstarter fulfillment, there are many layers–factory to port to ocean freight to customs to freight trucking to fulfillment center to courier to consumer–but there are at least twice as many layers involved in distribution. If one link in that chain is weak, delayed, or unpredictable, it throws everything off.
If you need to go back and read Part 1 now to remind yourself why I'd do this to Stonemaier, feel free.
In case it isn't already clear, the distribution system is when a publisher (like Stonemaier) sells products to a distributor, who handles the logistics and orders to get those products to retailers (online or brick-and-mortar). The retailers sell those products to individual consumers. Also, in our case, we employ the use of a broker to warehouse our games, manage inventory and sell our products to distributors.
For publishers, distributors are super helpful because it means we only need to handle the transactions of a dozen customers (the distributors) a few times a month instead of hundreds of customers every day. The difference in the scope of sales and time is immense, especially considering the worldwide reach of distributors despite the need of a single origin point for us (instead of me managing inventory in 5 different warehouses worldwide).
For retailers, distributors offer the convenience of consolidation. Think of it this way: Say you want to make a pizza from scratch for dinner tonight. You can go to the grocery store and buy tomatos, basil, flour, eggs, pepperoni, cheese, etc all in one place. Super easy. Now, imagine how inconvenient it would be if you had to go to a tomato store, a basil store, a flour store, etc–a different vendor for each item. The amount of time you save is worth the additional cost of consolidation.
Okay, here's where we get to the nitty-gritty: What are the top 10 problems created by shifting from a pre-order model to the distribution system, and how are we addressing them?
Risk in over/under-estimating demand. Kickstarter lets you determine–at least for the first print run–the exact demand for a product. Without it, it's a huge gamble. We really don't know how much to make. If you make too little, you can make more, but retailers get frustrated while they wait for something they could be selling to arrive. If you make too much, you've tied up a lot of cash in something that isn't selling. Solution: Poll fans, distributors, and retailers to gauge their interest in a product before the print run begins, and continue to use our future printing request form.
Lack of consumer connection and community: Kickstarter is wonderful because it gives backers the opportunity to build something with creators, and it gives creators a direct line of communication (updates) with those backers throughout the process. It's a very personal, collaborative process. Solution: Kickstarter or not, I spend a lot of time interacting with people and communicating information about our games on Facebook, Twitter, BoardGameGeek, and our e-newsletter. We don't quite have something that simulates updates (other than our use of Facebook groups), but we can easily do that using product-specific newsletters. This flies in the face of my "don't talk about it until we're ready to release it" strategy, but I can see that evolving over time.
No more Collector's Editions? It's arguable that Collector's Editions are a good thing in the first place. Yes, they're fun for those who get them, but they're a huge hassle for everyone else, especially completionists. This is the case even if all the items are available separately afterwards (expensive Collector's Editions are not tenable for the mass market). However, Kickstarter is a great place for these editions. Solution: Continue to find retailers worldwide who will carry promos and special accessories (like Meeplesource and Board Game Extras), and maybe–maybe–on occasion return to Kickstarter for a Collector's Edition of a new product.
Bigger barrier to entry for consumers: At least at the point of purchase, Kickstarter is easy. Within 2 clicks, you've made a pledge, and unless you forget to update your address, the reward magically shows up at your doorstep a few months later. Without Kickstarter, it requires more effort for a consumer to request a product from a retailer (or track down someone who carries it) and place a purchase. It doesn't help that Stonemaier has "trained" our fans over time to expect an easy Kickstarter/pre-order system. Solution: I've addressed part of the solution by creating a Google Doc of all retailers who are at least aware of how to stock our products (at least, all retailers who have been in contact with me). Ideally this would be a much more robust, dynamic system that could let consumers go to one source and quickly find which retailers have our products in stock, but no such solution exists (to my knowledge).
Multiple layers of potential communication failures: With Kickstarter, there's one source for all information. But with the distributor system, I have retailers talking to distributors, customers talking to retailers, distributors talking to my broker. I still have a lot of that information, but with such a widespread system, it's natural for people to come to me less. Solution: I have a mailing list of all retailers who have opted into that list (contact me at contact@stonemaiergames.com) and I keep them updated once a month or as needed with upcoming releases and any pertinent information. That system does, of course, rely on retailers to opt into that list and read the e-mails, which is tough when Stonemaier is just one of many, many publishers.
Inequity of releases: With Kickstarter, I have full control over when games are released to backers within each region. I mistakenly relinquished that control for the Scythe expansion release, as I didn't like the idea of making stores hold inventory until an official street date. However, I've found that both stores and customers really like a street date, as it gives puts them on a level playing field as everyone else. Solution: Implement a street date for each region for new releases. This date will be heavily padded to accomodate slower distributors and freight delays.
Loss of urgency and buzz: Let's face it: Kickstarter projects are exciting. Watching the funding total, backer numbers, and stretch goals grow is fun, and it's all within a confined amount of time. Non-Kickstarter publishers tend to use conventions for big, buzz-worthy releases, but Stonemaier doesn't use conventions that way. Solution: I think Mechs vs. Minions did a fantastic job at generating a ton of excitement by having a coordinated release (down to the exact minute) for early reviewers, a pre-order date that was just a few weeks later, and a release date that was just a few weeks after that. I think that model can work for us to some extent as well (and use some of these techniques). Also, I think there's a certain power in knowing how well a game is selling–this could mimic the effect of backers wanting to fund a Kickstarter project because of how well it's doing. Maybe I could post the total sales for each of our products in a prominent place on our website?
Decreased potential for discovery: Kickstarter has slowly improved its discovery system over time. My hunch is that very few people randomly discover projects on Kickstarter–they usually find out about it from some other source and then search for it–but there are some merits to the element of discovery created from friends and creators you follow. Solution: We intend to advertise on BoardGameGeek and send games to reviewers as we usually do, and I think if people are excited about something, they're going to share it with their friends. We just might need to worker harder at giving them something fun/playful to share (like the photos of pets with Scythe we had fun with). It helps that we have nearly 25,000 e-newsletter subscribers and over 9,000 Facebook fans, but those are just numbers–it's important to engage those people in ways that value their time.
Thinner margins for publishers: Distributors typically buy from publishers at a 60% discount off MSRP. Let's use Scythe as an example to show the difference in margins. Scythe has an $80 MSRP. Scythe costs about $22 to make and ship from China to a distributor. So when a distributor buys it for $32, we make a profit of $10. There was a close equivalent (retail edition plus promos) on Kickstarter for $59. Kickstarter/Stripe take 10%, and the per-unit courier cost subsidy built into that price ended up being around $15. So that puts the total cost around $43 for a total profit of $13. Solution: It's really not that big of a difference. $3 adds up, but Kickstarter is a one-time thing for a product. Distribution is forever (potentially).
Higher prices for consumers: Because of the direct approach, Kickstarter allows creators to offer backers prices that are lower than their retail equivalents. So I do struggle a bit with the idea that we're making a choice that hurts our valued customers. Solution: The new system is meant to remove a key cost for customers: shipping. Whether you buy from a local game store or an online game store (over their "free shipping" threshold), you're more likely to avoid paying the guaranteed shipping cost on Kickstarter (whether it's built into the cost of the reward or added on). But this is only a partial solution, and I can understand how it may be frustrating for some people.
This is going to be a learning process for us. It always has been. But I look forward to the journey–a very well-informed journey, thanks to people like you who offer me their thoughts, ideas, and opinions in constructive ways–just as I look forward to sharing that journey with you on this blog, as I do in Part 3 and Part 4.
41 Comments on "Lessons Learned from Quitting Kickstarter as a Creator, Part 2"
Thagor says:
I'm in Europe, and my FLG just received its first shipment. I pre-ordered Invaders from afar months ago, and reading that there is not enough product, I'm glad I did it! Can't wait to play it tomorrow night.
Funny fact, I received the 50 coins 10 days ago from meeple realty. It was faster coming from the US.
One thing I'm curious about, which I don't think either posts addressed, is how you decided that now was the right time, both personally and for the company, to leave Kickstarter, and if there's signs you can suggest other long term users of Kickstarter look for to know if they've grown to a point they might want to start considering leaving the platform.
Stephen: As for the timing, I honestly wouldn't say I have any answer beyond what I wrote about in Part 1. I was heavily influenced by the Scythe fulfillment and release, so if there's any element of timing, it's that.
I would say if a creator ever reads Part 1 and realizes that it fully resonates with where they are right now as a company, it might be a good time for them to consider doing what we did (if it's the right choice for them).
Kickstarter Lesson #55: Starting and Sustaining a Kickstarter-Driven Business | Stonemaier Games says:
[…] Update 12/15/2016: Lessons Learned from Quitting Kickstarter, Part 2 […]
Terry Kirk says:
I always enjoy your articles. They're very open and honest.
Carlos Michán says:
Hi Jamey
Thanks for teaching us so much one more time.
I felt sad the other day, when I saw the way you felt during scythe´s kickstarter.
I just want you to know, that you are very important for people like me. You improve us a lot as designers and kickstarter creators.
We await more news about charterstone :)
I wish you the best.
Florin Barascu says:
Hi again Jamey,
As I'm only preparing for my 1st campaign, I'm quite far from resonating with this issues, but I'm very happy you will continue to write about crowdfunding.
The moment I saw your Google Doc of retailers, my eyes shined like Gollum's seeing the One Ring. It's very handy for (future) creators like me to use it as a contact list database. I would see myself sending them an email like say this:
"Hi, I did *this* and thought you might be interested into backing the retailer pack, live on KS until *insert date*. Alternatively, if it's not your policy to back KS games, are you interesting into getting future news from me once I have the game published and in stock?".
How do you think the retailers would react? Should we avoid contacting them about live projects and email them only when we have the game in stock?
A mega-useful thing would be if you could manage in the future to update the doc with a column where each retailer to answer if they are interested into backing live projects or not.
Thanks for all the shared information and insights!
Florian: Sure, I already have a list like that–it's just much shorter. This is a list that retailers have opted into for that specific purpose. It's linked on this entry: https://stonemaiergames.com/the-secrets-to-making-your-tabletop-game-kickstarter-project-appealing-to-retailers/
Justin Martin says:
Jamey, thanks for writing these well thought out and eloquent posts. Extremely interesting to read up on all the behind-the-scenes activity. My appreciation toward your products and processes has been raised.
Kenm says:
So, I clicked on your link of promo items sold separately, and it was cool and all, but confusing. There's no real information about what is needed to bring the promo up to the collector's (or kickstarter edition).
I'm one of those folks who likes games to look uniform…
Might I suggest a "pack" of promos for future games that form a "collector's edition" equivalent, or an upgrade to collector's edition level?
Ken: We try to stay away from packs like that, because we really don't know what each consumer already has. However, you can easily get that information by looking at the graphic on this page: https://stonemaiergames.com/buy-scythe/
Mateusz Rakowski says:
As always good read Jamey, thanks a lot.
Can you please explain why you are using a broker and his role and costs, please?
Mateusz: I use a broker for warehousing, freight shipping, and to coordinate with the inventory management systems of the various distributors. I can't discuss the exact costs, but they're minimal.
Federico Damiani says:
That's the right choice at the right moment. Kickstarter can be a double edged blade. Distributors and sellers will help you focusing on a product that you can market at a fair price maintaining a proper margin, say 30% without risk mitigation. What fails in this industry is excess of product. Too much bad product floods the narket and kickstarter helps that in many ways. A good publisher should solely focus on collecting the best ideas and making a game that is financially viable.
I definitely like that message, Federico, both on and off of Kickstarter. I think a "bad" product is certainly in the eye of the beholder, but there are ways all of us can try harder to filter out games that don't add something special to this amazing community.
Bad product at times interferes with the proper diffusion of good product. Publishers have a huge role to play into this. Selecting ideas and focusing on making games. Leaving distribution to distributors and keeping a healthy work/life balance will drive growth of good new products that will help keeping the market healthy.
Regarding Collector's Editions and other promo material, while I would understand if you didn't want to do them due to wanting to focus on developing other content, I hope you never decide not to do them because of completionists.
I have backed two current campaigns and one campaign that recently ended in which I wasn't able to get everything, each for various different reasons.
The first was the Kingdom Death game. Getting everything requires paying $2000. That pledge level is still available, so I could get it if I was willing to pay for it. But that's way too much for me to spend on a game.
The second was the Destiny Aurora game. In this case, all of the gameplay content except for one $12 add-on was part of the core game. The additional add-ons simply upgraded the standees that came with the core game to minis. Getting all of those cost an additional $114. I didn't want to pay that much extra, so I couldn't get all of the add-ons. (I decided to focus on updating all of the space-related standees to minis instead.)
The third was the Constellation Dice campaign. This was probably the one I cared the most about "completing". In this case, the issue wasn't price, but availability. The creator had made a version of the dice covering the northern sky for an earlier Indiegogo campaign. When he decided to do a follow-up campaign on Kickstarter for the southern sky (along with various other kinds of astronomy-related dice), he found that the manufacturer he had used to make the earlier dice had made extras in case some had to be discarded due to manufacturing issues. He bought back the extras, and made them available in the new campaign for a limited number of backers.
The problem was, by the time I found out about the campaign, all of the original dice had been taken. He was manufacturing more Northern Sky dice, but only in one color, and I wanted the dice in the original colors.
This last Monday, he posted an update revealing that he now had more exact numbers of the original dice, and could make more available to backers. So he created a new backer level available to 10 backers that included some of the original dice. I was excited, and rushed over to the campaign page only to find that all of the slots were already taken.
But while I was disappointed, I realized that I was no worse off than I had been a moment ago. I still had all of the dice that I had currently pledged for. I didn't actually lose anything.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I will point out that he opened up additional slots the next day, and I was able to get one of them. But even if I hadn't been able to, my earlier sentiments would have stayed the same.
While I understand the disappointment in not being able to have everything, I also don't think it is fair to pressure creators into only offering a "lowest common denominator" version of their product. People look at Collector's Editions, promo material, and other add-on content as making things more expensive, but it is actually just the opposite. Without those, either the creator includes all of that content in all of the games, thus making the core games more expensive for everyone, many of whom might not care about the extras, or nobody gets the extra content, and people are where they would have been had they simply not purchased the extras, only now nobody has the option to get them.
I don't want any creator to limit what they are offering to others simply because I couldn't have all of it. Even if I couldn't have gotten the original Northern Sky dice, I wouldn't have wanted the creator to throw them out rather than offer them to the limited number of people who could have gotten them. Even though I didn't end up getting all of the minis, I'm glad the creator of Destiny Aurora offered them to those who were willing to pay. And I wouldn't want the Kingdom Death team to stop making expansions and other content simply because I personally am not willing to pay for them all. Others should be able to enjoy all of that content even if I can't.
Joe: Thanks for your detailed comment–this is really helpful. I totally agree that a creator shouldn't artificially limit what backers can buy simply because everyone can't have everything. For me, as a publisher, if enough people want something, we'll make it (and in the meantime, we'll sell what we have).
I may be overestimating the challenges involved in selling promo items and special accessories separately. Sure, I've heard from a few people that it's annoying to buy them separately instead of part of a bundle, but since we sell that stuff through Meeplesource (and they sell to other retailers), a person can go to one place and put everything in their cart, and people have responded by the thousands to do this (far outweighing the handful of people who have complained). So it seems like a good system.
The thing I don't think works as well for the distribution model are complete Collector's Editions, just because the price is so high. That's where margins on Kickstarter make a pretty big difference–I can sell a $99 Collector's Edition on Kickstarter, but would I sell enough copies of a $150 Collector's Edition via distribution? Probably not.
…Though ridiculous editions of various well selling games seem to be somewhat viable, depending on the game… (…Though I didn't see a 3d Edition of Catan in the wild, so to speak…)
Stephen: That's true. I see them fitting into two categories: Highly-rated games that have been out of print for a while and come back in glorious overproduced form (Space Hulk, War of the Ring) and truly bestselling games that have a special edition to celebrate being on the market for a while (Smallworld, Ticket to Ride 10th). I don't think we'll let our games go out of print, so the first may not apply. The second might apply, but those games are selling hundreds of thousands of copies (if not millions)–we're tiny compared to them.
Jamey, that's a good point on the Collector's Edition, particularly since Kickstarter lets you ensure that you have a minimum demand before printing.
It's definitely an interesting line between having enough people that shipping becomes a hassle, and distribution would be easier, and not having enough demand, thus making pre-orders the better route to take. And because of pricing, you could end up with a situation such as having the $99 Collector's Edition become so popular that shipping was a hassle, but the $150 that it would cost via distribution being enough of a limitation on most people's budgets that you couldn't sell enough of them to make it worth it.
I wonder if there is a business opportunity for some of the distributors to also act as fulfillment companies. Perhaps retailers and distributors could form a fulfillment network. In addition to purchasing games, they would also be paid a small fee to take additional games that people could claim via some kind of coupon code. So instead of crowdfunded games being directly shipped to customers, creators would send backers codes that they could then use to claim the games at their local shops. The games would be shipped via the standard distribution channels, and distributors and retailers would have the opportunity to order additional copies for retail from the same print run to be delivered in the same shipments as backer rewards.
One other potential issue with Collector's Editions when you aren't going through crowdfunding or pre-orders is that more people will already have retail copies unless you do the campaign just before the regular editions are available for sale. I got one of the Scythe Collector's Editions, and it was more than worth the additional money. It is by far my nicest looking game with the highest quality components. But if I had already purchased a regular retail edition, I would have had to think harder about whether I wanted a second copy of the game, even if it would have had a lot of nicer components.
I mean, even the base game is already nice. So I would have been deciding between an awesome looking copy of the game and an even more awesome looking copy of the game. But I suppose one solution to this might be to offer a "Collector's Edition upgrade pack" for those who already had the game, and the full game for those who didn't or who wanted an additional copy.
Speaking of nice looking components and limited Kickstarter/pre-order runs, I finally got around to going through all the Token Trilogy tokens (to make sure they were all there — they were!), and WOW! They are all amazing, particularly the ones in the Adventure Atlas. Very nicely done.
Your previous token campaign was how I found out about Stonemaier Games, so you can thank Kickstarter for me being a customer. (Well, at least for me becoming a customer. You can thank yourself for me staying a customer.) At first I wasn't sure if the tokens were worth the money because I wasn't sure how good in quality they would be. But after reading many of your Kickstarter blog posts, it convinced me of how passionate you were about producing games, and I was at least assured that you were putting your best effort behind developing the tokens as opposed to simply throwing something cheap out there to make a quick buck.
Once I received them, not only was my belief in you validated, but I was also pleasantly surprised that they were even better than I had expected. Between the token sets and Scythe, I'm glad I found out about Stonemaier. And even after having seen the first token set and Scythe, the second token set still managed to surprise me in how nice it was. You definitely outdid yourself on that one!
Joe: Thanks for following up. These are some creative ideas.
"So instead of crowdfunded games being directly shipped to customers, creators would send backers codes that they could then use to claim the games at their local shops." –Some creators have tried this, but to my knowledge a distributor has not. My biggest concern is that it's adding another layer of separation between the creator and the backer, which could lead to a bunch of issues if backers don't get their rewards or move, etc. If I'm working with a great fulfillment center, I know exactly what I have in stock at all times. That wouldn't be the case if the games are spread out to hundreds of different retailers.
I totally agree about how there would be only a very small market for people who own the retail game and then want to also buy the Collector's Edition. The upgrade pack is a good solution, though.
I'm so glad you like the tokens! :) We tried to go all-out for them. A lot of it is thanks to our awesome sculptor, Scott.
Ian Liddle says:
I'm disappointed to hear this. You've admitted two really critical flaws in this new strategy: you're making less (23%!) while your customer pays more in money, time and inconvenience than they would through a pre-order or Kickstarter campaign.
I understand that you've gotten to the place where you must delegate this logistic challenge, and you should… I just find it difficult to accept that traditional distribution is really the best solution, vs insourcing or outsourcing the logistics.
Or, even going even further, leveraging print-on-demand (POD), and opening the door to new, unheard of levels of customization / legacy-style changes: could you imagine if Charterstone had a play logging site / app to collect certain data points and player-generated details, which could then be plugged into a POD template for subsequent expansions / component upgrades? That would be so cool!
Ian: To be fair, you're painting some pretty broad strokes over dozens of key points I've made in Part 1 and Part 2, many of which benefit the consumer as well as Stonemaier. It's fine for you to be disappointed, and you don't have to accept the results, but hopefully you can at least trust that this isn't a decision we took lightly. I understand that our customers are accustomed to buying from us through Kickstarter, but the incremental cost of time, money, and inconvenience to the consumer is minimal (if anything).
Understanding the business case and the best way forward is what a company like this needs to be doing. It simply comes back to that. I just hope this and other publishers will stay independent. I am much more concened about Asmodee owning 80% of the publishers and CMON owning the remaining 20%. I need to see some of these companies step up and offer alternatives in terms of product AND price point. If you are concerned about the future of the boardgaming industry you should be happy to see a small publisher going to play with the big guys.
Dean love says:
In the UK I use boardgameprices.co.uk to check who (online) has a given product in stock. It's not always perfect, but has helped me track down products that were sold out at most retailers.
One other downside you didn't list is competition. Sure, I can go to my retailer of choice (local or online) with the intent of buying your game, but in the process that retailer is going to tell me about a load of other stuff I could buy instead and yes I do want Charterstone but the reviews aren't out yet and look that new Eldrtich Horror expansion is out maybe I should get that instead…
Flip side: people may go the other way, increasing visibility on your products.
Dean: That's a great point about the competition. My hope is that I can have a great relationship with those stores, make fun games and get reviews of my games, and make my games look good on the shelf and online. :)
Thanks for sharing all this incredibly useful information. Your blog has been a really useful resource for me as a newbie creator.
Re the thinner margins – I make it $16 profit on the kickstarter, not $13 ($59 minus $43); and it's only that low because you're setting the kickstarter price a wopping 25% lower than the final MSRP. At a more than 50% higher profit, that already seems huge to me, and if you set the kickstarter price even a small amount higher you could be looking at double. (This seems especially significant when I think about the risks around delivery, which could easily eat into a smaller profit margin if you miscalculate or are unlucky.)
An important hidden variable, I think, is what percentage of your long-term sales come from distribution as opposed to kickstarter sales. If kickstarter sales only account for 10% of your sales then all that extra profit is relatively insignificant; on the other hand if they're half your long-term sales then the profit differential seems pretty big. I'd be really interested to know the ballpark figure on that, if you're willing to share it.
Josh: You're right, the margins I mentioned here are reflective of Kickstarter prices, which are normally lower than MSRP (creators ask backers to incur a fair amount of risk, and that risk is often mitigated by a low price).
As for long-term sales from distribution instead of Kickstarter, it depends on the game, and it depends on how long it keeps selling. For Scythe, as of April 2017 (several print runs are currently in production), we'll have about 100,000 copies in circulation. That's a little less than a year after we sent 21,000 copies to backers. So just based on a year's worth of data for Scythe, Kickstarter copies comprise about 20% of the total copies in circulation.
It's a little harder to calculate for Viticulture, but here's a rough estimate: Through the Viticulture and Tuscany Kickstarter campaigns (2012 and 2014), we sold about 12,000 copies of Viticulture. The total number of copies of Viticulture that will be in circulation as of April 2017 will be 45,000. So Kickstarter copies comprise around 27% of the total copies in circulation.
Kristo Vaher says:
Jamey, you're one of the smartest guys in this business and I absolutely enjoy reading and following your creations where-ever they take you or, by proxy, me. But reading this post and the previous one I feel like you are trying to convince yourself that one way is better than another even with arguments that are similar to why you preferred Kickstarter in the first place.
I understand your decision, but I don't think that it will help you get rid of the stress that is not created by the platform you use for creation and realization of that creation, but your passion into everything you do. You want to build the best product and you want to make everyone happy – neither of which are actually possible, since everything is subjective. Nothing will ever be 'best' for everyone, unless this circle of everyone is incredibly small.
While I completely agree with your reasoning and I am not saying your decision is wrong, I do want to bring out some counterpoints to what you've stated:
– Over/under-estimating will not be solved by a future printing request form. This is a far more complicated topic than that. Once you go retail/online distribution route, passionate fans know that they will still get their product anyway even without using forms like that. And because you are suddenly one step further away between customer and their product (Jamey-distributor-store-customer chain), customer won't feel as connected.
– Facebook, Twitter, BGG and newsletters are also not a substitute for good communication. While I don't have the facts, it is a strong minority that keeps in contact through that channel. Kickstarter updates gave relevant information about customer commitments that they had money tied to, making them more interested in this. If this is not the case anymore (and customer can buy later down the road), then this communication will be less relevant overall.
– Kickstarter really did lessen the barrier of entry to get your products as they were released. I have had this problem with many companies, including Space Cowboys that is owned by Asmodee. I still have NO IDEA from whom I should order TIME Stories expansion from, thus I have no idea when I can promise the next chapter to be played with my group that is passionately waiting for it. I have to pay attention to multiple stores, calculate shipping options and shipping times and it's a headache I'd rather not have when something is released that is difficult to get. I'd rather tie my money early on with guaranteed purchase than research and race for it.
– E-mail newsletters that you release are really great (in fact I found this set of posts from there), but having worked in mass-email-newsletter industry for years as an engineer and analyst of customer behavior, customers are more likely to read thoroughly something that is related to them (such as a Kickstarter update about a product they have ordered), than a newsletter that is sprinkled with information that may or may not be relevant for them.
– I think that street dates in boardgaming industry are an utter failure that I've yet to seen be implemented well in any 'big' release. By anyone. I've seen efforts by Matagot, Asmodee, Portal Games and a few others and it just has not worked. I think closest I've seen is Fantasy Flight X-Wing releases, but even those have stuff slipping through the cracks.
– I don't think that discovery is a big problem for Stonemaier Games anymore, but I DO THINK that a large part of success for Scythe was the hype and long discovery campaign of the game. I really don't think that the game would have been the success it is today without a long-term social media campaign and hype building. Yes hype may be bad, some will say that the game sucks BUT Scythe is already in BGG Top 10. So it's not the problem of hype, it's the problem of everything being successful enough being a magnet for detractors that want to bring it down or who are disappointed, thinking that because everybody else seems to like it that they will too – and this is never guaranteed.
– I actually think that games cost in general more on Kickstarter than in retail. At least everything I've backed so far (including Scythe) I have seen at higher cost on store shelves in my country than I did in Kickstarter.
Anyways, I hope that the decision to abandon Kickstarter works out well for you, but remember that it is your passion and love for the hobby that creates this stress. You want to make everyone happy, but maybe once you understand and accept that this is not possible, it will be smoother for you in the end :)
Thanks Kristo! Just to clarify a few points:
1. I wouldn't say I'm driven by making everyone happy. Sure, it's part of my company's mission to bring joy to tabletops worldwide, but I know that I can't please everyone, and by trying to please everyone, I'd end up pleasing no one. You can see in Part 1 where a huge part of the stress came from. It wasn't from trying to make everyone happy–it was from experiencing an ugly side of human nature that emerged during the Scythe fulfillment process.
2. Estimating demand is a puzzle whether or not I use Kickstarter. Either way, I have different quantitative ways to gauge demand, but either way, I can also under or over estimate demand.
Yooden says:
So how are you planning to handle coins and similar bling? Send two editions to distributors? Make the bling into a separate product containing only bling?
Yooden: It depends on the product and the content. For Charterstone, there will only be one version of the game, and we'll sell it through distributors. We may make a recharge pack for the game, and if we do, it will also sell through distributors. We'll continue to use Meeplesource as our retailer and distributor for small promos, and we'll continue to use Top Shelf as our retailer and distributor for realistic resource tokens.
Kickstarter Lesson #223: Should You Crowdfund a Reprint? | Stonemaier Games says:
[…] Lessons Learned from Quitting Kickstarter as a Creator, Part 2 […]
Lessons Learned from Quitting Kickstarter as a Creator, Part 1 – Stonemaier Games says:
[…] I'll explore why we made that decision, and later this week I'll talk about what I've learned from our first direct-to-distributor release, […]
Anthony Gerald says:
Thanks for sharing this information Jamey. It's a big help. There are 2 things that confuses me and discourages me, it's sales tax plus import tax, and what happens when the games arrive at port.
If a distributor buys a game for $32 do you have to pay sales tax on that? Which could be about $7. Does the $22 cost include import tax?
And I always wondered what happens in shipping the games from port to the distributor (or fulfillment center)? Do you pay for that shipping or does the distributor pick them up? Does the port charge you any money per day if your stock is sitting there waiting to get picked up? I'm worried that If there are costs for these then the $10 profit would vanish or go negative.
Anthony: I'd recommend checking with an accountant, but I'm pretty sure that a business only pays sales tax for products sold to the end customer, not resellers.
You're responsible for all shipping costs from your factory all the way to your distributor's warehouse. The only shipping that distributors pay is from their warehouse to the retailers. There can be fees if your inventory sits around in any place for too long, but that's typically the exception. The worst is really when customs decides to do an inspection of your goods, because those costs add up quickly, and customs makes you pay them.
Jamey : "I'm pretty sure that a business only pays sales tax for products sold to the end customer"
Thanks. That gave me a clue to find the answer. I researched sales tax again with this in mind. I live in Ireland (EU) which VAT. I thought sales tax and VAT were basically the same. I now found that, yes, in the U.S. sales tax is charged once at the end to the customer. In VAT countries, 160 countries, tax is charged at every single sales.
In VAT countries the publisher/creator to distributor would charge 23% tax ($7.36 per game), then distributor to retailer would charge 23% tax ($9.66 if they sold if for $42), and then retailer to customer would again charge 23% tax ($18.4 if sold for $80, so the retailer really gets $61.6). Sounds crazy right? Then things get complicated. Because the retailer sold it they can claim back the tax they paid the distributor. They get back $9.66, so they send $8.74 to the taxman. Then the distributor can claim back the tax they paid the creator. They can claim back $7.36, so they send $2.3 to the taxman. But the creator can't claim anything back if the product was made outside the country or EU. I just figured out that the creator better charge 23% VAT on top of the $22 per game or the creator is screwed only getting $2.64 per game.
Video game developers complain a lot about having to give Steam, Google, and Apple 30%, and only receiving 70% for themselves. Seems with board games that 87.5% of it is not going to the publisher/creator, $10 from an $80 game. Then again it seems like indie video game developer and indie board game designers/publishers both make the same amount of gross profit per game even though the video game is sold for $15 and the board game is sold for $80.
Thank you for sharing this! Indeed, I was speaking from the US perspective, so I appreciate you sharing details about sales tax in the EU.
Marco Infussi says:
Antony Gerald: "the creator can't claim anything back if the product was made outside the country or EU" you are missing import taxes.
When goods are imported, you pay VAT on them at the moment container is unloaded from carrier (cost €1.000 + 22%VAT = 1.220€).
When you sell those products, you add VAT (Value Added Tax, sale €1.500 + 22%VAT = 1.830€).
In final balance, you pay taxes only on the Value you have Added to those products:
1.500€ – 1.000€ = 500€ value added, 22% of it is 110€.
the same if you simply subtract the VAT received from the sale to the VAT paid: 330-220= 110€.
Also, if make investments (eg. capitalization of your company, research, new machinery), you can use many incentives = tax deductions, to pay even less.
Research & development of new products (games) are deducible costs.
Also marketing expenses have many incentives.
This is the core of the question about anyone's business: sticking on a lightweight "service agency", or planning to build assets? A warehouse, or production machinery, or investing/taking over another company, are useful for the supply chain and tax deductible with a long term plan.
With €1M of orders, I took a €350k loan to start to optimize workflow, buying facilities to cut steps (ones that I had to control directly, anyway), tailoring the expenses to pay the same at the end of the year (better pay for investments, instead of taxes), this way optimizing profits. Or having the same profits, but with more control on workflow (so less unknown variables) and more flexibility (having facilities on-site).
If you cut $2 per every game sold (eg. evaluate a start in warehousing/logistics, it is really the easiest part) means that a loan pays by itself.
My Thoughts on the P500 Program – Stonemaier Games says:
[…] addresses 4 of the 6 reasons that creators often use Kickstarter for a similar impact: gauging demand, generate buzz, build […]
Leave a Reply to Florin Barascu	Cancel reply


text:
Tee times for final round of U.S. Open
Matt Teague
1mo ago
Harry How / Getty Images Sport / Getty
Gary Woodland carries a one-shot lead over Justin Rose heading into the final round at the 119th U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
Woodland followed an excellent second round on Friday with a strong performance on Saturday, posting a 2-under 69, and will play alongside Rose in the final group at Pebble Beach. The tandem will be off the first tee at 5:30 p.m. ET (2:30 p.m. local).
Two-time defending champion Brooks Koepka posted a 68 and will have to overcome a four-shot deficit to make it three straight U.S. Open titles. He will play with Chez Reavie in the second-to-last pairing at 5:19 p.m. ET.
Here's the full tee sheet for Sunday:
Round 4, Sunday (all times ET)
Group 1, 10:21 a.m. - Michael Thorbjornsen (a)
Group 2, 10:32 a.m. - Bernd Wiesberger, Justin Walters
Group 3, 10:43 a.m. - Cameron Smith, Chip McDaniel
Group 4, 10:54 a.m. - Charlie Danielson, Luke Donald
Group 5, 11:05 a.m. - Kyle Stanley, Zach Johnson
Group 6, 11:16 a.m. - Kevin Kisner, Andy Pope
Group 7, 11:27 a.m. - Marcus Kinhult, Brian Stuard
Group 8, 11:38 a.m. - Rafa Cabrera Bello, Brandt Snedeker
Group 9, 11:49 a.m. - Clement Sordet, Daniel Berger
Group 10, 12:00 p.m. - Andrew Putnam, Adri Arnaus
Group 11, 12:11 p.m. - Tommy Fleetwood, Aaron Wise
Group 12, 12:22 p.m. - Sepp Straka, Harris English
Group 13, 12:33 p.m. - Phil Mickelson, Charles Howell III
Group 14, 12:44 p.m. - Emiliano Grillo, Rory Sabbatini
Group 15, 12:55 p.m. - Billy Hurley III, Bryson DeChambeau
Group 16, 1:06 p.m. - Collin Morikawa, Erik Van Rooyen
Group 17, 1:17 p.m. - Patrick Reed, Carlos Ortiz
Group 18, 1:28 p.m. - Paul Casey, Webb Simpson
Group 19, 1:39 p.m. - Chandler Eaton (a), Tom Hoge
Group 20, 1:50 p.m. - Martin Kaymer, Rhys Enoch
Group 21, 2:01 p.m. - Sergio Garcia, Jordan Speith
Group 22, 2:12 p.m. - Jason Dufner, Billy Horschel
Group 23, 2:23 p.m. - Ricky Fowler, Alex Prugh
Group 24, 2:34 p.m. - Nick Taylor, Shane Lowry
Group 25, 2:45 p.m. - Haotong Li, Viktor Hovland (a)
Group 26, 2:56 p.m. - Tiger Woods, Marc Leishman
Group 27, 3:07 p.m. - Jason Day, Tyrrell Hatton
Group 28, 3:18 p.m. - Jim Furyk, Matt Fitzpatrick
Group 29, 3:29 p.m. - Hideki Matsuyama, Patrick Cantlay
Group 30, 3:40 p.m. - Scott Piercy, Francesco Molinari
Group 31, 3:51 p.m. - Dustin Johnson, Brandon Wu (a)
Group 32, 4:02 p.m. - Nate Lashley, Abraham Ancer
Group 33, 4:13 p.m. - Adam Scott, Xander Schauffele
Group 34, 4:24 p.m. - Byeong Hun An, Matt Wallace
Group 35, 4:35 p.m. - Henrik Stenson, John Rahm
Group 36, 4:46 p.m. - Graeme McDowell, Danny Willett
Group 37, 4:57 p.m. - Chesson Hadley, Matt Kuchar
Group 38, 5:08 p.m. - Rory McIlroy, Louis Oosthuizen
Group 39, 5:19 p.m. - Chez Reavie, Brooks Koepka
Group 40, 5:30 p.m. - Gary Woodland, Justin Rose
Holmes leads crowded leaderboard by 1 at The Open
5 takeaways from roller-coaster 1st round at the Open Championship
Koepka betting favorite to win The Open after Round 1
Tiger admits to soreness after uninspiring 78 at Royal Portrush
McIlroy says hometown pressure wasn't reason for Round 1 debacle
Duval cards 14 on par-5 after playing wrong ball
Rory posts disastrous quadruple-bogey 8 en route to first-ro...
5 bold predictions for the Open Championship
Portrush attendance 2nd highest in Open Championship history
A homecoming for McDowell, the golfing son of Portrush

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Decision Support Framework for Developing Regional Energy Strategies
By Carolyn KwantJanuary 8, 2014Library
Erb Faculty Director, Joe Arvai was published in Environmental Science & Technology
A Decision Support Framework for Developing Regional Energy Strategies
In an effort to reduce "carbon pollution" as well as prepare the U.S. for the impacts of climate change, President Obama's Climate Action Plan called for changes to be made to the nation's energy system. This call to action, put the energy industry at the heart of a national effort to meaningfully address the national and global risks posed by climate change. In addition to focusing on alternative portfolios of different fuels and power-generation technologies, researchers and advisory panels have urged that changes to the nation's energy system be based on a decision-making framework that both incorporates stakeholders and accounts for real-world resource, supply and demand constraints. But, to date, research and development on such a framework has proven elusive.
Research led by the Erb Institute's Joe Árvai focused on the development and testing of a potential decision support framework that combines elements from structured decision-making with energy portfolio analysis; these are methods that have been used independently to elicit preferences in complex decision contexts. This hybrid framework aimed to (1) provide necessary background information to both planners at energy utilities and consumers regarding the development of coupled climate-energy strategies; (2) account for peopel's values and objectives; (3) allow for the construction of bespoke energy portfolios bounded by real-world supply and demand constraints; and (4) provide a more rigorous basis for addressing tradeoffs. Results show that this framework was user-friendly, led to significant increases in users' knowledge about energy systems and, importantly, led to more internally consistent decisions. Such a framework may serve as a suitable template for supporting decisions about energy transitions in both the private and public sectors, in the United States and abroad.


text:
HomeAbout Compass Media Networks
Compass Media Networks is an American, audio entertainment network. Founded in 2009 by Peter Kosann, former CEO/President of Westwood One, COMPASS MEDIA NETWORKS broadcasts national audio programming across a network of over 4,000 terrestrial radio stations and emerging digitalaudio platforms for the benefit of its' distributors, listeners, and national advertisers.
Compass Media Networks debuted in January 2009 with the mission of providing outstanding representation and marketing services to the best brands and programs in national radio.
Marque programming includes exclusive play-by-play sports such as exclusive national audio coverage of The Big Ten Football Championship, The Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament, Sunday Afternoon NFL Double – including full coverage of The Oakland Raiders' Radio Networks and the Dallas Cowboys; entertainment programming such as The Big D & Bubba Show, Free Beer & Hot Wings, Uncovered Radio with Dr. Laura Berman; news-talk programming such as This Morning – America's First News with Gordon Deal, The Market Score Board Report with Ron Insana, The Lars Larson Show, and The Schnitt Show.
Business Model:
COMPASS MEDIA NETWORKS performs three basic functions:
Content Creation & Representation: The company either originally creates and/or secures third-party rights to unique and compelling audio programming (i.e. – sporting events, talk and/or entertainment shows)
Broadcast Distribution: The company then secures distribution rights for said content, primarily on terrestrial radio stations as well as emerging digital audio platforms.
National Advertisers: The company retains commercial inventory within the content and then markets this commercial inventory to national advertisers.
COMPASS MEDIA NETWORKS broadcast audio programming via 4,000+ terrestrial radio stations and emerging digital audio platforms, including AirKast, iHeartRadio, iTunes, TuneIn, Sirius Satellite Radio, and Stitcher, reaching over 140 million Americans monthly.
Content Summary:
COMPASS MEDIA NETWORKS broadcasts and/or represents over 50 national audio programs as follows:
Entertainment Programming:
Adult Contemporary & HOT AC: The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40, POPCrush Nights with Lisa Paige, Radio Disney Top 30, Uncovered Radio with Dr. Laura Berman.
Country: What's Cooking with Paula Deen, Original Country Gold with Rowdy Yates, Honky Tonkin' with Tracy Lawrence, Taste of Country Nights, The Big D & Bubba Show, Carson on Country.
Rock: Beatle Brunch, Eddie Trunk Rocks, Loudwire Nights, Off The Record with Joe Benson, Out of Order with Stryker, The Beatle Years, Skratch N Sniff, The Free Beer & Hot Wings Show, Ultimate Classic Rock.
News-Talk-Sports:
At Home with Bob Vila, Airing It Out with Craig James, College Hoops with Jon Rothstein, The Joe Pags Show, The Lars Larson Show, The Kim Komando Show, The Norman Goldman Show, The Schnitt Show, The Twilight Zone Radio Drama, This Morning – America's First News with Gordon Deal, Your Money Now
Play-by-Play Sports:
College Basketball Game of the Week, including exclusive national audio coverage of The Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament
College Football Game of the Week, including exclusive national audio coverage of The Big Ten Championship Game
NFL Sunday Doubleheaders, including exclusive coverage of The Oakland Raiders' Radio Network and full coverage of the Dallas Cowboys
The company also offers radio affiliates an array of services such as Airkast, a turn-key provider of mobile apps which enables over 1,000 radio stations to stream their over-the-air-terrestrial radio signals onto mobile devices, and SPECbyte, a provider of customized spec-spots which enables radio stations to offer local sponsors unique, creditable, and economical commercial creative.
Compass Media Networks website
Compass Broadcast Affiliate website
The Free Beer and Hot Wings Show website
Compass Media Networks – Fang's Bites
Compass Media Networks – Twitter
Compass Media Networks – Facebook
Compass Media Networks – SoundCloud
Compass Media Networks – LinkedIn


Oglethorpe people were shocked Thursdayupon learning that Rev. J. M. Walls, who until about 10 days previous had lived on the Oglethorpe plantation, had been killed by a tree falling on him. The sad accident occured in Florida, the deceased only leaving for that state a few days previous. Mr. Wall was accompanied to Florida by two daughters, the remainder of the family to remain here until the preacher was settled in his new home, he having gone there to take charge of a church. Sincere sympathy is extended by the many friends of the family. The body was carried to Montezuma Friday, interment being near that city. Deceased is survived by a wife and several children.
Word was received in Montezuma Thursday evening that Rev. J. M. Walls was accidenely killed by a falling treenear Waukeena, Fla. He has charge of a church at that place and was there to fill his regular appointment when the fatal accident happened.
Mr. Walls with his family reside on a farm near Oglethorpe. The interrment [sic] will be made in the Felton Cemetery immediately after the arrival of the body in Montezuma from Florida.


(April 7, 2008) While gold corrects some 12% from its March 2008 (and all-time) high, we finally find space to breathe, clear off some old business, and try to throw some words up on the old website after a hectic first quarter.
In case there are any doubters left, we are officially in a gold bull market, now in its seventh year. Of course, when prices broke through the $1,000 level the bull was pretty obvious. that was the point at which gold finally came to the attention of the masses of Americans who, from generation to generation, normally don't pay attention to such things.
I won't here reveal all the details (I'm saving the juiciest bits for the book "My Life as A Gold Merchant," which will be written and, no doubt, vanity-published after I have retired) but the word about gold is definitely in the air. Both our sales and purchase volumes are up tremendously, not only from this website, but at our humble little store in Phoenix. For instance, in the first fifteen business days in January of this year, we did more dollar volume of business than we did in the entire calendar year 1995.
Both of those groups are properly acting in their own best interests. If you have old gold sitting unused in a drawer somewhere, by all means you should take advantage of today's prices and cash it out.
As for gold purchasers, there is no end to the reasons to buy at this time. But they all boil down to this: gold is mined very slowly, but dollars are created at warp speed.
Witness the past few weeks of massive monetary creation as the Fed and Treasury pour out hundreds of billions in 'loans,' accepting as 'collateral' the famously non-performing assets known as securitized mortgage bonds and other derived financial trash.
Take the controversial bailout of Bear Sterns, which will put the Treasury (read: you and me) on the hook for some $29 billion. Assuming that there are 100 million US taxpayers, each of us is out about $290.00, either in increased taxes, or more likely, further inflation of the dollar.
But don't write that check for $290.00 yet, because there's more - the total taxpayer tab for the past four weeks' injections of liquidity ($200 billion here, $75 billion there, and a newly invented Fed vehicle with which to dispense those funds) looks to easily be several grand from each of us.
Of course, the good news for taxpayers and dollar-holders is that it's really just some loans that we're taking over, and not just an act of charity towards the banks. And all of those loans are fully collateralized by securitized mortgage bonds and other professionally bundled nuggets of risk.
Sure, the same financial effluvia was totally unsalable a couple of weeks ago, when it was stigmatized with the label 'nonperforming assets.' But to avoid being so harsh and judgmental, let's call them 'late-blooming assets,' destined to perform, uh, someday. Probably the same day that their underlying 3BR, 2BAs out in Nowheresville are worth a million bucks or so.
But wait, there's more! Friday 3/31/08 saw the announcement of a proposed complete reorganization of the US financial and monetary regulatory system, consolidating and swelling the Federal Reserve's powers.
This scheme brings to mind the hasty consolidation of powers under the Homeland Security Agency, post 9-11. And we all know how well that has worked out. So the pattern is this: when an emergency arises out of the blue, the US government builds a new bureaucratic mega- structure to deal with it. The question comes to mind: Is there any possible emergency that will not be met with federal empire-building?
But don't get me started. The simple point that I'm trying to make is the same one we have repeated in this space for eight years running: only gold will protect you from the dollar sinking into the sunset. At the start of the year 2000, such an event looked highly unlikely. Today, although the dollar remains one of the most viable currencies in the world, that's just a shadow of its position eight years ago. The dollar is simply no longer the world champion it once was.
So while gold prices are currently in a correction phase, think about your wealth and exactly what forms it takes today. Consider also that over the past eight years, not just the dollar, but every currency in the world has lost value in relation to gold. This is no surprise to those who have studied the rise and fall of fiat currencies in history.
Currencies will come and go, while gold is a permanent store of wealth. So what are you going to do so that you can sleep better at night?


Dainty vintage Southwestern handmade sterling silver cuff bracelet that is set with turquoise. Interior measures 4 7/8" and the opening is 1 1/8" wide. For a smaller wrist. 5/8" wide. Weight: 6.4 grams. Great stacker. No hallmarks. Acid tested.


text:
Water, Water, Every Where — And Now Scientists Know Where It Came From
By Nell Greenfieldboyce
Published August 27, 2020 at 2:00 PM EDT
The Pacific Ocean from space. In both liquid and frozen form, water covers most of the Earth's surface, and there's been a debate among scientists about where all the water originated.
Water on Earth is omnipresent and essential for life as we know it, and yet scientists remain a bit baffled about where all of this water came from: Was it present when the planet formed, or did the planet form dry and only later get its water from impacts with water-rich objects such as comets?
A new study in the journal Sciencesuggests that the Earth likely got a lot of its precious water from the original materials that built the planet, instead of having water arrive later from afar.
The researchers who did this study went looking for signs of water in a rare kind of meteorite. Only about 2% of the meteorites found on Earth are so-called enstatite chondrite meteorites. Their chemical makeup suggests they're close to the kind of primordial stuff that glommed together and produced our planet 4.5 billion years ago.
You wouldn't necessarily know how special these meteorites are at first glance. "It's a bit like a gray rock," says Laurette Piani, a researcher in France at the Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques.
What she wanted to know about these rocks is how much hydrogen was in there — because that's what could produce water.
Compared with planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, the Earth formed close to the sun. Scientists have long thought that the temperatures must have been hot enough to prevent any water from being in the form of ice. That means there would be no ice to join with the swirling bits of rock and dust that were smashing into each other and slowly building up the young Earth.
If this is all true, our home planet must have been watered later on, perhaps when it got hit by icy comets or meteorites with water-rich minerals coming from farther out in the solar system.
Even though that's been the prevailing view, some planetary scientists don't buy it. After all, the story of Earth's water would be a lot more simple and straightforward if the water was just present to begin with.
So Piani and her colleagues recently took a close look at 13 of those unusual meteorites, which are also thought to have formed close in to the sun.
"Before the study, there were almost no measurement of the hydrogen or water in this meteorite," Piani says. Those measurements that did exist were inconsistent, she says, and were done on meteorites that could have undergone changes after falling to the Earth's surface.
"We do not want to have meteorites that were altered and modified by the Earth processes," Piani explains, saying that they deliberately selected the most pristine meteorites possible.
The researchers then analyzed the meteorite's chemical makeup to see how much hydrogen was in there. Since hydrogen can react with oxygen to produce water, knowing how much hydrogen is in the rocks indicates how much water this material could have contributed to a growing Earth.
What they found was much less hydrogen than in more ordinary meteorites.
Still, what was there would be enough to explain plenty of Earth's water — at least several times the amount of water in the Earth's present-day oceans. "It's a very big quantity of water in the initial material," Piani says. "And this was never really considered before."
What's more, the team also measured the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio in the meteorites and found that it's similar to what's known to exist in the interior of the Earth — which also contains a lot of water. This is additional evidence that there's a link between our planet's water and the basic building materials that were present when it formed.
The findings pleased Anne Peslier, a planetary scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, who wasn't part of the research team but has a special interest in water.
"I was happy because it makes it nice and simple," Peslier says. "We don't have to invoke complicated models where we have to bring material, water-rich material from the outer part of the solar system."
She says the delivery of so much water from way out there would have required something unusual to disturb the orbits of this water-rich material, such as Jupiter having a little trip inside the inner solar system.
"So here, we just don't need Jupiter. We don't need to do anything weird. We just grab the material that was there where the Earth formed, and that's where the water comes from," Peslier says.
Even if a lot of the water was there at the start, however, she thinks some must have arrived later on. "I think it's both," she says.
Despite these convincing results, she says, there's still plenty of watery mysteries to plumb. For example, researchers are still trying to determine exactly how much water is locked deep inside the Earth, but it's surely substantial — several oceans' worth.
"There is more water down beneath our feet," Peslier says, "than there is that you see at the surface."
Nell Greenfieldboyce
Nell Greenfieldboyce is a NPR science correspondent.
See stories by Nell Greenfieldboyce


We had planned to celebrate my husband's birthday a few Sundays ago with a family party including over-sized lasagnas and a large order of cupcakes. Unfortunately, something came up at work and it turned out that the hubby would have to work most of the day. The party was cancelled, much to the disappointment of 4-year old Robin. In an attempt to salvage the day and make it fun for her, I did a quick Google search to see if I could find a recipe that would be easy for us to make together and that wouldn't be too big since it was just going to be the four of us eating dinner. (I also needed to kill more time than it would take to walk to the bakery for cupcakes). I stumbled across a blog where someone had asked for the same type of recipe that I was looking for, and there were many comments that referred to "wacky cake," also known as "crazy cake." I did a bit of research and it turns out that this spongey, cocoa-based recipe has been around forever, with many people saying that they remember their grandmothers making it. Which makes sense because, according to Wikipedia, it may have been created as the result of when milk and eggs were scarce during WWII.
It's a one-bowl, one-pan recipe that can be topped with icing sugar, icing or served plain. I might go for a chocolate fudge frosting next time. Yum!
There are variations of the recipe – I went with this one from the well-trusted Food Network.
Preheat 350 degrees F. Place the dry ingredients in a bowl. Make 3 small holes in the mixture. Pour the vanilla in one hole, the vinegar in another and vegetable oil in another. Pour water over the top and mix. Pour into a lightly greased 8 by 8 inch pan. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes.
We then decided to make some vanilla icing so we could decorate the cake with smarties. This also called for a wardrobe change.
Beat butter in mixer. Slowly add sugar, milk and vanilla.
We topped things off by making a giant birthday card.
Not as fun as having a party with everyone, but a pretty decent substitute on a cold January afternoon!


text:
Kathleen es un lugar designado por el censo ubicado en el condado de Polk en el estado estadounidense de Florida. En el Censo de 2010 tenía una población de 6.332 habitantes y una densidad poblacional de 337,87 personas por km².

Geografía
Kathleen se encuentra ubicado en las coordenadas . Según la Oficina del Censo de los Estados Unidos, Kathleen tiene una superficie total de 18.74 km², de la cual 18.63 km² corresponden a tierra firme y (0.57%) 0.11 km² es agua.

Demografía
Según el censo de 2010, había 6.332 personas residiendo en Kathleen. La densidad de población era de 337,87 hab./km². De los 6.332 habitantes, Kathleen estaba compuesto por el 90.49% blancos, el 2.07% eran afroamericanos, el 0.52% eran amerindios, el 0.62% eran asiáticos, el 0.02% eran isleños del Pacífico, el 3.92% eran de otras razas y el 2.37% pertenecían a dos o más razas. Del total de la población el 12.13% eran hispanos o latinos de cualquier raza.

Referencias

Enlaces externos

Lugares designados por el censo en Florida
Localidades del condado de Polk (Florida)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Eco-Anime: Six Movies with Ecological Themes, Tropes, and Messages
When Ronald Regan saw the famous TV movie The Day After, which is about people surviving nuclear war on the United States, it was said to have had such a profound impact on him that it lessened somewhat his macho posturing about military action towards the Soviet Union. It's rare that movies can be said to have had such a direct effect upon the course of socio-political policy. Usually the effects are more indirect as a certain structure of feeling finds its way into cultural consciousness, which is then reflected in the kinds of subjects writers and directors choose to cover and subsequently make films about.
A decade and a half into the 21st century, the new topic of global concern is not so much nuclear war as ecological collapse due to anthropogenic climate change, brought about through the use of fossil fuels for energy; and the potential resource wars over water, petroleum, and even living space should it get so severe. It can't be a coincidence that we've been seeing a lot of movies and media as of late with post-apocalyptic themes about survival in societies that have been built back up after some kind of civilisational collapse. Though in most cases ecology is an issue that's only alluded to than directly referenced – from Interstellar, to the Hunger Games, to The Maze Runner, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Book of Eli; not to mention the copious amount of post-civilisation television and video games, from The Walking Dead to the Fallout franchise.
Not so in the long history of anime (Japanese animation), in which ecological themes and tropes have been a salient feature for several decades. Perhaps due to seeing the ecocidal/genocidal effects of nuclear weaponry, perhaps due to coming from a culture which blends the ancient withthe modern and the natural with the technological, along with many other factors, green concerns have been a recurring concern in Japanese animated filmmaking from its beginnings under the legendary Osamu Tezuka to the maverick works of Hayao Miyazaki.
While the track record of American animated features dealing with the environment is somewhat sketchy – from the preachy Ferngully, to the intelligent and nuanced Wall E, to the abominable Lorax – anime tends to consistently deliver green narratives which instil an environmental awareness in the audience without beating them over the head with it. It's strengths also lie in viewing the roots of anti-ecological consequences in systemic structures (states, militaries, corporations) rather than individual consumer behaviours, which seems to be the main focus of green animated movies in the west; emphasising personal guilt over the need for structural changes.
From the birth of the modern ecology movement in the 1960s to the present, there has grown a division into two rough poles with, on one hand, primitivists – who believe we ought to abandon all technology and return to a hunter-gatherer way of life – and, on the other hand, futurists – who believe we can use technology in an environmentally responsible way to liberate both ourselves and the natural world from hardship, with most greens being somewhere in the middle.
The relative scope of eco-anime films which tackle environmental issues and themes could also be broken down roughly into two camps: eco-fantasy and eco-futurism. The former tends to be more lighthearted, and deals with humanity's relationship to nature in a whimsical and imaginative way. The latter tends to be more dark and grim, depicting the negative consequences of human folly in our effect on the natural world.
While the parallels between primitivism/eco-fantasy and futurism/eco-futurism don't perfectly align, they share enough in common that thematic resonances exist between them when it comes to viewing the expression of ecological consciousness in feature films.
I want to start with optimistic visions from the 1980s and 1990s – which emphasise small-scale and general concern for the environment rather than systemic change – followed by movies that depict ecological catastrophe and the "revenge of nature" upon humanity, and conclude with a film which mixes apocalyptic imagery with a more optimistic outlook on the potential for humans to live in harmony with nature instead of dominating it.
Laputa: Castle in the Sky
Even without the relevant connection to ecology and other themes, Hayao Miyzaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky is a delightful children's adventure story, blending the works of Jonathan Swift with high adventure fiction from the early twentieth century and swashbuckling action movies from the 1930s – it's also noteworthy for being one of the first cinematic examples of the genre now called steampunk.
The story concerns two teenagers, Sheeta and Pazu, in an alternate-history version of Europe, where steam-power has given birth to airships instead of sea-ships, as they search for the legendary city of Laputa, said to contain the ruins of a lost civilisation. They are pursued by the villainous (aesthetically fascist) Muska and the military, who wish to conquer the lost city for its treasures and weaponry.
While its plot is a little on the simpler side relative to Miyazaki's other works, with Muska in particular being a somewhat cartoonishly evil villain in comparison to his more nuanced antagonists, it doesn't try to be anything other than a fun family adventure film with implied messages about militarism and the necessity about having a connection to the natural world.
The film opens in the lush valleys of what seems to be alternate-history Wales, where people are visibly poor materially but still full of vitality, then transitions to the high-tech surroundings of the military of this world, which contains unpleasantly rustic browns, greys, and an aura of aggressive uniformity. These two aesthetics are smashed together when our characters, good and evil, arrive in Laputa, a former technological hegemon which has been taken over by flora and fauna. This is something Muska finds "filthy" and disgusting as he rips through vines to acquire control of the city's weapons of mass destruction.
Sheeta's ancestral connection to the city comes into play towards the end as it becomes apparent to Muska that he cannot become this world's ruler without her. Threatening her at gunpoint, Laputa's decaying technological might comes into play as it becomes apparent that it was once the head of a great empire which collapsed due to its disconnection from the Earth, in both a figurative and literal sense.
Ultimately, while the film's ecological message is covert, rather than overt, it is coded to the audience in a remarkably mature fashion for a nominally child-centric movie, making links between statism, war, militarism, and inevitable ecocide.
Pom Poko
Written and directed by Miyazaki's colleague Isao Takahata, the filmmaker behind one of anime's most renowned cinematic gems, the World War II tragedy Grave of the Fireflies, Pom Poko focuses on a group of anthropomorphic Tanuki (raccoon-dogs indigenous to Japan) as they wage a guerrilla war against humans developing on their habitat.
The film has a lot of colourful and creative imagery depicted through the magical Tanuki's ability to transform into humans and monsters to scare the humans off, and also a lot of black comedy which will probably fly over children's heads.
Story wise, the film takes place over the course of a couple of seasons as the Tanuki try various campaigns and strategies to keep the humans away from their land and stop them destroying their homes. Part of the charm of the film is watching the anthropomorphised animals mimic human habits yet acting very much like one would expect real animals to act if they could speak. That is, in a not so rational and enlightened way.
The more militaristic section of the Tanuki has similarities to radical environmental groups like Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front, performing acts of strategic sabotage and property damage in their fight against human encroachment. And, interestingly for a family film, not only has the Tanuki commit actual murder at points, but laugh hysterically about it afterwards.
Unusually for an animated family film that deals with green issues – which was released at around the same time as the similarly themed Ferngully: The Last Rainforest – the film actually grows more somber and bleak as it goes on, as the Tanuki gradually run out of options and are slowly faced with death due to starvation. It confronts the characters with tough choices to which there are no easy answers, even from the audience's perspective. Do they go out blazing in an anti-human rampage rather than accept slow death from starvation? Attempt to find another less habitable home? Should the few Tanuki who can magically transform try to assimilate into the human world leaving their weaker comrades to an uncertain fate?
The film is overall a bit too heavy handed in its depiction of human-nature conflict. It even ends with one of the Tanuki characters speaking directly to the children watching the film about treating the environment responsibly. But in other ways it makes for a surprisingly mature story about how there isn't always an easy answer to the question of human versus ecological survival.
In another Miyazaki entry, this time of a far darker and more adult nature, Ashitaka, a young man infected with a curse given to him by a forrest god, must abandon his tribe and search the lands of medieval Japan in search of some kind of cure. The god was driven mad by some kind of spiritual infection said to be caused by the progressive human ravaging of the forrest, as many bands of humans are determined to conquer nature and her spirits so that industrialisation and the march of progress may continue.
Along the way, in this 2 ½ hour epic, Ashitaka encounters forrest spirits, corrupt monks, soldiers who want to cut his head off, a town lead by an ambitious woman of mixed morals, and a girl raised by wolf gods after having been abandoned by her human parents, who has turned against her own species to become a warrior for the forests: Princess Mononoke, who gives the film its title.
This movie is generally considered Miyazaki's magnum opus in a career chock full of masterpieces. It's not difficult to see why, as almost every character is fascinating, complex, and well-developed; the animation and direction is nothing short of breathtaking, even by today's standards; and its plot of a war between humanity and (anthropomorphised) nature itself manages to be multi-faceted and avoids painting either side as fully right or wrong in their dispute.
It would normally be expected in a pro-ecology film for nature to be depicted as virtuous and humanity as villainous. Though the picture Miyazaki paints is more complicated than that.
Nature is shown to be a world of balance and harmony, unjustly being destroyed by human action; but also rigid and stubborn in its inability to compromise or accept necessary change. Humanity – as represented in the industrial dwelling of Iron Town, led by the ambiguous Lady Eboshi – is shown to be violent and reckless; but also a force of creativity and vitality. And Lady Eboshi herself, who in any other film would probably be the designated villain, is shown to be at once ecocidal and myopic, but also a woman who built a thriving community of social outcasts – prostitutes, runaway soldiers, lepers – when the rest of society denied them even basic humanity.
So in a sense, the film plays out as a battle between the best of a flawed humanity versus the worst of a benevolent nature over the contested territory of living space, with Ashitaka being caught between both worlds, who (as a member of an indigenous tribe excluded from Japanese society) having localities to neither, ends up getting caught in the middle; attacking and defending both sides at various points depending on the situation.
In the end, as expected, balance between forrest and town is achieved through the cooperation of Ashitaka and Mononoke, with each being children caught between worlds, and therefore the best bridges between them. As a dark but ultimately hopeful example of eco-fantasy, it gives its viewers interesting points to contemplate around the subject of human dealings with nature in the name of "progress", and whether a progress that involves increasing the vitality of humans by decreasing the vitality of nature is really a progress worth having.
Now to turn attention away from the positive imaginings of eco-fantasy to the dark visions of eco-futurism.
Blue Submarine No. 6
The story of this mini-series, recut into a two-hour movie, concerns a once-respected scientist called Zorndyke who became convinced that humanity was a blight upon the Earth. He subsequently genetically-engineered several species of sapient post-human marine species intended to wipe out the human population. Submarine pilot Hayami and assistant Mayumi team up to defend the existing humans and defeat Zorndyke.
Aside from the dark and increasingly relevant eco subject matter, Blue Submarine No. 6 was one of the first anime features to extensively blend 2D cell animation with 3D computer animation, and while not that sophisticated by today's standards, marks a turning point in technical terms for anime as a medium. It came out the same year as Gary Goldman and Don Bluth's Titan A. E., an underrated science-fiction animated film which also blended traditional 2D characters with mobile 3D backgrounds.
This is a rare film where eco-collapse has been brought about through conscious effort rather than as an unintentional side effect. While Zorndyke is only alluded to early on in the film, made out by most characters to be some kind of demented sociopath, he is eventually depicted onscreen as a soft-spoken, cerebral, and almost gentle character. While his literally genocidal project is depicted as a step too far, Zorndyke still comes across as a villain with a point. Less Doctor Moreau – which, with his creation of humanoid animals, may seem like the best comparison – and more Doctor Frankenstein in the original novel by Marry Shelly.
A major plot-point is Mayumi seeking revenge upon Zorndyke for the deaths of her parents, with the film building up to a final confrontation between the two. Yet, when she finally meets him face-to-face and is presented with the opportunity of killing him, she cannot take it. Upon hearing the explanation for his actions, she finds herself simultaneously unable to agree with his anti-human philosophy, yet also unable to see him as nothing but a brutal villain worthy of death.
Throughout, Hayami has several encounters with one of Zorndyke's marine soldiers, forming a sort of non-verbal bond as they save each other's lives once each, coming to recognise a mutual "humanity" in one another. In one of the film's most compelling scenes, Hayami briefly reflects on what the world might be like post-humanity, "for us death, but for you, a utopia".
The final scene of Zorndyke's funeral is ambivalent. Whether humanity can live in peace with the Earth's new nonhuman inhabitants is left up in the air. It is something to mournfully contemplate as we ask, if Zorndyke was correct in his assessment of the human species's capacity for destruction, what alternative can there be for both people and the planet?
Origin: Spirits of the Past
Personally, while I can see where this anti-humanist sentiment is coming from, and can appreciate it for asking interesting questions in the context of some films, I'm not at all sympathetic too it. Mainly because it treats "humanity" as a homogenous entity instead of the diverse multitude it is, stratified along state and class lines. To imply that humanity as a whole bears collective responsibility for environmental devastation is to effectively say a poor child in the slums of Lagos is as responsible for ecocide as the CEO of Exxon Mobil, simply because both are members of the homo sapiens species.
For that reason and others, I find myself more drawn to the worldview of films like Origin: Spirits of the Past.
The story kicks off through a musical montage which depicts global civilisational collapse due to an attempt at geoengineering gone wrong, which covers the world in sentient trees. Flash forward 300 years and the citizens of an area called Neutral City are caught in a conflict between a militaristic nation-state on one side, and the sentient forrest – which they have learned to live in balance with – on the other.
The finger is pointed more at militarism and statism as being responsible for environmental devastation more than some kind innate species-wide propensity towards wrecking the Earth.
As a film in-itself, Origin is aesthetically beautiful but somewhat lacking in the story and character department. At only 90 minutes, the striking world of the film makes it feel like it ought to be a lot longer, perhaps even a television series or a series of films than a self-contained feature. And in terms of the delivery of its message, it comes across as excessively preachy and unsubtle. Though as for that message's actual content, Origin succeeds in coming close to what's called the social ecology school of environmental thought, emphasising human-nature cooperation and balance between the two as a solution to conflict, rather than one dominating or destroying the other.
Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind
In Hayao Miyazaki's first big film, released in the early 1980s (and boasting an egregiously dated synthesiser soundtrack), a small community of ecologically responsible people have managed to carve out a comfortable existence through renewable technology and living in peace with the Ohmu, giant insectoid creatures which roam the toxic wastelands the rest of the planet has become.
The collapse here is implied to be the result of nuclear war rather than ecological collapse – more of a Cold War theme from the 1980s – though it still has much of the same resonance today as the issues of human institutional folly causing catastrophe are similar enough to be comparable. The film could just as well be made today with implied nuclear war being replaced with implied human-cased eco-collapse without a noticeable difference.
Our plot concerns a young "princess" called Nausicca (after an ancient Phoenician goddess) as she roams the wasteland in search of materials to help her people and act as an intermediary between the various waring states which dot the still-habitable zones of the Earth. While one state in particular is determined to use ancient weapons from the "old world" (implied to be some form of atomic city-destroyer) in order to scrape the wastelands clean of the Ohmu, Nausicca is determined to find a peaceful solution.
The film is most similar overall to Miyazaki's later epic Princess Mononoke, with Nausicaa and Ashitaka both being thrust into the role of intermediary between humanity and nature. But while Ashitaka fights against both sides in the conflict, trying to get both to see sense, Nausicaa tries to bring both sides together without recourse to violence. On that level it's the most anti-militarist, even pacifist, of the films covered here.
In the end, as Nausicca manages to put her own life on the line to play peacemaker between the militaristic human rulers and nuclear fauna, the audience is shown in the post-credits montage that it is indeed possible for humanity and nature to exist in harmony with one another.
This film, though the earliest chronologically of these six, embodies all the best traits of the anime films that came after it: ecological awareness, links between ecocide and the militaristic desire to dominate nature, and the aspiration to adopt a cooperative relationship to the natural world instead of one based on hierarchy and destruction.
As shown above, while western animated features continue to be hit and miss with regard to addressing issues of people and planet, anime contains a wealth of movies grabbing with green themes and leading audiences to think about their relationship as humans towards the Earth, and where possible solutions to the nature/culture divide may lie.
With regard to both cinematic analysis and social analysis, of the most promising environmental philosophies to look into in the technological age (alluded to above) is the critical theory of social ecology.
Social ecology posits that almost all environmental problems (bar purely natural disasters) are ultimately rooted in human social problems; and those human social problems in turn stem from structuring our institutions and relations upon lines of centralised power, hierarchy, and domination. In the words of social ecology's founder Murray Bookchin "The domination of nature by man is rooted in the domination of man by man". In other words, the ways we treat each other, through exploitation and violence, become projected onto the ways we treat nonhuman animals, flora, landscapes, and other forms of biotic life.
Perhaps the best course of action filmmakers could take would be to drop the scary visions of possible apocalypse and show bright hopeful futures in which technology has been utilised to restore balance between first nature (the organic world) and second nature (the human-crafted world). A "social ecological cinema". And as the movies in this festival show, there's already a lot to draw from in anime. Right now such visions are only really present in films like Origin and Nausicca, which show ecotopias within the context of post-collapse worlds. Perhaps it might be a good idea to show that such societies could be achieved while averting such a collapse in the first place.
Published by Connor Owens
View all posts by Connor Owens
Aesthetics, Reviews
Anarchism, anime, ecocriticism, ecology, environmentalism, film criticism, miyazaki, murray bookchin, social ecology, Solarpunk, studio ghibli
Democracy or Autonomy?
One thought on "Eco-Anime: Six Movies with Ecological Themes, Tropes, and Messages"
Solar Movies Hd says:
In Youtube there is a small and pick group of video clips.
The "Billion View Club" is all those videos that have actually managed
to surpass one billion views. Before June 2015, only two video clips, "Gangnam Design" by PSY as well
as "Infant" by Justin Bieber, had surpassed these numbers.
3 months and a half later on, in October 2015, ten more video clips had already been achieved.


Jack U – the all-star DJ combo of Skrillex and Diplo – will make its Midwest debut at the Spring Awakening Festival on June 12-14 in Soldier Field.
Promoter React Presents announced the headlining addition Thursday to the festival lineup, which also includes the previously announced Zedd, Hardwell and Tiesto.
More than 75 artists are scheduled to perform on four stages, including Eric Prydz, Afrojack, Dada Life, Duke Dumont, Excision, Martin Garrix, Zeds Dead, Paul Van Dyk, Zomboy and Jamie Jones. Chicago artists include Flosstradamus and house pioneers Cajmere and Derrick Carter.


On Sunday, March 19th, from 2-5 pm, Full Circle Farm Sanctuary and Sanctuary Brewing Company team up again for their third annual vegan chili cook-off. This fun event occurs annually on or around the First Day of Spring and helps commemorate the Great American Meatout, an annual event started in 1985, which seeks to educate thepublic about the myriad health, environmental, and ethical benefits of living a cruelty-free, plant-based lifestyle.
Cuteness overload! On this Valentine's Day, give your sweetheart, coworker, family or friend the gift of a Puppy Gram from Brother Wolf Animal Rescue. Puppy Grams have become one of the most talked about events in town, and is sure to brighten the day of your recipient.
Right now the perfect pet is ready to add a little love to your life. This Valentine's Day, brighten your world by adopting a forever friend!
Asheville Humane Society is reducing adoption fees to $4.00 for all dogs over 25 pounds and all cats and kittens for their Fantastic Furry Frenzy adoption promotion presented by Prestige Subaru. This deal runs from Black Friday, November 25th through Saturday, November 26th from 10 AM until 6 PM.
Put your best paw forward by joining fellow animal lovers at Asheville Humane Society's 13th Annual Taste of Compassion Gala at the Morris Hellenic Cultural Center in Historic Montford on Saturday, November 5 from 6 – 9 PM with a V.I.P reception starting at 5 PM. Thanks to Asheville Humane Society's generous sponsors, all expenses are covered so 100% of the money raised will benefit local animals in need. This year's Presenting Sponsor is Animal Hospital of North Asheville and other top level sponsors include Prestige Subaru, Spicer Greene Jewelers, Sensibilities Day Spa, Western Carolina Veterinary Surgery, iHeartMedia, Charlotte Street Animal Hospital, Capella on 9, R.E.A.C.H./Asheville Veterinary Specialists, Patton Avenue Pet Company and WLOS News 13/WMYA.
October is National Adopt-a-Dog Month and Asheville Humane Society is celebrating by reducing adopting fees to $10.00 for dogs over 25 pounds during the entire month of October.
Halloween is enjoyed by children, the young at heart, and, this year, your canine friends as well. Brother Wolf Animal Rescue is holding their second annual Howl-O-Ween Walkathon on Saturday, October 29th at the Eliada Corn Maze from 12-4pm.


text:
Home › BAM wins 2017 Crystal Prize for most transparent annual report
BAM wins 2017 Crystal Prize for most transparent annual report
Bunnik, The Netherlands, 22 November 2017 – Royal BAM Group has won the 2017 Crystal Prize, the award for the most transparent annual report.
BAM was nominated together with Royal Schiphol Group, Siemens Nederland and energy network company Alliander, last year's winner. The main trophy of the Transparency Benchmark has now been awarded for eight consecutive years.
The Crystal Prize for societal reporting is a joint initiative of the Royal Dutch Professional Association of Accountants (NBA) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate. Together, they hope to foster and further improve societal reporting by businesses and organisations.
The jury acknowledges that BAM is operating in a sector which has recently taken a heavy financial toll. The jury appreciates BAM's efforts to firmly keep societal issues on the agenda, incorporating them in its annual report. It specifically applauds the way in which BAM invites its stakeholders to participate in discussions about the long term vision and the 2020 strategic goals.
"BAM offers clear insights on possible improvements, resulting in clear and excellent reporting by a company that dares to profile itself on the theme of sustainability," the jury concluded.
The prize was presented to CEO Rob van Wingerden by the jury's chair Monika Milz (chair of the Green Deal Board and chair of the Supervisory Board of de Volksbank and Handelsveem).
Van Wingerden said: "BAM is among the ten most transparent companies in the Netherlands for the seventh consecutive year, and is also once again the winner of the Construction and Maritime sector. Our Group decided on integrated reporting at an early stage to provide our stakeholders with insight into our financial and non-financial value creation. We are convinced that the priority BAM gives to the digitisation of the building process will also significantly contribute to the realisation of our strategic objectives and the related progress reports."


text:
Q: django search autocomplete not working I am trying to use autocomplete for search but I am getting this error "Uncaught TypeError: $(...).autocomplete is not a function".I have already included jquery library

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static 'styles.css' %}">
    <link href="http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.10.4/themes/ui-lightness/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet">

    <title>{% block title %}Home{% endblock %}</title>

Home

Logout

                <form name="myform" method="GET" action="{% url 'search' %}">
                    <input type="text" name="search" id="search_text" placeholder="Search"/>
                </form>

views.py,
def item_search(request):
    book_name =  request.GET.get('search')
    if book_name is not None:
        rows = Add_prod.objects.filter(book__icontains=book_name)
        results = [ x.book for x in rows ]
    return HttpResponse(json.dumps(results))

A: For autocomplete to work, you need to have have jQuery UI library included in your head.
You can download it from here -> https://jqueryui.com/download/all/

A: Actually I think you are using two jquery remove this one

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange