text:
Mind the Gap Between the Product and the Platform
UXDX Europe 2020
Everybody wants to have a platform; but what does it actually mean. How do you design the boundaries around the platform, and how do you design your teams around that. Who are the users of the platform? What are the pitfalls? What are the decisions people have to make when separating out from a product? What is the product/UX of the platform?
Moderated by Ciara Peter, join the conversation, share your insights and probe the speakers on the elements of their talks that left you wanting more.
Henrik Kniberg, Developer & Agile Coach,Mojang
@henrikkniberg
Greg Bell, VP, Software Development,Hootsuite
@gregbell@hootsuite
Lindsay Silver, Global Vice President, Platform Technology,Conde Nast
@gonewandering@condenast
Ciara Peter, VP, Product,Gainsight
@ciarapeter
TranscriptHide the Transcript
Henrik Kniberg: I'm Henrik. I'm in Sweden. And I work at Mojang doing Minecraft stuff. So, a gameplay design and development, and also a team coaching to try to help figure out how to work effectively as a group and in the past, I've done a lot of organizational coaching at product companies; Lego and Spotify, and some other companies. I did a whole virtual meet that I taught yesterday evening, Swedish time about how we do Release Management and a bit about how we do design for Minecraft releases.
Greg Bell: Yup.
Henrik Kniberg: What about Greg?
Greg Bell: Yeah. Thanks. Greg Bell. I'm the VP Engineering at Hootsuite. For those of you that don't know, we are a company that builds social media marketing software. We're about a thousand people worldwide and headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. Give a talk about some of those shifts over the last few years of creating a more data-driven culture within our engineering team. Looking forward to this chat about platforms.
Rory Madden: Great. Lindsay? Lindsay Silver over to you.
Lindsay Silver: Hey, guys. I'm Lindsay Silver. I'm the Head of Platforms at Conde Nast. Basically, I've been a Data Engineer and then an engineering lead for most my career and really passionate about how platforms and abstraction layers actually affect businesses. And I think at some point I crossed the line into the dark side of the product world because I was trying to talk and relate engineering and technical concepts to dollars all the time and upside. I'm excited to be here and I'm really looking forward to talking about platforms.
Rory Madden: Great. I'm just going to jump in while we're waiting for Ciara. Hopefully, she can join us but the first thing, just in relation to this. Platform is in the title. For platform can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. So, I'd like to just throw it out there. What is your definition of platform? And I'll start with Henrik, because I guess with Minecraft, it might be a little bit different compared to some of the other answers.
Henrik Kniberg: Maybe. When I first saw the talk of this panel of like what is platform? Our product is platform. It's the same the thing. But then when I thought about it more deeply, I realized, "Actually, no." The term platform does make sense in our context because we have this game, right? Minecraft itself where people are playing. But then the product is also a platform because people use Minecraft like a game mentioned to build their own stuff on it, mods and all kinds of community driven content. So, those are in a sense of different types of customers for us, that the players of the game and then the people who use the product to build their own things on top.
Rory Madden: I'll handover to Ciara now after this but Greg, do you want to give an update on what platform is in your context?
Greg Bell: We use that word to in two major different ways. One is Hootsuite itself we consider a platform which means that we have with public ideas. We have partners who integrate deeply and we have an app store where customers can buy apps that run within Hootsuite and so that's one aspect of our platform. And then we also have an internal platform so that's the other way we use that. The term which we have multiple products all in market. We developed an underlying platform technology platform that we utilize to deliver multiple different products. So, those are the two different ways that within Hootsuite, we use that term.
Ciara Peter: Thanks everyone and thanks Greg. Classic case of the computer crashing literally one minute before the presentation but I'm glad to be back on. And Lindsey, did you have a chance to introduce yourself already?
Lindsay Silver: I did, yup. Onto the platform question and I actually think that Greg and Conde Nast view a very similar that we have a platform as an offering, as a flexible offering but also as the core underlying technology that powers the portfolio of applications that we have.
Ciara Peter: On that note, thinking about every company wants to be a platform, right? Like you might start with an initial product but it it's really about how do we expand, whether that be a marketplace building applications or just some internal platform. I'd love to hear from each of you did you start as a platform or at what point did you say decide we're going to be a platform company and what was like the business driver behind that? Maybe Lindsay, could I ask you to start on that one?
Lindsay Silver: Yeah, I think that we, I mean, we had a big shift. So, Conde Nast's when we think about our platform, that the cornerstone to the platform is our content management system. So, we're an editorial company. We have a lot of editors creating content and so the big piece of technology that we started with the product that we started with internally was our content. It was building a proprietary content management system and when I started, which was about five years ago, that was the core product. For us, it was creating change and moving into platform thinking was definitely an explicit choice. And it took a lot it was change management internally to get people to go from thinking about one product to asking themselves what could that core product do that we weren't already doing with it and I think that that fundamentally is one of the big things. When you're thinking about a platform is starting from what you have but asking yourself what other values coming and, in our case, the second thing that the impetus for thinking platforming and how we thought was contextual advertising. And so, our same core content API is that then we're very editorially driven where a lot of content that editors had put into our systems, if we added things like NLP to those at that point then we could build an advertising, a set of advertising products on top of those as well. And so, organically when we started thinking like that, when we started thinking, "Okay, this can now but the same building blocks, we can create another product here." It really changed the culture and the thinking. And I think that's where you have to start, I think if you approach it the other way and say, "Oh, we want to have a platform arbitrarily. You get yourself into trouble and I think you see a lot of end user products that at first, they're very good and pure. And then all of a sudden have a marketplace on the side and all of a sudden, they have a community aspect and all of a sudden have all these things that aren't the actual purpose of the product, or just someone saying, "Okay, we have to find other uses for our brand or other uses for these. That's how we started now it's gone a long way since the but that is definitely how we started our thinking about ourselves as a platform.
Ciara Peter: That's great. Henrik or Greg? Anything you'd like to add on this one?
Henrik Kniberg: Well, I guess just from a game perspective, I really agree with the thing that I can't think of many successful game engines or platforms that were built as an engine from the beginning. And then you add games on top and hope that they're good. It's more like a build a great product and then you realize, "Oh, wait a sec. We can do all this stuff with this and Oh, wait. Other people can do other stuff with this." And then you have this platform which is battle-tested so I think that's the way it's worked for us with Minecraft and probably most of the game stuff I've seen as well.
Greg Bell: Go ahead.
Ciara Peter: Go ahead, Greg.
Greg Bell: I was just going to say Hootsuite went through, I guess, a different but similar journey which is that we build technology for our marketing teams and marketing teams have 1,000,001 different pieces of software this day and age that they utilize to get their jobs done every day. And so, I've a necessity integrating those tools in a way that they can be useful together was just a clear opportunity for our organization. I mean, I guess, the other aspect is Hootsuite builds software on top of all the social networks, social networks have a really long tail of functionality. There's a long tail of social networks and a long tail of a functionality that we may not want to build ourselves. And we have chosen not to build ourselves. Our APIs allow independent developers or companies to build that functionality themselves and have it integrated into their day to day work. And that has started happening pretty early on with it. As you know, Hootsuite is a 12-year-old company now. And so, pretty early on that became a core piece of the strategy.
Ciara Peter: It's really interesting. A lot of different inspirations or reasons for building a platform. I've heard on the core content side like sharing all of the technology that's available in one product. If you have a portfolio of products enabled like them then thinking about what's a marketplace and Greg in your scenario thinking about the marketing technology is table stakes to be able to integrate with all that. Very interesting. Greg, you not only have to think about the marketing technology but you also have to think about social media and these are companies that are doing things. I mean, the marketing companies are as well but social media companies are doing things completely independently and in their own driver's seat would love to hear, actually everyone, but maybe we can start with you. How do you plan a roadmap for platform given all this information?
Greg Bell: I'll try to answer that the two sides. There are two paths. I mean, I talked about the internal platform and then the external platform. The internal platform, I think is fairly challenging mainly because we are on top of a constantly changing API with all sorts of different organizations that maybe are some are mature software teams that have great APIs and practices around those APIs and somewhere new fledgling social networks that may or may not care that much about their API. So, there's the planning there I think is rather challenging and we look for stability really. Our internal platform is actually about guarding our downstream internal teams from all the craziness that happens across all the social network KPIs and then similarly having been at Hootsuite for a little over five years spent a lot of cycles planning the public APIs that we're going to deliver. I would say also fairly challenging for us to create Roadmaps against mainly I believe it's more challenging to figure out the value that you're providing to organizations via public KPIs then then making it a user interface. We have tons of great relationships with customers who we can just speak to directly about, "Hey, you want this button to do this thing? We can build prototypes easily." Have customers go through it. We can learn from these ability testing when we're delivering API is all of that is more challenging to iterate on typically they're large integrations that these APIs are meant for they get built and then inevitably you learn some stuff and you need to make changes and they're expensive to make those changes and downstream developers don't want to make changes. So, I don't think there's any, I don't have any secret sauce in particular. I think we're actively trying to figure out how to better plan and product manage our APIs all I can say is that I think they're pretty challenging.
Ciara Peter: Got it. Henrik, how about you? How do you and the team plan a roadmap for platform and alignment with all the products?
Henrik Kniberg: I would say there are a few driving factors. We're generally quite flexible with roadmaps. We don't generally set up like a five-year plan then it's measuring how we follow up but we do have high level goals though that we try to align towards and they're driven quite a lot by community because we work quite closely with our player community and creator community. And when we see things that they really need that makes their life better than that influences our priorities quite a lot. That's one aspect. What are creators are asking for is what do they need? But it's also balanced because every time we build something, we want to break stuff for people. Right? It's the same platform. So, we changed something. Well, somebody, someone, somewhere has built something that depends on the thing we changed and now broke. So, it's always a tradeoff, the community drives it, but then there's our own pet peeves like, "Oh, if we improve this in the platform, it'll make it or life easier. If you make this change, it'll be easier to add new entities or add new creatures and Minecraft, for example, then maybe we should invest in that." So, depending on what we're planning in the future, we might prioritize enabling technology for those features. So, things that make our life easier would of course influenced things and the third thing is just, what is the theme of our next updates? So, for example, just a few days ago, we announced the next theme for Minecraft is going to be mountains and caves. So, we're going to build grand mountains and huge cave systems. So, of course, then that will influence the priorities of our platform like we need to do some things to it to enable that to happen.
Ciara Peter: That's cool. I'm sure it would be very interesting. Just thinking as a designer, like what it would be like to be the cave designer. Lindsay, would love to hear from you. How do you and your teams plan roadmaps?
Lindsay Silver: I mean, it's hard. I mean, for the reasons that that both Greg and Henrik mentioned that when we build something, I mean, what we always start with is this really big, obvious problem and with platforms, it's nice because when you to have a new big obvious problem that you can tie in or you can start building. You've got a place to start but then those really quickly factualize. And so, as we build roadmaps usually the first say quarter or first six months of our roadmap are very easy to me map out, but as we start getting, building a user base as the problem start to get smaller, the upside gets smaller and the number of problems gets bigger. It becomes hard and I think what Hendrick said is really important which is that you always are both looking for incremental change. And we were even building teams that are focused on incremental change. So, we'll have a change team that will just be basically improving UIs working towards the next iteration or the next version of the software. But we always need to be questioning, is there a breaking change or is there a fundamental change to the APIs or to the UI of our products that actually will solve the problem better in a foundational way. And I think people get into one or the other mindset and you have teams that are very focused on how can we disrupt? How can we change? And usually those people are the ones that walk away from a product the minute they've released the first version, then you get to die. And then you have people who are incremental change people. I shouldn't actually say people that there's a mindset that's incremental change and incremental change is easy once you get it, but it's a decreasing marginal value to those changes. After about a year or two and a product, you're optimizing such my new things that unless you're Google, unless you're seeing a billion clicks per day or something like that. You're not having a huge impact on it.
Henrik Kniberg: You might even be wasting your time because maybe you're just incrementally moving towards a local optimum instead of saying, "Wait a sec, I should be getting off as hill and up on that mountain instead.
Lindsay Silver: And breaking that culture, I mean, that's what I think that good management, good leaders will always be pushing their teams to pivot one to one side or the other and that's what a lot of the guidance I give my teams is, "Look, if you're thinking incrementally, if you're doing a great job thinking incrementally, step back for a second and look for that thing that might fundamentally change your product. Should we rewrite it? Should we do something? Is there something there and vice versa. If someone, I see someone running hard and going toward going out into left field, coming up with big ideas, I'll often not push them to say, "Okay. Well, what is your three-month roadmap? What is your near term? What is going to just basically improve your product or incrementally improve it?" That's hard. I mean, that's something you learn as an engineer after years of doing it. I learned that and I'm sure you guys, both Greg and Henrik, you always have to step back and you always have to balance those two things in your head.
Ciara Peter: Thanks, Lindsay. Yeah, it's very interesting because as a product manager, often you're always thinking about what's the roadmap a quarter ahead, two, three quarters ahead. And the theme that I've heard across this conversation is a lot of incremental, a lot of feedback from the community. I want to talk about stakeholders for a minute. Who do you guys consider the main stakeholders in the platform? And do you do UX research on a platform and have you ever gotten negative feedback? I know that this is a lot of questions but I'm curious, like what is the day in the life in the world with these platforms' stakeholders? Anyone can?
Greg Bell: I can talk about probably our internal platform like many organizations have a platform engineering team and the platform engineering team actually has its management ranks have people who operate as a technical product manager and I wouldn't say that we do quite as rigorous of a job. I know we don't do nearly going to have a job as our proper UX research team. However, the version of a UX research that we're doing for that is actually all the other engineering teams. I think we have three platform engineering teams of which their customers are the 27 other scrum teams at Hootsuite and so following very similar, we haven't tried to reinvent what product management means and what customer discovery means and what it means to understand what your customers need. So, we've taken a lot of those practices and just pointed to that, the problem is more about, well, our engineering teams being effective or engineering teams moving at the pace they can. And if not, then let's look for pieces or tools or processes or technology that can actually enable most of the teams. So, it's from an internal perspective.
Ciara Peter: Any other inputs from the panel?
Henrik Kniberg: I guess, I can mention who our stakeholders would be I wrote down players, developers and creators but I realize that players, people playing the game they're not maybe the primary customer for the platform stuff. We wouldn't change stuff in the platform for them primarily. We will build features for them. Right? When we do stuff in the platform, it is to make life easier for the developers and designers like me, so we can work more effectively and get stuff done. And then of course, features that would make creators happy. People who build stuff on top of the game. Well, one thing I think is really important when people work with platform stuff and very easy to forget. I want to put it up as a banner on the wall. Right? Which is, "Don't forget who you're building this thing for whatever it is." Because it's so easy to forget, especially when you're in the platform. It's so easy to fall into this theoretical world we're like," Oh yeah, we've got to make this new structure for our database." But why, who is it for and is that person, team function, customer segment are they involved in the development of giving you feedback? How do you know if you've succeeded with this? Because we tend to build so much junk, right? Fancy things that nobody's going to need which does cause entropy in the system. We need every single thing we do in a platform to be accompanied with who needs this and why.
Ciara Peter: Lindsey, anything you want to add?
Lindsay Silver: No, I totally agree with that. I mean, I agree with both but I think it is interesting. For me, the hardest thing was to learn to actually love the products myself so that I was actually my own stakeholder. And honestly, when one of your products is Vogue, vogue.com and it takes a little bit of like learning to love it yourself but I'll tell you the best products are ones that the engineers and the product people love being users of them. I think that's something that our teams, you find people that love your product and you cut out a layer and that's really good. That's why I love platforms because I can nerd out on it.
Henrik Kniberg: It can be dangerous because the engineer writing that feature might love it, but are they the ones who are going to use it? If they're not, then they might build it unnecessarily.
Lindsay Silver: Totally. Well, that's the difference. And I think that's a really true, I mean, I know this as an engineer because I've spent months and years writing hobby projects and things over and over again, and trying to tune and trying to make them. There's a difference between loving the code and loving the thing that you're creating and then also loving being a user of it. I agree. And that's an easy trap to fall into. People will say, "I love this model because I've created it myself." and next thing we know it's six months later.
Henrik Kniberg: The users don't like it but they're stupid. They don't get it.
Lindsay Silver: They don't understand it. That's right. That's always what we hear.
Ciara Peter: Thank you guys for sharing that insight. I want to just send a quick note to the audience because I think we have about five minutes left. Please send us your questions right now. We'll start to collect them and get them ready. Henrik, you are famous for the MVP Approach. Is it possible to do an MVP on a platform and what does that like?
Henrik Kniberg: First of all, I didn't come up with the term MVP. I don't know who did but I also don't like the term. I don't use it but a term I like better is MLP, minimum lovable. I would like to try minimum testable. So, I tend to use those instead because I find them more concrete that's product committee, minimally testable, not lovable at all. But you can ship it to somebody and get feedback and that's great and then you have this other stage it's minimum lovable as in, I would actually ship this and be proud of it. I could still improve it forever but it's in a good enough state. So, that's why we use those in pretty much all companies that work with. I've tried to introduce those concepts. Sorry, what was actual question?
Ciara Peter: Is it possible to build an M blank P for a platform?
Henrik Kniberg: Definitely. Definitely. Yes. Definitely, yes. And I would boil it down to the same thing. If I'm building a platform for something, what is the minimum I can do to be able to test this? We'll build that first and ship it because otherwise you don't know if your platform is solving any problem and then of course at a later stage you might get to a lovable state and you can have a hundred releases in between, but I find it's useful to have these clear milestones. The reason why I avoid the term MVP is because I've noticed that the term viable means so many different things to people, so it can get very confusing. So, maybe the team is like, "Yeah, this is viable." And then someone else is like, "Yeah, this is shippable. But wait a sec, the customers hate it but it's just the minimum viable and it gets really confusing." So, whatever terms you use, try to make it clear what they actually mean.
Ciara Peter: Got it.
Greg Bell: But that wasn't necessary that I would just throw in which is if you're building, being a platform for other teams to integrate to building that first integration as a part of the design process is a total necessary. I've just seen too many times the building something with this abstract notion that there's going to be an integration to it. And then when you finally get down to saying, "Okay, we're going to tie these two business systems together. Oh, the it guys don't actually support the integration."
Henrik Kniberg: Yeah. I'll probably use the term minimum integratable product in that case. Like what is that tiniest little thing we can do chip to somebody even if it's just a "Hello world" call to our API. But it's something to check that it works.
Lindsay Silver: I mean, I think that's the hardest thing we faced for sure. Is that minimum, whatever you call it, product often means go off and build it yourself in a silo to test it and what we end up with, I mean, almost every time and we've had some spectacular disasters that have come out of like, "Let's get really lean and let's build this, but let's not think about the API design. Let's not take it. It's going to be slower. If we try to integrate it into our core at the start. We've learned a lot about architecture by having to say, "No, go back first and map out how this integrates with the platform that you've already created. And then you can go out if you want to stub in API end points. If you want to create a version of this, that's separate just for time's sake. That's fine. But you better have a plan for how it is integrated.
Henrik Kniberg: That's actually another empty pattern I've noticed when using this MLP, MVP, whatever incremental thinking. Is that, "Yes, we should be shipping a small step and not building it all in shipping at the end but we should also have a high-level vision, a goal and not just ship blindly incrementally." Sometimes people get over enthusiastic about agile, for example, and they're like, "Yeah, we're Agile. We ship in small increments." But you know what? You also need an architecture. You also need a high-level long-term goal. It can be high level; it can change but it needs to be there so you can integrate towards it.
Ciara Peter: Thanks guys. We have about a minute left. I do want to get to one question from the audience which is an extension of something we talked about earlier, which is when does an organization meaning a company or part of the engineering and product division, when did they decide to call themselves platform versus a single product? Maybe you guys have some anecdotes.
Greg Bell: Stumped. I use those two definitions. I think every startup in the world right now is calling themselves a platform. So, I think it's highly overused. However, in my world, we try to use it to mean, "Okay, are we building a platform which is going to have an ecosystem of integrations or developers around it that are going to build on top of it or are we building our internal platform? And those are the only two definitions that I find myself trying to try to steer everybody towards.
Henrik Kniberg: I tend to avoid the word because it's on its own doesn't mean very much. So, instead try to talk about we are actually talking about instead of doing this vague catch-all word.
Lindsay Silver: It's such a weird, I think when Greg was describing earlier that he both is building a platform, sits above a bunch of platforms, right? In terms of what he's doing and probably having hacked Hootsuite's APIs a few times myself. I know that people are building platforms on top of say, you sit in this weird world where you're always in the middle of things. And so, everything is a platform and nothing is a platform. I think at that point and it's a handy thing for us when we're describing a system, a factory for other systems. I think that's the biggest thing that I would say. We refer to things as platforms, if you can build, if you can hang something else off of them or if they're built to be built upon. But I totally agree with Henrik, it's a useless word in itself. Anything could be a platform.
Ciara Peter: Well, I think we're at time. This has been a great conversation and apologies again for the rocky start but thank you Greg, Lindsay, Henrik and the UXDX family for having us on today.


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It may not be cuz it is not compatible it said it wasn't with my phone, but then it was there a lil bit later.
7H3V1RU5, 11 Jul 2016I am not sure about other users but my Honor 5X is not compatible with Pokemon Go. If I knew t... moreThat weird. I can play pokemon GO without any problem.
I am not sure about other users but my Honor 5X is not compatible with Pokemon Go. If I knew this before I purchased the phone, I would not have committed to this phone. If anyone knows a fix for the phone, please spread the knowledge.
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Rohan , 07 Jul 2016I don't know if its a common problem but recently noticed some signal fluctuations while using wi-fialways works well. try turn off power and restart to see what happen.
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Rohan , 07 Jul 2016I don't know if its a common problem but recently noticed some signal fluctuations while using wi-ficheck your wifi first.


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Disney launches 'Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind' at EPCOT | Entertainment
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind / EPCOT – Walt Disney World Resort (Kent Phillips)
It's save the galaxy time with Starlord and company! Only this time you'll have to do it in central Florida. This weekend, Disney Parks debuts its 'Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind' attraction at Walt Disney World's EPCOT — based on the Guardians of the Galaxy films. It's one of the longest enclosed roller coasters in the world and took almost six years to complete.
"We start you off feeling like you're on a very conventional, roller coaster-type experience," says Disney imagineer Tom Fitzgerald, telling ABC Audio it's a far cry from the typical theme park ride, launching backward and catapulting riders into a 360-degree spin. "Without you even realizing it, we very subtly turn all the vehicles around and suddenly, if you're in the first car, you're in the back car!"
There's also that trademark Disney storytelling attached as you board the ride. "Our hook is Peter Quill [Starlord] came to EPCOT when he was a kid, back in the '80s," says Zach Riddley, lead creative executive for EPCOT. "The Xandarians say, 'Hey, we want to bring a message of our culture, technology to Earth. What's the one place?' And they went to Starlord and he said, 'EPCOT.'"
And it wouldn't be Guardians without a killer soundtrack. Six songs are showcased on Cosmic Rewind, including Blondie's "One Way or Another" and Earth, Wind and Fire's "September." Choosing the playlist was no small feat, imagineer Spencer Lynn tells ABC Audio. But a fun one nonetheless. "We tested over 100 songs — we would watch the cast members operating the attraction and if they were dancing, we were like, 'Let's keep that one, it's probably going to be good in the long run!'"
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind opens May 27 at EPCOT. Disney is the parent company of Disney Parks and ABC News.
Thank you for reading kmaland.com
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


An audio distribution system and two HDBaseT receivers to accommodate a wide range of installation options are joining Savant's multi-room media distribution family.
The new SmartAudio SSA-3220 32 x 20 switch is a distributed audio solution housed in one compact 2U rack-mountable design. The SSA-3220 includes 16 analogue and 16 digital selectable inputs, 20 outputs (16 analogue plus four S/PDIF) for passing analogue line-level audio to an external amplifier.
Both analogue and digital audio conversion capabilities are standard and both analogue and digital audio are available simultaneously on each output for maximum flexibility. The company says the broad range of selectable analogue and digital inputs make it simple to manage a large number of audio sources. The SSA-3220 incorporates control of volume, balance and a seven-band equaliser per zone of analogue and digital audio.


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Books & Comics Hot Reviews Superheroes
Comic Review: The Terrifics Volume 1
tomk74 June 24, 2019
After Dark Nights: Metal, DC Comics tossed out some new titles reflecting the ending of that story. One such title was The Terrifics. That series saw a foursome of familiar DC heroes form a new team. The leader is a really smart guy the team seems to be named for. One guy is stretchy. One guy is a monster. The lone female member has ghost-like powers. And the brainy guy promised to cure a few of them. Why does that sound familiar?
At any rate, the first trade, subtitled Meet the Terrifics, sets up the story for why these four are together at all.
Michael "Mr. Terrific" Holt goes to the home/lab of unscrupulous businessman Simon Stagg. Stagg bought out all of Holt's properties while Holt was dealing with the Dark Multiverse in the aforementioned Metal. Stagg sent his daughter's love interest Metamorpho the Element Man into the Dark Multiverse. That was a bad idea. Rex Mason isn't in good shape, but Holt brought along Plastic Man, whose unique body can withstand the energies of the Dark Multiverse. Holt, Plas, and Rex plunge through the portal and find two things. First, they find a young Phantom Girl. She's stuck in her intangible form and has been sitting there for years. Second, there's something of a distress call from one Tom Strong.
Once the foursome return to the real world, escaping a large figure who looks like he might eat planets, there's a new development. The four of them now cannot go more than a mile apart from each other without all of them exploding. Since the Dark Multiverse bathed them in weird energies, there were some weird side effects. Now Holt has a few jobs to do. He'll look into curing Metamorpho. He wants to really cure Phantom Girl. And he wants to find a way to allow the four to go their separate ways. Rex and Plas really don't get along.
In case you hadn't noticed, this is writer Jeff Lemire using DC characters to tell Fantastic Four stories. There's even an armored villain at the end to cause trouble down the road. However, Lemire didn't just do the characters as FF knock-offs. He knows the backstories for many of these characters, and he works them into the work. For example, Holt remembers his dead wife. Rex and Sapphire are squabbling over whether or not Stagg is trustworthy. Plas missed years of his son's life. As it is, Phantom Girl is something of a new character based on the old Legion heroine.
As for artwork, it's good. But there doesn't seem to be a steady artist because the volume lists four pencillers over six issues.
As for the book itself, it's fun. There's some exploration, and an invasion of Metamorphos. Lemire balances pathos with action, and the results are good. What they aren't are required reading. I liked this, but it didn't seem to be enough to make me want to read more. Lemire is a generally great writer, so this isn't in any way bad. But the work here seems inconsequential. There's nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't mean I'll be coming back for more any time soon.
Then again, DC might have canceled the series recently.
For this book, 8 out of 10 element dogs.
Dark Nights: MetalDC Comicsfantastic fourJeff LemireMetamorphoMr. TerrificPhantom GirlPlastic ManThe TerrificsTom Strong
Doctor Who "Frontier In Space Part 2"
American Gods "Donar The Great"


Hardangerjøkulen is the 6th largest glacier in Norway, located far east in Hordaland Fylke. The glacier covers 73 sq. Km. Quite smaller than Jostedalsbreen, 487 sq. Km. The plateau provides magnificient views over the surrounding landscape, including the mighty Hardangervidda plateau.
Ramnabergnuten is a large spur on the north-west side of the glacier, and is ranked. Ramnabergnuten is the highest point in Eidfjord kommune.
Traversing the glacier on skis is a popular project. The normal access point is Finse (1222m). People come by train from east and west and typically stay for a few days, as lodging facilities are good.
In winter/spring, the round-trip trail from Finse over Hardangerjøkulen is well marked. The regular route goes from Finse, passes the huts Appelsinhytten and Jøkulhytten before ascending to the high point. The trail advances further in north-west direction, before descending north-east towards lake Finsevatnet.
This page will only document the trail from Finse to Ramnabergnuten.
Risk : As for all glaciers, crevasses may occur.
Check conditions before you set off.
Take the Bergensbanen railway from Oslo or Bergen. Exit on Finse (and make sure the train stops at Finse before you get on). You can not get to Finse by car (the train ride in itself is a beautiful experience if the weather permits).
From the railway station, locate the marked trail south over lake Finsevatnet. Wooden sticks serve as marking all the way. Cross the lake and move gently upwards to the Appelsinhytten hut. (Appelsin = Orange). You might see a lot of people eating oranges, gathering strength for the steep climb to come.
The trail continues alongside the Middalsbreen glacier arm, passes the northern Kongsnuten (1616m) on the west side and climbs steeply up to Jøkulhytten hut (1765m). Follow the trail up to the plateau. The trail runs over the highest point, but the high point is not marked. If you have view towards the surrounding mountains, use the view to determine if you are at the high point. The summit plateau of Hardangerjøkulen stretches over 400-500m before it falls gently on either side.
Maintain a general north-west direction, following the trail halfway over the plateau. The trail follows a "ridge" that falls off to the west and to the east. When you notice a gradual decrease in the terrain (your skis run faster), leave the marked trail and adjust the course more to the west (compared to the trail). If the view is good, you will soon have Ramnabergnuten in view on the north-west side of the glacier.
Descending into the pass between the glacier and Ramnabergnuten is easy. If you choose to head straight down, your skis will run fast! Switchbacking down the slope may be a better alternative. Head for the Ramneredet hut 80-100m up the mountain, and consume a few more oranges before the ski climb up to 1729m.
From Ramnabergsnuten, you may either head back down the same way, or make a shortcut back to the trail and continue on the round-trip trail down to lake Finsevatnet, and then to Finse.
One more public holiday in May was coming up, and my friend Petter Bjørstad suggested we should try Hardangerjøkulen and Ramnabergnuten as a one-day project. As I am collecting high points in Hordaland kommuner, I was not hard to persuade. We left Bergen by train 07:58AM, and arrived Finse 10:14AM. The weather prognosis was good, and we had terrific weather all the way to Finse. At Finse, we observed that the glacier was fogged in. We had some hope that the fog would eventually burn off. After preparing the skis, we were on our way 10:35AM.
We maintained a good speed across lake Finsevatnet, setting the standard for the rest of the trip. We reached Appelsinhytten within 30 minutes, and after a quick photo session, we were on our way again. We didn't see much while climbing the hill up to Jøkulhytten. Just as well, as this is a hard climb. After some discussion about the true high point, we settled for a point and moved on towards Ramnabergnuten. Time to the summit was 1 hour, 45 minutes. Most likely a respectable time.
Petter had set compass course, eager to prove he would reach the mountain head-on. An amusing fusion of disappointment and joy came over Petter as the fog suddenly burned off. The blue sky above was certainly welcome, but there was no longer the need for conveying compass skills. Now everything about the trip was pure joy, and after a short break at Ramneredet, we reached the summit 4 hours after we left Finse. We had the mountain all to ourselves, and based on the (lack of) trakcs, few people bother to visit this spur, it seems.
We left the Ramnabergnuten 14:30PM. As the train didn't leave until 20:19PM, Petter had no intention of spending hours at the railway station, and suggested we went back the same way. We had crossed the glacier partly fogged in. Now we could cross the glacier in sunshine! I abanoned my vision about a nice long downhill towards lake Finsevatnet and nodded politely to the suggestion. The climb from the Ramnabergnuten pass at approx. 1500m back to the high point (somewhere between 1861m and 1880m) was plain awful. After bringing some energy to the body (a warm drink and some oranges!!), everything looked much better, and we arrived Finse 3 hours after we left Ramnabergnuten.
After a 7 hour hike over 35Km, the evening dinner at the Finse DNT hut (The Norwegian Mountain Touring Association) tasted terrific. A long day was getting close to the end as the train arrived Bergen 22:30PM.


As with any gambling activity, whether it be horse races, dog races, casinos, or the lottery, players are encouraged to be wise about their spending and to play responsibly.
If you find yourself in a quandary, there is help available. Arkansas is launching its state-run lottery on Monday with the debut of scratch-off instant-win tickets.
"The current hot line number is printed on every ticket and will be posted at every retailer. It is 800-522-4700," said Julie Baldridge, director of commission and legislative affairs for the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery.
"Responsibility for problem gambling programs has been placed by law with the Arkansas Department of Health. Since that agency does not have programs for behavioral addictions, they have subcontracted (or are in the process of subcontracting) with the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
"There has not been any state program for problem gambling stemming from casinos, Internet gambling, racetrack gambling, or any other form of gambling already existing in or near Arkansas. Thus, the program funded by the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery will be the state's first attempt to address this issue.
Baldridge planned to meet with the Legislative Oversight Committee to ask that $200,000 of their current budget be transferred to the Department of Health for the program to begin right away.


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Letters 301153431
Readers Write (April 24): Mining near the BWCA, IRS overload, ISIL arrests, soccer stadium
A place of solace for veterans is threatened.
April 23, 2015 — 6:40pm
When I returned from Iraq, I was home, but I wasn't at peace. For years I felt like I was still at war. It was the peace and quiet of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area that helped me begin the healing process. Other veterans also have found peace there on trips with Voyageur Outward Bound School. Out in the wilderness, we felt that the poison that had infected us was pulled out and that we were able to start living again. Now that peace and quiet is threatened ("Mining bill splits votes in Congress," April 22).
The mining proposed near the Boundary Waters would forever alter and destroy that wilderness peace. Already the noise of exploratory mining activity is disrupting experiences there. Veterans who fought for their country were not able to have the same peaceful experience, because of foreign mining interests.
The National Park and Wilderness Waters Protection Act would help ensure that veterans like me can escape into the wild and recover. The Boundary Waters and places like it are one of the reasons I pledged my life to this country. Wild places are a rare commodity in this world, and we should avoid the risk of pollution to the BWCA and Voyageurs National Park.
Erik Packard, Rosemount
THE IRS
Coverage failed to identify the true cause of its overloads
The opening paragraph of "Why the IRS hung up on 8M taxpayers" (April 23) draws a cause-and-effect conclusion about the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) based only on correlation, ignores the second law (foreign reporting) that the IRS must enforce this year and says the ACA is the president's law, rather than one passed by Congress. The article goes on to quote a Republican Ways and Means Committee report that is not even a report of the full committee. I am appalled by the biased reporting in this front-page story.
Susan Doherty, Minneapolis
• • •
It is the height of hypocrisy for Republicans to now criticize the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for its lack of adequate telephone assistance to taxpayers. The Republicans have done everything they can to disrupt the IRS by budget cuts and other limitations. In the end, many of them are so anti-tax (read: necessary funds to run our communities, large and small) that they are willing to allow more tax cheating, to cut back services to individuals and businesses, and to use this system for yet another attack on health care. It is time to restore the IRS to a proper budget for assistance and for enforcement.
Robert Lyman, Minneapolis
The IRS diverted millions of dollars from taxpayer services in order to enforce the Obamacare law just when, because of the new tax requirements of Obamacare, the calls seeking answers spiked.
Congress did cut some funding for the IRS, but still fully funded the taxpayer services. It was the IRS that chose to move the funding away from taxpayer services.
All this happened while the IRS granted $60 million in employee bonuses. And at the same time when the agency also allowed its employees to spend nearly 500,000 hours a year working on non-taxpayer-assistance, union-related activities.
If a private company were to implement this business plan, it would go out of business shortly after it started. But the IRS, being a government entity, really has no worry about how taxpayers are treated, even though it is taxpayers who fund the salaries.
Mike McLean, Richfield
ISIL ARRESTS
Yes, fellow Minnesotans, it is too partly our fault
The April 23 letter about the ISIL arrests shows an astounding ignorance about the responsibility Minnesotans share for the men leaving to join the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. While it is not Minnesota's fault entirely, we share the blame for not providing these men with an environment in which we treat them as equals. Right now, people of color are unfairly targeted by the police, given fewer chances to succeed and ignored in favor of white Minnesotans. Not only that, followers of Islam are still viewed with fear and misunderstanding by the general (white and Christian) public. It is arrogant to simply toot our own horn and declare that we have many aspects we are proud of while ignoring our darker underbelly. The letter writer asks "[i]n what way can we do better?" We can do better by treating people of different races and religion with the same respect we usually reserve for white Christians.
Andrew McCoy, Falcon Heights
If those projects, why not this one? (As the drum beats on …)
According to recent Star Tribune coverage ("Senate says no to state cash for soccer stadium," April 21), "within the last decade [state lawmakers] have provided state funds to build the Twins, Vikings and University of Minnesota stadiums, and to renovate the Target Center."
Well, no one in my family has ever attended a Twins game; none of us ever set foot in the Metrodome for a Vikings game, and we've never been to a Gophers game or Timberwolves game. However, as longtime supporters of Minnesota's soccer team(s), we will definitely go to the new soccer stadium, wherever it is.
So, if public funds were made available for all those other teams (despite the better judgment of many), why not for Minnesota United? Either all of them get funding, or none do. We've set the precedent; fair is fair.
Kimerly Miller, St. Paul
A pair of April 21 letter writers seemed to think that Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges should change her attitude about the soccer stadium based on how much fun she might have at a game. It is a ludicrous premise. Those who control public dollars are entrusted to make decisions about such an issue without regard to how much they might like a particular pastime. While it might benefit Minneapolis to have Major League Soccer, in the case of Major League Baseball and the NFL, our politicians failed miserably in making the best deal possible for the taxpayers.
Andrew Berg, Vadnais Heights
I believe that those of us opposed to a publicly subsidized soccer stadium must recognize the signs of its inevitability and graciously bow our heads, raise our arms and hoist the white flag.
Examine this sequence of events:
The proposal is greeted with cries of "no" by public officials — by the governor, Legislature, mayor and most of the citizenry.
Then comes the counterattack, led predictably by this newspaper.
An editorial supports the idea. Articles suggest the stadium would "revitalize" a long-neglected part of the city and create the ever-popular "mixed-use developments." The stadium's links to light rail chug onto the scene. (Surprisingly, bike paths have yet to be mentioned, but soon will be, as I suspect that soccer fans are more likely to be bicyclists than are other members of the public.) Then, the Star Tribune features beautiful color photos of packed stadiums in other cities. Not coincidentally, the largest is in Portland, Ore., a city with which, for some reason, "hip" Minneapolitans seem to think they are in competition. The article is complete with "hypothetical" projections of "hypothetical" revenue from the "hypothetical" stadium.
As to the future? I predict that over the next few weeks the Star Tribune will tell us that a publicly subsidized stadium will close the achievement gap, restore Mille Lacs walleyes, end zebra mussels, cure bird flu, reduce crime, improve Twins pitching, send the Gophers to the Rose Bowl and slash ISIL's appeal to Somalis.
Friends: Give up.
George Woytanowitz, Minneapolis
More From Opinion
Kelsey Johnson
Editorial counterpoint: The Iron Range deserves fair trade policies
Even if President Donald Trump agrees.
We don't need more mining to have a green, high-tech economy
Copper and nickel is already abundant — and recyclable.
Israel-U.S. model has been a resounding success
On border barriers, energy self-sufficiency, foreign policy.
Eric Zorn
What to make of the New York Times' split endorsement? I can't decide.
It had a whiff of cowardice, but also identified the two distinct brackets in the Democratic field.
Don't pay too much at the pharmacy
An editorial writer could have saved money with new law, but failed to take advantage.
Readers Write: Impeachment trial, primary voting in Minnesota, winter biking • Letters
Readers Write: Enbridge Line 3, presidential primary, infrastructure spending, light rail, Martin Luther King Jr. Day • Letters
Readers Write: PolyMet mine, Trump supporters, primary voting, Mississippi River projects • Letters
Readers Write: 'The unchurching of America' • Letters
Readers Write: Minneapolis crime, impeachment inquiry, next G-7 Summit • Letters


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Gunmen Abduct Turkish Pilot and Copilot in Beirut
by Naharnet Newsdesk 09 August 2013, 07:58
A Turkish pilot and copilot were kidnapped in Beirut early Friday by gunmen who intercepted their van as they were heading to a hotel in the Lebanese capital.
The kidnap is believed to be linked to the abduction of nine Lebanese pilgrims in Syria, whose families have urged Turkey to use its influence to secure their release.
The Turkish Ambassador, Inan Ozyildiz, told LBCI TV that he is following up the case, hoping that Lebanese authorities would work for their release.
Pilot Murat Akpinar and his co-pilot Murat Agca were on their way from Rafik Hariri International Airport to a hotel in Beirut's Ain Mreisseh seafront when they were kidnapped at the Cocodi bridge around 3:00 am.
The abductors were riding a four-wheeler and a Kia.
The van, which had six crew members on board, belongs to Turkish Airlines and its driver is a man from Zoaiter family who was taken for questioning by police.
In the wake of the incident, Lebanese soldiers deployed in the area, with two armored personnel carriers stationed by the roadside where the kidnapping took place.
Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told Agence France Presse he had spoken with Turkey's ambassador and that an investigation was under way.
He also telephoned President Michel Suleiman to brief him about the probe.
On Friday afternoon, the state-run National News Agency revealed that a Turkish airplane landed at the Beirut airport and then flew around 122 passengers, among them the crew of the aircraft whose pilot and copilot were kidnapped back to Turkey.
Sheikh Abbas Zgheib, who has been tasked by the Higher Islamic Shiite Council to follow up the case of the abducted pilgrims in Syria, was quick to deny any involvement by their relatives in the kidnapping of the Turks.
But he said: "Had we known about it we would have encouraged it."
"More than a year have passed on the kidnapping of the Lebanese and the Turks are manipulating the feelings of the Lebanese," he added.
Spokeswoman for the families of the pilgrims Hayat Awali also stressed that they had no link to Friday's incident.
The families have in the past months held several protests near the Turkish Embassy and Turkish Airlines headquarters in Beirut. They accuse Ankara of procrastinating in the negotiation with the rebels, who have kidnapped the pilgrims, to secure their release.
In May 2012, 11 pilgrims were kidnapped in Syria's northern Aleppo province as they were making their way back to Lebanon by land from pilgrimage in Iran.
Two of them have since been released, while the rest remain held in Aleppo's town of Aazaz.
Roaring-FlameThrower 09 August 2013, 08:20 810
We the Shia of Ali Ibn Talib will never give up on our pilgrims, Syria, and Palestine.
cedre 09 August 2013, 12:19 15
Ali ibn Abi Talib, r.a., is innocent of these thugs, the exact opposite of this terrorist lying, drugdealing scum...
zakariah 10 August 2013, 22:12 00
So you kidnap?
justice 09 August 2013, 08:38 29
LBCI: Gunmen have reportedly intercepted a bus and kidnapped several people on board at Cocodi bridge in Beirut.
Terrorists and a half...!
Joe (Guest) 09 August 2013, 08:42 00
Terrorists living up to their names...
scorpyonn 09 August 2013, 09:19 27
Goddamn Iranian puppets- they have taken us back centuries in time and we are so much less civilized than we were 20 years ago. I wish they would pack their bags and get the hell out and move to Qom in Iran where they can coexist with the odious Iranian Mullahs...
cityboy 09 August 2013, 09:53 102
guess you have never been to Iran because they can teach Lebanese a lesson or two in how to be civilized.
samiam 09 August 2013, 10:59 13
yeah cityboy--have you heard the families of those so called pilgrims
"Sheikh Abbas Zgheib, who has been tasked by the Higher Islamic Shiite Council to follow up the case of abducted Lebanese pilgrims in Syria, was quick to deny any involvement by their relatives in the kidnapping of the Turks.
that says it all--scum is scum. when a so called religious leader encourages violence, it says a lot about the people he represents.
defend that cityboy....
those are the people that iran defends with its arms and with its religion--they haven't spoken out once about the kidnappings and in fact, when they had the exchange for their prisoners a few months ago, these hostages were ignored. and don't forget about a member of hizb iran shooting a protesters in front of the iranian embassy--not a word from the embassy about the loss of life.
iran's current regime does not value life but rather its own push to restore the persian empire, no matter the cost--i met a lot of iranians in europe and the us whose families fled after the shah and in reality, they are not much different than us. the current crop is a different story however.
VINCENT 09 August 2013, 21:08 10
We've got whole bunch of Persians in the U.S., and, as to 85% of them, there is nothing civilized about them.
geha 09 August 2013, 09:57 48
is there a need to comment??
Terrorists.
cityboy 09 August 2013, 10:02 82
congrats geha, you really need to submit that comment for comment of the year award. you need to start preparing your speech from now.
anti-maron (Guest) 09 August 2013, 10:40 00
yes. to hell with you racist maronites, partition please! back to your infested mountains. leave the south clean and green with OUT your racist ways and habits. It was probably YOU who kidnapped the pilots, I know how you bribe people, innocent chumps.
mr useful (Guest) 09 August 2013, 10:42 00
yes, that's right, join the lcftl (low cost flights to lebanon, who want to set up kleiat airport for easyjet, it would be useful for you)
tayb5alas 09 August 2013, 10:46 82
They have every right!
samiam, what does that have to do with Iran. Furthermore, if you believe that that shias are uncivilized, violent power hungry people then what should be done about it.
First, i hope that MIT, turkish intelligence, will hit very hard Hizblat in retaliation, spetnaz way. Then, i hope as well that turkish, GCC and their friends will stop flying to beirut nasrallah airport, forbid their citizens to travel to lebanon, and remove their investment from this country. I am sure that the government will act against these thugs...
lebanese student in istanbul (Guest) 09 August 2013, 13:25 00
for that lebanon tourism don't growth now all turkish news tv and internet news says dont go lebanon unsafe place to visit,some channels show lebanon civil war documentary.
1- it's not benzona, u paranoiac.
2- Lebanon is not sure and friendly to turkey/gcc citizens, fair enough, they'd better leave it, take with them money/investments.
A turkish citizen was previously kidnapped by shia thugs.
Then when the economy will worsen, may be will our army/politicians understand that this game must end.
3- stop with that Israel/ us drone thing, u remind me of HA propaganda...
Cloudhopper 10 August 2013, 02:47 00
Only if they target your house first
Canada (Guest) 09 August 2013, 14:13 00
Great lebanon is getting better , guys take my advice ...leave this country ...immigrate and go to another civilized country....this country are meant to be for animals...
Alastair (Guest) 09 August 2013, 16:05 00
Terrorists! Hizbushaitan at it again. One of their so called terrorist franchises.
zahle1 09 August 2013, 16:47 05
I still can't believe a religious leader would say they would support kidnappings. Does any body have any quotes "RECENTLY" from a "Lebanese" Priest or Bishop who supports kidnappings?
helicopter 09 August 2013, 17:11 02
Agree the1
We can reverse the disunity by one act of decency which leads to more acts of decency.
Kidnapping is a lawless act no matter who commits it. Since it was committed most likely by HA or its proxies (I know there is no proof but at least it is high probability it is so), I was hoping M8 will condemn it and M14 will refrain from being insulting. Then in the future when roles are reversed, then M14 will condemn and M8 will refrain from being insulting. If we can do this few times rifts will heal and then we can all talk about building a nation free of all za3ran and militias (HA is included in my book as a sectarian militia with an Iranian agenda). But again lets agree that lawless acts must be condemned by all.
Fromaggio Kashkavalli (Guest) 09 August 2013, 17:38 00
Minibash, you should write a book with all your self-conflicting ideas. Then, before publishing it and embarrassing yourself (if you care) re-read it while making corrections. At the end, you will find that nothing will be left of it other than the front cover with your name on it (Minibash, Sir) and the back cover with a price of USD 0.
shab 09 August 2013, 18:43 12
Reeking filthy militia
ekrem (Guest) 09 August 2013, 20:30 00
zoiater family, who are they? (im from turkey and i want to know whats going on pls)
Shame on us Ekrem for doing this. -- The Zoaiter family is a mainstream pro-Hizbullah family.
ali (Guest) 09 August 2013, 21:12 00
dear lebanese people, no need to apologize, our governments have to apologize us. we are aware of everything going on.
this kidnapping means the lebanese group behind it accept turkish government is responsible and thats true.
unfortunately our government supports fsa and even el nusra of el kaide in syria. tayyip erdogan and his organisation desperately wants to take a part in middle east, he has a dream to be a sultan of neo-ottoman :)
no one cares him and this type of politics will sink us, about %60-70 of turkish people dont support this dream. he and his party are living last days of their rulership.
i cant be so angry with the group who made this kidnapping, they play the game by the rules, our government is in it and the game is dirty.
im sorry for our pilots, im sorry for you lebanese people and us turkish people too. and sorry for my english, we love you :)
Peter Geagea (Guest) 09 August 2013, 21:55 00
I find it quite amusing that Turkey, is to blame for what happened to the pilgrims, and then they say about Turkey: "More than a year have passed on the kidnapping of the Lebanese and the Turks are manipulating the feelings of the Lebanese," but come here ask the Lebanese what we really want, and its not to have the devil they have as their commander ruin our country, fight against its own, kidnap our freedom, and all of this in the name of what? Palestine? Iran? Syria? Next they are going to be fighting for the rights of the some small community of Peruvians in South America. They do the harm, and blame it on others, but let someone from another party (sunnis) say or do whatever and they all jump. . It´s so stupid, and so nerve wracking to see what a group of thugs can do to a country full of great people, educated, cultured and with so much potential. There´s an end to all of this, and hopefully it comes sooner than later. Obama we need your help.
bananasplit 10 August 2013, 00:02 01
On the kidnapping, can we be sure that HA has condoned it? Could it be what we are witnessing is some splinter group which is showing that HA is not 100% in control of the shiite community? Just wondering if that could be a plausible scenario?
Anonymoussss (Guest) 10 August 2013, 00:09 00
lawless country
un520 10 August 2013, 01:54 00
Ok, now lets say we did an experiment right now: If a group kidnap Iranians in Lebanon now, who do you think the security apparatus would act first again....kidnappers of the Tyrkish or the Iranians...?


There is a huge difference between the needs of an online company targeting a global audience and a local company seeking local customers online. The global company can operate from a basement or a barn and can cast a huge net to capture anybody online. My own digital marketing business focuses on a global clientele, so I cast that wide net all the time (but I don't work out of a basement or a bar, just for the record).


Investment in sub-assembly facilities has equipped Bridgewood to provide our customers with added value assemblies and sub-assemblies. Various plastic components can be combined along with externally sourced components.
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Clifton teen cast as Maria in Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story'
Rachel Zegler, a 17-year-old actress with stage experience, will star in the film remake alongside some acting powerhouses.
Clifton teen cast as Maria in Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story' Rachel Zegler, a 17-year-old actress with stage experience, will star in the film remake alongside some acting powerhouses. Check out this story on northjersey.com: https://www.northjersey.com/story/entertainment/2019/01/15/rachel-zegler-west-side-story-cast-clifton-nj-star-maria/2578789002/
Kaitlyn Kanzler, North Jersey Record Published 11:08 a.m. ET Jan. 15, 2019 | Updated 11:36 p.m. ET Jan. 15, 2019
Rachel Zegler, a teenager from Clifton, was just cast in Steven Spielberg's version of one of the most timeless musicals: "West Side Story."
Zegler, 17, announced on Instagram that she had been cast as Maria, playing opposite Ansel Elgort as Tony, known for his performances in "The Fault in Our Stars" and the "Divergent" series.
Zegler is no stranger to the stage, performing as part of Hackensack Theatre Company's "Hamiltunes." On Instagram, Zegler wrote that she played Maria onstage several years ago.
"I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the role again in Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story,' " Zegler said in the post. "I send a huge thank you to everyone who helped make this incredible dream a reality — I never could've done it alone."
The story continues below the Instagram post.
when i played maria on stage a few summers ago, i never could have imagined that i'd be taking on the role again in steven spielberg's 'west side story'. i send a huge thank you to everyone who helped make this incredible dream a reality— i never could've done it alone. i am so honored to join the legendary @TheRitaMoreno, @ansel, @arianadebose, @davidalvarezofficial, @joshandresrivera and more in telling this impeccably poignant story. as a colombian-american woman growing up in this day and age, strong roles like maria are so important. to be able to bring that role to life— a role that means so much to the hispanic community— is so humbling. i hope you're all as excited as i am. ♥✨
A post shared by rachel zegler (@rachelzegler) on Jan 14, 2019 at 1:08pm PST
Caseen Gaines, co-artistic director of Hackensack Theatre Company, said he had the opportunity to work with Zegler twice last January and that she has "phenomenal talent." Gaines said he has worked with a number of talented students over the past several years but there is just something about Zegler.
"You know you're in the presence of a once-in-a-career kind of talent, and Rachel is that," Gaines said. "We're very proud of her."
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EARLIER: 'Hamiltunes,' the sing-along 'Hamilton' show, returns to Hackensack
Zegler told Deadline that she saw the notice seeking Latina actors on Twitter last January and recorded herself singing "Tonight" and "Me Siento Hermosa," the Spanish version of "I Feel Pretty." For her, Maria was the first lead character that was Latina. On Instagram, Zegler said characters like Maria are extremely important.
Clifton teenager Rachel Zegler was cast as Maria in Steven Spielberg's version of "West Side Story." (Photo: Courtesy of Hackensack Theatre Company)
"As a Colombian-American woman growing up in this day and age, strong roles like Maria are so important," Zegler said. "To be able to bring that role to life — a role that means so much to the Hispanic community — is so humbling."
Gaines said many people knew she was auditioning and that they put a large call out for Latinx actors.
"There was so much optimism that she would be cast, because we knew she was perfect for the role," Gaines said.
Elgort is not the only big name with whom Zegler will be sharing the screen. Rita Morena, who played Anita in the 1961 version and won an Oscar for her role, will also be in the film.
According to Deadline, Spielberg sought to cast Latina and Latino actors for the musical.
"I'm so happy that we've assembled a cast that reflects the astonishing depth of talent in America's multifaceted Hispanic community," Spielberg told Deadline.
Read or Share this story: https://www.northjersey.com/story/entertainment/2019/01/15/rachel-zegler-west-side-story-cast-clifton-nj-star-maria/2578789002/
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SOME Faith leaders: Exempt religious groups from order barring LGBT bias in hiring
John B. Chilton
Some faith leaders have issued a public letter asking the White House to provide religious groups an exemption from the president's executive order barring LBGT discrimination in hiring. The signers include some of Obama's closest advisers.
Michele Boorstein writing in the Washington Post: The letter
includes the signatures of Michael Wear, faith director for Obama's 2012 campaign; Stephen Schneck, a leader of Catholic outreach in 2012; and Florida megapastor Joel Hunter, whom Obama has described as a close spiritual counselor.
The letter reminds Obama of his own earlier faith-based opposition to same-sex marriage, as well as the government's massive partnerships with faith-based social service groups that work on issues including housing, disaster relief and hunger.
"While the nation has undergone incredible social and legal change over the last decade, we still live in a nation with different beliefs about sexuality. We must find a way to respect diversity of opinion," said the letter.
"An executive order that does not include a religious exemption will significantly and substantively hamper the work of some religious organizations that are best equipped to serve in common purpose with the federal government.," it said. "When the capacity of religious organizations is limited, the common good suffers."
Obama announced last month that he would sign an executive order barring discrimination by federal contractors on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Let us know of faith leaders who have praised the president's executive order.
Obama and Hunter attend 2014 Easter Prayer Breakfast at White House
More Hobby Lobby fallout? Almost makes one wonder if the Supremes have any respect for civil rights for LGBT folks whatsoever.


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text:
Vid olympiska sommarspelen 1908 avgjordes en turnering i rugby. Turneringen som enbart bestod av en match hölls den 26 oktober 1908 på White City Stadium. Matchen spelades mellan Australiens rugbylandslag som var på turné i Europa och de brittiska regionalmästarna Cornwall. Antalet deltagare var 30 tävlande från 2 länder.

Medaljfördelning

Medaljörer

Herrar

Turneringen
Någon riktig turnering spelades egentligen inte utan istället spelades en match där det australiensiska rugbylandslaget vann och därmed räknas som guldmedaljörer. Förlorarna i matchen var de brittiska regionalmästarna från Cornwall.

Deltagande nationer
Totalt deltog trettio rugbyspelare från två länder deltog vid de olympiska spelen 1908 i London.

Källor

Externa länkar

Rugby union vid olympiska sommarspelen
Sporter vid olympiska sommarspelen 1908

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


New methods of electronic security are always improving and that's the reason some of the Lock Manufacturer develop new products for their customer. Here are some types of Electronic locks from which you can choose best for yourself.
Electric Strike is a type of Electronic Lock that is loaded with spring Keeper that manipulates the bolt on lock. Such type of lock can be installed either on the door frame or in the case of double doors, such as on stationery door. This type of lock either can be fail-safe or fail secure depending on the building codes of your area and types of structure. This type of strike is made for safely departing from the building and in most cases will open from the inside even in the case of being fail-secure. This type of lock can be done with manual override such as key or Knob. A special key is designed to override lock from outside.
Such type of locks is best suitable for modern offices. The reason of using this lock is very simple: many architects go with elegant glass doors which are in return not compatible with physical or any other type of locks. To overcome this little problem, magnetic locks have been developed. If one is having standard door, he can choose 600 lb lock but if you are having bigger lock then choosing 1200 lb of lock is perfect for you.
This type of electronic locks almost look like a regular lock, however there is only a one difference, in such type of locks, power cable connecting the lock with power supply. Tricky part of such locks is that the wire in such locks runs through the door itself and it again wired back to main wall. Electrified door hinges or on-wall cabling are two types of installation option for mortise locks.
Such types of locks can be reset anytime to reject any of the devices at any time.
Such type of locks requires memorization of code and a unique way to enter such locks.
Different codes can be used for different codes so its not easy to break the lock.
The length and the number in electronic locks make the guessing the code highly improbable.
This lock also allows your Smartphone to be your key.
The codes that are accepted by such locks can be changed anytime without the need of rekeying redoing the system.
This is some of the types and characteristic of Electronic Locks. We know that there is lots of thing that need to consider when you are examing electronic locks. So to discern yourself with what you need Qilocks, Best Locker and Lock Manufacturer provide such information. If you need further information, or have any inquiry regarding locks and lockers, then feel free to contact us.


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