In our individual Czech for Foreigners courses we teach on base of English, French, German, Italian, Russian or direct method.
This is an intensive course which is 100% focused on your foreign language needs and designed by our teachers to meet your requirements.
Another option is a semi-individual course or a mini group. Do you have a friend, colleague, schoolmate whith whom you would like to join a course? We will arrange Czech classes for you and you will share the expences for the tuition fee together. You will get a tailored made course for a reasonable price.
Not only the courses of adults but also courses for children, juniors, teenagers and seniors are a part of our offer.
You wish to improve your level of Czech significantly in a short time.
You want to have targeted learning in areas of weakness or areas where you are lacking confidence.
You feel you would benefit from uninterrupted teacher attention.
You want to build a one on one relationship with an experienced teacher.


Globe Aware volunteer vacations in Mexico are 8 days, 7 nights, Sunday to Sunday.
The town of Tepoztlán is famous for the remains of El Tepozteco pyramid temple built on top of the nearby Tepozteco Mountain, as well as for the exotic ice cream flavors prepared by the townspeople. It is located about 60 to 90 minutes away from the Mexico City airport. There are a number of reasons why this town is unique. According to myth it is the birthplace of Quetzalcóatl, the feathered serpent god widely worshipped in ancient Mexico. The town and market are full of quaint restaurants, stores and art galleries and there is never a shortage of delicious food available so just walking around town is quite the experience. You will have the unique opportunity to learn about Mexico through its food. A renowned Mexican chef who is a resident of Tepoztlán will oversee your meals and this is a cultural experience in itself, and you will have the opportunity to take an optional excursion to the market with her and then a cooking class with your fresh market purchases. Other optional activities in the area include an excursion to El Tepozteco temple pyramid and mountain, a visit to the World Heritage Site of the Ex Convento de Tepoztlán, the archeological museum, local ice cream tastings and yoga classes.


It is from the very beginning, in 1982, that attention given to the excellence at all levels is not only a priority but also an integral part of our philosophy. This is why our street furniture is subject to a strict quality control process at all levels. Through design review , meticulous selection of materials and suppliers, manufacturing process and innovating technology, preparation and transportation of your site furnishings, the main criteria will always be the same: no compromise on quality or performance. Also, with our utmost respect for the environment, we use recycled materials (recycled plastic furniture, steel and aluminum furniture, etc). These materials are not only durable but also require little to no maintenance and can be recycled again.
The most important part of the concept of durability is the ability of an element to last for a long time. Equiparc has always focused its efforts to produce ultra resistant site furnishings to resist rigorous and changing climate, to withstand the constant use of the users in the most attended places, to last over time.
These images of the Quartier International de Montréal show the durability of our benches more than 10 years after installation.


Throughout the Western world divorce rates range from about 10% – 50% depending on your country and culture. This does not include the splitting up of people who live together without getting married or emerging divorce rates from marriage equality figures that have not yet been factored into statistics.
Relationships initially go through a two-year honeymoon period where love often conquers emerging difficulties between couples of any age.
Once you get to know someone, however, you may begin to see their foibles, idiosyncrasies and difficult behaviours, so there can at times be a temptation to focus on those, rather than love. This can also happen when you have your first child, do not get enough sleep and become short-tempered.
The habit of 'blaming' emerges, where you each begin to blame the other for the difficulties within the relationship.
The first is poor communication, where you talk over each other and fail to listen to or understand what the other person is trying to tell you. You may even start to block out your partner's communication most or all of the time.
The second cause is a lack of respect and consideration for what the other person needs from life, the relationship and what support they need from you.
There is no 'made to order' partner that fits perfectly with your agenda.
People and their needs change, so you must be prepared to change and help cater for your partner's changing needs, as well as your own.
Unfortunately, schools do not teach people to have good, loving and lasting relationships, which is bizarre really because your relationships are a major part of your adult life.
You may also not have had parents who knew how to execute wholesome, respectful, loving relationships, which meant they could and did not teach you those skills.
So, to rescue a failing relationship, you need to learn how to drive the vehicle called 'the relationship' by increasing your skills to communicate and negotiate within the relationship.
Yes, it begins with you.
Then both of you as a couple need to learn to communicate better in a respectful way.
I help couples make their relationship work in a loving, wholesome and practical way in my clinic in Sydney or by Skype internationally.
If you need help in making your relationship work, call my clinic on 02 8021 6429 to book an appointment.


The scarab beetle Dyscinetus laevipunctatus Bates, 1888 (Dynastinae, Cyclocephalini) is recorded for the first time in an aquatic habitat. Specimens of D. laevipunctatus were found submerged in association with water hyacinth, Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.), at several localities in the state of Tabasco, Mexico. These findings indicate that Dyscinetus spp. may be a broader facultatively aquatic group of species than previously realized by aquatic entomologists.


text:
Positive Partnerships
MOM Center Has a New Home
The Chamber welcomes MOM Center Executive Director Rhonda Dickson and staff at a ribbon cutting for their new location at 107 S. Milam.
MOM Center is a women's educational resource center.
MOM Center's mission is to educate and empower women and families with the skills necessary to break the cycle and effects of dysfunctional parenting, abuse and neglect.
MOM Center Receives Sisterhood for Good Award
MOM Center Receives Local Grant
107 S. Milam St.
M-Th: 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Other hours by appointment
Content © 2017 MOM Center | Privacy Policy | Website by Aaron Talley

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


My friend, Sue, gave me these wonderful hand-dyed fabric squares to make this quilt to display the pins I get from the quilt shows I go to. I think she came up with a wonderful idea.
Of course, you can see I have lot more quilt shows to go to to fill this thing!! I really like that I have someplace to display my ribbons too. My second place ribbon from two years ago has just been sitting in drawer. How did I hang that you ask? I used the new magnetic hanging system I picked up at the AQS quilt show this summer.
You don't have to put any holes in the wall at all! It uses the 3M command strips and a very powerful magnet.
Then attach some metal to the wood stick your going to use in the sleeve or you could use a metal rod. It is just amazing how well it holds up your quilt. I can't wait to try it on some other quilts throughout the house.
I enjoyed quilting this project, on the squares I did a mindless horizontal stitch. I say mindless because I did not worry about keeping my lines straight. Talk about stress free quilting!! Then on the border I did some fun stitches from my machine.
This is a great idea-I have soo many scraps to make something to display the pins! Thanks for the info on the magnetic hangers too.


Discount – allows you to create discounts for a specific period of time. You can use this as a price point initiative and increase sales. Everyone loves the thought of discounts, this will entice customers to grab a chance to save on $$ and buy your course. You can set the % discount from the base price, and set the period of when the discount starts and ends.
Bulk Discount – you can offer volume discounts of your modules and courses, most authors in the Marketplace set theirs with price breaks at 25, 50, 100 and 200 units. Though you can set the range as you see fit, you can start at 10, 20 and followed by 50. This way, your targets are encourage to buy more because they are rewarded for their bulk purchase.


The Orlimar Golf Sport Trophy Wedge features a classically designed tear drop shape. A handsome brushed-satin finish minimizes glare. Large grooves provide unmatched spin from tight lies and bunkers.
If you have any questions about this product by Orlimar, contact us by completing and submitting the form below. If you are looking for a specif part number, please include it with your message.


text:
Q: how to make auto slideshow?

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this is the html code for the auto slider.
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how do I make auto slider using these as I've tried jquery but still unable to resolve the issue.

A: There are hundreds of JQuery plugins that do these sort of things  - take a look.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Bitcoin buying and selling operation process
Bitcoin buying and selling operation process_how to use Bitcoin
Bitcoin online
Written by Bitcoin buying and selling operation process on 1/11/2021 .
TaTaTu founder and CEO Andrea Iervolino, Italian HollBitcoin onlineywood film producer and entrepreneur. At only 30 years old, he is considered the most prominent Italian Hollywood film producer in the history of film and one of the most influential figures in Hollywood. Andrea Iervolino, AlPacino and Barry Levinson won the best producer award at the 71st Venice Film Festival. In addition, he and James Franco won the Best Producer Award at the 77th Venice Film Festival. As the producer of the movie "The Battle Undecided", he was named the Film Producer of the Year at the 2016 Capri Hollywood Film Festival.
But due to market demand, he thinks ETFs will come sooner or later. Based on this, he predicted that future institutional investors will be divided into two types. One is that investors who truly understand the Bitcoin technology and directly hold the currency can enjoy all the advantages of holding the currency and truly achieve financial independence. The other type of investor can only access Bitcoin through financial instruments.
LeoWeese: He did trigger a wide range of discussions. It's a big deal because it puts cryptocurrencies on the path of legalization, because people expect companies like Facebook to have a clear plan and a clear strategy for encryption. Currency enters the public's field of vision more legally and reasonably, and a large number of copies or imitates will follow.
l One difference is that when all users in the same channel agree to exit, the status channel can exit immediately. For example, if Alice and Bob both agree to close a channel and get their funds back, they can get their assets back immediately. This is not possible on Plasma. In Plasma, users must wait for a period of time before logging out.
The EOS operating system promises to allow developers to build decentralized applications—similar to Ethereum—it can achieve commercial scalability. The project's white paper states that the software includes accounts, authentication, databases, asynchronous communications, and applications across multiple CPU cores or clusters.
"There was a lot of debate during the roundtable. We are all people with different ideas. Those who have other ideas may not believe in reality. They put their heads in the sand and only believe in what they want." BTCC Exchange And the COO of the mining pool, Samson Mow, is one of the initiators of the Hong Kong Consensus Conference. He has been negotiating the parties to put down disputes Bitcoin onlineduring the meeting.
Jimmy Scott's lawyer Joshua Radbod also said that Jimmy Scott's behavior complied with the law, and according to DFW's historical records, no user's transaction totaled more than $10,000 that day. The attorney printed out five transactions in the transaction record, including three transactions between Spencer, FrankSenatry and Francus Seenra. Transaction records show that these 3 records are related to 3 different Bitcoin wallets. But Spencer emphasized that he only has one Bitcoin wallet address, and two federal prosecutor witnesses and wallet screenshots can also prove his statement.
The biggest feature of Bitcoin is decentralization, but it is used as a gimmick by many digital currencies, making this decentralization cultism sweep the entire blockchain industry. In this regard, what I want to say is that decentralization is only a means to achieve the purpose of anti-censorship. If you want to break certain strict rules, then the superficial network decentralization is not enough. If you want to disrupt the dental industry, then decentralization is obviously not a good recipe.
Bitcoin (and other blockchain-based assets) is essentially a decentralized network that is used to generate trust in places where there is no trust, so in essence it also has other large-scale distributed networks like cities Highly flexible. It evolved through the overall actions of its members/miners, who decided to run and support the style of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is only the first version of this decentralized control concept, so there are still centralization and other problems. This is due to the naivety of its first birth, but it has shown the hope of transforming the economy from a forest into a network group.
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Copyright:Bitcoin buying and selling operation process © Copyright www.njbistro.com. All Rights Reserved.


for Laser and Inkjet Printers, 2" x 4"
Take a step towards helping the planet while labeling parcels and packages with Avery® EcoFriendly Shipping labels. You can count on the same high-quality Avery® label while still doing your part to help the environment. Label paper and packaging are made of 100% recycled material and printed using environmentally-friendly, soy and vegetable based inks derived from renewable materials rather than solvent-based inks.
Take a step towards helping the planet while labeling parcels and packages with Avery® EcoFriendly Shipping labels. You can count on the same high-quality Avery® label while still doing your part to help the environment. Label paper and packaging are made from 100% recycled material and printed using environmentally-friendly, soy and vegetable based inks derived from renewable materials rather than solvent-based inks. Labels are processed chlorine free to help cut down on harmful substances associated with the manufacturing process and use a 100% water-based permanent adhesive. All Avery® EcoFriendly labels, packaging and paper waste can be recycled to help you or your office do your part to leave a smaller footprint.


I stumbled upon this quote yesterday and found it very sobering in light of American history and the way our culture is heading down a godless track toward becoming a society of people determined to create and kow-tow to their own various codes of ethics.
"All you have to do is look to the public school system to see how the *mandated* absence of God has affected morality. Not to mention, morality is being redefined every second.
We've all been around children whose parents allow them to set their own standards for behavior. That's where I think America is heading, and it's toward a major disaster. That's the problem…we're not just human robots, capable of falling into a reliable set of "virtues". From our early childhood we stumble and fall into trouble time and time again. If left to our own devices we're pathetically headed down a dead end road of unhappiness and selfish ambitions. Where's the morality there? Is it good for society? Doubtful.
There has to be a standard. I believe that God created us, and that life is precious and should be protected according to His Biblical mandates. If evolution is correct, and we're all some highly-evolved species of animal, then that same life devalues pretty quickly according to whoever happens to be calling the shots (Hitler? Stalin?).
Good grief. When I get going, I really get going. But honestly, this type of reasoning inflames me, when it should just move me to compassion. The sad thing is, no matter how many comment wars we engage in, I probably am not going to make a dent in their convictions. I wonder how big of a difference we actually can make online, when so much depends upon our words and no real-life interaction. That being said, who am I to limit God and His ability to work however He so chooses?
In the meantime, may God have mercy on America.
What a day. My husband's sister and her husband and three little ones live just down the country road from us. Today, their beautiful two-story 100 year old farm house burned to the ground. Firefighters are speculating that it started in the basement, but no one knows for sure. Thankfully my sister-in-law had just left the house to take her son to preschool, and my father-in-law, who works nearby, happened to see smoke and drove over to investigate.
You never know what the day holds. Our guys have been fighting fires every other night this week it seems like. High winds and fires don't mix, let me tell you. My brother-in-law's last words to my sister-in-law this morning when he left home for work were, "Call me if there's a fire…" See, he's a volunteer firefighter, just like my hubby. He'll drop everything and head home to help the local crew if there's a need. Today it was his house.
Please pray for them. They do have insurance, and a fire box protected all their important papers. God is good, and His hand was all over this situation, protecting and providing. Still, not a walk in the park.
In October she got a splinter in her foot from sliding down in our hallway–in sock feet even. Evidently there was a slivered section in our wood floor–argh! I got out an immense one-inch sliver here at home, and took her to the doctor to have him dig around for the rest of it. He thought he got it all. About a month later, she developed two purplish cysts further down on the bottom of her foot. So back to the doctor we went. Second painful experience with the doctor. He lanced the cysts and drained them, didn't see anything to worry about. Hmm.
When the cysts refilled, we took her two different places. First to a podiatrist who ran a lot of expensive tests. A sonogram finally showed us that she still had over an inch long splinter in her foot. He recommended surgery.
For a more natural approach, we went to a Chiropractor who practices applied kinesiology and prescribes nutritional whole food supplement regimens. She assured us over and over that leaving the splinter in would be no big deal. It was walled off, encapsulated in the cysts, and this doc thought our daughter's body was putting up a big enough fight against it on her own. So she put our daughter on a rigorous nutritional supplement routine to build her immune system up.
Still, that's one big splinter and we weren't feeling led strongly either way. So we kept asking for our friends and family to pray for wisdom and scheduled the surgery eight weeks out. Buying decision making time, essentially. I kept thinking about how sometimes you just have to step out and trust God to shut the door if you're making the wrong move.
So this last Tuesday we had our second pre-op appointment, this time with the podiatrist. He went over the what-to-expects of surgery and we left feeling very unsettled. First, he didn't think the hospital would allow one of us to stay with our daughter during surgery. Ha. Did they really think they could keep us out? Yeah right. Second, the anesthesia plan was to use general anesthesia, which means the whole tube in her throat route and someone pumping oxygen into her at the bedside. Oh, and he kept emphasizing that we would have no idea how she would react to the anesthetic, and talked about the possibility of death…right in front of our 7 year old!
Now, hubby was really getting second thoughts. Of the two of us, he'd been more inclined to choosing surgery. So he lined me out to make several phone calls to "trusted medical" friends…translated: they have the same natural philosophy that we do, while yet being well versed in the medical field. These people all advised us against surgery. They felt the scar tissue and nerve damage weren't worth the risk, especially as the splinter isn't causing our daughter any pain whatsoever.
So we're following their advice. One of them was the MD that delivered our first two girls. She left the family practice clinic to pursue alternative health. Would you believe that she told me a story of a girl who stepped on a toothpick, and after digging around on the girl's foot a few times, they decided to let it be. A few months passed and the toothpick worked its way out the top of the girl's foot.
Thank you all for your prayers and for all your previous comments and emails concerning our daughter's situation. We'd appreciate continued prayers for protection and eventual resolution of this stubborn splinter!


text:
Subgroups of Temperament Associated with Social–Emotional Difficulties in Infants with Early Signs of Autism
the AICES Team, Boutrus, M. & Whitehouse, A. J. O., Dec 2020, In : Autism Research. 13, 12, p. 2094-2101 8 p.
Subject positions in screening mammography and implications for informed choice
Seaman, K., Dzidic, P. L., Castell, E., Saunders, C. & Breen, L. J., 14 May 2020, In : Psychology and Health.
Submerged Carbonate Banks Aggregate Pelagic Megafauna in Offshore Tropical Australia
Bouchet, P. J., Letessier, T. B., Caley, M. J., Nichol, S. L., Hemmi, J. M. & Meeuwig, J. J., 30 Jun 2020, In : Frontiers in Marine Science. 7, 530.
Submergence tolerance and recovery in Lotus: Variation among fifteen accessions in response to partial and complete submergence
Di Bella, C. E., Kotula, L., Striker, G. G. & Colmer, T. D., Jun 2020, In : Journal of Plant Physiology. 249, 153180.
flooding tolerance
Lotus glaber
Submission, Senate Select Committee on the Aboriginal Flag
McCutcheon, J., 16 Sep 2020, (Unpublished) Australia. 4 p.
Research output: Book/Report › Other output
Submission to commonwealth Attorney General on the Religious Discrimination Bill - Second Exposure Draft
Barker, R., 29 Jan 2020
Sub-National Climate Duties - Addressing Three Challenges
Umbers, L., 28 Jun 2020, Climate Justice and Non-State Actors : Corporations, Regions, Cities, and Individuals. Moss, J. & Umbers, L. (eds.). 1 ed. Routledge
Suboptimal asthma care: Lessons from Australia and a way forward
Schultz, A., le Souef, P. & Barwick, M., Jan 2020, In : Respirology. 25, 1, p. 45-46 2 p.
Substantial blue carbon in overlooked Australian kelp forests
Filbee-Dexter, K. & Wernberg, T., 1 Dec 2020, In : Scientific Reports. 10, 1, 12341.
Substrate stabilisation and small structures in coral restoration: State of knowledge, and considerations for management and implementation
Ceccarelli, D. M., McLeod, I. M., Bostrom-Einarsson, L., Bryan, S. E., Chartrand, K. M., Emslie, M. J., Gibbs, M. T., Rivero, M. G., Hein, M. Y., Heyward, A., Kenyon, T. M., Lewis, B. M., Mattocks, N., Newlands, M., Schläppy, M-L., Suggett, D. J. & Bay, L. K., Oct 2020, In : PLoS One. 15, 10 October, e0240846.
SUB-urothelial DUrvalumab InjEction-1 (SUBDUE-1) - A clinical trial for the novel administration of immunotherapy for bladder cancer
Moe, A. & Hayne, D., Mar 2020, In : BJU International. 125, p. 20-21 2 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Abstract/Meeting Abstract
Success criteria for commodity exchanges
Roche, J., Jul 2020, In : African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. 15, 2, p. 127-139 12 p.
Successful surgical repair of a full-thickness intramuscular muscle belly rupture of pectoralis major
Green, C. J., Wang, A., Henderson, J., Ebert, J. & Edwards, P., Mar 2020, In : JSES International. 4, 1, p. 91-94 4 p.
Successful treatment-free remission in chronic myeloid leukaemia and its association with reduced immune suppressors and increased natural killer cells
Irani, Y. D., Hughes, A., Clarson, J., Kok, C. H., Shanmuganathan, N., White, D. L., Yeung, D. T., Ross, D. M., Hughes, T. P. & Yong, A. S. M., 1 Nov 2020, In : British Journal of Haematology. 191, 3, p. 433-441 9 p.
Leukemia, Myelogenous, Chronic, BCR-ABL Positive
Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells
Successful use of an artificial placenta–based life support system to treat extremely preterm ovine fetuses compromised by intrauterine inflammation
Usuda, H., Watanabe, S., Saito, M., Ikeda, H., Koshinami, S., Sato, S., Musk, G. C., Fee, E., Carter, S., Kumagai, Y., Takahashi, T., Takahashi, Y., Kawamura, S., Hanita, T., Kure, S., Yaegashi, N., Newnham, J. P. & Kemp, M. W., 4 May 2020, In : American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Life Support Systems
Success of dental implant osseointegration in a florid cemento-osseous dysplasia: A case report with 8-year follow-up
Shadid, R. & Kujan, O., 4 Sep 2020, In : Clinics and practice. 10, 3, p. 62-65 4 p., 1281.
Florid cemento-osseous dysplasia
Mandible
Sucrose fatty acid esters: synthesis, emulsifying capacities, biological activities and structure-property profiles
Teng, Y., Stewart, S. G., Hai, Y. W., Li, X., Banwell, M. G. & Lan, P., 4 Aug 2020, In : Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition.
Sudden visual loss: A not so simplex case
Sampson, M. C. R., O'Brien, D. M. P., Manley, D. E., Ford, D. T. J., Warne, D. R. R., Hazelton, D. B. & Bowen, A. C., 1 Mar 2020, In : Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. 56, 3, 1 p.
Sugar Profiling of Honeys for Authentication and Detection of Adulterants Using High-Performance Thin Layer Chromatography
Islam, M. K., Sostaric, T., Lim, L. Y., Hammer, K. & Locher, C., 13 Nov 2020, In : Molecules (Basel, Switzerland). 25, 22
Suicidality in men
Baker, S. T. E., Nicholas, J., Batterham, P. J., Shand, F., Fogarty, A., Green, R., Dudgeon, P., Calma, T. & Christensen, H., 2020, In : Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.
Suicide is About Life
Stritzke, W. & Page, A., 2020, Alternatives to Suicide: Beyond Risk and Toward a Life Worth Living . Page, A. & Stritzke, W. (eds.). 1 ed. London: Academic Press, p. 3-16
Sulfide emplacement and migration in the nova-bollinger Ni-Cu-Co deposit, Albany-Fraser Orogen, Western Australia
Barnes, S. J., Taranovic, V., Miller, J. M., Boyce, G. & Beresford, S., Dec 2020, In : Economic Geology. 115, 8, p. 1749-1776 28 p.
Sulfidization of 3.48 billion-year-old stromatolites of the Dresser Formation, Pilbara Craton: Constraints from in-situ sulfur isotope analysis of pyrite
Baumgartner, R. J., Caruso, S., Fiorentini, M. L., Van Kranendonk, M. J., Martin, L., Jeon, H., Pagès, A. & Wacey, D., 5 Apr 2020, In : Chemical Geology. 538, 119488.
sulfur isotope
craton
Summary for clinicians: Clinical practice guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of community-acquired pneumonia
Jones, B. E., Herman, D. D., Cruz, C. S. D., Waterer, G. W., Metlay, J. P., Ruminjo, J. K. & Thomson, C. C., 2020, In : Annals of the American Thoracic Society. 17, 2, p. 133-138 6 p.
Summerlands, Sebald, and the interface between image and text
Sasnaitis, F., 2020, (Unpublished)
suPAR Surprises as a Biomarker of Invasive Outcomes in Pleural Infection
Idell, S. & Lee, Y. C. G., 15 Jun 2020, In : American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. 201, 12, p. 1470-1472 3 p.
Superior anchoring of sodium polysulfides to the polar C2N 2D material: A potential electrode enhancer in sodium-sulfur batteries
Sajjad, M., Hussain, T., Singh, N. & Larsson, J. A., 3 Nov 2020, In : Langmuir. 36, 43, p. 13104-13111 8 p.
sodium sulfur batteries
polysulfide
Polysulfides
Superior performance of modified pitch-based adsorbents for cyclic methane storage
Mirzaei, S., Ahmadpour, A., Shahsavand, A., Rashidi, H. & Arami-Niya, A., Apr 2020, In : Journal of Energy Storage. 28, 101251.
Superior sensitivity of metal functionalized boron carbide (BC3) monolayer towards carbonaceous pollutants
Naqvi, S. R., Hussain, T., Gollu, S. R., Luo, W. & Ahuja, R., 15 May 2020, In : Applied Surface Science. 512, 145637.
Monolayers
boron carbides
Super-Pangenome by Integrating the Wild Side of a Species for Accelerated Crop Improvement
Khan, A. W., Garg, V., Roorkiwal, M., Golicz, A. A., Edwards, D. & Varshney, R. K., Feb 2020, In : Trends in Plant Science. 25, 2, p. 148-158 11 p.
gene pool
wild relatives
Supplementary Calcium Restores Peanut (Arachis hypogaea) Growth and Photosynthetic Capacity Under Low Nocturnal Temperature
Song, Q., Liu, Y., Pang, J., Wan Hong Yong, J., Chen, Y., Bai, C., Gille, C., Shi, Q., Wu, D., Han, X., Li, T., Siddique, K. H. M. & Lambers, H., 21 Jan 2020, In : Frontiers in Plant Science. 10, 15 p., 1637.
Supporting healthy lifestyle changes for type 2 diabetes prevention among young Aboriginal people in a remote Western Australian town
Seear, K., 2020, (Unpublished)
Delivery of Health Care
Supporting strategic processes can improve time-based prospective memory in the laboratory among older adults with HIV disease
Woods, S. P., Morgan, E. E., Loft, S., Matchanova, A., Verduzco, M. & Cushman, C., Mar 2020, In : Neuropsychology. 34, 3, p. 249-263 15 p.
Episodic Memory
Supporting the health of trans patients in the context of Australian general practice
Strauss, P., Winter, S., Cook, A. & Lin, A., Jul 2020, In : Australian journal of general practice. 49, 7, p. 401-405 5 p.
Suppression of amino acid and oligopeptide mineralization by organic manure addition in a semiarid environment
Iqbal, S., Jones, D. L., Arif, M. S., Yasmeen, T., Xu, J., Khan, S. & Nadir, S., 1 Sep 2020, In : Land Degradation & Development. 31, 15, p. 1915-1925 11 p.
Supralittoral pseudoscorpions of the genus Garypus (Pseudoscorpiones: Garypidae) from the Indo-West Pacific region, with a review of the subfamily classification of Garypidae
Harvey, M. S., Hillyer, M. J., Carvajal, J. I. & Huey, J. A., 10 Feb 2020, In : Invertebrate Systematics. 34, 1, p. 34-87 54 p.
Pseudoscorpiones
Supramolecular and Hybrid Bonding Polymers
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text:
SportChevron Right IconAFL
Bombers brace for red-hot Swans at SCG
Justin Chadwick and Anna Harrington
Published: 07/04/2021 Updated: Wednesday, 7 April 2021 7:00 PM GMT+10
Essendon's away form will be tested when they take on high-flying Sydney at the SCG. Credit: AAP
Essendon coach Ben Rutten hopes the lessons learned from his team's thumping loss to Port Adelaide will serve them well when they take on red-hot Sydney at the SCG on Thursday night.
The Bombers breathed life into their AFL season last week with a thumping 75-point win over St Kilda.
Confidence at Essendon is riding high after that win but the Bombers are set to receive a far sterner test when they take on the Swans, who have defied the doubters to produce a stunning 3-0 start to the season.
Stream Seven's coverage of AFLW for free on 7plus >>
Premiership fancies Richmond and Brisbane are among Sydney's victims, with the Swans easily eclipsing the 100-point mark in all three of their games this year.
Thursday's game away from home shapes as somewhat of a litmus test for the Bombers - similar to their round-two clash with the Power in Adelaide.
Essendon gave up the first five goals of the match that day in a 54-point loss, and Rutten hopes his team will put on a far better performance this time around.
"They're going as well as any team in the comp," Rutten said.
"To be able to go up to Sydney - if we think back to round two, we went over to Port Adelaide and again, similar situation - playing away against a team in good form.
"(Against Port Adelaide) we didn't start great at all, we gave up five goals pretty quickly.
"So that'll be a big focus for us, to start well but our guys are looking forward to another opportunity to go and travel and play against a really good team."
Sydney have been boosted by the return of star forward Lance Franklin, while the injury-hit Bombers welcome back skipper Dyson Heppell.
Franklin replaces fellow big Hayden McLean, but midfielder James Rowbottom (knee) wasn't deemed ready for an AFL return.
Heppell comes in for the injured Mason Redman (hamstring).
The Swans' rising crop of youngsters have played a key role in the team's hot form but they're not getting carried away just yet.
Sydney midfielder Callum Mills said his team would be wary of an Essendon side that piled on 22 goals against the Saints last week.
"They play really exciting footy," Mills said.
"They put up over 140-odd points on the weekend against St Kilda, who are a great side.
"We're going to be wary of that.
"They've got a lot of damaging players that can really hurt you."
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Hello Wendy, welcome to my butterfly blog with your pretty card. I like that image with the one decorated marked eye. Thankyou for coming and spinning the butterfly wheel with me. Hugs Mrs A.
Such a wonderful card! Your coloring is fabulous and I love your layout! The background paper is perfect for this image! Thanks for joining us and good luck with your entry!
Beautiful! Thanks for joining the challenge at Love to Craft Challenge Blog.


I'll take a whack at this one. It's not a question of whether they went down, up, or stayed the same. The problem is, there's no evidence other than your saying so that he is in fact in the middle-of-the pack.
What Jim is pointing out is that the logic that you used to pick him – that you picked him when you thought he was middle-of-the-pack before his sales increased dramatically – doesn't make sense. You picked him then, but were his results – the sales increase – really typical and middle-of-the-pack? Or was that dramatic sales increase really more unusual. That was the point of comparing your pick of David with picking J.K. Rowling. At one point, before Rowling's sales took off, she was "middle-of-the-pack". And then her sales took off (admittedly a great deal more than David's). Are those results typical? In Rowling's case, we know the answer: no. In David's case, it's hard to say, because there isn't enough aggregate data to say.
You're trying to paint a picture that isn't correct by claiming that "typically" doesn't mean majority? It's very "typical" in SFF, Jim's baliwick, for a publisher to bring out the first two to three books in a series within a year, depending on the author's output and readiness. More to the point, the amount of time it takes a publisher to schedule, produce and ship a printed work has very little to do with what's going on in electronic self-publishing.
The 1 in 5 figure is for debuting books, which indeed "typically" don't earn out their advances. Publishers up front the advance credit to first time authors knowing they probably won't get that one back but hoping to eventually make it up and more on the back end as the author they're investing in grows an audience and creates an income making backlist. That's a large part of why first book advances, when there is an advance, are low on average and have remained low. But mid-list authors with books under their belt who aren't getting that audience increase and earning out won't be on the list for long. Your numbers here would crash the non-fiction market, a marketing dependent area where books are more likely to earn out than the more uncertain fiction market, where book sales are driven by word of mouth and luck as much as anything else.
Which again is the point I'm making that you keep ignoring or trying to slant away from. Comparing two random authors' book sales, and in particular an author who is working with a publisher mostly in print to an author doing electronic self-publishing — both of them having completely different business relationships and payment systems and circumstances and novels — has no value as information whatsoever.
It seems very likely that it may become common for publishers to start a lot of debuting authors out in electronic publishing first, adding print later, just as they now often start them in mass market paperback until they build up enough of an audience to merit trying a trade paper or hardcover edition. A number of romance publishers have in fact been doing this for awhile, so if you absolutely had to compare somebody, it would have made a lot more sense to do it between an author who is working with a publisher and publishing only electronically and someone self-publishing electronically. But even there, all you'd really be saying is that some authors make decent money out of it self-publishing, which we already knew. That didn't require using Jim as a whipping boy, a guy who is incredibly nice, very supportive of the promotional efforts of other authors, and who was generous about sharing sales information — a habit I told him he should drop and this is a perfect example of why.
And to David Dalglaish — my apologies for dragging you in peripherally, I wish you continued success.
I'm going to disagree with this assertion here. As an aspiring author looking toward the future and anticipating making a future decision about whether to try to shop my works with a traditional publisher or cut to the chase and self e-pub, there is value in understanding the different expectations of what can be achieved via the different possible routes.
Understanding what an average result from either path is would be incredibly pertinent to me and many others.
I wanted to chime in here because there seems to be this misconception in these arguments that if you're 'FOR' Indie publishing (or vice versa) that you're against Traditionals and they are the evil empire.
For the record, I have followed Robin and I have never seen her downgrade or dismiss trad publishers.
Just because Indie publishing seems to have its advantages (and disadvantages) over trad publishing doesn't make it an Us vs. Them. As it has been stated already, that gets very tiresome.
I'm in agreement with most of what Robin has posted, but David Dalglish is not "middle of the pack" in terms of indie authors. Making over $10,000 a month means you're probably in the top 1%.
Then again, David hasn't been at this very long (a little more than a year) and ebooks are continuing to gain market share, so it's amazing to see what can be achieved not through luck but by hard work and some intelligence. I've seen estimates that say ebooks are 23% of the fiction market right now and a B&N exec recently predicted they'll be at least 50% of overall book sales in two roughly years. I fully expect David's sales numbers to continue to grow at a remarkable rate.
Here's what I think doesn't get said enough. If you take the whole sample of indie authors, David is very much an outlier. But if you take the number of authors who take indie publishing very seriously (good books, good covers, good promotion, etc.), David's still near the top, but the pool is much, much smaller.
Personally, I think any new author who has some talent, a strong work ethic, and who takes the business side of publishing very seriously, has roughly a 50% chance of making at least a decent living as an indie. And that's probably a much higher percentage than is true with traditional publishing right now. I think Robin is absolutely right to point out the viability of indie publishing, even and perhaps especially for first-time authors–as long as they have the temperament to be both publisher and writer.
People can ask for more data, and who wouldn't like to have more data, but if you pay close attention to indie publishing (I can say that I do), you'll find that many, many authors are having significant financial success. The thing is that not many indies take publishing seriously enough, and of course they're going to fail.
I do think the best purely financial move for most new authors today is with indie publishing (again, only if they're cut out for it), but traditional publishing offers many other benefits. I don't think money is one of those competitive benefits, though, at least not for most new authors.
Thanks for hosting a good discussion, Jim.
And that would be spiffy if you were selling beer, as Margaret Atwood points out. But for fiction publishing where you are selling individual novels that all sell primarily through word of mouth, it's not, not the least because electronic self publishing, electronic publishing and print publishing are not three separate types or formats, but three completely different industries with different business arrangements, all of which are shifting around. You could boil down a potential average income for fiction authors — and it will be far lower than you probably expect it to be — but there's no way to know if you'd hit under or over it or around it until you are out in the market. A good number of authors working with publishers will sell in the neighborhood of 10,000-40,000 copies, but that another author is in that range does not mean that you will be. There are no guarantees of sales and while publishers make estimated guesses, nobody actually knows what will happen with a book. J.K. Rowling's publisher believed in her book and acquired the license, but they paid her a low four figures advance — which was credit for her based on what they thought she'd likely make, and told her to keep her day job. Amanda Hocking wandered into self-publishing to try and earn $2,000 for a vacation trip. Her sales took off not because she promoted like crazy but because of word of mouth.
Once an author has established sales, it's easier to estimate what sales on other books are likely to be. But as authors like Jim and Bucknell will tell you, their books don't all sell at the same rates. For non-fiction, which has actually always been the backbone of self-publishing, it's a lot easier to estimate. You can look at what diet books tend to sell at and be reasonably sure that you might sell in that ballpark then because that's the market for that information. But stories in the market is pure gambling.
So there's no point in approaching the question like that. Instead, you need to look at whether the different options for getting your product to market will work for your life, for what you want to do. Working with publishers gives you someone who will pay you for the license, pay for the upfront costs of print and widespread electronic conversion, etc., and distribute your books into bookstores, which is a wider market than Amazon's Kindle. But if you can sell to thousands of Kindle owners electronically, that may be more than sufficient and it's faster. But you will not have a team working for you with vendors and the leverage of a full list of authors and Amazon is making a mint off of these authors for essentially doing very little. It's not really how much will I earn — a question no one can answer — but what specifically do I want and am able to do, what would work for my particular project best, etc. Most authors are probably going to end up with a mix.
With about 3 weeks to go before I finish an MBA (I know creatives hate MBAs… but I'm a creative with an MBA, and I have to say it helps to understand things from that perspective), I hate to tell you this statement is wholly and entirely false. These are absolutely all part of the same industry – an electronic book and a physical book meet the same consumer needs. They do so in slightly different ways, and with slightly different combinations of attributes. All that means is that they are propogated through different channels. Some consumers will prefer the electronic channel, some the physical channel, and for different reasons. But that doesn't mean they are separate industries. That's like saying DVD rentals at Blockbuster and Netflix instant downloads are in different industries. If that were the case, Blockbuster wouldn't be going bankrupt right now.
Also, your assertion that having a statistical analysis won't help us in decision making just doesn't make sense, but I suspect you make that assesrtion because you have no understanding of statistics. Certainly you're entitled to your opinion on that, and you're under no obligation to use a statistical analysis in your own decision-making, but for me as someone who does understand statistics, I definitely would find it useful as a decision-making tool.
Of course, no, I can't tell exactly where in the distribution I'll actually end up. What I can do is make a reasonable judgement on where in that distribution I will probabalistically end up. If, for instance, the distribution follows the recognizeable bell-curve, there is a 98% probability that my results will fall within a certain range. If I know what that range looks like for one option versus another option, and if the ranges for the two options are meaningfully different, that definitely would be useful in making a decision between selecting two options. I realize that the two options aren't wholly mutually exclusive, but within a limited fram – i.e. what do I do for this book, they effectively are mutually exclusive. So if, for instance, successfully attaining a publisher is likely to net me much less when releasing my first book – let's say, for argument, by half the net income – than releasing the first book as an e-book online, that would certainly color my perception on which way is worth effort to pursue initially. It needn't be the only factor in my decision making. But having that information definitely can't hurt my decision making. More information is almost always better.
You make a lot of very extreme statements and say things can't be this way or must be that way. It's very similar in nature to the sorts of extremism that the Konrath's of the world are propogating. But that just doesn't reflect reality. "Different strokes for different folks" is one of my favorite sayings – some of us like and use data. Just because you don't like or use data doesn't mean it won't be of use or interest to those of us who do.
That's not what I meant. They are all part of the book publishing industry and the e-books overlap with the electronics industry. But they are operating under entirely different procedures, not the least of which is because print is a physical object that has to be made, stored in a physical location and shipped for distribution, and e-books are electronic files that have to be assembled and proofed, are stored in databases and downloaded. Print has an entire consignment distribution, sales and accounting system — one of the main reasons big publishers give authors advances — all of which is completely irrelevant for the e-books except for publishers managing print and e-book editions together in terms of releases and pricing. For this reason, e-books require an additional accounting system and different procedures. Self-publishing authors have completely different business arrangements with e-book vendors than publishers do, are selling in fewer places and sometimes from their own website. For e-books, publishers have to deal with vendors who are just selling e-books, others selling both print and e-books, some acting as a wholesaler or acting as a retailer, are electronics firms with loading devices or book companies with devices or no device but a sales platform for the e-book files to multi-devices, etc. E-book royalties are not at all standardized as the retail industry is new and was previously just a sub rights market, and are effected by different e-book vendors and contract negotiations with authors and vendors that are going on now. Self-publishing is usually mostly e-books, only doing a few titles, and with less variety of vendors who are acting as electronic printers, so the contracts are different and the terms are different. So they are separate businesses within the same industry that operate differently.
I would love it if more authors learned more about the industry in which they are trying to operate and were more business-like about it, especially before they go making claims about industry stuff they don't even know how to define correctly. But instead, they just try to view it as like some other business they're more familiar with, like music, movies, selling videos or beer that are incorrect. And most new authors ask the newbie question that you asked — how much on average can I make as an author, published author, self-publishing author? The answer to that question is, again, that we don't know. That you could statistically map every other fiction author's sales if you could get the data, and it still won't tell you what your sales for your novels will be in the marketplace, whichever version of the marketplace you go for. Knowing what Jim's sales are doesn't help you determine what sort of deal you might be offered by a publisher, how long it's going to take for a print book to be released except that it's longer than just an e-book, how much editing the publisher will be working through with you, what your subsidiary rights situation will be, how many copies print or electronic you'll sell, what your return numbers will be for print, whether Amazon will agree to co-op advertising with your publisher for your title, what the word of mouth will be, etc. Likewise, if you self-publish, that someone did really well selling on Barnes & Noble doesn't mean that you will. Or you may do way, way better than that person.
Royalties — the author's cut for supplying the product and doing promotion — for print with a publisher have gotten pretty standardized among the different physical formats and types of vendors, as all the costs are known and the systems in place, though negotiations and changes per deal do go on. So we can tell you what those average royalties are, tell you about escalations, heavily discounted sales riders, sub-rights money splits, and advance pay-out schedules and how royalty statements work and things like reserves against returns. (That's assuming you end up with a publisher who can do advances, which isn't something we can tell you.)We can tell you what Amazon's standard terms are for self-publishing. But tell you how much you'll make? No. What you need to look at first is, do you want to be in print as well as e-books or just e-books? What sort of promotional work do you want to do, can you do, as there are promotional things for print that aren't done for e-books? Have you got time to go searching for an agent? Do you want to get books out in the market right now? If the e-book doesn't sell, it will be harder to get a print deal later. If they sell really well, then you can probably get a reprint deal or a publisher sale for new works, if you want. Do you want to pursue both avenues at once, if you have more than one project available?
1) It's Mr. Watkins, if you please. Not Mr. Watts.
2) I'm well aware that trad-publishing and e-self-pubbing and old-fashioned-self-pubbing are all different business models with different business needs and different business realities and so on and so forth. I don't make the argument that they aren't. I only argue that they're in the same industry. (I also believe it is naive to say that "fiction authors don't compete with each other". Of course they do. Perhaps not in an antagonistic way like most corporations because, after all, they're people and most of them are nice; but the book-buying public will only buy so many books in a year, and every fiction author would love to be the writer of one of the books you buy.) I've heard this lecture ad nauseum, and it's fairly well engrained in my brain, thank you. Within this thread alone it's been spelled out at least thrice.
3) I may be an unpublished writer, but I'm not a "newbie" writer. I've been writing for over twenty years and I've been actively following the industry for the last five. I'm sure I don't have to point out that the use of the word "newbie" in this context can come off sounding just a little offensive. I'm unpublished. I'd prefer I wasn't, and I may never not be, but that I want to be published oughtn't make me or others like me the object of scorn.
4) I do not anywhere ask to know what the averages are. I make a statement as to the usefulness of statistical data in this regard, which includes averages but is not limited to averages. I'm not interested in solitary point-estimates such as the sort that prompted the original posts. I'm interested in full, rich statistical data with distributions, etc. Further, I'm well aware this data doesn't exist – at least, there's no easily reached spreadsheet out there. I'm merely commenting on the potential usefulness of the data, to unpublished writers who are working on writing careers, were it actually to exist. It's impossible to say what the data would tell us without having it available. But if we did have it, it would undoubtedly tell us something, even if that something were as simple as: there's no typical result. It might tell us a whole lot more. It might be that writing incomes follow a very predictable pattern. Your claims about what it can or cannot tell us are made in the entire absence of the data. You can't know what it can or cannot tell us because you don't have the data.
5) Your continued assertions that the statistical data would be of limited or zero worth as a decision making tool, your continued focus only on the reference to "average" and the point estimate comparisons of authors like Jim and David suggests either that your last point is not entirely correct – and you really don't understand statistics – or you're not reading what I'm saying. There's nothing wrong with the former – lots of people don't understand statistics, and that's not a deficiency. Statistics isn't easy to grok. Nor is knowing anything about statistics a reason to gloat, just to be clear. The latter, well… there's nothing I can do about that. If you really are a stats whiz, well, my hats off to you, and my apologies for suggesting you aren't one. But if you really are a stats whiz then I can't understand your insistence that the stats are useless because you would know just how useful the stats would be.
I'm not trying to be offensive (despite the sometimes offensive tone of your posts – even when I was agreeing with you I was cringing at the rather offensive way in which you were saying it, though I wasn't the object of your disagreement). I realize you work in the industry, and you have valuable insights that would be of use to those of us who are looking to break into the industry at some future point. I, for one, am appreciative of how many like yourself are willing to share those insights with the rest of us. But I don't think that entitles you to shut down certain lines of inquiry because you disagree with the premise on which that inquiry was made.
Heh. Sorry about the limits on comment threading here. I need to look into an alternate comment setup.
As things get a bit tense here, I just wanted to check in and ask whether this conversation is going anywhere productive. If so, then by all means please carry on. But if not, it might be time to walk away from this one.
Sorry about that, Jim. My apologies for escalating this, though I'll admit to having been a tad offended, at which point I probably shouldn't have responded at all.
I think you're right, and that's sort of what I was getting at with "I'm not going to convince you how the data would be useful." It was sort of my signal that I realized this discussion wasn't going anywhere.
I believe Ms. Kat and I are at an impasses with respect to our differing opinions on the subject at hand. Hopefully we can just agree to disagree?
That would of course be "impasse", not "impasses".
You mistake frustration for offensiveness. Also, you misunderstood what I said — felt that I was saying they were separate industries — and so I was clarifying in my second post to you. My issue with Ms. Sullivan is that she's using data poorly and at Jim's expense. If you feel, however, that comparing Jim's print sales figures to the other author's e-book sales is going to yield you some sort of useful information about what your own sales figures will be, then go to it. My suggestion was that business issues about what is feasible for you personally and your own particular project in regards to different market approaches, and relevant data like Bucknell's experiment with price points for self-published e-books if you're self-publishing, would be a lot more helpful to you.
My apologies if I misunderstood you. I was only ever trying to demonstrate that certain kinds of data can prove useful to those of us who are considering our options for the future. I agree and have consistently agreed that single point-to-point comparisons between individual authors don't reveal terribly much, and by themselves aren't terribly useful except in advancing a certain narrative. I've been talking about looking at aggregate data. Ideally, aggregate data for the e-pubbing side would include things like the affect of different price-points, genres, the quality of the editing and cover-art, time spent promoting, and so forth, but I realize that much useful data is unrealistic to expect.
On the other question, that of the "different" industries, you did say, and I quote: "electronic self publishing, electronic publishing and print publishing are not three separate types or formats, but three completely different industries with different business arrangements". Inasmuch as that was meant metaphorically or illustratively, I did not catch that, so my apologies there in that case. I realize, of course, that the business realities of each are very different. That's part of why someone like me is so interested in good data that would help expectations for each. Since the work involved is so different, it's not that easy to just decide to do both or to decide how to approach which way to take a career. If there is a dramatic and meaningful difference in expected results, that would be good to know. Otherwise… I'd probably default to the traditional path because that's what I'd always imagined for myself… but I'd want to know if there was something that could reveal that's not the right path for me, afterall.
There is not a dramatic and meaningful difference across the board, no. It's the same sales pyramid. But that doesn't mean that some authors haven't ended up with dramatic sales in self-publishing. There are many issues involved and a lot of circumstances are fluid. For instance, Amazon came up with giving self-published authors a 70% royalty if they would essentially hand over some electronic rights and agree to various conditions as a reaction to accusations that they were taking a very large part of the pie with their price discounts in the business model fight with Macmillan. While it's potentially a good deal for many self-publishing authors, you do need to look at the terms of that deal and Amazon could change it at any time, as Ms. Sullivan pointed out. So if you're thinking about self-publishing, the terms you would have with different vendors — Amazon, Apple, the Nook, etc. — with which you have no leverage to disagree, are something you need to look at, as it's not just self-publishing an e-book, but where are you going to sell the e-book and through which pipes of supply, including selling from your own site, which I suspect is going to become more common.
If you go the publishing route, then you are trying to find a business partner, either by yourself or with the help of an agent who you have persuaded to invest in representing you. That partner, the publisher, will produce a physical print book and pay all costs of that, possibly an e-book, will give you a cash advance if they can and do various outlays pre-sale. The publisher will distribute and ship and handle returns and your contract delineates what you need to do, what the publisher will do and how monies are split. There are a lot of issues about electronic editions, which used to be a subsidiary right and now are a major retail format, so there are a lot of negotiations going on. So if you can get a publisher interested in investing in your work, then it's certainly worth checking out what other authors have managed as their deals with both print and e-book editions, especially bestsellers who have more leverage and their agents, who have leverage because they have a stable full of author clients and contract precedents with publishers. These are business issues that you have to deal with.
See, while I suspect that this may be the case (i.e. regarding the sales distribution), the fact is that no one can legitimately, factually make this claim without support of the data. In other words, this is an expression of your belief about the market. It's possible your belief is correct. I think it probably is. But neither you nor I know this belief is correct because none of us has seen any data to either support nor deny it except in an anecdotal sense. But anecdotal data is not data, it's anecdotes.
So, the details of the business and legal realities of the different market routes notwithstanding – and those details (i.e. the nature of contracts and business partners and investment and who does/is responsible for what and what format the final products takes and which channels it is sold through and what distribution of the revenues is made) may very well be of paramount importance to someone considering a career path in this industry – it's impossible to say with any certainty what's actually going on right now.
If it were true, however, what Konrath and his cheerleaders were saying – that anyone could make a hefty six-figure income doing this – if that were true and the data supported that claim (keeping in mind that I don't believe the data will), well, that could and should be a significant factor in the decision-making process. Even if it were only half-true, that might still put a significant weight on the decision. If, however, as both you and I suspect is really the case the distribution is very similar to or identical to what we'd see in the traditional-pub world, well… that could heavily influence some people's decisions, too. And that's also worth knowing for sure.
Konrath does not advocate some get-rich-quick scheme where any idiot can upload a book and make six-figure income. His general opinion is that most writers will make more money self-publishing than going traditional. It's a bit of a different claim, and he's clarified it several times. Someone who would never get published still might make a few hundred dollars self-publishing. Is his claim correct? Of course. But is it the same as a six-figure deal? Of course not.
Same goes for a writer who'd make a $5,000 advance on a book, and then not get a second book deal, nor earn out the advance. That writer could easily make twice that over two or three years self-publishing. Again, is his hypothesis correct? Yes. Is it six-figure income? No.
Regardless, I'm just as dubious of this claim, without supporting evidence, as I am of any other. I dont' disagree that an individual author can do better – and I don't disagree that there's anecdotal evidence of individual author's doing better. But what does the aggregate data say? We don't know, because there isn't any. So, saying the hypothesis is correct is putting the cart before the horse, so to speak.
And if we're talking the results of the data are that the majority of would-be authors make a couple hundred dollars over their life versus none via traditional publishing – in the grand scheme of things that's as statistically close to 0 as makes no difference.
Okay, so if I'm following you, the fact that both self-publishing and publishing sales data falls into a visible pyramid pattern that publishing has been dealing with for decades is not sufficient. You want to add up all the print fiction sales of all published authors and all the e-book sales of published authors and all the e-book sales of self-published authors and all the print sales of self-published authors, assuming you could ever get such data, and…do what with it exactly? Because there are also distribution, promotional, royalty issues in that mix which are different for each author, not simply published compared to self-published, but between published authors and between self-published authors, and which ultimately don't necessarily control the number of sales per book. Mr. Konrath's circumstances and Mr. Dalglish's circumstances are very different, yet both have sold. Someone like Mr. Dalglish or Mr. Konrath in circumstance might not sell anywhere near their numbers. What's most different, besides things like who they sell through and what terms their business deals are and what sort of distribution you're looking at, is that they write different novels. And if people don't connect with your particular novels and spread word of mouth about you, they don't sell, whether it's published or self-published, however it's distributed, and no matter what anyone else's novels are doing. A lot of it is plain old luck.
Written fiction is an outlier market. Unlike other products, it is almost completely symbiotic, with authors not competing with each other for sales and instead helping each other increase sales by drawing in readers, who browse, and teaming up for promotions; its primary selling tool is uncontrollable and unpredictable word of mouth; it relies on variety which allows for room for many different kinds of fiction. The simple fact is that even if the majority of self-published authors are shown to make X amount of money, in fiction, you may not make that amount of money. It's gambling and there's no house.
So if you're trying to assess your likely prospects on sales data, it's not going to work well in fiction. In non-fiction, yes, as non-fiction is a market that is half-competitive and half-symbiotic in general and very competitive in certain areas because it is offering information. Traditionally, non-fiction has been the backbone of self-publishing. But not fiction. What sales data of individual authors tells us is that there is a decent sized potential market out there for self-published fiction e-books, an audience who may be reached, and so it's a potential option if the terms of self-publishing fit your life and your product. What aggregate sales data tells us is that 1) self-publishing is growing in number of titles and growing in sales, as are published e-books; 2) that the Kindle platform is still the major player in that market though that is likely to change; and 3)that the sales data for fiction authors falls into a pyramid pattern.
If you manage to get a publisher willing to invest in you, you will be dealing with entirely different factors — a different product list, different distribution, different accounting, etc., than self-published e-books. Potentially, you could sell way more in print than e-books, since it is still most of the market. Potentially, you can sell less in e-books but still make the same amount because you're only sharing with Amazon. But that might not happen. Each author has completely different circumstances and a completely different product.
So yeah, claims that everyone is making a six figure income in self-published e-books are bogus. Claims that you can possibly make a six figure income in self-published e-books are clearly true. Claims that self-published e-books always make more for authors than publishing deals, or vice versa, is bogus. Claims that you can know what your sales figures would be for self-publishing on the basis of other authors' sales information are likewise false. But no one is going to stop you from trying. If you can gather the data, quite a few people might like to know it. I don't know what they'd use it for, but they'd probably still want it. You might start with a survey sent to self-publishing authors and see what they're willing to say.


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Late last week the Texas House passed their budget and it is one of the most fiscally irresponsible actions of the legislature in Texas History. Property tax reform is also being significantly watered down this week.
I can guarantee you there is no way that John Zerwas, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, is as irresponsible with his personal finances the way he is with Texas taxpayers.
Raz gives us an update on federal issues and the Jussie Smollett case.
Take 25 minutes to listen to this episode. Share it with fellow Texans on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Youtube. Encourage them to share it with their friends.


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دستورات کروناویروس منجر به افزایش عضویت اشلی مدیسون – Fox Business
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Business is booming for Ashley Madison.
A report published last week shows ashley madison, a matchmaking website for cheating spouses, is doing so well right now because prospective customers' relationships are not, or spouses are at least looking for something else to spice up their lives.
Because people are stuck at home with their spouses during the coronavirus-prompted lockdowns and other restrictions, some are seeking "an outlet" from their daily relationship stress, a company official said.
MILLIONAIRE DATING IN CORONAVIRUS: DATING APP FOR WEALTHY SEES INCREASE IN FAKE PROFILES
"Now with self-isolation a major factor in our lives, virtual affairs are being utilized to fill the gap," said Paul Keable, chief strategy officer for ashley madison, in an interview with InStyle.
The company has been actively posting tweets and sharing blog posts boasting tips for a successful romance. As recently as Monday morning, it was offering advice for "keeping things sexy" as people are stuck indoors as part of the stay-at-home orders issued throughout the country.
SINGLE IN CORONAVIRUS QUARANTINE: VIDEO CHAT REPLACES DINNER AND MOVIE
Keable, told Venture Beat in late March the company is benefitting from the "fractures" in couples' relationships that are likely being "amplified dramatically" as spouses are stuck at home together.
"So, if you're under quarantine or in working from home situations with your spouse and not having [the] respite [of] going into the office and being away, people are going to look at this as an outlet, even if it won't be a physical interaction, at least in the short term," Keable told the outlet, which then provided a transcript of the interview. "But having someone to talk to who's having similar feelings is going to be a relief, and it's potentially going to be of value to a lot of people who are experiencing that."
KIM KARDASHIAN ASKS ZOOM, SNAPCHAT TO JOIN FORCES AGAIN
Paul Keable, ashley madison's spokesman during an interview in Seoul, South Korea, on April 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
The company, known, in part, for its motto, "Life is short. Have an affair," is boasting 17,000 new members per day during COVID-19 pandemic, which is a spike from the 15,500 daily customer additions in 2019, according to the report.
DURING CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN, TINDER SURPASSES BUMBLE, OKCUPID, HINGE DOWNLOADS
"We often hear from our members that they love their spouses, they love their families and the situation they're in, but there's something missing," Keable told the outlet. "We're traditionally told to either suck it up and live without the thing that you want or get a divorce and give up everything you want in search of just one thing. We're creating a third path for people."
ashley madison received roughly 5.6 million new clients in 2019, to make 65 million members, Keable said.
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Such success did not seem possible just years ago, when it was hacked in July 2015.
(ashley madison)
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Canadian police later claimed the hacking led triggered extortion crimes and was suspected to have prompted at least two suicides.
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ashley madison's US users later sued the website claiming negligence, breach of contract and privacy violations. They argued it failed to take reasonable steps to protect the security of its users, including those who paid a special fee to have their information deleted.
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Q: Adjust width of spacer between Mac OS dock icons Many of you might know that it is possible to add a spacer to the Mac OS dock icons with:
$ defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'
$ killall Dock

but the problem is, I find them a bit wide by default. I do understand the size of the space is the same as an actual icon but I'm wondering if anyone knows a way to adjust the space of those spacers
An image of the spacers I'm talking about can be found here

A: I held the same belief, that the spaces were too big. I've researched this rather extensively, and found no way to lessen the gap.
I went in another direction - adding a vertical line instead of a space.

To do this, I created an app in Automator that simply launches the Finder. I called them line1.app and line2.app (for however many lines you want, you need to create a different app).
If you've never used Automator, here is a simple way to create the apps I mentioned.

Using Automator to Create an App

*

*Open Automator.

*Select "New Document" in the lower left.

*Choose a type for your document - Application.

*Find "Launch Application" from the list, and drag it into the workspace on the right.

*Select the Finder app. To do this, you have to go down to "New Variable." It will tell you to select the path. Click the dropdown, and go down to "Other." Do a search for "Finder.app" and select it. Then click "Done."

*Click "Run" in the upper right hand corner, just to make sure it launches the Finder.

*Go to File > Export...

*Name the file and choose a location for it. I picked my Applications folder. Click Save.

*Repeat steps 7 & 8 for as many lines you want, changing the name each time. I kept the names numerical for ease of use. line1.app, line2.app, etc.
Changing the Icon to a Vertical Line

*

*Find or create a vertical line to use. The color of the vertical line separating your folders and apps on the dock is #5d5d64. I just created one from scratch using Photoshop.

*Open the line-graphic in Preview. (Locate it in the Finder, and double-click on it.) Go to Edit > Select All > Copy.

*Locate your apps in the Finder. Right-click on the app, select "Get Info." The icon will be in the upper right. Click on it. The do COMMAND⌘ + V to Paste. Close the "Get Info" window. (You may need to close the Finder and re-open it to see the new icon.)

*Locate your apps in the Finder. Drag them into the Dock.

I like the look of the lines, and if I click on them, they just launch the Finder now.

A: I just tried typing in different things and discovered that "small-spacer-tile" adds a narrow space.
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="small-spacer-tile";}'
killall Dock

Here, a "small-spacer-tile" vs a "spacer-tile":

A: defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'

adds a standard width blank spacer tile, note the lack of small- prefix, while
defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="small-spacer-tile";}'

adds a narrow spacer tile. Note the small- prefix.


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Mayor Walsh wants your creative ideas for City Hall. Let's see what some of our creative thinkers will come up with.
Walsh announced plans to "re-envision" the plaza to make it a more inviting and attractive civic space for residents and visitors during this year's State of the City address in January…The master plan will identify areas for improvements at City Hall and the plaza, including possible public-private ventures, historic considerations and approaches for reuse, according to the solicitation issued by the city's Public Facilities Department. It will look at existing conditions, including land use and zoning, and develop detailed cost estimates for the recommended work and programming.


So, this is going to be a long update. So a lot has happened ovfor the last week and a half. Besides getting put on a new med, we're continuing to lose weight. It's not good. My ED is so freaking loud!!! Amilia keeps leaving notes for me and they're suicide notes. I woke up one evening, and my blood pressure was 67/30. It was not cool. I hate POTS. It does not feel great to get out of the shower and your heart rate be 160. The switching has been rapid and intense. Time loss is a major issue. The crisis center in the next city won't accept us because of our complex medical issues. We're considered a liability because of our blindness.
Going on the 31st to see a rheumatologist to be evaluated for EDS. That's if the insurance doesn't approve the urgent appeal that I got started today for River Oaks Trauma program in Louisiana. We should know within 24 hours.
So, I was outside yesterday and I got this bug bite. It looks more like an allergic reaction.
Going to ask about maybe looking into mast cell activation disorder.
So the insurance company has denied the prior authorization for river oaks in Louisiana. They say that there is not enough clinical information in the authorization for them to approve it. I am going to have to ask my psychiatrist to send in an authorization which is another one for them to approve or deny. If they deny this one, then we don't have anywhere else to turn. We don't have anywhere to go if we are not feeling safe at his new place is more except us at all. Spoke to my therapist earlier, and she got frustrated with me because our conversation was more than five minutes long. Also tried calling back a few minutes ago to speak with another case manager, and the receptionist said you know they're busy they have other clients. I just don't see how these people got their job to begin with with the abrasiveness of their attitudes.
So, how is everyone doing today? We're doing ok today. Still feeling suicidal though, but we'll have to make the best of it. Have to fake it till we make it. All I know is that I can't keep going like this. We're continuing to lose weight. Not sure how much longer I can keep doing this. I just feel so alone. I could really use a friend. Just feeling really defeated. I want to cut. I've never done that before. T'i always been Amilia. Not sure why I want to do it. Does this mean I'm a failure? I hate myself. I don't want to live. My mood is all over the place. I hate this. I hope this insurance says yes. I really really hope they do.
So I got some good newsfffff!!! I'm so excited. The insurance got the prior authorization for River Oaks. Now it's just a waiting game. Hope it goes through. They said we would have to do ED stabalization first before we can do the trauma part of the program. So beyond excited.


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ANDREW MWENDA'S BLOG
Andrew M. Mwenda is the founding Managing Editor of The Independent, Uganda's premier current affairs newsmagazine. One of Foreign Policy magazine 's top 100 Global Thinkers, TED Speaker and Foreign aid Critic
In defense of oil cash bonanza
Why it was morally right to reward public officials for winning Shs1.6 trillion worth of government revenues
"It is not easy to stand apart from mass hysteria, to argue against something that everyone, especially the most respected political leaders, academics, and experts are saying and instead argue that they are mistaken or deluded." Leo Tolstoy, 1897.
Ugandans are angry, extremely angry, that their government paid out Shs3.58 billion as a cash bonus to public officials who helped our country to win $434m (Shs1.6 trillion) in Capital Gains Tax from two international oil companies. I find it strange that our people are angry with the government for rewarding exemplary performance. This is especially intriguing because Shs3.58 billion is less that 0.2% of the money that was won. In fact the arbitrator awarded Uganda costs of $4 million (Shs14.5 billion) and the bonus is only 25% of these costs. Why then is there a hue and cry?
Recently, Stanbic Bank Uganda announced that it would pay a bonus of Shs1 billion to its Managing Director, Patrick Mwehire, for exemplary performance in 2016. They made an unprecedented Shs200 billion in profits during a period when many banks in Uganda are struggling. This is 0.5% of their profits. There is a need for government to borrow some lessons from the private sector to improve public sector performance. This is one of such lesson.
Every decision we make has an opportunity cost i.e. the value of the second best alternative forgone when we make a choice. We think, and correctly so, that our public officials are very corrupt. Therefore, we should have expected Ugandan officials working on this oil tax dispute to do what all corrupt public officials do i.e. negotiate for private benefits at the expense of the common good.
For example they could have asked for a bribe of $2m (Shs7.2 billion) each and let the oil company win. The oil company would have paid $84m (Shs302 billion) worth in bribes but saved itself $360m (Shs1.3 trillion). This choice was open to our public officials. But they did not pursue their pecuniary interest but the national interest. Such exemplary display of the public spirit, which is rare among our public officials today, should be rewarded.
Uganda's success on this matter is even the more inspiring because there is not a single country in postcolonial Africa that has ever won a Capital Gains Tax dispute against these multi-national oil companies.
I am reliably informed that since Uganda's success other oil producing nations of Africa have had to amend their laws to follow our example. This achievement was unprecedented and rewarding public officials who did it with less than 0.2% of the proceeds was the morally right and fair thing to do.
There may have been problems on the criteria used to choose who to benefit and whom to exclude. But that is a debate on the procedure, not the substance of the bonus. I am willing to listen to that.
Some people have said the bonus was not legal. First, the law does not explicitly ask our president to contribute money to public causes like the building of a church or a school or our national football team. But he often does with our approval. Secondly, the law does not prohibit him from such acts of public generosity. Yet this bonus payment is actually backed by law and ethics of public service. Articles 98 and 99 of our constitution allow the president to reward public officials for exemplary performance.
Secondly, the standing orders of our public service, especially Regulation 7.0 of the Code of Conduct and Ethics for Public Officials provides for rewarding public officers who exhibit good ethical conduct. This can be in form of a promotion, increase in salary, getting a medal or a cash bonus. Some have argued the payment done through a supplementary that had not been approved by parliament. Yet government is allowed to spend up to 3% of the budget in supplementary expenditures without approval of parliament. So far they have only spent 1.8%.
Many Ugandans today seem angry at practically everything the government does. One reason could be that Yoweri Museveni has been president for far too long. So people are suffering from Museveni fatigue. They are, therefore, always looking for every excuse to vent their anger at his seeming permanence in power. The other reason is that government has become exceptionally poor at communicating its actions and the justifications behind it in spite of (and also, maybe because of) the oodles of money it spends on public relations.
Take the example of the oil industry, which has brought tears to many a poor country. Museveni has done three things that are likely to set Uganda apart from other oil rich poor nations of this world. First he facilitated the training of a highly technically competent team in the science of the oil industry, even though this is less so on the business side. Second he has ensured that this group is incorruptible, something I wish he could have spread across the entire state. Thirdly, he has personally and actively shielded the oil team from political interference. This has led Uganda to sign some of the best Production Sharing Agreements in the world.
Contrary to this reality, many Ugandans think there is a big problem with our oil sector. Clearly, therefore, there is a big gulf between Uganda's oil reality and the perception of the public. This failure to appreciate the good about our country is a result of a toxic combination of high emotions and little knowledge of what is going on. But it is also a wider problem facing Africa in general. With the sole exception of post genocide Rwanda, there seems to be widespread citizen disgruntlement with politics and economics in Africa.
The state in Africa is the most demonised institution. Western media and academia have created a narrative that the state in Africa is dysfunctional. African elites have bought this narrative line, hook and sinker. A lot of the criticisms are true. However, like all narratives, they are built on a selective use of facts. And no narrative is more powerful (and dangerous) than when it makes use of (and abuses) obvious facts. Thus many African elites think their politics is bad and their economies are failing. Yet our economies are growing at impressive and sustainable rates than at any time before; our countries are rapidly democratising by historical standards. We need to defend good when we get it lest we discourage those who seek it.
amwenda@independent.co.ug
editor@independent.co.ug
Posted by Independent UG at 12:46 AM
Explaining HIV/AIDS everyday said...
Anger among Ugandans has nothing to do with President Y.K. Museveni; it has everything to do with expectations out of the Oil
It is symptomatic, it is historical, it is cumulative and has been undiagnosed since 1962. The fuel is: internal unrest between 1966-1971, the debauched war to topple Amin, the international embargo against Uganda during Amin's regime, the devaluation of the Uganda shilling with promise to compensate people that was not fulfilled, the 1979 war, the 1983 Bush war, the promises to compensate those who lost property in the wars which were fulfilled for some and not others and the impact of HIV.
I can pointedly say more anger among Ugandans was furiously and fiercely stalked or reignited by the occurrences between 1979-1986. HIV brought its strain of anger. This anger has never been fully assuaged. The early collective mind of a Ugandan black African in the early days of the HIV disease took on a multi-faceted dimension. In the earlier days (early 1980's) following the 1979 Liberation war many things happened simultaneously.
Between 1979-1986, Uganda experienced tensions at political, social and cultural levels which in turn affected the way people experienced life and decided on what to prioritise. A mass austerity automatically kicked in even without the government's say so. People made austerity practices that affected food provision, sleeping arrangement, mobility, choices for wellness and investing in quality life. People became a dumping ground for trauma characterized by severe deprivation and living in squalid conditions. This has gone on even after it has been established that Uganda has one of the best government systems in Africa today. Somehow, this trauma has demotivated many from taking initiative. Not even "entandikwa," "ennyongeza" "bonna baggagawale," and other programmes can be carrot or stick enough. But, this does not give Uganda any excuse not to provide ways to addressing many unmet past recession, depression and austerity episodes. Another article will explain the meaning of President Y.K. Museveni's remark: "...I am not any body's servant. Me, I am a freedom fighter...." But quickly and as a scholar of intercultural communication. This message was not meant to posture or position himself as an isolationist. In fact, he was a proud elder about to surprise a clan with a bull roasting feast. It was a preamble! But, let me not digress. We were talking about Uganda's need to adorn the mantle of a true welfare state now that she has Oil.
Hopefully Uganda which has gone through traumatizing events can use say, Oil, to heal wounds and provide spaces of hope for diverse communities. It will be possible to help many who may privately be grieving not only for HIV but loss of property due to wars. This grief followed the 1979 war, the "war in the bush" and HIV/AIDS.
Andrew M. Mwenda
Stories & Interviews
Aljazeera - Africa to Obama: Mind your own business
International New York Times - Don't save congo
TED - Andrew Mwenda on progress in Africa
CNN - Madonna and Africa's 'celebrity saviors'
International New York Times - Celebrities Should Not Victimize Africa
International Herald Tribune - Foreign aid sabotages reform
Gelf Magazine - Fight for press freedom in Uganda
Washington Post - Africa Must Fix Itself
Guardian - Profile: Andrew Mwenda
BBC - Africans on Africa Debate
End of a global nightmare
Economic growth Vs development
ECOMOG's Gambian gamble
Kizza Besigye's biggest mistake


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