text:
He's behind you! Warthog disappears in a cloud of dust just as leopard is about to pounce
Leopard stalked up behind an unsuspecting warthog in Kruger National Park
Warthog noticed predator at the last second and vanished in a cloud of dust
Predator is left looking on in disbelief at the disappearing pig as the clip ends
By Faith Ridler For Mailonline
This is the impressive moment a speedy warthog managed to escape a leopard who crept up behind it in South Africa.
The video, filmed by Jan Kriel in Kruger National Park, captures the predator as it spots the African pig feeding on grass nearby.
The leopard then begins to make its way towards the warthog, who remains ignorant to the threat until the predator is standing inches away.
But rather than succumb to its fate, the warthog manages to escape from the leopard in a cloud of dust before the animal has the chance to pounce.
The video, filmed by Jan Kriel in Kruger National Park, captures the predator as it spots the African pig feeding on grass nearby
The unimpressed predator is left looking on in disbelief as the clip comes to an end.
The footage has since been viewed thousands of times, with one viewer saying: 'That leopard didn't [expect] to get that close without being seen.
Sled dog! German Shepherd can't get to grips with icy... Top marks for dad dancing! Hilarious moment father...
'It was in such disbelief that it had to let the prey escape.'
Another added: 'Anyone else shouting "behind you!"?'
'Leopard goes "I better not touch this one, way too dangerous"', added a third.
The leopard then begins to make its way towards the warthog, who remains ignorant to the threat until the predator is stood inches away
Rather than succumb to its fate, the warthog manages to escape from the leopard in a cloud of dust before the animal has the chance to pouce
Kruger National Park is one of Africa's largest game reserves, situated in northeastern South Africa.
The two million-hectare wildlife park is home to a high density of wild animals including lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants and buffalo.
The reserve is also home to vultures, eagles and storks who roam the vast mountains, bush plains and forests of Kruger National Park.


text:
Q: Best practice to forward a Signal by using a 2.4GHz Module? I want to control the speed of a motor by using a 2.4 GHz receiver.  I regulate the speed by sending an PWM-Info to the motor.
Its working great, if I use an arduiono and lots of wires. But I have to seperate the arduino and the motor, because the motor has to be portable. So I want to use a 2.4GHz transmitter module for arduino to control the motor.
I'd like to use this module, to receive the current frequence from the arduino and forward it to the pwm port: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/152
Is this possible as I imagine it? Is there anything else I need? When I could use an arduino, this would be very easy, but my solution has to be small. The smaller it becomes, the better.
In another scenario I use the arduino to control multiple motors at the same time, each motor has its own receiver. How can I identify the modules, so I can set the frequency for each motor.

A: That module gives you low level access to the radio -- e.g. you're not going to be sending high level prototcol data. Yes -- it's trivial for you to send any arbitrary message to the radio and have your arduino interpret the message as you please (set pwm duty cycle etc).  You shouldn't need to do a whole lot else to get proof of concept.  If you need super long range 0 dBm might not cut it, but it's definitely OK for several meters.
With regards to your second question:  there are a million ways to identify the different radios.  The most expensive and worst way is to have a different transmitter for each receiver.  It's obvious why this is a bad solution.  All your other solutions will require you to implement some kind of higher level protocol.  There are lots and lots and lots of options here (this is a whole area of academic research).  I used a similar Nordic radio several years ago and it had different channels you could utilize.  That can help you (e.g. put one receiver on one channel), but it obviously doesn't scale well (e.g. if you have more devices than channels you're back to square one.  Equally importantly you might not want to use certain channels -- they might be noisy, have poor PRR, etc).  One simple, but not particularly robust (from the networking perspective) is to invent a protocol wherein you blast a message and depending on the contents of that message one and only one receiver responds.  Your arduino will have to implement whatever protocol you want so obviously you can't go crazy with the complexity (e.g. you probably don't want to implement posix sockets).  For a few motors (less than 10) you'll probably be OK doing something like this provided that you don't have stringent latency requirements.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Not that we're surprised in the least, but this new Ekali x 1788-L track goes even harder than we expected!
Just days ago Ekali prepped us with a single tweet — he'd soon unleash the makings between the two producers. But still, we weren't quite ready for the kind of insanity this ID packs in.
HARD Summer turned out to be the perfect opportunity to test out their new collaboration. In the video below, it's all captured on camera thanks to a ready fan.
The unnamed ID begins and builds in the trap realm before exploding into a glitchy drop that rocks 1788-L's defined style. As the two head out on Ekali's Crystal Eyes Tour together, we wonder if they'll be fighting over who gets to play this one each night, because it absolutely bangs.


Shop IKEA's full range of patio dining furniture. Find many styles and sizes of patio dining sets, with tables and chairs that fit a variety of outdoor spaces.
Shop patio sets at IKEA in a variety of styles and sizes perfect for large patios and small balconies.
Shop patio tables at IKEA in a variety of styles and sizes perfect for large patios and small balconies.


text:
ELDERLY GERMAN COUPLE FORCED FROM HOME TO ACCOMMODATE MIGRANTS
ELDERLY GERMAN COUPLE FORCED FROM HOME
TO ACCOMMODATE MIGRANTS
BY DAN LYMAN
SEE: https://europe.infowars.com/elderly-german-couple-forced-from-home-to-accommodate-migrants/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
A German couple has been notified they must vacate their apartment to make room for refugees who will soon be placed there, according to local media.
Klaus Roth, 74, who has lived in his apartment in the town of Neckartailfingen for 24 years, is stunned by the decision, which was reached by the municipal council and mayor, Nürtinger Zeitung reports.
"I put a lot of money and work into the apartment," said Roth, who raised his three children in the home. "I completely renovated it on my own."
"You do not transplant an old tree."
Roth and his partner have been offered a replacement dwelling half the size of their current abode – for the same cost.
Roth has an extensive record of activism and service in the community, including volunteering to aid and welcome 'refugees,' approximately 40 of whom have already been resettled in town.
Now, with migrant housing reportedly filled to the max, officials have decided Roth's six-room, 150 square meter flat would be perfect for a large group of 'asylum seekers.'
"We are under pressure and need to take in more refugees," said Mayor Gerhard Gertitschke. "There is no way to say that we can not accommodate them."
Roth's eviction in favor of migrants is just the latest in a growing list of similar incidents, some of which can be referenced here, here, and here.
In Italy, entire hotels have been seized by the government to house migrants (during the prior administration).
"The fact that cities or towns evict tenants to accommodate refugees does not happen frequently, but is legal," Nürtinger Zeitung explains. "In a comparable case, the District Court of Göttingen had considered the termination of a tenant who lived with another person in a four-room apartment as lawful."
"This was justified by the fact that the public interest of the community in accommodation of the refugees outweighs other interests, especially since it was not clear that the community could have resorted to other types of accommodation."
Labels: Asset Forfeiture, Collectivism, Communism, European Union, Fascism/Nazism, Immigration, Islamic Terrorism, Legal, Muslim, Socialism, Terrorism
AMAZON: THE INCREDIBLE HYPOCRISY OF JEFF BEZOS
MORE THAN 1000 SCIENTISTS WORLDWIDE SIGN "DISSENT ...
SOUTH CAROLINA BILLS ENSHRINING PERSONHOOD OF UNBO...
AMERICAN COMBAT VETERAN & POLICE MAN: "I WILL NOT ...
MUSLIM U.S. AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE SPECIALIST TRIE...
ELDERLY GERMAN COUPLE FORCED FROM HOME TO ACCOMMOD...
POLICE STATE N.J. GOES NATIONAL: FEDERAL MAGAZINE ...
SIGN PETITION FOR REMOVAL NOW!-ILHAN OMAR YELLS AT...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Created an online toolkit that collates all the documentation and resources required to develop a community-led housing scheme.
To provide local authorities and housing associations in England and Wales with the technical information and guidance they need to promote, support and deliver community-led housing schemes.
To deliver better access to information, support, advice and technical expertise that is needed to progress a community-led housing scheme.
In May 2018, Hact launched a technical toolkit of materials that brought together, for the first time, all the specialist documentation required to develop a community-led housing scheme into one place. The online toolkit is free and has over 200 pages, with huge amounts of information about community-led housing, as well as signposts to external online points of reference as well. Each page has a selection of real-life examples of successful schemes, as well as templates and sample documents.
This toolkit is targeted at local authorities and housing associations who play critical roles in enabling community-led housing schemes, yet don't always know where to find the information they need.
Hact also received funding from LandAid and Ecology Building Society for this project.


text:
Notes Chapter 2 Section 3 Page 872
Chapter 2: The Crucial Experiment
Section 3: Why These Discoveries Were Not Made Before
Ornamental art
Almost all major cultural periods are associated with certain characteristic forms of ornament. Often the forms of ornament used on particular kinds of objects probably arose as idealized imitations of earlier or more natural forms for such objects—so that, for example, imitations of weaving, bricks and various plant forms are common. Large-scale purely abstract patterns were also central to art in such cultural traditions as Islam where natural forms were considered works of God that must not be shown directly. Once established, styles of ornament tend to be repeated extensively as a way of providing certain comfort and familiarity—especially in architecture. The vast majority of elaborate ornament seems to have been created by artisans with little or no formal theoretical discussion, although particularly since the 1800s there have been various attempts to find systematic ways to catalog forms of ornament, sometimes based on analogies with grammar. (Issues of proportion have however long been the subject of considerable theoretical discussion.) It is notable that whereas repetitive patterns have been used extensively in ornament, even nesting is rather rare. And even though for example elaborate symmetry rules have been devised, nothing like cellular automaton rules appear to have ever arisen. The results in this book now show that such rules can capture the essence of many complex processes that occur in nature—so that even though they lack historical context such rules can potentially provide a basis for forms of ornament that are familiar as idealizations of nature. (Compare page 929.)
The pictures in the main text show a sequence of early examples of various characteristic forms of ornament.
22,000 BC (Paleolithic). Mammoth ivory bracelet from Mezin, Ukraine. Similar zig-zag designs are seen in other objects from the same period. In the example shown, it is notable that the angle of the zig-zags is comparable to the angle of the Schreger lines that occur naturally in mammoth dentin.
3000 BC (Sumerian). Columns with three colors of clay pegs set in mud from a wall of the Eanna temple in Uruk, Mesopotamia (Warka, Iraq)—perhaps mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh. (Now in the Staatliche Museum, Berlin.) This is the earliest known explicit example of mosaic.
1200 BC (Greek). The back of a clay accounting tablet from Pylos, Greece. The pattern was presumably made by the procedure shown below. Legend has it that it was the plan for the labyrinth housing the minotaur in the palace at Knossos, Crete, and that it was designed by Daedalus. It is also said that it was a logo for the city of Troy—or perhaps the plan of some of its walls. The pattern—in either its square or rounded form—has appeared with remarkably little variation in a huge variety of places all over the world—from Cretan coins, to graffiti at Pompeii, to the floor of the cathedral at Chartres, to carvings in Peru, to logos for aboriginal tribes. For probably three thousand years, it has been the single most common design used for mazes.
900 BC (Phoenician). Ivory carving presumably from the Mediterranean area. (Now in the British Museum.) This was a common decorative pattern, formed by drawing circles centered at holes arranged in a triangular array. It is also found in Egyptian and other art. Such patterns were discussed by Euclid and later Leonardo da Vinci in connection with the theory of lunes.
1st century BC (Celtic). The back of the so-called Desborough Mirror—a bronze mirror from Desborough, England made in the Iron Age sometime between 50 BC and 50 AD. (Now in the British Museum.) The engraved pattern is made of parts of circles that just touch each other, as in the picture below.
2nd century AD (Roman). A mosaic from a complex in Rome, Italy. (Now in the National Museum, Rome.) The geometrical pattern was presumably made by first constructing 48 regularly spaced spokes by repeated angle bisection, as in the first picture below, then drawing semicircles centered at the end of each spoke, and finally adding concentric circles through the intersection points. Similar rosette patterns may have been used in Greece around 350 BC; they became popular in churches in the 1500s.
8th century (Islamic). A detail on the outside wall of the Great Mosque of Córdoba, Spain, built around 785 AD.
8th century (Celtic). An area less than 2 inches square from inside the letter ρ on the extremely elaborate chi-rho page of the Book of Kells, an illuminated gospel manuscript created over a period of years at various monasteries, probably starting around 800 AD at the Irish monastery on the island of Iona, Scotland. Even on this one page there are perhaps a dozen other very similar nested structures.
12th century (Italian). A window in the Palatine Chapel in Palermo, Sicily, presumably built around 1140 AD. The chapel is characteristic of so-called Arab-Norman style.
13th century (English). The Dean's Eye rose window of the Lincoln cathedral in England, built around 1225 AD. Similar tree-like patterns are seen in many Gothic windows from the same general period.
13th century (Italian) (4 pictures). Marble mosaics on the floor of the cathedral at Anagni, Italy, made around 1226 AD by Cosmas of the Cosmati group. (The fourth picture is a close-up of the third.) The third picture—particularly the part magnified in the fourth picture—shows an approximate nested structure, presumably created as in the pictures below. The triangles are all equilateral, with the result that at a given step several different sizes of triangles occur—though the basic structure of the pattern is still the same as from the rule 90 cellular automaton. (Compare the Apollonian packing of page 986.) The Cosmati group—mostly four generations of one family—made elaborate geometrical and other mosaics with a mixture of Byzantine, Islamic and other influences from about 1190 to 1300, mostly in and around Rome, but also for example in Westminster Abbey in England. Triangular shapes with one level of nesting are quite common in their work; three levels of nesting as shown here are rare. It is notable that in later imitations of Cosmati mosaics, these kinds of patterns were almost never used.
14th century (Islamic). Wall decoration in the Pir-i-Bakran mausoleum in Linjan, Iran, built around 1299-1312. The pattern is square Kufi calligraphy for a widely quoted verse of the Koran. The pictures below illustrate its relation to standard cursive Arabic writing. The basic Kufi style was already in use as a variant by 700 AD—with the square form being seen in architectural ornament by about 1100 AD.
14th century (Islamic). Tiled wall in the Alcázar of Seville, Spain, built in 1364. (The same pattern was used at about the same time in the Alhambra in Granada, Spain.) The pattern can be made by starting with a grid of triangles, then consistently pushing in or out the sides of each one. (Notable uses of such patterns were made by Maurits Escher starting in the 1930s.)
Other cases. The cases that are known inevitably tend to be ones created out of stone or ceramic materials that survive; no doubt there were others created for example with wood or textiles. One case with wood is Chinese lattice. What has survived mostly shows repetitive patterns, but the ice-ray style, probably going back to 100 AD, has approximate nesting, though with many random elements. The patterns shown are all basically two-dimensional. An example of 1D ornamental patterns are molding profiles. Ever since antiquity these have often been quite elaborate, and it is conceivable that they can sometimes be interpreted as showing nesting.
11, 42, 43, 634, 835, 841
Other Notes From Page 872:
Applications to design
Intuition from practical computing
Reactions of scientists


Here's an awesome way to roast an onion. Cut it with an apple cutter, soak in an egg wash, strew it with breadcrumbs profusely, and put in the boiling oil. Voila! Your onion lotus is ready! It's great to eat with ketchup by the by!
If you're into exotic stuff, you're definitely gonna like this one. I call it ' Colamelon '. Take 2 bottles of Coca-Cola, take off the lid and cut out 2 holes in the watermelon in the form of these lids. Now take out these slices and put Coke bottles upside down, so that the liquid poured down into a pulp. Cut as usual. Your Colamelon is ready to be eaten!


text:
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Omega Speedmaster Professional
3… 2… 1… Liftoff!
Take a poll amongst wristwatch collectors, and we'd bet the consensus would be that there might be nothing more important or iconic in a watch collection than an Omega Speedmaster.
Sure, chronographs such as the Rolex Daytona or the Heuer Carrera are classics - icons even, but neither can match the stature of the Speedy with regards to importance in history. In fact, arguably no watch can.
This particular model, a Reference 3590.50, dates to circa 1992, but in spirit and aesthetics has all the elements of a classic Apollo-era watch. The case proportions are unchanged from the original Professional models from the mid 1960s, and the movement can trace its heritage all the way back to 1968. The black matte dial uses Tritium luminescent material, abandoned in favor of Luminova in subsequent models, but offers a tremendous opportunity to develop a patina that's as mouth-watering as any model from 30 years earlier.
These pieces hail from the last era of Neo-Vintage models and offers a fantastic value proposition to the budding Speedmaster enthusiast. Featuring an untouched steel case and an absolutely mouth-watering dial with rich creamy patina across its Tritium indices and handset and fitted to a blue suede strap, this is quite simply a delightful Neo-Vintage Speedy ready for a new home!
The Speedmaster Story
"Contact Light."
After touching the lander down on the lunar surface, Buzz Aldrin transmitted to Houston control these words, nary more than a whisper, the first communication between human beings not concurrently on the same planet.
When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon for the first time, his Omega Speedmaster was in the module serving as a backup for its electric timer that had malfunctioned. It was Aldrin who, following Armstrong to become the second human to walk on the moon, introduced the Speedmaster to the lunar surface.
Today, Omega has become synonymous with the Apollo missions, the moon landing and space exploration in general. The provenance of the brand, driven by the incredible reliability and functionality of the watches that they produced throughout the space era is second to none. But at the heart of the moon missions, at the core of their objective, was the intrinsic human desire to explore, to crest the horizon and, undaunted, step forth into the unknown.
NASA approved the Speedmaster for its space missions because it was the best, most accurate timepiece they could find, and testing revealed that it needed no modification in order to remain functional under the duress of space flight. NASA was concerned with accuracy, durability and usability; they didn't care about Omega's history, they needed a tool that could accompany humans on a mission to the moon and help them get back safely. They exposed the Speedmaster to high and low temperatures, blasted it with vibrations, challenged it with g-force extremes and submitted it to high and low pressure. Through it all, the Speedmaster ticked on, proving that it could go where no watch had ever gone before.
Today the Omega Speedmaster is often regarded by collectors and enthusiasts to be the single most important wristwatch ever made, if for no other reason than that it accompanied us on mankind's greatest feat – touching down on and exploring a heavenly body.
While most of the Omega Speedmasters in circulation haven't left Earth's atmosphere, we can all take a certain amount of pride in knowing that they could – and would continue to perform just as they would down here on the ground. When you stop and think about all that entails, that's really saying something.
Thank you for your interest in the Omega Speedmaster Professional. Please fill out the form below and we will get back to you shortly.


In buying Summit Energy, Schneider Electric receives a client-focused service platform; an experienced, multilingual team of regionally deployed energy and sustainability experts; leadership position for energy and sustainability reporting solutions through the online platform dashboarDView; and proprietary risk management analysis and modeling for key global energy commodities. Summit Energy will also complement Schneider Electric's demand-side capabilities in energy audits, energy monitoring, and energy efficient solutions.
Schneider Electris is reportedly paying $268 million (€ 190 million) on a debt-free cash-free basis, subject to certain adjustments. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
Summit Energy is expected to generate sales of approximately $65 million for the current year with an EBITA margin above the Schneider Electric average.


Adjust schedule seasonally to allow for deep, infrequent watering in order to maintain an even moisture level. About 1" of water per week in the summer is a good starting point. When possible add 1 tablespoon of natural apple cider vinegar per gallon of water. Use a siphon attachment and include a light application of seaweed, molasses, and compost tea when possible also. Don't use vinegar with acidic water or soil.


Being great at rebounding the basketball requires you to have good reaction time. When you see the shot go up you need to be able to quickly find your man and box him out. Once the basketball hits the rim you need to react to which way it goes as quickly as you can and then track it down. Be able to quickly judge where the ball is going and then go get it.
Drill Goal: Improve your reaction speed to a rebound and work on finishing at the basket on an offensive rebound.
Drill Tips: Get up as high off the ground as you can, also jump as quick as you can. Take a good angle to the ball and react as quickly as you can. Finish the ball quickly after you board it, don't bring the ball down because this will allow guards to strip it in a game.
Drill Directions: Start on the right lane line about half way up and facing away from the basket. The coach is going to stand at the free throw line with the ball. The player will begin to defensive slide back and forth across the lane. Whenever the coach feels like it, they will throw the ball up off of the backboard/rim and the player must turn, locate the ball, and the release to go get the ball. As soon as the player catches the ball he needs to chin it and then score it. After the player scores the basketball they will pass the ball back out to the coach, and then reset for the next repetition.


text:
Music Review: Paul McCartney Archive Collection - Venus and Mars
The Paul McCartney Archive Collection reissue program rolls on with the November 4 release of Venus and Mars and Wings at the Speed of Sound. The progress has been slow, but the last five years has now seen the remastering of seven McCartney albums. As with previous installments, Venus and Mars is available in a couple different configurations. For the budget conscious, there's a two-disc edition that includes the remastered album plus a bonus disc of A- and B-sides, demos, and outtakes. For those with more disposable income, there's the deluxe book edition that adds a DVD plus far more elaborate packaging.
Venus and Mars is one of McCartney's most self-assured albums, released at a period in his career when he simply couldn't miss from a commercial standpoint. Coming off the mega-success of Band on the Run, released at the tail-end of '73 only to subsequently ride the charts throughout '74 (claiming the number one spot on three separate occasions), McCartney was clearly riding high on the commercial and critical acclaim. Adding young lead guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and (initially) drummer Geoff Britton, McCartney began recording a colorful batch of new songs. Boasting some of his cleverest arrangements and catchiest melodies, the resultant album was completed in the first months of '75 with new drummer Joe English (Britton only played on a few songs).
Everyone knows the hyper-hooky "Listen to What the Man Said," bolstered by a memorable Tom Scott sax solo, but the album's pleasure go far beyond its biggest hit. The title track combined with "Rock Show" (the two segue together as the opening album cuts) nearly made the top ten, rush-released to compensate for the disappointing sales of second single "Letting Go" (disappointing only by McCartney's then-lofty standards; the crunchy, groove rocker "Letting Go" still dented Billboard's top 40).
Venus and Mars finds McCartney at his most playful, making up for often silly lyrics with sheer musical invention and killer vocals. The Marvel Comics-inspired "Magneto and Titanium Man" boasts a full-throated vocal on the bridge. He gives his rock voice an even heartier workout on the staggering "Call Me Back Again." In a precursor to the more democratic assignment of tunes that would follow on Speed of Sound, Denny Laine steps forth for lead vocals on the McCartney-penned "Spirits of Ancient Egypt" and McCulloch adds his own "Medicine Jar."
What treats are contained on the bonus audio disc? Sometimes, as is the case with the seven tracks on Speed of Sound, the Archive Collection bonus discs have been disappointingly slim. Not the case, I'm happy to report, with Venus and Mars. It has double the tracks as its sister release, some of which is previously available material (all remastered): the hit single "Junior's Farm" backed with "Sally G," the instrumental obscurities "Walking in the Park with Eloise" and "Bridge On the River Suite," and B-sides "My Carnival" and "Lunch Box/Odd Sox."
"Soily" and "Baby Face" are holdovers from the One Hand Clapping documentary (the video was part of the Band on the Run Archive Collection). "Hey Diddle" appears in a different mix than found on the RAM Archive Collection. "Let's Love" is a song written for (and recorded by) Peggy Lee, here found in McCartney-led demo form. "Going to New Orleans" is an early stab at "My Carnival." The so-called "old version" of "Rock Show" has an entirely different feel than the final album take. "4th of July" is a melancholy acoustic guitar ballad, with McCartney giving himself a melody that lies just outside of his upper range. While the single edits of "Junior's Farm" and "Venus and Mars/Rock Show" are not included, the single edit (which boasts a considerably different mix) of "Letting Go" makes its CD debut at long last.
I wish I could say the DVD is as generous as the bonus audio disc, but unfortunately it's more in line with the sparse DVD that accompanies Speed of Sound. Running a total of about 25 minutes, there are three vintage featurettes and a Venus and Mars TV commercial. "Recording 'My Carnival'" offers a few minutes of home movie footage featuring Wings recording backing vocals. "Bon Voyageur" is footage of Paul, Linda, and the rest of the band in New Orleans (where much of the album was recorded). Of more interest is "Wings at Elstree," which is a series of clips showing Wings rehearsing at London's Elstree Studios. But without so much as one complete song, the featurette is of marginal replay value.
The DVD is exclusive to the more expensive book edition, which I did not have access to for review purposes. If money is any kind of issue, rest easy that you aren't missing much at all on the DVD if you opt for the standard double-disc version. As with Speed of Sound, serious fans will likely want to spring for the fancy edition. If vinyl is your thing, Venus and Mars will also be available as a double-LP containing the original album plus bonus tracks.
#Archive Collection
#Concord Music Group
#Paul McCartney
#Venus and Mars
#Wings


text:
using System;

namespace Esb.Cluster.Messages
{
    /// <summary>
    /// This Message must only be sent to a single node
    /// </summary>
    [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Struct)]
    public sealed class SingleProcessingMessageAttribute : Attribute
    {
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Third quarter record sales of $1.32 billion drive 11% increase in net income.
Sonoco reported financial results for its third quarter, ending Oct. 1, 2017.
Net sales for the third quarter were a record $1.32 billion, an increase of $115.9 million, or 9.6%, from last year's quarter. The improvement in sales was a result of higher selling prices, largely driven by rising raw material prices; sales added from acquisitions, net of divestitures; and the positive impact of foreign exchange.
GAAP net income attributable to Sonoco in the third quarter was $72.8 million, or $0.72 per diluted share, an increase of $7.4 million, compared with $65.4 million, or $0.64 per diluted share, in 2016. Base earnings in the third quarter were $76.6 million, or $0.76 per diluted share, an increase of $3.1 million compared with $73.5 million, or $0.72 per diluted share, in 2016.
Gross profits were a record $250.9 million in the third quarter, an increase of $15.5 million or 6.6%, compared with $235.4 million in the same period in 2016. Gross profit as a percentage of sales declined to 18.9%, compared with 19.5% in the same period in 2016.
"Sonoco's 'Grow and Optimize' strategy continues to gain momentum as we grew top line results by nearly 10% to an all-time quarterly record, while bottom line results (base earnings per diluted share) were near the high end of our guidance," Jack Sanders, Sonoco president and CEO, said.
For the first nine months of 2017, net sales were $3.74 billion, up $97.0 million compared with $3.64 billion in 2016. Sales grew modestly during the period due to higher selling prices implemented to recover rising material costs and acquisitions, net of divestitures.
GAAP net income attributable to Sonoco for the first nine months of 2017 was $169.7 million or $1.68 per diluted share, compared with $181.6 million or $1.78 per diluted share in 2016.
Current year-to-date gross profit was $707.0 million, compared with $722.6 million in the first nine months of 2016. Gross profit as a percentage of sales in the first nine months of 2017 was 18.9%, compared with 19.8% in 2016.
For the first nine months of 2017, cash generated from operations was $282.1 million compared with $348.7 million in 2016, a decline of $66.6 million. Free cash flow for the first nine months of 2017 was $26.7 million, compared with $94.9 million in the same period last year.
At Oct. 1, 2017, total debt was approximately $1.43 billion, compared with $1.05 billion as of Dec. 31, 2016. At the end of the third quarter, the company had a total-debt-to-total-capital ratio of 44.8%, compared with 40.4% at Dec. 31, 2016. The increase in the debt and debt ratio are primarily due to the $230 million acquisition of Peninsula Packaging, Inc., a thermoforming business, in March 2017 and the $170 million acquisition of Clear Lam Packaging, Inc., a flexible packaging business, in July 2017.
Operating cash flow in 2017 is expected to be approximately $415 million, and free cash flow is expected to be approximately $70 million, following a $50 million pre-tax contribution to the company's defined benefit pension plan in the fourth quarter of 2017.


Maj Gen Matayo Kyaligonza, Uganda's Ambassador to Burundi, yesterday Monday the 1st of April 2019, named MP's take to recall him from the diplomatic service 'stupid'. Kyaligonza in this case accused legislators of siding to only one part of the story.
Kyaligonza discarded the narrative of Esther Namaganda, the traffic officer he and his body guards allegedly assaulted, stating that legislators judged him without getting his part of the story at the time they debated his recall off his diplomatic duties.
"Can I see your susu, I mean pupu, they call it what? yoyo. Can I know how big it is? Is it possible? it's not possible? Can I gauge you and judge you by what you are talking? This stupid woman was busy saying all those people who are fond of beating women have got small yoyos. If she was not sticking, I would ask her that you come and surfer it and see if I have got a small one. Yes! That's what she was saying and we can quote her, she was deliberating in parliament. Is that not a stupid debater?" Kyaligonza added.
Kyaligonza insists the stories that ran on all media platforms were interchanged and condemned the lack of a fair hearing between the two parties.
Kyaligonza says he's going to file a law suit of slander against journalists before Court. He however, attributed his political wrangles to his rivals in the political arena stating that they were witch hunting him.
Following the debate on Kyaligonza's conduct, Parliament decided to have him sacked from his Diplomatic duties after accusations of assault against Esther Namaganda, a traffic police officer. Kyaligonza and his body guard were accused of making an illegal U-turn in the middle of the road.


Are you looking for a facilitator who is able to keep a clear view during complex conversations? Somebody who can focus on the essentials? A professional who can lead to the issue and who can handle difficult situations?
Not only do I look at a conversation as a facilitator, but also as a process consultant. I will work in a clear-cut and structured way and thus create a professional climate of conversation.
I will synchronise your demands effectively and become well acquainted with your topic. After the facilitation I will make time for a feedback talk together with you.


We honor and remember the lives of Lt. Ed Walsh and FF. Michael Kennedy, who were tragically killed in the line of duty five years ago today ,working at a 9 alarm fire at 298 Beacon St..Please pause and think about our fallen brothers and their families. May they Rest In Peace .


That's what this group of friends decided to do at the bench press by putting a couple extra plates on the bar and seeing if this kid could get a clean rep in. The prize? $20. For one rep, not a bad deal.
That had to hurt his pride a little bit; hopefully, his friends were merciful to give him another shot. If not, well, pay up, guy. Also, if this problem is a persistent one, then check out these six reasons why you can't stop farting. And, in case you're curious, here's what your farts really mean.


The growing trend of "Total Customer Engagement"
When I was a kid, we used to shop in the same places all the time. We'd walk down the street and say hi to the butcher walking in the other direction. He'd always have a smile, and maybe make a cheeky comment about us kids. When we went into his shop he'd comment on what veg would go with the meat my mum had chosen, and tell her to say hi to Jeoff when we went into the greengrocer's next door. There was always a kind word. For decades my family shopped in the same shops. There wasn't anything called customer engagement. But that's what it was.
What we've also started to understand is that the customer is on a journey. Over a decade, we have perfected the art of defining that journey by understanding that there is a natural sequence that doesn't feel forced if you ask the customer to take the journey with you. This in turn, is based on the idea of the nudge – that one little step at a time can lead to significant change. When we look at where a customer is, what they like, where they go and where we want them to go, we can then readily develop a map of the customer's journey from first point of contact to lifetime loyalty, in little incremental steps.
The art of customer journey planning, which came out of the in-store retail experience and the desire to drive customers past high margin discretionary items on the way to their target staples, has been translated to the online world and perfected over ten years by the specialist eCRM agencies like Underwired and others. And this customer journey, delivered using the cheapest digital channels, has been developed to allow brands to examine each little, incremental step on its own and optimise its performance. By extension, when lots of little increases in performance are added together, huge changes in revenue can be achieved. To illustrate this, by increasing revenue by 3% for a single step, when applied over 24 steps will double your revenue. We do this all the time.
By adding a dimension of customer focus to this rather technical, commercial focus, segmentation has been taken from its shopping experience roots (for instance, when our butcher would know that because ours was a three kid family, we'd be more likely to buy mince than a steak), via direct marketing thinking, properly defined in the early seventies, to the digital age. This digital age has allowed marketers to think in big numbers, to define shopping habits not through inference, but through observing behaviours from Google search to repeat purchase in an e-commerce system. Behaviour, enhanced by adding demographic data, married to motivation (back again to inference) gives us 3D segmentation. And 3D segmentation gives us the tools to develop different customer journeys for different types of customer.
All of this you're familiar with, I suspect. Marketing is now largely scientific. We can develop customer journeys for different customer types and take them from one step to another leading to maximal (or at least optimal) lifetime value.
It's been a revolution. And the kids have grown up. Almost twenty years on since the first days of the web and the painful birth of a new way of retailing, this discipline of how to engage with customers is finally about to emerge from its teens.
The next generation of retailing takes what has gone on up until now and builds on it. In actual fact the Next Big Thing is really simply an extension to everything you have just read: if you look at how segmented customer journey planning has been expressed in practice, the next step in its evolution is quite clear. Thus far, we have made use of digital channels to do all of this. The web to capture attention, to engage people with the brand on the website (or landing pages), to engage and retain them using email, to convert them to customers using e-commerce.
And thus far, we've been viewing the customer journey as something we as master marketers define for our customers.
In fact, customers are on their own journey. They have lives, which are multi-threaded, which involve the web, and mobile, and walking down the street with their kids. They live lives ruled by their motivations, the people they listen to, their immediate needs, and their whims. And, critically, they are influenced by all sorts of things that aren't just digital.
The customer journey plan does work. It does have a crucial role to play – as marketers we must have a framework for holding the hand of the customer while we take them one step further: without it we don't know how to brief it to agencies, we don't know how to measure success and we don't know how to optimise it. But it ignores the fact that customers (actual real people!) have their own sequence, and they are unlikely to share it with us, even if they know it themselves.
One of the facets of this which informs what will happen next is that in real life, customers aren't just on email. They don't just use digital. Sometimes the critical nudge that will take the customer from point 16 to point 17 isn't online. We may have to reach them offline.
The customer journey requires us to think in a channel-agnostic, or multi-channel, way. The future of this marketing discipline requires us to map the customer journey without assuming it will be served at every step by an online touch-point. If we do this, the customer journey plan we describe can more closely reflect the customer's own journey and the way she actually lives her life. By defining customer engagement on the basis of what nudges and steps are required first, and then adding in channel selections based on the customer's own journey, second, we can create single-minded, focused, multi-channel strategies and campaigns.
This is the next generation of marketing. It's called Total Customer Engagement. It gives us the tools to leverage 3D segmentation and digital insight to deliver the kind of supreme engagement previously only delivered by the local family shop keeper.
Previous post Who are the Inheritors?


Sasha Prood specializes in hand lettering and runs a studio based Brooklyn. She uses pencil, pen, watercolor and then finalizes her pieces digitally. A few of Sasha's clients include: Food & Wine Magazine, Juicy Couture, MTV Network, WIRED Magazine UK and many more.
The primary themes of my work are the organic, the natural and the scientific. the majority of these designs are carefully constructed using graphite, ink, watercolor paint and digital media. With each project, I aim to push the boundaries of the themes and mediums I work with to create rich, complex visuals.


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Using black metal as nihilistic cement to hold all sorts of other nasty styles together, Jef Whitehead takes his one-man project in a multitude of directions on this 2015 album. "The Smoke of Their Torment" and "Dawn Vibration" tear you limb from limb with death metal, but they're linked by a biblical passage and punctuated by phantom screams. Droning doom, industrial noise, and avant-garde effects seep in elsewhere. Especially in the morose 10-minute title cut, the landscape shifts nonstop.


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What, Precisely, is Going On with Netflix's Voltron Release Schedule?
The legendary defender returns sooner than expected, but in a shorter burst.
When I wrote our review for the second season of Voltron: Legendary Defender back in January, I lamented having to wait a whole year for season 3. The direction by Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra veterans Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery, the gripping writing, and the frankly endearing cast sunk their mechanized lion teeth into me, with no chance of letting go.
Last month, good news came along. We had a lot less of a wait ahead of us than expected. At the Voltron: Legendary Defender panel at San Diego Comic-Con, it was announced that the show's third season would hit Netflix on August 4. Why, that's today! That's right, paladins. You can watch season 3 of Voltron: Legendary Defender right now. And you'll only need half as long to do it this time, because the new season is only 7 episodes long.
As reported by Den of Geek!, the shorter episode count is part of a decision made based on statistics, not on creative choices. In fact, the decision was made by Netflix after the team had already finished a good amount of work on what was originally intended to be a season 3 comparable in length to the first 2. They went back to the season-long narrative they had written and managed to find a place to divide it in two. At the panel, Lauren Montgomery said at the panel that the process was approached "so we're not splitting it up in the middle of a two-parter. We found ways that we feel like the fans will be satisfied with the drop."
Voltron: Legendary Defender's third season is being followed by a 6-episode season 4, which will hit Netflix in October.
It may be uncommon on Netflix, but the idea of dividing a season in half isn't so strange. The Walking Dead has been doing it for years. After Breaking Bad ended, I remember having to clarify with people whether that last batch of episodes technically counted as season 6, or just the second half of season 5. It's a little concerning that the team wasn't informed of the decision until after season 3 had been planned as one complete unit, but the idea could be really beneficial to Netflix, if adopted to different shows.
The question, then, is what Netflix-exclusive shows would most benefit from shorter seasons twice a year. What shows would have their narrative flows broken? It would work well for a lot of shows made for a younger audience, your Croods and Slugterras. It's likely that was the goal was here. Something like Aziz Ansari's Master of None would likely also fare fine. But would it work for something like Orange is the New Black, or Stranger Things, or the upcoming Defenders series?
As that question hangs in the air, we now at least have a test subject to base some ideas on. We'll have a full review of Voltron: Legendary Defender's third season up soon. The showrunners say that the cut was made at less of a cliffhanger than season 2 got. That's nice, because I don't know if my heart can take that kind of hurt for much longer. In the meantime, talk at us. What shows would you be okay with this kind of system for?
Jay Petrequin
Jay Petrequin started writing at HeyPoorPlayer in the summer of 2012, but first got his start writing for It's Super Effective, a Pokemon podcast that happened to be a reflection of two of his biggest interests: pocket monsters, and making people listen to him say things.
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No, I don't have something in my eye… Time and time again, I'm never not astounded how much more I'm enjoying Akira Himekawa's The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess…
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Day 10: Water – Nick.
User only water as your medium/inspiration today.
I started thinking that I would make a paper cup (to hold water) and then a Neptune paper toy (God of the seas), but I ended up just wanting to make something cute.


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Home › 2019 Vol 37 No 1 › Advances in Adjuvant Therapy For Cutaneous Melanoma: Implications for Clinical Practice
Advances in Adjuvant Therapy For Cutaneous Melanoma: Implications for Clinical Practice
Jeffrey Zhao
Carlos Galvez, MD
Jeffrey A. Sosman, MD
The State of Adjuvants in 2018
Recent advances in immunotherapy with antibody-based immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) and targeted kinase-directed small molecule therapies have transformed the adjuvant armamentarium for high-risk cutaneous melanoma. Using these agents following surgical intervention in the management of patients with American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage III disease with lymph node involvement at high risk of relapse, oncologists have achieved five-year survival rates of 40 percent1 and decreased the risk of recurrence with disseminated disease.
Prior to 2015, options for adjuvant treatment following surgery were limited to interferon alfa-2b (Intron A®). High-dose IFNα-2b provided a minimal clinical benefit in high-risk patients and had an unfavorable adverse event profile. A comprehensive meta-analysis of 14 trials found modest effects of treatment, with a statistically significant improvement in disease-free survival in 10 of 17 comparisons to observation only and improved overall survival in only four of 14 comparisons (hazard ratios for disease recurrence and death of 0.82 and 0.89, respectively).2,3 High-dose IFNα-2b therapy was associated with toxicities such as fatigue, fever, myalgia and myelosuppression, which occur in a majority of patients.4
With the development and rapid approval of new adjuvant regimens in the last few years, the viability of initiating different therapies in high-risk stage III melanoma patients allows for more effective options for the physician. But it comes with added complexity due to the need to navigate a barrage of recent trial data. Additionally, based on results from the second Multicenter Selective Lymphadenectomy Trial (MSLT-II), completion lymph node dissection (CLND) is no longer recommended for patients with a single sentinel lymph node involvement.5 This should not impact the choice of adjuvant therapy, since CLND has proven to have no impact on overall survival.
The goal of this review is to summarize the exciting new advances in adjuvant therapy for stage III and stage IV (surgically resected) melanoma while also providing data-driven expert recommendations for practicing physicians.
Patient Risk Stratification
Risk stratification is an important factor in the decision to initiate adjuvant therapy for high-risk patients. Prognostic factors in the eighth edition AJCC clinical staging guidelines are used for stratifying risk in advanced melanoma, and tumor BRAF mutation status has a role in determining potential benefits and options for adjuvant therapy use.6 Indicators known to predict disease recurrence and dissemination include the extent of lymph node involvement, tumor depth, ulceration and presence of non-nodal locoregional metastases (any number of in-transit, satellite and/or microsatellite metastases that have not yet reached the regional nodal basin).7
Online calculators, including one developed by the AJCC Melanoma Database (available at melanomaprognosis.net for the AJCC seventh edition), allow for quick determination of risk of recurrence using information from large, validated patient datasets, but are still variable in their prediction.8 Given the predicted prognosis, subsequently the provider and patient must primarily weigh therapeutic efficacy with potential side effects, but also must factor in the financial cost of expanding the number of treatment regimens and the costs associated with managing therapy-related toxicities.9
Within AJCC (seventh edition) TNM-based clinical staging groups, adjuvant therapy studies with the highest level of evidence have focused on exploring recurrence-free and overall survival benefits in patients with stage III and resected stage IV disease.1,6 Stage III patients — those who have confirmed lymph node involvement but no distant metastases — represent the preponderance of the study population in recent trials. This focus on high-risk stage III disease is warranted, given the heterogeneous prognosis for patients within this group. Recent AJCC survival data suggest a 60 percent difference in five-year survival between lower-risk IIIA and higher-risk IIID subgroups.7 In contrast, there has been little focus on studying adjuvant therapy in stage II patients until now. Several older major trials (ECOG 1684, 1690, 1694) included only a limited number of stage IIC patients for randomization to high-dose IFNα-2b or observation. However, high-dose IFNα-2b is largely irrelevant today.1
Adjuvant Immune Checkpoint Blockade
There are currently two checkpoint inhibitors FDA-approved for use as adjuvant agents in advanced melanoma, with a third agent under FDA review and in line to be approved in the next few months. Several major studies have explored the efficacy of these unique agents as adjuvant therapies for high-risk stage III and resected stage IV disease.
Ipilimumab (Yervoy®), nivolumab (Opdivo®) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda®) ICB therapies inhibit key immune autoregulatory pathways normally involved in immune tolerance.10 Ipilimumab, a fully humanized IgG1 monoclonal antibody targeting the CTLA-4 molecule, was first approved by the FDA in 2011 for late-stage unresectable melanoma and later approved for adjuvant therapy in 2015. The human IgG4 anti-PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab was FDA-approved for advanced metastatic melanoma in late 2014 and then in the adjuvant setting in December 2017, and pembrolizumab will almost certainly be approved for a similar earlier-stage indication in the next few months. Mechanisms driving therapeutic efficacy with these agents can also lead to a wide spectrum of immune-related adverse events (irAEs) that can affect nearly every organ system including the skin, GI tract, endocrine organs, liver and other organs in a substantial number of patients.11
Clinical trial EORTC 18071 showed that ipilimumab increases recurrence-free survival and overall survival compared to placebo as an adjuvant agent for stages IIIA (LN >1 mm in size), IIIB and IIIC disease.12,13 Following this trial, CheckMate 238 directly compared nivolumab to ipilimumab in 906 patients with stages IIIB, IIIC (no stage IIIA) or resected stage IV melanoma.14 In this trial, the outcomes for the ipilimumab arm were similar to the previously reported EORTC 18071 trial of ipilimumab vs. placebo.14 Nivolumab had a significantly higher 24-month recurrence-free survival (63%; 95% CI, 66.1 to 74.5) in CheckMate 238 compared to ipilimumab (50%; 95% CI, 56.0 to 65.2) with a hazard ratio for disease recurrence or death of 0.66 (95% CI 0.54 to 0.81; P<0.0001).
Interestingly, this benefit appeared to be independent of tumor PD-L1 expression status. Not only did ipilimumab display an inferior clinical benefit, it also generated a threefold greater rate of grade 3 or 4 adverse events (45.9% vs 14.4%), with discontinuation of treatment in 43 percent of the ipilimumab group and 10 percent of the nivolumab group. Collectively, these data support use of nivolumab over ipilimumab in stages IIIB, IIIC and resected stage IV melanoma due to its superior clinical benefit and lower side effect profile. Overall survival benefit has not yet been demonstrated, but the number of deaths is still very small.
In the phase 3 KEYNOTE-054 study enrolling 1,019 patients with resected stage IIIA (LN>1 mm)–IIIC disease,15 adjuvant pembrolizumab (200 mg IV every three weeks) was associated with increased 12-month and 18-month recurrence-free survival (RFS) compared to placebo: a 12-month RFS rate of 75 percent for pembrolizumab compared to 61 percent for placebo and an 18-month RFS rate of 71 percent for pembrolizumab compared to 53 percent for placebo. RFS in the overall intention-to-treat (ITT) population and in the subgroup of patients with cancer that was positive for the PD-1 ligand (PD-L1) were the primary endpoints. In the ITT and PD-L1+ cohorts (as described above), the adjuvant pembrolizumab group also had significantly increased RFS compared to placebo, with a hazard ratio of 0.57 (CI 0.43 to 0.74; P<0.001) for ITT and 0.54 for PD-L1+ (CI, 0.43 to 0.74; P<0.001). Follow-up at 18 months revealed a significant RFS difference of 71 percent (CI, 66.8 to 75.4) for pembrolizumab vs. 53 percent (CI, 47.9 to 58.2) for placebo.
As in previous research, expression of the PD-L1 ligand did not predict therapeutic benefit, with a nonsignificant trend toward improved RFS for PD-L1- positive tumors. In this trial, 78 percent of patients in the pembrolizumab arm reported adverse events compared to 66 percent of placebo controls, with irAEs occurring in 37 percent of the treatment arm. However, more important, the total incidence of grade 3 adverse events for pembrolizumab (15 percent) was significantly lower than the reported rates for ipilimumab (46 percent) and on par with nivolumab (14 percent) in CheckMate 238.14 The most common grade 3 or 4 irAEs reported were colitis (2 percent), hypophysitis or hypopituitarism (0.6 percent) and type 1 diabetes mellitus (1.0 percent).
Taken together, these recent trials allow for stratification of adjuvant nivolumab, ipilimumab and pembrolizumab therapies by clinical benefit and tolerability. Nivolumab, FDA-approved as an adjuvant, emerges as a clear first-line agent for stage III disease given its increase in RFS endpoints compared to ipilimumab and its threefold reduction in severe adverse drug events compared to ipilimumab in CheckMate 238.
Pembrolizumab would be a viable alternative to nivolumab, with likely benefits over ipilimumab for adjuvant therapy, but is not yet approved for this indication. There are no published data comparing pembrolizumab against nivolumab or ipilimumab directly, although relative clinical benefit can be extrapolated from a trial of pembrolizumab against placebo and its shared target of action with nivolumab.15 An active phase 3 trial, SWOG 1404, is comparing outcomes for pembrolizumab versus ipilimumab or IFNα-2b, with the field awaiting results from this large study (NCT02506153). Also, a fully accrued trial, CheckMate-915, comparing nivolumab to the combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab will report its findings, but will likely require a few years before obtaining results.
Targeted Therapies
An alternative strategy for adjuvant therapy is the use of targeted therapies that act on intracellular signaling pathways. Targeted therapy agents are a broad drug class that includes small molecule inhibitors of kinases involved in mitogenic signaling pathways downstream of RAS, including BRAF and its downstream effectors MEK and then ERK.16,17,18 Inhibitors of BRAF such as dabrafenib (Tafinlar®), vemurafenib (Zelboraf®) and encorafenib (Braftovi®) have previously been approved for advanced BRAFV600-mutant melanoma and are respectively used in conjunction with the MEK inhibitors trametinib (Mekinist®), cobimetinib (Cotellic®) and binimetinib (Mektovi®). In addition to clinical grading of patients prior to treatment, these agents obviously require molecular testing of tumors for presence of BRAFV600-class mutations found in 40–50 percent of cutaneous melanomas.18
The FDA recently approved the targeted BRAF-MEK blockade combination therapy dabrafenib-trametinib for stage III melanoma patients with BRAFV600E– or BRAFV600K-positive tumors, based on the results of the COMBI-AD trial, which demonstrated significant increases in recurrence-free survival for stages IIIA (LN>1 mm) to stage IIIC patients at one to four-year time points with a median follow-up of 3.7 years (updated at ESMO 2018).19 Randomization to dabrafenib-trametinib resulted in 54 percent (CI 0.49-0.59) RFS at four years compared to 38 percent for placebo (hazard ratio 0.49; CI 0.40-0.59). Overall survival with a median follow-up of 2.8 years was also higher in the treatment group, with 86 percent surviving at three years compared to 77 percent for the placebo group of patients.
Combination dabrafenib-trametinib was associated with adverse events in 97 percent of 422 patients randomized to treatment compared to 88 percent randomized to placebo. The most common therapy-associated adverse events included pyrexia (63 percent), fatigue (47 percent) and nausea (40 percent). Notably, there were reported instances of new-onset malignancy including new melanoma in 11 patients (3 percent), either cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma or keratoacanthoma in eight patients (2 percent) and basal cell carcinoma in 19 (4 percent). More important, significant grade 3 and 4 toxicity were seen in 36 percent of patients on the combination and 10 percent on the placebo. Twenty-six percent of patients in the combination arm discontinued the trial permanently due to severe adverse events, while 38 percent experienced a dose reduction due to adverse events.
Vemurafenib has also been studied for adjuvant therapy, but it is not FDA-approved for this indication. The 2018 BRIM8, phase 3 trial reported data from cohorts of 498 stage IIC, IIIA and IIIB (cohort 1, n = 314) or fully resected stage IIIC (cohort 2, n = 184) BRAFV600-positive patients randomized to vemurafenib 960 mg or placebo for 52 weeks.20 Median study follow-up was 33.5 months in cohort 2 and 30.8 months in cohort 1.
In cohort 2, median disease-free survival was 23.1 months in the vemurafenib group versus 15.4 months in the placebo group, but the study did not reach its primary DFS endpoint. With cohort 2 not meeting its primary endpoint, the cohort 1 analysis was simply exploratory. Common adverse events reported were arthralgia, alopecia, dermatologic events such as rash, photosensitivity reactions, pruritus and hyperkeratosis. Additionally, the vemurafenib treatment group reported several new-onset cutaneous malignancies including squamous cell carcinoma, keratoacanthoma and basal cell carcinoma.
Given the impressive RFS benefit in COMBI-AD, combination dabrafenib-trametinib was FDA-approved and should be considered a first-line option for adjuvant therapy in patients with stage III BRAFV600E/K-expressing tumors. Estimated overall survival reached at three-year endpoints in the study of adjuvant vemurafenib is not significant as required in the protocol at this early time point. Additional data are needed to determine whether there is a role for vemurafenib in adjuvant therapy, but this is highly unlikely for the single agent alone.
Recently proposed trials include BRAF-MEK targeted agents combined with anti-PD-1 checkpoint blockade agents versus single-agent arms of either treatment alone. Furthermore, a phase 3 trial (KEYNOTE 716) of stages IIB and IIC patients comparing pembrolizumab versus placebo is under way, and accrual will likely be completed quickly.
An especially exciting area of research is the search for prognostic markers that could predict which patients will benefit from adjuvant therapy. In multiple trials, tumor PD-L1 expression has failed to correlate with the differences in RFS between adjuvant treatment and placebo groups.10 Potential blood markers that could be explored in future trials include the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte (N/L) ratio, which has been independently associated with mortality in stage II and III patients undergoing surgical resection,21,22,23 as validated in several retrospective analyses and a recent meta-analysis. The blood N/L ratio is not commonly used, but easily calculated in current clinical practice. Other assays being studied in advanced disease may ultimately be useful for those receiving adjuvant treatment.
Considerations for Clinical Practice
Given the current evidence, adjuvant therapy should be considered in patients with all AJCC stage IIIA (>1 mm LN), IIIB, IIIC, IIID and resected stage IV disease. Although the BRIM8 trial included a limited number of stage IIC patients, there are scant data to support current adjuvant therapy in high-risk lymph node-negative stage IIB or IIC disease. We recommend against adjuvant use in stages IIB, IIC and IIIA disease with LN metastases <1 mm (which are the majority of IIIA) due to the lack of supporting data and the potentially unfavorable risk-benefit profiles of starting therapy. Instead, we recommend enrollment into active clinical trials comparing an immune checkpoint inhibitor arm to placebo or other trials that are open to enrollment.
For stages IIIB, IIIC, IIID and resected stage IV patients with known BRAFV600E/K mutations, we cannot make a firm, data-supported recommendation of dabrafenib-trametinib or nivolumab over the other as first-line adjuvant therapy. The selection is not simple, due to the lack of long-term follow-up for the targeted combination or nivolumab, especially because of concern about a potential increase in late relapses in the dabrafenib-trametinib-treated cohort based on precedents in the stage IV setting. The selection is also complicated due to the severe immune-related toxicities that can occur in a small fraction of patients on the anti-PD-1, nivolumab or pembrolizumab therapies. Certainly, patients who are at high risk for immune-related toxicity, such as patients with active autoimmune disease or those who have undergone a prior allogeneic organ or bone marrow transplant, should receive targeted therapy.
The other cohort where treatment is not established is stage IIIA disease with small lymph node metastases (<1 mm diameter). (The eighth edition of the AJCC Staging Manual now classifies primary tumors that are >2 mm and involve sentinel lymph nodes as IIIB instead of IIIA.) Patients with this volume of disease have not been included in any of the recent trials and likely have a low risk for recurrence and death, while therapy may have a risk-benefit ratio that makes observation preferable. In the future, adjuvant therapy will lead to scenarios where anti-PD-1 or targeted therapy has been administered and the patient relapses. The question is who will benefit from retreatment in these instances, and how long will the disease-free period have to last to begin retreatment?
Given the promising data that have emerged for the new adjuvant therapies, further research into novel combinations of these agents as well as ongoing and future trials that directly compare targeted therapies to immunotherapy regimens will provide additional information on when best to use which agents in high-risk patients.
Eggermont AM, Robert C, Ribas A. The new era of adjuvant therapies for melanoma. Nat Rev Clin Oncology 2018; 15(9):535-536. doi:10.1038/s41571-018-0048-5.
Mocellin S, Pasquali S, Rossi CR, Nitti D. Interferon alpha adjuvant therapy in patients with high-risk melanoma: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JNCI 2010; 102(7):493-501.
Kirkwood JM, Strawderman MH, Ernstoff MS, et al. Interferon alfa-2b adjuvant therapy of high-risk resected cutaneous melanoma: the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Trial EST 1684. J Clin Oncol 1996; 14(1):7-17.
Kirkwood JM, Bender C, Agarwala S, et al. Mechanisms and management of toxicities associated with high-dose interferon of alfa-2b therapy. J Clin Oncol 2002; 20:3703.
Faries MB, Thompson JF, Cochran AJ, et al. Completion dissection or observation for sentinel-node metastasis in melanoma. NEJM 2017; 376(23):2211-22.
Warner AB, Postow MA. The brim of uncertainty in adjuvant treatment of melanoma. Lancet Oncol 2018; 19(4):436-7.
Gershenwald JE, Scolyer RA, Hess KR, et al. Melanoma staging: evidence-based changes in the American Joint Committee on Cancer Eighth Edition Cancer Staging Manual. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians 2017; 67(6):472-92.
Zabor EC, Coit D, Gershenwald JE, et al. Variability in predictions from online tools: a demonstration using Internet-based melanoma predictors. Ann Surg Oncol 2018; 22:1-6.
Kohn CG, Zeichner SB, Chen Q, et al. Cost-effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibition in BRAF wild-type advanced melanoma. J Clin Oncol 2017; 35(11):1194.
Ribas A, Wolchok JD. Cancer immunotherapy using checkpoint blockade. Science 2018; 359(6382):1350-5.
Johnson DB, Chandra S, Sosman JA. Immune checkpoint inhibitor toxicity in 2018. JAMA 2018; 320(16):1702-3.
Eggermont AM, Chiarion-Sileni V, Grob JJ, et al. Adjuvant ipilimumab versus placebo after complete resection of high-risk stage III melanoma (EORTC 18071): a randomised, double-blind, phase 3 trial. Lancet Oncol 2015; 16(5):522-30.
Eggermont AM, Chiarion-Sileni V, Grob JJ, et al. Prolonged survival in stage III melanoma with ipilimumab adjuvant therapy. NEJM 2016; 375(19):1845-55.
Weber J, Mandala M, Del Vecchio M, et al. Adjuvant nivolumab versus ipilimumab in resected stage III or IV melanoma. NEJM 2017; 377(19):1824-35.
Eggermont AM, Blank CU, Mandala M, et al. Adjuvant pembrolizumab versus placebo in resected stage III melanoma. NEJM 2018; 378(19):1789-801.
Flaherty KT, Infante JR, Daud A, et al. Combined BRAF and MEK inhibition in melanoma with BRAF V600 mutation. NEJM 2012; 367: 18:1694-1703.
Sullivan RJ, Infante JR, Janku F, et al. First-in-class ERK1/2 inhibitor ulixertinib (BVD-523) in patients with MAPK mutant advanced solid tumors: results of a phase I dose-escalation and expansion study. Cancer Discov 2018; 8(2):184-195. doi:10.1158/2159-8290.CD-17-1119.
Davis EJ, Johnson DB, Sosman JA, Chandra S. Melanoma: What do all the mutations mean? Cancer 2018; 124(17):3490-3499. doi:10.1002/cncr.31345. Epub 2018 Apr 17.
Long GV, Hauschild A, Santinami M, et al. Adjuvant dabrafenib plus trametinib in stage III BRAF-mutated melanoma. NEJM 2017; 377(19):1813-23.
Maio M, Lewis K, Demidov L, et al. Adjuvant vemurafenib in resected, BRAF V600 mutation-positive melanoma (BRIM8): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre, phase 3 trial. Lancet Oncol 2018; 19(4):510-20.
Ding Y, Zhang S, Qiao J. Prognostic value of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in melanoma: Evidence from a PRISMA-compliant meta-analysis. Medicine 2018; 97(30).
Wade RG, Robinson AV, Lo MC, et al. Baseline neutrophil-lymphocyte and platelet-lymphocyte ratios as biomarkers of survival in cutaneous melanoma: a multicenter cohort study. Ann Surg Oncol 2018; 25(11):3341-9.
Ma J, Kuzman J, Ray A, et al. Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) as a predictor for recurrence in patients with stage III melanoma. Scientific Reports 2018; 8(1):4044.
In this Issue – 2019 Vol 37 No 1
Neoadjuvant Therapy for Melanoma
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There are times when ordinary people do extraordinary things, and the D-Day Landings were one of those times. On this day in 1944, Allied soldiers - ordinary men, some as young as 16 - jumped into the sea, weighed down with some 35 kilograms (75 pounds) of gear, and fought their way through waves scarlet with their friends' blood, through machine gun fire and barbed wire, on to the French beaches.
It would take almost another year to bring World War II in Europe to an end, but with Allied forces landed in France, the tide was truly turned. Codenamed Operation Neptune, the Normandy Landings of 156,000 men on an 80 kilometre (50 mile) stretch of the Normandy coast, which was divided into five sectors codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword Beach, formed the largest seaborne invasion in history.
So that we never forget those brave men, we will drink to them today with a Widow's Kiss, based on Normandy's favourite drink, Calvados.
On this day in 1933, an entrepreneur named Richard Hollingswood debuted his big new idea, the drive-in movie, in Camden, New Jersey.
Marketed initially as perfect for families, petting at a drive-in movie became a classic American teen activity as sexual freedom began to dawn. And, amazingly, despite home entertainment systems, downloads and the like, there are still hundreds of drive-in cinemas in the US today. In Blighty? Well, the drive-in never really took off.
We'll stick with the multiplex, or our screen at home, where we can sip on a Sidecar rather than being in a car whilst enjoying a movie.
On this day in 1859 the colony of Queen's Land, founded when some folk set up a penal colony on the Brisbane River, split off from the colony of New South Wales, also founded as a penal colony.
Less than half a century later, it would become a part of the Commonwealth of Australia, although some argue independence was only achieved in 1986, and others argue that it won't be achieved until they get rid of the Queen. Anywise, the good folk of Brissy, Bundy, Cairns, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast are celebrating Queensland's birthday today.
Famously laid-back, but also intensely patriotic - like Americans, Australians identify intensely with their home state - so Queenslanders will, most likely, be marking this day in style. Us? In honour of Australia's Sunshine State, we are enjoying a Sunshine Cocktail, served to our preferred formula, #1.


halloween Recipes - Enjoy these halloween recipes from DesktopCookbook. DesktopCookbook has 34 member submitted halloween Recipes and counting. Scroll through the recipes and pages below or use the Recipe Search in the header to find exactly what you are looking for.


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Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 review
Chris Hall, Editor · 25 July 2014 ·
Vibrant display
Some content can look a little over saturated
Sound quality not the best
Limited bezel
(Pocket-lint) - Samsung has not been shy of launching new tablets in recent years, with different lines, sizes and specs meaning there's a Tab for just about anyone, no matter what your predilection.
The Galaxy Tab S joins the line-up in a slightly confusing position because it adds a touch of premium to the consumer arm of the Tab line, but simultaneously puts the TabPro family into the shade in many regards. That means a solid specification, so if you're looking for a hot Android tablet then the Tab S is more than worthy of your shortlist.
In many ways the Tab S the tablet Samsung has always wanted to make, it's just taken a while to get here, with those numerous Tab lines of old helping to carve the perfect device. But how does it stand-up in this now crowded market - and is it among the best Android tablets out there?
Skinny design
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S comes in either 8.4- or 10.5-inch sizes, the larger of the two reviewed here. It broadly aligns itself to take on those two popular tablet segments, with the 10.5 fitting itself into a body more compact than some smaller models, such as the Google Nexus 10.
It measures 247 x 177 x 6.6mm, which really makes it stand out, because that's slim by any measure in the tablet world. Bear in mind that the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet is 6.4mm, the Nexus 10 is a now hefty 8.9mm and the iPad Air is 7.5mm and the appeal is obvious.
That slimness feels great when you pick the Tab S up and it helps trim the weight too: it's just 465g. This is a device that's easy to hold, but there's one factor that needs considering: it's designed to be used in landscape orientation because of the physical home button control placement.
Thing is, there isn't much bezel around the edges to hold it. At the sides the bezel is rather slim, so if you spend your time lying in bed clutching it, watching Netflix, there's less to hang on to than with some other devices. That's a double-edged sword, because the counter argument is that you're not wasting space on lots of bezel, a criticism that's been aimed at the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet rival.
READ: Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet review
That said, there's a little more space top and bottom, so if you flip this tablet into portrait orientationn there's enough space to accommodate your digits. But the physical home button will then be rotated by 90-degrees as it's not a soft-key like found on many competitor models.
Build quality is good, and while the Tab S might not have the aluminium body of the iPad, it's still solid in the hands. The back is plastic, though, and carries the dimpled effect found on the Galaxy S5 smartphone. Some like it, some hate it, but we're happy with it in this format. We especially like the white and gold colour scheme - the slightly pearlescent finish makes the Galaxy Tab S distinct.
READ: Samsung Galaxy S5 review
Overall, as far as tablets go, there's a lot to like about the Tab S. It's slim and light and you get plenty of screen for the size of the body, even if movie watchers might find the lack of thumb space on the bezel a little irksome.
AMOLED goes large
Samsung loves its AMOLED displays - as featured on its flagship Galaxy S smartphones - and here in its 10.5-inch display offers a sharp 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution.
That gives it a pixel density of 288ppi which is comparatively high for a tablet: the iPad Air is 264ppi, while the Xperia Z2 Tablet is 224ppi. However, this ultra-high resolution is nothing new - the Nexus 10, launched in 2012, has the same resolution, as do Samsung's existing TabPro devices.
So the big difference is in the panel type. AMOLED is designed to give the display more pop, that additional wow factor where other LCD panels might look a little flat. There's a play to increasing the contrast, offering deeper blacks and a wider colour gamut.
In the process, it also carries the hallmark of AMOLED displays, and that's warmth: there's lots of punch to reds, but whites get dragged towards the yellow as a result. At times the colour saturation might look a little extreme, but there are different display modes (as well as an adaptive mode) to help you find a happy medium.
At times, though, this AMOLED display doesn't quite match its billing. We fired up perennial game favourite Real Racing 3 and found that side-by-side with the Nexus 10, the Tab S didn't look as good. Things are softer overall, and much more so than the minor 12ppi difference would dictate. This is probably an app problem, rather than a display problem.
That wasn't the case with games like Vector and Kiwanuka. The big difference you see with the latter game is those punchy colours and deep blacks, which is exactly what this type of display is going to be good for. The same is true when firing up magazine content: browsing the GQ app (one of the Galaxy Gifts) sees everything look sensational.
Sometimes - and just like the X-Reality boosting of the Xperia Z2 Tablet - things look too saturated. Movies don't look quite as natural as you might like, with those flicks already shot to look saturated - see anything from Michael Bay - pushed too far by the Tab S. That's our experience of AMOLED displays on smartphones too. But if you're a fan of the visuals on your SGS5, then we dare say you'll love what the Tab S has to offer.
Aside from those colour and rendering points, the Tab S has excellent viewing angles and there's plenty of brightness too. That means it copes better in bright conditions, like when outside, although there's still some problem with reflection off the display: it won't make your Kindle Paperwhite redundant just yet.
Hardcore performance
One area where Samsung isn't messing around is in the hardware department. Packed into the heart of the Tab S is a Samsung Exynos octa-core processor, comprised of four 1.9GHz cores and four 1.3GHz cores - the idea is to give you more options for balancing power requirements - paired with 3GB of RAM.
The result is that the Samsung Galaxy Tab S is slick and fast. Basic navigation is very smooth, although we suspect much of that comes down to software optimisation and there's plenty on the software front that Samsung has down to make use of the screen space on offer.
But when it comes to loading and playing games, the Tab S is snappy. Real Racing 3 - rendering issues aside - loads much faster on the Tab S than it does on devices with lesser hardware, a trait that continues with most apps.
Having a physical home button also takes the vagary out of full screen apps. There's no swiping down to access the on-screen buttons like you have on many other tablets. Flanked by recent apps and back buttons, this is an easy and quick tablet to use.
There's also a fingerprint scanner built into the home button of the Tab S. This works in the same way as that on the Galaxy S5, offering security with a swipe. Due to the way you hold a tablet it doesn't suffer quite the same usability problems as the SGS5, which is great.
Which Apple iPad is best for you? iPad mini vs iPad vs iPad Air vs iPad Pro
Internally there's 16GB of storage, of which about 4.5GB is used by the system software. There's a microSD card slot, however, so additional expansion up to 128GB is no problem for not too much additional cash.
There are twin speakers mounted on the sides of the tablet that fire sideways. They offer average sound but there is at least some separation between the two, even if they lack the impressive performance of something like the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX.
READ: Amazon Kindle Fire HDX review
Sweet software
When we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy TabPro we were generally impressed with the software. Samsung has layered its TouchWiz interface over Android 4.4 KitKat, with access to the Magazine UX (a Flipboard-based news and current events homepage), just a single side swipe away.
READ: Samsung Galaxy TabPro 10.1 review
This Magazine UX software is customisable, with plenty of options to integrate content and change how the sections presented. As the name suggests, you can have Magazine UX be your first port of call, with calendar, stock results and browser shortcuts sitting alongside the latest news stories tailored to your liking.
Google Now - very much a focal point of Android - gets farmed off into a shortcut on the home button. This is just one of the many changes to the home environment made by Samsung, including the addition of the recent apps button which gives Samsung a chance to showcase something it has generally avoided before. It's a rather smart solution, the pop-up apps timeline adding a rather more elegant visual than stock Android offers.
The homepage then finds itself with a My Files shortcut in the bottom left corner, taking you through to your files and folders, with timeline access making it easy to get back to files you might have been accessing.
Making use of the display size is an important factor for a tablet and it's here that Samsung uses its experience well: the ability to run two apps side-by-side is a real benefit for multi-taskers. It's not a brand new feature by any means, but a success.
Samsung has also enhanced the notifications area. Again this isn't unique to the Tab S, as it's common to other Samsung Galaxy devices, but the ability to change the brightness, quickly customise the hardware toggles and so forth is really handy.
There's a minor bugbear - one that carries over from the SGS5 - which is that the animation when opening folders makes it slower than it needs to be.
Like the SGS5, there are a wide range of content offers and bonuses to tempt you in. Not only do you get the useful 50GB of Dropbox cloud storage, but there's free magazine issues, limited access to Deezer web-based music, bonus packs for games and more. To find these extras you'll need to head into the newly-designed Galaxy Apps, where there's a Galaxy Gifts section waiting to deliver.
Elsewhere there's an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 2.1-megapixel camera on the front. We don't use tablet cameras nearly as much as we do smartphone cameras, but we've found both the Tab S cameras to be good: you'll get a reasonable quality selfie from it, and the rear shots are pretty good too.
Supporting the rear camera is a flash, something of a rarity on tablets, so if taking tablet photos is your thing (it really shouldn't be though), then you'll find the Tab S pretty well specified. It suffers as similar cameras do, with mushy low-light shots, but given that you'll probably use a smartphone instead, we don't give too much sway to camera performance.
Despite having the specification, the Tab S doesn't support 4K video capture, but photos and video do look lovely on that AMOLED display. As with most Samsung Galaxy devices, you'll get DLNA sharing options built in, as well as integrated albums from sources like Dropbox.
Powering it all is a 7900mAh battery, which will give you about 10 hours of use. It's typical for a tablet of this size, although in normal use that will equate to a couple of day's endurance.
There is both the power saving mode and the ultra power saving mode to help longevity. The latter takes an extreme approach, stripping the functionality and the colour away, leaving you with basic functions. It's designed to make the Tab S last. That makes more sense on a smartphone than it does on a tablet, but if your tablet is your only calendar, for example, then it might be handy.
We already really like what Samsung has done with the Galaxy TabPro, and the Tab S takes steps things up a notch in many areas. It's slimmer, brings that AMOLED display and a small increase in display size with the 10.5-inch model.
The Tab S also brings with it more consumer appeal than the TabPro. It's slimmer and we prefer the texture of the back, as it helps reduce that budget plastic feel. There's also a lot of clever software enhancement, which really adds benefit and lifts the Tab S beyond just a stock Android tablet - it's more closely aligned with what you would get from something like the Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet, minus the giant bezel. Although there's perhaps too little bezel in this Samsung instance, which isn't something we thought we'd be saying.
Overall that makes the Samsung Galaxy Tab S among the hottest Android tablets around. The real challenge will probably be choosing between the 10.5 or 8.4-inch versions, because with closely aligned specs and £70 difference in price, the smaller version might just steal your affections. But if not then there's rarely a bad thing to say about the 10.5-inch model.


text:
Q: Loss during minibatch gradient descent I have minibatch gradient descent code in Tensorflow for function approximation, but I am unsure when to calculate the loss. First, I create batches for x and y data. Then, I shuffle both these batches every epoch. I work with 2 lists, train_batch_loss is used to store train losses for each batch, so I can then take the average over all batches and append it to the train_loss list.
My code looks like this
train_loss = []
for epoch in range(number_of_epochs):
    x_train_batches, y_train_batches = createBatches(batch_size, Xdata, Ydata)
    number_of_batches = len(x_train_batches)
    x_train_batches = shuffle(x_train_batches)
    y_train_batches = shuffle(y_train_batches)
    train_batch_loss = []
    for batch in range(number_of_batches):
        t = sess.run([training], feed_dict = {X:x_train_batches[batch],Y:y_train_batches[batch]})
        train_batch_loss.append(sess.run(cost_function, feed_dict = {X:x_train_batches[batch],Y:y_train_batches[batch]}))
    train_loss.append(sum(train_batch_loss)/len(train_batch_loss))

Is this the correct way to calculate losses for minibatch GD?

A: X and y data should be shuffled accordingly, so that the pairings are consistent in the minibatches (not evident in your code due the 2 separate shuffle calls). You might also want to compute the loss in an independent validation set (ie, never gets mixed with train batches across all epochs). I guess Xdata, Ydata in your code is only train data, right? Otherwise validation (and even worse, test) data would get totally mixed-up


Henry (Hank) J. Silva was born on the island of Oahu three months before the Pearl Harbor attack December 7, 1941. He attended both public and catholic schools and obtained a college degree in criminal Justice. He followed a police career as his grandfather before him did.
Silva moved up through the police ranks to the rank of Major; he served in all major police departments divisions and sections. After retirement, he worked for the Federal Government and owned Ex-cop Investigations. He also worked as a reserve officer for eighteen years covering beats and for his last five years he investigated Cold Case Homicides.
To keep fit, Silva regularly works out at the local gym, but is no longer a member of the four hundred pound plus club. The author shoots action pistol and rifle on a weekly basis. His son is a protégé of his father's teachings and represented the State of Hawaii in the Junior Olympics in small bore rifle at Colorado Springs, Colorado, in his senior year of High School.
Detectives Bobby Olivares and Brent Olson work as partners for the Hawaiian Island Police Department. Dedicated to solving crimes, upholding the law, and saving citizens, these two find creative ways to make sure justice is served. Sometimes those solutions aren't always approved by the higher ups, until the cases are cracked wide open and the public is safe again.
Confronted with a murderer who preys on innocent young girls, the two men must use everything in their power to catch him. Just when they think the streets are safe again, they stumble onto a case bigger than either of them could ever imagine. With the Mexican Mafia and Middle Eastern terrorists threatening their lives and Hawaiian citizens, Olivares and Olson have to pull out all of the stops to right the wrongs, punish the bad guys, and restore justice... and get in a few gunfights along the way.
Martina Wing is a passionate conservationist, manta ray and marine life advocate, educator, and professional underwater photographer.
Awed and humbled at the amazing, worldwide response to Notch's rescue, Martina realized that telling the story to children was an opportunity to inspire the next generation of environmentalist. Notch's rescue embodies the core values she has dedicated her life to – kindness, compassion, and the importance of sustainability.
A beautiful wild dolphin approaches humans for help escaping from a fishing line, then waits patiently while divers free him - and the whole encounter is caught on video.
Notch's story instantly became a viral sensation - with 30+ million views and counting. After being flooded with thousands of emails and positive feedback from around the world, the underwater camerawoman who filmed Notch's rescue, Martina Wing, was inspired to share this uplifting, educational story with children.
Based on the video footage, the book follows Notch's journey from playing with his family, through his entanglement with a fishing line, his search for help, and finally his rescue by scuba divers. All characters of the story line are animals that live today along the Kona Coast of Hawaii; like the manta ray Big Bertha, the tiger shark Laverne and more. This beautifully illustrated book teaches children trust, love, and hope- with an important message about conservation and environmental protection.
After Army service in Berlin, German, and graduate school, Peter Chaput and his wife became owners of a seaside hotel in a popular New England resort. Chaput taught business and marketing courses for a New England university for twenty-two years. He moved to Hawaii in 2002 and has written over thirty songs, recording a CD in 2008. In 2015 Chaput walked 3,222 miles in a year on a challenge, and received island notoriety. He reminds us: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery."
Checking You Out is a unique series of humorous vignettes about running a small hotel. The many incidents are all true coming from twenty-three years of experience by the author. It's a must-read for anyone who has romanticized the idea of running a seaside hotel. You will not believe anyone could go through so many experiences and not be confined to a mental institution. It's an easy read in a fast-paces world!!!


Very tiny black-color pest was found beneath the leaves of my young toba hawthorn tree.
I'm not able to identify the pest from your description.
This link has information on the common pests.
You also could take a sample to your County Extension Office for id.