I think the nurturing comes with spending time with my kids. It serves a few purposes, like finding out what is going on in their lives, but it also plants the seed so that they remember and nurture their families one day.
Definitely great ways to nurture connection. The very first institution established for the nurturing of relationships is the family.
I like how you mentioned 'planting the seed'. I'm a biggie on being an example for my kids to follow. I fail EVERY SINGLE DAY, but I always make sure to say sorry and ask for forgiveness. I also think being present is very, but very important.
I adore this one! Amazing and wonderful.
Awwww, thanks so much Wendy. I'm humbled by 'adore'.
Please have an amazing rest of the day/evening.
Thank you so much Sibella. What a great comment and observation. Yes, it's so true. And what's even more sad is that so many people believe that the faith we have is a 'religion'. I love what Josh McDowell said, "Christianity is not a religion. Religion is humans trying to work their way to God through good works. Christianity is God coming to men and women through Jesus Christ. It's all about relationship, isn't it Sibella. I love that relationship. I will cling to it with all I've got and never let go. God help me to always remain in the vine.
And you are so right, when we have that relationship, everything else falls into its right place. Even when we can't figure it all out, and don't know the why's and how's of it all, we can be assured that we are the finite, in the hands of the infinite.
Have a wonderful evening and weekend Sibella.
Yes, religion is very far away from faith. Religion is doing things out of fear and faith is doing things out of love because God gave you a new heart and a new perspective.
Yes, it's about relationship. We may stumble and we may fall but we get up stronger because we have a great God on our side and He is invincible.
Thanks Sibella. Much love to you too, my friend.
Ohhhh, Staci, I love, love, love this one. The colors remind of harvest time (I'm not sure why) and the words echo of how we grow and how He harvests us for His work in His perfect time. Absolutely beautiful!
Thank you so much Kirsten. I've been meaning to do a piece on this topic for a while. Over a year actually. Finally got down to business and did it. hahaha.
I'm so glad this spoke to you.
Btw, how are the plans coming along for Australia?
Everything about this post is beautiful. Thanks, Staci.
Hi David, thank you so much. Have you ever heard/read that quote from C.S. Lewis? I love it.
This is such abeautiful message and post. I had no idea about brown sugnifying anything. Thanks for that. Well, I try to preach acceptance instead of tolerance necause they are two very different things. And Althoughm, I started my nlog to promote my writing, it has turned out I have been able to help when feel better about themselves with my philosophy. So, I hope to continue to do that. Loved this post.
Thank you so much lonelyauthor. I love your comment, specifically " preach acceptance instead of tolerance necause they are two very different things." I agree. It may seem as if they're the same, but in fact they are totally different.
I think it's wonderful that you have been able to help people through your blog. From what I've read, your attitude and behaviour toward life are outstanding, and I think they're great.
Hope you do keep on doing that.
Tolerance = I will put up with it. That is not what this world needs. Thanks for the compliment. I will do my best to spread words of love, acceptance, and positivity. Thanks. Great conversing with you.
I agree. You keep spreading the positivity lonelyauthor.
Awwww, thank you so much Trini. So glad you like it.
Ohhhh, this comment didn't show up in my notifications. Just saw it now Trini.
Thank you so so so much. You are such an encouragement to me.
Such an amazing and beautiful way to speak about the need to abide in Him! It is in His presence, we find the fullness of joy. It is there that He changes us. When we learn to make this our way of life, we find that he is our life line!
Couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you so much Rose. I'm so glad you enjoyed this one. And yes, he is our lifeline.
Staci, "The Vine" is beautiful, filled with such charm and grace. I really like the sentiment that you've captured. The artwork is stunning and the background with a marvelous ochre color is beautiful, warm and inviting. Thank you for sharing, I didn't know that brown was associated with belonging, quite fascinating. I love that you've included a C. S. Lewis quote, he's another interesting fellow that also left the Church, only to return later. Wonderful post! Please have a fun Friday and a terrific weekend!
Thank you once again Mia for your kind comment, and you also have a wonderful weekend.
Ohhh, I hope you had a great weekend Mia. And please have a wonderful week.
Wonderful and inviting! Your artistry is applaudable in both words and colored thoughts, in images and concepts.
Thank you so much Dajena. What a nice comment. I'm so glad you like this one.
Thank you so much Accidentally Inked.
Hahaha, oh yes, I can see why you would think that @I had this feeling that maybe this poem is going to be about purple. the purple girl will be coming along soon.
Ahh can't wait.I love purple!!
Awwww, thanks accidentally inked. I will make sure to make it my next girl then, in honour of you.
The poem as always deep and moving, and the colour brown a sense of belonging? That´s a new one, but it sure makes sense what you say about it.
Thanks Charlie. Yea, who would have thought that brown would signify belonging. I found that out a little while back.
Have a great weekend. I'm sure you're going to spend a good amount of it on the internet eh. Hahaha.
sure am going to spend quite a bit of time on the net, you too have a great weekend.
Hi Diana, so great to see you. How are you?
Thank you so much. Oh yes, I found out about brown and belonging a little while back when working on another art/poetry project.
Love the reference to 'worshipping holistically' (I know you like that word, don't you? 🙂 ). That's just it. There is no separation between the secular and the sacred. For those that follow God, all is sacred. Coram Deo, right?
Awwww, thank you so much Neha. So glad you 'love' it.
Ohhhh really? Thank you so much Zee. I am so pleased the it moved you deeply. And I'm so glad you enjoyed the art as well.
You have a great week sweetie.
What does it mean if you have no desire to belong? Because in the "belonging" comes pain and heartache and you have had enough of that for more than one person. When it is so much easier just to have the Lord and no one else because He is always there, always faithful, always loving. I long for my mansion in the sky and the belonging that we will have in Heaven.
Awww, thanks so much Vashti. Please forgive my delay in responding to your comment. It's because I was away for about a week, with little access to internet.
I'm so glad you like the poem.
Ur art forms are reconciliation of beauty and soul and admire how they bring abut of belongingness with them always.
Thank you so, so, so, so much, my friend.


Note: This is an ærodynamic analysis that does not include effects that are equipment and rider dependent.
Overcoming wind resistance (ærodynamic drag) presents the main effort for bicyclists, although climbing hills is more daunting. Unlike wind resistance, climbing effort does not diminish at lower speeds, which is partly why bicycles are used mostly in the flatlands. The effort of pushing one's way through the atmosphere is so limiting that most bicyclists ride in a fairly narrow speed range below 20mph. Regardless of whether racing, touring or shopping, ærodynamic analysis reveals some unexpected effects.
Common knowledge has bicyclists always riding into the wind, regardless of direction, a perception that is not as wrong as it may seem. On level ground, one rides as fast as is comfortable and because the bicycle is highly efficient, speed is limited by wind resistance. With a tailwind, speeding up until the wind is in one's face is fairly easy, and at that point it becomes a headwind.
With strong tailwinds, speeds are attainable at which wind drag in wheels (parts of which move at twice the speed of the bicycle) together with rolling resistance, can prevent going faster than the wind. This is similar to the limit on a stationary bicycle without a power dissipater. However, riding in such strong tailwinds is uncommon.
Crosswinds, unlike tailwinds, can only be made into partial headwinds because forward speed cannot diminish the crossing speed of the wind, besides which controlling the bicycle also becomes a hindrance.
Wind drag is a nonlinear function of the relative wind. That is, drag does not increase in proportion (linearly) to wind but rather with the square of its speed relative to the rider. Relative wind-speed is the sum of wind and rider speed, which in still air is equal to rider speed. Direct head- and tailwinds can be combined by addition with rider speed to give relative wind-speed.
Although inline winds add to or subtract directly from drag, they do not similarly affect the power required to overcome that drag. For instance, standing still in a 15mph wind requires no power because power is the product of inline drag and rider speed.
Drag is proportional to the square of relative wind-speed while power is the product of the inline portion of that drag and rider speed. Thus, required power (in still air) increases as the cube of rider speed. Computing power from wind and rider speed, even for other than in-line winds, requires only addition, multiplication and a bit of trigonometry, but working back from a given power to rider speed is more complex. This requires solving for coefficients of cubic equations. Computer techniques can readily solve for and graphically display these results.
The model for this analysis defines the bicycle and rider as a bluff body, a shape that has the same effective cross section from any horizontal aspect. Side loads on tires are assumed to produce no scrubbing from side slip, and wind is treated as being uniform from ground level up. These approximations appear reasonable, from correlation with wind tunnel data collected by Douglas Milliken (Bike Tech, August 1987) in Figure 1 .
W (apparent wind-speed) is computed from the square root of the sum of the squares of U (rider speed) and V (wind-speed). D (total drag) is W squared, acting at angle B (angle of W). P (power) is the inline part of D, multiplied by U.
Figure 1 shows correlation between the equation and Milliken's data for a 15mph cyclist and 15mph wind with no streamlining. The wind-tunnel data was expressed in units of drag related to the rider's size and units of measure. Data was normalized to make it dimensionless and, therefore, comparable with computed values.
Power and speed graphs are presented in normalized form, meaning the results are applicable to any rider at any chosen speed. Thus, wind speeds are expressed as a percentage of rider speed. For example, at a rider speed of 20mph, the 80% wind curve represents a 16mph wind and shows what additional power must be expended at 20mph with a 16mph wind blowing from various directions.
Figure 2 shows the power required to travel at constant speed, regardless of wind-speed or direction (as is common in driving a car).
Figure 3 shows attainable speed at constant power with winds from various directions.
Figure 4 shows elapsed time for a 25-mile time trial with steady winds from various directions for a rider who takes one hour in still air.
The graphs show how both headwinds and crosswinds affect performance, and that, in an out-and-back time trial, a tailwind does not makes up for time lost riding into a headwind of the same speed. The effect of crosswinds is probably the most interesting because it has been the subject of much controversial conjecture. Although analytical, these curves accurately show the effect on bicyclists.
A similar article, titled "Riding in the Wind", had appeared in a 1992 issue of Bicycle Guide magazine,attributed to Jobst Brandt but containing substantial material directly copied without reference from my article in the June 1984 issue of Bike Tech. This 2004 article was a copy of Brandt's earlier article that had been published in Bike Tech in 1988.


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After hundreds of years of infrastructure construction, the urban infrastructure around the world has become a spider's web of utility lines. Damages to underground infrastructure during construction are very significant, resulting in bodily injury, construction delays, design changes, service breakdowns and lost lives. Knowing the precise position of underground assets allows designers, architects, project planners and excavators make informed decisions. The impact of these programs will have on project safety. Risk management and the reduction of accidental utility strikes will prove the value of the program. The advantage to this new delivery format is that many civil designers can create more fluid, accurate and reliable designs early on in the project. The program allows them to visualize potential utility conflicts and clash detection issues early in the design stage.
Join Hexagon in Anaheim, California, for our annual international conference dedicated to helping you discover new and innovative ways to work smarter.
Michael A Twohig is a Subject Matter Expert and Utility mapping consultant with over thirty years of industry experience. His experience includes the integration of traditional utility locating procedures with Survey Best Practices associated with underground mapping, developing Subsurface Utility Mapping techniques, implementing Utility Damage Prevention Programs and as a practitioner working on major projects in the US, Australia, India and Europe.
Over the past 30 years he has authored over 40 articles relating to Utility mapping, Damage Prevention and Utility industry Best Practices and is a frequent speaker at International conferences such as the CGA, SPAR and ILMF. .
In this presentation, Mr. Twohig will illustrate the many advancements in Utility locating and mapping integrating the new Leica Zeno 20 GNSS with Geolantis GmbH software to improve the field to office operational workflows and sharing of intelligent 3D information with all project shareholders in real time.
Geolantis.360 is a game changer in combined utility location & mapping. The unique fully integrated solution delivers unparalleled performance. It's a next generation platform to manage the whole data collection process.
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In November 2011, The Highfield Company provided the funds for a 17 seater minibus for the Southampton based charity Society of St James. The Society of St James (SSJ) is Southampton's largest homelessness charity, supporting over 1000 people at any one time. The people that we support often have a diversity of complex issues, including homelessness, addictions, and mental health problems.
SSJ runs a sports club open to all their clients that has a high level of uptake and has seen some very positive health related results. Until recently, SSJ has had to hire transport to enable the service users to attend these activities and this reduced the number of activities that SSJ can deliver (due to the transportation costs), and therefore the number of service users that SSJ can offer sports to. Purchasing a Minibus for SSJ has reduced these costs and enabled SSJ to take more of their service users to more activities. With the Minibus, SSJ now aim to offer their service users a different activity to do at least three times per week meaning 42 service users per week will be able to access sport.
Through the SSJ partnership with the Southampton Saints Football Club Foundation, not only do SSJ engage their service users in sport but they also work with them to look at diet, sexual health, substance misuse and life style in order to get service users thinking about their health.
The sports club will be able to consistently offer at least three sports sessions per week, with up to 14 people per day taking part. Alongside this SSJ are also able to offer other activities on the non sport days. This will give our service users that are not interested in sport the opportunity to explore alternatives (such as an art gallery or museum) to help them reduce their drug/alcohol intake and realise that they are able to do so.
The Highfield Company's funding included the initial cost of a minibus, as well as driver training, insurance, tax and maintenance costs for two years.


Benson, J. (2018). Population Genomic Analysis of North American Eastern Wolves (Canis lycaon) Supports Their Conservation Priority Status. Genes.
Benson, J., Jorgensen, S. J., O'Sullivan, J. B., Winkler, C., White, C. F., Garcia-Rodriguez, E., Sosa-Nishizaki, O., Lowe, C. G. (2018). Juvenile survival, competing risks, and spatial variation in mortality risk of a marine apex predator. JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, 55(6), 2888-2897.


text:
Q: Prompt for password when postgres client reconnects after session timeout I am using postgres client to invoke postgres on the command line:
./bin/postgres -U user db_name

This prompts user to enter the password.
How can I set a timeout to the user's session?

A: There is no session timeout feature in psql, nor in the server-side postgres server. It's a good idea, and you should feel free to suggest adding it on pgsql-general and ask if someone wants to add it to the TODO list. Or try your hand at implementing it.
If you're on PostgreSQL 9.3 or newer so you have the state_change field in the pg_stat_activity system view, you could fairly easily implement a cron job, server-side, that scans for idle connections and calls pg_terminate_backend on them. Note that this would terminate any running transaction and would clear any user SET variables, WITH HOLD cursors, advisory locks, etc, because it force-disconnects the user.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
package contactgroups

import (
	"net/http"

	"github.com/ghmeier/go-mixmax/client"
	"github.com/ghmeier/go-mixmax/models"
	"github.com/ghmeier/go-service"
)

type Client struct {
	*client.Client
}

func New(c *client.Client) *Client {
	return &Client{
		Client: &client.Client{
			Key: c.Key,
			S:   c.S.Copy("contactgroups"),
		},
	}
}

func (c *Client) List() (*models.ContactGroups, error) {
	var res models.ContactGroups
	err := c.S.Send(&service.Request{Method: http.MethodGet}, &res)

	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	return &res, nil
}

func (c *Client) New(name string, contacts []*models.Contact) (*models.ContactGroup, error) {
	var res models.ContactGroup
	err := c.S.Send(&service.Request{
		Method: http.MethodPost,
		Data:   map[string]interface{}{"name": name, "contacts": contacts},
	}, &res)

	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	return &res, nil
}

func (c *Client) Get(id string) (*models.ContactGroup, error) {
	var res models.ContactGroup
	err := c.S.Copy(id).Send(&service.Request{Method: http.MethodGet}, &res)

	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	return &res, nil
}

func (c *Client) Update(id, name string) (*models.ContactGroup, error) {
	var res models.ContactGroup
	err := c.S.Copy(id).Send(&service.Request{
		Method: http.MethodPatch,
		Data:   map[string]interface{}{"name": name},
	}, &res)

	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	return &res, nil
}

func (c *Client) Delete(id string) error {
	err := c.S.Copy(id).Send(&service.Request{Method: http.MethodDelete}, nil)
	return err
}

func (c *Client) Contacts(id string) (*models.Contacts, error) {
	var res models.Contacts
	err := c.S.Copy(id, "contacts").Send(&service.Request{Method: http.MethodGet}, &res)

	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	return &res, nil
}

func (c *Client) AddContact(id string, params *models.ContactParams) (*models.Contact, error) {
	var res models.Contact
	err := c.S.Copy(id, "contacts").Send(&service.Request{
		Method: http.MethodPost,
		Data:   params,
	}, &res)

	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	return &res, nil
}

func (c *Client) DeleteContact(id, contactID string) error {
	err := c.S.Copy(id, "contacts", contactID).Send(&service.Request{Method: http.MethodDelete}, nil)
	return err
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


INTRODUCTION. Current pharmacologic treatments for type 2 diabetes are based upon increasing insulin availability (either through direct insulin administration or through agents that promote insulin secretion), improving sensitivity to insulin, delaying the delivery and absorption of carbohydrate from the gastrointestinal tract, or increasing urinary glucose excretion.
COMMENTARY. Metformin should be used as initial therapy in type 2 diabetes unless contraindications exist. The benefits of metformin include its ability to lower A1C by 1–2% and FPG by 60–70 mg/dl.
Medical uses. Medications based on incretins are used in the treatment of diabetes mellitus type 2. Several long-lasting GLP-1 analogs having insulinotropic activity have been developed, and three, exenatide (Byetta) and liraglutide (Victoza), and exenatide extended-release (Bydureon), have been approved for use in the U.S. . Another approach is to inhibit the enzyme that inactivates GLP-1.
Researchers do not know what causes type 1 diabetes and for that reason, the disease has no prevention or cure. Diabetes 1 prevents the body from producing insulin as the body's own immune system kill.
Medical uses. Medications based on incretins are used in the treatment of diabetes mellitus type 2. Several long-lasting GLP-1 analogs having insulinotropic activity have been developed, and three, exenatide (Byetta) and liraglutide (Victoza), and exenatide extended-release (Bydureon), have been approved for use in the U.S.
Update from Dr Sarah Jarvis, October 2018. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) have published an update on their recommendations for the management of high blood sugar in type 2 diabetes.
Use of Canagliflozin in Combination With and Compared to Incretin-Based Therapies in Type 2 Diabetes – Overall, the available clinical and real-world evidence suggests that canagliflozin is a safe and well-tolerated treatment option that can be considered either in addition to or instead of incretin-ba.
Management of Hyperglycemia in Type 2 Diabetes: A Patient-Centered Approach Position Statement of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.
Absolute incretin effect reduced in type 2 diabetes – (HealthDay) — For patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) the absolute incretin effect is reduced compared with healthy individuals, but its relative importance is increased, particularly in fi.


text:
Communications and Network
Vol.3 No.3(2011), Article ID:6772,9 pages DOI:10.4236/cn.2011.33017
MAC Sub-Layer Analysis with Channel Estimation in Broadband Power Line Communication
Mohammad Khaled Andari1, Seyed Ali Asghar Beheshti2
1IEEE Member, Electrical Engineering Department, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
2Faculty Member, Electrical Engineering Department, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
E-mail: m.kh.andari@ieee.org, abeheshti@iust.ac.ir
Received May 31, 2011; revised June 27, 2011; accepted July 4, 2011
Keywords: BPLC, Back-Propagation Neural Network (BPNN), Channel Estimation, Throughput, Access Delay
Broadband power line communication (BPLC) gained a lot of interest because of low cost and high performance communication network in access area. In this paper physical (PHY) layer and medium access control (MAC) sub-layer of BPLC are considered. Furthermore, effects of bit error rate (BER) are analyzed in MAC sub-layer. Powerful turbo convolutional code (TCC) and wideband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) are used in PHY layer. Carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) and virtual slot multiple access (VSMA) are taken into consideration in MAC sub-layer. Multilayered perceptrons neural network with backpropagation (BP) learning channel estimator algorithm compare to classic algorithm in for channel estimating. The simulation results show that the proposed neural network estimation decreases bit error rate then in MAC sub-layer throughput increases and access delay is decreased.
Nowadays high-speed communication on low-voltage power lines is getting more attention. Technological progress of access networks to bring broadband services is increasing very fast recently. Reasonably priced broadband Internet communication to residential customers is now available via cable modems and various flavors of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). In turn there is a growing need for in-home network to share this single full-time Internet access link while supporting the wide range of digital data and multimedia communication services. Useful application of Power line bandwidth requires robust physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) protocols to mitigate the harsh and rough conditions of Power line channel. Orthogonal Frequency Multiple Access presents a good performance in BPLC channel which is time and frequency variant. In physical layer, HomePlug AV (HPAV) has 200 Mbps channel rate to provide a 150 Mbps information rate. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) that is wide spread technology for many wireless standards, is used in HPAV standard that employs advanced PHY and MAC technologies in BPLC networks.
Turbo coding can be thought of as a refinement of concatenated encoding structure plus an iterative algorithm for decoding the associated code sequence. This code achieves a bit-error probability of 10–5 using a rate 1/2 code over an additive Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel and BPSK modulation at an Eb/N0 of 0.7 dB.
Channel impulse response (CIR) for BPLC channel can be estimated using predetermined pilot symbols in real time in exchange for information rate reduction. There are two types of techniques for channel estimation. One of them is blind channel estimation and other is pilot based channel estimation that is our desire in this paper.
Blind channel estimation techniques attempt to guess the channel impulse responses only with transmitted data. Due to time varying of BPLC channel this channel estimation is not suitable. Channel estimation with pilot is the approach in which predetermined data are transmitted at the beginning of a frame data. This method has better performance than blind estimation in varying time and frequency channels [1]. In this paper we analysis three types of pilot base channel estimation, least square, minimum mean square error, and neural network.
Our proposed channel estimation is neural network with back-propagation learning method.
LS is so easy for implementation and has no good performance. MMSE implementation needs noise and correlation computation, but it has respectable performance in time and frequency varying channel. Third method performance is between LS and MMSE (near to MMSE). The advantage of our method is we do not need knowledge of noise and other statistics of the channel. BPLC channel has various noises. These noises may be different in one channel to others. Because of this reason, having no knowledge of channel parameter our method is the best among these three methods. Disadvantage of neural network is it has more computation for training neural network. In contrast with wireless communication power line communication doesn't have power supply problem. However, more complexity is not a severe problem because it may be removed by powerful processors. Turbo code performance is compared with block code and uncoded data in BPLC physical layer.
In MAC sub-layer, VSMA algorithm which is used in IEEE 802.15.3 is taken into consideration. This algorithm is hybridized CSMA/CA and TDMA to improve throughput and access delay. In CSMA/CA, a binary exponential backoff algorithm and dynamic contention window is being employed. Furthermore influence of bit error rate in PHY and MAC layer is discussed. As a result of neural network channel estimation, the BER is decreased and after that throughput and access delay are improved.
The reminder of this paper organized as follow: in Section 2, systems physical layer and in Section 4 systems MAC sub-layer of BPLC channel is described. Channel estimation methods are considered in Section 3. Simulation result presented in Section 5, and finally Section 6 contains conclusions. Bold letters are chosen for notation of matrix and vector variables.
2. Physical Layer
The physical layer works in frequency range of 2 MHz - 28 MHz and provides a 200 Mbps channel rate and 150 Mbps information rate. It uses scrambler, wideband OFDM and robust turbo convolutional coding. This coding has performance near 0.5 dB less than Shannon capacity. One purpose of scrambling is to reduce the length of strings of 0 s or 1 s in a transmitted signal. Long string of 0s or 1 s may cause transmission synchronization problems. OFDM provides flexible spectrum notching capability where the notches can exceed 30 dB in depth without losing significant useful spectrum outside the notch. Usually BPSK or QAM (like 1024 QAM) modulation are used for each subcarrier in OFDM. Random interleaving is done during turbo encoding to reduce effects of burst error. The Data mapper block accepts integer inputs and produces integer outputs. We can select one of four mapping modes: Binary to Gray, Gray to Binary. For example, with binary to gray mapping vector [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7] is mapped to [0,1 3,2,6,7,5,4].
Cyclic prefix is often used in conjunction with modulation in order to retain sinusoids' properties in multipath channels. The cyclic prefix serves two purposes. First, as a guard interval it eliminates the inter-symbol interference from the previous symbol. Second, as a repetition of the end of the symbol, it allows the linear convolution of a frequency-selective multipath channel to be modeled as circular convolution, which in turn may be transformed to the frequency domain using a discrete Fourier transform. This approach allows for simple frequency-domain processing, such as channel estimation and equalization. In order for the cyclic prefix to be effective (i.e. to serve its aforementioned objectives), the length of the cyclic prefix must be at least equal to the length of the multipath channel.
Peak limiter used for limiting OFDM signal's peak. In general, large signal peaks occur in the transmitted signal when the signals in many of the various sub-channels add constructively in phase. Such large signal peaks may result in clipping of the signal voltage in a D/A converter when the multicarrier signal is synthesized digitally, and/or it may saturate the power amplifier and thus cause inter-modulation distortion in the transmitted signal.
Analog front end (AFE) is the analog portion of a circuit which precedes A/D conversion. In receiver all of operations described above are done inversely. AVG block is automatic gain control. Figure 1 shows transmitter and receiver used for physical layer.
2.1. Channel Model
Indoor power line channel has frequency and time variant behavior. The power line link may be subjected to various constraints such as attenuation because of interference, multipath over the electrical wiring, or electrical
Figure 1. Physical layer transmitter and receiver.
wiring crosstalk effects. Then, we can describe this channel like this (1).
where αp is pth fading channel coefficient, p is path number, Np is number of multipath, τp is pth delay path. Fading channel coefficients are independent and is a Rician distributed random variable. Path delays are independent Gaussian random variables [2].
2.2. Noise Model
Additive white Gaussian noise is not the dominant noise in power line channels. The different types of noise that can be identified on and around the wiring are:
• Impulse noise from stops and starts of electrical devices.
• Broadband white noise whose power spectral density is the same for all frequencies (background noise).
• Periodic noise at multiple frequencies.
• Harmonic noise composed of multiple frequencies used by electrical equipment connected to the network and which are multiples of the line frequency (for example, 50 Hz yields harmonics of 300 Hz, 600 Hz, and so forth).
Overall, the noise is quantified by the signal-to-noise ratio, or SNR, generally measured in decibels (dB) [8].
Model of the background noise is Nakagami-m that its PDF can be written as
where is a random variable, is the Gamma function, p is the probability of the corresponding random variable, m is defined as the ratio of moments, and is the mean power of the random variable [9].
3. Channel Estimation
We derive three estimator based on physical layer and system model in previous section. Assume X is Fourier transforming of the transmitted data. Then Y, the received vector in frequency domain, is: [7]
where h is frequency response of BPLC channel and n is Fourier transform of additive BPLC channel noise. OFDM modulation is used to transmit data. k is number of sub-channels in the OFDM block. Since BPL channel is often a multipath fading channel, results to intersymbol interference (ISI) in the received signal. To remove ISI, various types of equalizers can be used before detection. Detection algorithms which based on trellis search (such as MLSE or MAP) have a good performance, but even now have too much computation. These detectors need information on channel impulse response (CIR) that can be provided by a separate channel estimator. Figure 2 shows block diagram for a system utilizing channel estimator [4].
3.1. LS Estimation
Consider the linear model [7]
For given estimate of h, the squared error between y and the model Xh is defined to be
This is optimized to obtain the least squares estimate. The appropriate equation for the gradient and second gradient of with respect to h are
The least squares estimate equates gradient to zero to produce the solution
This solution exists and is unique, provided that the inverse of exists.
We say that the least squares solution for obeys
Figure 2. Block diagram for channel estimator.
the normal equations
where the matrix is called the Grammian or Gram matrix and the matrix 0 is pseudo inverse of matrix X. If the Gram matrix is non-singular the solution for is unique.
In this part X, is rectangular matrix but without lost of generality, in this paper we suppose that X is square matrix. Then, we can rewrite Equation (9) like this
3.2. MMSE Estimation
In our channel model described, MMSE estimator is LMMSE estimator because of linearity. Thus error is orthogonal to our received data y so we can write [7]
is linear estimator of y then
now we obtain
I is identity matrix and is autocovariance matrix of channel coefficient. So we obtain Equation (17)
Let us rewrite Equation (17) like this
Suppose . If we use this technique , we can rewrite Equation (18) like this
3.3. BPNN Estimation
To gain CIR, MLP neural network with backpropagation learning algorithm are used. Because of neural network nature, OFDM symbol which is a complex signal must be separated into real and imaginary parts. Neural network have two inputs and two outputs. Two outputs of neural network are real and imaginary part of CIR in the frequency domain. MLP structure for neural network channel estimation is shown in Figure 3 [6].
4. MAC Sub-Layer
MAC sub-layer provides both connection oriented and connectionless communication between source and destination station. For connection-oriented one uses time division multiple access (TDMA) and for other uses carrier sense multiple access collision avoidance (CSMA/ CA). VSMA algorithm is hybridized CSMA/CA with TDMA to guarantee latency and jitter requirement for real-time communication. In CSMA/CA for quality of service for priority is provided. The stations with higher priority can transmit their frame with more probability. Exponential backoff algorithm is done among station
Figure 3. MLP structure for channel estimation.
with the same priority. According to backoff algorithm, each station waits a random time after priority resolution (PR) then transmits its frame. Contention window (CW) size for a station is maximum time that station waits to transmit its frame. In Figure 4 timing of data transmission is shown. In this figure CIFS and RISF stand for contention inter frame spacing and response inter frame spacing, respectively. In [10] and [11] fixed and dynamic CW for VSMA algorithm is discussed. One can find details about VSMA in these two references. In this paper, influence of bit error rate in PHY layer is discussed. If BER in PHY layer is low then when a station access the medium can transmit frame without more error. With coded data, low error occurred in frame can be corrected and acknowledgement frame in RIFS can transmit to transmitter with high probability.
5. Simulation Results
In this part, numerical results are collected. Three channel estimations (LS, MMSE, and NN) are compared. Mean square error between channel coefficient h and estimated channel coefficient is gained with simulation. Figure 5 shows that performance of MMSE is better than LS and neural network (NN) estimation, and NN performance is better than LS estimation. In simulation, for all of estimators, channel estimations are done in frequency domain. To compare MSE simulation result with theoretical value, Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) is plotted. Background noise is additive Gaussian noise. Without loss of generality, for simplification of simulation, we can suppose in only impulsive noise and AWGN noise are existed in power line. This is because of the fact that the other noise can be removed by powerful coding such as turbo coding. Impulsive noise can be made by another AWGN noise which is added to above noise. The power of this noise is 4 to 5 times greater than background noise with duration of about 2milliseconds.
The modulation is BPSK and FFT size is 64 points. This means that in Equation (3) k = 64. MLP network has one hidden layer with 10 neurons. In hidden layer sigmiod activation function and in output layer linear activation function is used. Radial basis function neural network performance with the same structure of BPNN is less than BPNN. We have used Monte-Carlo simulation to generate Rhh for MMSE estimation. For drawing Figure 5, simulation is repeated fifteen times and mean of the results are calculated. Figure 6 compares the performances of different modulation (BPSK, 4 QAM, QPSK and DPSK) without channel estimation in BPL physical layer. This comparison is done because of OFDM structure. In each sub-channel of OFDM, different modulation can be applied due to the condition of it. Figure 7 shows channel estimation comparison in presence of BPSK modulation.
In Figure 8, the performance of turbo coding with convolutional coding (with same generator g = [1 1 1;1 0 1]) and BCH (15,7) is compared. Furthermore, coding
Figure 4. Timing of data transmission for a transmitter and a receiver.
Figure 5. MSE values for channel estimation.
Figure 6. Different modulation in BPL physical layer.
rate for all coding is r = 1/2. In this part of simulation less than 2 × 108 binary data are transmitted. Some parameters that are needed for simulation of MAC layer are listed in Table 1.
Throughput vs. frame size and number of station for CSMA/CA at SNR = 10 dB are presented in Figure 9. Access delay time vs. number of station at the same SNR is available in Figure 10. For more analysis of MAC sub-layer, analysis of VSMA is done. Throughput of VSMA algorithm when BPNN channel estimation is done is much better than no channel estimation. Figure 12 shows throughput of VSMA without BPNN channel estimation and Figure 13 shows excess throughput of VSMA with BPNN channel estimation. In Figure 11, access delay before and after BPNN channel estimation are clearly shown. In order to analyze of VSMA at SNR = 10 dB, as shown in Figure 7, BER = 3.923 × 10–6 be fore channel estimation and BER = 7 × 10–7 after BPNN channel estimation are taken.
Figure 7. BER vs. SNR (dB) in different channel estimation in BPSK modulation.
Figure 8. Different coding comparison in PHY layer.
Figure 9. Throughput in CSMA/CA.
Figure 10. Access delay in CSMA/CA.
Table 1. Time slot values and other parameters used for simulation.
Citation powerline communication is becoming more and more popular in last mile that include home networking. MMSE estimator suffers from a high complexity; whereas the LS estimator has a high mean square error. This paper presents BPNNs channel estimation
Figure 11. Comparison of access delay with and without neural network channel estimation.
Figure 12. Throughput in VSMA (CSMA/CA + TDMA) with dynamic CW.
Figure 13. Excess throughput when channel estimation is done in VSMA algorithm.
which has proper performance in mentioned condition, just in physical layer. VSMA techniques in MAC layer decreases access delay and increase throughput when neural network estimation is done. This is because of decreasing bit error rate in PHY layer. In addition to priority slot, dynamic CW is used in this paper to achieve better real-time communication. Analysis of MAC sublayer shows that frame size and number of stations are two parameters that directly influence throughput, but only the number of stations influence access delay. Impulsive noise and AWGN noise are used for simulation. In order to get better precision other noise must be used.
7. Acknowledgements
Thanks to Iran Telecommunication Research Center that undertook the moral and financial support of this research.
[1] A. Jeremic, T. A. Thomas and A. Nehorai, "OFDM Channel Estimation in the Presence of Interference," IEEE Transactions Signal Processing, Vol. 52, No. 12, 2004, pp. 3429-3439.
[2] Y.-H. Kim, S.-C. Kim and H. Myong Oh, "OFDM Receiver Performance Analysis with Measured Power Line Channel Model for Coded OFDM System, Power Line Communications and Its Applications," 2005 International Symposium on Digital Object Identifier, Vancouver, 23-26 May 2005, pp. 201-205. doi:0.1109/ISPLC.2005.1430496
[3] Y.-H. Kim, S.-C. Kim and H. Myong Oh, "The Brazilian Power System and the Challenge of the Amazon Transmission," International Symposium on Power Line Communications and Its Applications, 6-8 April 2005, pp. 380-385. doi:10.1109/ISPLC.2005.1430496
[4] M. Pukkila, "Channel Estimation Modeling, Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications," 2000. http://www.comlab.hut.fi/opetus/260/chan_est.pdf
[5] Alqueres and J. C. Praca, "An Application of the Singular Value Decomposition to OFDM Channel, Estimation," Proceeding of 1991 IEEE Power Engineering Society Transmission and Distribution Conference, Dallas, 22-27 September 1991, pp. 315-320. doi:10.1109/TDC.1991.169475
[6] T. Necmi and S. M. Nuri, "Back Propagation Neural Network Approach for Channel Estimation in OFDM System, Wireless Communications, Networking and Information Security (WCNIS)," 2010 IEEE International Conference, Anchorage, 3-8 May 2010, pp. 265-268.
[7] L. L. Scharf, "Statistical Signal Processing: Detection, Estimation, and Time Series Analysis," University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, 1991, pp. 325-327.
[8] X. Carcelle, "Power Line Communications in Practice", Artech House, Boston, 2009, pp.19-20.
[9] H. Meng, Y. L. Guan and S. Chen, "Modeling and Analysis of Noise Effects on Broadband Power-Line Communications," IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 20, No. 2, 2005, pp. 630-637. doi:10.1109/TPWRD.2005.844349
[10] R. Nakkeeran and A. Rajesh, "Performance Analysis of Powerline Communication for Local Area Networking," International Conference on Control, Automation, Communication and Energy Conservation, Tamilnadu, 4-6 June 2009, pp. 1-5.
[11] A. Rajesh, M. Rathinasabapathy and R. Nakkeeran, "Performance Analysis of Hybrid Protocol Based on Dynamic Contention Window for Power Line Communication Systems," First Asian Himalayas International Conference on Internet, Kathmandu, 3 November 2009, pp. 1-7. doi:10.1109/AHICI.2009.5340267
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Registry equivalent in Unity Is there any equivalent to the Registry class from StructureMap in Unity?
I like to think about a layer/component/library to configure it self - thus populating the container. So the "parent" layer will just need to know about the Registration class.

A: No, there isn't.  In our current project we have manually mimic'd the concept of a Registry although our implementation isn't nearly as powerful as a StructureMap Registry.
If all you are wanting is modularized container configuration, what you could do is create a marker interface (maybe IRegistry) and then have your application scan for IRegistry classes.  With Unity, you can resolve classes that haven't been registered into Unity yet, so you could simply resolve each IRegistry implementation as you find it.  The registry classes could take the container as a constructor parameter and then each class could configure the container as needed for that layer/component/library.
public interface IRegistry
{
    void Configure();
}

public class ServicesRegistry : IRegistry
{
    public ServicesRegistry(IUnityContainer container)
    {
        _container = container;
    }

    public sub Configure()
    {
        // Configure container for layer
    }
}

Now in your app startup somewhere you could have an application bootstrapper that either knows about all your registries or knows how to scan for them.

A: You can try UnityConfiguration which is a convention based configuration API for the Unity IoC container, heavily influenced by StructureMap
https://github.com/thedersen/UnityConfiguration


This cover easily fits over a 22.5 inch kettle grill such as those made by Weber®. It will also fit over the 22.5 inch Weber® Smokey Mountain Cooker. The material is a medium to heavy weight vinyl. The one we put on the grill had no vent holes. The box says 26 inches wide, and it easily fits over the kettle grill and the handle on the side. It also covers the 22.5" smoker grill down to 14 inches from the ground, just below where the legs mount to the grills body. (The smoker is seen to the right of the covered kettle.) 807540 is a Do It Best (DIB) Import #WO-14369.


text:
Books at Dawn
Books and KPOP
Tag: Taran Matharu
November 2016 Book Haul
Here are all the books I got in November! There is quite a few to get through. I'm super excited about this month's haul.
So let's get started shall we?
Frozen Tides by Morgan Rhodes
Poisoned Blade by Kate Elliott
Heartless by Marissa Meyer
Fate of Flames by Sarah Raughley
Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
My Sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier
Bright Smoke, Cold Fire by Rosamund Hodge
A Shadow Bright and Burning by Jessica Cluess
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer
Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick
Book Outlet
Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendare Blake
The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey
Zodiac by Romina Russell
Beware That Girl by Teresa Toten
Violent Ends by Shaun David Hutchinson
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff
The Novice by Taran Matharu
The Inquisition by Taran Matharu
The Impostor Queen by Sarah Fine
Half Lost by Sally Green
GIFTS FROM FRIENDS
From Ashleigh Bello
Belvedor and the Four Corners by Ashleigh Bello
Belvedor and the King's Curse by Ashleigh Bello
From Tina @ Indigo
This is Where is Ends by Marieke Nijkamp
Unhooked by Lisa Maxwell
From Jenna @ Reading with Jenna
Disruption by Jessica Shirvington
Corruption by Jessica Shirvington
The Sidekicks by Will Kostakis
The Cruelty by Scott Bergstrom (Raincoast)
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (HarperCollins Canada)
The Wish Granter by C.J. Redwine (HarperCollins Canada)
Dead Girls Society by Michelle Krys (Delacorte Press via Indigo)
The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak (Simon & Schuster Canada)
The You I've Never Known by Ellen Hopkins (Simon & Schuster Canada)
The Cursed Queen by Sarah Fine (Simon & Schuster USA)
That was definitely a big month for me! Did you guys pick up any of these books too? See you next month!
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Posted on December 3, 2016 November 28, 2016 Categories Book HaulTags Amy Schumer, Angie Thomas, Anna Kendrick, Ashleigh Bello, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Book Haul, C.J. Redwine, E.K. Johnston, Jandy Nelson, Jay Kristoff, Jessica Cluess, Jessica Shirvington, Justine Larbalestier, Kate Elliott, Kendare Blake, Lisa Maxwell, Marieke Nijkamp, Marissa Meyer, Melissa Grey, Morgan Rhodes, Neal Shusterman, November, Romina Russell, Rosamund Hodge, Sally Green, Sarah Fine, Sarah Raughley, Scott Bergstrom, Shaun David Hutchinson, Taran Matharu, Teresa Toten, Will Kostakis16 Comments on November 2016 Book Haul
Weekly Cover Reveal Recap | September 5 – September 18
Here are the covers that were revealed during the week of September 5 – September 18. Click the author to hop on over to their GoodReads page to add it to you're TBR!
Yes this is two weeks worth of cover reveals. I missed last week's due to unforeseen circumstances, so this one is going to be a big one! Sit tight.
Noteworthy by Riley Redgate
Published by Amulet Books
It's the start of Jordan Sun's junior year at the Kensington-Blaine Boarding School for the Performing Arts. Unfortunately, she's an Alto 2, which—in the musical theatre world—is sort of like being a vulture in the wild: She has a spot in the ecosystem, but nobody's falling over themselves to express their appreciation. So it's no surprise when she gets shut out of the fall musical for the third year straight. But then the school gets a mass email: A spot has opened up in the Sharpshooters, Kensington's elite a cappella octet. Worshiped . . . revered . . . all male. Desperate to prove herself, Jordan auditions in her most convincing drag, and it turns out that Jordan Sun, Tenor 1, is exactly what the Sharps are looking for.
The Last Boy and Girl in the World by Siobhan Vivian
Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
What if your town was sliding underwater and everyone was ordered to pack up and leave? How would you and your friends spend your last days together?
While the adults plan for the future, box up their possessions, and find new places to live, Keeley Hewitt and her friends decide to go out with a bang. There are parties in abandoned houses. Canoe races down Main Street. The goal is to make the most of every minute they still have together.
And for Keeley, that means taking one last shot at the boy she's loved forever.
There's a weird sort of bravery that comes from knowing there's nothing left to lose. You might do things you normally wouldn't. Or say things you shouldn't. The reward almost always outweighs the risk.
It's the end of Aberdeen, but the beginning of Keeley's first love story. It just might not turn out the way she thought. Because it's not always clear what's worth fighting for and what you should let become a memory.
Sucktown, Alaska by Craig Dirkes
Published by Switch Press
Looking for a great adventure, eighteen-year-old Eddie Ashford stumbles into a job as a reporter in tiny Bethel, Alaska, a place so remote that bush planes and dog sleds are the only ways in or out. When the job and the place, which sits on the flat and desolate tundra and not in the stunning mountains hed imagined, turn out to be disappointments, Eddie thinks maybe its time to bail. But three things tie him there: 1) Taylor, a girl who might be a little too pretty and a little too smart for him; 2) Finn, a new friend who is an all-around good dude but also happens to be a small-time pot dealer; and 3) Eddies empty wallet, which means he cant afford to transport himself and his possessions back to civilization. Despite every good-guy instinct inside him, Eddie flirts with trouble as he tries to find a way home.
Kill All Happies by Rachel Cohn
Published by Disney-Hyperion
Last Call at Happies! Tonight, 8 P.M. Senior Class Only! Please with the Shhhh….
This is it. Graduation. And Vic Navarro is throwing the most epic party Rancho Soldado has ever seen. She's going to pull off the most memorable good-bye ever for her best friends, give Happies—the kitschy restaurant that is her desert town's claim to fame—a proper send-off into bankruptcy, and oh yes, hook up with her delicious crush, Jake Zavala-Kim. She only needs to keep the whole thing a secret so that her archnemesis, Miss Ann Thrope, Rancho Soldado's nightmare Town Councilwoman and high school Economics teacher, doesn't get Vic tossed in jail.
With the music thumping, alcohol flowing, bodies mashing, and Thrope nowhere to be seen, Vic's party is a raging success. That is, until Happies fans start arriving in droves to say good-bye, and storm the deserted theme park behind the restaurant. Suddenly what was a small graduation bash is more like Coachella on steroids with a side of RASmatazz pie. The night is so not going as planned. And maybe that's the best plan of all.
North of Happy by Adi Alsaid
Published by Harlequin Teen
Carlos Portillo has always led a privileged and sheltered life. A dual citizen of Mexico and the US, he lives in Mexico City with his wealthy family where he attends an elite international school. His friends and peers-fellow rich kids-have plans to attend college somewhere in the US or Europe and someday take over their parents' businesses. Always a rule follower and a parent pleaser, Carlos is more than happy to tread the well-worn path in front of him. He has always loved food and cooking, but his parents see it as just a hobby.
When his older brother, Felix–who has dropped out of college to live a life of travel–is tragically killed, Carlos begins hearing his brother's voice, giving him advice and pushing him to rebel against his father's plan for him. Worrying about his mental health, but knowing the voice is right, Carlos runs away to the US and manages to secure a job with his favorite celebrity chef. As he works to improve his skills in the kitchen and pursue his dream, he begins to fall for his boss's daughter–a fact that could end his career before it begins. Finally living for himself, Carlos must decide what's most important to him and where his true path really lies.
The Whole Thing Together by Ann Brashares
Published by Delacorte Press
Summer for Sasha and Ray means the sprawling old house on Long Island. Since they were children, they've shared almost everything—reading the same books, running down the same sandy footpaths to the beach, eating peaches from the same market, laughing around the same sun-soaked dining table. Even sleeping in the same bed, on the very same worn cotton sheets. But they've never met.
Sasha's dad was once married to Ray's mom, and together they had three daughters: Emma, the perfectionist; Mattie, the beauty; and Quinn, the favorite. But the marriage crumbled and the bitterness lingered. Now there are two new families—and neither one will give up the beach house that holds the memories, happy and sad, of summers past.
The choices we make come back to haunt us; the effect on our destinies ripples out of our control…or does it? This summer, the lives of Sasha, Ray, and their siblings intersect in ways none of them ever dreamed, in a novel about family relationships, keeping secrets, and most of all, love.
Zenn Diagram by Wendy Brant
Published by Kids Can Press
Eva Walker is a seventeen-year-old math genius. And if that doesn't do wonders for her popularity, there's another thing that makes it even worse: when she touches another person or anything that belongs to them — from clothes to textbooks to cell phones — she sees a vision of their emotions. She can read a person's fears and anxieties, their secrets and loves … and what they have yet to learn about calculus. This is helpful for her work as a math tutor, but it means she can never get close to people. Eva avoids touching anyone and everyone. People think it's because she's a clean freak — with the emphasis on freak — but it's all she can do to protect herself from other people's issues.
Then one day a new student walks into Eva's life. His jacket gives off so much emotional trauma that she falls to the floor. Eva is instantly drawn to Zenn, a handsome and soulful artist who also has a troubled home life, and her feelings only grow when she realizes that she can touch Zenn's skin without having visions. But when she discovers the history that links them, the truth threatens to tear the two apart.
Fireworks by Katie Cotugno
Published by Balzer + Bray
It was always meant to be Olivia. She was the talented one, the one who had been training to be a star her whole life. Her best friend, Dana, was the level-headed one, always on the sidelines, cheering her best friend along.
But everything changes when Dana tags along with Olivia to Orlando for the weekend, where superproducer Guy Monroe is holding auditions for a new singing group, and Dana is discovered too. Dana, who's never sung more than Olivia's backup. Dana, who wasn't even looking for fame. Next thing she knows, she and Olivia are training to be pop stars, and Dana is falling for Alex, the earnest, endlessly talented boy who's destined to be the next big thing.
It should be a dream come true, but as the days of grueling practice and constant competition take their toll, things between Olivia and Dana start to shift . . . and there's only room at the top for one girl. For Olivia, it's her chance at her dream. For Dana, it's a chance to escape a future that seems to be closing in on her. And for these lifelong best friends, it's the adventure of a lifetime—if they can make it through.
The Love Interest by Cale Dietrech
Published by Feiwel & Friends
There is a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies. The agents are called Love Interests because getting close to people destined for great power means getting valuable secrets.
Caden is a Nice: The boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: The brooding, dark-souled guy, and dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose a Nice or the Bad?
Both Caden and Dylan are living in the outside world for the first time. They are well-trained and at the top of their games. They have to be – whoever the girl doesn't choose will die.
What the boys don't expect are feelings that are outside of their training. Feelings that could kill them both.
I Believe in a Thing Called Loved by Maurene Goo
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Desi Lee knows how carburetors work. She learned CPR at the age of five. As a high school senior, she has never missed a day of school and has never had a B in her entire life. She's for sure going to Stanford. But—she's never had a boyfriend. In fact, she's a disaster in romance, a clumsy, stammering humiliation-magnet whose botched attempts at flirting have become legendary with her friends. So when the hottest human specimen to have ever lived walks into her life one day, Desi decides to tackle her flirting failures with the same zest she's applied to everything else in her life. She finds her answer in the Korean dramas her father has been obsessively watching for years—where the hapless heroine always seems to end up in the arms of her true love by episode ten. It's a simple formula, and Desi is a quick study.
Armed with her "K Drama Rules for True Love," Desi goes after the moody, elusive artist Luca Drakos—and boat rescues, love triangles, and fake car crashes ensue. But when the fun and games turn to true feels, Desi finds out that real love is about way more than just drama.
The Battlemage by Taran Matharu (Summoner #3)
One boy's ability to summon demons will change the fate of an empire … The epic conclusion to the fantasy trilogy described as 'Harry Potter meets Lord of the Rings meets Pokemon'.
After the thrilling cliffhanger at the end of book two, we rejoin Fletcher and his friends in the ether, where they must undertake a mortally dangerous quest, all the while avoiding capture by enemies and facing foes more terrifying than anything they have yet encountered.
But this is nothing compared to what truly lies ahead for Fletcher, as his nemesis, albino orc Khan, is on a mission to destroy Hominum and everything and everyone that Fletcher loves.
Traitor to the Throne by Alwyn Hamilton (Rebel of the Sands #2)
Published by Viking
Mere months ago, gunslinger Amani al'Hiza fled her dead-end hometown on the back of a mythical horse with the mysterious foreigner Jin, seeking only her own freedom. Now she's fighting to liberate the entire desert nation of Miraji from a bloodthirsty sultan who slew his own father to capture the throne.
When Amani finds herself thrust into the epicenter of the regime—the Sultan's palace—she's determined to bring the tyrant down. Desperate to uncover the Sultan's secrets by spying on his court, she tries to forget that Jin disappeared just as she was getting closest to him, and that she's a prisoner of the enemy. But the longer she remains, the more she questions whether the Sultan is really the villain she's been told he is, and who's the real traitor to her sun-bleached, magic-filled homeland.
The Continent by Keira Drake (The Continent #1)
For her sixteenth birthday, Vaela Sun receives the most coveted gift in all the Spire—a trip to the Continent. It seems an unlikely destination for a holiday: a cold, desolate land where two "uncivilized" nations remain perpetually at war. Most citizens tour the Continent to see the spectacle and violence of battle—a thing long vanished in the Spire. For Vaela—a smart and talented apprentice cartographer—it is an opportunity to improve upon the maps she's drawn of this vast, frozen land.
But an idyllic aerial exploration is not to be had: the realities of war are made clear in a bloody battle seen from the heli-plane during the tour, leaving Vaela forever changed. And when a tragic accident leaves her stranded on the Continent, she has no illusions about the true nature of the danger she faces. Starving, alone, and lost in the middle of a war zone, Vaela must try to find a way home—but first, she must survive.
Are you looking forward to any of these books? Let me know in the comments below! Stay tuned for next weeks cover reveals!
Posted on September 19, 2016 September 18, 2016 Categories Cover Reveal RecapTags Adi Alsaid, Alwyn Hamilton, Amulet Books, Ann Brashares, Balzer+Bray, Cale Dietrech, Cover Reveal Recap, Craig Dirkes, Delacorte Press, Disney-Hyperion, Farrar Straus and Giroux, Feiwel & Friends, Harlequin Teen, Katie Cotugno, Keira Drake, Kids Can Press, Maurene Goo, Rachel Cohn, Riley Redgate, September, Simon & Schuster Books, Siobhan Vivian, Switch Press, Taran Matharu, Viking Books, Wendy Brant, Young Adult13 Comments on Weekly Cover Reveal Recap | September 5 – September 18
2015 Releases I Didn't Get (But wanted to) | Top 10 Tuesday [22]
Welcome back to another Top 10 Tuesday weekly fun on my blog! Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. If you want to join in the fun, hop on over to their blog to see what it's all about!
This week's topic is Top 10 2015 Releases I Didn't Get (But wanted to).
There were so many great books released last year that I wanted to get my hands on so bad… but sadly my wallet wouldn't let me. But I am determined to get them this year. I promise myself that. It makes me feel better on the inside.
10. Liars Inc. by Paula Stokes
9. Anything Can Happen by Will Walton
8. Black Widow: Forever Red by Margaret Stohl
7. The Novice by Taran Matharu
6. Magnus Chase: The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan
5. Silver Eve by Sandra Waugh
4. The Rest of Us Live Here by Patrick Ness
3. Wonders of the Invisible World by Christopher Barzak
2. Golden Son by Pierce Brown
1. Winter by Marissa Meyer
Well there you have it! Top 10 2015 Releases I Didn't Get (But wanted to). I promise myself that I will attain all these books by the end of this year!
Posted on January 12, 2016 January 10, 2016 Categories Top 10 TuesdayTags Books, Christopher Barzak, January, Margaret Stohl, Marissa Meyer, Patrick Ness, Paula Stokes, Pierce Brown, Rick Riordan, Sandra Waugh, Taran Matharu, Top 10 Tuesday, Will Walton, Young Adult25 Comments on 2015 Releases I Didn't Get (But wanted to) | Top 10 Tuesday [22]


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text:
Nicholas Blincoe
More Noble Than War: The Story of Football in Israel and Palestine
General & world history, Religion & politics, Sociology: sport & leisure
Trade Paperback Aug 27, 2019 | 9781472124364 | RRP $32.99 Pre-Order
Hardback Aug 29, 2019 | 9781472124371 | RRP $49.99 Pre-Order
e-Book Aug 29, 2019 | 9781472124388 | RRP $14.99 Pre-Order
MORE NOBLE THAN WAR is the vibrant and often shocking history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict told through football.
By turns tragic and uplifting, MORE NOBLE THAN WAR is the history of Israel and Palestine through the lens of the world's most popular sport, football.
Football has never been apolitical. This is especially true for Israel and Palestine. The sport was introduced originally through the church, and then encouraged by the British Army, with Jews and Arabs playing on the same team.
After the creation of Israel in 1948, teams split down Jewish and Arab lines and tensions grew. For Palestine, football continues primarily abroad, where the top four teams in Jordan are refugee teams; while Israel has a thriving domestic league. But some of Israel's best players are of Palestinian descent, creating a rare occurrence in which a Palestinian is heralded and praised by Israelis. In recent years, efforts are being made to bridge the divide between Israelis and Palestinians with mixed youth leagues. This is a vibrant and often shocking story filled with driven, even ferocious people who are inspired by nationalism as much as a love of the game. There are many sacrifices, as brilliant teams are scattered by wars, sidelined through boycotts, and stories of players arrested, expelled, driven to hunger strikes, and beaten or shot. It is a story not simply of Jewish-Arab rivalry, but also deep and often violent animosities within both communities.
In this unusual history of the world's most intractable conflict, Nicholas Blincoe sets out to answer questions such as: is it hopelessly romantic to think of football as a fourth field, beyond farmlands, graveyards and battlefields? Or will it always be just another space to be fought over and polluted?
More books by Nicholas Blincoe
Bethlehem: Biography of a Town
Burning Paris
White Mice
Nicholas Blincoe is the author of five novels including the award-winning MANCHESTER SLINGBACK and the acclaimed THE DOPE PRIEST, WHITE MICE and BURNING PARIS. Born in Rochdale, he attended art college before going to Warwick University, where he completed a PhD in contemporary European philosophy. He is also a screenwriter and a founding member of the New Puritans movement.
Where Poppies Blow: The British Soldier, Nature, the Great War
John Lewis-Stempel
Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World
Adrian Goldsworthy
Heyday: Britain and the Birth of the Modern World
Stolen Childhoods: The Untold Story of the Children Interned by the Japanese in the Second World War
Nicola Tyrer
In Our Time: The companion to the Radio 4 series
The Longest Week: The truth about Jesus' last days
Nick Page
1848: Year Of Revolution
Mike Rapport
We Will Remember Them: Voices from the Aftermath of the Great War
Max Arthur
Never Surrender
Robert Kershaw
The Buccaneers of the Caribbean: How Piracy Forged an Empire, 1607-1697
Jon Latimer
The Middle Class: A History
Lawrence James
Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia
The Heirs Of The Prophet Muhammad: And the Roots of the Sunni-Shia Schism
Barnaby Rogerson
Bomber Boys: The RAF Offensive of 1943
The Thin Red Line: An eyewitness history of the Crimean War
Julian Spilsbury
Trafalgar: The men, the battle, the storm
Phil Craig, Tim Clayton, Tim Clayton & Phil Craig
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D-Day To Berlin
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Sánchez Message To Tourists Come And Enjoy Our Offer
Pedro Sánchez insisted this Saturday on the need to reactivate tourism . As summer approaches, with the vaccination rate skyrocketing in recent weeks, the Government has great hopes for the season. The opening messages are multiplying.
On Friday, the Chief Executive announced the new criteria for travelers to reach Spain . This Saturday, during an event in Moncloa on the rural world and the demographic challenge, he addressed the "tourists" directly: "We invite you to enjoy our wide range, but especially the wide rural offer. It is one of the jewels in our crown ".
As of June 7, as Sánchez announced the day before in Fitur, travelers who have received the complete vaccination schedule, from any country in the world, will be able to visit Spain. And from next Monday, May 24, there will be no type of health control for visitors coming from the ten non-EU countries considered safe : United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Japan , China and Rwanda.
"In no time, a month, summer begins. We have a solid network of accommodation for those who travel. Since Monday, Spain continues to open its economy and will be delighted to welcome all tourists who come to our country, "said Sánchez during the event, accompanied by the fourth vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, and various mayors and entrepreneurs from rural Spain.
The president recalled that 10,000 million (10% of the money from the EU Recovery Plan) will be allocated over the next few years to "enhance" the field. This is where the so-called Plan of 130 measures against the Demographic Challenge takes place, which has, Sánchez said, two fundamental objectives : to guarantee equal rights in the provision of services and to reduce social gaps as much as possible, and to create opportunities.
An anomaly in Europe
The situation of the rural world in Spain is an anomaly within the European environment. The country has a much smaller percentage of its populated area than France and Germany. 42% of municipalities are at risk of depopulation, compared to 10% of the EU average. "It is a harsh and sad reality," Sánchez has admitted.
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It is important to recognize that despite all of the other actors on the stage, this negotiation is between the United States and Iran. It is also important to understand that while this phase of the discussion is entirely focused on Iran's nuclear development and sanctions, an eventual settlement would address U.S. and Iranian relations and how those relations affect the region. If the nuclear issue were resolved and the sanctions removed, then matters such as controlling Sunni extremists, investment in Iran and maintaining the regional balance of power would all be on the table. In solving these two outstanding problems, the prospect of a new U.S.-Iranian relationship would have to be taken seriously.
But first, there are great obstacles to overcome. One is ideology. Iran regards the United States as the Great Satan. The United States regards Iran as part of the Axis of Evil. For the Iranians, memories of a U.S.-sponsored coup in 1953 and Washington's support for the Shah are vivid. Americans above the age of 35 cannot forget the Iranian hostage crisis, when Iranians seized some 50 U.S. Embassy employees. Iran believes the United States has violated its sovereignty; the United States believes Iran has violated basic norms of international law. Each views the other as barbaric. Add to this that the ideology of radical Islamism regards the United States as corrupt and evil, and the ideology of the United States sees Iran as brutal and repressive, and it would seem that resolution is impossible.
From the American side, there is precedent for reconciling national differences: China. When the United States reached out to China in the 1970s, Beijing was supplying weapons to the North Vietnamese, who used them against American troops. China's rhetoric about U.S. imperialism, replete with "running dogs," portrayed the United States as monstrous. The United States saw China, a nuclear power, as a greater threat for nuclear war than the Soviet Union, since Mao had openly stated — and seemed to mean it — that communists ought to welcome nuclear war rather than fear it. Given the extremism and brutality of the Cultural Revolution, the ideological bar seemed insurmountable.
But the strategic interests of both countries superseded ideology. They did not recognize each other, but they did need each other. The relative power of the Soviet Union had risen. There had been heavy fighting between China and the Soviet Union along the Ussuri River in 1969, and Soviet troops were heavily deployed along China's border. The United States had begun to redeploy troops from Europe to Southeast Asia when it became clear it was losing the Vietnam War.
Each side was concerned that if the Soviet Union chose to attack China or NATO separately, it could defeat them. However, if China and the United States collaborated, no Soviet attack would be possible, lest Moscow start a two-front war it couldn't win. It was not necessary to sign a treaty of military alliance or even mention this possibility. Simply meeting, talking and establishing diplomatic relations with China would force the Soviet Union to consider the possibility that Washington and Beijing had a tacit understanding — or that even without an understanding, an attack on one of them would trigger a response by the other. After all, if NATO or China were defeated, the Soviets would be able to overpower the other at its discretion. Therefore, by moving the relationship from total hostility to minimal accommodation, the strategic balance changed.
At the same time, Iran found that its nuclear program had prompted a seriously detrimental sanctions regime. Stratfor has long argued that the Iranian nuclear program was primarily a bargaining chip to be traded for guarantees on its security and recognition of its regional power. It was meant to appear threatening, not to be threatening. This is why, for years, Iran was "only months" away from a weapon. The problem was that despite its growing power, Iran could no longer withstand the economic repercussions of the sanctions regime. In light of Syria and Iraq, the nuclear program was a serious miscalculation that produced an economic crisis. The failures in foreign policy and the subsequent economic crisis discredited the policies of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, changed the thinking of the supreme leader and ultimately led to the electoral victory of President Hassan Rouhani. The ideology may not have changed, but the strategic reality had. Rouhani for years had been worried about the stability of the regime and was thus critical of Ahmadinejad's policies. He knew that Iran had to redefine its foreign policy.
The United States has also been changing its strategy. During the 2000s, it tried to deal with Sunni radicals through the direct use of force in Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States could not continue to commit its main force in the Islamic world when that very commitment gave other nations, such as Russia, the opportunity to maneuver without concern for U.S. military force. The United States did have a problem with al Qaeda, but it needed a new strategy for dealing with it. Syria provided a model. The United States declined to intervene unilaterally against the al Assad regime because it did not want to empower a radical Sunni government. It preferred to allow Syria's factions to counterbalance each other such that neither side was in control.
This balance-of-power approach was the alternative to direct military commitment. The United States was not the only country concerned about Sunni radicalism. Iran, a Shiite power ultimately hostile to Sunnis, was equally concerned about jihadists. Saudi Arabia, Iran's regional rival, at times opposed Islamist radicals (in Saudi Arabia) and supported them elsewhere (in Syria or Iraq). The American relationship with Saudi Arabia, resting heavily on oil, had changed. The United States had plenty of oil now and the Saudis' complex strategies simply no longer matched American interests. On the broadest level, a stronger Iran, aligned with the United States, would counter Sunni ambitions. It would not address the question of North Africa or other smaller issues, but it would force Saudi Arabia to reshape its policies.
The Arab Spring also was a consideration. A mainstay of Washington's Iran policy was that at some point there would be an uprising that would overthrow the regime. The 2009 uprising, never really a threat to the regime, was seen as a rehearsal. If there was likely to be an uprising, there was no need to deal with Iran. Then the Arab Spring occurred. Many in the Obama administration misread the Arab Spring, expecting it to yield more liberal regimes. That didn't happen. Egypt has not evolved, Syria has devolved into civil war, Bahrain has seen Saudi Arabia repress its uprising, and Libya has found itself on the brink of chaos. Not a single liberal democratic regime emerged. It became clear that there would be no uprising in Iran, and even if there were, the results would not likely benefit the United States.
Therefore, in the particular case of Iran's nuclear program, the United States could only employ sanctions. On the broader issue of managing American interests in the Middle East, the United States had to find more options. It could not rely entirely on Saudi Arabia, which has dramatically different regional interests. It could not rely entirely on Israel, which by itself could not solve the Iranian problem militarily. These realities forced the United States to recalibrate its relationship with Iran at a time when Iran had to recalibrate its relationship with the United States.
The first U.S.-Iranian discussions would obviously be on the immediate issue — the nuclear program and sanctions. There are many technical issues involved there, the most important of which is that both sides must show that they don't need a settlement. No one negotiating anything will simply accept the first offer, not when they expect the negotiations to move on to more serious issues. Walking away from the table for 10 days gives both sides some credibility.
The real negotiations will come after the nuclear and sanctions issues are addressed. They will pertain to U.S.-Iranian relations more broadly. Each side will use the other to its advantage. The Iranians will use the United States to repair its economy, and the Americans will use the Iranians to create a balance of power with Sunni states. This will create indirect benefits for both sides. Iran's financial woes will be an opportunity for American companies to invest. The Americans' need for a balance of power will give Iran weight against its own enemies, even after the collapse of its strategy.
The region will of course look different but not dramatically so. The balance of power idea does not mean a rupture with Saudi Arabia or Israel. The balance of power only works if the United States maintains strong relationships on all sides. The Saudis and Israelis will not like American rebalancing. Their choices in the matter are limited, but they can take comfort from the fact that a strictly pro-Iranian policy is impossible for the United States. The American strategy with China in the 1970s was to try to become the power that balanced the Soviet Union and China. After meeting with the Chinese, Henry Kissinger went to Moscow. Thus, in terms of bilateral relationships, U.S.-Saudi and U.S.-Israeli relations can stay the same. But it now creates another relationship and option for the United States. In the end, Iran is still a secondary power and the United States is the primary power. Iran will take advantage of the relationship, and the United States will manage it.


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FIND YOUR AITO ASSURED HOLIDAY
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Holidays to Brazil
Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world, has large stretches of unspoiled wilderness and a wealth of culture, from the architectural modernism of Oscar Niemeyer to the harmonies of Bossa Nova. It attracts revellers to the carnivals of Rio, Olinda and Salvador, beach bums to its sandy coastline, adventurers to its 60-plus pristine National Parks and adrenaline junkies seeking rare thrills like dune-driving in Ceará or rappelling in Cachoeira Grande.
Everyone has their favourite spot and I keep returning to Ouro Preto, one hour by bus from Belo Horizonte. Built during an 18th century goldrush and frozen in time, it is a living showroom of Brazilian baroque. Squat, two-storey colonial houses and large stuccoed public fountains provide the perfect backdrop for a string of stunning churches laden with gold and adorned with statues carved by the best masters of the Portuguese Empire. Every cobblestone here tells a captivating story.
John Malathronas
John is a freelance travel writer and photographer. He writes for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, National Geographic Traveller, CNN, and Rough Guides and has his own blog, The Jolly Traveller. Specialities include Greece, France, German-speaking Europe, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa. www.malathronas.com
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86 holidays match your criteria.
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South America's 'Big Five'!
A 17-day tour of Brazil focusing on South America's 'Big Five' - Brazilian Tapir, Giant Anteater, Maned Wolf, Giant River Otter and Jaguar - and other wildlife, visiting the stunning Paranaíba Headwaters National Park and the world famous wetlands of the Pantanal.
Holiday duration: 17 days
Operator: Naturetrek
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Brazil wildlife tour Pantanal
Brazil wildlife tour with three full days on the Rio Paraguay looking for Jaguars, Giant River Otters and a huge variety of resident wildlife on this bespoke safari
Operator: Wildlife Trails
Exotic Cities & Idyllic Beaches
Ideal for Honeymoons enjoy the sheer romance of Rio, the energy of Salvador before heading to your idyllic beach resort.
Operator: Veloso Tours
The Jaguar Safari
This is a wonderful trip which will take deep into the Pantanal, Brazil's foremost wildlife destination. You'll be in prime jaguar-spotting territory, so make sure you take your camera with you for some superb wildlife shots. You'll be led by an English-speaking guide, who will help you understand and interpret the life of the Pantanal.
Operator: Tribes Travel
Ultimate South America
Starting in Cartagena and ending in Rio, this ultimate 55 day adventure ticks off all the highlights of South America, including Machu Picchu, Patagonia and the Galapagos Islands.
Price from: £11,549
Operator: Tucan Travel
The Americas Overland with Carni
The Americas Overland with Carni from Dragoman is an exhilarating holiday in Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru. Available from 22 Jul 2020 to 17 Feb 2021 this 211 day trip costs from £10,557 and has a maximum group size of 22 persons.
Holiday duration: 211 days
Operator: Dragoman Overland
South America's Big Cats
A 16-day holiday in search of South America's iconic big cats, the Jaguar and the Puma, as well as other wildlife, amongst the stunning scenery of the Pantanal in Brazil and the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile.
Brazil Jaguar Wolf & Anteater
Brazil wildlife holiday in the Pantanal, the best location in the world to photograph Wild Jaguars, with an extension to Canastra National Park to photograph Maned Wolves and Giant Anteaters.
IGGBTC: Lima to Rio de Janeiro
There's times when it's appropriate to dip a toe in, and there's times when it's best to simply dive in headfirst
Operator: Imaginative Traveller
South America Cross-Continent
A cross-continent adventure with alpine and Andean scenery, tropical beaches, cosmopolitan cities, magnificent waterfalls and colonial and Inca heritage.


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bitchy | Martin & Short 'dismayed' Selena Gomez wasn't nominated for Only Murders
by Lawrence Moore July 15, 2022 0120
When the 2022 Emmy nominations were announced earlier this week, Only Murders in the Building came out the gate strong with a total of 17 nominations. This was unsurprising considering that it is an awesome show. In addition to many technical nominations, Only Murders pulled a comedy series nomination, acting nominations for a couple of guest stars, and lead actor nominations for Steve Martin and Martin Short. Noticeably snubbed? Selena Gomez, the third member of the central trio. Steve and Marty did a video interview with The New York Times after the nominations were announced and noted their dismay that Selena wasn't nominated as well.
"Only Murders in the Building" was recognized many times today. How does it feel?
STEVE MARTIN Well, we're thrilled. We're thrilled at the nominations, not only for us but for the show. We're dismayed that Selena was not nominated because she's so crucial to our performances, really.
MARTIN SHORT She is nominated as an executive producer.
Who is this a bigger honor for?
MARTIN It's a big honor for everybody. Because two years ago, we weren't working.
SHORT To think that, when I was a kid, there was prime-time: ABC, NBC and CBS. And now you have a billion shows — so many that I'm told by my family are just brilliant and I have not seen. To thrive in that kind of era is pretty great.
MARTIN Also, I believe that the comedy acting category should be divided in two, for Overly Broad and Way Too Subtle. So whatever the nominations are, you have subcategories. Marty could win Overly Broad, and I could win Way Too Subtle.
SHORT You could be in your own category, which is Too Pale to Actually Light.
MARTIN When they're doing a close-up on Marty, they use me as a bounce board.
Have you ever been in direct competition before?
SHORT Just emotionally.
MARTIN Every minute of every day.
Martin, this is the first continuing series that you have been involved with for a while; Steve, this is your first continuing series ever. Is there any way in which you feel like rookies?
MARTIN I was surprised, I thought the shooting would be quite different. I thought it would be two takes and you move on, and two takes more and you move on. But no, it's just like a movie. We're shooting five hours in 12, 14 weeks. A movie is two hours in 10 weeks.
Are you going to be able to support each other on Emmys night? Or will it get cutthroat? Will it be each man for himself?
MARTIN I suggested to Marty that he withdraw, but he doesn't say why. It's just a mystery. And then he starts a whisper campaign that it's because I have a fatal disease.
SHORT Steve told me this last night, and I said: "I don't quite understand. It seems to service you more than me."
MARTIN I said he comes off like a hero. He's stepping back for his friend.
SHORT So if this all happened, and you're sitting there and you hear, "And the winner is — Bill Hader," what do you do?
MARTIN [leaping up from his seat] I'm well!
[From The New York Times]
I wasn't totally surprised Selena wasn't nominated. The comedy field seems particularly stacked this year and she's probably considered a lead on the show. I wonder if she would have fared better if her role was considered supporting? But deserved or not, it's gotta sting that her two counterparts were nominated and she was not. Like Steve says, she is crucial to their performances and the overall dynamic of the main trio and therefore their characters wouldn't be the same without her. The NY Times interview is great to hear the two men bounce off each other and I know they've been friends for years before Selena was even born, but reading the interview I could hear their voices and really felt like someone was missing. This is a case for a best ensemble nomination category if I ever saw one.
Steve and Marty also covered People this week with an exclusive about their friendship, working together, and they mention the next season of Only Murders. Selena hinted at it last month and it was confirmed for season three this week.
Photos credit: Avalon.red and via Instagram, Twitter
bitchy | Jane Lynch supports Lea Michele's Broadway comeback: 'I adore her'
bitchy | Khloe Kardashian is expecting a son, she 'always wanted a little brother for True'
bitchy | Brett Kavanaugh made a quick exit from a steakhouse when protesters turned up
Lawrence Moore July 12, 2022
bitchy | Selena Gomez commented a sad emoji on a TikTok about her and Justin Bieber
Lawrence Moore December 13, 2022
bitchy | Kanye West smeared fashion editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, chaos ensued
Lawrence Moore October 5, 2022


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Artabotrys pandanicarpus är en kirimojaväxtart som beskrevs av Ian Mark Turner. Artabotrys pandanicarpus ingår i släktet Artabotrys och familjen kirimojaväxter. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Kirimojaväxter
pandanicarpus

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Can't make it out to the gym to train with me directly? Now you can with Simone Baseball Performance Online Training Programs!
Step 1 –The first step is to book a phone call with me. This is where I will get to know you and we can talk about your specific athletic goals and what you want me to help you accomplish.
Step 2 – Following our phone conversation we will schedule a Face Time/Skype Call. This is where I will run you through my complete assessment. This will be the same evaluation protocol I use with my high school, college, and professional baseball players that I work with in-person at my gym.
Step 3 – After we conclude our Face Time/Skype call I will send you an email with a list of exercises and movements I need you to video from home in order to complete the assessment process. The pictures and videos will allow me to asses your posture, lower body mobility (hip internal/external rotation), upper body mobility (shoulder internal/external rotation), core stability, etc. Step 2 and 3 will give me all the information I need in order to write your individualized training program.
Step 4 – Once you have completed Step 3 I will write Phase 1 (Weeks 1-4) of your individualized training program. In addition to your Phase 1 training program, you will also be given your customized nutrition plan that will be designed for your specific goals and needs. This nutrition plan contains the same nutritional principles I've been utilizing with my high school, college, and professional baseball players.
Q: I can only train in my high school or commercial gym. Therefore I only have access to dumbbells and barbells. Will that be okay?
A: Yes, almost all of the high school, college, and professional baseball players I work with remotely don't have access to special equipment. You don't need any special equipment whatsoever.
Q: What if I don't know how to perform a certain exercise?
A: Every exercise in your training program will be accompanied by a video showing you how to perform the movement properly.
Q: Can you look at my form on certain exercises I am unsure about?
A: Yes, I encourage all my remote training clients to send me as much video as possible! Exercise technique is critical in order to benefit from the exercise. I encourage you to send me as much video as possible so I can make sure you're performing each exercise correctly.


In this winter of ice storms and a polar vortex, moments of warmth are few and far between. Duracell wanted to see if we could change that. By joining hands, commuters completed a circuit between the positive and negative symbols on either side of the transit shelter.


Q. Which of the following would do more to reduce the gap between the rich and poor in Australia?
57% support raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations to increase support for those on low incomes and 18% support lowering taxes on the wealthy and corporations to encourage investment and economic growth.
Those most likely to support increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations were Greens voters (74%), Labor voters 71%) and those earning less than $600 pw (71%).
Q. Would you rather have more government services if that meant more taxes, less government services in order to reduce taxes or services and taxes about as we have them now?
35% are satisfied with the balance of taxes and services as we have them now, 28% want less services and reduced taxes and 19% would pay more taxes for more services.
Those most likely to want lower taxes and services were Liberal/National voters (33%) and full-time workers (33%).
Those most likely to prefer more services and taxes were Greens voters (31%) and those with university education (26%).


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Cinemas Greatest Scenes Film
Cinemas Greatest Scenes: Garbo talks!
by Robert Horvat
Swedish actress Greta Garbo was one of the most dazzling stars to arrive in Hollywood in the mid 1920's. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer secured her services promptly after screen-tests proved how radiant she appeared on screen. Shortly after, the silent romantic drama Torrent (1926) would become her first American film. Following a string of successful silent movies, Garbo quickly established her reputation as one of Hollywood's best screen actresses. She had effectively mastered her posture, facial expressions and hand gestures as an integral part of communicating with an audience as a silent screen actress.
Although Gabor had become increasingly difficult and demanding to work with, MGM were constantly in fear that she might lose interest in filmmaking. They had even more reason to fear that audiences would hate her Swedish accent as Hollywood studios began the move to convert their pictures to sound. (Garbo's final silent picture was The Kiss (1929), and also MGM's last.)
When Garbo first arrived in Hollywood she knew very little English. By the late '20s she was fluent enough in English but Garbo in a talking picture was a whole other kettle of fish. Strategically, MGM held off pushing Garbo into sound pictures until it could no longer. The studio chose Anna Christie (1930), a film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's 1922 Pulitzer play as her first speaking role. They would go on to publicise it with the catchphrase "Garbo talks."
Upon Anna Christie's release, Garbo's whole career hinged upon the success of her performance. She would either sink or swim in her portrayal of a former prostitute trying to turn her life around. Eventually when Greta Garbo was about to speak in Anna Christie, incredibly some sixteen minutes into the film, moviegoers held their collective breath and hoped Garbo would live up to their expectations. Astonishingly, Garbo rose to the occasion and proved the critics, audiences and her studio wrong by delivering an Oscar nominated performance. Her first words on screen in turn would become one of the most famous lines in film history. Ordering a drink in a bar Garbo would almost matter a fact utter, "Gimme me a whiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don't be stingy, baby." And so with those words, Garbo had successfully made her transition to sound. Importantly, moviegoers found her thick Swedish accent so completely charming, that it didn't matter that she wasn't American.
Photo credit: The header image is a promotional photo for the film Anna Christie (1930) starring Greta Garbo and Marie Dressler. This work is in the public domain.
TagsAnna Christie • Cinemas Greatest Scenes • Famous movie scenes • Greta Garbo • Screen sirens
About Robert Horvat
Robert Horvat is a Melbourne based blogger. He believes that the world is round and that art is one of our most important treasures. He has seen far too many classic films and believes coffee runs through his veins. As a student of history, he favours ancient and medieval history. Music pretty much rules his life and inspires his moods. Favourite artists include The Beatles, Pearl Jam, Garbage and Lana Del Rey.
roberthorvat30.wordpress.com
1 comment on "Cinemas Greatest Scenes: Garbo talks!"
EclecticMusicLover
Garbo and Marie Dressler are captivating to watch.
Leave a Reply to EclecticMusicLover Cancel reply