Himalayan Golf Course combines a dramatic piece of property, a spectacular backdrop and bold routing.
Some golf courses (e.g., Sand Hills) seem to be an effortless creation over a special piece of property, while others rely on superlative design to make the golfer feel as though he is playing over an especially good site. At Friar's Head, for example, Coore and Crenshaw's masterful routing and attention to detail to tie the disparate parts of the property together cause the golfer to leave the 18th green believing that the property was predestined for golf, when in fact it took great effort and imagination to achieve that perception.
Himalayan Golf Course, outside Pokhara, Nepal, falls in the latter category, as the golfer believes he is playing on one of the handful of truly mind-blowing pieces of property that any course on the planet occupies. The golfer is correct in this belief, but this was not a site that begged for a golf course. Rather, it took immense imagination and creativity to envision, design and build the course, and then to continue to refine it. To top it off, the design and construction work was done by amateurs with no experience in the industry!
This course owes its dramatic experiences to Major Ram Gurung, a Gurkha who served in the British Army for 30 years before retiring to Pokhara in 1994 to design and build the course. Major Gurung is one of a handful of Gurkhas ever to graduate from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in England and was the first Nepali to take up golf in the British Gurkhas. He reached the level of an 8 handicap and was Secretary of the Brigade of Gurkhas Golfing Society while stationed in Hong Kong.
When I came to visit the resort site and quite literally stumbled onto this raw, unadulterated canyon land below with a Himalayan river running through it, my immediate response was "Now here's a possibility of squeezing in a championship nine hole course. Can you acquire the land?" The land was subsequently acquired.
Major Gurung became so enamored with the possibility of creating a special course that he became a partner in the project, designed the course and oversaw its construction. Given his golfing background and keen interest in gardening and landscaping, he was a logical choice for the project, given the dearth of professional architects and builders within 1000 miles.
Not surprisingly, he cites for inspiration two of the most dramatic, yet also strategic, holes in golf: The 16th at Cypress Point and the 17th at the Old Course at St. Andrews. His reference to the sound of the Bijayapur River that runs through the canyon is not an overstatement – one can actually hear the fierce river that carries off snowmelt from the Annapurna range from several hundred feet above on the rim of the canyon. A dominant, natural sound makes for a wonderful addition to any course, as devotees of seaside golf can attest. Yet, let it be said that the golfer needs to take care when crossing the rushing river in a few spots, just as he would on a Himalayan trek.
This raging river is a far cry from the charming creeks of the American northeast. Its roar can be heard from several hundred feet above.
This bridge is one example why the author recommends hiking boots rather than golf shoes for a round at Himalayan Golf Course.
The plan was to build nine holes and then look to expand, with the hope of having 18 holes one day. The original nine, which took "four years of pure hand labour to complete," consisted of the current holes 1-3; a longer version of the current 5th hole; the current 6th and 10th holes; the current 13th hole from a tee across the river (from near the current 10th green); and the current 14th and 15th holes. While it would be tempting to stop with such a nine that rivals any nine-holer in the world, Major Gurung and his partners wanted to press on with more holes, in part because there were more great holes to be built and in part to allow the course to be considered more of a destination (as, rightly or wrongly, golfers are more willing to go out of their way to play an 18-hole course than a 9-hole course).
This expansion from 9 to 16 holes is especially notable for the fact that the original nine holes were laid out without the assurance that more property would be available to allow for more holes. Therefore, the original nine was designed to be the best nine that it could be, and the subsequent holes had to be fitted around them. The fact that most visitors would not know that the course was not laid out at the same time is a testament to Major Guring's work.
The property originally intended for part of the back nine had been developed, hence the current 16 holes. However, while some courses refuse to conform to the standards of 9 or 18 holes (e.g., Shiskine's 12 holes), it remains a reasonable goal for Himalayan Golf Course to have a full 18, and there is room on the existing property to do so (e.g., perhaps a new hole between 11 and 12 or between the 15th green and the walk up to the 16th tee). It is commendable that, while there was a long-range plan from the start, the owners have showed the patience to ensure that the course matures nicely and to see how the changes play out before further steps are taken.
While some modern courses seem to bombard the senses with one "signature hole" after another, Himalayan Golf Course, while intentionally dramatic, succeeds in pacing out the musical highs: the view from the 3rd tee as the golfer first plays down into the canyon; the island 6th green; the 7th tee shot across the river; the first view of the 10th green after climbing up from the fairway; the 13th green, fitted between an outcropping on the right and the river on the left (with the abrupt canyon wall just beyond the river); the view of the 15th green after climbing to the high point in the fairway some 75 yards short of the green; and the 16th tee, literally perched on the edge of the canyon. As is often the case with truly great courses, the player often thinks "Surely this high standard of golf cannot continue," only to be thrilled when it does. To the author, the aforementioned high points allow the course to do exactly that.
3rd hole, 345 yards: Following the admittedly less than thrilling opening two holes over flat ground, the golfer's breath is taken away on this severely downhill tee shot that takes him down into the canyon and has him headed directly towards the towering Annapurna massif of the Himalayas in the distance. After descending to the upper part of the canyon floor (yes, over the next few holes he will continue down even further until he reaches the raging river itself), the golfer is confronted with a pitch to a two-level green that steps down from left to right. The clever green ensures that there is plenty of golf needed on this hole – it is much more than just a postcard view.
Even on this hazy day, the tee shot at the 3rd is plenty dramatic, as it sends the player into the canyon, where he will remain through the 15th green. On a clear day, the awesome (an appropriate adjective) Annapurna massif is directly beyond.
While descending into the canyon after the tee shot on the 3rd hole, the golfer does not think twice about coming across this goat, as the goat is perfectly at home at this dramatic site.
4th hole, 200 yards: One of the most precise shots on the course, the tee shot on the fourth needs to find the small (3000 square feet) green that is benched into the hillside. A ledge on the right (high) side makes it difficult to bounce the ball in from that side, while the left features a sharp drop-off from where golfers are happy to make 4. To top it off, the right side of the green has a good-sized knob in it. Quite a hole for one that was added after the original nine holes was being played.
The modest-sized, sloping green with a steep drop-off to the left make the tee shot one of the handful of most exacting swings a player is asked to make.
6th hole, 555 yards: Originally the fifth hole, this three-shotter immediately established itself as one of the unique holes in the world of golf. After a strategic diagonal tee shot across the river (which he wants to hug as much as possible to shorten the distance to the green and leave the best angle into the green), the golfer has a stark decision to make: To go for the green (on an island in the river) or lay up to the right. Whether with the second or third shot, the approach is invigorating, as the golfer has real concerns with coming up short or, especially with the firm conditions, rolling over the green and into the river just beyond. The one architectural quibble the author has with the course is the addition of the eight circular bunkers short of the green, as the extraneous clutter of these manmade features appear woefully out of place in this setting and so dominate the approach that a golfer would not realistically try to fit a shot between them.
As seen from the clubhouse area on top of the canyon, the island containing the 6th green caps one of the special holes in golf.
7th hole, 150 yards: Just as the player feels his head spinning after the drama of the previous four holes, he thinks "The course can't keep this up; surely some pedestrian holes are in store." The player climbs to the 7th tee and is emphatically proven wrong, with a one-shotter across the river to a parapet green. To the author, this is a key point in the round as the golfer now starts to believe that this course is more than just a novelty with a few good holes and pretty views.
The 7th green: Hit it or else!
8th hole, 340 yards: While the 8th and 9th holes share a fairway, they do not share landing areas, so the pair work well together. The 8th provides the only blind tee shot on the course and demands a precise pitch to a tight green built against the base of the wooded canyon wall.
Tucked hard to canyon wall, the 8th green is one of the more challenging targets to find, even with a wedge in hand.
9th hole, 350 yards: Requiring only a middle iron and a pitch, the 9th is a beautifully framed hole, with the trees on the left and the hillside on the right. The green is set into a rocky hillside and requires that the ball be pitched onto it.
As seen from behind, the 9th with its trees and rushing river offers a different, almost Alpine, look.
10th hole, 535 yards: Sharing the fairway for the tee shot with the 6th hole, the 10th then presents a demanding, uphill, blind second. Once he reaches the upper fairway, the golfer is relieved to find much more room than he expected and, in the distance, a large, tilted green. After climbing the hill, the golfer feels as though he has been transported from Nepal to Scotland, as the last 75 yards of this hole would be right at home at, say, The Machrie.
Even though they share a fairway, the tee shots on the 6th and 10th holes are not free-for-alls, as the river borders the 6th to its left, a burn is tight to the left of the 10th fairway, and a few rock outcroppings (such as this one) go up the middle, essentially serving the same role as bunkers between holes at the Old Course at St. Andrews.
After an heroic second to a plateau, the golfer is pleasantly surprised to find a welcoming approach flowing into a good-sized (by Himalayan GC standards!) green.


Specifically, we are bringing together a group of 10 M¨¦tis citizens will be invited to participate in a two-day focus group meeting on December 4-5, 2013 in Ottawa. All participants¡¯ travel costs (ground, air, etc.), meals and hotel costs will be covered by the MNO.
This project is intended to help us better understand the M¨¦tis Cancer Treatment Journey on issues such as access, quality of services, and care outcomes. The focus group will also help the MNO and its partners, the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and Cancer Care Ontario, learn about key quality and continuity of care issues facing M¨¦tis people in Ontario, and across the full spectrum of health care.
Interested individuals should submit a 1-2 page letter of interest by mail, email or fax, no later than 5:00p.m.( EST) Friday, November 15, 2013.
We are particularly interested in hearing about the experiences of M¨¦tis people living in rural and northern communities as well as those living in more urban areas. For this reason, we will be selecting participants from various regions across the province.
Due to the limited resources available, it is possible that not all people who are interested in being involved will be selected, but all applicants will receive a response from the MNO and have an opportunity to provide their input in other ways.
In considering your involvement, please be assured that the MNO follows strict ethical guidelines in any research it undertakes. ?Your privacy and the confidentiality of any information you provide will therefore be fully protected at all times. Your personal identity will not be revealed in any project research reports or publications, and you will not be identified in any other way.
Please know that your personal stories and insights about cancer are highly meaningful to MNO¡¯s efforts to improve health care and treatment options for M¨¦tis citizens in Ontario. MNO staff will be on hand at all times during the two day session and will make every effort to ensure that you are comfortable and that the meeting is a positive experience that is carried out in a respectful, supportive environment.


At the beginning of Sept I had the privilege of attending Interdrone, one of the leading conferences for the Drone Industry, held in Las Vegas, USA.
What is it? Interdrone is a combination exhibition and conference for all things commercial drone operations, which runs for 4 days. Over 3,500 drone professionals attend and 160 companies exhibit. They also host 110 workshops, sessions and panels over the 4 days of the conference.
Exhibitors vary from UAS manufacturers & software providers to insurers. Most of the companies are promoting their latest advances and it was really exciting to get eyes (or even hands) on with some of the equipment having only seen it online before this.
My favourite was the Skydio R1, having seen videos of this semi-autonomous drone in action tracking people through woodland whilst filming them running or biking it was great to get hands on with it and chat to the team behind it. I still think it's a game changer to have a piece of equipment with this capability that is only a bit bigger than a Mavic Pro, and is only $2000. Now they've released their Autonomy Platform for anyone to create skills on I feel their technology will go from strength to strength and I look forward to see what they do next.
Consortiq had their own stand which we shared with Optelos. We were talking all things training, consultancy and flight planning software, while Optelos covered analytics and insights from the data gathered by drones.
Conference sessions span several interest tracks from Precision Agriculture to Public Safety, and there was also a Part 107 preparation day the day before the conference started. Unfortunately one of the issues with being an exhibitor is you don't get to fully enjoy the conference.
I did manage to go along to a session on Data Security & Drones by DJI, which gave a useful rundown of data risks at each point of connection in the stack. It was great to see them starting to talk more about this as a concern for the industry as a whole given their position in the market. Hopefully it will emphasise to regular users how important security is to their operations, their data and ultimately their livelihood.
The other interesting session I went to was by Airmap on opening the skies up for drones. Greg McNeal mentioned that progress on advanced drone operations (and volume of operations) has stalled due to regulations. It was interesting to see how much parallelled the points I raised at my Royal Aeronautical Society talk on Innovation Vs Regulation, showing that we are facing a global issue not local.
When / where is it? Interdrone is held at the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, USA. It is usually held during the first week of September. The 2019 dates have already been announced - September 3rd - 6th (at the Rio Hotel again).
Is it worth me going? It really depends, if you're interested in new hardware from someone other than DJI, and looking to see as many of the advancements in the drone industry in one place then yes. If you're interested in learning more about how to conduct your operations more efficiently, safely and exploiting the latest technologies then the conference will be good for you. If you don't mind a 14hr flight with a 2hr stop in Chicago and are ok with 108 F (42 C) temperatures, then you'll get on just fine.
Take a look at our video of the event to see some more highlights (and some great out-takes).
Garf (Right) is Consortiq's CTO and is responsible for our mission planning software CQNet.
Bryan (Left) is our US VP and is responsible for all training and consultancy in the USA.
Ben (Middle) is our Business Development Manager and has to ensure our customers are always happy.


Chabot Fine Art Gallery is pleased to present "A Visual Narrative" — a collection of new paintings by Rhode Island artist Lee Chabot.
Chabot's unique style of painting combines bold strokes with a controlled yet striking color palette recalling the rich landscapes of the Atlantic Coast, French Countryside, Rhode Island and Abstracts.
His works, sometimes complex but other times simple geometrical arrangements, possess a certain vitality and movement shaped by unique and unfettered brushwork.
Through compositions created by line and color, Chabot's work explores the possibilities of perspective within two-dimensional space, influenced by early Cubism but also drawing from Impressionist paintings focusing on the "essence" of picture making.
Chabot paints landscapes unforgotten, from wide-open ocean vistas to busy market squares. And, while some the works are subtle and introspective; others are full of energy and motion.
Chabot Gallery will present a collection of new works by Lee Chabot painted in oil and acrylic, completed during 2013.
Lee Chabot was born in Pawtucket, R.I. and presently resides in Glocester, R.I. Chabot realized by the age of 12 that he had a natural ability to comprehend perspective, light, and the principles of color, and expressed this ability through drawing and painting. A graduate of the Art Institute of Boston he studied under the renowned Phillip Hicken and is influenced by J.M.W. Turner, Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh. Chabot was a co-founder of the Art Institute of Rhode Island, which offered fine art and commercial courses to children, youth and adults.
Lee Chabot is a member of the Providence Art Club and has exhibited in Laguna Beach, CA, Santa Fe, NM, New York City, Fort Lauderdale FL, Providence RI, and Mystic CT. Chabot's works can be found in numerous private collections around the world. His work has been reviewed in: American Art Collector Magazine, Artscope Magazine, Art is Spectrum and in International publications.
is the most important aspect in the successful achievement of any painting.
"A Visual Narrative" collection as my way of saying, "thank you".


Is Your Change Process Hurting Your Product's Potential?
Finding the right level of control for your manufacturing change approvals is essential for getting your product to market on time and at cost, but knowing when to loosen up and when to lock down is often a tricky call.
A loose change process, where individual engineers have the discretion to either expedite change requests or make immediate revisions, exposes your product to unintended consequences including costly scrap and rework at best and field failures at worst. But excessive review slows down the iterative process and burdens team members, making it harder to innovate and rapidly improve product quality.
Eric Larkin, co-founder and CTO at Arena, has firsthand experience with both the benefits and pain points of different levels of change control. His first company, Light & Motion Industries, used an informal change process that gave individual engineers the discretion to authorize product changes autonomously. He later worked at Storm Technology, where all changes went through a detailed review.
I sat down with Eric to better understand how much approval is needed to successfully launch a product, and how a company can find that optimum level of control.
Why did you decide to go with an informal change approval process at Light & Motion?
Eric: At the time, it was very important for Light & Motion to be nimble and iterate changes quickly, because we felt it allowed us to deliver the best possible product to customers. We could handle a looser change process because we were early in the product lifecycle and had a small engineering team, so the details of the design were very familiar to everyone. An individual engineer was expected to make the right calls on product design or call in colleagues for review without formalized approvals. We could also use a looser process because our manufacturing was vertically integrated, meaning that even though the product was complex, we could generally go downstairs and see the result of a change immediately.
Did this informal change process ever backfire on you?
Eric: Yes it did, though on balance I'd use the same approach again in a similar situation. The downside to a quicker change process is, very simply, that you make more mistakes—and those errors can produce scrap and negatively affect quality and company reputation.
For example, the controls on our underwater video housing used high strength (so-called "rare earth") magnets mounted in movable switches outside the enclosure to activate Hall effect sensors on the inside of the housing. The first versions of the product used samarium-cobalt magnets because they are very high strength and resistant to corrosion. But, they're also relatively expensive, and our head of manufacturing realized that we could save money by using neodymium magnets instead. It was a pretty big savings—the samarium-cobalt magnets were about a dollar apiece, while the neodymium equivalents were less than a quarter. He did functional tests with the neodymium magnets and they worked fine, so he approved them as an alternative for purchasing.
We soon found out, however, that neodymium magnets corrode very quickly in salt water—a real problem for an underwater device used by scuba divers all over the world. It caused a number of field failures so we switched back to samarium-cobalt. We eventually redesigned the switches to put a seal around the magnets and got to save money and prevent corrosion, but it's still an error I wish we hadn't made.
Do you have a relatively large engineering team?
Does your product involve several different engineering disciplines?
Are your teams or your manufacturing sites geographically dispersed?
Do you have low gross margins and little room for scrap or rework?
Do you manufacture your product in high volume?
Compared to Light & Motion, do you believe Storm Technology benefited from its highly formalized change process?
Eric: Storm Technology had a larger team designing scanners for outsourced high volume manufacturing, so it had different requirements for its change process than Light & Motion.
For a large company producing higher-volume products, it's important to follow a formal change process in order to minimize the chance of decisions with unforeseen implications. And with several engineering teams in different disciplines, there were a lot of opportunities for one change to impact another aspect of the product. Review was both necessary and appropriate for the product and the scale of the engineering and manufacturing effort.
However, the formality did slow us down early on in the design process. When you're first prototyping a new design, it is really important to move fast and iterate quickly to work out kinks and figure out a reliable manufacturing process.
For example, we had a flatbed scanner design in which we were bonding the "carriage" that held the scanning element to the other side of the glass sheet where we placed the document. It was a real innovation that reduced part count and eliminated a tolerance stack that affected image quality. But that kind of bonding is tricky—we had to account for material compatibility, work out procedures to clean and prime the surfaces, and address adhesive application and curing. We needed to get the product shipping for the holiday season, and we couldn't iterate fast enough on the design to nail down the process.
We ended up with a higher scrap rate than I would have liked. It's hard to know what might have been, but I think a looser process early in the design would have gotten better results.
How did these experiences influence how Arena BOMControl handles the change process?
Eric: I learned that there is no universally correct way to establish a change process, so I wanted BOMControl to be flexible and allow a company to configure and update its change process based on particular needs and where a product is in its lifecycle.
The goal of BOMControl change management is to provide all the benefits of a centralized product record without hampering rapid iteration in the early stages of prototyping.
What's your general rule of thumb for setting up a solid change process?
Eric: In general, a company with low volume manufacturing, a simpler product and a relatively small, single-discipline engineering team is best served with a more informal change process. A centralized engineering team and vertical integration also make it easier to have a less formal process, since a surprising amount of information is exchanged over the water cooler or on the manufacturing floor.
I also recommend that companies experiment with a less formal review of changes in the design phase and switch to a tighter approval process in production—when mistakes can have major repercussions. And no matter how changes are handled, product data needs to be centralized.
Setting up a change process can be a very tricky balancing act, and I personally feel that unless you are making a safety-critical product, it's generally not optimal to do so much review that you completely eliminate mistakes.
If a manufacturer isn't making any mistakes, the company may not be moving or innovating fast enough to stay competitive over the long term. It's one of those things where you can, and probably should, make continual adjustments to find the best fit between the process and your particular people, product, and business environment.
In BOMControl, a typical configuration for change management allows authorized members of the team to directly release new revisions of parts and products in the design phase—with no formal change order or approvals—so rapid iteration isn't stifled. However, after the part or product enters the production phase of the lifecycle, the same change requires a formal change order with multiple sign-offs based on redlines of the product design. Of course, companies can configure this as they see fit. Larger customers tend to prefer formal change orders over "lighter" approvals in design, and really small teams sometimes prefer to keep it fast and loose all the way through production.


Collection 03/25/04 - Mr. Barth's baby, walking home, and hanging out at Conant.
Collection 10/11/04 - Bio Lab, new kitty (Isabelle), and trip to Six Flags New England with a surprise encounter.
A mommy monkey with a baby on her back!
Collection 05/08/08 - A trip to Pennsylvania with Bryce, James, and Tony. Cheese steaks and the Philedelphia Zoo!
Dave has been transformed into a stuffed monkey!
Collection 01/01/10 - The first night of Alancon and the first night of the new decade! The future is officially here!
Collection 12/16/11 - Reddit Secret Santa! Also MLP subreddit Secret Santa!
Collection 10/27/12 - Steve's 2012 Halloween party!
Go banana! Also, look out for that monkey man with a GoPro!
Collection 08/19/18 - Matt the Mat comes to visit. Let's see space stuff and art stuff!


How to make, low carb eating, work for you.
Most people who have an interest in losing weight, reducing their body fat or generally improving their overall health will have come across low carb eating in one form or other along the way.
Some have great success with it while others really seem to struggle and soon go back to eating as they did before… but why is this? Is there a difference between eating low carb and no carb? Or, might you just be getting your low carb and no carb eating plans wrong?
Well yes, there most certainly is a difference between eating a low carb diet and eating a no carb diet and if you do get the difference wrong it will most certainly make what should be a very simple process of shedding unwanted body fat very difficult and frustrating indeed. It is also possible to get either eating plan wrong without ever mistaking one for the other.
This really is a shame too because get either eating style right and you really will find it very easy to shed any amount of unwanted body-fat you care to lose.
The good news is that getting either form of low carb eating right isn't very hard, it just takes a little knowledge and a touch of observation.
Before we get down to how you may be making low carb and no carb difficult for yourself lets first look at how both work at lowering your body fat.
The way a lower carb diet works is quite simple.
Whenever you eat them, carbohydrates of any sort (simple sugars, or so called slow release, low GI carbohydrates) cause the release of insulin in the blood. Insulin's job is to get that sugar out of your blood where it is quite poisonous and instead deliver it into your liver, muscles and fat cells, where it is stored safely and can be used at your body's leisure.
However, if you are gaining weight or have gained a lot of weight in the past and never managed to shift it, then you are suffering from a certain amount of insulin resistance (a lot more on this subject in upcoming blogs). This Insulin Resistance causes a lot more of the carbs you eat to get shuttled straight into your fat cells, bypassing your liver and muscles, (this important concept is the reason why a calorie is not always a calorie).
This process of storing too much sugar in the fat cells leaves your muscles and other organs starved of its sugar fuel, which triggers hunger and cravings, which leads to more carb eating, more weight gain, more cravings… and so on.
If you follow the guidelines for most lower carb diets (typically allowing 100-150 grams of cabs per day), this will normally lower the amount or the frequency of insulin your body releases and so the amount of carbs that can get stored as fat.
As the insulin levels in your blood start to go down the levels of the hormone Glucagon start to go up. Glucagon's job is to raise blood sugar levels when the body detects they are starting to drop down a bit low. It does this by tapping on your liver to get it to start releasing some of those carbs it has been storing.
Glucagon also taps your fat cells for stored fuel too.
So, Insulin and Glucagon have a completely dependent relationship; one stores calories that have been eaten, the other releases them. When one is high the other must be low and vice versa.
So, that is how a lower carb diet works… Lower insulin means higher Glucagon…Higher Glucagon means more fat burning.
People often assume that no carb eating is just a more intense variation of lower carb eating and that the mechanisms behind how the two ways of eating burn off fat are the same… but they most certainly are not.
Yes, just as with lower carb eating when we are, no carbing it, (anything below about 50 grams of carbs per day), insulin drops and Glucagon rises and fat burning is increased… but once the liver and muscles run dry of stored sugars; normally by the end of the first full week of no carb eating, things radically begin to change.
With no sugars left in the liver to trickle out between meals the body needs to seriously step up its conversion of fat to fuel if it is to fulfil its energy requirements and to do this the body must completely change how it makes fuel.
You see, while on a lower carb eating plan the body may well be burning off excess fat but it still turns to those 100 – 150 grams of carbs you are eating each day as its primary source of fuel but if you, "no carb it," then the body has no access to carbohydrate and must convert to burning fat as its primary source of fuel and it does this through the process of Ketosis.
Ketosis is the critical difference between low carbing it and no carbing it and with ketosis there can be no half measures; you are either all in or you are not in at all.
When the body is in ketosis, fat liberated from the fat cells by glucagon is sent to the liver where the liver converts the fat into ketone bodies. These ketones are then used as a replacement for all carbohydrates.
And that is how No carb eating works.
So how do you get the two most powerful fat burning protocols wrong.
How you can get, "lower carb eating," wrong.
Most lower carb eating plans will have you swapping some of your carbs for fat. This is a great idea because the modern diet is very low in essential fats but the the first mistake arises when our "would be low carber" doesn't lower their carbs enough and ends up eating enough carbs to keep their insulin high and storing excess carbs, while at the same time consuming large amounts of extra fat in their diet. This can only lead to one thing, weight gain.
The second unfortunate thing that can happen to lower carbers is that they get a bit too enthusiastic about the number of carbs they are cutting and they cut a little too deep. This normally happens a few weeks in. It is common for lower carber to drop a lot of weight in the first few weeks due to the body dropping a lot of water along with the carbs. Then when the weight loss starts to slow, the newly initiated can get a bit panicky and in an attempt to match the losses of the first few weeks they lower their carbs even more. They might go from 120 grams a day to 70 or 80. But now their carbs are too low to sustain a comfortable sugar burn but not low enough to enter ketosis… The result is chronic tiredness, cravings and ultimately binge eating.
Occasionally the lower carber will even cut their carbs right down low enough to enter ketosis but unaware that the first week or two of entering ketosis can be a bit rough as the body starts to switch over to producing ketone bodies (a sensation often referred to as keto flu due to the similarities it has, to feeling like you are getting a cold), they break, as they wrongly believe that their body just can't cope on low carbs.
The solution: If you are on lower carb diet you must keep your carbs between 100 to 150 grams depending on your size and activity levels. This is the sweet spot and will give you the results you are after. Go higher and you will produce to much insulin, switching off glucagon production and fat burning. Go to low and you will just feel exhausted, unless you are prepared to go full keto.
The first mistake you can make when going, no carb, is to underestimate how entering ketosis will make you feel for a few days. The symptoms of keto flu can normally be felt by the end of the first week and generally last about a week after that, (although you can get the odd dip or 2, normally only lasting a day or so, for up to month).
The worst of the effects can in fact be mitigated against by taking it easy in the gym that week, or at least not expecting too much from yourself when you are under the bar. Taking plenty of salt on your food will also help a lot, salts are flushed out along with the excess water and this, drop in, sodium can be the major cause of feeling a bit off at first. It is also worth remembering that insulin also causes the kidneys to store sodium, so adding salt to you ketogenic diet is a good habit to get into.
The second mistake new, no carbers, can make is not eating enough fat. Remember, you have just cut your body off from all access to the fuel it has probably being running on for your entire life. If you want the body to start burning fat you need to start feeding it fat.
Coconut fat is particularly good due to it high concentration of MCT's which convert to ketone bodies far quicker than other forms of fat. This will certainly help with keto flu and will pep you right up… Bullet-proof coffee, (coffee made with added coconut oil and butter) is my personal favourite, no carb pick me up. In fact one of the first real clues that you are entering ketosis is when your energy levels suddenly shoots up after a fat coffee.
The third mistake people can make when going keto is the inability to recognise Keto flu for what it is; the body switching over to burning fat, possible for the first time in your entire life. A lack of knowledge as how to best deal with this sensation often has newbies running for the cookie jar in a cold sweat… Which is a real shame because when people enter ketosis for the first time they are often amazed at just how much energy they have and just how sharp their thinking becomes.
The fourth mistake, no carbers, can make is that they start to test their carb tolerance too much. Having had a little more carbs than usual without any negative effects they start to slowly push their carb levels up. Ultimately this results in their carbs climbing to high, which takes them out of ketosis, (so their bodies switch back to trying to burn sugar for fuel) but they don't just have a the sugar in the system to meet the job and they crash or get hypoglycaemic, (cold, pale, sweating, and generally feeling really bad).
The solution: The trick to getting ketosis right is to stay below 50 grams of carbs per day. If you can do that the results can be truly amazing.
Another trick some people like to use is to buy keto glucometers or the newer keto breath tubes. These devices can be great at helping you to determine just how high a carb limit you can tolerate and still stay in ketosis.
Occasional high carb splurges can be perfectly fine for most people too, once they have been on a keto diet for a month or two. The trick is not to let them happen too often. Once a person is established on ketosis a large carb meal once every 10 days or so is doable. Yes, you will come out of ketosis but you are normally back in after a day or so, as most of the carbs gets stored in the liver and muscles, and are quickly burned up.
Low and no carb eating plans really are just about the best way to drop body fat and to begin to fix a body, broken by modern living and food habits. All it takes is a little perseverance and some attention to the detail. Get them right and either low carb or no carb eating can get you healthy and burning more fat than you ever though possible.


text:
Closing arguments in murder trial Monday
Man charged in security guards slaying
Alyssa LaRenzie
Updated: Aug. 18, 2013, 12:30 a.m.
Both sides rested Friday afternoon in the trial of a 21-year-old Forsyth County man accused of a series of armed robberies in 2010, the last of which led to the death of a security guard at Ingles.
Sharod Farran Johnson faces four counts of armed robbery, two counts each of felony murder and aggravated assault, and one count each of burglary and murder.
The charges stem from armed robberies on: Aug. 25, 2010, at the Waffle House on Bethelview Road; Aug. 26, 2010, at the Chevron on Buford Highway at James Burgess Road; and Sept. 5, 2010, at Ingles on Canton Road, where Johnson worked as a cashier at the time.
Johnson opted not to testify in his trial, and the defense called no witnesses.
Closing arguments are expected to begin Monday morning in Forsyth County Superior Court, followed by jury deliberation and a possible verdict.
Testimony during the trial was consistent that Nakitta Holmes, 21, of Buford, shot and killed 37-year-old security guard David Casto during the Ingles robbery.
Holmes, 18 at the time of the slaying, pleaded guilty in April 2012 to shooting Casto and received life in prison without parole.
Johnson and two of his co-defendants were charged with felony murder for their alleged participation in the felony crime of armed robbery that led to a death.
Tyrice Kendall Adside, 21, and Tavarius Jackson, 19, face the same charges for involvement in the Ingles robbery, but have not yet been tried.
Darren Jerrard Slayton, 21, has been charged with aggravated assault and armed robbery for participating in the incidents at Waffle House and Chevron.
On Friday, Adside testified as a condition of a plea deal he reportedly agreed to Monday with the state for a sentence of 50 years, with 25 to serve.
He could otherwise be facing three life sentences, plus 60 years for all the charges.
Holmes, now 21, was expected to testify in the possible trials of his four co-defendants in the robberies.
However, he refused to do so during Johnson's trial, in violation of his plea agreement, which "puts the death penalty back on the table," said District Attorney Penny Penn.
Adside entered and left the courtroom twice before finally deciding to testify. He recounted his version of events for the jury because he said he wanted "to put everybody at rest for this whole case."
"Something happened to somebody that wasn't supposed to happen," Adside said. "The guard wasn't supposed to die."
Adside testified that he and Johnson entered the Waffle House, each with an unloaded gun, and took about $300 while Slayton waited in Johnson's car.
He said the other four co-defendants robbed the Chevron near his Forsyth County home with the same unloaded shotgun and 40-caliber Glock, while he waited in the getaway car.
According to Adside, Johnson proposed the robbery at Ingles on Sept. 5, 2010, stating it would be easy since the security cameras didn't work, and they could get more than $20,000.
They knew that Casto carried a gun, so they planned to point their guns at him so he would surrender and then they could tie him up.
Adside heard Holmes make a comment that he'd have to "dome-check the guard" if he tried to resist, but Adside said he convinced him to leave the bullets out of the guns, like they had done before.
According to Adside, Johnson let him, Holmes and Jackson in through the back door of the store that night. The three waited in a meat freezer until it got too cold, then moved to the milk cooler.
About 11 p.m., they jumped out with guns drawn and surprised Casto, Johnson and the manager, who were the only people in the store.
Adside testified that they removed Casto's gun and his bulletproof vest before duct-taping his face and wrists.
Holmes took the guard's gun and headed to the front of the store with Jackson, leaving Adside behind with Casto.
Adside recalled hearing a lot of yelling, so he walked Casto into the meat freezer and closed the door so he could go up front.
He also told the store manager to get the combination for the safe out of an office, which she did.
She opened the safe while someone was counting down until they would shoot her, according to testimony from Forsyth County Sheriff's Investigator Mike Garrison, who interviewed the manager.
Adside said Holmes wasn't at the front of the store at that time, and when he came back, he said something to Johnson.
The three men then headed to the back of the store again, where they duct taped the store manager. Johnson duct-taped himself and the two went in the freezer.
Adside testified that it wasn't until he and Jackson were in the car that they learned Holmes had killed the security guard with his own gun.
Asked why, Adside said Holmes told them "he wanted a body." He and Jackson didn't want to discuss the topic further.
Arrests in the case were made just a few days after the robbery and slaying.
Investigators became suspicious of Johnson's involvement, due to his unusually calm demeanor and conflicts while repeating his story, according to Garrison.
He said Johnson kept changing the time frame when he reportedly noticed the security bar that was supposed to block the back doors to the Ingles had been removed.
Johnson told him that after he noticed the bar out of place, he told the store manager. They went together to tell Casto, and the three were headed to put the security bar back when the three men jumped out of the cooler.
Car keys apparently stolen and replaced in Forsyth County theft-entering-autos
3 arrested in Forsyth County methamphetamine bust
Woman sexually assaulted on Greenway, authorities say
5 more arrests made in slaying of Hall County deputy

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Students in the Honors Program are part of a supportive community that provides many unique opportunities.
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From single buffer storages and blending beds to complete bulk terminals, BEUMER offers the complete range of required equipment for your industry: mining, cement, power, chemical (fertiliser) and food (grains). Besides the conveyor technology, BEUMER can supply the stackers and reclaimers best suited for your Task.
Based on the specific task (buffering, collecting and distributing, blending/homogenising) and the resulting incoming and outgoing material flow, first the storage capacity is decided upon. Together with the material properties this then leads to a choice of available stacking and reclaiming methods as well as the two basic stockpile layouts, namely the longitudinal stockpile arrangement and the circular stockpile arrangement.
In short, the longitudinal arrangement allows easy future expansion but requires more space, while the circular arrangement basically prevents any future expansion but has a more compact footprint.
The stacking method depends firstly on the required blending ratio. More complex stacking methods enable better blending ratios, while requiring more complex stackers. If no blending is required, the simplest stacking method (Coneshell) will be chosen. It requires no slewing gear in the stacker and simplifies the movement of the stacker during stacking.
If blending is necessary, the Chevron method (or Chevcon for circular storages) is the preferred choice, as it does not require slewing gear in the stacker. The specialty of the Strata method is that you can also reclaim the material from the side and still achieve some level of blending. The Windrow method requires the most expensive stacker, however it means that at no time the falling distance of material is high, and thus segregation of the material is kept to a minimum as it rolls down the pile.
The stacker is chosen based on the stockpile layout, the material properties and the required stacking method. For example, a stacker must reach the whole cross section of the pile, if Windrow stacking is required; for Chevron or Coneshell it is enough to reach the center of the pile only. The stacking process can be done by a simple tripper car or it can be a stacker with both luffing and slewing gear to enable more complex stacking methods or to allow the stacker to serve two parallel piles.
The reclaimer is selected depending on the task of the storage and the material properties. A reclaimer can take the material either from the side of the pile or from the front. In team with the stacker, it decides on the blending ratio of the storage. When operating from the side, reclaimers will be equipped with scraping chains to scrape the material towards a conveyor located alongside the pile. When operating from the front, there will usually be a rake that brings the material to the bottom, from where it is taken up by a scraping chain. This has the advantage that material from the whole cross section of the pile is reached at the same time, thus significantly increasing the blending ratio.
BEUMER will support you in discussing the advantages of longitudinal and circular storages and selecting the best combination of stackers and reclaimers for your task. Possible bottle necks and their consequences regarding plant availability will be identified to ensure a smooth material handling process.
BEUMER storage and blending bed equipment is provided for the following industries: mining, cement, power, chemical (fertiliser) and food (grains).


text:
Q: dplyr chain filter based on frequency table(mtcars$cyl)

 4  6  8
11  7 14

Suppose I wanted to filter low frequency terms, in this case less than 10. Is there an elegant dplyr esque way to do this?
mtcars %>% group_by(cyl) %>% filter([???])

The result would be a data frame with 4 and 8 cyl only, since they both occur 10 or more times.

A: Group by cyl, count the rows, filter, optionally remove the freq column:
library(dplyr)
mtcars %>%
  group_by(cyl) %>%
  mutate(freq = n()) %>%
  ungroup() %>%
  filter(freq > 9) %>%
  select(-freq)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The most anticipated phones from Samsung after the Note7 fiasco, the Galaxy S8 and 8+ were unveiled today for India. Surely, one of the best-looking phones around, thanks to the Infinity Display by Samsung, the S8 comes with 5.8-inch screen and S8+ features a 6.2-inch screen. Powering the phones is the 10nm Exynos 8895 processor, 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. Both the devices are IP68 certified can thus can be used in water. The camera in the phones are 12-megapixel and 8-megapixel, they use USB Type-C for charging and the battery is 3000/3500mAh respectively.
The Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+ also support a variety of accessories like the wireless charging, DeX Station to transform the phone into a PC, Gear 360 and Gear VR.
The phones will go on sale from April 29 and can be pre-booked at regular offline stores or can be pre-ordered on Flipkart.com. The phones will be available in Black and Gold colours. Users pre-booking the phone will receive a wireless charger free. The phones come bundled with AKG headphones.
The Galaxy S8 will sell for Rs. 57,900 while the Galaxy S8+ will retail for Rs. 64,900.


text:
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Bill and Kathleen Rowland
Philip Wood and David Wilson explore the garden of Bill and Kathleen Rowland in Kilrea, County Londonderry.
Both have created a two acre garden "and nature reserve for the twin delights of a wide countryside panorama and a sheltered garden combined". Furthermore, the subtle groupings and "unusual plants play their part in lovely combinations of colour, texture and form", this in combination with a water feature amongst the central flowers create a "compact paradise".
Beginning from scratch - with no garden and the front of the house once being a field - Kathleen has actively set out to create spaces she would utilise most. This is clearly seen in the wildflower meadow, were everything planted is to enhance and encourage the wild life, an area which Bill, gets much joy from.
Late Philip Woods developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of botany and horticulture and bred new varieties of plants and flowers for the nurseries in Northern Ireland. Before he settled down in NI he served in the Royal Corps of Signals and saw active service in many countries around the world during WWII. After the war, Philip took up the post of manager of the Slieve Donard Nursery in Newcastle, County Down. He was also one of the founding members of the Mourne Mountain Rescue Team and was appointed as its first leader. Later when retired, he devoted his time to designing gardens and providing advice, sharing his knowledge through gardening classes, lectures, newspaper articles, radio programmes.
A Cacti Collection
Gardening in California
Growing Chrysanthemums
How Does Your Garden Grow? Lorna and Harry McMahon
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Betty Brittain
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Billy and Rita Douglas
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Bob And Jean McCammond
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Brian Wood
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Harold And Mary Wolseley
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Helen And Val Dillon
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Jim Reynolds
How Does Your Garden Grow?: John and Shirley Beattie
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Louis And Margaret Glynn
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Malcolm and Renee Goody
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Paddy Maitland
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Raymond And Veronica McGill
How Does Your Garden Grow?: Verney And David Naylor
John Mercer Lays a Lawn
John Mercer Visits a Nursery in Knocknagoney
John Mercer: Plants in Bottles
Kitchen Garden: A Pair of Aces
Kitchen Garden: A Touch of Tartness
Kitchen Garden: Ace of Hearts (extended version)
Kitchen Garden: Aires, Graces and Strong Tunes
Kitchen Garden: Flavours of the Month
Kitchen Garden: Going for Greens
Kitchen Garden: Unusually Tasty
Planting at Lady Dixon Park


I find that I have gotten to that certain age where I have more guns than I need, but less than I want.
New models are always coming out, so there is always something new in the "want" category, and while I don't have the disposable income I once had before my children came along, I still manage to buy new guns from time to time. This has resulted in my collection growing slowly over the past fifteen years or so.
There are pistols I own that I carry every day, and some that I don't carry but enjoy taking to the range from time to time to shoot. And like many people I have several pistols that just sit around gathering dust. Usually dust-magnet pistols don't last forever; I end up trading them for something new that has caught my eye. But there's usually one pistol in my collection that, while I never shoot it, I'd never trade. This popped an article title to mind--The Favorite Gun You Never Shoot.
I'm not by nature a collector, I buy guns I intend to shoot. Many of you who buy collector pieces may have many handguns you love that you never shoot, but that's not the case for me. Guns are for shooting, they exist for that one reason. For the last five years or so, the favorite gun I own that I never shoot has been a Beretta 84F.
I originally bought the Beretta for my wife over fifteen years ago, but because it's a traditional .380, it features a straight blowback recoil system, which means a very strong recoil spring. Between that and the double-action first shot, my wife didn't like the pistol, but to my surprise, I did. A lot.
This 13+1-shot aluminum-framed .380 is too big to be a pocket gun. The barrel is nearly four-inches long, and the pistol itself is almost seven inches. In fact, it's almost a mid-size pistol the size of a Glock 19 (fully loaded it weighs 29 ounces), so if I was going to carry something its size I would carry a pistol chambered in something more powerful than the .380 ACP. That said, I love this gun.
The Beretta fits my hand, points naturally, and between the low bore and the .380 chambering felt recoil is negligible. I can get my whole hand on it. While it has a decocking safety, I can ride it with my thumb (like a 1911) without decocking the hammer (push UP to decock). The double action trigger pull is smooth and not too heavy, and the single action pull is crisp. It's a good-looking gun, and with the signature skeletonized Beretta slide it resembles a miniature M9/92. It's very reliable—in fact, it's never jammed on me. The pistol even has a chrome-plated bore, something I find hard to understand on a .380. It has a magazine disconnect safety, which I have no use for, and mediocre sights, but overall I really like this gun. And yet, I've only fired it once in the past ten years, and that for an article. Before I took a photo of it for this post, I had to blow a layer of dust off it.


Tanker trailers are an integral part of the oil theft operation.
As the energy downturn leaves oil rigs throughout the state empty and roughnecks out of a job, thieves have now stepped in to turn the state's oil woes into a lucrative criminal opportunity.
The state has been attempting to combat oil theft by crafting legislation that will provide tougher prosecution. In the meantime, however, law enforcement and industry officials are attempting to clamp down on rig security.
Mike Peters, Global Security Manager for Lewis Energy in San Antonio, talks to the Standard about the black market surrounding black gold.
According to Peters, the oil then has to be laundered into the system for reporting to the Texas Railroad Commission, and "legitimately" go to a gathering system. He says that oil thieves average about $10 a barrel, or 25 percent of how much crude oil costs in the open market.
"Depending on the size of the tanker, the driver of one of these vehicles can profit anywhere from around $1,100 to $1,800 a load," Peters says.
The 24-hour cycle of oil processing makes it possible for oil thieves to steal in broad daylight.
Although the FBI has an oil theft taskforce in the Permian Basin, Peters, who works with another taskforce in South Texas, says "they're overwhelmed." House Bill 3291, which would have toughened prosecution of oil thieves, was vetoed by Gov. Greg Abbott in June.
According to Peters, the oil industry could be losing between 1 and 3 percent of profits from theft, but when put into the perspective of barrels of oil produced in a year, the consequences are much more costly.