Ever since I used collard greens in this roti for the first time, I have been thinking that I needed to use it more often and in more kinds of curries and dhals. Collard greens and kale are the two greens I have not experimented much with, well actually in case of kale I haven't tried it at all. With collard greens at least I make occasional forays into trying the green in different dishes or when I make the roti I mentioned earlier.
Cook collard greens on the stove top with a little water until it is tender. When it is almost cooked and soft, add spinach leaves and cook for another couple of minutes until the spinach leaves wilt and become soft. Remove from heat and keep both the greens aside. When cooled, puree coarsely and keep aside.
In a heavy bottomed pan, heat oil. When hot, add cumin seeds, when the seeds begin to sizzle add green chili and red chili and stir a few times. Add onion and stir until onions turn transparent.
Add minced garlic and minced ginger and stir a few times. Add tomatoes, salt to taste, spices and stir until tomatoes become soft and mushy.
Add cooked lentils and simmer for a couple of mins. Add coarsely pureed greens, adjust water as required to achieve desired consistency. Adjust salt if required and simmer for a few minutes for all the flavors to mingle.
That's it, its done. Remove from heat and serve hot on a bed of plain steamed rice with a curry on the side, or with any kind of Indian flat bread like phulkas/ chapathis/ rotis etc.
If you do not have collard greens on hand/ or do not want to use it, you can use only spinach (palak) for this recipe too. Just cook the spinach, puree it and proceed with the rest of the recipe.


Ahoy Admiral, are you ready? setup your own fleet. fight in sea battles with your battleship and other warships against other navy fleets. sink pirates and captain's ships and write history in the golden age!
Naval Battle: 17th century is a turn-based strategy game with ancient warships from the 17th century! Setup your own fleet as Admiral, and defeat your opponent. Fight with glory in battles up to 8 vs 8 warships!
Each ship can move and attack once per round. After you moved, you can attack, if the opponent is in reach!
* 4 ship classes - with each class different strengths and weaknesses!
* Abilities - bonuses that makes you stronger for one turn or hole battle per ship!
* Multiple waves - game mode with more than one wave of enemy ships!
* Whirls and Waves - environment defense bonuses!
* Towers - static gameobject that can be on your side or at the enemy's!
Mouse click to select grids.
WASD to move the camera around.


text:
PCR #530 (Vol. 11, No. 21). This edition is for the week of May 17--23, 2010.
"Shrek Forever After" �by Mike Smith
DVD Review: "Greydon Clark Drive-In Double Feature: Hi-Riders & The Bad Bunch" �by ED Tucker
Samurai Princess �by Jason Fetters
My Dinner With Carl (with Apologies To Wallace Shawn) .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... Mike's Record Shelf �by Mike Smith
DVD Review:
"Greydon Clark Drive-In Double Feature: Hi-Riders & The Bad Bunch"
Released By: VCI Entertainment
Approximate Running Time: 172 Minutes
Special Features: Audio Commentary, Trailers, Interviews
Suggested Price: $19.99
The Source:
Two lesser known drive-in features from the glory days of the 1970�s produced by exploitation director Greydon Clark. In 1973�s The Bad Bunch, Clark stars as a disillusioned Vietnam veteran trying to rebuild his life while dealing with explosive racial tension. Five years later, in 1978, Clark tackles the car chase genre with Hi-Riders, a tale of a group of young drag racers marked for death after a wealthy rancher�s son is killed during one of their races.
The Fanboy Factor:
Greydon Clark is an often overlooked filmmaker in the exploitation field even though his contributions are solid and sizable. A graduate of the Al Adamson school of independent film production, Clark made the transition from actor to director with all stops in between. While his films may not have been as high profile as many of his peers, they were well crafted drive-in popcorn munchers and usually managed to turn a tidy profit.
Bad Bunch is Clark�s directorial debut and began life as a serious drama called Mothers, Fathers, and Lovers. When this film about a Vietnam veteran, played by Clark, returning home and trying to pick his life back up where he left off failed to attract distributors, he expanded a sub-plot involving the lead character�s African-American friend who was killed in the war. Capitalizing on recent headlines of racial discontent in urban areas, The Bad Bunch tells the story of a gang of black youths, lead by the brother of Clark�s Army buddy, who wrongly suspect him of working with a team of racist police detectives (played with zeal by screen veterans Aldo Ray and Jock Mahoney).
The film has some good scenes and displays Clark�s forte for assembling casts of talented unknowns along with seasoned actors in career downturns. To save money, exteriors and real locations are heavily used and present an entertaining look at California just after the hippie decade. While the ending is abrupt and leaves much unanswered, the film�s build up is still enjoyable for the atmosphere of the early 70�s.
Greydon Clark�s fourth feature, Hi-Riders, displays his significant progress as a director after only a few years. Darby Hinton, Israel from the Daniel Boone television show, stars as a young auto enthusiast who hooks up with a car club called the Hi-Riders. During one of their racing matches with the locals of a nearby town, an influential rancher�s son dies in a collision. Ignoring the protests of the club and the Sheriff that it was an accident, the bereaved father puts a substantial bounty on the member�s heads. The initial attack on the Hi-Riders eliminates all but four of them and the two surviving couples must fight for their lives against heavily armed rednecks.
In addition to Hinton, �old timers� Mel Fererr and Ralph Meeker appear as the shady Sheriff and his corrupt deputy. Neville Brand also appears as a tavern owner in what would be the first of four pictures for Clark. The impressive car stunts were all done in the pre-CGI days and Clark tells a somber story on the commentary of a stunt man who died during the production when a jump fell tragically short.
VCI has done an incredible job with this DVD release and both films come packed with more extras than are often found on major studio products. Greydon Clark provides commentaries for both films and while they may occasionally lapse in silence, they provide a great deal of insight into independent filmmaking. Several interviews are presented with Clark and some of the actors from Hi-Riders plus trailers for several Clark films. The transfers on both films are excellent but retain just enough dirt and grit to remind you that they were meant for drive-ins and grindhouses. The funky menus are also a great 70�s throwback. Hopefully this set will be the first of many similar quality releases in this series.
Discovering quality obscure films from the drive-in days is always a treat. Discovering them in reasonably priced editions with a multitude of extras is even better. This DVD is highly recommended for exploitation fans who want to further their educations in 70�s cinema.
"Retrorama" is ©2010 by ED Tucker. All graphics this page, except where otherwise noted, are creations of Nolan B. Canova. All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2010 by Nolan B. Canova.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Tim Hill,
How to run effective Facebook ads
11 tips for cut-through Facebook advertising in 2019 from the eCommerce startup masters at Koala Mattress. Ad creative, create audiences, work the mid-funnel and more.
When I launched Zambesi, I'd never run Facebook ads before. I was a solopreneur working from home. At Hey You, we had teams of people to run marketing and sales. Now I'd have to learn Facebook advertising and digital marketing from scratch.
I built the first Wordpress site myself and created my capital raising workshop as a test. Other business education companies advertised on my Facebook feed. But how did they get there? I signed up to an online course to learn Facebook basics but couldn't keep up. When I found the Facebook Ads Manager page, my face contorted and froze like The Scream painting. WHHHHAAATTT ISS TTHHHISS???? Where do I start?
'18 months ago, everyone was doing interest-based targeting. This doesn't work so well anymore.' – Tim Doyle, Former Head of Marketing, Koala Mattress
A friend was kind enough to let me screen share to help get my first campaign up and running. It helped to have someone who could see what I was seeing and point out which buttons to press.
For the first nine months I ran amateur campaigns. Simple image and text ads for each workshop that pointed to the appropriate course page on Zambesi.com. I found a freelancer to put the Facebook pixel on my website. I measured the number of clicks from my ad to the course page. Our sales happen on Eventbrite and I didn't know how or if I could track all the way through.
I'd notice the occasional happy Eventbrite order notification in my email and assume the Facebook ads were working; which they probably were but it was a guess. I'd keep track of what I spent on each course and usually stayed under budget.
I know what you're thinking. 'She is an experienced entrepreneur. Why is her knowledge of social media advertising so primitive?' It's a fair point. The truth is that it's quite difficult to use Facebook effectively. Other founders might be brilliant at it. But I still find it challenging!
Up until August 2018 my workshops sold nicely. I used the 'Interest targeting' in Ads Manager (in the Ad Set step) to find the right audience. For example I'd target people interested in 'fashion design' or 'jewellery design' to promote 'How to manufacture products in China', I promoted 'Mahesh from Airtasker's 'People and Culture Masterclass' to people who worked in 'Human Resource Management' and I'd target people living within 10km of the Sydney CBD with incomes above $100K to advertise Stephen Scheeler's 'Digital Disruptive Leadership'. Yes, it was unsophisticated, but all the workshops sold out. I had a good business.
But not for long. In the fourth quarter of last year either Facebook changed something, and my ads stopped working OR my ads had never worked in the first place and there was a shift in the market that made it more difficult to sell tickets. I worked out how to put my Facebook pixel onto the order confirmation page of Eventbrite to track ad performance through to purchase. This confirmed that the ads weren't generating sales.
'That is the most ineffective Facebook ad you could possibly make. Static image and short text is the worst performing ad format.' - Tim Doyle (about our Zambesi ads)
I decided it was time to figure out Facebook advertising properly and turned to Tim Doyle from Koala and Tim Hill from Social Status for advice. Tim Doyle runs the 'Ruthless performance marketing' workshop on Zambesi and Tim Hill runs 'Social Media Bootcamp'. I attended both of the workshops and I'm thrilled to share that our Facebook and Instagram ads are now firing!
In this article, I've outlined what I was doing wrong and how I've adjusted our creative, the way we build audiences, how our funnel works and how we measure the effectiveness of every campaign. I recommend attending Tim Hill's 'Social Media Bootcamp' for face-to-face support to set up and optimise your Ad Manager account and Tim Doyle's 'Ruthless Performance Marketing' to learn to create effective ads on mass and turn social media advertising into a revenue machine. Mark Baartse, CMO at Showpo also runs an excellent tactical workshop 'Brilliant Digital Marketing' which covers a broader spectrum of digital marketing channels including SEO, SEM and LinkedIn.
'Every start-up should use customer reviews as ad creative for the first 12 months. Social proof is the best way to build trust in your product.' - Tim Doyle, Koala
If you're struggling with this now and can't wait till the next workshop, or if you can't make it to Sydney or Melbourne, then contact us and one of our consultants can support you to set up and optimise your Facebook and Instagram campaigns via screen share.
What's in this article:
Setting up your account: Ads manager, Campaigns, Ad Sets, Ads and the Facebook Pixel.
Finding your audience: who should move away from 'interest' targeting and better way to target and find your audience on Facebook.
How to build a funnel all the way though to sale. Why the 'mid-funnel' is the most important part of Facebook advertising yet most marketers put the least time into it. Note I didn't even know what mid-funnel was before the workshops!
What creative to use at different points in the funnel. There's one Facebook ad creative that every start-up should use in the first 12 months.
Tactics to optimise your ad budget.
In this article I've referred to Tim Hill as TH and Tim Doyle as TD so we don't mix up Tim's.
1. The basics
Note that if you're experienced in Facebook advertising then feel free to skip this part of the article. Start with ''2. Finding the right audience' for lots of tips from TD & TH about how to adjust Facebook campaigns and ad creative get the most out of your advertising in 2019 (see below).
Ads Manager page. The place to manage your ad account is: https://business.facebook.com/adsmanager You can add people to your ad account by going to 'Settings' from this page. If you want to let someone else on your team place ads for you then you'll need to add their personal Facebook account to your Ads Manager account.
Campaigns: A campaign should be used for a single objective. For example, 'Website traffic', 'Leads' or 'Conversions'. You can't have multiple objectives in the same campaign. For Zambesi I might run one campaign to generate traffic to my 'Pitching Masterclass' page. The objective here is traffic to the page. Then a second campaign for 'Conversion' which is to get sales. More about retargeting later.
Ad sets: This is where you define what audience to show the ad to, where to place your ads inside Facebook / Instagram and set your budget. It's common to have multiple Ad Sets running in one campaign to test and optimise the conversion rates of different audiences.
Ads: You can run multiple ads in each ad set including video, static image and carrousel creative.
Facebook pixel: Go to Settings to create a pixel for your website. This is a few lines of code that sits on your website and will tell Facebook when and who is visiting. At first, I thought I needed a different pixel for every page but discovered I only needed one pixel and then I can track who reaches different URLs. For example, you can see how many people get to a checkout page but don't complete and then retarget these people to get them back.
It's essential to install the pixel before you start Facebook advertising. Some sites like Shopify make this really easy and there's a spot in your Spotify settings to add the pixel. I needed to get a developer to do it for me. TH sets up everyone's Facebook pixel in the first hour of his Zambesi Bootcamp. We have consultants who can help if you're stuck.
2. Finding the right audience
As I mentioned earlier, for the first 9 months of Zambesi, I used interest-based targeting. It's well known that Facebook has changed the parameters of interest targeting and it's no longer very effective.
In his 'Performance Marketing' workshop, Tim Doyle (TD) recommends that a much better way to target is to build an audience and then create lookalike audiences through Facebook. '18 months ago, everyone was doing interest-based targeting. This doesn't work so well anymore. Lookalike audiences are much more effective.' At Zambesi, we used two ways to build lookalike audiences.
Email list: Build an email list of a minimum of 1000 email addresses and upload the list into your Facebook Ads Manager account. Facebook can analyse the email addresses and will target your ads to people with similar profiles to those on your list.
• Tip: The Zambesi email list now has more than 10,000 subscribers. But not all of them open every email. Rather than load the full 10,000 email addresses, I only added in the 5-star contacts – the people who are most engaged with our content. I then let Facebook build a target audience that looks most like this group.
Run a 'Reach' campaign on Facebook: We ran a video promo for our top 2018 programs to drive traffic to our site. The only audience restrictions I set were location (Sydney or Melbourne where we run courses) and age (over 21). This gave Facebook a much bigger potential audience to show my ads to. As soon as people start clicking though, Facebook adjusts who it targets. Facebook's algorithm was much better at knowing who to target than me trying to guess through interest targeting. I was able to drive much more traffic to the site at a lower cost.
Tip: When I built a lookalike audience based on website visitors, it didn't work very well. TD suspects that when you run a campaign to drive traffic, that Facebook will target people they know are likely to click on links. These people aren't necessarily your target audience. Perhaps they are just bored at home with lots of time to spend clicking on things. Instead, I tried building a lookalike audience based on people who visited a course page. To get to a course page they'd had to engage with our site and are much more likely to be target customers than visitors who just hit the homepage. It's a smaller group of people but targeting people who looked like them proved much more effective.
TH adds that lookalike audiences don't work for every business. 'If you're a B2B business and your customers don't have much in common with each other, then a lookalike won't work.' He also suggests that it sometimes makes sense to create a lookalike audience and then narrow it down by interest targeting. 'For example if you're a pet service company, you might create a target audience of 500,000 people that look like your existing customers and then narrow this audience by also specifying that they be 'pet owners' which might only be 70,000. But 70,000 pet owners who look like your existing customers is a great group to advertise to.'
The big learning for me here is that Facebook is better at finding my customers than I am at guessing what they might be interested in. The more info I can give Facebook about who our most engaged customers are, the better it'll get at finding people who look like them.
Bonus tip from Tim Doyle: 'Don't ever set 'Engagement (likes / comments) as a Campaign objective as Facebook knows which users 'Like' or 'Comment' everything and will show your ad to them. This might help you look good but won't drive business.'
Bonus tip from Tim Hill: 'Don't edit where your ad is placed. Let Facebook choose where it's likely to get the best engagement. Again, the Facebook algorithm is going to be better than you at knowing how best to reach your audience.'
3. Maximising the mid-funnel
'People don't pay nearly enough attention to their mid-funnel', says TD. 'This is when people are thinking about buying your product and it's one of your best opportunities to convert.'
My 'amateur' attempt to run Facebook ads for Zambesi last year didn't include any mid funnel activity. My basic ad would tell you the workshop was on. I'd get excited by the number of people checking out the courses on our website each day and I'd cross my fingers and hope they remembered to come back and purchase.
Mid-funnel is retargeting people who have expressed an interest in your product but haven't purchased. According to TD: 'Most eCommerce businesses will have Facebook retargeting funnels for people who've looked at a product and another funnel for people who've abandoned checkout. If someone made it all the way through to checkout then you'd be willing to pay more to get them back as they're much more likely to convert.' TD suggests running different Ad Sets for people who last visited your site in different time periods: for example, the last 3 days, 4 days – 10 days, 10 days to 30 days etc. Put more money into reaching people who just visited as they'll be more likely to convert.
For Zambesi, I've now built mid-funnel campaigns for people who visit a course page. So if you check out my 'Capital Raising Workshop' then you should see creative ads popping up in your Facebook and Instagram feed to remind you that it's on!
TH adds that engaging with your content on Facebook or Instagram is another way people express interest in a product. 'If you run a video on Facebook then remember you can retarget people who've watched up to a set time in the video.' For Zambesi, I retarget people who watch up to the 25 second point in our promo video. If you've stayed on the video for 25 seconds, then I think that's a good indication that you're interested in our product.
4. What creative to use at different points in the funnel
When I first showed our Facebook ad creative to TD his response was: 'That is the most ineffective Facebook ad you could possibly make'. I've included examples of our early Facebook ads below. Our ads were all the same: a simple photo of a workshop leader, an overlay of an insightful quote and a short text description. 'Static image and short text is usually the worst performing ad format,' he said.
His advice is that it's always best to include movement in an ad creative if you can. There are lots of websites and services that exist to help you make cheap, attractive ads with movement. TH's advice is that 'Facebook will reward video ads because it makes Facebook more engaging. Your ad will be seen by more people and it 'll stand out in the feed.'
If you can't make a video ad, then long text is better than short text. When I created the first ads for Zambesi, I assumed I should only write text that could been seen without clicking to 'See more'. I tried to cram my top sales messages into a few words.
But I discovered that the opposite is true. Again, Facebook rewards content that people indicate is engaging. The more often people click, 'See more', the more Facebook will assume your ad is good content and bump it up in the newsfeed. It also helps to warm up customers before they land on your page. If they've already read all about a workshop and then choose to click for purchase details, there's a greater chance that they'll convert than if they'd just read a couple of lines of text.
Tip from Tim Hill: Once you've found a piece of creative that's working then make sure you're selecting to 'Use an existing post' when you're creating ads, rather than creating a new one each time. This means any comments or likes on the ad will be carried into the next campaign and posts with lots of engagement are more likely to get noticed.
Combining graphics and text
Facebook rejected my early ad designs because they broke the 20% rule. No more than 20% of your static ad can be text. A big quote over the top of a photo doesn't work. I now use clean photos and include the quote in the top couple of lines of the asociated text. Facebook offers a filter check to see if your ad design meets the 20% rule but it's hard to have any meaningful text over the image at less than 20% because once the ad is shrunk to fit on mobile, it'll be too hard to read.
The ad creative every start-up should use
According to TD: 'Every start-up should use customer reviews as ad creative for the first 12 months.' He says that social proof is the best way to build trust in your product. If you look up the Koala ads, you'll find lots of customer reviews on Facebook and on YouTube. At Zambesi, we have loads of excellent customer reviews of our workshops but we've only ever used them on the website. I recently hired an Upworker to turn these reviews into hundreds of Facebook at Instagram ads.
What ad creative to use at different parts of the funnel
Top of the funnel: TH recommends testing lots of different creative at the top of the funnel. The objective of a top of the funnel campaign is to drive people to your website who are likely to be interested in your product. We're currently using a combination of a general promotional video ad Zambesi and specific workshop ads. These use photos and customer reviews but have been made (by our awesome Upworker) so the photo jolts creating movement in the feed.
Mid-funnel: TD recommends building your mid funnel creative much like your welcome email funnel. Potential customers should see a stream of creative to build a story about your company and lead them to purchase. 'You might start by highlighting the features of your product, the next ads might include social proof (customer reviews) and after a few days you could introduce a time limited discount offer.' He emphasised that every business is different, and you should take time to design the right Facebook advertising funnel for your customer journey.
5. Tactics to optimise your ad spend
As I mentioned earlier, I've worked out how to get our Facebook pixel onto the Eventbrite product page and the post-purchase order confirmation page so I can track sales all the way through to purchase. Each Campaign has a single objective (traffic or conversions) for each course. Instead of setting budget at an Ad Set level, I've found it more economical to use the new Campaign Budget Optimization feature. So rather than budgeting $100 on five different Ad Sets, I'll put $500 to the Campaign and let Facebook work out how to optimise to achieve my objective. This doesn't work when I have to sell different workshops in the same campaign as it'll always skew the advertising to whichever workshop is easiest to sell. But if you have a single product, or don't care how much you sell of each thing, then this is a good feature.
$200 OFF ALL ZAMBESI MARKETING WORKSHOPS TILL 6PM TUESDAY 23 APRIL
Use the code 'Lookalike' for $200 every growth and marketing workshop on Zambesi. Exclusive opportunity to spend a day in a small workshop format with leaders from Koala, Canva, Airtasker, Showpo, Vinomofo and more. Many of these programs are on-off events limited to 12 people. Get access to the tactics of some of the world's best marketing minds, ask questions and get feedback on your individual business or marketing / growth objectives.
SOCIAL MEDIA BOOTCAMP (for entrepreneurs looking to start or optimise their social media marketing) with Tim Hill, Social Status. SYDNEY ONLY
RUTHLESS PERFORMANCE MARKETING (for everyone interesting in world's best marketing tactics) with Tim Doyle, Koala Mattress / Eucalyptus VC. MELBOURNE & SYDNEY
BRILLIANT DIGITAL MARKETING (for entrepreneurs and for marketers. A comprehensive digital marketing tactics workshop) with Mark Baartse, CMO Showpo. SYDNEY ONLY
HOW TO GROW LIKE CANVA (for entrepreneurs and marketers working in either SaaS or Marketplace businesses only - advanced) with Andrianes Pinantoan, VP Growth Airtasker, Former Head of Growth Canva)
BRAND LIKE A MOFO (for entrepreneurs and marketers) with Andre Eikmeier, Cofounder Vinomofo. MELBOURNE & SYDNEY
GROWTH HACKING (for entrepreneurs looking for tactics to scale rapidly at low / no cost) with Jared Codling, Slingshop (SYDNEY ONLY)
MARKETING LEADERSHIP MASTERY (for professionals working in marketing who want to reach the top) with Andy Lark, Former CMO Xero, Former CMO Commonwealth Bank. SYDNEY ONLY
Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam?
by Tim Doyle
by Zambesi
Career Hack: Australia's Tech Recruitment Fair
by Chris Wirasinha
Killer Content Marketing with Chris Wirasinha
8 reasons startup founders fail even when their businesses succeed
by Rebekah Campbell
How to start a start-up – the first 12 months of Zambesi.com
Courses by Expert:
with Tim Hill


text:
Q: MacBook Pro extremely slow and with a sluggish Internet connection after macOS Catalina update I am using a MacBook Pro (Late 2012) with the following specs:

*

*Processor speed: 2.9 GHz

*Memory: 8GB

*Available disk space: 160 GB (main partition) and 359 GB (on a second partition).

I recently (3 days ago) update Apple suggested update of macOS Catalina. After the update and about 24 hours later my computer became very slow to work with any applications I tried to launch. In addition, I noticed that my home internet connection is properly connected (both through Wi-Fi and Ethernet) but it's confusingly sluggish.
Before and just after the update my internet used to be fairly fast. For example for the update, it took only about 10 minutes to download 7.6 GB with the Wi-Fi.
I spent the past 2 days trying all kind of troubleshooting I found online but none seem to solve my problem. Can someone please help me?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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text:
Under pressure: why athletes choke
By Leo Clarke on November 5, 2020
Scott Boswell stood initially of his bowling run-up, immersed in his personal very public hell. It was the ultimate of the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy in 2001, which ought to have been the spotlight of his cricket profession. Instead, he discovered himself unable to do what he had been doing his complete life.
"I became so anxious I froze. I couldn't let go. It was a nightmare," Boswell recalled. "How can I not be able to run up and bowl – something that I've done for so many years without even thinking about it? How can that happen? What's going on in my brain to stop me doing that, and to make me feel physically sick and anxious and that I can't do something that I've just done so naturally?"
Boswell was a quick bowler for Leicestershire. After a person of the match efficiency within the semi-final, he had earned the best to play within the remaining at a sold-out Lord's cricket floor, the house of cricket. It was the dream of each county cricketer.
But Boswell had misplaced his kind within the three weeks because the semi-final, and his place within the remaining had change into much less safe. At 10pm the evening earlier than the ultimate, Leicestershire's coach stated he needed to see him. He requested Boswell "whether I was up for it, and whether I could manage. So there was a seed put in my head before I actually played." He was lastly informed he was taking part in 45 minutes earlier than the sport. Somerset, Leicestershire's opponents, received the toss and selected to bat on a sunny day. Boswell, as one of many opening bowlers, bowled the second over.
Scott Boswell after bowling his sixth extensive within the 2001 C&G Trophy remaining towards Somerset. Photograph: Naden Rebecca Naden/PA
"The first couple of balls, I felt OK," he recalled. But on his final ball of the over, Boswell bowled an easy-to-hit brief ball that was hit for 4 runs. "It just didn't come out of the hands right … It just became a little bit stuck." It signalled hassle forward. The subsequent over started with an enormous extensive. "I thought: 'Oh, Jesus Christ. I've never bowled it that wide before – what's happened there?' And that was it. I then bowled another wide, the crowd started to make a bit of noise, I'm thinking: 'Crikey.' It went down the leg side, so I've got one on the offside, one on the leg side, I've overcompensated and I'm thinking: 'Wow.'"
An over in cricket includes six balls – that's, six balls that aren't thought-about a no-ball or extensive. There are usually solely a handful of no-balls in an innings. But Boswell's second over within the remaining lasted 14 balls, as he repeatedly sprayed the ball too extensive of the crease on both aspect. A YouTube video of the over, entitled The worst over ever? has been watched greater than 1.5m occasions.
For Boswell, it felt just like the over would "absolutely never end".
Failure to handle anxiousness and deal with the calls for at an important second can result in a catastrophic drop in efficiency, generally known as choking. As the stress in a match rises, so can an athlete's anxiousness.
Anxiety is a response to stress or stress. It tends to come up throughout performances that set off the concern of dropping, or concern of harm to your standing. The signs of tension are psychological – fear and concern – and physiological – together with sweaty palms and an elevated coronary heart fee. Anxiety makes use of up consideration and dealing reminiscence, hindering efficiency.
Athletes discover themselves occupied with processes that usually come routinely. This was Boswell's expertise. The easy act of bowling a ball, on which his profession had been constructed, abruptly appeared alien. "When your conscious mind doesn't trust your subconscious mind, you've got an issue," he defined. "When you're in the flow and you're not thinking about it, you just bowl and you just trust your skills." Of that day at Lord's, Boswell stated: "I just didn't trust myself. I didn't trust my action and I didn't trust my skill set, and then when it was put under high pressure, it failed."
When athletes are anxious, they overthink, and focus consideration on the technical execution of the ability – these points of the motion which have typically change into automated. It has been referred to as "paralysis by analysis": the psychological effort truly inhibits efficiency. This explains why Boswell, a 26-year-old in his seventh season as knowledgeable cricketer, abruptly discovered himself unable to bowl straight.
As his second over grew to become extra farcical – six of his first eight balls had been wides – Boswell recalled the group getting "louder and louder". To attempt to make the ordeal cease, Boswell rushed, taking much less and fewer time earlier than every ball. "I just remember trying to race through my over to get it completed as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, I sped things up when pressure got to me, rather than trying to slow it down and take a step back, do the breathing, have a little smile – 'It's only a game of cricket, off you go.'"
Boswell blames nobody however himself, nevertheless it may need helped if his teammates had gone as much as him and had a chat to assist him settle down throughout his over. At Lord's, the true drawback was that Boswell's methodology – bowling and self-calming – was not sturdy sufficient underneath stress. "I probably didn't have a process if something ever happened. It was just absolute panic." Boswell solely ever performed yet one more sport in skilled cricket, bowling one horrible over – together with two wides – earlier than being dropped from the lineup.
Elite athletes are like the remainder of us: they get anxious and it hampers their efficiency. In the final 30 seconds of tight basketball video games, WNBA and NBA gamers are 5.8% and three.1% respectively much less more likely to rating from a free throw – an uncontested shot awarded to gamers who've been fouled – than at different moments within the sport. When gamers take free throws in residence matches, they're extra more likely to miss when the group is larger.
The best possible athletes handle to channel the anxiousness they really feel positively, particularly if they've excessive self-confidence. Athletes with low confidence view anxiousness as detrimental to efficiency, however these with excessive confidence are inclined to understand anxiousness as an indication of being prepared for the problem forward. This makes them much less more likely to choke underneath stress.
The finest athletes are additionally more proficient at disregarding disappointments throughout competitors. The champion golfer Annika Sörenstam jokes that she by no means hit a nasty shot in her life: "I don't remember them." Lesser gamers might be consumed by their errors, however Sörenstam would clinically dissect what occurred, then get on with the enterprise of attempting to get better her place.
"You've just got to learn how to dissociate – make a quick analysis, boom. Forget about it, move on, don't carry it with you, learn from your mistakes. We all hit bad shots. It's just – how do you regain composure?"
Annika Sörenstam through the 2000 Evian Masters in France. Photograph: Andrew Redington/Allsport
Those with the best psychological power have been proven to be the most effective at adapting to adverse suggestions and utilizing it to enhance their efficiency. "You've got to learn how to throw bad shots out and stand over the next shot and say: 'OK this is the most important shot,'" Sörenstam stated. "I at all times name it 'the now shot'. The shot you're hitting now could be crucial. Ten minutes in the past is irrelevant, and who is aware of what's going to occur in one other 10 minutes.
"You have to have a positive mind, you have to stand there and be tension-free. If you stand there and are worried about everything, it's hard to swing. When I play my best, it's free-flowing and relaxed, no tension – just focus and have a target, but you're relaxed and your muscles can perform. There's nothing worse than when you try to do something and it's all tension and pressure and you can't breathe properly."
The finest golfers make larger use of constructive self-talk, goal-setting and leisure abilities, reporting much less fear and fewer adverse considering. Personality traits equivalent to hardiness and even narcissism can additional insulate the most effective athletes from the ravages of tension.
"Of course I felt pressure," Sörenstam, now retired, recalled. "But it was a fun pressure – I wanted to see if I could handle it, just staying true to myself and believing in myself coming down the stretch."
For Sörenstam, maintaining that perception over 18 holes meant sticking to her routine – the 24 seconds she preferred to take for every shot – so far as potential, preventing her impulse to hurry up. Under stress, golfers strategy pictures in another way, lowering the vary of motion for the top of the golf membership and making use of larger pressure to the ball. They rush. In baseball, pitchers who flounder underneath stress appear to hurry their foot actions and velocity up the best way they flex their elbows.
Athletes weighed down by anxiousness additionally use their eyes much less effectively. When desk tennis gamers are anxious, they spend longer fixating on the ball and fewer time on their opponent, which can cut back their capability to choose up cues and anticipate what's going to occur subsequent. When tennis gamers are anxious, they change into much less efficient at selecting up contextual info such because the sequencing of pictures within the rally and the chance of their opponent taking part in sure kinds of pictures. Other anxiety-induced responses embody hypervigilance – the "deer in the headlights" phenomenon – a narrowed area of view or tunnel imaginative and prescient, or listening to irrelevant sights. In every of those circumstances, anxious athletes are more likely to miss crucial info.
When they rush, athletes are inclined to make worse choices. Maintaining routines underneath stress might help stop such errors. "That's the key – whether it's the first green or the 18th green on a Sunday at the US Open or a Pro Am, I just stick to the same routine," Sörenstam stated. "By doing that, you can deal with the pressure. People think: 'People are watching, this putt means this.' Or 'This is a tough hole', or 'It's an easy hole and I really should make it.' All these things around you have an effect on how you feel and how you perform. But if you can get less of it into your bubble, that makes it a lot easier."
It was the semi-final of the 1999 Cricket World Cup. One of probably the most extraordinary video games of all time was reaching an excruciatingly tense conclusion. South Africa wanted 214 to beat Australia and attain their first remaining. If the 2 groups obtained precisely the identical variety of runs – which was unprecedented in World Cup historical past – Australia would qualify, by advantage of getting completed increased within the pool stage.
The final over started with South Africa, all the way down to their remaining batting pair, needing 9 runs to win. Facing the bowler was Lance Klusener, who was within the midst of a surprising run of kind. In the primary two balls of the ultimate over, Klusener crunched each deliveries for 4.
South Africa wanted one run from 4 balls – with Klusener nonetheless going through the ball. At the opposite finish, Allan Donald, South Africa's No 11 – a superb quick bowler, however the staff's worst batsman – didn't have to face a ball. He simply wanted to run to the opposite finish to get the one run South Africa wanted. In South Africa's altering room, one participant had a bottle of champagne at hand, able to pop.
South Africa's Allan Donald (in inexperienced, proper) seconds after being run out towards Australia within the Cricket World Cup semi-final in 1999. Photograph: Ross Kinnaird/Allsport
This was "nearly job done", Klusener recalled. "I said to Al that the first thing we would like to do is hit the ball for six, shake hands and walk off, but at the same time, if we can scramble a single run somewhere, that also needs to be an option for us. 'One good ball and the game is over.'"
After a protracted wait, the bowler delivered his third ball. Klusener hit the ball straight in the direction of a fielder. There was no time for the batsmen to run, but Donald set off down the pitch. Klusener shortly despatched him again, and Donald needed to dive throughout the crease to get residence. He was solely saved as a result of the Australian fielder's throw missed its goal.
Donald later described the second in his autobiography. "Sprawled on the floor, heart pounding, I thought: 'Thank God, we've got away with it. We'll be OK now.'" Before the subsequent ball, Donald informed Klusener: "Pick your spot, and hit it out of the park."
Klusener began to run as quickly as he hit the ball.
The ball earlier than, Donald had run when he shouldn't. This time, he didn't run in any respect, remaining immobile as Klusener hurtled in the direction of him. By the time Klusener hared previous him, all Donald had managed to do was drop his bat and go searching forlornly. His legs wouldn't transfer. "I looked up at Lance, saw him rushing to my end, and so I started to run," Donald wrote. "My legs felt like jelly, as if I wasn't making any headway at all down to the other end. I tried to get my legs moving properly. It was a dreamlike sequence, almost in slow motion."
Donald was paralysed by anxiousness – a basic symptom of choking. When he lastly began to run, he was out by yards. South Africa had been out of the competitors.
Since 1999, South Africa's World Cup eliminations have straddled the total spectrum of sporting farce. In 2003, after they hosted the World Cup, South Africa had been eradicated after misreading the required rating to win and being knocked out after a tie. In 2011, they had been cruising to victory within the quarter-final earlier than a self-inflicted collapse towards New Zealand. Four years later, South Africa missed a number of catches or run-outs earlier than dropping an epic semi-final, as soon as once more towards New Zealand.
The South Africa males's staff have performed in 19 international tournaments – the World Cup, the Champions Trophy and the Twenty20 World Cup – since that fateful day in 1999. Although persistently one of many main cricket nations on this time, South Africa haven't reached a remaining. They have reached eight semi-finals – and misplaced each single one.
This litany of failures invitations the query: when Donald was run out, was he paving the best way for a complete period of South African World Cup failure? Did that run out not merely scupper South Africa's golden likelihood in 1999, however burden future generations of gamers?
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"Stereotype threat" is the concept when a adverse picture turns into related to a gaggle, it takes on a lifetime of its personal, and the result and behaviours usually tend to be repeated. In a classic study on this topic from 1999, scientists requested women and men to take an arithmetic take a look at. Some college students had been informed that women and men carried out equally nicely on the take a look at; the others had been informed that males carried out higher. When the scientists informed the ladies that girls carried out simply in addition to males, they subsequently carried out in addition to the boys on the take a look at. When girls had been informed that girls tended to carry out worse, they carried out worse than males on the take a look at. Being made conscious of the stereotype appeared to have an effect on whether or not contributors would adhere to it or not.
Stereotype risk can permeate sport, too. It can have an effect on "any situation where you have the possibility or worry that people might judge you based on your inclusion in a certain group – that could be race, that could be gender, that could be the team you play on," stated Sian Beilock, the cognitive scientist and writer of Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To.
In sport and life, previous failure could make future failure extra doubtless. Since 1999, South African cricketers have lugged stereotype risk round with them, like an undesirable piece of outsized baggage, from one main match to the subsequent. South Africa's head coach between 2011 and 2013, Gary Kirsten, referred to as the legacy of earlier failures "a dark mist that hangs over South African cricket in knockout events".
As each England soccer fan scarred by penalty shootouts may attest, failure appears to beget extra failure. Every choke, actual or perceived, creates extra of a burden the subsequent time the staff is in the identical place, making the hurdle much more overwhelming.
Gareth Southgate spent 22 years wanting again at his half in England's defeat by Germany in a penalty shootout at Euro 96, attempting to work out what had gone unsuitable. His conclusion was that he had rushed. Before he took his sudden-death penalty towards Germany, "All I wanted was the ball: put it on the spot, get it over and done with," he later wrote. Rushing penalties underneath stress damages the probabilities of scoring: a examine discovered that when gamers began their run-up lower than one second after the referee blew the whistle, the success fee was a paltry 58%. As England supervisor in 2018, Southgate inspired the gamers to take extra time from the spot, and led England to their first-ever World Cup penalty shootout win.
Some athletes are gifted with psychological benefits from start, however these are usually not immutable. Interventions designed to extend psychological toughness can enhance athletes' performances. The extra gamers practise, the extra automated points of their actions change into, serving to athletes to handle anxiousness and heighten focus. Maintaining pre-performance routines, as Sörenstam did, makes gamers extra sturdy underneath stress. Coaching designed to assist gamers suppose independently, somewhat than being informed what to do, helps develop implicit somewhat than express information, and provides gamers the most effective likelihood of avoiding choking.
"If you're more explicit in how you acquire skills, you're potentially more likely to break down under pressure," noticed Phil Kenyon, a number one placing coach who has labored with golf main championship winners together with Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson. "I try and encourage implicit learning, giving them a better chance of being able to handle things under pressure."
It is usually stated that nothing in coaching can precisely replicate the pressures of the largest moments in matches. But even when that's true, extra pressurised coaching might help athletes deal with stress on the sphere.
Whether getting ready for public talking or a giant sports activities match, "one of the really important things is to practise under the kind of conditions in which you're going to perform," Beilock stated. "There's typically a scarcity of consideration given to practising in high-pressure conditions. We know if you are able to do that you've got the probability of being inoculated from choking.
"We know that students get better at taking tests when they take real-time practice tests – it's all about closing that gap between how you practise and how you perform." There is, she stated, no cause why the identical precept wouldn't apply to elite athletes.
At the 2012 Ryder Cup – the biennial males's golf competitors between Europe and the US – in Medinah, Europe trailed the US 10–4. Ian Poulter and his associate, Rory McIlroy, had been behind of their matches. So had been the opposite European pair, Sergio Garcia and Luke Donald. Europe was heading in the right direction to go 12–Four down on the finish of the second day.
LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers scoring a free throw earlier this yr. NBA gamers are about 3% much less more likely to rating at this second than at different factors within the sport. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
"As bad as it felt, you knew that there's still a glimmer of a chance – there's still two matches on the course," Poulter remembered. "You have to think in the back of your mind that you've got an opportunity to turn those two matches around … that is all a process of telling yourself that there's a chance. There's a process of pride that kicks in that doesn't allow you to be beaten in that match."
Poulter was not used to Ryder Cup failure. In 2010, he earned the nickname The Postman – as a result of he at all times delivered factors. After 12 holes, Poulter and McIlroy had been two pictures down: "It was looking miserable." And but the very desperation of the state of affairs – within the match and the Ryder Cup alike – drove Poulter on.
Poulter and McIlroy needed to assault relentlessly. After McIlroy birdied the 13th gap (ie got here in a single shot underneath par) to chop the deficit to at least one gap, Poulter – along with his eyes bulging – reeled off 5 consecutive birdies, in one of the extraordinary particular person passages of play in Ryder Cup historical past.
"Finding yourself in that frame of mind is something which doesn't happen very often," Poulter stated. "And if you take your self to that place, you're in a position to ship and switch matches round and execute pictures one after one other. I don't know whether or not we'd have performed any totally different if we'd have been three up within the match. The reality of the matter was, we needed to be aggressive. We needed to win that match. It was very simple. We needed to birdie each gap.
"Great things happen in those moments. There were a lot of good shots executed all within a period of six holes, and it [produced] a level of motivation for the team. There was a big wave of momentum."
As nightfall fell over Medinah, Poulter secured a one-shot victory with a exceptional 15ft putt on the 18th gap, celebrated by a roar of enjoyment and a scream of "Come on".
A couple of hours earlier, Europe feared that they had misplaced the Ryder Cup. Now, Europe may "go to sleep on a high after winning the last two matches," Poulter recalled, and the staff felt "energised to go out to have an opportunity to win".
The staff additionally sensed a change of their opponents' temper, he stated: "They were extremely jovial and joyous on Saturday when they were 10–4 up. And momentum started to change – all of a sudden the pressure gets loaded off us and gets put back on them."
Early in his match on Sunday, Poulter struggled, going two pictures down after 4 holes. Yet Poulter nonetheless "knew I'd win my point", he stated later. "It's a weird feeling when you're in the zone and all that mayhem is going on around you, and you find that you are entirely focused on the shot. All this adrenaline was flowing and I was thinking to myself: 'There's no way I'm losing this.'"
What Poulter described known as a "clutch state". Clutch states happen when athletes underneath stress are in a position to summon up no matter is important to succeed, to carry out nicely, and maybe change the result of the sport. Flow states are when a harmonious state exists between intense focus and absorption within the occasion, to the exclusion of irrelevant feelings and ideas, creating a way that every part is coming collectively or clicking into place. Athletes with excessive psychological toughness usually tend to expertise movement and clutch states than these much less mentally robust.
"Anything that helps you focus on why you should succeed, rather than why you should fail, can be powerful," Beilock defined. In the top, Tiger Woods missed an easy putt and Europe received the Ryder Cup outright.
Scott Boswell now works as a well-regarded cricket coach for a membership and faculty. His strategies lean upon his personal experiences of choking – and the best way to give gamers the capability to carry up in probably the most pressurised moments. His teaching periods purpose to place gamers "under the same sort of scenarios that they're going to have when it comes to a match," he stated.
Boswell needs to forestall others going by means of what he did. "My mental and physical side just basically crumbled in front of God knows how many people watching live on television … I've only watched it once – and then not all the way through. But I watched about five or six balls and just thought: 'That's a car crash.'"
He doesn't imagine there's something inevitable about choking – and that everybody can practise in a method that makes them much less more likely to choke. "Could I have dealt with that differently? Could I have had methods to slow myself down? I think I could."
• This is an edited extract from The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made by A Mark Williams and Tim Wigmore, revealed by Nicholas Brealey and obtainable at guardianbookshop.co.uk
• Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, and signal as much as the lengthy learn weekly e-mail right here.


Have you had a chance to catch your breath yet from all the crazy announcements in VR this week? Yeah, me neither. This week was among the biggest ever for VR, and in case you were too lost in your new Gear VR to notice everything that happened, from Cardboard to Nimble, we've got you covered.
Researchers have found, by recording the brain activity of rats on tiny treadmills in VR, that in the virtual world, the rodents did not form the same mental map of their surroundings that they do in real life; demonstrating that VR has the ability to play with your brain (something any experienced Rifter is well aware of). The study comes on the heels of the 2014 Nobel Prize winning discovery that the brain produces "GPS cells" which helps create a mental map of the environment. This is how the brain can help you navigate. If you've ever been driving somewhere familiar, zone out to music or something, then boom you find yourself there as if by magic, you have experienced the power of your brain's GPS cells. The researchers found that when they placed the rats in the virtual world, the GPS neurons fired off seemingly at random, as opposed to the controllable patterns they had identified in their previous study. If this study holds true for humans, it could have a far-reaching impact on how games and experiences are structured in VR.
Magic Leap is so shrouded in mystery right now that any news they release is potentially exciting. As reported in Venture Beat, former Beats by Dre CFO, Scott Henry, will step in as the CFO at Magic Leap. Henry's experience in consumer-facing technology further suggests that Magic Leap is aiming at a consumer AR/VR product.
The Sundance Film Festival is one of the largest and most important film festivals in the country, bringing together thousands of the most talented filmmakers in the world. Every year a few greats end up emerging from this festival, and this year one of those greats might end up being the first great VR director. According to a CNN report, this year's festival will be riddled with VR film experiences, nine of them to be exact. So what is on the docket? Chris Milk will be bringing an experience called "Evolution of Verse" which is a CGI "journey from beginning to new beginning" that uses Google Cardboard. Kaiju Fury! puts you in the middle of a "Godzilla-style" monster battle, and if you haven't checked out the trailer yet, you should. Nonny de la Peña, who is playing in the space of 'immersive journalism' (a personal favorite of mine, I hope this style of journalism catches on because it is so empathetically impactful) will be releasing a new project, Syria. Another experience (that has been shown before) 'Strangers' is an intimate look inside an artist's apartment as they compose music, the experience is hauntingly beautiful. Be sure to check out the full list here.
Virtual reality concerts are coming, this is for sure. It's the next logical step for the music industry. THIRD-D is another in a line of incredible experiences produced by Jaunt so far. The app places you on stage at a Jack White concert and allows you to experience two songs. Currently only available on Cardboard, the app is "coming soon" to the Rift and Gear VR.
Google announced that they will be putting their force behind the former '20% project' (at Google employees are encouraged to spend 20% of their time on passion projects, Cardboard was one of them). Google completely redesigned the Cardboard web page adding vendors, a new SDK, and a Cardboard specific section of the Google Play store. Google noted that over 500,000 Cardboards were sold since it was first debuted at I/O earlier this year. Further signaling Google's commitment to Cardboard, they have listed five new positions for VR developers on their website. It's clear the Google sees Cardboard as an easy entry point to the world of VR and an excellent way to bring it to the masses.
The creators of the Kickstarted Omni Directional treadmill, dubbed "The Omni," announced they had received an additional $2.7 million funding round which will help them "support operations, fund working capital and accelerate research development." The creators of the treadmill say they will debut the "final" product at this years CES, and I for one couldn't be more excited to try it. The ability to have actual locomotive motion translated in game is huge and has far-reaching implications, especially when it comes to helping to solve the obesity crisis by further encouraging exercise.
NextVR released the first ever "broadcast quality" VR experience, which takes users on stage at Coldplay's Ghost Stories concert, that the company described as "better than being there." The project was developed in direct conjunction between NextVR and Coldplay, who wanted to bring the ultimate experience to their fans. Currently available as a small section of the full concert, NextVR plans to release the full rendering in the upcoming months. This is the first of many content pieces the company intends to release in the nearish future, so definitely stay tuned.
These major announcements are probably the biggest news in VR this week, besides the Gear VR release. Bringing Nimble on is probably the biggest acquisition of the three. There had long been rumors that Oculus was working internally on some sort of motion tracking solution for VR. Leap Motion had made a play for the spot with its 'Dragonfly' edition that had a mount for the front of the DK2, but it appears that Oculus has pegged Nimble's technology as better fitting with their vision. This acquisition means that hand tracking will most definitely be a part of the future of VR, and that hopefully it will be an integrated part of the CV1 when it comes out in "months, not years." Hopefully this acquisition hastens that date, rather than delaying it.
The other two, 13th Lab and Chris Bregler, are no slouches either. The team at 13th Lab has been developing technology that allows for vastly more efficient, real-time, accurate renderings of 3D models. Their technology should greatly help Oculus develop gorgeously rendered scenes with true to life accuracy. Chris Bregler joins the team from NYU and is an expert in motion capture. He will join the team and direct a vision research team. All three of these announcements signal that Oculus is really gearing things up for the CV1. Hopefully, they will have something epic to announce at CES this year.
Crystal Rift, a dungeon crawling, loot hunting, chest opening, puzzler for the Oculus Rift completed its Kickstarter campaign, raising over $7,500 from over 250 backers. The project fell just short of its initial stretch goal which would have added Fire and Ice elemental levels, but being that they came ever so close I wouldn't be surprised if they went ahead and added those levels anyway. I have reached out to the team and am awaiting further comment. UPDATE: According to the most recent Kickstarter update, the team will be including the 1st stretch goal in the project, so yay! More levels!
This is one of the games I am most excited for, having played through the Alpha releases. The game plays incredibly smoothly, with great controls and gorgeous visuals; so it is great to see that it will be developed into a full game.
Updates added as new news comes in.


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North Korea summit: Trump greets freed American detainees
Left to right: Kim Hak-song, Kim Dong-chul, Tony Kim
US President Donald Trump has welcomed home three American detainees released by North Korea.
Mr Trump said it was a "special night for these really great people" as they arrived at the Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.
The White House said the trio had been freed as a gesture of goodwill ahead of the planned meeting between Mr Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Mr Trump said he thought the summit would be "a big success".
North Korea crisis in 300 words
The tricky task of preparing for the summit
The date and location have been decided but not yet announced.
What did Mr Trump say when the men arrived home?
Mr Trump and his wife Melania entered the plane after it landed at about 02:45 local time (06:45 GMT) and a few minutes later emerged with the three men to wave to the media.
The president said he appreciated that Mr Kim had allowed the men to leave as "frankly we didn't think that was going to happen before the meeting".
Image copyright Reuters – Image caption President Trump said he believed the upcoming summit would be "a great success"
Asked if this was his proudest achievement, he said that would be "when we denuclearise that entire peninsula".
"It's a great honour. But the true honour is going to be if we have a victory in getting rid of nuclear weapons."
Of the upcoming summit, he said: "I think that we're going to have… a very big success… I really think we have a very good chance of doing something very meaningful."
Mr Trump said he hoped he could travel to North Korea one day and that he believed Mr Kim wanted to bring his country "into the real world".
What have the freed detainees said?
The three men, Kim Hak-song, Tony Kim and Kim Dong-chul, were smiling and waving and appeared in good health.
In an impromptu chat before the media with Mr Trump, Kim Dong-chul said: "It's like a dream and we are very, very happy. We were treated in many different ways. For me, I had to do a lot of labour. But when I got sick I was also treated by them."
The three had released an earlier statement saying: "We would like to express our deep appreciation to the United States government, President Trump, Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo and the people of the United States for bringing us home.
"We thank God and all our families and friends who prayed for us and for our return."
The trio had been jailed for anti-state activities and placed in labour camps.
How did the release come about?
It came during a visit to Pyongyang by Mr Pompeo to arrange details of the meeting between Mr Trump and Kim Jong-un.
Mr Kim said he had accepted a US proposal to grant the three detainees an amnesty, adding that his meeting with President Trump would be an "excellent first step" towards improving the situation on the Korean peninsula, according to the North Korean state news agency KCNA.
The convictions of the trio were widely condemned as political and an abuse of human rights.
Who are the freed Americans?
Kim Hak-song was held on suspicion of "hostile acts" in May 2017. He had previously described himself as a Christian missionary who intended to start an experimental farm at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST)
Tony Kim, also known as Kim Sang-duk, also worked at PUST. He was detained in April 2017 on espionage charges. According to South Korean media, he had been involved in humanitarian work in the North
Kim Dong-chul, a pastor in his early 60s, was detained in 2015 on spying charges, and was then sentenced to 10 years hard labour
What are North Korean prisons like?
Some 120,000 people are believed to be imprisoned in North Korea without due process, according to the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK).
People can be jailed by the regime for almost anything, activists say, with crimes ranging from watching a South Korean DVD to trying to defect from the country.
Political prisoners are often sent to separate prisons – usually brutal labour camps, which involve difficult physical work such as mining and logging.
American missionary Kenneth Bae, who was sentenced to hard labour, later said he was forced to work on a farm six days a week despite being in poor health.
The last American to be freed – Otto Warmbier, who was jailed for stealing a hotel sign – was released last year but was fatally ill, and died shortly after returning home.
His parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, said they were "happy for the hostages and their families. We miss Otto".
Speaking at Andrews Air Force Base, Mr Trump said he wanted to pay his "warmest respects" to the couple.
How are the summit preparations going?
Mr Trump says the time, date and location will be announced "within three days".
He said the talks would not be held at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates North and South Korea, one of the suggested venues, and Singapore remains the most likely option.
Mr Pompeo said there had been "good and productive conversations" with Mr Kim.
"We're planning it will be a single day, but in the event that there is more to discuss, there'll be an opportunity for it to extend into the second day as well," Mr Pompeo said.
The main issue, of course, will be North Korea's nuclear weapons, which Mr Trump has demanded Pyongyang give up.
There has been no word from North Korea on its agenda or what it might offer, although a key issue is certain to be the presence of 30,000 US military personnel in South Korea, along with the removal of sanctions.
At a summit in April, Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in vowed to work to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons, although the means of achieving this were not detailed and previous such pledges have been abandoned.
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Trump Kim summit: North Korea celebrates meeting


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Colonial America Crime And Punishment
4 Sep 2018. Punishments for crimes and misdemeanours varied and included beating, were little different from what they had been in pre-colonial times.
For example, punishments such as an eye-for-an-eye aim to make criminals. In colonial Australia, there were three main punishments for male convicts; the.
Excellent studies exist for rural crime, Indian responses to legal administration, and urban elite society in colonial Latin America in general, but studies of urban crime are scant; in fact, social history of crime has been understudied for colonial Mexico, with most scholarship focusing on jurisprudence or.
Investigating crime and punishment comparatively is by no means a new conceit—Alexis de Tocqueville traveled from France to the United States in 1831 on a mission to inspect America's prisons—yet the need for more comparative work is newly urgent. [2]
Agatha Christie Romance Novel This Pin was discovered by Lisa Delisle. Discover (and save!) your own Pins on Pinterest. Fenella Woolgar also took on the role of Agatha Christie in Doctor Who. Who is Miss Higgins? Miss Higgins is the receptionist. French Creek Theatre: located within the French Creek Nature & Arts Center, Sheffield Village, presents "The Drowsy Chaperone,"
16 Aug 2011. After nearly 2 months of learning about colonial Maryland history, writing scripts, rehearsing, and braving the hot "Dog Days of Summer", the.
30 Nov 2018. The severity of a punishment can influence jury decisions, according to a. of capital punishment, the abolition of transportation [to penal colonies], the. for certain crimes, and the sudden halt of transporting felons to America.
Revise Crime & Punishment Through Time: Chapter 1. Following the American war of independence in the 1770's Britain lost the colonies it had in America.
28 Feb 2017. For centuries, European states used criminal transportation as a. seeks to expand our understanding of crime and punishment, penal reform, labor, monograph on indentured and convict servants in colonial America, is a.
Severity of Punishment By today's standards such public humiliation would be seen as cruel and unusual punishment, especially in a school. Compared to many of the alternative punishments available during colonial time, humiliation looked good. The most popular form of punishment was whipping, sometimes called stripes for the marks left on
Law lay at the heart of the colonial encounter. This chapter examines the 'deep effects' that the colonial encounter had on law in Africa and how the very.
Crime and Punishment in the Massachusetts Colonies Crime and Punishment in Simsbury. Excerpted from The Phelps Family of America and Their English Ancestors, (Save $201 by ordering through us.) Two volumes. By Judge Oliver Seymour Phelps and Andrew T. Servin. (Eagle Publishing Company of Pittsfield, Mass., 1899).
[Access article in PDF] Crime and Punishment in Latin America: Law and Society since Late Colonial Times. Edited by Ricardo D. Salvatore, Carlos Aguirre, and Gilbert M. Joseph.
Colonial genocide elicits. Convention on the. In the United States, capital punishment has existed since the founding of the original colonies, and was utilized for a large number of crimes including burglary, murder, treason, counterfeiting, and arson. Outside of the law, lynch mobs often formed to bring the accused to justice.
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In Gendered Crime and Punishment, Stacey Schlau mines the Inquisitional archive of Spain and Latin America in order to uncover the words and actions of.
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27 Apr 2018. In colonial Virginia, authorities could hang settlers for a crime as small. the critical turning points in the history of capital punishment in America.
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20 Aug 2019. Which crimes were punished by the ducking stool?. though its use was widespread through England, Scotland and colonial America by the.
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By the 1700s, 222 crimes were punishable by death in Britain, including. Britain influenced America's use of the death penalty more than any other. When European settlers came to the new world, they brought the practice of capital punishment. The first recorded execution in the new colonies was that of Captain George.
More than 14,000 people have been legally executed since colonial times, crime and punishment found that a majority of Americans support alternatives to.
Edwin C. Surrency; An Introduction to Crime and Punishment in Colonial New Jersey, American Journal of Legal History, Volume 5, Issue 1, 1 January 1961, Pages
2 Oct 2015. The present entry deals with crime, punishment, the prison system, and. 36,000 convicts were sent to British colonies in America of that time.
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2 Mar 2018. Whether highlights or lowlights, crime and punishment has existed in America as long as humans have trod the continent, but formal, written.
Laws were arguably draconian by modern standards, but as Mitchel Roth points out in his book, "Crime and Punishment: A History of the Criminal Justice System," individuals often received a lighter punishment than the law prescribed. In the case of a rebellious son over the age of 16, for example, the prescribed punishment was death.
Capital punishment served as a tool of social control and deterrence, Criminal Justice Death Penalty Colonial Period Colonial State South African Journal. J. Dugard, South West Africa and the "Terrorist Trial," American Journal of.
In 1645 the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law which stated: "Whereas truth. Lying or spreading "false news" was treated as a crime in colonial Massachusetts. the vulnerable young colony from danger, by threatening to punish all lying, cauldron of the American Revolution and grew and changed throughout.
25 Dec 2019. The Early Years of American LawFrom the time of the American. Criminal codes , punishments, and courts varied from colony to colony. By the.
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At different times of the year, they could be very hot or very cold. so while it was a punishment it also produced food for the colony and corn meal for the. As punishment for even more serious crimes, or for repeated misbehaviour, a convict.
Start studying Crime and Punishment Exam 1. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.
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Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras defended the agreement Greece signed with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to end a long-standing dispute over the country's name, saying he believed his government has "done its patriotic duty".
The ratification by the Greek MPs of the protocol signed by permanent representatives of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member states earlier this week at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels, opens the way for Greece's northern neighbour to start using its new name.
Last week, parliament ratified a historic deal to end the dispute about Macedonia's name, paving the way for the Balkan country to join North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the EU.
The main catalyst for the change was FYROM's wish to join North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and, eventually, the European Union, and western countries' desire to diminish Russian influence in the region.
It also exposed old rivalries with Russian Federation, in a region where Moscow jostles for influence with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the EU.
One lawmaker described the pact as "worth spitting at", another that Greece was "humiliated".
"I would like to again welcome North Macedonia, a country that is friendly toward Greece, a country that must be a supporter - and not an opponent - of our efforts to establish safety, stability, and cooperation in the wider region", said Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tspiras. "Today we vote against the accession protocol, because it seals a national defeat at Prespes", he said.
The Greek Parliament on January 26 passed the Macedonia name-change deal with a majority of 153 votes in favour of the deal, while the 146 legislators voting against the deal, out of a total 300-seats in the Parliament.


I'm a bit late with my monthly "what I'm into" post because of vacation but here we are, in the midst of September already! I'm so ready for cooler weather, apples picking, cozy sweaters, and pumpkin baked goods of all sorts!
While on vacation we watched Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which was quite fun! Otherwise, we've just been watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix because it's short and funny (and we love Ron Swanson).
I just finished my latest Flavia de Luce novel on audio and the kids and I are listening to The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings together for our homeschool bookclub. I remember absolutely loving that book when I was younger.
I just finished Sarah Clarkson's delightful and inspiring Book Girl and added some good books on my to-read list for fall. Most of them are older books, as opposed to newer, and I can't wait to dive into some Elizabeth Goudge and Rumer Godden. Over vacation I was looking for a fast-paced thriller and really loved The Likeness by Tana French. The premise was on the unbelievable side, but I could suspend belief because the story was so intriguing.
I'm also reading Not By Sight by Jon Bloom. I'm reading it as a devotional—reading the scripture he notes at the beginning, then reading the short chapter that corresponds each morning. The writing is fresh and vivid, breathing life into familiar stories.
These Smashed Sweet Potatoes were so delicious as were a batch of Pumpkin Spice Granola. I also made a batch of our favorite Quinoa Muffins (I use cranberries) for breakfast/snacks this week. They are tasty with a hint of sweetness and so filling!
I must confess I've not read many books on homeschooling, partially because I was homeschooled myself, loved it, and had a great experience, so I never went through a "research" phase to determine if it was something I wanted to do or not.
But this time of year I am deeply thinking and planning about our upcoming academic year, and I find myself returning to some books again and again, as well as discovering some new favorites.
One book that I read almost annually is Sarah Mackenzie's Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakeable Peace. This is a slim volume that is full of wisdom, encouragement, and practical suggestions. This book introduced me to loop scheduling, using a "time budget," and choosing a literary mentor to guide my reading through the year.
I'm currently really loving the influence of Cindy Rollins. First, I read her book Mere Motherhood: Morning Times, Nursery Rhymes, and My Journey Towards Sanctification. It's really more of a memoir than anything else, but filled with so much goodness that includes what she did right--and wrong--told in a conversational way with a side of sarcasm. I've also become a Patron of her podcast, and am literally sitting down and taking notes of the exclusive content I've received by joining here.
Know and Tell: The Art of Narration by Karen Glass is a book I wish had been written several years ago when I was just starting this homeschool journey. It has cleared up all my questions having children narrate ("tell back") the material that is read to them (or they read) either orally or in written form. Since my boys struggled so much with reading/writing due to dyslexia we have not been consistent in this area, but this book has helped me as I plan for this year. There is even a chapter on narrations and learning challenges, so there is much to consider in this wonderful book. I will also be implementing some of the content from the "narration in the classroom" chapter in my co-op class this year.
What is your favorite homeschooling book? Or, if you don't homeschool, a book that has impacted your educational philosophy or parenting style?
I'm very excited to share that an essay I wrote about my life as a homeschooled student has been featured in Wild + Free's most recent subscriber bundle, Wander. Wild + Free is a beautiful homeschool community. I have benefitted from their conferences, digital bundles, Instagram, and podcast.
I was thrilled to write about one of the most treasured memories from my days as a homeschooled student when my mom read to my siblings and me after lunch. I couldn't wait to find out what would happen next to my favorite character, while being transported to another time or place by the power of Mom's voice. These books were dubbed 'family books,' and we continued to read aloud together even long after I was old enough to read on my own. The power of the audible voice captured any wanderings of my mind, making the stories dance off the page and into my imagination.
To illustrate this article, my friend Molly Balint of The Farmhouse Creative photographed our own read-aloud moments. It's so special to have these images, not just for the article, but to treasure and document our days.
I also got to chat with Jennifer Pepito about reading aloud as a family and how to know whether we're doing too much or enough in the podcast portion of the bundle.
July is almost over (can you believe it!) and since I wasn't able to post in June I have a nice round up of favorite things for you this month.
We've been watching When Calls the Heart for all five seasons as a family because it's a clean show the kids enjoy. Kind of reminds me of Christy or Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, remember those? Season five, however, ended in a very un-Hallmark manner with a shocker that left the kids in tears! What!?! Definitely will be interested in what plays out next season!
I still am enjoying Father Brown on Netflix. It's my laundry-folding show and it's a comfort that the bad guys are always caught and the mysteries are tidily solved each episode.
I've become a Patron of Cindy Rollins' podcast, The Mason Jar and am enjoying the exclusive content from her site. I am literally taking notes, the content is just that good.
Also, I just finished the fourth book in Alan Bradley's charming Flavia de Luce series. I adore them on audio. I don't know anyone else personally who has read them, however Cindy Rollins and Jen Hatmaker are fans. I was really happy to hear Jen rave about them on a recent episode of What Should I Read Next. These books really need more people to discover them!
I've read some good books lately, one of my favorites was this psychological thriller I Found You. Caveats include strong language and an especially icky assault scene, but overall I just couldn't put it down. Can't wait to try more of her books. A Murder for the Books has been a fun cozy type of mystery. Think a Hallmark movie in book form, so at times, it verges on cheesy, but a nice summer-type of read.
Parenting Is Your Highest Calling: And 8 Myths That Trap Us in Worry and Guilt was one of the best parenting books I've ever read. Seriously, there's not many more books you need to read besides this one. It was my first introduction to Leslie Leyland Fields, but I definitely plan to read more of her work!
I picked two books this summer to be my "professional development" to help me become a better homeschool parent to my kids. The first title, The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain has been hugely helpful and encouraging as I look to more year helping the boys thrive not only in spite of, but because of, their dyslexia. The other is Know and Tell: The Art of Narration by Karen Glass which I'm busy highlighting. It will be helpful in not only our narrations at home, but as I teach a Writing and Rhetoric class at our local co-op.
I made these Stuffed Sweet Peppers (by one of my favorite Instagrammers) for a party and man, were they delish! Also easy, which is always a plus. The other night we also tried these Korean BBQ Burritos which were quite tasty and had a unique blend of flavors.
My daughter is my mini-me. She spends her days drawing and writing books. When I say she writes books, I means she truly is crafting books just like I did when I used to create slightly plagiarized versions of Beatrix Potter's stories. She folds and staples the pages together to make the cover and pages for the inside of her latest title. Maybe "Fitz Learns to Swim" or "The Lost Tea Cup," which have been two of her latest endeavors. You can imagine her excitement when I bought her these.
And so, I think it's important to encourage her imagination not just with quality art products and quality literature, but also the stories of women who've gone on before her. Women who were once girls and were equally enchanted by stories and scribbled away with ink and feathered pens.
So today, I'm rounding up some of my favorite picture books about literary ladies to share with you, just in case you have your own authoress in the making.
The Little People, Big Dreams series is delightful and I was so pleased to find Agatha Christie's biography included. We discover how she became something of an expert at poisons (as a nurse during W.W. I) and how she came to develop her famous sleuths, Poirot and Miss Marple.
When Montgomery rediscovers an old manuscript that she had tucked into a hatbox, little does she know it will be the making of her career. Anne of Green Gables is such a favorite book and TV series it's wonderful for kids to find out the "story behind the story" and where the idea came from, as well as more about Montgomery's life.
Harper Lee is somewhat of a literary mystery. She withdrew from any sort of publicity after To Kill A Mockingbird and kept to herself the rest of her life. I really enjoyed this picture book and the wonderful illustrations. I didn't realize how much the characters mirrored her own life. My favorite little tidbit the book shares is that Lee and Truman Capote, as children, took turns dictating stories to each other while the other typed them out.
Deborah Hopkinson is the queen of biographical picture books, so you will find more than one title by her on this list. This new book about the life of Jane Austen is made even more charming by the ink and watercolor illustrations of Qin Leng.
My boys loved all of Virginia Lee Burton's books when they were little. Anything that had big machines in it inspired interest. Also, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel was one of the first books we bought them, because it was also one of the few picture book my husband remembers and loved. This a lovely whimsical story that shares how Burton's two boys inspired her interest in picture book writing. I had no idea she was already an accomplished artist and dancer too!
Before Beatrix was a famous children's book author she was just a girl who loved to draw animals. Charmingly told, this is the mostly true story of how she borrowed an guinea pig and it all went terribly wrong.
Today I'm sharing what I've been into this month. My reading slump in fiction kind of continues, but everything else was great!
We watched a new Agatha Christie adaptation of the novel The Crooked House on Amazon Prime. I must admit at first it was a bit of a snooze, maybe the first twenty minutes or so. I might have been tempted to give up, if it wasn't that I knew Agatha Christie would deliver. And she sure did! The end was quite a shock as you figure out what's about to happen!
Ever since we saw The Greatest Showman we've been listening to the soundtrack. We all love it. It's so cute to listen to Ava sing, "every night I lie in bed, the brightest colors fill my head . . . "
Since my last post I've read Rules of Civility by Amor Towles and The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan. Both were "meh" to me. The writing was great by Towles and the concept of the story was interesting by Hogan but I just couldn't love the characters or get caught up in the story. I am listening to the next Flavia mystery on audio, however, and am enjoying it greatly! I'm really loving the characters and setting in this series and the author really captures the time period. I'm sure a lot of research goes into these books but it never feels that way.
We've been eating some really yummy stuff. A friend texted me this recipe for a white pizza and we've made it twice. These Greek Lamb Meatballs with Green Goddess Dressing were amazing! I used ground beef instead of lamb and couscous and got my Green Goddess Dressing from Trader Joe's. Also, strangely enough while getting oral laser surgery done the doctor's office had the Pioneer Woman's show on and she made these Cherry Pie Cookie Bars while my mouth was open and numb. They also made my mouth water and immediately went home and bookmarked the recipe and later made it. It was such a easy but delicious recipe that can easily feed a crowd. The orange zest really makes it!
If you love history and literature, this is for you! Totally fascinating history. Also, creating a dictionary makes my head spin!
This book is NEEDED in America right now more than ever. And the work Bryan Stevenson is doing is incredible. Stevenson's non-profit works to challenge wrongful convictions, as well on behalf of juveniles and those with various mental handicaps in the justice system. Stevenson makes it personal by telling one main overarching story that is just makes you shake your head because you know that this stuff just can't be made up! At once heartbreaking, somehow the book doesn't bring you down, but makes you see the hope.
A good book about study methods that take you from reading the Bible at the surface level or through a lens of emotion and "what it means to me" to historical context and meaning.
This is a great "discussion" book. I went back and forth between 3 or 4 starts but finally landed on 4 because it was so thought-provoking, although I found her tone a little condescending at times. There was much I agreed with and much I did not agree with too. A full review can be read here.
I had NEVER heard of Alice Seeley Harris before this book, which is too bad. Alice was a missionary to the Congo who soon discovered the atrocities of the rubber trade, which mutilated, maimed, and murdered the indigenous people of Congo for the harvest of rubber under the rule of Belgian King Leopold. She began documenting what she saw with her Brownie Kodak camera and eventually used her slides as evidence to crusade against the Belgian government alongside her husband.
I was fascinated by Alice as a person and the tensions in her life. One of the biggest tensions was that of mother and missionary. To be an effective missionary as well as to go on a speaking tour to raise awareness to the Congo atrocities, she had to leave her own children behind for years to be cared for by others.
Alice was a woman ahead of her time and more of us should know about who had a heart for social justice.
A unique devotional guide literary types would appreciate.
A great study that I did over the summer with some friends.
I loved this book and it's so unique. You can read my complete review here.
I love Ann Voskamp's heart and writing. She is so genuine in her faith.
However, I had a hard time with this book. I had a hard time tracking with it and it felt scattered. Although each chapter holds is about the "brokenness" theme, I had a hard time following what the point was, most of the time. Each chapter seemed more like a stand alone narrative essay and I think I was looking for more of a narrative arc in the book overall. So as a whole, I found it a scattered reading that lacked cohesion.
I did find gems and nuggets of wisdom that I highlighted throughout.
This book was a lot more fun that I imagined. It took a minute to get into the rhythm of Rollins "voice." It reads like a conversation with lots of dry wit and sarcasm. She makes fun of herself a lot but it's encouraging too.
This was a reread for me but perfectly timed. I read it as I experienced severe anxiety for the first time in my life over a health issue. Reading this book felt like it literally physically bolstered me each day as many a topic it came back to again and again was fear.
What was your favorite non-fiction read in 2017?


Here's his new P2 TT with Ortofon 2M Bronze cartridge, what do you think?
I've put a switch in the box for the PCB you passed to me. I have resoldered all of the wires and extended the red, green, and blue wires leading to the motor. I have temporarily stuck that box under the plinth on the right hand side, using some double-sided tape. It works for now, but I may look for a better looking solution.
But thanks Michael, awesome job designing the plinth!
Just thought I'd make a comment regarding the Rega finger lift: many have reported an improvement in sound by cutting off the finger lift. Obviously not stock looking then. Also a rewire of the tonearm is a must. One need not spend a bunch of $$$s in wire. I have found that in my own custom tonearms that even some inexpensive (as in REALY CHEAP!) wire can sound excellent. There are many sources for improved wire. I also highly recommennd running the tonearms all the way to the phono stage in one continuous run with no solder joints until the terminating RCA jacks (which should also be an improved version over the Rega ones). If damping is required oversize heat shrink tubing can be used, or latex theatrical face paint, or even rubber cement (not contact cement!). You'll be amazed at the transformation!