text:
Winter Storm Thor Wreaks More Disruption (But May Be the Last)
Another storm has swept through the southern states and is currently impacting the East coast. Much as Octavia did two weeks ago, Thor came in the night and left commuters and delivery companies alike to deal with its mess. Reaching for the shovels again, we've marched outside to look Thor square in the eye (of the storm) and tell him in no uncertain terms, "we're open!" [caption id="attachment_2279" align="aligncenter" width="524"]
Digging out of Thor at our NJ facility[/caption] The snow has forced many companies to call off operations for the day, however, as winter advisory warnings go up around the Northeast and New Jersey has declared a state of emergency. Capacity is up and running despite this latest dump of the white stuff, while carriers are shutting down in some areas, struggling to stay on top of the deluge. UPS issued the following bulletin to make customers aware that scheduled deliveries will be disrupted:
Severe weather in Louisville, KY caused a significant disruption to operations at Worldport®, UPS's main hub in the United States. As a result, some shipments may experience unavoidable delays. UPS is working to move shipments to their final destinations as quickly as possible.
[caption id="attachment_2282" align="aligncenter" width="526"]
Trailers line up at Capacity's NJ loading bays[/caption] One bright spot of this particular storm is that some believe it's the last one for this winter. Whether or not you believe the weather men and women, two things are for sure: the clocks go forward for spring this weekend and the seasons officially change in two weeks time.
We're no softies when it comes to snow, but everyone will be cracking a smile as the sun starts to shine again and temperatures rise to melt all this white stuff. Until then, keep on truckin'!


On my trip to Ireland in August I drove via county Armagh to Raphoe, county Donegal from Belfast airport. I wanted to see the countryside that the McFaddens came from. Peter Patrick McFadden (son of Thomas) was born in Lower Grange, Oneilland West co Armagh around 1831. He married Mary Reid (daughter of Septimar Watson and James Reid) in Armagh at the registry office on July 17, 1852.
I'm back after too long without any posts. I had an eventful 2016 which included two genealogy trips, the second to the UK with my mother. We visited Donegal and Belfast in Ireland at the end of August on the trail of our McKnight, Gregg and Dunlop families from Raphoe in County Donegal. I also visited where the McFaddens (on my dad's side) were from in County Armagh but more about them in another post.


Melody and rhythm and tunes you can dance to are fine, but we also need music that makes you think and maybe argue about it over a clove ciggy and a craft brew. Meat Beat Manifesto makes a great topic; they came out of quaint Swindon, UK in the post-punk days and embarked on a journey through electronic music of all sorts. This collection of over a dozen songs appears to me to be what jazz ought to be in this post-electronic age. There are melodies here, but complex ones that don't click at first listen. The beat is electronic and dry; a drum machine programed in C++ likely lies at its heart. Echoes and reverb deepen the sound, making it warmer, keeping it approachable yet formal. Tracks don't often tie to their titles: "Lurker" offers an electronic jungle beat; it's almost Arthur Lyman transposed to the 21st century. Opener "ONE" starts out so low key you almost don't think there's sound there. But there is, is a slowly glowing electronic Theremin throb from a cheap 1950's Sci-Fi. "Unique Boutique" again starts with a single phrase of voice, then heads off into the smoke machine, leaving us wishing to window shop in a mall where all the shops are empty. Vocals are doled out with a medicine dropper, and the whole experience of listing to "Impossible Star" needs a post-show discussion to complete the experience.
On the Spot (Tru Thoughts Recordings). Review by Bob Pomeroy.
Hey, Heartland America! Where's the heart? In Go Ask Ogre, Jolene Siana welds a Skinny Puppy obsession into her painful Middle American adolescence. But Tom "Tearaway" Schulte assures us happy valleys await on the other side of the early '90s, Midwest goth scene.
James Mann finds that even he thinks his musical soundtrack to 2005 was weird.
Dodging fights in the streets, Jen Cray made it inside The Social for a gorgeous evening of dreamy indie pop courtesy of Robbers on High Street and Great Northern.
Banda Sonora (Sound Track) (Accretions). Review by Carl F Gauze.
Power Metal (Spitfire). Review by Daniel Mitchell.
A popular account of a famous but very difficult mathematics problem. Carl F Gauze, much like Teen Talk Barbie, knows that math is hard.


Today was my birthday, and to follow tradition, my IB students paid homage to my high sense of fashion by wearing the patented blue shirt khaki pants outfit.
I tried to convince them that this type of wardrobe choice saves them a lot of time figuring out what to wear every day, but sadly, they told me that this would just be a once-a-year thing.
Anyway, here are some pictures of me with my beloved learners.
And even my father up in Canada decided to dress up! Thanks, Dad!!
Posted on January 11, 2017, in Flipped Classroom. Bookmark the permalink.	Leave a comment.


Half Round wire has a semi-circle profile. It's a full round wire cut in half lengthwise and is half as thick as a full round profile wire of the same gauge. By the time you get to 24 gauge, the wire is very fine.


Watch men's college hockey teams compete to make it to the Frozen Four. Saturday at 5:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., and Sunday at 6:30 p.m. $45-$77. Dunkin' Donuts Center , 1 LaSalle Square, Providence. Tickets are available at the box office and at ticketmaster .
With 25,000 eggs up for grabs, this event touts itself as Rhode Island's largest free indoor Easter Egg Hunt. Activities also include face painting and crafts. Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon. Free. Lincoln Mall, 622 George Washington Hwy., Lincoln. discoverlincolnmall.com/events.?
An egg hunt, pony rides and storytime are among the happenings at this annual event. Saturday at noon (egg hunt at 1 p.m.). Free, but donations encouraged. Brown House, Linden Lane, Portsmouth. onaquidneck.com/brownhouse.?
A 15-minute laser, water, video and sound show with 9,000 water nozzles and 20,000 watts of light. Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5:30 p.m. Free. Jordan's Furniture, 400 Bald Hill Rd., Warwick. (401) 223-3500, jordans.com.?
Festival Ballet Providence presents a black box performance of modern works. Saturday at 7:30 p.m. $50. Festival Ballet Providence, 825 Hope St., Providence. (401) 253-1129, festivalballet.com.


text:
MOH: Health Instructions Issued on Dealing with the Wave of Dust
The Ministry of Health "MOH" has advised citizens and residents, especially those suffering from asthma or chest diseases, not to expose themselves to dust which is currently affecting the Kingdom, and not to leave homes, if possible. The MOH also advised them to wear medical and preventive masks when leaving homes during the dust wave, noting that the dust's particles irritate the respiratory tract causing allergic rhinitis.
The MOH's Media Information and Health Awareness Center, in a statement issued today on the dust wave currently hitting some parts of the Kingdom, said, "There are health instructions that help, Allah willing, provide protection and safety for members of the community during the wind blowing and dust waves, such as avoiding direct exposure to dust and other particles during the blowing of sand storms and not to go out unless it is necessary; that is to be added to following up weather newscasts on television, radio or the website of the General Presidency of Metrology and Environment Protection."
It also underlined the importance of tightly closing doors and windows to prevent entrance of dust into buildings and houses and paying more attention to personal hygiene during this period of year, in addition to the importance of cleaning houses and buildings thoroughly from the dust, particularly bedrooms and bed linen.
The center advised citizens and residents to wear medical masks or use a wet towel or gauze during the blowing of sand storms, if they are outside home or when necessary, meanwhile placing particular emphasis on the necessity of changing the masks constantly. As for asthma and respiratory tract patients, they were advised not to leave their houses under such weather conditions, if possible, and to follow their doctor's directives precisely, as well as taking medicine against asthma as per the doctor's prescriptions. With regard to those who underwent surgeries on the eye or nose, they were advised to be more vigilant and avoid going out under such weather.
The MOH called for visiting the nearest health center or emergency section in case of emergency, warning drivers to close windows while driving under such dusty weather and adjust the air conditioner at a suitable temperature, if necessary.
The Ministry confirmed that as part of directives and follow-up of His Excellency the Minister of Health, all its health facilities are ready to receive emergency cases, announcing that its 24-hour hospitals in the dust-effected regions have taken all precautionary measures to receive emergency respiratory cases, whether elderly or youngsters, although that the number of respiratory patients visiting such facilities are expected to increase, especially asthmatics.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
End-To-End Ecryption app. Created using Ionic v2 Beta 11 and Node.js, using the MEAN stack

![Ionic Serve Example](https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/1448289/20864143/09a2eef2-b999-11e6-96c3-ab0d4e4e0a3e.gif)

[Documentation](https://github.com/CECS-478-AuRave/SecureChat/wiki)

[ApiEndpoint](https://shushapi.aaronthedev.com/)

[SSL Labs Results (Grade: A+)](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=shushapi.aaronthedev.com&latest)

[Google Play Store Android Alpha](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aurave.shushchat&hl=en)

# Contributing
**Client**
The client (under client/securChatIonic), can be developed by following [Standard Ionic Installation](https://ionicframework.com/docs/v2/setup/installation/), and uses the standard [Ionic Tutorial Conventions](https://ionicframework.com/docs/v2/setup/tutorial/).

**Server**
The server is made in express, and uses mongoose to interact with MongoDB, a simple tutorial [can be found here](https://scotch.io/tutorials/using-mongoosejs-in-node-js-and-mongodb-applications).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


You are here: Homepage Health and Beaute Health A tooth for a tooth: how to choose an electric toothbrush?
A tooth for a tooth: how to choose an electric toothbrush?
This device is now very popular, however, before purchasing, is to learn about the many nuances of each model. The magazine "Atmosphere" shares tips experts.
How to choose the right electric toothbrush? Photo: Lori.ru.
Electric toothbrush for a long time already you will surprise nobody, but few are versed in the topic and is able to choose a really reliable assistant in the difficult task of oral health. Let's start with the fact that these devices are divided into two groups - brush with vibrational and rotational motions. Dentists recommend to buy several tips to be able to change and pick the type of care. Give preference to that product, and which has a stationary charging and batteries. Pay attention to the models with a special antibacterial container after use will be stored and automatically clean your brush. And finally, look for a device with a timer. Remember: two minutes morning and evening - the mandatory minimum, which will ensure the health of your teeth.


If a giraffe is an animal designed by committee, a bulldog must have been put together by a vet facing large house payments. Newborn bulldogs typically have heads so out of proportion to a mother's birth canal that they have to be delivered by cesarean section. By the time they become adults, their skulls are as big around as the dogs' height at the shoulder. Bulldogs also frequently have bad hearts. "I have a friend who's been trying to breed bulldogs for years," says Janice Koler-Matznick, founder of the Primitive and Aboriginal Dog Society. "She'll get a litter of three puppies, all of which die, or they'll all have bad hearts, and she'll have to put them down. It's just heartbreaking."
Koler-Matznick isn't too keen on German shepherds, either, at least not the ones that win at dog shows. ("They have this wonderfully long rear end, which is also crippled," she says.) Or bloodhounds. ("They've been selected to be a giant nose on legs, but unfortunately those legs don't work too well.") Koler-Matznick isn't naturally cranky, and she doesn't hate purebreds. She has spent decades as a dog trainer, a professional handler at dog shows, and a dog breeder, among other things. But she likes her dogs healthy and hardy and has come to believe that much of dog breeding is bad for the species, engendering not just design flaws but also a terrible propensity toward genetic disorders. She's not alone. If you think of creating purebreds as a kind of genetic engineering—employing intensive artificial selection to increase the frequency of desired genes—then Koler-Matznick is part of a reverse engineering movement. Along with a few disillusioned breeders, veterinary researchers and even geneticists are looking for ways to undo the problems humans have created.
Many of these problems are entirely predictable, says conservation biologist Dan Wharton. As director of the Central Park Zoo in New York City and manager of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's breeding programs for gorillas and snow leopards in North America, Wharton is professionally committed to the science of genetics. But he also has two Pembroke Welsh corgis at home, and a few years ago it struck him that his two interests were running head-on into each other. "Some of the concepts of dog breeding are left over from our understanding of genetics a hundred years ago," he says. "What breeders are doing and what they expect doesn't necessarily match up."
Take linebreeding, which involves mating closely related dogs with a desired trait—perfectly droopy ears, for example. Linebreeding works. It will, as breeders put it, "set" a trait, ensuring that at least some pups in the litter will carry droopy-ear genes, and only droopy-ear genes, to pass on to future generations. "But from a biological point of view, linebreeding is also what we call inbreeding," Wharton says. "And inbreeding has a downside."
After all, you shouldn't marry your sister, and not just so you'll be interested when she complains about her mother. Humans and dogs alike have two copies of each chromosome, giving them two full sets of genes. If Mom gives her kid a cracked version of some gene, the copy from Dad can usually do the job. But if Mom and Dad are brother and sister, they may well be carrying the same malfunctioning gene, and some of their children are likely to get a double dose. Call it linebreeding or call it inbreeding, it's a great way to increase the chance of genetic disease. And so basenjis are prone to a potentially deadly type of anemia, English mastiffs to blindness, and Bedlington terriers to a metabolic problem that can cause them to hoard enough copper from food to fatally damage their livers.
Admittedly, some dogs swim in smaller gene pools than others. Every topknotted, squash-faced shih tzu can be traced to a group of just 14 dogs brought out of China before the Cultural Revolution. But the gene pools of nearly all show breeds are closed: The bylaws of the American Kennel Club prevent breeders from registering a dog unless its parents were registered, which means no new genes can be introduced to freshen things up. Add to that the effects of the "popular sire" syndrome, when breeders use a showstopper of a dog to produce way more than his fair share of puppies, and not even the supernumerous breeds like Labrador and golden retrievers are immune to the dangers of genetic bottlenecking.
One remedy, Wharton says, would be to convince dog fanciers to change the way they think about breed purity—to focus their concern on specific genes rather than on the dog. After all, the vast majority of genes in both a Chihuahua and a Great Dane code for basic dog; the difference comes down to slight variations in a few genes that code for each breed's signature traits. "One can inbreed those genetic traits without inbreeding the whole dog," Wharton says.
One of gene therapy's biggest successes has been in dogs with congenital blindness. In 2001 researchers inserted a working version of the flawed gene into a harmless virus, then injected the virus behind the retina of a blind puppy named Lancelot. Three months later, Lancelot could see.
Say a genetic disease was becoming too common in Australian shepherds. A breeder might mate one of his prize sires to a Border collie, which is also a herding dog and vaguely similar in appearance. When the pups got old enough, they could be backcrossed to the target breed—that is, mated to an Australian shepherd. The resulting litters will be three-quarters Aussie, genetically speaking, but in appearance they will be a mix-and-match assortment. Most of the pups will look like classic hybrids, but some will have the appearance and behavior of a purebred Australian shepherd, albeit with more genetic diversity and "hybrid vigor." Those are the ones a breeder can use to refresh the Aussie gene pool.
"Breed integrity is not being challenged when you do genetic management," Wharton says. "It's just a matter of understanding that very few genes make up the integrity of your breed. It's not like pouring two liquids into a bottle, where they blend and you can't separate them. The genes are specific entities. They sort themselves at random, but you are in a position to pick and choose." Such a system would have costs. A breeder might have to "select back" a few generations before getting a dog that makes the grade. For a careful hobbyist who doesn't want to push his dogs to breed too quickly, that could mean years without a gold medal at dog shows.
Another strategy would scientifically reproduce the happy accident familiar to all breeders: the litter of champions born of so-so parents. Breeders would start with two lineages, each of which carries a few of the breed's prized traits. Crossing the lines could produce a hardy, genetically diverse dog of ideal size, proportions, coloring, and behavior. Unfortunately, that dog can't be used to produce the next generation or the two lines will quickly merge.
Chicken farmers use a similar method because they're picky about things like meaty breasts and good egg production but can't afford the health problems that come with inbreeding. Birds in the male line might be selected for their size and fast growth while the female line is selected for fertility and egg-laying capacity. A breeder can't simultaneously select for rapid growth and good egg production, as it happens, because fast-growing chickens tend to be poor layers. By crossing the lines, though, a chicken farmer can have both.
The drive for profit has turned chicken farming into a science. Dog breeding remains mostly a passion, which leaves Koler-Matznick pessimistic about reform. Wharton is more sanguine. "So far, I haven't heard of breeders being interested in reinventing the paradigm," he says. "But I think the time will come."
The Web site of the American Kennel Club has a listing of the 150 AKC-recognized breeds, along with photos: www.akc.org.