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The Colossal
Stories > Sci-Fiction
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The Mystery of the Brass Vault: Entry 9
By Nelso555
No Plagiarism!p3aDwg4zBoXHza6ewQ2Pposted on PENANA
After the unpleasant encounter with Mr. Backhaus, the crew were ordered to return to the Rosanne to discuss the day's events, and to figure out their next plan; but after meeting face to face with Mr. Backhaus, Elsie was left feeling quite dismal. Her mood improved after a kind thankyou and a kiss on the cheek from Tilly. That night, everyone gathered around the map table; including Elsie and the professor, Mr. Dunstan, Mr. Adams, and Doctor O'Donnell. Goodwin placed his hands flat on the table and said to Elsie, "So, tell us how your meeting with John Backhaus was."copyright protection216PENANAIA3c6fGKc7
In response, Elsie drew back a little. "I should think it was dreadfully unpleasant," she remarked. "That man is a snake, and you were right, he knows about Jack."copyright protection216PENANA5nhE5v9sZo
"And now he knows we're onto him," Doctor O'Donnell added. "We shouldn't have trusted him to play nicely in the first place."copyright protection216PENANAXUsHj0mPTH
A shadow of grief and worry fell over Elsie. "Oh God, you don't think he did anything to Jack, do you?"copyright protection216PENANAI748auoBS2
"Obviously the information that Jack tore out of that sales log at Gamma Base posed some kind of threat to Backhaus Industries. Mr. Backhaus would have destroyed the information the second he got his hands on it, but as for Jack, who knows?"copyright protection216PENANAZPVUxCDCtw
"Even a man like John Backhaus wouldn't go so far as to commit murder," said Goodwin, before Elsie became too anxious. "Our goal remains the same. It is imperative for the sake of Jack and his sister, and our investigation, that Jack Heartwing is recovered. We just have to find out how."copyright protection216PENANAaFDlLn1jkV
They all stood in silence for a moment, until Mr. Dunstan proposed an idea. "Oh, I know! Why don't we get Mr. Adams in a room with Mr. Backhaus and get him to ruff him up a bit, you know, make him tell us where he's keeping Jack!"copyright protection216PENANAX2SznLkCUu
What followed was an exchange of uncertain glances. "Riley, that's a terrible idea."copyright protection216PENANArm3t9PvN4U
And then Goodwin said, "Elsie is right, Mr. Dunstan. John Backhaus isn't a man you can just beat up. He is one of the wealthiest men in Edith Post, and more likely the most powerful. The men of this city play at a game of ambition, they are quite ruthless, but even they have limits; John Backhaus, however, I am not so sure. We are treading on thin enough ice as it is. Our next move must be discrete, else we'll find ourselves exiled from Edith Post, or perhaps worse!"copyright protection216PENANAS4nLTTTCRa
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Thank you JKS for sending me an advanced copy of this one - all opinions are my own.
I occasionally worry about jumping into the middle of a series when I haven't read the previous books, but in the Maggie O'Malley series, you needn't worry at all. While reading the first two books would offer more insight, you can read this as a stand alone, as there is enough of the backstory to make heads and tails of what is going on.
Overall, this was a quick and enjoyable read for me. I liked the central focus of the plot itself, and can say that I certainly didn't see where the mystery was going after the characters started dropping from being poisoned. I appreciated that things were not as you would expect, as I love a book that keeps me on my toes.
Otherwise - a great read to pass away an afternoon! And I am curious to see what comes next for Maggie's impending marriage!


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Hormones and Women - Jayne Kennedy Overton
Last updated January 09, 2018 January 30, 2015 by Tru Health Medicine • Bioidentical Hormones • Hormone Doctor and Specialist • Hormones • Jayne Kennedy • Menopause • Santa Rosa Doctor
Hormones in Santa Rosa - Dr Justin Hoffman
What are the hormones?
Do you remember Jayne Kennedy (Jayne Kennedy Overton)?
She was one of the first women to infiltrate the male world of sports announcers. She also has suffered from a hormonally mediated disease called Endometriosis - one that is extremely common for women in the US.
"In the early '80s I had an exercise video called Love Your Body with music by the Commodores... everything was going so well. Then quickly, it got to a point where I couldn't even do a sit-up. The pain was so debilitating."
While hosting a convention Jayne Kennedy collapsed in agony backstage. She was rushed to a specialist who told her that this pain was something she would have to learn to tolerate. That wasn't good enough for Jayne. After three days of extensive testing her doctor told her that she had Endometriosis.
Hormones and Endometriosis
Endometriosis is a chronic painful condition where uterine cells grow outside of the Uterus. This is something that is often attributed in part to excess estrogen stimulation. Hormones are certainly a part of maintaining a healthy and balanced female reproductive system. The uterine cells that are outside of the uterus act as though they are inside the uterus, multiplying as hormone levels surge to promote menstruation. But unlike uterine cells, these cells have no way out. Internal bleeding, inflammation, and lesions can occur which is painful. Women often have infertility, scar tissue, adhesions, and bowel disorders. Hormones need to be evaluated.
Doctors estimate that like Jayne Kennedy, 5.5 million North American women suffer from Endometriosis. It is estimated that over 50% of infertile women have this condition.
The exact figures are difficult to estimate as many women that have Endometriosis can be asymptomatic an a diagnosis can be overlooked for years. Regular hormone testing is a tool that can facilitate balanced hormones, and decrease the risk of Estrogen dominance - a condition that can contribute to Endometriosis.
Hormone Imbalance and Endometriosis
What to look for:
Until the mystery is solved, it's important for women to know about Endometriosis and to adequately explain their symptoms to their doctor. These can include:
Inability to get pregnant
Irregular menstrual cycles
Nausea, vomiting, exhaustion
Bladder problems, frequent infections
Lower backaches, aching knees
Irritable bowels, stomach problems
In most cases the symptoms occur in conjunction with a woman's monthly cycle, but not always.
Jayne Kennedy
Her Journey with Endometriosis -
For many women Endometriosis makes it impossible to conceive, but not for Kennedy Overton.
"I was in pain all the time. Sometimes I would be standing in the kitchen, lift the top off a pot and pains came in my stomach," says Kennedy. "They were not dull aches, they were all sharp pains. It was difficult to walk and certainly almost impossible to exercise."
Infertility and Endometriosis
"I was really lucky. Within two months I was pregnant. The pains stopped, and it went away," she says. "I was pain-free during the entire pregnancy and while I breast-fed. Two months after I stopped breastfeeding the pain came back. A lot of women have pain, and they're having total or partial hysterectomies for the wrong reasons. If you have symptoms of pain around your ovaries, have it checked out for Endometriosis. Find out if it's Endometriosis before you take any steps."
To learn more about Hormone Imbalance, or to have your hormones evaluated, contact us at: 707-292-8882
Dr Justin Hoffman practices medicine in Santa Rosa CA and is widely recognized as the North Bay's most skilled hormone doctor. Located in Santa Rosa just off of 101. Hormones and Bioidentical Hormones are an option for patients suffering with Endometriosis, Adenomyosis as well as many other conditions that can negatively impact quality of life.
About Hormones - Bioidentical Hormones
The Waterfall of Hormones
Hormone Disruptors and Toxins
Hormones and Cholesterol

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


In these days of economic boom, employee stress levels are shooting up to astronomical levels. After working hard during the week, holidaying in the outdoors has become a popular craze, and is a great stress-buster. Relaxing in the lap of nature, far away from the tensions of work and the pollution and congestion in the city can be a great way to unwind, and getting back to work with enthusiasm the following day! As an organization, keeping employees motivated and stress-free is of critical importance for high productivity. This is where we come in. Our unique programmes, designed specially keeping in mind the needs of people in the corporate sector are the ideal way to keep your employees happy. A large part of your annual training requirements can also be fulfilled, by blending training with our outdoor programmes. We have tie-ups with professional management consultants who can provide training at outdoor locations. We offer the following programmes : 1. Management Training Programmes with in-house / professional trainers 2. Camping / Wildlife watching programmes for all who'd rather relax and enjoy the scenery than trudge up a mountain carrying a sack. 3. Trekking in the Sahyadris / Himalayas ( Durations ranging from 1 day to a fortnight ) 4. Rappeling / Rock Climbing Programmes for all the adrenalin rush freaks. All programmes will include all logistics from Pune ( or Mumbai ) back to Pune ( or Mumbai ), as per need. For more information about any of these programmes or for ordering a free brochure, do write to us at events@trekdi.com/ corporate@trekdi.com, or call us on 9822444963 ( Pinakin Karve ) or 7774037070 (office). We'd love to come over and talk !


Searching for hotels in Port Sorell (Tasmania) or Port Sorell accommodation? Port Sorell is located on the Rubicon River along the Bass Highway about 20km east of Devonport. Port Sorell attractions include the nearby Asbestos National Park, Watch House Hill, and fishing in the Jetty. Port Sorell hotel accommodation consists of the Shearwater Country Club, Appleby Creek Lodge B&B, Arklow House B&B, Summerhill Lodge, Shearwater Country Club Apts., Tudor Cabins, Hawley Beach Court Villas, and the Moomba Holiday Park. - Browse the Port Sorell Map or compare Port Sorell accommodation from Hotels, Motels, B&Bs, Lodging & Hostels to Holiday & Caravan Parks.
Resources, Information and guides on Port Sorell. For things to do, attractions, restaurants, holidays and sites refer below.
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The death of Stronginthearm
by Nina | Mar 18, 2018 | Uncategorized | 0 comments
This past week was the anniversary of Terry Pratchett's death. He's been a tremendous influence on me both as a writer and a person even if I never actually met him. So I've been listening to his books again and lamenting the fact that he's gone and there will be no more new books. But it also got me thinking about the living, breathing worlds some authors manage to build. And because of the nature of the beast, the rest contains spoilers for the Ankh-Morpork City Watch series.
At the beginning of Night Watch Samuel Vimes comes to work to find that one of his sergeants, Abba Stronginthearm has been killed on his way home from work. It turns into a slow moment where Vimes tries to deal with the fact that one of his people is dead. For a short time reader, it's just that; a superior trying to deal with a loss of someone who's not close to them but who they still feel responsible for. On the other hand, for me at least the effect is somehow larger.
Stronginthearm was never a large presence in the books. He was introduced as just another hothead who got conscripted into the Watch in Men at Arms. He gets a few exchanges with various characters in Feet of Clay, Jingo, and The Fifth Elephant, never anything that actually affects the plot. He is, in other words, a bit player in the books. But somehow he manages to have a character arc somewhere in there. In fictional time, he's with the Watch for years before he's killed on duty ("or close enough"). He goes from being a swiftly radicalizing young dwarf into someone who takes pride in who he is and the work he does by the events of The Fifth Elephant.
This is where I start to geek out; Stronginthearm's character arc feels familiar because Vimes goes through the same arc. I don't know if Pratchett did it intentionally or if it was just a happy accident, but for me at least it has caused a subconscious unease about Vimes's fate. I only became aware of it on this last re-read when I've been reading all the City Watch books in a relatively short period, one after the other. It's a wonderful effect regardless. If a reader should stop to think about Stronginthearm, they'd probably wind up with an interesting story on a small scale.
It's the details as much what happens that keep me coming back Terry Pratchett's books. I'm drawn to Seanan McGuire's InCryptid novels for similar reasons but that's a post for another time.
What worlds do you, dear reader, keep coming back to again and again?


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Vic Oliver (né Victor Oliver von Samek le  et mort le ) est un acteur et humoriste de radio anglais.

Biographie
Il est né à Vienne de Viktor von Samek. Il est le neveu de Beatrice Triangi. Il a émigré aux États-Unis avant de s'installer en Angleterre. Il débute à la BBC dans Hi, Gang! avec Ben Lyon et Bebe Daniels et apparait dans d'autres émissions. Attiré par la musique, il fonde l'Orchestre de Vic Oliver et donne des concerts le long de la côte sud de l'Angleterre. Son morceau favori était Prelude to the Stars. Il est considéré comme le modèle de Victor Borge.

Étant Juif, son nom était inscrit sur la liste noire des nazis, où était répertorié les gens "à éliminer" une fois l'Angleterre envahie.

Il se marie avec Sarah Churchill en 1936 mais le couple divorce en 1945.

Une anecdote non vérifiée, remontant à un embellissement des mémoires d'un patron de presse qui doutait de sa véracité, veut que dans un dîner où Oliver était présent, on ait demandé à Winston Churchill qui il admirait le plus, et qu'il ait répondu Mussolini, puis lorsqu'on lui a demandé pourquoi, il ait lancé : "Parce qu'il a eu la bonne idée de tirer sur son gendre !" Le grand spécialiste churchillien Richard Langworth fait toute la lumière sur ce racontar sur son site.

Vic Oliver est mort à Johannesbourg.

Bibliographie

 Antoine Capet, Churchill : Le dictionnaire. Paris : Perrin, 2018 (862 p.), Rubrique "Oliver, Vic ", p. 47-48.

Notes et références

Naissance en juillet 1898
Décès en août 1964
Humoriste anglais
Acteur anglais
Décès à 66 ans

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


One of these delegates, Sofiya Shukhova, is a Russian-native wildlife artist. Sofiya started painting endangered species while she was traveling around Southeast Asia after finishing architecture school. In her travels, she aimed to find herself and her path, and what she found was that she wanted to spread the message of wildlife conservation through art.


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Alexander Currie Fraser (14 June 1882 – 25 January 1950) was a Scottish footballer who played mainly as an defender and featured for Rangers between 1902 and 1906.

Career
A short time after joining Rangers from Clydebank Juniors, Fraser scored on his Scottish Football League debut against Morton in September 1902 as a makeshift right half (his only goal in the major competitions). At the end of that season the club won the Scottish Cup in 1903, in which Heart of Midlothian were defeated after two replays.

A frequent but not constant starter (he was involved in two-thirds of the league fixtures in the three campaigns he featured regularly), Fraser missed out on a place in the 1904 Scottish Cup Final, a defeat to Celtic, but did take part in a win over the same opponents in the final of the Glasgow Merchants Charity Cup a month later, only to finish on the losing side in an Old Firm final again five months after that, this time in the Glasgow Cup in the period when the competitive rivalry between the two clubs was intensifying.

More disappointment was to follow for Rangers at the end of that season as they lost the 1905 Scottish Cup Final to Third Lanark after a replay, then suffered another defeat to Celtic in a play-off for the 1904–05 Scottish Division One title, both having finished level on points.

At the start of the next season Fraser was injured against Kilmarnock and did not feature again until January 1906 in a defeat to St Mirren – this appears to have been an unsuccessful comeback attempt as it was reported that he "got injured somehow, and had to retire". That proved to be his final appearance for Rangers; in June 1906, it was stated that he had "almost completely recovered from the rather severe knee injury which troubled him so much last season" but a few days earlier it had been confirmed that his contract was not being renewed, and as with teammate Alec Mackie, it appears that he did not play for any senior club after that fairly prominent spell at Ibrox. He later emigrated to South Africa.

References

1882 births
1950 deaths
Scottish footballers
Sportspeople from Dumbarton
Footballers from West Dunbartonshire
Association football defenders
Rangers F.C. players
Scottish Football League players
Clydebank Juniors F.C. players
Scottish Junior Football Association players
Scottish emigrants to South Africa


This month's post will be a long one, so hang on tight! We hope you all had a great time this holiday season, filled with love, family, and plenty of food. I finally came back home on the 22nd, and quickly caught up with Michael to help get the holiday spirit rolling.
We decided to take a quick stop by the beach while doing some last minute Christmas shopping in La Jolla, and Michael loved it! It was a chilly day and we were only there for about 30 minutes, but it was so worth it for him. Nothing will stop Michael from enjoying his time by the water. We especially love going to Scripps, since you can get a great view of the water without having to walk around in the sand-- perfect for quick trips. Afterwards, we finished up our shopping and then helped decorate our house!
Michael used to hate going on the escalator, especially since his motor skill coordination isn't the most advanced. However, he went on without any issues! We had a little difficulty getting off the "UP" escalator, but Michael took it like a champ. Once we got home, it took a bit of effort to get Michael to decorate the tree with me. He did hang a couple of ornaments, but it wasn't too exciting for him (let's be honest, he probably wanted to be by the beach instead).
Michael loved dancing to the music that was playing along with the lights, and we'll definitely be coming back every year!
Today we had an amazing time at Balboa Park with my best friend Kirra and her friend. They were both so friendly with Michael, and he loved going on the adventure :) A lot of people get really intimidated when they first meet Michael, but he loves being acknowledged just like anyone else. He may not say much, but you can still get touched by his presence. We walked around the Japanese Friendship garden, and Michael really enjoyed watching the river flow inside. That boy truly loves his time with water! Afterwards we walked around the park, and finished our time with taking pictures by the beautiful fountain. Michael watched the fountain in awe, and didn't want to leave.


A pilot study on mindfulness based stress reduction for smokers.
Mindfulness means paying attention in the present moment, non-judgmentally, without commentary or decision-making. We report results of a pilot study designed to test the feasibility of using Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) (with minor modifications) as a smoking intervention.MBSR instructors provided instructions in mindfulness in eight weekly group sessions. Subjects attempted smoking cessation during week seven without pharmacotherapy. Smoking abstinence was tested six weeks after the smoking quit day with carbon monoxide breath test and 7-day smoking calendars. Questionnaires were administered to evaluate changes in stress and affective distress.18 subjects enrolled in the intervention with an average smoking history of 19.9 cigarettes per day for 26.4 years. At the 6-week post-quit visit, 10 of 18 subjects (56%) achieved biologically confirmed 7-day point-prevalent smoking abstinence. Compliance with meditation was positively associated with smoking abstinence and decreases in stress and affective distress.The results of this study suggest that mindfulness training may show promise for smoking cessation and warrants additional study in a larger comparative trial.


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Q: Javascript curry: context in returned function In a curry function like this :
var curry = function() {
    var slice = Array.prototype.slice,
        args = slice.call(arguments),
        fn = args.shift();

    return function(){
        return fn.apply(null, args.concat(slice.call(arguments)));
    };
};

is there any difference between this or null in fn.apply ? I don't see a case where it could make a difference.

EDIT :
Thanks to this answer I think it's pretty clear now, here is a little example I made to undersand it :
function msg() {
    console.log(this.name);
}

var foo = { name: "foo"};

var msg_this = curry_this(msg);
var msg_null = curry_null(msg);

msg_this();         //msg.call(null) -> undefined
msg_null();         //msg.call(null) -> undefined
msg_this.call(foo); //msg.call(foo) -> foo
msg_null.call(foo); //msg.call(null) -> undefined

with curry_this returning fn.apply(this,... and curry_null returning fn.apply(null...

A: Passing null to apply makes the context the global one (window in a browser).
From the MDN :

if the method is a function in non-strict mode code, null and
  undefined will be replaced with the global object, and primitive
  values will be boxed.

How this will impact the result depends on the fn function (the first argument to curry) and on how you call it.
See this code :
var a = {curried: curry(function(){console.log(this)})};
a.curried();

If you pass null to apply, it logs window instead of the object a.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


illustration by Laura Daviña on pictograms by Otl AicherThe performance of students from Brazil in various scientific Olympiad made a great leap forward in quality in 2008. Unlike the poor performance of the country in international rankings in science, math and reading, a group of Brazilian teenagers, the vast majority from private schools, gained never-before won medals in competitions abroad. Take the example of the 39th International Physics Olympiad, held in Hanoi, Vietnam, between July 21 and 29. Brazil got its first silver medal, won by Guilherme Victal Alves da Costa, 16, a third year high school student in a private school in São Paulo. Parana student Alex Atsushi Takeda won a bronze medal. Four hundred high school students from ninety countries took part in the Olympiad. Gold medals were awarded to 46 students, 47 won silver and 78, bronze. "We were on an equal footing with countries like Spain, Belgium and Switzerland and below the United States and some Eastern European countries", said Euclydes Marega Júnior, a professor from the Physics Institute of São Carlos of the University of São Paulo (USP), who coordinated the students" preparation.
Brazil also had good results in the 49th International Math Olympiad held in July in Spain; it won six medals, five silver and a bronze, and was 16th place in the world ranking out of the 103 countries taking part, as represented by 549 young people from all over the world. "We had never before had such a consistent team performance, although we've won gold medals on occasions", said teacher Edmilson Motta, from Etapa College in São Paulo, one of those responsible for training the national group. The country also had its best performance in the International Informatics Olympiad since it started taking part in the competition in 1999. All four students in the Brazilian team in its 20th edition, held between August 16 and 23 in Cairo, Egypt won bronze medals. "It's not usual for all the students sent by a country to win medals", says Ricardo Anido, a professor from the Computing Institute at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) and the person responsible for training the Brazilian team. The Brazilian students who took part in the 40th International Chemistry Olympiad held in July in Budapest in Hungary brought back four medals (one silver and three bronze) and achieved their best-ever performance in the competition, by beating countries like the United States, France, Japan and Denmark. With this result Brazil rose 11 places in the general classification relative to the previous Olympiad held in Russia.
There was nothing accidental about 2008's good results. An important fact is that support for the Brazilian Scientific Olympiad, from which the representatives for international tournaments are picked, has been growing. An example of this is the Carlos Chagas Foundation, which since 2006 has been the sponsor of the Brazilian Informatics Olympiad, which has allowed the number of participants to double over the last few years – this year there were 12,000 competitors, compared with the 7,000 of 2007. In 2005, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) started to issue a specific public call notice every year in support of such initiatives. Although the money (almost R$ 1 million in 2007) is shared out by several initiatives it is a fact that regular support for the Olympiads has been created. "The result means that the competitions have become more sophisticated and gained more visibility", says Angela Cunico, coordinator of human and social sciences of the CNPq and the person responsible for the public bid notice. "We're concerned with supporting the Olympiads that have a national character and encourage student and teacher improvement", she says.
The objective of the organizers of the Brazilian Scientific Olympiads is to identify new talent, awaken interest in the disciplines earlier and, of course, promote the respective careers. This is especially important for areas that no longer attract as many students as they used to, like computing science. "But if not everyone goes to work in the IT area that's not a problem. If they all become doctors or engineers who have computing knowledge that's also good", says Ricardo Anido, a professor from Unicamp.
With more support the organization of various Brazilian Olympiads has managed to overcome its voluntary nature to become professional. To create a championship on a national scale is not an easy task. Generally, there is a first phase in which thousands of students sit a test in their own schools, which is overseen by their own teachers, with the material being sent to the Olympiad's organizers. A cut-off mark selects the best, generally a few hundred, who go on to the second phase. This happens in the states themselves but this time the test is overseen by the Olympiad organizers. Preparation of the team that represented Brazil in the International Physics Olympiad shows how the organization has managed to advance. Until last year the Brazilian champions were automatically chosen to represent the country in international and Spanish-American tournaments. But as from this year an extra preparation phase has been introduced in which the 12 students with the best marks in the national Olympiad spend 6 days at the USP Physics Institute of São Carlos (IFSC), receiving theoretical and practical training for the competitions abroad. "It was the first time we had done this and it has already reflected on the performance of our team", says Professor Euclydes Marega Júnior. "In addition to the training itself there is an important psychological factor. The students spend almost a week away from home and do not feel the pressure so much when they are in the competitive environment of the international Olympiads, which are generally held in a foreign country", says Marega.
Of the 12 who take part in the training, only the 5 best are chosen for the international Olympiad. The rest fight for the four places to represent Brazil in the Spanish American Olympiad that is held in Morélia, in México, between September 28 and October 3. The Brazilian team won three gold medals and a silver, in addition to first place in the overall classification. For the first time Brazil won 3 gold medals in this tournament in which 68 high school students from 19 countries took part.
The 80 best students in the Brazilian Informatics Olympiad also gained the right to a week's training in the Unicamp Computing Institute. The 20 best students from this group took part in a more advanced preparation course for the international Olympiads. But the improved performance is also down to other reasons. Selection is divided into five levels of difficulty and attracts students from the sixth year (former 5th grade) of elementary education. As a result, a student can take part in the Brazilian Olympiad from 11 to 19 years old, moving up through the levels of difficulty. Another differentiating factor is the engagement of former participants in Olympiads in the preparation of the questions. "We have several PhD students who help us set the questions. And it's common for those who've been to the Olympiads to do very well in the programming marathons, events also organized by the Brazilian Computing Society, but directed at university students", says Ricardo Anido.
The intensive student training for the international and Spanish-American mathematics Olympiads was recently reinforced. Professors who, when they were adolescents, took part and won medals in math Olympiads are helping the new generation of talent. Selection starts with more than 100,000 participants in order to pick the 50 prize winners of the Brazilian Olympiad. Of these the six best are chosen to take part in international championships. The preparation of those selected is done in São Paulo at the Etapa High School. "The average age of our representatives is 16, because only high school students can take part. In other countries where there is a 12 year school education period there can be competitors who are 19", says Professor Edmilson Motta.
The Brazilian Math Olympiad is a joint project of the Brazilian Mathematics Society (SBM) and the Pure and Applied Mathematics Institute (Impa). If it is left up to the efforts of the SBM and Impa, the participation of students from public schools in the Brazilian Olympiad is going to grow. In 2005 the two institutions, linked to the ministries of Education (MEC) and Science and Technology (MCT), started to organize the Brazilian Public Schools Math Olympiad (Obmep). In the 4th edition of the tournament, which was held this year, 18 million elementary and high school students registered in 40,377 schools. According to Ildeu Moreira, the person responsible for the Department of Popularizing and Dissemination of Science and Technology at the MCT, one of the objectives of Obmep is to bring about an improvement in the teaching of mathematics and encouraging new talent. "How much the Olympiad means as a stimulus can only be assessed over the long term. But it will soon be clear how much it is attracting young people to the areas of science and technology", he said. In addition to winning medals the students with the best performance compete for 3,000 Junior Scientific Institution scholarships, worth R$ 100 a month, to carry on studying math.
There is a common denominator in the profile of the students who do best in scientific Olympiads. The vast majority come from private schools, even though a good number of students from public schools take part in the selection stage. The poor quality of Brazilian public education helps explain this phenomenon, although it is common for students from technical schools to stand out and not all private schools enter their students. The experience shows that the schools that are actually committed to preparing their students for the Olympiads, by offering them specific lessons outside the normal curriculum, are those that get the best results. The most curious case is that of the Brazilian Biology Olympiad: 80% of those taking part and almost all of those selected to represent Brazil in international tournaments came from two private schools in Fortaleza, Ary de Sá Cavalcante and Farias Brito, which make an effort to train their students for scientific Olympiads of every type. In the same way, teaching networks like Objetivo and Etapa have training programs and offer scholarships to students who do well in these tournaments. Rivalry between private schools can be healthy, according to the organizers of the Olympiads, provided their strategies do not overstep the mark. "There are schools that authorize students to miss school so they can dedicate themselves to preparing for the Olympiads. I don't think that's right", says Ricardo Anido, from the Unicamp Computing Institute. Dedicating themselves to tournaments does not usually bother the students. "They almost always do well in the university entrance exams and it's not unusual for them to do well when they get to university. Furthermore, a medal won in Olympiads usually qualifies them to go on to higher things", says Euclydes Marega Júnior. In 2006, student Thaís Macêdo Bezerra Terceiro Jorge, from Fortaleza, won a gold medal in the Spanish-American Chemistry Olympiad and last year a silver medal at the International Chemistry Olympiad in Moscow. Such victories were worth points when she tried to get into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the United States. Today she is a student in the institute's Chemistry Department.
The good news is that as from this year the amount of the CNPq public bid for support of the Olympiads is going up from R$ 1 million to R$ 1.5 million. As a result, in addition to the traditional competitions in math, physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology and robotics, which were in dispute for the public bid notice and were selected, the first History Olympiad will also be held in Brazil. Claudia de Moraes Russo, a professor from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the person responsible for organizing the Brazilian Biology Olympiad, is celebrating. "It's going to be possible to improve our publicity and attract more students", says Claudia, referring to the 6th edition of her Olympiad which will be held in 2009. Although it does not have the same tradition as other Olympiads, biology has also made some achievements. In the two last Spanish-American Olympiads the Brazilian team has managed the same result: one gold medal, one silver and two bronze. In the international competition held in Mumbai, India, in July, Pedro Bessa from Ceara won a first ever bronze medal. The victory was particularly sweet because in the 2007 tournament in Canada, Brazil was unable to send a representative. With a week to go to the Olympiad the ministries of Education and Science and Technology, which had promised air tickets to the biology team students, went back on their word alleging that they were not students from the public school network. This year the organization got support from other sources for the trip.
illustration by Laura Daviña on pictograms by Otl AicherThe performance of students from Brazil in various scientific Olympiad made a great leap forward in quality in 2008. Unlike the poor performance of the country in international rankings in science, math and reading, a group of Brazilian teenagers, the vast majority from private schools, gained never-before won medals in competitions abroad. Take the example of the 39th International Physics Olympiad, held in Hanoi, Vietnam, between July 21 and 29. Brazil got its first silver medal, won by Guilherme Victal Alves da Costa, 16, a third year high school student in a private school in São Paulo. Parana student Alex Atsushi Takeda won a bronze medal. Four hundred high school students from ninety countries took part in the Olympiad. Gold medals were awarded to 46 students, 47 won silver and 78, bronze. "We were on an equal footing with countries like Spain, Belgium and Switzerland and below the United States and some Eastern European countries", said Euclydes Marega Júnior, a professor from the Physics Institute of São Carlos of the University of São Paulo (USP), who coordinated the students" preparation. Brazil also had good results in the 49th International Math Olympiad held in July in Spain; it won six medals, five silver and a bronze, and was 16th place in the world ranking out of the 103 countries taking part, as represented by 549 young people from all over the world. "We had never before had such a consistent team performance, although we've won gold medals on occasions", said teacher Edmilson Motta, from Etapa College in São Paulo, one of those responsible for training the national group. The country also had its best performance in the International Informatics Olympiad since it started taking part in the competition in 1999. All four students in the Brazilian team in its 20th edition, held between August 16 and 23 in Cairo, Egypt won bronze medals. "It's not usual for all the students sent by a country to win medals", says Ricardo Anido, a professor from the Computing Institute at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) and the person responsible for training the Brazilian team. The Brazilian students who took part in the 40th International Chemistry Olympiad held in July in Budapest in Hungary brought back four medals (one silver and three bronze) and achieved their best-ever performance in the competition, by beating countries like the United States, France, Japan and Denmark. With this result Brazil rose 11 places in the general classification relative to the previous Olympiad held in Russia. There was nothing accidental about 2008's good results. An important fact is that support for the Brazilian Scientific Olympiad, from which the representatives for international tournaments are picked, has been growing. An example of this is the Carlos Chagas Foundation, which since 2006 has been the sponsor of the Brazilian Informatics Olympiad, which has allowed the number of participants to double over the last few years – this year there were 12,000 competitors, compared with the 7,000 of 2007. In 2005, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) started to issue a specific public call notice every year in support of such initiatives. Although the money (almost R$ 1 million in 2007) is shared out by several initiatives it is a fact that regular support for the Olympiads has been created. "The result means that the competitions have become more sophisticated and gained more visibility", says Angela Cunico, coordinator of human and social sciences of the CNPq and the person responsible for the public bid notice. "We're concerned with supporting the Olympiads that have a national character and encourage student and teacher improvement", she says. The objective of the organizers of the Brazilian Scientific Olympiads is to identify new talent, awaken interest in the disciplines earlier and, of course, promote the respective careers. This is especially important for areas that no longer attract as many students as they used to, like computing science. "But if not everyone goes to work in the IT area that's not a problem. If they all become doctors or engineers who have computing knowledge that's also good", says Ricardo Anido, a professor from Unicamp. With more support the organization of various Brazilian Olympiads has managed to overcome its voluntary nature to become professional. To create a championship on a national scale is not an easy task. Generally, there is a first phase in which thousands of students sit a test in their own schools, which is overseen by their own teachers, with the material being sent to the Olympiad's organizers. A cut-off mark selects the best, generally a few hundred, who go on to the second phase. This happens in the states themselves but this time the test is overseen by the Olympiad organizers. Preparation of the team that represented Brazil in the International Physics Olympiad shows how the organization has managed to advance. Until last year the Brazilian champions were automatically chosen to represent the country in international and Spanish-American tournaments. But as from this year an extra preparation phase has been introduced in which the 12 students with the best marks in the national Olympiad spend 6 days at the USP Physics Institute of São Carlos (IFSC), receiving theoretical and practical training for the competitions abroad. "It was the first time we had done this and it has already reflected on the performance of our team", says Professor Euclydes Marega Júnior. "In addition to the training itself there is an important psychological factor. The students spend almost a week away from home and do not feel the pressure so much when they are in the competitive environment of the international Olympiads, which are generally held in a foreign country", says Marega. Five levels Of the 12 who take part in the training, only the 5 best are chosen for the international Olympiad. The rest fight for the four places to represent Brazil in the Spanish American Olympiad that is held in Morélia, in México, between September 28 and October 3. The Brazilian team won three gold medals and a silver, in addition to first place in the overall classification. For the first time Brazil won 3 gold medals in this tournament in which 68 high school students from 19 countries took part. The 80 best students in the Brazilian Informatics Olympiad also gained the right to a week's training in the Unicamp Computing Institute. The 20 best students from this group took part in a more advanced preparation course for the international Olympiads. But the improved performance is also down to other reasons. Selection is divided into five levels of difficulty and attracts students from the sixth year (former 5th grade) of elementary education. As a result, a student can take part in the Brazilian Olympiad from 11 to 19 years old, moving up through the levels of difficulty. Another differentiating factor is the engagement of former participants in Olympiads in the preparation of the questions. "We have several PhD students who help us set the questions. And it's common for those who've been to the Olympiads to do very well in the programming marathons, events also organized by the Brazilian Computing Society, but directed at university students", says Ricardo Anido. The intensive student training for the international and Spanish-American mathematics Olympiads was recently reinforced. Professors who, when they were adolescents, took part and won medals in math Olympiads are helping the new generation of talent. Selection starts with more than 100,000 participants in order to pick the 50 prize winners of the Brazilian Olympiad. Of these the six best are chosen to take part in international championships. The preparation of those selected is done in São Paulo at the Etapa High School. "The average age of our representatives is 16, because only high school students can take part. In other countries where there is a 12 year school education period there can be competitors who are 19", says Professor Edmilson Motta. The Brazilian Math Olympiad is a joint project of the Brazilian Mathematics Society (SBM) and the Pure and Applied Mathematics Institute (Impa). If it is left up to the efforts of the SBM and Impa, the participation of students from public schools in the Brazilian Olympiad is going to grow. In 2005 the two institutions, linked to the ministries of Education (MEC) and Science and Technology (MCT), started to organize the Brazilian Public Schools Math Olympiad (Obmep). In the 4th edition of the tournament, which was held this year, 18 million elementary and high school students registered in 40,377 schools. According to Ildeu Moreira, the person responsible for the Department of Popularizing and Dissemination of Science and Technology at the MCT, one of the objectives of Obmep is to bring about an improvement in the teaching of mathematics and encouraging new talent. "How much the Olympiad means as a stimulus can only be assessed over the long term. But it will soon be clear how much it is attracting young people to the areas of science and technology", he said. In addition to winning medals the students with the best performance compete for 3,000 Junior Scientific Institution scholarships, worth R$ 100 a month, to carry on studying math. Schools from Fortaleza There is a common denominator in the profile of the students who do best in scientific Olympiads. The vast majority come from private schools, even though a good number of students from public schools take part in the selection stage. The poor quality of Brazilian public education helps explain this phenomenon, although it is common for students from technical schools to stand out and not all private schools enter their students. The experience shows that the schools that are actually committed to preparing their students for the Olympiads, by offering them specific lessons outside the normal curriculum, are those that get the best results. The most curious case is that of the Brazilian Biology Olympiad: 80% of those taking part and almost all of those selected to represent Brazil in international tournaments came from two private schools in Fortaleza, Ary de Sá Cavalcante and Farias Brito, which make an effort to train their students for scientific Olympiads of every type. In the same way, teaching networks like Objetivo and Etapa have training programs and offer scholarships to students who do well in these tournaments. Rivalry between private schools can be healthy, according to the organizers of the Olympiads, provided their strategies do not overstep the mark. "There are schools that authorize students to miss school so they can dedicate themselves to preparing for the Olympiads. I don't think that's right", says Ricardo Anido, from the Unicamp Computing Institute. Dedicating themselves to tournaments does not usually bother the students. "They almost always do well in the university entrance exams and it's not unusual for them to do well when they get to university. Furthermore, a medal won in Olympiads usually qualifies them to go on to higher things", says Euclydes Marega Júnior. In 2006, student Thaís Macêdo Bezerra Terceiro Jorge, from Fortaleza, won a gold medal in the Spanish-American Chemistry Olympiad and last year a silver medal at the International Chemistry Olympiad in Moscow. Such victories were worth points when she tried to get into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the United States. Today she is a student in the institute's Chemistry Department. The good news is that as from this year the amount of the CNPq public bid for support of the Olympiads is going up from R$ 1 million to R$ 1.5 million. As a result, in addition to the traditional competitions in math, physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology and robotics, which were in dispute for the public bid notice and were selected, the first History Olympiad will also be held in Brazil. Claudia de Moraes Russo, a professor from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the person responsible for organizing the Brazilian Biology Olympiad, is celebrating. "It's going to be possible to improve our publicity and attract more students", says Claudia, referring to the 6th edition of her Olympiad which will be held in 2009. Although it does not have the same tradition as other Olympiads, biology has also made some achievements. In the two last Spanish-American Olympiads the Brazilian team has managed the same result: one gold medal, one silver and two bronze. In the international competition held in Mumbai, India, in July, Pedro Bessa from Ceara won a first ever bronze medal. The victory was particularly sweet because in the 2007 tournament in Canada, Brazil was unable to send a representative. With a week to go to the Olympiad the ministries of Education and Science and Technology, which had promised air tickets to the biology team students, went back on their word alleging that they were not students from the public school network. This year the organization got support from other sources for the trip.


I received this week my Dynasample XpressO.
on the Xpresso, map CC 11 input to CC 2 for breath control.
A lot of sounds are great !
I'am shure it need more tips and tricks.
If anybody buy the same product, I'm very much interessted to share information about additional setting.
To Aodyo team : it would be great if the designer of XpressO put in his product a SetUp ready to perform as he did with some EWI and WX. Perhaps you may contact him ?


ConstituentON� is back office management software that is designed to support an office holder�s ability to provide effective, day-to-day constituent service. ConstituentON� is a game changer for local, county and state elected officials and legislators who strive to maximize constituent services and create efficient, ongoing constituent interaction. This groundbreaking and user-friendly platform transforms concerned citizens into �Devoted Constituents� through seamless data collection and integrated communication.
ConstituentON� tracks and tags every constituent interaction and bill inquiry, in addition to offering rapid response capabilities through an integrated email marketing system � but that�s not all.


The 2014-2017 Corporate Business Plan establishes, by Council resolution, the business direction and focus of the Town of Okotoks. The Plan reflects Council's commitment to deliver sustainable corporate services, which are in the best interest of our citizens today and our future citizens of tomorrow. The Business Plan focuses on providing services that not only manage and provide for our community but nurture, promote and facilitate the development of an engaged public, focused on the collective quality of the community and environment.
The Town of Okotoks has committed to promote environmental responsibility and be a recognized leader in environmental stewardship. As such, administrative policies/guidelines have been developed to steer the Town along this path of environmental sustainability. In addition, the Town has adopted the use of various technological advances and continues to research advances to ensure we perform all of our responsibilities in the most sustainable way possible!


text:
As Dallas debates how to expand buses and trains, council reshapes transit board
In rare move, the Dallas City Council replaced half of its appointees to one of the state's largest transit boards as city officials push for more investment in improving bus service over building out its regional rail network.
by Brandon Formby June 28, 2017 10 AM Central
Dallas Area Rapid Transit passengers board a bus at the Hampton Station in October 2016.
DALLAS — Amid an increasingly tense regional debate over how transportation dollars should be spent, the Dallas City Council on Wednesday replaced four of its appointees to North Texas' largest transit agency, sweeping out board members criticized for rubber stamping staff proposals that favor the region at the expense of its urban core and for not being strong enough advocates for improved bus service.
It was a rare move for the city, which appoints seven of Dallas Area Rapid Transit's 15 members and shares another appointee with the city of Cockrell Hill.
The new appointments come as the agency faces pressure to build a new suburban commuter rail line, connect two streetcar lines, construct a downtown Dallas subway and improve bus service in 13 cities. Those are all costly projects for a government agency with limited financial resources.
"We've got a lot of big decisions to make," DART board member Sue Bauman said at an agency meeting this week.
The shakeup could usher in a culture change for one of the state's largest transit agencies after its leaders have spent years wrestling with how to fund and design viable transit in a sprawling, car-centric urban region growing far beyond DART's borders. Dallas council members in recent months have criticized some of the appointees ousted Wednesday.
"What I saw was Dallas board members who just sat there, meeting after meeting, rarely ever asking a question or making a comment or offering a thought," Dallas City Council member Sandy Greyson said last month.
But DART chair Faye Moses Wilkins, who represents Plano and Farmers Branch, suggested this month that she would start saying "enough is enough" to her colleagues' questions about being able to afford major projects.
"I find that we're challenging staff a little more than normal for these situations," she said.
Dallas officials have been adamant for months that they want the agency to improve the frequency and dependability of a bus network widely criticized for being inefficient and unnecessarily burdensome on transit-dependent North Texans. But the board in the past year has focused more on building the two rail projects – the Cotton Belt line in the northern suburbs and a second downtown Dallas light-rail route that has been dubbed D2.
The City Council's vote effectively ousted longtime DART board members Jerry Christian, Pamela Dunlop Gates and William Velasco. They removed Richard Carrizales from his seat last month. Those four members will be replaced by Catherine Cuellar, Ray Jackson, Jon-Bertrell Killen and Dominique Torres. Dallas representatives Patrick Kennedy, Michele Wong Krause and Amanda Moreno were reappointed to new terms Wednesday.
The City Council's vote Wednesday came the week after tempers flared during an uncharacteristically contentious DART meeting. It was the second time this month that DART board members had heatedly debated plans to take on nearly $1 billion in debt for the Cotton Belt line.
The vote on appointees also followed the Dallas City Council's decision in May to remove Carrizales, the DART board's former vice chair. Suburban DART board member Tim Hayden last week said that move was an attempt to kill the Cotton Belt project.
And suburban appointee Mark Enoch this month said Dallas officials are trying to make D2 a priority over Cotton Belt in case the board can only build one over the other.
"That is how we feel, and you all need to deal with it," he said.
Taking on debt for the Cotton Belt, which would link several suburbs and Far North Dallas to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, requires support from 10 of 15 DART board members. After Carrizales was ousted, only nine members supported the project in two failed attempts to approve the debt.
Some Dallas appointees to the DART board denied that they were trying to kill the Cotton Belt line. They said they don't want to approve the debt until they have contingency plans in place for affording bus service improvements and construction of the Cotton Belt and D2 in case a federal grant program planned for the downtown rail line is scrapped.
The agency can only take on so much debt and so far plans to delay some bus improvements so Cotton Belt and D2 can move forward.
Two Dallas appointees ousted Wednesday – Christian and Gates – voted in favor of issuing the Cotton Belt debt. Gates and some suburban DART board members fear that if the line isn't built, some DART member cities will pursue an election to officially pull out of the agency. Addison officials have said for years that they will seek such an election if the line isn't built. That city has waited more than 30 years for rail service on the Cotton Belt line. If it or other members withdraw from the agency, DART will lose millions in sales tax revenue each year.
"My concern is we are pitting each other against each other," DART board member and Irving Mayor Rick Stopfer said.
Plano DART appointee Paul Wageman voted in favor of the Cotton Belt project this month but questioned Wilkins' decision to twice put it before the board ahead of Dallas' vote on its appointees – and without a budget committee considering its financial implications. He said his colleagues' handling of the matter was so "inappropriate" that it made him uneasy about voting in favor of the project even though he wants to see it built.
"I don't find it transparent," he said last week.
The accusations that Dallas appointees wouldn't vote for the Cotton Belt this month also came as DART's chief financial officer said the agency has several months to approve the project's debt. That prompted Dallas appointees to accuse their colleagues of twice trying to push the Cotton Belt through ahead of Dallas' new board members being appointed.
Wilkins, the board chair, said the board last week appeared "disjointed." She and Stopfer said at a DART meeting Tuesday that if the agency is going to seek federal funds for major expansions, board members need to present a united front.
"I was embarrassed with what happened at the last meeting," Wilkins said. "We insulted staff. We insulted each other."
As Houston's overhaul draws new riders, other cities mulling bus changes
Dallas freeway becomes national target for highway teardown movement
How to pay for a $12 billion bullet train without asking Texas for money


The Sweet Pepper Cherry Pick Capsicum annuum Hybrid is a high-yielding sweet cherry variety that is perfect for pickling. The round fruits are extremely uniform with excellent flavor. Cherry Pick peppers detach cleanly for easy pickling. The hybrid Cherry Picks offer more uniformity in size than the open pollinated cherry peppers. The peppers can be used green red or halfway in between. They are Tobacco Mosaic resistant.Transplant outside in the spring 3 to 4 weeks after last frost date. Note: To get a jump on the season transplant outside use a walls-of-water or some black plastic to maintain and increase temperatures. Plant in average garden soil with sufficient organic matter. Peppers use quite a bit of water but prefer to be watered deeply and not too often..
The Sweet Bell Pepper Golden Bell Capsicum annuum produces a golden pepper with good fruit size. The Golden Bell pepper is great for chili and salads and for just eating by itself. Arguably it is the sweetest tasting pepper with nice juicy thick flesh. They can be picked green or you can wait for the fruits to turn yellow for the sweetest flavor.Transplant outside in the spring 3 to 4 weeks after last frost date. Note: To get a jump on the season transplant outside use a walls-of-water or some black plastic to maintain and increase temperatures. Pinch off early flowers to encourage plant growth. Plant in average garden soil with sufficient organic matter. Peppers use quite a bit of water but prefer to be watered deeply and not too often. Blossom pruning will improve fruit size.
The Sweet Pepper Sweet Banana is also known as the Sweet Hungarian pepper. Sweet Banana peppers have medium thick walls. These mild yellow peppers resembling bananas in shape and color are available fresh from your garden or pickled in jars from the store. Sweet Banana is a sweet crunchy pepper producing 4 curved banana like peppers. Theyre great for frying grilling or eating raw. Sweet Banana peppers may be fried or sautéed used raw on relish platters in salads sand-wiches or stuffed.Transplant outside in the spring 3 to 4 weeks after last frost date. Note: To get a jump on the season transplant outside use a walls-of-water or some black plastic to maintain and increase temperatures. Plant in average garden soil with sufficient organic matter. Peppers use quite a bit of water but prefer to be watered deeply and not too often.
The Sweet Bell Pepper Big Early F1 Capsicum annuum is huge. This elongated bell pepper produces a 3 to 4 lobed-fruit up to 8 inches long by 4.5 inches wide. Stuff a Big Early for a full meal because they are so large you do not need two for a meal. Big Early Bell peppers are an excellent choice for garden beds and large containers. They are Tobacco Mosaic resistant.Transplant outside in the spring 3 to 4 weeks after last frost date. Note: To get a jump on the season transplant outside use a walls-of-water or some black plastic to maintain and increase temperatures. Pinch off early flowers to encourage plant growth. Plant in average garden soil with sufficient organic matter. Peppers use quite a bit of water but prefer to be watered deeply and not too often. Blossom pruning will improve fruit size.
The Sweet Bell Pepper California Wonder Capsicum annuum has blocky 4 inch peppers that are great for stuffing. California Wonder produces high yields of extra-large fruits over a long period of time. California Wonder is probably the most popular open pollinated bell pepper in producton today. The peppers have thick walls and are heavy pepper fruits with a crispy sweet taste. The tall plants are tobacco mosaic virus resistant.Transplant outside in the spring 3 to 4 weeks after last frost date. Note: To get a jump on the season transplant outside use a walls-of-water or some black plastic to maintain and increase temperatures. Pinch off early flowers to encourage plant growth. Plant in average garden soil with sufficient organic matter. Peppers use quite a bit of water but prefer to be watered deeply and not too often. Blossom pruning will improve fruit size.
The Sweet Bell Pepper Red Beauty Capsicum annuum is an early prolific variety bearing very sweet four-lobed peppers with thick walls. The brilliant bright red extra thick-walled bells are juicy and sweet. Red Beauty peppers are widely adapted and easy to grow. They also are tobacco mosaic resistant.The peppers turn from green to red when mature. They are excellent for salads stuffing and gourmet dishes.Transplant outside in the spring 3 to 4 weeks after last frost date. Note: To get a jump on the season transplant outside use a walls-of-water or some black plastic to maintain and increase temperatures. Pinch off early flowers to encourage plant growth. Plant in average garden soil with sufficient organic matter. Peppers use quite a bit of water but prefer to be watered deeply and not too often. Blossom pruning will improve fruit size. Pinch off about 50% of the flowers.
The Sweet Bell Pepper Sun Bell Capsicum annuum is a very sweet four-lobed pepper that grows 4 to 5 inches long and 4 inches wide and weighs 4 to 6 ounces. This beautiful pepper starts out a beautiful golden yellow before becoming bright at full maturity. The large fruits are exceptionally sweet at all stages of growth. They are excellent for salads stuffing and gourmet dishes.Transplant outside in the spring 3 to 4 weeks after last frost date. Note: To get a jump on the season transplant outside use a walls-of-water or some black plastic to maintain and increase temperatures. Pinch off early flowers to encourage plant growth. Plant in average garden soil with sufficient organic matter. Peppers use quite a bit of water but prefer to be watered deeply and not too often. Blossom pruning will improve fruit size. Pinch off about 50% of the flowers.
The Sweet Bell Pepper Bell Boy Capsicum annuum produces a thick-walled mostly 4 lobed pepper. It is usually picked when green however the mature stage is red. The Bell Boy has very sturdy plants and is resistant to tobacco mosaic virus.Transplant outside in the spring 3 to 4 weeks after last frost date. Note: To get a jump on the season transplant outside use a walls-of-water or some black plastic to maintain and increase temperatures. Pinch off early flowers to encourage plant growth. Plant in average garden soil with sufficient organic matter. Peppers use quite a bit of water but prefer to be watered deeply and not too often. Blossom pruning will improve fruit size. Pinch off about 50% of the flowers.


Brian is an incredible designer and I was delighted to come and photograph a couple of the brand new projects he'd been working on in Scottsdale.
"Though I could have used a local photographer to shoot our new office space in Scottsdale Arizona, I knew Alistair was the right person for the project. As I anticipated the process went smoothly and I was very happy with the results. Regardless of the location, I know that Alistair will pull off the quality I am looking for every time."
And for my second uber large high school project I got to fly out and photograph the new Oak Ridge High School in Oak Ridge, TN. It's a fantastic project by DLR Group here in Kansas City. I had four long days to shoot and fly back and it took every minute with a couple of my favorite shots coming right at the end. This one weighs in at a portly 360,000 square feet (I think).
This lecture was written for a "Lunch and Learn" presentation to the Kansas City chapter of the AIA and was presented to a full house on the 14th August 2008. The lecture was presented by Zack Shubkagel of Willoughby Design, Sean Slattery of El Dorado Architects and myself.
Identify the key phases of selecting work for and preparing entries for architectural award submittal.
Identifying the subtle and not so subtle decisions that can vastly improve your experience of entering an architectural awards competition.
What you can accomplish by participating and succeeding in these competitions.
What the parallels can be from the hard work of preparing the award submittals to your marketing and PR materials.
Why Should I Enter an Award Competition?
Prestige – there's no mistaking the fact that by entering and winning competitions your prestige in the local, regional and national market will increase by steadily and consistently entering the same competitions and winning.
Staff Relations – it's a great way to improve morale, focus on design and attract new hires from in and out of town.
Winning a prestigious organization's competition can result in all kinds of additional press coverage where magazines and newspapers show the results and projects in press and online (such as the KC Star and AIA's competition last year).
In addition to the immediate publicity your firm will be able to leverage the relationships you build with editors and writers at magazines to publicize future work outside of competition entries.
They will receive the same publicity boost you receive.
They will have enhanced confidence in the effectiveness of your work.
You can give them a copy or the original of the award so that they can bask in the glory.
Practice – simply put if you don't start entering competitions you won't win. It's not worth waiting for that incredible project that you think can beat all others, it's much better to enter the work that you are doing and learn the best ways to put an award submittal together and see what works and doesn't so that the incredible project has the best chance of winning.
Examine not only the genre's that you have strength in but also the genre's that you wish to expand in to and take risks on new clients and projects to create competition winners that broaden the firms base.
Determine early on opportunities within the budget, the client, and the program brief that will allow you to make projects that have an award winning potential; the bottom line is differentiation however that is achieved.
Document EVERYTHING and retain those documents. You may well find yourself recreating that killer sketch later on but it is well worth having the original to work from to create unique documentation to really narrate the project.
The sub-contractors that might be involved in key design decisions (lighting and signage for example) should be notified that you're aiming for a particular project to garner awards so they can participate at the most integrated level; on the flip side your sub-contractors may well actively enter your work in their industries competitions – make sure you share in the credits and document the victories in your marketing and PR efforts.
They will fully understand the design challenges and be better able to document them.
You will find the best sub-contractors to document the particular style and scale of project you want to enter; different writers, designers and photographers can be better at different projects – we all have specialties.
You can estimate costs and timelines that will occur outside the design and construction phases that affect the marketing and PR efforts to fully promote your designs.
Don't be afraid to publicize your project at this early stage of work; if it is unique enough those magazine editors can start planning how to cover it and the word can get to the jurors that will judge your design.
Consider photographing in-progress images in-house or professionally to document the challenges you faced and the solutions to them in progress. A huge part of architectural design is problem solving and that requires careful and considered documentation; both visual and graphical. The consideration for using a professional at this stage is to compete with those other firms in producing the best documentation possible.
Again, work to get the word out about your design work and see if you can generate a buzz that could help your case with the jurors.
Contact the vendors you'll be using to ensure their availability and scout the location to learn how best to narrate the design vision.
Gather all the final materials and comprehensively catalog them; copy and scan all originals and begin the documentation process.
Concise narratives – tell the story quickly and make it simple to understand; the rule is 20 seconds we'll explain why later.
Interwoven documentation – the words, the images and the diagrams must all support each other and be consistent; less can be more if an image or diagram is redundant.
Accuracy – double-check EVERYTHING; your sub-contractors names should be spelt correctly, you shouldn't have typos and don't try and slide something by them. The jurors know the process, the materials and may even know of the project.
Research the jury – try and take twenty minutes at least to acquaint yourself with the jury; the purpose of this isn't necessarily to pick things they like as much as avoid things they detest. If they hate cats, don't show cats (this is a metaphor…maybe…as long as you don't hate metaphor).
Critique your submission – don't just test the files to see if they work; try and set up a mini-jury of your own to review your narrative and see if it works. BE completely honest.
Be careful - read every set of competition entry guidelines very carefully, a month in advance, so you can ensure you don't end up having to pull all-nighters right before the deadline and compromise the quality of your submittal to simply deliver the entry. This way all those hard-worked materials actually meet the requirements, trust us, everyone mucks this up a couple of times and don't let stupid be the tiebreaker.
Preparation of awards submittals should be an ongoing process where there is a staff member assigned responsibility for gathering dates and requirements for potential competitions. It's a great idea to keep a spread sheet with the deadlines and key deliverables.
As you come towards competition season scan all the potential competitions and double-check your thinking to see if you're fully exploiting each competition in every genre.
Check that the materials you have been preparing throughout the year are fulfilling the best narrative for the project you are submitting and capture any additional materials to support your case.
Prepare your entry early and deliver it on-time; it's a great feeling when you know it's all done and you're not relying on same-day air freight and a wing and a prayer to get there on time.
After you enter a competition scan and retain EVERYTHING; once you gathered the artwork, photography, diagrams and copy to enter one successful entry it sure is nice to quickly draw from those materials and immediately prepare a new entry without restarting the organizational process.
The 20 second rule we referred to earlier is the amount of time (on the outside) that a jury is going to review your ENTIRE submittal; they have a huge number of entries to review and their first consideration is to weed out the also ran's and focus on the potential winners for placing.
This concept is fundamental to realizing your award submittal ambitions. The visual portion of your narrative has to be powerful and immediately understandable; you can have complex subtleties but you must get the basics over to that jury in an unbelievably short time frame.
Focus on the photography and the diagrams that can get you to see the initial results in your awards submittals.
This may lead to a halving or an even greater cull of the entries and the next step, which can be on a different day, is to sift those maybes out and now they'll start discussing the work between each other.
This is where the design will really take hold as they have an opportunity to truly review it.
Now may be the only time they read the written narrative and this may well be the tie-breaker and this will be where your copy writer earns their fee.
Also, this is where stupid can ruin your entry; check for those typos, those inconsistencies and poor grammar and arguments.
When your competition entry fails think about how you can alter the narrative to make it better in the next competition.
The best way to do this is to ask the competition organizers for jury feedback and/or placement; many competitions will supply this and if they don't then it didn't hurt to ask.
Volunteer someone from your organization to be intimately involved in the process; this is the only way to really get on the inside of what happened to whom and why (plus you can also find that missing entry when it slides behind the couch).
When you win (hopefully more often after today) really study the entry and think about what you may have done differently to succeed this time and how to improve the number or placement of your results.
In any competition you can see the results and study the winners, and if possible, the losers. Clear trends will emerge from the quality of the photography, clarity of diagrams, concise nature of supporting copy, overall quality of the presentation, as well as style of project and design. It's normally obvious why things win if you can look at the winners and losers.
Know that how you create that competition entry (the text, diagrams and photographs) may well NOT be the way you want to represent it in your marketing materials and PR entries.
Examples may be more use of people in your photography for editorial submittals, enhancing the write-up of the project to make it easier on a magazine editor, focus on the sexier images for your marketing efforts and using a standardized template for formatting those elements when a competition entry may require a custom look and feel.
Implement a strategy that all significant projects will be documented; this may be a tiered system depending on how important a project is for your long term marketing and PR. Once you know how you will narrate projects, visually, diagrammatically and in text, you can dramatically foreshorten the time you take to fully utilize your design talents.
Document EVERYTHING; and bring that documentation to bear in creating a true narrative design entry.
Every element of your design and award submittal should differentiate you from your competition.
The best design competition entry will narrate the design; the solution, the success, the failure and the final creative result. Focus on that narrative and make it concise; think of the 20 second rule.
Approach the entire design and construction and completion phase with a goal of creating a competition entry.
When you enter the competition phase improve your odds and enter several pieces; it's a little like a lottery in that more tickets can yield more prizes (although it helps if you know the winning numbers before hand).
Learn when you succeed and learn when you fail and make an even better entry for the next go around.
Go back to your office right now and build that system where your work is reverentially documented and the efforts and toil will be harnessed to bring rewards, work and prestige flowing in.
Above all the process is a competition; great designs can fail to win awards through sloppy award presentation materials. Utilize professionals when you can and really concentrate on a comprehensive but targeted submittal.
Enter the Central States Awards using this advice and be shocked, yes SHOCKED, at your success.
Seth and I have known each other for quite a while through the Ad Club of Kansas City and I've really enjoyed the experience of getting to know him; so I was delighted when he recently contacted me to capture the new Shatto Milk Soap packaging. It's some great design work and a wonderful product...although I'm not sure if the photographer is always right, my wife certainly doesn't agree.
"I approached Alistair about shooting some milk soap packaging. All we really needed was a few straight on shots of the product. Alistair was so enthusiastic about doing some shots that were a bit different, that it was impossible to say no. And, of course, the photographer is always right. Everything came out beautifully and the client couldn't have been happier."
I have been working with Kristen and the AIA in Kansas City for over a year now and it's been a wonderfully beneficial relationship. It all began with the presentations I've been giving for their membership on architectural photography and has now grown into me shooting their latest advertising campaign.
"It is always a pleasure to work with Alistair. His knowledge of the industry and attention to detail show in the fantastic results. Often times we have asked him to turn around a project in a very short time frame, and he is always up to the task. We look forward to working with him on our next project."
Neil is a fantastic fella that I've known for a couple of years throught the Freelance Exchange and has been a wonderful source of referrals and was a pleasure to shoot.
"This bloke is GREAT! His work speaks for itself. 100% PROFESSIONAL! Whether or not you need help with a business or personal photographic project, Alistair will make sure that everything results in SATISFACTION! I highly recommend Alistair Tutton Photography."
Samantha is an incredible designer and a fabulous client; plus she's English so we don't need a translator to work together! But on a serious note the Spa project was a fantastic interior and I'm really excited at the future interiors we'll be photographing together this year.
"Working with Alistair on "The Spa Tuscano" shoot was a joy: pure and simple."
"His obvious love of photography shines through in both his personality and his work. Alistair's attention to every detail, his patience, and his understanding of the personal investment a designer has in a project makes him one of, if not the best, photographer I have had the pleasure of working with."
"I know that even if I am not awake at the crack of dawn shoot, Alistair will make sure that we get the best shot with the best light and that it will be staged perfectly. Our goals for the shoot are Alistair's goals and I have no doubt that he will always ensure that those goals are not just met, but exceeded."
"Alistair captured the essence and beauty of the Spa and did it right the first time ~ without the need for digital enhancement. This, along with his amazing talent, sets him apart in my opinion."
"I consider Alistair an important part of our team and I am looking forward to completing more projects with him in the future."
Matt has been a fabulous client over the last couple of years; we've worked together on promoting Townsend Development's series of condo projects in Kansas City and Omaha.
"I have hired Alistair on many occasions. He is always great to work with and the images are top notch. Great shooter and a good guy!"
Matt Shepherd Advertising and Design"
Linda and I worked together to capture the incredible new interior of Take Two's studios. It's a fabulous project and she was an absolute pleasure to work with.
"Alistair brings a HUGE level of fun to all his projects and activities. Because of his great positive attitude, smart and precise decision-making skills, and amazing eye for detail while setting and composing each photograph, Alistair is a terrific partner for any visual communications project. His volunteerism for the Kansas City Ad Club is truly commendable."


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The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Makes a Sensible, if Delayed, Decision
by David Davenport
The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced today that it would not pursue an investigation of Israel for "acts committed on the territory of Palestine since 1 July 2002." This closes off, for now, an attempt by
Palestine to draw the Court into its dispute with Israel over alleged war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09.
But there is an even larger story here about whether the relatively young Court (established in 2002) would seek to expand its jurisdiction and play a role in deciding whether Palestine is already a state. To that the answer is "no, for now."
The Minister of Justice of the Government of Palestine filed a submission with the Court in January, 2009, asking the Court to take jurisdiction of the matter and open an investigation. But the Court's own rules limit submissions to "States," so from the beginning the key question was whether Palestine was a state for this purpose.
The Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, seriously entertained the question for three years, following a remarkable prosecutorial process of inviting outside submissions, posting briefs on the Internet, and hosting roundtable arguments in his offices in the Hague. He seemed open to the possibility that the definition of "State" for purposes of the ICC might be different than a "State" in international law generally. He spent three years looking at arguments that Palestine possessed this or that mark of statehood. One sensed that he was under political pressures to open the doors of the Court more widely to take this case.
In the end, the Prosecutor said it was really up to the United Nations to decide what is a "State" and that, so far, Palestine was only treated there as an observer. It thus becomes a political decision for the U.N., rather than a legal decision for an international
court, which was surely the right answer all along. The lengthy process for what should have been a straightforward decision reminds us of the dangers of these politicized and expansionist international courts.
David Davenport
American Constitutionalism
More from Advancing a Free Society
Many Miles to Campaign and Promises Not to Keep
by Bill Whalen


David Holmgren, co-originator of permaculture, has a long history of thoughtful and thought-provoking publications, including design books from the original Permaculture One to his 2002 Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability. He's written numerous essays over 35 years, ranging from the specifics of agricultural vs forestry biomass for fuel, to the future of energy decline.
I've long admired and respected Holmgren's thinking, so I was looking forward to reading his new "Crash on Demand" (PDF), an update of his 2007 "Future Scenarios" projections for global developments. I felt especially intrigued that he has arrived at conclusions similar to my own, regarding not just the inevitability, but the desirability of a crash of the financial system as soon as possible. But the article disappointed me; I think Holmgren is soft-selling his realizations to make them palatable to a hoped-for mass movement. Interestingly, even this soft-sell is being rejected by the permaculture blogging community.
The facts back up Holmgren's assessment of our dire situation, including imminent climate catastrophe if we continue with anything like business as usual. Industrial civilization is driving 200 species extinct each day and threatening humans with extinction or at best a very miserable future on a burning planet. It is deforesting, desertifying, polluting, and acidifying forests, croplands, landbases, and oceans orders of magnitude faster than nature and all the hard-working permaculturists can heal the damage. The industrial economy consists of turning living ecosystems into dead commodities, and it won't stop voluntarily. It's headed for an endgame of total planetary destruction before itself collapsing.
So I fully agree with crashing the system as soon as possible, and I fully agree with getting as many people as possible to withdraw their dependence on and allegiance to the systems and structures of industrial civilization. We desperately need people preparing for crash and building resiliency, in human and in broader ecological communities.
We also need a viable strategy to stop the dominant culture in its tracks. We are, and will remain, a tiny minority fighting a system of massive power. Individual lifestyle changes do not affect the larger political systems. People "dropping out" is not enough, is not a solution, is not an effective, leveraged way to crash the system.
I worry about Holmgren's speculative numbers. I assume the elite, who control a hugely disproportionate percentage of income and wealth, will be even harder to convince of voluntary simplicity than the average citizen. The poor generally don't have the option to cut spending by 50%, and have few or no assets to divest from global corporate investments. My rough calculations (based on data here) suggest that in the US, 15% of earners between the 40th and 80th percentile (more or less the middle class) must adopt this economic boycott to slow consumption by 5%, and nearly 50% of the middle class must divest their savings to reduce nationwide investment in the global financial system by 5%.
Even hoping for just 15% of the US middle class, 18 million people would have to embrace substantial short-term sacrifice. (While decreasing consumption 50% and building gardens and other resiliency infrastructure, people must still work the same hours at their jobs. Otherwise they'll simply be replaced by those who want to live the consumptive dream.) This lofty goal seems inconsistent with Holmgren's recognition of the infeasibility of a mass movement.
Permaculture activists and thousands of other individuals and groups have for years urged people to consume less. Many good people have adopted voluntary simplicity, dropped out of the global economy, and built regenerative local systems. While this has immense value for the adopting individuals, and often ripples out to benefit the wider community, it hasn't put a dent in the destruction by the larger financial system. New people are born or assimilated into the culture of consumption faster than people are dropping out.
Holmgren advocates more of the same permaculture activism, with little explanation of why it would now convince people in numbers thousands of times greater than in the past. He hopes the ever-more-obvious signs of imminent collapse will prompt a more rapid shift, but given our fleeting window of opportunity to act, we can't bank on that hope.
Deep Green Resistance is a design book of what makes a good resistance movement, a permaculture analysis of influencing power and political systems. It arrives at the same conclusion as does Holmgren: we need to prepare for crash by building local resiliency, but the sooner industrial civilization comes down, the better. Its crash will leave the majority of humans better off short-term, as their landbases will no longer be plundered by the rich for resources. Crashing the system now will benefit all humans long-term, giving future generations better odds of enjoying liveable landbases on a liveable planet. And crashing the system now will obviously benefit the vast majority of non-humans, currently being poisoned, displaced, and exterminated.
Holmgren notes that it's easier to convince a minority to disengage from the system than to spark a majority mass movement for true sustainability, but his plan relies on 10% of the population making dramatic change. DGR's analysis suggests it's easier yet to convince a tiny minority to take strategic direct action. The rest of the sympathetic population, whether 10% or just 1% of the general public, can provide material support and loyalty with much less immediate sacrifice than in Holmgren's proposal.
While I wholeheartedly agree with Holmgren's analysis of our global predicament, and the desirability of crashing the system, his proposal for doing so seems ineffective. Certainly, we should work to disengage ourselves and neighbors from the global system, but we must combine building alternative structures with actively resisting and strategically sabotaging the dominant system.
Many people will disagree with the necessity of crashing the system, because they don't think conditions are that bad, because they hold vague hopes that God or technology or permaculture will save us, because they fear that fighting back will increase the anger of our abusers, or because they value their own comfort more than the life of the planet. That's fine; we can agree to disagree, though I encourage those people to further explore these ideas with their minds and with their hearts.
Many people do see the destructiveness of this culture, the inevitability of its crash, and the desirability of it crashing sooner than later; but won't want to participate directly in bringing it down for any of many perfectly legitimate reasons. That's fine, too. There's lots of work to do, and a role for everyone. You can work on restoration of your landbase or crash preparation for your community while providing material and ideological support to those on the front lines. We can join together as "terra-ists", with our hands not just in the soil as Holmgren defines the term, but also working with wrenches upon the wheels, the levers, and all the apparatus of industrial civilization.
Endgame by Derrick Jensen, two volume analysis of the problems of civilization and the solution. Many excerpts available at the website.
Loved to read this by the way!
I noticed that a comment prior to mine that was critical of the outcome of the Deep Green Resistance efforts to "save the planet" from humanity was deleted. Looks like freedom of speech will not be one of the rights that the Deep Green Resistance has in mind for their vision of a green utopia. The gist of the article was that the Deep Green Resistance vision of Utopia may well turn into Hell given the fact that without the availability of fossil fuel humans will revert back to a primitive state that was not only detrimental to them but to the environment as well. Perhaps the Deep Green Resistance folks should take a closer look at the historical record to see if primitive humans were really "one with nature" or destroyed nature willy nilly in an effort to survive. Results (not so called "good intentions" hmmm) should be he criteria for determining if destroying current Industrialized civilization is a very good idea or even moral if it results in earth being in even a worse state than it is today.
Are you familiar with Paul Ehrlich's work and the recent book by Alan Weissman, "Countdown"? I'd like to recommend it.
But surely without fossil fuels and the industrial system, there will be no way that the destruction of the environment could be worse than now? Or am I missing something? No chainsaws, no bulldozers, no mountain top removal, etc, etc.
Yeah, Its hard to imagine anything more destructive than industrialism right now.
Thanks rawrob! The link has been updated.


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101 Great Samurai Prints (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)
One of the last great names in the Japanese ukiyo-e style, Utagawa Kuniyoshi was an undisputed master of the warrior woodblock print. Born in Tokyo in 1797, his talent became evident by the tender age of 12, when he became an apprentice to a famous print master. Starting out with vivid illustrations of cultural icons — including Kabuki actors and Japanese heroes — he moved on to a unique treatment of warrior prints, incorporating elements of dreams, omens, and daring feats that characterized his distinctive style. These dramatic eighteenth-century illustrations represent the pinnacle of his craft. One hundred and one full-color portraits of legendary samurai pulse with movement, passion, and remarkably fine detail. A must for collectors of Japanese art and a perfect first work for those who want to start their own collection, it includes brief captions and a new introduction.
Heaven beside you Fine Art Print (Studio Size) – 30 X 20 Inches by Alex Cherry


All around Chicago there are Divvy bike stations and I always see people riding them across town. It is an activity that had been on my list basically since I arrived and I knew Eric would be the perfect person to go for it with. Only $7 for a full 24 hours of riding, what a deal. It was perfect for taking my handsome guy all around Lake Michigan – we wanted nothing else but to be outside for the Fourth because the weather was so perfect!
We started our journey by checking out some human body statues in Millennium Park that people had adorned with American flags. They were interesting and a little creepy at the same time, and we probably looked ridiculous while we tried to mimic their poses. After checking out bikes, we headed on over to Buckingham Fountain. I go through this plaza every time I head out for a run and I can't help but turn around and look at the view. One of the best I have seen I think. It was busy with lots of families and red, white, and blue of course.
Eric and I continued on to the path by the lake and rode south towards another stop, The Field Museum. We both love natural history museums and I had heard this was a great attraction in Chicago. Turns out they have tons of cool (and extensive) exhibits, I'm really glad we went! When we left, we biked a little ways down the path again to stop by the Adler Planetarium. I wanted Eric to see the city view from there, because it is another one of my favorites. And it feels amazing with the breeze from the water.
At this point we were getting pretty hungry and decided on biking to Greek Town – I was so excited to try another restaurant in the area! We ended up at Greek Islands…and it was the BEST Greek food either of us had EVER HAD. I think after every bite one of us commented on how we could not believe it was so good. Eric had a combination plate of gyro meat and sausage, while I just choose the gyro plate. The meat was incredibly tender and juicy and the pita bread could not have been more delicious. Sadly, I have no pictures to share because after several hours of biking, we decided eating immediately was more important than photos.
We left so stuffed. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to walk back to the Divvy station, let alone actually mount and ride a bike. It was a good thing though, all this walking and biking helped balance out our meals…well maybe not balance, but it helped us feel a little less guilty haha. Next stop – the famous Chicago Silver Bean! I knew this tourist attraction would be packed, but it was so close to my apartment and a must see for Eric.
Post bean visit, we headed on back to my apartment to freshen up for fireworks at the lake and a night out in Lincoln Park with my roommates and their guests. I was so happy Eric was there and so thankful for a holiday full of sun, exploring, good food, and friends!
Wow, $7 for 24 hours is very reasonable!