Famous women in modern history have worn eternity rings. Eternity bands consist of a precious metal construction and accompanied by gemstones. Most women choose to wear them on the same finger as their engagement ring. There are a number of different of unique wedding ring—such as a pave setting—that will bring attention to your one-of-a-kind infinity band.
Eternity rings are a timeless and popular wedding band. Guess what? They are not new. In fact, they havebeen popular for nearly two centuries. Rhinestone eternity rings were popularized in the early 18th century as a dressing for royalty. As technology developed and gemstone setting methods advanced, infinity bands continued to gain popularity. New York Yankees baseball player Joe DiMaggio famously gifted Marilyn Monroe a platinum eternity band with baguette-cut diamonds placed around the ring's perimeter.
Infinity rings symbolize never-ending love and used to be given after the marriage had taken place. Not anymore. You will get your ring on your wedding day as the more expensive engagement ring will have already been received. A common misconception about infinity rings is their price. While expensive infinity bands certainly exist, it's very easy to find a beautiful wedding band that suits your budget. You will find exactly what you are looking for with Steadman's.
You can create a posh wedding band on a budget using pave gem setting. Pave cuts use a handful of very small diamonds to create brilliant reflections in every direction imaginable. Thanks to the small size of the diamonds used, pave rings are not only affordable, but the diamonds used are ofextremely high clarity and color. The end result? A beautiful and inexpensive ring.
Pave bands may be cheap, but they're not for commoners! Kate Middleton (yes, that one) wears an pave eternity ring on the same finger as her engagement ring. Yes! You too should wear a victorian engagement ring proudly.
Once you have decided that an eternity ring is for you, a whole new world of possibilities open up. What cut of diamonds are you going to use? Which precious metal do you want to use as a base? How about the band width? Are you looking for a pipe cut ring or a comfort fit eternity ring? There are a number of metal types to consider when seeking out the perfect eternity band for your budget.
Platinum – our most popular choice due to rarity and hardness. A platinum wedding band is the best option if it's in your budget. Platinum rings will never fade or change color and are not easily scratched.
White Gold – a clear winner for those on a stricter budget. White gold eternity rings are very popular and rigid.
Yellow and Rose Gold – classics that can't be bested. These yellow gold engagement rings and rose gold rings are traditional jewelry colors that have lasted for centuries. Express yourself in fun and unique ways that are not possible with lighter ring colors.
Silver – an unbeatable value for those on a budget. Silver eternity rings are the top choice of many focused on price and beauty. It is important to note that silver will tarnish and require polishing every few years. Rhodium plating can be an effective way to prevent silver from needing service as frequently.
Steadman's Jewelers has been serving the Utah area since 1904. That's over 4 generations! Avoid jewelry store markup pricing, long turnaround times, and poor fitting experiences. Get your wedding ring straight from the source! You don't have to choose whether you want affordable pricing or a luxurious ring. Steadman's is the only Utah jeweler that can proudly provide you both. Our artisans have decades of experienced. They will work closely with you to ensure the end-result is exactly what you want.


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Royal Regiment of Artillery Officer's Sweetheart Cap Badge, circa 1895.
Royal Regiment of Artillery Officer's Sweetheart Cap Badge. Set with fifty five round rose cut diamonds in open back grain and rubover settings with a combined approximate weight of 0.58 carats, to an elaborate openwork military brooch with crown to top, a gun with rotating wheel and rammer, as well as the regiment's two mottos 'UBIQUE' Latin for 'Everywhere' and 'QUO FAS ET GLORIA DUCUNT' Latin for 'Where Right and Glory Lead', both mottos awarded in recognition of distinguished service around the world, with extremely fine enamelled detailing, pierced backholing and secure hinged pin fastening with scrolled closure, approximately 3cm in height. Tested yellow gold and silver, circa 1895.
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is the artillery arm of the British Army. The gun depicted is a 9 Pounder Riffled Muzzle Loader of 1871 including its rammer. This badge is an extremely fine example of this type of brooch and is considered to have been made for an officer as the gun wheel usually rotated.
Today we think of brooches as a purely decorative item but brooches in their earliest form had a far more important role. In a time before buttons, brooches were used to hold clothing together.
The earliest forms of brooches appeared during the Neolithic period and Bronze Age with straight pins used as closers for clothing. The design evolved as time progressed to the Roman fibula (Latin for brooch). These brooches have a curved top allowing the sprung pin to hook into itself and form a secure closer.
During the late Roman period the penannular brooch was developed, this is formed of a ring with a pin attached. The early brooches would have been rather plain in design but as time progressed they increased in size and decoration became more complex. Zoomorphic designs of animals featured regularly with enamelling used to add colour to the pieces.
During the Viking period, brooches were used not only as a functional device but also to show the status and wealth of an individual.
The practical uses of brooches ceased during the middle ages when brooches transitioned into ornaments used purely for adornment and decoration, ushering a new phase for this jewellery item.
Brooches can be found in an array of designs featuring precious metals, gemstones of every kind, fine enamelling, engraving and carving. Due to their versatile nature, brooches can and have been worn on hats, scarves, overcoats, ball gowns, sashes, belts and even as pendants.
Our reigning monarch Queen Elizabeth II is rarely seen without one of her elegant brooches. Since her coronation in 1952 she has delighted us with creations from the finest of jewellery houses such as Garrard, Boucheron and Cartier to name a few.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


East Bronson is a small community in Levy County, Florida. East Bronson is a mostly residential community located just West of Gainesville. Being so close to Gainesville, residents in East Bronson get to enjoy all of the activities the city has to offer.


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"Blue Daisy" is the Brilliant Green's nineteenth single, released on June 30, 2010. It peaked at #20 on the Oricon Singles Chart.

Track listing

References

2010 singles
2010 songs
Songs written by Shunsaku Okuda
Songs written by Tomoko Kawase
The Brilliant Green songs
Warner Music Japan singles

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Mighty Box is an open source application launching utility for Windows, that is touted as the Windows version of the QuickSilver software for Mac.
Mighty Box allows users to use the keyboard to rapidly perform tasks such as launching applications, manipulating files and data, running scripts, or sending e-mail. Mighty Box runs in the background invisibly to the user. Invisible because there are no icons on the taskbar or system tray. That the program is running can be verified by looking at the running process tab in the Task Manager, or by invoking the program by pressing CTRL+Space.
The program however has a weird behavior. When you type an application name to open, you have to type it at once. If you pause midway, the next character you type would start a new search. Let me elaborate. Say I want to open Photoshop. If I type P…H…O, and then pause a tad bit longer and then type T, the first three characters P,H,O will get wiped out and Mighty Box will start a new search beginning with T.
Yeah, it's annoying and for people who are slow with the keyboard, it's practically impossible to use. Quick users wouldn't find it a problem, but that doesn't change the fact that it's bad programming. Mighty Box is still in development stage, for last several months.
Want a different application launcher? There are plenty.


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When will COVID-19 end? Here's what happened with other pandemics
When will COVID-19 end? Here's what happened with other pandemics
With cases skyrocketing and many scrambling to book third shots, one question feels more pressing than ever at the start of 2022: When will COVID-19 end?
The trajectory of pandemics — a term which refers to an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread over a large region, usually globally — have varied widely depending on the type of disease, the time period, the politics and the quality of health care available. And sometimes, we consider a pandemic to have "ended" long before it ceases to be a problem worldwide.
Looking back at some of our previous pandemics or epidemics can give us an insight into how COVID-19 could come to end, both in epidemiological and social terms.
1918 FLU PANDEMIC
In the spring of 1918, the first wave of a deadly influenza started to spread. Around 500 million people —one third of the global population at the time — are thought to have contracted the virus during this flu pandemic.
One of the earliest cases was documented in March of 1918 in Kansas, U.S., but although the flu initially appeared mild, it quickly turned devastating.
People collapsed in the road. Entire towns retreated indoors, leaving the streets empty. A school in Pennsylvania started displaying the dead because funeral homes were overwhelmed.
Similar to COVID-19, the disease came in waves, making people feel as though they had defeated the virus, only be struck with another round of illness. Around four waves occurred between 1918 and 1920, with the second wave in the fall of 1918 causing the majority of deaths.
With no vaccine or treatments on the way, people attempted public health measures that are familiar to us: masking, discouraging public gatherings and trying to hold business outside.
So how did it end?
We don't have a crystal clear picture of how the 1918 flu pandemic ended epidemiologically, Alexandre White, a historian and assistant professor of Sociology and the History of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview.
"The hypothesis is generally that the flu either could have become more mild or ultimately kind of affected enough people such that it no longer had populations to affect at such a scale that it could remain pandemic," he said.
Essentially, the virus either evolved to be milder, or simply burned through the population.
Naomi Rogers, a professor in the history of medicine at Yale University, put it simply.
"It ran out of people," she told CTVNews.ca.
And that meant there was a massive death toll before the virus dissipated. Around 50 million people died worldwide, with 50,000 dying in Canada.
White cautioned that while the 1918 flu may have ended through the virus becoming milder or herd immunity being achieved because so many people had been exposed, this is far from a "guaranteed conclusion for COVID-19.
"Especially as we see continuing variants emerge, and the […] possibility of infection evading the immunity conferred by vaccination," he added.
But there's another aspect to how this pandemic ended, one that takes place in the collective culture.
"You could say that that pandemic ended not just when the third or fourth wave ended, but also there was a really active effort by the public and by politicians to forget it," Rogers said.
READ ALSO: How COVID-19 lockdowns and car-free days affected air pollution in Rwanda's capital
She added that while there are countless memorials to those who died in the First World War, "there are no memorials to the millions of people who died during the pandemic […] and I don't think that's a coincidence.
"By 1920, [the U.S.] elected a president who called for normalcy. And the idea was that we should put all of this behind us."
It may seem like forgetting COVID-19 would be impossible. But this does highlight how in our efforts to reach the end of a pandemic, we have sometimes failed to learn from it.
"The popular perception about history is you learn from history," Christopher Rutty, a professional medical historian and an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview. "But one of the big lessons is that we don't learn lessons from history."
Smallpox holds the unique distinction of being the only infectious disease that we have completely eradicated through vaccination — a feat that was achieved nearly 200 years after a vaccine was invented.
"I think that's the one example of fundamentally eradicating a disease that causes a pandemic," White said.
Those with smallpox developed red blisters all over their body, as well as lesions around the nose and mouth, and flu-like symptoms. Rashes found on Egyptian mummies suggest the virus had existed for around 3,000 years.
Around three out of 10 people who caught it would die, and over the years, it caused numerous distinct epidemics and pandemics.
The first vaccine for smallpox was invented in the late 18th century, and became widely accepted shortly after. By the time the World Health Organization (WHO) launched an ambitious vaccination campaign in earnest in the 1960s, smallpox had already been eliminated in North America and Europe, but was still causing outbreaks in South America, Asia and Africa.
There's a feeling that the announcement of a vaccine means the end of a pandemic — but that's not what history has shown us, Rogers pointed out. He noted that it took more than a decade after the first polio vaccine was introduced for the U.S. to become polio-free.
"Diseases don't end because you have announced that you have an effective vaccine, which is something that we have learned maybe the hard way through COVID," she said.
So can we vaccinate COVID-19 out of existence?
We were able to eradicate smallpox because it was a human only virus, meaning that it could only spread between humans and didn't have an animal vector, the way that many influenza viruses do. COVID-19 is thought to have originated in an animal before it made the jump to humans, and viruses with an animal vector always have the possibility of reemerging as a novel human pathogen, White explained.
Those with smallpox also had distinct dermatological symptoms to identify them, which is not the case with most respiratory diseases.
"I mean, we've never eradicated a respiratory disease," Rogers said.
This doesn't mean that vaccines aren't an important tool in protecting populations, as COVID-19 vaccines have been proven to be effective at preventing hospitalizations and death. But with a virus as adaptable as COVID-19, it can't be our only tool.
"There are a number of diseases that we ended that didn't include so much a vaccine, but actually included structural change, like tuberculosis and typhoid for example," Rogers said.
READ ALSO: Amid rent defaults, estate agencies adopt diligent standards for tenants
For COVID-19, structural changes that experts have suggested in the past include things like requiring buildings to have high-quality air filtration, overhauling the long-term care system to protect at risk populations better, or implementing more targeted testing even when cases are low to find emerging hotspots.
"I hope that in some ways, the focus on the vaccine doesn't blind us to the other ways that we have of helping to make people less vulnerable," Rogers said.
While the virus behind it is different from COVID-19 epidemiologically, the AIDS crisis highlighted inequities in society and has had a huge impact on social behaviour and culture when it swept across the U.S. and the world in the 1980s, similar to COVID-19.
HIV is a virus which attacks the immune system and is spread through direct contact with certain bodily fluids such as blood or semen from a person with HIV who has a detectable viral load.
If untreated, HIV can lead to AIDS, an advanced stage of infection that can lead to death within three years without treatment.
Around 36.3 million people have died of HIV, according to WHO.
"I actually think AIDS is a really important and powerful analogy to COVID," Rogers said. "It's very interesting to think about the kind of lessons we did didn't take from that pandemic."
White added that a "frustrating, but reoccurring, theme in the history of pandemics and epidemics" is how governments and society as a whole often ignore the threat of infectious disease if they see the populations being affected as not "satisfactorily important as to warrant major responses."
At the beginning of the AIDS crisis, the issue was viewed as a problem affecting only gay men, a group which authorities were comfortable ignoring.
"Significant resources were denied," White said. "Research was slow to develop and ultimately, thousands of people lost their lives as a result of a lack of co-ordinated public response."
The stigma surrounding AIDS also allowed the disease to spread further than it may have if there had been an early response. It took community-driven research and organizations to develop an understanding of the disease and push governments to act.
So when and how did it end?
It hasn't. There is still no cure for AIDS, and no vaccine, although some candidates are in trials. Around 1.5 million people acquired HIV in 2020, according to WHO, and 680,000 people died of HIV-related causes.
However, in North America, widespread access to reliable treatments allow a person with HIV to live a full life without fear of dying of AIDS or spreading the virus. These antiretroviral drugs work by stopping the virus from replicating inside the body.
Pfizer's new antiviral pill for treating COVID-19 is actually a protease inhibitor, a type of antiretroviral drug that was first developed to treat HIV.
However, not everywhere has easy access to these drugs.
"Now AIDS is considered an infectious disease that reflects the resources of the country," Rogers said.
White pointed out that often we consider a pandemic to have "ended" when the threat has diminished within wealthier nations or within the Western world.
HIV is a clear example, he said.
"Once access to effective antiretroviral therapies emerge and become easily accessible, we tend to lose interest or perceive that the real pandemic threat has dissipated, when in actual fact, the ravages from the disease continue to persist in earnest and very extreme in places [which] lack the access to the healthcare and support," he said.
READ ALSO: COVID-19: Experts Predict Negative Impact On Mortgage, Housing Market
"We've seen that perspective raise up in relationship to COVID-19, especially in the last few months, once vaccine access had largely been primarily achieved in wealthier nations, only to, over the last several weeks, recognize that without so effective vaccination around the world, we're going to see, potentially, severe variants of concern continue to pop up around the world in places that lack effective vaccination coverage."
In the fall, as Canadians were enjoying a return to many regular activities due to high vaccine intake, experts warned that a lack of global vaccine equity could lead to new variants developing in regions with less access to vaccines.
Then along came Omicron.
"If COVID is raging in different parts of the world, it's hard to really insulate yourself effectively," Rutty said. "Just what's happening with the Omicron is a classic example."
SO WHICH WAY COULD COVID-19 GO?
Could the COVID-19 pandemic burn through the human population and then evolve to become weak enough that it's no longer a pandemic-level threat? Could it become a seasonal issue held at bay by yearly vaccination? Could wealthy nations conquer COVID-19 in their regions through vaccination or new treatments and then consider the pandemic over while it flourishes for years in lower-income countries?
Rutty explained that there's never a straightforward answer when we try to apply history's pandemic lessons to a current or future virus.
"There's rarely a peace agreement with a virus, you know, like an end of a war," he said.
"It's not just a matter of epidemiology or vaccine technology or science. It's as much about politics and human behavior, and all these other kind of non-scientific things that are really having a major impact on the course of the pandemic."
One of the most likely scenarios, Rogers predicted, would be closer to the 1918 pandemic, with COVID-19 eventually becoming seasonal and milder.
"My guess would be that it's going to become much more like the flu, that it's going to be endemic, and then there'll be particular seasons of the year where it's more likely to be a potential outbreak," she said.
In terms of the cultural idea of a pandemic "ending," she added that we could also see a scenario similar to AIDS "where we might consider it over, but it's not over globally."
But unlike in 1918, when all people could do was wait for the flu to evolve until it became weaker, we understand how this new virus works and spreads. We have vaccines and other treatments either existing or in the works to combat COVID-19, and avoid such a massive death toll.
"I would be dissatisfied, deeply dissatisfied, if our acceptance of COVID-19 forces us to accept a world in which hundreds of thousands or millions of people continue to be exposed or at risk of severe illness and death," White said.
"If we don't put these efforts into practice and impose effective practices that we know will save lives, then we should take a good hard look at ourselves in the mirror and think about the sort of societies that we're leaving to our children."
Praise Nwachukwu
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The Era of Electric Airplanes is Here
A Norwegian company has placed a large order for 60 electric planes, expanding the order backlog of an American aircraft manufacturer.
Zayan Guedim Apr 15, 2019 at 10:15 am GMT
Although still not on the level of commercial airliners, electric planes have already come a long way in the last decade. ¦ Image via Alexis Lincoln
We often complain about the batteries in our smartphones because they don't last long enough and keep getting larger and larger.
The same goes for electric cars with autonomy becoming a key area where automakers put up most of their technological efforts.
Now imagine an electric plane.
For one roundtrip flight from New York to Chicago, a plane releases 296 KG of carbon dioxide per passenger. You can calculate your flight emissions and carbon-offset your air trips.
Battery technology advancements now allow dreaming about being able to fly emission-free in the near future. Tesla CEO Elon Musk even has a concept for an electric plane.
The concept of the electric plane has been, well, in the air for a long time. But now, several startups are working on their electric and hybrid aircraft designs that would help reduce both costs and carbon footprint.
If zero-emission planes are the future of flight, airlines had better prepare themselves.
In Norway at least, one airline is getting ahead of the curve in this area with the help of an American aircraft manufacturer.
Sustainable Wings: eFlyer, Tesla of the Air
OSM Aviation, a low-cost Norwegian aviation and flight training company, announced it has ordered 60 all-electric training planes.
These electric planes will serve at OSM Aviation Academy centers to train the next generation of pilots.
For Espen Høiby, CEO of OSM Aviation Group, this is an opportunity to self-congratulate:
"We're proud to take the lead in the future of green aviation. This is the largest order for commercial electric planes to date. It's important that the airline industry steps up to the challenge of developing more environment-friendly transport. At OSM Aviation, we're committed to pursuing a socially responsible and sustainable business."
OSM Aviation chose Bye Aerospace aircraft manufacturer based in Englewood, Colorado.
In 2014, Bye Aerospace launched its Sun Flyer program that led to the "eFlyer", a family of zero-emission all-electric planes intended for flight training and air taxi markets.
The company that aims to deliver "the first FAA-certified, practical, all-electric airplanes" already has a significant order book with 298 customer commitments and deposits received.
The first deliveries of the 2-seat eFlyer 2 and the 4-seat eFlyer 4 are scheduled for the end of 2021.
Priced at $350,000, the eFlyer 2 model, the one chosen by OSM, is fitted with an electric propulsion motor from Siemens with a 90kW peak rating (120 HP).
Compared to the $110 per hour for a conventional plane, training pilots on Bye Aerospace's planes will cost only $20 per hour. That was a big draw for OSM that currently operate 20 planes, mostly Cessna 172s, and which it intends to phase out.
OSM aims to do business in more markets other than Norway, including the United States.
Read More: Tesla's New Maxwell Acquisition is Great News for Future Electric Planes
Last year, Norway has revealed its plan making short-haul flights 100% electric by 2040 to cut greenhouse gas emissions and curb climate change.
But unfortunately, there are no battery-powered airliners available and all technology permits now is small aircraft like the ones built by Bye Aerospace.
EasyJet, the British budget carrier, set 2030 as the target date to fly a fleet of electric planes, pushing it back from 2027 previously.
Although you won't see any electric airliners flying overhead anytime soon, now is the time when industries are really beginning to consider the power of this zero emissions technology.
Read More: New Thermal Battery Could be an Energy Game Changer
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Zayan Guedim
Trilingual poet, investigative journalist, and novelist. Zed loves tackling the big existential questions and all-things quantum.
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BMW Zagato Coupe
Will this Zagato shape fill out the Z4 line?
By Nick Kurczewski
BMW has teamed with Italian coachbuilder Zagato to transform a Z4 roadster into a one-of-a-kind coupe, unveiled for the first time on the picturesque banks of Lake Como during the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este. This annual show is known for its exclusivity so, should the BMW Zagato Coupe reach production, you can bet this German-Italian `hybrid' will carry a price befitting the posh setting of its world debut. Neither BMW nor Zagato has confirmed any official plans to build the Coupe, though it seems likely given the concept is entirely street-legal.
"It is relatively easy to build a design study which is not intended for use on the road. Not having to meet any stipulations governing crash safety or pedestrian protection opens up a host of new avenues in terms of design," explained Dr. Andrea Zagato. "The challenge lies in injecting the emotional appeal of a concept car into a road-legal machine." The exterior employs Zagato design hallmarks, such as a double-bubble roof (originally done to accommodate the crash helmets of race drivers) and a chopped-off Kamm-style tail.
Finished in a "Rosso Vivace" paint job and riding in 19-in. five-spoke alloy wheels, the Zagato Coupe has a taut and muscular stance. It also happens to look remarkably similar to the BMW Z4 Coupe, built from 2006 to 2008. When the Z4 came due for an update in 2009, BMW opted to drop the slow-selling Coupe variant from the lineup. This makes it especially intriguing that, of all the models available to get the Zagato treatment, BMW chose to revive the idea of building a sports coupe off the Z4 Roadster.
No details have been released regarding the Zagato Coupe's powertrain, but it's more than likely the Z4's most powerful engine, a 335-bhp turbocharged inline-6 cylinder, is under the hood. During a recent test drive of the 2012 Z4 sDrive 28i, however, we were equally impressed by the power and economy offered by the base car's new turbocharged 4-cylinder. So could this BMW concept foreshadow not only a limited-production Zagato model, but also the return of the Z4 Coupe? Stay tuned.
Nick Kurczewski For more than 20 years, automotive journalist Nick Kurczewski has written for dozens of print and digital publications about all aspects of the car world.
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Happy Holidays! Wishing you health and happiness in the New Year!
Thank you to those who worked with us throughout the year to assist Canton residents. Please click here to read more about our successful Holiday Giving Program 2013.


This episode stars series regulars Sarah Polley (Sara Stanley), Jackie Burroughs (Hetty King), Mag Ruffman (Olivia Dale), Zachary Bennett (Felix King), Gema Zamprogna (Felicity King), Cedric Smith (Alec King), and Lally Cadeau (Janet King). Guest stars include Rosemary Dunsmore (Aunt Abigail), R.H. Thomson (Jasper Dale), and Michael Mahonen (Gus Pike).
A novelization by Heather Conkie, as volume 26 of the Road to Avonlea book series, was published in Canada in 1994 and in the United States in 1995.


 Emerald news - Can childhood obesity be linked to clever marketing tactics?
Home > About Emerald > Emerald News > Can childhood obesity be linked to clever marketing tactics?
Can childhood obesity be linked to clever marketing tactics?
United Kingdom, 19 September 2013 - Marketers are very successful at imprinting their brand messages in the minds of children and young people, creating loyal consumers for years to come. With the modern-day obesity epidemic now affecting more than nine million children and young people in the USA and continuing to grow, there is significant concern over the effect that food marketing is having on this.
Conducted by Jessica Castonguay and Dale Kunkel of the University of Arizona, USA, and Christopher McKinley of Montclair State University, USA, this study, entitled 'Health-related messages in food advertisements targeting children' is the first to examine, not only the presence of "health" messages, but the actual nutritional quality of foods promoted to children with such messages.
The study raises concerns that, whilst health-related messages now appear more frequently in food advertisements, it may actually be the advertising techniques, rather than the food product portfolios, that are being changed in response to concerns over the link between food marketing and the childhood obesity crisis. It found that health messages which appear in foods marketed at children do not necessarily indicate their nutritional value. Conversely, these health-related messages were frequently found to be used to promote unhealthy foods to children, and were mostly likely to appear in commercials for fast foods, sugared cereals and salty snacks.
Children, like adults, perceive products more positively when they are presented with a health message, and exposure to food advertising is linked, not only to their dietary preferences and food selections, but to their understanding and beliefs about nutrition. There is therefore substantial cause for concern that these advertising tactics will contribute to detrimental impacts on child audiences, and that given the growing problem of child obesity, there is a clear need for action to prevent this.
It calls into question whether the health-related messages featured in food marketing aimed at children are actually a marketing tactic used to promote unhealthy food items, potentially undermining nutrition education efforts.


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Epstein Holtzapple Christo LLP
Robyn B. Christo
Trust, Estate, and Fiduciary Litigation
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Robyn specializes in trust, probate, and fiduciary litigation as well as elder-related litigation and contested conservatorship matters. Robyn also has experience handling real-estate and business disputes including partition actions that often arise in the context of estate litigation.
Robyn started her legal career in 2009 with an Am Law 100 firm in San Francisco, California, where she handled a broad range of litigation and transactional matters involving intellectual property rights, labor and employment, construction projects, real estate, and land use. In 2012, Robyn joined Gaw Van Male, LLP in Napa, California, a law firm well-known for its handling of complex estate planning and administration issues, where she began developing her estate litigation expertise. During law school, Robyn worked at the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, where she served as a judicial extern for the Honorable Vaughn R. Walker (Ret.).
Robyn is a member of the Litigation Committee of the Trusts and Estates Section of the California Lawyers Association (formerly a section of the State Bar of California). She has also appeared eight times on both the Northern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars list and the list of Top Women Attorneys in Northern California.
Robyn graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 2008. She completed her undergraduate education at Sonoma State University and then worked as a special events coordinator and wine educator before attending law school. Robyn was born in San Francisco and raised in Marin County, where she currently resides with her husband and their three children.
Sonoma State University (Bachelor of Arts, Communications)
University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Juris Doctor)
The Bay Building
711 Grand Avenue, Suite 230
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text:
Q: How to instrument classes loaded by a custom class loader? I was trying to modify the byte code of several classes whose packaging jar files are not in class path - they are loaded by a custom ClassLoader during runtime given an URL. I tried to use a java agent with ClassFileTransformer hoping to intercept those classes but failed. The classloader is part of a legacy project so I cannot make changes to it directly.
The agent works fine on classes loaded by AppClassLoader 'locally' but just ignores those loaded by the custom classloader.
the CustomClassLoader:
    public class CustomClassLoader extends URLClassLoader {

    public CustomClassLoader(URL[] urls) {
        super(urls, CustomClassLoader.class.getClassLoader());
    }

    // violates parent-delegation pattern
    @Override
    protected Class<?> loadClass(String name, boolean resolve) throws ClassNotFoundException {
        synchronized (getClassLoadingLock(name)) {
            Class<?> clazz = findLoadedClass(name);
            if (clazz == null) {
                try {
                    clazz = findClass(name);
                } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
                }

                if (clazz == null) {
                    clazz = getParent().loadClass(name);
                }
            }
            if (resolve) {
                resolveClass(clazz);
            }
            return clazz;
        }
    }
}

the ClassFileTransformer used in my agent (with javassist):
public class MyTransformer implements ClassFileTransformer
{
    public byte[] transform(ClassLoader loader, String className, Class<?> classBeingRedefined,
            ProtectionDomain protectionDomain, byte[] classfileBuffer) throws IllegalClassFormatException
    {
        byte[] byteCode = null;

        if (className.replace("/", ".").equals("com.example.services.TargetService"))
        {
            ClassPool cp = ClassPool.getDefault();
            CtClass cc;
            try
            {
                cc = cp.get("com.example.services.TargetService");
                CtMethod verifyMethod = cc.getDeclaredMethod("verify");
                //invalidate the verification process of method : verify
                verifyMethod.insertBefore("{return true;}");
                byteCode = cc.toBytecode();
                cc.detach();
                return byteCode;
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }

        return byteCode;
    }
}

the Agent:
public class Agent
{
    public static void premain(String agentArgs, Instrumentation inst)
    {
        inst.addTransformer(new MyTransformer());
    }

}

I came up with a workaround by instrumenting the CustomClassLoader itself, invoking instrumentation.redifineClasses() but don't know how to pass the instrumentation instance into the CustomClassLoader instance; I'm new to instrumentation/class loading and still not quite clear with their mechanism.
Any help? Thanks.
To make it simple:

*

*Inside an app create a custom URLClassLoader which loads some jar files elsewhere in you file system during runtime.

*Implement an java agent transforming a class loaded by your classloader, replacing one of it's method's body or something.

*Inside the app assign a class's instance to its interface and call its instrumented methods.

*Run the app with -javaagent to check.

A: I assume that your class is not properly instrumented because you are calling ClassPool.getDefault() which does not include class files visible to your custom class loader but only to the system class loader. You never register the classfileBuffer class file.
As an alternative, you can try out Byte Buddy which offers easier access to the instrumentation API:
new AgentBuilder.Default()
  .type(named("com.example.services.TargetService"))
  .transform((builder, type, loader) -> {
    builder.method(named("verify")).intercept(FixedValue.of(true));
  }).installOn(instrumentation);

The above agent can be invoked from the agentmain or premain method. You can also disable class file format changes and redefine existing classes in case that the class is already (potentially) loaded during attachment.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


It's Green Space's mission to provide a workspace where eco-friendly and socially conscious businesses can connect with one another. It's thru this collaboration that allows GS businesses to grow and flourish unlike anywhere else.
Today, there is new collaboration emerging, one between a local non-profit Greenleaf and Green Spaces. GreenLeaf is a group of powerful youth leaders who grow together, cultivating community and food justice through urban agriculture. Through a year-round program and a diverse crew of talented young people, they plan and manage an urban farm, distribute food to community members in need, and conduct food justice organizing. GreenLeaf youth get real-world experience practicing the skills they need to become leaders – not only within GreenLeaf, but also in their schools, communities, and beyond.
Greenleaf is a textbook example of the organizations and companies GS strives to support. This past spring however, Greenleaf received news that the land their farm "Sustainability Park" occupies had been sold off to make room for a new housing development. Given little room for negotiations, Greenleaf was informed they must vacate "Sustainability Park" by the end of November. With November quickly approaching the Greenleaf team wasted no time and sprang into action by holding a Farm-raiser in hopes of saving the a program that has given so much to so many in the community.
On Saturday September 19th friends, family, and local business leaders gathered at "Sustainability Park" to raise money in hopes of purchasing a plot of land for a new farm. The Farm-raiser had an amazing turnout and was an eventful evening filled with farm tours, games, silent auction and finally a dinner made with produce from the farm. The evening was simply marvelous, unfortunately Greenleaf's efforts to raise enough money for a new farm fell just short of the total they needed.
"When we see that one of our own is struggling to survive, we are going to do something about it." Jennie told me while discussing Greenleaf's struggles to get a new farm. In effort to help Greenleaf, GS has offered to make Greenleaf's its official non-profit partner. The benefits of this partnership include donated office space as well as a donation to help Greenleaf reach their fundraising goal. Most importantly this new partnership will allow Greenleaf to continue educating youth leaders who are dedicated to fighting food injustice through the use of urban agriculture.
GreenLeaf is a group of powerful youth leaders who grow together, cultivating community and food justice through urban agriculture. Through our seamless, year-round programming, our diverse crew of talented young people (ages 14-18) plans and manages an urban farm, distributes food to community members in need, and conducts food justice organizing. GreenLeaf youth get real-world experience practicing the skills they need to become leaders – not only within GreenLeaf, but also in their schools, communities, and beyond. To learn more and meet the crew, visit our website at www.greenleafdenver.org.


text:
Three Points on the Righteous Shutdown of Fascist Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley
February 2, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The Fascist Track Record of Milo Yiannopoulos and David Horowitz
Milo Yiannopoulos lifted himself to prominence by entering into the "Gamergate" controversy in 2014. He played a major role in encouraging the vicious, misogynist, and physically threatening attacks, which came out targeting specific women who have come forward as leading developers and critics in the video game industry. Just one example of many, one female video game developer was forced to move out of her home due to the harassment and threats she received after mocking Gamergate supporters. The process of "swatting," or sending SWAT teams to someone's house under false pretenses of hostage or terrorist threats, began to be employed by the Gamergaters against not only the women who spoke out against them, but against their families as well.
In July of 2016 Twitter announced the permanent banning of Yiannopoulos for his role in orchestrating the extremely dangerous racist, misogynist, targeted harassment of Black actress Leslie Jones following her starring role in the new Ghostbusters film. As Jones described the personal hell she was forced to endure, "I have been called Apes, sent pics of their asses, even got a pic with semen on my face. I'm tryin to figure out what human means."
Yiannopoulos has teamed up with David Horowitz and thay are launching a national campaign to end campuses as sanctuaries. Horowitz described their mission, "The so-called 'sanctuary movement' is a concerted effort by left-wing administrations in major cities to thwart the purposes of the Patriot Act, undermine federal immigration law, and cripple the efforts of the Department of Homeland security to protect American citizens from terrorist threats. Thanks to the efforts of left-wing activists and administrators, this seditious movement has now spread to our colleges and universities. This is a situation that cannot be allowed to stand." They also demanded that university officials and students "who endanger students with their illegal alien-shielding policies be prosecuted."
Horowitz has been a high level operative for the Republican Party for decades. After Bush's 2004 election victory, Horowitz launched a highly publicized attack aimed at intimidating and silencing critical thinking and dissent within academia across the country. He played a key role in the attack on a Native American scholar and tenured Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder. This became the opening salvo of a broad-sided attack on radical and progressive faculty around the country with the publication of his book in 2006 titled: The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in the America.
Horowitz-led attacks on campuses continued in fall 2016 against students and organizations/movements that support the rights of Palestinians. Horowitz has been behind posters with students faces. The posters describe SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] as "the chief sponsor of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activities on campus" and accuse the named individuals of allying themselves with Hamas, which the center alleges is a "terror organization."
Last night, February 1, thousands of students, professors, and others protested the appearance and organizing rally of Milo Yiannopoulos, a major fascist operative, shutting it down. This was righteous and much more like this is needed.
In response, widespread attacks, distortions, and threats are being issued, including from the Fascist-In-Chief Trump himself, who threatened to cut off all federal funding to UC Berkeley.
These dangerous threats must be vigorously exposed and opposed.
Let's be clear: Milo Yiannopoulos is not engaging in "free speech." He is consciously spearheading the Nazification of the American University.
One: In his speeches and writings, Yiannopoulos is not simply voicing opinions—and he is certainly not "courageously challenging political orthodoxy" as he would like people to believe. Rather, he spews forth hateful, crude, unthinking bigotry and low-level insults against marginalized and oppressed people, and he has a documented record of knowingly unleashing campaigns of harassment, stalking, and threats of violence.
Two: Even more fundamentally, Yiannopoulos is a fascist operative with connections to the highest echelons of the Trump-Pence fascist regime. He is a senior editor at Breitbart News, the home of the white supremacist, anti-Semitic, woman-hating "alt-right" movement whose former head, Steve Bannon, is now a powerful driver of Trump's fascist regime. In his current tour, Yiannopoulos has teamed up with David Horowitz, a man with a decades-long record of attacking and working to get fired progressive and radical-minded professors for their political views and for challenging lies used to justify U.S. empire and its role in the world. An explicit mission of their joint effort is to end sanctuary campuses and target undocumented students.
Three: Yiannopoulos' campus tour is part of a larger, rapidly escalating, society-wide fascist assault on critical thinking, science, the ability to discover basic truths about objective reality and to challenge fascist lies. The Trump-Pence regime is relentlessly lying, muzzling government agencies, threatening the media, and firing or threatening government officials who stand up to them. This is because their fascist program is violently at odds with both basic facts about the world and what most people think is just. It is part of preparing their fanatical thugs to mindlessly carry out atrocities in service of their program.
In this context, the campuses pose a strategic problem for this fascist regime because they—more than the rest of society—expose students to the broader world, encourage people to think critically, and to explore contrary viewpoints. It is for this reason that fascists like Yiannopoulos and Horowitz have so viciously targeted the universities and why Trump himself jumped in so eagerly to give them backing.
For all these reasons, what happened at UC Berkeley is part of the kind of broad, powerful, and meaningful protest that needs to continue on an unprecedented scale to OUST this regime from power. These protests should be supported and defended by all those who value critical thought, the ability to pursue and debate what is actually true, science and scientific thinking, the space to dissent—and all who oppose this whole fascist direction and reordering of the world with its unparalleled threats to all humanity and the planet itself.
"Balance" Is The Wrong Criterion—And a Cover for a Witch-hunt—What We Need Is the Search for the Truth: Education, Real Academic Freedom, Critical Thinking and Dissent.
Track 1, Track 2
From Seven Talks by Bob Avakian


text:
Upside Home
Trends in Analytics
Data & Business Leadership
IT & Enterprise Data Management
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5 Minutes with an Analyst: Roger Torrents of Softonic
Analytics can have its downsides, such as when your users see results and don't like them.
By James E. Powell
Roger Torrents is the head of business Intelligence at Softonic, a popular website devoted to apps, games, and tutorials. He and his team are responsible for all BI initiatives, including data analysis, KPI monitoring, dashboard development, and data visualization. Upside spoke to Roger about his work as an analyst.
What's the one thing you wish people knew about your job?
Roger Torrents: Sometimes the business intelligence or data science teams are seen as "techies," people surrounded by numbers and lines of code. The reality is that if you want to do a good job in this area, you need to understand the business, to know everything you can about the business to be able to help.
In the Internet sector, for example, we need to understand not only the numbers behind the business but also the full user story: from the user visiting our website to the process that decides which ad he or she is going to see, as well as the information our CEO will want to know about the data.
We then define the key information that needs to be tracked and use it to build the most meaningful KPIs by which the business needs to be run.
Are you working on anything interesting right now? If not, what's your dream project?
Perhaps the most interesting thing I'm working on just now is the big data project using cloud technologies.
We've been working with big data for some years know, but working in the cloud adds extra flexibility to all the work. With the cloud, we're able to use the newest tools to analyze data and are not constrained by infrastructure.
What's your favorite part about being an analyst/data scientist? Your least favorite part?
The best thing is that I am involved in almost all of the projects being carried out at the company.
Being deeply involved allows you to be prepared for changes and understand which KPIs really affect the business.
If there's a drop in any KPI and you're not aware of the change, alarm bells go off, so it's better to be informed in advance and not to run to ask when something changes.
My least favorite part, or the worst part you could say, is when people that see numbers and don't like them, they sometimes won't accept them and assume that they are wrong. It's very annoying when you have to rebuild an analysis process and re-review the entire process just to confirm that you were right all along.
What's a typical day like for you? Do you work mostly with a team or mostly alone? Which do you prefer?
In my case, I'm leading a team and we work together all the time, but I also interact a lot with other teams. My preference is to work in close contact with people.
My routine starts by reviewing the main KPI reports sent out during the night to see if there were any major changes or warnings. If there are any red flags, then we rush to recover any missing data or stabilize other urgent situations.
When everything is under control, we then review "internal customers'" needs. We are a service department and we try to work with a Kanban methodology to respond to all the needs as soon as possible.
What's the most common roadblock you hit in your work? How do you deal with it?
It's definitely data availability. Not all information is always accessible, at least at the time or at the level you need it. Sometimes you need wait for somebody to send you the data, or create manual processes, or make assumptions to be able to cross the information needed for a report or analysis.
James E. Powell is the editorial director of TDWI, including research reports, the Business Intelligence Journal, and Upside newsletter. You can contact him via email here.
Three Key AI Trends to Watch in 2023
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text:
Tools of Change for Publishing | Feb. 14-16, 2011 • New York, NY
Publishing Startup Showcase
Ignite TOC
Tips for TOC First Timers
About the TOC Conference
The Business Case
TOC Conference 2010
TOC Bologna 2011
TOC Frankfurt 2010
Follow TOC on Twitter
TOC Facebook Page
TOC LinkedIn Group
"This conference really is the bleeding edge of the industry. We're smarter just for having been in the building." —Stephen Solomon, Eleven Learning
"A conference that's a sort of brainiac party at the intersection of publishing and digital innovation." —Sarah Wendell, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
"Sold out once again, the TOC's blend of highly technical workshops, business case studies and more conversational panels focused on the new digital publishing paradigm—conducted by a range of digital professionals (and digital superstars)—just seems to work." —Calvin Reid, Publisher's Weekly
"Tools of Change is one of my favorite conferences because it brings together over 1000 publishing professionals for three days of workshops, presentations and keynotes about the future of publishing, and digital publishing in particular. I love the conference as much for the opportunity to interact with other publishing pros as I do for the information imparted there." —Angela James, Carina Press
"Arguably the world's most important event for publishing innovation." —BOOK SA – News
"...it was well worth it. I love Tools of Change in Publishing because it is, most of the time, a very appealing balance between theoretical, creative thinking and direct, practical application. It's a full-brain conference." —Sarah Wendell, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
"All in all, I loved TOC 2010. I signed up for next year before I left the conference center." —Debbie Stier, HarperStudio
"A good conference challenges you to stretch your thinking, and on this count the O'Reilly conferences I've attended (TOC, Web 2.0 Summit, Web 2.0 Expo) have never disappointed." —Mark Coker, Smashwords
"As was the case last year, my head is exploding. The presentations were excellent. They covered all the current issues and gave us a glimpse of the future. I am always surprised by who doesn't show up at this conference. (If you are in book publishing and don't attend this conference, you are putting your company and your career at serious risk.)" —Michael Hyatt, Thomas Nelson Publishers
"The conference's mission is to help those who create content — whether books, newspapers, or magazine publishers — embrace the new technologies of this fast-changing industry. It's no surprise — the conference sold out." —Rhonda Abrams, USA Today
"...the show's combination of accessible brainy competence and visionary, science fiction-like projections just seems to pack them in." —Calvin Reid, Publishers Weekly
"Tools of Change in Publishing was brain candy of the finest order for me...If you're interested in digital publishing, curious about the technology and the software being developed to meet the demands of a changing industry, from the publishing of digital books to the reading thereof, this is, to put it in gross understatement, a big opportunity." —Sarah Wendell, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
"With more attendees than last year, TOC honed in on the pulse of web publishing, beating steadily and heartily, as ever." —Marisa Peacock, CMS Wire
"What a great conference. TOC was the perfect mix of big picture and focused tech. Thanks for an inspiring three days." —DC Denison, The Boston Globe
"O'Reilly's Tools of Change conference in New York City this week was highly successful, both inside and outside the walls of the Marriott Marquis. The sessions were energetic, well-attended, and—on the whole—full of excellent insight and ideas about the digital trends taking a firm hold of nearly all sectors of the publishing business. Outside the walls, especially on Twitter, online communities were humming with news and commentary on the the conference. (You almost could have followed the entire conference just by following the #toc hash tag at Twitter and accessing the online copies of the presentations.) But if you had done that, you would have missed the fun of being there. There were some superb keynotes and some excellent general sessions." —Bill Trippe, The Gilbane Group
"The O'Reilly #TOC conference is great. If you want to discuss business-as-usual, go to another conference. This one is about the future!" —Michael Hyatt on Twitter, President & CEO of Thomas Nelson
"The great thing about a conference isn't that you may hear one brilliant person that will change your point of view, that's for children of all ages seeking a guru, it's that you can listen to and meet dozens of professionals in your field who all have a little piece of the puzzle to contribute. After you're back home, you can put all those pieces of the puzzle together and pretend that you came up with this great new idea working in a vacuum. Without having yet attended, I can declare that the true tools of change at the Tools of Change conference will be the people, not the technology." —Morris Rosenthal
"I continue to believe that there's no better place than TOC for publishers to make sense of the changing face of the industry." —Kirk Biglione, kirkbiglione.com
"Significantly, within the book world, O'Reilly is known as a technological leader." —David Rothman, TeleRead
"With all the bad news permeating the publishing world, it will be a welcome change to be immersed in the technology and the vision of people focused on future of publishing." —Mike Rankin, Publicious.net
"I love everything O'Reilly does (I was just reminiscing about one of their early books) and will be attending most of Tools of Change…It's a big agenda, the timing is right, and I will certainly be filing a report or two from this conference." —Levi Asher, Literary Kicks
"TOC has quickly become the leading conference on publishing technology; it has filled the hole left by the demise of the lamented Seybold conferences." —Bill Rosenblatt, Copyright and Technology
"While the economy is bad and companies everywhere are looking to cut expenses, TOC is one of those events that's just too important for publishers to miss." —Kirk Biglione, MediaLoper
"The quality of the presentations was excellent—I can't remember the last time I went to an event where the standard was so consistently high." —George Walkley, Life as a beta geek
"As I sit here trying to sift through my experience of the O'Reilly Tools of Change conference that I just attended for three days I realize how much information was shelled out. To think, I not only listened to three days worth of conversations about the digital media but followed every person who was using twitter at the conference getting all of their opinions and links out to reference sites, it is no wonder my head is buzzing." —Tim Middleton, BookNet Canada Blog
"What impressed me the most about this conference was the clear sense of purpose...and the strong point of view..." —David Stack, Digital Media
"…the weather in New York City last week was atrocious, yet O'Reilly Media's TOC conference was sold out—packed to the rafters with publishing industry insiders. That's an obvious sign that TOC is not your typical publishing industry event…Publishers need to educate themselves about the digital world they're living in, and develop their own plan of action. TOC has become a crucial first step in that process." —Medialoper
About TOC 2011
Experience TOC | Who Attends TOC | TOC Kudos | Program Co-Chairs
Driven by the Internet, technology is fundamentally transforming publishing. Creation, development, production, distribution, and consumption have all been touched by the changes and challenges that have accompanied the greatest shifts in publishing since the printing press. Which technologies are important? Which provide exciting business opportunities? And what are the strategic questions you need to consider in adopting new models?
O'Reilly's Tools of Change for Publishing conference connects the people, companies, and organizations asking and answering the questions that will define the future of publishing. (TOC is a nod to the term publishing vets will recognize as referring to the Table of Contents of a book—a deliberate choice signaling our intent to set the agenda for the future of publishing.)
Experience TOC
Now in its fifth year, the O'Reilly TOC Conference features:
Keynote presentations that frame the visions of publishing's future into a meaningful picture
Focused, expert-led breakout sessions covering both analysis and practical advice
Half-day tutorials that dive deep into necessary skills and tools
A relevant Exhibit Hall connecting attendees with the projects, products, and services shaping industry change
Networking events and hallway conversations designed to help all participants connect with like minds
Who Attends TOC
TOC brings together publishing professionals of all kinds, including:
CxOs (CEO, CIO, CFO, CMO, etc.)
Marketing and Sales Professionals
Production managers
Digital content managers
Authors and agents
Business managers in publishing
Content-centric programmers and developers
Publishing industry innovators
Information suppliers
Publishing consultants from companies of any size
IT and Technical Managers
Freelance editors and designers
Researchers, analysts, and business strategists
Publishing industry start-ups
VCs and entrepreneurs
Vendors and suppliers in the publishing ecosystem
TOC 2010 brought together representatives from companies and organizations like: Adobe, American Bible Society, American Booksellers Association, Apple Inc., Association of Canadian Publishers, Barnes & Noble.com, Beacon Press, Publishers Weekly, BookIndustry Study Group, British Standards Institution, Cambridge University Press, Cengage Learning, CFA Institute, Christian Book Distributors, Chronicle Books, Cisco Systems, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, DC Comics, Department of State, DK Publishing, Duke University press, EffectiveUI, Elsevier, Emerald Group Publishing, Ernst & Young Electronic Publishing Services Inc., F+W Media, Fidelity, Frankfurt Book Fair, Georgetown University Press, Globe Pequot Press, Google, Inc., Harlequin Enterprises Ltd., Harper Collins, Harvard University Press, Hewlett Packard Co., Huffington Post, Ingram Content Group, Intel Corp., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Kaplan Publishing, Lonely Planet, Loyola Press, MacMillan, Magazine Publishers of America, Mark Logic, Marvell. McGraw-Hill Professional, Microsoft Press, New Harbinger Publications, New York Public Library, Nielsen BookScan, Oxford University Press, Pearson, Penguin Group US, R R Bowker, RAND Corporation, Random House, Safari Books Online, SAS Institute Inc, Scientific Publishing Services, Simon & Schuster, Sony Electronics Inc., The Museum of Modern Art, The New York Post, The New York Times, Thomas Nelson, Wiley Publishing Inc., and Yale University
TOC 2010 sponsors and exhibitors included: Ingram Content group Inc., Qualcomm, Copia, Impelsys, Innodata Isogen, Adobe, Aptara, Baker & Taylor, Blackboard, Bowker, codeMantra, Connotate, Google, HP, LibreDigital, MagMe, Malloy, Mark Logic, oXygen XML Editor, Chuckwalla, Foxit Software, Jacquette Consulting, Jouve North America, The Media Services Group, PubServ, Safari Books Online, Semedica, Virtusales, Vitrium Systems, and Smashwords.
TOC Kudos
Program Co-Chairs
Andrew Savikas
Andrew Savikas is the VP of Digital Initiatives at O'Reilly Media and is the Program Chair for O'Reilly's Tools of Change for Publishing conference. He blogs at toc.oreilly.com, and is also a regular contributor to the O'Reilly Radar blog.
Andrew leads the digital publishing and ebook program and strategy for O'Reilly Media, including both print and digital production of all O'Reilly books. He sits on several boards, including Safari Books Online, the Book Industry Study Group, and the International Digital Publishing Forum, and is on advisory boards for Bookshare and the University of Michigan Press.
Andrew holds a B.S. in Media Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from Northeastern University in Boston. He speaks frequently on digital publishing and ebooks, and is also the author of Word Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming your Text.
Kat Meyer
Kat Meyer is hopelessly addicted to the world of book publishing, having spent many numbers of years gathering editorial, production and marketing experience working for all manner of regional and national trade and academic publishers, including: HMH, Communication Skill Builders, the University of Arizona Press, Rio Nuevo Publishers, and a few more she can't recall the names of.
Kat is currently rather happily employed by O'Reilly Media as Community Organizer and co-Chair for the Tools of Change for Publishing conference and community, pursuing her obsession with ebooks and other digital booky things. Prior to joining O'Reilly, Kat rocked it as Chief Content Wrangler for Next Chapter Communications, a social media consultancy, where she crafted campaigns for clients including: SourceBooks, NetGalley, AllRomanceE/OmniLit, Adaptive Blue, the University of Arizona Press, Poisoned Pen Press, BookSwim, and numerous other publishers, authors and digital media organizations.
Premier Diamond Sponsor
For information on exhibition and sponsorship opportunities at the conference, contact Sharon Cordesse at scordesse@oreilly.com
Download the TOC Sponsor/Exhibitor Prospectus (PDF)
View a complete list of TOC contacts


Madrid Basketball | shoot some hoops with us!
Our preoccupation with sports comes from all the good they can give to us. It allows us to marvel at the feats the human body can achieve with training, practice and strategy. Sports encourages us to pin our hopes on individuals or corporate entities, known as teams, and experience the joy of mob mentality while cheering them on to victory. That allows us escape from our work and school in daily life and gives us a chance to focus on something other than the bills on the desk or the work waiting to be done. However, when controversy enters the realm of sports it has the ability to dampen all of those positive aspects and make us want to spend our time escaping through something else. Nowhere has that become more evident than in the NBA's controversy with hip-hop music.
The first question one must ask in this controversy is why is a professional sport having a problem with music at all? Other than playing songs before and during games, what does music have to do with basketball? Actually, music as a lot to do with it. Rappers are not only basketball fans but have moved into the realm of corporate sponsors and team owners. Their videos, merchandise and relationships with high-profile players have brought the world above the rim onto the major stage. Critics charge the NBA got into this controversy by exploiting hip-hop to draw crowds into the arena to be a part of this environment. Other say that because hip-hop has its roots in the African-American community which currently dominates professional basketball, it was a natural link. Either way, the baggage that comes with hip-hop music: its roots from being a street form of expression and its current concerns about lyrics involving misogyny, violence and social unrest create an unlikely connection to an American iconic sport.
Jay-Z is part owner of the New Jersey jets.
Media releases from the NBA All-Star game in Las Vegas were filled with as many police reports as on-court statistics. Reports of violence, arrests, shooting, and unlawful behavior made headlines while reports from the game of three point shots, rebounds and passes, remained in the background. Hip Hop music and its gangland connection seem to have taken the brunt of the blame for this turn in the NBA's image. Many columnists and critics point out that other sports have problems with violence and violent actions on behalf of their players. Embracing this possible connection, many well-known street gangs have taken to wearing NBA jerseys of their favorite players and bringing basketball into their world as well. While this may seem to be innocent fan's obsession with their team, the connection between street gangs and NBA basketball is not mutually beneficial.
Anyone of any race can listen to and enjoy hip-hop music. The challenge for the NBA is to separate music from the genre that is violent, dark and unseemly from being a part of their sport and merchandising. They have taken such steps as creating a new dress code and defining behavior both on and off the court for players when representing the NBA. They are hoping to stem the tide of gang-related activity, both on and off the court.
We must always be careful when looking at any trend in music to make sure that our understandings of it are based on statistics and experience and not racial stereotypes and oppressive majority behavior. However, as the scene in basketball shifts from athletic to antisocial, recognition of this controversy and resolving it is imperative for the NBA.