Since the introduction of the orphan drugs legislation in Europe, it has been suggested that the general method of assessing drugs for reimbursement is not necessarily suitable for orphan drugs. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence indicated that several criteria other than cost and efficacy could be considered in reimbursement decisions for orphan drugs. This study sought to explore the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework proposed by (Orphanet J Rare Dis 7:74, 2012) to a range of orphan drugs, with a view to comparing the aggregate scores to the average annual cost per patient for each product, and thus establishing the merit of MCDA as a tool for assessing the value of orphan drugs in relation to their pricings.
An MCDA framework was developed using the nine criteria proposed by (Orphanet J Rare Dis 7:74, 2012) for the evaluation of orphan drugs, using the suggested numerical scoring system on a scale of 1 to 3 for each criterion. Correlations between the average annual cost of the drugs and aggregate MCDA scores were tested and plotted graphically. Different weightings for each of the attributes were also tested. A further analysis was conducted to test the impact of including the drug cost as an attribute in the aggregate index scores.
In the drugs studied, the R 2, that statistically measures how close the data are to the fitted regression line was 0.79 suggesting a strong correlation between the drug scores and the average annual cost per patient.
Despite several limitations of the proposed model, this quantitative study provided insight into using MCDA and its relationship to the average annual costs of the products.
In recent years, substantial criticism has arisen regarding the way in which orphan drugs are reviewed in health technology assessments (HTAs), in particular with respect of their inability to meet cost-effectiveness standards for reimbursement decisions . In some countries, the orphan drugs are reimbursed despite their lack of meeting cost-effectiveness thresholds, yet in others, such as in Scotland, reimbursement has been denied on the basis of a lack of cost-effectiveness. For example, alglucosidase alfa was refused reimbursement on the basis that "The economic case has not been demonstrated" . Information regarding the cost-effectiveness of orphan drugs is derived from economic evaluations, such as cost-effectiveness analyses or cost-utility studies . Such studies involve comparing the new drug with the existing treatment options . The perceived advantage of the current HTAs – that includes cost-effectiveness - is that they provide an output, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) that is intended to make the outcomes of the different technologies comparable across different diseases. However, there is concern that valuing healthcare interventions mostly based on cost-effectiveness is a form of healthcare rationing, in particular since cost-effectiveness only takes two criteria (cost and efficacy) into consideration, and that using the ICER may limit the potential treatment options available to patients by excluding potentially worthwhile alternatives . For example, in England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has adopted a nominal cost-per-QALY threshold of £20,000 to £30,000 . However, if the cost-effectiveness analysis of a drug yields a cost-per-QALY that is substantially higher than the guide threshold, it might be refused funding.
Furthermore, concern has been raised that because of their costs, in addition to the frequent lack of suitable comparators, and the difficulties of demonstrating robust efficacy in small patient populations, orphan drugs are not deemed (robustly) cost-effective under the standard methods of HTA [1, 3]. This potentially results in patients not having access to potentially valuable treatments .
While the debate regarding the applicability of cost-effectiveness analysis for orphan drugs has been ongoing, multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has been suggested as an alternative to the standard HTA methodology for assessing orphan drugs . MCDA is a methodology for supporting decision making when multiple objectives, aside from cost and efficacy, have to be assessed . For example, other aspects that may need to be considered are the availability of alternative treatments, disease prevalence and disease severity. MCDA has been extensively used to support a wide variety of complex decision problems in non-health industries, such as geographic information systems , banking and finance  and environmental policy issues for many years . In the last few years, interest in the use of MCDAs in healthcare has increased. MCDA has been adopted in a number of studies in healthcare [13–15]. MCDA has not yet been used exclusively in HTAs in place of cost-effectiveness studies, although The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) in the UK occasionally adopt an MCDA approach, in that they consider cost-effectiveness as well as several other criteria [16, 17].
MCDAs provide a structured framework for the comparison of multiple options (or criteria) relating to a drug or a disease. Through engagement with a broad range of potential stakeholders, that can include clinicians, decision makers and the public, MCDAs allow the different perspectives for the preferences of the criteria and their relative importance in rare diseases to be taken into account [18, 19]. Because MCDAs offer a number of ways of aggregating the data of the individual criteria, they inherently provide a system for ranking healthcare interventions . Through weighting the importance of the different criteria, MCDAs allow for clear trade-offs between various criteria [21, 22]. One of the main points, and indeed part of the impetus for change by health services, in particular the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, is the aim of including wider aspects of social and economic value in healthcare assessments, rather than to use "health gain" as the sole currency of value in the NHS . Because it is designed to consider a broad set of criteria and their values, the MCDA offers a framework that is robust, transparent and can be flexible in assessing orphan drugs for different diseases [24, 25], and in particular fills a current void in appropriate mechanisms to assess the value of orphan drugs.
Considering the criticisms of existing HTA processes, several attempts have been made at using alternative methods to inform decision makers on the appropriate allocation of healthcare funds. In 2012, Hughes-Wilson et al.  developed an MCDA algorithm that assesses a medicine based on multiple criteria. The aims of this study were to apply the MCDA framework that was proposed by Hughes-Wilson et al.  to a range of orphan drugs in different diseases, with a view to testing the relationship between drug price and aggregated MCDA scores for each product.
An MCDA framework was developed using the nine suggested criteria , which included: Rarity, level of research undertaken, Level of uncertainty of effectiveness, Manufacturing complexity, Follow-up measures, Disease severity, Available treatment alternatives, Level of impact of disease, and Unique indication or not. The Follow-up measures refers to any additional requirements by regulatory or similar authorities. The Level of impact of disease refers to the extent to which the new technology impacts on the disease in question. Each of these criteria are further described in Table 1.
Six orphan drugs were identified for the prototype evaluation for which data were obtained from Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC) and European public assessment reports (EPAR). A literature search was performed to identify relevant clinical trials for each of the drugs. Data relating to the results for the criteria included in the study were extracted. Furthermore, the literature review included disease-specific peer-reviewed publications and patient advocacy organisations to extract data relating to disease severity and the impact of disease on patients.
The six drugs were selected for the study based on the wide range of average annual cost per patient for each drug, as well as the wide range of diseases which they treat. Furthermore, some were included due to the consistently negative media coverage they receive. The average annual cost is based solely on the cost of the drugs, and therefore excludes any additional costs, such as those related to administration of the drugs or any ancillary items for intravenously administered drugs. These drugs were also selected to represent different degrees of the rarity of the diseases they treat, based on the categorisation provided in the proposed framework on which this study is founded. For example, a disease with a prevalence of 1 per 2,000 to 1 per 20,000 population (highest prevalence level) scored 1. The drugs included are indicated for: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), Mucopolysaccharidosis VI (MPS VI), Mucopolysaccharidosis II (MPS II), Paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria (PNH), Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS) and Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS).
Based on the scoring approach suggested , each criterion was allocated a numerical score, from 1 to 3, where 1 indicated the lowest level of attribution allocated. This simple numerical scoring system avoids the need for an expert panel to score the different criteria. The average dose per patient was calculated from product SPCs, taking account of the dose variation for drugs that are used in children (e.g. Mucopolysaccharidosis VI), versus those most likely to be used only in adults (e.g. Myelodysplastic syndromes) without any specific weighting of paediatric versus adult use. Using the average dose, the average annual cost per patient was calculated from published prices in the British National Formulary (BNF) and converted into Euros (January 2014 exchange rates). Due to pricing confidentiality, official list prices were adopted for the drugs included in this study. For the purposes of this model, all drugs were assumed to be used routinely as indicated in the SPC for a total of 1 year.
The relationship between the average annual cost of each drug and aggregate MCDA scores were tested and plotted graphically. Weighting preferences, as tabulated in Table 1, were applied to the different criteria to assess how the results might differ. The weighting preferences were not based on primary data collection but rather by using 3 scenario tests. In the first scenario, all criteria were weighted equally. In the second scenario, the criteria of Level of Research Undertaken, Level of Effectiveness Uncertainty, Manufacturing Complexity and Unique Indication or Not were excluded, on the basis that these criteria are not likely to be considered by HTA bodies. In the third scenario, only the criteria of Manufacturing Complexity and Unique Indication or Not were excluded from the analysis to establish how inclusion of Level of Research Undertaken and Level of Effectiveness Uncertainty might influence the outcomes compared to Scenario 2 (Table 2).
The overall scores achieved for each drug, including the contribution of the individual criteria scores to the total are depicted in Fig. 1. The drug scores were plotted against the average annual cost per patient for each drug as shown in Fig. 2. In the drugs studied, the R 2 was 0.7869 suggesting a strong correlation between the drug scores and the average annual cost per patient. In other words, the higher the drug's aggregate score, the more likely it was to have a high average per patient cost.
The scenario analyses demonstrate that by applying different weights to the criteria, the ranking of the drugs change, in particular, for those drugs whose average annual cost per patient features on the higher end of the scale (Fig. 3).
This study sought to test the MCDA framework proposed by Hughes-Wilson et al.  to establish if such a simple framework, both in the suggested criteria and the simplistic scoring system, could be used to inform in decision making in the reimbursement of drugs. MCDA is a framework that through the choice of appropriate criteria, can assist decision makers in healthcare. We believe that although the suggested framework provided a tool worth testing, and provided initial insights into the application of MCDA as a method of assessing orphan drugs, it did not capture some of the essential criteria. This might be because the proposed framework may have been developed from a pharmaceutical company perspective, since it is unlikely that a HTA body would consider Manufacturing complexity and the Unique indication or not for which a drug is licensed as relevant criteria when assessing orphan drugs for reimbursement decisions.
Furthermore, other important limitations of this MCDA framework would need to be addressed before MCDA frameworks could be considered. One such limitation is the scoring system that was proposed and therefore adopted. It is a simplistic numerical scoring system from 1 to 3 that implies that a change in a criterion from a score of 1 carries the same value as the change from a score of 2 to 3. Similarly, the proposed framework did not allow for weighting of the criteria, yet in reality it can be anticipated that criteria should be weighted differently to accommodate the degree of importance of criteria.
A further limitation of the study is that the scenario testing adopted in this study excluded those criteria such as Level of Research Undertaken, Level of Effectiveness Uncertainty, Manufacturing Complexity and Unique Indication or Not. Whilst this was done on the basis that these criteria are not likely to be taken into account by HTA bodies, it limits the number of criteria that are then reflected fully. Whilst this proposed framework may inform in the decision making for orphan drugs, it does not offer insights for comparing resource allocation of orphan drugs with non-orphan drugs. Future MCDA frameworks should include a broader range of criteria that better reflect the Efficacy and Safety of the drugs. This may potentially lead to MCDA frameworks being disease-specific so that Efficacy can be captured in relation to the disease. The downside of such a framework however, would be that it would not allow for comparisons of drugs across different therapy areas.
One of the criticisms of current HTA cost-effectiveness analyses is that these are largely viewed from a healthcare perspective, and may fail to include the patient and societal perspectives . This also raises questions as to whether MCDA should be applied from a single perspective or whether attributes can reflect varied perspectives. Future MCDA models could potentially include criteria to represent multiple perspectives, that will allow for several additional analyses of the impact of criteria on decision making.
Since resources in healthcare at both the public and privately funded levels are scarce, cost-effectiveness analyses have been adopted in decision making to ensure the efficient use of finite resources with a view to maximising health benefits [27, 28]. This intention of the proposed MCDA framework  was to suggest a robust way for decision makers to conduct a comparative assessment of orphan drugs. However, the authors of the proposed MCDA framework did not suggest how the tool could be used to address issues of healthcare resource allocation. We would expect that the use of MCDA will first have to undergo further studies and an adjudication or validation process, and that it is likely that MCDA composite score thresholds of affordability and healthcare resource efficiency might be used.
We had aimed to compare the composite scores for each of the drugs with published ICERs as a way of establishing if parallels could be drawn between the two sets of data. However, due to the paucity of published ICERs for all six drugs in the same country, we were unable to perform this comparison. We suggest that future MCDA frameworks take ICERs into account as an external "validation".
Increasingly MCDA tools are being developed for healthcare purposes. For example, The Evidence and Value: Impact on Decision Making (EVIDEM) group proposed a "core" MCDA framework for use in healthcare . The aim of the EVIDEM framework is to support the prioritisation of a broad range of healthcare interventions, such that priority is given to the intervention that obtains the highest rank. Because the EVIDEM MCDA model was developed for a wide range of healthcare decisions (including services, products, drugs) it is a complex model with far more criteria than the MCDA framework adopted in this study.
The region of Lombardia in Italy has adopted an MCDA approach to regulate the introduction of new health technologies. Their MCDA is based on the EVIDEM framework. The introduction of this formal MCDA model stemmed from the desire to balance goals of continuous innovation with the needs of steady cost containment, and to instill uniformity and transparency in a process that may be highly complex. While subjectivity cannot be completely removed, the framework seeks to minimise discretion in decision making and to produce decisions perceived as legitimate by all the stakeholders . The EVIDEM framework has also been used in Canada by healthcare payers, in a way of bridging MCDA with health technology assessments .
Since many rare diseases can have severe consequences on health and health-related quality of life , Disease Severity is a criterion of substantial importance in assessing the benefits of orphan drugs on health-related outcomes in patients. Although one would expect Disease Severity to influence reimbursement decision-making, its application in reimbursement decisions is not widely known. By contrast, the MCDA tool allows for consideration of the severity of a disease. Because of the often complex nature of rare diseases, we believe that Disease Severity should be sub-divided into 4 sub-criteria of Disease-related mortality, How symptomatic the disease is, Mental status (anxiety / depression), Physical implications and/or disability.
The criterion Unmet Need is one that deserves further clarification for its application in MCDA. Whilst the framework does not allow for it to have sub-criteria, we feel that the unmet need in a disease is not only dependent on the number of other available drugs for the disease, but also the benefit that is likely to be gained from the alternative treatment(s). In the highly specialised technology (HST) guidance in England, NICE does consider the Unmet need when assessing drugs for very rare conditions . In The Netherlands, the ministry introduced a temporary scheme for orphan drugs, that recognises both the lack of cost-effectiveness data and the high unmet need that new orphan drugs address . Similarly, the criterion Level of research undertaken is simplified, and we believe that it should reflect the three sub-criteria of Level of trials undertaken, Trial duration, Size of trial.
A criterion that we would recommend in future MCDA models is Treatment Convenience. Our rationale for this suggestion is that since some drugs may need to be administered regularly by non-oral routes i.e injection or intravenously, these may impact significantly on overall treatment costs, an aspect of treatment worth including in drug assessments. Taking account solely of the drug cost is not an accurate reflection of the total cost of a patient's treatment.
We appreciate that the framework proposed by Hughes-Wilson et al.  was intended as a basic starting point for the adoption of MCDAs in assessing orphan drugs. However, its simplicity fails to capture a key criterion that HTA bodies would consider, in particular that of Safety. Following further research, we recommend that Safety should be divided into 3 sub-criteria that include Serious adverse events (in clinical trials), Drug discontinuation due to adverse events, and Treatment-related mortality.
A simple ordinal scoring system was applied in this model, with equal importance between grades. Despite potential criticism about the imprecision of a simple numerical scoring system, the rationale for its use is due to its simplicity and that it does not require an expert panel to adjudicate the value of one criterion against another, as would be the case in outranking methods , satisficing methods  and value measurement methods . Furthermore, it does not require the use of special computer software.
In this exploration of the proposed MCDA model, we adopted simple scenario testing to measure the impact of weighting the criteria differently. Although the 3 scenarios demonstrated a slight difference in the ranking of the drugs, weighting is none the less a feature of MCDAs that requires further investigation. A recent publication  which was identified in the literature review examined eight weighted criteria that were considered important for orphan drug approvals. These were categorised by either the Impact of disease/extend of unmet medical need, which included Availability of existing treatment, Disease survival prognosis with current standard of care (SOC), Disease morbidity and patient clinical disability with current SOC, Social impact of disease on patients' and carers' daily lives with current SOC, or the Impact of new medicine, which considered the criteria of Treatment innovation, Evidence of treatment efficacy, Evidence of treatment safety, Social impact on treatment on patients' and carers' daily lives. The 8 criteria were weighted in different scenarios by two groups, of which one were "clinical/economic experts" and the other were patient advocates. The clinical/economic experts put more weight on efficacy, whereas the patient advocates weighed treatment efficacy and impact on daily lives equally. While the scenario testing proved insightful, it is worth noting that some of the criteria included in the study would not necessarily be ones that HTA bodies consider, such as those that focus on the social aspects of the rare disease and the social impact of the new drug. Due to the differences in the criteria considered in the aforementioned study , we felt that we could not adopt their weighting preferences in testing our model. However, any weighting that might be applied to a MCDA model can be tailored by an HTA body or decision maker to reflect local preferences.
The R-squared value of 0.7869, the response variable variation that is explained by a linear model, suggests a good correlation between the average annual cost per patient and each drug's aggregate score. This implies that as the MCDA score per drug increases, so does the average annual cost. However, there are limitations to using R-squared in that it cannot determine whether or not the coefficient estimates and predictions are biased. Additional regression analyses should be included in future studies on MCDAs to test the best-fit.
It would be ideal to subject a new method or model for assessing drugs, irrespective of the perspective from which it is conducted, to an external process of validation. To the best of our knowledge, the framework that the authors proposed  has not been tested nor validated. At this point, the proposed model is conceptual and would be subjected to validation once the criteria and other aspects, such as the methodology pertaining to the scoring and weighting, have been refined.
A drawback of MCDA frameworks is that they do not inform on the budget impact of the drugs in question. However, it is fair to point out that cost-effective analyses that report on ICERs also do not express the budgetary impact and consequently do not inform on the viability of adopting a new technology from the healthcare system perspective [38, 39]. We suggest that when developing MCDA tools in the future, it might be appropriate to include a criterion to assess the budget impact, based on the likely patient population that would be treated with each drug in the health economy for which the tool is developed. This process could be standardised by using the budget impact template provided by the Scottish Medicines Consortium .
In the future, a key criterion that should be included in MCDAs is the health-related quality of life (HRQoL), which is frequently reported on in clinical trials, and which is likely to reflect the impact of the disease and new treatment on the patients than the social aspects captured by Sussex et al. .
The framework proposed by Hughes-Wilson et al.  has provided a small insight into the application of MCDAs to orphan drugs. At the time of this study, the ISPOR MCDA Task Force reports and guidelines had not been published, and in future these should be closely considered. It is worth noting that several other criteria would offer additional insights to the overall product aggregate. In a market constrained by costs, a product aggregate score that includes criteria for innovation and HRQoL could assist decision makers considerably. The strength of MCDAs in reimbursement decisions for orphan drugs is that they provide transparency and robustness, and unlike traditional HTA methods, assess more than merely cost-effectiveness. Defining the criteria at the outset is crucial to ensure that overlap between criteria is avoided. Furthermore, it is essential that the criteria are not selected merely to favour a preferred outcome. Weighting the criteria may be complicated, and dependent on the perspective of the assessment . Future work will include research to understand the weights of different criteria and how they affect the outcomes; and to compare HTA decisions with MCDA outcomes.
No funding was made and no payment was received for this research.
CS was involved in the conception and design of the MCDA model, and carried out the analyses and interpretation of the data, in addition to drafting the manuscript. MC reviewed the model and manuscript. MP and PK contributed to the design of the model and writing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Prof Maarten J Postma has received grants and honoraria from various pharmaceutical companies in the past but unrelated to this manuscript.
All co-authors have consented to publication of this manuscript. No person's data has been included in this study.
Ethics approval was not required as no animals nor humans were involved in this study.
Orr S, Wolff J, Morris S. What Values Should Count in HTA for New Medicines under Value Based Pricing in the UK? UCL Centre for Philosophy, Justice and Health. 2011: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/health-humanities/docs/mcda.pdf. Accessed Mar 2016.


What if you got a Fix-it-Ticket when driving your company's vehicle?
Can you get the ticket placed in your company's name?
Who is responsible to take care of the ticket?
If you got a Fix-it-Ticket when driving your company's vehicle, can you get the ticket placed in your company's name?
If your company is willing to accept responsibility for the Fix-it ticket, they can tell the Court and ask for a transfer of responsibility.
An authorized representative of your company must ask for the transfer in writing. The letter must be signed and on company letterhead.
The Commissioner will review the letter and make a decision. The Commissioner is more likely to approve a transfer if the citation is for a mechanical violation.
If you were the driver and you signed the citation, you are responsible for taking care of the violation.
If you get the ticket signed off and show proof of correction to the court by the due date, the Court may dismiss the charge(s).
If this happens, you will have to pay a dismissal fee, but you won't have to come back to court.
Proof of Corrections ("Fix-it Ticket"


text:
Happy eaterFamily
Salt beef sandwiches, my dad and me
My father Des was always there to remind me that there are more important things than lunch
"We each of us have ways to say goodbye, a salt beef sandwich is one of mine." Photograph: Manuel Vazquez for Observer Food Monthly.
Jay Rayner
Wed 14 May 2014 07.00 EDT
It is two days before my father's funeral, and I am sitting in a railway arch just south of Tower Bridge, staring at a salt beef sandwich the size of my head. Des Rayner loved a good salt beef sandwich, and I like to think he would have approved of this one: the thick slices of pink meat the colour of a baby's cheek, the smear of mustard that will make you sniff, the rye bread keeping it all in order. We each of us have our ways of saying goodbye to those we have loved, and this is one of mine.
Unlike his son, Des was not interested in the variety of the table, and every greedy man needs someone like that in their lives. He wasn't so much disdainful of my appetites as bemused. It was useful for a long speech of mine on the joys of, say, the latest faux rustic French paysanne bistro to be met with the "and?" of a raised eyebrow. Des was always there to remind me that there are actually more important things in life than lunch.
But then the simple pleasures would come along – well-made fish and chips, good chocolate, this salt beef sandwich – and he would be in there with the best of them. When someone dies it's easy to imbue almost anything with significance, but I do think this sandwich passes the test. Though he was in no way religious it links him to a kind of Jewish community now all but lost. He was born in 1928, the same year as Mickey Mouse and talking pictures, amid the last gasp of Hackney's Jewish East End. He was born long ago enough to remember an uncle from the old country, who spoke only Yiddish, and laughed at the punchlines to jokes my dad couldn't hope to understand. It was an Ashkenazi community with the smell of chicken fat in its hair.
Des travelled far from those beginnings, a serious schlep by taxi to the cherry-blossomed suburbs of north-west London. I do not idealise him: he had so many neuroses he must have bought them wholesale. But it drove me nuts that he never quite understood the scale of his achievements, for achievements they were.
Jay and his father Des in 2012. Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Observer
He took the opportunity of free higher education earned in national service to train as an actor, and worked with both Tony Quayle at Stratford, and Tony Hancock on TV. He was a fashion PR, my mother's manager, and most importantly a superb artist, whose work was still being exhibited in the West End just months before his death. And yet through all this he never forgot where he had started. He still had a taste for a good salt beef sandwich.
He was admitted to hospital in February and was quickly complaining about the food. It actually wasn't bad; it just wasn't what he needed. So I came here to Monty's Deli in this south London railway arch and asked for the makings: the salt beef, the bread, the mustard. I took it to hospital, a food flat pack waiting to be assembled, but it never came out of the bag. He didn't want it. In truth, he didn't want to be here any more. He'd done an extraordinary job of living on for three years after my mother's death and now he'd had enough. No bloody sandwich was going to do the job. But now that he's gone, it's exactly what does it for me. It doesn't cure me of grief. And it certainly doesn't bring Des back. But God knows, it helps.
Jay Rayner pays tribute to his mother Claire
Happy eater
Clean eating: yet another pious diet to squeeze the joy out of good food
Burnt toast? Spare ribs? Why the dirtiest food is the most delicious
The end of the world is nigh. Time for a bacon sandwich
Why I'm so bored with superfoods
Why posh restaurants are wasted on the rich
Why you won't catch me queuing for a burger
You don't like tripe? You're not trying hard enough

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
I'm using LG's 27-inch 1440p gaming monitor to share its lowest price ever for Black Friday
By John Levite
A great screen well worth its price.
(Image credit: Amazon)
Grab a new gaming monitor with the LG UltraGear 27-inch display on sale for just $249.99 at Amazon (opens in new tab). This is the lowest price ever for LG's popular display. The monitor has peaked as high as $380 this year and more regularly sells for around $300. This drop is only the second time it has ever gone below $280.
LG UltraGear 27-inch gaming monitor $300 $249.99 at Amazon (opens in new tab)
You get 1440p pixel resolution, a 144Hz refresh rate, a 1ms response time, and an IPS panel. It's also compatible with both Nvidia and AMD graphics cards to help reduce screen tearing while gaming.
I actually use a double monitor setup that features two of these 27-inch screens side-by-side. They are great gaming monitors, but they're also good for a lot of other things like writing posts about great gaming monitors. In fact, technically one of the monitors is the LG UltraGear 27GL850-B (opens in new tab), which is very similar but includes a USB hub on the back. It also on sale for Black Friday and down to just $269.99, only $20 more.
The 27-inch screen includes a pixel resolution of 2560 x 1440, a refresh rate of 144Hz, and a response time of 1ms. It manages all that even with an IPS panel, which has fantastic viewing angles and color accuracy.
As a gaming monitor, it has AMD FreeSync natively that helps reduce screen tearing when connected to an AMD graphics card. It is also Nvidia G-Sync compatible so you can get the same thing with a Nvidia graphics card that's new enough and connected via DisplayPort. You'll want to connect via DisplayPort anyway because that's the best way to ensure the maximum refresh rate, too.
You can forego the stand and connect this monitor to an arm or wall mount. That's what I do. If you're interested, I use this Fully arm mount (opens in new tab) for both of my monitors (15% off for Black Friday).
John Levite
J.D. Levite has been in the deals game since 2012. He has posted daily deals at Gizmodo, The Wirecutter, The Sweethome, and now covers deals for Android Central, iMore, and Windows Central. He was there for the first Prime Day and has braved the full force of Black Friday. If you cut him, he bleeds savings. But don't try it for real. That's a metaphor.
The Razer Edge is awesome but I wish they'd kept making phones instead
Dear Microsoft: I don't want you to remind me later, just take NO for an answer
Vertagear's SL5800 gaming chair is colorful, comfy, and easy to build — it's almost perfect


Cats are great for drawing practice. But they will keep moving - you often see cat studies with lots of cats on the page - and if you have a cat as a life model you need to have a lot of paper! However, if you wait long enough they start to repeat the poses you had to give up on and catnapping offers just enough time to get something down on paper.
I've been drawing cats for a long time and used to exhibit with theSociety of Feline Artists.
All drawings have been done from life, come from various sketchbooks and are of cat-napping - which is my cats' version of 'still life'!
Chloe and Guinness were my early 'life' model mogs.
Cosmo (a Somali) and Polly (an Abyssinian), seen below as kittens, have been the pedigree subject matter since 2000.


Running a business means making decisions. Making good decisions means good outcomes for your business, but unfortunately there are all sorts of things standing between you and those good decisions you need to make. Quite apart from simply not having the information you need to make the best choice, the human brain itself is a complex instrument and as prey to frustrating, inexplicable errors as your printer.
Today we're taking a look at some of these mental traps, and ways you can avoid them to help you shore up your decision-making process.
When you're researching a topic, you're likely to anchor on a single piece of information – likely the first you read – and assign it undue significance. This means, for one thing, that you're likely to think this is the most serious cognitive bias that could afflict your decision-making!
As a business owner, you're going to have delve into unfamiliar fields all the time, and if you allow yourself to over-weight arbitrarily decided bits of information, you're going to be making decisions that don't align with how the world really works.
To avoid this, it makes sense to get some expert help with unfamiliar areas. For example, if you're delving into market research, find a market research firm who can not just help you get the figures you want but also educate you about what they mean, and put the insights into action. Discover how market research companies can help you here.
Less metaphysical than it sounds, the curse of knowledge means that the more specialist you are, the harder it is for you to see things from someone without that knowledge.
This sounds like a problem for lawyers, doctors and teachers, so how does it affect you in business? Well, for one thing, you're an expert in your business but your customers and clients are. You need to be sure you're communicating to your customers in terms they can understand, not just terms you can understand. This is something that needs to be understood by every level and team, from marketing to customer service – you might have a wonderful customer service team, falling over themselves to resolve your customers problems, but if they cloak their communications in jargon it's just going to annoy customers needlessly.
When you're making budgetary decisions, it's too easy to make a quick saving today while avoiding long term savings that are far more significant over time.
The false economy is a saving that costs you more in the long run than you've saved in the first place. There are easy ways to avoid this, but imagining you can do without them is itself a tempting false economy so you'll need to commit early on to a policy of responsible, long term management. This will allow you to invest in risk and lost management specialists and protect your business from the short termism that blights that's such a serious risk.


The Way, The Truth • View topic - What's in a Name?
What does that mean to everybody?
It means that God came to earth to take the place of the lamb sacrifice and to ultimately become the true Lamb, who is of God. He died in place of our sins, just as the lambs did. But He is the Holy Lamb of God for His sacrifice was one and for all. Since the Lamb has be sacrificed, we must, as the Israelite did, consume the lamb. If the lamb wasn't consumed in the Old Testament, the first born children would die. Also, the sacrifice was also made null and void. Thus, Christ created the Lamb's Supper. In this, we receive the grace given through His sacrifice.


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← March Events and Best NYC Restaurants (03/26)
March Events + 6 Top Online Travel Forums (03/28) →
March Events + NYCity on You-Tube & Pinterest (03/27)
Pre Covid-19 we searched the internet everyday looking for the very best of What's Happening, primarily on Manhattan's WestSide, so that you don't have to." We made it as easy as 1-2-3.
GD: Covid-19 has made much of the following event info outdated. Stay Safe.
For future NYC Events, check the tab above: "March NYC Events" It's the most comprehensive list of top events this month that you will find anywhere.Carefully curated from "Only the Best" NYC event info on the the web, it's a simply superb resource that will help you plan your NYC visit all over town, all through the month.
OR to make your own after dinner plans TONIGHT, see the tab above; "LiveMusic."
For the month of March we are going to try a different format – on some days we will go visual and offer a selection of the very best NYCity Instagram photos, YouTube videos, or Pinterest Pins. On other days you will find info on the Best NYC Restaurants or Top OnlineTravel Forums with NYC info. We hope you will come back often to see what's cooking here. Today it's NYCity on You-Tube & Pinterest.
There are some very fine YouTube videos and Pinterest Pins that cover New York City and are endlessly fascinating. Here are some of my faves:
Treasures of New York: American Museum of Natural History
Central Park – Everything You Need to Know
Best Food Carts in New York City
How to photograph New York City from a Helicopter
The best of New York City in a few days trip
Treasures of New York: The New-York Historical Society
NYC Photography History
NYC: Explained
NYC Travel Tips
NYC Photography locations
NYC Photography Manhattan
We hope you enjoy this change of pace, then please return here April 1, and every day for our daily, hot off the presses event guide with "Only the Best" NYCity event info.
nycpicks 5 BEST THINGS TO DO THIS WEEKEND
At-home Broadway action from 'Stars in the House'
With Broadway gone dark until further notice, SiriusXM Broadway host Seth Rudetsky and his husband, producer-performer James Wesley, are producing "Stars in the House,"
a daily mini-show presented online only. The show features stage and screen stars such as Kelli O'Hara, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Sara Bareilles and more performing live from the healthy confines of their own homes, as well as clever conversation between the married pair.
WHEN 2 and 8 p.m. daily
INFO Streams available at actorsfund.org.
Met Opera, streaming nightly
The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic caused the Metropolitan Opera to cancel the rest of its 2019-2020 season. Buffs can still enjoy nights at the opera by viewing past performances from the Met's "Live in HD" series streamed online daily for 20 hours; the streams will also be available via On Demand apps for Apple and Amazon plus Roku devices and Samsung Smart TV. Broadcast information, updated timings and cuesheets will be posted Thursday nights. Among the performances you can catch is "La Traviata" starring Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Florez (pictured).
WHEN Programs start at 7:30 p.m. and stream until 3:30 p.m. the following day
INFO metopera.org
Take an NYC-based online yoga class
Instructor Anita Haravon (pictured) and the folks at All Beings Yoga have found a way to help the masses find inner peace by offering one-hour Live Stream Yoga sessions. Registered participants will receive a meeting link by email five minutes before each online class begins. WHEN 9:30 a.m. Saturday-Sunday and 7 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday
INFO $20 per class; register at allbeingsyoga.com
Tour the Guggenheim from a social distance
Like other museums, the Guggenheim is closed, but it's got a heck of an online presence. Visit the museum's site to hear Guggenheim staffers and radio host Roman Mars discuss the museum's architecture and to view lots of its collection or take a virtual tour via Google Arts and Culture (artsandculture.google.com)
INFO Free to view and hear; guggenheim.org
92nd Street Y performances go online only
92nd Street Y, like all other city performance spaces, has suspended its in-person programs, but you can still see its shows, many of which will be streamed live for the time being. Among the shows scheduled to stream: a 3 p.m. Sunday performance by pianist Anthony de Mare (pictured), who will be paying tribute to the iconic composer Stephen Sondheim, who just celebrated his 90th birthday.
INFO 92y.org
GD: In the age of Covid-19 this info from City Guide is one of the best sources of info on What's Happening, even if it's only available in your home, and not in your favorite venue. Stay Safe.
Things to Do This Week in NYC (3/18-3/24)
by City Guide News Desk
"Most cities are nouns. New York City is a verb."—John F. Kennedy
New Yorkers and tourists alike are impacted by COVID-19, but we are resilient. Read on for the latest info about entertainment resources, restaurants still serving amazing meals, closures, and more.
NYC RESOURCES
The Metropolitan Opera will be streaming operas FREE nightly.
The New York Public Library has access to more than 300,000 FREE e-books and e-audio books.
NYC Health information page for COVID-19.
NYC restaurant world information.
15 Broadway shows you can watch from home.
Broadway performances live—from stars' living rooms.
51 New York TV shows and movies.
5 eras of New York to enjoy in books and movies.
2,500 museums and galleries you can visit virtually.
Livestreamed fitness classes.
Fun at-home activities for kids.
6 podcast series to help you understand New York.
Discover the best of New York, from hidden gems to iconic landmarks, through The New York Landmarks Conservancy's "Tourist in your own Town" Video Series.
(3/19-3/29) 2020 Queens World Film Festival will be streaming online. The festival presents cinematic treasures presented in thematic blocks from filmmakers residing all over the globe—yet all engaged in similar conversations.
NYC UPDATES
On Thursday, March 12, New York City declared a State of Emergency, due to the spread of COVID-19. We are updating this page about closures as quickly as possible.
As of Sunday, March 15, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered that bars and restaurants must close to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, but venues may expand their takeout capacity. A timeline for reopening is to be determined.
Some other travel guidance notes from the CDC:
Foreign nationals who have been in China or Iran within the past 14 days cannot enter the United States.
U.S. citizens, residents, and their immediate family members who have been in China or Iran within in the past 14 days can enter the United States, but they are subject to health monitoring and possible quarantine for up to 14 days.
On March 11, a similar policy was expanded to include 26 European countries for a period of 30 days.
On March 14, a similar policy was issued to include the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.
Additionally, CDC has issued the following additional specific travel guidance related to COVID-19.
Harlem Meer/Facebook.
As of Monday, March 16, Governor Cuomo waived all state park fees. It's a good opportunity to go with family or friends outdoors, to city or state parks, while still observing social distancing.
NYC CLOSURES
As of March 17, The High Line is closed indefinitely.
*All Broadway shows are now closed until April 12.
*American Museum of Natural History closed indefinitely.
*Brooklyn Bowl is closed indefinitely.
*Brooklyn Museum is closed indefinitely.
*Circle Line service suspended through May.
*The Color Factory is closed temporarily.
*Hornblower is closed until April 5.
*Edge observation deck is closed temporarily.
*Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is closed through March 27.
*Kings Theatre closed indefinitely.
*9/11 Memorial & Museum closed indefinitely.
*New-York Historical Society is closed through the end of April.
*Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum closed through the end of April.
*Lincoln Center Theater closed indefinitely.
*Whitney Museum of Art closed indefinitely.
*Metropolitan Opera is closed indefinitely.
*Metropolitan Museum of Art is closed indefinitely. Also, this year's Met Gala has been postponed.
*Morgan Library & Museum is closed through April 30.
*Museum of Modern Art closed through March 30.
*National Geographic Encounter: Ocean Odyssey is closed through April 12.
*All NCAA March Madness tournaments are cancelled; NBA will reassess in 30 days. NHL games are suspended.
*Major League Baseball is suspending spring training and pushing back opening day.
*The Kentucky Derby will be postponed until September.
*Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, and the Beacon Theatre are closed.
*Barclays Center is temporarily closed.
*Madame Tussauds is closed.
*New York Botanical Garden is temporarily closed.
*The Apollo Theatre is temporarily closed.
*The Shed is closed through March 30.
*Ripley's Times Square is closed through March 27.
*Rose Mansion is temporarily closed.
All gyms are closed, along with movie theaters and casinos.
ARTECHOUSE NYC is now temporarily closed. This pioneering digital gallery, new to Chelsea, has launched the #SupportARTECHOUSE campaign. Anytime Access passes can be purchased at a discount and redeemed for a later visit at any ARTECHOUSE location, which includes D.C. and Miami in addition to NYC. You can find this offer, as well as the option to simply donate to support the future of large-scale digital art, HERE.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged March Events, March events NYC, March NYC events, NYC Events, NYC Events Today, NYCity on You-Tube & Pinterest., nycpicks 5 BEST THINGS TO DO THIS WEEKEND. Bookmark the permalink.


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Here We Go Again: Science
I love a good meme. Especially the haughty ones that are just so full of crap.
We have discussed science at this site until our tongues froze up and your ears started to bleed, but once again I find myself in the position of educator, and I must insert the wisdom I've gained in my lifelong quest for the truth.
Let us take a quick look at the medical science of 200 years ago, 1822.
From our article, History of Medicine 1800-1850, there were just about 100 medicines available to "conventional physicians," mostly herbal but always there was that inorganic compound, calomel or as we call it today, mercury, a favorite among the "regulars." And the "regulars" of this period were mainly focused on making a living and monopolizing medicine.
Let us jump to 1847, the formation of the AMA, American Medical Association, which became medicine's first lobbying agency, and would not be their last. We now have over 1,300 registered lobbyists for the pharmaceutical and health product industry, and almost just as many for medicine, medical insurance, and the like. Medicine is big money.
Science, eh?
The science of medicine 200 years ago up until 1948 was theory (bunk) unsupported by actual science or as we call it today, randomized controlled trials.
The oldest science in the world began in China, some 6000 years ago, and it was called the Tao. The Tao was simply, "the way" of all things. It was perceived by observation and contemplation. And what they discovered and learned about "chi" back then, took our modern medicine years to accept and discover. In the nineties our modern medicine discovered this chi, but we wanted to know how it works. And even the Traditional Medicine Practitioners do not know how it works, they just know that it works and how to work it. Hence: acupuncture.
Here on this continent, our powers of observation were colored with the need to make a living. In the mid 1800s regulars were still blistering, bleeding, and poisoning patients with mercury, but apparently never realized (through careful observation) that they were not helping anyone, even though the AMA's prime objective (borrowing that from Star Trek) was to hunt out and close down "quacks." [Ref]
The Germ Theory
There were two competing theories of disease: the Germ Theory vs the Terrain Theory. Looking around, you'll see that modern medicine has adopted germ theory, while functional physicians accept both while practicing preventive medicine using nutrition and lifestyle, or treating the "terrain."
The germ theory was easy, much easier than the terrain theory, to accept. You have a bug that creates disease so you go after that bug. It's correlative is the "lipid hypothesis" of heart disease. Quite easily understood and thus just as easily accepted: fat is found in heart disease, thus fat is the cause of heart disease. Which it is not. But it has been accepted.
The Discovery of Antibiotics
This is something I convinced myself I'd written about previously, but did not. Your author suffers from amnesia caused by PTSD. This isn't the first time I had thought I'd written something that I had researched, but then found out I had never actually put into an article. This is something I live with and have learned to laugh at rather than curse.
So, I shall do it now.
Joseph Lister is famous for his work with carbolic acid. Early in his career he was put into a position to find a cure for sepsis, known then as "hospital disease." Long story short, he came upon Pasteur's work with germs, and accepting the incorrect idea that germs were carried by air, he set out to created a barrier between the air and the wound, and thus found carbolic acid to do the trick.
And it was this early "science" that finally led to more successful operations in which more than 50% of patients survived without sepsis.
But that science still had its flaws. The microscope was essential in this research because germs could actually be seen. And I've enjoyed reading the stories of Lister's career in which through Pasteur's advice, operations were successful in that sepsis did not set in, but the patients died because of using way too much carbolic acid.
But here is where it gets interesting. In 1871, Lister observed that urine samples contaminated with mold did not allow the growth of bacteria. Keyword: mold.
Just three years later, Sir William Roberts, a British physician, observed that bacterial contamination is generally absent in cultures of the mold Penicillium glaucum. There's that "mold" again.
And three more years later, Louis Pasteur and Jules Francois Joubert, observed that cultures of the anthrax bacilli became inhibited when contaminated with molds.
In 1895, Vincenzo Tiberio, an Italian physician, published a paper on the antibacterial power of some extracts of mold.
Now here is a paragraph that is found all over the web:
In 1897, doctoral student Ernest Duchesne submitted a dissertation, "Contribution à l'étude de la concurrence vitale chez les micro-organismes: antagonisme entre les moisissures et les microbes" (Contribution to the study of vital competition in micro-organisms: antagonism between molds and microbes),[120] the first known scholarly work to consider the therapeutic capabilities of molds resulting from their anti-microbial activity.
Ernest Duchesne
Duchesne proposed in his thesis, that bacteria and molds engage in a perpetual battle for survival, observing that E. coli was eliminated by Penicillium glaucum when they were both grown in the same culture. He further observed that when laboratory animals were inoculated with lethal doses of typhoid bacilli together with Penicillium glaucum, the animals did not contract typhoid.
Of course, further work was required. This is where "good" science comes into play. A study had to be created that would eliminate all possible variables, and as is said repeatedly in research: further research is needed. Having received his PhD, he pressed on, but his degree was from a military school, the Military Health Service School of Lyons, and those in charge quashed further studies, believing that Duchesne needed to get on with his military service.
Long story short, Duchesne married, served, his wife died of tuberculosis, and three years later he died of tuberculosis, an illness that is cured by antibiotics. He was buried next to his wife. Wikipedia tells us he was posthumously honored in 1949, "5 years after Alexander Fleming had received the Nobel Prize," but it was really just an off-hand footnote in history.
Medicine is an "elite" science. Or so it seems. Actually, it's an art and most aged physicians will tell you that. Below we have listed the articles we've written on this subject that constantly remind the reader that moving medicine forward is a slower than trudging though deep, thick mud. And once again, we will quote the illustrious Nobel laureate, Alexander Fleming, himself:
Penicillin sat on my shelf for 12 years while I was called a quack. I can only think of the thousands who died needlessly because my peers would not use my discovery.
Dr Alexander Fleming
Your author has suffered from (and enjoyed at times) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from his military service in Vietnam. Recently, from recommendations of my psychologist, and friends, I've been qualified to receive medicinal marijuana therapy. I've just started it. The cost of my first month is $450.00. It is not covered by Medicare or the VA Health Care System. It is not covered because it is not approved by the FDA.
The FDA is a subject we focus sharply on in pages after pages posted at this site. Our Health Care for Dummies is just one of them, but we will repeat something that we cannot repeat or stress enough:
The thing that bugs me is that people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn't. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it's doing are as different as night and day.
Former FDA Commissioner Dr Herbert Ley
Now we come to the subject in the meme posted at the top.
When it comes to longevity, medical science always takes the credit. The problem with this is found in the use and abuse of statistics.
People die later in life, and we've come to accept that this is a good thing. Sure, modern medicine is creating longer lives for the elderly and infirm, but is longer better? Doesn't the "quality of life" ever factor in to our statistics?
And look at this. I just found it. This is outrageous. Criminal!
Chemical Restraints' Deprive Older People of Liberty
Can we find statistics that people with cancer are living longer? Yes, we can. Some cancers have a better than 50/50 chance of survival, but for the most part, advances in cancer treatment come slowly, hindered by medicine itself which is a monopoly supporting the old favorites: slash, burn, and poison.
Your author cured his skin cancer. Take a look: How I Cured My Skin Cancer. I used something that is known about in some medical circles, but will never be tested because the monopoly is doing what all monopolies do: crushing the competition to maintain market share.
Heart disease is on the rise and medicine has launched a war on heart disease. But few recognize that heart disease and cancer are caused by our modern life styles filled with lousy nutrition and a lack of exercise.
I actually cracked up when I read this article: New Studies Suggest Ultra-Processed Foods Lead to Cancer.
Really. I read that headline and I cracked up. Why? We've know this for decades. If it's new to you, you've not been paying attention!
We've watched the world embrace the "lipid hypothesis" telling us fats cause heart disease in the middle of a "lipid explosion" in which industrial oils have been altered, modified, and even perfumed and marked as "nutritional" oils, when nutritional they are not. Unprocessed cottonseed oil is an insecticide, and rapeseed oil is also toxic, but with a little chemical manipulation, we have Canola oil. Blech.
Heart disease wasn't killing us at the rate it is today because people ate lard, meat, fish, and eggs. And yet lard took a hit by the industrial oil companies who advertised heavily. Hydrogenated soybean oil beat out coconut oil because some marketing expert told us "saturated fats" bad for us, and heart disease took off. In India. switching from coconut oil to hydrogenated soybean oil sparked heart disease to triple. [Ref]
Nutritional science isn't new, but it is getting better . . . when money is taken out of the equation. The USDA of the latter part of the 19th century made recommendations. There were physicians who specialized in nutrition. I've been gifted with amazing books written by physicians who preached nutrition and lifestyle over intervention over 100 years ago.
So, let us get back to longevity and life span: Do you know what made one of the greatest leaps in longevity during that 200 year period of science the image at the top speaks of? Hygiene.
Prior to the civil war, diapers were never washed, and bathing was considered unhealthy. Yes, poopie diapers were hung out on a line, and had the "crap beat out of them."
Within these pages we have always pointed out that the greatest leap in longevity here in America took place after the Civil War when we began washing our underwear, our dishes and tableware, and our bodies.
In 1900, infant mortality rates were high. Come World War I, soldiers died at a rate of 4% while babies died at a rate of 12%. It took a woman, Dr Sara Josephine Baker to right this. As the chief medical inspector for the New York Department of Health, she introduced nutrition, hygiene, and ventilation to the city, made sure doctors and nurses were on staff in schools to inspect for contagious diseases and to set up a health care system of prevention. In orphanages babies were dying way too quickly, and Dr Baker established the Foster Mother system, demanding babies be given more attention and cuddling.
When she retired in 1923, it is estimated she saved over 82,000 lives.
But in 1923, the Randomly Controlled Study, the gold standard of medical science, did not exist. Had to wait until 1948.
And if you wish to learn more about the follies and flaws in our system, then you'll just have to peruse the many articles we've written (below).
Your author is a scientist (I've taught science and studied it), a journalist, and an educator. I admire science, am fascinated by discoveries, boggled by quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle, and saddened by the simple fact that we've dumbed down our population to the degree that opinion is everything and facts are few, and climate change is here and threatening to end civilization, but we're too damn busy working against any concerted effort to change, to help, to survive.
I am definitely a critic of our schools system and the propaganda machine in this country that continually dumbs down Americans, but I am also a critic of science, especially the science that is bought and paid for, which is profitable without any thought to externalities or consequences.
P.S. Our longevity figures are dropping.
History of Medicine 1800-1850
The History Of Quackery
Studies Show
Is Modern Medicine Science (with a capital "S")?
There is Only Science — Skepticism is not Science
Science for Non-Scientists
Health Care for Dummies
Saturated Fat Is Good For You
Chili With Mushrooms and Clams
We're Not All That Different, You Know
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Battle of the brands: McDonalds vs Burger King
McDonalds and Burger King are two of the biggest fast food giants out there.
The long-fought debate as to which brand wins out is spoken about with real passion the world over. The aptly named 'Burger Wars', a McDonalds vs Burger King documentary that delves into the famous rivalry even aired on Channel 5 recently.
Whichever you swear allegiance to there is no denying that both McDonald's and Burger King employ excellent marketing strategies to stay top of mind for consumers. With both brands making it into the top 10 Most Effective Brands of 2020, it's a close call.
Both McDonalds and Burger King have faced marketing challenges in recent years. With the rise of health-conscious consumers to the coronavirus pandemic, these brands have needed to adapt faster than ever to communicate the right message at the right time.
In this battle of the brands we take a look at some of McDonalds' and Burger King's recent and more memorable activity.
Need help creating memorable content for your brand? Get in touch.
The Mouldy Whopper
https://youtu.be/oSDC4C3_16Y
Burger King's "The Mouldy Whopper"
Burger King's global Mouldy Whopper campaign definitely made an impact when it was released earlier this year. The 34-day timelapse shows a picture-perfect whopper become a ghoulish, mouldy version of its former self. It was designed to highlight Burger King's departure from using artificial preservatives, but it has divided opinion amongst marketeers. Although the underlying message is clear, it is a leap of faith to think that such imagery would encourage consumers to purchase. Analysis of the campaign's results suggest that despite it leading to 8.4 billion organic media impressions, this didn't translate into strong positive purchasing intent. Arguably, though, the aim of this campaign had a longer view: to assert Burger King's commitment to real food in the eyes of an increasingly health conscious consumer. Or, as Burger King's CMO put it "We want to change fast-food for good".
Whether you love it or hate it, the mouldy Whopper is a clear example of Burger King's commitment to bold, creative advertising, and placing value in longer term strategies.
QR code Whopper
In April this year, as most of us settled into endless hours at home during lockdown and, extreme boredom kicked in, Burger King released its QR Whopper Giveaway campaign. The ad was released on TV and shows a whopper behind a scannable floating QR code. By scanning the code users were given coupons entitling them to a free Whopper when purchasing through the Burger King app.
This mixture of gamification and playing on the current mindset of consumers was aimed at boosting adoption of their delivery app. With most restaurants closed, this was one of the brand's only routes to sales. It is a great example of how media, technology and a strong understanding of your consumer mindset can work together.
2-metre crowns
As businesses and restaurants begin to re-open, all have had to grapple with the challenge of operating under social distancing measures. Burger King's take on this was recently to launch their new giveaway headgear: social distancing crowns.
This tongue-in-cheek approach to the social-distancing measures is the right amount of silliness we all needed and will no doubt lead to a wealth of earned coverage as customers rush to get their snaps in the oversized cardboard crowns.
We miss you too
In March of this year, as lockdown set in across the country, we began to reminisce on what we missed most about normal life. Consumption of digital media soared, search trends changed and with dinner becoming the main event of the day for many, we all started to hanker after our favourite fast food. Numerous tweets and posts emerged about how much people were missing their McDonald's favourites. In early April, McDonalds weighed in with a simple 'We miss you too' on social media, aimed at connecting with its audiences and driving engagement.
This wouldn't have been unprompted. Rather, it would've been a result of using social listening to monitor sentiment and mentions at the time. It has been difficult for brands to connect with consumers throughout this period, and the risks of misguided messaging at a time of crisis can have huge effects and dissuade consumers from a brand for the long term. By closely monitoring what is being said about their brand online, McDonald's was able to add to the conversation in an authentic way at the right moment.
This approach will only work for brands that have confidence in their follower base, and knowledge of the amount of positive versus negative sentiment towards the brand. Brand Passion Reports that look at earned mentions across a range of social media platforms place McDonald's in the top 10 brands that online audiences are most passionate about.
McDonald's understand this, and by closely monitoring activity they can leverage it and use it to their advantage. The simple idea was a great way to connect authentically with consumers during a time where doing just that was increasingly hard.
As drive-throughs reopened in late May, chaos reigned as hundreds of customers sat in long queues up and down the country to get their McDonald's fix. This just goes to show how many die-hard McDonald's fans there are out there. This trend can also be seen in the share of voice that McDonald's has versus other fast food chains online. Compare McDonald's to Burger King for share of voice in the UK and there is an out and out winner.
Burger King's share of voice
McDonalds' share of voice
Near misses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BYlvctLS3I
The approach of a lot of McDonald's advertising is to take brand love as a given and simply work to reinforce or affirm it.
Take the recent 'Near misses' campaign to promote the extension of the hours that they now serve breakfast. We've all been there, just missing your train as it pulls away from your stop, getting to the post office just as they close for the day or, worst of all, just missing out on McDonald's breakfast in the morning.
And it's completely true, the sinking feeling that you get when you realise you have just missed their breakfast menu is a feeling that is hard to forget. The ad alone has had over 2.5 million views on YouTube since December of 2019. This softer approach to advertising, based on a simple and relatable idea, has been McDonald's take for several years now.
Despite occupying essentially the same space in the fast-food industry in terms of product, it is clear that the two brands market themselves very differently. McDonalds' iconic golden arches are a symbol recognised the world over. For many McDonald's is seen as the original fast food of a generation and Burger King as the contender, and this may also be the case in terms of brand value and actual market share.
In terms of marketing it is clear that Burger King takes a lot more risks, whereas McDonald's takes a different approach, maintaining a warmth and humanity to most of its advertising. Although Burger King's brand may not be as well-loved just yet, they are definitely making a mark for themselves with creative and bold marketing tactics. In fact, Burger King's Chief Marketing Officer has said that he sees creativity as the brand's competitive advantage. Potentially this is just the attitude they needed in order to make a long-lasting impact on consumers and help to build on the brand as it is today.


LINKETT is a 500 Startups and Creative Destruction Lab-backed analytics platform for digital signage; integrations with Samsung & Broadsign; 174% QoQ ARR Growth growth, SAM: $2B, 50+ paying customers.
There are 3.7 Million digital signs being used for advertising purposes.
However, they have no way to measure the performance of advertisements like online advertisers can. LINKETT solves this problem.


text:
Looking at Cats Online: The World's First Tumblr Art Symposium
SFAQ — February 26, 2013
By Kendall George, February 26, 2013
Image via Hyperallergic.
One hundred years ago, visitors and critics loathed Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2" at the Armory Show. Its Cubist style was apparently both difficult to visually decipher and an affront to the aesthetic canon of nudes; Duchamp was great at revealing our lizard brain's "I don't understand it, so I don't like it" mechanism. New styles and subcultural art movements have always been maligned, then slowly, and often begrudgingly, accepted. During the Armory Show's 100th anniversary week, Hyperallergic and Tumblr are holding "The World's First Tumblr Art Symposium," examining the pieces of what might be the new avant garde: the Tumblr platform as a medium, net art, and the new aesthetic. The new avant garde doesn't need a fair, and it doesn't need a museum, but it can exist in them.
Joe Hamilton. Image via http://hypergeography.tumblr.com/
In June of 2012, artist and writer Ben Vallentine posted "Tumblr as Art" on Hyperallergic. Vallentine simply stated that art was being made using the Tumblr. How Tumblr is art is not defined but you can follow links to prominent net artists' work. His fear of forming a definition is frustrating, but understandable. When dealing with something so large, eclectic, and often obscure that you can't see its shape, it's kind of like feeling a patch of fur in the dark and deciding it's a cat. There are some commonalities in Vallentine's examples: the platform is used like a canvas, it is often collage-like, re-blogging vs. original material is irrelevant, the new aesthetic is often represented, and there is a cohesive thesis. He critiques the expected viewer experience of viewing the art in Tumblr's endlessly scrolling and refreshable dashboard, intermixed with the posts of whomever else you follow; the artists' expectation is the viewer would see the new post in their feed, and revisit the full blog. Viewing through the dashboard feed is imperfect, but it is a novel approach to temporally based artwork.
Mr. Div. Retro Sphere. Image via http://mrdiv.tumblr.com/
"The World's First Tumblr Art Symposium" will move towards a definition of Tumblr art by way of pedigree: net artist G. H. Hovagimyan will supposedly draw a line between "net art" and "Tumblr art"; it will be rooted in the three dimensional world by Lebbeus Woods' "Light Pavillion" collaborator Christoph a. Kumpusch; and there will be an exhibition prominent Tumblr artists. Hopefully, the art exhibition will nod to its irony.
Image via http://alterazionivideo.tumblr.com/
There isn't a clear delineation for the length of time a trend must be in vogue, the number of its participants, or the cohesion of a thesis—a catch-all might be "communicating with technology and the subsequent growing pains"—before it turns into a movement. SFAQ favorites, Fluxus, Gutai, "street art" (ew), performance art, and conceptual art are indicative of the nebulous nature of modern and contemporary art movements. It is time to shine a light on a (maybe) net art movement and a (potential) New Aesthetic. But let's do it online.
Tags: artBen VallentineBen Vallentine Tumblr as ArtChristoph a. Kumpuschconceptual artFluxusG. H. HovagimyanGutaiHyperallergicinternet artKendall GeorgeLebbeus Woodsnet artperformance artSan FranciscoSilk Road artThe World's First Tumblr Art SymposiumTumblrTumblr as Art"street art" (ew)
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John Held, Jr.
Move Your Archive: Part Four


Here is the information for the 2015 Fall mini sessions. I will have spots open for morning sessions and evening sessions. Spaces are limited so please contact me soon.
This will be the only mini session offered in October. I may open another Fall Mini session in early November if a have enough inquiries for it.


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The number of breweries in the UK has increased by more than 10% for the third consecutive year, bringing a huge increase in the choice and availability of cask beer to drinkers across the UK.
The statistics, released today to mark the launch of CAMRA's Good Beer Guide 2016, show that 204 new breweries have opened in the past 12 month, taking the total number to 1,424 – the highest it's been since the 1930s and 40s.
With well over 11,000 different real ales, that's an average of around 8 per brewery*, now being brewed in the UK the choice for drinkers has never been better. Gone are the days when a brewery made just one or two different beers, as brewers expand their repertoires to include porters, stouts, IPAs, fruit beers, or even beers aged in wine and whisky casks.
"The great success story of the moment is IPA, which stands for India Pale Ale. Long before the first golden lagers were produced in central Europe in the middle of the 19th century, British brewers developed a pale beer for export to 'the Raj' in India. Now it's back with a bang and scores of brewers are producing their interpretations of IPA, including the American style that bursts with fruity hops," Roger Protz says.
As real ale continues to outperform the rest of the beer market** One in six pints of beer sold in a pub is now cask ale, with 634 million pints consumed a year while kegged ales – such as John Smith's and Tetley's – are in decline.
While the brewing bug has struck across the UK, it is London that is leading the way and reclaiming its place at the centre of British brewing "London is the most remarkable success story. Today there are 74 breweries operating in the capital, compared to 54 a year ago. There are so many packed into areas such as Bermondsey and Hackney that weekend 'brewery crawls' have become a popular part of the London drinking scene," Roger Protz adds.
Pictured top: Mark Wainwright in his brewhosuer in the Bristol branch of Brewhouse & Kitchen, a new chain offering good food with beer brewed on the premises.
CAMRA's Good Beer Guide 2016 is available from camra.org.uk/shop, via Amazon, or in all good bookshops.
Full list of new breweries by county below.
The 2016 edition of CAMRA's Good Beer Guide 2016 is sponsored by Piper's Crisps.
**The 2014 edition of the Cask Report states sales of real ale out-performed "on trade" sales of all beer sold in pubs, clubs, bars and other licensed premises by 4.5%.


text:
10 Rock Stars Who Got Sober… and Stayed Sober
Graham Hartmann
Graham Hartmann Updated: September 14, 2022
Marc S Canter/Michael Ochs Archives/SiriusXM, Getty Images
The rock and metal world has lost far too many stars to addiction and drug use, but a large handful have been able to leave that life behind. In this Loud List, we pay tribute to the rock stars who are still with us because they got sober.
Slash legitimately died and came back to life during his hard partying days, but he's still here and crushing it with both Guns N' Roses and his solo project. "I found that when I got sober, sort of looking back from the time that I started playing up until 2006, my partying thing was really a matter of killing time in between things," Slash recently told Loudwire. "I wasn't really using when I was on the road. I wasn't really using when I was in the studio; I was always focused on music. So when I got sober, all that effort that I put into what turned into a massive addiction at that point, I took all that and just put it straight back into the music and it wasn't really reliant on me being buzzed, or should I say inebriated, to be able to create stuff."
Lamb of God's Randy Blythe found that once he got sober, his mind launched into overdrive, so he focuses on creativity to keep himself grounded. "I was still creative when I was drinking, but there was a damp filter on it. When I got sober, that was ripped away, so my mind is on overdrive all the time," Blythe told us. "I'm writing, I'm shooting photos, I'm making music — becoming really engaged with life … As long as I'm moving forward and creating things that I think have artistic merit, I'm generally a pretty happy guy."
For more testimonials on how these musicians kicked their habit and their personal strategies for remaining sober, check out these 10 Rock Stars Who Got Sober... and Stayed Sober in the video Loud List below.
10 Rock Stars Who Got Sober... and Stayed Sober
66 Most Important Moments in Metal History
Source: 10 Rock Stars Who Got Sober… and Stayed Sober
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No doubt, you are in a hurry to get started with Android application development. After all, you are reading this book, aimed at busy coders.
However, before we dive into getting tools set up and starting in on actual programming, it is important that we "get on the same page" with respect to several high-level Android concepts. This will simplify further discussions later in the book.
This book is focused on writing Android applications. An application is something that a user might install from the Play Store or otherwise download to their device. That application should have some user interface, and it might have other code designed to work in the background (multi-tasking).
This book is not focused on modifications to the Android firmware, such as writing device drivers. For that, you will need to seek other resources.
This book assumes that you have some hands-on experience with Android devices, and therefore you are familiar with buttons like HOME and BACK, the built-in Settings application, the concept of a home screen and launcher, and so forth. If you have never used an Android device, you are strongly encouraged to get one (new or used) and spend some time with it before starting in on learning Android application development.
The vast majority of Android applications are written exclusively in Java. Hence, that is what this book will spend most of its time on and will demonstrate with a seemingly infinite number of examples.
You can write parts of the app in C/C++, for performance gains, porting over existing code bases, etc.
Some of this will be covered later in the book, but the vast majority of this book is focused on Java-based app development.
The links are to Wikibooks material on those topics, though there are countless other Java resources for you to consider.
Google also supports Kotlin as a programming language for Android apps. Kotlin can be used as a replacement for Java. While Kotlin has plenty of benefits, it is also a relatively new programming language. This book is focused on the Android SDK, more so than on Java (or Kotlin), and so regardless of which of those two languages you use, the material in this book will be relevant. This book's examples are mostly in Java, due to that being the dominant Android app development language today.
In other words, the entry point into your application was a public static void method named main() that took a String array of arguments. From there, you were responsible for doing whatever was necessary.
However, there are other patterns used elsewhere in Java. For example, you do not usually write a main() method when writing a Java servlet. Instead, you extend a particular class supplied by a framework (e.g., HttpServlet) to create a component, then write some metadata that enumerates your components and tell the framework when and how to use them (e.g., WEB.XML).
Android apps are closer in spirit to the servlet approach. You will not write a public static void main() method. Instead, you will create subclasses of some Android-supplied base classes that define various application components. In addition, you will create some metadata that tells Android about those subclasses.
The building block of the user interface is the activity. You can think of an activity as being the Android analogue for the window or dialog in a desktop application, or the page in a classic Web app. It represents a chunk of your user interface and, in some cases, a discrete entry point into your app (i.e., a way for other apps to link to your app).
Normally, an activity will take up most of the screen, leaving space for some "chrome" bits like the clock, signal strength indicators, and so forth.
However, bear in mind that on some devices, the user will be able to work with more than one activity at a time, such as split-screen mode on a phone or tablet. So, while it is easy to think of activities as being equivalent to the screen, just remember that this is a simplification, and that reality is more complicated (as reality often is).
Activities are short-lived and can be shut down at any time, such as when the user presses the BACK button. Services, on the other hand, are designed to keep running, if needed, independent of any activity, for a moderate period of time. You might use a service for checking for updates to an RSS feed, or to play back music even if the controlling activity is no longer operating. You will also use services for scheduled tasks (akin to Linux or macOS "cron jobs") and for exposing custom APIs to other applications on the device, though the latter is a relatively advanced capability.
Content providers provide a level of abstraction for any data stored on the device that is accessible by multiple applications. The Android development model encourages you to make your own data available to other applications, as well as your own — building a content provider lets you do that, while maintaining a degree of control over how your data gets accessed.
So, for example, if you have a PDF file that you downloaded on behalf of the user, and you want to allow the user to view that PDF file, you might create a content provider to make that PDF file available to other apps. You can then start up an activity that will be able to view that PDF, where Android and the user will determine what PDF-viewing activity handles that request.
The system, or applications, will send out broadcasts from time to time, for everything from the battery getting low, to when the screen turns off, to when connectivity changes from WiFi to mobile data. A broadcast receiver can arrange to listen for these broadcasts and respond accordingly.
Most of the focus on Android application development is on the UI layer and activities. Most Android activities use what is known as "the widget framework" for rendering their user interface, though you are welcome to use the 2D (Canvas) and 3D (OpenGL) APIs as well for more specialized GUIs.
In Android terms, a widget is the "micro" unit of user interface. Fields, buttons, labels, lists, and so on are all widgets. Your activity's UI, therefore, is made up of one or more of these widgets. This is a common approach in most UI toolkits, and so most likely you have already worked with buttons, labels, fields, and similar sorts of widgets somewhere else previously.
If you have more than one widget — which is fairly typical — you will need to tell Android how those widgets are organized on the screen. To do that, you will use various container classes referred to as layout managers. These will let you put things in rows, columns, or more complex arrangements as needed.
To describe how the containers and widgets are connected, you will typically create a layout resource file. Resources in Android refer to things like images, strings, and other material that your application uses but is not in the form of some programming language source code. UI layouts are another type of resource. You will create these layouts either using a structured tool, such as an IDE's drag-and-drop GUI builder, or by hand in XML form.
Sometimes, your UI will work across all sorts of devices: phones, tablets, televisions, etc. Sometimes, your UI will need to be tailored for different environments. You will be able to put resources into resource sets that indicate under what circumstances those resources can be used (e.g., use these for normal-sized screens, but use those for larger screens).
We will be examining all of these concepts, in much greater detail, as we get deeper into the book.
Given a bucket of source code and a basket of resources, the Android build tools will give you an application as a result. The application comes in the form of an APK file. It is that APK file that you will upload to the Play Store or distribute by other means.
When you create your Android project — the repository of that source code and those resources — you will declare what package name is to be used for your app. Typically, you will pick a package name following the Java package name "reverse domain name" convention (e.g., com.commonsware.android.foo). That way, the domain name system ensures that your package name prefix (com.commonsware) is unique, and it is up to you to ensure that the rest of the package name distinguishes one of your apps from any other.