RICHMOND, Calif., Nov. 5, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ekso Bionics Holdings, Inc. (OTCQB:EKSO), a robotic exoskeleton company, today reported financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2015 as well as recent highlights.
"I am pleased to share the progress Ekso Bionics continued to make this past quarter, our highest revenue quarter ever. On the medical front, we continue to grow the number of our multi-unit centers and we see utilization by customers accelerating in the form of steps taken in our Ekso medical rehabilitation devices," shared Nathan Harding, chief executive officer and co-founder of Ekso Bionics. "On the able-bodied front, we continue to win cutting-edge projects with our government partners and we are seeing prospective customers experiencing quantifiable outcomes from using our industrial exoskeleton prototypes in the field."
"Our vision, however, is to do more. We are striving to make exoskeleton use in the hospital and in the home ubiquitous. We are expecting the industrial workplace to be transformed. This will take time, and this past quarter we kicked off a number of initiatives and made some important changes to strengthen our path towards commercial, financial and technological success," added Harding.
We recognized revenue of $2.9 million for the third quarter and $6.7 million year-to-date, an increase of 84% and 75% for the same periods in 2014, respectively.
We shipped a net 12 new units in the third quarter, plus had three rental units converted to a purchase. At the end of September, we had sold or rented a net total of 156 medical devices to over 100 customers.
We have recorded over 25,000 patient sessions with a total of over 33 million steps, an increase of 163% from one year ago.
We hired Ruediger Hausherr as President of Europe to lead our expansion into the European, Middle Eastern and African Markets.
We hired Russ DeLonzor as VP of Operations to lead our medical engineering, manufacturing and procurement teams.
We continue to have a premarket notification submission pending before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeking clearance for our medical exoskeleton. We received a letter from the FDA requesting additional information regarding our clinical data and other information in support of our requested 510(k) clearance for our medical exoskeleton.
Medical device revenue increased $0.3 million, or 39%, as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2014, primarily due to the near doubling of the number of medical device sales being recognized to revenue during the three months ended September 30, 2015, as compared to the same period in the prior year. Engineering services revenue increased by $1.0 million, or 128%, as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2014, primarily due to an overall increase in Ekso Labs projects period over period.
Medical device revenue increased $1.1 million, or 56%, as compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2014, primarily due to the more than doubling of the number of medical device sales being recognized to revenue during the nine months ended September 30, 2015, as compared to the same period in the prior year. Engineering services revenue increased by $1.7 million, or 95%, as compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2014, primarily due to an overall increase in Ekso Labs projects period over period.
Overall our gross profit remained relatively unchanged as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2014, and increased $0.4 million or 37%, as compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2014.
Our medical device segment has experienced increased service related expenses related to an accelerated maintenance program, field corrections and the implementation of technological improvements developed subsequent to many of our units being placed into service. We recognize service expense on an as-incurred basis, which exceeded the increase in associated revenue during the same periods. The Company continues to evaluate this level of increased cost associated with fleet enhancements and expects increased costs for the next quarter or two.
The decrease in gross profit and margins for our medical devices was more than offset by improvements in gross profit and margins for our engineering services business during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2015. The improvement in this segment was driven primarily by a better balance of higher margin projects compared to the prior year.
Sales and marketing expenses increased $0.7 million, or 45%, as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2014, due to an increase in sales and marketing personnel and related resources, the greatest of which is an increase of $0.3 million in compensation related costs.
Research and development expenses increased $0.6 million, or 56%, as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2014, primarily due to an increase of $0.5 million in compensation related expenses as a result of increases in headcount and $0.1 million in development of our industrial business.
General and administrative expenses were relatively unchanged as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2014.
Sales and marketing expenses increased $1.7 million, or 34%, as compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2014, due to an increase in sales and marketing personnel, and regulatory and public relations expenses, the greatest of which is an increase of $0.7 million in compensation related costs.
Research and development expenses increased $1.9 million, or 73%, as compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2014, primarily due to an increase of $1.5 million in compensation related expenses as a result of increases in headcount to support our increase in government projects and $0.3 million in expenses related to the development of our industrial business.
General and administrative expenses were relatively unchanged as compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2014.
Total other income (expenses), net decreased $15.8 million, as compared to the three months ended September 30, 2014. The decrease was primarily attributable to a non-cash benefit in the 2014 period relating to outstanding warrants, with no comparable amount in the 2015 period. Due to the price-based anti-dilution provision in the warrants, the Company was required to classify the warrants as a liability and to adjust their fair value to market at each measurement period. In November 2014, the holders of a majority of the warrants approved an amendment to remove the price-based anti-dilution provisions in the warrants. As a result, the warrants are no longer recorded as a liability effective November 2014 because they met the criteria for equity treatment.
Total other expense, for the nine months ended September 30, 2015, reflected a decrease of $1.6 million as compared to the nine months period ended September 30, 2014, primarily due to a $1.2 million non-cash charge in the 2014 period relating to outstanding warrants, with no comparable amount in the 2015 period. The $1.2 million of prior year warrant liability charges was attributable to warrants issued in the private placement offering in the first quarter of 2014. Interest expense decreased by $0.4 million during the nine months ended September 30, 2015, as compared to the prior year periods due to the repayment of outstanding debt in January 2014.
The net loss for the three months ended September 30, 2015 was $5.2 million, or ($0.05) per basic and diluted share, compared to net income of $12.0 million or $0.15 per basic share and ($0.04) per diluted share for the same period of 2014. The net income in the 2014 period was primarily due to a non-cash gain of $15.8 million related to warrant liabilities.
The net loss for the nine months period ended September 30, 2015 was $14.9 million, or ($0.15) per basic and diluted share, compared to a net loss of $13.6 million or ($0.18) per basic and diluted share for the same period of 2014. The net loss in the 2014 period included a $1.2 million non-cash warrant liability related charge.
Since the Company's inception, we have incurred recurring net losses and negative cash flows from operations. We incurred net losses of $33.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2014, and $14.9 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2015. In addition, our operating activities used $15.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2014, and $13.1 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2015.
By letter dated September 11, 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") has requested that the Company provide additional information regarding its clinical data and other information in support of the Company's requested 510(k) clearance for the Ekso robotic exoskeleton. The Company is working diligently to provide the information requested by the FDA, including information pertaining to the Company's requested indications for use and the Company's clinical data supporting the requested indications for use, information pertaining to mechanical and electromagnetic compatibility testing, electrical safety and software, information pertaining to medical device reports related to adverse events involving the Ekso robotic exoskeleton, and other requested information.
The Company has up to 180 days from September 11, 2015 to respond to the FDA's requests for additional information. The Company intends to request a submission issue meeting with the FDA to be held in advance of the Company's formal submission of its response to the FDA's request for additional information to discuss the Company's response strategy and seek the FDA's input on that strategy. Although there is the possibility that the Company could receive FDA clearance in 2015, we believe that it is much more likely that the Company will receive a determination from the FDA sometime in 2016. However, if the Company were to decide, or be required, to conduct additional clinical testing in support of its request for clearance, the Company may decide to withdraw its pending 510(k) notification and resubmit a 510(k) notification following completion of the additional clinical testing, which could further delay receipt of clearance.
The Company intends to continue marketing the Ekso robotic exoskeleton under its current Class I registration and listing with its current indications for use until 510(k) clearance is either granted or denied by the FDA or the Company is otherwise notified by the FDA to cease such activities. If the FDA disagrees with our decision, we may be required to cease marketing or to recall our products in the U.S. until we obtain clearance or approval, and we may be subject to regulatory fines or penalties.
Ekso Bionics will hold a conference call and audio webcast to discuss financial results for its third quarter 2015 and provide a general business update on Thursday November 5, 2015, at 4:30pm ET.
A webcast replay will be available on the Ekso Bionics website for 30 days.
Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, statements regarding (i) the plans and objectives of management for future operations, including plans or objectives relating to the design, development and commercialization of human exoskeletons, (ii) a projection of financial results, financial condition, capital expenditures, capital structure or other financial items, (iii) the Company's future financial performance and (iv) the assumptions underlying or relating to any statement described in points (i), (ii) or (iii) above. Such forward-looking statements are not meant to predict or guarantee actual results, performance, events or circumstances and may not be realized because they are based upon the Company's current projections, plans, objectives, beliefs, expectations, estimates and assumptions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and other influences, many of which the Company has no control over. Actual results and the timing of certain events and circumstances may differ materially from those described by the forward-looking statements as a result of these risks and uncertainties. Factors that may influence or contribute to the inaccuracy of the forward-looking statements or cause actual results to differ materially from expected or desired results may include, without limitation, the Company's inability to obtain adequate financing to fund the Company's operations and necessary to develop or enhance our technology, the significant length of time and resources associated with the development of the Company's products, the Company's failure to achieve broad market acceptance of the Company's products, the failure of our sales and marketing organization or partners to market our products effectively, adverse results in future clinical studies of the Company's medical device products, the failure to obtain or maintain patent protection for the Company's technology, failure to obtain or maintain regulatory approval to market the Company's medical devices, lack of product diversification, existing or increased competition, and the Company's failure to implement the Company's business plans or strategies. These and other factors are identified and described in more detail in the Company's filings with the SEC. The Company does not undertake to update these forward-looking statements. To learn more about Ekso Bionics please visit us at www.eksobionics.com. The Company does not undertake to update these forward-looking statements.


Elegant Art Deco era ring (circa 1920s to 1930s), crafted in 14 karat white gold.
Centrally mounted Old European cut diamond is estimated at 0.22 carats, accented with four approx. 0.01 carat single cut diamonds. The total diamond weight is estimated at 0.26 carats (estimated at H-I color and VS2-SI1 clarity).
Stones: Centrally mounted Old European cut diamond is estimated at 0.22 carats, accented with four approx. 0.01 carat single cut diamonds. The total diamond weight is estimated at 0.26 carats (estimated at H-I color and VS2-SI1 clarity).
Size & Measurements: The ring is a size 5 3/4 (sizable). The mount measures 5mm wide (0.19 inches), rising 5mm from the finger.
Metal & Hallmark: 14k white gold. The ring is hallmarked "14k".


← Four Hoodie "Teens" Decide To Rob A Shawnee Kansas Gun Store – Owner Murdered – The Media Refuse To Name Suspects Because….
DAKAR, Senegal — A girl perhaps no more than 10 years old detonated powerful explosives concealed under her veil at a crowded northern Nigeria market on Saturday, killing as many as 20 people and wounding many more.
The blast inflicted devastating damage on shoppers at the Monday Market in Maiduguri, the shopping hub in a city that is at the heart of the Boko Haram insurgency. The explosion, witnessed by dozens of people, represented a new tactic in the Islamists' campaign with their decision to use perhaps their youngest-ever suicide bomber.
The terrorist group has increasingly employed women as suicide bombers, even as it has stepped up its abductions of girls across northeast Nigeria, including the kidnapping of more than 200 in the town of Chibok last April. Late last year, two women hit the Monday Market in suicide attacks, killing dozens, and in one week last summer four women carried out bombings in northern Nigeria's biggest city, Kano.
But the use of a child to kill — witnesses, police officials, a top hospital official in Maiduguri and local vigilantes all agreed that the bomber was very young — may be unprecedented in the insurgency.
This entry was posted in Death Threats, Islam, Jihad, North Africa, propaganda, Terrorist Attacks, Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.
Dear Jesus. Now we know why they kidnapped so many young girls.
And on another note: it's so sick how they had a ten year-old wearing a veil! They are truly pedophiles thinking of such young girls in a sexual way.
I have a Christian friend who is from Nigeria, this just breaks my heart what is happening to her homeland.
This is why I don't understand those who feel it cruel for TSA to search a child or an older senior citizen.
In America, they are searching non-Muslim children and senior citizens. Sure, there is a teensy tiny, itty bitty number of whites who are Muslim here, but it is silly to search them. Plus, the TSA is searching white children and seniors instead of searching Arabs and Muslims.
Israel/El Al knows how to profile, but America refuses to learn from them.
A very important comment. Remember the Irish GF of the Muslim with the bomb in her luggage! The Israelis caught that one!
The deal is, smart profiling gets the job done. Dumb profiling, or no profiling, leads to what happened in France. There aren't enough resources, and the job doesn't get done.
This is why Obama and Holder need to be removed IMMEDIATELY. They are incapable of accepting the truth. They're doctrinaire products of a bad PC education. Even if we override Obama's veto, we can't make them do their job. Impeachment needs to be under active discussion.
Sophisticated profiling calls for sophisticated profilers, not affirmative-action hires.
Absolutely! If the TSA was very non-obtrusive and free to do their job quietly – like the Israelis – kinda like the Border Patrol used to be, only maybe a bit like the CIA – well, people like us would consider working for them. But if you make it a dumb, order-taking job with no incentive for improvement, then people aren't going to want to be part of it.
There was one sharp guy who joined – and after he resigned, he wrote a very good piece about his experiences. The thing I remember is how he ALWAYS felt like he was banging his head against the wall. He respected his fellow workers, but they included some real mouth-breathers, and most just gave up trying to make a difference. That part was really sad.
A proper profile involves a walk and talk in the terminal, not 'random' searches.
What is it about this culture of death? The son of the owner of the high end furniture company, Ethan Allen died for jihad and his father was PROUD of him for it. What's up with this culture? They proudly sacrifice their own children for islam, it makes sense they won't care about killing our children to advance their islamofascism.
They don't belong here. They all need to be deported. Let them live it in their countries.
How is DoJ not digging into his chili over material support to same, or RICO statutes?
Thanks for posting this about Ethan Allen company, I had no idea.
I wonder how many God-fearing, patriotic Americans realize they have furniture in their homes that funds jihad?
Dang. I was thinking about one of their overpriced items. SCRATCH THAT.
Angola bans islam. DISMANTLES mosques. We should do it here along with MASS DEPORTATIONS of all muslims. Angola is one country who is trying to save themselves.
Thank you for that link! Wow, Angola is a 3rd world country and they are smarter than the West! I keep advocating for the West to ban Islam — just like we banned Shintoism after WWII — because Islam is not a religion to be protected by the 1st Amendment. It is a subversive political ideology.
Reading to the bottom of the article, it appears that Angola's government denies the allegation that they have banned Islam.
They don't want to trigger a backlash, and not an international backlash, so it must deniable.
Personally, I hope they dismantle every mosque and use the rubble to host community pig roasts.
Hmm. And, now the job is going to be to separate out the bad 6″ sticks that need to be destroyed from the good 6″ sticks when they are all made of the same wood and look alike.
In engineering, they call that NDT… non destructive testing.
So the terrorists are barbaric, but here is official Islam, flogging a blogger for setting up a website for public debate. The police did the flogging in FRONT OF A MOSQUE. He'll serve 10 years in prison, and receive 1000 lashes. He received his first 50 today, and of course the Muslim crowd cheered, and shouted, Allahu, Akbar. Poll shows that Americans opinion of Islam is down to 27%.
The horror show continues, while politicians cower behind "solidarity" marches.
I vote for the Angola Plan.
Such a sad, sad story. Really unbelievable to most of us. Young 10 year old girls, stripped from their lives, and now one has become a living bomb, barely even worthy of being a sacrifice to most of those Boko Haram monsters. And our country sends Eric Holder to Paris. As I said, a sad story.
This is why George Bush said, we can fight them over there, or fight them over here. These nests of monsters, these warlord strongholds need to be destroyed. Drain the swamp.
He could ofcpt up some solid visa restrictions too, but that would not have been compassionate.
It looks a lot like we are going to fight them here merely because our politicians are either Muslim sympathizers or craven cowards. I dread the thought, never mind what it will take to defeat them. They have put us all in danger.
Put CAIR on the run. First Amendment – show cartoons that tell the truth but offend the Islamonazis. Research CAIR's ties to terror. And support the anti-Islamist Muslim organizations here in the US. That's very helpful. There are actually some. They are the alternative that marginalizes CAIR.
That's classic terrorism. They "gain" being feared and, through that, deference and accommodation.
What is up with the picture? Can they not even pretend not to photoshop, or is there some propaganda imagery there?
That these people could use and innocent child to deliver death and destruction to others as well as snuffing our her own young life is despicable. There are not enough words to describe the evil of these terrorists. I too would like to see those connected to radical Islam deported from our country.
God said he would be a "wild man" unable to get along with anyone else. Now you know why!
The pope is a Communist and panders to Islam.
The Muslim President of Egypt calls for reform of Islam.
Lutheran and Baptist organizations work to bring African Muslims to America.
Ex Muslim Theodore Shoebat dedicates himself to saving Christians.
Speaking the truth about blacks is racist.
Blacks Panthers threatening white voters or blacks engaging in the knockout "game" is not.
Blacks can call for the deaths of whites, orally and in writing with no consequences.
Reading a Bible, flying the American Flag, or reciting the Pledge of Allegiance has consequences.
Blacks display their stolen firearms on Facebook with no consequences.
Children biting toast into a firearm shapes or wearing NRA tee shirts do face consequences.
Americans are foreigners in their own country.
Whatever happens this year or next, I am convinced of one certainty. The historical recording will not resemble what actually happens.


Medicines used to treat high blood pressure and heart conditions have just been recalled in South Africa.
People who use certain Dynaval Co tablets should immediately return them to their pharmacies.
They contain a carcinogenic ingredient.
But to suddenly stop using the medication is also dangerous.
More than 12,000 South Africans are currently taking heart pills that have just been recalled because it could cause cancer.
The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has just recalled high blood pressure and heart pills, which contain a controversial carcinogenic ingredient that was manufactured in China.
These tablets have been recalled: Dynaval Co 80/12.5 mg, 160/12.5 mg and 160/25 mg. They are used to treat high blood pressure and heart failure.
Dynaval 80 mg and 160 mg tablets are not affected, said the distributor of the tablets in South Africa, Pharma Dynamics.
A spokesperson of the company said that every year 140,000 containers of these pills are sold in South Africa. The pills are not available in the state health sector.
An estimated 12,000 people are currently using the affected tablets.
They should urgently return the medicine to their pharmacies.
The medicine has an ingredient called valsartan, which contains NDMA – a chemical known to cause liver and lung cancer. A Chinese pharmaceutical company manufactured the affected tablets, which have now been recalled across the world.
The recall started earlier this month in Europe, but it took a full three weeks for the local authorities to order its withdrawal in South Africa.
"We have been actively working with SAHPRA to ensure a swift recall of all affected products and we will issue a full refund for all returned Dynaval Co products," said Pharma Dynamics CEO, Erik Roos.
People who have been using the medicine can get the refund from their pharmacies.
A Pharma Dynamics spokesperson warned that it is dangerous to just stop using the medication – they need to speak to a pharmacist or doctor first about a substitution. The company doesn't have any immediate plans to foot these doctors' bills, however.


text:
Lackfi a fost o familie de origine maghiară de viță nobilă din Transilvania. Ea a dat Transilvaniei șase voievozi: Ștefan Lackfi, Andrei Lackfi, Dionisie Lackfi, Nicolae Lackfi, Emeric Lackfi și Ștefan Lackfi al II-lea. Această familie a fost subordonată Ungariei. Unii membri ai acestei familii au dus campanii în Moldova și Țara Românească.

Nobili maghiari

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: Where can I see logs or details for error Azure "An error has occurred." for an API call on Azure? I have an ASP.NET API and works great as local and using Postman.
Then I decided to publish to Azure since I tried on other free host SOMEE and never worked.
Principal API page on Azure works fine but when I tried to call a controller shows the error
{"Message":"An error has occurred."}
and I don't even know where to check more details about this error.
I tried the same on a Somee.com host and same thing happens

A: Azure portal offer to you some resources to investigate your issue

*

*Log stream (in your App Service page, under Monitoring section), can give you some info of you api call.

*Advanced Tools (in your App Service page, under Development Tools), can give you more information of your app settings, deployment info, wwwroot folder, etc...

It can be a deployment issue(related to the app service configuration, maybe you are using a docker container?) or a simple error in your connection string, so review your app service settings:

it's usually one of these(some) problems.
all the best

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
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Despite being among the preseason favorites to win the World Series, the franchise couldn't overcome its long-standing reputation for futility. David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire
Devin Gordon
IN THE HEARTS and minds of Mets fans, every baseball season ends twice. There's the moment when it's officially over -- mathematical elimination -- and the moment when, in retrospect, we should've known it was. On paper, the 2021 Mets weren't eliminated from postseason contention until Sept. 25, but that was just for the coroner's report. According to FanGraphs, the Mets' odds of making the playoffs on June 16 were 89%, leaving a mere 11% chance for the Mets to Mets away the season. It was more than sufficient.
By the time the Mets were done, they'd pulled off an ambitious achievement even by the lofty standards of a franchise renowned for its face-plants: They finished with a sub-.500 record despite leading the NL East for more than half the season, despite being among the most-bet-on clubs to win the World Series. The Mets have long specialized in doing things no team in the entirety of MLB's expansion era has ever done, and in 2021, by golly, they did it again.
For much of the season, until deep into the summer, I was a snob about this particular Mets collapse. You call this a collapse? This isn't even remotely our best work. You see, I'm sort of an expert on Mets collapses. You might even say I wrote the book on it. It's called "So Many Ways to Lose: The Amazin' True Story of the New York Mets -- The Best Worst Team in Sports," and it came out before this season. A season that -- just so you understand the gravity of the delusion here -- I was certain would end in a World Series championship.
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It did not. And because this is the Mets, it gets worse: The season could yet end with a World Series championship for the Atlanta Braves or the St. Louis Cardinals. The worst-case scenario was avoided, but suffice to say, the three most detestable franchises in baseball made it to the playoffs, again, and again, the Mets did not. As far back as April, I'd been getting texts, tweets, emails from friends and various other mean people in my life: When's the sequel coming out? You could do a whole book about this season! You could call it "The MRI Came Back Clean." Or maybe "We Did Our Due Diligence."
Pish-posh. I'd crack my knuckles after a blown Edwin Diaz save and share the legend of a man named Armando Benitez.
What took me so long to realize something truly special was happening here? When precisely should we have known that this season would end like so many others? The light in my eyes went out on Sept. 13 at Citi Field, in the bottom of the first inning, when the Cardinals' Adam Wainwright decided to stage an impromptu revival of my lowest moment as a Mets fan by catching Jeff McNeil looking for yet another crushing three-pitch whiff. After the game, which the Cardinals won 7-0, Wainwright took out his salt shaker, stood over the open wound and started pouring: "I like nostalgia," he told reporters. "I felt Mets fans in a bases-loaded situation wanted to see me throw two curveballs and a changeup ... I gave the people what they wanted." Sept. 13 also happened to be my birthday. I said no gifts, Adam Wainwright.
But really, the Mets were already toast by then. Another candidate is Aug. 29: One, two, three, four, Javy Baez declares a thumb war! The whole saga unfolded in 100% predictable fashion: a silly 24-hour hyperventilation cycle, followed by curtain calls from the Citi Field faithful within two weeks. Thumbs down ended with two thumbs up, in other words, so this isn't the day, either.
Moving on: The 2021 Mets were an above-average team with a fragile lead in a weak division, and then on July 17, they lost the best pitcher on Earth (Jacob deGrom) and their most gifted everyday player (Francisco Lindor) in a span of 93 minutes, with a stretch that included 13 games against the Dodgers and the Giants, the NL's two best teams, looming. The Mets went 2-11. Seven of the losses were by one run. By the time it was over, the Mets were five games under .500, third in the NL East, 7½ games behind the Braves, who'd won nine straight.
July 17. That was the day.
Except ... this is the Mets, which means this was a trick question all along. Their season ended before it started. And as fate should have it, the precise moment is captured on film. March 10: Deesha Thosar of the New York Daily News posts footage of the Mets completing a 27-out fielding drill by simulating a World Series victory celebration. They screamed and whooped, tossed their gloves, mobbed one another, the works. It was a visualization exercise, the kind that pro athletes do all the time. But you're supposed to do visualization exercises quietly, in your head, not on camera, in unison, like Little Leaguers who hear an ice cream truck turn the corner.
"Just high expectations for the team," McNeil told me before a game in Boston, by way of explanation. "And that's where we want to be at the end of the year, so." McNeil is a rational sort. He speaks in the language of expected slugging percentages. He doesn't do karma. "Just an idea I think somebody had. I forgot who it was."
(It was Tony Tarasco, the Mets' new first-base coach. I feel duty-bound to point out that Tarasco was drafted by the Braves and came up through their farm system, and while he played for six other teams, including the Mets ... once a Brave, always a Brave.)
"I didn't partake -- I forget where I was -- but I remember what you're talking about," said catcher James McCann in mid-September. "Matter of fact, I hadn't even thought about that until you brought it up. But I don't think the players, as a team, we're going to look back and say, 'Oh, we shouldn't have done that.'"
This is how you know that McCann was new in town. He didn't know yet. He was so naive then. Me? The first time I saw that video, I knew for certain that I would be trolled with it in October.
Michael Conforto (30) and J.D. Davis (right), with Kevin Pillar and Luis Rojas during a spring training game against the Nationals, demonstrate some of the good vibes that permeated the clubhouse. Rhona Wise-USA TODAY Sports
ON SEPT. 14, less than 24 hours after Wainwright had micturated all over their freshly dug grave, the Mets players were back out on the grass at Citi Field for pregame drills, and goodness, they sure were cheerful. Goofing around. Taking grounders at positions they don't play. J.D. Davis and left fielder Dom Smith took turns seeing who could wing the ball the farthest into the black seats in center field. Davis went first, then laughed as Smith took a 15-foot running start.
Look, nobody likes the Intensity Police. Nobody needs to be flipping tables in the clubhouse or cussing out teammates, but couldn't they at least perform some fury? Some disappointment? Here I was, a grown man with two kids, just a dopey fan, and I'd been in a funk all day. People's jobs were on the line. Manager Luis Rojas, who they'd professed to love, was about to get fired because they couldn't hit. Right fielder Michael Conforto, who cracked two home runs as a rookie in Game 4 of the 2015 World Series and in a just universe would retire a Met, might be playing somewhere else next season. This was bad, fellas.
This Mets team is not lazy. They love to play, and they love to win. Lord knows they have flaws, but a lack of hustle isn't one of them. They played 66 one-run games, and their extra-inning record was 11-7. For three seasons now, a hallmark of this team has been battling to the last out, sacrificing your nasal cavity to get on base and tearing off the jersey of the hero who wins it. Following a walk-off victory in May, not one but two Mets, Pete Alonso and pitcher David Peterson, fell on their faces trying to hurdle the dugout rail. One of the reasons those boos so offended Baez, in particular, is because it's not like Lindor wasn't trying. This isn't about effort. It's about temperament. The 2021 Mets just didn't have a mean streak. They're a bunch of swell guys who got along great and had a blast playing baseball. Some nerve, right?
Once Upon a Time in Queens
The new four-part 30 for 30 film tells the story of the 1986 Mets, one of the most dominating, infamous, and magical teams of all time. Watch on ESPN+
It's heartbreaking to love a team that's just not good enough, which is why Mets fans feel more gutted than usual this time of year. We don't expect rings, obviously. A fun ride that gives us some laughs and thrills and groans -- that'll do just fine. Chaos surrounded this team, but on the field and in the clubhouse, they were easy breezy, lemon squeezy.
If anything, this group of Mets liked one another too much. Folks in sports tend to speak about leadership in facile ways. Winning clubhouses don't have one leader; they have three or four, each of whom leads in their own style. The Mets' clubhouse is filled with leaders, but temperamentally they're all like-minded. Alonso is positivity incarnate. Brandon Nimmo is the happiest man ever to wear a Mets uniform. Lindor had a huge smile even while cutting me off to end an interview. ("Brother," he said, with a gentle hand on my shoulder, "I gotta go.") Everyone loves Dom Smith, and Dom Smith loves everyone. Marcus Stroman, an absolute warrior, a student of pitching, a superb athlete and the MVP of this Mets season, will block you on Twitter if you bring any bad vibes into his feed. (Please don't block me, Stro, I love u.) It was a sealed cocoon of optimism and self-belief, and they had such faith that chemistry equals winning that at times they didn't seem to notice their season was slipping away.
As the 2021 Mets crumbled on the field, fans were feasting on a new 30 for 30 series about the 1986 world champion Mets, "Once Upon a Time in Queens," and at times I felt like I was watching a four-hour MRI on the spinal column of the current Mets. Who is the Keith Hernandez in this bunch? Where is the Gary Carter?
"I think that's probably the one guy we might've been missing this year, is the [guy who says] 'OK, that's enough, it's time to get down to business,'" reliever Aaron Loup told me. "Because we all know everybody's trying, and you always get the rah-rah, 'next game, you got this' stuff. But at some point you need, 'OK, enough. It's time to go, now.'" In the delicate balance of clubhouse construction, guys like Loup, who played in the 2020 World Series with Tampa Bay, who loves Busch Light so much he's got the T-shirt to prove it, are as indispensable as the Keiths and Garys. His season out of the bullpen was downright deGromian -- 0.95 ERA over 65 appearances. This is about what the Mets were missing, not what they had.
Francisco Lindor (12) and Javier Baez celebrate with a gesture that sent fans into a tizzy in late August. Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports
"We don't really have one guy who's getting after people," McNeil told me. "Maybe it's something we do need." Is it essential to win? Maybe, maybe not, he said. He hasn't won anything yet. He knows this much: "I've never really had that on the Mets. Three or four years, I've never really had that."
In 2019, under hitting coach Chili Davis, the Mets' offense was among their best in franchise history. Alonso dumped 53 home runs from the sky, an MLB rookie record. Four other Mets topped 20. All but one are still on the team. Heading into 2021, the knock on the Mets was pitching depth behind deGrom, and their defense behind the pitching. Scoring runs, though -- that wasn't going to be a problem.
And so, of course, scoring runs turned out to be a huge problem. In the season's first month, the potent Mets topped five runs just three times. Lindor batted .182 with one home run and three RBIs. Then on May 1, after the Mets' offense briefly busted out, a new character entered the stage: Donnie Stevenson, a mysterious hitting instructor whom Alonso, and then Conforto, and then Nimmo, credited with fixing the Mets issues at the plate.
Donnie Stevenson, you see, did not exist.
He was the fictional creation of a goofball clubhouse, and for a few days, he kept everyone smiling, until the Mets' bats faltered, and the Mets' impatient new owner fired Davis, and suddenly Stevenson wasn't so funny anymore. Alonso said he wept when he learned of Davis' firing. Davis worried aloud that Lindor's slow start cost him his job; Lindor didn't disagree. Davis was replaced with minor league hitting coordinator Hugh Quattlebaum, whose splendidly Metsy name conjured memories of J.J. Putz, and whose data-driven approach was a wild pendulum swing from what Davis had been preaching. For the rest of the season, most of the lineup looked lost. As spring turned to summer, and the runs still weren't coming, the Mets' stubborn self-belief started to seem like self-delusion. For the season, they finished 27th in runs and 29th -- next to last in baseball -- in hits. That's not an aberration. That's just lousy.
"I guess you have to take a look at: has this group won games?" Conforto said in a quiet voice before a game at Fenway Park, where the Mets got trucked twice and surrendered a humiliating Little League home run. "Over the past three, four years, we haven't won a whole lot of games, not enough to make it to the next level, and that's something that you just have to be honest about."
The easy breezy vibe goes for deGrom, too, at least when he's not pitching. Getting up in grilles is not his style. When healthy, he has a perma-smirk, as though amused by the foibles of normal humans. That smirk vanished in the second half as the setbacks piled up, replaced by a scowl.
"This is getting really old," he all but spat at one point. During a terse early-August update on his condition, he shifted into past-tense mode ("I feel like I was having the best season of my career"). A few weeks later, Alderson let slip that contrary to what the Mets had disclosed at the time, one of deGrom's many MRIs from this summer did not, in fact, come back clean. It showed a minor UCL sprain in his elbow, and yes, technically, Alderson noted, a "sprain" is a "tear." Jacob deGrom, in other words, had a torn elbow ligament. But everything was fine now!
"I know what was said," deGrom later told reporters, visibly seething, "but my ligament is perfectly fine. I wouldn't be throwing if I had a compromised ligament."
It was hard to tell whom deGrom was more mad at, us for constantly pecking at him, or Alderson for sticking him with another mess to clean up. It was clumsy, needless.
"At times you do wish it would just be baseball," Conforto said before a late-September game at Fenway Park. Conforto was a rookie with the Mets in 2015, so he's seen some things, but 2021 seemed to break him. "You wish you could just come to the park and just focus on what's going on on the field."
"Look at all the successful teams," J.D. Davis told me a few days earlier. "You look at the Dodgers. You look at Boston. The Yankees. We've gone through, what? Three managers, three GMs, two owners now in some three years, four years? The craziness is -- yeah, sometimes we talk about it. Of course we do."
He laughs in that mordant Metsy way.
"I mean, it's hard not to. We're just like, 'All right, I guess that's what happened today.'"
President and general manager Sandy Alderson faced questions about Mets' accountability and vetting processes during his end-of-season news conference. AP Photo/Frank Franklin II
THE AUDITORIUM AT Citi Field where Mets executives conduct news conferences, upstairs from the Gil Hodges Gate, overlooking the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, is one of the few rooms at the ballpark that isn't named for anyone. Given the agenda of the day, this was probably for the best. It wasn't worth the risk of being forced to alert reporters that the funeral for the 2021 Mets would be conducted at 5:30 p.m. in the Hernandez Auditorium.
Alderson is as admired as Mets executives get, which is perhaps a backward compliment, but the truth is he'd be a legend in any front office. He built the Oakland A's dynasty of the late 1980s. He's always been the steady baseball man who pulls the Mets back from the abyss, whether it's Bernie Madoff or the Wilpons, and the reason the Mets have such a likeable and talented core is he assembled it. Oakland's current executive VP of baseball operations, Billy Beane, whom the Mets drafted out of high school, reportedly worships him, which might offer hope that Alderson can succeed at luring him. This is his final mission: shepherd the franchise again into a safe pasture. He has always been a reluctant custodian for the Mets, so perhaps he deserves that context before we enumerate the humiliating personnel disasters, one after another, that he has presided over since returning to the Mets last September.
First, there was manager Mickey Callaway, who lasted two feckless seasons and whose lewd behavior toward women was an open secret at previous stops. Then there was Jared Porter, whom Alderson hired in December 2020. Porter lasted a month before he, too, got fired for a pattern of unwanted sexual advances. Alderson replaced Porter with Porter's deputy, 44-year-old Zack Scott, who was arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated at 4 a.m. following a charity event at Cohen's house. And now Cohen has entrusted Alderson to get it right on his fourth try.
Then there's the attempted hire that fell through: Trevor Bauer, the 2020 NL Cy Young Award winner, who Alderson and the Mets believed they'd landed in free agency back in March, until he chose the Dodgers at the last minute. The horrifying accusations against Bauer were still months away, but even after Callaway and Porter, Alderson blew through the existing red flags about Bauer. "There were lots of questions about Trevor Bauer that we tried to answer, and ... I think the process we went through was a good one," Alderson said when I asked if Mets brass had come away with lessons from that experience. "We had lots of feedback, including from our own employees, male and female. So, that's an unfortunate situation. And the good news is it didn't happen on our watch."
The good news is it didn't happen on our watch. This isn't even one of those cases where a front office is saying all the right things and now it's a matter of holding them to account. They're not saying all the right things. He offered no regrets. No reflection on why the warning signs were ignored, no reason to believe they'll be heeded in the future. If Alderson thinks any good news came out of the Mets' Bauer pursuit, that is very bad news.
One after another, current Mets lined up in the season's final week to say that, despite it all, they'd love to return to New York next year. Baez called these Mets "a special group" and said he'd gladly play with Lindor forever. Stroman, who is from New York and seems to thrive here, said he'd gladly play with Baez forever. Athletes always say this sort of thing at this time of year, but the Mets seemed to be going out of their way to italicize their words.
Alderson, though, kept hinting at major changes to the roster. Asked if he still believes that this Mets core can compete for a World Series, he pointedly did not say yes. "Well, it depends on how you define our core of young players," he began, "and I think that that core is eroding." Conforto and Noah Syndergaard, he noted, are already free agents. "I'm not sure that we have the core of players that would allow us to reach that level."
As for Javy Baez's future in New York, Alderson's reply plays very differently on paper than it did in the room. On paper, here's what he said: "Is it possible? Yes. Is it realistic? Maybe." The transcript, though, is missing Alderson's almost comically pregnant pauses before each one-word answer. Put it this way: I went in thinking Baez would be back, and I left forlorn. It almost got worse as Alderson went on. "But to say, 'No, there's absolutely no way that Javy Baez can be part of the Mets next year,' no, I wouldn't be prepared to say that at this point."
What could major changes mean? McNeil and Smith were prime under-performers in 2021, but they're also cheap and under team control; deployed wisely -- 400 well-curated plate appearances, versus 700 -- they can play crucial bench roles. Aside from Stroman, the entire 2021 Mets rotation is already under contract for 2022. The bullpen was a strength all year, so that'd be a peculiar place to dynamite. Mets fans are bracing for heartbreak when it comes to Conforto, and by all appearances, so is he. But if Conforto decides to return, too, then what exactly will be different in 2022?
A healthy deGrom changes everything.
A healthy Jacob deGrom, who threw his last pitch of the season July 7, would have been the difference-maker for the Mets, Gordon says. Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
THE RARE SIBERIAN tiger only emerges from his den once a day, in the late afternoon, to get some sun, stretch out his long tensile legs, and shag flies in center field. He might kibitz with a friend on another team, or take grounders at shortstop, but he will make sure to keep on his side of the invisible barrier between the infield grass and the dirt in front of the home dugout, a safe distance from the caravan of onlookers with their cameras and notebooks.
In order to return to his lair, though, he must cross through the dugout, and there are but two dugout gates, so depending on which one he heads for, the caravan will drift in that direction, measuring his gait. Is he slowing? Is he speeding up? He won't stop. To stop is to die. He might answer a question or two as he glides by. He might say six words combined.
He's wily, though. Once I watched him amble down the third-base line toward reporters only to skip over a low fence in left field and scamper away back into his den, grinning as he ghosted them. Another time, I witnessed a beat writer try to slow him down. "Can I ask you a question, Jake?" "Nope," deGrom replied without breaking stride. "Please?" the writer pleaded, but deGrom just shook his head extra hard, like a kid refusing his vegetables.
Between 2018, when deGrom won the first of his back-to-back Cy Young awards, and the beginning of 2021, the Mets had a losing record in games in which he started. It was our Metsiest stat for three solid years: somehow the best pitcher on Earth made us worse. In the first half of 2021, though, deGrom was so historically unhittable that even the Mets couldn't find a way to waste it. On July 7, when deGrom threw his last pitch of the season, he was 7-2 with a 1.08 ERA, the Mets were 46-38 and wielding a 4½-game NL East lead. His average fastball velocity was 99.2, a number that made me giggle in awe this summer and now makes me wince. He was chosen to start the All-Star Game for the NL, but he opted to rest, and then never came back. A healthy deGrom wouldn't merely have tacked on five or six second-half wins, like some garden-variety ace. He spares your bullpen, relieves your relievers, a crucial boost in a baseball age when many starters max out at five innings. He gives his teammates that rare sensation of participating in living history. Your senses get heightened. Your focus narrows. You'll do anything not to be the guy who screws it up.
Would the Mets have made the playoffs if deGrom hadn't gotten hurt? You're damn right they would've.
For the first three months of the season, deGrom wasn't just the best pitcher on Earth, he was also the Mets best hitter. This is only a slight exaggeration: He batted .364 this year. Deep into June, he'd driven in more runs than he'd allowed. Of course, because these are the Mets, he twinged a lat muscle in late April. That led to his first IL trip of the season. But then he came right back and gave up two runs -- two -- over his next seven starts. I was at Citi Field on June 16, when he struck out eight of the first nine Cubs he faced, and for the first and only time in my life, I was certain we were about to witness a no-hitter. Then he didn't come out for the fourth inning, and my heart sank. A month later, his season was over, and the Mets were just another team that couldn't buy a hit.
"If we've just lost three games in a row and it's Jake's turn to pitch, you knew the stopper was in," Loup told me. "He's there. He's coming to save the day." Davis called it "more than a punch to the gut." The margin for error was gone. "We needed to be at full strength when we were playing L.A., San Francisco," McNeil said. "Yeah, it was tough. That was the biggest trip of the year."
For the duration of the second half, the Mets teased us with the possibility that deGrom might return before the end of the season, even though we could read a calendar and do the math. This was also bigger than a playoff race. In a matter of weeks, deGrom had gone from a likely three-time Cy Young winner to a 33-year-old power pitcher coming off a (very small) UCL tear who can opt out of his already-below-market deal after the 2022 season, and who may be wondering if this franchise will ever get its act together.
For a highly visible superstar who's played in New York going on nine years, deGrom is something of a cipher even to Mets fans. He doesn't do extended interviews, or Pepsi commercials. He grew up in a part of central Florida so rural that it's considered country even for central Florida. He enjoyed wrestling baby gators with his buddies and going to keggers with giant bonfires. Former Mets manager Bobby Valentine once described him to me as a "free spirit," which is maybe not the phrase most people would associate with deGrom, but when you watch him prowl around the outfield, you see that tiger itching to be a tiger again and losing his mind that he can't.
"Jake is always moving around," Conforto told me. "It's kind of who he is." All Mets fans know the origin story that deGrom is a converted shortstop, which is why he was such a late bloomer as a pitcher, but the truth is he's never really stopped wanting to be a shortstop. Shortstops get to play every day. For a guy like that, being injured is excruciating. "It's boring. It's tedious," Conforto said, who spent a long stretch of contract year on the IR himself with a hamstring pull. "You've got all this time where you're not getting ready to play a game. It's not a great place to be, and Jake's definitely bored." Said McCann: "I think when he goes nine innings and throws a shutout, he's super bored." DeGrom is a world-class athlete, and world-class athletes need competition like the rest of us need air.
Now imagine going without it for two years.
With an unexpected but exhilarating start, Noah Syndergaard breathed life back into the hearts and minds of Mets fans, pushing their capacity for optimism once more. AP Photo/Frank Franklin II
IT WAS COLD and damp at Citi Field, a lousy night for baseball, and some-20,000 scattered fans in attendance for a meaningless late September game against the then-last-place Miami Marlins were on their feet, going bananas. This is how it works when you're a Mets fan: The moment after we get eliminated from the playoffs, we begin casting around for reasons to get delusional all over again about next year. So much about 2022 seems in flux right now. Alderson said it himself: the core is eroding. The fan base is as gutted as I've ever seen it because we all know there must be consequences this time. We've reached the limits of chemistry.
It was going to take a doozy, in other words, to restore our unearned faith this time. Like clockwork, the Mets delivered: the Return of Thor.
Once upon a time, it was Syndergaard, and not deGrom, who was destined to become the two-time Cy Young winner of the Mets rotation. That both of them have turned out to be as gifted as advertised, and the Mets still haven't been back to the playoffs since 2015, might turn out to be the real crime of a decade that began with Madoff fleecing the franchise. For Syndergaard, it's been a much bumpier road. He's been mesmerizing, he's been infuriating. But mostly he's been hurt. He's been so bored the past two years he launched a book club through his Instagram feed.
Thor and deGrom have been clubhouse neighbors since they came up together in the mid-2010s, and we learned to distinguish them by their flowing manes: Syndergaard was Norse god blond, deGrom was backwoods brown. Thor still has the locks. DeGrom got serious once he started racking up Cy Youngs. DeGrom has turned out to be the one chasing the ghost of Tom Seaver, but among Mets fans Thor will always have our heart. His legend began during the 2015 World Series, when the Royals objected to him going up and in on their hitters, and he responded by informing them they could "meet me 60 feet 6 inches away." He loved antagonizing Jeff Wilpon, and we loved him for it.
On Sept. 28, in the next breath after announcing via Zoom that deGrom would be shut down for the season, Rojas informed the assembled media that Syndergaard would start the second game of that night's doubleheader. He'd pitch one, and only one, inning. Given Rojas' expressed rationale for shutting down deGrom ("there's no sense" bringing him back now), the logic of bringing back Syndergaard for a single inning was hard to square. The human factor, though, was obvious. Syndergaard is a free agent. He has spent most of his career in the Mets organization, and more than any current Met, he has hurled himself into the experience of being a New Yorker. He and deGrom belong in the same clubhouse and, for years, Mets fans have been bracing for him to ditch us for a more competent franchise. Instead, he's the one hoping we'll give him one more shot.
Sending him out to pitch that night, in other words, was a needless act of kindness, no matter how Mets management described it. This might be his last chance to pitch in New York. If he's going to audition for a job next year, might as well let him do it in front of the home crowd, let him feel that love one more time. The day before, a Mets fan on Twitter chastised Cohen for not coming down harder on this team, and every now and then, the wizard behind the curtain responds. "At this point in the season," Cohen wrote, "can you think of something to say that will matter. I'm thinking forward." And so now here we were, thinking forward.
Just after 7 p.m., for the first time in two years, Syndergaard took the mound to the sound of "Carmina Burana" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and, dear reader, I got chills. This is what it's all about for us -- moments like this, when the return of our guy, our Thor, somehow means more to us than a title ever could.
Syndergaard threw 10 pitches, nine for strikes. He was under a strict no-breaking-ball rule, but his fastball hit 96. He struck out two, retired the side in order and strode off the mound to the ecstatic cheers of every Mets fan here at Citi Field, at home, wherever they were, all of us thinking the same sad, silly, Metsy thought: It's happening again.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
CASTILLERO, Andres
CASTILLERO, Andres (fl. 1830s-50s), native of Spain and captain in the Mexican military, Castillero was the first private owner of Santa Cruz Island, granted to him by Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado on May 22, 1839. It was the first of three islands to be granted to private individuals.
"Like many men who left the capital [Mexico City] of the republic in search of great adventure or to work in distant places, Castillero arrived in Alta California during Mariano Chico's tenure in office [April-July, 1836]. He made use of his limited knowledge of medicine to secure a position caring for the troops. When Governor Chico left, Castillero left the territory as well and appeared later…" [Antonio Maria Osio's The History of Alta California, translated by Rose Marie Beebe and Robert Senkewicz, 1996]
Castillero had gone from Alta California to Mexico for Alvarado with political messages, sailing aboard the California September 1837 and returning to Monterey with responses November 1838. In favor with Governor Alvarado, Andres Castillero was thereby granted his island of choice. In the 1840s, Castillero became President of Mexico Jose Joaquin de Herrera's Commissioner in California. In 1845 Castillero, a graduate of the College of Mines in Mexico trained in geology, chemistry and metallurgy, discovered large cinnabar deposits—the ore of mercury, near San José, California. He formed the New Almaden Company.
As the political climate changed in Alta California, Castillero saw what was going on about him as he watched his friends and countrymen robbed blind of their land in courts, both state and federal. In 1847 Andres Castillero directed his attorney in Alta California, Antonio Aguirre, to transfer his interests to Alexander Forbes of Barron, Forbes and Company, behind which stood the integrity and legal know-how of the British Empire. Between 1847 and 1849, there were various transfers of shares, until by 1850 the Barron and Forbes group had acquired the entire mine ownership. The principal participants were Alexander Forbes, Eustace Barron, William Forbes, Eustace W. Barron, Juan B. Jecker, Isidoro de la Torre, Martin la Piedra, Francisco Maria Ortez, James Forbes, Robert Walkinshaw and John Parrott.
Barron, Forbes and Company took title to Castillero's New Almaden Company, and by 1850 Castillero felt this gave him the protection he needed to keep his land titles in the changed political climate of Alta California. In April of 1852, Castillero filed a petition with the U.S. Land Commission which upheld his island grant in July of 1855. The decision was appealed and went to the Supreme Court which ultimately confirmed Castillero's title in 1860. In the meantime, Castillero had sold Santa Cruz Island.
On June 21, 1857, by deed from Andres Castillero, Santa Cruz Island passed to William Eustace Barron.
Former Governor Alvarado said Castillero did not return to the area [Santa Barbara] from Mexico after 1847. The trail to Castillero's life becomes cold after 1861, and in all likelihood, he remained Mexico.
» Tays, G. Captain Andres Castillero, diplomat, an account from unpublished sources of his services to Mexico in the Alvarado Revolution of 1836-1838 in California Historical Society Quarterly 14(3):230-268 September 1935;
Cases Argued and Decided in the Supreme Court of the United States, December 1858-1860. Book 16. 1901 (498-500). The United States, Appt., v. Andres Castillero (see S. C. 23 How. 464-469).
December 5, 1846 [Letter from Andres Castillero to Alexander Forbes delivered by Francisco Martinez Negrete]: "Señor Castillero places much value on the Island of Santa Cruz that is his property. He says it is thirty-two leagues in circumference, with a good harbor, timber, and fresh water. He is disposed to sell it rather than have it taken from him by the Yankees. It is distant four leagues from the port of Santa Barbara, and he considers that it would be of much importance to England, should the United States take possession of the Californias. If you are inclined to purchase, you can inform yourself of all this leisurely."
December 16, 1846 [Letter from Andres Castillero to Francisco Martinez Negrete]: "Esteemed and Respected Sir: I would thank you much if you would recommend to Señor Alexandro Forbes, that on taking possession of the quicksilver mine, my island of Santa Cruz, situated in front of Santa Barbara, may also appear as an English possession. Being distant only four leagues from the coast, it is a very important possession on account of the abundance of water and timber, and its good harbor. To English vessels, and even to the company, it may be of service for the absolute independence in which it is of all the country. Excuse me for repeating my request, and I remain always your most obedient servant."
January 14, 1847 [Letter from Andres Castillero to Alexander Forbes]: "Esteemed Sir: The Señor Don Francisco Martinez Negrete has informed me of your willingness to place my island of Santa Cruz under protection of H. B. Majesty's Government. I thank you as well as Mr. Negrete for this favor, and to that end I enclose a letter for Señor Don Antonio Aguirre, a citizen of California, who holds my power of attorney and a document which proves my property." [United States District Court vs. Andres Castillero on Cross Appeal, Claim for the Mine and Lands of New Almaden, Argument of Hon. J. P. Benjamin, San Francisco, 1860, p. 57, 63, 82]
July 21, 1855 [Los Angeles Star]: "Claims confirmed. No. 176.—Andres Castillero, for the Island of Santa Cruz, opposite the roadstead of Santa Barbara; claiming from Alvarado, 1839. Opinion by Farwell."
1856 [Patents Book A (1874-1890) Clerk and Recorder, Santa Barbara County]: "Patent of Island Santa Cruz. The United States of America, to all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting: Whereas , it appears from a duly authenticated transcript filed in the General Land Office of the United States, that pursuant to provisions of the Act of Congress approved the third day of March, 1851 entitled An Act to ascertain and settle Private Land Claims in the State of California, Andres Castillero as claimant filed his petition on the 13th day of April, 1852 with the commissioners to ascertain and settle the Private Land Claims in the State of California, sitting as a Board in the City of San Francisco, in which petition he claimed the confirmation of his title to a tract of land called the Island of Santa Cruz… said claim being founded on a Mexican grant to the petitioner made on the 22nd day of May 1839 by Juan B. Alvarado, then Governor ad interim of the Department of Mexico, dated July 20th, 1838; and whereas, the Board of Land Commissioners aforesaid, on the 3rd day of July 1855, rendered a decree of confirmation in favor of the claimant for the Island of Santa Cruz in the County of Santa Barbara, having for its boundaries the waters edge: and whereas it appears from a duly certified transcript on file in the General Land Office that the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of California at the December Term, 1856, rendered the following decree: The United States, appellant, No. 340 vs. Andres Castillero, appellee…"
June 2, 1860 [Los Angeles Star]: "The Island of Santa Cruz has been finally confirmed by the Supreme Court to Andres Castillero; he discovered and opened the New Almaden quicksilver mine."
June 2, 1860 [SDU]: "The Island of Santa Cruz. As is well known, the United States Supreme Court recently confirmed the claim of Andres Castillero to the island of Santa Cruz. Of this island the Alta says: 'It is the largest of the islands belonging to this State, lying about 25 miles south of the shore of Santa Barbara County, which there runs nearly east and west for a distance of about 40 miles. The island is about 20 [sic] square miles or 75,000 acres. It contains no special wealth of soil, timber, grass or minerals, but so large a body of land must possess value for many purposes. The island was once a great resort for seal and sea otter, but most of them have been driven away now. Andres Castillero, the claimant, is the same person who discovered and opened the New Almaden quicksilver mine."
July 30, 1860 [NYT]: "Colonel Fremont was sworn as a witness in the case of the claim of Andres Castillero to New Almaden, before the United States Commissioner…"
February 14, 1861 [NYT]: "In the case of Andres Castillero vs. the United States for the island of Santa Cruz, the claimant relied on a dispatch of the Minister of the Interior… It is contended that the President of Mexico had no authority to make the order for a grant contained in Lanza's dispatch. But it is apparent, both from the action of the Supreme Government in this case, as well as in that of the island on the coast, that it exercised the power… In the Santa Cruz Island case, the Supreme Court held that 'the dispatch of the Government operated to adjudicate the title.'…"
April 4, 1864 [LAN]: "U.S. Land Surveys. To whom all it may concern. In compliance with the first section of an Act of Congress, approved June 14, 1860, regulating surveys of private land claims, notice is hereby given, that the plats of the following land claims, surveyed in pursuance of the thirteenth section of an Act entitled 'An Act to ascertain and settle Private Land Claims in the State of California,' approved March 3, 1851, have been examined and approved by me: …Island Santa Cruz, Andres Castillero…E. F. Beale, U.S. Surveyor General."
February 6, 1869 [Los Angeles Star] confirms account of sale.
January 2, 1925 [ODC]: "…In the introduction to the report Santa Cruz Island is described as very rugged, 25 miles long and an average of eight miles wide. It is stated that the title was established by a decision of the United States supreme court in the suit of United States vs. Andres Castillero. The coast of the island which the surveyors ran a line with great difficulty is a little over 70 miles long. The survey includes descriptions of the quality of the land and the partitioning, the report states was done with respect to the 'quantity and quality of the land and the respective rights' of the persons involved."
Retrieved from "https://www.islapedia.com/index.php?title=CASTILLERO,_Andres&oldid=58698"


text:
Activities for the First Day of Chemistry Class
KRISTIN WOOD
... Ableimages/Lifesize/Getty Images
For a chemistry teacher, planning the first day of school is crucial to the rest of the year. You must teach proper safety habits to prevent accidents. Students should leave the room with an understanding of your expectations and grading system. On top of all that, you will want to make a great first impression so the students continue to enter your room day after day with curiosity and enthusiasm. Fitting all of this into one class session is challenging, but feasible.
First Day Experiment
Philosophy of Chemistry
1 Rules and Safety
Ask the class to help you brainstorm rules for the classroom. They will not think of everything, so add what they forget. Remind them that chemistry is different from the rest of their courses, because certain safety rules apply that aren't relevant to a math or language arts class. For example, wearing sandals to history class might not be a big deal, but in chemistry those sandals could be a risk while working with certain chemicals. Explain the rules that apply specifically for lab days. Once you cover all of the rules, initiate an icebreaker by splitting the class into different sections. Have each group create and perform a skit teaching lab safety.
2 First Day Experiment
Set up a short and fun activity for your students. Pour 50 mL of concentrated nitric acid into a 500 mL flask. Drop a piece of copper wire into the flask. Insert a stopper with a tube running through it. Place the other end of the tube into a large jug or container of water. Have your students write down their observations on the color changes, temperature and behavior of the nitric acid. Chemmybear.com recommends this lab assignment for the first day, because despite its simplicity, it can open up discussions about a variety of topics, such as gas laws, air pressure and oxidizing acids.
3 Philosophy of Chemistry
Blur the lines between hard sciences and humanities by leading a discussion on philosophical thought in chemistry. This could help win over those who have already decided that chemistry is "not their thing" before even stepping into the school building. Show your students that chemistry can be more than just the periodic table. Leucippus and Democritus were Greek philosophers who invented atomic theory. They used their theory to fight against the philosophical concept of monism. Open a class discussion about other ways chemistry has been used or could be used outside of textbooks and lab rooms.
Kristin Wood entered the media industry in 2006 as a proofreader. She began her writing career in 2008, with work appearing in several online magazines, corporate blogs, nonprofit websites and local newspapers. Wood specializes in education, health, beauty, fashion, business and home-and-garden topics. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Point University.
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text:
Dansk Otolaryngologisk Selskab (DOS) er et tidligere navn for en forening af danske øre-næse-halslæger, nu kaldet Dansk Selskab for Otolaryngologi - Hoved & Halskirurgi, (DSOHH). Navnet blev anvendt fra 1908 – 1991.

Oto-rhino-laryngologi


We have discontinued direct international shipments outside North America at this time due to resource requirements to properly service this. I am very busy working on some new inksets and cannot provide the reources to properly serve this segment.
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About Grenada
Property purchasing
Building in Grenada
Buying and selling property in Grenada
The system for buying and selling is based on that of the UK. Property titles are recorded at the Land Registry, which is good, but it does not necessarily include all land, particularly so in the more remote parts and where no transfers of ownership have happened in recent times.
Taxes, duties, Government costs and opportunities
Anybody and everybody can buy and sell property in Grenada. It's just that it's a little easier for Grenadians than it is for the others, 'aliens' as the Government calls them! There's a couple of extras for them to deal with - some tax and an 'Alien Landholder licence'.
For purchasers
Grenadians 1% stamp duty
For 'Aliens' (everybody else) 10% property transfer tax, the Alien Landholder Licence + 1% stamp duty
Grenadians 5% property transfer tax
For 'Aliens' 15% property transfer tax
The first EC$20,000 are exempt for each
There are some variations on the theme and special conditions can apply.
In an 'Approved Tourism Development' the Property Transfer Tax has been reduced to 5% each for both seller and buyer and to 2.5% for subsequent sales.
Citizenship by Investment is available under certain terms of investment in approved projects. We are able to introduce applicants to the process.
Annual Property tax is 0.01% of the value assessed by the Government
When purchasing, it is normal to employ a lawyer to check, amongst other things the vendor's title and to ensure that all liens and charges are lifted before transfer of ownership. They will investigate and explain any covenants that may apply (and often do) and will also deal with the transfer of the money. Their charges vary but are generally in the 1.5-2% range.
Identifying the land is vital as boundaries can be less than clear and certain. On the island, boundary markers are used to identify the curtilage of plots and are recorded on the deed plans held by the Land Registry. The markers are normally a simple piece of reinforcement bar driven into the ground and marked with a bit of orange ribbon. As such they are at the mercy of the passage of time and somehow become subject to 'interpretation'. It is perhaps a good idea to have a Land Surveyor check and re-establish the boundary markers before completion of the purchase. If the land in question is being purchased for construction it is advisable to extend that Surveyor's brief to include a topographical survey. Very little land in Grenada is flat and forewarned is forearmed! Their charges vary with the extent of the work, obviously, and range from a lump sum of around EC$800 for the basic work to EC$0.10 - 0.15 per sq ft for the more detailed.
Grenada's roads! It's not just the road surface that can be problematical. So can be the rights of way, rights of access and responsibility for maintenance. A lawyer will be able to advise on this along with the title. A physical check of the availability of electricity, water and telecom is easy and worthwhile. Almost all sewage disposal is by the property owner's own private sceptic tank - and it works well!
Coldwell Banker can help with recommendations for any these of professionals, and any others that you may need, to ensure good service and good value.
All content copyright Coldwell Banker Grenada 2022 unless otherwise stated.


Yamada, M.; Goshima, G. Mitotic Spindle Assembly in Land Plants: Molecules and Mechanisms. Biology 2017, 6, 6.
Yamada M, Goshima G. Mitotic Spindle Assembly in Land Plants: Molecules and Mechanisms. Biology. 2017; 6(1):6.
Yamada, Moé; Goshima, Gohta. 2017. "Mitotic Spindle Assembly in Land Plants: Molecules and Mechanisms." Biology 6, no. 1: 6.


text:
Q: Bcrypt error: illegal arguments String unidentified here is my complete code
var express = require('express'),
    app = express(),
    mongoose = require('mongoose'),
    bodyParser = require('body-parser'),
    morgan = require('morgan'),
    webToken = require('jsonwebtoken'),
    bcrypt = require('bcryptjs'),
    assert = require('assert');
    Schema = mongoose.Schema,
    secretKey = "omjdiuwkslxmshsoepdukslsj";

//User Schema
var userSchema = new Schema({
    username: {type: String, required: true, index: {unique:true}},
    password: {type: String, required: true, select: false}
})

userSchema.pre('save', function(next){
    var user = this;

    if(!user.isModified('password')) return next();

    bcrypt.hash(user.password, null, null, function(err, hash){
        if(err) return next(err);

        user.password = hash;
        next();
    })
});

userSchema.methods.comparePassword = function(password){
    var user = this;

    bcrypt.compare(password, user.password, function(err, result){
        if(err){
            console.log(err);
        }
        else {
            console.log("passwords match!");
            return;
        }
    })
}

var userModel = mongoose.model('users', userSchema);

//Connecting to Mongo
mongoose.connect("mongodb://localhost/userstories", function(err){
    if(err) {
        console.log(err);
    }
    else {
        console.log("Connected to database!");
    }
});

//Creating Token
function createToken(user){
    var token = webToken.sign({
        _id: user.id,
        username: user.username
    },  secretKey,{
        expiresIn: 30 * 60 * 1000
    })
    return token;
    }

//Middlewares
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({extended: true}));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(morgan('dev'));

//Api's

app.post('/signup', function(req, res){
    var user = new userModel({
        username: req.body.username,
        password: req.body.password
    })

    user.save(function(err){
        if(err){
            console.log(err);
        }

        else{
            res.json({message: "User created!"});
        }
    })
})

app.post('/login', function(req, res){

    userModel.findOne({username: req.body.username}, function(err, user){
        if(err) console.log(err);

            if(!user){
                res.send("User not found!");
            }
                 else if(user){

                      var validPassword = user.comparePassword(req.body.password);

                       if(validPassword){
                                var tokens = createToken(user);

                                res.json({
                                    success: true,
                                    message: "Successfully logged In",
                                    token: tokens
                                });
                        }

                            else {
                                    res.send("Invalid password");
                                  }

                     }
    })
});

//Running the server
app.listen(3000, function(err){
    if(err) console.log("port not working");
    else{
        console.log("Everything went just fine");
    }
})

I've tried every approaches and saw all the answers here. But no one seem to come across this illegal argument error. Please figure this one out for me Im sure there is a bug I cant see

A: In your User Schema, you are setting select to false for the password field. This means that anytime you look for a user in the schema as you're trying to do in the login request, you won't get the value of the password field or any other field that has select false defined in the schema.
What you need to do is to specify you need the password when the user is found:
app.post('/login', function(req, res){
  userModel.findOne({username: req.body.username}, 'password', function(err, user){
   // continue
}

This will return only the _id and the password from the DB. If you want to return other fields, you'd have to add them in:
app.post('/login', function(req, res){
  userModel.findOne({username: req.body.username}, 'password firstName lastName email', function(err, user){
   // continue
}

A: I have tried the same code for authentication once and got the same error Error: Illegal arguments: string, function.
But I did not see any issue with the code. The thing is, I had registered two users with the same user name and a different password. Then, when I tried to log in with the user name and one password this error occurred and stopped the server.
So it seems that you are also facing the same problem. Make sure there are no errors with this stuff if you do not want to have a bug in your code.

A: Check the value of user.password before sending it to bcrypt.compare().
Chances are, you've fetched the user without including the password property, resulting in a value of undefined. This can happen in Sequelize if you set custom attributes or if you're using a scope that excludes props.

A: Your code is wrong in this place. You may see it.
var validPassword = user.comparePassword(req.body.password);

If you use bcryptjs thrid party plugins, like that
let validPassword = bcrypt.compare(req.body.password, user.password);

bcrypt.compare(password, hashedPassword);

A: In my particular case, I was dealing with this error, checking out all the code up and down unsuccessfully for almost two days.
Finally, realized that the column PASSWORD in MariaDB was in uppercase. Theoretically that shouldn't affect at all, but I decided to rename it to lowercase and bum! problem solved.

A: For those using async/await for database calls, make sure you don't forget the await keyword on the User.findOne() call.
In my case, I had forgotten the await keyword while fetching the user. This as a result, was giving me a Promise object instead of User object and hence the password property on it was undefined.

A: I also encountered the same error when I was using
bcrypt.compareSync("input to be compared with the hash", hash).
Later on I discovered that I was supposed to pass the actual value in the first input parameter i.e (The actual value from which the hash was generated) and the hash in the second input parameter, but I was passing hashed values in both the input parameters.
After correcting the same it was giving me the desired output as true or false.
You can also run and check your code here.

A: Do like this:
UserSchema.pre('save', async function (next) {
  const hash = await bcrypt.hash(this.password, 10);

  this.password = hash;
  next()
})

A: You need to specify that you also want the password because you have set the select property to false on password.
So when you are fetching the user, just make sure to explicitly specify that you also want the password. Add .select('+password') on the user object when you are querying a user.

A: In my case it was a simple spelling mistake before sending to bcrypt.hash :

A: If you're testing this with Postman, I just found an issue where the default Content-Type header is set to text/plain. If you untick the default header (as it doesn't allow you to change it) and add another Content-Type header with a value of application/json, it works.


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text:
Women in art study reveals 50 per cent gender pay gap
By Michael Sun
Updated January 21, 2018 — 12.33am first published at 12.00am
At a glance, one could be forgiven for thinking that gender biases in the art industry are all but eradicated.
After all, women artists are behind this summer's biggest exhibitions: the ever-Instagrammable Pipilotti Rist in Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, Yayoi Kusama's flower fever in Melbourne's National Gallery of Victoria, and Patricia Piccinini's grotesquely hyper-real sculptures in Canberra's National Gallery of Australia. If anything, the scales seem tipped against men, with 74 per cent of art school graduates being female, according to a 2014 report.
Kim Leutwyler, in her Redfern studio, is hopeful the art industry will improve. Credit:Wolter Peeters
But a new study proves that the bias against female artists is far from gone, with work created by women selling for nearly 50 per cent less than paintings by male counterparts.
The study, carried out by a team including three Australian researchers, analysed 1.5 million art auction sales across the last 40 years, collecting data on paintings from more than 60,000 distinct artists from 45 countries.
Sophia Hewson believes the gender bias in the art industry is brutal. Credit:Chris Hopkins
University of Technology researcher Marco Navone describes the results as "huge".
"Even when we withdrew all the paintings above $1 million – the stars, like Leonardo da Vinci – you still see a gender pay gap of 28 per cent," he says.
The authors also dispelled doubts that women are genetically predisposed to creating "worse" artwork than men by conducting surveys testing participant attitudes to artworks when the gender of the creator was stripped away.
"As we suspected, people could not guess the gender of the artist," says Navone. "But some people – especially men, people with a higher income, and those who visit art galleries and museums more frequently – tended to rate the painting lower if they thought the artist was a woman."
How does art stack up to other industries?
Renowned gallery owner and art dealer Roslyn Oxley says the results are hardly surprising.
"Every sector is dominated by men, and the art world's no different," she says. "The directors of galleries until recently were all men. The curators until recently were all men.
"All the auction houses are run by men, and men relate to men."
She notes the pay gap across all industries – a figure that a report released last year by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency lists as 15.3 per cent for full-time work.
In comparison, the gap between male and female artists in auction sales is 47.6 per cent – more than three times higher than the Australian average.
This confirms a 2017 report by the Australian Council for the Arts, which found that the gender pay gap in the arts was one of the highest when ranked against other fields of work.
Esther Anatolitis, director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, calls the gap "sobering".
"There is an assumption we often have in the arts – the sense that yes, gender biases exist but people are working hard to address them," she says. "To learn that the gap is worse than other industries ... that was a big surprise to me."
Not all about the money, money, money
For many female artists, however, the industry bias is more than just economic.
"Men in positions of power in my industry expect me to be sexually available, they cut off contact and career opportunities when I reject them," says Sophia Hewson, a three-time Archibald finalist from Melbourne who garnered international attention in 2016 when her artwork are you ok bob depicting a "self-orchestrated 'rape representation" went viral.
This year, her Archibald entry featured two fair-skinned figures skipping in a fantastically idyllic field in a satirical critique of the prestigious art prize's lack of racial diversity. She echoes the same intersectional approach in her analysis of the gender gap.
"The gender bias in the art industry is clear and it is brutal," she says, "particularly for older women and women of colour."
Fellow Archibald finalist Kim Leutwyler, who exhibited a portrait of openly gay Olympian Michelle Heyman, also notes the struggle of women to be accepted in a traditionally male profession.
"Portrait painting has a primarily masculine place in Western art history," says the Sydney artist. "Female-dominated art forms have been reduced to being called the 'decorative arts' and 'crafts'.
"We need to identify the fabulous female artists who've been making masterpieces in the shadows throughout history and make them a part of the stories we educate people on today."
But despite its historical imbalance, Leutwyler remains hopeful that the art industry can improve.
"Women and minorities are contributing to the solution by becoming tastemakers as patrons, collectors, teachers, art historians and critics," says Leutwyler.
Oxley agrees, pointing to the changing cultural expectations for women over the past 40 years.
"I think the more women that enter the workforce, the more women that are interested in becoming curators and directors," she says.
This trend correlates with the research performed by Navone and his colleagues, which found that the gap between auction sale prices did decrease gradually decade by decade.
Despite this, artists maintain that creating art as women is an uphill battle.
"If you're buying a woman's work, you are likely buying a better artwork, simply because she's worked harder to get there, she's fought harder for the opportunity to exhibit or be curated, she's had to be of a higher calibre to achieve that," says Hewson.
Sally Ross, an artist who received acclaim for her portrait of Oxley herself, acknowledges these difficulties, pushing for women to take art back into their own hands rather than merely creating work to appease.
"Are we waiting for white guys in power to recognise us and patronise us before we feel good about ourselves and what we do?" she asks. "I think you have to get on with what you want to do and be sincere."
She champions this sincerity across exhibitions as well as curatorship, warning against tokenistic inclusions of women as "box-ticking" in art shows.
"Obviously it's positive that there's some sort of recognition that things have to be addressed.
"But there's generally some sort of self-congratulatory tone – 'Isn't it great that we're doing something with women?'" she says sarcastically.
"Don't be politically correct, be politically sincere."