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Nadia Bokody: If he won't do this in bed, run
Being respectful of your partner's sexual boundaries is key, but refusing to do this is a relationship "red flag", says sex expert Nadia Bokody.
Nadia Bokody
July 6, 2020 - 8:19AM
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"I don't do period sex," a girlfriend recently confessed over wine.
"Why? You don't like it? You know it's great for easing cramps," I answered, swirling the last of my rosé around in the glass.
"No, I like it. My boyfriend doesn't though. He says it's a turn-off," she sighed, looking down dejectedly.
This was the same boyfriend who complained it made him feel undesired when she didn't perform a certain act after sex and who had a penchant for pearl necklaces (the kind you find in porn, not the jewellery store).
RELATED: Nadia Bokody spends the day on a porn set
Sex columnist Nadia Bokody reveals why men who won't have sex while you're on your period aren't worth your time. Picture: Instagram/NadiaBokody
A little googling reveals my friend is far from alone.
In fact, the words "My boyfriend won't touch me on my period" returns over 11.8 million search results, studded with stories of women whose partners have told them in not so many words, that menstruation is gross.
As someone who's written about sex for nearly a decade now, I'm an advocate for not pressuring a partner into doing anything that makes them feel uncomfortable in the bedroom. Including period sex.
It should also be noted, however, if your partner refuses to have sex with you because they are physically repulsed by your body carrying out a natural process, you probably shouldn't remain in a relationship with them.
RELATED: Nadia Bokody: Inside a sex party
She said if your partner is grossed out by your body carrying out a natural process, you probably shouldn't stay with them. Picture: Instagram/NadiaBokody
RELATIONSHIP RED FLAG
This isn't a question of respecting sexual boundaries, it's a relationship red flag.
A 2011 study published in the journal, Feminism and Psychology, found women with negative attitudes toward period sex had, more often than not, experienced judgment or shaming around their period by a male sexual partner.
The study also revealed male partners ascribing derogatory words like "messy" and "gross" to period sex.
So powerful are these messages, 73 per cent of women reported going to great lengths to hide their sanitary products in a 2018 survey by menstrual underwear brand, THINX.
In case you're short on ideas for how to avoid making your man feel nauseous because you're surfing the crimson wave, there's an entire segment of YouTube dedicated to "hacks" to help girls conceal their periods from their boyfriends.
Filled with tricks like sewing secret pockets into your underwear and storing pads in empty confectionary packets, these how-to style videos are emblazoned with titles like, "Avoid Period Embarrassment!" and "Ways To Disguise Tampons!". (Subtext: "Because Periods Are Icky And Gross Boys Out!")
A study revealed male partners ascribing derogatory words like 'messy' and 'gross' to period sex. Picture: Instagram/NadiaBokody
It's little wonder then, research indicates just 15 per cent of women engage in intercourse during their periods, despite menstruation being a monthly, week-long occurrence for most of us (and the time we're scientifically at our horniest).
Perhaps most strikingly though, the same study – which included more than 95,000 participants across 200 countries – found 41 per cent of women performed sexual acts on their partners during this time.
There are even jokes about what to do instead when "the river runs red" a male told me when I quizzed him on his feelings toward periods.
Memes touting similar messages proliferate the internet.
"I don't always want sex, but when I do, she's on her period" jokes one. Another, featuring Seinfield's iconic Soup Guy, declares "No sex for you!" to a hypothetical girlfriend
propositioning sex during her period.
RELATED: The sex trend nobody's talking about
But while there's a disturbing segment of men who appear genuinely incapable of hearing the word "period" without reeling in disgust (or, as one male friend put it, "there's nothing harder than getting turned on when it looks like a murder scene down there"), in reality, menstruation is one of the female body's most incredible processes.
(Incidentally, it's also the reason you're alive, Chad).
Besides, any guy who fails to see the hypocrisy in enjoying his partner's body and then refusing period sex on the grounds of being "grossed out" by bodily fluids, isn't worth the time it'll take you to find a towel and wipe yourself down afterwards. Just saying.
Follow Nadia Bokody on Instagram and YouTube for more sex, relationship and mental health tips.
A woman married to a man with a severe disability has told critics who claim she can't be sexually satisfied they're very wrong.
When it comes to men and sex there's one all-too-common claim they make about women in the bedroom that's so wrong it's cringe-worthy.
The US woman broke out in hives and "couldn't walk properly" after she was left "red and swollen" – until she realised why.


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BMW to Celebrate Centenary at Petersen Museum Until October 14
Home » Interesting » BMW to Celebrate Centenary at Petersen Museum Until October 14
August 31, 2016 / 2 minutes read
2016 has been a truly special year for BMW and fans of the brand. Turning 100, the company decided to celebrate its rich history with a series of concept cars and exclusive exhibits. Earlier this week, the Germans announced that they will be joining forces with The Petersen Automotive Museum to feature the so-called "BMW: 100 Years of Performance" exposition from September 1 through October 14th.
Fans of the blue and white roundel will get the chance to visit, see and take pictures of some of the brand's most iconic models from throughout its history. The exhibit will showcase five of BMW's most memorable race and street cars including a 1970 ALPINA 2002ti racecar, a 1977 IMSA 320i Turbo race car driven by David Hobbs, a 1979 M1 classic BMW, the 2000 FW22 Formula 1 car driven by Ralf Schumacher and an iconic BMW 507 roadster. If those looking for art pieces won't be impressed by the timeless shapes of the cars, the M3 GT2 BMW Art Car by Jeff Koons will join the museum's existing display of BMW Art Cars for a limited time.
"BMW has built its reputation for performance on the track and on the streets with cars like those we'll be displaying at The Petersen," said Trudy Hardy, Vice President of Marketing at BMW of North America. "More importantly though, this collection of iconic BMWs demonstrates not only where we've been, but what the BMW brand stands for – and will continue to stand for – as we move into the next 100 years."
"The Petersen is honored to be able to play host to these incredible cars and to have such a fantastic partner in BMW," said Adam Langsbard, chief marketing officer for the Petersen Automotive Museum. This group of cars is rarely seen outside of specific events or BMW's own collection and as such, this very limited exhibition at the Petersen is not to be missed whether you're a fan of BMW or race cars in general. "We're proud to be able to work with such a dedicated company and group of people."
Probably the most popular car in this line-up will be the Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed M1. Introduced at the Paris Motor Show in 1978, it was BMW's first mid-engine production car. It was powered by a twin-cam, fuel-injected 3.5L straight six-cylinder engine and accelerated from 0-60 miles per hour in a brisk 5.4 seconds.
Conceived and built for racing, the M1 received general homologation for the entire production series and was equipped with an elaborate suspension with double wishbones on each wheel, gas-pressure dampers and anti-roll bars.
1970 BMW ALPINA 2002ti
BMW anniversary
BMW Centenary
Petersen Museum
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6 responses to "BMW to Celebrate Centenary at Petersen Museum Until October 14"
That Alpina 2002tti looks terrific.
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Добровольческие батальоны — отряды, создаваемые по региональному принципу для участия во вторжении России на Украину в 2022 году, фактически сменившие собой в качестве добровольческих подразделений отряды «БАРС» (Боевой армейский резерв страны). Участники получали статус резервистов и заключали контракт с Министерством обороны России на несколько месяцев. По оценкам экспертов, формирование добровольческих батальонов представляет скрытую форму мобилизации населения, при этом кандидаты набираются чаще всего из бедных регионов, не всегда имеется соответствующий военный опыт.

По подсчётам СМИ, в августе 2022 года, мусульманские регионы РФ (такие как Дагестан, Башкортостан, Чечня, Татарстан) занимали лидирующие места по количеству погибших. Парадокс ситуации в том, что пропаганда постоянно апеллировала к «защите русских и православных». Для убеждения используются образы как на национальном, так и на религиозном уровнях. Например, в Башкортостане центральным символом мобилизации местных жителей стал Минигали Шаймуратов, советский генерал и уроженец бывшей Уфимской губернии, погибший на Донбассе в 1943 году. Впрочем, и проблемные для себя образы вроде Салавата Юлаева и имама Шамиля пропаганда использует в своих целях.

Формирование
Весной в российских регионах началось создание именных добровольческих батальонов, информация о которых публикуется в СМИ о соцсетях органов власти. В их числе:
 Пермские мотострелковая рота «Парма» и танковый батальон «Молот»;
 Приморский батальон «Тигр»;
 Петербургские батальоны «Кронштадт», «Нева» и «Павловск»;
 Амурский мотострелковый батальон «Амурский»;
 Якутский батальон «Боотур»;
 Батальон военнослужащих из Мурманской и Архангельской областей «Архангельский»;
 Нижегородский танковый батальон имени Кузьмы Минина;
 Татарстанские батальоны «Алга» и «Тимер»;
 Чувашский батальон связи «Атал»;
 Осетинский батальон «Алания»;
 базирующиеся в Ленинградской области артиллерийские дивизионы «Невский», «Ладожский» и «Ленинградский»;
 Тюменские сапёрный батальон «Тобол», рота снайперов «Тайга» и артиллерийский дивизион «Сибирь»;
 Башкирские мотострелковые батальоны имени Минигали Шаймуратова и имени Александра Доставалова;
 батальон материально-технического обеспечения «Сейм» из Курской области;
 ремонтная рота «Иртыш», рота материального обеспечения «Авангард» и медицинское подразделение «Омь» из Омска;
 Кировский батальон «Вятка»;
 Челябинские батальоны «Южноуралец» и «Южный Урал»;
 Оренбургский мотострелковый батальон «Яик»;
 Самарский батальон «Самарский»;
 Томский батальон «Тоян»;
 Забайкальский батальон «Заурский»;
 Краснодарские казачьи батальоны «Терек», «Кубань», «Енисей», бригада «Дон»;
 Хабаровский батальон связи «Генерал Корф»;
 Новосибирский батальон «Вега».

Московский батальон, который получает финансирование из городского бюджета среди вербовщиков и кандидатов неофициально именуется «собянинским полком». В чеченском городе Гудермес на базе Российского университета спецназа проходят подготовку добровольцы полка «Ахмат».

«Добровольцы» подписывают краткосрочные контракты с Минобороны. Ответственность за обеспечение «добровольцев» делят между собой Минобороны и региональные власти.

«Новая газета. Европа» насчитала 52 батальона в 33 регионах. Если исходить из известной численности региональных батальонов, то всего в них могут набрать от 9,5 до 20 тыс. человек.

По предположению Руслана Левиева, основателя проекта Conflict Intelligence Team, высказанному в августе 2022 года, большая часть добровольческих батальонов ещё не участвуют в боевых действиях на Украине, а личный состав поступает на полигон Мулино для подготовки и последующего формирования нового 3-й армейского корпуса.

В начале февраля 2023 года появились сообщения от тяжелых потерях в боях на Донбассе татарстанского батальона «Алга».

Примечания

Ссылки
 Russian volunteer units and battalions // ISW
 Специальная добровольческая операция // Коммерсантъ
 Пять главных вопросов о новых добровольческих батальонах // Холод
 Региональные пиар‑войска. Что мы знаем об «именных» батальонах, которые набирают в России // Медиазона

Воинские формирования России, участвовавшие во вторжении России на Украину (2022)
Мобилизации в период вторжения России на Украину

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Please note that the Sales & Service Locator covers sales and service contacts for all of our actuators and gearboxes. For instrumentation (switchboxes, transducers, etc.) please see our Instrumentation & Control Contacts page.


text:
namespace net {
class URLRequest;
}  // namespace net

namespace content {
struct ResourceResponse;

// DevToolsNetLogObserver watches the NetLog event stream and collects the
// stuff that may be of interest to DevTools. Currently, this only includes
// actual HTTP/SPDY headers sent and received over the network.
//
// As DevToolsNetLogObserver shares live data with objects that live on the
// IO Thread, it must also reside on the IO Thread.  Only OnAddEntry can be
// called from other threads.
class DevToolsNetLogObserver : public net::NetLog::ThreadSafeObserver {
  typedef webkit_glue::ResourceDevToolsInfo ResourceInfo;

 public:
  // net::NetLog::ThreadSafeObserver implementation:
  virtual void OnAddEntry(const net::NetLog::Entry& entry) OVERRIDE;

  void OnAddURLRequestEntry(const net::NetLog::Entry& entry);
  void OnAddHTTPStreamJobEntry(const net::NetLog::Entry& entry);
  void OnAddSocketEntry(const net::NetLog::Entry& entry);

  static void Attach();
  static void Detach();

  // Must be called on the IO thread. May return NULL if no observers
  // are active.
  static DevToolsNetLogObserver* GetInstance();
  static void PopulateResponseInfo(net::URLRequest*,
                                   ResourceResponse*);
  static int GetAndResetEncodedDataLength(net::URLRequest* request);

 private:
  static DevToolsNetLogObserver* instance_;

  DevToolsNetLogObserver();
  virtual ~DevToolsNetLogObserver();

  ResourceInfo* GetResourceInfo(uint32 id);

  typedef base::hash_map<uint32, scoped_refptr<ResourceInfo> > RequestToInfoMap;
  typedef base::hash_map<uint32, int> RequestToEncodedDataLengthMap;
  typedef base::hash_map<uint32, uint32> HTTPStreamJobToSocketMap;
  typedef base::hash_map<uint32, uint32> SocketToRequestMap;
  RequestToInfoMap request_to_info_;
  RequestToEncodedDataLengthMap request_to_encoded_data_length_;
  HTTPStreamJobToSocketMap http_stream_job_to_socket_;
  SocketToRequestMap socket_to_request_;

  DISALLOW_COPY_AND_ASSIGN(DevToolsNetLogObserver);
};

}  // namespace content

#endif  // CONTENT_BROWSER_DEBUGGER_DEVTOOLS_NETLOG_OBSERVER_H_

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Famous Handguns of Hollywood
by Doug Wicklund, NRA National Firearms Museum Senior Curator - Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Tom Selleck's Colt from Crossfire Trail
SHOW CAPTION HIDE CAPTION
Created by the talented gunsmiths at R&D Gunshop, this .44 Open Top represents one of the early metallic cartridge revolvers manufactured just before the introduction of the Colt Single Action Army in 1873. Many of Mr. Selleck's westerns have featured lesser known sixguns from this historical period on the frontier.
You can see other Selleck-used western arms at http://www.nramuseum.org/guns/the-galleries/hollywood-guns/westerns.aspx.
Serenity/Firefly Pistol
From the open plains to the starry expanses of outer space, our next futuristic pistol is from the short-lived 2002 TV series Firefly that barely made to one season. Overwhelming fan response refused to let this "space western" pass into oblivion, and the 2005 film Serenity brought back the intrepid spaceship captain Malcolm Reynolds, who used this custom handgun. Fitted inside the bronze prop pistol shell resides a Taurus .38 revolver.
James Bond Walther PPK
Many actors have portrayed the famous secret agent James Bond, who as Agent 007 was issued a license to kill -- frequently fulfilled with a Walther PPK pistol. Perhaps a lesser known "Bond" may have been Timothy Dalton, who in 1989's License to Kill used this well-worn Walther PPK on screen. But the story of this Hollywood handgun doesn't end there. Previously, this .32 caliber semi-automatic had been used as a backup pistol by none other than Tom Selleck in the CBS series Magnum P.I.
Die Hard Beretta Model 92FS
"Come out to the coast, have a few laughs…," is just one of the memorable lines from actor Bruce Willis portraying New York police detective John McClane in Die Hard. This 1988 film, sometimes considered the best action film of all time, prominently features this Beretta Model 92FS pistol. This 9mm semi-automatic was also featured in the buddy-cop action classic, 1987's Lethal Weapon.
You can catch more than a glimpse of this famous handgun at http://www.nramuseum.org/guns/the-galleries/hollywood-guns/cops,-robbers-and-a-galaxy-far-far-away/die-hard-(1988)-beretta-92fs.aspx.
Magnum P.I. Colt
It was regularly seen on the CBS TV series Magnum P.I., but this Colt semi-automatic held a secret for eight years. While considered to be the .45 M1911-pattern pistol once carried by Naval officer Thomas Magnum in Vietnam, the on-screen handgun was actually a Colt Government Model Series 70 9mm pistol. 9mm blanks were easier to procure in the Hawaiian islands and as propmasters have discovered over the years, the smaller cartridge is easier to regulate for blank-firing sequences.
Dirty Harry's Smith & Wesson Model 29
It just wouldn't be a Hollywood handguns feature without Clint Eastwood's big .44 Magnum being showcased. Despite some gunwriters asserting that a .41 Magnum revolver was used in the classic Dirty Harry in 1971, only the Smith & Wesson Model 29 in .44 caliber was featured. This six-shot, double-action revolver was also used in the 1973 movie Magnum Force.
Three Model 29s were procured from Smith & Wesson for the filming and this revolver was later presented to screenwriter John Milius for his contributions to both films. You can ask yourself if you "feel lucky" to view this one at http://www.nramuseum.org/guns/the-galleries/hollywood-guns/cops,-robbers-and-a-galaxy-far-far-away/dirty-harry-(1971)-smith-wesson-29.aspx.
Behind the scenes in Hollywood, concealed vaults are filled with prop treasures from films past, storied revolvers that once set the cinematic screen afire. Most visitors that walk the streets of Los Angeles and take the studio tours never get to see these pieces of history. But years ago, the curators of the NRA National Firearms Museum went west and met with prop house managers to put together special exhibits featuring the guns that made the movies.
Real Guns of Reel Heroes was the first "Hollywood" exhibition at the NRA Museums in 2002, a gala attended by both Charlton Heston and Tom Selleck. The overwhelming audience response spawned Hollywood Guns, a 2010 sequel that allowed even more fantastic guns from westerns, modern feature films, and military movies to be showcased in the museum's galleries in Fairfax, Virginia. A revised Hollywood Guns exhibition is now featured at both the NFM galleries and the NRA National Sporting Arms Museum at Bass Pro Shops in Springfield, Missouri. We hope to retain these exhibits at both venues as permanent attractions, but selected firearms will change out over time.
As a special "trailer" for those who haven't yet visited the NRA Museums, here's just a half-dozen of the great handguns from Hollywood featured on display:
For more historic firearms from the movies and beyond, visit the NRA Museums in person or online at www.nramuseum.com!
NRA Museums National Firearms Museum firearms history Hollywood movies handguns pistols revolvers
Celebrating 30 Years of Friends of NRA
NRA Foundation Autumn Auction
NRA Foundation State Fund Grant Applications Are Now Open!
Stop by the Wall of Guns at NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits


text:
Facing killer heat during a pandemic
Experts from ASU, the city of Phoenix, a local nonprofit and a national NGO discussed the dual crises of extreme heat and COVID-19
As anyone unlucky enough to have spent this summer in the Valley of the Sun knows, it's been a season of firsts.
The hottest month in Phoenix history. The hottest July. The most nights at lows of 90 degrees. In short, the hottest summer.
And those records will jump this weekend as we look forward to — brace yourself — the hottest Labor Day weekend in Valley history. And all this during a pandemic.
On Sept. 3, Arizona State University hosted a roundtable presentation called "Killer Heat in COVID Times."
"Phoenix has been breaking any kind of heat record we can think of this year," said moderator Ariane Middel, who would know.
As a senior sustainability scientist in the university's Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, Middel spends the summer months measuring heat with a robotic instrument suite on wheels.
Ariane Middel, an assistant professor and senior sustainability scientist at ASU, works with her weather robot on the Tempe campus. Photo by Ken Fagan/ASU Now
A key aspect to surviving the summer is how people are exposed to the heat, Middel said. Changing materials and providing more shade can help. She discussed a number of projects being carried out by the university's Healthy Urban Environment initiative.
A city of Tempe project — Right Shade in the Right Place — took a look at issues facing municipal efforts to cool public space.
Cities face challenges in placing trees because of utility lines overhead and underground.
Preliminary results show shade from urban forms — such as buildings and walkways — are most effective. Trees are second best. Engineered shade, like awnings over playgrounds and picnic areas, comes in third, although "any shade is good," Middel said.
The Phoenix Zoo wants to expand its parking lot. Middel took her mobile weather cart to the zoo this summer to take readings. Zoo officials want to place shade structures around the south and east end of the lot to cover people walking to the zoo entrance.
The city of Phoenix has applied CoolSeal, a coating that reflects heat back into the atmosphere instead of storing it in the pavement, in eight neighborhoods. The project is being measured this year and next to assess its effectiveness.
Mark Hartman is a chief sustainability officer with the city of Phoenix. His job involves working with ASU to mitigate extreme heat.
Phoenix is hotter than rural areas by 21 degrees, Hartman said. Urban heat affects public health, vulnerable populations and economic viability.
Living in a desert is "part of our DNA," Hartman said. "How do we make the place cool for people dependent on transit?"
Phoenix has implemented a number of measures to battle summer scorching, among them a walkable urban code. It designates 70% of areas around buildings need to be shaded.
The city also is studying cool coatings, cool materials and cool corridors (a tree and shade master plan), Hartman said.
To help the most vulnerable during hot days, the city is putting a few hundred people a day into cooling centers like the convention center.
Masavi Parea is the coalitions and trainings director for CHISPA Arizona, an organization focusing on environmental justice for the Hispanic community.
"We know this heat is not normal," Parea said. "We walk to schools. We walk to work. … We as a community have to engage. … We have to stop this reality."
The discussion was part of the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation's Case Critical series, which responds to time-sensitive sustainability concerns at the local, national and global levels. It was co-hosted by ASU's Healthy Urban Environment initiative.
Top image by Gerhard G., courtesy of Pixabay.
Arizona Impact Tempe campus Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation Environment Sustainability Health Student Community Faculty Policymakers
Scott Seckel
480-727-4502 scott.seckel@asu.edu
Brands could benefit if consumers create the ads, ASU research finds
Every internet user knows what it's like to search for an item and then see ads for that item popping up endlessly afterward.But what if ads were even more tailored to the individual consumer? What if people could create their own ads?In that new marketing world — which isn't here yet — customers would generate advertising content themselves. And, according to research by an Arizona State ...
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Downtown Phoenix campus , Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions , School of Community Resources and Development , Research
Do-it-yourself ads could boost consumers' views of brands, ASU study finds.
Customer-generated content leads to higher intent to buy, study says
Every internet user knows what it's like to search for an item and then see ads for that item popping up endlessly afterward.
But what if ads were even more tailored to the individual consumer? What if people could create their own ads?
In that new marketing world — which isn't here yet — customers would generate advertising content themselves. And, according to research by an Arizona State University professor, doing that would make them more likely to buy the product and feel affinity for the brand.
Douglas Olsen, associate professor of marketing in the W. P. Carey School of Business and the Thunderbird School of Global Management, ran three experiments in which people were able to create their own advertising content. The paper was published recently in the Journal of Business Research.
Olsen said the implications are vast.
Douglas Olsen is an associate professor of marketing in the W. P. Carey School of Business and the Thunderbird School of Global Management.
"You can only imagine that if you were able to manipulate material or elements of the ad, perhaps regarding the written content or the nature of the customer in the ad to make the customer look more like you, you could create all sorts of meaningful situations," he said.
The paper is the first of its kind regarding customized ads, he said. So he and his co-authorOlsen's co-author was John Pracejus, of the University of Alberta. built on previous research regarding personalized ads and co-creation.
The difference between personalized and customized ads is how much control the consumer has in the content of the ad. People often see ads that are personalized for them, such as that item they've searched for online, or commercials targeting their geographic area. But those ads are already made.
"The nature of customization is that you, as a participant, are completely in charge of generating the ad that is shown to you," he said.
The researchers ran experiments in which the subjects were able to create ads by choosing among content elements that were provided. The content was innocuous and not related to any real advertising. People chose among four combinations to make their ads: tornado or tsunami, dog or cat, pirate or ninja, alien or robot.
Then they were shown an ad that was either built exactly as they created it, in which all four elements matched up; similar to it, with some elements matched, or one that included none of the elements that were selected.
"That became relevant because we wanted to see the extent to which people would react positively or negatively as the level of overlap between what they specified and what they received increased," Olsen said.
Unsurprisingly, when there was no overlap, people were unhappy.
But the team found that people whose ads were 75% of what they specified were just as happy as those whose ads were 100% what they wanted.
"People like to see something reasonably tailored toward them but it doesn't have to be perfectly tailored," he said.
And, as preferences toward the ad increased, so did purchase intention.
"That's the highest bar to jump over," he said. "You can say, 'I like the ad, but I'd never buy it.' That doesn't do a lot of good."
When people believed that they were creating an ad along with other consumers, they liked the brand even more.
"In a social context, people gave a higher rating for a number of key variables, including, 'The company cares about me' and 'I want to have a strong relationship with the company,' " Olsen said.
"They really valued that social nature associated with it. There's an increased level of trust in the company and, not surprisingly, an increased sense that the company is community minded."
In that experiment, the test subjects actually were not working with others. They were led to believe so with notifications such as, "We're waiting for the responses of the other participants." Actually creating a group environment would have been too difficult for the researchers, said Olsen, who added that the subjects were told about the scenario afterward.
The sheer complication of having consumers create their own advertising means that it's not something that will happen on a wide scale soon.
"We know that this is not going to be a scenario where five years from now, all advertising will be doing this for all products. You can imagine how tiresome it would become if you had to create your own ad experience every time," Olsen said.
"The better question would be, would some consumers do this for some advertising? And we believe the answer is yes," he said.
"It's probably more applicable in microcontext."
For example, consumers might go to a website and answer a series of questions about what they want to see on that site.
"You could customize things quite a bit that way," he said.
Researchers already know that people enjoy creating.
"There's something called the 'Ikea effect,' or the 'I did it myself effect,' where people feel good about being able to put stuff together," he said.
"It's interesting because every part of you would say that if you make people put it together themselves, they won't be happy. But no, it turns out they really like it."
Top image by Pixabay
Discoveries Tempe campus W. P. Carey School of Business Thunderbird School of Global Management Business Psychology Research Faculty


text:
30-day prevalence of drug use within grades 8, 10 and 12 in the U.S. 1991-2018
30-day prevalence of use of any illicit drug for grades 8, 10 and 12 combined from 1991 to 2018
by John Elflein, last edited Feb 8, 2019
This statistic shows the 30-day prevalence of use of any illicit drug for grades 8, 10 and 12 combined from 1991 to 2018. Some 16.3 percent of all respondents in grades 8,10 and 12 in 2018 stated that they used any illicit drug within 30 days.
Expand statistic
Percentage of respondents
2018 16.3%
8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students
Monitoring the Future is an ongoing study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of American secondary school students, college students, and young adults. Each year, a total of approximately 50,000 8th, 10th and 12th grade students are surveyed (12th graders since 1975, and 8th and 10th graders since 1991).
Drug use in the U.S.
Drug overdose death rate U.S. 2017, by state
Availability of LSD as perceived by U.S. 12th graders 1975-2018
Total federal drug control spending in the U.S. 2013-2019
Personality & Behavior
U.S. students who have used hallucinogenic drugs 2017
Everything On "Drug use in the U.S." in One Document: Edited and Divided into Handy Chapters. Including Detailed References.
Statistics on "Drug use in the U.S."
Prevalence of drug use in the U.S.
Teen drug use
Drug-related deaths
Percentage of global drug users that have used either legal or illegal drugs within selected time periods as of 2017Global use of illegal and legal drug types as of 2017
Percentage of illicit drug use in global population by drug type 2017Global population share of illicit drug use by drug 2017
Prevalence of illegal drug use among the global population from 1990 to 2016*Illegal drug users - Global prevalence 1990-2016
Percentage of global drug users that have used select drugs within their lifetime as of 2017Global lifetime drug use of select types of drugs as of 2017
Estimated number of illicit drug users worldwide from 2011 to 2017, by drug (in millions)*Number of illicit drug users worldwide by drug 2011-2017
Percentage of drug users that have sought emergency medical treatment for select drugs as of 2017Global drug users seeking emergency medical treatment for select drug use as of 2017
Number of people in the U.S. who used selected illicit drugs in their lifetime as of 2017, by drug type (in thousands)Number of U.S. Americans who used illicit drugs in their lifetime 2017, by drug type
Number of people in the U.S. who used selected illicit drugs in the past year as of 2017 (in 1,000)Number of Americans who used illicit drugs in past year 2017, by drug type
Number of people in the U.S. who used marijuana in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)Number of Americans who used marijuana in their lifetime 2009-2017
Number of people in the U.S. who used ecstasy (MDMA) in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)Number of Americans who used ecstasy in their lifetime 2009-2017
Number of people in the U.S. who used cocaine in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)Number of Americans who used cocaine in their lifetime 2009-2017
Number of people in the U.S. who used crack in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)Number of Americans who used crack in their lifetime 2009-2017
Number of people in the U.S. who used methamphetamine in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)Number of Americans who used methamphetamine in their lifetime 2009-2017
Number of people in the U.S. who used heroin in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)Number of Americans who used heroin in their lifetime 2009-2017
Lifetime prevalence of use of any illicit drug for grades 8, 10 and 12 combined from 1991 to 2018Lifetime prevalence of drug use within grades 8, 10 and 12 in the U.S. 1991-2018
Lifetime prevalence of use of marijuana/hashish for grades 8, 10 and 12 combined from 1991 to 2018Lifetime prevalence of hashish use within grades 8, 10 and 12 in the U.S. 1991-2018
U.S. high school students who have used hallucinogenic drugs at least once as of 2017, by gender and ethnicityU.S. students who have used hallucinogenic drugs 2017
Lifetime prevalence of use of cocaine for grades 8, 10 and 12 combined from 1991 to 2018Lifetime prevalence of cocaine use within grades 8, 10 and 12 in the U.S. 1991-2018
Percentage of U.S. high school students who have used cocaine at least once as of 2017, by gender and ethnicityU.S. students who have used cocaine at least once 2017, by gender and ethnicity
30-day prevalence of use of any illicit drug for grades 8, 10 and 12 combined from 1991 to 201830-day prevalence of drug use within grades 8, 10 and 12 in the U.S. 1991-2018
Availability of LSD as perceived by U.S. 12th graders from 1975 to 2018*Availability of LSD as perceived by U.S. 12th graders 1975-2018
Availability of cocaine as perceived by U.S. 12th graders from 1975 to 2018*Availability of cocaine as perceived by U.S. 12th graders 1975-2018
Drug overdose death rate in the United States in 2017, by state (per 100,000 population)Drug overdose death rate U.S. 2017, by state
Number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2017, by stateNumber of U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2017, by state
Number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. from 1999 to 2017, by genderU.S. drug overdose deaths number from 1999 to 2017, by gender
Number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. from 2015 to 2017, by age Number of U.S. drug overdose deaths 2015-2017, by age
Number of drug overdose deaths among those aged 15 to 24 years in the U.S. from 1999 to 2017U.S. drug overdose deaths among those aged 15 to 24 years from 1999 to 2017
Number of drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2016, by drug typeNumber of U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2016, by drug type
Rate of drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2016, by drug type (per 100,000 population)U.S. drug overdose death rate in 2016, by drug type
Heroin overdose death rate in the United States in 2017, by state (per 100,000 population)Overdose death rate from heroin U.S. 2017, by state
Number of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. as of 2017, by stateNumber of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. by state 2017
Number of substance abuse treatment clients in the U.S. as of 2017, by stateNumber of substance abuse treatment clients in the U.S. by state 2017
Total number of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. from 2003 to 2017Number of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. 2003-2017
Distribution of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. as of 2017, by operation typeShare of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. by type 2017
Distribution of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. as of 2017, by type of care offeredShare of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. by type of care 2017
Federal drug control spending on treatment and prevention in the United States from 2008 to 2020 (in million U.S. dollars)Drug control spending on treatment and prevention in the U.S. 2008-2020
Costs due to abuse of tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs, and prescription opioids in the United States as of 2017U.S. costs due to abuse of tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs, prescription opioids 2017
Percentage of U.S. population with usage of prescription drugs within past month between 1988 and 2014, by ageU.S. population with usage of prescription drugs by age 1988-2014
Percentage of U.S. residents that self-reported illicit drug use within the past month from 2003 to 2014, by metropolitan sizeU.S. resident self-reported drug use 2003-2014, by metropolitan size
Total production of cocaine in the U.S. from 2013 to 2017 (in kilograms)*Amount of cocaine manufactured in the U.S. 2013-2017
Illicit drug use disorder among adults in the United States as of 2017, by level of mental illness*Illicit drug use disorder among U.S. adults by level of mental illness 2017
Suicide thoughts, plans and attempts among U.S. adults as of 2017, by substance dependence or abuse*Suicide thoughts among U.S. adults by substance dependence or abuse 2017
Total federal drug control spending in the United States from FY 2013 to FY 2019 (in million U.S. dollars)Total federal drug control spending in the U.S. 2013-2019
30-day prevalence of cocaine use within grades 8, 10 and 12 in the U.S. 1991-2018
Italy: drivers in the choice of headache analgesics among students 2018, by age
Share of selected drugs used by young adults in Norway 2016
Share of selected drugs used by young adults in Finland 2016
Central stimulating drug use in Norway 2014-2016, by type
Global estimated drug-related mortality rate by region 2014
Number of Americans who used crack in the past year 2009-2017
Italy: prevalence of drug use 2017, by type
Global estimated number of drug-related deaths by region 2014
Italy: share of young adults using drugs 2017, by type
Past year initiation of select substances among Texas teenagers 2011-2015
MDMA users in Romania in 2016, by age group
MDMA users in Slovakia in 2016, by age group
Deaths from drug use disorders in Spain 2005-2014
Number of drug-induced deaths in Australia 2008-2017
French university students on the difficulty of finding professional experiences 2019
Funding for additional holiday spending among students in Canada 2014
Singapore: inbound tertiary student rate 2009-2013
Views of French parents on the benefits of free education 2019
Type of professional experiences sought by French students 2019
Medical marijuana in the U.S.
Opioid use in the U.S.
Opioid epidemic in the U.S.
Adolescent drug use in the U.S.
Drug use in Canada
Drug use in Europe
Global drug use
Drug use in the United Kingdom
Drug use among children in the United Kingdom
Monitoring the Future: Key Findings on Adolescent Drug Use - Overview 2018
Results from the 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Detailed Tables
Asthma prevalence in the United Kingdom
Cancer care in the United Kingdom
Cancer in Denmark
Percentage of global drug users that have used either legal or illegal drugs within selected time periods as of 2017
Percentage of illicit drug use in global population by drug type 2017
Prevalence of illegal drug use among the global population from 1990 to 2016*
Percentage of global drug users that have used select drugs within their lifetime as of 2017
Estimated number of illicit drug users worldwide from 2011 to 2017, by drug (in millions)*
Percentage of drug users that have sought emergency medical treatment for select drugs as of 2017
Number of people in the U.S. who used selected illicit drugs in their lifetime as of 2017, by drug type (in thousands)
Number of people in the U.S. who used selected illicit drugs in the past year as of 2017 (in 1,000)
Number of people in the U.S. who used marijuana in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)
Number of people in the U.S. who used ecstasy (MDMA) in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)
Number of people in the U.S. who used cocaine in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)
Number of people in the U.S. who used crack in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)
Number of people in the U.S. who used methamphetamine in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)
Number of people in the U.S. who used heroin in their lifetime from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)
Number of individuals with a heroin dependence or abuse during the past year in the United States from 2002 to 2017 (in 1,000)
Substance use among adults in the United States as of 2017, by any mental illness
Lifetime prevalence of use of any illicit drug for grades 8, 10 and 12 combined from 1991 to 2018
Lifetime prevalence of use of marijuana/hashish for grades 8, 10 and 12 combined from 1991 to 2018
U.S. high school students who have used hallucinogenic drugs at least once as of 2017, by gender and ethnicity
Lifetime prevalence of use of cocaine for grades 8, 10 and 12 combined from 1991 to 2018
Percentage of U.S. high school students who have used cocaine at least once as of 2017, by gender and ethnicity
Availability of LSD as perceived by U.S. 12th graders from 1975 to 2018*
Availability of cocaine as perceived by U.S. 12th graders from 1975 to 2018*
Juvenile arrest rate for drug abuse in the United States in 2017, sorted by state
Drug overdose death rate in the United States in 2017, by state (per 100,000 population)
Number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2017, by state
Number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. from 1999 to 2017, by gender
Number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. from 2015 to 2017, by age
Number of drug overdose deaths among those aged 15 to 24 years in the U.S. from 1999 to 2017
Number of drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2016, by drug type
Rate of drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2016, by drug type (per 100,000 population)
Heroin overdose death rate in the United States in 2017, by state (per 100,000 population)
Number of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. as of 2017, by state
Number of substance abuse treatment clients in the U.S. as of 2017, by state
Total number of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. from 2003 to 2017
Distribution of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. as of 2017, by operation type
Distribution of substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S. as of 2017, by type of care offered
Federal drug control spending on treatment and prevention in the United States from 2008 to 2020 (in million U.S. dollars)
Costs due to abuse of tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs, and prescription opioids in the United States as of 2017
Percentage of U.S. population with usage of prescription drugs within past month between 1988 and 2014, by age
Percentage of U.S. residents that self-reported illicit drug use within the past month from 2003 to 2014, by metropolitan size
Total production of cocaine in the U.S. from 2013 to 2017 (in kilograms)*
Illicit drug use disorder among adults in the United States as of 2017, by level of mental illness*
Suicide thoughts, plans and attempts among U.S. adults as of 2017, by substance dependence or abuse*
Total federal drug control spending in the United States from FY 2013 to FY 2019 (in million U.S. dollars)
30-day prevalence of use of cocaine for grades 8, 10 and 12 combined from 1991 to 2018
How do you choose which analgesic to take when you experience headaches?
Share of selected drugs used by young adults in Norway in 2016
Share of selected drugs used by young adults in Finland in 2016
Share of people that have tried central stimulating drugs in the last 12 months in Norway between 2014 and 2016, by type
Estimated global drug-related mortality rate by region 2014 (per million people)
Number of people in the U.S. who used crack in the past year from 2009 to 2017 (in 1,000)
Estimated lifetime prevalence of drug use in Italy in 2017, by type
Estimated global number of drug-related deaths by region 2014
Estimated share of young adults using drugs in Italy as of 2017*, by type
Percentage of adolescents in Texas aged 12 to 17 years who used select substances for the first time in 2011-2015
Share of MDMA users in Romania in 2016, by age group
Share of MDMA users in Slovakia in 2016, by age group
Number of deaths from drug use disorders in Spain from 2005 to 2014
Total number of drug-induced deaths in Australia from 2008 to 2017
Opinion of university students about the difficulty of finding an internship/first job/apprenticeship in France in 2019
Funding methods for additional spending during the holidays among students in Canada as of November 2014
Share of foreign tertiary students in Singapore from 2009 to 2013*
Views of parents of students on the benefits of free education in France in 2019
Professional experiences sought by French students in 2019, by type


text:
Bits | Big Data Done Cheap
Big Data Done Cheap
By Quentin Hardy
Violin Memory has started making data storage cards for individual computer servers.Credit
Some new products impress for what they say about the future. Win or lose, they show where the world is going with near certainty.
In this case, the product is Big Data computing at near consumer prices.
Violin Memory is an eight-year-old company that makes large-scale data storage systems for computer centers. Its boxes fetch information uncommonly quickly. Now, the company is going down-market, with data storage cards for individual computer servers. These data cards create powerful machines that can perform sophisticated work at less than one-tenth the current cost of storage.
If the cards work, ordinary servers costing a few thousand dollars might be deployed for sophisticated data analysis, genetic research, logistics management or other activities that are currently done on multimillion-dollar racks of computers. It could make possible much cheaper real-time computing projects at companies and schools, bringing in more customers and experimentation.
"Radical economics is the only way to break the way things are done," said Donald Basile, chief executive of Violin Memory. "This is like having array storage, the stuff in data centers, in the palm of your hand."
Besides being cheaper and more capacious than any comparable storage inside a server, he said, the cards purportedly can fetch and store data 25,000 times faster than conventional disc drive storage.
A typical server has 8 gigabytes of memory for reaching data quickly, plus more stored in a 500GB hard drive. The Violin Memory data cards, produced in conjunction with Toshiba, offer 1.4 terabytes in "flash" memory, which can be accessed quickly. Cards for higher-end servers hold up to 11 terabytes.
This so-called in-memory computing matters, because otherwise machines use much more time moving data back and forth. In-memory, however, is now mostly available on expensive machines; an Exadata product from Oracle can cost over $1 million for storage and computing, plus monthly service charges running tens of thousands of dollars.
The low-end Violin Memory card has a list price of $4,000, and is intended for use in a server costing even less than that. A bigger card, for the kind of server that costs $5,000 or more, lists for about $60,000. In the marketplace, both cards are likely to be heavily discounted. There are also a couple of midrange models.
The secret of this new style of server memory is a clever use of commercial-grade flash memory, the kind that stores pictures in digital cameras.
Violin Memory uses a board full of these consumer chips, coordinated by its own custom silicon. The company's odd name is a reference to that orchestration.
"The explosion of data analytics gives us an opportunity in this market," Mr. Basile said. "Over the next several years, every server will have in-memory computing."
Toshiba, which is also an investor in Violin Memory, may sell the product to other server makers as well as putting it in its own brand of servers. Violin Memory has its own sales force, albeit a small one.
Even without this particular innovation, flash memory has become better and cheaper – thanks not just to cameras and big commercial systems, but to the explosion of smartphones and tablets as well.
Disruptions: As User Interaction on Facebook Drops, Sharing Comes at a Cost
Daily Report: Web Privacy Becomes a Business Imperative


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2021 AVCA/USA TODAY regional high school volleyball rankings: Week 1
September 3, 2021 September 3, 2021 admin
Here are the regional volleyball rankings via the American Volleyball Coaches Association as of September 2, 2021.
(Click here to see the latest Super 25)
Rank | High School | Record
1. Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake (Burnt Hills, N.Y.): 0-0
2. Victor Senior High School (Victor, N.Y.): 0-0
3. St. Mary's High School (Lancaster, N.Y.): 0-0
4. Massapequa High School (Massapequa, N.Y.): 0-0
5. Barnstable High School (Hyannis, Mass.): 0-0
6. South Kingstown High School (Wakefield, R.I.): 0-0
7. Dover High School (Dover, N.H.): 0-0
8. Darien High School (Darien, Conn.): 0-0
9. Smithtown West High School (Smithtown, N.Y): 0-0
10. Frontier High School (Hamburg, N.Y.): 0-0
1. North Allegheny High School (Wexford, Pa.): 0-0
2. Loudoun County High School (Leesburg, Va.): 2-0
3. Immaculate Heart Academy (Washington, N.J.): 0-0
4. Flint Hill High School (Oakton, Va.): 0-0
5. St. John's (D.C.) (Washington, D.C.): 0-0
6. Col. Zadok Magruder High School (Derwood Md.): 0-0
7. Northern Valley Demarest High School (Demarest, N.J.): 0-0
8. Hempfield High School (Landisville, Pa.): 0-0
9. Padua Academy (Wilmington, Del.): 0-0
10. Broadneck High School (Annapolis, Md.): 0-0
1. Spain Park (Birmingham, Ala.): 13-0
2. Sequoyah (Canton, Ga.): 17-1
3. St. Pius X (Atlanta, Ga.): 8-0
4. Bayside (Daphne Ala.): 17-1
5. Nolensville (Tenn.): 6-0
6. Green Hope (Cary, N.C.): 3-0
7. Dorman (Roebuck S.C.): 6-2
8. River Bluff (Lexington, S.C.): 8-2
9. Audrey Kell (Charlotte, N.C.): 3-0
10. Houston (Germantown, Tenn.): 2-1
1. Eaton High School (Ft. Worth, Texas): 19-1
2. Brandeis High School (San Antonio, Texas): 24-2
3. Flower Mound High School (Flower Mound, Texas): 18-3
4. Highland Park High School (Dallas, Texas): 19-5
5. Martin High School (Arlington, Texas): 18-2
6. Fayetteville High School (Fayetteville Ark.): 2-1
7. The Woodlands High School (The Woodlands, Texas): 25-3
8. St. Mary's Dominican (New Orleans, La.): 0-0
9. Jackson Academy (Jackson, Miss.): 15-1
10. Dawson High School (Pearland, Texas): 19-3
1. Assumption High School (Louisville Ky.): 5-0
2. Marian High School (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.): 12-0
3. Sacred Heart Academy (Louisville, Ny.): 10-0
4. Mount Notre Dame (Cincinnati, Ohio): 3-0
5. St. Ursula Academy (Cincinnati, Ohio): 4-0
6. Ursuline Academy (Cincinnati, Ohio): 3-0
7. Hudsonville High School (Hudsonville, Mich.): 12-0
8. Notre Dame Academy (Park Hills, Ky.): 5-1
9. Penn High School (Mishawaka, Ind.): 10-0
10. Yorktown High School (Yorktown, Ind.): 8-1
1. Appleton North High School (Appleton, Wis.): 12-0
2. Pleasant Valley High School (Bettendorf, Iowa): 3-1
3. Nixa High School (Nixa Mo.): 1-0
4. Brookfield Central High School (Wis.): 5-1
5. Howard's Grove High School (Wis.): 5-2
6. Dike-New Hartford High School (Dike, Iowa): 9-0
7. Ankeny High School (Iowa): 5-3
8. St. Francis Borgia (Washington, Mo.): 2-0
9. Liberty North High School (Liberty Mo.): 0-1
10. Genoa-Kingston High School (Genoa, Ill.): 2-0
1. Wayzata High School (Plymouth, Minn.): 1-0
2. Papillion-LaVista South High School (Papillion, Neb.): 6-0
3. O'Gorman High School (Sioux Falls, S.D.): 2-0
4. Eagan High School (Eagan, Minn.): 0-0
5. Millard West High School (Neb.): 5-1
6. Mayer Lutheran High School (Mayer, Minn.): 1-0
7. Elkhorn South High School (Elkhorn, Neb.): 0-0
8. East Ridge High School (Woodbury, Minn.): 1-0
9. Century High School (Bismarck, N.D.): 7-0
10. Sioux Falls Washington (Sioux Falls, S.D.): 1-0
1. St. Thomas Aquinas (Overland Park, Kan.): 1-0
2. Washburn Rural High School (Topeka, Kan.): 1-0
3. Grandview High School (Aurora, Colo.): 1-0
4. Laramie High School (Laramie, Wyo.): 5-0
5. Cherry Creek High School (Greenwood Village, Colo.): 2-0
6. La Cueva High School (Albuquerque, N.M.): 0-0
7. Blue Valley North High School (Overland Park, Kan.): 1-0
8. Copper Hills High School (West Jordan, Utah): 3-0
9. Centennial High School (Las Cruces, N.M.): 0-0
10. St. James Academy (Lenexa, Kan.): 1-0
1. Marymount High School (Los Angeles, Calif.): 4-0
2. Mater Dei High School (Santa Ana, Calif.): 11-1
3. Redondo Union High School (Redondo Beach, Calif.): 7-0
4. Village Christian School (Sun Valley, Calif.): 8-3
5. Cathedral Catholic High School (San Diego, Calif.): 1-2
6. Hamilton High School (Chandler, Ariz.): 0-0
7. Mira Costa High School (Manhattan Beach, Calif.): 2-3
8. Torrey Pines High School (San Diego, Calif.): 5-1
9. Marin Catholic High School (Kentfield Calif.): 2-0
10. Perry High School (Gilbert, Ariz.): 0-0
Region: 10
1. Iolani School (Honolulu, Hawaii): 5-1
2. Skyview High School (Nampa, Idaho): 3-1
3. Russell High School (Great Falls, Mont.): 0-0
4. Punahou School (Honolulu, Hawaii): 5-1
5. West Anchorage High School (Anchorage, Alaska): 6-2
6. Billings West High School (Billings, Mont.): 0-0
7. Sugar-Salem High School (Sugar City, Idaho): 2-0
8. South Anchorage High School (Anchorage, Alaska): 11-2
9. Thunder Ridge High School (Idaho Falls, Idaho): 0-0
10. Colony High School (Palmer, Alaska.): 12-2
#AVCAUSA #TODAY #regional #high #school #volleyball #rankings #Week
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In the framework of the circular restricted three-body problem, the center manifolds associated with collinear libration points contain all the bounded orbits moving around these points. Semianalytical computation of the center manifolds and the associated canonical transformation are valuable tools for exploring the design space of libration point missions. This paper deals with the refinement of reduction to the center manifold procedure. In order to reduce the amount of calculation needed and avoid repetitive computation of the Poisson bracket, a modified method is presented. By using a polynomial optimization technique, the coordinate transformation is conducted more efficiently. In addition, an alternative way to do the canonical coordinate transformation is discussed, which complements the classical approach. Numerical simulation confirms that more accurate and efficient numerical exploration of the center manifold is made possible by using the refined method.


text:
Home Connecticut West Hartford
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20 JEFFERSON AVE, West Hartford, CT 06110
Buds In Bloom Inc
12 South Main Street, West Hartford, CT 06107
Butler Florist & Garden Center
416 Park Rd., West Hartford, CT 06119
Lane & Lenge Florist, Inc.
Moscarillo's Garden Shoppe & Ghses Inc
2600 Albany Ave, West Hartford, CT 06117
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35 Ringgold St, West Hartford, CT 06119
Stop & Shop Supermarket
1235 Farmington Avenue, West Hartford, CT 06107
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Glastonbury , CT 06033
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Enfield , CT 06083
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New Haven , CT 06511
29 East High Street
East Hampton , CT 06424
West Hartford Flower Shop News
CT Flower & Garden Show Feb. 22-25 in Hartford - Litchfield County Times
Feb. 16 at the following Connecticut locations: The Garden Barn Nursery in Vernon; Garden Specialties in Mystic; Moscarillo's Garden Shoppe in West Hartford; Natureworks in Northford; Stonehedge Landscaping & Garden Center in Newington; and Woodland Gardens in Manchester.Show sponsors include B & P Turf Farm, Connecticut Mulch Distributors, Inc., Maple Meadow Farm, Bob Buettner Florist, Renewals by Anderson, WFSB Channel 3, WRCH Light 100.5, Bedard Enterprises, and North East Expos, Inc.The show's hours are: Feb. 22 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Feb. 23 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.;Feb. 24 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Feb. 25 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.To join the email list and get more information about the 2018 Connecticut Flower & Garden Show, seminars, and driving directions, visit www.CTFlowerShow.com or our Facebook page, or call North East Expos, Inc. at 860-844-8461. http://www.countytimes.com/entertainment/ct-flower-garden-show-feb---in-hartford/article_1aa92bc2-aea4-5101-b68c-b1d82743d32a.html
Florist and clothier moving into Delamar West Hartford - West Hartford News
West Hartford >> West Hartford's new boutique hotel, Delamar West Hartford, will serve as the new home to Robert Dinucci's Lane & Lenge and Bob DeGemmis' Connecticut Custom Clothing Company when the hotel opens its doors this summer.Lane & Lenge and Connecticut Custom Clothing Company are both long-time beloved local businesses in the West Hartford region. The stores will be in the beautiful lobby of the Delamar and will welcome hotel guests and everyday shoppers.Lane & Lenge, a multigenerational flower shop that began operation in 1912, is owned by Robert Dinucci. Voted multiple times by the Hartford Advocate's readers' poll as best florist, Lane & Lenge will be available to design floral arrangements for corporate and social events in the hotel, as well as continuing service to all other customers. Guests and visitors will enjoy beautiful, unique floral arrangements, created daily by Lane & Lenge, adorning the interior of Delamar West Hartford.Connecticut Cu... http://www.westhartfordnews.com/news/florist-and-clothier-moving-into-delamar-west-hartford/article_da2f4fa0-eab8-5262-91ae-93ab263f0ef5.html
A Flower Shop Returns To Its Hartford Roots With Opening At Goodwin Hotel - Hartford Courant
Lane & Lenge flower shop is returning to the city where it made its name.The shop will forge its future as part of two new area hotels after owner Bob Dinucci closed its Park Road store in West Hartford. The florist moved into basement space of The Goodwin in June, just a block from the fabled old store, and Lane & Lenge will open its new storefront later this summer in The Delamar in West Hartford.The deals are cause for bilateral optimism for Dinucci and his century-old shop: The florist industry has rebounded of late, despite struggles with competing online retailers and declining revenues, and in downtown Hartford, business leaders and officials say there's momentum that belies the fiscal issues of Connecticut and its capital city."I think there's some positive things happening here," Dinucci said in an interview at the store's space in The Goodwin. "There's a lot of young people coming back in."Lane & Lenge established itself as a Hartford benchmark on Pratt and Trumbull for more than 60 years. When it closed its doors in 1992, amid a recession that proved especially difficult for florists, a Courant story described its departure as "another wound for the city's downtown." Guido Dinucci, Bob's father and then-co-owner, said at t... http://www.courant.com/business/hc-lane-and-lenge-flowers-20170731-story.html
Local Florist and Clothing Store Coming To West Hartford Hotel - Patch.com
WEST HARTFORD, CT - Two local businesses, a clothing store and a florist, will be moving into Delamar West Hartford, as reported by the Hartford Courant. The stores will be located in the hotel lobby.Lane & Ledge is a multi-generational flower shop that will offer floral arrangements for customers and hotel events, according to the Hartford Courant. Connecticut Custom Clothing will move from its current Farmington Avenue location to the new Delamar space. (To sign up for West Hartford breaking news alerts and more, click here.)The hotel already contains 114 rooms and suites, a restaurant and a full-service spa, the Hartford Courant reported. It is set to open later this summer.Read the full story at the Hartford Courant.Image via ShutterstockThanks for your feedback! Now share it with your friends!Thanks for your feedback.-- -- ? Subscribe to the free daily newsletter from Patch-- -- -- -- -- Originally published June 29, 2017.
Local Florist, Clothier To Move Into Delamar West Hartford - Hartford Courant
Delamar West Hartford will soon be the home to Robert Dinucci's Lane & Lenge and Bob DeGemmis' Connecticut Custom Clothing Company when the hotel opens this summer.The stores – longtime local businesses in the area – will be located in Delamar's hotel lobby, according to hotel officials."Lane & Lenge and Connecticut Custom Clothing Company make excellent additions to Delamar West Hartford," Greenwich Hospitality Group Regional Director of Operations Daniel Coggins said in a statment. "We are excited to have both these long-standing West Hartford retail stores located in our hotel and we believe our guests will enjoy the conveniences."Lane & Lenge is a multi-generational flower shop that opened in 1912. . The shop will offer floral arrangements for corporate and social events in the hotel, as well as continue to service customers.Formerly known as Dressed to the Nines, Connecticut Custom Clothing Company opened in 1916 as a custom clothier and tailor. The company will relocate from... http://www.courant.com/community/west-hartford/hc-west-hartford-delamar-announces-florist-clothier-0628-20170627-story.html


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Foetus Who Refused to Die

3 July 2018 | Tokyo, Japan [Victor Hulbert]

Why would a young couple, deeply in love, choose to abort their unborn child? It is a story of desperate times.

News July 3, 2018
3 July 2018 | Tokyo, Japan [Victor Hulbert]
Why would a young couple, deeply in love, choose to abort their unborn child? It is a story of desperate times.
Mitsuharu Suzuki was among the few Japanese soldiers who survived World War II fighting in Manchuria, China. His survival was not so much because of wartime bravery but rather because he developed tuberculosis and had to be shipped home.
When the Japanese emperor surrendered on 15 August 1945, Mitsuharu attempted suicide, as did many fellow soldiers. He felt ashamed to be one of the few to survive.
But life improved. Mitsuharu married Fusae and became a farmer. They had a baby daughter, Atsuko. Mitsuharu worked hard and dreamed of a happy future. But tuberculosis returned, this time ravaging his spine.
"I'm very sorry," the doctor told Fusae. "Your husband is very young but, unfortunately, he will die tonight or at the most in a few days."
The news devastated the young mother. She went to the river to fetch water and, looking into the water, considered throwing herself in. But then two men in black suits appeared.
"Be patient for just a while," said one.
"Yes, be patient," said the other.
After those words, the men disappeared from her sight.
The encounter pulled Fusae back from despair, and she returned home to nurse her husband.
Mitsuharu, meanwhile, was tormented by his lingering illness. "I'm very sorry that I could not make your life as happy as you expected when you married me," he told his wife.
By that time Fusae was pregnant again. With his fragile health, Mitsuharu feared for the future. He could not bear the thought of his wife struggling to raise two children on her own. He pleaded with her to terminate the pregnancy.
His pleas upset Fusae. Moreover, abortion was strictly prohibited in Japan because of a decreasing population following World War II. But a government official granted permission for the abortion after hearing about the situation.
Failed Abortion
Fusae walked slowly to the pharmacy. Those steps were the most difficult in her life. When she showed the special document to the female pharmacist and asked for the medicine, they cried together. The pharmacist prescribed a strong medicine that, she promised, would work without fail.
"Be careful with the medicine, and don't exceed the prescribed dose," she cautioned. "Otherwise, your own life will be in danger."
Fusae, with tears in her eyes, swallowed the first dose, enough to end the pregnancy. Weeping in sorrow, she felt the foetus move.
"My baby's still alive!" she cried out.
The next day, she repeated the dose. Then again on the third day. Yet the foetus kept moving inside her. In desperation, she drained the medicine bottle, but still the baby remained alive.
"It's totally unbelievable!" she told her husband.
Mitsuharu said nothing, perhaps recognizing that something miraculous was happening in Fusae's womb.
Several months later, unspeakable joy filled Fusae's heart when a healthy and loudly crying baby boy was born.
Discovering his origins
Her son, Akeri, was 30 and serving as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor before Fusae told him of his origins.
"When I heard the story of my birth from my mother, I was terribly shocked and felt as if I had been struck by powerful lightening," Akeri said. "My whole body trembled." Overwhelmed by God's tremendous love, he thought, "I am a very precious gift from God." He re-dedicated himself to God at that very moment. "God intervened in my mother's womb to save my life," he said.
Akeri's parents went on to have three more children,* but his mother always told him, "You were the strongest of all the babies."
Finding Christ
Several months after Akeri's birth, a man wearing an old Japanese military uniform came to the house with a black book. "This is the Bible! This is the Bible!" the man told Mitsuharu. "Please read this Bible, and you will find great truth and wonderful hope." It was the first time that Mitsuharu had seen a Bible.
A few days later he rode his bicycle passed an advertisement for evangelistic meetings in the nearby town. The words of the poster stirred an interest in his heart. Having faced death several times, he was searching for truth and hope.
At the meetings, Mitsuharu eagerly learned about the Christ who died on a cross for his sins and promised him an eternal life free of illness. He learnt about the great resurrection hope. He and his wife were baptized together on Akeri's first birthday, 29 April 1951.
"Their baptismal date always reminds me that God intervened in my mother's womb to save my life," Akeri said. "My parents became the first Adventist church members in my village."
The family lived in a poor village and were the poorest of the poor because of Mitsuharu's tuberculosis. Their home had no electricity or running water, and they survived on government welfare payments. Yet one day, a pastor suggested that Mitsuharu send his children to an Adventist boarding school and college near Tokyo.
Fusae was skeptical. "I have no idea about the school," she told her husband. "Anyway, I'm sorry. I think it's totally impossible. You are still sick, and we have no money."
Working hard despite his poor health, Mitsuharu managed to send all four children, one at a time, to the school and college.
"In human terms, my mother was right," Akeri said. But he sees this as another miracle and is grateful for his father's sacrifice.
Becoming a Pastor
Never recovering from the effects of tuberculosis, Mitsuharu died at the age of 48. His death, which was closely followed by the deaths of two school friends from his village, caused Akeri to rethink his plans to become an English teacher.
"In my sorrow and despair, I clearly discovered the great hope of resurrection and eternal life," he said. The hope that had inspired his parents then inspired him.
Akeri decided to dedicate his life to pastoral ministry so he could spread the wonderful gospel about the great hope of resurrection and eternal life. He gleans special encouragement from the whole of Psalm 27, but for him, especially verse 10, which says, "When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me" (NKJV).
After serving many years as a pastor in Japan, Akeri worked as executive secretary of the Adventist Church's Northern Asia-Pacific Division, whose territory includes Japan and is headquartered in South Korea. Today, Akeri is 68 and, although retired, remains active as the division's honorary associate director for the Sabbath School and Personal Ministries departments.
He truly believes that God had a plan for his life.
"I'm very thankful to God that He gave me abundant love and great hope through Jesus Christ," he said. [tedNEWS]
Victor Hulbert is communication director for the Trans-European Division. He met Pastor Suzuki during the recent World Bible Correspondence School Advisory in Israel.
*one child died as a young baby.
tedNEWS Staff: Victor Hulbert, editor; Sajitha Forde-Ralph, associate editor
119 St Peter's Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
Website: www.ted.adventist.org


In May, notations for the two benzene-driven products, PC and PA 6, continued to rise as the increases in both April and May's price for the aromatic continued to reverberate. Commodity-related ABS and PP compounds also increased again. By contrast, the price of PA 6.6, PBT and POM remained largely stable. PMMA notations were corrected slightly downward following the over-inflated price level seen during the recent period of MMA shortage.
The dramatic situation in the standard segment has started to impact availability of PP compounds, where the first signs of a shortage are starting to appear. In addition, independent compounders' margins are increasingly coming under pressure. By now, standard notations have already reached the level of the more basic compounds. There are also reports of bottlenecks for basic PA 6 polymers. Aside from that, the other grades covered in this report are not expected to see any significant problems.
June's benzene contract performed a sudden turnaround, falling by a massive EUR 111/t. This is bad news for the campaigns being launched ahead of the upcoming quarterly agreements, especially for suppliers of PC and PA 6, since it robs them of an important argument in favour of hikes. The steady rises in the C3 chain, on the other hand, are pressuring PMMA. Aside from the occasional scuffle, the situation for all other materials is relatively calm.


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UK Government on the verge of floating NFT project
As extra international locations understand the potential of NFTs, the metaverse, and Web3 as a software for nation-building and wealth creation, there was an uptick in governmental adoption of NFTs.
The Solar by no means units on NFTs
The UK has had a tumultuous relationship with NFTs, and because the nation started its journey to grasp higher and govern this new asset class, they've made appreciable headways and a ton of errors alongside the best way.
As one of the crucial profitable empires of all time, the UK prides itself on straightforwardness and tactical considering. The nation's choice to drift an NFT mission may be an thrilling step towards turning into one of many world leaders in NFT and Web3 expertise.
The UK authorities just lately shared plans to situation a non-fungible token that'll assist solidify its forward-looking method to cryptocurrency investments and expertise. In additional methods than one, the current announcement by members of the UK authorities regarding its NFT ambitions reveals a wide-reaching optimistic improvement that may assist redefine a whole business.
NFTs are comparatively protected and straightforward to elucidate digital property. In comparison with cryptocurrencies that some critics declare to carry no worth, NFTs normally have a digital and bodily illustration that makes it simpler to defend and clarify their value.
The current announcement additionally shed extra mild on the UK authorities's imaginative and prescient for stablecoins and distributed ledger applied sciences. For certain, the UK is extra proactive and forward-looking than its counterparts, and that's a trigger for celebration.
It's time to welcome digital property
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, whose position is just like that of a Central Financial institution Governor in different international locations, just lately requested that the Royal Mint create NFTs "within the coming months." The Royal Mint is the physique accountable for producing British cash.
The UK is one nation that has stopped being scared and uncertain about digital applied sciences and property. As a substitute, this nation is prepared and dedicated to main the best way in the direction of a digital future stuffed with collaboration and happiness for everybody concerned.
The UK in a digital property world
The UK is among the most revolutionary and engaging international locations for investments globally, and in Europe, London remains to be the continent's monetary "capital" – even after Brexit. A large chunk of Europe's Fintech unicorns are based mostly within the UK, proving that this nation has a powerful monitor document of being a monetary powerhouse.
Throughout a keynote on the Innovate Finance International Summit, John Glen, the UK's financial secretary to the Treasury, shared the next, "If there may be one message I would like you to go away right here in the present day with, it's that the UK is open for enterprise – open for crypto companies. We're nonetheless proper on the cusp of this expertise breaking by.
Source: Nft News Today
TRON (TRX), Orbeon Protocol (ORBN) Or Cosmos (ATOM) – What Brings More Bang For Your Buck?


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T&T potential and talent—unlimited, Things That Matter
Last Friday, mayor Keron Valentine kicked off the city of Port of Spain's 102nd anniversary celebrations. Thousands turned out for the Fashion and Mas Rock the City event, the brainchild of designer Anya Ayoung Chee.
The parade included old time carnival characters, blue devils, pan music and mas costumes. The parade proceeded east along Ariapita Avenue to Adam Smith Square where the fashion show took place.
It was a celebration that combined fashion, music and mas—a reflection of who we are!
The mayor and councillors of the Port of Spain City corporation have included the June 23 Olympic Day celebration as part of the month long celebrations.
In this an Olympic year by virtue of the T&T Olympic Committee Headquarters (Olympic House) location on Abrecromby Street, Port of Spain, opposite Lord Harris Square, it would not be stretching the truth to proclaim Port of Spain the Olympic capital of T&T.
With the TTOC itself celebrating 70 years and the 40th anniversary of Hasely Crawford's historic acheivement of winning the 1976 Montreal Olympics 100 metres final to become the first ever son of the soil to become an Olympic champion, it is great that Olympic Day will form an official part of the celebrations.
The success of Fashion and Mas Rock the City event is a timely reminder of the potential and power of our culture, music, entertainment and creative sectors. Add food and sport and you have a compelling value proposition. The packaging of all the components constitute brand T&T.
At every Olympic Games in recent history, the question has always been asked if a brand T&T promotional package incorporating all the distinctly Trinbagonian elements will be showcased during the Olympic Games. The answer is no.
Staging such an initiative requires the involvement of tourism, trade and Investment, foreign affairs, culture along with sport. Moving from discussion and talk to implementable action is a challenge.
One can't help but feel frustrated at the failure to embrace and capitalise on what seems obvious. Changing an entrenched culture is no mean feat. There is much potential and opportunity to drive economic growth and diversification if we can only see the big picture.
But we have to be true to ourselves as a people and a country.
What is it to be a Trinbagonian? What do we as the collective Trinidad and Tobago stand for? What is brand Trinidad and Tobago?
What's our why?
Are we grounded in Trinidad and Tobago ? Or have we lost our sense of who we are and what it means to be Trinidad and Tobago in our expression of self and how we project ourselves to the world
There is so much that we can build on. Our talent and potential is unlimited. We need to go back to the basics and build and strengthen the necessary foundation needed.
It will require hard work and discipline but most of all a sense of purpose. These days with the doom and gloom proving invasive, staying positive and focused is much more of a challenge.
The temptation to fall back into the crowd is compelling in an environment where excellence is only a hobby.
Brian Lewis is president of the T&TOC. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the TTOC.
#TeamTTO #10golds24	Rio 2016 Olympic Games	Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC)
Adopting to the sisu philosophy
How to be a force for good in a world turned upside down by the unprecedented covid-19 pandemic.
Lewis: Time for a female IOC president
TTOC boss makes case for more women in decision-making roles The tenth president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should be a woman. That is…
Friday December 11
Lewis: Our athletes will not be affected more than any…
Brian Lewis, president of the T&T Olympic Committee (TTOC) said this country's athletes will be affected no more than their international counterparts from the International…
Racial divide and rule can be overcome with open and…
I am optimistic that Trinidad and Tobago will be a better country and society and that the current post election racial discord is a necessary…
Sunday August 16
Lewis: IOC must acknowledge Rule 50 was racially-fuelled
BEFORE any amendment is made to Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) must firstly acknowledge the fact that this decree…
A sports-base approach is needed to help the youth
Last week, Trinidad and Tobago faced its own Black Lives Matter (BLM) day of reckoning. The lives of PC Allen Moseley, Joel Jacob, Noel Diamond,…
Tuesday July 07
TTOC head: 'Root out gender, racial inequality'
FUNDAMENTAL change is needed across the board, if TT, as a nation and people, wishes to eradicate the gender and racial inequality currently plaguing the…
Friday June 19
Do not flinch in the face of adversity
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley's announcement that phase three of the reopening of the T&T economy during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions began on Monday…
Wednesday June 03
Lewis: Sport can be key in covid19 recovery
BRIAN LEWIS, president of the TT Olympic Committee (TTOC), says that sports can play a vital role as TT recovers from the global coronavirus pandemic.
Monday June 01
Lewis: We need a culture change
SELF REFLECTION and culture change during the current downtime are the primary elements which can aid society's swift reintegration, in the post-covid19 period.
Monday May 18


3 bedroom (1 is tiny and does not have a closet), eat in kitchen w/refrigerator, central air conditioning, cold water is included, rear patio, prospects must have good credit and the financial ability to support the rent, co-signers who are family members are accepted. Please note that this house is not available for move-in until 6/1/16. No Pets.


The Galleries is a retail development in the center of Bristol. The site presented a number of unusual and challenging problems in the design and construction of the 10,000m^2 by 6m deep basement. Site conditions were unfavorable being in the alluvial flood plane of the river Frome that crosses the site in a masonry culvert. Fill and Estuarine Alluvium overlie Keuper Sandstone with high groundwater levels. Before construction work could commence, over 100 existing piles, which obstructed the line of perimeter wall and the basement piles, had to be removed. To save about six-months construction time the 'top-down' method of basement construction was adopted. This meant that within the basement one hundred and twenty base grouted piles with cast-in steel stanchions were required to carry loads of up to 11,300kN into the Keuper Sandstone. This paper considers the design and construction steps involved in building the piles.


Follow the story of Jack, as he shoots his way to freedom. Help him find his wife and discover the truth about the world outside the city walls. Grab your ammo and turn the safety off for this run and gun adventure. W,A,S,D / Arrows to run, Q/CTRL pickup weapon, E/Shift switch weapon.


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Imaging Resource turned 15 this month, thanks to all of you!
15th birthday dave etchells imaging resource
by Dave Etchells
posted Monday, April 1, 2013 at 12:59 PM EST
It's hard to believe, but it was 15 years ago today that I first brought Imaging Resource live on the Internet. Some say Internet Years are like Dog Years, only more so; by that measure, IR is more like 100 and I don't feel a day over 99.
IR was a classic entrepreneurial startup, beginning its life in a spare bedroom before eventually moving to the basement. Nine years ago this January, we moved it to a building of its own, a 2-bedroom ranch house with a nice big basement that now houses the IR lab.
Here's what IR looked like, shortly after launch.
(Back then, I didn't have an ad server, so ads were inserted on pages via batch edits to all the files on the site! Sadly, none of these original advertisers are still in business.)
At first it was just me doing everything, but it wasn't long before current News Editor Mike Tomkins joined me, as well as writer Stephanie Boozer, both of whom continue to be involved. Nowadays, there's a dozen of us who work more or less full-time on the site, plus several freelancers and outside programmers. And we're excited that our latest hire, William Brawley, will be joining the team as Associate Editor tomorrow.
Only possible with much support
If time flies when you're having fun, I must be having a blast, because it doesn't remotely seem like I've been doing this for so long. It's been a great ride: I have great people that I work with, a fantastic community of enormously supportive readers, and a loyal collection of advertisers who support our efforts to educate and inform via our rigorous and objective testing and reporting. I'm deeply grateful to every one of the above. The team here works incredibly hard, but with incredible grace and goodwill towards each other: They make coming to work every day a pleasure, which has a lot to do with why it seems like far less than 15 years that I've been at this.
Our readers are, of course, the ultimate reason IR exists: With out all of you, none of what we do would be possible. I'm deeply appreciative not only for your vast legions, but for the time so many of you have taken to drop an encouraging email, say thanks, support us with a donation, and just generally contribute to the collegiality and good humor of the IR community.
Since the beginning 15 years ago, IR's goal has always been to provide the most comprehensive, informative and accurate digital camera reviews on the web. The camera manufacturers may have changed over the years, but not our mission.
And naturally our advertisers make it all possible, too. We've been genuinely blessed with advertisers who value the service we provide to readers, helping you make more educated camera and gear purchases.
On the one hand, it's amazing that I've never had an advertiser try to change or influence our coverage of their products in any way, regardless of how the reviews might come out. (A PR firm did try to twist my arm once, but I'm pretty sure their client would have been horrified if they'd found out.) Really, though, knowing all the people involved at the various companies, it's no surprise at all: The photo industry is a truly remarkable business, characterized at the highest levels by fair dealing and good will, and that's certainly borne out by all the people I've come to know and appreciate at so many companies over the years.
One of my very first contacts in the industry was Jon Sienkiewicz, then of Minolta, who shared this thought with me at my first PMA in New Orleans in 1998. Paraphrasing heavily, due to the distance in time and my imperfect memory: People don't generally go into things like appliance sales or real estate because they have a passion for their products, but most of the people in the photo business have a real passion for photography. While the realities of business mean that they have to move the products, their motivation for doing so is rooted in sharing and spreading the joy and magic of photography. (Thanks, Jon)
It's a really good group of people, one that I'm hugely grateful to be associated with.
We are family, literally
The most photographed woman on the web? My long-suffering wife Marti, in one of the very first images posted on Imaging Resource. (Shot with the Olympus D-220L)
Of course, there's one group in particular who deserves credit above and beyond all the others -- my family. Many longer-term readers will feel they already know my wife Marti, since she was the long-suffering model for thousands (and thousands) of "indoor portrait" and "outdoor portrait" shots in the earlier years. Marti has managed our accounting since day one, and sons Arthur and Chris have both worked on the site as well.
Arthur now serves as our Director of Development, dragging our software kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Marti, Arthur and Chris have all suffered the usual ups and downs of a small, entrepreneurial business, and having "Dad" or "Hon" perpetually working late and on weekends. I can't say enough how much I appreciate their patience and unflagging support.
And, of course, I couldn't forget our four-legged family members. Many of you know Charlotte the Wonder Dog, who's been chasing frisbees in videos for us for more than a decade. The photo (below, right) shows her coming home for the first time, in late 2001. (Hard to believe she's 11 years old now, and still chasing Frisbees for us.) And then there's our relatively new addition, Yoshi (below, left), a rambunctious pup who's always ready to help a co-worker finish off his lunch. (Sometimes, whether the co-worker wants him to or not.) Even Arthur's pooch, Woolly, stops in most every month to see the team and share his opinions on what we're doing. Safe to say that bringing our dogs to work keeps things in the office exciting -- and helps keep our priorities in order.
Yoshi, Wonder Dog in Training
(And accomplished Lunch Thief)
Charlotte the Wonder Dog coming home for the first time in Dec. 2001.
A passion for technology, since Day One
The photo business is also unique in the extent to which it's driven by technology, another passion of mine. I love seeing electronics, device physics and image processing turning into better and better cameras with every year that goes by. IR began right as digital imaging tech was finally making its way into the consumer market, and there's been enormous growth and change in the years since. Looking back, it's literally hard to believe how much the industry has changed.
The first reviews posted on the site were for a clutch of Olympus cameras, the D-220L, D-320L, D-500L and D-600L. The Olympus D-600L was quite the choice piece of gear, a real object of envy at the time. It had no fewer than 1.4 Megapixels, a 1.8-inch LCD on the back, a 3x, 36-110mm-equivalent zoom lens, and a snazzy-looking frame reminiscent of Olympus' popular "ZLR" (zoom lens reflex) film cameras. All this for only $1,299 -- crazy! I still have mine, sitting on the IR "museum" shelves in the living room / conference room here.
What's hard to convey is just how utterly cool this camera was back then, how far ahead of the rest of the field it was at the time. I could say that most competing models had VGA-resolution sensors (640x480), but really, there wasn't anything that truly competed with the D-600L at the time; it really stood alone at the top of the digicam market for quite a while.
Other cutting edge cameras and gadgets from 15 years ago
What else was going on back then? Some things were surprisingly advanced for the time, others never made it past the lab.
One of the interesting gadgets in the latter category was the Imagek EFS-1. The concept was to package an image sensor, electronics, and battery into a 35mm film-can sized package that you could just drop into your film SLR, turning it into a digital model. It could shoot 30 images before you'd have to remove it and download the photos to a computer.
Or, you could just drop in another EFS-1 and keep on rolling, although at a projected price of $1,000 each, I doubt many photographers would have been able to justify a handful to lug along. Perhaps fortunately, no photographer ever had to face that particular budget decision; the EFS-1 never made it as a commercial product.
In the "surprisingly advanced" category was the Casio QV-770. It was only VGA resolution, and had a fixed focal length lens, but offered some unique "timed exposure" modes, as well as in-camera panorama stitching. The timed exposure modes were evidence of Casio's innovation even then, and something that's been a constant of the Casio line ever since.
The timed Exposure modes were what we'd call continuous shooting mode today, with the camera capturing four shots in rapid succession (20 fps!). The real innovation wasn't so much in the idea of continuous shooting, but rather the "past" and "future" modes, which let you capture images either before or after you pressed the shutter button. In the "past" mode, the camera shot continuously at the 20 fps rate, with the images flowing through the buffer, stopping when you pressed the shutter button. As a result, you'd end up with the last four shots it took before you tripped the shutter, a great help when trying to catch fleeting action.
From 1.4 megapixel cameras for $1,300 to vastly more capable 16-megapixel ones for less than $200, it's been a wild ride for all concerned. Look for an ongoing news feature from us, looking at where the industry stood at 5, 10 and 15 years ago and how it's changed.
In 2013, IR feels more vibrant than ever
Another way the business has changed is in its footprint on the Internet. These days, there are myriad individual blogs about most any aspect of photography you care to name, but back then, there were only a few of us.
Sadly, IR seems to be the only site from that era still operating independently. Some great sites have fallen by the wayside and gone dark, while others have been swept up into larger organizations. I suppose that's just the way of things, but it's sad to see it happen, nonetheless.
But with all our recent changes and additions, IR feels more vibrant than ever. We've made a number of upgrades to the site recently, and have a lot more up our sleeve that you'll start seeing over the next month or two. I'm looking forward to 2013 being the best year yet for IR!
Stay tuned, and thanks again for your support!
Dave Etchells
Founder, Publisher, Editor-in-Chief


The depth dimension is about differences (BACK) or similarities (FRONT). Which is equivalent to us there we tend to seek contact with (FRONT). What is strange keeps us away (BACK). What lies behind us is distant (BACK), what lies ahead is close by (FRONT). The dimension distinguishes what we can see (what is in front of us), of what we can not see (what is behind us). In psychology this is the antagonism introverted (BACK) – extroverted (FRONT). In the emotional response the antagonism is unpleasant (BACK) – pleasant (FRONT). It is the theoretical dimension, about communication, the what question, the profound, the in depth.
The height is the dimension of the force of gravity. Things fall from top to bottom. What is heavy tends to go down (TOP to bottom), what is light in weight has a tendency to float upwards (BOTTOM to top). At the top is the power that dominates. At the bottom is the compliant. It is the hard (TOP) opposite to the gentle (BOTTOM), the strong (TOP) towards the weak (BOTTOM). Our head is the control centre of the body and is at the top. With our feet we stand on the earth. In psychology it is the contrast low cooperativeness (TOP) – high cooperativeness (BOTTOM). In the emotional response it comes to the degree of control one has over someone or something, with great control on top. This is the practical dimension, the how questions, the technical approach, the know-how.
The breadth is the dimension which is determined by the hands, to the left and to the right of the body. Left and right of the king are the representatives of the society (the classes). The Christian God divides humanity into the damned (LEFT) on his left side and the blessed (RIGHT) on his right hand side. The past (LEFT) we usually express with the left hand. Which lies in the future we express with the right hand (RIGHT). The past is associated with passivity (LEFT) and the present or the future with activity (RIGHT). Passivity means rest and the general decline of metabolic processes and glandular function. Activity accelerates the metabolic process and gland function increases. Primitive peoples showed a number of basic behaviours. The active primitive man was a hunter, his activity was focused on conquest and obtaining. A passive behaviour was self-preservation, defence, withdrawal (Lüscher & Scott, 1969). In psychology, these are the calm, rational people (LEFT) facing the emotional, spiritual ones (RIGHT). In the emotional reaction it is about the intensity that a person is touched. Low intensity is on the left side, high arousal on the right. It is the history dimension, the why questions.