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Silvio Calabi: Audi's boogie-woogie SQ5
Except for the tiny squares of crimson on its bow and stern, this might be just another Q5, Audi's mid-size designer crossover 4×4. Well, the red bits plus the quadrophonic exhaust pipes, the 21-inch star-spoke wheels with the low-profile tires, and the supercharged 345-horsepower V-6. To spot the engine, you'd have to open the door to get at the hood latch, so you'd also notice the nifty sport seats and wheel.
This is no mild-mannered Q5, it's Clark Kent's alter ego, the super SQ5—another example of just what speed-crazed engineers now can do with a tall, heavy vehicle.
I really get a kick out of this car. I love how the tuner motor comes to life (push-button ignition, enabled by a key in my pocket) with a spasm of torque and a breathy chuff! I love the small, chunky leather-wrapped steering wheel with its squared-off bottom. I love the adaptive Xenon headlights and even how the wing mirrors fold in when I lock the car and walk away.
Especially I love how the SQ5 drives. It's crisp. Everything happens when I want it to, not when a microprocessor gives the OK. Steering weight increases with speed. The brakes are almost too quick. The ride is perfect. The low-end grunt of the supercharger brings up all 346 pounds of torque almost instantly, and the dual-clutch, eight-speed Tiptronic gearbox bangs out shifts right now, as smoothly or as urgently as necessary.
Then there's the Multi Media Interface. The MMI computer supervises about every aspect of the SQ5, from the satnav and the phone to the built-in Audi Wi-Fi hotspot, the Bang & Olufsen stereo, and the finer points of interior lighting, auto-locking and so forth. If it's not on the MMI, it's controlled by all those switches, knobs and buttons on the wheel or the console. Don't let this throw you; doping it all out is pretty straightforward.
The world grew to esteem German cars because their makers knew precisely how to set them up for safe, comfortable high-speed travel. Then, starting about a decade ago, the Germans began to turn that job over to their clients by making everything driver-adjustable. All the high-end makers have caught onto this by now, but the Germans are pushing customizability way out there and the SQ5 is a good case in point.
Touch the CAR button on the MMI and a screen called "Drive Select" appears. Then, by twirling and tapping the control knob, choose between COMFORT, AUTO, DYNAMIC and INDIVIDUAL settings. Each one delivers a different combination of engine, transmission and steering responses, and also engine sounds.
Comfort speaks for itself; Auto uses sensors to figure out what the driver wants and the SQ5 needs; Dynamic is Audi for "sport"; and Individual lets the driver choose and store a favorite mix of settings.
For around town, my Individual program combined the Dynamic engine, transmission and sound levels with Comfort for steering, to reduce twitchiness at the wheel. But on the interstate I went all Comfort, for a more relaxed cruise and 24 mpg.
I wonder how many owners, after the novelty wears off, simply put Drive Select on Auto and forget about it? Too bad you can't tell Audi what setup you want (after driving a demo) and have your SQ5 delivered that way. Simplify a bit — and knock a few grand off this $64,770 price?
Now consider Audi's available Side Assist blind-spot monitors: They're unique because they can be turned off, and because they can tell the difference (mostly) between vehicles coming up from behind and those being overtaken. They're also slaved to the turn signals, so they won't needlessly scare the heck out of you with their bright orange flashing LOOK OUT! lights.
Very gee-whiz, but normal monitors are just as effective. So is this needless complexity? Brilliant engineering? A new profit point? A poke in the eye of Mercedes-Benz and BMW? Why, yes.
Brilliant, focused simplicity has been absent from upper-end German cars for a long time now. Not much we can do about it except enjoy the results and then move on before the warranties expire.
Silvio Calabi reviews the latest from Detroit, Munich, Yokohama, Gothenburg, Crewe, Seoul and wherever else interesting cars are born. Silvio is a member of the International Motor Press Association whose automotive reviews date back to the Reagan administration. He is the former publisher of Speedway Illustrated magazine and an author. Contact him at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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A major thoroughfare for commuters along downtown Seattle's waterfront is set to shut down for good Friday, ushering in what officials say will be one of the most painful traffic periods in the history of the booming city.
The aging, double-decker, 3.5-kilometre Alaskan Way Viaduct, which carries about 90,000 vehicles each day, will be replaced by a four-lane tunnel. Officials say tearing down the viaduct, damaged in a 2001 earthquake, will allow Seattle to reimagine its waterfront with new parks, paths and other amenities.
But the new tunnel won't open until about three weeks after the viaduct closes as workers realign the highway into it. A mélange of other construction projects will further constrain traffic in the hilly city surrounded by water, already known for its population growth and traffic woes.
Washington's transportation agency on its website has a clock counting down to the viaduct closure , which it says will be the longest major highway closure the Puget Sound region has ever seen.
The period between the viaduct's closure, scheduled for 10 p.m. Friday, and the state Route 99 tunnel opening is already being dubbed the "Seattle Squeeze."
"It is dramatic," said Heather Marx, director of Downtown Mobility for the Seattle Department of Transportation. "Everyone travelling in the region will be impacted," she said, referring to people going to and through the Seattle metropolitan area.
City, King County and state officials have been doing outreach and working to ensure things run as smoothly as possible, like authorities did ahead of Los Angeles' "Carmageddon" freeway shutdown in 2011. Many feared that dayslong bridge project on one of the region's most critical freeways would lead to epic traffic jams, but it cruised to a finish ahead of schedule with no significant problems.
During the "Seattle Squeeze," school bus drivers will start their days earlier, and officials are advising commuters to work from home or adjust their work hours if they can. Those who can't are being asked to walk, bike, join a carpool or use transit including buses, light rail or water taxis — all to avoid driving solo into downtown during peak commute times.
Tad Donaghe, of West Seattle, usually travels by bus to his downtown job at Nordstrom but has worked out an alternate route involving light rail and water taxi to avoid the anticipated crush of drivers switching to buses during the closure.
"I tried out my #Viadoom commute tonight," he tweeted Monday, using a popular hashtag related to the closure.
The growth of tech giant Amazon and a population boom has spawned an abundance of construction in the Seattle area in recent years with new housing, light rail expansion and infrastructure development already straining commuters' patience. Once the tunnel opens, removing the viaduct will take months, which will be followed by the creation of the new downtown waterfront area. Large private projects also in the city's core include the renovation of a sports arena that will host professional hockey and an addition to the Washington State Convention Center.
Lisa Baumann, The Associated Press
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subset: commoncrawl


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It's been a busy couple of months for me. Gamescom is just a couple of weeks away, and I've had a lot of work with my new weight training book, as well as a new pet project of mine.
I've been exploring the Unity engine of late, hoping that it would suit my game project. It's proving to be useful so far – although not without quite a learning curve! The ability to test stuff from within the engine is a huge benefit, though, and the flexibility to use it with other engines for things such as network code is a big draw for me.
One area where I struggle, however, is 3D graphics. I know my way around the software, but I'm not exactly an artist. So, I jumped at the chance to review two new books by Packt – the Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook by Virgilio Vasconcelos, and Blender 2.5 HOTSHOT by John E Herreno.
The first of the two books focuses on characters, and giving them life – rather than having them look like plastic models or rag-dolls. The second covers a broader range of projects, and explains how to approach them in a systematic manner. This is definitely a weakness of mine – I tend to approach my models from the angle of "OK, well what would look good?", and that sort of haphazard methodology doesn't work very well for anything fancier than a table or a barrel!
I'm studying the books now, and I'm impressed so far. Expect a full review soon.


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If you're like most consumers, at some point you've complained to a service provider or retailer, ultimately threatening to never patronize that business again.
And, if you're like more than 90% of grumbling customers, you'll never actually follow through on that threat.
Sometimes, though, service and selection remain so consistently bad that consumers have little choice but to permanently give up on patronizing a particular business. Walmart (NYSE:WMT) is dancing dangerously close to that line in the sand for too many current customers.
In fact, it's so bad that investors should start to worry, too.
Doing Nothing Right
That the world's largest retailer struggles when it comes to customer service isn't exactly breaking news. Indeed, Walmart has something of a history of customer-centric snafus ever since the retailer became more of a corporation and less of a family business (that happened sometime in the early '90s).
Within the past couple of years, however, bad customer service and sloppy management has taken on a whole new meaning for Walmart.
For starters, Walmart is missing too many items on its shelves. Although the company had responded to criticisms about its empty shelves by denying it's a problem, the CEO of its U.S. division — Bill Simon — acknowledged in early March that the company isn't keeping its shelves stocked as well as it could.
The irony is, it's not that the merchandise isn't in the store. It's just stuck in stockrooms.
According to some reports, it's not unusual for pallets and pallets of goods to pile up in Walmart stores' backrooms because there simply aren't enough employees to handle it all. Bloomberg recently posted an outright alarming statistic: since 2008, the number of Walmart stores grew 13%, while the number of employees has grown less than 2%. No matter how you slice it, the math simply doesn't make sense.
Then again, perhaps having fewer employees around means less opportunity to offend customers.
There are countless examples of Walmart employees treating the stores' patrons poorly, but perhaps none so much as the recent incident where a breast cancer survivor was forced to show her mastectomy scars to employees.
Trying to return a $13 book she received as a gift, the customer was asked to produce a picture ID, as she did not have a receipt for the book. Problem: Her chemo changed her hair color from blond to brown, and it wasn't as long as it was in her driver's license picture. Several of the store's employees doubted it was actually her ID, forcing the cancer patient to fully explain her ordeal, up to and including showing the Walmart workers her surgery scars.
An isolated incident? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
While it would be easy to dismiss the unfortunate turn of events as bad luck for the company, too many recent Walmart patrons who have had similar experiences (though none as cruel) aren't surprised enough that such a thing could happen at a Walmart store.
Lesson Learned
What's going on at Walmart now might be something its competitors bear in mind … forever.
One of the goals of small companies is to achieve a so-called "economy of scale," where revenue grows to a point where variable costs as well as fixed costs are more than covered. Since fixed costs are, well, fixed, any future revenue growth will at least somewhat widen corporate margins.
There might be a limit to the upside of an economy of scale, however.
At the other end of the business-efficiency spectrum is the "law of diminishing returns." Although the idea usually applies to manufacturers, it can also apply to a mega-retailer like Walmart.
In simplest terms, the law of diminishing returns says there comes a point where the size of an operation is a liability rather than an asset. While Walmart's growth into a 10,792-store company might have achieved an optimal economy of scale along the way, it's pretty clear now that the retailer is suffering from an excessive size. Out-of-touch management, labor unrest, restocking headaches, ridiculously long checkout lines and market saturation are all symptoms of the problem of size. So are waning same-store sales. So is the fact that frustrated customers are laying merchandise down and walking out of the stores empty-handed.
And yes, Walmart, it is happening.
Of all the stumbling blocks Walmart is tripping over, though, it's ultimately its front-line people (and a lack of them) that are breaking the company. While intangible, it matters. It just takes a while for its importance to become clear.
Of course, customer service is the toughest thing in the world to teach and maintain, particularly when you don't make a concerted point of doing it. Sooner or later, Target (NYSE:TGT) and Costco (NASDAQ:COST) are going to exploit Walmart's failing.
As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.


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Abraham Bernstein
I am a Full Professor at the Department of Informatics (Institut für Informatik) of the University of Zurich. I mainly conduct research on the Semantic Web and Knowledge Discovery. My work draws from both social science (organizational psychology/sociology) and technical (computer science, artificial intelligence) foundations.
Before coming to Zurich I was an Assistant Professor, at the Information Systems Department in New York University's Stern School of Business, and received a Ph.D. at MIT's Sloan School of Management, where I worked with Prof. Thomas W. Malone at the Center for Coordination Science.
Research Interests
- Semantic Web
- Human Interaction with the Semantic Web
- Triple Stores / Graph Stores (incl. Query Processing)
- Semantic Web Services
- Non-standard Reasoning
- Large Graph Data Sets (e.g., Software, Transactions, Social Networks)
- Matchmaking
- Machine Learning / Data Mining
- Data Mining Process
- Graph Mining
- Time Series Mining
- Large Graph Data Sets (e.g., Software, Transactions, Social Networks)
- My publications in Merlin
- My publications on Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZYNjTykAAAAJ
- ORCID id: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0128-4602
- Group publications on our web-page
- Group publications in Merlin


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Free Yard Waste Collection Ends January 31
As part of the launch of the City of Tulsa's new residential refuse and recycling program, the city provided free yard waste collection during the months of November, December and January to assist residents with the transition to the new pay-as-you-throw service.
Beginning Friday, February 1, all yard waste, to include organic or garden material such as leaves, grass, plants, branches and hedge trimmings, that doesn't fit inside of a city-issued refuse cart, will require a 'Green Waste' sticker to be applied to each bag or bundle. 'Green Waste' stickers are available for purchase at area QuikTrip locations and are sold in sheets of five stickers per sheet for $2.50 each.
Regardless of service level, to include backyard, extended backyard and physically limited service, all yard waste must be placed at the curb by 6 a.m. on the customer's primary collection day.
Bagged yard waste placed outside of the refuse cart must be in transparent bags so that the contents may be verified by the hauler to ensure proper disposal. Yard waste placed in non-transparent bag will not be collected. (The City of Tulsa has verified that transparent bags may be purchased at area Ace Hardware stores, Best Electric Hardware store, Home Depot and Lowes stores.)
Sticks and branches must be tied in bundles no larger than four-feet long by two-feet wide and placed at the curb for collection.
Residents may also dispose of yard waste at no cost by taking the material to the City of Tulsa's Green Waste Facility located at 10401 East 56th Street North. The site is open seven days a week from 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., excluding city observed holidays. A current driver's license with a Tulsa address is requested for admittance.
For more information about yard waste collection or other City of Tulsa Solid Waste Services programs, please call (918) 596-9777 or visit www.cityoftulsa.org/trash.
Updated 01-29-2013


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Show All Answers
Yes, on a limited basis and with a permit. Find more information on our permit page.
Hunting on State Parks land is prohibited. While hunters are traversing state parks in order to gain access to properties that do allow hunting, if they have dogs with them, hunters are reminded they must keep their dogs on an 8-foot leash and under control at all times.
If a park has a phone monitored by park staff, the phone number is listed on the park page. If you have general questions, you can also call the State Parks Information Center at (360) 902-8844 for information. The information center is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
One and five-year disability passOffered to Washington state residents who are legally blind, profoundly deaf, developmentally disabled, or meet the disability definition used by the U.S. Social Security Administration.
Disabled Veteran Lifetime Pass:Offered to Washington state residents with a documented service-connected disability of at least 30%.
To receive an application, visit the nearest region or Tumwater headquarters office, call (360) 902-8844, send an email or mail your request to Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission P.O. Box 42650, Olympia WA 98504-2650..
You can view a map online with general state park locations, or request a copy of the State Parks main agency brochure by calling (360) 902-8844.
Contact the Dept. of Enterprise Services Office of Risk Management at (360) 407-9199 or write to:
Office of Risk ManagementDepartment of Enterprise ServicesPO Box 41466Olympia, WA 98504-1466
To file a tort claim in person:
Department of Enterprise Services1500 Jefferson Street SEOlympia, WA 98504-1466
Business hours: Monday – Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information, visit the Dept. of Enterprise Services tort claims web page.


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Three cheers for Zaca Mesa!
Forty years isn't particularly old for a European winery, but in California, it's positively Methuselean. A handful of wineries began in 1972—Caymus, Jordan, Silver Oak, Stag's Leap, Edmeades—almost all of them in the North Coast. This was a time when viticulture in Santa Barbara County was mostly a gleam in people's eyes; Richard Sanford was busy with his Pinot Noir, in the western Santa Ynez Valley region that's now called the
Santa, err, Sta. Rita Hills. But inland the valley was still mainly cattle and horses.
In 1972, though, a group of friends bought some land in the Foxen Canyon region, north of Los Olivos. The next year they planted grapes to the usual mishmash: Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Pinot Noir, Chenin Blanc, Grenache and so on, "to see what would work," as they say on Zaca Mesa's website.
They hired a guy named Ken Brown as their first winemaker, then planted Syrah in 1978—the first planting of that variety in the county. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Zaca Mesa now is celebrating their birthday with some big events that will culminate in May with the 40th Anniversary Celebration.
What makes the winery so unique is not only its age and the quality of the wines, but the roster of winemakers who've worked there. It's literally a who's who of winemaking in Santa Barbara County: not just current winemaker Eric Mohseni, but Brown himself, who went on to establish Byron, Jim Clendenen (Au Bon Climate), Bob Lindquist (Qupe), Daniel Gehrs, Adam Tolmac (Ojai), Chuck Carlson (Carlson), Benjamin Silver (Silver), Clay Brock (Wild Horse—the list goes on and on, making a stint at Zaca Mesa University almost a prerequisite for winemaking in the Central Coast.
I've been fortunate to be able to review Zaca Mesa's wines for many years, and can say that few wineries anywhere have such a distinguished track record. The throwing-spaghetti-at-the-wall approach to see what would stick gradually evolved into a Rhône specialization, which in itself helped make the Santa Ynez Valley a hotbed of Rhône activity. (It's fair to say that only one region specializes in Rhône-style wines, and that's the Santa Ynez Valley.) Zaca Mesa's top wine always is their Black Bear Estate Syrah, from a small block on the estate vineyard that was planted with cuttings from Hermitage. I don't know if it's the pedigree of the Chapoutier vineyard or the terroir of Santa Ynez Valley that makes this one of the greatest Syrahs in California, but it is. I gave the 2009 ($60) 96 points, but production was a mere 367 cases.
Other Zaca Mesa wines that always are good include the Z-Cuvée red blend (often a bargain), the fancier Z Three GSM and the Z Blanc, one of the better white Rhône blends in California.
Interesting insight on "Zaca Mesa University." Kinda reminds me of the flow of talent through Chez Panisse. What accounts for that do you think?
Just had an 06′ Black Bear Syrah that was pretty stellar. Took awhile to open up but had tons of blackberry and blueberry with a little bit of chewy leather and a long long finish.
Zaca Mesa is definitely one of the "old guard" in California at this point.
I ran a wine bar in 1980 and featured their 1979 Toyon Blanc, which was a white wine with a hint of color
nice folks – Jim Fiiolek running around the country with the Zacamobile in the late 1980's – a regular Ken Kesey – good stuff
Always a stand-out, from an outstanding Rhone-style region. In good hands with Eric, among my favorite Central Coast winemakers'.
I think that Zaca Mesa made the important leap in quality when they retained Coastal Vineyard Care and Jeff Newton to mange and replant many of the older vineyards which had been originally planted in the 70's; their winemaking has almost always been top drawer, but now the cellar team has high quality fruit to make even better wines. Hurray for the Cushman family and their commitment to quality!
I was at the winery last December and tasted Zaca Mesa's entire line-up. These wines go where few others follow,in terms of quality and elegance. I don't know if "classic" is the right word because they are hardly textbook styles – certainly not typical of the region in terms of what is commonly accepted as Cal-Style Rhone. I am very glad to read Steve's post and share with others.
Steve, thank you so much for this article. And Mr. Alfonso "C", above, how many times did we howl with Omar and the Howlers on the Zacamobile on Lower or Upper Greenville?
As Zaca Mesa's J-the-Baptist during the '90s (I named the Z Cuvee, Z Gris [or Gris Z as we call it in Memphis], and Black Bear Block/B3) I am proud to have been associated for more than a decade with a winery you so correctly noted as having "such a distinguished track record."
And Steve, for your distinguished track record of blogging "outside-the-case," thanks once again.
- NEWS FETCH – JANUARY 21, 2013 | Wine Industry Insight - [...] Three cheers for Zaca Mesa [...]


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Wolf Blitzer delivers the most important breaking news and political, international, and national security stories of the day. Tune to The Situation Room weekdays 5-7pm ET on CNN.
CNN's Barbara Starr looks at how the 2012 elections are affecting gun sales in the U.S.
RELATED STORY: Gun sales at record levels, according to FBI background checks
Gotta love the freedom to own guns!!! This isn't talotly the Land of the Free but it's got its advantages. It's just a shame too many people screw up advantages like by blowing people away with guns. If anyone's anti-gun they also ought to be anti-baseball bat 'cause those kill people, too. So do cars. And box cutters... if anyone's anti-gun they sure as heck ought to be anti-car 'cause that can be used as a weapon and ought to also be anti-box cutter 'cause even worse than using a car to murder someone a box cutter can be used to help turn a jetliner into a missile.yes, yes, we surely ought to ban cars and baseball bats and box cutters in this America, just as guns ought to be banned. they can all be used as a weapon to kill from one person to almost 3,000. Let's take away our freedom to own shoes with shoelaces which can be used to strangle a person. I am hereby calling on all Senators to see this through. In fact, why don't we all lock ourselves up in our own personal jails with no physical interaction at all because afterall, one's hands can be used as a deadly weapon, too.
gap between the rich and the middle class =gun sales
Gun sales are always up in the US. The election has nothing to do with it. Rofl Perry finally said something smart! Use both hands. LOL
It shows you a lot about the simple state of mind of some people. When praying and distorting the facts will not yield the desired result at the ballot box – there is always the thought of second amendment "remedies"! How disgusting!
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text: Despite recent advances, diabetes continues to be a major health threat for at least 29 million Americans who have it and the 86 million Americans with prediabetes. The biggest concerns for individuals with the disease are its many complications and co-morbidities; which can cause vision loss, heart disease, stroke, and other debilitating medical conditions. With the aging of the population and the rise in risk factors like obesity, these problems are going to skyrocket, making medical innovation more critical than ever.


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Like a tea made without tea leaves, a tisane is made by infusing fresh herbs in hot water. Historically, tisanes were consumed for their medicinal benefits, but they are also the perfect showcase for the bright flavors of fresh herbs. They're a great way to bring a new ingredient into your repertoire: pouring a little hot water over an unfamiliar herb is an easy way to get a sense of its flavor. And if you're pesto-ed out, a tisane is super simple way of using up extra herbs you have on hand.
Tisanes are often served hot, but I made these all iced for warm-weather sipping. Here are three flavor combinations that I'm really into right now.
Nettle Rosemary Tisane
Stinging nettles, not nearly as menacing as they sound, are leafy green plants that grow wild in North America. Lined with tiny spikes, the leaves and stems, which can be a skin irritant, are easily tamed with boiling water. If you're not quite ready to venture out and harvest your own, nettles are in greenmarkets for much of the spring. When steeped in hot water, they make a super-savory infusion that is a great pairing for slightly spicy, resiny rosemary.
Lemon Balm Lavender Tisane
If you've never tried lemon balm, I'd urge you to seek it out. I fell so much in love with it after using up the bunch that I bought to make this tisane that I planted some on my fire escape! Lemon balm is a member of the mint family and has a pretty similar appearance to the more familiar mint, but its bright, lemony scent is immediately recognizable. Paired with fresh lavender--leaves and all, not the dried buds--this is a clean tasting, refreshing drink.
Mint Shiso Tisane
Shiso, also known as perilla or sesame leaves, is used widely in Asian cuisine. You may have seen it wrapped around sushi or meat, in a chiffonade on noodles, or even made into kimchi. It comes in red and green varieties and is also a relative of mint. It has a unique taste that's a little hard to describe. It has hints of fennel and also a spicy note, like cinnamon, which add complexity to the classic, cooling mint tea.


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Langtang region offers some of the finest short and medium ranges trekking in Nepal. Trekking in Langtang is noted for the beautiful sceneries of pine forest, slow moving rivers, swift mountain streams, snow capped peaks, wide grassy downs and diverse ethnic settlements similar to Tibetan settlement due to its proximity to the Tibetan boarder. Langtnag Valley itself is a valley of glaciers surrounded by snow capped peaks and its inhabitants the descendents of Tibetans living vibrant Tibetan culture for years. A short Lantang trek takes up to Kyanjing Gompa for the spectacular panoramic views of stunning Langtang Lirung, Lempo Gang and Dorje Lhakpa. Easy access to the region from Kathmandu and the presence of medium ranges snow peaks in Langtang region attract mountaineers for climbing in Nepal.
A longer Langtang – Gosaikunda – Helambu trek is noted for scenic grandeur, alpine yak pastures, valley surrounded by snow peaks, glimpses of diverse ethnic cultures of Sherpa, Tamang and others. While crossing over Lauribina pass in Langtang – Gosainkunda trek, the excellent view of Tibet is remarkably breathtaking. Gosainkunda Lake itself has become the pilgrimage site for many Hindu and Buddhist devotees. Beautiful Sherpa villages in Helambu and the panoramic views of Himalayas from Annapurnas to Mt. Everest from the high ridges in Helambu add more attraction in Langtang – Gosainkunda trek.
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We had a great guide, Dawa and a very friendly porter whom we called "namaste". They were extremely friendly and helpful toward us and they took very good care of us during the whole trek. With well-planned itineary, we had no problems whatsoever with the altitude. The tea-houses the guide chose for us were also the best ones in every village. We enjoyed the whole trip very much. Now, we look back to those wonderful days on the trek and say that how lucky we were to be able to do that. We hope to work with Ang Rita Trek in planning another trip in the future.
Ang Rita Trek just provided me with an experience of a lifetime. Mingma, Shashi and their lead guide Lhocpha and their support staff were incredible in all aspects of trekking to Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar. Their knowledge, professionalism, and care to ensure my safety on the trek and ensure I achieved my goals were unbelievable. Without reservation...I would use them again and would recommend them to anyone interested in this wonderful, once in a lifetime Trek...
Another excellent trekking experience with Ang Rita Trekking. The local arrangements were perfect. Our guides in the Khumbu were excellent. The guides treated us like friends, not just clients. We learned so much about the Sherpa culture from our head guide. Ang Rita Trekking is a first rate company and the price is very affordable. Compared with the outside companies we had better lodges, lots of good food, very good guides and porters at one third the price!!!
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Ang Rita Trek & Expedition was recommended by my climbing friends. They were very helpful when I start planing my trip. All my questions was promptly answered. It was a very smooth process. In Nepal I was warmly welcomed and I was very lucky had a nice group cook, guide and porter. Everyone was very professional for their job and made my trip went great. I would highly recommend Ang Rita Trek & Expedition to everyone planing to go trek or climb in Nepal.
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Since it was my first time in Nepal, I did not know what to expect; but our guides, Migma and Kami, ensured that all of the logistics were properly arranged and accommodated all of our needs throughout the trip. In addition, they introduced us to the geography and culture of the region. The food was incredibly good and diverse.
For me, Migma and Kami were not mere guides, but great friends who made the trek joyful and memorable.
Ang Rita Trek & Expedition and the wonderful guides helped to make my first trip to Base Camp an incredible journey. I got to see a beautiful part of the world and meet wonderful people. It is a trip that I hope to repeat soon.
Our group really enjoyed two weeks trip in Bhutan organized by Ang Rita Trek& Expedition. The program was interesting and satisfied our expectations. In our memories are most powerful dzongs and temples, Bhumtang festival, people, mountains and nature. If we could have more time, then we could have 2-3 days longer trekking to enjoy even more nature and mountains.
We liked the hotels, trekking and our guide, who knew a lot about Bhutan, history and Buddhism. Special thanks to the bus driver, who was really professional and always supporting us. Our heart has got touched by Bhutan nature and people.
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
Thank you for your efforts during our stay in Nepal, we appreciate having you around. We had great trekking to Jomsom Muktinath. Your service was wonderful.
The route you planned for us was great and we really enjoyed it. We will definitely recommend you for our friends. Everything was fine and we are really happy.
E-mail: email@example.com
On behalf of Ray and I we wanted to thank you, Mingma, Kharmi, Brtha for making our expedition an amazing and memorable one which we will talk about for years to come.
Pls pass on special thanks to Kharmi as he worked very hard to make our trip a great one and Ray and I greatly appreciate his efforts throughout the entire trek.
PS: Especially his efforts and local knowledge at Lukla to get us out on the day we were to fly…..big sighs from both Ray and I to fly out of Lukla.
Thank you for all the services and help for us in Nepal. As You know, we all were in Nepal for the first time, but plan to come back to Your country again. Special thanks to guide Lhakpa, porters Nyrian and Bathri. Those guys are great: professional, helpful, fun and joyful. We had superb time with this company during our first trek in Nepal (around Annapurna).
After memorable trek we were really surprised with the rafting. Our expectations were much lower, but Mylo, Ramsi and the canoya guy (sorry- I forgot his name :) ) did everything, that we all would want to take rafting next time again. Those guys are great culinary specialists by the way :)
I could absolutely recommend Ang Rita Trek & Expedition for all the people, who come to Nepal not only for the first time. By myself I will contact this company next time again, because companies attitude and efforts let us have great time in Nepal. It's impossible to find such a great and professional company (manager, guides, raft instructors, porters, etc.) by your own.
I have been to Nepal twice now for mountaineering and trekking. I use Ang Rita Trekking as my agent and they organised everything for me, my highly experienced Sherpa (7 times Everest summit, north and south), and my porters. My first visit in 2012 was to do the Everest Base Camp trek and then to climb Island Peak. Time restrictions meant that I did not summit Island Peak but made a good attempt and got to almost 6000m.
The following year in 2013, I summited Mera Peak (6414m) again with Ang Rita Trekking as my agent. The agents meet you at your hotel in Kathmandu for final arrangements, all you have to do is email them with an idea of where you want to go and how you want to do it. I personally choose to do my mountaineering by myself with my own Sherpa and porters. Ang Rita Trekking not only make this possible but a fantastic experience. Next stop with Ang Rita Trekking – 7000m !
Quick Contact
Lazimpat, P.O. Box :8544,
Kathmandu Nepal
Tel : 4002263, Fax : 4002067
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
E-mail : email@example.com


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Sucuri, the web security specialists, published "Brute force attacks against WordPress sites," an in depth look at not just the importance of a strong password but the brute force nature and anatomy of login and registration access attacks.
There is a technique known as brute-force attack. Like the name implies, access is gained to your environment through brute force. Often conducted by bots, these attacks will run through a compiled list of common passwords and their permutations (i.e., password, Pa$$w0rd, p@ssw0rd, etc..). Yes, the attackers know that you substitute 'A' for an '@' and 'S' for a '$'. Using this method the attackers are gaining access to your wp-admin, this then allows them to serve spam via your posts, deface your home page like we recently saw with ServerPro, and inject any one of the other types of malware roaming the interwebs.
Because of the consistency and prevalence of these attacks, we decided to test it for ourselves. We created a couple different honey pots with the intent of identifying the types of passwords being used, and to better understand the anatomy of these attacks. It didn't take long. Within a few days, we had captured so much data that we had to share it with you.
The article features a list of the most common passwords used across all secure logins as well as WordPress, and used in these brute force login attacks. By now you should all know that the most common password used worldwide is "password," proof that we somehow never learn. I've written extensively on how to create a strong password, and it appears it's time for another lesson, especially on how to deal with the famous "admin" login issue with WordPress.
It's also time to remind you to update WordPress whenever there is an announcement of a mandatory security release. Don't wait. There are evil doers just waiting for security vulnerabilities on older, out-of-date versions of WordPress, PHP, MySQL, etc. Update immediately and don't risk your site.
Creating a Strong Password
In my training programs and college courses I teach people how to create an easy-to-remember and simple password with punch. It involves some creative thought and familiarity with Leetspeak.
The guidelines for a strong password are to use numbers, mixed capitalization, and symbols and never use the same password for everything. People usually panic, assuming that their life is complicated enough without trying to remember 800 passwords, so we make it easy.
Pick a simple, easy-to-remember, or unique word. Make it the same for every password so you will always remember it. Add it to the name of the site, service, or app to make a compound word. If your word was elephant, you would make your Gmail account gmailelephant or elephantgmail, your WordPress site called "My Site" could be mysiteelephant, and your YouTube account elephantyoutube. Sounds simple, but we don't stop there. It's important to make your password fairly bullet proof so we translate it into Leet.
For example, if you are accessing your WordPress site, your password might be WordPressjack and convert into Leet as:
If you were accessing your Gmail account, an example following this formula for Gmailjack would be:
Wikipedia's Leet article features all the variations on the letters of the alphabet that can be found in Leet, showcasing the versatility and flexibility of using Leet to replace alphabet characters in a password.
For example, the following are Leet options for the letter M:
- 44
- /\/\
- |\/|
- em
- |v|
- ^
- nn
- //\\//\\
- (\/)
- /|\
- /|/|
- .\\
- /^\
- |^|
So "Gmail" could be spelled
644@i1, 6?/\/\@i1, 6IVIail, Gnn@11, or other Leet variations, opening up a wide range of possibilities. Your Gmail password in Leetspeak could be completely different from the one someone else uses following this format.
In my example above, I used "Jack" as my unique word at the end of the password. You can use any name, place, or any made-up word. A friend likes the word "syzygy" and uses that as the unique first or last word in all their passwords. In Leet, one spelling variation might be
$j2`/6j. Combined with WordPress for "WordPresssyzygy," it could be
W02dPr355$j2`/6j, a seriously strong password.
Creating passwords this way keeps them unique and yet easy to remember, and different for everything you are using. With the flexibility of Leet, there are infinite ways to mix and match letters so you could vary the unique word spelling and change it annually. It meets the requirements for a mix of alphanumeric characters and mixed caps and makes it challenging to break through.
Changing the WordPress Admin Username
While WordPress and WordPress.com offer a unique password generator and offer a password strength indicator when you create your own, it doesn't create the username, save for the default "admin" username upon installation or activation.
The first step in protecting your WordPress site's security is changing the "admin" username. The second step to truly protecting your username and password is to create a second account for day-to-day use, leaving the administrator user level for those special occasions when you need to go under the hood.
To change the default "admin" username, you need to add a second Administrator account. However, WordPress permits only one unique email account per site, so you have to fool it. I have instructions below on how to do that if you don't have a second email address.
The instructions for changing the default username from "admin" to anything else is:
- Go to Users > Invite New.
- Add a new user (yourself) with the second email address and set the user authority level to Administrator.
- Log out of your site.
- Go to your email and accept the invitation and login to confirm.
- Go to Users.
- Select the original Administrator account with the username "admin."
- Click Delete.
- In the Delete panel, select Attribute all posts and links to… and select the new username.
From that point forward, log in with the new account as Administrator.
If you use a second email account and wish to use the original email address, after completing the above, go to your User Profile and change the email address back. If you do not have a second email account, most email services permit the plus method of creating custom email addresses. For example, in Google Gmail, you can add a + to your email address to create a unique email such as
firstname.lastname@example.com. All email delivered to that email address goes to your
firstname.lastname@example.com address, ignoring the plus words. Check with your email host for their method.
Creating a Safe User Account
I travel extensively and can't always trust the Internet connection I'm on for security. Nor can most people as they take their blogging experience from the home or office desktop computer to laptops, mobile phones, and tablets. It is more important than ever to create a separate user account for accessing your site in public with less permission authority thus adding some security protection to your site.
The Administrator user level has complete power and control over all aspects of your site, from adding content to injecting code into Themes and Plugins. The Editor and Author user levels restrict access to the customization and code-level features of your site, limiting access to publishing content and comment management, where most of us spend the majority of our time. When I don't need administrator clearance, I log in with my Editor or Author user accounts. If those usernames and passwords are stolen or broken into, they can only go so far in causing damage.
To create an Author or Editor user account, you will need a second email address (see above for details).
- Go to Users > Invite New.
- Add a new user with the second email address and set the user authority level to Author or Editor.
- Log out of your site.
- Go to your email and accept the invitation and login to confirm.
When you need to make design or code changes, use your Administrator login. The rest of the time, use your Author or Editor login and you've added another level of security to your site.
If you would like to use a WordPress Plugin to change the username and protect the Administrator account, give these a try.
- WPVN – Username Changer WordPress Plugin
- Better WP Security WordPress Plugin
- Lockdown WP Admin WordPress Plugin
- MJP Security Plugin WordPress Plugin
- Allow Multiple Accounts
- Add Multiple Users for WordPress WordPress Plugin
Hat Tip: WP Tavern
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SC-Project is a race tested and race proven Italian exhaust manufacturer. SC-Project uses their MotoGP, Moto3, Moto2 and Superbike racing experience to push the limits and develop the highest level of exhaust performance.
SC-Project exhausts are hand made right along side the same exhausts you see on MotoGP bikes and at race tracks around the world. SC-Project is committed to putting race quality performance, sound and weight reduction in the hands of all motorcycle enthusiasts.
The S1 silencer comes from the excellence of Made in Italy design together with the technology which is directly developed in the maximum competitions - as MotoGP and SBK, for which the silencer was designed and developed. The silencer body is in full titanium with conical shape and the exit end is in matte carbon fiber of the highest quality.


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Recently, President Trump was criticized – and sued in Federal Court – over one of his first Executive Orders in the first days of his office.
More specifically, it was his Executive Order No. 13767, signed January 25, 2017, and published January 30, 2017, entitled as "BORDER SECURITY AND IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT IMPROVEMENTS" which has caused a justifiable stir.
Search the historical record of Executive Orders:
Some are all up in arms, again, justifiably so, not merely because of the mass confusion which it has created. In essence, what many have complained about is that many Permanent Resident Aliens (so-called "Green Card" holders) would have been denied re-entry into our United States for a period of 90 days if they were a citizen of, or have visited one of 7 so-called "nations of concern": Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
It should be remembered, however, that the so-called 7 "nations of concern" first began during the Obama administration.
In December 2015, President Obama signed H.R.158, the Read the rest of this entry »


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July 17, 2018
9:00 am - 11:00 am
HomesUSAAlliance 2-Day Certification hosted at Cendera in Fort Worth
Course Overview:
Have you ever had a prospect call you to announce that they purchased a new home over the weekend, but would not be purchasing the re-sale home you thought that would? If so, learn from it and do not shy away from selling new homes.
Whether you are a new or experienced agent, we want to encourage you to become involved with the new home builders and sales representatives in your area. If you check with the top agents in your market you will probably discover that a share of their total sales is from new homes. The problem for many agents is that they do not qualify their clients for new homes. Many agents tend to believe that clients want a re-sale home because that is what they have called about.
Also, some agents may not feel comfortable showing new homes because they don't understand or haven't been taught new home sales.
Successfully completing this 2-hour seminar teaches agents the following:
- Why an agent should consider selling new homes
- How an agent can select the right builder, build a farm area and build a new source of referrals
- Benefits of involving a builder's on-site salesperson
- How to develop a working relationship with the on-site salesperson
- Identify the best resources agents can utilize to find new homes for sale
|Course Provider Number: 10211
|Course TREC Number: 33671
|Course Credits: 2 CE Credits
|Course Instructor: Bob Hafer


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AAA Appliance Repair West Palm Beach – Used Appliance Parts & Service
Appliance Repair West Palm Beach
AAA Appliance Repair is full-service appliance repair company in business since 1981. We are always available to help you.
We will send a certified technician to your home in no time. This will make your life easier!
You will not find friendlier service technicians. Seriously! Our staff doesn't just know their stuff, they know how to treat their customers.
We'll treat your home like it's our home, and ALWAYS leave your home cleaner than we found it.
Your appliances in West Palm Beach should never be broken.
They will, and they always do! It's important to choose a West Palm Beach appliance repair service that you can trust.
Business Name:
AAA Appliance Repair West Palm Beach – Used Appliance Parts & Service
1273 S. Military TrailWest Palm Beach Florida 33415United States
(561) 689-8885
Our Newest Profiles


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From CorbettReport.com
After writing a series of articles documenting the discrepancies and outright lies in the official narrative of the Sandy Hook shooting, Professor James Tracy of Florida Atlantic University shot to international attention when the establishment media began covering his work. Now, Dr. Tracy is left trying to explain the misinterpretations, lies and soundbites that the mainstream media is using to discredit his work. Find out more in this week's GRTV Feature Interview.


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Written by Dr. Eric Perry
Image Credit: Pixabay
"You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself." ~John Steinbeck
The ability to see and feel the world from another person's point of view is one of the most powerful human traits. Empathy allows you to transport yourself into another person and to experience the world through their eyes. Without empathy, we are empty vessels; nothing more than singular and isolated figures unable to connect with the world around us.
To better understand empathy, it is important to distinguish it from sympathy. Sympathy is the ability to understand another person's situation from your point of view. It is a self-centered point of view that helps you understand what the other person is going through based on your own circumstances. You are able to acknowledge how the other person is feeling but, from a distance. You do not become emotionally connected to the person. For example, you are able to sympathize with someone having problems in their relationship because you have had problems in your own relationship. You do not feel what they are feeling but you have an understanding of what they are experiencing.
Empathy is a bit more complicated and abstract. In order to experience empathy, you must have the ability to identify the emotion and to place yourself in the other person's position. The focus of empathy is self-less. You are experiencing another person's emotional life by your ability to connect with them. In a sense, you are vicariously feeling the emotion. For example, through empathy, you are able to feel a stranger's loss of a child, even if you are childless, by seeing the loss through their perspective. Through this connection, you are able to wear the emotional skin of another and essentially feel with them.
The inability to imagine yourself in someone else's place in order to understand what they are feeling will result in difficulty in connecting with others. The lack of empathy is one of the traits shared by psychopaths and those with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Also, recent research suggests that people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) may have difficulty with empathy. In a 2018 study from the University of Georgia, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to show that individuals with BPD have less brain activity in areas of the brain that are important for empathy.
This reduced activity may indicate that individuals with BPD have a more difficult time understanding and predicting the emotional experiences of others. However, further research is needed as there is an earlier conflicting study by Alan Krohn from 1974 that suggests individuals with BPD have a special form of empathy that gives them an enhanced sensitivity to the mental states of others.
The inability to imagine yourself in someone else's place in order to understand what they are feeling will result in difficulty in connecting with others. In individuals with BPD, it may lead to difficulty in interpersonal relationships and an inability to maintain a stable and emotionally healthy relationship. The lack of empathy in people with NPD and psychopaths leads them to objectify others. Their inability to connect with others allows them to view them as objects to be used for their benefit.
Psychopaths are able to understand emotions but are not able to feel what others are feeling. They are able to mimic emotions to get what they want but overall they are only able to feel shallow emotions. They are not able to feel empathy, guilt, remorse, fear or love. To the psychopath, people exist only for their benefit. They will take what they want with charm, force or by attaching themselves to their victim like a parasite. The psychopath will destroy a person's life without a second thought.
NPD exists on a continuum from mild to malignant. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), narcissists lack empathy. Individuals with NPD are able to feel emotions but due to early trauma and physiological deficits, they are not able to properly express them. Much like an empath, individuals with NPD have high emotional intelligence that allows them to identify how other people feel and think. Unlike an empath, a person with NPD uses this ability plus his lack of empathy to manipulate and exploit others. They primarily use people as a source of narcissistic supply to help them bolster their weak ego.
Empathy is a powerful source of human connection. Empathy adds to your emotional palate by allowing you to experience depths of emotions in your life that you would not otherwise experience. It allows you to feel how another person is feeling and also gives you the ability to experience another person's perspective of the world. Without empathy, the world would be a dark place, prone to hatred of others who we perceive as different. It is important to remember that we are all essentially the same but simply have a different vantage point of the world. Our views may be different but we share common joys and fears. We all rejoice in the birth of a child and mourn the loss of a loved one in the same way.
Thank you for reading. I would love to hear your thoughts about this topic.
The thoughts expressed in this blog post are my own and are not meant to create a professional relationship with the reader. This blog does not replace or substitute the help of a medical professional. Please note, I am unable to answer your specific questions as I am not fully aware of all of the circumstances.
Dr. Perry
"I help ambitious and high achieving individuals manifest a life of success and fulfillment in order to achieve the life they truly desire."
Dr. Eric Perry | drericperry.com


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Republicans used to oppose regulations on campaign contributions by saying all we needed was more disclosure so people would know who contributed to who, and could make their own judgements.
Now, when Democrats introduce a DISCLOSE Act to do just that, Republicans filibuster. Natch.
How to explain the latest of flip-flops? The Washington Post quotes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has given a series of speeches defending political giving as free speech, said the bill was an attempt by Democrats, who have realized they can't "shut up their critics" to "go after the microphone instead, by trying to scare off the funders."
"As a result of this legislation, advocacy groups ranging from the NAACP to the Sierra Club to the Chamber of Commerce — all of whom already disclose their donors to the IRS — would now be forced to subject their members to public intimidation and harassment," he said.
In other words, if wealthy donors had to make their political support in public, the public might say mean things about them.
(And something tells me these folks are not worried about being caught giving to the NAACP and the Sierra Club.)
I didn't realize that having one's feelings get hurt was inappropriate in a democracy. Let's fully solve the problem then.
Why should candidates for public office be known by name? Let's just have "Candidate A" square off against "Candidate B." That way no reporters can ask embarrassing questions, no bloggers can say snarky things about them, and no voters need face them in a town hall.
Sure, that might mean we all have no idea what it is we're actually voting for. But the important thing is: our elected officials can manage our democracy without any of that awful and hurtful public feedback.


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Yogananda (Paramahansa Yogananda)pärämhäN´sä yōgänän´dä [key], 1893–1952, Indian mystic. He was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, of a Kshatriya (warrior caste) family. Before attending Calcutta Univ. he met his guru, Sri Yukteswar, and after graduating (1914) he became a monk in the order of Shankara, taking the name Yogananda. In 1917 he founded the Yogoda Sat-sang school for boys in Calcutta (now Kolkata). In 1920 he went to the United States where he lectured widely, teaching a secret technique of meditation, which he called kriya yoga. He founded (1920) the Self-Realization Fellowship to carry on his work and lived in the United States until his death. His organization, which has its headquarters in Los Angeles, has centers throughout the world.
See his Autobiography of a Yogi (1946).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Hinduism: Biographies


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Today is Bert Williams' birthday.
George Walker and Bert Williams are important figures not only in show business history, but American cultural history, as well. Williams, the more gifted and longer-living of the two, was the Jackie Robinson of American show business, and in his theme-song "Nobody" (lyrics by Alex Rogers), left the world with a standard that's still being covered today (e.g. by Johnny Cash on his American III: Solitary Man album).
When life seems full of clouds and rain
And I am full of nothin but pain,
Who soothes my thumpin', bumpin' brain? Nobody!
When winter comes with snow and sleet
And me with hunger and cold feet,
Who says, "Here's 25 cents, go and get something to eat?" – Nobody
The supreme irony is that while Williams is the most famous black man to come out of vaudeville (apart from Bill Robinson), he was by ancestry mostly Caucasian. His paternal grandfather was the Dutch Consul in Antigua, West Indies. His paternal grandmother and his mother were both quadroons—one quarter black. This would make Williams something like 3/16 African, but in the racist world that he was to inherit, that was enough to make his life a supreme challenge.
He was born Egbert Austin Williams in the year 1874. In 1885, the family moved to California. As a teenager, Williams hoped to go to Stanford University. He became an entertainer to raise money to pay for his tuition. Because he had no experience, theatres wouldn't book him. He started out in the rough-and-tumble world of Barbary Coast saloons instead, where his poise, dignity and class were only handicaps. An 1893 tour of lumber camps where he performed skits and songs fared hardly better. In these years, he gradually had the horrifying revelation that he was the victim of the racist expectations of the audience and that, in order to be a success, he would have to stoop to portraying the sort of low stereotype that white people expected. While Williams was light-complexioned, African features predominated – to the audience he was a "black man", and in America, "black men" behaved a certain way. The problem was that Williams was well-educated, upper middle-class, and sophisticated. To make a success in show business, he actually had to struggle to learn what was to him an alien dialect and mannerisms.
In these early years, Williams displayed few of the gifts for which he was later distinguished, was no great shakes as a singer, dancer, musician (he played banjo) or comedian, yet his high intelligence managed to carry him through. With his evolving new "darky" persona (which undoubtedly galled him), he started getting his first decent bookings, first a few months at the San Francisco Museum, then with Martin and Seig's Mastodon Minstrels.
It is at this early and embryonic juncture that Williams met George Walker, who was a year younger than Bert, but already a veteran of minstrel and medicine shows. The two hit it off and worked up an act. George sang a song "See Yer Colored Man", while Bert played banjo. Bert was the straight man in their first crude comedy routines. For nearly two years (1893-95) the two performed their songs and skits at Jack Halahan's Cramorne Theatre (later known as the Midway Plaisance.)
When the pair heard about a successful show in Chicago called The Octoroon that was hiring black performers, they decided to take their chances and move there in hopes they could bluff their way in. Their plan was to work their way east with a traveling medicine show. The scheme was rudely interrupted in Texas by a lynch mob, however, who were offended by Williams and Walker' flashy, expensive clothes (which, by the way, were a professional necessity for vaudevillians). The mob tore off their clothes and gave them burlap sacks to wear. The good "doctors" of the medicine show did not defend them, and so they were left naked and penniless to make their way to the next town. How they managed to do so is not recorded for posterity. After this incident, the boys vowed never to work the South again, a promise on which they made good.
Miraculously, they managed to make it to Chicago and get a week's try-out in The Octoroon – but they flopped and were let go. The set-back provided them with an opportunity to take stock of their act and decide on some improvements. In the next few months, they developed the basic characteristics of the act that would make them world famous.
First, Williams bit the bullet and decided to black up. It was common for African Americans to wear blackface in those days. In fact, that was how blacks broke into show business in the first place, by performing in minstrel shows as "genuine coons". As with so many performers, the blackface seemed to work a miracle on the naturally shy and introverted Williams – it released his inhibitions and freed him up to be funny. He finally let go of his dignity (which is a fine thing for a man to possess, but a handicap for a clown), and started going for the bellylaughs. The character he became known for was a loser, a sort of shabby pessimistic everyman in threadbare clothes, or as he sang in one of his more popular songs, "The Jonah Man" – the guy to whom everything bad happens. In contrast, Walker was a flashy dude in smart clothes, a ladies' man, a talker, a schemer, the eternal optimist, and the motivating force behind the plots of all their stories. The two characters, of course, were exaggerations of the men's actual personalities.
Billed as "Two Real Coons", the two traveled with their constantly improving act starting in 1896. In 1898 they were spotted by a scout in French Lick, Indiana and tapped to perform in a Broadway show The Gold Bug which lasted one week. A succession of prestige vaudeville gigs followed, though: Koster & Bial's, Proctor's, Hammerstein's Olympia, Tony Pastor's Music Hall, the Keith Circuit. They were credited with introducing the cakewalk to mainstream America in their act, a popular dance which evolved from the minstrel show walkaround. Comical dancing became a highlight of their act, Walker high-stepping and lively, Williams, shuffling and clumsy.
In 1898, they toured with Clorindy, or the Origin of the Cakewalk, a book musical that further helped to legitimize African Americans on stage. They followed this up with a tour of "A Lucky Coon" , a sort of compendium of their minstrel bits, in 1899.
In 1901, Williams and Walker made history by becoming the first major African American stars to become recording artists, and the tracks they laid down were major hits. Williams and Walker went on to star in and produce many important musicals over the next few years, including The Sons of Ham (1901), In Dahomey, the first all-black musical to open on Broadway (1902-05), and Bandanaland (1908). In 1903, Williams and Walker became the first African Americans to give a command performance for an English Monarch (Edward VII). George Bernard Shaw said of their performance: "the best acting now in London is that of Williams and Walker in In Dahomey."
In 1905, Williams started singing Nobody, which was to be his theme song.
When I was in that railroad wreck
And thought I'd cashed in my last check
Who took that engine off my neck? Hm…not a soul…
In 1908, Walker contracted syphilis, which in those days was without a treatment. By 1909, the condition was affecting his performance and though he struggled valiantly to control the symptoms, he began to stutter, forget his lines, and lose his motor control on stage. That year, he retired from the act. By 1911, he was dead.
For a brief while, his wife Aida Overton Walker (a dancer who had performed with the team for years), went on as his replacement in drag. After a period of uncertainty, Williams developed a solo act, and in so doing, revealed himself to be one of the great comic artists of the 20th century. In addition to his classic character songs like Nobody with their distinctive mix of pathos and humor, he also told dialect stories, (or "lies" as he called them) in the great tradition of African American folklore, and pantomime, which he claimed to have learned in Europe from a man named Pietro. His "poker routine", in which he silently portrayed every player in a card game, conveying several distinct characters right down to what hand each man was holding, was legendary (and, luckily, was preserved on film). He toured the country in vaudeville with this material, almost never receiving the top billing he deserved because of the prejudice of the times, although there times when he was next to closing at Proctor's Fifth Avenue and Hammerstein's. From now, through the rest of his life, Williams was in the strange position of being hailed as a genius, universally beloved and respected by his colleagues, adored by his audiences…yet forced to leave the theatre by the back door, stay in separate "colored" hotels and boarding houses (in towns that had them), and avoid local troublemakers (including law enforcement officers) who relished making life hell for "uppity" Negroes. A touching anecdote has Joe Keaton finding himself sitting at the same bar with Williams and noticing that they are opposite ends. "Come down and have a drink with me, Bert," Keaton offered. But the bar was segregated and Williams was at the black end, so he mumbled an embarrassed but polite refusal, and Keaton, realizing the situation, came down to his end of the bar to join him.
In 1910, Williams became the first major black star in motion pictures, a series of one-reel silent shorts for Biograph. In 1911, Ziegfeld hired him for his Follies – the first black to be so honored. When most of the cast threatened to leave, Ziegfield is reported to have said, "Go if you want to. I can replace everyone of you, except the man you want me to fire." Though getting his foot in the door at Ziegfeld's was an achievement, it didn't spell the end of racism in his life. In the show, while given many chances to shine, they were plenty of times when the roles he was given to play were an unfortunate reflection of the attitudes of the times: red caps, cab drivers, or some other type of lackey to his white co-stars were the typical parts given to this grandson of a diplomat. In 1914, he headlined at the Palace, another first for an African American, and the very pinnacle of success for a vaudevillian. Perhaps it was such triumph that gave him the serenity of mind to best a racist bartender in St. Louis. In a not-too-subtle effort to oust Williams from the bar on account of his skin color, the barkeep attempted to charge him $50 for a glass of gin. Williams calmly put a $500 bill down on the bar and said, "I'll have ten of them." On another occasion, Lionel Barrymore was backstage watching Williams work, and a stagehand came up and said, "Like him, huh?" Barrymore said, "Yes, he's terrific." Just as Williams got offstage the stage hand said loudly, "Yeah, he's a good n–ger, knows his place." and Williams said, "Yes. A good n–ger. Knows his place. Going there now. Dressing room ONE!"
The racism becomes even more risible when you contemplate the fact that he was one of the great performing geniuses of his day. Fortunately, there is just enough visual record to verify the contemporary raves. The best is the circa 1913 feature Lime Kiln Field Day, which only saw the light of day a few years ago when it premiered at the Museum of Modern Art. I was there for the historic occasion; my account of the film is here. And there are the two well-known shorts, A Natural Born Killer (1916) and Fish (1916). Would there were more, but at least there's these three performances.
Williams' last years were spent working the Follies, the Frolics and the Keith vaudeville circuit, but by the late teens his health began to fail. He died of a combination of heart failure and pneumonia while performing in Under the Bamboo Tree, a Shubert show in Detroit. He was only 47. I visited his grave at Woodlawn Cemetery in 2015 — a very moving experience.
Get Bert Williams' complete recorded works in three volumes, available from Archeophone Records.
To find out more about the history of vaudeville and great vaudeville acts like Williams and Walker, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.


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DULUTH, Ga. — Pressure defense can make a game crazy.
University of Kentucky women"s basketball coach Matthew Mitchell doesn"t mind when things get crazy because that means his Wildcats are playing with energy and forcing mistakes.
But sometimes a helter skelter pace can affect the wrong player.
In the first 20 minutes Saturday, Mississippi State proved to be even better at forcing turnovers, as Kentucky committed 14 to MSU"s 13.
Junior point guard Amber Smith had six of those turnovers in 19 first-half minutes. Smith"s ability to re-focus in the second half played a key role in second-seeded Kentucky"s come-from behind 76-65 victory against third-seeded MSU on Saturday in the semifinals of the Southeastern Conference Tournament at The Arena at Gwinnett Center.
Smith had 11 of her 14 points and three of her seven assists in the second half to help Kentucky (25-6) rally from a 14-point deficit early in the second half.
"That is an athletic, talented, tough basketball team that has us 14 points and we looked dead in the water," Mitchell said. "She was able to pull herself out of that, and she made some plays that were incredible."
Smith had only one turnover in the final 20 minutes.
Turnover margin
Kentucky entered the game third nationally in turnover margin (plus-7.5).
The Wildcats forced 28 more turnovers Saturday to add to their SEC-high total of 726. MSU"s showing marked the 23rd time this season a team has committed 20 or more turnovers against Kentucky.
"That was as good as we have pressed all year there in the second half," Mitchell said. "That was outstanding."
MSU"s previous high for turnovers in a game was 25 in an 81-60 loss to Xavier on Dec. 20.
The total was the most Kentucky forced in a SEC game this season.
"They"re tough and they keep playing," MSU coach Sharon Fanning-Otis said. "That"s their identity.
Fanning-Otis said the Lady Bulldogs didn"t communicate as well as they needed to against the pressure, especially with Kentucky players coming from behind numerous times to tip balls away. The result was a 32-19 edge in points off turnovers for the Wildcats.
"We started off the second half OK, and then pretty much the difference in the game was we didn"t take care of the ball for 40 minutes," MSU junior guard Mary Kathryn Govero said.
This and that
MSU had four players finish the game with four fouls, and 23 fouls as a team. The 40 fouls combined in the game tied for the third most in a MSU game this season. … Senior center Chanel Mokango was the third Lady Bulldog in double figures with 13 points. She also had six rebounds and four blocked shots. … The victory gave Kentucky an 18-17 edge in the all-time series. … MSU slipped to 5-6 this season against ranked teams. … Senior forward Tysheka Grimes (team-high 19 points) moved past Robin Porter (1,041 career points, 2005-09) into 16th place on the school"s all-time scoring list. She now has 1,058 points in 112 games. She is 29 points from passing Ann Lashley (1,086, 1985-88) and moving into 15th place.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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Why New York Democrats Have Turned Against Andrew Cuomo
After initial moves on gun control and gay marriage, the governor is drawing fire for not taking up more progressive stands.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo once earned plaudits from liberals for his tough talk on gun control and success in legalizing gay marriage in the state. But, lately, he's found no shortage of frenemies to his left.
In the past month, liberal protesters outside Cuomo's office have dubbed him "Governor 1 Percent"; a prominent progressive activist has suggested that he run for reelection as a Republican; the head of a major labor union has called for someone to challenge the governor in the Democratic primary; and a series of behind-the-scenes feuds between Cuomo and other top Democratic officials have spilled out into public view.
The proximal cause for the infighting during an election year, when parties typically put aside their internal differences, is the state's recently concluded, highly contentious budget process, which ended many Democrats' hopes for sweeping ethics reforms this year. On fiscal policy, Cuomo aides insist the budget is "very progressive," but the labor-backed Working Families Party, which endorsed the governor in 2010, is reconsidering its support this year, saying that Cuomo "chose inequality over progress."
Behind the scenes, however, tensions have been building for years.
"This is not a minor shift, but it comes after a slow burn that started in 2010 ... and finally just exploded in the past week and a half," says Bill Samuels, a New York City Democratic fundraiser and activist. "There was probably no one who liked Andrew better than me.…. He lost most of us permanently. And I mean permanently. I don't have one friend who is a Cuomo supporter."
At its root, much of the animosity lies in some Democrats' suspicion that Cuomo is not really one of them. Richard Brodsky, a former Democratic state senator who is now a senior fellow at the think tank Demos, has dubbed Cuomo's worldview "progractionary"—a mix of "progressive" and "reactionary." On social issues, the governor is a textbook liberal, but on economics, he's embraced tax cuts and is skeptical of labor unions.
"At a time when the national Democratic Party seems to be moving in the direction of [focusing on] income inequality and fair taxation, Governor Cuomo is moving in the opposite direction," Brodsky says.
Against this backdrop, there was bound to be conflict between Cuomo and New York City's new mayor, who struck an emphatically populist tone in his campaign. Days after Bill de Blasio's inauguration, an education-policy battle erupted that typifies the opposing wings of the party the two men represent. De Blasio wanted to fund a universal prekindergarten program with tax increases on the wealthy and to rein in some of the city's charter schools; Cuomo vociferously opposes tax hikes and is a staunch defender of alternative public education.
Tensions came to a head when each politician mustered his own army in Albany on the same late-March day. De Blasio spoke in front of a rally in support of his pre-K plan, while Cuomo spoke to an even larger rally nearby to protest de Blasio's perceived hostility to charter schools. The New York Times later revealed that Cuomo had worked behind the scenes to help orchestrate the counter-rally.
In the end, the budget gave de Blasio his universal pre-K program, though not his tax increase, but gutted the mayor's control over charter schools by giving more power to Albany. A win and a loss for the mayor. Cuomo also snubbed the mayor on a relatively minor tweak to a line in the state budget that would have cleared the way for de Blasio's favored homelessness policy.
Then there's the simmering antipathy between Cuomo and the man who took his old job, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The two men have never been allies, but things have gotten more acrimonious as they fight over the $613 million that Schneiderman extracted from JPMorgan Chase in a mortgage-securities settlement. Schneiderman wanted to use the money to prevent foreclosures, while Cuomo saw the AG's move to direct the cash as a power grab, and insisted the money be put in the state's general fund.
But liberals are most angry at Cuomo (whose office did not return requests for comment on this story) for withdrawing his support for ethics reforms that he had long supported, including establishing a public-financing system for elections. Instead of implementing a statewide program, New York is rolling out a pilot that applies to only the comptroller's race, and only for this year. It's a move that many see as an effort to inconvenience another Cuomo frenemy, Democratic Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who might now face a Republican challenger attracted by the prospect of public funding.
"Andrew Cuomo does not play nice with other Democrats," said a New York party operative from the liberal wing who asked that his name not be used.
And then there's the money. Several Democrats who spoke privately to National Journal lamented that Cuomo accepted $87,000 in campaign contributions from David Koch and his wife during the 2010 cycle—more than double the $34,000 that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker took. Cuomo has also accepted donations from John Catsimatidis, de Blasio's Republican opponent. And he earned praise and money from Home Depot cofounder Ken Langone, a major GOP donor who started the group Republicans for Cuomo. (Langone recently caught flak for comparing progressives to Nazis.)
This has always been Cuomo's way. In line with other indications that he has presidential ambitions, he has positioned himself as a moderate, skipping most of the 2012 Democratic National Convention and keeping his approval numbers high among New York Republicans (although that effort was hurt recently when he said in a radio interview that "extreme conservatives … have no place" in New York state).
But liberals say Cuomo can only push the boundaries of the term "progressive" so far before the base rebels and he undermines his chances in a potential Democratic primary.
"There's a strong sense among the progressive grassroots that it's just not enough to be really good on gay marriage and abortion rights and guns if your economic philosophy reflects Paul Ryan and the Tea Party," says Brodsky, the former state senator. "And that's what's bubbling to the surface now."


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Scotland Yard Review
- Publisher: Ravensburger Verlag GmbH
- Genre: Entertainment
- Released: 17 May, 2012
- Size: 164.7 MB
- Price: $3.99
- Slick visual update; lots of information readily available to use for keeping track of "Mr. X".
- Voice and text chat for online multiplayer.
- Quick and efficient tutorial gets you playing sooner.
- No reconnect option for drop-outs on multiplayer.
- Small text and buttons can be troublesome on both iPad and iPhone.
- Weak AI; unable to replace human opponents.
Scotland Yard may be the bane of the younger siblings of the world, but it's still a fast and fun board game for all to enjoy if you can scrape up the players to offset the poor AI.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
I've made it abundantly clear in the past that I love board games. While video games are obviously a passion of mine, their roots are embedded deeply in the social past-time of gathering around a table and vying for supremacy via cards, dice, tokens or just your mind
Scotland Yard is almost 30 years old now and a true classic, but also one that may have left many a child frustrated by its obvious weaknesses as a board game, so how does it shape up as a video game?
The game supports between 2-6 players, with one player being dubbed "Mr. X" and the rest taking up the role of a series of Detectives. Your task is seemingly simple: Catch "Mr. X". However as with all games there's a twist - you can't see him on the board. What you can see, though, is the series of 'tickets' he has used to move around the city either via taxi, bus, or subway around the London cityscape. As Detectives you'll need to work together to decipher where "Mr. X" is in order to surround or capture him.
Thanks to a slick tutorial system explaining the basics and each of the major roles you'll be playing against AI opponents and friends alike via local pass and play, Wifi/Bluetooth, or over Game Center straight away. Online games also have the benefit of being able to use voice chat or text messages to coordinate your moves - a pivotal feature of out-witting "Mr. X". Unfortunately there are no secrets and "Mr. X" will be aware of these communiques
Sadly Scotland Yard doesn't come unscathed in its transition and features two rather damning problems.
First is the weak AI that can be easily out-maneuvered, making it a poor opponent if you're playing as Mr. X or expecting help as a fellow Detective.
Secondly, though the interface may be slick, the extremely small text and buttons can make it an eyestrain on the iPad, let alone on smaller iPhone screens. Thankfully an update is on the way to solve this issue.
Despite these problems, Scotland Yard remains a treat to play if you can scratch up two to five other people willing to play with you locally or online. It's far from a perfect transition to the touch screen, but it remains just as fun given the right circumstances.
Description***** Ravensburger's cult game now available on iPhone and iPad *****
Scotland Yard is the digital version of the award-winning board game ("Game of the Year" 1983, etc.). Since its creation 35 years ago, Scotland Yard has sold over four million copies. Now the game enjoyed by millions of people is available as a universal iPad and iPhone app!
This is a very tricky case for Scotland Yard: Mister X has disappeared in the heart of London's nightlife. The only clue for the investigation: his discarded tickets. But in which part of London did he use them? There - suddenly he's been seen for a brief moment. Now, keep a cool head. Search the district tactically and reconstruct the escape route.
Set off as one of five clever agents on the hunt for the legendary Mister X, or step into his shoes, diving into the heart of London's nightlife to escape the agents.
- Completely new setting in London by night
- Razor-sharp HD graphics
- Single player mode: Local game for one to six players including computer players
- Multiplayer mode: Local, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth (max. two players)
- Interactive, user-friendly Tutorial
- Easy to understand instructions for both beginners and experts
- No need to assemble or put away!
- Endless fun with family and friends!


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BILLINGS — A Phillips 66 pipeline with a record of prior accidents spilled an estimated 25,000 gallons of gasoline in a remote area outside a small town on Montana's Crow Indian Reservation, but no public health problems were anticipated, federal officials said Friday.
A representative of the Houston-based oil refinery and chemical company said the amount of leaked gas likely was less than initially reported, although no alternate figure was offered. The initial estimate came from a report submitted by the company to the government's National Response Center.
Federal and tribal officials and the company worked Friday to determine what caused the break in the 8-inch underground line. It occurred about 15 miles southwest of Lodge Grass, a town of about 430 people near the Wyoming border. The same line has seen at least three spills over the past two decades.
The latest spill was not expected to enter any surface water supplies, and no public health problems were anticipated, the company said. It was discovered late Tuesday by operators in the company's Bartlesville, Okla., pipeline control center, who noticed a pressure drop along the line, according to federal officials and Phillips 66 Co. spokesman Dennis Nuss.
It's uncertain how long the line had been leaking or whether any of the gasoline can be recovered.
"We're still assessing the area," Nuss said. "The line has been excavated in order to be able to be repaired."
The closest residence is about 2 miles from the spill site, said Curtis Kimbel with the Environmental Protection Agency. He confirmed that no streams or lakes were in the immediate area but did not know if any underground aquifers were present.
Kimbel said about 60 workers contractors for Phillips 66 were involved in the response effort.
The Seminoe pipeline carries gasoline, diesel and other refined petroleum products from Phillips 66's Billings refinery to Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. It has a maximum daily capacity of 46,000 barrels, equivalent to more than 1.9 million gallons.
Nuss said the line was shut down within five minutes of the pressure drop. It was not reported to the federal response center until Wednesday morning, after company workers reached the site and confirmed the spill, Nuss said.
Gasoline is highly toxic. But unlike oil, it can evaporate, making the cleanup on the reservation potentially more straightforward as long as no water bodies are tainted by the fuel.
"That's not saying it won't have an effect on the environment, but it's not like oil which seeps into the ground and sticks around," said Damon Hill, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
The same pipeline broke twice in a week in 1997, spilling a combined 2,300 barrels of gasoline near Lodge Grass and Banner, Wyo.
The spill near Lodge Grass was estimated at 1,612 barrels of gasoline, while 704 barrels of gasoline spilled near the Wyoming community.
Conoco Pipe Line Co. reached a $465,000 settlement with federal prosecutors over Clean Water Act violations related to those spills and another pipeline break near Conrad, Mont., in 2001 that spilled 30 barrels of crude oil.
The latest incident near Lodge Grass comes almost two years to the day after a major crude oil spill into Montana's Yellowstone River. That 63,000-gallon spill from an Exxon Mobil line cost the company more than $135 million in cleanup and repair costs.
Nuss said it was too early to come up with a cost estimate for the Seminoe spill, and it's unclear when the pipeline could resume operations.
"Obviously we want to make sure the line's safe and there's no further problems," Nuss said.
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At the beginning of this project we invited you to do a 'show and tell' of anything you've done to a Drupal Admin System that you think we should pay attention to – anything from a customised administration system, to a better view of content, to an in-line editing tool – whatever you think we should see. Happily, we've seen a few people participate and some interesting concept. (You can see some of there on our YouTube group).
You may also remember a little exercise we did for the Drupal.org project where we invited anyone to submit a wireframe of a page they though needed some attention and what they'd do to it (you can see the original post here)…
well… now is the time for us to bring that all together and to kick off 'Pimp Your *Imaginary* Admin' for the D7UX project!
Here's how it works:
- pick *something* or *somewhere* in Drupal admin that you think is particularly in need of love
- get out your pen, pencil, visio, powerpoint, whatever works best for you (I'd encourage you to consider pencil!)
- sketch out how you think it *should* work.
- post your sketch(s) somewhere we can see them – the Flickr group is ideal for this if you're a Flickr member (or inclined to become one) but if you post it on your own site, or wherever you share pictures and link to it in the comments below we will *definitely* take a look.
- this is optional but we would consider you most excellent if you do it – take a short movie of your sketch(es) and talk us through them. Your movie should include: a) a statement of the problem – what are you fixing? what is currently wrong with it? b) an overview of your solution – how it works, why it solves the problem. Post the movie to YouTube and add it to our YouTube Group (again, same applies here, if you'd rather post it elsewhere, just link to it in comments below and we'll make sure it gets looked at!)you can see a kind-of example of what your video might look like in the prototype walk-thru we do around 3 mins into this video.
- go fast! Don't spend too long on it – try to spend no more than a few minutes on a wireframe. If you're not happy with it (and you probably won't be at first!) just put it to one side and start fresh. You don't want to labour over them too much at this stage.
- you don't have to be good at drawing: just take a quick browser through the images on the Flickr group if you want to get a sense of how un-pretty our wireframes usually are (particularly mine!). They're not meant to be pretty, they're meant to communicate. Even if they don't do that, we have the video :) Don't be shy.
- everyone's invited (not just 'designers') – Don't think you have to be a designer or a UX person to participate in this exercise – this is all hands on deck. If you're not an experience Drupal user or designer, you may actually be at an advantage in this exercise!
Really, really, really looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
Let me know if you have any questions.
X-posted from: www.d7ux.org/pimp-your-imaginary-admin/