text:
Alzheimer disease
Alzheimer disease
Imagine waking up this morning, and not being able to remember your own name, or recognize your spouse? While Alzheimer disease is a more gradual process, over time it can destroy memory to the point where people can't even remember the simplest and most important details of their lives. Let's talk more about Alzheimer disease.
Alzheimer disease is a type of dementia, a loss of brain function that makes it harder and harder to think and speak. To understand what causes Alzheimer, we need to look inside the brain. In a normal brain, nerves send messages to one another. In people with Alzheimer disease, abnormal proteins clump in the brain, damaging nerve cells so they can no longer send the messages needed to think clearly.
So, why do some people get Alzheimer, and others do not?
Getting older itself doesn't cause Alzheimer disease. It's not a part of the normal aging process. Alzheimer does seem to run in families, though. So if you have a close relative, like a sister or parent, with Alzheimer, you may be more likely to get the disease.
Usually when Alzheimer disease starts, people have trouble remembering simple things, like their phone number, or where they put their car keys. But, as the disease progresses, memory loss gets worse. People with Alzheimer find it hard to have conversations or complete simple tasks, like getting dressed. They can also become angry or depressed. Those in the later stages of the disease can no longer care for themselves. They lose the ability to recognize even close family members.
To diagnose Alzheimer disease, doctors prescribe tests of mental ability. They also prescribe medical tests to rule out diseases that can make it harder to think clearly, such as a brain tumor or stroke.
As far as treatments for Alzheimer disease, right now, there isn't a cure. A few drugs can slow memory loss and control depression and aggressiveness from the disease. Despite what you may have read, there isn't any proof that vitamins or other supplements can prevent or treat Alzheimer. However, eating a low-fat diet that's high in vitamin E and C, and rich in omega-3 fatty acids may keep your brain healthier.
Alzheimer disease is different in each person. Some people decline quickly and die within just a few years, while others can live for two decades with the disease. If you have a family member with Alzheimer, talk to your doctor about ways to protect your own memory. And, call right away if you have any significant memory loss. Though it may be normal forgetfulness that comes with getting older, the sooner you get it checked out, the earlier you can start treatment if you need it.
Review Date: 2/19/2016
Reviewed By: Laura J. Martin, MD, MPH, ABIM Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Atlanta, GA. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Isla Ogilvie, PhD, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.


text:
My headlights are always collecting water inside. The dealer says he can replace them, but they're very expensive, and he wouldn't guarantee that the new headlights wouldn't collect water also. I took out the headlamp assemblies and coated all of the seams between the clear lens and the back with bathtub caulk, and gooped up the rubber dingus that goes over the headlight wires with a lot more caulk, but it didn't help a bit.
A: Let's examine why there is water inside the lamp assemblies in the first place. As the outside temperature goes down and your nice warm headlamps cool off (either from being in the sun or just from being turned on), cooler, moister outside air trickles into the housings. The housings are vented top and bottom to allow for pressure differences, or they would quickly crack and fail. When the clear plastic lens is even a little bit cooler than the air inside the housing, droplets of moisture will condense on the inside of the lens. That's normal. When the outside temperatures come back up in the morning, the moisture will evaporate.
Some vehicles don't vent as well as others. Some drivers keep their cars parked in shady, damp areas or in cool, damp underground parking structures. And the moisture collects not as tiny droplets of mist but as what looks more like raindrops, and can even run down the glass and pool inside the housing.
More From Popular Mechanics
Check to see if there's a Technical Service Bulletin for your make and model of vehicle. If so, there may be a retrofit housing or an upgrade to the venting system. If not, you're on your own. The first thing to try, if all you have is droplets, is to leave your headlights on while driving for a couple of hours, forcing the moisture off. If you have a spoonful or more splashing around, you may need to remove the housing and dry it out. Pour off the excess water, then add a few ounces of rubbing alcohol to the housing, sloshing it around and pouring it out. Repeat. Let the housing dry for a couple of hours in the sun or inside a nice warm house, preferably in some air that's moving. Check that any vents aren't plugged with spider eggs or mud. Install the housing and try to park facing south.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Story by
Jon Russell
Jon Russell was Asia Editor for The Next Web from 2011 to 2014. Originally from the UK, he lives in Bangkok, Thailand. You can find him on T Jon Russell was Asia Editor for The Next Web from 2011 to 2014. Originally from the UK, he lives in Bangkok, Thailand. You can find him on Twitter, Angel List, LinkedIn.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has revealed that its mobile strategy and Aliyun operating system will continue unchanged despite becoming the center-piece of a dispute with Google that saw a key handset launch cancelled.
The company, which is predicted to see its gross sales overtake Amazon and eBay combined this year, was dealt a hefty blow last Thursday when Acer reneged on plans to launch the CloudPhone A800. The Taiwanese company is the most reputed Aliyun partner to date, and Alibaba claims that Acer pulled the plug after being "pressured" by Google.
The weekend saw the incident ratcheted up when Android chief Andy Rubin moved to clarify the situation by stating that Aliyun — which Alibaba claims to have spent 3 years developing — uses the Android runtime and is therefore an incomplete Android build. That definition makes it off-limit to members of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA, of Android partners) which signed an agreement forbidding them from working with 'modified' builds.
Alibaba has consistently argued that Aliyun is not an Android fork, saying that it uses open-sourced elements of the Google-owned platform, making it perfectly fine for OHA members. However Rubin showed no signs of backing down, and he later claimed there is "no disputing that Aliyun is based on the Android platform", though he did admit it lives outside of its ecosystem.
Google's position may have claimed one launch — though it has not revealed its dialogue with Acer — but it is likely to prove more significant by scaring off future handset partners. Despite that possibility, Alibaba's mobile strategy will move forward unchanged, its VP of international corporate affairs John Spelich told TNW:
Aliyun plans to continue to grow in China and we welcome discussions with any hardware company that wants a true alternative to Android. New hardware is coming as well (details TBA). As far as the Acer phone, you'd have to ask Acer but they have expressed a willing to continue cooperation with us.
And there are no plans to modify Aliyun O-S based on anything Google has said.
Spelich believes that true openness is the major selling point of Aliyun, which targets China's burgeoning 'affordable' device space, and he explained:
Aliyun is an open source based O-S that is also an open ecosystem that allows others host their mobile-enabled web sites in our cloud and we make those web sites available to users who use Aliyun O-S phones. So we are an ecosystem that includes other Internet companies, whereas Android does not because it provides apps through downloads. It's the crux of the whole cloud vs app debate. Cloud is open, apps system is closed because it is controlled by the operator of the apps marketplace. So you see: two competing ecosystems, one that's open through the cloud, the other is closed and restrict users to only the apps that they want you to see.
Mystery surrounds the future of the device in question. Acer has remained remarkably quiet during Alibaba and Google's verbal sparing. Its only substantial response has been a tepid statement, provided to TNW, which makes no mention of its position on Aliyun:
Acer is committed to designing innovative products and services that enhance the user experience for our customers. This includes smartphones and cloud services, a combination of hardware and software with internet services essential to raising Acer's product values.
Regarding the abrupt cancellation of yesterday's press conference with Alibaba in China, Acer expresses deep regret and sincerely apologizes for the inconvenience caused to our media friends. Acer will continue working with its strategic partners in China to create improved product and service offering, and looks forward to sharing the results of our win-win developments in the near future.
Irrespective of whether Rubin or Alibaba is correct, Google has made its move in 'outlawing' Alibaba as an Android fork and it seems unlikely that the Chinese company can change that, short of removing its compatibility with Google Play and Android apps – which would go against its open philosophy.
That begs real questions about future devices based on the Aliyun operating system, since the list of manufacturers signed up to the OHA is a veritable who's-who of the tech industry. According to Google, any of the following firms would lose their Android licenses if they were to release an Aliyun-powered phone: ASUS, Foxconn, HTC, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, NEC, Sharp, Toshiba, and more.
In addition, all three Chinese mobile operators are signed up and, though Google is yet to be put in a position of difficulty with an operator, that further complicates the issue.
Yet, with those names looking unlikely, Alibaba remains in real need of a big name partner. The company has a lofty ambition to challenging Android in China, but its efforts to date have been decidedly low-key, with just 1 million devices sold. The first Aliyun phone — made by Tianyu — debuted in 2011, while the latest incarnation — the Haier Zing — arrived in June.
Interestingly, Chinese manufacturer Haier is actually part of the OHA but, unlike Acer, it escaped the wrath of Google when it launched the $157 phone. Given Acer's high profile incident, it's unlikely any other OHA members will risk being as lucky (or insignificant) as Haier for the sake of what remains a largely unproven system.
If it is unable to change Google's position, things are unlikely to work well for Aliyun, which seems destined for life in the small time, with a low profile and modest sales figures. For a company like Alibaba, and its iconic CEO Jack Ma, this won't cut the mustard and — fairly or unfairly — its approach to mobile will surely have to change.
Also read: Google just dropped an Android-shaped bomb in China
Headline image via Bloomberg, device image Technolookers
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.


text:
The 160th Anniversary Steinway Authorized Factory Sales Event!
Steinway & Sons has authorized Schmitt Music, as its exclusive dealer in the state of Colorado, to participate in a Steinway Factory Selection Event to celebrate Steinway's 160th Anniversary!
This "Factory Direct" event takes place November 1-3 at Schmitt Music's Steinway Showroom in Englewood, CO and includes new, slightly used, and pre-owned Steinway and Steinway-designed pianos.
You can also use our online contact form – CLICK HERE.
Since 1853, Steinway pianos have been handcrafted to last for generations. A treasured possession that grows in value over the course of time, the Steinway piano is the choice of 97% of concert artists, and is quite simply the standard by which all other pianos are compared. In addition to Steinway pianos, our Boston and Essex pianos bring a level of performance that is superior to any other pianos in their price range.
Steinway and Sons pianos are rarely discounted. However, in celebration of Steinway's 160th Anniversary, all new Steinway & Sons, and Steinway-designed Boston and Essex upright and grand pianos will be priced well below retail price during this three day event!
Also available are a unique collection of pianos from a Steinway Dealer in the Northwest that recently closed its doors – all at discounted prices!
• SPECIAL 1 YEAR NO-INTEREST FINANCING on any new Steinway or Steinway-designed Boston or Essex piano!
• Factory Authorized Discounts on state of the art player piano systems – THIS WEEKEND ONLY!
• Trade-ins welcome.
Contact a Piano Specialist today and set up a personal showing!
Call 303-777-1900 or 1-877-SCHMITT, or email us at firstname.lastname@example.com.
CLICK HERE to find all of our Schmitt Music Piano Specialists online! You can get contact info, read bios, and even schedule an appointment!
Proudly Made in America for 160 Years!
Steinway & Sons, founded by Henry Engelhard Steinway in 1853, developed the modern piano with revolutionary designs and 127 patented inventions. Visit us today and our piano experts will show you all about the innovative designs, attention to detail, and craftsmanship that established Steinway pianos as the world's finest. Click here to learn more about Steinway's history.


text:
1940: The Sass Brothers, Weimar burglars
March 27th, 2019 Headsman
On this date in 1940, the Sass Brothers — notorious scofflaw thieves from the Weimar Germany era — were extrajudicially executed by the Nazis at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Pioneers of the then-novel art of blowtorching their way into bank safes, die Brüder Sass — Erich and Franz — became public celebrities after their arrest in 1929, especially when the state failed to stick the case against them and the lads remained as free men, publicly flaunting their stolen wealth.
The position of being well-known unpunished crooks became a good deal less comfortable after the 1933 rise of the Nazis, so the Sasses (wisely) moved to Denmark and (less wisely) did some crimes there, too. They copped a short Danish sentence, and after its expiration in 1938 the Danes transferred Erich and Franz Sass back the Third Reich. But even the severity of 13- and 11-year sentences for bank robbery back home, according to Nikolaus Wachsmann,
did not satisfy Heinrich Himmler, who ordered the brothers' execution. On 27 March 1940, Erich and Franz Sass were taken from penal institutions to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Here, they were murdered by SS men under the command of Rudolf Hoess, who recalled the execution after the war: 'They [the brothers] refused resolutely to stand against the post, and I had to let them be tied up. They resisted with all their strength. I was extremely relieved when I was able to give the order to shoot.' Their murder was promptly reported in the Nazi press. This case demonstrates clearly the difference between punishment in the Weimar and the Nazi period. In the Weimar Republic, the two brothers had walked free because there was not sufficient evidence to convict them. In Nazi Germany, they were murdered, irrespective of legal regulations.
On this day..
- 1915: Pandit Kanshi Ram, Ghadar plotter - 2020
- 1728: Five at Tyburn - 2018
- 1634: John Bartendale survives hanging and burial - 2017
- 1894: Walter Smith - 2016
- 1889: Mark Francis and James Turney - 2015
- 1878: The Brassell boys - 2014
- 1811: Adam Lyal, highwayman - 2013
- 1947: Hisakazu Tanaka, Hong Kong occupier - 2012
- 1677: Giles Bland - 2011
- 2009: Two thieves in Riyadh - 2010
- 1836: Goliad Massacre - 2009
- 2001: Robert Lee Massie, who spent a lifetime dying - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Concentration Camps,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Germany,History,No Formal Charge,Notable Jurisprudence,Notable Participants,Shot,Theft,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 1940, 1940s, erich sass, franz sass, heinrich himmler, rudolph hoess, sachsenhausen concentration camp, weimar germany


text:
Everything you need to get running with IaaS for Amazon Web Services Modern businesses rely on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)—a setup in which someone else foots the bill to create application environments—and developers are expected to know how to write both platform-specific and IaaS-supported applications. If you're a developer who writes desktop and web applications but have little-to-no experience with cloud development, this book is an essential tool in getting started in the IaaS environment with Amazon Web Services. In Amazon Web Services For Developers For Dummies, you'll quickly and easily get up to speed on which language or platform will work best to meet a specific need, how to work with management consoles, ways you'll interact with services at the command line, how to create applications with the AWS API, and so much more. Assess development options to produce the kind of result that's actually needed Use the simplest approach to accomplish any given task Automate tasks using something as simple as the batch processing features offered by most platforms Create example applications using JavaScript, Python, and R Discover how to use the XML files that appear in the management console to fine tune your configuration Making sense of Amazon Web Services doesn't have to be as difficult as it seems—and this book shows you how.
Author: John Paul Mueller


text:
From Dover to the NFL: Chip Kelly's style goes back a ways
DOVER — Early in his career Dover High School football coach Ken Osbon was on the receiving end of one of Chip Kelly's devious offensive game plans when Kelly was an assistant at Manchester Central.
The Green Wave defense featured all-state linebacker Jason Pohopek, who was known for his speed and played the game from sideline to sideline.
"I think (Kelly) threw the ball something like 60 times," Osbon said. "Jason was looking for a lot of tackles. He was frustrated all night long. He came off the field screaming."
Kelly, who was born in Dover and grew up in Manchester, has had that effect on players and coaches at the high school and college levels with is uptempo, spread-option attack.
Now the question is, will the so-called "blur" offense work in the NFL?
"Chip is very, very versatile," Osbon said, "and he's so knowledgeable. He thinks outside the box as well as anybody in the country."
"I'm an equal-opportunity scorer," Kelly said at his initial press conference with the Philadelphia Eagles. "We'll score any way we can."
Hired last Wednesday by the Eagles to be their next coach, Kelly's meteoric rise from college assistant at the University of New Hampshire to NFL head coach took less than six years.
"Unbelievable," said Mike Zamarchi, one of Kelly's closest friends and the boys varsity basketball coach at Marshwood High School. "Who would have thought ... in such a short time."
Kelly also interviewed with the Bills and Browns. It was originally reported that he was going to return to Oregon. He turned down an offer from the Buccaneers last year.
Former St. Thomas Aquinas and Marshwood High School coach Rod Wotton worked with Kelly during a brief stint as an assistant coach at UNH and also at several spring camps hosted by the Wildcats.
"When he went back to Oregon, I thought it was a good move," Wotton said, "but Chip knows what he's doing. I heard through his friends that he wanted to come east. It was an opportunity to get back to this part of the country. I think he'd like to see how his offense will work in the pros. He's a guru of offensive football."
Kelly's pro stock rose after a successful stint at Oregon where he led the Ducks to a 46-7 record during his four-year tenure and a championship game appearance.
Osbon was a frequent visitor to practice when Kelly was the offensive coordinator at UNH for eight seasons.
"I'm not clairvoyant or anything," Osbon said, "but I told someone 'I see something different in this guy. In my mind he's the best coach in the country not coaching in the NFL.' I said that nine years ago. I'm not surprised he's there. I just think he's a different cat."
The Wildcats were an offensive juggernaut under Kelly, whose practices were legendary for their pace. The harder the practice, he reasoned, the easier the game.
"I've been all over the country," Osbon said, "but I've never seen a team get as many reps in a two-and-a-half hour practice than the University of New Hampshire did under Chip Kelly."
UNH broke 29 school records in 2004, compiling 5,446 yards of total offense and scoring 40 or points in seven games.
In 2005 the Wildcats finished second in total offense (493.5 yards per gam), third ins coring (41.7) and fifth in passing (330.1).
They earned the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and finished with an 11-2 record.
UNH averaged more than 400 yards per game of total offense in seven of his eight seasons as offensive cordinator and more than 30 points a game in his final four years.
"He was always just different," Osbon said. "He's special. He sees things most of us don't see."
Osbon believes the keys to Kelly's offensive success were "tempo and practice preparedness. I think his teams were flat out ready to play."
That philosophy didn't change when Kelly left UNH after 13 years and went to Oregon where he was the offensive coordinator for two seasons before taking over as head coach in 2009.
Kelly led the Ducks to four straight BCS bowl appearances, including the Rose Bowl in 2010 and national championship game against Auburn in 2011.
He was named FBS national coach of the year in 2010.
"He's always wanted to go the NFL," Zamarchi said. "It's a challenge he always wanted to try."
Kelly's first season as the offensive coordinator at Oregon, the Ducks amassed the most yards in school history while leading the Pac-10 in total offense and scoring.
It remains to be seen if he can approach those numbers with the Eagles, who fired long-time coach Andy Reid after a 4-12 season.
"It's the ultimate challenge," Osbon said. "You always want to get to the highest pinnacle. The NFL is the highest pinnacle."
Kelly has more than just X's and O's going for him.
"He's a great leader," Zamarchi said. "He's a great CEO. He's got that aura about him. He has that confidence."
Staff sports writer John Doyle contributed to this story.


text:
Emergency Management
GSA is responsible for opening and closing federal office buildings where agencies are located, but in the event of an emergency, federal employees should follow their own agency's emergency procedures and monitor media announcements to obtain disaster or emergency-related information.
When necessary, GSA's Great Lakes Regional Headquarters will coordinate with the Chicago Federal Executive Board (FEB) and other FEBs in major cities throughout the region to disseminate additional information for federal employees, vendors, and citizens.
National Response Framework
In an emergency, GSA's Great Lakes Region works with other agencies to support the Department of Homeland Security's National Response Framework, which establishes a comprehensive all-hazards approach to domestic incident response. GSA provides a full array of support for logistics, acquisitions, and specified transportation needs through a range of possible conditions.
Continuity of Operations (COOP)
During emergencies and disasters, federal agencies rely on GSA to continue delivering expert solutions, acquisition services, and superior workplaces, while the public counts on GSA's customer agencies to continue delivering their services as well. Continuity of Operations (COOP) planning is essential to maintaining this service delivery.
Contact GSA here for more information on COOP planning. Agencies can also access additional COOP related information via the FEMA website.


text:
WASHINGTON — Moody's Investors Service has downgraded Howard University's credit rating, citing revenue declines at the historically black college and automatic federal budget cuts from Congress.
Moody's issued its downgrade Tuesday after a review that began in July. Howard's rating was reduced from A3 to Baa1, indicating a moderate credit risk. Moody's says fundraising is weak. It assigned Howard a negative outlook.
Howard is a private university but relies heavily on the U.S. government for support totaling $250 million annually. Moody's says federal cuts will impact the school in the next year.
All of the university's revenues are under pressure. The credit agency says Howard University Hospital has become a drag on the school. The college also saw a decline in enrollment due to tightened lending standards for federal parent loans.


text:
"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man." Joseph Campbell. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968, p. 30 / Novato, California: New World Library, 2008, p. 23.
Fabulous forces are encountered in the paintings of Laura Ball. Her heroines have entered the region of supernatural wonder. For Ball, as for Joseph Campbell, a hero is a person in the world who encounters another person, a god or a guide, or has a traumatic experience, and thus begins a journey. Her watercolor paintings of girls on the hero's journey are inspired by Joseph Campbell and Greek Mythology. Throw in a little Karl Jung, her undergrad studies in architecture, mix with art history and you have the complex, highly detailed, and labor-intensive narrative paintings of girls and women as they journey into the psyche to battle their own demons and monsters.
"The girls have fought battles that have moved them to a new stage in life or enabled them to cross a threshold, they keep traveling deeper into the psyche," Ball said. "I didn't plan this, it just happened. About eight months ago they entered this inner psychic realm and there was this beast a combination creature. When I take a step back and look at how the work has changed as the girls have moved farther into the subconscious, it all makes sense." For Ball, that creature is either the Self, or it's a demon the person must fight. At the moment she doesn't know which one it is, but believes the characters in her paintings have reached the core. However, she admits that the narrative is her own working process: "I never expect anyone to get this out of seeing my work."
Like many contemporary artists working today, Ball is bombarded with imagery, not only from art history, but film, television, and the Internet. Taped to her studio wall the day we talked were images of animals and images of artworks by Josh Keyes, Ryan McLennan, Janine Antoni, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Fred Sandback, Hernan Bas, Ashley Macomber, Julie Mehretu, and Rachell Sumpter. "I see world history as art history," Ball said. "Knowing how ideas have changed over time, like when Bruce Nauman walked around his studio, will have affected the way I treat the objects I make in my space. My generation of artists grew up surrounded with so many images, and in an art world where anything goes, we're all responding to this excess. Even as a society, we're overwhelmed by images constantly. Mine just happen to be other paintings or drawings."
She begins a new painting with a loose idea and then, with two monitors at her painting table, she scans through her collection of thousands of digital images looking for appropriate ones from which to work. In her sketchbook, she quickly outlines a rhino twisting upwards, knowing he will be puzzled together from a collection of different animal images, a process she leaves open as to what type of animal will become each piece of the puzzle. Often her initial idea is very sketchy and loose—a rhino coming out of the water for example—then she begins scouring images for what will become part of the head or body. "When I get burnt out finding parts, I'll work on something that's in process." And if she needs an image of an animal in a certain position, she can walk from her studio to the San Diego Zoo and take photographs. Moving from computer to paper, the rhino begins as a wash of wet-in-wet watercolor, a painting technique learned through architectural rendering years before when Ball was an undergraduate. Though she painted with oils in graduate school, Ball admits they are exponentially more difficult for her to manipulate. "The images I'm making now need some sort ofspontaneous element, the water moves," she said. "It's more like sketching. It's fluid. It happens so easily. I need to be using this medium for this work. I love it. It feels natural." She also intentionally uses a very soft pencil that erases easily as she draws in the different animal components of the larger image. When she knows a toucan is going to be the rhino's horn, she will sketch him onto the painting, then erase the pencil and paint him in with watercolor, watercolor pencil, neon acrylic, or iridescent paints, spending most of her studio time working on something that is in mid-stream production, ending the day focused on the fine detailing of another painting. The animals and figures in her work represent part of the psyche without a clear sense of place, represented by the intentionally empty white spaces in her paintings.
Historically, what initially propelled Ball to make figurative work was a Japanese ukiyo-e print of women wrestling in a bathhouse. Her early figurative works were of girls wrestling and fighting; she was exploring how to represent bodies moving through space, trying to get at the threat and physical force of competition. The figures in Ball's paintings are not objectified. For her, they have to look like the real people (herself and her family) they represent. Yet, her favorite painters are Peter Doig and Walton Ford. Ford also paints with watercolor in the style of Audubon naturalist illustrations, but each of his paintings are filled with symbols, jokes, folktales, and texts from colonial literature and travel guides. His work critiques the history of colonialism and industrialization. Doig's work, on the other hand, is often, simply put, abstracted landscapes.
"They are so loose and messy and beautiful and there is so much information without there being so much information," Ball said of his work. And while her style and technique are not at all like Doig's and more like Ford's, one can see her desire to include much information in her paintings without including it all: the white backgrounds, the stripped-down imagery of dreams, the watery color, the fluid detail.
Joseph Campbell said, "Artists are magical helpers. Evoking symbols and motifs that connect us to our deeper selves, they can help us along the heroic journey of our own lives." 1 Ball is doing just that; by painting the heroic journey of women, she is challenging the mono-myth as male-centric. And while more of a humanist than a feminist, Ball's initial inspiration, that ukiyoe print, has more to do with the spiritual than the physical. Ukiyo or "floating world" was "a Buddhist concept referring to the transitory, illusory quality of secular life, through which one could discover the essence, or spiritual reality, of existence." 2 Something to consider when viewing the illusory works of Laura Ball.
1) Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation, Edited by David Kudler. Novato, California: New World Library, 2004, pp. 132, 133.
2) Carma C. Fauntleroy, Japanese Woodblock Prints Exhbition Catalog, February 15-April 14, 1989, Art Gallery, Sweet Briar College. http://www.artgallery.sbc.edu/ukiyoe/historyofwoodblockprints.html


text:
Happy Birthdaycityfile · 05/04/09 07:16AM
Kimora Lee Simmons has good reason to munch on some cupcakes today. It's her 34th birthday. Given the events of the past year, former AIG chief Hank Greenberg probably isn't in the mood to celebrate, but it's his 84th birthday all the same. Others turning a year older today: Comedian Will Arnett is 39. Lance Bass is turning 30. Columnist George Will is turning 68. Actor Richard Jenkins is 62. Former SNL castmember Ana Gasteyer is turning 42. ESPN reporter Erin Andrews turns 31. Pia Zadora is 55. Gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn is 42. And two of the city's top lawyers, Ed Herlihy and Paul Roth are turning 62 and 70, respectively.


text:
Why do we need to worry about the water we are consuming each and every day? When referring to a group of people or someone acting different, the phrase "it must be in the water" is often used as a response. While this phrase is always used comically, you need to know that many of your health problems may indeed be result of what is in the water you are consuming every day.
Why You Need to Personally Treat Your Own Water
Many people are unaware of the vast amount of chemicals lurking in nearly all public water supplies. If you are using tap water to cook your food, or drinking it straight from the faucet, then you are exposing yourself to these substances. One of the most commonly noted, controversial substances in the water supply is fluoride.
It was only a few years ago that if you labeled fluoride as a dangerous substance, you would be laughed at and scorned. For years, a select minority of individuals were the only ones raising the awareness of this health concern. Their cries have been and continue to be met with dissonance, despite the fact that the public's opinion on fluoride has changed much in just a short time. In fact, even the United States government has called for lower levels of water fluoridation following a study published in Environmental Health Perspectives, which found that increased fluoride consumption led to decreased IQ in children.
Check your city's fluoride levels.
Fluoride is not the only thing in your water. Cocaine, various hormones birth control, pharmaceuticals, and other toxic pollutants are often found in the drinking water across the United States.
Other pollutants typically found in the drinking water:
- Lead, which can enter the water supply through corrosive pipes or improper water treatment
- Pathogens that cause disease and are especially crippling to those with weakened immune systems
- By-products of chlorine treatment such as trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, which have been linked to cancer and reproductive problems
- Arsenic, which may cause cancer, serious skin problems, birth defects and reproductive problems
- Radon, a carcinogen linked to lung cancer
The Ultra Models are "all-in-one", high performance water revitalization systems. They raise water's PH and negative ORP (antioxidant potential). In addition, natural minerals and electrolytes are supported while the systems filter out radiation, VOCs, drug residues, and heavy metals such as mercury, barium, lead, copper, aluminum, and others. It does all of this while not requiring electricity to operate.
The units also successfully filter out herbicides and pesticides, which is becoming a growing concern. New research has confirmed that Monsanto's best-selling herbicide Roundup has been found to be contaminating the groundwater in areas it is being applied in. Specifically, the water is being polluted with a carcinogenic chemical it contains known as glyphosate. What does this mean? It means that toxic glyphosate is now polluting the world's drinking water through the widespread contamination of aquifers, wells and springs. If you want to filter this toxic herbicide out, these units will do it for you.


text:
$435, at Opening Ceremony
During Milan fashion week earlier this year, the New York Times credited such lines as Haversack and United Arrows' Chamoshita for fueling a movement coined "the New Japanese Dandyism"—a natty reinterpretation of an arm-chair scholar aesthetic with checkered sport jackets, bright socks and an English shoe. Haversack's weathered cotton cardigan, among the first of their products available in the states, exists "somewhere between your favorite sweater and favorite hoodie" as Open Ceremony, Haversack's first American vendor, puts it. In their most classic films, Michael Caine and Steve McQueen donned similar shawl collars and cemented the look as uniquely American. Wear it with conviction—these sleeves are stitched with a subtle nod to dandies past, protagonists of intellect and action.
What should I pack for my first business trip?
- Matt, OH
With nearly every airline imposing a baggage fee nowadays, if you can get away with flying with just a carry-on, do it.
Was this a good piece?
When a piece goes live on Valet, RSS delivers it to you.
We know you're busy. Subscribe to a weekly rundown of the best from Valet.
Want to know what we're up to or when a new piece is posted?
Add a drop of our style to your page.
© Copyright 2023 Valet Media LLC - All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions


text:
This article is more than 1 year old
'Apple's iOS 6 maps app is SHOCKING, rushed and half-baked'
Plus: 'We're trying to re-imagine the world with Windows 8'
Quotw This was the week when Microsoft chieftain Steve Ballmer tried to convince everyone that 2012 will be "the most epic year in Microsoft history".
And how did the chair-tossing potty-mouthed bossman attempt to prove this glorious epoch will be achieved? Well, it wasn't by suggesting its Surface fondleslabs should be sold at an affordable price, anyway.
Clearly referring to the small percentage of people who have a tidy disposable income during the recession or perhaps the people who sell their body parts to afford the latest tech, Ballmer said:
I think most people would tell you that the iPad is not a super expensive device. [When] people offer cheaper, they do less. They look less good, they're chintzier, they're cheaper.
If you say to somebody, would you use one of the 7-inch tablets, would somebody ever use a Kindle to do their homework? The answer is no; you never would. It's just not a good enough product. It doesn't mean you might not read a book on it.
On top of this sagacious observation, Ballmer added that this was Microsoft's year because of Windows 8:
Windows 95 was certainly the biggest thing in the last 20 years until now. I think Windows 8 certainly surpasses it.
We're trying to really re-imagine the world from the ground up with Windows 8.
While Ballmer's dreams of an illustrious year may be a tad optimistic, the Microsoft name was enough to give a brief lift to Research In Motion's share price. That is, before people realised that rather than a lucrative contract embedding BlackBerry tech in Windows mobes, the Canadian firm was going to pay Redmond for some patents related to the exFAT file system.
A Microsoft rep said:
Today's smartphones and tablets require the capacity to display richer images and data than traditional cellular phones. This agreement with RIM highlights how a modern file system, such as exFAT can help directly address the specific needs of customers in the mobile industry.
Indeed, though unless RIM finds a way of addressing the specific needs of customers, this may be a shorter licensing agreement than either side hopes for.
Speaking of tech firms that don't always know what their customers want, HP has said it should make a phone. Despite its poor showing in mobile devices with the TouchPad, a smartphone is the way to go for the tech leviathan.
Boss Meg Whitman said:
My view is we have to ultimately offer a smartphone, because in many countries of the world, that is your first computing device. There will be countries in the world where people will never own a tablet or a PC or a desktop. They will do everything on a smartphone.
This week also featured Talk-Like-a-Pirate day on the 19th during which nearly every Reg sub-headline was boarded and rewritten by cutlass-waving sub-editors. And in what must have been a tribute to the annual celebration of sea dog lingo, a German Pirate Party executive has hung up her eyepatch and hook. Julia Schramm, who once described intellectual property as "disgusting", found herself rapidly changing her mind when she got a €100,000 book deal with Random House.
Now sites hosting pirated copies of her book Click Me have been issued with DMCA takedown notices. Somewhat hypocritical as Mark Splinter of grassroots copyright campaign Copylike pointed out:
That awkward feeling when you realise the stack of cash you received was part of a commercial contract against your beliefs? Priceless.
Fanbois, pundits and tech reviewers got their first chance to
adulate lambast the spanking-new extra-shiny iPhone 5 and iOS 6 this week and Apple's new Maps app was (nearly) universally panned as mere shite.
The fruity firm pulled Google's much-loved Maps from its latest iDevice, and replaced it with its own app packed with TomTom data. Which would be fine if the thing wasn't occasionally inaccurate and somewhat shoddy.
One fanboi moaned:
The maps app is shocking! It looks rushed, half-baked, delivers a really poor user experience. Compare the aerial photograph with that of google maps for areas outside London, Cardiff, Portsmouth...
Another pointed out:
My home town (pop. 25k) is labelled about a mile north of where it should be, and a sub-district of my home town is in the place of the center of my town!
Shockingly, it has also emerged that Apple might be artificially creating a market for its iPhone 5s by PRETENDING THERE AREN'T THAT MANY OF THEM. This unheard-of tactic had to be resorted as the company worried that the mobe might not be that great actually.
Reg clandestine source Dry Throat explained the strategy:
Don't let anyone have many. That way you're not saying, 'hey, buy our mediocre and really expensive offering'. You're saying, 'see this? Over here? Where everyone else is looking? You can't have this'.
That way if you do get hold of one, you feel really pleased regardless of the fact it's not much good. And if you can't get one, you really want one. It's so simple - but so effective.


text:
Promissory Notes Are Negotiable Instruments Containing Express Terms Regarding RepaymentPage last modified: June 25 2021
Yes No
Share to Facebook
What Is the Difference Between a Promissory Note and An I.O.U.?
A Promissory Note Contains the Specifics Regarding Loan Repayment Details and Is Itself a Negotiable Instrument. Repayment Terms Stated Within May Be Scheduled or As Due Upon Demand. An I.O.U. Is Not the Same As a Promissory Note.
Understanding What Constitutes As a Proper Promissory Note and What Is a Demand Note
A promissory note is form of negotiable instrument whereby a party (the issuer) makes an unconditional promise in writing to pay a sum of money to another party (the payee). Payment becomes due under a promissory note at fixed time stated within the promissory note or upon demand by the payee to the issuer. The Bills of Exchange Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. B-4 defines a promissory note as:
176 (1) A promissory note is an unconditional promise in writing made by one person to another person, signed by the maker, engaging to pay, on demand or at a fixed or determinable future time, a sum certain in money to, or to the order of, a specified person or to bearer.
In accounting terminology, a promissory note is commonly referred to and known as a note payable or simply just a note. The term bank note is simply a promissory note held by a bank and payable upon demand by the bank to the bearer of the note. The terms of the note are stated within the note. Usual terms include the principal amount due, the applicable interest rate, the parties, the date of issue, the repayment terms, and the due date. Provisions may also include the payee's rights in event of default such as foreclosure action upon assets. Demand notes are promissory notes without a specific due date as such a note becomes due upon demand of payment. Promissory notes are evidence of a loan but are legally distinct from a loan agreement as a loan agreement will contain all terms and conditions.
Summary Comment
A promissory note is a negotiable instrument and could consist as a cheque, loan agreement, or other document evidencing indebtedness.Learn More About
Promissory Notes


text:
Petrol price cut Rs 3 per litre; diesel costlier by Rs 1.47
Petrol in Delhi will cost Rs 56.61 per litre from midnight tonight as against Rs 59.63.
New Delhi: Petrol price was on February 29 cut by Rs3.02 per litre, but diesel rates were hiked by Rs 1.47 a litre - the second increase this month in line with global trends. Petrol in Delhi will cost Rs 56.61 per litre from midnight tonight as against Rs 59.63.
A litre of diesel, however, will cost Rs 46.43 a litre as compared to Rs 44.96 per litre, according to Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation's largest fuel retailer. This is the 7th straight reduction in price of petrol. Petrol price was last cut on February 18 by 32 paisa a litre. On diesel, this is the second increase in rate this month.
The price were hiked by 28 paisa a litre last time. Prior to that revision, fuel rates were revised on February 1 when petrol price was cut by a marginal 4 paise a litre and diesel by 3 paise a litre after the government raised excise duty to take away most of the benefit arising from fall in international oil prices.
The government had raised excise duty on petrol by Re 1 a litre and that on diesel by Rs 1.50 to mop up additional Rs 3,200 crore during the remainder of the current fiscal. This was the fifth hike in excise duty since November that cumulatively gave the government Rs 17,000 crore in additional revenue. The five levy hikes total to Rs 4.02 per litre on petrol and Rs 6.97 on diesel.
"The current level of international product prices of petrol and diesel and Rupee-US Dollar exchange rate warrant decrease in price of petrol and increase in price of diesel, the impact of which is being passed on to the consumers with this price revision," IOC said in a statement.
State-owned fuel retailers IOC, Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) revise rates of the fuel on 1st and 16th of every month based on average oil price and foreign exchange rate in the preceding fortnight. The revision was due on February 16 but the retailers chose to defer it by a couple of days.
"The movement of prices in the international oil market and Rupee-USD exchange rate shall continue to be monitored closely and developing trends of the market will be reflected in future price changes," IOC added.


text: The illustration shows a serializeable transaction consisting of a SELECT query that is repeated, followed by an UPDATE query. The second SELECT query sees the same data as the first, even though between the two SELECT queries someone else has changed the data. The UPDATE query fails if attempting to update a row changed and committed by another transaction since this transaction began. The "Cannot Serialize Access" error causes the transaction to roll back to the beginning and retry.


text:
Hawks claim Ayon off waivers from Milwaukee
Atlanta, GA – The Atlanta Hawks have claimed forward/center Gustavo Ayon off waivers from the Milwaukee Bucks.
Ayon was waived by Milwaukee on July 25 after appearing in 12 games for the Bucks. He was acquired from Orlando in February and averaged 3.7 points with 3.6 rebounds in a combined 55 games last season.
"Gustavo has a high basketball IQ and is a hard-nosed player," said Hawks general manager Danny Ferry in a statement Monday. "He gives us quality depth at the power forward and center positions."
The 28-year-old native of Mexico has appeared in 109 games over two seasons with New Orleans, Orlando and Milwaukee. He has career averages of 4.8 points and 4.3 rebounds.


text:
Charles Barkley was hanging around the Patriots locker room after their win last night—apparently he's friends with owner Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick?—so the assorted media got him to answer some football questions. His assessment of New England's fans and media? They're spoiled.
Barkley's absolutely correct. The majority of Pats fans truly don't know how fortunate they are with their team's success. (Probably the biggest reason why they're so easy to despise.) And when Bill Belichick and Tom Brady do inevitably retire, as Barkley points out, Jonny from Peabody will complain about bigger problems than Stevan Ridley fumbling a couple of times.
The whole video's worth watching, but here the best parts:
In sports, if I'm a fan, I want my team to have a chance to win. That's all I want. Like, in 99% of the cities in every other sport, not just football, your team sucks. You got no chance of winning. The Patriots have a legitimate shot at winning every year. That's pretty cool, and it bothers me, it bothers me that y'all don't appreciate them having a chance to win every year.
Like, in New England, y'all have a chance to win every year. [Offscreen: So who were you impressed with tonight?] No, I'm impressed with the Patriots organization. 'Cause, like, they've lost so many people, and y'all take the winning for granted. Y'all do. And let me tell y'all something. When Bill Belichick leaves, and Tom Brady leaves, y'all team gonna fucking suck.


text:
Message provided by user
Countdown Timer
since Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 10:40:00 pm (Tokyo time)
539 days, 16 hours, 32 minutes, 12 seconds
since Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 10:40:00 pm (Tokyo time)
Current time is Sunday, April 2, 2023 at 3:12:12 pm JST (local time in Tokyo)
You may need to press Reload or Refresh on your browser to update the numbers.
Full-Screen Countdown
The links below will open in a new popup window, some popup-blockers might block them from opening.
Other Countdown Counters
- Countdown Counters available on timeanddate.com
- Countdown to New Year
- Free Countdown Timer for Your Website
Related Links
- New Year Trivia
- Calendar Generator – Create a calendar for any year.
- Calendar for 2023
- Date Calculator – Add or subtract days, months, years
- Duration Between Two Dates – Calculates number of days.
Free Website Countdown
... for your website or blog


text:
Every once in a while, if you're a manager, you'll find yourself in a massive meeting with other managers talking about performance evaluation. If you're lucky, it's only 2 hours. If you are growing fast, it might be 2-5 hours.
Either way, you're probably asking yourself: what is the point of these meetings?! Well, the goal of these meetings is to make sure you recognize accomplishments consistently across your org. Before you scoff at it, consider what might happen if you didn't:
- A worker in another group might get a higher rating with half the work (or, via poorer quality of work)
- Some teams or managers would promote unfairly or too quickly
- Workers would reach positions of importance without the competence needed to succeed at that level
Consider the Law of Crappy People from bhorowitz:
"For any title level in a large organization, the talent on that level will eventually converge to the crappiest person with the title."
I consider this to be true — we tend look at the level above us, find the crappiest person, lean back and exalt, "WTF — I'm better than Billy!!! He can barely tie his shoes. If that guy is a Level 70 Unicorn, I should be a Level 70 Unicorn. Ugh!"
Two things:
- Don't limit yourself by comparing yourself to the worst. Instead, compare yourself to the best person at the next level — or better yet, the best damn engineer/designer/whatever at the company. I think it's self-defeating to adopt an obsession with titles and get wrapped up comparing yourself to the worst person with a title/level above yours. It's not a great way to make progress.
- Calibration and consistency is critical to morale. Because we all tend to do this anyway, calibration and consistency in gauging performance is critical. If the worst person at a given level is _really bad_ it demoralizes people bit by bit, one day at a time. That's why it's important for managers to have this meeting — to make sure we get treated fairly and consistently.
At Box, we take care of people and we handle calibration well — it's one of the reasons I'm proud to work at Box. My hope is that if you work somewhere where managers don't do this you should speak up — and push for change. The adverse side effects of not handling calibration are devastating.


text:
Gabriel Marcel on the Mystery of Evil
October 8, 2016 Leave a comment
Here is a brief excerpt from my first book, Evil and the Evidence for God, published in 1993:
"Some philosophers have been rather adroit in their expression of this theme. For Gabriel Marcel, the only problem of evil is what is sometimes called the 'existential' mode of the problem. If Marcel is correct, this language intrudes a pseudodistinction and the so-called logical problem of evil becomes a pseudoproblem, or a mystery degraded to the level of a problem. To seek 'the causes or the secret aims' of experienced evil, the professed goal of any theodicy, is to view evil 'from outside,' where evil no longer 'touches me' and is therefore 'no longer evil which is suffered.' And evil that ceases to be suffered 'ceases to be evil.' So the only evil that exists is the evil that we encounter in our prereflective lived experience. Our ivory tower incursions into logical territory miss the heart of the matter."
It has always seemed to me that Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) was onto something. Today I would say it is a penetrating insight. The details can be found in his little book The Philosophy of Existentialism. But the themes intimated there are explored and developed throughout his essays and plays.
Today, October 8, is the anniversary of Marcel's death. His work lives on and his influence continues, notably through the work of the Gabriel Marcel Society. I hope you'll venture to explore the rich texture of Christian sensibility reflected in the pages of this French thinker of the 20th century.


text:
Last month, a new San Francisco based firm called Perspecta introduced what could be the beginning of a new revolution in user interfaces. The program, called PerspectaView, allows users to navigate through large databases in a 3D environment.
"We're trying to get rid of the old interface metaphors," says Perspecta's president and CEO Steve Holtzman. He joined up last year with Lisa Strausfaid and Earl Rannison, two MIT Media Lab researchers whose earlier "Millennium Project" won I.D. Magazine's Design Distinction Award for Interactive Media. Out of Strausfeld's and Rennison's conceptual work came PerspectaView, a Java-based program which allows for the creation of easily searchable databases and vizualization of those databases in a 3D environment.
One of the most stunning examples of PerspectaView's power is Reel.com's Cinemap, a shopping application that gives users five basic movie genres ranging from romance to horror, revealing new layers of sub-categories and "related movies" as they pull closer to a particular genre.
For people who feel less comfortable with the 3D environment, the PerspectaView client offers a 2D representation that resembles pull-down menus. However, I'd highly recommend devoting a little time and learning the basics of surfing in 3D, which makes the experiment so much more pleasant.
In order to evaluate the client, I tested it on two machines: a Pentium 166 with 64 Mb of RAM and a T1 connection to the Internet, and a Pentium 133 with 16 Mb of RAM and a 28.8 baud modem. Performance on the former was amazing while the latter was a bit slow. Because the client is written completely in Java, running ove Marimba's Castanet, it suffers a certain performance hit when given less RAM. Furthermore the data transfer, which is based on a proprietary protocol called Information Space Transpor Protocol (ISTP), can be slow at lower connection speeds.
The system is divided into three parts: a database, a server with its own transport protoccol, and a new markup language. At its heart is what Perspecta calls the "SmartContent" system, a set of tools to create and distribute those 3D worlds which Perspecta calls "spaces." (I may sound like jargon, but such concepts are so new that the company can afford the luxury of creating its own names.) Spaces are created by Perspecta's SmartContent Server. The Navigation Server analyzes the SmartContent and from this analysis, identifies relationships between documents. The Navigation Server then organizes the documents based on those relationships and builds a multi-dimensional information space that describes the set of documents in terms of its organization.
The information spaces are then represented in Information Space Markup Language (ISML), an XML compatible language that represents those relationships. To simplify the whole process, Perspecta has also developed a program that can take keywords and create the ISML file almost automatically. On the downside this only works with Informix Databases, with which Perspecta has signed a partnership deal.
While the $30,000 price for the SmartContent system is higher than what most Webmasters would pay for a proprietary server many big companies have signed up. Sabre, the leader in airplane ticketing services, is currently examining using that system to allow travel agents to navigate the maze of airfares available. Encyclopaedia Brittanica and Wired are also looking at the service to create new Web-based environments.
The applications for these new representations seem limitless, from stock and bond databases, which could offer traders with on-the fly data based on certain relationships between stocks, to file system management, with each subdirectory being revealed as the user gets closer. One possible Web-specific application is search engines, where documents or page could be grouped in sub-sections.
The client is currently available on Windows 95 and NT, a strange thing considering it's Java-based, and both the server and client wi soon be available on Unix. For more informatior check out Perpecta's Web site at www.perspecta.com.


text:
Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver dead at 82
The lasting visions of Earl Weaver always will include an irate man with hat askew, kicking dirt and screaming at an umpire. But the Hall of Fame manager was more innovator than instigator.
Weaver, who won four American League pennants and a World Series during his 17 seasons as manager of the Baltimore Orioles, died early Saturday after collapsing during an Orioles-sponsored cruise. He was 82. The cause of death was not immediately revealed.
It was Weaver who pioneered the use of radar guns to measure pitchers' velocity. It was Weaver who kept a stack of index cards to keep track of pitcher vs. batter matchups, long before the computerization of the game's statistics.
And, of course, it was Weaver whose 94 ejections – often flamboyant and once before a game even started – that made him most memorable. That total is an American League record, topped in the majors only by recently retired Bobby Cox and Hall of Famer John McGraw.
"The job of arguing with the umpire belongs to the manager," Weaver once said. "It won't hurt the team if he gets thrown out of the game."
But he also said, in a 1986 interview, "On my tombstone just write, 'The sorest loser that ever lived.' "
The Orioles were holding their annual FanFest on Saturday, and a moment of silence was held as the event opened.
"Earl Weaver stands alone as the greatest manager in the history of the Baltimore Orioles and one of the greatest in the history of the game," Orioles owner Peter Angelos said in a statement released by the club. "Earl made his passion for the Orioles known both on and off the field. This is a sad day."
Said Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig: "Earl Weaver was a brilliant baseball man, a true tactician in the dugout and one of the key figures in the rich history of the Baltimore Orioles. ... Earl's managerial style proved visionary, as many people in the game adopted his strategy and techniques years later.
"Earl was well known for being one of the game's most colorful characters with a memorable wit, but he was also amongst its most loyal. On behalf of Major League Baseball, I send my deepest condolences to his wife, Marianne, their family and all Orioles fans."
Weaver, who didn't played in the major leagues, replaced Hank Bauer as Baltimore manager midway through the 1968 season. His 48-34 record the rest of that season wasn't enough to catch the Detroit Tigers in the American League race, but the Orioles' second-place finish was a message to the rest of the league. Weaver's teams won the next three pennants and the 1970 World Series.
"Bad ballplayers make good managers," Weaver said. "Not the other way around. … A manager's job is simple. For 162 games, you try not to screw up all the smart stuff your organization did last December."
Weaver joined his organization in 1957 as manager of a minor league team in Fitzgerald, Ga.
He worked his way through the Baltimore farm system and was added to the major league coaching staff in 1967.
The Orioles team he inherited was talented. It included future Hall of Famers Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson. Another, pitcher Jim Palmer, would be promoted from the minors in 1969, the year Weaver's heavily favored team lost the World Series to the New York Mets.
He got his World Series victory a year later, winning seven of eight postseason games – a three-game sweep of the Minnesota Twins in the AL Championship Series and a five-game World Series triumph against the Cincinnati Reds.
Weaver's relationship with his players often was as colorful as his celebrated battles with umpires.
Palmer once said, "The only thing Earl knows about a curveball is that he couldn't hit it."
But Weaver hardly was worried about his relationships.
"I don't know if I said 10 words to Frank Robinson while he played for me," Weaver said.
But those players understood Weaver was ahead of his time.
"He used to keep these little cards with what guys used to hit off certain guys," said Washington Nationals manager Davey Johnson, who was an Oriole in Weaver's first five seasons as manager. "This guy was 2-for-6. This guy was 1-for-10. I tried to explain to him, 'Earl, you know what the standard deviation curve is?' He says, 'What the hell is that.' "
But he knew how to use players, making frequent use of platoons, having a left- and a right-handed hitter share a position. He also would list as the designated hitter in his starting lineup a pitcher whom he didn't plan to use, then insert a real hitter when that spot in the batting order came up.
Weaver managed the Orioles through the 1982 season, then replaced Joe Altobelli during the 1985 season and retired for good after 1986, the only losing season of his major league career. His final record was 1,480-1,060, the .583 winning percentage ranking fifth all-time among post-1900 managers.
The Orioles retired his No. 4 in 1982 and a plaque with his name and number is on the corner of the home dugout at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Weaver was known for positioning himself at the corner of a dugout nearest the runway to the clubhouse so he could go up the tunnel and sneak a cigarette, especially in the late innings of tight games. Reliever Don Stanhouse, who for a while was Weaver's closer, was nicknamed "Fullpack" for his effect on his manager.
Weaver, who has spent most of his post-baseball life in South Florida, was in Baltimore last summer at the unveiling of a statue honoring him.


text:
A long-standing (but perhaps unnecessary) debate in the field of human rights is that of economic security versus political freedom. States that stress collectivism such as China and some Islamic states, argue on the global stage that without financial security, political freedom is meaningless. They see sound economic conditions as a precondition for the enjoyment of political freedom. What good is the vote if the people have no shoes in which to walk to polling stations? Conversely, advocates of the latter argue that individuals can use free speech and their own autonomy to create the conditions that lead to economic prosperity for themselves and society as a whole. This notion is highly compatible with laissez-faire free markets and cultures of self-sufficiency, e.g. Western European countries and the U.S. It is far better that some people walk barefoot to polling stations on voting day than not have a voting day at all.
Although my interview subjects in rural Nigeria have not heard of this debate, they struggle with it all the same, just framing it in different terms. I asked them a series of questions about how the oppressive military rule of the 1990s, namely that under General Sani Abacha, compares to today's democratic administration, albeit a less-than-flourishing one. It was in the 1990s that many of the most notorious human rights abuses were committed in Nigeria, and Ogonis in particular suffered some of the worst. During this decade Nigerian dissidents were killed, tortured, disappeared by state agents, women were raped as a means of asserting political power, and there was virtually no free speech. Today, endemic corruption debilitates government and for the majority of citizens, Nigeria continues to be a really…unfair place to live. However, political freedom is vastly improved from what it was 15-20 years ago. Surely Nigeria must be a better place for Niger Deltans now than it was then, right?
From the perspective of most of my respondents, it isn't. All but three of my interview subjects said that either there is no change at all now from how the government was under military rule, or even more surprisingly, almost half of them told me that things were better in the 1990s. There are several explanations for this. They may have wanted to make their current conditions seem as dire as possible because they hoped for money after the interview, or because they viewed me as representative of some Western power that could help them. Some research indicates that people tend to remember the "good ol' days" while their current difficulties seem more salient. For my middle-aged research subjects, they may not have had the adult responsibilities or political consciousness to view the state in the same way then that they do currently. For example, a 20-year-old may not think about the importance of fair taxation in the way that that same 40-year-old supporting a family later on thinks about it.
Of those who told me that life was better in the 1990s, there were two types of answers. One smaller group said that society was less chaotic then and the public sphere was more orderly. The strong arm of Abacha ensured that petty thievery was minimized and that economic transactions were regulated. Women described markets where they sold goods as being more organized and predictable. They said they could plan out their family diets better because they knew how much goods would cost in coming weeks and months.
A more common answer though was simply that things were cheaper in 1990s relative to their income. That's it. The women I talked to wanted food, medicine, clothing, and housing to be affordable. They viewed inflation and unstable prices today as infringing on their well-being more than the threat of village pogroms and extrajudicial killings of family members. They care about fair elections far less than they care about the availability of zinc roofing. They care about the number of independent media sources far less than the amount of cassava their naira can buy. Although I think their responses are a reflection of political marginalization of Nigerian women and the widespread notion that politics are a male realm, they also indicate that their current economic conditions are so precarious that they are willing to living under tyranny to be able to purchase more than a day's worth of food at a time.
I haven't done the background reading on this finding yet, and I am sure other research out there has found the same in the global south. It makes me wonder how vastly different human rights deliberations at the EU would be if they weren't dominated by rich men and had a few rural African women present.
Related articles
- Nigeria: Legacies of General Sani Abacha (sahelblog.wordpress.com)


text: Verizon Wireless could be preparing to launch the third version of its popular DROID smartphone on July 14th. Android enthusiast blog Droid Attic posted what it claims to be a screenshot of an internal Best Buy inventory system. The image clearly shows an in-stock date of July 13th for the DROID 3, and the blog notes that the phone should launch one day later on the 14th. Motorola's DROID 3 is already official in China as the Milestone 3, so it's clearly only a matter of time before Verizon makes an announcement. And if the July 14th launch date is accurate, that announcement will likely come some time next week. Spec highlights include a 4-inch qHD display, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture support, 16GB of internal storage and a slide-out QWERTY keypad.


text:
All the news that's fit to shove through internet tubes. Here's the world of comic books and graphic novels in LA and beyond over the last week or so, with some commentary:
= Boom! Studios Editor-in-Chief Matt Gagnon gets the prestigious Comics Reporter Holiday Interview treatment, talking about the culture and climate of the LA-based publisher and his journey to his current position. Read it
= Silver Lake store Secret Headquarters was named Bookstore of the Week by the LA Times book blog Jacket Copy. More acclaim for a shop that in 2008 was named one of the World's 10 Best Bookstores by The Guardian. The LA Times article also gives mention to local LA artists Martin Cendreda (Catch Me If You Can) and Sammy Harkham (Crickets). Meanwhile, I have somehow still not checked out this store. Read it
= The ever-expanding Comic International: San Diego could add a balloon parade through downtown San Diego to kick off the festivities. City Council District 4 President Tony Young, a self-proclaimed comic book collector and fan, floated the idea in his New Years address and expanded on the idea in an interview. Read it
= Comics industry numbers from Diamond Comic Distributors, the primary method comics publishers get their comics and graphic novels to comic book stores and other outlets, has released their reports on 2010 and as expected print comics took a hit. "Annual sales of comic books, graphic novels, and magazines to the comic book specialty market declined slightly in 2010, down 3.5% from 2009." Comics industry number-cruncher John Jackson Miller estimates that the industry generated $415 million last year. The comic shop market hit a peak of $437 million in 2008. However, he counters this gloom with data showing the fourth quarter of 2010 ending 2% up from fourth quarter 2009 due to graphic novel sales. This supports some cautious optimism from some as early signs of a turnaround. Read it: part 1, part 2, part 3 (more…)


text:
|Thread Tools
|Display Modes
Kiteboarder Injured By Spinner Shark In PBC (2012)
I just came across news of this accident from 2012 during the blacktip shark migration. He was on a 20 mile downwinder heading south
from Singer Island. He was about a 100 yards off the beach near the Palm Beach Inlet when he collided with the shark, more accurately,
the shark's teeth? He indicated he had noticed a group of about 20 sharks in the area prior to the encounter. It looks like it was a pretty
small shark fortunately and one that didn't come back for seconds. He had some connective tissue damage and ended up having
heart surgery as a consequence of the accident. A minor accident ended up having more serious overtones as a result. More about that
in the links below.
"Kiteboarder Meets Shark Near Singer Island Florida: Mostly Happy Ending.
by BEACHHUNTER on FEBRUARY 27, 2012
I get lots of email from people who encounter various potentially dangerous marine life. Today I got an email from Jason Lasser, who
was kiteboarding yesterday in South Florida and found his foot in contact with the mouth of a Spinner shark.
Jason had "…just started a downwinder from Singer Island, crossing the Palm Beach inlet, and collided with a spinner shark."
His foot was lacerated and required surgery to repair nerves, tendons and an open wound (below)."
Continued at: http://www.blogthebeach.com/2012/nat...y-happy-ending
More at:
All three relatively recent kiteboarder shark accidents happened with spinner or blacktip sharks visible in the vicinity. There were two
other attacks for which there is less information in the early 2000's in Martin County, also during the migration. The three attacks in
recent times happened on Feb. 3, 2010 (fatal), Feb, 27, 2012 (minor injury) and March 22, 2014 (minor injury).
Moral: If you ride in a shark migration, you should expect a higher chance of being bitten. It only stands to reason after all. The apparent reasons
and severity of the rare accidents (to date), will vary. A kiter has been killed in the South Florida migration while others have suffered relatively
minor lacerations.
The vicinity of the encounter:
FKA, Inc.
transcribed by:
Rick Iossi
Last edited by ricki; 01-15-2015 at 11:46 AM.
A question came up on a similar threat about kiting off Ft. Myers in February. This is what I wrote:
FKA, Inc.
transcribed by:
Rick Iossi
|Thread Tools
|Display Modes
Linear Mode


text:
Posts Tagged 'Oliver Ellsworth'
Genesis of Banks and Financial transactions: And this Credit system alternative…
Posted by: adonis49 on: June 14, 2012
Genesis of Banks and Financial transactions: And this Credit system alternative
Thomas Jefferson said:
"If the America people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currencies, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their prosperity until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
There are only two economic systems: They are barter and credit.
1. Barter is the trading of one thing of value for something else of value. Throughout history, many different things have been used for bartering because money, in and of itself, does not exist. Something must be used as money. People have traded for goods and services using farm animals, large rocks, shells and crops.
All things used as money have had one thing in common, they were all tangible wealth. They were all things you could touch. They were all things you could weigh and measure.
Gold and silver have been used not long ago as money worldwide for a couple of thousand of years. A money system using gold and silver coin is a barter system.
A $20 gold coin is twice as heavy as a $10 gold coin.
2. Credit is intangible wealth. You cannot touch credit. You cannot weigh and measure it because there is no substance to weigh and measure. It is all imagination.
Credit is not wealth. No work is used in the creation of credit other than a booking entry.
Credit is an idea, not a thing. It is expressed by bookkeeping entries and computer symbols. The manipulation of words and their meaning is the key to controlling what people think.
Thousand of years ago, people would pay the local goldsmith to store their gold for them in his vault. He would then give them a receipt for the amount of gold that was stored.
The receipt was not money, it was a money substitute. It was later common for people to use the receipts as payment for goods and services since they could be exchanged for the gold held in the vault at any time.
The goldsmith found out that only a small amount of the gold was ever claimed since people just kept exchanging the receipts. The goldsmith started writing receipts for more gold than he had, using some of the receipts to buy things and loaning the rest at interest, while taking title to real property as collateral.
It is recorded that the City-State of Venice created the official institution named Bank
The gold for these extra receipts did not exist. By adding to the amount of receipts in circulation, the goldsmith stole from the people with the real receipts and decreased the value of the real gold receipts by creating inflation.
The more of something there is, the less it is worth and the more of it is needed to trade it for something else.
Paper currency is a money substitute, it is not money. It is only valid when the number of paper currency equals the amount of real money that it is a substitute for.
By manipulating the number of receipts in circulation, the goldsmith stole the wealth of the town without anyone figuring it out.
By lowering the number of receipts, he could make money scarce, creating a depression where he could foreclose on the property and magnify his riches.
He could quicken economic activity and bring abundance by raising the number of receipts until his next rip off.
Traditional definitions are eliminated while new meanings are repeated over and over again until accepted.
The definition of dollar has changed to hide the fact that a dollar is not money, but a unit of measurement for gold and silver coin. For example:
1. Title 12 United States Code Section 152 says: "The terms lawful money or lawful money of the United States shall be construed to mean gold or silver coin of the United Sates."
2. Title 31 United States Code, Section 5101 says: "The money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars."
The recent equivalent to the goldsmith's receipt for gold is the Federal Reserve Note. The word "Note" implies a contract, because legally a note must state who is paying, what is being paid, to whom and when.
Most people say something like, "I have a dollar bill". But what is a bill?
A bill is a receipt of a debt owed by one person or company to another. Therefore, a "dollar bill" is a receipt (or bill) of debt of one dollar that is owed.
From 1914 to 1963, Federal Reserve Notes never claimed to be money, nor did they claim to be dollars. A note for five dollars read: "The United States of America will pay to the bearer on demand five dollars."
How can a promise to pay five dollars be five dollars? To the left of the President's picture and above the bank seal, it said: "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private, and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury or at any Federal Reserve Bank."
In 1963, the Federal Reserve began to issue its first series of notes without the promise, while taking notes with the promise out of circulation. How can paper become what it promises by removing the promise?
To the left of the President's picture and above the bank seal, it now read: "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private."
A note is a proof of debt. It is not possible to pay off a debt with a debt. No debt can be paid in full unless paid in gold or silver, coined and regulated in value by Congress. The name "Federal Reserve Note" is a fraudulent label since each word claims to be something that in reality it is not.
By removing the promise to redeem the note in lawful money, the Federal Government in cooperation with the Federal Reserve, eliminated the monetary system of the United States as established by the Constitution and replaced it with something totally different.
If you are holding a one dollar Federal Reserve Note, the question is: "what is it one dollar of?"
The answer is absolutely nothing. The number one measures no substance.
The only thing that give paper money value is the confidence people have in it as is stated in chapter 30 of our textbook.
Depressions are the result of private bankers reducing the money supply by tightening credit and withdrawing currency, causing a drop in prices, unemployment and foreclosure of property. This is premeditated theft.
During the Great Depression people who had gold in the banks wanted the banks to honor their contract to redeem the paper currency for gold.. That was when US President Roosevelt declared a national emergency and closed the banking system for two days as recommended by the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Congress then passed the Emergency Banking Act declaring it illegal for US citizens to own gold under penalty of up to a $10,000 fine and/or up to 10 years in prison.
The Secretary of the Treasury is not paid by the United States Government. The Secretary serves as US Governor of the International Monetary Fund as receiver of the bankrupt United States, collecting the debt from US citizens.
The value of the US$ in 1940 was worth 17 times more than the value of the US$ now as a result of the Federal Reserve's long-term monetary policy, which has quietly cooperated with the federal government to finance government deficits with Federal Reserve credit.
The US Congress initially defined a lawful money "dollar" as being and consisting of (at least) 371.25 grains of pure silver. Before 1965 anyone could exchange one paper dollar for one real silver dollar.
Another myth that all Americans live with is the nature of the "Federal Reserve": It it is not an agency (public institution) of the United States Government. (See details in link on note 3)
The name "Federal Reserve Bank" is not federal, nor is it owned by the government. It is privately owned. Its employees are not in civil service. Its physical property is held under private deeds, and is subject to local taxation.
But that's another story (See details in link on note 3)
The US national debt is shooting over 12 trillion dollars! (This amount is equivalent of selling off all of France wealth). And the private debt by individuals and corporations, which is somewhere over 50 trillion dollars.
Yet, the US insists on extending financial advice to the European Union on how to manage the Euro currency…
Note 1: The Federal Reserve Act is hastily passed just before the 1913 Christmas break. Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. warned: "This act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President signs this act the invisible government by the money power, proven to exist by the Money Trust Investigation, will be legalized."
US President John F. Kennedy planned to terminate the privately owned Federal Reserve System. In 1963, he signed Executive Orders EO-11 and EO-110, returning to the government the responsibility to print money, taking that privilege away from the Rothschild. Shortly thereafter, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Note 2: The article was from Nalliah Thayabharan in response to my post: https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/super-nationalist-zionism-contributed-to-the-rise-of-the-third-reich/
Note 3: https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/privately-owned-federal-reserve-bank-how-the-rothschild-family-controlled-the-printing-of-the-dollars/


text:
Humanscale Creates the Element Classic and Element 790 LED Taks Lights
Innovative Designs Complement Any Interior and Provide Comfortable Illumination
Caroline Andoscia
212-475-2122 ext. 701
NEW YORK — Humanscale has developed the Element Classic and Element 790 LED task lights. Both lights are ideal for any interior due to their striking aesthetics, brilliant illumination and superb energy savings attributes.
Thanks to MCX LED Technology, both Element Classic and Element 790 consume just five watts of power to produce lighting levels typically associated with incandescent lamps. They overcome the weaknesses of traditional LED task lights by offering brilliant color and excellent light distribution in a compact profile to produce large footprints of comfortable, white 3500K illumination.
With an intuitive dimmer control located on top of the light head, Element 790 provides seven different levels of adjustable light output, which saves energy by allowing the user to customize light intensity according to personal preferences and task requirements.
As with Element Classic, Element 790's unique aesthetic is born from its heat-shedding design. A series of metal fins keeps the unit cool to optimize performance and extend the life of the LED, which is rated for 50,000 hours, or 25 years in most single-shift work environments.
Thanks to their many energy-saving qualities, Element Classic and Element 790 can be integral to the achievement of a number of valuable LEED credits. Furthermore, unlike compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), the Element task lights turn on instantly and contain no mercury, lead or other hazardous materials.
For global purchasing flexibility, a single Element Classic or Element 790 SKU can be used around the globe. This is accomplished through an interchangeable plug for electrical outlet compatibility nearly anywhere in the world, regardless of voltage. For added versatility, it is offered with multiple mounts, including a series of panel mounts for systems furniture.
Both lights also include perfect internal counterbalance for fingertip adjustability and effortless positioning without the friction knobs or rigid joints found on most other adjustable task lights. This encourages users to direct light exactly where it is needed.
Element 790 is offered in White, Silver and Black to complement a wide range of interiors. Element Classis is offered in Silver and White.
For more information about Humanscale and its full range of ergonomic lighting solutions, visit www.humanscale.com/lighting or call 800-400-0625.
About Humanscale
Humanscale is the leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance ergonomic products that improve the health and comfort of work life. Through leveraging new technology in functional yet minimal designs, Humanscale transforms traditional offices into active, intelligent workspaces. Committed to making a net positive impact on the earth as well as our customers, Humanscale offers award-winning products designed with a focus on function, simplicity and longevity.
Click here for more information on Humanscale and our products
Media Contacts:
Anand Gandesha
+44 (0) 736 147 6442


text:
Bellator officials have added three tournament fights, including a heavyweight headliner, to next month's Bellator 25 event.
The main event features undefeated Damian Grabowski (12-0 MMA, 0-0 BFC) vs. Scott Barrett (10-1 MMA, 1-0 BFC) in the opening-round of the organization's eight-man heavyweight tourney.
And in the eight-slot 115-pound women's tourney, Zoila Frausto (7-1 MMA, 1-0 BFC) meets Jessica Pene (7-0 MMA, 1-0 BFC) and Aisling Daly (9-0 MMA, 0-0 BFC) takes on Lisa Ward (13-5 MMA, 1-0 BFC) in opening-round matchups.
Bellator 25 takes place Aug. 19 at the Chicago Theatre in Illinois. The event airs live on FOX Sports Net, and a highlights package airs the following weekend on NBC, Telemundo and mun2.
Grabowski makes his U.S. debut following a successful three-year run in Poland and other Central European nations. All 12 of his career wins have come via stoppage (10 in the first round). Among the dozen career victories, seven have come via submission and five via knockout.
In April 2009, Grabowski posted four victories in one night to win an Austrian tournament. Although the fights had no time limits, he finished each of his first three opponents within two-and-a-half minutes.
Grabowski now meets Barrett, a fellow heavyweight prospect who's riding a four-fight win streak. Most recently, he topped Ty Lee (7-0 at the time) with a first-round knockout at Bellator 19 this past May. In fact, nine of his 10 wins have come via strikes (eight in the first round).
MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) first reported the Frausto vs. Pene matchup earlier this month. Frausto earned her spot in the tourney by upsetting highly regarded Rosi Sexton via vicious first-round KO at Bellator 23 in June. The victory, in fact, earned Frausto Sexton's spot in the tourney. She now meets unbeaten Pene, who posted a first-round TKO of Tammie Schneider at Bellator 5 in 2009.
Daly, meanwhile, makes her Bellator debut after racking up nine straight wins in Europe, including her native Ireland. Only her most recent fight (a decision win over Maiju Kujala) went the distance. She puts her perfect record on the line against Ward, a six-year vet who most recently topped Stephanie Frausto (Zoila's sister) at Bellator 22 in June.
For additional coverage of Bellator 25, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.
(Pictured: Damian Grabowski)


text: 2 by 1 digit multiplication worksheet with answers for your kids to practice, solve and learn basic multiplication. Each exercise of this multiplication worksheet contains 2 digit multiplicand and 1 digit multiplier. Each time you generate the new worksheet, the appropriate answers for new set of questions for this multiplication worksheet will also get generated. Therefore, you can simply verify the solved questions of the corresponding 2 by 1 multiplication worksheet.