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The landscape of southern Utah is almost Martian and Lunar, but yet full of life. Canyons colored in burnt shades of red and orange, vividly contrasted by greenery…
As we headed south down the highway the landscape continued to change from vast flats of sage framed by mountains, to rolling hills of stunted cedar trees, to red rock canyons, buttes and mesas.
As we reached Rockville before the entrance to Zion NP, we said farewell to our friend Kevin, and headed to the BLM land just outside of Rockville for the night. As we scouted out a good spot for our camp, we were rewarded with an amazing sunset.
We picked a flat spot on top of a little mesa for our tent and both agreed it was the most beautiful spot either of us have ever camped. It was not easy setting the tent up with such a sunset going down, but we managed to get the tent up before dark, then headed back down to the car to make some dinner where we met our new friend, Tyler. The three of us enjoyed a wonderful camp dinner and some coffee. After dinner we hiked back to our mesa camp for the night.
As we chatted with our new buddy Tyler, the moon began to rise over the cliffs and paint the canyons, and the landscape revealed yet another layer of its beauty. After we all got our fill of gazing into the lunar landscape, Taylor and I hit the tent. Tyler opted for his gunny sack under the moonlight. The next morning, we brewed some coffee and chatted a for a bit, then we said our goodbyes to Tyler and headed to Zion for the day.
Tyler enjoying the sunrise and coffee brewing.
As we headed to Zion, all that was on my mind for the day was fishing. So we headed to the park office to ask about fishing the Virgin River, which flows through the park. They informed us that fishing was allowed, but most of the fish that inhabit the river are small chubs and maybe a stray trout or two in the bigger pools. That was more than enough to get me excited. So with a fly rod and a light spinning rod we hit the river.
The river did not provide any fish for us but it did provide shade for us on a scorching hot day. Even though it was a fish-less day, it was a once in a lifetime feeling fishing in such an amazing place. The contrast of the almost turquoise water against the bright greens surrounded by walls of sky scraping red rock was overwhelming. The rest of the day was spent driving around the park and hiding in the shade.
On the way out of the park we stopped at Zion Prospector, a local rock and gem shop. After hours of exploring the shop we made another new friend, Chuck.
Our new friend Chuck and Utah Tiffany Stone
Chuck was full of knowledge, not only of the earth's creations that fill the store but also of the area. After asking him all kinds of questions we discovered that petrified wood could be found in the area we were camping. Taylor and I instantly turned into prospectors.
( If your wondering what kind of fish that is… its a ancient bass. Pretty cool, eh? )
After leaving the shop with some knowledge and a few gifts, we headed back to camp. On the way back we stopped to check out the ghost-town of Grafton, which we learned from Chuck, was where part of the movie Butch Cassidy and The Sun Dance Kid was filmed.
The next morning we popped up with our noses to the ground and began rockhounding. The morning was a success with Taylor and I both finding some nice pieces of petrified wood and a pile of many other rocks. Taylor had the biggest part of the pile by far and I had to convince her to leave more behind and remind her we had to get this pile of rocks back home somehow, but luckily by noon the sun drove us back into the shade.
A morning of Rockhounding
After a morning of sniffing around the mesa it was time to start heading back north to Salt Lake to catch our flight early in the AM. On the way back we stopped at Yuba Lake to whip up some dinner roadside and pick up a few more rocks. As we ate our dinner we watched a most surreal full moon rise over the lake. It was the perfect ending to our Utah adventure.
Utah is a diverse state and after only a weeks time spent there it revealed so many layers of its beauty. But the landscape was only part of our Utah adventure, what stands out the most from the trip is the great people we met along the way in this surreal state.
Exploring Utah; Part Two: Race Day, Bonneville Vintage GP
Exploring Utah; Part One: Big Cottonwood Canyon
Photography by Saxton and Taylor
All photography in this article is property of saxtonoutdoors.com


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Star Bulk Carriers Corp., a global shipping company focused on the transportation of dry bulk cargoes, announced that it has repaid to its lenders all outstanding deferred debt amounts originating from the September 2016 restructuring of its finance agreements.
The company currently has no restrictions on vessel acquisitions or new debt and is free to make dividend payments to its shareholders from 1 January 2019 onwards. The company also announced that it has refinanced existing loans of approximately US$617 million with new debt financing totalling over US$625 million (new debt). The new debt will finance 59 vessels of all types, ranging from newcastlemax down to supramax, with an average age of 10.2 years. With this transaction, the company has been able to expand its banking group to include new European and Asian financial institutions, and reduce its cost of debt as the interest margin on the new debt is 70 bps lower than the weighted average interest margin on refinanced debt.
Read the article online at: https://www.drybulkmagazine.com/shipping/24102018/star-bulk-repays-outstanding-deferred-debt-amounts/

subset: commoncrawl


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Family Pride in Every Job!
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In addition to reducing maintenance costs a proper matting system will reduce the levels of airborne particulate thus improving the overall indoor air quality of your home or office. As well, the spread of organic matter present in dirt and debris is also reduced thus decreasing odours in your home or office. Lastly, proper matting reduces slips and falls increasing occupant safety.
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- In the summer months less matting is required. Does your contract adapt to summer requirements?
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- Mat purchasing provides more variety in soil protection. A proper matting system incorporates the usage of scraper, wiper/scraper and wiper only matting.
- Mat purchasing provides a wider selection of colors, widths & lengths.


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Sorting Through the Trump Financial Documents: How Prosecutors Will Search for Clues
A Q&A with Bobby Malhotra of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP on the challenges involved with sorting through financial data and documents in the investigation of Trump's tax filings.
CEO of Speaker Media and Marketing, is the "Secret Weapon of Personal Injury Lawyers and Trial Attorneys" throughout the United States. Specializing as a marketing consultant to lawyers, with a primary focus on content marketing, social media, online video and mobile marketing strategies.


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It's a very serious thing, being eleven years old, which is what Athena is today.
I'm happy to say she continues to be the absolute joy in my life. Yes, even as a "tween." Which she is very excited about now being, by the way. And who can blame her.
I could say more, but I won't, except to say, Happy Birthday, Athena. I love you.


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Main content
Current time:0:00Total duration:6:07
Loanable funds interpretation of IS curve
Video transcript
In the last video, we began to explore the IS curve, which, as I think I mentioned, stands for investment savings. And we really analyzed it from the point of view of investment. We thought of it as real interest rates driving the level of investment, which drives the equilibrium level of real output. High real interest rates, low level of investment, low level of investment leads to low equilibrium output. So this scenario is closer to that right over there. If real interest rates are lower, then that leads to higher levels of planned investment, which leads to a higher level of equilibrium output. So that right over there. So that was more from the investment point of view. What I want to do in this video is explore the exact same relationship, the exact same curve, but think of it more from the savings point of view. And in this situation, we're going to have this exact same thing, but instead of viewing real interest rates as driving GDP, we're actually going to view GDP as driving real interest rate. So let me leave this up here. But let's just break down the expenditure model of GDP. So we know that aggregate income, or aggregate GDP, or aggregate output-- however you want to think of it-- is equal to, and you could break it up into its component expenditures, it's equal to aggregate consumer spending, which is a function of disposable income. y minus t is disposable income, aggregate income minus taxes, plus investment plus government expenditures. And I could do net exports. But for simplicity for this discussion we'll just assume we are in a closed economy. It makes good conceptualizing saving and investment a little bit easier. Now what I want to do is solve for investment. So if I solve for investment I'm just going to subtract this piece and this piece from both sides of this equation. And I get aggregate income minus total aggregate consumer spending minus total government spending is equal to-- on the right hand side I'm just going to be left with, with investment right over here. And this thing right over here is interesting because this is total income minus what-- and let me make sure that we, I don't want to confuse you. Because that looks like a lowercase c. And if we're talking about aggregate consumption it's usually an uppercase C. So on the left hand side, we have total aggregate income minus consumer spending minus government spending. So you could really view this as, this right over here, really is aggregate savings. This over here really is savings. And as we see when on one side of the economy, when people are saving, that goes into banks and it gets lent out. And then it gets reinvested. Or you could save directly by reinvesting. And so what we have here is savings is equal to investment. And that's why it's called an IS curve, because when you look at the expenditure model, savings and investment are really the same thing. They're really just saying, look, there's two ways to view this curve. It's investment driven or its savings driven. And when you think of it this way you have a slightly different view of this curve. Because when you view it from a savings point you say, well, what's going to happen if GDP goes up? What happens if we have a high GDP over here? So if we have a high GDP, or let's say in particular if GDP goes up, the consumer spending, which is a function of GDP, it will go up. But it won't go up as much. It's going to go up by this expression right here times, if we assume a linear model, times the marginal propensity to consume, which is less than 1, it's between 0 and 1. So this is going to go up less than that. And then we can, for the sake of this model, we'll assume right now that happens without any change in government expenditure. So if total aggregate income goes up then savings are going to go up, if we assume government expenditures holds constant. So then we have savings goes up. And if savings goes up, that means we have more loanable funds. There's more money to lend. And if there's more money to lend, what's going to happen to interest rates? Well interest rates are just the price of borrowing money, the price of money. So if you have more of something the price of that thing goes down. So if savings goes up then real interest rates go down. So if you have a high GDP you're going to end up with low real interest rates. So once again, is looking at it from a point of view of GDP driving interest rates. We have high savings here. So we're going to have low interest rates. And you view it the other way around. If you have a lower income this thing is going to also decrease. But is not going to decrease as much as this did, because of the marginal propensity to consume is less than 1, we saw that up here. We saw that all the way over here, right over there. And so in aggregate, the savings are going to go down. Once again, we hold government spending constant. So in this situation, savings are going to go down. And if you have fewer loanable funds, there's less savings to lend out. Then if you have less of a supply of something, what's going to happen to its price? It's price is going to go up. The price of borrowing money is the interest rate. So in this situation interest rates would go up. So that's going in this direction, right over here. If aggregate income goes down, loanable funds go down, interest rates are going to be higher. So once again, the same exact curve, IS curve. But there's two takeaways here. One is to realize why it's called IS, that investment and savings, when you view it from this point of view, really are the same thing. One person's savings can be another person's investment. And when we viewed it from the investment point of view, we were viewing r as driving y. Now we're looking at it the other way around. y is driving savings, which is driving r. But it gives us the exact same relationship for this model.


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2017- A Year of "Trumpification" and "Triumphification"
We are moving into a year of "Trumpification" here in the United States like maybe no other year in our history. This word was coined to represent the effect of our next president on the affairs of men. This is a time where, regardless of political allegiance, we as Christians in the US must desire for revival to impact our nation with a shift for righteousness and morality. We have heard a slogan for months from our incoming president that he desires to "Make America Great Again." There are certainly many avenues where we can see that as a possibility with God's help.
America is definitely called by God to be a leading nation of impact in the world today. However, over and above this viewpoint of "Trumpification," there is an even greater perspective. That perspective is one of another coined word "Triumphification." Even though maybe not a Wikipedia defined word, it represents the idea that Jesus came and is coming again to "Make the World Great Again." From the time of the original creation of planet Earth, God has always had a plan to "Make the World Great Again." Even though there was a fall that seemed to doom the earth to a destitute of sin, God always had the plan to bring His greatness back again. We are now pursuing that time in history as never before. God is looking for people from generation to generation to arise and shine with that focus.
The year 2016 brought possibly the greatest conflict in our political history since our Civil War days. The rivalry between the Red and Blue states was very strong. The Lord spoke to me during this season and said that when you blend red and blue with unity, the new color purple arises. This color of royalty can represent Jesus being magnified in our nation this year. It will require God's people knowing that they are Christians first and anything else after. There is an open door of possibility for the Kingdom of God to make great advances both in our nation and the nations of the Earth. May we move beyond political strife to the war with darkness that exists where all Christians are on the same side.
"Rule of the Kosmos" is changing!
Revelation 11:15 states "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ and He will reign forever and ever." The literal translation of this scripture is "the rule of the kosmos" is going to change. This word "kosmos" has to do with an orderly arrangement. At the initial creation of Earth, God made it to be a good, orderly arrangement under His complete submission. Only at the fall, first of Lucifer to become Satan and then of man choosing to rebel, did this orderly arrangement change. What initially had been full of God's light then became formless and void and impacted by darkness.
Even though Satan, who is only one of a myriad of fallen angels, is referred to as the "god of this world" in 2 Corinthians 4:4, this does not mean that he was or ever will be a "god." However, he has had an unlawful impact on planet Earth and the people thereof. This impact is destined to change for the positive in the days ahead, and we are called to be a part of this God-given change in the rulership of our cosmos.
In 2017, we are moving forward to the appointed day of change and the complete rulership of King Jesus. Jesus spoke of His purpose in making this happen many times when he walked the Earth as all God and all man. In Mark 16 Jesus charged His disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel of "Good News" to all of creation. Even at Jesus' birth the angels said "I bring you Good News of Great Joy." That is why today we are also called to demonstrate who Jesus is to 'powers and principalities' in addition to mankind. There is coming a shift to "Make the World Great Again." This will be the "Triumphification" of the Earth and the world. This shift will once again restore planet Earth and the world into complete submission to God's will. Everything and everyone will bow their knee to the rule of King Jesus either by force or by choice.
In Colossians 2:15, the bible states that "When He (Jesus) had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him." This speaks of a time past when Jesus, who had been resurrected from the dead, led a parade in the heavenlies of His victory over death, hell and the grave. This "Triumphification" in the heavenlies is yet to be fully experienced here on planet Earth. We are advancing toward that day when God will "Make the World Great Again" and change the "Rule of the Kosmos."
2017 is a year where God has purposed "Quantum Leap" advances for His Kingdom.
A "Millennial Reign"!
Most of the time when we think of a "Millennial reign," we think of that appointed time in the future when Jesus sets up His rule on planet Earth for a one-thousand-year period of time. This will be the time right after the "Rule of the Kosmos" changes. Fortunately, for us as Christians, we get to rule and reign with Jesus during that time. This year, however, the Lord began to speak to me about another type of "Millennial reign." This revelation was that God was looking for Millennials to reign with Him right now. He is looking for a Millennial generation (18-35 year olds) to demonstrate His righteousness in the Earth. As was with previous generations, from GI, Silent, and Baby Boomers to the future Gen Z, the Millennials right now have a great opportunity to reign with Christ. As established leaders of technology and social media, they have a unique positioning in the Earth today. Their voice can be heard with an expediency and expansiveness as never before. God is calling them to be impactful forces of light in what seems to be rising darkness. May all Christian Millennials this year stand strong against Satan's plan to steal a generation, and be those ruling and reigning in and with Christ today.
A Lightning Bolt God Crowning Connections !
The Lord spoke to me in a very unusual way leading into this Hebrew transitional year of 5777. The Lord has always spoken to me with signs, wonders and miracles, and even with prophetic atmospheric manifestations. These have included numerous stories of hail, fire and light, along with angelic visitations.
Just shortly before the transition into the year 5777 occurred, I had been ministering with Bishop Bill Hamon at a Christian International City Tour in New York. At this conference, I ministered on how God would make divine connections for us by "Vaving" (connecting) Heaven to Earth like Lightning Bolts. The symbol for the 5776-year number 6 was a tent peg. The word "Vav," or number 6, was used in Genesis 1:1 to demonstrate how God connected the Heavens and the Earth. In one reference, the meaning was "with lightning bolts God would connect Heaven to Earth" and manifest our destinies from an unseen realm to the visible. Just as God spoke things into existence and caused things that were not to be formed from an unseen realm, so now would He establish divine connections and destinies that way. The great part of this revelation was that God would initiate these connections in the very same way He initiated the Heavens and Earth to be connected.
The very next week, I was out by our swimming pool watching a thunderstorm roll in from the Gulf of Mexico. I have always been fascinated by weather phenomena and even have a "lightning" machine in my office. I had been told that you could calculate the distance the lightning was from you by counting the seconds between the lightning flash and the sound of thunder. I was told that each second represented one mile (by the way, this is not true). So I was counting some of the strikes to thunder and getting five or six seconds.
I was just counting the next one, almost to seven seconds, when a massive lightning bolt came from the sky across all our palm trees and struck our carriage house apartment. It sounded like an atomic bomb went off, with burning wood flying over the pool and blowing the roof apart in several places on the carriage house. I was standing twenty feet away, and the sound was temporarily deafening. A few seconds later, my son-in-law staggered out of the upper apartment. I said to him, "Look where the lightning struck," and he motioned and said, "Oh No, you need to come inside and see what happened." When I went inside, to my amazement, the lightning had blown several holes, some up to three feet in diameter, on the interior walls. There were drywall sections and dust everywhere, with giant burn marks on the metal components of construction. It disintegrated the main ground wire.
When the fire department came, along with our electrical contractors, they said it was the most massive lightning bolt they had ever seen. We even had a television crew come out to televise the event of the strike for our local TV Channel. The lightning blew out all of our A/Cs and other related electrical things. It even went up the power line and blew out the electric company's transformer.
Now, when this lightning bolt struck, I am thinking,
"This is Great!…" God was confirming the fact the He will connect destiny for us in this season of time as never before, and will bring divine connections! I knew that this was a prophetic confirmation that He was going to initiate some great things for us this year. As we now have moved into this 5777 Hebrew year, our "Lightning Bolt" God will "Crown" our connections this year. As the number 7 is made from the number 6 with a crown on it in Hebrew, the 7 visually looks like a sword and prophetically becomes the "Sword of the Lord" for this year.
The Lord has always spoken to me with the number 7 in the past, and this is a great year for His voice to be heard in the year 5777. Being born in the natural at 7:07, Born Again spiritually by reading Matthew 7:7, having a wife with a birthday on 7/7, our daughter married on 7/7/7, and even our first Grandson born on a 7th, I am very expectant this year of triple 7s. The Lord spoke to me at a recent conference with Chuck Pierce that just as in the natural realm triple 7s represents jackpots, there are also "spiritual jackpots" in God's plans for us this year.
There is also a good ending for the lightning bolt story in the natural, as God can cause all things to work together for good. When our insurance agent came to inspect the damage, He said, "Whatever was plugged into an outlet needs to be replaced." Talking about turning apparent disaster to good, this was well above anything expected. Appliances, TVs, computers, garage door openers, and even air conditioners shift at the sound and the "lightning bolt" of God.
The Army of the Lord Marching in Rank!
One of the greatest for God to advance us this year is for each member of the Army of the Lord to be in unity and in rank. There is a need for five-fold ministers to know that their destiny will never be fulfilled without those who are called to impact the seven mountains of culture, and vice vers. The 7 Mountain Kingdom Influencers will never fulfill their destiny apart from being in position with five-fold ministers. This year will bring greater revelation of how these two groups, which includes every believer, move as one in the Earth today. God says that once more He will shake the Heavens and the Earth. I believe that we are in those days right now. Nations, along with individuals, are being shaken to eliminate those things that will not remain, so that those things that will remain will be our focus. May you arise this year of 2017 and 5777 and see that God's plan is to "Make the World Great Again." He will do that by causing the Body of Christ to represent and demonstrate the Triumphant King of Kings and Lord of Lord's—Jesus—to be seen in the Earth today. Being a world changer will require us to lay our lives down for the Kingdom today. May you be a vessel this year that God can use to "Make the World Great Again."


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Hi there. There are a number of reasons which have compelled me into making this site. I'll try to list here-below the main ones.
Twit but don't tweet.
Twitter is a great web application which allows you to stream your life on the web. Anything can go in it in a way that resembles the stream of consciousness as Joyce introduced it in "Finnegans Wake". Yet sometimes your thoughts and actions are a little more coherent than that. Twitter though does not force you any specific clustering or ordering of the information. With that respect Twitter does not differ too much from a RSS aggregator. You can put post a big jumble made of everyday activities, things you have found on the net, ideas, and meetings. Twitter is an open application and its functionality and purpose simply emerges from how the users interact with it.
To facilitate the twitting process, the crew of twitter has provided you ways to twiter using other application. I definitely like this paradigm shift from application-centric to service-centric, I think it's the key of truly 2.0 web apps. This twitter tools clients connect to twitter via a service HTML/XML interface (aka twitter API).
Because I am now in charge of my twits via such an API I can use different agents/sources to interface with my twitter timeline. By doing so, even if the my twits get aggregated on the same endless flow of consciousness, I can still separate the sources which are producing the twits.
This is basically my "content architecting" reason behind Deep Thoughts.. A way of engineering my content so that I can differentiate my blog twits, from one-liners twits, from loosen everyday twits. Same final twitter stream, different sources. The good thing of it is that the above mentioned meta-tagging of the twits with "category-like" information is now implicit.
Pun is Fun
When I thought about this site first it was quite late in the night. I was pondering about the real meaning of twittering, about the messages we like to share with our more-or-less acquainted followers. Sometime the content is not as relevant as it is its emotional value "I twit, ergo sum". It is a relief to know that somebody is fine, and while "no news is good news", a small insignificant twit could still be a warm and reassuring signal for its followers.
Still, are not we able to produce more valuable information that stuff like "Going to bed", "Pizza tonite", or "Watching tv"? Are we not capable of grand and important thoughts? I think we are. So if we believe that a thought is deep and worthy to be shared with others, we should encase it, nurture and protect this small but bright product of our brain.
Said that, now the real question remains, is "Pizza tonite" a deep thought or not? Well, if I believe that "Pizza tonite" is a deep thought, than it gets a whole lot of new connotations. A message becomes a deep thought the very moment I believe it is.
Ok, we are all great thinkers. Now it's just a matter of keeping our ego under control and remember that deep thoughts, quotations, and punchlines are not really literature masterpieces, but more a corny pseudo-literary thing.
So while I was pondering about this and much more, I came up with the name for this tryout. Why not calling this project in a way which renders the fact that we are thinking animals, hence creatures with ideals as well as strong longings (I mean hot sex here, for the records). Hence "Deep Thoughts".
Quoting Natalino
I love to come up with deep thoughts but I am not that famous yet. So how can I enjoy my quotes? Easy, make a websit! It is such a wonderful thing to quote yourself! If you want to deepthought as well, I have made a very simple but effective wordpress theme, drop me a line and start deepthoughts-ing youtself!
Graphic design by space, size, and ratio
I have been reading a lot lately about typography, layout design, design by space, font design, design by function, and ratios in design (golden ration, ratios in the movie industry, ratio in photography, etc) and I wanted to challenge me with a graphic design where this theories and findings could be tested.
The design you are looking at is a fully scalable design, where each component or collection of components has a "pleasant" ratio (I tried first with a rigorous formulation, but I dropped it, since I could not come up with the "best of the best ratios"). The design is build around the human visual scanning processes. After the initial impact of a wide quotation isolated with plenty of space, the eye starts its scanning process.
Firstly, the eye focuses on the main diagonal which is stronger and goes from top-left to the bottom-right of what it could it a card-like format. The card like format is enhanced by the bottom horizontal line as well as a small dot on the top-right corner.
Secondly, the "weak" diagonal eye scanning process takes place going from the little dot on the top-right back to the main center, bottom-left to the leading bottom line, which guides literally the eye back to the colophon "Natalino does not tweet".
Typography & readability.
I have used the commonly available serif font "Georgia" since I wanted to be Mac-Win browser agnostic. This is unfortunately only a limitation of the medium, not a design choice. Secondly, I wanted a big title aiming for decorative effect as a product of the typographic design. I have played with the leading, size, and spacing of the characters in "Deep Thoughts".
I wanted to preserve the ratio and still I needed to render a long title. To achieve this I used the fact that our patter recognition reading process needs only the upper part of the characters for faultless reading. This holds for "Deep". What about "Thoughts"? For this is sufficient to recognize the ending characters, which are not occluded. Well, what about throats then? This kind of misreading is not possible since the g presents a very noticeable glyph, which would disambiguate the two words at a very early phase of the reading process. Further, an even complex cognitive process would predict the word "thoughts", exploiting the high correlation between deep and thoughts in English. (By the way, during this phase the pun kicks in as you would aspect, but this happens much later compared to the initial reading).
Usability and UI design.
Last but not least I wanted each element in this design to bear a meaning, and an action. The actions should also be intuitive or at least perceived as expected/plausible. It would be weird now to explain which actions are attached to the various elements, since I have just said that they are plausible. So, I leave this part for you to discover. Enjoy my deep thoughts!
The deep thoughts blog is now moved/merged with the rest of pseudo-artistic posts. Over here. The original template is gone with the wind of internet. But a snapshot remains of that nice minimalistic design.


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Genghis Philip is currently a Scrum Master at WAND Corporation in Minnesota. Prior to working at WAND, he was the Chief Operating Officer at Fisdap, where he developed this system for hiring developers, sales people, and product managers.
Outside of work, Genghis coaches high school Ultimate Frisbee, which is not entirely unlike working with Scrum teams. He'll leave you decide which requires more sweat and tears.Session: Reality-Based Hiring


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text: Disease is not really the problem. It is more likely the body's attempt to solve the problem - a feedback of sorts that says something isn't working properly." That "something" is probably much more than cramped, disfigured fingers, or a headache over the right eye. As the metaphors in a poem, or the images in a dream, these body signs can often be interpreted at many levels. The most apparent says, "I've got arthritis" and "Mother had it too." Reflecting more deeply, however, you might realize that all your life you've swallowed anger and clenched your fist behind your back. With this awareness, the focus of attention changes radically. Instead of determining how many painkillers you can safely continue to take, you ask what other, more direct ways there are for expressing your feelings. Then you're ready to take the road toward high-level wellness, generously reinforced with the self-compassion and love that will encourage your continuing success.


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Lasik MD
Your Guide to LASIK Eye Surgery
Potential Side Effects
More Common
Delayed epithelial healing is more typical of flapless procedures, such as PRK, LASEK and Epi-LASIK because they disturb a large area of epithelium, as opposed to flap procedures, which leave the epithelium intact.
Normally, the epithelium heals 3 to 5 days after a flapless procedure. During healing, the eyes are often scratchy and uncomfortable. A delay means that the discomfort lasts longer, and it also leads to an increased chance of haze.
Delayed epithelial healing can occur during a flap procedure if the epithelium is inadvertently disturbed during surgery.
Diffuse Lamellar Keratitis (DLK) refers to inflammation beneath a flap, so it is unique to LASIK and IntraLASIK and impossible with flapless procedures, such as PRK, LASEK and Epi-LASIK. Microscopically, DLK has a fine, white, sand-like appearance underneath the flap.
DLK almost always presents on the first postoperative day. Mild cases are treated with anti-inflammatory eye drops and daily follow-up until the inflammation begins to fade. With treatment, DLK usually peaks around day 3 to 6, gradually fades over the next few days and doesn't come back. For rare cases that don't respond adequately to drops, a return trip to the operating room to lift the flap and rinse away the inflammatory cells is the treatment of choice.
Dry eyes: Virtually all laser vision correction patients experience dry eyes. For most, the dryness is moderate for the first month, mild for the next few months and minimal after the third or fourth month. However, dryness varies widely and ranges from a dry sensation to filmy, fluctuating vision to continuously blurry vision and in rare instances on to painful, blurry vision.
The preoperative dryness level is the key predictor of postoperative dryness problems. A number of tests, such as the tear break-up time, fluorescein, lissamine green or rose bengal staining, Schirmer's test and biochemical tear analysis are used to quantify preoperative dryness. When preoperative dryness is severe, surgery is inadvisable.
The choice between a flap procedure such as LASIK or IntraLASIK and a flapless procedure, such as PRK, LASEK or Epi-LASIK, also affects postoperative dryness. In general, flap procedures lead to greater dryness, because formation of the flap interrupts more of the corneal nerves that are responsible for signaling the body to produce tears. These nerves eventually grow back, but the process takes anywhere from 6 months to 2 years. Flapless procedures still cause some dryness, because the laser treatment itself interrupts some of the corneal nerve fibers.
A number of treatments are available for dryness. The first line is artificial tear supplementation with products such as Systane, Refresh, GenTeal, Soothe, Thera-tears, Tears Naturale and others. If necessary, an ointment such as Refresh-PM, Akwa-tears or Lacrilube can be added at night.
When dryness remains a problem, the next step is often insertion of punctal plugs. These tiny plastic devices block the outflow of tears by plugging the tear drain in the corner of the eyelid near the nose. Though punctal plugs sound intimidating, they are easily and painlessly placed in a matter of seconds and work quite well for most patients.
As an alternative to plugs, some surgeons prefer Restasis, a prescription eye drop that increases natural tearing. Restasis doesn't help everyone, and it can take up to 6 months to work, but because it is the only available treatment that addresses the underlying problem behind the dryness, Restasis remains a popular choice.
Epithelial ingrowth is only a concern of the flap procedures, LASIK and IntraLASIK, and cannot occur with flapless surgery. For a flap to heal, the surface epithelium must seal along the margin where the flap was lifted. Occasionally, instead of just sealing, the epithelium migrates underneath the flap. Small amounts of ingrowth usually fade away with time, but large amounts necessitate lifting the flap and manually removing the excess epithelium.
Epithelial ingrowth almost never occurs with a first-time treatment, but it is a greater possibility when an existing flap is lifted for a retreatment. As more time passes between the initial treatment and the retreatment, epithelial ingrowth becomes more likely.
Although epithelial ingrowth is treatable, it can be frustrating because it occasionally recurs and necessitates another flap lift. For this reason, there is a slight trend toward retreating patients who are many years out from LASIK or IntraLASIK directly on the surface of the flap, as in PRK, rather than lifting the flap.
Flap striae are wrinkles in the flap, so they are unique to LASIK and IntraLASIK and cannot occur with flapless surgery. Microstriae are fine wrinkles that tend to occur with treatments for high levels of nearsightedness. Typically, they are not visually significant. Macrostriae are larger wrinkles that often form a concentric fingerprint-like pattern. Macrostriae are often caused by inadvertent rubbing or trauma early in the postoperative course and are treated by lifting the flap and smoothing the wrinkles.
Glare and halos around lights at night are already a fact of life for many patients who wear glasses and contact lenses. However, laser vision correction can worsen these complaints or cause them to develop in previously unaffected eyes.
Unfortunately, no preoperative test can determine with certainty whether glare and halo problems will develop. For many years, pupil size was thought to be a predictive factor, but a number of studies have failed to support a relationship between pupil size and night vision complaints. However, some studies suggest that the following factors are related to night vision complaints:
High degrees of myopia (>5 diopters)
Age greater than 50 years old
Small diameter treatments (<=6.0 mm)
Residual astigmatism after treatment
Residual myopia or hyperopia (>0.50 D) after treatment.
The above list is derived from papers published before the modern wavefront era. In 2005, Captain Steve Schallhorn, M.D., of the U.S. Navy Refractive Surgery program presented data at the Annual Symposium of American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS) from a collaborative armed forces study that showed that wavefront-guided treatments produce superior night vision and better contrast sensitivity than conventional treatments. Other studies have shown that some wavefront patients obtain better night vision than they had with glasses or contacts. Still, wavefront treatments don't entirely eliminate the possibility of glare and halos.
Haze is a potential side effect unique to the flapless procedures PRK, LASEK and Epi-LASIK. Only in very rare circumstances does it occur with LASIK or IntraLASIK. Haze appears as lattice-like areas of corneal opacification in the area of the laser treatment. Mild haze is common and often of no visual significance, while moderate to severe haze is less common, but more likely to cause blurred vision.
When laser vision correction with PRK was first introduced in the mid 1990's, haze was common and often problematic. The lack of haze with LASIK was the primary medical reason that LASIK rapidly became the procedure of choice for most surgeons. The other reason was the �wow factor" patients described from its rapid, overnight recovery.
In the past few years, many surgeons have developed a renewed interest in flapless surgery. Part of the reason lies in the desire to avoid flap complications altogether and another part lies in the dramatic decrease in haze possible with modern lasers and surgical techniques. Modern lasers reshape the cornea more smoothly, which is thought to decrease the stimulus for haze, and intraoperative treatment of the cornea with a medication known as Mitomycin-C further reduces the likelihood of haze to a very low level.
Over or undercorrection: All FDA-approved lasers used in laser vision correction are incredibly accurate and precise. However, variability in biological tissue, healing and other factors can sometimes lead to undercorrection or overcorrection. For example, a farsighted patient with +3.00 diopters of farsightedness may achieve +2.00 diopters of effect from the laser treatment (undercorrection) or +4.00 diopters (overcorrection). Patients who are within ±0.50 diopters of the intended target are almost always happy and see well. Those who are ±0.75 diopters are usually still pleased, but patients ±1.00 diopters or more from the intended target often request a second laser treatment (a "retreatment" or "enhancement") to further clear the vision.
Pain and light sensitivity: Mild to moderate pain and light sensitivity are common during the first three to five days after the flapless procedures PRK, LASEK and Epi-LASIK. Though modern surgical techniques such as cooling the cornea after laser treatment and prescribing dilute anesthetic drops have made flapless surgery more comfortable than in years past, flap procedures such as LASIK and IntraLASIK are still the most comfortable.
With LASIK, pain and light sensitivity are typically brief and mild. The same is true for most IntraLASIK patients. However, a small percentage of IntraLASIK patients develop a syndrome called Transient Light Sensitivity (TLS). TLS typically begins two to eight weeks after uneventful surgery and manifests as extreme light sensitivity, yet the vision remains clear. TLS is treated with anti-inflammatory eye drops.
Recent upgrades to the Intralase laser are thought to reduce the likelihood of TLS. Instead of large, high-energy laser spots spaced widely apart, the current protocol calls for small, low-energy spots spaced more closely together.


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SALINAS, Ca. – July 12, 2021 – Agricultural tech company PlantTape conducted a field demonstration to showcase the versatility of its 3-point planter to transplant seedlings at different growth stages. In contrast to conventional transplanting systems, which rely on plants reaching a specific maturity in the nursery, the PlantTape system easily transplanted romaine lettuce seedlings ranging from one to six weeks old.
"PlantTape is unique to other transplanting systems, as plants can be transplanted at any stage of growth," says Dr. Hunter Smith, PlantTape's Vice President of Agriculture & Sales. "If growers need to transplant early or hold plants longer in the greenhouse, they have that flexibility with PlantTape."
"The difference with PlantTape is that the seedlings are not pulled from the trays by hand, but rather placed into the soil still in the plug," Dr. Smith explains. The PlantTape transplanting process significantly reduces transplant shock, because the roots are not confined into a containerized tray. "The planting module simply pulls the tape from the tray and cuts between each seedling, precisely placing them into the ground without anyone touching the plants", Dr. Smith says. "This mechanism is how growers have the option to transplant 1-week or 6-week-old plants."
In preparation for the planting demonstration, romaine lettuce was sown into the PlantTape material at one-week intervals. For the demonstration, a PlantTape 3-point automated transplanter was loaded with six lines of lettuce ranging from 1 week on the left, to 6 weeks on the right, with the intervening lines at one-week intervals. "The 6-week-old lettuce had four to five true leaves," explains Danielle Michaels, Northern Sales Manager, who oversaw the planting. "On the other side, the one-week-old romaine had cotyledons barely protruding from the soil plug."
As seen in PlantTape's video of the demonstration, all six rows of seedlings were successfully transplanted, and a follow-up three weeks after planting showed all six rows of romaine still growing well.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/embed/m0YCvHzEJSk
The PlantTape blog post about the demonstration can be read here: https://www.planttape.com/planting-seedlings-at-any-stage/.
About PlantTape:
PlantTape is an agricultural technology company based in Salinas, CA. Founded in Spain and brought to the US by Tanimura & Antle in 2014, PlantTape released its automated transplanting system for commercial use in 2018 for growers of vegetables, tomatoes, etc. The PlantTape system involves automated sowing, nursery operations, and transplanting, and has been proven to increase efficiency while lowering costs for growers.
Ashley Pipkin
Tel: 831-214-7453
Email: email@example.com
Media Contact
Company Name: PlantTape Inc.
Contact Person: Ashley Pipkin
Email: Send Email
Phone: 831-214-7453
Address:1 Harris Rd
City: Salinas
State: CA
Country: United States
Website: https://www.planttape.com


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Posts Tagged 'Stampin' Up! Wetlands stamp set'
Wonderfall Embossed Leaves Card
Autumn….a much nicer turn of a phrase than fall, right? This card should get you right in the mood of the season.
I love to emboss, and I still am amazed when the fragments of dust melt into something so beautiful!
Wetlands Triangle Thinking of You Card
I love this color combination – Cherry Cobbler, Midnight Muse, and Marina Mist. It gives off a bold, masculine feeling – which matches the Wetlands stamp set. This is a very basic card design – with very little frufru. I live with men. They are not impressed with frufru.
Wetlands Embossed Woodgrain Card
Here's a simple, easy card using the Woodgrain embossing folder and the distressing kit. Sorry about the bad picture 🙁
Wetlands Thinking of You Card
Quick and easy card today – I even had the embossed polka dot strip already set to go! You could use this card for a masculine birthday, thinking of you, sympathy, get well, or for any other general occasion. Just a little bit of sparkle on the side from the glimmer brad – Enjoy!
Gently Falling Top Note Birthday Card
I've been itching to use my fall stamp sets. Not that I don't love my flowers, but I'm ready for the change of seasons. Gently Falling is that perfect fall stamp set that can be used for many different occasions. This is a swap I made over the summer – I love the masculine color combination.
Wetlands Alcohol Ink Technique Card
At last week's Technique Tuesday class, I taught my stampers a quick and easy technique using a clear block, dye ink refills, and hand sanitizing lotion. Yes, you read that right – hand sanitizing lotion.
I used a mini hand sanitizer (about 1 oz) and added 7 drops of Soft Suede dye ink refill. I shook it up enough to distribute the drops of ink. Then, I dropped about 5 or 6 drops on top of a large clear block. I flipped the clear block on top of the center of my Very Vanilla card stock, pressing it lightly. When I pulled away the clear block, it made a super-cool yet subtle design (more subtle due to the light ink refill I chose). To speed up the drying, I used my heat gun. Then I stamped the goose in Baked Brown Sugar right on top of the design (which I think looks a lot like grassy sand bar).
Here's the end result – the little droplets are just a bonus – my poor little goose was very nervous being photographed


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Promotional metal USB flash drive in design an opener. USB flash drive can be applied by printing or laser engraving.
|1GB l 2GB l 4GB l 8GB l 16GB l 32GB l 64GB
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|Color as required
|another color according PANTONE sampler from 1000 pcs
|Possibility of printing
|pad printing, laser engraving
|Minimum quantity
|50 pc
|Windows 98/Vista/XP/2000/ME/Mac 9.x/X, Linux 2.4 a nower version
|Photos for download
|Do you request pictures without our logo? If YES: Login - Register.


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In 1974 in Room Θ3 of House Θ in the Southwest Quarter of the Mycenae citadel, an extraordinary find came to light: 545
- Cone shells
- board games
- gaming pieces
- Mycenaean
- Late Bronze Age
A Playful Coroplast? A New Look at the Terracotta Group of the Early Roman Board-Game Players NAM 4200 and Related Finds The Knucklebone and the Goose: Playing and Jeopardy for the Boy of Lilaia Amulets, Gaming Pieces, Toys or Offerings? Thoughts on Animal Figurines and Funerary Practices in the Late Bronze Age Aegean Une « Triple Enceinte » Et L'inscription Funéraire De Agate Filia Comites GattilanisÀ Milan Catacomb Games: Reused Game Boards or Funerary Inscriptions? Back to the Game: Reframing Play and Games in Context An Introduction Rolling Dice for Divination, Gambling and Homeromanteia Games and Oracular Practices Around the Hearth: The "Table of Offerings" from the so-called Temple 4 at Kition- Kathari(Cyprus) Why so Serious?An Extraordinary Cone Shell Group from Mycenae and the Problem of Identifying Mycenaean Board Gaming Material Plato Plays Polis A Boeotian Die in Context: Gaming Pieces, Jewellery, Seals, Spindle Whorls and Bird Bowls in a Female Burial of Status Board Games Equipment from Archaeological Contexts in Archaic Attica Board Games in Ancient Fiction: Egypt, Iran, Greece Pavement Designs and Game Boards from Public Spaces of Ancient Athens: A Review Across the Board Roman Game Finds from Cremona (Italy) Game Board or Abacus? Greek Counter Culture Revisited


text: AP Business Writer STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) _ General Electric Co. is considering splitting off its property-and-casualty reinsurance business, which has suffered losses from the Sept. 11 attacks and other claims, a source close to the negotiations said Friday. The potential split-off of GE's Employers Reinsurance Corp. could include an initial public offering of 20 percent of the unit later this year and a spinoff of the balance, according to the source, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The sale could generate billions of dollars. The Wall Street Journal, citing sources it did not identify, reported the story in its Friday editions. Initial discussions have been held with investment bankers, but the source cautioned that the talks may not result in a deal. "It's been rough sledding for that business," the source said. "I think GE may be testing the waters." The reinsurance business is a unit of GE Capital, the Stamford-based financial services arm of GE, based in Fairfield. Reinsurers sell insurance policies to other insurers. Analysts with Credit Suisse First Boston welcomed the prospect in a report Friday, saying the sale would reduce GE Capital's earnings volatility. The analysts said they believe GE was considering selling the reinsurance business prior to Sept. 11 and that the losses from the attacks solidified its resolve. The sale may increase the chance that GE Capital will buy CIT, the financial services company owned by Tyco International, the analysts said. A sale of the reinsurance business and acquisition of CIT would keep GE Capital's earnings from growing to more than half the company's total earnings, the report said. GE's AAA debt rating could be at risk if GE Capital's earnings were to rise above 50 percent of GE's total profits, the analysts said. The analysts would like to see GE remain diversified with operations in financial services, industrial products and other segments. GE's consideration of a spinoff reflects concerns that the insurance business may have become too risky. Citigroup Inc. said in December it would split off its Travelers Property Casualty unit. In its annual report released last week, Employers Reinsurance's parent, GE Global Insurance Holdings, posted a $47 million loss. GE reported about $575 million in insurance losses related to the Sept. 11 attacks. GE Global Insurance earned $413 million in 2000 and $625 million in 1999. Shares of GE were down 44 cents at $39.97 in trading Friday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange. ___ On the Net: http:\/\/www.ge.com


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A team of leading scientists have used three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting to produce a representation of a section of the kidneys that contain living human cells.
The work of the Wyss Institute team – led by Core Faculty member Jennifer Lewis – is another major step on the road towards the goal of engineering human tissues and organs that can mimic native function for use in drug screening, disease modeling, and regenerative medicine
Developed in close collaboration with Roche scientist Annie Moisan, the functional 3D renal architecture is a groundbreaking advance.
"The current work further expands our bioprinting platform to create functional human tissue architectures with both technological and clinical relevance," said Lewis, who is also the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Annie Moisan added: "The use of functional tissue-like models during pre-clinical studies will provide unprecedented insights into human-relevant drug response prior to clinical development."