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PITTSBURGH—A team of Carnegie Mellon University and NASA scientists will travel to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile in April to conduct research that will help them develop and deploy a robot and instruments that may someday enable other robots to find life on Mars.
The researchers will be using the Atacama, described as the most arid region on Earth, as a Martian analog.
The group is funded with a $3 million, three-year grant from NASA to the university's Robotics Institute. They are collaborating with scientists at Carnegie Mellon's Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center who have a separate $900,000 grant from NASA to develop fluorescent dyes and automated microscopes that the robot will eventually use to locate various forms of life.
The project falls under NASA's Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets or ASTEP program, which concentrates on pushing the limits of technology in harsh environments. NASA experts believe that by pushing the known limits of life on Earth scientists will be better prepared to search for life on other worlds.
"Our goal is to make genuine discoveries about the limits of life on Earth and to generate knowledge that can be applied to future NASA missions to Mars," said project leader David Wettergreen, a research scientist at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute. "We will conduct three annual field experiments in the Atacama. Each time, an increasingly capable robot will use sensing and intelligence to find land forms or environmental conditions that could harbor life."
This year, the team will be using an autonomous, solar-powered robot named Hyperion to determine the optimum design, software and instrumentation for a new robot that will be used in the more extensive experiments to be conducted over the next two years.
In 2001, Hyperion was taken to Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic where it successfully demonstrated a concept called Sun-Synchronous Navigation. It tracked the sun as a source of power and explored its surroundings as it traveled continuously through a 24-hour period of daylight.
During this year's visit to the Atacama, researchers will focus on measurements and experiments with the robot's hardware and software components. They will test Hyperion as it travels through the desert and collect data with scientific instruments, including a fluorescence imager, near-infrared spectrometer and a high-resolution panoramic imager.
Wettergreen said that Hyperion would travel some 10 kilometers through the desert this year while the researchers study issues related to robotic autonomy. The robot's solar panels have been laid flat on top of its body for the upcoming experiments so it can capture the maximum amount of sunlight in the equatorial environment. In the Arctic, the panels were mounted vertically, like sails on a boat, because the sun was often low on the horizon.
A next generation robot, developed from the findings of this year's work, should perform 50 kilometers of autonomous traverse in the desert in 2004. In 2005, the final year of the project, a robot equipped with a full array of instruments should operate autonomously as it travels 200 kilometers over a two-month period. During this climactic journey, the robot should map sites where life is abundant, and then move into drier areas where life has not been detected.
In 2005, plans call for the science team to operate as if it were exploring Mars in a scenario that would include a time delay and limited communication. "We'll operate under the constraints of Martian exploration in order to better develop procedures for seeking life on another planet," Wettergreen said. "The robot will monitor its own power, balance, locomotion, communication and science operations as it goes. It needs to be able to move into unknown terrain using cameras and internal sensors—the same instruments and information that would be available to a robot exploring Mars."
In addition to Wettergreen, the Carnegie Mellon team heading to the Atacama includes William L. "Red" Whittaker, the Robotics Institute's Fredkin research professor and the project's principal investigator; Alan S. Waggoner, professor of biological sciences and director of Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center; James P. Teza, research engineer; Michael D. Wagner, research programmer, and Robotics Institute doctoral students Christopher Urmson, Paul Tompkins, Denis Strelow and Vandi Verma.
Nathalie Cabrol, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the SETI Institute, will lead the science team for the investigation of the Atacama. Members of the science team are geologists and biologists who study both Earth and Mars at institutions including NASA Ames and the Johnson Space Center, SETI Institute, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Arizona, the University of Tennessee, Carnegie Mellon and Universidad Catolica del Norte (Chile).
"Their role in the first-year campaign will be to become acquainted with the data sent by the rover and assess the validity of astrobiological exploration strategies that will be used in the 2004 and 2005 field campaigns and on future missions to search for habitats and life on Mars," said Cabrol.
Also under development is the capability for education and science communities to experience the mission through the EventScope interface (www.eventscope.org). EventScope converts data from rovers and orbiters into three-dimensional "virtual worlds" that realistically represent remote sites, enabling students to experience the mission from their classroom computers.
EventScope's team is directed by Peter Coppin, a research scientist at Carnegie Mellon's STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, and includes experts in software engineering, interactive art and educational technology working to develop next generation tools for public remote experience. The goal is to have hundreds of students participating remotely in the Atacama experiment by the end of 2005.
For more information, updates and images from the Atacama beginning April 7 visit: http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/atacama.
For more information on the Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center and the fluorescent dyes being developed there, see: http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases03/030210_mars.html.


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UCONN WOMEN: UConn defeats Syracuse 87-62
HARTFORD >> At times the XL Center seemed more like the stage for a game of "Can you top this?" between a trio of UConn women's basketball teammates than the location for a Big East showdown between a pair of one-loss teams.
Junior center Stefanie Dolson, sophomore forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and freshman forward Breanna Stewart not only became the first UConn threesome to score 20 points in the same game in nearly four years, but they each went on individual scoring binges during the third-ranked Huskies' 87-62 win over Syracuse before a crowd of 14,786 on Saturday.
Dolson, who scored a career-high 25 points -- including the 1,000th of her career -- was the first to exert her will on the visiting Orange. She had five points in a span of 24 seconds to help the Huskies race out to an early double-digit lead. However, her most important offensive stretch came when she had seven points in 60 seconds early in the second half which enabled UConn to push a 12-point halftime lead to a 17-point cushion.
"We knew coming into the second half we had to send a message and make sure Syracuse knew they weren't in the game," said Dolson, who also had seven rebounds, six assists, two steals and two blocked shots. "We came out, ran our offense really well, attacked the basket and did a great job of getting back on defense."
Syracuse (15-2, 3-1 Big East) was only down by a point with 5:48 left in the first half when the Huskies pulled away with a 13-2 run to end the half. Mosqueda-Lewis had the final five points in that stretch and then had seven points in a span of 4:10 in the second half.
"Once I got into the rhythm of my shot and my rhythm of just taking it off the dribble it just made everything come a lot easier," said Mosqueda-Lewis, who also had 25 points to go with nine rebounds and four steals. "When we have the scoring spread across three people like that it makes it a lot easier for us as a team."
As impressive as the scoring spurts of Dolson and Mosqueda-Lewis were, it was hard to top what Stewart did late in the game. The Syracuse native had 12 points in a span of 3:16 as UConn finally ended any hopes Syracuse had of rallying for an improbable victory.
Stewart, who missed the last two games with a sprained ankle, was glad to get back into the offensive flow.
"I think I kept gaining momentum and gaining confidence and it was nice to see the ball go through the basket," said Stewart, who had 20 points and six rebounds. "It definitely helps. Obviously I wasn't on the court the last couple of games and it was something I was really looking forward to."
Carmen Tyson-Thomas led Syracuse (15-2, 3-1) with 12 points.
UConn, which had 18 turnovers in Tuesday's win over Louisville, again had issues holding onto the ball and finished with another 18 against the Orange.
Syracuse senior Kayla Alexander, who came into the game needing 21 points to become the program's all-time leading scorer, was limited to four minutes and two points due to picking up a couple of early fouls. She finished with four points and three rebounds.
Dolson became the 36th UConn player with 1,000 career points when she hit a layup off a sweet setup from Brianna Banks with 12:39 left in the first half.
Sophomore forward/center Kiah Stokes did not play after leaving Friday's practice due to discomfort in her right shin, the same injury which resulted in her missing five games earlier this season. After the game UConn coach Geno Auriemma said Stokes' status could be determined on a day-to-day basis for the rest of the season.

subset: commoncrawl


text: The "Compromiso Mexico" Water Prize was awarded for the first time during the local authorities component of the 5th World Water Forum, on March 18th 2009. Guangzhou Province, China was selected for the first place prize of $ 15,000 USD, second prize of $ 10,000 was awarded to León, Guanajuato, Mexico, and Lima, Peru, was chosen as the third prize of $ 5,000, for their excellent public water supply and/or sanitation policies. The prize was presented by Enrique Peña Nieto, Governor of the State of Mexico. As the host country of the 4th World Water Forum, Mexico is committed to the water cause, a fundamental aspect for the country and for human development. As a result of being the first host country for the World Water Forum in the American Continent, Mexico established the prize to reward the best local public policies that have had a positive impact on the drinking water, sewerage and sanitation services in the communities they interact with. The award bases and rules were set in collaboration with the National Civil Service Institute of Mexico (INAP), National Association of Water and Sanitation Utilities (ANEAS), World Water Council (WWC), and the Ministry of Water and Works of the State of Mexico (SAAOP). The winners were selected after an open application process by an international jury of experts.Click on the image below to get the terms of reference for the Prize


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A Han Dynasty Flat Headed (Hadrosaurine)Dinosaur?
This piece is a replica of a Han Dynasty, bronze cooking vessel. The Han Dynasty spanned the period of between approximately 200 B.C. to 220 A.D..
"Chinese Bronze has long been considered a treasure from ancient China. Dating back to 4000 years ago, Chinese bronze were not only the daily utensils, work tools and weapons of the people of ancient times, but also exquisite works of master craftsmen, which have been handed down from generation to generation.
The study of Chinese bronze usually spans an extensive period of time, up to the end of the Han Dynasty (220 AD).
Excavation during the early to mid 1950s in the People's Republic of China had discovered many pieces of treasures that are now in the exhibition of Beijing History Museum, Shanghai Museum and the ShannXi History Museum.
Since ancient Chinese bronze pieces are fetching millions of dollars in auction houses and many are considered national treasures, genuine pieces are difficult to obtain. In the last thirty to forty years, Quality reproduction Chinese bronzes have been made primarily for the museum goers."www.Shanghai30.com
To our eyes, this piece features one of the hadrosaurine dinosaurs, also known as flat headed dinosaurs-complete with reptilian skin. Alternate descriptions or explanations of the creature could include "seals", "dragon" or "mythical animal".
Many of the Hadrosaurs were very similar in appearance, including edmontosaurus, hadrosaurus and even the supposedly related iguanadon. However, we have settled on Shantungosaurus, primarily because of similar looking artist representations based on its skull and because it has been found in China. Keep in mind that these dinosaurs were supposedly extinct 90 million years ago.
Left to right:shantungosaurus, Han Dynasty animal, iguanadon and another shantungosaurus.
It seems clear to us however, that a skilled artisan had seen them in life. So common they must have been that he did not find it necessary to include the entire animal in his/her portrait-confident perhaps that those who would see the piece were very familiar with its subject....s8int.com
DESCRIBER Hu,1973
TIME Cretaceous Late
CLASSIFICATION Ornithischia Ornithopoda Hadrosauridae Hadrosaurinae Edmontosaurini
DIET Herbivore
FOSSILSITE China
TYPE SPECIES SHANTUNGOSAURUS giganteus
LENGTH 15 meter
Source: DinoData
"Hadrosaurids (meaning "bulky lizards") were the family of duck-billed, herbivorous dinosaurs. They were the most common dinosaurs. Hadrosaurs ranged in size from 10 to 40 feet (3 to 12 m) long.
They had horny, toothless beaks and hundreds of cheek teeth in the sides of their jaws. The duck-billed dinosaurs had the most teeth; they had up to about 960 cheek teeth.
Hadrosaurs had a stiff tail that was probably used for balance. They had hoof-like nails on their feet, and bumpy skin. They ran on two legs, holding their tail and head in a horizontal position.
They may have walked on all four legs while grazing. Hadrosaurs probably lived near bodies of water, migrating to high ground to lay eggs. It used to be thought that thay had webbed hands, but this was an artifact of the fossilization process.
Photo: Han Dynasty animal with edmontosaurus skull.
Hadrosaurs are closely related to the Iguanodontids, and are probably their descendants. Hadrosaurs were Ornithischians (the order of bird-hipped dinosaurs) and Ornithopods ("bird-footed" herbivores with hoof-like feet). Hadrosaurs are divided into two groups, the Hadrodsaurinae (non-crested hadrosaurs) and the Lambeosaurinae (hadrosaurs that had skull crests that connected with their nasal passages).
Hadrosaurs lived during the late Cretaceous period. Their fossils have been found in North America, Europe, and Asia"....Enchanted Learning
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43
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Bliksembezoek (from: Zone 5300)
André Slob, who signs much of his work with simply "É", was trained as an art teacher at the ZWN in Delft and as a graphic designer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam. He worked as a web designer for five years, before turning to the drawing pen. He makes illustrations for magazines like Humo, Ode and the Canadian Budhist magazines Shambhala Sun and The Buddhadharma Quarterly. He has had short comic stories published in Humo and Zone 5300, including 'Onder de brandende zon' with Wouter Eizenga. Slob has spent long periods abroad; he has lived in India, Spain, Norway and Angola.
Onder de brandende zon (from: Zone 5300)


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It's not WSDL's fault really, but it's the fault of the people who are building tools for WSDL. What has happened a lot in the last few years is that you have tools that allow you to write code, whether it's Java, .NET, C#,and then click a button and generate WSDL out of your code, which is to me an abomination. How can you write an interface after you write the code for it? It absolutely goes against everything you learn as an architect, everything you practice as an architect. You have to build a robust interface that's not going to change and then you write the code around it because you might want to change your code later on, but you better not change your interface. Unfortunately the opposite has been happening everywhere because of the tools and it's led to a lot of misuse of WSDL.
Read Boubez on SOA hardware and policy:
Part 1 | Part 2


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Keeping a Rein on Wireless NetworksBy Kevin Fogarty Print
Can a wireless network make a worker's every hour count, and pay off?
Until late last year wireless networking, despite a host of products and an ocean of hype about its value to businesses, was primarily a home computing phenomenon.
Security concerns kept many businesses from making the leap to wireless, according to reports from International Data Corp., which surveyed 12,000 information-technology specialists and found that 34% used wireless at home, while only 27% used it at work.
Tight corporate technology budgets, low bandwidth and a lack of manageability had at least as big a role, according to Greg Collins, senior director of research at Dell'Oro Group. However, the addition of features that allow network administrators as much control over a wireless network as a wired one has made corporations more willing to go wireless, as have improvements in security.
In late 2003, sales to businesses began a sharp climb. Companies now account for nearly 40% of all wireless sales and should soon pass 50%, Collins says.
Workers say convenience is the prime motivator, but increases in productivity are a better justification, according to Tom Pisello, CEO of Alinean, a consultancy specializing in maximizing the efficiency of technology spending.
Wireless networks can turn idle time between meetings or during layovers at airports into real work opportunities. And a surprisingly small number of such opportunities justify the cost of the network itself, Pisello says.
Which is why, despite the popularity of wireless in the home, it's within corporations that cutting the wires will make the most difference.
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You Just Fawt We Were Busy…
Meowllo, did you miss me? Yeah meez been missin' in action again. But fur good weason, just wait'll you hear all 'bout it. But first me has to say to those of you on Blogger, it seems weez hav to purrove dat we not be wobots. And well, weez not gettin' da easy nummers, weez gettin' all those hawd to see/read words. So cuz weez behind and havin' to do dat, mommy is pickin' 1 posty out of da ones weez missed and be readin' to comment on. So altho' we be readin' da postys we missed weez not be commentin'. Even tho' mommy had da cataract surgery her still dusn't hav purrfect eyesight, and it be kind of hawd to make out da letters. We just wanted to let you know what wuz goin' on.
So now on to today's posty. We told you da udder day 'bout ow busy doctor day Furiday. Well mommy had a eye doctor pointment on Monday in da city. Dat means we be out of pocket fur most of da day. Cuz mommy twies to combine a lot of stuff into these twips we take. So mommy had hers pointment and we wusn't weal sure what hims wuz gunna check. Of course we wuz runnin' late, what's new?. MOL So we got back to da room and lo and behold they dilated mommys eyes. She kuldn't see nuffin'. MOL Anyways da doctor told mommy dat everyfin' looked good and hers not hav a detached retina. WooHoo Good news. So after we finished up there and mommy kuld see sumfin' besides white spots we headed over to da local pet store. Awe yous wunnewin' why? Cuz like we told you dat we shop online wiff Chewy.com lots of times wight? Well weez gunna be havin' ow very first ever give away here afur Christmas. And we got a coupon fwum da company to use at da store to pick up da purroduct fur ow weview/giv away. And well we can't go to a pet store wiffout walkin' wound and checkin' everyfin' out and lettin' me meet all da peeps. And of course mommy had to pick up a can of special noms fur ow Christmas dinner. So furever later when there wuz nopawdy left to make over me, we left.
Mommy needed to go by wally world. When we got there mommy saw a kupple police caws sittin in da pawkin' lot. Not dat weez not used to seein' 'em, and wiff da season here it's good to hav them there to purrtect all da Christmas shoppers. So of course weez not bweakin' any laws and don't intend too, so da police men didn't bodder us not one bit. So we got a buggy and went to look wound. Mommy wanted to purrice da keyboards fur hers new iPad dat she won, and OMC weez kuldn't believ what they wuz sellin' those little fings fur. Mommy sed, "Oh Catness Dezi I'm gunna be savin' up fur furever to buy one of those." mommy weally liked da one wiff da backlit/see in da dawk keys. And so even tho' weez can't afford to send weal cawds mommy decided this twip wuld be a gweat time to look at all da cawds. First let me just tell you da last time mommy wuz able to send a cawd they wuz still $.50 cents. Yous kuld buy da ginormous poster size fur like $3.00. So boy did we get a shock when mommy looked at da purrices. MOL OMC just a wegular cawd dat duz nuffin' (weez'll get back to this) and dusn't even say very much wuz $5.00. Mommy wuz shocked. Anyways, she also noticed dat lots of cawds awen't just cawds anymore. So mommy opened this cawd up and suddenly me heard meowin' all over da place. What?, me fawt. Anudder kitty in Walmart? Me fawt me wuz da only kitty dat went into wallly world. Me wuz lookin' everywhere and just kuldn't spot dat kitty. And just as suddenly as it stawted it wuz over and da udder kitty went quiet. Me twied to meow dat it wuz okay and it didn't need to hide, but it just wuldn't listen and come out. A foo minutes later and me heard a lot of kittties. They wuz siging' sumfin', me just kuldn't make it out. They got quiet lots quicker than da first kitty did tho', so me didn't even bodder twyin' to help them out. There wuz kids and police men wiff guns everywhere. OMC It wuz Shop wiff a Cop night. No wunner da store wuz jamm packed. Anyways, we wondered wound da store a bit and finally got da foo fings we went in there fur and headed home. By dat time it wuz pitch black outside. And gettin' cold. Member me told you mommy wuz runnin' late? Well hers had been wearin' a short sleeve top, and she furgot to get a jacket, so now she wus fureezin'. MOL Well anyways, dat wuz our day and we wuz just plain xausted when it wuz over. So weez didn't even get on da puter to check emails.
Oh and weez hav more of those stupid inspections today, so Lexi and me gotta get our hissers weady. Yous know weez not like da manager, wight? Well weez gotta be weady to tell hers off. And don't furget weez gunna be havin' ow very first giv away weal soon. And let me just tell you it's a Biggy.
Till da nex time…………………Be Blest!!!
Luv and Hugs and Kitty Kisses
Dezi and Lexi
Posted on December 10, 2014, in Just Fur Fun, Meez Meows and tagged Dezi, Lexi, Noms, Pet Store. Bookmark the permalink. 60 Comments.
We got exhausted just reading about efurrything you had to do. We got a little confused about the kitties meowing. Were they coming from one of those cards? Ho, ho, ho, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
Happy to hear that mommy's eyes r OK. Tell mommy I put in a good word with Santa abt the keyboard & stuff. I hear he shops at Best Buy…
Love u & mommy too!! ❤❤❤
I'm glad your mom's eyes are ok. My mom has bad vision but she's lucky because it can mostly be corrected with glasses. I don't know how you all do so much in a day. It's no wonder you're exhausted by the end of the day.
That is cute that you thought there was another kitty in Walmart. You are very special to get to go into Walmart. Cards are very expensive, I only buy ones at Dollar Tree 2 for $1 and Walmart has some for 47 cents, but they don't meow 🙂
Good luck with the inspection- I am sure everything will go well.
Shop with a cop night?????? What the???? Sounds very weird to me! Why would you want to shop with a cop?? MOL I am con fused! Anyways, sounds like a busy day. With the robot thingy, it seems that it's only Blogger blogs that don't use embedded comments! Well that's what I was told, but we're all a bit confused about that too!! 🙂 Smoochies xoxox


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Sept. 11, 2012, was eerily similar to the warm, sunny day 11 years ago when terrorists hijacked four American jetliners, slamming them into buildings and the ground. As much of a day of infamy as was the attack on Pearl Harbor, Sept. 11 is commemorated every year throughout the United States. And every year, Vienna's American Legion Post 180 partners with the Town of Vienna to honor the memory of the dead, the bravery of the day's heroes and the sacrifices of those Americans actively battling terrorism daily.
"It's easy to remember the number '3,000' dead, but we need to remember the people who lost their lives and their families."
—A Day to Remember keynote speaker Mark W. Mishoe
Called "A Day to Remember" by order of the town council, the 2012 program began with a brief ringing of the bells at Vienna Presbyterian Church at 9:37 a.m., followed by 13 minutes of bells starting at 9:45 a.m. At ten, a police color guard crossed along Freeman House and presented the colors, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of the Star Spangled Banner by the Vienna Choral Society.
Mayor M. Jane Seeman, on behalf of the Vienna Town Council, read the order proclaiming Sept. 11, 2012, as "A Day to Remember."
"We always want to remember what happened that day and how we felt, how we began to think about our family and friends and how much we love them," said Vienna Town Manager Mercury Payton.
Post 180 Commander Ron Patterson introduced the keynote speaker, Mark W. Mishoe, chief warrant officer five with the Army National Guard. Mishoe focused on personal stories of those working at the Pentagon 11 years ago. A Pentagon colleague of Mishoe's, identified only as "Charlie," brought out an injured co-worker on a rolling chair to be treated by medics. Mishoe's stories reflected the heroics of ordinary people and the humanity brought down by the attack.
"It's easy to remember the number '3,000' dead, but we need to remember the people who lost their lives and their families," said Mishoe. "Our mission is to continue to remember."
Commander Patterson read an anonymous commentary on the "power of one," emphasizing the unity Americans exhibited after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "We became one family as we mourned together the great loss," Patterson read.
The program closed with "God Bless America," sung by the Vienna Choral Society and "Taps," played by Post 180 member Joyce Miller.
Commemorative programs, said Shirley Martin of Auxiliary 180, make everyone remember what happened that day, how patriotic everyone was. "We need to keep that togetherness going," said Martin. Hatter added, "So people can remember not only what happened, but to keep it in our hearts that we're all family."


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Welcome to ITHM department
Welcome to department of International Tourism and Hospitality Management – ITHM of Primeasia University. A bachelor's degree in International Tourism and Hospitality Management is a passport to opportunities in a multi-trillion-dollar worldwide industry. Such a degree will provide affordable and quality education through interactive learning, educating entrepreneurial skills to support individuals with innovative ideas to change tourism and hospitality industry in a positive attitude. Shari ...
Message From
Dr. A. R KhanHead and Chairperson, Dept. of ITHM
Ph.D. (Tourism), Lacrosse University, USA,
M.A. (LMIS), Royal University of Dhaka
B.Sc. (THM), Pacific Coast University, Turkish
Welcome to the International Tourism and Hospitality Management – ITHM program at Primeasia University. The value of a degree lies in what you can do with it, and what it can do for you. A bachelor's degree in business with a major in ITHM is a passport to opportunities in a multi-trillion-dollar worldwide industry. Such a degree will provide you with opportunities to develop skills, knowledge, and perspective to achieve success--however you choose to define it. ITHM graduates are finding their skills in high demand and job opportunities in abundance in an industry ...
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Nuggets 104, Warriors 98
Danilo Gallinari scored 18 points, Corey Brewer had 15 and the Denver Nuggets pulled away late to beat the Golden State Warriors on Monday night.
Stephen Curry had 25 points and Klay Thompson had 21 for the Warriors, shooting a combined 8 for 10 from 3-point range. David Lee had 15 points as Golden State lost for the first time in four preseason games.
The Nuggets led 94-92 when Brewer six straight points. He was fouled while shooting a 3-pointer and hit all three free throws and then made a 3 to give Denver a 100-92 lead.
Golden State responded with six in a row and had two chances to tie but Jeremy Tyler was called for a charge and then Kosta Koufas blocked his layup attempt with 49 seconds remaining.
Koufas, who had 13 rebounds, sealed the win with two putbacks that gave Denver a 104-98 lead.
Denver led by nine early in the third quarter when the Warriors made a push. Curry hit two 3s and rookie Harrison Barnes had one to cut the deficit to 65-64.
Curry gave the Warriors an 86-84 lead - their first lead of the game - with his fourth 3 with 1:02 left in the third quarter. Denver scored the first six points of the fourth quarter to take the lead for good.
The Nuggets never trailed in the first half and were tied only once, at 19-all midway through the first quarter. They scored the next eight points and led by as many as 12.
The Warriors rallied late in the second quarter to cut the lead to 56-53 at halftime. Thompson had 13 points and Curry scored 12 at the break.
Gallinari led the Nuggets with 12 points at intermission.
Nuggets guard Andre Iguodala, acquired from Philadelphia in a four-team trade in August that sent Dwight Howard to the Lakers and Andrew Bynum to the 76ers, had 10 points and a game-high seven assists in his first game in Denver.


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Hidden gems that come with the emulator VICE
If you've played a game by emulating a Commodore 64 on a modern personal computer, there's a good chance that you were using the program called VICE (the Versatile Commodore Emulator). An average user only ever had to zero in Continue reading
C64 M.U.L.E. Theme with Harmony
Most hardcore M.U.L.E. fans would likely agree that the Commodore 64 version of the game theme sounds superior to the Atari 800 version. However, due to a limitation of the C64 sound system (one less sound channel), it is lacking Continue reading


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What makes a space dynamic?
It's when light, color, texture and furnishings interact in just the right way. How should the space flow and function, and how does it all come together? This is where we come in. At Wiseman, Gale and Duncan we excel at creating unique spaces that please.
It starts with you - your goals, vision, thoughts and ideas. Our job is to listen to you, then let our expertise help you get there. Where "there" actually is, is moldable - a journey of discovery that ends when it feels just so. After all, this is your space and our purpose is for you to enjoy it, every day. Come browse our showroom - a great resource to help you find furniture, antiques and fabrics. Give us a call or contact us via email, we'd love to help.
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Bots are complicated. They're made to process repetitive actions autonomously and can be fairly easy to build, but they aren't always working on the side of good. Here's what you need to know.
Each year, EContent magazine compiles a list of the 100 companies that matter most in the digital content industry.
Voting is now closed. We'll announce the results of the first-ever EContent 100 list chosen by the people!
Marji McClure
Aug 06, 2012
It used to be easy to identify the biggest players in the news market. Names such as Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner and their wealth of well-known media brands and properties would immediately come to mind. Today, the web and social media, in particular, have quickly and effectively changed the news media terrain. No longer are people devoted to that one brand or channel for their news or that one stalwart that runs a nationally known newspaper or cable (or network) news channel. News junkies have started to turn to a variety of sources, not just the trusted anchors or illustrious mastheads.
"The days of everyone watching the 6 p.m. news and people getting their news from the same source are long gone," says Larry Schwartz, co-founder and president of Newstex, which offers its client base aggregated news and full-text feeds from thousands of news sources. "The segmentation is huge now and the speed at which news travels is huge."
It's not just a huge media enterprise that is managing the flow of news content today. The whole definition of a news source has greatly changed. "A single person now can be a news source and publish, broadcast, and get as much buzz as [a larger outlet]," says Schwartz. "A single person can tweet a story … and have as much impact as The New York Times. That's a huge change."
So what's leveling the playing field? How are small players—so small that they may be a one-person operation—able to earn the eyeballs and respect of content consumers? There are many factors at play. "They can really come from anywhere," says Kathy Greenler Sexton, vice president and general manager of the content division of SIIA (The Software & Information Industry Association). "They have the technology. They're smart guys and they have the right idea at the right time."
"When you think of a mogul … it's all about relevancy and context, and a mogul has the influence," says Greenler Sexton. "But influence on the web, depending on who you are, you don't need that money to match the old moguls of the past. But you will have the influence."
Schwartz says that these new tycoons are created through a specific cycle. First, they typically begin with one person posting his or her opinion. After an audience is established, that person might hire staff members and get venture capital funding. Sometimes, the operation is acquired by another media company. "But it always starts with one or two people in a room typing out their thoughts and their opinions. And if they get an audience, they grow it into a network or into a media company," says Schwartz. "They're just not people sitting at home in their pajamas anymore. These are important media companies that sway public opinion."
One of the most notable examples of this is paidContent, which started with Rafat Ali sitting at his computer. He built a following and a team before selling the company—ContentNext Media, Inc.—to Guardian News and Media Ltd. in 2008. Earlier this year, paidContent was sold again, this time to another leader in the world of digital news, GigaOM.
Schwartz points to Business Insider, a business website that provides news for a variety of vertical markets, from finance to politics to entertainment and sports. Led by Henry Blodget, a former Wall Street analyst, Business Insider "produces as many stories as a major newspaper does. They're probably read by more people than a metro newspaper now; and they're influential," says Schwartz.
For news on a national or international scope, the local daily news sources don't typically provide the depth of coverage that today's readers seek. "Nationally or internationally, if your interest is technology or politics or whatever, the local paper or the nightly news just doesn't deliver the depth or analysis that you want anymore," says Schwartz. "There are so many choices. There's so much segmentation."
It's hard to truly get a handle on just who the new leaders in news are. The very nature of the internet makes it difficult to pinpoint who the most influential voices are at any moment. It's so difficult, in fact, that when industry experts were asked who they thought the new news tycoons were, they couldn't agree on a substantial list.
There are new "must read" news sources almost every day. Each has its dedicated followers who remain engaged through a mix of breaking news and analysis. And identifying the new news leaders isn't made any easier by the variety of forms they take. Some of the biggest names in news take traditional journalism and give it a digital spin. From The Huffington Post—and all of the other AOL, Inc. properties that are now part of the Huffington Post Media Group—to GigaOM, many of the new news leaders don't look all that different from the old tycoons. But each of these started as the vision of one person—Arianna Huffington and Om Malik, respectively.
Sites such as ProPublica eschew the fast-paced breaking news and aggregation models of other sites such as The Huffington Post and concentrate on in-depth, investigative journalism—the kind that had all but disappeared at even the most well-respected, old-fashioned news sources. ProPublica, Inc. is led by Paul Steiger, former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal; Stephen Engelberg, a former managing editor of The Oregonian and former investigative editor of The New York Times; and Richard Tofel, the former assistant publisher of The Wall Street Journal.
But the new leaders in news don't always take such a familiar shape—many look more like Schwartz's Newstex. Aggregators such as Flipboard, News360, and Google Currents neatly package content from a variety of sources so readers don't have to hunt for news from the ever-proliferating number of sources. And often these aggregators deliver that directly to smartphones or tablets.
In the past, solid financials and strong brands have made identifying the traditional news leaders an easy task. Today, those brands don't always hold the value they once did. In many cases, digital media sources are able to provide a more personalized experience. With fewer staff members and less overhead, these new news leaders are able to focus on niche content and to cater to more specialized audiences. In fact, it's this niche nature that makes determining the new news tycoons such a difficult and subjective process.
No discussion of a personal news experience is complete without a mention of social media, where each of us is able to curate our own news stream and, in effect, be the editor of our own personal news site. Facebook is making it even easier to do this with Interest Lists, which allows users to subscribe to content on a specific subject matter.
"If I had to vote for the new news tycoon, I would vote Twitter," says Schwartz. "If someone breaks a story that I think is authoritative, I'm going to retweet it and if enough people retweet it, that becomes breaking news. Twitter is really the new news tycoon."
In fact, Schwartz says that he considers Twitter today's news wire, where people can find those breaking news tidbits. While Twitter is not perfect—it can be difficult, at times, to separate truth from rumor—it does provide a level of immediacy that is challenging for the traditional news players to compete against."I think it's a new world and you're seeing people adapt to it," says Schwartz. He notes how the newsgathering process has changed for people seeking breaking news. He points to what he did when singer Whitney Houston died in February, and news of her death began to emerge.
"I hear a rumor and somebody says Whitney Houston died. I open my iPad, look at CNN and there's nothing there. I go to FOX News, nothing there. I go to NBC, nothing there," recalls Schwartz. "Then I go look on my RSS feed and see some rumblings. Then I go to Twitter and Twitter's ablaze with news about Whitney Houston. You start to realize that if you want to find out breaking news, you go to Twitter."
"All of the big players have tried to get into social media," says Dan Strempel, senior editor/analyst of the business and professional group at Simba Information, a market intelligence firm that covers the media and publishing industries. "They all have Twitter accounts and they comment there on things that are happening in the news or they release product information through Twitter."
("19th Century Business Man" courtesy of Shutterstock.)


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Welcome to the Information theory and systems laboratory at UCLA!
Broadly our research can be described as information theory and its applications to wireless and sensor networks; network data compression and storage; network secrecy; machine learning and large scale data analysis algorithms.
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Can You Believe These Are Olympic Sports?
Ski Halfpipe is a thing now?
Feb. 4, 2014 -- More than 190 million people worldwide are expected to tune into the Sochi Winter Olympics. With more than 15 sports, 98 medal events and 85 hours of daily coverage on television and online, that's a lot of rings to watch.
Here's a sampling of nine Winter Olympic sports that will confuse, amaze or inspire you.
Related: Ski Jumper Aiming High At Sochi Olympics
More than half of Canadians watch TV coverage of curling, a sport that baffles Americans.
Fundamentally, the object of curling is to sweep your stones down the sheet and move them closer than your opponent to the button of the house. In plain English: four players per team use their brooms to sweep eight oversized pucks known as stones across the ice towards the center, or "button," of a goal known as the "house."
The drama comes from ice droplets known as "pebbles" that form on the ice causing the stones to deviate or "curl" off a straight path. Also, there's a lot of shouting.
Related: Norway's Olympic Curling Team Shows Off Pants
Ice Dancing
Ice dancing is another Winter Olympic enigma. It's like ballroom dancing on ice with lots of lifts and spins but no throws or jumps. Some people question its status as an Olympic sport, but there's no denying its sequined fabulousness. Besides, The U.S. team of Charlie White and Meryl Davis are the reigning world champions and favored to take home the gold in Sochi.
Figure Skating Team Event
It's graceful, it's athletic – and now figure skating is a team sport. Right before the games, 10 nations will name one representative each from men's and women's singles, pairs and yes, ice dance skaters. Throughout the games, all scores from every program will be added into a single tally. The team with the highest score wins gold. Create your own brackets and follow along.
Related: Big Upset for Figure Skater
Ski Halfpipe
Ski halfpipe is one of three new ski events to makes its Olympic debut in Sochi. It works exactly the same way as snowboard halfpipe with two routines of flips, jumps and turns on a 22 foot high curved ramp. Skiers can grab up to 20 feet of air and perform up to five tricks per run.
Snowboard Slopestyle
If skiers can boogie on a halfpipe, boarders can fly down the slopes, because why not inject a little X Games into the Olympics? Competitors navigate 3 obstacles called jibs and 3 jump areas. They're scored based on the judge's overall impression of the quality of their tricks factoring in speed, height, variety and difficulty of jumps and whether or not they stick the landing.
Biathlon Mixed Relay
With more than a billion TV spectators each season, biathlon is the most viewed sport in Europe according to Max Cobb, the chief executive officer of U.S. Biathlon Association. And just in case watching athletes stop to shoot a rifle before racing away on cross country skis doesn't keep you on the edge of your seat, the Sochi Olympics has added a new mixed relay event involving the top two men and women from each competing country.
Typically, Norway, Russia, France and Germany dominate the sport. But in the relay, Cobb said that the U.S. and Slovenia could medal.
Luge Mixed Relay
Mixed Luge Relay may be the sleeper hit of this Olympics, claims Sandy Caligiore, the spokesman for the U.S. Luge Association.
Here's how it works: Each nation puts in one team consisting of a men's, women's and mixed pair sled. First, the women's team screams down the long, tube-like track reaching speeds over 70 miles per hour. When the sled reaches the bottom, a team member sits up and smacks a yellow pad to signal the men's team to go. When they hit the bottom, the mixed pair sled takes the anchor run.
In general the Germans own luge, said Caligiore. But thanks to start flubs, crashes and failures to hit the pad properly, the relay is anyone's race.
In Luge, sliders fly down the track on their backs, feet first. Skeleton ups the ante by positioning athletes face down, face first -- on a sled the size of a cafeteria tray. It's terrifying, exhilarating, and the Brits are jolly good at it. England is the only country to have won a skeleton medal each of the five times the event has been held at the Winter Olympics, according to the BBC. Both their men's and woman's teams look good to medal in Sochi.
Skijoring made its one and only Olympic appearance in the 1928 as an exhibition sport at the St. Moritz, Switzerland games. As one of only two winter Olympic equestrian sports in history, it's rules defy description. And it's definitely ready for a comeback.
Related: Cameron Mathison Goes 'Skijoring'


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Ann Curry offered a tearful goodbye as co-host of NBC's "Today" show on Thursday, saying "this is not as I expected to ever leave this couch."
Her exit represents NBC's most visible response to the popular morning show's worst stretch in the ratings in nearly two decades. "Today" hadn't lost a single week since 1996, but this spring it was beaten four times by ABC's resurgent "Good Morning America."
Curry's exit marked a stark contrast to the lengthy tribute shows given to predecessors Meredith Vieira and Katie Couric. She announced it during the final five minutes of her shift on Thursday, ending a week of awkward television as she continued working after word spread that NBC was looking to oust her.
"For all of you who saw me as a groundbreaker, I'm sorry I couldn't carry the ball over the finish line but, man, I did try," she said, breaking down.
RECOMMENDED: Are you a real TV fan? Take the quiz
Curry joined the show as a news anchor in 1997. Passed over for the co-host job when Vieira replaced Couric, she was given the chance when Vieira left last June. But her pairing with co-host Matt Lauer never seemed to click and she took the fall for the show's ratings troubles.
NBC's Savannah Guthrie, who co-hosts the 9 a.m. segment of the show, is expected to replace Curry.
Curry will remain at NBC News, saying she's been given a "fancy new title" to lead a reporting team. NBC said she will be anchor-at-large and national and international correspondent. Her work will occasionally resurface on "Today," and Lauer said she will be in London with the show for the Olympics.
He sat next to Curry, Al Roker and Natalie Morales on the couch as Curry choked back tears and apologized for being a "sob sister."
"It's not goodbye, not by a long shot," a grim-faced Lauer said.
Each of her colleagues recalled some of Curry's reporting from her "Today" tenure, but there was no video tribute. The "Today" website displayed "15 top Ann moments spanning her 15 years on TV," asking viewers to vote on their favorite.
"To all of you watching, thank you from the bottom of my heart for letting me touch yours," she said.
RECOMMENDED: Are you a real TV fan? Take the quiz
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.


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Database application development, eLearning, interactive media, plus web and mobile engineered to help organizations and people—that's the outcome of what we do at Pixelera. But there's more.
Making sense of your data, helping your business be more efficient, connecting people in new ways: at Pixelera, that's what we do for you.
Collect data, manage workflow and produce reports with database apps by Pixelera
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Interactive touch screen kiosks & digital display walls designed by our professional team
Professionally designed websites made for desktop, mobile and tablets
The most challenging part of technology is knowing how to refine complex ideas into simple, elegant solutions. At Pixelera, we work hard to make that possible.
There's no substitute for the discipline of experience when finding meaning behind data or the message inside an idea. That's what you can count on every time when you choose Pixelera.
Being friendly and available to answer your questions counts for a lot. But our pro team also takes time to ask the tough questions, with advice on how to tackle even the most challenging technology problems.
Transform your data, design and strategy into better ways of doing business. Create deeper meaning. The potential to change the world is limitless when you work with us.
Projects delivered on-time, within budget and on-target. That's our pledge to you, backed by our customer satisfaction guarantee.
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We don't just tackle technology problems: we solve business problems.
You'd be amazed by what your data can do in the hands of professionals who are skilled at helping businesses grow. One of the most common things we hear from clients: "You can do that?" You bet we can.
Technology becomes magical when there is mastery of both the technical and the creative. We help you connect data with people to create memorable experiences.
Friendly staff who work to your schedule, there when you need help: it sounds old fashioned, but it's time honoured for a reason. Our clients agree.
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Landgrove, Vermont
|This article is a stub. Help us to expand it by contributing your knowledge. For county and town page guidelines, visit U.S. County Page Content Suggestions.
Landgrove is a town in Bennington county, Vermont. It was formed in 1780 in Vt., and 1770 in N.Y. The probate district for Landgrove is Manchester, while the court district is Bennington. For more information, contact the town at P.O. Box 508, Londonderry 05148. On the attached map, Landgrove is shown as 4 in Bennington county.
For information about the state of Vermont see Vermont Family History Research.


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Regulated real estate company (BE-REIT) Leasinvest Real Estate SCA invests in high quality and well-located retail and office buildings in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, in Belgium and in Austria. At present the total fair value of the directly held real estate portfolio amounts to € 1.11 billion.read more
Investors find on these pages all relevant and mandatory financial information. Press releases can be found in the News section.read more
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Regulated real estate company Leasinvest Real Estate SCA invests in high-quality and well-situated retail, offices in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Belgium, and Austria.
The regulated real estate company is listed on Euronext Brussels and is part of the Bel Mid and included in the EPRA Belgium and EPRA Eurozone indices. Including the Leasinvest Immo Lux portfolio, the development projects and the participation in Retail Estates...read more


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PORTSMOUTH — It may be a shock to some that water skiing in freezing conditions on the Piscataqua River really isn't so bad in December, especially when it's for a good cause.
"I love water skiing and it seemed like fun idea, even in the winter," Portsmouth resident Jamie Richard, 30, said.
Dressed in a reindeer costume with a red shiny nose and a wet suit underneath, Richard geared up with eight others and fearlessly plopped into the river at the Isles of Shoales Steamship Company pier. Each deer tied their line to a small boat and sat in a water tube with skis on their feet before they were whisked away. Most with one swift motion some, but not all, of the gun-ho players made it above the water's surface for a stunning display. They raced around the river and returned, after minutes of coasting, for another trip out to the frigid water.
Margeta Weber, 26, of Manchester, was among the couple of Santa's reindeer left bobbing in the water on the first ski trip.
"I'm freezing but it's a lot of fun," she said, as dozens crowded the pier and cheered. "All the fans, everyone's out … It's something wild to do."
All the participants were under the direction of York resident Alex Marshall, a 26-year-old Eliot, Maine, native who rallied his friends together to do something a little crazy and little absurd. Marshall, who dressed as Santa Claus for the day, said his friends started skiing in the winter last year as a stunt. But this season, they wanted to take their popular performance and attach it to a good cause.
Saturday afternoon the daring water skiing event served as an attraction for the local End 68 Hours of Hunger cause, a not-for-profit, volunteer effort that stands to confront the approximately 68 hours of hunger some American school children experience between the free lunch they receive in school on Friday afternoon and the free breakfast they receive in school on Monday morning. A booth was set up as hundreds gathered for hot chocolate and clam chowder, and listened to a band play, before the young thrill-seekers set out on the Piscataqua. The infamous Grinch, of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas tale, also participated in a dunk tank with attendees
"(Last year,) we ended up getting close to 100 people down there watching us and you know when we saw that turnout and after we were done we thought, 'We really need to turn this into a fundraiser," Marshall added. "It's the time of season where a lot of people are in need and we wanted to keep it local … "
When asked what it was like riding out on the river, with snow falling and freezing temperatures, Marshall said he barely notices the conditions.
"Out on the water, it wasn't so bad, to be honest with you," he said. "Your adrenaline is running so much, it's quite a fight to pull yourself out of the water with all that gear on and your blood is flowing pretty well. You honestly don't feel the cold as much as you are trying to put on a good performance for the crowd and that's pretty much it."
A friend of Marshall's, Eliot, Maine resident John Cosco, 28, dressed in a green elf costume, said he wasn't very cold after he went water skiing, even after he fell in accidentally on an earlier run.
"It's really not that bad, because I'm used to the North Pole," he joked.
Alex Marshall's mother, Lisa, looked on as the crowd cheered. She expressed her confidence in her son's capabilities out on the water, and said how proud she was.
"It's amazing what they've done," she said, noting she wasn't worried for her son at all. "He's crazy enough to do it."


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Sophia Grace & Rosie Predict Taylor Swift's Attire, Wear Flo Rida's Sunglasses at 2012 Grammys
If you thought Sophia Grace and her hype girl Rosie had used up their 15 minutes of fame, think again. As previously announced, the dazzling duo appeared on the red carpet of the 2012 Grammys as correspondents for 'The Ellen DeGeneres' show, charming the likes of Taylor Swift, Flo Rida, Maroon 5 and more.
Recalling the night's events with the talk show host, Sophia Grace said, "My favorite was Flo Rida because he put his shades on me! And he said he would never take his shades off for anyone! He actually just put them on me and it was so good!"
Rosie admitted she wasn't nervous at the star-studded event, and why would she be? She's a pro at this point. Sophia chimed in, excitedly adding, "We weren't nervous, but we were hungry. We ate cotton candy and sandwiches. It was soooo good!"
Indeed it was. The British sensations were dressed in matching gold-and-pink princess outfits, courtesy of 'Ellen,' and hit the red carpet to chat with Lady Antebellum, Katy Perry, Rihanna and others. In addition to singing an impromptu rendition of 'Moves Like Jagger' for Adam Levine (is there an extra spot on 'The Voice' coach's team this season?), the high-energy girls emphatically predicted that Swift would wear gold to the event — and she did.
We're not sure what's next for this lovable twosome, but we're crossing our fingers for the Oscars and beyond.
Watch Sophie Grace & Rosie at the 2012 Grammy Awards


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Assume that a zone has the zonepath /export/home/my-zone. You want to mount the disk /dev/lofi/1 from the global zone into /mnt in the non-global zone.
You must be the global administrator in the global zone to perform this procedure.
Become superuser, or assume the Primary Administrator role.
To create the role and assign the role to a user, see Using the Solaris Management Tools With RBAC (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.
To mount the disk into /mnt in the non-global zone, type the following from the global zone:
global# mount -F ufs /dev/lofi/1 /export/home/my-zone/root/mnt
For information about lofi, see the lofiadm(1M) and lofi(7D) man pages.


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Some follow-ups to yesterday's Rolling Jubilee post ("Rolling where?"):
• A correction: they're not buying credit card debt—they're buying medical debt to start with. Several RJ people complained about this bit of misinformation, saying that it was "widely known." It's not on their rather sparse website though, so it's not clear how this widely disseminated information has been disseminated.
• There were also quite a few complaints about my missing how the campaign did indeed point to a larger strategy, including a wider conversation about debt as a symptom of a larger disease rather than the disease itself. Partisans point to this sentence on the website: "We believe people should not go into debt for basic necessities like education, healthcare and housing." Well, yes, but that's 16 words—and it immediately segues into "a growing collective resistance to the debt system." But debt is only one part of the system—a competitive system built around wage labor which is always, by definition, inadequate to needs. Debt can often be a supplement to paltry wages, but that doesn't make this a debt system.
• As I said yesterday, this obsession with the centrality of debt reflects Occupy's inheritance of American populism's emphasis on finance at the expense of how finance fits into a larger system of production of ownership. But I suspect it's not just populism—it's the influence of David Graeber's book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Graeber's book has many virtues—and I mean that, it's not just boilerplate—but it offers somewhere between little and no analysis of how debt works in capitalism. (See Mike Beggs' review for more.) Debt (or credit, to use the more upbeat word) allows people and businesses to buy things beyond the limits of current income, which means that while many people view it as nothing but a burden, many others view it as a way to buy cars, houses, and capital equipment that they couldn't afford out of the cash lurking in their pockets. And since one person's debt is another's asset, it becomes a repository of savings, and not just the savings of the proverbial 1%. Any serious debt strike—one that was more than symbolic, meaning measured in the billions and not the millions, much less the thousands—would threaten those savings, and be greeted by a large chunk of the population as not liberating, but dangerous.
• Speaking of popular opinion, people who have been sweating to pay their debts might not view the deliverance of the heavily indebted as a cause for celebration. They might view it as unfair. Debt aggregates are typically driven by a minority of very heavily indebted people or businesses, and simple averages can be very misleading.
• It's really difficult to see how the buyback scheme leads to a larger conversation about debt. It's also difficult to imagine an organized political movement emerging from it. One of the beauties of the various Occupy encampments around the country is that it created deep bonds among participants that last to this day. These ties were the reason that Occupy Sandy emerged so quickly in New York in the wake of the hurricane. But the Rolling Jubilee operates largely through murky, near-anonymous secondary debt markets and through the media. It's difficult to explain in itself, and it doesn't lead easily into a discussion of larger issues of political economy. And it doesn't create organization or social ties: even if the relieved debtors knew about their liberation, which they well might not, it would be viewed more as a deus ex machina than a political act.
• Call me old-fashioned, and I'm sure many have already done so, but I think that a discussion of those larger issues—stagnant wages, high unemployment, a crazy system of health care finance, madly expensive higher education—would lead inevitably to making demands on the state. (So too would debt relief: it would be a lot more powerful and effective if the Federal Reserve and the Treasury were buying bad debt and liberating debtors with their vast resources rather than a volunteer effort raising funds through Paypal.) And given the prominent role that anarchists and anarchism play in the Occupy movement, there's not much inclination to make demands on the state. But what other institution in this society could raise the minimum wage, make it easier to organize unions, fund a Green New Deal to address climate change and create decent jobs, create a single-payer health care system, and provide universal free higher ed? The lack of those things in this very rich society contribute a lot to debt and deprivation. But that lack is not the product of a "debt system."
I am very willing, eager even, to be proven wrong. So should this thing take off in fruitful ways, I will happily eat my words—and my hat too, with a side of crow.


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Based on previous studies and preconceived notions, the finding that partners expressing their own views about the low likelihood of fraud had no effect on professional skepticism was surprising. This suggest that partner's concern of not expressing this opinion to the team because it would lower the overall professional skepticism may be unwarranted. The evidence from this study indicates that partners can raise professional skepticism within the team by communicating management's view of low likelihood of fraud, however it is not recommended for partners to use this approach every single time. Also, encouraging both outward and internal skeptical orientation can raise professional skepticism as well.
Harding, N, and K. T. Trotman. 2017. The Effect of Partner Communications of Fraud Likelihood and Skeptical Orientation on Auditors' Professional Skepticism. Auditing, A Journal of Practice and Theory 36 (21): 111-131.
Staff and seniors auditors often times have more interaction with client personnel than other members on the team. These interactions provide them with insight into fraud-relevant information which is extremely valuable to the audit. It is important that partners create a group dynamic that is both supportive and nonthreatening in order to facilitate idea sharing. Firms can make brainstorming more effective by providing leadership training to partners encompassing these ideals.
Gissel, J. L., and K. M. Johnstone. 2017. Information Sharing during Auditors' Fraud Brainstorming: Effects of Psychological Safety and Auditor Knowledge. Auditing, A Journal of Practice and Theory 36 (21): 87-110.
The results of this study are important due to the requirement of members of the audit engagement team to identify potential fraud. The results of this study identify a method of improving auditor performance of identifying potential frauds at both the individual brainstorming stage and the subsequent group brainstorming stage. Because the effectiveness of the group brainstorming session is dependent on the quality and quantity of inputs from the individual auditor brainstorming sessions, the present study suggests a simple intervention regarding task representation to improve the performance of these inputs. Specifically, auditors considering potential fraud categories (e.g., revenue recognition, inventory, etc.) one by one, as opposed to all at once, identify a greater quantity and quality of potential frauds. By improving both the individual and group brainstorming stages, auditors are less likely to overlook potential fraud.
Chen, W., A. S. Khalifa, and K. T. Trotman. 2015. Facilitating brainstorming: Impact of task representation on auditors' identification of potential frauds. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 34 (3): 1-22.
The adoption of these electronic brainstorming alternatives by audit firms would be consistent with the increase in the use of technology within audit firms. As firms move to electronic brainstorming, there are potential benefits of using a nominal form over an interacting form. Firms should at least be aware of some potential negative effects of interacting electronic brainstorming, such as social loafing, and consider the benefits of building mechanisms to overcome such negative effects. The authors find that because less experienced auditors make less effort in interacting brainstorming sessions, they develop less complete, coherent, and applicable mental simulations than those in nominal teams.
Chen, Clara X., Trotman, K. T., & Zhou, F. 2015. Nominal versus Interacting Electronic Fraud Brainstorming in Hierarchical Audit Teams. Accounting Review 90 (1): 175-198.
This study provides important insights into the fraud assessment process. The most common method of risk assessment is to create summary fraud risk memos. However, the PCAOB recommends that auditors make documentation more specific in their assessments of fraud risk. This study suggests that when auditors receive specific documentation of fraud risks, alone, their fraud related judgments improve. However, the study provides evidence that when a more specific fraud risk memo is prepared and auditors are also reminded about the possibility of fraud (i.e., primed) that assessments of fraud actually decline. This is a significant finding considering that it is common in practice for auditors to be reminded about the possibilities of fraud, as a way to increase auditors' awareness of fraud risk.
Hammersley, J.S., E.M. Bamber, and T.D. Carpenter. 2010. The influence of documentation specificity and priming on auditors' fraud risk assessments and evidence evaluation decisions. The Accounting Review 85 (2): 547-571.
The results of this study are important for audit firms to consider when designing their group discussions, required by US and International auditing standards, regarding the susceptibility of their clients' financial statements to fraud and ways these potential frauds could be enacted. The study's findings suggest that interacting groups with brainstorming guidelines and pre-mortem groups (i.e., where participants engage in a backward-thinking process, in which they envision the event of an undiscovered fraud emerging after the financial statement audit period) generate the highest quantity and quality of fraud ideas. The study's results are important for audit firms to consider, since the quantity and quality of ideas generated in the fraud group discussions are key characteristics of the output of such discussions. Specifically, the quantity of ideas is important because the "mere mention" of ideas during the meeting is likely to elevate auditors' overall skepticism and alert them to a variety of potential frauds they could encounter. The quality of ideas is an inherently important output of the discussion, and the rarity/uniqueness of ideas (a dimension of quality in the study) is important because audit team members are likely to already be aware of obvious potential frauds, and so the group discussion could be best used to construct more "out of the box" frauds that are less likely to be known.
Trotman, K.T., Simnett, R., and A. Khalifa. 2009. Impact of the Type of Audit Team Discussions on Auditors' Generation of Material Frauds. Contemporary Accounting Research. 26(4): 1115 – 1142.
This article provides a very informative summary of current research related to the risk assessment process that supports the audit. By outlining both general audit risk insights as well as fraud risk insights, the authors provide a clear and informative summary that should be of use to any audit firm attempting to better understand the current theoretical and practical research related to this emerging area. Finally, by utilizing the PCAOB questions, the discussion also provides insights directly relevant to the current regulatory process.
Allen, R.D., D.R. Hermanson, T.M. Kozloski, and R.J. Ramsay. 2006. Auditor Risk Assessment: Insights from the Academic Literature. Accounting Horizons 20(2): 157-177.


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Bobby Brown says his new album represents healing
NEW YORK (AP) -- Bobby Brown says it took him a long time to come out with a new album because he's spent so much time trying to get his life on track.
Now on tour with bandmates New Edition, Brown says he's ready to return to his solo career with the album "Masterpiece," due out June 5.
"It's what I've been through throughout my life, and just trying to heal myself through my music," the 43-year-old singer said in a recent interview.
"Masterpiece" is Brown's first album in 14 years. He was a multiplatinum star with New Edition and later developed his solo career. But his well-documented battle with drugs and his legal woes led to his musical decline. His turbulent marriage to Whitney Houston further eroded his image.
In a recent interview with the "Today" show's Matt Lauer, Brown denied that he got his late ex-wife addicted to drugs. Houston's career was derailed by her drug use, which came to the public's attention during her marriage to Brown. The superstar drowned in February in Beverly Hills, Calif.; her death was complicated by heart disease and cocaine use, according to authorities.
"The Matt Lauer interview was just for me to clear the air about what everyone was feeling about my ex-wife's death," Brown said.
Although he was arrested for DUI in March, Brown insists he has been drug-free for more than seven years. He said his attempt to get his life in order is part of the reason why the album took so long to make.
"When you're working on yourself, you have to really concentrate on working on yourself and it takes a back seat to what you want to do and what I'm gonna do," he said.
Brown says "Masterpiece," which he started working on last year, is "the best album I've done so far.
"But I'm going to do better in the near future," he said. "I just want to get back to what I do, which is entertainment, and this is the start to me getting back to what I want to do."
Brown is engaged to his manager, Alicia Etheridge, with whom he has a young son. He also has other older children, including 19-year-old Bobbi Kristina, his only child with Houston.
Brown said he and Etheridge plan a private wedding, and described his life as content.
"I'm happy right now in my life, I'm comfortable with who I am," he said. "It's just better."
Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's music writer. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi


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Last week I wrote about how to set up your Bar Cart or console for a party…. So many of you emailed me and asked me where you could get a chic bar cart of your own that I put together this roundup for you…. Be sure to stock it with plenty of wine for those fabulous Friday night dinners you like to throw!
Image above, clockwise from top left 1. vintage paul mccobb bar cart $3800,2. polished nickel bar cart $999.91, 3.vintage faux bamboo bar $5500, 4.formosa tray table $49.95 (great for small spaces and small parties
5. Raymond Bar Cart Gold $825 – $975
8. duncan bar cart $700
9. Neu home round serving cart$64.99
10. vintage italian bar cart $2400


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At times, it might not be that easy to find any relevant information about drums that is likely to affect the buying decision. This is because one has to dig into different Webpages to get the same. This is not only time consuming but also disturbing. To make it more efficient and effective for drum fans to look for the right details and guides for buying the best drums, acemusicgear.com has taken a useful initiative.
Music fans have a lot to explore and buy online through it may not seem so usual. However, the Internet has its own new beats for them in the form of instruments on sale and tutorials to learn. In this big collection of musical instruments, drums are among the most sought ones. Now, drum fans can find guides, reviews, and top drums details at this new site.
The site features dedicated sections for drum machines, drum sticks, and drum heads. There is also a dedicated Reviews section too. Clicking any section would open to a new Web page that shares information such as the best sets and buying guides. It is easy to find posts on the best electronic drum set, the best drum sets, the best heads, and the best drum set reviewed. Right now, there might not be many such posts seen.
As per a spokesperson, "We are about to increase the number of posts swiftly but at a steady space. There is no hurry in posting details but there is always an element of relevancy and consistency in every post that we share here. So, our next step is to post as per what our visitors like to see or keep searching on our site."
About Ace Music Gear
AceMusicGear, as the name suggests, is a Web portal dedicated to drums and its accessories. It aims to help the buyers in taking an informed decision or making a wise selection at the time of buying drums, heads, or sticks.
For more information, kindly visit http://www.acemusicgear.com
Media Contact
Company Name: AceMusicGear
Email: email@example.com
Phone: 817-725-7793
Country: United States
Website: http://www.acemusicgear.com


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The Sun has thrown its weight behind an attempt to ID everyone who was at Wembley for Saturday's FA Cup Final, and who were captured in an impressive 360° hi-res picture as they cheered on Manchester City and Stoke City.
The paper says the "largest sized image of a sporting event ever taken" – the work of 360Cities.net in association with Wembley Stadium – shows pretty well the full complement of 80,000 fans who enjoyed the big day. Once you've eyeballed your handsome mug, or that of a mate, you can tag it via Facebook.
Roger Maslin, Wembley's managing director, enthused: "We are delighted to be able to offer fans a special memento of their day at this year's FA Cup Final and hope the photo will be the first of many to capture the fantastic atmosphere fans bring to Wembley Stadium."
The image is a 10-gigapixel mosaic, representing "an unprecedented feat of internet publishing: to shoot, upload, stitch, render, exposure correct, colour balance, and publish online as in less than 24 hours". There's more on how it was put together in record time by snapper Jeffrey Martin right here. ®


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How Can I Tell My Mom I'm Smart About Sex?
My mom is always bringing up sex in our conversations. She says she's trying
to educate me but it's really embarrassing. I feel like I know everything I need to
know and will make good decisions when it comes to having sex. How do I convince her
of this?
– Allie*
It's great that your mom wants to communicate with you about sex, but it may make you uncomfortable. Reassure your mom by telling her what you know — and that you feel you will make responsible decisions when it comes to having sex and using condoms to protect yourself.
If you have any questions, your mom can be a great person to turn to. If you're embarrassed to bring up questions, write them down and give them to your mom. And let her know that you will come to her with any future questions or concerns.
It may be awkward and embarrassing to talk to your mom about sex, but she is likely trying to keep your relationship strong and make sure that you have all the information you need.
*Names have been changed to protect user privacy.


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† Appearances (Goals).
Mike Petke (born January 30, 1976 in Bohemia, New York) is an American soccer player who currently plays for New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer. Also an amateur journalist, Petke contributes a regular blog to ESPN.
Petke attended St. John the Baptist Diocesan High School in West Islip, New York, where he was selected as an All-American, before moving on to play college soccer in Southern Connecticut State University. In 1995 he led SCSU to the NCAA Division II National title and was named Conference Rookie of the Year. In 1997 he was named NECC Defensive Player of the Year, and was a consensus NSCAA/Umbro First Team All-America selection.


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You can use the
atg.repository.QueryOptions class to specify ways that a query can be modified. You can set the
QueryOptions properties, and pass the
QueryOptions bean to the following
executeQuery method:
RepositoryItem[] executeQuery(Query pQuery, QueryOptions pQueryOptions);
QueryOptions properties let you limit the size of the result set, direct how the result set should be sorted, and precache specified properties:
Property Name
The index of the first element of a query result set that should actually be returned. By setting
The items beginning with the
Specifies the sort order of a query's result set.
A list of properties that should be precached for each item in a query's result set at the time the query is run.
The following example contains the following steps:
Creates an unconstrained query against the Profile Repository.
Creates a
SortDirectivesthat contains a
SortDirective, sorting the result set in ascending order by the login property. A
SortDirectivecan be ascending or descending and case-sensitive or case-insensitive (although not all data stores support case-insensitive sorting).
Creates a
QueryOptionswith a
startingIndexof 0 and an
endingIndexof 5. This limits the number of profiles returned to at most 5. The
QueryOptionsincorporates the
Executes the query with the
Outputs the results, displaying the
// Creates an unconstrained query against the profile repository. // It returns at most the first 5 profiles. // Hints are used to precache login and password properties. // Results are sorted by the login property. Repository repository = (Repository)request.resolveName( "/atg/userprofiling/ProfileAdapterRepository"); RepositoryView view = repository.getView("user"); Query query = view.getQueryBuilder().createUnconstrainedQuery(); String [] precachedPropertyNames = {"login", "password"}; SortDirectives sortDirectives = new SortDirectives(); sortDirectives.addDirective(new SortDirective( "login",SortDirective.DIR_ASCENDING)); RepositoryItem [] items = view.executeQuery( query, new QueryOptions(0, 5, sortDirectives, precachedPropertyNames)); for (int i = 0; i < items.length; i++) out.print("<li>" + items[i].getPropertyValue("login"));


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Hello all,
I am looking for a "Thin Client" "PC Desktop" type of mini computer that runs Windows CE (whatever version that supports GPSGate for CE) that is 12volt (for vehicle install) that turns on when the vehicle (or power is provided to +12v) is turned on. The device needs to beable to autoload gpsgate and beable to survive countless "forced" shut downs (ie unplugging power without safe shutdown)
Basicly a need a device that uses gpsgate that works like a AVL device but using a external router/internet connection and GPS (serial or usb) that will be stored in a lockbox in the truck and needs to automaticly turn on/off. So it needs to work everytime without being touched
Anyone know of any good devices?


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The Marion Bermuda Race is a 501(c)(3) organization and among other educational efforts, supports Youth Sailing programs. Children represent the future of sailing and we hope to encourage their stewardship of, participation in and love of the sport. We believe that sailing helps build leadership, personal responsibility, communication, problem solving and teamwork skills that will benefit and enhance the lives of our world's children for their future.
Community Boating Center of New Bedford
Community Boating Center's mission is to enrich the lives of New Bedford area residents through boating. They use sailing to teach positive life values to the residents and especially the young people of Greater New Bedford.
Community Boating Center of New Bedford (CBC) is a non-profit educational organization which provides people from the Greater New Bedford area with challenging and enriching new experiences through boating. Community Boating Center offers a variety of educational and recreational programs throughout the year built on the rich waterfront heritage of New Bedford. Community Boating Center strives to instill in the young and continue to teach people of all ages the value of integrity, sound judgment, teamwork and environmental awareness. They do this by offering educational opportunities and access to the marine environment, regardless of means, through instruction, mentoring and coaching. Nearly 80% of the children that participate in the summer program attend on a full scholarship. 600 children between the ages of five and sixteen go through the program each summer.
Community Boating Center is a non-profit 501 (c) 3 organization, supported entirely through program fees, grants, and the voluntary contributions of caring and concerned citizens, corporations and foundation.
Courageous Sailing
Transforming children's lives through sailing
Courageous Sailing envisions a community that embraces sailing as a platform for life-long learning, personal growth and leadership. They provide a center of sailing excellence that is committed to removing barriers to access for all Boston youth, the public and people with physical and intellectual challenges.
Courageous Sailing was established in 1987 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in a joint effort between the City of Boston Parks and Recreation Department and the late South Boston sailing enthusiast Harry McDonough. Courageous Sailing has since grown into a dynamic, multi-faceted educational facility serving over 1,000 at-risk and disadvantaged children each year. Through the organization's Courage Curriculum, young sailors develop essential leadership competencies in personal responsibility, communication, problem-solving, teamwork and stewardship. Demand for Courageous Sailing's programs is at a record high with close to two-thirds (600) of the eager young children who attempt to register for our summer program being turned away due to a lack of sufficient capacity.
The organization's name was inspired by the America's Cup 12 meter "Courageous" which once lived at Pier 4 in the Charlestown (MA) Navy Yard. This two-time America's Cup winner lent its name to Courageous Sailing in the late 1980s. The boat now resides at the Museum of Yachting in Newport, Rhode Island, where it has been restored and is still being raced.
Courageous prides itself on being a leader in community service. Courageous has hosted the Special Olympics Summer Games and has been consistently involved in training Special Olympics athletes. Courageous also has an ongoing partnership with The Carroll Center for the Blind, which holds national blind sailing competitions as well as weekly Sail Blind races at Courageous. In addition, Courageous serves as a venue for local high school sailing team practices, as well as Women's Keel Boat and Mass Bay elimination events. Courageous has also partnered with Adventure Sail through the Big and Little Sisters organization, an event that has drawn hundreds of women and girls into the sport of sailing.
Changing Lives, One Voyage at a Time, Over Time
The purpose-built sail training vessel is based on civilian schooners constructed by Bermudians, enslaved and free, in the 19th century prior to the Emancipation of Slavery in the British Empire. The original hull shape was adapted from the Bermuda-built RN Shamrock class, fast Dispatch and patrol vessels that ran from the RN Dockyard northwest to Halifax and southwest to Jamaica to contain the rebel colonies. The Bermuda rig was innovated on the coastal sloops that abounded between the 17th and early 19th centuries. Faced with impassable pathways ashore, locals had evolved the lateen rig to short-tack upwind around the island and to the fishing banks windward of Bermuda.
Bermuda Sloop Foundation recognizes that children learn differently, and many of Bermuda's youths do not acquire information optimally in a traditional classroom setting.
On board our floating classroom, Spirit of Bermuda, we provide character and educational development for these and other Bermuda youth using the unique attributes of structured experiential learning through sail training (learning by doing).
By providing this alternative learning environment, we strive to increase their positive life outcomes, and to create awareness of and pathways to technical, mechanical and marine-related careers for young Bermudians.


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Managed Accounts
Whether your investment objectives include income, growth or a combination of the two, we can help you take a disciplined approach to investing. Our Wealth Management Group offers both individual and institutional investors an opportunity to benefit from the professional skills of affiliated and external investment managers. And you can do it on a cost-effective basis.
With a separately managed account you enjoy the benefit of a comprehensive consulting process.
Your managed account is a customized portfolio of stocks and/or bonds and cash that is guided by a professional investment manager. The manager buys and sells stock and/or bonds for your portfolio on your behalf.
Because you directly own the securities within your account, you have the option to specify investment restrictions (e.g., no alcohol or tobacco stocks), and you may request tax-loss selling.
Your Financial Advisor helps you assess your goals, address your financial concerns, and monitor your progress. For more information, call us at (808) 525-5159 or toll free at (877) 643-4344 or visit any conveniently located First Hawaiian Bank branch and ask to speak to a Wealth Advisor.


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Pop Quiz!
I am a writer (with a lifelong love of stories) who holds a degree in history, so I have a geeky love for the tales that get passed down over the years and retold in different cultures worldwide. The varied urban legends and folklore that formed the backbone of season 1--and, to a lesser degree, later seasons--fascinate me (and, also, scare the hell out of me). And, on St. Patrick's Day, with its association with leprechauns and faerie folk, it seemed like a fitting time to offer this short quiz to see what you know about the mythological!
SPN's pilot jumped right in with something eerily familiar to me, the ghostly hitchiker, frequently known as the Woman in White. (As I've mentioned before, I grew up with the Ghost of White Rock Lake down the road, to speak.) Witch of the following (okay, I swear that was a totally Freduian typo) is also a well known regional tale of a paranormal passenger?
a) the Pasadena woman in white who, according to reports, predicted a major earthquake
b) the Georgia woman in white who warns of evil in the red clay
c) the Washington woman in white who warned her drivers of a Mt. Saint Helen's eruption
Tales of encountering her began after the major eruption in 1980 and were eventually reported in numerous media, such as the Tacoma Washington News Tribune. According to legend, she warned that MSH would erupt again on October 12. Which it did. In 2004. I prefer these "helpful" (or at least innocuous) sightings to the traditionally Hispanic and emotionally disquieting stories of La Lorona (the weeping woman who killed her children), which is the version in the SPN pilot. (Great ep, but that scene where her kids confronted her at the end? CHILLS. I am now officially sleeping with the light on. Oh, and speaking of me being a wuss, I understand that if you Google you Tube ghost hitchhiker, someone aparently posted an eerie little vid that, even if it turns out to have been doctored up by some high school kids who are good with a camcorder, I am still too chicken to check out. You feel free, though!)
When it comes to warding off evil, by now, we should have all learned the nifty properties of the all important salt circle (I briefly considered sleeping with a big ring of Morton around the king sized bed, but figure J is only willing to indulge my neuroses so far.) What else is suggested for keeping evil out of the house?
a) bamboo wind chimes outside the front door, sprinkled with Holy water the day they are first hung
b) burying an iron knife beneath your doorstep
c) cooking with lots of garlic
Iron has long been reputed one of the stronger wards against evil, helpful for barring entrance to demons, witches, spirits and even malicious fairies. (Then again, some superstitious might claim that you need the garlic to hedge your bets with vampires. But garlic apparently has a high sulfur content, which SPN generally associates with demons dropping by the neighborhood, so season at your own risk...)
Which of the following is a real medical syndrome based on a mythological creature depicted in Supernatural?
a) Wendigo psychosis
b) Vanaheimr
c) Djinn dementia
The second episode of Supernatural (Wendigo) is not among my favorite (although I cackled at "I'm Agent Ford, this is Agent Hamill.") But the legend stuck with me because, unlike Hook Man or Bloody Mary, it wasn't one I was familiar with. So I did a little research until it creeped me out too much. Variations of Wendigo legend were part of tribal lore for some Native American and Canadian peoples who believed that a person could be transformed if they resorted to cannabilism for any reason. The rare psychosis leads to an actual craving for human flesh (usually after having ingested it in life-threatening famine) which, yikes. And ew.
So, to change the subject, Vanaheimr was the mythological home to Vanir (Norse deities). Do you know what episode featured a Vanir without looking it up? (I'll give the answer in comments.)
And finally, I think we can agree that the Impala is nearly a supernatural being herself--preternaturally strong and sexy and full of life. So when did Chevy introduce the first Imapala? (Come on, Dean would want you to know.)
a) 1955
b) 1960
c) 1958
That's when the earliest version was introduced, but it didn't become its own model until 1959.
So, how'd you do? Ready to ride shotgun and rock out to Bon Jovi, or are you probably better off safely at home? Always assuming, of course, that "home" has no malevolent poltergeists...
Check back in April for my quiz on Which Hunter Type Are You? (Less educational trivia, more pictures of Dean and Sam.)


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We know that for the 2014 model year, the high performance LS engines are going bye-bye for Corvette and in their place will be the new Generation 5 LT1 V8s. But that doesn't mean GM is going to stop building the LS7 and LS9 engines for other applications. Thanks to some sleuthing at Camaro5.com, it does look like Chevrolet is planning on using the 505 hp LS7 engine for the 2014 Camaro.
The LS7 engine is now showing up on the GM dealer VIN cards for the 2014 model year as engine code "E" in the Camaro's 2014 VIN (click to enlarge):
Of course, this has got the Camaro guys all fired up and many are hoping that this is a sign that Chevy will bring back the Z/28 model. For more on this, check out Camaro5.com.
OFFICIAL: 2014 C7 Corvette to Feature 450hp 6.2 Liter V8; Revive LT1 Name
Return of the LT1: 2014 C7 Corvette to Get 450hp V8 Engine
Jeff Cleary's 1967 LS7 Corvette Ready for the OPTIMA Ultimate Street Car Invitational


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The Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies sent the following announcement of a program developed by Paul Ekman and Allan Wallace to be presented in Santa Barbara, California, and in Phuket, Thailand:
People around the world suffer from anger, greed, jealousy, hate and other afflictive emotional states every day. During the 2000 Mind & Life Institute conference, the Dalai Lama requested that a program be developed to address destructive emotions, not just in conversation but also in society.
In response, emotion researcher, Paul Ekman, PhD, and contemplative scholar, B. Alan Wallace, PhD, developed a 42-hour psycho-educational program called Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB).
The aim of CEB is to teach participants skills that facilitate greater emotional regulation and focused attention through didactic and experiential methods. CEB is an evidence-based curriculum that draws from empirical research on emotion, coupled with contemplative practices that are rooted in Buddhist traditions.
Throughout the program, participants learn to identify the physiology and facial expression of emotions, develop attention skills and mindfulness, as well as cultivate meaningful aspirations for genuine happiness and resilience. A primary goal of CEB is for participants to gain greater flexibility and choice in cognitive and emotional processing.
A randomized-controlled trial documenting the outcomes of the CEB program will be published in the journal, Emotion. Future studies should continue to investigate the empirical basis for the importance of combining emotional skills with contemplative practices.
More than 100 individuals from over 25 countries have been trained as CEB teachers at the Thanyapura International Mind Centre in Phuket, Thailand, under B. Alan Wallace, Paul Ekman and Eve Ekman.
The third Cultivating Emotional Balance Teacher Training (CEBTT) will be taking place this summer in Phuket. The teacher training focuses on learning the theories and practices of psychology regarding emotional balance, as taught by Eve Ekman, and the relevant theories and practices of Buddhism, as taught by Dr. Alan Wallace, particularly focusing on the cultivation of attention, insight through the practice of mindfulness, and the qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity (the Four Immeasurables).
The format will consist of a combination of lectures, meditation, and discussion. Applications are currently being accepted.
To apply for the 5 week CEB Teacher Training in Phuket, Thailand, request a detailed application by emailing email@example.com and mention CEBTT 2012, in the subject of the email.
Also, there will be a weekend meditation retreat on Cultivating Emotional Balance from Feb 3rd-5th, 2012 at the Santa Barbara Mission Renewal Center. For information for the weekend retreat, please email firstname.lastname@example.com