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Connected things, privacy and public space: Approach to a taxonomy
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Adam Greenfield
The paper was commissioned by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as part of the Insights on Privacy Speaker Series
July 2011
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this document are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Related video: Insights on Privacy: Adam Greenfield and Aza Raskin
My name is Adam Greenfield; I'm the founder and managing director of a New York City-based practice called Urbanscale, which is concerned with the design of systems, services and interfaces for networked cities and citizens.
Our work is driven by a deep belief that everyday urban life can be improved, for all residents and other users of a city, by the conscious and careful deployment of networked information-gathering/processing/transmission technologies, and the equally thoughtful design of interfaces to same. Since we're obviously pretty heavily invested in the appearance of these more-than-occasionally opaque technologies in public space, we think it's incumbent upon us to be particularly clear about:
- what benefits we think these technologies offer;
- what costs we believe they may impose, both in the short term and over the longer stretches of collective experience;
and particularly,
- when we feel a given deployment of informatic technology either does not benefit the public, or, worse, actively undermines the quality of urban life, the autonomy of citizens, or their ability to move and act freely in urban space.
As a result, I want to get a better handle on how particular ensembles of sensing, display and actuation technologies condition that quality the sociologist Henri Lefebvre thought of as "the right to the city," which I understand as the citizen's agency and, equally importantly, sense of their own agency, over the place they live. My feeling is that the complexity of this terrain is such that abstract principles and so-called "best practices" aren't particularly likely to be useful in guiding us toward better decisions unless they're firmly grounded in a concrete consideration of some present-day actualities. In my own attempt to think more clearly about these issues, therefore, I started by constructing a taxonomy of data-gathering objects in public space, and that's what I'd like to share with you here.
To further clarify the issues at stake, I've arrayed these systems along a spectrum from a sensor I think of as self-evidently non-threatening to something I think the privacy community particularly — and advocates of high-quality public space in general — ought to be deeply concerned by.
1. Prima facie unobjectionable
The very first system I want to consider here is a traffic sensor called Välkky, developed by the Finnish company Havainne. Though it's potentially deployable anywhere on earth, Välkky clearly responds to the particular circumstances of the Finnish night and the traffic conditions that tend to obtain in the long dark. Designed to be mounted on existing traffic-sign posts, the system couples a grid of locally-networked motion detectors to an array of high-intensity blue and white LEDs; when properly positioned at a crosswalk or intersection, it alerts oncoming traffic to the presence of otherwise invisible pedestrians and bicyclists.
Let's break down what's going on here:
- Välkky's motion sensor captures physical activity in the immediate vicinity. A pedestrian appears at a crosswalk, and the corresponding LED array is illuminated.
- The source of the activating stimulus is neither measured by any other sensor, nor characterized by the system in any other way. Välkky makes no attempt (and indeed, is not equipped) to quantify, identify or otherwise flesh out its understanding of the person or other entity activating it. It could be triggered by a reindeer, and nobody would be any the wiser for it.
- The information gathered is not stored, and does not persist. Both Välkky's response to activation and de-activation are immediate; as far as I can tell from Havainne's technical documentation, no record of system activations over time is maintained, although it would certainly be easy enough to do so. In effect, any awareness of a triggering event disappears from the world as soon as the value returned from a sensor drops below the threshold at which it has been programmed to register the presence of a pedestrian.
- The information gathered is not transmitted remotely. While all of the Välkky sensors in a given intersection are linked via a short-range radio network, to ensure that a single activation triggers the entire local array of LEDs, none are connected to the global IP (Internet Protocol) network. Among other implications, this means that no other system has access to a Välkky unit or the patterns of fact it's capable of registering.
- No analytics are applied to sensor activations. Välkky doesn't attempt to build any more elaborate model of the world than the extremely simple one reflected in the equation pedestrian = flashing light. No higher-order inference, whether one with political and economic implications or otherwise, is enabled by the presence and operation of the sensor.
While manufacturer Havainne has expressed a clear intent to enhance the (perceived) value of their product — and perhaps muddy our case — by reversing some of the above measures, these are the facts at present, as they pertain to a basic Välkky installation. And there is one final, highly salient fact about Välkky that helps us place it at one pole of our spectrum of concern:
- There is a clear and inarguable public good directly served by the presence of the data-collecting object.
That is to say that, while nothing exists to prevent some sufficiently skeptical party from lodging an ROI-based argument against a deployment of Välkky sensors, it can clearly be argued that such a deployment would benefit public health and safety. Havainne claims a measured reduction in driving speeds of 4-5% at intersections where a Välkky array has been installed, the upper value of which has been correlated in previous tests with a 20% reduction in fatalities and a 10% reduction in the rate of vehicular accidents resulting in serious injury.
These facts help establish a few basic parameters around the performance of information-gathering systems in public space, and begin to furnish us with a set of desiderata for their ethically responsible design. I would argue that a system whose collection of information has strictly local and immediate effect, serves some public good, and in the operation of which any trace of the information collected expires and leaves the world immediately, need not be of terrible concern to us here. This doesn't mean that all such systems are necessarily innocuous — it would be relatively easy to devise a system that met all of these criteria, yet which nevertheless affected the environment in undesirable ways — but they can at least be said to conserve privacy.
From Välkky, however, it gets significantly harder to defend the right of systems to collect information from public space, at least as classes rather than particular instances.
2. Innocuous but with some underlying capacity for collection
A transitional case is presented by a 2009 interactive advertisement for Amnesty International, designed by Hamburg's Jung von Matt agency, and apparently only ever deployed at a single bus shelter in Berlin. The advertisement consisted of an image of a young couple — to all appearances loving and happy — displayed on a video screen, which was in turn all but imperceptibly equipped with an eyetracking camera. The latter was trained on the people waiting in the shelter; as long as anybody happened to be watching the screen, the couple maintained their placid pretense, but when the camera failed to report anyone paying active attention, the onscreen image slowly morphed to one in which the husband was beating his cowering wife. (This, of course, was immediately replaced with the happier image the moment the camera registered that anybody had noticed.)
This ad was no doubt effective in reinforcing the message that domestic abuse is something that happens when no one is watching, and indeed the ad won a Silver Lion at Cannes that year. So it's tempting to conclude that this collection of data, too, is untarnished by any cause for concern. Even when we consider the Amnesty ad through the lens of the criteria we'd established with Välkky, at first blush the two systems seem to have a great deal in common: both rely on a local collection of data to accomplish a local effect, no record of which is kept, transmitted to any other system, or used to build a potentially problematic inferential model of behavior.
But there is — to my mind, anyway — a meaningful distinction between the two. Unlike Välkky, there is no public benefit directly associated with the ad's data collection. The cause espoused may well enjoy an unimpeachable claim to moral correctness, but the context nevertheless remains that of advertisement. Replace the Amnesty content with something less capable of furnishing a fig leaf of respectability through a socially beneficial message, and we can more clearly see the true outlines of the situation.
3. Mildly disruptive and disrespectful
Here's where we start to get into murkier territory. The next information-gathering artifact on our spectrum of concern is just such a thing: an advertisement for Nikon that appeared in the corridors of the Seoul Metro's Sindorim Station in 2010. This ad, developed by the Cheil Worldwide agency, coupled a physical red carpet to an adjacent lightbox image featuring a pack of paparazzi (wielding Nikon cameras, naturally). The carpet disguised the presence of a motion detector which, when tripped, "alerted" the paparazzi, all of whose cameras flashed at once, in a silent flare of light.
The parameters of information collection are identical with the Amnesty ad: a sensor registers the presence of a passer-by and activates a local response, with no record maintained, stored or transmitted. But in the absence of even mildly justificatory content, the ad's erosive effect on the quality of public space becomes clearer. While it ostensibly, in the words of the advertising agency, "made people feel as though they became superstars, walking down a red carpet for a luxurious award," contemporary documentation makes it clear that the actual reaction of pedestrians exposed to the ad was one of puzzlement, verging on dismay. As common sense would lead us to suspect, the experience of having one's thoughts interrupted by a fusillade of camera flashes is somewhat less than enjoyable.
To be honest, though, that's about the worst that can be said for this ad. While I, personally, may not appreciate its impact on my experience, that impact may not breach community norms to the degree that regulation is an appropriate response. And as we've seen with the earlier examples, any potential hazard to privacy is contained by the ad's strictly local domain of effect and inability to store or leverage the information it collects.
4. Problematically predictive and normative
The same things cannot, however, be said of our next example, the Acure vending machine, designed by industrial designer Fumie Shibata for JR East. On its surface, the Acure simply appears to be a clever updating of the conventional beverage-vending machine for a digital age; fronted by a bright and attractive 47-inch touchscreen display, it displays high-resolution imagery of the products it offers, as well as a variety of "attract mode" animations appropriate to the season, ambient temperature and time of day.
More problematically, however, the cleverness runs deeper: as with the Amnesty ad, as you're watching Acure, it is watching you back. But where the Amnesty ad used its camera to ascertain focus of attention, unmoored from any identificatory attribute, Acure is interested in learning certain specific things about you, namely, your age and sex. It uses these facts not merely to predict the kinds of beverage a demographic profile suggests you will be interested in — which are then displayed preferentially — but to tailor certain aspects of the display and to refine the demographic model maintained on the central Acure server.
If you happen to be a statistical outlier, you will be very much less likely to find your tastes reflected in the selection of beverages presented to you. And because demographic data collected from every Acure machine in the network is used to determine stocking levels for subsequent orders — and potentially, in the fullness of time, even manufacturers' choices of what to produce and bring to market — that distinction is progressively reified and made ever more concrete. The consequence of this system design is that one's action, and the degree to which it conforms with the pre-existing demographic model, constrains the variety of choices made available to yourself and others, here and elsewhere, now and in the future.
What strikes me as troublesome about this may simply be a consequence of my not being Japanese. Having lived in Tokyo for three years, I recognize that the assertion that one's personal preferences follow from one's membership in a class or category, or ought to, is straightforwardly less problematic in the context of Japanese culture than it might be in North America. Being North American, though, I recoil at the notion that as a 43-year-old man, I "should" desire a beer at five in the afternoon...and I despair at the thought that, eventually, the only choices that might be made available to me are those known to appeal to a statistically median person of my age and gender. (Anyone familiar with the autistically reductionist logic of technological development — or the ruthless pressure toward systemic optimization inherent in late capitalism — understands this is not nearly as ad absurdum a scenario as it might sound.)
5. Surreptitious collection with inherently predictive and normative potential
Acure's troublingly predictive, normative and reifying capabilities are a direct consequence of its ability to gather information from users, in the absence of either caution or consent. Not coincidentally, this same dynamic is responsible for much of the apprehension I have about the service that currently stands at the far pole of our spectrum of concern, the VidiReports video-analytics software package offered by the French concern Quividi. (Appropriately enough, this is Latin for "he who watches.")
But where the vending machine confines itself to the collection of information from people who have at least made an active choice to use it, VidiReports gathers information from both those engaged with it and from people who have made no such choice. It's software designed to be installed at the back end of so-called "bi-directional" video billboards mounted in public space — billboards, that is, that are equipped with outward-facing cameras. Since such cameras are, again, intentionally designed to be hard to see, the imagery they gather (whether of active viewers or of unwitting passers-by) is of people who are almost certainly unaware that they are being captured on video.
And if most of those whose image is captured in this way would be surprised to learn of it, they would likely be astounded by the degree of analysis to which such imagery is subjected. VidiReports isolates individuals in its field of vision and, via a real-time consideration of some 80 indexical facial features, determines their sex, age (within four bands) and ethnicity. A "glance counter" included in some versions of the software — working off the index of light reflected from watchers' eyeballs — develops an attention metric that is closely correlated to both this underlying demographic profiling and a frame-by-frame tracking of the video content being displayed.
That is to say, in plain language, that VidiReports claims to be able to tell its users specifically who watches what, and for how long. By extension, it also helps its users develop a reasonably sophisticated understanding of which content does not engage attention.
In a perfect world, this would be immaterial. But in our world, it's cause for concern along several axes:
Firstly, there are the reasonably foreseeable implications of this fine-grained awareness for the texture of public space.
We know that, to the marketer's mind, not all potential viewers are equal; people belonging to certain broad demographic categories are perceived to enjoy and dispose of a greater share of income, making their attention differentially more desirable and more worth pursuing.
Coupled with the power VidiReports offers to determine precisely what imagery reliably entrains the attention of individuals of known age and sex, the implications are clear. If, for example, the grandeur is perceived to reside in "Men 18-34," then an ever-greater percentage of imagery presented on screens in public space will be calibrated to appeal to that demographic — and, as the capability for precision eyetracking is incorporated into the software, that imagery will cover an ever-greater percentage of the screen itself.
This raises the odd prospect of entire districts of a city whose performance in the visual register is calibrated to appeal to one and only one constituency, understood as a notional demographic bloc with no precise real-world correlate. If you want a vision of the urban future, imagine one enormous Girls Gone Wild commercial, projected at a human face — forever. The consequences for those who, for whatever reason, do not find such content appealing (or simply don't find it so at this very moment) will be predictably unpleasant.
Secondly, while data collections such as those made by VidiReports are invariably characterized by their promoters as safely and reliably "anonymous," subsequent analysis by more sophisticated (and less interested) parties indicates that under certain circumstances, more than enough information is retrieved by such systems to permit the reasonably ready identification of a particular individual.
Latanya Sweeney, director of the Laboratory for International Data Privacy at Carnegie Mellon University, points out that this is the predictable consequence of an age of rapid online relational analysis, when correlations may trivially be made between information harvested from a point collection and pre-existing, widely available networked data sets. Cross-indexing a single VidiReports collection set against a sufficiently powerful analysis of public Flickr imagery, for example, would result in a surprisingly good chance of determining an individual's name and social graph.
Sweeney argues strongly, therefore, that nominal de-identification is no longer a particularly viable privacy-conservation strategy. But this message either has yet to reach the marketers, or, what is as likely, is being deliberately discounted and downplayed. Nevertheless, the inherent potential for abuse — especially when such identification is coupled to real-time location, to say nothing of millisecond-resolution data about an individual's habitual patterns of attention — is obvious.
Thirdly, there are of course information-security considerations in any such collection. While the thought that potentially personally identificatory data may be vested in the stewardship of a single private concern is troubling enough, when that data has been garnered without my notification or consent, worse still is the prospect that Quividi (or any organization in its position) may in time lose control over its assets.
Without being hyperbolic about matters, we can fairly regard the escape of a database correlating unique (and hard to conceal or alter) biometric signatures with the known presence of the person bearing those signatures at a given place and time as a master key capable of unlocking the sensitive information enfolded in many another ostensibly anonymized datasets.
Finally, it should be clear that any system with a business model like that the commercial viability of VidiReports is predicated upon represents a unidirectional and involuntary transfer of value from individuals moving in public space to private concerns unknown to them.
Since a null response is still a meaningful finding so far as the creators and sponsors of content are concerned, every person who walks by a VidiReports-equipped billboard and does not react to the imagery presented thereupon furnishes clients with a valuable insight. This has the effect of leaching economic advantage off of the streetscape — again, advantage derived from the unconscious, everyday actions and behaviors of citizens entirely unaware that they are generating it, none of whom have been asked to contribute, and none of whom stand to benefit in even an indirect way from the analysis performed on their activity.
Frankly, I have a hard time imagining a set of circumstances in which billboard owners/operators might effectively and in real time (a) notify passers-by of their intention to use VidiReports (or any bi-directional display technology) to collect information from members of the public; (b) seek consent to that collection; and (c) differentially disable sensor acquisition if consent is denied — if for no other reason than that the product's entire value proposition relies crucially on the notion that the subject of analysis is unaware that they are any such thing.
Taken together, these issues make VidiReports (and the many similar products, with names like Immersive Media, intuVision, Cognovision and AIM) something that ought to concern any public agency charged with the protection of citizen privacy. We're a long way from Välkky now, and have completely inverted its proposition of taking little and giving much in return:
- Where Välkky has a strictly local area of effect, VidiReports causes changes to occur in the world that are both arbitrarily remote physically, and arbitrarily displaced in time, from the site of collection;
- Where Välkky only registers the presence or absence of a moving object that may not even be human, VidiReports brings multiple regimes of sensing and analysis to bear on individuals, in an attempt to characterize them robustly and derive economic value from that characterization;
- Where the "knowledge" generated by Välkky expires immediately, the information gathered by VidiReports is stored indefinitely, and persists on the network for as long as any single copy of a record containing it is extant;
- Where some clear public good is served by Välkky, VidiReports not merely offers no such justification, but actively undercuts an individual's reasonable expectation of anonymity in public, and otherwise damages the common spatial domain.
6. Conclusion and recommendations
At the zenith of the aspirations inscribed in something like VidiReports is the ambition to personally identify pedestrians in motion and serve them with advertising tailored not merely to a demographic, nor even to them individually, but to their observed reactions in real time — as their gaze is seen to travel and drift, as their desire for now this, later that experience registers as one or another discernible biometric trace.
Thankfully, a system with such capabilities exists nowhere yet but in fictions like Minority Report and the dreams of marketers. I don't, however, think it's safe to be complacent on the question; as UCSD researcher Kelly Gates makes clear in her 2010 Our Biometric Future, technologies of remote facial detection, pattern-matching and recognition are already well advanced, with automated expression analysis not far behind. (In the United States, particularly rapid progress in the domain is a likely consequence of continuing infusions of funding from DARPA and the Department of Homeland Security. As has perennially been the case, since at least the First World War, technologies first perfected on overseas battlefields and the bodies of the safely Other are sooner or later brought to bear on the domestic environment and the people living in it, in a dynamic known as blowback.)
Nor should we underestimate the difficulty of effectively conveying the privacy risks of these and similar technologies to the people exposed to them. In truth, the power/knowledge relations in all the above scenarios are artificially easy to prise apart and understand, associated as they are with discrete macroscopic artifacts that can be seen, touched, experimented with, blocked, or regulated. When these qualities obtain, countermeasures are relatively simple to devise and put into effect. But most scenarios where privacy is at risk from embedded, networked information-gathering technologies are not likely to be so straightforward. It is much harder to understand what is at stake when invidious power/knowledge relations are simply immanent in a given location — whether because these are primarily instantiated in and by software, or because they exist only as an emergent phenomenon of a group of objects which are innocuous in and of themselves, and only constitute a threat to privacy when yoked into a functional ensemble.
It's for all of these reasons that I believe the regulatory community has such an important role to play in shaping our collective encounters with such technologies. It's not for me as a New Yorker or a citizen of the United States to tell you what I think it most appropriate to permit and what sharply limit in your cities. But I do strongly believe that anyone who understands these technologies and their implications now has the obligation to explain them to the ordinary, everyday, nonspecialist people exposed to them: to delineate how technical systems achieve their effects, to lay out what is at stake, and to help individuals and communities formulate appropriate responses to them. My hope is that I've been able to do so effectively here, and it will be of use to you in your effort to devise the right fit between emergent technical potentials and Canadian values. I thank you for your time and attention.
Havainne Välkky traffic sensor
Amnesty International eyetracking advertisement
Nikon "Sensory Lightbox" advertisement
General resource on so-called "bi-directional" displays
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St Matthew's Church Hall is ideal for small events, celebrations and meetings. You can hire it for a single event, or for regular activities (including classes). It has an excellent kitchen, with range cooker (photos below), microwave and fridge (sorry, no freezer), and it can seat forty people for a meal, with tables, crockery and cutlery. There is level access, disabled parking and toilet, plus baby-changing facilities.
Although it is not licensed for public entertainment or the sale of alcohol, that doesn't affect your private event. Bring your own sound, video, broadband. The hall is curtained for films and illustrated talks.
Regular activities need your own Public Liability Insurance and Safeguarding Plan.
We are near the A6/A38 junction, two miles north of Derby. The hall is boldly marked Fellowship Room, on the car park side of the church.
To enquire about the hall, and to make a booking, please contact the Church Administrator Jo Peace on 01332 552031 or email her at email@example.com. The rates are very reasonable, with a special price for a child's party.
Here is the Fellowship Room from the outside, and hosting a party after the St Matthew's day service.

subset: commoncrawl


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Our bridge club is being forced to move and is looking into forming a 5013C to solicit funds for the $60k we need for tenant improvements to sign a commercial lease. Before we bother a club member who is an accountant, does anyone have experience doing this for a bridge club and is willing to offer advice and/or warn us of pitfalls?
An inquiry of the ACBL, perhaps not surprisingly, went unanswered.
How does this violate our Community Guidelines?
Benefits include:
Plus... it's free!


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SmartOrg® Releases Portfolio Navigator® 7 Web-Based Portfolio Evaluation Platform
MENLO PARK, Calif., May 23, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — SmartOrg®, Inc. (www.smartorg.com), announces the release of its Portfolio Navigator® 7 web-based portfolio evaluation platform. The new generation software gives executives and managers the tools to connect Innovation and Finance and to focus development investment on the most valuable opportunities.
SmartOrg's Portfolio Navigator® 7 portfolio evaluation platform (https://smartorg.com/portfolio-navigator-7/) builds its customers' capability to overcome conflict on development priorities and to drive breakthrough growth. It embodies methods that help innovation and finance teams agree on how to drive upside and on where and how much to invest in innovation and R&D. The Portfolio Navigator® web platform administers and conducts the evaluation of uncertain opportunities, aggregates and compares them, and optimizes the innovation/R&D portfolio.
Significant enhancements in this latest release include:
Universal I/O. Any inputs, outputs, table inputs and table outputs in our system can now be exported to Excel quite easily, at any level in the tree. Dr. Somik Raha, SmartOrg's Head of Product Development, explains, «You can modify the data, paste it back in, and the user interface will color the input and outputs that have changed. This color-coding allows you to bring in a test-driven approach to analytics.»
Viewing Probability Distributions. Portfolio Navigator® 7 includes a «metalog» distribution tool that lets you visualize the probability of project success in view of all the uncertainty factors for that project.
Portfolio-Level Changelogs. Changed elements in the portfolio now have hotlinks to allow users to audit and validate changes rapidly.
Breadcrumb Displays. Portfolio Navigator® 7 provides instant contextual navigation tools for any data view.
«Portfolio Navigator® 7 markedly improves your capability to deliver credible and comparable evaluations so your teammates can make and accept portfolio decisions,» says David Matheson, SmartOrg's President and CEO. «This ultimately makes it easier for you to uncover and unleash hidden growth opportunities.»
See some of these new features in the accompanying video.
About SmartOrg, Inc.: Founded in 2000 and privately held, SmartOrg's strategic portfolio evaluation platform and associated services align innovation and finance to overcome conflict and drive breakthrough growth. SmartOrg's software is used by companies in a wide range of industries, including oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, engineered materials, consumer products, and agriculture. To learn more about SmartOrg, visit www.smartorg.com.
Stuart Creque
Marketing Communications Manager
Phone: +1 (650) 470-0184
Email: [email protected]
To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/smartorg-releases-portfolio-navigator-7-web-based-portfolio-evaluation-platform-300461929.html
SOURCE SmartOrg, Inc.


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Whew! It took a while to get this new layout right, there were so many bugs and I had to do it over four times!!
I got bored of the old layout, and especially the white background. I couldn't stand all that white anymore, so I looked all over for one that suited my purpose and made sure it wasn't white!
I hope you all like this one. =)
Anyway, I know I've been a bit slow on updating my reviews lately, I blame it on the old layout, I was just so sick of it! =P
I'll do better now that I've got a new look, I promise! =)
I've still got some things I need to work on... links, for one, because the old one was outdated, and I haven't linked to some of my new favorite book blogs. Please be patient with that.
Another thing is that I've changed my commenting system to Disqus, so unfortunately all the old comments were deleted! =(
I'm going to see if I can log in to my old commenting system account and manually enter some of the more recent entries. It's a shame if the old comments are lost because there were some really great ones.
So anyway, lots to do, and many books to review too! Talk later! =)
(PS. Ok, fine, there's some white in the layout, but at least it's not the whole background! =P )


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Industry/Use Case
We are happy to engage with Mettl in conducting our online examination. Mettl's platform has really helped us to reach out to potential students in remote locations not only in India but also abroad. We are sure that Mettl's disruptive technology would attract lot more universities in changing the method of conducting online examinations in India.
Vice Chancellor UPES


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A pleasant evening at Peter and Jayshree's house with a trio of international students.
Monday, December 10, 2007
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This is the photo blog of Stephen Michael Barnett, now working in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. It is a grab bag of things,personal interests etc illustrated with my digital photos.


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She Had Bellyache And Gave Birth To Very Rare Twins, But Wait Until You Find Out What Happened Next
Mar 29 2015
They saw a lot of things coming, but this wasn't one of them.Read More
He Is Blind And His Best Friend Lost His Arms, What They Did Together? World Changing
Mar 23 2015
"I am his hands and arms, And he is my eyes. We are good partners and want to create a better world for our future generations."Read More
She Was Invited At Her Own Funeral. What The Family Said About Her? Heart Breaking
Mar 21 2015
The message is strong and should be a lesson for everybody!Read More
His Parents Left Him When They Saw How He Looks, But Now He Has A Great Story
Mar 13 2015
What a hero, first he was abandoned but now he accepts everything and also inspires other people.Read More
This Single Dad Couldn't Comb Her Daughter's Hair, So He Did Something Brilliant
Mar 12 2015
Greg Wickherst is a single dad of a little girl called Izzy. One of his tasks is to take care of her hair every morning but he just doesn't know how.Read More
Her Fetal Ultrasound Was At First Sight Normal. But Then They Saw Something That Left Everybody Speechless
Mar 10 2015
After their routine they found very something remarkable.Read More


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The Polaris Music Prize Long List has been unveiled live at The Drake Hotel in Toronto, Canada! Well over 200 Canadian albums have been narrowed down to 40. You can find the Long List here.
"The 10 album Short List will be unveiled on July 17. This year's Polaris Gala is September 17 at The Carlu in Toronto, Ont.
The Polaris Music Prize awards $50,000 to the artist who creates the Canadian Album of the Year, judged solely on artistic merit, without consideration for genre or record sales. Additionally, the nine other nominated acts whose albums make the 2018 Short List will receive $3,000 each courtesy of Slaight Music.
Albums eligible for 2018 Polaris Music Prize consideration must be released between June 1, 2017 and May 31, 2018. An independent jury of music journalists, broadcasters and bloggers from across Canada determine the Long List and Short List. Eleven people from the larger jury pool are then chosen to serve on the Grand Jury. This Grand Jury convene on the night of the Gala to select the Polaris Music Prize winner.
Past winners have included Lido Pimienta (2017), Kaytranada (2016), Buffy Sainte-Marie (2015), Tanya Tagaq (2014), Godspeed You! Black Emperor (2013), Feist (2012), Arcade Fire (2011), Karkwa (2010), Fucked Up (2009), Caribou (2008), Patrick Watson (2007) and Final Fantasy / Owen Pallett (2006)." (From the Polaris Music Prize website)
Four out of five albums on my ballot made it to the long list. Esmerine didn't make it but that doesn't surprise me much. There are a few more people aware of them and liking what they heard so that's good. I am very excited that The Barr Brothers are on the list as they were at the top of my ballot! The album has layers of vocals with wonderful harmonies and interesting instrumentation that make repeated listens a delight. Next on the ballot was Jeremy Dutcher's album which was a very interesting project and you can read more about it at Exclaim. I wanted to vote for a Saskatchewan artist in this round and that went to Kacy and Clayton. This young second cousin duo have made a fantastic album with the help of Jeff Tweedy. You can read more about that at Exclaim as well. Last on my ballot I wanted to vote for a strong female lead or solo artist and that went to U.S. Girls. It's a socio-political album that you can dance to. Read more about it at NOW.
One of my favourite parts of Polaris is discovering new to me artists. Jeremy Dutcher was one of those. Some others were Melissa Laveaux, Hubert Lenoir, LOUD, Afrotronix and Snotty Nose Rez Kids. I will be listening to the 40 albums repeatedly for the next month to help me cast my 5 votes on my ballot for the short list. It won't be easy decisions but I feel quite certain The Barr Brothers and probably Jeremy Dutcher as well, will remain on my ballot. I am not sure who will fill the remaining spots at this point. Only listening will tell.
We have two playlists to listen to again this week. One is OurBasement's Long List and the other is the Polaris Music Prize Long List. There are some artists in common but I chose different tracks to represent them. I didn't get as many replies as I had hoped for OurBasement's list so the last 20 or so are from DarBar's long list to get it to 40.
I couldn't find a playable Booji Boys, who are on the Polaris Music Prize Long List, on Spotify so you can go to bandcamp to check them out.
What do you think? Which playlist do you like better? What albums didn't make it to the long list that you think should have?


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1ST YEAR: Paper
2ND YEAR: Cotton
3RD YEAR: Leather
4TH YEAR: Fruit & Flowers, or Linen & Silk
5TH YEAR: Wood
6TH YEAR: Iron / Candy
7TH YEAR: Wool/ Copper
9TH YEAR: Pottery
10TH YEAR: Tin/ Aluminum
11TH YEAR: Steel
12TH YEAR: Silk
13TH YEAR: Lace
14TH YEAR: Ivory
15TH YEAR: Crystal
20TH YEAR: China
25TH YEAR: Silver
30TH YEAR: Pearl
35TH YEAR: Coral
40TH YEAR: Ruby
45TH YEAR: Sapphire
50TH YEAR: Gold
55TH YEAR: Emerald
60TH YEAR: Diamond
Celebrations are all around at the moment! I was at a 10th wedding anniversary party last night and I know a couple celebrating 23 years on the 5th, another couple clocking up 28 years on the 13th. November seems to be a month of anniversaries for me and my friends, which is a little surprising given that when I got married (19th November) in England it was winter and cold and not necessarily a month you'd choose to celebrate your special day. But, intrepid people that we are (LOL), we decided to brave the cold and dark afternoons and 25 years ago we signed on the dotted line. Then we went to Scotland for our honeymoon. SNOW! We married on a budget so I don't have any glossy photos, just a few snapshots from friends, but I look at them now and can't believe how young we look!
It honestly doesn't feel like it's been that long, it seems like only yesterday when we were standing in that register office promising a lifetime of love
Because we had such an amazing trip to Europe earlier this year, and currently have no family with us, we won't be having a huge celebration, so we've booked a couple of nights on Waiheke island (a short ferry ride from where we live), and a long lunch at our favourite vineyard. Quite fitting as, judging by this picture, I have loved not only him, but wine for many years!
Anyway… call me materialistic but I'm pretty happy we've finally got down to the interesting gifts part of marriage. Silver sounds a lot more me than leather or steel. Iron, I have to confess, sounds too domestic and I'm really not happy about ivory. And fruit????? To celebrate 4 years? Who thought up these things?
Silver on the other hand… I really hope that after 25 years he knows me well enough that silver with a diamond always works! I'll let you know!
Any celebrations or milestones coming up for you? Do share so we can all celebrate with you.
Talking of milestones, I never told you about Book 4 in my (not medical romance) Something Borrowed series which came out in September. It's a standalone story, which means you don't need to have read the other books in the series to understand the storyline. It has a divine cover, don't you think?
Here's the blurb:
After being scammed by her own boyfriend Katriona Croft is big on honesty and loyalty. No way will she ever fall again for some two-bit scammer with a pretty face. But when Gabe Cassidy arrives in Portobello with a story about secrets and lies, and touting the sexiest smile she's ever seen, all her resolve is blown apart and her loyalty to her best friend is sorely tested.
All his life Gabe's mantra has been that being alone is better than being broken. But when he overhears a conversation in a pub his life is tipped upside down and instead of being alone he finds himself very much in the middle of a big family feud. Kat Croft seems to be the key to fixing it all, but any alone time with her makes things even more complicated… But can Gabe convince the woman who has lost all trust to take a chance on sharing a whole lot more than secrets?
Available from all good e-book stores!


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Now that special counsel Robert Mueller's report has declared President Donald Trump and his campaign did not collude with the Russians in any way before or after the 2016 presidential election, the media has some serious explaining to do, according to Matt Taibbi.
Taibbi, an award-winning reporter for Rolling Stone and others, charged that the media ignored its own rules, stepped outside its job description to become advocates rather than informed observers, and repeatedly "connected too many dots that do not really add up."
"It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD" – subhead: "The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it," read the headlines on Taibbi's piece, which he published in the runup to release of his upcoming book, "Hate Inc."
Taibbi accused the press of covering the Mueller investigation not as a "neutral fact-finding mission" but as something closer to "religious allegory, with Mueller cast as the hero sent to slay the monster."
He pointed to a piece on Sunday by Peter Baker of the New York Times that "tried to preserve Santa Mueller's reputation" – Baker reported Attorney General William Barr said he "never had to intervene to keep Mr. Mueller from taking an inappropriate or unwarranted step" – and had added the seemingly obligatory list of "Trump-Russia 'contacts,' inviting readers to keep making connections."
But he pointed to a Baker quote: "It will be a reckoning for President Trump, to be sure, but also for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, for Congress, for Democrats, for Republicans, for the news media and yes, for the system as a whole."
Baker was trying to prepare readers for the question of whether journalists had connected too many dots that didn't add up, Taibbi wrote, and the consequences for the 2020 election and beyond could not be larger.
"Nothing Trump is accused of from now on by the press will be believed by huge chunks of the population, a group that (perhaps thanks to this story) is now larger than his original base," Taibbi wrote. "As Baker notes, a full 50.3 percent of respondents in a poll conducted this month said they agree with Trump the Mueller probe is a 'witch hunt.'"
Taibbi pointed to stories in recent months warning the Mueller report might "leave audiences 'disappointed,' as if a president not being a foreign spy could somehow be bad news."
The press, he wrote, doesn't even realize how bad it looks when it uses such language, particularly when "news does not match audience expectations you raised." He called it the "journalistic equivalent of walking outside without pants."
He recounted some of the now-apparent lies media told about the president.
The New York Times said Trump had "repeated contacts" with Russian intelligence; the Wall Street Journal said spy agencies were withholding intelligence form the president out of fear he was compromised; CNN said Trump officials had been in "'constant contact' with 'Russians known to U.S. intelligence' and gobbled it up when former CIA director John Brennan suggested the president was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and was committing acts "'nothing short of treasonous.'"
The Steele dossier itself was not sufficient for a story – its contents were bizarre, extreme and unproven. But once it had changed hands – once then-FBI Director James Comey had warned President Trump about its contents – then stories could be written saying, as CNN did, that "classified documents" were "presented last week to Trump."
"The reports surrounding Steele technically weren't about the allegations themselves, but rather the journey of those allegations, from one set of official hands to another. Handing the report to Trump created a perfect pretext," Taibbi wrote.
This led to an outbreak of what is known as "'stove-piping,' i.e. officials using the press to 'confirm' information the officials themselves fed the reporter," Taibbi said.
"There has been a consistent pattern throughout #Russiagate," Taibbi noted. "Step one: salacious headline. Step two: days or weeks later: news emerges the story is shakier than first believed. Step three (in the best case) involves the story being walked back or retracted by the same publication."


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Introduction to Modeling Count Data
Generalized linear models are an extension of ordinary linear regression models when the response is not normally distributed. This is the case when working with count data, as counts are whole numbers, bounded by zero and often have a right skewed distribution. The workshop will first introduce an appropriate discrete distribution for count data: the Poisson distribution. Then the application and interpretation of the type of generalized linear models most often used for count data, namely, Poisson regression models, will be covered. The workshop will also discuss how to detect and mitigate the effects of overdispersion using quasi-poisson and negative binominal regression models. Zero-inflated models and hurdle models will be discussed as techniques to deal with high occurrence of zeros in the observed data.
After attending this workshop, you should be able to:
- Decide whether Poisson regression is appropriate for your data
- Implement and interpret results from a Poisson regression analysis
- Test which Poisson regression model best fits the data
- Detect and understand the effects of overdispersion and zero-inflation
- Determine whether a hurdle model or a zero-inflated model is applicable
Fee: None to members of the Cornell community, but registration is required.
For times and locations of upcoming workshops, please see the Workshop Schedule.


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Holding Employees Procountable
No, that is not a typo in the title. This article is a twist on the concept of "holding people accountable." Those three words seem to be the mantra in management circles over the past few years. When used, these words almost always mean that someone has fallen short versus expectations, and the supervisor needs to point out that lapse and have a discussion about improving performance. If you listen carefully, nearly 100% of the time managers use "hold them accountable," it is coming from a failure point of view.
One source of the problem is the word "hold." It conjures up an image of holding a person's feet to the fire. The transitive verb to hold means, " to make liable or accountable or bound to an obligation" (Mirriam Webster 11th Collegiate Dictionary). In other words, when we hold something in this sense, a force is acting to restrain it, and make it liable to a prior obligation. That is clearly negative spin rather than the alternate concept of helping people do the right thing for the betterment of the organization.
Imagine how the world would be different if we eliminated the negative concept of accountability and replaced it with a positive concept called "procountability." In this case, the action would be to reflect on the many ways an individual is doing well and measuring up to, or exceeding, expectations.
For most people, being held procountable would be a positive experience that would encourage more of those actions rather than cause a person to cower in fear of the next chewing out from the boss. Sure, there would be times when a person did not measure up to expectations, so the procountable discussion would point out that the intentions of the individual did not produce the expected result in this instance. Some coaching may be needed, and occasionally a kick in the butt may be helpful, but most of the procountable discussions would be supportive and lead to higher productivity on the part of the individual.
The logic here is that most people come to work on most days with the intention of doing the right things. Very few people actually try to mess up at work, and if you tolerate any of these people on your team, shame on you. Get rid of them as fast as you can. So, if most people are doing the right things most of the time, we could have numerous procountable discussions relative to their successes. When a occasional lapse does happen, for whatever reason, it would be the exception rather than the rule on feedback. That difference alone would change the equation greatly. If 95% of the feedback is coming in the form of supportive comments, and only 5% coming in the form of potential improvements, the working environment would be a much better place for most employees.
Unfortunately, in most organizations that obsess on holding people accountable, the feedback employees hear from managers and supervisors is 95% negative and only 5% supportive. After a while, the culture gets beaten down, and the need for more corrective and punitive discussions becomes more frequent. The common phrase uttered by thousands of workers over the decades is "the only time I ever hear from my boss is when I screw up."
Try reversing the logic and encourage managers to hold employees procountable rather than accountable. It will change the entire environment at work. Soon there will be a lower propensity for problems because the overwhelming volume of feedback produces a positive feeling that comes from being recognized for doing the right things.
Holding Employees Procountable (.pdf 78K)
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is author of: Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change, The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, and Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind. Bob had many years of experience as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. Bob Whipple is currently CEO of Leadergrow, Inc., an organization dedicated to growing leaders. For more information or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him by email, phone 585-392-7763, fill in the contact form on the Leadergrow Website, or BLOG.


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Category: donation
Claire Patterson Photo Collection
These photos were donated by Claire and Eliza Patterson. Most are of CCC Boys, Camps and projects. Locations include Roubaix, Black Fox, Park Creek and Flag Mountain. A couple of photos are of men in the military while at Pearl Harbor. Many of the Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees served in World War II after service in the CCC.
Flag Mountain
Claire and Eliza PattersonPhoto scans donated by CCC boy Claire Patterson
Posted with keywords: Claire Patterson,Sam Teupel,Allen Mueller,Milo Feleo,JB McAbel,Eliza,Spearfish,Flag Mt,cooks,Pearl Harbor,kitchen,fish pond,Black Fox,Roubaix,Park Creek,Rockerville,Savoy,CCC,Civilian Conservation Corps,South Dakota,Hill City,


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Public Policies against Global Warming
Hans-Werner Sinn
NBER Working Paper No. 13454
Judged by the principle of intertemporal Pareto optimality, insecure property rights and the greenhouse effect both imply overly rapid extraction of fossil carbon resources. A gradual expansion of demand-reducing public policies -- such as increasing ad-valorem taxes on carbon consumption or increasing subsidies for replacement technologies -- may exacerbate the problem as it gives resource owners the incentive to avoid future price reductions by anticipating their sales. Useful policies instead involve sequestration, afforestation, stabilization of property rights and emissions trading. Among the public finance measures, constant unit carbon taxes and source taxes on capital income for resource owners stand out.
Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX
Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w13454
Published: "Public Policies against Global Warming: a supply side approach", International Tax and Public Finance 15 (4), 2008, pp. 360-394; (Download, 1.9 MB); CESifo Working Paper No. 2087, August 2007; (Download, 841 KB).
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LONDON • Just when one thought that a win and two clean sheets in the last week had lifted everyone at Chelsea, the Blues were plunged into more crisis yesterday.
Manager Jose Mourinho was sent to the stands for voicing his displeasure over a red card to referee Jonathan Moss at the interval in the 2-1 Premier League loss to West Ham.
After an even start at Upton Park, Chelsea fell behind in the 17th minute when they failed to deal with a corner and Mauro Zarate drilled home. Then the tide turned totally against them.
First, a Kurt Zouma header was somehow scrambled off the line. Then, a Cesc Fabregas goal was disallowed for offside.
A minute before half-time, midfielder Nemanja Matic was sent off after a second yellow, which appeared a bit harsh. Assistant coach Silvino Louro got his marching orders for reacting furiously to the decision while Mourinho received the same treatment when he confronted the referee in the tunnel.
West Ham 2 Chelsea 1
Aston Villa 1 Swansea 2
Leicester 1 Crystal Palace 0
Stoke 0 Watford 2
Norwich 0 West Brom 1
Arsenal v Everton
Late kick-off
Sunderland v Newcastle
Ch102 & Ch227, 8pm
Bournemouth v Tottenham
Ch103 & Ch228, 10.05pm
Manchester United v Manchester City
Ch102 & Ch227, 10.05pm
Liverpool v Southampton
Ch102 & Ch227, tomorrow, 12.15am
All on Singtel TV and StarHub
In the 55th minute, Gary Cahill slotted home from a corner to level. But West Ham forward Andy Carroll made sure of three points when he looped a header home following a messy clearance by John Terry.


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The excitement is building for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the people of Brazil are putting everything they can into making this dynamic city the best it can be before they present it to the world later this year. They've had a head start of course, having hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup tournament which was attended by over 3 million people. In terms of logistics though, that was just a practice run, since there will be 7.5 million people attending the Olympics, with double the number of athletes and almost 5 times the number of volunteers. All these people will need to be housed, transported around, fed and entertained. So the pressure is on to get the planning right and ensure that everything runs smoothly.
Over the past few years Rio has undergone a complete transformation with the aim of making it a comfortable, easily accessible and safe place to visit. The transportation system has been vastly improved, with new routes ensuring that all areas of the city are connected, as well as increased bike lanes. The number of hotel rooms available has doubled since 2010 and there are now 372 hotels to choose from, 70 of which are brand new. The city's CCTV network has been increased to 560 cameras running 24/7, and street lighting has been improved, ensuring better security for tourists and locals alike. To top all of that, construction is almost complete onSantiago Calatrava'sMuseu do Amanhã – the Museum of Tomorrow. This architectural innovation has been built not only with its stylish design in mind, but also its environmental credentials – it is constructed from recycled materials, it uses solar energy for internal power and it is cooled by the water of Guanabar Bay which is filtered in the process to preserve marine life.
In addition to central Rio, close attention has been paid to the city's famous 'Favelas'. Responsibly-managed development and numerous community projects have ensured that quality of life for the residents has improved and that they are able to benefit from the increase in visitors to the city. On offer to tourists are several community tours where you can explore the favelas and listen to stories told by the people who live there. You can learn how the favelas have been used as sets in numerous films and enjoy the breath-taking views from the elevated neighbourhoods. You can also visit important community buildings, such as the schools and churches.
Overall, these extensive improvements mean that whether during the Olympic Games, or afterwards, Rio is now the ideal city for tourists to visit. The vibrant character of the city and its cultural attractions have been preserved, but it is now easier to explore and has an extensive choice of modern places to stay. With better transport links you can explore up and coming parts of Rio that were previously bypassed by tourists, such as Barra da Tijuca with its range of new hotels, pristine beach and shopping malls or São Conrado with its extensive opportunities for golfing, paragliding and trekking. Then return back to downtown and southern Rio for the excellent museums, nightlife, gastronomy and iconic beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon.
If you're considering a holiday to Brazil we can take care of all the details, planning a full itinerary that incorporates the best of Rio as well as other Brazilian highlights such as Iguazu Falls and the Pantanal. Contact us today and we'll turn that dream Brazil holiday into a reality.
Elfie Burgess


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Case: Salmonid trap and transport facility at Montta power plant, River Oulujoki
The trap and transport facility was completed at the end of August 2017 in conjunction with the Montta hydropower plant on the River Oulujoki. We use the trap and transport facility to capture salmon and trout as they migrate upstream; it enables the fish to efficiently and safely bypass the migration barriers. The facility covers the lower portion of the fishway. The salmonid swimming into the facility can be transferred into a tanker truck and transported across several power plant dams to tributaries upstream for spawning. Based on experiences gained elsewhere, this approach results in significantly more broodfish in the spawning areas than if all the necessary fishways between the sea and the spawning areas were built. Fortum has good experiences with transporting landlocked salmon in Sweden on the River Klarälven, which is harnessed for hydropower production.
From the Montta trap and transport facility, fish can also be transferred into reservoirs for fishing, or their roe that has gone through natural selection can be taken to the Montta fish farm where Fortum produces salmon and sea trout for stocking in the River Oulujoki.
The trap and transport facility is a joint project by Fortum, the Muhos, Utajärvi and Vaala municipalities, the North Ostrobothnia ELY Centre, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to revitalise salmon and trout in the River Oulujoki. The facility has special national significance because the experiences gained from it will be used in migratory fish projects on other constructed rivers.
The trap and transport facility is part of the overall management of fish populations in the River Oulujoki. Fish management is based on the stocking of migratory fish, strengthening the natural life cycle, and developing the quality of the fish to be stocked. In recent years, Fortum has invested over EUR 5.5 million in the modernisation of the Montta fish farm and the construction of the trap and transport facility. The trap and transport facility has also been financed by the Muhos, Utajärvi and Vaala municipalities, and the project has received Finnish Government's spearhead project funding from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.


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So, it's Π Day again! For my friend Michael, that would not be ampersand-pound-928-semicolon. It would be ampersand-pound-127829-semicolon, which is 🍕!
Meanwhile, please be sure to watch Vi Hart's video for 2019-03-14.
So, it's Π Day again! For my friend Michael, that would not be ampersand-pound-928-semicolon. It would be ampersand-pound-127829-semicolon, which is 🍕!
Meanwhile, please be sure to watch Vi Hart's video for 2019-03-14.
Filed under Amusements, News
I understand that advertisements are brief, so the iPhone ad by Apple featuring Maya Angelou's marvelous "Human Family" had to be limited to 60 sec. Ms. Angelou's poem runs 105 sec. So, of course, some parts of the poem had to be cut. Well, here's a link allowing you to hear Ms. Angelou reading the poem in it's entirety. Sorry. No photos shot on an iPhone or anything else. Just the the elegant, excellent words in her beautiful, more-alike-than-different, human-family voice.
Most readers will see the Apple advertisement without my help.
Filed under Arts, News, Notes and comments, Peace, Technology, Thanks for reading, What I'm reading, Words
http://xkcd.com/1572/. Complete it yourself. Pass it along to others.
Filed under Amusements, News, Other sites, Technology, What I'm reading
In "Your complete guide to the murder of net neutrality," Michael Hiltzik explains exactly why the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposal to allow Internet service providers to charge certain clients more for access to a fast lane spells the end to new neutrality. The proposal, being championed by Tom Wheeler, President B. Obama's appointee as chairman of the FCC, is a direct contradiction to positions Obama championed during his campaign for the presidency.
Wheeler's proposal, which is scheduled for a preliminary vote by the full FCC on May 15, has been assailed as a full-scale retreat from the open-Internet principle traditionally upheld by the commission, and explicitly supported by President Obama. Wheeler claims he's not backing away from net neutrality at all, and that assertions to the contrary are the product of "a great deal of misinformation."
He's blowing smoke. The critics are right. Wheeler's proposal will turn the Internet as we know it into the private preserve of a handful of rich and powerful companies. It will make them richer and more powerful. And you'll be getting the bill. If the commission votes for the proposal, it will then be subject to months of public comments. But the risk is it could become law by the end of this year.
In later parts of his column, Mr. Hiltzik explains why the big corporations will be able to use these developments to their advantage and to the detriment of we consumers. He also explains what we can do. It's well worth reading.
Filed under News, Notes and comments, Technology
If you haven't already, now's the time to do it. Run that update. It's under "Settings:General" And, until Apple releases a patch for OS X, you shouldn't use Safari to browse the Web when you're connecting to the Internet via a public WiFi on your laptop, either.
For the geeks, Adam Langley explained over on Imperial Violet and John Gruber of Daring Fireball opined why he figures NSA conspiracy theories are a bit of a reach.
Filed under News, Other sites, Technology, What I'm reading
Those folks at Barebones.com not only create marvelous pieces of software, but they have a sense of humor. Someone (Patrick, perhaps?) embedded in the support documents for Yojimbo, one of those products, a caution about users fiddling with some of the settings in that product:
The Yojimbo synchronization system contains no user-serviceable parts, and the cover should not be removed except by authorized service personnel in a static-free clean room environment.
Filed under Amusements, apps, News, Technology
Over on the NN/g Web site, Jen Cardello has an educational post about how to make the Healthcare.gov Web page much more readily navigable. It's heavily focused on usability in the account set-up process, and it's a beauty.
Alert readers will recognize NN/g (AKA the Nielsen Norman Group) as the public face of Jakob Nielsen, Don Norman, and their colleagues. Jen Cardello is a director for the operation. Learn more at http://www.nngroup.com/people/.
Filed under News, Other sites, Technology
Among the many marvelous features at Virginia's Herpatological Society are excellent photographs of of indigenous snakes along with important information about their status in the Commonwealth. For example, not only can one learn where different subspecies are usually found—I saw a beautiful, > 1-meter Northern Black Racer on our porch this afternoon; it went racing down the garden stairs after it saw me!— but also size, alternative names, and many other facts (e.g., conservation needs). Of course, because folks get freaky about venomous snakes, there are identification guides, though that part is pretty easy.
But, back to the other interesting stuff. For example, I was surprised to learn that there is a Glossy Crayfish Snake. I'd never heard of such! It turns out that this beauty has a range that is restricted pretty much to what is called the Virginia Pennisula, and then only a small part of it. The Wikipedia page about the GCS didn't have it even living in Virginia, so I updated that document, based on the VaDGIF documents.
What's a serious bummer is that this snake apparently is on the verge of extirpation in the Commonwealth. Now, I like crayfish, but I don't mind competing against a little snake for a few. They may have have their share, but I don't want to drive them out of Virginia; they've surely been here longer then I have. I have to guess they are losing in the space wars…people probably are moving into their territory. Read all about it! Wouldn't that be a bummer if they were no longer living in that neighborhood?
Meanwhile, among the other cool things one can do at the Herp Site: If you see a Box Turtle, submit the data! Yep, you might remember Brer Terrapin because he won the race. Well his appearances on roadsides and backyards are being collected by the Herp Folx. Send yours in today using this link. (There ought to be an app for this, but for now, the image is hot, too.) It'd be pretty cool to help track the movements of large numbers of Box Turtles, no?
Filed under Amusements, Eco-stuff, Neighborhood, News, Notes and comments, Science, Technology
I look at maps frequently and at length. I find them fascinating. Aerial images also appeal to me, because they have a map-like quality. Among those that have intrigued me are images of Earth showing lights at night. I came upon a new one to me recently and am sharing it here, in case others might has a similar interest.
I snagged this image from a section of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Web site devoted to the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument on the Suomi NPP satellite. Interested readers can go to the page called "Our Earth at night" to read lots more, but here's a snippet to explain a bit.
Continue reading
Filed under Amusements, Eco-stuff, Notes and comments, Science, Technology
It's easy to doubt this equation in the political season, but BSers are common on TV and in the newspapers.
Well, The data folx are getting their due, as Nate Silver, Drew Linzer, Daryl Homlman, and especially, Sam Wang get recognized by the smart press because these people are accurately calling election data. Their observations were pretty dang accurate. Even though some advocates called these data people's observations biased, it turns out that those observations may actually have been biased the opposite direction!
Filed under News, Politics, Technology


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This is a very sexy navel dangler. This seductive dangler has "foxy" dangling down from a heart shaped jewel. The barbell is made up of 316L Surgical Steel. The top bead of this item measures 5 mm. The size available for this item is 14 gauge with a length of 10mm - 3/8 of an inch. The jewel colors available are clear, light blue, and pink. This item is completely nickel free. This item is sold individually.
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Introduction: Cheapest and Easiest Stylus Ever
this is a type of pencil used for android tablets,touch phones,etc
Step 1: What Materials You Will Need
you will need a tissue, plastic packet, tape, a pencil and a scissors
Step 2: Basics
firstly wet the tissue with water fully
then place the tissue into the bag and squish it
seperate a huge piece of the tissue and keep the left overs in one of the bottom corners
Step 3: Almost There
push the pencil into the tissue ball
leave some access plastic on the pencil and then cut the rest of the bag off
take the tape and rap it around the the pencil until all plastic is covered
Step 4: Well Done
this is how it will look in the end
oh and by the way you can adjust the size of the tissue to your liking
have fun if it doesnt work properly then just add a comment and i'll reply
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10 Discussions
jiven whats you name on clash of heros
jiven m all caps
Love this!
this is a great one jive
thanks man XD
Oh, I'm going to try this on my stylus. It's the kind with a rubber tip and my nieces ripped it off. I've been trying to figure out how to fix it. thanks!
youre welcome
yes as i said at the end you can adjust the amount of tissue by making a smaller piece
good idea but it would be nice if there was a way to make the tip a little finer.


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Sell By
When: Sunday, October 6th @ 7:30 pm
Where: Row House Cinema (4115 Butler Street)
Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes
About the Film
Sell By has been called "a gay romantic comedy for people who hate romantic comedies" by Huffington Post. When it premiered at Toronto's Inside Out Festival this past spring and then played this summer at Outfest Los Angeles it earned positive feedback, and it's easy to see why.
Basically Sell By focuses on a gay couple that forms the nucleus of a large group of (mostly straight) friends in Manhattan, and there's not a weak performance in the ensemble.
At 36, Adam (Scott Evans), a frustrated artist, is beginning to despair that his aspirations are going nowhere. He's making ends meet as a "ghost painter," creating works for a famous artist (Patricia Clarkson) who passes off the paintings as her own.
Adam's 5-year relationship seems stalled as well. Recently his boyfriend Marklin (Augustus Prew) began earning acclaim and lots of money — and a number of persistent admirers — through his website on men's high-end fashion and Instagram following. However, Marlin has a secret, one that's adding strain to their relationship.
A star-studded line-up of characters play their friends, who also are spinning wheels professionally and emotionally: Adam's sister (Kate Walsh) is in a long-term relationship and wants the same for Adam; Cammy (Michelle Buteau) finds the perfect man (Colin Donnell) except for one thing; and Haley (Zoë Chao) coaches a college-bound numbskull (Christopher Gray), who's barely legal but anxious, and able, to demonstrate his appreciation.
Add Clarkson's cameo as a wealthy charlatan plus witty dialogue and Sell By makes an impressive directorial debut for veteran actor/screenwriter Mike Doyle. No wonder Sell By is getting such positive hype.
As Adam and Marklin struggle to reconnect, they are forced to reevaluate themselves, each other and the relationships of those around them. In the end will any of the characters get what they want? Or deserve?
Director: Mike Doyle
Film Sponsor
Mitch Leib & Michael Ferraro


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Apple Magnet Chalkboard Set
This product is currently sold out.
Get your ideas organized with this fun and functional decorative magnet chalkboard! Attach it to any flat magnetic surfaces in your kitchen, playroom or whereever else you can think to put it and leave sweet little messages and drawings for friends and family. The set includes an apple shaped chalkboard magnet, a chalk pen and eraser.
- Set includes chalkboard magnet, chalk pen and eraser
- Made in Japan
- Package: 6.7" x 6.5"
- Ages 4+


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The first Patch Tuesday of 2011 will see Microsoft release only two bulletins to address three vulnerabilities in Windows.
Set for release on Tuesday 11th, the first bulletin is important and affects Windows Vista, while the second bulletin is rated as critical and all supported versions of Windows are affected.
Carlene Chmaj, senior response communications manager at Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, said: "This month we will not be releasing updates to address Security Advisory 2490606 (public vulnerability affecting Windows Graphics Rendering Engine) and Security Advisory 2488013 (public vulnerability affecting Internet Explorer).
"We continue to actively monitor both vulnerabilities and for Advisory 2488013 we have started to see targeted attacks. If customers have not already, we recommend they consult the advisory for the mitigation recommendations."
Alan Bentley, SVP at Lumension, said: "After December's mammoth Patch Tuesday, which saw 17 patches fix over 40 vulnerabilities, security professionals might be breathing a sigh of relief at the few patches they have to deal with this month.
"However, I doubt there will be many putting their feet up just yet. Although Microsoft has acknowledged the Internet Explorer and Windows Graphics Rendering Engine zero-day issues, there is seemingly nothing addressing these critical vulnerabilities in the upcoming release. Microsoft has instead focused on releasing an 'important' patch for Windows Vista and a 'critical' patch for all versions of Windows that will fix three holes in its operating systems."
Wolfgang Kandek, CTO at Qualys, predicted that the two open zero-day flaws would be fixed this month especially as the security community is discussing the additional vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, while proof of concept code exists.
"Microsoft is working on some helpful guidelines for the risk assessment of the current advisories and the open zero-days. Their highest priority is the Internet Explorer issue which has a suggested workaround of using EMET, the Windows Explorer 'thumbnail' issue can be addressed by setting the permissions on the DLL in question, which is easy to do and has only a very limited usability impact (instead of displaying thumbnails of image files Explorer will only show generic icons)," he said.


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How many of you Metal Rioters out there have gone to your local record store of choice and picked up a new metal album solely based on the art that graces its cover? Unfortunately, with the growth of iTunes and Pandora it seems easier and easier to overlook album cover art in general, but in the world of Heavy Metal we're here to remind you that the art form is still alive and well!
Each Tuesday we will present to you the best album covers of the week and draw focus into what makes each cover so damn badass. Check out this week's offering right here and vote on which cover YOU think should win "Cover Art of the Week"!
We're back once again with a vast array of cover art goodness. So head on down and page through the gloriousness that is this week's heavy metal cover. AND VOTE WITH YOUR METAL HORNS IN THE AIR!!!
[poll id="19″]


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The Uniqueness of the CYBERIUM ARENA
The CYBERIUM ARENA does not have the visual flash of a computer game. We are not training participants to be gamers. Our approach is serious and purpose-driven. We are developing skills and teaching techniques in order to produce cybersecurity professionals who can cope with every challenge. The CYBERIUM ARENA is focused on cyber issues of operations technology and cyber risks of the infotech world. It is through these scenarios that participants are trained. Each scenario has a set of problems, featuring various servers and networks to expose participants to the variety of issues they will face in the real world.
Educational scenarios guide participants through the mission, providing information and tools, and teaching skills as needed. Real-life scenarios provide participants with actual past or possible situations from cybersecurity or cyberterrorism to solve.
Contact personsThink Cyber
Our experts are happy to help you.


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AHLA's Guides and Outfitters Policy Features
Introducing our new Guides and Outfitters program designed just for the dedicated professionals who work hard to put the rest of us on trophy animals!.
Since 2010 the American Hunting Lease Association has set the standard for protecting hunters, hunt clubs and landowners that have discovered the benefits of leasing hunting land. Over 5000 hunt clubs across the US have joined the AHLA and taken advantage of our affordable hunting lease liability insurance program.
We have worked closely with our insurance carrier to develop a master policy that provides Professional Guides and Outfitters with the professional coverage they need, but without the long application process and the inflated prices!
The AHLA risk management program provides your business with comprehensive liability coverage, our customized Hold Harmless/Liability waiver, a custom lease agreement for each additional insured listed and your AHLA membership. In addition, you will have the opportunity to provide guest blog posts and articles that will increase your exposure through our monthly newsletter to over 35,000 members a month!
Our affordable rates, our online process and next day coverage can only be found right here with the American Hunting Lease Association!
- $1,000,000 Bodily Injury and Property Damage Liability (per occurrence)
- $2,000,000 General Aggregate
- $1,000,000 Personal Injury and Advertising Liability (per occurrence)
- $1,000,000 Products / Completed Operations (Aggregate)
- $100,000 Damage To Rented Premises (Any One Fire)
- $5,000 Medical Pay
- Master Policy start dates January 1 and July 1. All policies run for one full year.
- Landowners can be listed as Additional Insured
- Liability from ATVs and Tree Stands are included
Coverage is provided by HDI Global Insurance Co. (AM Best rating A xv Excellent) and is underwritten by Assured Partners Inc.


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Search Latest Jobs in Pakistan Today
Join Pak Army | Wapda | Railway | Bank | Teaching | Engineering | Data Entry | Citywise | Latest Posts | Job Interview
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Lawn Sign Rentals Business
Lawn Sign Rentals Businessis a unique business idea, by which one can earn good profit margin by following a good plan, proposal, template, sample model to run. Few small business required money, experience and license, while other do not required anything but only hardworking.
Many parties and ceremonies are held in homes such as birthday parties and marriage ceremonies etc. For any type of party or occasion there is a need of lawn signs for making that day the most beautiful. There are many lawn signs that are widely used in the lawn for welcoming quests and for showing why the party is held etc.
A lawn sign is also called a lawn greeting signs and it came in the garden or lawn décor. All these signs are used for surprise decoration for their entire loved one and also for friends who are special for special occasion. There are many types of lawn signs or yard signs such as storks, flamingos, dinosaurs, cow, frog, birthday signs, graduation signs etc. Celebrate all your special occasions with the help of memorable lawn display rentals. Usually the companies who are doing business of lawn sign rentals have signs of very unique designs and appearances.
Some tips for starting a lawn sign rental business are
• Think whether the business of lawn sign rental is suitable business for you or not.
• Decide the name of the company and get business license.
• Find a location for starting your business best is home.
• Make a business plan for knowing the start up cost.
• There are no skills needed for starting this business.
• Buy all necessary equipments or tools for your business such as truck or van etc.
• The best customer of sign rentals is new parents or parents with small kids.
• Search the market and internet for what other companies of lawn sign rentals are doing.
• Also search for new styles and designs of signs in the market.
• Develop a website and advertise your business on the internet and also in the newspapers.
• Run promotions for new business.


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Hugo Boss Jenno Slim Fit Shirt Blue
Hugo Boss Jenno Slim Fit Shirt in blue features a textured design with single button adjustable cuffs as well as a classic shark collar. The Classic shirt fits perfectly thanks to its narrow shoulder yoke and shaping waist darts in the back, while finished with a pearlescent button-down front.
Colour: Blue
Fabric: 73% Cotton/ 23% Polyamide/ 4% Elastane
Care: Wash at 40 degrees
Save 20% VAT on Non EU orders
Customer Services Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Customer Services Telephone: +44 (0)1484 435271
Visit our store: 36-42 Westgate Huddersfield HD1 1NX
For every £100 you spend Circle Fashion will reward you with 2 CF points which is equivalent to £2.00. This will be stored in your e wallet to use for your next purchase.


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Tuscany: XVIII century Villa, with swimming-pool and private park, sea view
- Villa400 m²
- Sleeps: 14
- Bedrooms: 5
- Bathrooms: 3
- Separate Toilets: 1
- Min Stay: 4–7 nights
Beautiful country-villa for 12/14 guests, swimming pool, a garden of 20.000 mq.
- Swimming pool
- Internet
- Air Conditioning
- Pets Welcome
- Fireplace
- Satellite or cable
- Children Welcome
- Parking
- Heater
- Bathrooms: 3, Separate Toilets: 1
Safety features
- Fire extinguisher
- Exterior lighting
Location Type
- beach
- near the sea
- Rural
- Air conditioningNot included in the price (the cost is specified in the customer information)
- HeatingNot included in the price (the cost is specified in the customer information)
- Linens provided
- Washing machineFull laundry room with two washing machines, two wash (one external and one internal) drying
- Fireplacethree large working fireplaces
- Parking
- Internetfree wireless connection, no-limits
- Towels provided
- Wireless Internet
- Iron & board
- Hair dryer
- Living Room
- Baby Gate
- Dishwasher
- Fridge
- HobGas hob (5 burners): four burners (one on each side) and a central one (very large for pasta).
- Ovenelectric oven
- Microwave
- Grill
- Coffee maker
- Toaster
- Pantry items
- Dishes & utensils
- KitchenThe kitchen is fully equipped and provided everything: dishes, cutlery, glassware, cookware, table linen.
- Dining Room
- DiningFor lunch you can choose from 3 options. 2 internal: one next to the kitchen, the other close to the living room (all in glass), 1 outside under the pergola, (made from an old church altar).
- Television
- Satellite / Cable TV
- Stereo
- DVD player
- Toys
- Garden2 hectares / 5 acres
- Veranda
- Terrace
- Long-term renters welcome
Pool / Spa
- Sauna
- Private poolDimensions: 6m. x 12m.
Onsite Services
- Private chef
- Housekeeper included
Cancellation Policy
- 100% refund if you cancel at least 30 days before check-in.
- 50% refund (minus the service fee) if you cancel at least 14 days before check-in.
- No refund if you cancel less than 14 days before check-in.
Damage and incidentals
You will be responsible for any damage to the rental property caused by you or your party during your stay.
House Rules
Children allowed
Pets allowed
No parties/events
Smoking allowed - It is possible to smoke just in the gardenIt is possible to smoke just in the garden
Max guests: 14
16 Reviews
Stunning 360 degree panoramic views, beautiful house and superb gardens.
Perfectly situated house in glorious surroundings at the top of a hill with lovely views of the countryside and to the sea. We enjoyed the house which had everything we needed. It was lovely to sit outside to eat, or enjoy the shady areas all around the house and the wonderful garden. We particularly enjoyed walking out to enjoy all the butterflies, owls, golden orioles etc. The children adored the puppies! Anita cooked for us a delicious meal which we all enjoyed including vegetables from her garden. Anita and Luciano were very helpful including rearranging the beds for the children which we had thought we had already organisied by email prior to arrival. They also provided washing up liquid for our stay when the dishwasher became unsafe! Very easy to reach the nearest beach - good day out. Supermarket at Borgio very good nice deli and fruit and veg. Pittigliano and Via Cave etc 5 mins down the road is a must. Capalbio also lovely and go to the bar at Pescia for a coffee.
We would love to come back.
E' sempre un grande piacere ricevere dei complimenti dagli ospiti che soggiornano da noi. Sapere che hanno trascorso una bella vacanza e che desiderano tornare. Mettiamo un grande impegno per raggiungere questo scopo e certo ci aiuta il fatto di trovarci in un posto così bello e romantico.
I complimenti ci spronano a fare sempre meglio, Grazie Janet.
Amazing property and amazing staff - needs a bit of upkeep
We had a great time at this house and the staff was amazing. The house is in good condition but the some of the equipment needs major refurbishment. The water heaters didn't work during our visit and neither did the ACs cool. Also, the pool water was not heated which is fine, except that it was usually around 18 degrees in the pool. If it weren't for Luciano and his wife Anita (who cooked for us in the evenings) it would have been a difficult week, but they made everything as comfortable as it could get.
I am very sorry to know that our guests have had difficulties. I would like to reassure future guests about the hot water and the air conditioning, now they are working great.
As for the pool, of course, it is not heated, but we are in Italy, there are not many heated pools. Our country is "the country of the sun"! Of course it can happen a week of bad weather even in summer, and in this case, the water in the swimming pool will not be too hot, but it is an exception, usually in summer it is very hot and the pool is perfect.
The place was truly stunning, quite the picture that comes to your mind when you think of Tuscany. Even in winter the weather was warm and the nature around was full of different shades of green and red and brown. The house was massive full of antiques, quite well kept and well heated. In the evening we stood in front of one of the many fireplaces and toasted our toes with a good bottle of the local red wine.
"Beautiful place, really,...
"Beautiful place, really, the pictures don''t give it justice.
Completely immersed in nature, very and quiet, with a charming view. The house was also beautiful, decorated with taste and mostly antique pieces.
The housekeeper and property guardian were very nice and helpful and went the extra length to help us with the unforeseen, like finding a doctor in the middle of the night for our youngest daughter. We''re coming back in summer!"
"It was , probably, my be...
"It was , probably, my best vacations (in rented houses). Everything was perfect: the interiors and a,enities, the style of living, friendly stuff, kind animals in the territory, garden was fantsticly organised and cared. Me and my family experienced the famous italian "dolce vita" (dolce farniente). I would recommend this property
to anybody who is thinking of the genuine italian vacations."
This beautiful villa, completely renovated in 2014, is dates back to the 18th century. It is positioned in the middle of a 64 acres property, on beautiful green hills, and very close to an uncontaminated sea cost. The location is truly wonderful, very quiet, characteristic, fully immersed in the countryside, in one of the most delightful corners of Tuscany.
Among the closest beaches, you can find the "Ultima Spiaggia" beach resort, a place very popular among the VIPs and often mentioned in the tabloids. If quiet and peace is what you're looking for, we suggest the oasis of Burano, a WWF resort; classified FIRST among Italian beaches, for water clarity and preservation of the ecosystem.
However, spending all your time lying on a sunny beach would really be a pity, because area offers so much more. The Maremma, in fact, is among the few areas of Tuscany that have kept their most authentic nature, unspoilt by mass tourism, and carefully preserved by strict local regulations.
In the village of Capalbio (at 7 km ) ancient traditions still survive, elsewhere completely lost. Taking a stroll on its medieval walls, you'll enjoy a fantastic view of the whole area: fields, hills and, in the background, our beautiful blue sea.
Also worth visiting the Tarott's Garden (a Park/Museum of the French sculptress Niki de Saint Phalle); the museum/Castle of Vulci (with the ancient etruskian bridge); Tarquinia Museum and Necropolis (UNESCO Human Heritage site); Saturnia Thermal Baths (with the famous Gorello falls): the villages of Pitigliano, Sovana e Sorano; the Argentario sea-coast and the near-by Tuscany archipelago, with the islands of Giglio and Giannutri; the beautiful Elba Island and the wild Montecristo Island (the one mentioned in Dumas' "The Count of Montecristo").
Among the many restaurants within the area, we suggest:
for a traditional cuisine: Il Frantoio or Tullio at Capalbio; Il Tortello at Pescia Fiorentina. If you are looking for experimental nouvelle cuisine, we suggest the "Nobili Santi" at Porto Ercole or La Filanda at Manciano. For a truly unforgettable seafood dinner try the restaurant of the Dogana beach resort.
To reach us ia very simple.
From Rome: take the Rome-Civitavecchia motorway, then the Aurelia towards Grosseto and exit at Pescia Fiorentina (Km.130)
From Milan: take the Highway A1 to the exit of La Spezia, then the motorway to Livorno, exit at Rosignano, then continue on the Aurelia towards Rome, exit at Pescia Fiorentina (km 500).
Upon arriving you will find that, in addition to what we have described, there is "much more", but you will discover it by yourself, during your holidays. See you in Poggio Capraio!!
Property Manager
danila corinti
- Languages:
- english, french, italian
About danila corinti
Hi, I'm Danila, as a person I'm dynamic (sometimes even too much), I love children, animals, gardening (if you decide to book your vacations with us you'll see!), I love traveling and I love this job! I like to meet people, to talk to them, and sometimes, why not, keep in touch! It is truly fulfilling when, after spending a vacation in one of our places, people get back to me and let me know that they have had a good time! I can not always meet my guests in person (I divide my time between Rome and Tuscany, where we have a farm), but I personally answer to their questions, take care of their request and organize their sojourn. I'm glad when people decide to spend their vacation in our beautiful country, that I love so much, and I try to help them making the best of it!
danila corinti purchased this Villa in 1994
Why danila corinti chose Pescia Fiorentina
The first time I saw Poggio Capraio I thought 'I found it!'. I did not know whether to be happy or scared. The place was really beautiful: an eighteenth-century farmhouse on top of a hill overlooking the surrounding hills, forests and the sea. However, the work to be done to restore it to its former glory was so much! Now that it is finished, the villa and garden are perfect and we look forward to sharing them with you. An holiday here is a feast for the eyes and the heart.
What makes this Villa unique
When my husband and I arrived here for the first time, more than 30 years ago, it seemed impossible to find such a wild place so close to Rome, and from the sea coast. Miraculously, a strict policy of protecting the territory has preserved the ecosystem and now, even thirty years after our arrival, here you'll can enjoy a sea and a land unspoiled. Kilometers of beach (sand, dunes and pine forests) and a country which is the first in Europe (that's right: Capalbio is the first agricultural district of Europe). And, if you like you'll can have a walk in the woods to pick blackberries, or mushrooms (depending on the season), startng from the villa (just go out and take the path). This does not mean you have to do the hermits though! You are in Tuscany, and a short walk from the Argentario: markets, shops, restaurants and clubs are at your disposal if you want to take a dip in the 'civilized world'. You can also rent a boat (or just take a ferry) and make a tour in the Tuscan archipelago discovering a sea that has nothing to envy (indeed !!) to the Sardinia. You can dance in the discos of the Argentario, and then retire to a quiet oasis, in the company of the crickets.


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About my practice
Brian K Ford and his team specialize in helping physicians, dentists and business owners implement healthy habits and rituals with money. Brian says "it's exciting to work with visionaries who think big and are creative."
Get in touch
To learn more about Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC and its financial representatives, visit FINRA BrokerCheck
Depending on the products and/or services being recommended or considered, refer to the appropriate disclosure brochure for important information on the Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company, its services, fees and conflicts of interest before investing. To obtain a copy of one or more of these brochures, contact your representative.Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI (NM) (life and disability insurance, annuities, and life insurance with long-term care benefits) and its subsidiaries. Brian K Ford, is an Insurance Agent of NM and Northwestern Long Term Care Insurance Company, Milwaukee, WI, (long-term care insurance), a subsidiary of NM. Investment advisory services provided as an Advisor of Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company®, (NMWMC) Milwaukee, WI, a subsidiary of NM and a federal savings bank. Investment brokerage services provided as a Registered Representative of Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC (NMIS), a subsidiary of NM, broker-dealer, registered investment adviser and member FINRA (www.finra.org) and SIPC (www.sipc.org). The products and services referenced are offered and sold only by appropriately appointed and licensed entities and financial advisors and representatives. Financial advisors and representatives and their staff might not represent all entities shown or provide all the products or services discussed on this website. Not all products and services are available in all states. Not all Northwestern Mutual representatives are advisors. Only those representatives with "Advisor" in their title or who otherwise disclose their status as an advisor of NMWMC are credentialed as NMWMC representatives to provide investment advisory services. Brian K Ford is primarily licensed in Georgia and may be licensed in other states. CA License: #0M16874 Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ CFP® (with plaque design) and CFP® (with flame design) in the U.S., which it awards to individuals who successfully complete CFP Board's initial and ongoing certification requirements.


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SEBASTIAN SCHIPPERBorn 1968 in Hannover/Germany.
After studying acting at the Otto Falkenberg School in Munich, he was part of the ensemble at the Münchner Kammerspiele for two years. His first roles in cinema were for WINTER SLEEPERS and RUN LOLA RUN, by Tom Tykwer.
In 1998 he had his debut as writer and director with the comedy GIGANTICS, which became a real cult movie and won several awards like the Silver Lola. After furthermore film roles, he released his second feature, A FRIEND OF MINE, starring the famous German actors Daniel Brühl and Jürgen Vogel. His third feature SOMETIME IN AUGUST, with Marie Bäumer and Milan Peschel, run at Berlinale 2009 as opening film of the Forum section. In the following years Sebastian concentrated on acting. He celebrated great successes with his leading role in the feature THREE by Tom Tykwer and by playing a part in the Hamburg TATORT series.
In his fourth film, VICTORIA, he is producer for the first time – besides of being author and director. The film made quite furor at the 65.Berlinale, won a silver bear, following by six German Film Awards (among Best Film and Best Director), three European Film Award nominations and gained a lot of international attention.


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The condition of our joints is a critical factor for our general well-being. The more flexible our musculoskeletal system, the larger our radius of action and the more diverse activities we can undertake. However, physical labour, sport or abnormal attitudes subject our joints to stress, and in the worst case they may be damaged. In addition, age takes its toll on our joints. Protection and precaution are thus urgently recommended. But what are the main points to be considered?
Lubricating and protecting
Two of the elements that ensure that our joints remain flexible are articular cartilage and synovial fluid. The ends of the bones are covered by a layer of cartilage that serves as a buffer against shocks; the fluid ensures that the joints are lubricated.
Nutrients are important
For optimum functioning both elements must receive adequate nutrients.
Natural glycosaminglycans (GAG) contained in the original Perna extract PERNATON® serve this purpose.
Maintaining mobility
The synovial fluid is responsible for transporting nutrients to the cartilage. In addition to the supply of nutrients to the joint cartilage, the synovial fluid also lubricates the joints. The clear, viscous fluid ensures that the cartilage is not damaged by abrasion.
Sufficient fluid
Joints and movement are mutually dependent. Only movement provides for lively metabolic activity in the body. This is in turn critical for the joints, ensuring renewal of the cartilage and fluid. By the way: drinking sufficient amounts of liquid is essential for efficient metabolism.
Low-impact sports:
Relieves the joints
Caution: In sporting activities it is always important to apply the correct technique.