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Heat Stress and Athletic Participation
Early fall football, cross country, soccer and field hockey practices are conducted in very hot and humid weather in many parts of the United States. Due to the equipment and uniform needed in football, most of the heat problems have been associated with football. During the 1995 through the 2000 football season there have been 17 heat stroke deaths in football. This is not acceptable. There are no excuses for heatstroke deaths if the proper precautions are taken. During hot weather conditions, the athlete is subject to the following:
- Heat Cramps - Painful cramps involving abdominal muscles and extremities caused by intense, prolonged exercise in the heat and depletion of salt and water due to sweating.
- Heat Syncope - Weakness, fatigue and fainting due to loss of salt and water in sweat and exercise in the heat. Predisposes to heatstroke.
- Heat Exhaustion (Water Depletion) - Excessive weight loss, reduced sweating, elevated skin and core body temperature, excessive thirst, weakness, headache and sometimes unconsciousness.
- Heat Exhaustion (Salt Depletion) - Exhaustion, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps, and dizziness due to profuse sweating and inadequate replacement of body salts.
- Heatstroke - An acute medical emergency related to thermoregulatory failure. Associated with nausea, seizures, disorientation, and possible unconsciousness or coma. It may occur suddenly without being preceded by any other clinical signs. The individual is usually unconscious with a high body temperature and a hot dry skin (heatstroke victims, contrary to popular belief, may sweat profusely).
It is believed that the above mentioned heat stress problems can be controlled provided certain precautions are taken. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Sports Medicine, heat related illnesses are all preventable. (Sports Medicine: Health Care for Young Athletes, American Academy of Pediatrics, 1991). The following practices and precautions are recommended:
- Each athlete must have a physical exam with a medical history when first entering a program and an annual health history update. History of previous heat illness and type of training activities before organized practice begins should be included. State high school association's recommendations should be followed.
- It is clear that top physical performance can only be achieved by an athlete who is in top physical condition. Lack of physical fitness impairs the performance of an athlete who participates in high temperatures. Coaches should know the physical condition of their athletes and set practice schedules accordingly.
- Along with physical conditioning, the factor of acclimatization to heat is important. Acclimatization is the process of becoming adjusted to heat and it is essential to provide for gradual acclimatization to hot weather. It is necessary for an athlete to exercise in the heat if he/she is to become acclimatized to it. It is suggested that a graduated physical conditioning program be used and that 80 percent acclimatization can be expected to occur after the first seven to ten days. Final stages of acclimatization to heat are marked by increased sweating and reduced salt concentration in the sweat.
- The old idea that water should be withheld from athletes during workouts has no scientific foundation. The most important safeguard to the health of the athlete is the replacement of water. Water must be on the field and readily available to the athletes at all times. It is recommended that a minimum of ten minutes be scheduled for a water break every half hour of heavy exercise in the heat. Water should be available in unlimited quantities. Check and be sure athletes are drinking the water. Cold water is preferable. Drinking ample water before practice or games has also been found to aid performance in the heat.
- Salt should be replaced daily. Modest salting of foods after practice or games will accomplish this purpose. Salt tablets are not recommended. Attention must be directed to replacing water - fluid replacement is essential.
- Know both the temperature and humidity. The greater the humidity, the more difficult it is for the body to cool itself. Test the air prior to practice or game using a wet bulb, globe, temperature index (WBGT Index) which is based on the combined effects of air temperature, relative humidity, radiant heat and air movement. The following precautions are recommended when using the WBGT Index (ACSM's Guidelines for the Team Physician, 1991):
Temperature And Activity Below 64 Unlimited activity 65-72 Moderate risk 74-82 High risk 82 plus Very high risk
There is also a weather guide for activities that last 30 minutes or more (Fox and Mathews, 1981) which involves knowing the relative humidity and air temperature:
Air Temp Danger Zone Critical Zone 70 F 80 percent RH 100 percent RH 75 F 70 percent RH 100 percent RH 80 F 50 percent RH 80 percent RH 85 F 40 percent RH 68 percent RH 90 F 30 percent RH 55 percent RH 95 F 20 percent RH 40 percent RH 100 F 10 percent RH 30 percent RH
RH = Relative Humidity
One other method of measuring the relative humidity is the use of a sling psychrometer, which measures wet bulb temperature. The wet bulb temperature should be measured prior to practice and the intesity and duration of practice adjusted accordingly. Recommendations are as follows:
Sling Psychrometer Recommendations Under 60 F Safe but always observe athletes 61-65 F Observe players carefully 66-70 F Caution 71-75 F Shorter practice sessions and more frequent water and rest breaks 75 plus Danger level and extreme caution
- Cooling by evaporation is proportional to the area of skin exposed. In extremely hot and humid weather reduce the amount of clothing covering the body as much as possible. Never use rubberized clothing.
- Athletes should weigh each day before and after practice and weight charts checked. Generally a three percent weight loss through sweating is considered safe and over a three percent weight loss is in the danger zone. Over a three percent weight loss the athlete should not be allowed to practice in hot and humid conditions. Observe the athletes closely under all conditions. Do not allow athletes to practice until they have adequately replaced their weight.
- Observe athletes carefully for signs of trouble, particularly athletes who lose significant weight, and the eager athlete who constantly competes at his/her capacity. Some trouble signs are nausea, incoherence, fatigue, weakness, vomiting, cramps, weak rapid pulse, visual disturbance, and unsteadiness.
- Teams that encounter hot weather during the season through travel or following an unseasonable cool period should be physically fit but will not be environmentally fit. Coaches in this situation should follow the above recommendations and substitute more frequently during games.
- Know what to do in case of emergency and have your emergency plans written with copies to all your staff. Be familiar with immediate first aid practices and prearranged procedures for obtaining medical care, including ambulance service
- Heat Stroke - This is a medical emergency. DELAY COULD BE FATAL.
Immediately cool body while waiting for transfer to a hospital. Remove clothing and place ice bags on the neck, in the axilla (armpit), and on the groin area. An increasing number of medical personnel are now using a treatment for heat illness that involves applying either alcohol or cool water to the victim's skin and vigorously fanning the body. The fanning causes evaporation and cooling. (Source--The First Aider--September 1987)
- Heat Exhaustion - OBTAIN MEDICAL CARE AT ONCE.
Cool body as you would for heat stroke while waiting for transfer to hospital. Give fluids if athlete is able to swallow and is conscious.
- Heat Stroke - This is a medical emergency. DELAY COULD BE FATAL.
- Summary - The main problem associated with exercising in the hot weather is water loss through sweating. Water loss is best replaced by allowing the athlete unrestricted access to water. Water breaks two or three times per hour are better than one break an hour. Probably the best method is to have water available at all times and to allow the athlete to drink water whenever he/she needs it. Never restrict the amount of water an athlete drinks, and be sure the athletes are drinking the water. The small amount of salt lost in sweat is adequately replaced by salting food at meals. Talk to your medical personnel concerning emergency treatment plans.


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Great! This will help put all those bastards who photocopy the entire book, then resell the used version, out of business!!!
The Authors Guild is encouraging authors not to link to Amazon.com from their own websites. The Guild is angry that Amazon lists used book prices on the same page as new books. They feel this causes people to buy the used books, depriving the author of their rightful commission (I'm almost surprised the Authors Guild doesn't take after the recording and movie industries and somehow try to claim that reselling used books is illegal). I have to side with Amazon on this one. Their job is to provide the best possible service to their customers – and letting them know the same book is available used at a lower price seems like a completely reasonable service for them to offer. Again, I think an author should be happy that anyone is discovering their work – even if they buy the used version. It could bring them a new fan who will rush out to buy their next book brand new when it comes out.
Great! This will help put all those bastards who photocopy the entire book, then resell the used version, out of business!!!
if there were a market for book rentals (pick your medium), perhaps the authors' guild wouldn't be so upset.
I, for one, buy a ton of used books at Amazon, rarely paying more than $2.50 for a title ($7.00 with shipping). I love it.
Authors want to sell their books, hence they'll link to Amazon. Used book sellers want to sell used books. Unless Amazon separates the two, they're destined to tango.

subset: commoncrawl


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Thank you to everyone that entered the contest for the wonderful Glass Dharma straws gift certificate. I wish I could give you all a chance to try these great straws.
Sadly, I can't. So, I'm pleased to announce that the winner is Andrea. Andrea said,
I like the lifetime guarantee against breakage and the fact that they are reusable!
Congratulations Andrea. I'll be sending you an email soon to get your mailing information.


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Infection Preventionist
Company: Encompass Health
Location: Yadkinville
Posted on: March 19, 2023
Job Description:
Job Description:
Job Description The Infection Preventionist (IP) directs managerial functions of planning, organizing, coordinating, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating the Infection Control Program. The IP has the authority of the Medical Staff and Governing Body to take necessary steps to prevent and/or control the acquisition and transmission of infectious agents in the patient, staff, and visitor populations The Infection Preventionist (IP) is responsible for the surveillance, analysis, and reporting of hospital acquired infections; educating employees about infection control; and the development of organizational infection control standards that meet state and federal regulatory and accrediting bodies, CDC, OSHA, and APIC guidelines.Job code: 100547License or Certification: - Current license or registration certification as a medical technologist or clinical laboratory scientist, physician or registered nurse (highly preferred), or - A minimum of a baccalaureate degree in a healthcare field.Education, Training and Years of Experience: - CIC Preferred - Training in infection control and/or epidemiology - 1 year experience in acute hospital infection control practice preferred Machines, Equipment Used: - General office equipment such as telephone, copy machine, fax machine, calculator, computer. Physical Requirements: - Good visual acuity and ability to communicate. - Ability to lift a minimum of 30 pounds and ability push/pull a minimum of 30 pounds, which includes the lifting, pushing and/or pulling of medical supplies and equipment and the transferring and repositioning of patients. Reasonable assistance may be requested when lifting, pushing, and/or pulling are undertaken which exceeds these minimum requirements. - Ability to withstand prolonged standing and walking. - Ability to reach, stoop, bend, kneel, and crouch are required for patient care functions and in setting up and monitoring equipment Skills and Abilities: - Ability to speak, read, write, and communicate effectively. - Ability to coordinate, analyze, observe, make decisions, and meet deadlines in a detail-oriented manner. - Ability to work independently without supervision. Environmental Conditions: - Indoor, temperature controlled, smoke-free environment. Occasional outdoor exposure. - Exposure or potential exposure to blood and body fluids may be required. - Handicapped accessible. - May work under stressful circumstances at times. Proficiency or Productivity Standards: - Meets established attendance standards. - Adheres to hospital/department dress code including wearing ID badge. - May be required to work weekdays and/or weekends, evenings and or night shifts if needed to meet deadlines. - May be required to work on religious and/or legal holidays on scheduled days/shifts. - Will be required to work as necessary during disaster situations, i.e., before, during or after a disaster. - May be required to stay after workday to assist after a disaster situation until relief arrives. - May be required to perform other duties as assigned by supervisor.Address: 2475 Hillcrest Center Circle, Winston Salem 27103Schedule: Full-timeJob ID: 2220240
Job Description:
Keywords: Encompass Health, Winston-Salem , Infection Preventionist, Other , Yadkinville, North Carolina
here to apply!


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US factory orders rise on demand for planes
WASHINGTON – U.S. factories orders climbed in November, led by a surge in aircraft demand. And businesses stepped up spending on machinery, computers and other long-lasting goods, a sign of investment that could fuel economic growth.
Factory orders rose 1.8 percent in November, the Commerce Department said Monday. That follows a 0.5 percent decrease in October.
Orders received by manufacturers totaled a seasonally adjusted $497.8 billion in November, the highest level on records dating to 1992. Orders have increased 2.5 percent over the past 12 months.
The improvements could signal accelerating growth in 2014. Americans are buying more cars and homes, increasing demand for steel, furniture and other goods. That has led factories to hire more workers, generating additional economic momentum.
Still, overall economic growth remains modest by historical standards. And though factory orders have strengthened in recent months, their growth rate has slowed during the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.
A 21.8 percent jump in volatile aircraft orders drove the November gains. But orders rose in many other categories, a sign of strength at factories and confidence among companies.
Core capital goods, a proxy for business investment, rose 4.1 percent. Economists watch this category because it excludes volatile orders for aircraft and defense equipment.
Demand also rose for construction machinery, computers, communications equipment, furniture and motor vehicle parts.
Most of the gains occurred in long-lasting goods, which increased 3.4 percent in November. Orders for nondurable goods such as food products, clothing and paper rose a modest 0.3 percent.
Separate economic reports indicate that manufacturing has remained strong and could drive further growth.
Factory activity in December remained near a 2½-year high, according to the Institute for Supply Management. The trade group said last week that its index of manufacturing activity slipped to 57 in from 57.3 in November. That's still the second-highest reading since April 2011. And any reading above 50 signals growth.
Manufacturers have also bolstered hiring in recent months. Factories added 66,000 jobs from July through November, according to government's employment reports. The government releases its December employment report on Friday.


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Translated by Hugh Aplin
So before someone asks in a comment: "Have you read Dead Souls?" — the answer is "no, I haven't, but I intend to". On the other hand, while perusing the Hesperus Press site recently, I came across a version of Nikolai Gogol's The Squabble and swallowed the baited hook immediately — I'd heard about the novella before and a growing affection for Hesperus volumes supplied the rest of the motivation.
Even for those of us who like nineteenth century Russian writing, Gogol is a bit of an enigma. He died young at 43 and his work pretty much comes down to three sets: the aforementioned Dead Souls (intended to be volume one of a trilogy), the Petersburg tales (including his best known work, "The Greatcoat") and the Mirgorod (four stories, three of which are included in this volume), which develop the theme of a Little Russian town, in the Ukraine. And before anyone points out that Gogol is Ukrainian, not Russian, I do know that.
The Squabble is a wonderful novella; for this reader, a prototype for the genre. For those readers who have been entranced by "The Greatcoat" (that would include KfC), this is a story that confirms Gogol's ability to turn the particular into the universal, in both an engaging and significant fashion. Two aging, and increasingly reclusive, neighbors — Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich — have for years visited and conversed with each other. Indeed, their interaction with each other is pretty much their interaction with the rest of the world. Here is how Gogol introduces Ivan Ivanovich:
Ivan Ivanovich has a glorious coat! Quite excellent! And what lambskins! They're grey-blue with a touch of frost! God knows how much I'd bet that nobody can be found with any like them! Just look at them, for God's sake, especially if he starts talking to someone, look at them from the side; what a feast for the eye. Indescribable: velvet! silver! fire!
All those exclamation marks would seem to presage a story of action — not so. Rather, an introduction to the concept that in a world where not much happens, a minor dispute can turn into a lifelong pursuit. Ivan Ivanovich visits his good friend and neighbor, Ivan Nikiforovich, and, absent anything else to talk about, they fall into the exchange that will become the centrepiece of "the squabble". Ivan N's servant has been airing out his old military garments, including his old gun (even Gogol wonders about the propriety of "airing out" a gun, but he needs the conceit for the plot). Ivan I wants the gun and heads off for a visit, offering a pig and two sacks of oats as a barter in exchange for the weapon. Ivan N doesn't take to the proposal:
"What's that! Two sacks of oats and a pig for the gun?"
"Well, isn't that enough?"
"For the gun?"
"Of course it's for the gun."
"Two sacks for the gun?"
"Not two empty sacks, but sacks of oats; and have you forgotten the pig?"
"You can go and kiss your pig, or if you prefer it, then the Devil!"
"Oh, you're so touchy! You'll see in the other world you'll have your tongue studded with hot needles for such blasphemous words. After a conversation with you, people need to wash their hands and face, and fumigate themselves."
"Allow me, Ivan Ivanovitch. A gun is a noble thing, the most curious amusement, and, what's more, a nice decoration in the room…"
"You, Ivan Nikiforovich, are fussing over your gun like a bear with a sore head," said Ivan Ivanovich in annoyance, because he was truly beginning to get angry now.
"And your, Ivan Ivanovich, are a real goose."
That is about as quick a summary of pointless conflict escalation as you could ever ask for — and it is that last statement, with its reference to being "a goose", that sets off the Jarndyce vs Jarndyce conflict that dominates the rest of the novella. Both Ivans swear complaints; while all of Mirgorod (which translates as "Worldtown", according to translator Hugh Alpin) want the conflict to end and the friends to be reconciled, they foolishly decide instead to pursue the squabble in the courts, where it languishes without decision ("it will come tomorrow") for more than a decade. You can start to imagine the consequences — Dickens would certainly have no problem on that count. If you don't already know the outlines of the story, the pig does play a major part and real geese (well, at least a goose coop) play a major factor.
The Squabble has much to recommend it. A pointless dispute escalates, bureaucracy takes over (Patrick McCabe in his introduction to this volume makes reference to both Franz Kafka and Monty Python as comparisons and both are valid) and disaster, of a sort, ensues. For this reader, the work fits a definition of the "perfect" novella: You spend much more time thinking about it after reading it, than you spent in the reading. That for me is the ideal definition of the genre.
This Hesperus volume contains two other stories from the Mirgorod series: Olde-Worlde Landowners and The Carriage. The first is Gogol's version of the Philemon and Baucis myth, an extremely old couple who when offered a reward by Zeus ask only to be allowed to die at the same time — it is a very charming story. The Carriage is slight but worthwhile — an examination of how ego and the desire to move above your station sometimes provide a disastrous result.
I think most avid readers would agree that there are days when you would like to pick up a volume, knowing that in only a few hours (this book is about a two hour venture the first time through, but you want to read it more than once) you will have finished it and be able to put it down, saying "that was more than worthwhile". And many days later, you are still thinking about that experience.
The Squabble perfectly fits that description. I'm not sure when I'll get to Dead Souls but this diversion ensures that I eventually will.


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|John 1:7,9
Display Chapter and Footnotes
7 This man came as a witness, to bear witness to the Light, so that all men might believe through it [the Light, Christ].4 [John came to bear witness to the Light, (the Light of the Word), so that all men might believe what the light reveals to be true, obey the light, and thereby be saved — this is to believe in Jesus. From the Word of the Lord within: "Heed the light, which is to assent to truth." Jesus tells us: "believe in the light, that you may become the children of light," John 12:36. This Light had been prophesied to be God's new covenant with salvation to the ends of the earth, to both Jews and Gentiles. Isa 42:6,49:6. The light of life, which God has hidden in the heart, is the mediator of the new covenant; he that would come into the new covenant, must believe the light and obey the light, Christ.]
9 Which is the true Light that enlightens every man who comes into the world.5 [All men have a small measure of the light (Christ) given to them so that they might believe the light's anonymous convictions of their evil ways to be true and eventually be saved; for God would have all men to be saved, and so He gives all men equal opportunity to be saved with sufficient light to guide them. If we persistently heed the light and word in our hearts that reproves us, then we receive more of His spirit, eventually being freed from all sin and seeing Jesus bring us our salvation and eternal life. With a hunger for righteousness we seek God by exposing ourselves to his further commands and teachings by waiting on him in humble silence as we listen and watch.]
|John 1:5
Display Chapter and Footnotes
5 The light shines in the darkness; and the darkness did not comprehend it.3 [The light of the Word, Christ, shines in the darkness of men's hearts, but men do not understand that it is Christ, gently and anonymously reasoning with them, attempting to reprove them for their evil ways. Eph 5:13. If men believe what Christ tells them, they believe and love the truth, but if they deny the reasoning, loving their selfish, evil ways, they hate the truth and light, who is Christ. Peter told believers: "we have the more sure prophetic word [the word in your heart]; to which you do well to pay attention, as to a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star [Jesus] rises in your hearts;" 2 Pet 1:19.]


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The CW Orders First New Series of Next Season with "The Originals"
"Beauty And The Beast" and "Hart of Dixie" Picked Up For Next Season
April 26, 2013 (Burbank, California) - The CW Network has given early pickups to three additional dramas for next season, including the first new series order of the season with THE ORIGINALS, the highly anticipated spin-off of The Vampire Diaries, which was introduced during last night's episode. The network also gave advance orders for the second season of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST andthe third season of HART OF DIXIE. The pickups were announced today by Mark Pedowitz, President, The CW.
"As soon as we saw last night's episode of 'The Vampire Diaries,' we knew we wanted more of 'The Originals' - Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson have done a fantastic job with 'The Vampire Diaries,' which is as fast-paced and well-written as ever, and Julie has created an equally compelling world for 'The Originals,'" said Pedowitz. "We're also very excited to bring back 'Beauty And The Beast' and 'Hart of Dixie' for next season - both series continue to be creatively strong and compelling, and their fans are incredibly passionate. I'm very happy to have all three series on the schedule for next season."
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, starring Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan,was this year's People's Choice Award winner for Favorite New Drama, and HART OF DIXIE, starring Rachel Bilson,is one of The CW's top performers on digital platforms, behind only THE VAMPIRE DIARIES.
All three of these series see big lifts in Live+7 Day delayed viewing versus Live + Same Day, with THE VAMPIRE DIARIES jumping 52% increase among adults 18-34 and a 56% gain among women 18-34 once all time-shifted viewing is included. HART OF DIXIE averages a 53% increase among adults 18-34 and a 61% gain among women 18-34, and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST seeing a 43% jump in adults 18-34 and a 45% bump in women 18-34 from the overnight Live+SD to Live+7.
The CW has already given advance orders to ARROW, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and SUPERNATURAL for next season.


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As a grown-up, it's hard to commit to a game like Tomodachi Life. Nintendo's latest life-sim game for the 3DS is a hands-off, no-action experience that asks players to pop in and out of the game briefly and frequently. It hinges on weird skits and childish writing, and it wrests a lot of control away from players who might expect to sink time into exploration and tinkering with a slew of virtual characters.
Games like this can do quite well, of course. But Tomodachi Life's best qualities—quick-burst play, cutesy situations, touchscreen controls, camera integration, social-media tie-ins—are the stuff you'd be more likely to find in a cheap smartphone game, one that you can pull out of your pocket randomly to enjoy for a few minutes before getting on with your day.
Nintendo spent a ton of effort translating this odd game for an international audience—and thereby bucking our collective annoyance at the company's case of sequelitis—which makes this title a welcome breath of fresh 3DS air (and an easy recommendation for tweens). But in spite of a slew of scripted content and an evident helping of Nintendo quality control, this game is not worth both the price and the requirement of lugging a 3DS around.
Window dressing
Tomodachi Life drops players onto a sunny, tropical island (if you're keeping score, Nintendo historians, this isn't Wuhu Island from various Wii and 3DS games) that, for whatever reason, contains only one apartment complex, and an empty one at that. You're asked to fill the first unit with your personal virtual likeness, either taken from your 3DS' primary "Mii" character or created on the spot.
After fake-you moves into a small room, you can add up to 99 more occupants, and you'll want to add at least ten Miis to unlock many of the island's attractions. Once you've filled enough vacancies, the dollhouse comes to life, and your denizens will begin nagging you for food, clothes, entertainment, and more. You'll accumulate cash and rare items by catering to their every whim, forming the game's basic feedback loop: Resident wants something; you buy said item at a shop on the island (if you don't have it already); resident responds by gaining "happiness" points (which unlock certain items) and giving you in-game cash.
That means you'll spend most of the game glancing at the apartment's windows, which give hints about which residents are in need of something, then tapping and assisting. Pretty quickly, their needs go beyond material items. Sometimes, they'll invite you to play dinky mini-games: you can play a matching card game, tap the screen like mad to knock an opponent's toy over, play a simplified JRPG, or guess what a super-zoomed photo is displaying. Other times, residents will seek your advice and start prodding you about becoming friends—or more than friends.
The rest of the island is made up of quirky moments that your Miis are inserted into, as if Nintendo wrote up a kid-friendly sketch comedy show while dropping acid. Instead of jokes and punchlines, your characters get into awkward situations, like PG-rated rap battles, Twin Peaks-style dream sequences, or standing around a barbecue and commenting frequently about the meat (all while speaking with synthesized voices that actually handle a giant range of English words quite well).
There's a certain age range that this content seems written for, and we at Ars feel squarely aged out of it. More importantly, these zany activities rarely dole out cash or points; if you go to the beach or the lookout point and hang out with a Mii there, he or she won't react giddily like a virtual pet. You're just hanging out with Nintendo's so-so writing at that point.
Exploiting your friends
Comparisons to Nintendo's Animal Crossing series—another cutesy, written-for-kids life-sim with little in the way of endgame—crumble pretty quickly upon closer examination. Tomodachi relies almost entirely on the touchscreen for control, and you don't control characters directly. In fact, you rarely get to customize or rearrange anything in the apartments or on the island, and there's nothing in the way of Animal Crossing-esque discovery or exploration. Tap to warp to different spots on the island, then talk, shop, watch, and repeat.
You might expect to export your 3DS online friend list or Miiverse roster to fill out the apartment building, but for whatever reason, Tomodachi doesn't support such automation. If you want to export characters online, you'll have to create a QR code within the game, then send that code to your friends. Otherwise, you'll have to meet your friends in person to wirelessly transfer your Miis, so unless you already have Miis loaded in your 3DS' Mii Maker, you'll have to build island residents from scratch.
The way the game plays, you'll want to go to the trouble of making personalized residents. I used that QR code functionality to import a random person online, and I had a lot less patience for his neediness and requests than I did for people who resembled celebrities or my friends. In real life, I'd hang out with friends while tapping away in a brief session and mention whatever weird activities "they" had been up to, and we'd laugh while I held the 3DS up.
Oh, and we used the Y and X buttons to capture screenshots. That's probably the coolest part of Tomodachi, by the way: the ability to take screenshots at any time and then upload them through Nintendo's admittedly clunky social media sharing service. One friend rode another friend as a horse in a dream sequence—saved and sent. Same when actress Kristen Bell turned my good friend down for a date, or when my friends were backup dancers for my singing performance at a giant music hall.
Ars has recently reported on Nintendo's choice not to support same-sex romance in the game, along with the company's official response—namely, that such a thing would be too difficult to patch into the game at this point. While such a change does seem pretty steep to pull off with final, retail code, after playing the game for a while, I'm shocked that Nintendo never considered the issue during the design process.
The game wants so badly for players to empathize with the apartment's residents, particularly in crafting their personalities (quirky, reserved, polite, etc.) during character creation, and it also makes sure to accelerate the romance process when a new character is marked as a "spouse" in relation to the game's "primary" Mii. Tomodachi Life also awards happiness points for relationships, marriages, and having children, and it smothers characters in unhappy rain clouds when their strides fail.
In short, this isn't optional, easy-to-ignore content. If you're gay, Tomodachi will reinforce feelings of exclusion regularly. And if you find that criticism irrelevant, consider how much of the game hinges on you investing personally into its content. When bizarre dreams happen, or Miis gather for a Frisbee match, or residents rip into karaoke songs, you don't accrue money or points or any other "useful" stuff. Instead, you attach those moments to the real people the Miis have been modeled on.
Tomodachi is most successful, most amusing, and most striking when it exploits your friendships and relationships—when you feel compelled to capture and share a screenshot of your brother and your childhood friend throwing trash at each other while fighting over a teddy bear. It would be a brilliant social smartphone game to pull up in incredibly brief, few-times-a-day sessions, a feeling reinforced by the fact that the game uses no traditional buttons.
It would also be an easy port, at least on a technical level, but Nintendo will need to overcome its aversion to smartphones before Tomodachi Life reaches its ideal platform.
The good
- Goofy situations tend to be hilarious when real-life friends are involved
- Screenshot tool works wonderfully with social media sharing options
The bad
- Tween-targeted writing makes many of the skits and situations not stand up on their own
- Wimpy mini-game selection
- No opportunities for exploration on tiny island
The ugly
- Neither of the 3DS' friend-list options work for importing friends
Verdict: Try it if you're a tween (or a tween-at-heart). Otherwise, avoid it.


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Using the search bar lets you search using any combination of category, keywords and location.
- Category - use this if you know the type of results you want to find (e.g. adult care and support services, families information, local offer)
- Keywords - type one or more words to describe what you are looking for (e.g. childminder, alzheimers support, swimming)
- Location - use this to find results near a location. Try a place name such as Oakham, or postcode (LE15 6HP or PE9)
Searching by Keyword
Typing in a word or a few words into the Keywords box will bring back all entries that contain at least one of the words you have entered.
You can also use special characters to limit your results more closely.
If you use the plus sign (+) before your keyword, then any records in your results must contain that keyword.
For example, if you searched for '+housing +advice' then only records that contain both of the words housing and advice would be shown in your search results.
Using double quotes (") around your search keywords brings back only results that contain those words as an exact phrase, for example:
"badminton club"
Using search filters
Once you have your search results, you can use the search filters displayed in lists to the left of your results to narrow your search down further.
These filters allow you to limit results by subject area (such as 'Money Matters'), and by user group (such as 'Carers') and so on. The more use you make of the filters, the more focussed your results will be.
Sorting your search results
You can change the sort order of your search results using the options that are shown in the section just above your results.
Depending on the type of search that you have done, your results can appear in any of the following sort orders:
- Sorted by relevance (i.e. the best match to your search)
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Rich and Creamy Lowfat Vegan Alfredo
1 (12 ounce) package lowfat silken tofu
3 tablespoons vegan butter-flavored powder
1/4 cup vegan parmesan
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
veggie broth, as needed
salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup cooked pasta, divided, to serve
1. Blend all sauce ingredients, adding enough broth to make a smooth and creamy consistency.
2. Heat gently. Serve over pasta.
Spinach Alfredo-Add one 10 ounce package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained, after blending. Adding it before blending makes it look rather disgusting, like green slime. It still tastes good if you can get past the color.
Tomato Alfredo-Substitute low-sodium vegatable juice blend for broth, and add tomato paste to taste. My vitamin-hating, junk-food-loving son pronounced this a keeper.
This is so many noms!!! Like most people I also used earth balance margarine instead of butter powder... I've actually never heard of butter powder. I used Parma vegan parmesan and water instead of broth, because I didn't have broth. I added a minced garlic clove, a tiny bit of red pepper powder, and (because my pantry is woefully understocked right now) some peas and carrots. Turned out GREAT! I've made vegan alfredo sauce before and it wasn't very good, but this recipe is like a whole new world. Definitely saving it in my recipe box.
I went vegan very recently as an attempt to get my little sister to eat healthier. This was the very first vegan meal I ever cooked. It totally blew my suspicions about nasty tasting dairy substitutes out of the water. I swapped the butter powder for earth balance and added tomatoes and Gardein savory chik'n bites. It was so delicious. I could make this for any non vegan and they would enjoy it. Thanks for an amazing recipe!!! :)>>>
I used Mori Nu silken tofu, vegetable broth, garlic powder, onion powder, handful of cashews, small dash of sea salt, black pepper, nutritional yeast, 2 heaping Tblsp Earth Balance, and a generous helping of vegan Parmesan
I can't believe this actually turned out edible -considering my past attempts have been nothing short of disgusting- definitely adding this one to the recipe book.
this is soooooo good. im not a big pasta eater but lately i have been craving it and i had some silken tofu left over so i figured id try out this recipe. i used half a block of tofu, a splash of rice milk, a lot of black pepper, a dash of nutmeg and NY, and 2 garlic cloves sauteed in a tablespoon of earth balance for flavor. i blended it all up, threw in some frozen spinach and warmed it on the stove before pouring over some whole wheat pasta.
the garlic was a little over powering for my taste but that was my own fault. without it i think this would be a little bland though so next time i will probably only use one clove and cook it for a little longer. but other than that this is delicious, easy, and versatile! yum.
pretty much the best recipe ever...first i tried the plain alfredo: awesome. then a few nights later i found myself craving it again, so i turned up the dial a bit and added can of tomato paste and WOW! best tomato cream sauce i could ever imagine. i wanted a little extra salt that night so i added just a touch of bragg's...i am forever indebted to you for this recipe!!!!!
THIS just might be the best recipe I've tried yet. I couldn't even BELIEVE how much like real alfredo it tastes... if I ate it without knowing, I wouldn't believe it's vegan!!
Here's what I did:)
To start, I used Mori-Nu Silken Soft Tofu... used Earth Balance butter... and Galaxy Foods vegan parmesan. I blended it with these spices: onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and freshly ground black peppercorn. I used a bit of Silk Light Plain soymilk instead of veggie broth... I barely needed any (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 cup) because the soft form tofu just about made it liquidy enough on its own.
While I was heating it I added both some Italian Style and some Cheddar flavor Daiya non-dairy cheese shreds to give it a cheesier taste yet.
I pan-fried some Morning Star Farms chik'n strips in a bit of olive oil, pineapple juice, Roma tomatoes, Italian seasoning, and crushed red pepper. Steamed some broccoli and threw it in with the sauce and served it all over fettucine noodles....
It was so good ..I pigged out, totally! I'm still in disbelief of how much the consistency and base taste of this alfredo is like the "real" stuff...
But it DEFINITELY needs spices added to it or it's completely bland.
I will definitely use this again and again for my alfredo loving boyfriend!
I think I will add garlic and sundried tomatoes.
I Love Tomatoes!
Also I just bought a blender so now my recipe list just doubled in size!
This is a very good base for making alfredo, but I did need to add a few things. I threw in 1 large minced garlic clove and added garlic salt on top of that (but I'm a huge garlic fan anyway), I did need about 4 tablespoons of the broth, but I like my sauces a little runny. I omitted the yeast and used Earth Balance instead of butter flakes (because I couldn't find any vegan ones) and added a lot of black pepper. For a veggie I threw in some chopped, steamed broccoli and this was super yummy! Before going vegan, I was a huge alfredo fan and this pleases even my tastes (not exactly the same, but it satisfies the occassional craving).
Next time I want to try it with some pine nuts or pesto (as another reviewer had done). (:
I made this without the cheese and nutritional yeast. Steamed some asparagus to have with it! it was great!! I added earth balance soy butter instead of the butter flakes. I also added sun-dried tomatoes and pesto in the sauce! Even my not-so-vegetarian husband liked it a LOT!!
This has become a staple at our house. Definitely tastes great with a crushed garlic clove and lots of black pepper. Tonight I made it a bit too thin and thought about turning the sauce into a creamy soup base. I find this recipe works best for me when I use the Mori-nur tofu. This does not come up when you search for "Alfredo." Does anyone know how to fix that? I have it in my recipes but I would love others to find this great recipe too!


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By Evan F. Nappen, Attorney at Law (Exclusive to ANJRPC)
Out of the 23 bills recently filed in New Jersey, three dealing with mental health evaluations as a condition of issuance of FID cards contain potential severe unintended consequences that could invalidate every FID card in the state. They are A3688 (sponsors: Mainor and Jimenez), A3667 (sponsors: Cryan, O'Donnell, and Jasey) and A3676 (sponsor: Jimenez.) All three of these bills require a mental health evaluation approved by the Superintendent of State police as a condition for issuance of a New Jersey Firearms Purchaser ID card under N.J.S. 2C:58-3c. Failure to do so is explicitly a "disability" under N.J.S. 2C:58-3c
A3676 also requires a privacy invading in-home inspection as a condition for issuance of an FID card, and A3688 requires submission of a list of household members with mental illness to the police to receive an FID card. Failure to obey these requirements are also explicitly "disabilities" under N.J.S. 2C:58-3c.
New Jersey law provides that an FID card is void if the holder becomes subject to a "disability." Accordingly, if these bills take effect, ALL persons already holding an FID card who have not had the home inspection, psychological evaluation, or provided the list of household members (and thereby overcome the "disabilities" imposed by the legislation) MUST TURN IN their Firearms ID card to the Police. The turn in must be done within 5 days by law or face prosecution for 4th Degree Crime (Felony -18 months prison time.) TAKE OUT YOUR OWN FID AND READ THE WARNING ON THE BACK…
These three bills have the potential to void every FID card in the state, and require their immediate return!
See for yourself. The law under NJS 58-3f. states:
"A firearms purchaser identification card shall be valid until such time as the holder becomes subject to any of the disabilities set forth in subsection c. of this section, whereupon the card shall be void and shall be returned within five days by the holder to the superintendent, who shall then advise the licensing authority. Failure of the holder to return the firearms purchaser identification card to the superintendent within the said five days shall be an offense under subsection a. of N.J.S.2C:39-10."
ANJRPC will continue to monitor this legislation (along with the dozens of others being monitored) and will alert you and request action on your part at key points in the legislative process.


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A tremendous amount of time, energy and angst is being expended, in a full throttle attempt (from many directions) to expose the Muslim Mafia's penetration and infiltration into the US via their influence peddling operations.
However, a lot less is known about how they plan to effectuate their main goal – the Islamization of America. As such, look to none other than the following two experts as our teacher guides – Paul Sperry and P. David Gaubatz.
Sperry's first book on the subject 'Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington' was authored (in 2005) four years after the worst terror attack in the US, at least since Pearl Harbor. His hard hitting credentials allowed him to pen a devastating indictment of the facts at hand (not how one wishes them to be), detailing the inescapable conclusion – the Islamic foxes have deeply embedded/burrowed themselves in the hen house! Sperry is a "Washington-based investigative journalist and Hoover Institution media fellow who has broken a number of national stories on the war on terrorism". This is for starters.
'Infiltration' contains meticulous footnotes. The book is divided into revealing/compelling chapters, one building upon another. Its sections include : In Allah We Trust; The Terror Network; Religious Infiltration; Law Enforcement Infiltration; Military infiltration; Corporate Infiltration; and Political Infiltration.
Its conclusions are inescapable and horrific. Nevertheless, leaders in Washington, and their media surrogates, pretend that the Muslim Mafia does not even have a sandal-hold in the US. They further opine, there is nothing to become hysterical about because the Brotherhood (referencing them ever so benignly, as if they are a bunch of frat-linked brothers, whose only claim to mischief-making is how many buckets of vomit they have to clean up after hazing) are a "democracy-seeking political" group. Besides, nothing warrants Americans to behave "Islamophobic". We know better.
To augment the above, Sperry collaborated (in 2009) with P. David Gaubatz in writing the blockbuster 'Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America' . Could it get any worse? Exponentially.
For those who are unfamiliar with Gaubatz here is the following snippets : "P. David Gaubatz is a twenty-year military veteran who served twelve years as a Special Agent with the US Air Force of Special Investigations (OSI), where he held highest clearances (Top Secret/SCI) and was briefed into several "black projects". He worked counterintelligence and counterterrorism during his military career, and was deployed stateside as well as to several Mideast countries. After 9/11/01 he was hand-picked to attend an intensive one-year Arabic language program at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute. He was deployed to Saudi Arabia, and when Operation Iraqi Freedom began, he was the first US civilian federal agent deployed into Iraq". And on and on.
Getting to the heart of the above dangers necessitates a basic understanding of "The Plan".
Phase 1: Establishment of an elite Muslim leadership, while raising taqwa , or Islamic consciousness, in the Muslim community.
Phase 2: Creation of Islamic institutions the leadership can control, along with the formation of autonomous Muslim enclaves.
Phase 3: Infiltration and Islamization of America's political, social, economic and educational systems, forming a shadow state within the state. Escalation of religious conversions to Islam.
Phase 4: Openly hostile public confrontation over US policies, including rioting, and militant demands for special rights and accommodations for Muslims.
Phase 5: Final conflict and overthrow (jihad) ".
According to the authors, "the Brotherhood is now in Phase 3 , but patience is key to their strategy. They are willing to wait "a hundred years" to achieve their subversive goal, as Alamoudi put it".
Who exactly is Alamoudi ? (there are so many jihadi players… who can keep up…they multiply, morph, inter-relate and metastasize like cancers). The following basic facts are so shocking, so breathtaking in their mendacity (regarding the Muslim Mafia, but even more so from those who have a sworn duty to protect the citizens), again, there is no need to paraphrase.
According to the authors " The Muslim Mafia's first Godfather was Ahmed Elkadi, who headed its shura/war council for a decade…….it remains unclear who replaced Elkadi , but federal investigators suspect Alamoudi took over the reins of the subversive, terror-supporting movement.
As head of the Washington-based American Muslim Council , he rubbed shoulders with presidents and their staff in the White House-all the while raising millions of dollars for al-Qaida ! He also infiltrated the State Department, as a goodwill ambassador to Muslim countries, and the Pentagon, where he created the Muslim chaplain corps for the Pentagon.
FBI agents who helped put Alamoudi away say he's a much bigger player than publicly disclosed…….".
Tragically, the indictment goes on and on….and on.
Most significantly, these highly explosive books substantiate, in painstaking detail, damning evidence which exposes an absolute failure of US leadership. While The Muslim Mafia has succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations (keep in mind, terrorists will do what terrorists do best), US leadership failed spectacularly in protecting the American public.
It is also the case that said infiltration/penetration began well before Barack Hussein Obama's election, however, it is decidedly true that their access has become "koshered" under his reign. Ratcheted up on steroids, this administration has not only embraced the Muslim Mafia as a "legitimate, democratic entity", but actively participated in its ascension.
Out of many such renderings, Roger Aranoff, from Family Security Matters, posted a scathing rebuke to the Obama administration, detailing how the Brotherhood wields big influence in his administration. This grave dereliction of duty portends a nail in the US coffin, unless one is aiming for Islamic control! Moreover, the placing of lipstick on the Brotherhood pig – to kosher it before the public – has been proven beyond a doubt. There is no way around it, McCain's hysteria aside. The link is here – http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/muslim-brotherhood-wields-big-influence-in-obama-administration
Alas, there is no better citizenry than an informed one.
And a citizenry which is legally – and Constitutionally – armed will never be subdued.
Stay alert. Pay it forward !


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It's Washington, Not Ted Cruz that's Abnormal
According to a new Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans say they have "not very much/none at all" confidence that they can rely on the media to report the news "fully, accurately, and fairly."
Forty six percent say the media is too liberal and just 13 percent think it's too conservative.
Justification for this public sentiment is evident as the budget and debt-ceiling issues heat up and the press can hardly restrain its disdain for Tea Party Republicans and the idea that our nation may really be in crisis.
New York Times columnist David Brooks does a regular political commentary feature along with Mark Shields on the PBS News Hour. It's hard to believe that this feature is supposed to be balanced, with Brooks the alleged conservative and Shields the liberal. But for PBS, like the New York Times where Brooks writes his column, anyone not on the far left is a conservative.
In a recent News Hour segment about the budget debate, Brooks talked about "the rise of Ted-Cruzism."
According to Brooks, Cruz is not a "normal" Senator who sees himself in Congress to form alliances and pass legislation. Rather, per Brooks, Cruz is more a "media protest person."
The same thing is happening in the House, says Brooks. House Republicans are "not normal - they just want to obstruct."
My organization, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, held an event in Washington two weeks ago titled "Reversing the Urban Plight."
A room filled with about one hundred black pastors and community leaders from around the country listened to presentations by black conservatives like Dr. Ben Carson, economist Walter Williams, Louisiana State Senator Elbert Guillory, and CURE Chairman and Family Research Council Senior Fellow Ken Blackwell talk about how freedom and conservative principles hold the key to reviving our urban crises.
Senator Ted Cruz dropped by the dinner.
In stark contrast to what the PBS viewing audience heard from David Brooks, this audience heard remarks from Cruz, the freshman Senator from Texas, that everyone in the room found refreshingly normal.
Cruz had a crisp, clear message about getting America back on track and about what it will take to save our low-income urban communities.
He talked about the importance of school choice and personal retirement accounts for low income Americans.
Only in Washington is it considered abnormal and obstructionist for a member of Congress to ring the alarm about the loss of freedom in America, to take a stand to restore it, and suggest that Americans, particularly low income Americans, should be able to decide what kind of school they send their child to and to keep and save more of their hard earned income.
The black pastors who heard Cruz heard someone who wants to liberate, not obstruct, and understood that the obstructionists are the political class in Washington whose agenda is holding onto and expanding their own power.
According to the Census Bureau, while the median American family income dropped 6.6 percent from 2000 to 2012, median family income in Washington, DC grew 23.3 percent, by far the highest in the nation.
Let's recall that the Tea Party got going when it was clear in 2009 that America's new president saw more government rather than less as the answer to America's crisis.
The Obamacare health care law, which passed without a single Republican vote, has only gotten more unpopular. A new USA Today/Pew Research poll shows 53 percent of Americans disproving of the new health care law and 42 percent approving. Forty one percent strongly disapprove and 26 percent strongly approve.
It's Washington that is abnormal. Not Ted Cruz and Tea Party Republicans.
It's only a left wing press that can conclude that that it's those taking a stand for freedom in a country that is supposed to be free that are the abnormal obstructionists.


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The United States is in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Millions of Americans continue to lose their jobs, homes, life savings and ability to send their children to college.
Since December of 2007, more than 7 million Americans have lost their jobs; a staggering 17.3 percent of the American workforce is either unemployed or under-employed; and over 6 million Americans have been out of work for more than six months, the highest on record.
In America today we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income in the industrialized world. With the top 1 percent earning more income than the bottom 50 percent, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty among major countries. About a quarter of our children are dependent on food stamps. Today, as the middle class continues its decline, one in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards, and 120,000 Americans are declaring bankruptcy every month.
Sadly, this economic pain didn't begin when the financial sector nearly collapsed over a year ago. It has been going on for a decade. As the Washington Post reported in January, "The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times … It was, according to a wide range of data, a lost decade for American workers … There has been zero net job creation since December 1999 … Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 – and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009."
Last September, USA Today reported that, "The incomes of the young and middle-aged – especially men – have fallen off a cliff since 2000, leaving many age groups poorer than they were even in the 1970s."
In order to strengthen and expand the collapsing middle class during these very difficult economic times, President Obama and Congress need to stand up to the big money interests and take bold steps to protect working families. Among many other initiatives:
We need to fundamentally change the way Wall Street does business so that it invests in the job-creating productive economy instead of engaging in the casino-style risk-taking that led to the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history. Financial institutions that are "too-big-to-fail" need to be broken up so they no longer pose a threat to the entire economy. And we need to establish a national usury law to stop banks from ripping off the middle class by charging outrageous interest rates and exorbitant fees on credit cards.
We need to create millions of good jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure through major investments in roads, bridges, dams, culverts, schools and sewers.
We need to transform our energy system and break our dependency on foreign oil by investing in energy efficiency and such renewable energy technologies as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. Making these investments will lead not only to the creation of decent-paying green jobs, save money on energy bills, and cut greenhouse gas emissions, but also will improve our geo-political position and keep us out of wars fought for oil.
We need to fundamentally rewrite our trade policy in order to rebuild our industrial base. Today, the U.S. employs fewer manufacturing workers than in April 1941, eight months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. This has got to change. No nation can maintain a strong economy if it is dependent upon other countries for the products it consumes.
We need to join the rest of the industrialized world and make healthcare a right of citizenship for every man, woman and child in this country through a Medicare-for-all single-payer program. It is unacceptable that more than 46 million Americans are uninsured and 45,000 die each year because they don't get to a doctor in time.
Unfortunately, if we are to do any of these things we have got to end the Republican filibuster in the U.S. Senate, which has forced Democrats to get 60 votes to pass any legislation.
Enough is enough. When the Republicans controlled the Senate and George W. Bush was in the White House, they were able to pass two major tax breaks for the wealthy with only 58 votes in 2001 and only 51 votes in 2003 through a process called reconciliation. Simply put, reconciliation allows the Senate to pass legislation with a simple 51-vote majority instead of a 60-vote super majority.
It's time for the Democrats to use these same reconciliation rules – which the Republicans used to benefit the wealthy – to rebuild the middle class.


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Expeditions: Conquistador Review
Kickstarter's success as a funding platform for game developers has kindled hope in many a CRPG fan's heart, partly for two reasons: it has ushered in a renaissance of the long-neglected turn-based combat systems, and we have seen a number of projects that depart from the tried and true realm of classic fantasy that has long dominated the RPG genre (with a sparse sprinkling of post-apocalyptic and a pinch of space opera) and embrace different settings. Dubbed a "story-driven tactical roleplaying game", Expeditions: Conquistador is the first development of Logic Artists, an independent Danish studio. It is also the first of this new crop of Kickstarted RPGs to make it to release. The Kickstarter campaign collected a modest $77.000, failing to fund any of the announced stretch goals. The game also experienced a little turmoil on the way to the finish line: the official website went offline for extended periods of time, the developer announced a delay and that they had signed with publisher Bitcomposer. Tongue wagging ensued. So it was both with considerable excitement and some worries that I seized the opportunity to review this title. Will the game be an early vindication for the idea of Kickstarting CRPGs? Or are the modest funding and delay signs that the game will not be able to match its ambitions? Let's see!
Expeditions: Conquistador combines several gameplay elements into a unique whole. I would maybe describe it as a "Management RPG", since the crossover elements in this title derives less from classic strategy or squad tactics games. The game rather combines exploration on the world map, management of the people and resources for your expedition, turn-based combat, and a narrative delivered through dialog and text adventures.
Starting out
The game casts you as a Hidalgo, a member of the lower Spanish nobility. Much like Hernán Cortés, you set sail for the New World to pursue your fortune there. The year is 1518, a year before Cortés would set out on his famous expedition, and with courage, shrewd diplomacy, tenacity and ruthlessness would manage to conquer the mighty Aztec empire for the Spanish Crown. In the alternate universe of Expeditions: Conquistador of course that will never happen. Instead, you and the men and women of your expedition arrive in Hispaniola and fate is put in your hands. Unfortunately the welcome is less than friendly, as the Governor confiscates both your cargo and your men upon your arrival and will not release them until you have helped him solve some problems in his colony. Thus begins the first of the two linked campaigns that ship with the game.
As you might expect, the game first puts you through the familiar paces of character generation. You select your name, gender (yes, you can be a female conquistador), and distribute your skillpoints. The six available skills betray the tactical focus of the game: they are tactics, diplomacy, healing, survival, scouting, and leadership. Next you select the 10 initial members of your expedition from a large roster of premade characters. All followers belong to one of 5 classes: soldier, hunter, scout, doctor, or scholar with different stats and combat abilities. Each character has a unique portrait, a name, and a short but nicely written background. Each character also comes with a distinct selection of three traits that will determine how their morale is affected by your decisions in the game. For example, an adventurous character will gain a morale bonus if you seek out the unknown, but his morale will decrease if you shy away from adventure. Clearly a lot of care has gone into making your companions fleshed out characters instead of faceless units.
In the world map you move around and interact with clearly marked elements spread across the world. In towns you will have options like visiting the market, or talking to quest givers or triggering contextual text adventures. When traveling in the wilderness you only get a limited number of moves per day before you have to make camp. You explore the terrain by traveling quickly along roads, occasionally also along smaller forest or mountain paths and open terrain, while steep mountains and dense forest are not traversable. Maybe surprisingly in a game called "Expeditions", exploration isn't really the game's strong point: Most of the time your only interaction is in towns and other quest locations and with the various resources that are strewn about on the map: chests with crafting resources and plants yielding medical herbs. Unfortunately even some quest locations are inactive unless you have already started the requisite quest. Only rarely will you encounter dynamic elements, e.g. a moving opposing war band that will trigger an event (and likely a battle) when they catch up with you. Since getting to resources you spot out in the wilderness will cost you extra moves, doing so requires careful consideration whether, e.g. you have enough food (or enough good hunters) to make it worthwhile. If you are not careful and get lost in the maze of corridors and dead ends of the wilderness without food and medicine, your expedition may be in trouble! So overall there is not a big incentive to just go exploring. There is a set of quests that consist of visiting a number of (unmarked on the map) landmarks in each area and provide an experience reward for exploring that area thoroughly.
Resource management
Resource management is a major strategic aspect of the game. After every day of exploration your troops have to eat, so you need to buy and carry enough food or send people hunting. The more people you assign to a task, the higher the chance of a good outcome. However there are many important tasks competing for your attention: Guarding the camp (failure does not mean combat, but resources will be lost or stolen), healing the wounded, researching improvements or building traps from the resources you gathered, or scouting the area for valuables. You can use auto-assign options to quickly set everyone to a useful task based on their class and to give them food, but you may find yourself micromanaging the system when resources start to run scarce. Especially when you have many wounded followers things can get difficult - not only will they need the attention of your doctor if you don't want them to get worse and die, they also can't help with camp duties while wounded.
There is no RPG-like weapon and armor equipment system in the game, instead "equipment" is just another universal resource. The weapons and armor a follower can use are determined only by their class and by having the requisite skill and their effectiveness can be improved by assigning the "equipment" resource to the corresponding slots for weapon or armor of each follower. The maximum number of equipment resources that can be assigned to each weapon category and armor is defined by class and rank. While the system works well enough in gameplay terms, you may long for a more detailed system, if loot and inventory management are an important RPG element for you.
I am not sure everybody will like this menu-driven somewhat abstract resource system. Personally I think it is well integrated with other gameplay systems and reinforces the "expedition" character of the adventure. It certainly sets Expeditions: Conquistador apart from most traditional RPGs.
Information aboutExpeditions: Conquistador
Developer: Logic Artists
SP/MP: Single-player
Setting: Historical
Genre: Strategy-RPG
Combat: Turn-based
Play-time: 10-20 hours
Voice-acting: None
Regions & platforms
· Homepage
· Platform: PC
· Released: 2013-05-30
· Publisher: Logic Artists
More information


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The Nine Emperor Gods Festival, generally referred to in Thailand as the "Je (vegetarian) Festival" is currently underway. The festival lasts a little over a week and is mostly participated by Thais of Chinese descent (especially ones of Taoist persuasion). If you visit Bangkok's Chinatown right now, you'll see little yellow flags everywhere; they're used by restaurants and street vendors to announce their participation in the festival.
It must be clearly stated, however, that historically Thai has never been a vegetarian culture. We're the people that have settled down in the river plains where we can grow rice and catch fish. Our literature and expressions are dotted with references to rice and fish. In other words, the tofu green curry you see at a Thai restaurants in the U.S. or Europe is neither how we usually prepare the curry nor something we eat regularly; it's more the restaurant's way of accommodating its vegetarian diners. Tofu isn't normally used as meat replacement in Thai cooking, except at vegetarian restaurants.
Here's a dish to celebrate the festival. It is vegan, and there's no ersatz meat. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but you know ...
We're taking Tom Kha Gai, the famous Thai coconut chicken soup, and changing it up. We're removing the "gai" (chicken) from both the name and the dish, doubling the amount of mushrooms, adding to it the bouncy udon noodles which is very Thai (just kidding), and replacing the source of salinity from the traditional fish sauce to salt (I personally don't think Tom Kha seasoned with soy sauce is palatable, but YMMV). We're also switching from chicken broth to vegetable broth.
The rest remains the same. The heart and soul of the broth, namely the coconut milk and the infusing herbs (galangal, lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves), stay.
Those of you who can't find all or some of these herbs, don't worry. Use Tom Kha paste that comes in a jar. I mean it. In the face of scarcity, it's best to go with the solution that makes the most sense. And I think that solution is to use commercial Tom Kha paste. But if you can only find one out of three fresh herbs, may it be galangal. It's the most important one of the three (historical documents show that years and years ago, we didn't even use the other two in this recipe). After all, galangal is the "kha" in Tom Kha.
Don't let the floating herbs distress you. That's the way Tom Kha is served in Thailand, i.e. with all the infusing herbs still floating about in the bowl even though they are not to be eaten. If that bothers you, fish them out before you serve the soup. It won't affect the taste. By the time the soup is served, the herbs' job will have been completed anyway.


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I've been on one of my extended working hiatuses, so this will be one of my catch-all posts.
As a few of you may know, I've recently accepted a position with KiwiTech, a mobile application development company, as their Director, Strategic Partnerships.
I'm charged with identifying and forming partnerships with brands and businesses interested in implementing a mobile app strategy.
So far, I've roped a few brands in my web, including Morgan 4 Congress, Bang! Boxing, and MyBrownBaby.com. I've got a few more in my sights, including Marcus Samuelsson, Rodney Jerkins, and the Red Hot Boyz (out of St. Louis).
A few weeks ago, I was a panelist at Winter Music Conference at a session titled, Get Synched: Alternative Revenue. The panel, which was moderated by Jed Carlson, co-founder of ReverbNation, included Alan Jurivstovski, CEO and Co-Founder of MetroLeap, Angela Rose White, of David Rose Publishing, Dusko Justic, Director of Global Marketing of Sony Music, J. Read Fasse, founder of Honor Roll Music, Timothy Lincoln, Senior Catalogue Director at Music Dealers, Shane German, artist manager at SoundExchange, and Ivan Alvarez, co-founder of CdA Group.
During my part of the session, I talked about the increasing importance of a mobile strategy to help artists promote, monetize and distribute their content. Artists need to take advantage of the growing number of mobile devices capable of interacting with rich media applications, such as music videos, movies, HD audio and video, games and social media games. The one piece of advice, that resonated most deeply with the audience, was the long term utility artists could derive from mobile apps, which, once they're on a user's device, can be used repeatedly to drive future messaging, content, updates and alerts.
Last month, I attended Social Media Week, where I spoke on Personal and Professional Branding to the Linkedin Group, Network 4 Net Worth. If you caught my post, I offered the attendees some practical branding advice, as well as extolled the virtues of mobile, which this generation is abundantly more familiar and conversant with. Their adoption and use of technology is virtually second nature, and brands need to prepared themselves to interact with a buying demographic that in inherently more technologically savvy and discerning than they have previously encountered.
I also attended a few sessions, including Bands & Fans: How Indie Artists and Baby Bands Can Use Social Media To Get Noticed, Get Gigs and Build a Fan Base, hosted by CMJ. The session included panelists Ariel Hyatt, President, CYBER PR and Ariel Publicity, Robbie Mackey, Senior Manager, The Orchard, J Slider, Founder/CEO, Root Music, and Marni Wandner, President, Sneak Attack Media.
One of the takeaways from the session was the growing relevance of mobile and social media for bands looking to attract and grow their audience base. Significant attention was devoted to the concept of the mobile device as the 'first screen,' and the importance of developing marketing and promotional strategies that factor mobile as an integral (as opposed to ancillary) part of the overall plan. Artists, like Lady Gaga, T Pain and Soldier Boy, who have effectively leverage the power of mobile apps to enhance their brands were discussed, alongside new and emerging artists, who were using mobile as an entry point into the music marketplace.
In May, I'll be attending the Cannes Film Festival, hoping the convert the attendees, producers, directors and production companies to mobile disciples. My primary goal is to convince them that, in addition to selling their films in multiple language markets, mobile as the next platform to promote, monetize and deliver their content.
With major motion picture studios developing ancillary channels for their content, such as all the bonus features found on DVDs, mobile represents a very real way to engage with consumers, beyond movie trailers and clips. Mobile represents a very real way of identifying and targeting audiences, in unprecedented geo-, device- and content-specific ways.
Cannes is just one of many destinations for 2011, that will have your's truly evangelizing the virtues of mobile (and technology) to all who will listen.
And somewhere in there, I'm going to try to schedule more time to blog, so I can keep you updated as to my progress in real-time.
Dare to dream.


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SQL Server Replication Scripts: Show All Transactional Publications & Subscribers At Distributor
Originally published on KendalVanDyke.com.
Anybody who has talked with me about replication or heard me present about it knows that I recommend using a dedicated remote distributor for anything beyond light replication workloads. Unfortunately neither SSMS nor Replication Monitor provide an easy "one view to rule them all" way at the distributor (or anywhere else) to show every transactional publication, subscriber, and article they're subscribed to. The only way to gather that information using SSMS is to script out each publication and visually parse the SQL Server replication scripts. I manage hundreds of publications & subscriptions and that's not a reasonable option for me so I've written SQL Server Replication Scripts: Show All Transactional Publications & Subscribers At Distributor to show me everything at once:
-- Show Transactional Publications and Subscriptions to articles at Distributor -- Run this on the DISTRIBUTOR -- Add a WHERE clause to limit results to one publisher\subscriber\publication\etc SELECT publishers.srvname AS [Publisher] , publications.publisher_db AS [Publisher DB] , publications.publication AS [Publication] , subscribers.srvname AS [Subscriber] , subscriptions.subscriber_db AS [Subscriber DB] , articles.article AS [Article] FROM sys.sysservers AS publishers INNER JOIN distribution.dbo.MSarticles AS articles ON publishers.srvid = articles.publisher_id INNER JOIN distribution.dbo.MSpublications AS publications ON articles.publisher_id =publications.publisher_id AND articles.publication_id =publications.publication_id INNER JOIN distribution.dbo.MSsubscriptions AS subscriptions ON articles.publisher_id =subscriptions.publisher_id AND articles.publication_id =subscriptions.publication_id AND articles.article_id = subscriptions.article_id INNER JOIN sys.sysservers AS subscribers ON subscriptions.subscriber_id = subscribers.srvid -- Limit results to subscriber --WHERE subscribers.srvname = '[Subscriber Server Name]' ---- Limit results to publisher and publication --WHERE publishers.srvname = '[Publisher Server Name]' -- AND MSpublications.publication = '[Publication Name]' ORDER BY publishers.srvname , subscribers.srvname , publications.publication , articles.article
This script also works for distributors running SQL 2000; just substitute
master.dbo.sysservers in place of


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In a binge of hype that might make Dean Kamen blush, the world has been introduced to Bloom Energy, a new entrant to the fuel cell business that claims to be ready to revolutionize the energy economy. Plug a Bloom Box in to your building's natural gas line, the company claims, and you can start getting clean power at a price that beats the grid. Unfortunately, for the moment, that's about all it's saying.
Which is unfortunate, since the details are critical. Fuel cells are well understood technology, and already in use in some commercial deployments. There's a lot to like about fuel cells, as they're quite efficient and, when fueled with hydrogen, produce water as the only byproduct. Fuel cells haven't already swept the electricity market, however, for one simple reason: the hardware is ferociously expensive.
Ars contributor Adam Stevenson is familiar with the materials used in solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), and he described some of the challenges to putting them together. SOFCs work by ionizing reactants at two electrodes. Ions then flow across the cell, while electrons travel around it, enabling a fuel cell to put them to use in the form of electric currents.
Reactions take place at a cathode and anode, which transfer electrons between reactants, typically hydrogen and oxygen. Oxygen ions then diffuse across the system, where they're paired with the hydrogen ions, forming water; the electrons create a standard electric current (We've got a diagram of the process in this article). Typically, this process operates at temperatures of hundreds of degrees celsius.
Nearly every aspect of putting something like this together is problematic. The catalysts usually involve the use of precious metals, like platinum, which significantly boosts the costs. The entire apparatus is put together with materials that have radically different properties, but have to form complete seals, and maintain that seal over a very large temperature range. None of that is easy to accomplish, and the results often have a relatively short lifetime in the field.
Adding to the complications, you generally can't simply dump natural gas and air on the appropriate electrodes and expect things to work. Purity of one or both of the reactants can be critical and, if methane is involved, the "front end" of the system tends to be more complex, as some reactions take place outside the fuel cell proper in order to liberate hydrogen. Most companies with hardware on the market have not disclosed the details of these preparatory steps.
Bloom Energy has revealed that it has developed new materials for use in the electrodes, and that its engineers think that it can bring production costs of the units down significantly below anything else on the market. This implies that its electrodes have ditched the requirement for precious metals, and may be able to use less pure input materials, or directly react methane at the anode. Bloom is also talking about an expected lifetime that significantly exceeds that of existing hardware, which will also lower costs. Without any details, however, it's impossible to judge whether any of this is accurate.
Some of the other claims being made, however, are clearly hype. Bloom has suggested that the box can be emissions-free, but that's only if you supply it with hydrogen. Feed it natural gas, and there is no way to avoid producing CO2, barring the use of a carbon-neutral source of methane, such as landfill gas. In fact, Bloom has also been proud to claim that the hardware produces fewer greenhouse gasses than burning coal. Given that coal is the absolute worst energy source in this regard, that's no surprise; the "lower emissions" claim is true for simply burning methane, as well.
Bloom has also suggested that their fuel cell can run in reverse—plug it into some solar panels, and you can produce fuel to store. But Stevenson said that, while this is technically true for most fuel cells, the performance is generally very poor, and can damage most cathode materials.
Then there's the pricing issue. Wired Science's Alexis Madrigal noted that the hardware costs are currently over $700,000, and a fuel cell researcher told him that this was "an order of magnitude higher than it needs to be, to be truly competitive." Bloom promises that the price will come down but, again, there's no way to evaluate that claim.
Right now, however, the units do appear to be delivering savings to the companies that have installed test versions. That's because a number of states have programs to encourage the use of fuel cells and non-polluting technology. These offset the cost of the hardware significantly, and can drop the costs of running a Bloom Box below the the price for grid power. Whether those subsidies will remain in place if the focus shifts from general pollution to carbon neutrality is anybody's guess.
Although it's not really possible to figure out whether all of Bloom's claims live up to its hype, the company appears to be setting itself a very high bar. Fuel cells are really difficult to do both well and cheaply, and there are a lot of very smart people—in industry, government labs, and academia—who are working on this problem. It's possible that Bloom has managed to make a breakthrough that will leapfrog it past all of them. Possible, but not exactly probable.


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then I wish you and all the others with the same problem (including me) all the best to get a second ticket
Quote from Rebel30: "@Sita my sm looks like a fked up midget :)))))) dunno how much more I can handle watching him look like this xD " did you eventually get a plastic surgery based on the eye changes?
same for me- got one on one of my main chars on 2nd day - still waiting for a new one to get the girl back... but at least I made him acceptable
Only works for Boss loot - not when it's from a box Tried both- Nara box vanished, HT works (takes a while to open though)
please use this thread for the rusty coin event
I am afraid you are mistaken there The "good" manastones had already lower droprates in 1.5 - through until now
Well if you are lucky and your work is your passion: I envy you I work irl in support and I wouldn't bother taking my laptop with me to check in for work stuff unless I am on paid standby - I learned long time ago to leave work at work.
Quote from Noctis: "Doesnt Galeas have a phone to check forum on weekends I feel like platinerk would have included such rewards but its taking so long to get added, it doesnt even matter. " would you check in on your work in your free time? My employer definitely wouldn't pay for that.
could you also please report to support in case you haven't done so yet? aion.support.gameforge.com/index.php?fld=en
New Year's Events board.en.aion.gameforge.com/in…86e8207ea01ad6c8a4d49df8f
Quote from Bimbaczov: ":nothingtoseehere: (For anyone wondering what the video was, it was a player using leader loot to ninja a legendary daeva skill) " as the names are visible it's naming and shaming
there are community guidelines for a reason and I suggest you have a look at them again, specifically point 3 - posting on the forum "Do not report exploits or other players in the Forum. In case you report bugs please make sure you have first created a ticket to the Game-Support." Community Guidelines
it's a sunday and a holiday - please have patience till tomorrow until Galeas will be back In the meantime, make support tickets - informing on board is a good idea but only secondary to a support ticket aion.support.gameforge.com/index.php?fld=en
Quote from esset23: "Ok, seems balaurs do not drop any keys at all. Can anyone form AION Team confirm that? " I am afraid not before thursday, it's christmas holiday
as was mentioned, please turn to support - Antriksha characters without faction conflict should not even be able to apply be aware though that due to christmas holiday you might not get a reply before thursday 27th, which would be the first working day after christmas
thank you for pointing this out, gonna correct the typo as already mentioned Quote from [NICK]ciotau: "will the rewards be change ? we have to create 8 times caracters till lvl 10 to acces the broker and transfer everything to main ? will be the rewards for 8 caracters or for 11? will be safe things that gameforge will alow us to transfer on main caracters using warehouse ? " the rewards won't be changed lv 10 for broker, and no it is still not tradeable regarding 8 or 11 - I assume it is still …
Future of Aion
closed on request
Future of Aion
I think you will find that this is alreaey happening here 6.0 Feedback/ Collection Thread
please check 6.5 First Info or aionpowerbook.com/powerbook/6.5_Update
as I had no new character I couldn't check on that, I can assume it works for the party if there was a new player firing it (like it used to be with the various amuletts you could get together with dyes from another event) again, it's just an assumption


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Motors Matter
These underappreciated - but growing - consumers of household energy deserve more attention.
Appliance motors—the engines that drive air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, and other home appliances—account for about a quarter of all residential energy use. A new Department of Energy report estimates that in 1995, these motors—most of them less than 1 horsepower (hp)—used approximately 445 billion kWh, or about 4.9 quadrillion Btu of primary energy. Altogether, a home may contain dozens of motors, but consumers rarely think of motors when they look for ways to save household energy. This is because appliance manufacturers, who do not face the energy cost consequences of using inefficient motors in the home, purchase the overwhelming majority of motors for home appliances.
Appliance manufacturers do face appliance efficiency standards created by the federal government, however. Minimum appliance energy efficiency standards established under the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act (NAECA) in the early 1990s have led to improved motor efficiencies for many residential appliances—especially refrigerators and freezers. That is why replacing an older refrigerator or freezer can be such a great step for energy efficiency, (see "Monitoring Refrigerator Energy Usage" HE May/June '00, p. 32). Currently, more than 84% of residential motor energy consumption occurs in appliances that are covered by NAECA. Although there are other ways to improve the overall efficiency of an appliance, using a better motor is often one of the most costeffective ways for manufacturers to meet the standards.
More efficient motors are also often cost-effective for the consumer, although retrofitting existing appliances with more efficient motors is not practical in many cases. However, there are occasions when retrofitting an appliance with a new motor is necessary—when a furnace's fan motor dies or when a new well or pool pump is needed, for instance.
Furnace fans can use quite a lot of energy. Replacing their motors with more efficient ones can bring real savings. Most forced-air furnaces and air conditioners currently in use are powered by multiple-speed shaded-pole or permanent-split capacitor (PSC) induction motors, with efficiencies between 50% and 60%. One of the available speed levels is selected when the unit is installed, to match the blower output with the flow resistances in the space-conditioning equipment and the duct system. Table 1 shows the potential energy savings for the average user from replacing the existing motor with each of three options: a high-efficiency PSC motor, an electronically commutated permanent magnet rotor (ECM), (see "Types of Motors," p. 33), and a variable-speed ECM. Variable-speed motors can save the most energy and can be cost-effective to the consumer if they are installed in high usage equipment. Recognizing the value of these savings, Canada's new standards for the R- 2000 program (the Canadian equivalent of Energy Star) will require the use of more efficient ECMs in furnace fans that are used in wholehouse mechanical ventilation systems.
Room for Improvement
While NAECA has resulted in improved appliance motor efficiency, these motors are still not nearly as efficient as they could be. In the DOE study, researchers examining motor energy use and efficiency found much room for improvement, particularly in the appliances that use the most motor energy in the residential sector: HVAC equipment, refrigerators, and freezers.
Table 2 shows the average efficiency of several common residential motors, their potential practical efficiency, and the energy savings and payback periods that would result from using the more efficient motor.
Air Conditioners
The efficiencies of central air conditioners and heat pumps have been steadily increasing since the 1970s. The NAECA standards have driven the latest increases in the efficiency levels of these appliances in the last decade, raising them from 10.5 to 11.5 energy efficiency ratio (EER). Any further increases in the efficiencies of these appliances may be hard to achieve through motor improvements alone. Compressor motor efficiencies are now within 2% to 3% of the practical limits, leaving little room for increases in simple efficiency. For example, an 80% efficient compressor driven by a 90% efficient motor would have an EER of 11.8, only slightly higher than current products. However, simply improving the efficiency of the motors themselves is not the only way to save on appliance motor energy use.
Most motors operate at a single speed, cycling on and off to meet a load, or controlling the output with valves and dampers. VSDs can greatly improve how efficiently air conditioners' motors operate in applications with highly variable loads (see Table 3). They save energy by matching motor speed to load. VSDs also extend motor and system life.
Manufacturers have been reluctant to take this approach to increasing motor efficiency, because switching to VSDs tends to be more involved than incrementally increasing the motor efficiency. It often requires a redesign for the whole appliance. But for certain appliances, such as air conditioners, a VSD can meet the applianceÂÂÂfs load much more efficiently.
The capacity of an air conditionerÂÂÂfs motor is usually based on the anticipated maximum cooling load of the house. But most of a homeÂÂÂfs operating hours occur under much milder conditions, requiring only a fraction of the cooling capacity of the air conditioner. In a typical air conditioner with a single-speed compressor, the unit cycles on and off to maintain the conditioned space at a desired set temperature. Continuous operation modulated by a VSD would use the heat exchangers more efficiently, limit losses associated with on-off cycling, and reduce the indoor air-flow rate.
Using a continuously variable-speed compressor with an ECM indoor blower could improve an air conditionerÂÂÂfs seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER) by 50% (for example from SEER 10 to SEER 15). Using a two-speed motor would yield only a 30%.40% SEER increase but would cost somewhat less.
Motors also drive the fans that blow air over the condenser and evaporator coils. Using more efficient motors to blow air over the condenser fan of an air conditioner or heat pump can provide additional savings with a relatively short payback time (typically six years).
Refrigerators and Freezers
Residential refrigerators and freezers can have up to three motors.not counting the ice maker and defrost timer. The largest (typically 188.8.131.52 hp) drives the refrigerant compressor. In frost-free units, two additional smaller motors drive fans that force air over the condenser and evaporator.
The compressor motor is typically a 115V AC single phase, two-pole induction motor. The current NAECA standards have led to the use of more efficient induction motors. Even more stringent standards will take effect in 2001, reducing allowable refrigerator and freezer energy consumption by an average of 25% from current levels. Manufacturers are beginning to assess higher-cost ECMs, which would be used as either a high-efficiency constant speed motor or a variable speed motor. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated that using a variable-speed ECM-driven compressor in combination with variable-speed ECM evaporator and condenser fan motors would save one-quarter of the total motor energy use. EPA estimated that this would increase the retail price by $75; energy savings should pay the consumer back for this increase in about eight years. Variable-speed compressors also provide the benefits of very quiet, steady-state operation and rapid cooling when warm food is placed in the refrigerator.
Replacing only the fan motors, not the compressor, with variable-speed ECMs should reduce the payback period to only five years. This shorter payback period is due partly to the fact that increasing the efficiency of the evaporator fan also reduces compressor energy. The evaporator fan and motor are located within the refrigerated cabinet, so their use adds to the refrigeration load.
NAECA Standards Not Universally Helpful
There are a few appliances for which NAECA standards have not made much difference. In clothes washers and dryers, for example, the motors consume only a small part of the total energy input compared to the heat input for water and air heating.
Although indoor blowers that are integral to air conditioner and heat pump systems are covered in the NAECA standards, these standards have not affected gas furnace indoor blowers. This is because the DOE gas furnace test procedure does not include the indoor blower power in the annualized fuel utilization efficiency measurement.
Appliance standards have gone a long way toward improving motor efficiency. But as motor-using appliances and gadgets continue to proliferate in American households, further efficiency improvements are necessary to reduce energy use.
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text: [From the last Sandbox I will repeat my 920am invitation. 'Paul, you guys continue going after the low-hanging fruit on Trump. Why don't you instead take on something more meaningful to Americans? - your assertions that tax rates don't affect economic behavior, or 'border walls don't work', or more regulations encourage commerce and entrepreneurial activity, or capitalism has created all the world's ills, or bigger government taking on a bigger share of the economy is better, or people are indifferent to living among others more like themselves, or ... . There are so many things you guys believe in that you should really attempt to substantiate instead of displaying your ongoing spasms of TDS.' gjr]


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WP Super Cache version 0.8.3 is now available. WP Super Cache is a page caching plugin for WordPress that will significantly speed up your website.
Double Caching
This releases fixes a long standing compression bug. In older versions of the plugin, the cached page was compressed twice. Once to display to the current visitor, and once again for the cached files stored on the server. This has now been fixed and there's a noticeable speed increase for anonymous visitors. Unfortunately as a side effect, it's not possible to display the "super cache gz" html comment now. To verify that html pages are being served from the supercache directory you'll have to add an error_log() somewhere and check that visits aren't logged.
The plugin now uses fopen() instead of gzopen() which according to a comment on the gzopen() manual page is unreliable under high load.
IE7 Fixes
Apparently IE7 has problems when gzipped files are served as "x-gzip" files, under certain circumstances. This is an obscure bug but this has been fixed. If you're upgrading, either remove wp-content/cache/.htaccess and visit the admin page and that file will be regenerated, or edit that file and change "x-gzip" to "gzip".
A number of smaller bugs were also fixed. Check the changelog for further info.


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Goring, George Goring, Baron
Goring, George Goring, Baron, 1608–57, English royalist commander in the civil war. He was a court gallant who had previously served in the Dutch army. In 1641 a group of army officers formed the
first army plotwith the intent of asserting the king's will against Parliament by force. Goring, then governor of Portsmouth, was one of the conspirators. Dissatisfied at having to play a secondary role, he betrayed the plot to the parliamentarians. In 1642 after playing a double game, Goring declared for the king. He held high commands until 1645, but his considerable ability as a general was offset by his ambition and intrigues that were disastrous for the royalist cause. He lived on the Continent from 1645 until his death.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: British and Irish History: Biographies