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Romero Britto to help raise funds for Gratigny Plateau Park Project
Artist's painting to be auctioned
SOUTH FLORIDA – Romero Britto is a prolific pop artist who's been painting since he was 8-years-old. His iconic style is awash with youthful optimism.
"So many incredible things happen with my art, and I am so happy to share my work every day with so many people out there," Britto said.
His paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in more than 100 countries, including the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, France and London's Hyde Park. Most recently, Britto was chosen as the Ambassador to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
"I want to create art, and I want my art to be the art of inclusion, but not of exclusion," he said.
It's why from galleries and museums, the Britto brand has exploded to retail stores and theme parks to include small collectibles, clothing, luggage, cars, and just about anything you can think of -- and put a paint brush to. Britto gave Local 10 an inside scoop on what's next on his agenda. Will there be a Britto Theme Park sometime in the future?
"Yes. We are working on that," he said.
From big ideas to a huge heart, Britto is profoundly philanthropic. He's given back to countless nonprofits and is now making a difference for Local 10's Gratigny Plateau Park Project, which is at the cusp of a glorious rebirth.
"I want my art to be an instrument to put people together to do something for someone else," said Britto. "I definitely like the idea of being part of the process, of building up things, and adding, elevating people's lives."
To raise funds for the construction and maintenance of Gratigny Plateau Park, Britto will be painting a one-of-a-kind original live on our Local 10 news on Thursday starting at 5 p.m. He is creating it exclusively for Local 10.
"For sure we are going to keep it a surprise," said Britto. "We are going to make sure everyone comes and sees the whole development. For sure it's going to be about happiness, about good vibes."
It's also going to be for a good cause. It will be a true Britto masterpiece you can bid on right now. Our online auction is already under way. Auction Company of America, which is based in South Florida, is hosting the auction. Go to www.proxibid.com/auctioncompanyofamerica to register and place your bid. The bidding starts at $2,500.
One hundred percent of funds raised will go to the Parks Foundation of Miami-Dade and benefit Gratigny Plateau Park. The Parks Foundation of Miami-Dade was founded in 2004 as a 501(c)3. The Foundation is leading efforts to maintain, improve and expand the assets of Miami-Dade Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces, as well as municipal park systems throughout Miami-Dade County.
Copyright 2012 by Post Newsweek. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
SARS or severe acute respiratory syndrome, communicable viral disease that can progress to a potentially fatal pneumonia. The first symptoms of SARS are usually a high fever, headache and body aches, sore throat, and mild respiratory symptoms; diarrhea may occur. A dry cough and shortness of breath typically develop two to seven days after the first symptoms, and in most persons pneumonia develops in a lobe of the lungs. In 10%–20% of all patients, the pneumonia spreads to other lobes, and death occurs in about 9% of all cases. The death rate is higher among older persons. There is no vaccine or treatment for the virus that causes the disease.
SARS is caused by a coronavirus, one of a group of viruses that are responsible for about one third of all cases of the common cold. The variety that causes SARS had not been previously identified, and may have been transmitted to humans from civets or bats; a number of studies have suggested that bats were the ultimate source of the virus and civets were intermediate hosts. Infection with SARS mainly occurs when a person in close contact with someone who has the disease is exposed to exhaled droplets. The spread of the disease has been controlled by isolating infected patients and quarantining those exposed to them.
The disease apparently first occurred in Nov., 2002, in Foshan, Guangdong prov., China, but provincial authorities withheld information about it, and when it spread to Beijing local authorities there acted similarly. In Feb., 2003, the World Health Organization first noted reports of cases of atypical pneumonia from China, but Chinese officials did not begin cooperating fully with international experts until April. SARS subsequently spread to some 30 countries on five continents, and affected the economies of China, Hong Kong, and Toronto, where cases were the highest; Taiwan and Singapore were also hard hit. No new cases have been reported since 2004. The rapid international spread of the 2002–3 outbreak was facilitated by air travel and the lack of prompt, early information about SARS from Chinese officials.
See study by T. Abraham (2004).

subset: commoncrawl


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Shabu-Shabu 70 on the Upper East Side: What All Neighborhood Sushi Should Be?
Shabu-Shabu 70
314 East 70th Street, New York NY 10021 (b/n First and Second; map); 212-861-5635
Service: Polished but cheery
Setting: Avocado-green room that hasn't changed since 1979
Must-Haves: Uni tempura, fatty tuna sashimi, shabu shabu
Cost: $20/person and up
Grade: B+
There's hardly a neighborhood in New York City without a Japanese restaurant looking something like Shabu-Shabu 70, on the Upper East Side. Little white lights on a nondescript awning. A lengthy menu of tempura and teriyaki, hand rolls and sashimi. White tablecloths, soothing music; an elderly sushi chef smiling from the back.
We've had sushi on the brain this week at Serious Eats. And while the New York of 2010 may seem to have as many Japanese restaurants as hot dog carts, not all are created equal. Sure, Manhattan has an impressive number of high-caliber sushi destinations, for those times you're willing to shell out for omakase—the Masas and Sushi Zens and Sushi Yasudas—but you'll pay dearly for the privilege. What we're always on the lookout for? What Ed Levine once called the "Sushi Holy Grail"—neighborhood restaurants that do simple sushi, well, at a reasonable price.
At a glance, it's impossible to pick these restaurants out from any others. So much of the success of a sushi joint is in the details—the angle at which the fish is cut, the preparation of the rice—skills that can't be discerned without an extensive sampling of the menu. But we're pleased to say that Shabu-Shabu 70 is the sort of neighborhood restaurant that'll do you right.
In ordering appetizers, start with the specials menu; many of Shabu-Shabu's most interesting dishes reside here. Lychee tempura ($5) was the one dish that didn't impress; it sounded like the perfect starter during lychee season, but we couldn't quite reconcile the sweet, slippery fruit with the dollop of spicy salmon hidden inside each tempura shell. (A dessert version, with red beans instead of fish: much more successful.)
Better bet? The slender crispy-skinned eggplant ($9), whose innards liquified and disappeared into the salty, sweet, sticky miso. Or the uni tempura ($9.75), fried sea urchin. It sounds like a dish that could go wrong in a thousand ways—but the tempura batter touched only the shell of nori, fusing to form a crunchy cradle for the uni, a mouthful of deeply funky urchin tasting intensely of the sea. Urchin-averse, don't think that frying the creature will help it go down easily; this is an uni bomb. But it's delicious, in the way almost reminiscent of fried oysters: crisp salty shell, jiggly innards.
Shabu-Shabu's sushi and sashimi combinations, while nothing particularly novel, evidence a skilled chef and attention to detail; fish cut perfectly across the grain; the rice barely sweet, barely hand-warmed, soft, distinct grains with a bit of a bite. Of the rolls and nigiri we tried, we were particularly fond of the firm, buttery kampachi and a tuna so fatty it all but dissolved on the tongue.
That said, it'd be a shame to visit a restaurant named Shabu-Shabu and not order the namesake dish ($24/person)—again, classic, but done right. Place an order and out comes a burner and a soon-to-be bubbling pot of water; let it heat up, drop in a few vegetables, and start swishing your beef. Sliced thinly, against the grain, the tender slips of meat cook within seconds, before you plunge them into a creamy sesame-peanut sauce or, for a simpler seasoning, a thin, tart ponzu. As you go, the cooking liquid picks up the flavor the meat leaves behind. It gets beefier as the meal goes on, finally leaving you with a broth tasty enough to pour right over rice.
See more dishes in the slideshow above »
Of all the recommendations I'm asked for—and there are many—mid-range Japanese food ranks among the good eats most wanted. (Second, probably, to "New York's best bagel.") Not the temples of sushi masters, not $3 California rolls, but a place that knows its fish, serves it well, and doesn't dramatically overcharge for the privilege. And that's exactly what you'll find at Shabu-Shabu 70. Its avocado-green walls and lazily spinning mobiles may date back to the Ed Koch era; its menu may not stray into unfamiliar territory. And truth be told, if you already have a neighborhood favorite, this may not be worth crossing the boroughs for. Still, a reliable, recommendable Japanese spot is a real find—and we're happy to point you to this one.
Note: We have it on good authority that Shabu-Shabu 70 is an excellent place to spend a birthday. More, we will not say.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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(CNN) -- Flu activity is still high, but is decreasing in many parts of the country, according to a report from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention examining data from the week of January 13 to 19.
A total of 47 states reported "widespread" geographic influenza activity, down from 48 last week. "Widespread" means that more than 50% of geographic regions in a state -- counties, for example -- are reporting flu activity. This is a measure of the spread of the flu, not its severity.
High levels of influenza-like illness were seen in 26 states, representing a decrease from the 30 reported last week. Cases in the Southwest and Northwest were rising, but levels seem seem to be declining in the South, Southeast, New England and the Midwest.
The CDC counted eight pediatric deaths associated with influenza during the week. This brings the pediatric death toll to 37 for the season, which has already exceeded the count of 34 last season, a very mild flu season. The CDC does not count the number of flu-related adult deaths.
Your top 10 flu questions answered
Half of hospitalizations associated with the flu were among adults 65 years and older. Based on laboratory-confirmed flu cases, there were 22.2 hospitalizations associated with the flu per 100,000 people.
Vaccine manufacturers told CNN earlier this month that there is enough flu vaccine for those who want it.
For this flu season, 133.5 million doses of influenza vaccine had been distributed as of January 18, the CDC said. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration announced that manufacturers produced 145 million doses of this season's flu vaccine for the United States.
Does influenza sorbet relieve your flu symptoms?
The vaccine is about 62% effective, but it's the best tool available to prevent the illness, health officials say.
Most patients should not go to an emergency room, said Dr. David Zich, internal medicine and emergency medicine physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Just get plenty of rest and take painkillers to help with muscle aches, Zich said.
What to do if you have the flu
But serious cases do require a hospital visit. If a patient is short of breath or can't keep fluids down because of nausea, these are signs of a problem that needs immediate attention, Zich said.
Populations most at risk of serious illness from the flu should also see their doctor, CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden said previously. These include very young children, senior citizens and people with underlying health conditions.
5 ways to beat the winter blues


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Emily Badger
Emily Badger is a former staff writer at CityLab. Her work has previously appeared in Pacific Standard, GOOD, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New York Times. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area.
Last year, Cities named ten of its favorite metro datasets of 2011 from cities across North America, illustrating the breadth of what we might learn (regarding mosquito traps! misplaced vehicles! energy consumption!) in the still relatively young field of urban open data. For this year's installment, we're going one step further. Sure, raw data is great. But useful tools, maps and data visualizations built with said data are even better.
Below, you'll find our picks for 2012's best open data releases from municipal vaults, with an emphasis on tools that can be used by anyone, not just developers and data geeks. If we missed your favorite, please add it in the comments.
1. Crime in Philadelphia. Philadelphia snuck onto our 2012 list just under the wire, publishing last week a big data set on all major crimes in the city dating back to January 1, 2006. The data is now updated daily, covering incidents of homicide, rape, robbery, assault and theft. Philadelphia now joins Chicago, which released 10 years of crime data last year. Baltimore has a similar dataset. For Philadelphians more interested in live trends than historic ones, the city is now also mapping recent crimes (see the above graphic). A smart bonus feature: when you click on an individual incident, the map gives you an opportunity to "submit a tip" to the Philadelphia Police Department.
2. Bikeshare rides in Boston. Boston's Hubway bikeshare system published a massive file of historic trip data earlier this year, then invited riders and developers to turn the information into something useful with a data visualization challenge. This map comes from one of the winners, Ari Ofsevit, showing the average speeds across different routes between bikeshare stations:
Capital Bikeshare in Washington also publishes trip data. Nice Ride in Minneapolis did so earlier this year as well, although that release ran into privacy complications when it turned out the anonymoized data wasn't so anonymous after all.
3. Public transit in Atlanta. Earlier this year, we wrote about the handful of large metros in the U.S. that were still not opening up their GTFS files of public transit data to anyone other than Google. Atlanta was one of the notable holdouts. In October, however, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority finally published this feed, making it possible for developers anywhere – and not just Google Maps – to produce apps, maps, trip planners or other tools with the city's real-time transit data.
4. Blight in New Orleans. Code for America helped the city build a web tool this year mapping and tracking blighted properties all over town to help neighbors and community groups keep track of the status of abandoned and code-violating properties. With Blight Status, residents can for the first time follow blighted properties through the process of inspections, legal hearings, judgment and resolution. As a result, the city is able to convey that it's actually working on the problem, while residents are given some reassurance of that progress.
5. Pedestrian injuries in San Francisco. San Francisco's Department of Public Health publishes a slew of data and maps (see their great Sustainable Communities Indicators website tracking everything from air quality to food access). One project in particular has had a significant impact. San Francisco's High-Injury Corridors map tracks data on pedestrian injuries across the city. But instead of mapping individual collisions, the tool weights pedestrian deaths more heavily than other injuries and highlights injury-prone corridors instead of intersections. "The story that this map tells is that 5 percent of the city streets account for 55 percent of the injuries weighted for severity," says Rajiv Bhatia, director of environmental health for the city's Department of Public Health. "That was a transformative map to both the pedestrian safety stakeholders, to the police department and the transportation agency." This is the map he's talking about:
"The transportation agency realized that if you overlay this map with a map of where the city of San Francisco has made their traffic calming and traffic safety investments," Bhatia adds, "you'll see almost no overlap."
6. Green roofs in Chicago. The city has identified 359 vegetated roofs across town, with a total surface area of more than 5 million square feet. The city's data portal now publishes data complete with location, dimensions and satellite imagery for all of them, as well as a map of their locations. Perhaps the most well-known green roof in town? This one, above Chicago's City Hall:
7. Rat sightings in New York City. No, New York doesn't keep a special call-in line or data log just for rat spottings across the city. This data comes instead from the broader database of 311 service requests to city hall over the past three years. The good news? "This information is automatically updated daily." And you can use the New York data portal to map the results. But we're holding out for someone else to do this with a bunch of tiny rat icons.
8. Tsunami sirens in Honolulu. Honolulu published data on the location of dozens of warning sirens around the island, and Code for America helped to build an app on top of the data allowing local citizens to "adopt" a siren in the same way that other communities have created adopt-a-hydrant programs. In this case, instead of volunteering to dig out hydrants during snow storms, Honolulu residents can take responsibility for listening to siren tests and reporting problems ahead of any Tsunami. As this map shows, about half of the sirens (those in green) have already been adopted:
9. Dangerous dogs in Austin. "Declared Dangerous Dogs" in Austin are court-ordered to be restrained at all times and are required to wear large tags identifying them as such. "They have attacked in the past," warns the city. "If they attack again the court could order them put to sleep." Want to know where they live? The city has now mapped them, complete with useful dog descriptions. Watch out, for instance, on Daleview Drive for "Nibbles," a female red-and-tan Golden Retriever/Chow mix.
10. Fixed speed cameras in Baltimore. Baltimore has dozens of these things around town waiting to snap photos of aggressive drivers. The penalty? A $40 mailed citation for going more than 12 miles per hour over the speed limit. But at least the city is up-front about where these cameras are located. This map and dataset on Baltimore's open-data portal identifies the intersection, coordinates and even driving direction (southbound, eastbound, etc.) for all of them. We can imagine such data might come in handy in any number of navigation apps.
Two new studies have revived the long-running debate over how police respond to white criminal suspects versus African Americans.
Often ranked as one of the deadliest cities in America, Camden, New Jersey, ended 2017 with its lowest homicide rate since the 1980s.
Conditions that led to George Floyd's death are not unique to Minneapolis and St. Paul. But there's a reason why the Twin Cities triggered a national uprising.
Architects and planners have an obligation to protect health, safety and welfare through the spaces we design. As the George Floyd protests reveal, we've failed.
As national protesters call for defunding police, a movement for anti-racist "people's budgets" is spreading from LA to Nashville to Grand Rapids.


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Gerard Butler has spoken out for the first time about his stint in rehab earlier this year, insisting he is "glad" he sought help to kick his prescription drug habit.
The Scottish actor enrolled at the Betty Ford Center in California back in February after developing a dependence on pain pills following a surfing accident on the set of his movie "Chasing Mavericks."
Butler spent several weeks in treatment and now admits he learned a lot from the experience, including how to manage pain properly.
He tells Men's Journal magazine, "Maybe a stronger person wouldn't have needed to go… When you hear the word rehab, you think, 'He's a mess, he's f— up.' But I'm glad I did it. I've made a s— load of wrong decisions in my life. But I know I've made some right ones as well.
"I was actually taking a minimal amount (of pills) when I went in. It was more about becoming a mental warrior and not letting pain bother you. The (instructor) would say, 'I don't want to hear about your f— MRIs or your f— X-rays… Let's learn how to say to the pain, 'F— you'… They really do rip you apart… You get rid of a bunch of s—, realize a bunch more s—, and you make a plan."
However, Butler reveals he was angered by speculation suggesting he had gone to rehab to deal with a drinking problem because he has been sober for many years.
He adds, "I haven't had a drink in 15 years."


text: Remember Jimmy and Teddy? We're happy to announce that these two loggerhead sea turtles were returned to their native North Carolina shores last week. After spending a year with these two charming fellows in the National Aquarium, Washington, DC's Headstart program, it was time to return them to the North Carolina Aquarium so that they can be released back to their natural habitat. While Jimmy and Teddy will be missed, the National Aquarium team is happy to see these two little loggerheads all grown up, and ready for return to the wild. Besides, they got to bring two new equally lovable 2-month-old loggerheads back to the Aquarium in DC! Sea turtles have a challenging life. Weighing just 20 grams at birth, they face many natural predators both on the sandy beaches where they hatch and in the oceans where they dwell. Once actively hunted for their eggs and meat, loggerheads have a low survival rate. They have been classified as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. In order to help save these magnificent animals from extinction, the National Aquarium participates in the North Carolina Aquarium's Headstart program, which gives baby sea turtles a better chance at survival. Through this program, sea turtle hatchlings spend time in aquariums where they can safely grow. Once they are given a clean bill of health and an extra boost of nutrition, they are released back to the ocean. The new baby turtles were rescued from North Carolina beaches before Hurricane Irene hit. Last week, National Aquarium staff brought them to our DC venue, where they will remain in quarantine while their health and growth is closely monitored. When they're ready, the two new baby loggerheads will be on exhibit. (We'll be sure to let you know when that happens!) It is estimated that these baby turtles will weigh around 1,500 grams (a little more than 3 pounds) by next fall when they will return to North Carolina for release into the ocean. Eventually, these turtles could weigh up to 200 pounds! Tags: animal-babies, loggerhead-sea-turtle, sea-turtle, sea-turtles, turtles Categories: Animal Rescue, Animals, Conservation Previous Post Next Post


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Arla's new £102M factory will have 'major impact' on UK lactose supply
Describing the new factory as a "very exciting development", Luis Cubel, sales director for Arla Foods Ingredients' Permeate & Lactose Business, told FoodManufacture.co.uk: "Arla Foods Ingredients has not previously supplied the UK with very much lactose, mainly because the market there generally demands that all lactose ingredients are certified halal, kosher and vegetarian.
The plant will be established next to Arla Foods Ingredients' existing main protein factory and will have an annual capacity for 85,000t of lactose.
Construction is scheduled for completion by October 2014 and the plant will be fully operational in 2016. 20 new jobs will be created.
Growing demand for lactose
The new factory will be designed to satisfy growing demand for lactose in the infant formula industry.
Combined with Arla's existing joint-venture plants in Germany, the added capacity will increase the company's overall lactose volumes to around 135,000t a year.
Henrik Andersen, ceo of Arla Foods Ingredients, said: "We have had a very constructive dialogue with a number of leading customers regarding their future demands for lactose quality, and our new plant will deliver on these demands.
"To date, we have been able to utilise and process all the constituents of the raw milk supplied by our owners, with the exception of one: the lactose that is released when we concentrate the protein from the whey.
"The new lactose factory will enable us to achieve optimum processing of all the constituents of milk and therefore produce profitable lactose products for the food industry."
Ambitious global strategy
The new facility is part of Arla's ambitious global strategy to double its revenue between now and 2017. To implement this, it is planning a number of dairy expansions and new facilities to increase production of its most profitable whey-based products for export.
It is also looking to increase sales of its global brand Lurpak butter.
In the UK, the company plans to implement a "challenging carbon reduction strategy", which includes an overall target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 34% by 2020.
For this, Arla will consider packaging innovations and review its energy sources. It will also invest in its fleet to reduce its carbon impact, including taking delivery of an additional 19 combination trailers to deliver finished product and collect raw milk.


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President Barack Obama made a congratulatory phone call to the new Chinese president and raised thorny issues of North Korea and cybersecurity.
The White House says Obama spoke to Xi Jingping Thursday as the Communist Party leader was elevated to the presidency. Xi takes over for Hu Jintao, China's president for the past decade.
A White House statement said they discussed the future of U.S.-China relations, including economic and security challenges.
"The president highlighted the threat to the United States, its allies, and the region from North Korea's nuclear and missile programs and stressed the need for close coordination with China to ensure North Korea meets its denuclearization commitments," the statement said.
The statement also said Obama discussed China's move toward a more flexible exchange rate and working together to expand trade opportunities.
Obama also mentioned the need to address intellectual property rights and cybersecurity threats, the statement said. The Obama administration has been escalating its criticism of cyber and intellectual property thefts by China.
The White House said Obama also noted that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will visit China next week and Secretary of State John Kerry also plans to visit next month.


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MARRAKECH, MOROCCO – December 18, 2013: Caroline Martens saved the best until last as she fired an eight-under-par 64 during the fifth and final round of Lalla Aicha Tour School for the 2014 Ladies European Tour season in Morocco.
The 26-year-old Norwegian posted eight birdies at Samanah Golf Club in Marrakech on a warm and breezy day to end eight strokes ahead of the field on 13-under-par.
"It feels fantastic. I played ridiculously well and didn't make any mistakes out there. I was striking the ball perfect, I was putting well. It was a fantastic round of golf: the best I've ever played," said Martens, who had her mother, Ingrid, on caddie duties.
"The one word I kept on thinking on every shot, every day, was patience. Like, 'It's a marathon of a week, I have to be patient; it's not over until it's over. Even on the last putt on 18, I just kept saying to myself, I need to be patient, I need to be patient, just breathe, take one shot at a time, don't get ahead of yourself and enjoy the moment really."
Having previously held Category 9b membership of the LET in 2012, Martens kept competitive by playing on the LET Access Series in 2013, but dislocated both of her shoulders during a tournament in Sweden in early September.
"It's been such a difficult year and I've worked so hard. Having this week going the way it did, it makes me feel like all the hard work I've put into it really paid off. I'm really looking forward to next year, getting started and improving on what I did here," she said.
Sally Watson of Scotland and Germany's Steffi Kirchmayr shot rounds of 68 and 73 respectively to share second on five-under-par.
A stroke further back were Swedish pair Josephine Janson and Viva Schlasberg, who tied for fourth with amateur Nobuhle Dlamini, who qualified to become the LET's first representative from Swaziland.
Early in the final round, Lucie Andre used her six-iron to hole-in-one at the third, which was her second ace during an LET qualifying tournament, as she also had one on the North Course at La Manga.
At the end of an emotional and nerve-wracking five days in Marrakech a total of 31 players finished on two-over-par or better, earning Category a Membership of the LET for the 2014 season.
In addition to those already mentioned, new players to qualify included Ariane Provot and Isabelle Boineau of France, South African Kim Williams, Tessa Teachman of the USA, Krista Bakker of Finland, Austrian Nina Muehl, Germany's Karolin Lampert, England's Charlotte Thompson and Victoria Lovelady of Brazil.


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Mike Dunleavy had 22 points to lead five Bulls in double figures and Chicago broke open a close game with 13 straight points at the start of the fourth quarter to beat the Boston Celtics 94-80 Monday night.
Joakim Noah had 19 points, 11 rebounds and five assists, Jimmy Butler had 18 points, Carlos Boozer 16 and Taj Gibson 14 points and 11 rebounds.
Chicago swept the home-and-home series with the Celtics after posting a 107-102 victory in Boston on Sunday.
The Celtics have lost 10 straight on the road to drop to 8-28 away from home. Their last road win was Feb. 10 at Milwaukee.
Brandon Bass and Jerryd Bayless had 18 points apiece for the Celtics.


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What a Long, Strange Trip
It was magic. A sweltering summer day in midtown Manhattan. Horns blaring, heat rising up off the pavement. But I barely noticed anything except you - walking towards me, smiling. Your business casual confidence took strides with the authority of a woman with a destination. Your hair was removed from your face by a ponytail, excepting one errant strand that danced across your cheek. Our eyes met, your smile grew bigger, and then you tripped and I burst out laughing.
What, you thought I wrote all that seriously?
I admit it - I like watching people trip. And so does everyone else - but some of you are just too afraid to say so.
I won't cause people to trip - I don't think that's right. Especially because half the humor is that when someone trips, it's their fault. The best is when someone trips because they're showing off, like a skateboarder. I'm laughing just thinking about it.
I have often sat in Union Square just watching the skateboarders fall. I'm sure it's very hard to be a skateboarder. But I'm also sure that it's fun watching people pretend they're skateboarders. Especially when they call for everyone's attention directly before they miss their board entirely.
It's not wrong to enjoy this, because I'm not laughing at someone else's pain. When someone trips and genuinely hurts themselves, that's not as funny. I mean, sure, it's still funny, but not AS funny. Really, I'm laughing at someone else's inconvenience, which is what they do right back to me when I trip. It's also what I do to me when I trip. I think someone tripping is so funny, I still laugh if it's me.
I have a passion for the Winter Olympics, but not for the same reasons most people do. I watch figure skating, just praying for someone to attempt a Triple Klutz. One of my favorite Saturday Night Lives sketches is when Chris Farley just keeps falling on the ice. I like watching skating miscues so much that when I played Winter Games on the Commodore 64, I made the skater keep falling. It turned out that there was a trick in the game where if you fall enough times, you get a perfect score. But only when the French judge was watching.
Even skating announcers enjoy it when the skater falls. Sure, they always say stuff like "oh, that's going to cost her a career," but you know they're high-fiving in the booth.
I watch skiing, and cycling, and ice dancing, and anything else where people are prone to tumble. In fact, my favorite restaurant in New York is the Rock Center Café. Most people like it because it's got great food in a nice setting for reasonable prices. I like it because it's on the skating rink at Rockefeller Center and has big picture windows.
I know that I may come off heartless for my enjoyment of a sudden detour in a person's quest to remain upright, but I am not as heartless as the people who directly comment on it. I don't point out the victim's uncoordination to them; while they are sitting on the pavement, I'm sure they're already well aware of it. Some other people, however, feel the need to heckle with phrases like "have a nice trip" and "see you next fall" and "man, I'm a loser for saying things like 'have a nice trip' and 'see you next fall.'"
When I'm there to witness the stumble first-hand, I try not to let the person see my reaction. Though I think it's less out of kindness and more out of my being afraid that while talking to the person, I may get distracted and trip.
So whoever you were on 59th Street between 3rd and Lexington this past Wednesday, with the business causal confidence and the errant strand of hair, if you're reading this, I'm sorry that I laughed out loud, and sorrier that I didn't stop to talk to you. Perhaps you can send me an email and we can get together over a cup of coffee.
I know this great place on the ice at Rockefeller Center.


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According to researchers at UC Riverside, "use a blocklist or you will be tracked… 100% of the time". That's an awful statistic. It comes from an article found on Ars Technica, so you know its pretty darn reputable information. I recommend you read the whole article (already linked up there). However, here is a small excerpt:
Title: P2P researchers: use a blocklist or you will be tracked… 100% of the time
The old cliché "You're not paranoid if they really are out to get you" turns out to apply quite nicely to the world of P2P file-sharing. A trio of intrepid researchers from the University of California-Riverside decided to see just how often a P2P user might be tracked by content owners. Their startling conclusion: "naive" users will exchange data with such "fake users" 100 percent of the time.
Sources: ARS TECHNICA via HACK THE PLANET rss
Basically, at the very least, you need to use a blocklist or you are gonna get ThomASS'd (aka sued). I can just imagine many users out there thinking, "What's a blocklist? Where do I get one? How do I use it? OMG, OMFG, WTF DO I DO?"
CALM DOWN!!! JUST TAKE A DEEP BREATH, TMBBITW is here to help. And by help we mean, offer up some information. Below we will lay out some resources, links and downloads that, when used, will ease you worries.
Now, a blocklist in and of itself is simple, its a list. A list of IP addresses, and some IP ranges, that are known to be essentially bad. By "bad" we mean that those IP's are people or machines that are either tracking what you are doing or passing data to you that you do not want. An application on your computer uses a blocklist to stop those IP's from connecting to your computer. Are you getting that warm fuzzy feeling of being informed yet? Well, keep reading.
Here are the most basic blocklist/P2P safety resources:
- P2PNet: The original daily p2p and digital news site. Always First!
- Slyck: Great site to learn how to use P2P services safely.
- PhoenixLabs: These guys have been creating blocklists since forever and they also run blocklist.org.
- Created (Windows/Mac Only): Peerguardian (app that keeps your blocklists updated and integrates with your P2P app)
- For Linux They recommend: MoBlock
- Blocklist Manager : A free utility to download, merge, sort, and export IP lists in a variety of formats.
- Protowall: A free utility that blocks undesired connections, to and from your computer via blocklist.
- Protowall Mods: Cleric's Protowall Mods
Now you're wondering what P2P or BitTorent clients should I use. See below:
- Azureus: BT Client that can update its own blocklists.
- Note: Uses "http://www.bluetack.co.uk/config/spconfig.txt" for updates to blocklists.
- uTorrent: Small fast BT client with great traffic encryption.
- uTorrentUpdateBlocklist_1.0.zip: ipfilter.dat updater as a batch file. (Not necessarily uTorrent condoned.)
- http://rapidshare.com/files/6620418/ipfilter.rar : ipfilter.dat file that block a buttload of IP's.
- BitCommet: BT app, written in C++, best for people behind a school firewall. Encrypts packet headers. This is for those that can not use port forwarding.
- LimeWire: P2P app using the Gnutella network, that is great for small files. However you will need Peerguardian or Protowall, because it does not natively support any ipfilter or blocklist.
- FrostWire: Based on LimeWire Pro, a free open source app that comes with some linux distributions. Still need Peerguardian or Protowall.
At the very least, those two lists above contain all you need. Something to go all P2P with, and a way to use a blocklist. You can use peerguardian and uTorrent, or Azureus and set up its IPfiltering option, or if you're all Gnutella is good BT is hard… you can use FrostWire and peerguardian. As you can see there are lots of options.
For the sake of speed: You will probably need to open a port, via your firewall application or router software, in order for uTorrent or Azureas to let connections in using DHT (distributed hash tables, google it). This WILL speed everything up alot.
So you're all done, you can go out and not ever be tracked, right? Well, sort of. You are pretty safe. However, there are some applications that you can use to actually try and mask your real IP address. Its an extra measure of security instead of just keeping the bad IPs out. These are the best, free, anonymity apps out there:
- TOR: The Onion Router – Can help to hide your IP.
- Privoxy: Helps to secure TOR even more.
- Putty: Telnet/SSH client that can be used to secure your traffic going out to a Tor node.
- NOTE: Using Putty and Tor together is a pretty complicated process, so you may want to skip this. If you're up to it, read this tutorial.
- Thanks to dBlackshell here are two more links on proxies from InsaneSecurity: one and two
- JAP: Java based anonymity app. Some like it better than TOR some don't.
In order for the above applications to work, you need to configure your P2P or BT client to connect to the internet THROUGH them. Tor has great instructions for this on their site. You can also configure your browser to go through those anonymity apps. The big drawback here is loss of speed. Any proxy based application will slow down your internets. Its a trade off that's totally up to you.
You MUST know by now that you will eventually need more information, but you are afraid. Why? Because search engines like google and yahoo keep tabs on what you are searching for. For anonymous searching use:
- Googlonymous: Anonymous search engine.
- for example "P2P Blocklist"
- Scroogle: Another anonymous search engine.
As one can see, there are alot of resources out there to TRY and make your P2P life safe from being tracked. However, as with anything you do on the net, you will never be 100% anonymous. Its like having sex, sure there's no 100% effective safe sex, but a condom is damn close enough to let you go at it. Just remember to keep your lists updated as well as your software. Now go be safe.
Got questions? Post them in the comments. (Note: This needs some Major editing, cause it was late and I got too tired to finish polishing it up)


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This week, author Patrick Carman has been on two national television shows.
If you missed out on the shows, you can watch him online.
The Martha Stewart Show – 9/21/09 Patrick Carman and Martha Stewart discuss '39 Clues'.
The Today Show – 9/25/09 Watch Patrick on 'Al Roker's Book Club for Kids'. Ghost in the Machine, the highly anticipated sequel to 'Skeleton Creek' will be released Tuesday, October 1st. Move deeper into the mystery that Ryan & Sarah uncovered, and discover the secrets buried in Skeleton Creek.
Watch the Trailer for Ghost in the Machine on his website!


text: The best projects start with the best products. Start your projects with our high-quality cardstock formulated especially for discerning crafters. The ultrasmooth surface is ideal for stamping, so you get clean, crisp images. And it's dyed with pure color all the way through, so there's no white core.* 12" x 12" (30.5 x 30.5 cm) Cardstock* 12 80-lb. sheets* Acid-free* Lignin free* Colors: Basic Black, Very Vanilla, Whisper White


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Jamie782 necesitaba un nuevo diseño de papelería y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 37 diseños de 8 diseñadores freelance.
Launching in March 2011, Tempurer is the worlds first Professional Social Network for temporary and contract recruitment.
We also provide recruiters with cutting edge recruitment tools which allows them to complete standard recruitment administration tasks in much less time.
We are a solutions provider and not a recruiter ourselves. We simply help recruiters, candidates and employers to connect and take many of the recruitment business processes online.
Our culture is very entrepreneurial and we are still very much a start up.
Our main target audience is CEO's of temporary recruitment companies in Australia, UK & USA. We also network heavily with temporary recruitment consultants.
Our secondary target market are employers looking to hire temporary candidates.
We are looking for a business card design that will be used for all staff within the company.
On the back of the card we are keen to see some kind of a variant on the existing logo theme. See sattached screen shot for existing logo. We would imagine that some kind of a design with just a "t" in would be pretty cool. Much like the buttons you see for facebook and twitter.
We are also keen to see some continuity with the look and feel of the website on the front of the card. That said if this is a crap idea ignore it and do something better ;-)
The type face we use for the logo is LucidaGrande. The green colour you will see on the website is 84bd15 in hex.
Please include the following on the business card; Name, Job Title, Mobile number, Landline number, email address, Skype address and URL (http://www.tempurer.com).
If we see a great design before 7 days is up we will happily go with it.
Can you make sure that the designs are high res as we want to go for a very high quality print.
Thanks and good luck!


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Mashable U.S. Summer Tour - San Francisco
Wednesday, July 14, 2010 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM (PDT)
Event Details
Check out the other cities on the U.S. Summer Tour:
Seattle | DC | New York City | Chicago
It's only fitting that our West Coast homebase will be the largest event on the SummerMash tour. Join us in San Francisco for food, drinks, and great people from all over the Bay area. Team Mashable will be in full force with Pete Cashmore, Adam Hirsch, Ben Parr, Karen Hartline, Brett Petersel, Jolie O'Dell and Jenn Van Grove. Hope to see you there!
When: Wednesday, July 14th, 7:00 - 10:00 PM
Where: Grand Hyatt San Francisco, 345 Stockton St, San Francisco, CA 94108
What else?: Open bar, Light Appetizers and a few surprises!
Socialize: Facebook , Foursquare , Meetup , Plancast , Twitter (#summermash)
RSVP: Tickets will be released through Eventbrite, 21+ Only (ID is required at the door)
Bing helps you find the information you need faster, and with fewer clicks, so you can make better decisions. It's different than a typical search engine—it's your "decision engine."
Mopho is simply the best way to capture and share mobile photos. More than a check-in, Mopho tags your photos with a location or event and shares them with your friends. Mopho saves you time and effortlessly gives your photos more context, allowing you to capture and better reflect all of your experiences. Start sharing more with your photos -- Download Mopho today from the iTunes app store and see more on the Web at http://mopho.to.
Discover the tools of engagement at SES San Francisco, Aug. 16-20. No longer just lecturing your customers, learn to listen and converse in a more social world. Our experts will show you how integrating search, social media, and video, in even basic ways will transform both your sites visibility and profitability. Packed with sessions on PPC management, information architecture, social media, local search, mobile application development, video optimization, and other advanced topics, we have created an educational and networking environment designed for both beginners and veterans in digital marketing. Register by July 30th and SAVE up to $554. Enter MBL15.
Sessions Include: Social & the Marketing Mix, Search, PR & the Social Butterfly, The Business Value of Social Media, Local Search Ranking Factors
A Special Thanks to Our TechKaraoke Sponsors
Please join Mashable and Yahoo! for the official SummerMash San Francisco TechKaraoke afterparty at The Parlor feat. KJ Roger Niner.
Yahoo! will be giving out cool prizes for the Best Singer, Best Duet, and Best Group! People will be allowed to vote via Twitter by using the hashtag #YahooRocks.
When: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 — 10:30pm-2:00am
Where: The Parlor, 2801 Leavenworth Street, San Francisco, CA
What: Rockstars, Yahootinis (Yahoo!'s special drink creation!), Prizes and more!
Yahoo! is the place where hundreds of millions of people go every month to connect with the people and things that matter to them most. Yahoo! develops innovative technology to create unique, relevant and engaging experiences for users. We bring together the best of the world – information, knowledge, news, entertainment, editorial – with the best of consumers' worlds – friends, families, interests, locations, communities, tasks – to provide engaging content and experiences on top-rated sites across the global Web. Our massive and dedicated users make Yahoo! one of the world's most visited Internet destinations and a world class online media company.
Join Gotelo.com and choose where you want to be found, anytime, in one easy step. It's fast, free, and launching this summer. Gotelo simplifies the way you connect with people you know and businesses you like by directing you to their most current web page.
The Intel® Atom™ Developer Program provides software developers with everything you need to easily develop and sell applications for Intel® Atom™ processor-based products starting with netbooks, and eventually supporting tablets, smartphones, consumer electronics and more. Program features include: Powerful tools—including an SDK, easy deployment and validation, Revenue and marketing opportunities, Developer Catalog to buy and sell application components, Application Labs in addition to a vibrant online community for support
Weber Shandwick is a leading global public relations agency with offices in 76 countries around the world. The firm's success is built on its deep commitment to client service, our people, creativity, collaboration and harnessing the power of Advocates - engaging stakeholders in new and creative ways to build brands and reputation. Weber Shandwick provides strategy and execution across practices such as consumer marketing, healthcare, technology, public affairs, financial services, corporate and crisis management. Its specialized services include digital/social media, advocacy advertising, market research, and corporate responsibility. In 2010, Weber Shandwick was named Global Agency of the Year by The Holmes Report for the second year in a row; an 'Agency of the Decade' by Advertising Age, Large PR Agency of the Year by Bulldog Reporter, and Top Corporate Responsibility Advisory Firm by CR Magazine. The firm has also won numerous 'best place to work' awards around the world.
When & Where
345 Stockton St.
San Francisco,
Wednesday, July 14, 2010 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM (PDT)
Add to my calendar


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Timely U of M conference can help Minnesota explore backdrop to Mideast unrest
By Sharon Schmickle | Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011
The protests that are rattling Arab governments from Tunisia to Egypt, Bahrain to Libya have many mothers, many explanations. To understand them fully, you can't stop with the modern-day problems of corrupt dictatorships and frustrated, under-employed youth.
A good share of the rage erupting now is rooted in a profound loss of Arab dignity and pride. All educated Arab children know that their region once led the world in science, medicine, literature and so many other academic and artistic achievements.
Now, they are seen by the West – appropriately or not – as lagging in research intensity and investments in science. And many of their achievements in literature and the arts are not internationally respected.
"We are just now seeing that the seeds for this uprising were sown way back when," said Prof. William Beeman, chair of the University of Minnesota's Anthropology Department. "And it is not surprising that you now see it popping up everywhere."
'Shared Cultural Spaces'
Beeman and other U of M scholars have organized a timely conference that can help Minnesota explore this backdrop to the Middle East's unrest.
"Shared Cultural Spaces," is presented by the university's religious studies program with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The public is welcome for several sessions beginning today on the West Bank of the Minneapolis campus, where experts in relevant fields will take a fresh look at humanities and sciences in Islamic civilization and reveal the connections between the old and the new as well as between the Islamic and western worlds.
At the same time, the university is presenting the world premiere of "Journey," a stage adaptation of one of the spiritual and scientific masterpieces of the medieval Islamic world: Ibn Tufayl's "Hayy ibn Yaqzan." Performances begin tonight at the Rarig Center and continue through select dates in March at the Children's Theater Company.
Pillars of the intellectual world
While the conference material is fascinating and relevant to these times, much of it would be old hat to Muslim students. Even many Minnesota youngsters – for example, those who attend the Al-Amal School in Fridley – are well schooled in the story of what happened after the Roman Empire collapsed in the Fifth Century and Europe plunged into the Dark Ages.
Art, scholarly learning and scientific inquiry began to flourish in modern-day Iraq, Egypt and Iran. So respected was universal learning that Muslim caliphs paid for the preservation of Greek texts. And they supported scholars who translated the work that otherwise would have been lost to Europe.
Further, these scholars forged ahead with achievements that stood as pillars of the intellectual world for more than 1,000 years.
Indeed, many scholars and artists of the time still are considered to be giants in their fields: Muhammad Ibn Mūsā Al-Khawārizmī is credited with founding algebra. Ibn Sina's medical texts have been honored for centuries as the most authoritative works in human healing. Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, the great 13th Century Persian mystic poet, remains popular today inside and outside literature classrooms.
The list goes on and on.
What happened?
Somehow, though, that prominence faded over the centuries. How and why the Arab and Muslim countries declined as intellectual leaders — including if that actually happened or whether it is a mistaken perception in the West — are subjects for intense debate.
Certainly, we can point to prominent exceptions. Take Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988.
When it comes to science, some critics say that corrupt Arab leaders lined their own pockets and paid off vast patronage systems rather than investing their countries' resources in research and technology. Many of us know brilliant but frustrated Muslim scientists who left their homelands to pursue careers in the West.
Beeman is among scholars who argue that there are many more Maguib Mahfouzes in Muslim countries. They just haven't been recognized by the West.
Sudden eclipse
Beeman also said, though, that the Industrial Revolution did eclipse advances in the Middle East.
In less than a century, European nations surpassed their Muslim neighbors with superior technologies in military equipment, manufacturing systems, transportation, etc. The Europeans also organized themselves in nation-state systems that were utterly foreign to the orientation of the Muslim world, where it had been possible to travel from northern Africa to China without encountering the obstacles of customs, tariffs and strict national borders.
"It was very sudden," Beeman said.
And it set the stage for what happened as the colonial era ended in the Middle East.
Strapped for money to modernize their own states, Middle Eastern leaders forged partnerships with Europeans. Eventually the European nations and later the Americans were propping up dictators who couldn't have stood on their own.
"This was what set up the protests for today," Beeman said. "You have potentates, in league with external economic and political powers, who ruled in dictatorial fashion over their populations."
What the protesters have made abundantly clear is that these propped-up dictators have outlived their time. The protestors are demanding a chance to stand on their own and reclaim the dignity and cultural respect that is their heritage.
Information on U of M conference
The U of M conference is to highlight that heritage, exploring Islamic culture in its history and also its modern-day facets on topics including architecture, the arts and aesthetics, science and theater.
Most of the lectures and other events are free and open to the public. A schedule and more information is available here. The presentations of "Journey" are free at the Rarig Center, but there is a charge of $10 to $20 after it moves to the Children's Theater in March. For both venues, you'll need to make reservations.


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Your tutors: William Litchman, Thomas W. Jones, Jay Fonkert, Stefani Evans, and Marke Lowe. Your task: figure out their genealogy puzzles, one a day, until the week ends and the 2013 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy closes shop until next January.
Last year I described the 2012 version of this Advanced Evidence Practicum as the toughest genealogy course I ever took, but now, after this second round (with different problems) I think it may be the toughest course I ever took in any subject. For me it re-emphasized the difference between being able to say what the right research step is, and being able to recognize the situation and do it in real time. It can be crushing to work for 23 1/2 hours and come to late-afternoon class discussion with 16 fellow students and the puzzle-poser, and learn how and where your research went off the tracks. But if genealogists can be mules, this two-by-four definitely gets their attention.
Some think that doing "speed genealogy" reinforces bad habits. Others say that getting prompt decisive responses to research mistakes will reinforce good habits. The course will be back for a third incarnation next year at SLIG, under the careful coordination of Angela McGhie and Kimberly Powell.
Meanwhile, a lot of potential variants on the practicum model are being discussed around the tables in Salt Lake City. Look for them -- and related approaches to advanced genealogy education -- to start popping up in the not too distant future.
Harold Henderson, "More on the Toughest Genealogy Course," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 19 January 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]
Saturday, January 19, 2013
More on the Toughest Genealogy Course
Your tutors: William Litchman, Thomas W. Jones, Jay Fonkert, Stefani Evans, and Marke Lowe. Your task: figure out their genealogy puzzles, one a day, until the week ends and the 2013 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy closes shop until next January.
Posted by Harold Henderson at 3:26 PM
Labels: Advanced Evidence Practicum, advanced methodology, Angela McGhie, Jay Fonkert, Kimberly Powell, Mark Lowe, Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, Stefani Evans, Thomas W. Jones, William Litchman
2 comments:
- Anne Gillespie Mitchell said...
It was a tough week, wasn't it? I thought it was well worth it.
- January 24, 2013 at 7:10 AM
- Harold Henderson said...
I agree, Anne, but it may take me 51 weeks to recover! ;-)
- January 24, 2013 at 7:18 AM


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'You don't need a licence for one. At least not yet'
Ironically, then, for all the suggestion we might all become merely numbers in the machine, it's Henry's computers skills - and the ready availability of computer hardware: "64K memory, disk drive, storage for 120,000 characters. And you'll need a modem," the sales assistant tells him - that allows our hero to unpick the web of conspiracy.
Henry talks crime with City of London Fraud Squad DI Richardson (Jim Broadbent)
Technology, Hutchinson was clearly saying, was as much a force for personal empowerment as an bureaucratic tool. Ayn Rand would have been proud.
Computers can act against you. "Just think of it as an extra couple of million PC Plods walking up the street very slowly and thinking even slower," says a Police Computer operator in episode two.
The computerless office. No typewriter, either
But then for exposing the nefarious they can't be beaten: "A few years ago [information] would have stayed in the file gathering dust. Now you put it in the magic machine and sometimes it comes up with connections you never dreamed of."
Computers for bad, computers for good. Yet gadgets do little to hinder Henry - or anyone else, for that matter. It's the human connections that drive the conspiracy. French fraudster Louis Vacheron hopes The Power will get him off the hook - instead, the danger posed to others by his cocked up crime gets him killed by the same mechanism, which is also employed to use the Vice Squad to scare Henry from getting too nosey. The killers, robotic though they seem, are human.
Friend or foe?
It's Le Pouvoir which is the anonymous power, not the computer, able to suborn not only the police but the security services to prevent a bigger crime from succeeding.
The show's one flaw, perhaps, is that a nebulous power makes for a less compelling 'villain' - there is no éminence grise using power and influence, murder and mayhem. Charles Bridgnorth, a colourful, larger-than-life intelligence operative who prefigures 1985's Edge of Darkness' grey area operating CIA man Darius Jedburg - Edge of Darkness was overseen, like Bird of Prey by veteran BBC drama producer Michael Wearing - here fills the villain's shows rather more fully than slimy Eurocrat Hugo Jardine, but he's no closer to the centre of the web.
1980s kit
They're just cogs in the works, both repaying favours owed to others, though hoping to make a bob or two in the process of a scheme to monopolise the then yet-to-be-built Channel Tunnel. The year before Bird of Prey was shown, Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand agreed to back a solid but a privately funded attempt to create the 'chunnel'.
Still, you can't argue with the verisimilitude. Director Michael Rolfe sent a youthful Jim Broadbent - long before he achieved National Treasure status - to spend time with the City of London Fraud Squad, the better to inform his performance as DI Richardson, and he comes across as a believable copper. Richardson also gets the best lines.
Henry "And why do we keep meeting in pubs?"
Richardson "I like pubs. And they sell beer."
Civil servant Tony Hendersley (Jeremy Child) learns what it's all about
Richard Griffiths is no less effective as the put-upon civil servant Henry Jay, and it's a strong cast all round. Only Ann Pennington's investigative journalist who also runs a "commercial intelligence consultancy" stretches credibility, though as much because of her OTT 1980s wardrobe and mode of speech, Tiger, as anything else.
But Bird of Prey is never less than utterly entertaining and pulls you in, even now, through Hutchinson's plotting and splendid dialogue - "It's the 80s; death by violence counts as natural causes" - musician Dave Greenslade's 8-bit era synthy soundtrack and Griffiths portrayal of Henry. He is the innocent boffin splendidly isolated from the real world who is then forced to empower himself to protect his life and loves. He's an archetypal nerd hero who uses brains - and, occasionally, IT - not brawn to win through. ®
Bird of Prey is still available on DVD paired with its less impressive sequel.
Sponsored: Practical tips for Office 365 tenant-to-tenant migration


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Pete Adkins' Legacy Lives On
Related Story
JEFFERSON CITY - Chris Verslues hasn't stepped on the field at Adkins Stadium since October.
At least, not as a football player. Verslues said he played football since third grade, and then track and field in the spring.
Verslues said the memories as a Jay football player outweigh those from his experiences in track. Much like the athletes before him, it's easy to relive the glory days.
"I helped kind of lighten the mood a little bit. Like when people were like feeling down? Just talk to them, not be mean about it or nothing. I wasn't one of those mean seniors who pushed kids around all the time," Verslues said.
He's about to graduate high school. Then he will attend Lincoln University right across the street. In the coming years, you can bet he'll have a smile.
He never thought football would get him to college, but it's definitely helped. He's the winner of the first Pete Adkins Memorial Scholarship in the name of the most successful high school football coach the nation has ever seen.
Pete Adkins coached at Jefferson City High School from 1958 to 1995. He was named Missouri Coach of the Year six times. He was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1994 and again as a legend on Sunday. Adkins led the Jays to nine state championships and 15 perfect seasons. When he retired, he walked away from the game with the highest winning percentage of any high school football coach in history.
Verslues will recieve a thousand dollars every year for four years. The Jefferson City Football Foundation asked former players from Adkins' tenure to donate money to fund the scholarship attempting to raise $100,000 in three months.
Adkins described what attributes the winner of the scholarship should have.
"A kid that made a big contribution to the program for four or five years. That maybe wasn't the best player on the team, but one that stuck it out," Adkins said.
Verslues said he doesn't know what made him stand out, but he has a few guesses.
"I went to all the practices and the two-a-days. Even though I didn't want to sometimes. But I still came...I mean I was glad to be there," Verslues said.
Adkins stadium doesn't look anything like the former coach would remember it. But from the look of things, the Adkins name will stick around putting kids in college all the while.


text:
- Thomas Edison would swoon at the power and effect of cellphones (3/10/20)
- One liners; zingers (3/3/20)
- Harry and Meghan are not the only ones with titles (2/11/20)
- Some reflections on Christmas (1/17/20)
- Making sense of Christmas (12/13/19)
- Attention on deck; listen up (12/5/19)
- Prosperity vs. entitlement (11/18/19)
When it comes to the weather, most Hoosiers are resilient
The last week of January the Metro Indy area received nearly a foot of snow. Then on Feb. 3 five more inches of flaky precipitation fluttered down and joined in the fun. Brownie, our neighbor, has a huge sticky steroid bloated evergreen shrub in his yard that is larger than the pentagon.
On Feb. 26 that performance enhanced evergreen still had a snow mustache on the north side when the landscape had been free of snow for at least two weeks. I think that is remarkable considering the several quite warm days we had in that interregnum coupled with rain.
Who said, "Everybody talks about the weather but can't do anything about it." Obviously he did not know any snow birds. The weather is a constant topic in conversations around Hoosierdom but Hoosiers are resilient. They withstand floods, tornadoes, heat and humidity and of course blizzards, sleet, frozen rain and hail. It is God's way of making us strong. People in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Barrow, Alaska must be stronger than Hulk Hogan.
Hoosiers react differently to cold temperatures than people in other cities and states. And this column will serve to prove my point.
When the temperature is 65 above zero, people in Hawaii turn on the heat but Hoosiers are still mowing their yards.
When the temperature is 60, people in Arizona open homeless shelters but Hoosiers are still sunbathing.
When the temperature is 50, The Polar Bear Club at South Beach, Fla., takes their last plunge while Hoosiers are still driving with the windows open and the top down.
When the temperature is 40 Georgians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves and wool hats while Hoosiers throw on a flannel shirt, maybe.
When the temperature is 30 New York City snow plow drivers go on strike demanding more money while Hoosiers are still wearing sandals.
When the temperature is 20 people in Miami go south for the winter while Hoosiers close the windows.
When the temperature is zero Texans burn the Alamo to get warm while Hoosiers wear their winter coats and put on socks and shoes while picking their last tomatoes.
When the temperature is 10 below zero the Panama Canal is one huge ice cube tray and Hoosier cows give mint flavored malts.
When the temperature is 20 below zero the Indiana Legislature runs out of hot air and closes for the month but Hoosiers enjoy the first allergy free day of the year.
When the temperature is 30 below zero Frosty the Snowman leases a condo in Florida and Hoosier football fans with bare chests wear T-shirts while hunting mushrooms.
When the temperature is 40 below zero, water freezes in the Worthington standpipe and Hoosiers say, "Don't forget to bring in the brass monkey."
When the temperature is 50 below zero Lake Monroe freezes over and is used for the Dilly Bar 600 race won by Frosty Flanks in the Ice Box Edsel while other Hoosiers say, "Think it will freeze tonight?"
When the temperature is 60 below zero Puff the Magic Dragon's fire goes out and Hoosiers wear gloves when they hang out the laundry.
When the temperature is 70 below zero Mount Etna lava becomes a glacier and Hoosiers close fishing camps.
When the temperature is 80 below zero hell freezes over and Bob Knight is rehired to coach the Hoosiers.
Larry Vandeventer grew up north of Calvertville on a farm and graduated from Worthington High School. He lives in Plainfield and can be reached at email@example.com or (317) 839-7656. Write him at Larry Vandeventer 6860 Sunrise Drive, Plainfield, Ind., 46168.
- -- Posted by SMC on Thu, Mar 12, 2009, at 12:06 PM
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"This research shows that the brain activation is able to predict what music is going to become popular two or three years from now," said Stanford University marketing professor Baba Shiv, who studies decision-making but wasn't involved in the project. "We have to wake up to the notion that these instinctual brain functions can have predictive value."
A Battle Creek woman is asking authorities to file assault charges against her husband's ex-wife for sending him a letter smeared with peanut butter.
According to police, the woman said she is highly allergic to peanuts and that she believed putting peanut butter on a bill sent to her husband was an attempt to harm her.
Robert Sayegh was on a Delta Airlines carrier flight home from his cousin's wedding in Kansas City when he said a flight attendant overheard him complaining about a 45-minute delay to a fellow passenger.
"It's ridiculous and embarrassing," the television producer and children's book author said this morning from his home in Brooklyn. "I was just kind of talking to the guy sitting next to me. I said 'What is taking so long?' I said "What the 'F' is going on?' " Sayegh said. "I could see if I directed it at (the flight attendant), but I didn't even speak to him."
In recent months hackers have broken into the SecurID tokens used by millions of people, targeting data from defense contractors Lockheed Martin, L3 and almost certainly others; launched a sophisticated strike on the International Monetary Fund; and breached digital barriers to grab account information from Sony, Google, Citigroup and a long list of others.
The latest high-profile victims were the public websites of the CIA and the U.S. Senate – whose committees are drafting legislation to improve coordination of cyber defenses.
Terabytes of data are flying out the door, and billions of dollars are lost in remediation costs and reputational harm, government and private security experts said in interviews. The head of the U.S. military's Cyber Command, General Keith Alexander, has estimated that Pentagon computer systems are probed by would-be assailants 250,000 times each hour.
Bangkok, Thailand. Just fourteen years ago, the Sathorn Unique skyscraper was being built, destined to become one of the city's fanciest residential addresses. Now, it is an abandoned building. Never completed, it remains as yet another "ghost tower" of Bangkok. A tangle of trees and vines are beginning to take over the lighter parts of this monolith, such as the four storey archways and romanesque feature columns. Amazingly, this building is located in the central area of one of the worlds largest cities.
❒ Is Iodine-131 Killing Babies In Philly?
A researcher says the death rate among babies is up 48 percent since Iodine-131 was found in Philadelphia's drinking water
Joseph Mangano is is the executive director of the Radiation And Public Health Project in New York, which is made of up scientists and health professionals.
there has been a recent spike, in infant deaths in Philadelphia, and Mangano says radioactive levels, in our water could be to blame.
After the explosion at the Fukushima power plant in Japan, radiation circled the globe, all the way to Pennsylvania.
About a month, after the disaster, radiation levels spiked, in our water, at three Philadelphia facilities.
Mangano said radiation combined with higher levels of iodine the EPAQ found in Philadelphia's water two months ago may be killing young babies here.
We're reporting his research not to alarm or cause panic, but to inform. It's enough time to suggest, not conclude yet. The real benefit is it is a red flag for more studies to be done.
For the administrator of the Portland Water Bureau, the decision Wednesday to drain 7.8 million gallons of drinking water from a Mount Tabor reservoir comes down to six words:
"Do you want to drink pee?" David Shaff asked.
About 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, water officials say, a 21-year-old Molalla man was caught on camera urinating in one of Portland's uncovered reservoirs — one that provides water to a majority of Portlanders.
From a gross-out perspective, that's enough to make residents wary of turning on the tap.
According to a report this week, Facebook lost nearly 6 million users in the U.S. in May. Facebook disputes the number, and yet it's not implausible.
What Facebook user hasn't thought of walking out?
Part of the problem with Facebook is how good it is at the thing it was invented to do, which is to put you in contact with people.
Contact with people turns out to be a mixed blessing. The more people you're in contact with, the more people there are for you to disappoint, offend, annoy — and the other way around. Though Facebook entertains, diverts and sometimes educates, it also multiplies all the problems that come with relationships.
But that's an old lament about Facebook. So is the sad truth that Facebook drains time that would be more productively used, say, practicing the mandolin.
The newer problem is that Facebook has come to feel like a stalker. Not only does it do kinky things with your personal data, its little blue F box is more intrusive and insistent every day.
The study found that today's average new cable high-definition digital video recorders (HD-DVR) use more than half the energy of an average new refrigerator and more than an average new flat panel TV. Two-thirds of their total energy consumption – the equivalent annual energy output of six coal-burning power plants – occurs when they're not in use.
In the Smithsonian Institution is a sixteenth-century automaton of a monk, made of wood and iron, 15 inches in height. Driven by a key-wound spring, the monk walks in a square, striking his chest with his right arm, raising and lowering a small wooden cross and rosary in his left hand, turning and nodding his head, rolling his eyes, and mouthing silent obsequies. From time to time, he brings the cross to his lips and kisses it. After over 400 years, he remains in good working order.
In the early years of the Iraq war, the U.S. military developed a technology so secret that soldiers would refuse to acknowledge its existence, and reporters mentioning the gear were promptly escorted out of the country. That equipment – a radio-frequency jammer – was upgraded several times, and eventually robbed the Iraq insurgency of its most potent weapon, the remote-controlled bomb. But the dark veil surrounding the jammers remained largely intact, even after the Pentagon bought more than 50,000 units at a cost of over $17 billion.
Robert Adams at first thought someone was playing a trick when he saw the plastic bag filled with money lying next to a news box in a suburban strip mall.
Adams told WGN-AM's Greg Jarrett this morning that the bag sitting outside the Chase Bank branch in Rolling Meadow where he was headed late Monday afternoon to get some cash to buy a lunchtime burrito was filled with lots of bills–a little more than $17,000, as police later determined.
Human scum! At the entrance to Kengkou market, a person is roasting a live puppy!
Despite the corporate-driven hubbub surrounding the inevitability of "the cloud" replacing personal hard drives as the pre-eminent storage center for all web content, this system represents another dangerous trojan horse for the establishment to complete their agenda to regulate and shut down the free Internet.
Apple, Google and Amazon amongst other tech giants have all jumped on board with "the cloud," a remote server network that allows users to store their data without using hard drives.
"It's all part of a generational trend away from owning physical media content and towards renting media content from the computing universal cloud," reports Investmentu.com.
However, despite the convenience of having all your files easily accessible in one place wherever you go, the drawbacks are ominous.
Last July, the defendant asked the victim to wait for him early in morning at a Netanya intersection. He picked her up in his car and drove her to the beach. There he told her that she is fated "to become the messiah's mother," and that she must "atone for all the bad deeds that she has done so far" by having sexual relations with him.
He then conducted a marriage ceremony with the girl while still in the car, and swore her to secrecy. At one point he asked her to take her clothes off, and assaulted her.
Three young women escaped a sinking SUV after a direction from a rental car GPS unit sent them down a boat launch and into the Mercer Slough early Wednesday.
The driver apparently thought she was on a road while following her GPS unit just after midnight, but she was actually heading down the Sweyolocken boat launch.
It might be the 'Land of the Free', but some states certainly aren't living up to the words of America's national anthem.
New York, New Jersey and California are the least free in the U.S., based on an index of public policies affecting your individual freedoms.
The rankings are based economic, social and personal freedoms of Americans – and include measures such as taxes, government spending and regulations.
❒ Death at Bonnaroo music festival
Heat, drugs and alcohol can be a deadly combination at large summer music festivals like the Bonnaroo Festival Music & Arts that just wrapped in Manchester, Tenn., where a second death was reported Tuesday. Entertainment Weekly reports that a 24-year-old man died from hyperthermia, a condition that occurs when the body gets too hot and can't cool itself. Temperatures at the festival were in the 90s, and large crowds of sweaty bodies probably didn't help the situation.
A few days ago a 32-year-old woman was found dead at the festival's camp grounds, but the cause of death is not known. In 2004 two men also died at Bonnaroo, which was then three years old, and were the first deaths to occur at that festival.
Bonnaroo isn't the only outsize concert to have suffered casualties: In 2008, a 21-year-old man died of a drug overdose at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and in 2010 at least 19 people were killed in a stampede at the Love Parade festival in Germany.
A man "marries" a mannequin and wheels her on a walking tour of upstate New York.
The elderly are killed. Young women are raped. And able-bodied men are given hammers, machetes and sticks and forced to fight to the death.
In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiatorlike fights to groom fresh assassins.
Basement full of evil radioactive yellow water
❒ Brazilian boy dies from 'poisoned cookies'
A 12-year-old boy died after eating cookies poisoned by two girls at his school in northeastern Brazil, police told AFP Tuesday.
The girls, aged 13 and 14, admitted putting a deadly dose of rat poison in the cookies, but claimed they were meant for two rival girls at their school on the outskirts of the city of Recife, the investigating officer, Mariana Villas Boas, said.
The boy, who was called to deliver the toxic cookies for them to allay suspicions, was not aware of the plan and ate them instead, with deadly result. He was taken to hospital in agony and died shortly afterwards.
"The boy died last Thursday after eating the poisoned biscuits," Villas Boas said.
Japanese scientist making artificial meat from human feces.
Sh*t Steaks And Turd Burgers – Now that's what you call the ORGANIC part of a Green movement -ha
He says the biggest hurdle is the psychological barrier.
you have to be shitting me!
Two men have been arrested in connection with a murder plot involving British singer Joss Stone. They were taken into custody in Devon, England, near Stone's home, police have confirmed to BBC News.
The two unidentified men, ages 30 and 33, were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder and rob the star. They were apprehended on Monday after a suspicious vehicle was seen in the Cullompton area and were initially arrested on "possession of offensive weapons and being equipped to steal."
Once arrested, they were reportedly found in possession of swords, forensic-style overalls, plans of Stone's house and a body bag. Police added that the singer is aware of the arrests, although it is not known if she was home at the time they were made.
Are you prepared to be yet again disappointed in and freaked out by the incompetence of TSA agents? Chicagoan Paul Kahan, a James Beard award winning chef and partner at the awesome restaurants Avec, Blackbird, Big Star and The Publican, managed to slip four of his massive chef knives through security at Chicago-O'Hare Airport. What happened then? Well, he took his flight like normal with four giant knives at easy reach.
"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.
Rich Lam shot an amazing photo of a couple making out in the middle of one of the riots last night in Vancover after the Canucks lost in game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals.
This spirited dog has been participating in Greek riots since 2008. Everything you see is real and unaltered.
So it was doubly delicious to see Shepard Fairey flunk his first ordeal with the paparazzi, this bane of celebrity. After a decade of having his corporate brand enter our public space in the guise of a rebellious act, TMZ flaunted the liberty of public space exactly like Shepard Fairey has with glued up OBEY signage. The tables were turned and now instead of us, the public, forced to endure Fairey's flaunting of the social contract with unwanted street art, it was the street art legend forced to endure scrutiny in a public space for our entertainment.
IPHONE users may soon be stopped from filming at concerts — as a result of new Apple technology.
The leading computer company plans to build a system that will sense when people are trying to video live events — and turn off their cameras.
A patent application filed by Apple revealed how the technology would work.
If an iPhone were held up and used to film during a concert infra-red sensors would detect it.
These sensors would then contact the iPhone and automatically disable its camera function.
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Conjured by o~ SeMeN SPeRmS ~o on June 17, 2011


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Why I Ask this Question:
I've just starting to learn Ruby (and by extension IronRuby since I work in the Microsoft world). I picked up IronRuby Unleased to teach me the basic syntax of Ruby, and any particulars of IronRuby. However, learning the syntax is not my primary goal (if that was, I would just obtain The Ruby Programming Language, which I might get eventually anyway).
I say this because I could learn the syntax, but still write programs in a non-Ruby way. Such as:
To me, doing these things sounds the effective equivalent of writing procedural code in Java, or learning the syntax of F#, but writing programs as if the language were C#.
Therefore, my main goal is to learn to program, to think, in the way that embodies Ruby's:
- Language idioms
- Dynamic style
- Tried-and-true principles and patterns of the community
*Response #28 to the link above (Forcing heavy-handed DI via DI frameworks), asks a similar question to the one I post here. The blog's author suggested reading Jim Weirich's code and perhaps Rails. I'm looking for additional suggestions.


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NEWS- Long shot: Sabato doesn't like Gilmore's odds in '08
With former governor Mark Warner bowing out in October and Senator George Allen losing his seat in November, it seemed as though the 2008 presidential campaign would come and go without an entrant from Virginia.
Said UVA professor and political pundit Larry Sabato in October, "It looks like the Mother of Presidents has gone into menopause."
But just as the race is about to begin, yet another former Governor of Virginia is lacing up his shoes.
In a series of interviews with various Virginia newspapers on December 19, Jim Gilmore announced, "it is my intention to run," and that he will form an exploratory committee to investigate the feasibility of a presidential campaign.
"A void exists," he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "There is just no conservative right now who can mount a national campaign."
Has "Gov. No Car Tax" got a chance? Sabato isn't so bullish. "The odds aren't all that favorable, but according to the old Publisher's Clearinghouse rule of politics you can't win if you don't enter," Sabato says.
"He is a hero of the large, anti-tax wing of the national Republican party," the pundit continues. "They will have to coalesce behind his candidacy, which is a long shot."
Someone who knows a thing or two about winning as a long shot candidate is Charlottesville city councilor turned radio personality Rob Schilling. Drawing on his experience as one of only three Republicans elected to city council in the last quarter century, Schilling says the best thing Gilmore can do is act naturally.
"He needs to let people know directly what it is he stands for," says Schilling. "When you define yourself, people understand where you're coming from– that's when you'll be successful."
Gilmore is the sixth Republican to form such a committee– the first step toward formally declaring candidacy. With such a crowded field and many more contemplating joining it, Gilmore has to break away from the pack by staying staunchly conservative, says Sabato.
"You've got three slots at the front, and two of them are filled," he says. "But [Arizona senator] John McCain is a maverick, and a lot of Republican constituencies don't like him, and [former New York City mayor] Rudy Giuliani is well-liked, but too liberal on social issues. So the remaining slot is for a down-the-line conservative on everything: social issues, national security issues, economic issues."
Sabato says the candidate closest to locking up that position is Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney– whom the Associated Press reported would be forming an exploratory committee of his own on Wednesday, January 3. It would appear Gilmore agrees Romney is his man to beat. In a thinly veiled jab at the Bay State's top guy, Gilmore told the RT-D, "I didn't run someplace and pretend I was a liberal and run someplace else as a conservative."
Schilling isn't sure that such a pointed remark is the best policy, but understands the necessity of it.
"I subscribe to Reagan's eleventh comandment of not attacking other Republicans, but that's the game of politics, and you've got to be rough and tumble if you want to be successful ultimately," he says.[Schilling contacted us after the printing of this article and said we had misconstrued his opinion. It has been corrected in this online edition]
Even if voting for the governor from one of the bluest states in the union leaves a bad taste in the conservative base's mouth, Sabato is quick to point out Gilmore's not the only one seeking to take Romney's place as champion of the right wing.
"[Kansas senator] Sam Brownback is already in the race, [former Wisconsin governor] Tommy Thompson is seriously considering getting in, [former Oklahoma governor] Frank Keating is conservative, and [former Speaker of the House] Newt Gingrich could be getting into the race, and if he does, he would compete for that slot," he says. [The print edition incorrectly stated Frank Keating's home state. It has been corrected in this online edition.]
If he decides he likes his chances, Gilmore says he will formally announce his presidential candidacy sometime this month, but that's not the only office he is eyeing. Could less lofty posts have anything to do with Gilmore's presidential saber rattling? Sabato doesn't put it past him.
"This could be an elaborate ploy to boost his stock in Virginia for a run for governor or the Senate," he says. "He's certainly expressed interest running for one of the two."
"I tend to take people at face value," says Schilling. "But judging from the position we stand in right now, where he is much better known here in the state, he's certainly got an easier shot here in Virginia."
Indeed, just last month, the National Review asked Gilmore whether he'd be interested in a run for Senator John Warner's seat should he retire. Gilmore replied that "it would be a blast to talk policy all day in the Senate." (Warner hasn't said anything definite yet.)
As much as floor debates and committee meetings excite him, what really seems to have "Gov. No Car Tax" chomping at the bit is a possible gubernatorial match-up in 2009 against a certain other former guv. "I'd love to run against Mark Warner," he said a week before the announcement.
If his presidential bid doesn't work out, Jim Gilmore says it would be a "blast" to talk policy in the Senate and that he'd "love" to run against fellow former governor Mark Warner."


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Twenty short prose pieces about the harbour village of Doverodde in Denmark,
illustrated with photographs.
Bird Editions, Oxford, 2012.
Softcover: £12.95
Available to preview and purchase here.
* * *
Doverodde shelters in an oxbow on the Limfjord, a glacial channel separating North Jutland from mainland Denmark. Nancy Campbell was Writer-in-Residence in Doverodde during the month leading up to the Doverodde Book Arts Festival in May 2012. The location lay behind the choice of theme for the Festival: On The Margins (or 'Udkant' in Danish).
'Despite the relative isolation of Doverodde, there was always something happening to justify walking away from my studio for a few moments – a boat launch, a flower market, a disagreement between dogs. Alongside work on poems about the region's geology and waterways, I began to collect notes about my everyday experiences in the village. These sketches developed into short prose pieces, published daily on my website for the entertainment of Doverodde's residents and more distant friends. This selection from those writings provides a dose of life on the margins of Denmark.'


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MenopausePerimenopause- Postmenopause
Menopause is time in a woman's life when her periods (menstruation) eventually stop and the body goes through changes that no longer allow her to get pregnant. It is a natural event that normally occurs in women age 45 - 55.
Causes, incidence, and risk factors
During menopause, a woman's ovaries stop making eggs and they produce less estrogen and progesterone. Changes in these hormones cause menopause symptoms. Periods occur less often and eventually stop. Sometimes this happens suddenly. But most of the time, periods slowly stop over time.
Menopause is complete when you have not had a period for 1 year. This is called postmenopause. Women who are post-menopausal can no longer get pregnant.
Surgical menopause is when medical treatments cause a drop in estrogen. This can happen if your ovaries are removed, or if you receive chemotherapy or hormone therapy for breast cancer.
Symptoms vary from woman to woman. They may last 5 or more years. Some women may have worse symptoms than others. Symptoms of surgical menopause can be more severe and start more suddenly.
The first thing you may notice is that your periods start to change. They might occur more often or less often. Some women might get their period every 3 weeks. This might last for 1-3 years before the periods completely stop.
Common symptoms of menopause include:
Menstrual periods that occur less often and eventually stop
Heart pounding or racing
Hot flashes, usually worst during the first 1-2 years
Night sweats
Skin flushing
Sleeping problems (insomnia)
Other symptoms of menopause may include:
Decreased interest in sex, possibly decreased response to sexual stimulation
Forgetfulness (in some women)
Mood swings including irritability, depression, and anxiety
Urine leakage
Vaginal dryness and painful sexual intercourse
Vaginal infections
Joint aches and pains
Irregular heartbeat (palpitations)
Signs and tests
Blood and urine tests can be used to look for changes in hormone levels. Test results can help your doctor determine if you are close to menopause or if you have already gone through menopause.
Tests that may be done include:
Your health care provider will perform a pelvic exam. Decreased estrogen can cause changes in the lining of the vagina.
Bone loss increases during the first few years after your last period. Your doctor may order a bone density test to look for bone loss related to osteoporosis.
Treatment for menopause depends on many things, including how bad your symptoms are, your overall health, and your preference. It may include lifestyle changes or hormone therapy.
Hormone therapy may help if you have severe hot flashes, night sweats, mood issues, or vaginal dryness. Hormone therapy is treatment with estrogen and, sometimes, progesterone.
Talk to your doctor about the benefits and risks of hormone therapy. Your doctor should be aware of your entire medical history before prescribing hormone therapy (HT). Learn about options that do not involve taking hormones.
Several major studies have questioned the health benefits and risks of hormone therapy, including the risk of developing breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots.
Current guidelines support the use of HT for the treatment of hot flashes. Specific recommendations:
HT may be started in women who have recently entered menopause.
HT should not be used in women who started menopause many years ago, except for estrogen vaginal creams.
The medicine should not be used for longer than 5 years.
Women taking HT have a low risk for stroke, heart disease, blood clots, or breast cancer.
To reduce the risks of estrogen therapy, your doctor may recommend:
A lower dose of estrogen or a different estrogen preparation (for instance, a vaginal cream or skin patch rather than a pill)
Frequent and regular pelvic exams and Pap smears to detect problems as early as possible
Frequent and regular physical exams, including breast exams and mammograms
If you have a uterus and decide to take estrogen, you should also take progesterone to prevent cancer of the lining of the uterus (endometrial cancer). If you do not have a uterus, you do not need progesterone.
See also: Hormone therapy
There are other medicines available to help with mood swings, hot flashes, and other symptoms. These include:
Antidepressants, including paroxetine (Paxil), venlafaxine (Effexor), bupropion (Wellbutrin), and fluoxetine (Prozac)
A blood pressure medicine called clonidine
Gabapentin, a seizure drug that also helps reduce hot flashes
Hormones are not always needed to reduce symptoms of menopause. There are many steps you can take to reduce symptoms.
Diet changes:.
Avoid caffeine, alcohol, and spicy foods
Eat soy foods. Soy contains estrogen
Get plenty of calcium and vitamin D in food or supplements
Exercise and relaxation techniques:.
Get plenty of exercise.
Do Kegel exercises every day. They strengthen the muscles of your vagina and pelvis.
Practice slow, deep breathing whenever a hot flash starts to come on. Try taking six breaths a minute.
Try yoga, tai chi, or meditation.
Other tips:
Dress lightly and in layers.
Keep having sex.
Use water-based lubricants or a vaginal moisturizer during sex.
See an acupuncture specialist.
See also: Managing menopause at home
Some women have vaginal bleeding after menopause. This is often nothing to worry about. However, you should tell your health care provider if this occurs. It may be an early sign of other health problems, including cancer.
Decreased estrogen levels have been linked with some long-term effects, including:
Bone loss and osteoporosis in some women
Changes in cholesterol levels and greater risk of heart disease
Calling your health care provider
Call your health care provider if:
You are spotting blood between periods
You have had 12 consecutive months with no period and suddenly vaginal bleeding or spotting begins again, even if it is a very small amount
Menopause is a natural and expected part of a woman's development and does not need to be prevented. You can reduce your risk of long-term problems such as osteoporosis and heart disease by taking the following steps:
Control your blood pressure, cholesterol, and other risk factors for heart disease.
Do NOT smoke. Cigarette use can cause early menopause.
Eat a low-fat diet.
Get regular exercise. Resistance exercises help strengthen your bones and improve your balance.
If you show early signs of bone loss or have a strong family history of osteoporosis, talk to your doctor about medications that can help stop further weakening.
Take calcium and vitamin D.


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Southern LaosKevin (เควิน) Khaosan
This beautiful region of Laos is a great place to explore for those with a strong sense of adventure and eye for beauty. Although you won't find tourist towns like those in the north of the country, those who take the time to explore southern Laos will find an impressive number of pretty islands, dense jungle and magnificent mountains. (more…)