For the first time in what seems like forever, it actually managed to be nice on a Saturday when I wasn't out of town. I've been itching for weeks to do the Lake Mingo trail and I finally had the chance.
Boy am I out of condition. I skipped the side trip down to the place where I took the otter picture, and I cut off the one easily skippable loop. Still, my feet hurt and I feel quite tired.
The spring beauties are in full bloom, so much of the park is carpeted in white with pink highlights. Very pretty. Spring beauty is my favorite plant for today. Other flowers include violets, both the regular violet sort and yellow, phlox, bluebells, a couple of red trilliums. And the redbuds are in full, lovely bloom everywhere.
There were some warblers around. None that I could identify positively, but I think I had yellow-rumped and palm, plus one that I think was an ovenbird. One interesting experience where I was admiring a great blue heron coming in to land, just thinking about how pretty he was, and suddenly realized that he was chasing an egret away.
I saw a few butterflies: one of the anglewings with green hair, a mourning cloak, and a couple of white sulfurs. A couple of small dragonflies and tiny damselflies. If I actually knew anything about bees, I'd probably be able to report a lot of different species -- although there weren't large numbers of individuals, there seemed to be a whole lot of different kinds.


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The LEAST Safe for Work Post Ever: 6 from BLOWFLY
WARNING: THE TITLE IS NOT MISLEADING. NOT *ONE* SINGLE VIDEO LINKED IN THIS POST IS SAFE FOR WORK. NOT EVEN CLOSE.
February the 14th brings another hopefully Happy Birthday to the Original Dirty Rapper, Blowfly a.k.a. Clarence Reid.
Saturday, February 9th brings "Papa" Fly back to the Dallas stage for the first time in four long years at Deep Ellum's Club Dada.
Either occasion gives us a good excuse to look back at some of the best selections from Blowfly's recording career, which now spans nearly a half century. We previously reviewed the legend's second comeback album of the new millenium, BLOWFLY'S PUNK ROCK PARTY back in 2006. Here's a half dozen more worth seeking out if you're into dirty jokes, funky music, rampant political incorrectness and over the top, hypersexual supervillainy. Complete with periodic NSFW video links and album covers (FINAL WARNING!). Let's proceed:
BLOWFLY AT THE MOVIES (1973)
The first half of the Seventies found anywhere from 16 to 25 tracks on a typical Blowfly album, many just a minute or two in length. Most were song parodies with a common theme, such as the Blowflyization of the Fifties in OLDIES BUT GOODIES or the sights of the nation in BLOWFLY ON TOUR. While many prefer his WEIRD WORLD OF BLOWFLY debut, my favorite of the bunch is AT THE MOVIES. Side One contains the classics "Freddy's Dick is Dead" and "Cross 110th Street" which are still part of Blowfly's live show. In case you're doubting the date I've put on it, the other parodies include "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", "Back Stabbers" and "Superstition", all hits from 1972 getting the Blowfly treatment. Assisting Blowfly on all the Weird World releases (through 1981) was a top-notch backing band featuring Jerome Smith and Little Beaver on guitar, Chocolate Perry and Rick Finch on bass, and the Mike Lewis Orchestra providing strings and horns.
BLOWFLY DISCO (1975)
By this time Blowfly was still doing song parodies, but in longer form (usually 4 to 6 minutes) with about 7 or 8 tracks per album. Same backing band, same studio--in fact, Miami's "The Studio". While 1977's PORNO FREAK features another pre-Sugarhill Gang rap song in "To Fuck The Boss", DISCO is the stronger album to these ears. Frankie Valli's "Swearin' to God" becomes "Spread Your Cheeks", The "Goddamn" Isley Brothers' "Fight the Power" becomes "Kiss It All Around" ("They curse on this record anyway, so I have no problem doin' this shit") and twisting a fondly remembered classic by the B.T. Express:
Maybe things were a little more polished by this time, with several songs sounding like they were recorded in more than one take as opposed to the off-the-cuff approach of Blowfly's earliest records, but the professionalism just provided more contrast in my opinion and made things funnier. The K.C. and the Sunshine Band parody sounds purfunctory, but the rest of the record is hilarious and "Shake Your Ass" remains a standard. A great introduction to the Weird World, this.
BLOWFLY'S PARTY (1980)
Blowfly's highest charting album and biggest seller was also his penultimate release for the Weird World label. By this time, original tunes were the order of the day, as the parodies virtually disappeared after DISCO. Two of his best loved non parody originals are here: "Girl Let Me Cum in Your Mouth" and this underground sensation:
"Blowfly's Rapp" hinted at the direction that Papa Fly was headed. He'd done rap songs before, but the transition from full time crooner and occasional rapper would reverse with his Weird World swan song:
RAPPIN', DANCIN' AND LAUGHIN' (1981)
There's a considerable amount of filler here, true: "Insects Theme" is just an instrumental version of "The Incredible Fulk" and "The Word Game" is pretty tame for a Blowfly LP. But "Convoy", "Fulk" and "Blowfly Vs. Darth Vader" more than make up for this minor inconvenience, and the hidden goodies within include the Man's complete diss of Kurtis Blow, a revised version of the alphabet (after which Blowfly has a spirited dispute with his creator) and, after Mr. Vader is destroyed, a mini-greatest hits of early Blowfly for about 4 1/2 minutes until the music stops. After a few polished records, the return of the impromptu 'Fly is welcome.
One question lingers from the aformentioned "Fulk": If the scientist had "tried that shit on frogs and hogs" and "Goddammit, it works", then why wouldn't at least one of those animals subjected to the successful experiments appear at the contest later in the song? A million dollars ought to entice a lot of farmers, right?
FRESH JUICE (1983)
After a two year break, Blowfly returned on Oops! records with a record that many consider to be his masterpiece. Rap and R&B co-exist in even amounts, with examples of the former finding Blowfly battling "The Vampire That Ate Miami" (a more formidable foe than Darth Vader, who was felled by a similar concoction that Count Fagula merely laughed at) and being elected "The First Black President". Reid returns to crooning as well, with "I've Got to be Free" being one of his best ballads and "She's Bad" being examples. And, dare I say, it, some social commentary? "Business Deal" finds Blowfly reversing the pro-sexual harassment sentiment of 1977's "To Fuck the Boss". And then there's "That's What your Pussy's Made For", which may be the quintessential Blowfly rap song. Seven minutes of incredibly over the top, un-PC sentiment that has lost little of its ability to offend thirty years later. Underneath it all (way underneath) is a cautionary tale about sheltering children, predator adults, absentee parents and birth control. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it:
Possibly most offensive to teachers. The protagonists' instructor does thoroughly improper things after class, and Blowfly rhymes "muscle" with "worser". At any rate, it opens this album flawlessly and IMO should have won a Grammy for Best Comedy Recording in 1984. "Eat It"? Please.
ELECTRONIC BANANA (1984)
The followup to FRESH JUICE found Papa Fly leaping headlong into the synthesizer era, with keyboards overshadowing all sonically. The songs were still hilarious, with "The Electronic Pussy Sucker" and "It Takes a Freak" commendably futuristic, and "Fuck the Devil" name checking Jayne Kennedy and Irene Cara in a good way and Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor in less reverential scenarios. It isn't all rap drenched in keyboards though. "Gimme That Old 69" is a brilliant Louis Armstrong pastiche (surprising that Reid never did one until '84) and "Rotten Fish" is calypso Blowfly, featuring a fake Jamaican accent to rival the one Pam Grier gave us in COFFY.
While you're acquainting (or reacquainting) yourself with the one and only Blowfly, rest assured we will also be back AT THE MOVIES next post!
Labels: Blowfly, Music

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The film sets an expansive discussion of the fraught status of French republicanism around a summer writing class.
The first film that Laurent Cantet has made in France since 2008's The Class, The Workshop shares enough aesthetic and political DNA with the director's Palme d'Or winner to almost feel like a sequel. Shot shortly after an extended period of unrest in the suburbs of Paris, The Class staged a discourse on French identity and societal values in a middle school classroom. The Workshop sets a more expansive, if sometimes more superficial, discussion of the fraught status of French republicanism around a summer writing class. The students, played by a group of nonprofessional actors who helped to workshop a script by Cantet and Robin Campillo, are a racially and ideologically diverse lot tasked with writing a novel under the tutelage and moderation of Olivia Dejazet (Marina Foïs), a successful writer of crime fiction.
This setup, combined with the film's portside setting in the Southern town of La Ciotat, allows The Workshop to proceed fairly smoothly on parallel tracks: As the students discuss story and genre conventions (they immediately decide their novel will be a thriller), they also invariably scrutinize the current narrative of their country. Some of their sessions take place in a classroom setting, while many occur on craggy beaches and waterfront vistas. La Ciotat, though, is no tourist haven: The town thrived as a center of shipbuilding, but it's fallen on hard times over the past generation, at the same time that Europe's open borders have altered France's racial makeup. The group conceives of a murder, motivated either by race or economic grievance, at the dockyards that have turned into a business that designs high-end yachts.
Differences among the seven students regarding setting, character, and motive spiral into lively arguments that have the spirit, if not quite the bared teeth, of the classroom debates in Margaret. Like the introduction of the World Trade Center attack in Kenneth Lonergan's film, the utterance of the word "Bataclan" during one workshop sends currents of chills and feverish outrage through the room. The massacre in Paris is conjured by Antoine (Matthieu Lucci), the gifted but alienating contrarian of the group. His prose contributions are vivid and unflinchingly violent, and his ideas seem motivated by a combination of unfeeling nihilism and regurgitated far-right canards.
The Workshop takes its time in revealing the extent of its focus on Antoine's guarded psyche. Cantet and Campillo's gradual pivot toward him drastically recalibrates the proceedings, effectively doubling down on the film's bid for topicality. Olivia, too, becomes curious about Antoine to the point of distraction, combing through his social media feed and quickly discovering troubling videos: a lecture by a French nationalist, and video of Antoine and his friends playing with a gun. The implications that Antoine could become a mass shooter (or at least a racist agitator) are pervasive, and at its best, the film subtly hints that this teen's identity appears to be completely provisional. Antoine is the proverbial loner who spends too much time online, but Lucci gives surprising depth to his character, leaning into Antoine's contradictions.
In its clumsily rehearsed mannerisms, Lucci's performance suggests that Antoine is so tired of failing to live up to a certain masculine ideal that he's become bored with himself, an impasse that coaxes him into a contrarian performativity that he seems deeply ambivalent about. (He's more recalcitrant among a group of friends and family that appears nearly as diverse as his writing group.) The film comes to hinge on Olivia and Antoine's fascination with each other, and his increasing boldness around her. Both are drawn to the lurid and are innately inclined to free-speech absolutism, which sets them apart from the more progressive and politically correct teenagers in the program. Those students, so distinctive and vibrant early on, come to seem more and more like an undifferentiated mass as the film progresses. (Also, no one seems to think it's strange that such a large group of people could create a cohesive novel.) In the same manner, many of the discussions about identity politics, classism, and the role of art in provoking society come to feel cribbed from our social feeds, recurring frequently and leading nowhere.
Similarly, the film sends Antoine's exploration of the boundaries of taste and social convention down some frustrating, dubious avenues. Campillo's insistence on building political art out of highly individual human stories contrasts well with Cantet's existential bent and studied distance from his characters, but the film's daunting tapestry of social fissures tends to overwhelm both artists' best tendencies. Cantet opens The Workshop with a full-screen shot of an adventure video game, and by the film's end, this and other instances of the filmmakers profiling Antoine begin to feel somewhat blithe and undercooked. Other elements of their portraiture, though, are fascinating: Antoine's relationship with his own body is striking, as the teenager is constantly shown working out and filming himself diving from cliffs, all out of some vain hope that his future physique could function as a new type of mask to wear. Lucci deftly carries the weight of all the symptoms that The Workshop loads upon Antoine, a resonant character whose inscrutability is at once dangerous, sympathetic, and eerily apt.


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Now that you've chosen to rely on organic search results to drive your traffic, you need to remember that when coding your pages. SEO is about so much more than keywords and content marketing. In fact, a lot of the unseen technical aspects help decide where a page will show up in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
First and foremost, you have to make sure search engines have access to your site and their robots can find your page's content. You can see how crawlers see your page in Google's Search Console.
Once you make sure your site's basic elements can be found, seen, crawled and indexed, it's time to use these guidelines to make sure robots can understand your pages and how they relate to keywords. Most importantly, you need to demonstrate to these search engines what sort of user experience your site will provide.
A page's URL is super important for user experience and SEO. It's the first thing search engines crawlers see and should tell them the basics about the page and its content. Your URLs should be clean, easy to read, descriptive and free of URL parameters.
The first URL will certainly confuse robots and human users because there's no indication what category or product the page is for. When users encounter links to this URL, they will potentially be less likely to click on it, and search engines will have a lot of trouble figuring out the page's topical relevance.
The second URL is much better — it is easy to read, tells you the category and the product you will find on the page, and doesn't have any of those pesky query strings.
It's pretty typical to end up with URL parameters because of analytics and tracking programs, or when your CMS gives dynamic page elements like filters or sorting. But, if you are using a more advanced CMS like WordPress, you can rewrite the URLs by modifying the permalink settings in the main menu.
Both the structure and the words you use in your URLs are crucial for SEO. The URL's path helps search engines comprehend the page's relationship to the rest of the site. The words you use in your URL will display how relevant that particular page is to a topic or to a keyword.
Short and Descriptive: Your use of keywords should describe the page's content. If you are unable to use them in your URLs for some reason, keep the path as efficient as you can. Use as few words as you can, and don't use any stop words (i.e. the, a, on, etc.).
Hyphens, not underscores: You should always use hyphens in URLs rather than underscores when separating words. Search engines see hyphens as spaces, so they can read a URL like this: example.com/fat-cat-in-a-hat. Underscores don't translate to word separators, though, so this: example.com/fat_cat_in_a_hat, they would read as fatcatinahat. Nonsense.
Caption: Because we all wanted to see it after that URL example, admit it.
Keywords at the beginning: Your most important keywords should go at the beginning of the URL. Crawlers assign more value to those words – which is another reason to keep your URLs short. The fewer words in the URL, the more value each one has. Bear in mind, you need to use those keywords naturally. There's nothing worse than Google seeing your site as low-quality or spammy. If you are targeting a long-tail keyword, consider removing the category from the URL.
If you optimize your URLs with keywords, it's more likely the anchor text for your links will use relevant keywords as well.
It's important that your code creates a quality page for your users, but search engines also look at meta tags to learn things about your page. Even if you aren't writing the meta tags yourself (this is usually a marketer's job), you should still understand their role in SEO.
The title tag is a super important on-page SEO element, as it is probably the strongest signal you can give search engines about your page's topic. Use your most important target keyword at the beginning of the title so search engines can see if it's relevant to a query.
A well-optimized title tag uses maximum 60 characters, which includes spaces and punctuation. The ideal length is between 50 and 60 characters. If you use more than one keyword, or you are including your brand, use the pipe (the | character).
It's true that meta descriptions aren't used as a direct ranking signal, but they are still important for your SEO. Search engines will look at them to help decipher a page's topic. They also combine with your title tag to form a search snippet, which is the title, link and page description shown in search results.
A good, enticing meta description works as a sort of advertisement for your site. Meta descriptions, when written for your audience, will draw users to your site, increasing your click-through rate (CTR) – which Google loves. It will also decrease your bounce rate if your page delivers what your meta description promised.
The robots meta tag tells crawlers if they can or can't index a page or follow that page's links. This particular meta tag will stop search engines from indexing pages they found by following links on other sites (which is something you can't prevent on your robots.txt file).
Be advised: disallowing pages with your robots.txt file doesn't mean you don't need a meta robots tag. Google won't index these pages but they might still show up in search results, replacing the description with "A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt".
If you are using the meta robots noindex tag, do not also disallow the page in the robots.txt file – this will prevent the crawlers from ever seeing it.
Developers are always moving things around a site, sometimes hosting it on a new URL and setting up redirects to send users to a new page. Redirects are actually good for SEO because search engines like when there is one canonical version of something.
If you have two or more paths to get to the same destination (like if you have moved content to a new folder temporarily, or if you copied pages to a subdomain), crawlers will get perplexed and treat your pages as duplicate content.
It's important to use redirects on your old pages that point to the new versions, so that both humans and search crawlers land on the right place. Without redirects, search engines might serve the wrong page in search results.
A huge plus to using 301 (permanent) and 302 (temporary) redirects is that they pass full link juice to the destination page. You can move your content without suffering in terms of ranking or traffic. It's also good for users because they won't land on dead links or 404 pages. Google treats 302 redirects as if they were 301s, and they pass full value to the destination page.
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Schema.org markup is the best way to tell search engines what your page is about in language they can understand. You can use it lots of places on your site, like the About Us page to differentiate between address, prices, opening hours, etc.
You'll notice the search results still use the Title, URL and meta descriptions, but this time there are pictures of your dish and star ratings. It's a simple concept – when search engines can understand your content, it's easier for them to decide how it relates to different topics and queries. That understanding leads to higher rankings for relevant searches, and ultimately, gets you in front of your target audience.
Mobile friendliness is a known ranking signal, which is measured by a few different criteria. If you've already created your site's mobile version, see if it's considered "mobile friendly" with this Google test.
You can also run a website review to find out what needs to be adjusted. A review of your site will find issues that could be hurting your site's mobile friendliness, like text size or tap target size.
Loading time is a really important part of mobile friendliness, considering 40% of users will leave a mobile page if it hasn't loaded in 3 seconds. Google expects your above the fold content (ATF) to load in one second or less.
Optimizing Your Images: Using HTML to reduce your image size will just change the appearance. Instead, use an image editor like Photoshop to reduce the image size.
Depending on Browser Caching: You can leverage browser caching to reduce your number of HTTP requests.
Minimizing ATF Content Size: The initial TCP connection isn't able to fully utilize a connection's bandwith on the first round trip, which means that number of packets it can send is super limited. To render your ATF content, it needs to be at 148 kb or less. It's important to keep your server updated so the number of packets you send on the first connection isn't limited.
Using Google AMP: Google stores pages with the Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) markup in a cache and serves them instantaneously from there, and it can really impact your SEO.
If you are still having trouble with your page speed, use Google's PageSpeed Insights. PageSpeed measures the performance of your page as mobile and desktop user-agents, evaluating the time it takes to render both ATF content and the entire page. There are other browser tools, like Developer Console for Chrome and Web Console for Firefox that can detect issues on your page.
There are three options to building the mobile version of your site: responsive design, mobile subdomains and dynamic design.
Dynamic Design: You will spend more time and effort on this than responsive design, because it requires detecting the user-agent and serving different HTML code to mobile and desktop browsers. To do this, you must implement the vary: user-agent HTTP header, which tells search engines that you will be serving different HTML for different user-agents.
Mobile subdomain: This method is the most time-consuming of the three because you have to build and entirely different mobile website and host it on a subdomain. It usually looks like mobile.samplewebsite.com or m.samplewebsite.com. Googlebot won't actually be able to tell that these pages are meant for mobile users, so you need to place the rel="canonical" tag to clarify the relationship between duplicate pages. This method is complicated, expensive and generally not recommended — especially for bigger sites.
Although it may seem like search engines are trying to trip you up, they really aren't. Their main goal is to give users the best possible experience and most relevant pages based on their search intent. Which, incidentally, should be your goal as well.
Remember that there is a never a guarantee that you will end up with the number one ranking in Google. You can, though, optimize everything you can from a technical standpoint to intelligently and methodically move your site up in search results.
At the end of the day, it's always a good idea to audit your site with a crawler to find undetected issues that could be impacting your SEO.


Chapter 34 ~ Possible Drowning at Great Kills Park Bay ?
Today was one of those "Marty" movie type days that goes like this ~ "What do you want to do today.!!!...I don't know Marty what do you want to do...? "
Startled and waiting for the boat to right itself up which it never did, I told my wife to call 911 and she hesitated for a moment as she had not seen what just happened...Apparently I was the only person who actually saw the boat flip over on its side as every one else was going about their own business and were enjoying the day on the shore line, and did not see the accident with the sailboat that was approximately about a half mile away from us...I thought to myself what if he hit his head and had no life preserver on...?
The older gentleman with the binoculars now came running to us and explained that it was an abandoned boat that sometimes always happens and there was no one in the boat...I explained to him that I saw someone in it and that the boat had just flipped over and it was not an abandoned boat....At this point we all started to go down to the man sleeping on the bench who now awoke and was also looking towards the turned over sailboat too.!!!
"What do you want to do tonight Marty...?"
..."What do you want to do tonight Marty...?"
...Thanks Dora but in a small way this is that book that is currently up to 34 Chapters.!!!...Thanks again my 1953 Class mate from LICHS, by the way when is the next reunion...?
From: Mark To: nick Sent: Sat, Aug 22, 2015 11:16 am Subject: Re: Possible Drowning at The Great Kills Bay area...?
From: Donna To: nick Sent: Sat, Aug 22, 2015 2:18 pm Subject: Re: Possible Drowning at The Great Kills Bay area...?
...Today being a fairly very warm day, my wife and I went to this spot again and settled one more time under our favorite tree to cool off and watch the boat happenings if any...I noticed the NYPD boat was docked at the same Boat Launching Pad so I went over to discuss the Sail Boat incident with the NYPD Officer in charge...Since I retired in 2003 from the Police Department we had a lot in common and this was the boat as shown in the photo above and according to the Police Officer that I spoke with the other boat that showed up on that incident day was a NY Fire Boat and may not have been a Coast Guard boat as I originally thought...The only other interesting Bay Incident was of a young lady on a Floating Paddle Board in a bathing suit doing some Yoga Excersize on it just some 80 feet or so away from the NYPD Boat...So I say again, " What do you want to do tonight Marty...?"
~ Although a copy of this website story was furnished to 'The Staten Island Advance Newspaper' some time after the incident we did not hear a peep from them ~ I guess they are too busy to concern themselves with story's that are not covered by them...?


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Top tips for bumblebee ID
Bumblebees can be very difficult to identify at first, although they are often relatively straightforward!
There are 24 species in Britain, but with queens looking different to males (and sometimes to workers), as well as different colour forms for most species, there can be a bewildering array of different-looking bees. When, later in the year, sun-bleached and worn bees are prevalent, identification can be very tricky indeed!
The first thing to be aware of is that only seven or eight bumblebee species are both widespread and abundant: these species are likely to make up around 95-99% of your bumblebee sightings. There are a further six species (the cuckoo bumblebees) which are parasitic in the nests of these common species and so are largely similarly widespread, but at a much lower abundance. The remaining 11 species tend to be localised or habitat-specific, and are correspondingly rarer, though they can be abundant where present.
Generally, though, even when the rare species are present, the common species will still be more abundant and must be ruled out first. Consequently getting to grips with the Big Eight (Common carder, Red-tailed, Early, Tree, Garden, Heath, Buff-tailed and White-tailed bumblebees) is the major step – our ID pages can help!
Bumblebees have a tendency to hide their distinguishing features by curling up – generally views of the face, tail, stripes and legs are all useful (see our guide to photographing bees for more help here).
Step 1. Tail colour
Bumblebees fall into three rough groups based on tail colour – white-tailed (includes off-white through to yellow), red-tailed, and 'uniform-tailed' bees, where the tail is the same colour as the rest of the abdomen (usually ginger). This is the most important thing to start identifying your bumblebee.
Step 2. Banding
The next step is to look at the banding patterns, especially for the white-tailed species. A large number of bumblebees have the classic white-tail, black-and-yellow-bands look, but they vary from one to three thick yellow bands according to species.
Buff-tailed bumblebee (left image) has two yellow bands, whereas Garden bumblebee (right image) has three yellow bands.
Step 3. True or cuckoo bumblebee?
Cuckoo bumblebees, like male 'true' bumblebees, have hairy hind legs with no pollen baskets, but they also have relatively dark wing membranes, a v-shaped or gently-scalloped edge to the top of the tail colouration, a small brush of black hairs at the end of the abdomen, and short faces (if your bee has a long face then it's definitely not a cuckoo).
Step 4. Caste
Working out what caste (queen, worker or male) your bee is can sometimes be easier than getting it to species, and is always helpful in that process.
Queens and workers are generally very similar to each other, with a couple of exceptions. Queen Buff-tailed bumblebees have an orangey-buff tail, whereas workers of the same species have white tails (and are thus often indistinguishable from worker White-tailed bumblebees). Additionally, worker Early bumblebees often lose the yellow abdominal band of the queen, looking much darker than their parent.
Generally, male bumblebees have hairy hind legs without a pollen basket (though beware female cuckoo bees, which also have hairy hind legs). Males also usually have more facial hair than females (either queens or workers) – and in several species this is a bright, obvious yellow. Males also generally have longer, more straggly hair, so if your bee has hairy legs, a moustache, and looks slightly unkempt it's probably a male.
Early bumblebee males have yellow facial hair.
Behaviour can be a useful tool to separate males from workers and queens: because males do not have to collect pollen for the nest, they tend to sit lazily on flowers. They may also be observed flying along hedgerows searching for a mate. They do not feed during this time, so will land briefly on a surface, and then fly off again. They often patrol the same area for a while, so you may see the same bee repeating the circuit over and over again. In contrast, females tend to be much busier, flying quickly from flower to flower, and rarely wasting time by resting on flowers.
The time of year can also be helpful – males become common in late summer and autumn, whereas females are present throughout the whole lifecycle.
Other features to watch out for…
Some bumblebees also produce melanic individuals. These produce much larger quantities of a black pigment, melanin, than normal, and so look much darker. Some species produce entirely-black individuals (such as the Ruderal bumblebee), while others only produce partly-melanic bees (such as the Tree bumblebee, where the thorax is black but the white tail remains present). However, there are often the remnants of the 'normal' markings, though it may take a strong light to see them!
Above all, identifying bumblebees takes patience. Practice is key, ideally aided by confirming your tentative IDs by showing pictures to an expert, or better yet going out in the field with them. A Bumblebee Conservation Trust ID training course is ideal for this! Check out our events calendar to see when the next course near you will take place.
Photo credits: Bill Temples, Nikki Gammans, Les Moore


Published 04/24/2019 05:49:31 am at 04/24/2019 05:49:31 am in Water Temperature Meters.
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I am frequently asked how I do it, meaning, how do I run a remote business. Yep, our company is remote, as in, none of our team is in the same build at the same time. The secret isn't earth shattering, it actually comes down to two things. First and foremost, communication. Secondly, our ability to utilize web-based tools to facilitate communication and collaboration.
I plan to talk a lot about communication over the next several blog posts, but I want to talk about the "things" that we use to help with communication first. A tool is only as good as the person and purpose behind it. Downloading software isn't magically going to enable you to run a remote business. First, you need to be dedicated to good communication techniques. You need to have a plan in place for how you're going to use a tool before you get it. Software or apps alone won't help unless you have a plan to utilize them.
So without adieu, here are the things we use and how we use them.
This tool is central to the entirety of our processes and communication. If there was one tool that I would say we could not live without – it is definitely G Suite. We use G Suite for email, document creation & sharing, presentation development, file sharing (in combo with Dropbox), spreadsheets, contract writing, calendar management, and so much more. We even use Google Voice and Hangouts. Additionally, we use a lot of tools that easily integrate with G Suite. For example, we send new contracts from our documents folder into HelloSign and then send them out to be signed.
The barrier to entry is so low and the power of the platform is so robust that I cannot readily recommend another solution that is better than G Suite. I believe in it so much that I specifically asked about getting a discount code for anyone else that wants to try it. If you want a discount code just drop a comment below and I'll share it. You can also just sign up for a free trial of G Suite and see what you think. I'm very confident that you'll love it. Running our office as a remote business would not be possible without G Suite.
Finding a good VoIP service can be tricky, especially one that isn't insanely expensive. As I mentioned we do use Google Voice, but our primary PBX system through which we route calls is MighyCall. The service is robust with options to forward calls to other numbers, or to accept calls via WiFi over the softphone mobile app. We have even set up rules for after-hours calls. Every employee gets their own extensions and we can route calling group however we like. This gives our clients one central point for all calls to take place. If you want to spring for an upgrade, you can even record all of your inbound and outbound calls. Jus be sure that you adhere to proper federal rules and regulations for call recording.
Time for some real talk. I HATE the process of accounting and bookkeeping. I don't say that to downplay its importance. Bookkeeping is one of the most vitally important administrative pieces of your business, but it is the most necessary evil I can think of. Luckily there is a really wonderful company out there that is helping to end the headache of bookkeeping and it is called Xero. Xero can help you with invoices, bank reconciliation, expense records, cash flow reports, and will help you to be in the best possible place come tax time. You can give Xero a try for free, and they regularly have really great introductory pricing offers, so I highly recommend that you try it out and help make your life a little easier. Xero is web-based, so we give our accountant access and they can get all the information needed for tax season. Get a free trial here.
For real-time communication and collaboration, Slack is our go-to app. As I mentioned with G Suite, many of our tools integrate with each other. Slack is no exception. We can quickly and easily share files from Dropbox or Google Drive within Slack. We can also have one-on-one conversations or we can hold company-wide or department-wide group chats with everyone on that team or project.
Slack is like AOL messenger but on steroids and brought into the 21st century. It is a great platform to chat with your team, share daily updates, and get automated "bot" messages from third-party tools. For example, we use a notification to our #sales channel whenever a client signs and pays a contract or invoice. Slack has several available integrations available and we love using them. Get Slack for free here.
As the saying goes, everything in moderation. We work hard to only use the tools that are necessary and beneficial to our company. Having a tool or software just for the sake of having it is counterproductive. We want each tool that we use to add to our productivity not subtract from it. We also believe in staying at the forefront of technology and communication. From time to time, we will try out new apps and software to see if it fits into our overall flow. Sometimes we adopt something new that can replace two of the old tools that we were using. The general rule is that if you can replace and improve something else with a new tool, then it doesn't make it into regular use in our operation.
If you're thinking about running a remote business, I encourage you to look at opportunities to streamline your communication methods and update your tools. This is a small glimpse of the top three most important tools that we use. If you have any questions about how we work remotely, please feel free to drop a comment or send a tweet.


Rose Roofing is a 3rd generation roofing company that started in 1972. We offer high quality asphalt shingle roofs in the Houston market and the surrounding metroplex. Our services include roof repairs, total roof replacements, inspection reports for buying/selling homes, and other roofing request. We are a insured company.
When replacing a roof, we will personally go to the house and hand-measure all the slopes to give you an accurate quote. We offer 2 high quality brands, Owens Corning & GAF. We offer highest quality of brands because we only want to give the client the highest quality roof with the least potential problems. We completely tear off the old roof to the decking and install asphalt shingle roofs. We replace all the wall flashing, plumbing vents, drip edge, ventilation, and etc. We keep finding better ways to ventilate your house to keep your attic cooler. We offer 4 different types of shingles: 3-Tab (25-year shingles), 30-year shingles, Limited-Lifetime shingles, and Designer shingles.
We get this question a lot and that is a very difficult question to answer. Pricing for roofs are first based on the square footage of your house. In roofing terms, if a roof is 4,000 sq/ft. then its 40 squares. The second step is the style of house you have. 1 story? 2 story? Is your house steep? Walkable? The third question is what type of shingles do you want to come back with. Is it a 30-year shingle? Limited Lifetime shingle? All these questions will be answered when we physically go out to the property and measure the areas needing replaced and will be tallied up in a quote.
Roof Leak Or A Busted Pipe?
When looking for a roof leak, how do you know that is a roof leak or a busted pipe? One way you can tell if it just rained, and within a few hours you start seeing stains on the ceiling or water dripping through. Check the attic (if possible) and see if there is a busted pipe. If not, please give a call and we can see if it's a roof leak and get you pricing to fix the issue.


There is no better time than now to set out to find the perfect summer party dress.
I have gone for this sharp and stylish JAEGER Racer back pleat dress with directional dart details that give it a sporty chic spin. I love its fit and flare line and leg-lengthening hemline, it is so flattering and on-trend as well!
I kicked it off with a pair of Preen for Aldo Pravda Rise pumps featuring a pointy toe, patchwork leather detail and bold block heels that not only elongate your legs, but also keep feet comfortable.
I cannot resist but to feature yet another of my favourite party dresses– this Robert Rodriguez black seamed leather dress strikes with its simplicity and flawless design. This stretch-lamb skin leather dress features a scoop neck, raw edges and on-seam hip pockets with hidden back zip. Even though lined, it is so lightweight that you almost don't feel it on. Perfect for a summer party!
I finished the look off with JASON WU Marlene black studded platform sandals I wore last weekend for an all-night party and I must say the heels add a hefty dose of edge and sexiness to an ensemble. Surprisingly, even with an ultra-high heel, they are comfortable enough to dance the night away!
This VINCE Silk Satin Shift Dress in Dusty Rose is not far down on my list of perfect summer party dresses. Featuring V-neck, cap sleeves and pleating to the back, it is so comfortable yet stylish. If you don't like the billowy dresses, clinch your waist with a contrast skinny belt. This wardrobe staple channels the casual New York look so well.
On a note of footwear I went for yet another American designer – these Joie Caviar Suede 'say It Ain't So' Lace-Up Zip Peep Toe Booties deliver the ultimate cool factor. With leather cuffed opening, lace-up vamp and tapered round peep toe, slip them on for a "party time" fashion statement.
On to discussing a more subtle party dress, here is a super cute sleeveless sailor dress from Boutique by Jaeger – a classic shift shape falling to the knee, this dress has nautical detailing at the collar and a nipped waist which gives it that sporty twist. If you are lucky enough to pull off a drop-waist, this could be your perfect summer dress. There is something exuberantly elegant about this sailor dress, somehow it manages to be modern with that touch of vintage, don't you just love it!


The Western Society for French History offers prizes for the best papers by graduate students and the best interdisciplinary paper given at the annual conference. The society also offers money for research and travel.
This is a call for submissions for the Western Society for French History's annual paper prizes. All papers given at the 2018 meeting in Portland are eligible. To be considered for any of these prizes, please send your paper in electronic format (as an email attachment in Microsoft Word) by Friday, March 1, 2019, specifying the award(s) for which you would like to be considered. Papers must be submitted by authors, although panel chairs and commentators are invited to nominate worthy papers (the authors will be contacted by the prize committee for possible submission). Submissions should be no longer than fourteen double spaced pages including all citations and bibliographical information. The winners will be announced at the business meeting at the WSFH conference in Bozeman, Montana in October 2019.
The Ronald S. Love Prize is awarded to the best graduate student paper on the history of France and/or its colonies and the Francophone world before 1800.
The Edward T. Gargan Prize is awarded to the best graduate student paper on post-1800 history of France and/or its colonies and the Francophone world.
The Millstone Prize is awarded to the best interdisciplinary paper presented by a conference participant at any stage of her or his career.
Applications should include: a curriculum vitae, including current contact information; a description of the project not to exceed five double-spaced pages, explaining its purpose and significance, its contribution to scholarship on France, and where and when the research is to be carried out; and two letters of recommendation. All materials should be submitted in electronic format as e-mail attachments in Microsoft Word. The e-mail subject line must carry the header "Millstone Fellowship." Candidates are responsible for seeing that letters of recommendation arrive in a timely fashion. Proposals will be reviewed by a five-member committee chaired by the Vice-President of the Western Society for French History.
The next winner(s) will be notified by May, 2019, and the award will be announced at the Annual Meeting in Bozeman, Montana in October 2019.
More information on these awards and the WSFH supporters for whom they are named follows.
Awarded to the best paper given at the annual conference by a graduate student on the post-1800 history of France and the Francophone world.
Awarded to the best interdisciplinary paper presented at the annual meeting.
Provides $2000 for research conducted outside North America to an American or Canadian scholar within five years of earning the doctorate in History. Awarded jointly by the Western Society for French History and the Society for French Historical Studies.


its the sunday awards and meem show owtback edishun!!!
hello nice reederz its dennis the vizsla dog hay welkum to the sunday awards and meem show owtback edishun live bloggd frum the base of uluru!!!
hello gentle readers, this is trixie doodles. sorry to interrupt dennis's lurid tales of mystery and adventure but i went shopping the other day and i want to show off my new clothes.


Discussion in 'Indivisible' started by Magma442, Dec 1, 2015.
Why not talk about the main character of Indivisble? We don't know too much about her yet but why don't we discuss and speculate about her character?
I'll start. What I like about Ajna is, her father taught her martial arts and skills. Her pet is a tapir named Roti. That's what made me use her as my avatar. I like your thread idea.
She's certainly Ajna, that's for sure.
Honestly all points to it being 1. And it's implied Dhar is at least partially responsable.
Evil Zombie Prisoner Dad confirmed to be the best character in the game.
Her name is Ajna, which unless I'm mistaken, means third eye, which seems to allude to both her incarnating ability and her Heruka form. Her Heruka form is another interesting note. From what I've read, Heruka's are wrathful deities, so do you think there there will be story conflict with her Heruka form? The immediate example I can think of is Hollow Ichigo from Bleach.
That would be so evil if that happens, why can I easily imagine lab zero doing something like that ?
The immediate example I can think of is Hollow Ichigo from Bleach.
Honestly, Ajna's ability reminds me a bit of the true vampire powers from Hellsing.
Though much less horrific and more metaphysical.
I'm assuming Ajna will be Korra but without the stubbornness and anger..... maybe a female Anng?
I actually don't think her father is dead. I think he'll instead just be wounded and protect the village while Ajna goes on her journey.
I like her prayer beads. I wonder who gave them to her and I wonder if she just put them on willingly.
It's been said her Father gave them to her.
So, has anybody asked if Ajna's abilities are unique? If not, what would happen if some unsavory character were to try to make Ajna their Incarnation? We know Incarnations aren't always voluntary... oh, there's so much terrifying potential with that little facet of information alone. Can a "rebel" Incarnation make things unpleasant in an Inner Realm? If not, could someone force their way into Ajna's head as an "unwelcome" Incarnation? Are we Psychonauts now?
Well I'm sure we'll find out about what happens when Ajna absorbs a evil character. Her first incarnation is Dhar after all.
According to Mariel, Ajna's around 5'1" it sounds like. Must be a growth spurt!
I just noticed something, in all the official artwork so far Ajna is always pouting. Has she smiled yet? Will we ever see her smile?
I hope anybody know Ajna's age. I wonder she is around 15 but I don't think so. She maybe will younger than me.
Man, you're even creeping me out with your unexplained desire for Ajna to be younger than you. By the time the game comes out she definitely will be, so don't worry. Sheesh.
Ajna is 16. Alex Ahad has said this in the Lore Video on the Indivisible Youtube Channel.
Why couldn't Mike have written her younger!
Possibly a bit early for speculation but I think I know where Ajna gets her powers, shes a avatar and/or descendent of one the gods. I say this because in hindu mythology Vishnu would reincarnate on earth to help people Vishnu is described as having blue skin so all of his avatars had blue skin.
Ajnas Heurka form has blue skin also so this is where I get my hypothesis from. Also one of Vishnus avatars Parashurama remids me of Ajna.
He too had proficiency with weapons such as bows and axes.
I have a wild theory so far than Ajna and her dad aren't actually related and she was adopted and raised like his child.
I remember Alex talking about people with similar abilities to her in the lore stream so maybe they're linked to each other? And probably to that Heruka form thing too?
Otherwise it's a character i like so far, i'm a sucker for tomboy characters and i'm really looking forward to see more of her, how she acts and such. I really like the SG cast so i'm not worried much.
The fact that kind of thing can happen in real life doesn't make it any better too.


To prepare us, Adult Swim has released "Exquisite Corpse", a promo for the coming season that showcases no less than 22 different artists.
Following the format of the surrealist parlour game of the same name, each artist has contributed a segment of their choosing to the completed piece. Individual segments are informed by only a small fraction of the whole, in this case, the last frame of the segment preceding.
For more details on the creation of the trailer and the animators involved, check out this article at itsnicethat.com.


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Music Rock '80S THE STYLE COUNCILLORS "CAFÉ BLEU" TOUR Tickets
THE STYLE COUNCILLORS "Café Bleu" Tour
Chinnerys, Southend. Friday, 12 Nov 2021
Chinnerys, Southend
Friday, 12 Nov 2021 at 7:00 PM .
The Style Councillors The Style Council
This event's performance date has changed (the old date was Saturday, 14 Nov 2020 at 7:00 PM). The show will now take place on Friday, 12 Nov 2021 at 7:00 PM.
All THE STYLE COUNCILLORS "CAFÉ BLEU" TOUR performances
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AGMP presents
THE STYLE COUNCILLORS
"CAFÉ BLEU" TOUR 2020
The Style Councillors celebrate "Café Bleu", the seminal debut album by The Style Council.
The Style Councillors are the world's one and only tribute to The Style Council.
Formed in 2013 by Darren Fletcher (Paul Weller) and Steve Hayes (Mick Talbot), The Style Councillors have quickly built a loyal fanbase for the group which was Paul Weller's home for the majority of the 1980's and where he wrote some of his finest songs. Dani Clay (Dee C. Lee) and Craig Read (Steve White) are joined by the Bad Manners Horn Section and a stellar line up of musicians hell-bent on recreating the sound of The Style Council.
After the dissolution of The Jam in 1982, Paul Weller joined forces with Mick Talbot, formerly of The Merton Parkas, Dextys Midnight Runners and The Bureau, to form The Style Council. After a string of succesful singles released in 1983 such as 'Speak Like a Child', 'Money-Go-Round' & 'Long Hot Summer', The Style Council released their debut album 'Café Bleu' to universal acclaim in March 1984. 'Café Bleu' featured favourites such as 'My Ever Changing Moods', 'You're The Best Thing', 'Headstart for Happiness' and more.
The Style Councillors will be reprising the album in full along with a set of other classics by The Style Council.
After the dissolution of The Jam in 1982, Paul Weller joined forces with Mick Talbot, formerly of The Merton Parkas, Dexts' Midnight Runners and The Bureau, to form The Style Council. After a string of successful singles released in 1983 such as 'Speak Like a Child', 'Money-Go-Round' & 'Long Hot Summer', The Style Council released their debut album 'Café Bleu' to universal acclaim in March 1984. 'Café Bleu' featured favourites such as 'My Ever Changing Moods', 'You're The Best Thing', 'Headstart for Happiness' and more.


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Home Shares magazine 14 Jan 2021 Why Peloton Cant Peddle Growth Fast Enough To Keep The Share Price Rising
Why Peloton can't peddle growth fast enough to keep the share price rising
A lockdown winner, we look at whether the stock is trading on substance or hype
Thursday 14 Jan 2021 Author: Steven Frazer
NASDAQ-listed Peloton Interactive (PTON) established itself as one of Wall Street's darlings this year as gyms closed their doors during worldwide lockdowns.
The connected fitness business has flourished as people were forced to rethink how they live, work, travel, and exercise. The pandemic crafted almost perfect conditions for Peloton to thrive as people looked for ways to workout in the relative safety of home.
As a result, the company has been posting record numbers and can't make its famous exercise bikes fast enough to sate demand.
We salute Peloton's lofty ambitions but remain very sceptical of its ability to meet them, or match investor's already stratospheric expectations. We suggest that buying one of its bikes will be better for you in the long-run than the stock.
BOLT FROM OUT OF THE BLUE
Peloton appeared to come out of nowhere as Covid-19 plunged the planet into pandemic chaos, emerging as one of the biggest success stories of 2020.
Founded by entrepreneur John Foley in New York in 2012, Peloton went public in September 2019, pricing its initial public offering (IPO) at $29.
The ambition is to shake-up the fitness industry much like Amazon has disrupted buying stuff.
Its flagship product is a £1,750 ($1,895) internet-connected exercise bike with touchscreen, or there's a connected treadmill (from £2,295 or $2,495) also with touchscreen. In both cases users can stream or download fitness classes for a monthly £39 ($39) fee which allows them to interact with instructors or other members, without having to leave home.
The company believes it could hit 100 million subscriptions with its bikes, treadmills and digital-only app, a £12.99 ($12.99) a month service for equipment-free classes.
POSITIVE DRIVERS
Fans see Peloton as a lifelong lifestyle choice, with dedicated customers committed to the brand that creates a valuable ecosystem of semi-predictable revenues. The overall experience of spin classes and fitness lessons are highly dependent on the quality of instruction, and Peloton's team of instructors have, in some cases, become minor online celebrities.
Being one of the first movers in the connected fitness space, Peloton has built significant brand value and user loyalty, as shown by churn of less than 1%. The company is also building social features which could help to engage users and build a sense of community around its platform.
Peloton saw connected fitness subscriber numbers jump 137% year-on-year for this year's first quarter to end September 2020 to more than 1.33 million, continuing two years of rapid growth. That meant sales surged 232% to $757.9 million from $228 million a year ago, topping expectations for $748.1 million.
That saw earnings rise to $69.3 million, or $0.20 per share (EPS), from a loss of $49.8 million ($1.29 EPS) a year earlier, versus $0.11 expected. This is a big deal for a company that has yet to post an annual profit but is forecast to make that breakthrough this year to 30 June 2021.
COUNTER-ARGUMENT
The obvious objection to Peloton's long-run growth potential is the high cost of the kit. Even its cheapest bike plus subscription will set consumers back £2,218 in year-one, then nearly £500 each year after that.
While that makes for high switching costs which will keep churn low, a bog-standard exercise bike can be bought for as little as £50 (according to Amazon). Even better-quality ones with accompanying apps and tablet holders are available for £500 or so, likely making Peloton's albeit high-end equipment prohibitively pricey for most people, even with its no-interest monthly payment plan.
The pandemic will also eventually end (even if it doesn't feel like it now), allowing people to return to gyms as normal. Not everyone has the space for bulky fitness equipment at home and gym memberships give access to lots of different machines for a more varied workout. But it also offers that face-to-face human experience that most of us have missed so much during lockdown, the chance to workout with friends.
Building that vast ecosystem of subscription revenues is key to Peloton's future but what if its rapid growth so far is low-hanging fruit picking? It might be that the forced closure of gyms during lockdown has sparked a rush of easy sales and that attracting new customers will become incrementally harder.
Gym memberships are often cheaper than Peloton's £39 a month and can be cancelled hassle-free with a months' notice. The UK's largest operator PureGym, for example, offers a contract-free, 24/7 access plus membership from about £20 to £25 a month with classes thrown in.
There's also masses of free workouts available online for those not fussed to go to a gym. A simple 'workout' search on YouTube returns tons of free content for fat-burning, muscle-toning, high cardio, with and without weights, and even plenty of bike fitness sessions. Just look at what Joe Wicks has been doing through lockdown, making Peloton's app-only memberships look like a growth red herring.
COSTLY SCALABILITY
A capital-light online platform business model would not sell any physical products and have zero marginal costs to serve increasing users with a digital-only offering. But by designing, manufacturing, delivering, and installing high-end fitness equipment Peloton requires more capital as the company grows to greater size.
It has also seen Peloton struggle to up manufacturing to meet demand spikes in recent months. This issue saw the company buy US fitness kit company Precor just before Christmas in a $420 million deal, upping its manufacturing capacity and providing new expansion opportunities. Perhaps a connected rowing machine is the next obvious product to develop.
That may solve the latter problem but the cost of scaling up remains.
Over the past three years hardware revenues have been stable at around 80% of turnover with content subscriptions making up the balance. Gross margins are also relatively stable with equipment earning roughly 42% to 44%, while the rise in subscription margins in 2020 to 57% was presumably thanks to app-only subs, which you would expect to be at much higher margins due to the limited cost of running online workouts alone.
Research and development was 5% of turnover last year while sales and marketing was 26% of revenue. There was also another $351.6 million of general admin expenses, more than 19% of sales. Overall costs relating to sales jumped 71% in the 2020 full year (to June), versus 99.6% growth in revenue. This probably suggests that vast marketing and admin costs will continue to race higher in future because the proposition needs to be constantly visible to win new customers, a bit like it does with gambling firms.
The stock's 462% 2020 rally is right up there with other 'Covid winners' Zoom (+406%) and Moderna (+435%), the drug developer behind one of the three successful vaccines.
The stock is currently changing hands at $158.88, which means that even if the company hits the $1.21 EPS forecast by analysts in the year to June 2023, the price to earnings (PE) multiple is still at a scorching 131. Even with most analysts firmly in the buy camp (only one sell and three holds of 26 covering the stock) the consensus target price remains at $150, below the current price.
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These articles are provided by Shares magazine which is published by AJ Bell Media, a part of AJ Bell. Shares is not written by AJ Bell Youinvest.
Shares is provided for your general information and use and is not a personal recommendation to invest. It is not intended to be relied upon by you in making or not making any investment decisions. The investments referred to in these articles will not be suitable for all investors. If in doubt please seek appropriate independent financial advice.
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Q: QGIS 1.8 compiled against PyQt 4.8+? I'm currently running QGIS on Win7 64bit. My installation says it was compiled against and running against PyQt 4.7.1, although according to the Osgeo4W installer and PyQt4.QtCore.PYQT_VERSION_STR, I actually have PyQt 4.8.3 installed under the Osgeo4w directory.
I'm running into a bug in my PyQt code (related to QNetworkAccessManager) that, according to the bug tracking log, was fixed in PyQt 4.8.0. It seems, then, that the PyQt 4.7.1 module is being used, and the 4.8.3 module is being ignored. I'd like to resolve this issue.
I've seen a few posts on various forums that suggest that the generic distribution of QGIS 1.8 is compiled against PyQt 4.8. I've tried reinstalling QGIS using the Osgeo4w installer after removing all references to PyQt from my system path, but I still end up with QGIS compiled and running against PyQt 4.7.1.
Could anyone shed some light on this issue for me?
Should QGIS 1.8 installed through Osgeo indeed be a distribution compiled against PyQt 4.8+?
That is, am I doing something wrong in the installation process?
Or will I need to compile QGIS manually if I want it to be compiled against PyQt 4.8?

A: I believe that QGIS (1.8 and 1.9) are using QT 4.7.1 however the python environment included with QGIS is using PyQT 4.8.3.
Any QGIS API functionality will be implemented using QT 4.7, while code running in python will have access to PyQT 4.8.
Would this explain the behaviour you are experiencing?  If so you might need to reimplement some of the qgis api using PyQT.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange