2012年12月28日 星期五

How Cloud Computing Is Accelerating Context-Aware Coupons

Retailers and marketers often face the challenge of getting coupons, offers and promotions delivered at the perfect time and in the right context to their customers.

The rapid advances in cyber foraging, contextual computing and cloud computing platforms are succeeding at revolutionizing this aspect of the retail shopping experience. Context-aware advertising platforms and strategies can also provide precise audience and segment-based messaging directly to customers while they are in the store or retail outlet.

What makes context-aware advertising so unique and well adapted to the cloud is the real-time data integration and contextual intelligence they use for tailoring and transmitting offers to customers. When a customer opts in to retailer’s contextually-based advertising system,Installers and distributors of solar panel, they are periodically sent alerts, coupons, and offers on products of interest once they are in or near the store. Real-time offer engines chose which alerts, coupons or offers to send, when, and in which context. Cloud-based analytics and predictive modeling applications will be used for further fine-tuning of alerts, coupons and offers as well. The ROI of each campaign,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with crys talbeads wholesale shamballa Bracele ,Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability. even to a very specific audience, will be measurable.

A few years ago, a student in one of my MBA courses in international marketing did their dissertation on cyber foraging and contextual mobile applications’ potential use for streamlining business travel throughout Europe. As a network engineer for Cisco at the time, he viewed the world very systemically; instead of getting frustrated with long waits he would dissect the problem and look at the challenges from a system-centric view. The result was a great dissertation on cyber foraging and the potential use of Near Field Communications (NFC) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) as sensors to define contextual location and make business travel easier. One of the greatest benefits of teaching, even part-time, is the opportunity to learn so much from students.

US regulators want to make event data recorders (EDRs), similar to “black boxes” used on planes, mandatory on all cars produced from September 2014. The move has sparked a tense debate between safety advocates and those worried about loss of privacy.

The National Transportation Safety Agency (NHTSA),We mainly supply professional craftspeople with crys talbeads wholesale shamballa Bracele , which is in charge of setting motoring regulation, has submitted a proposal for public comment in the Federal Register. Currently, standard EDRs automatically collect data on a car’s speed, the use of brakes, the number and seating of passengers, seat belt deployment and dozens of other parameters to help reconstruct how a car was behaving in the seconds before a crash. The data is continuously recorded and overwritten onto an electronic carrier inside the car, but when certain triggers are set off – say, an airbag is deployed – the data is saved and can be downloaded.

"By understanding how drivers respond in a crash and whether key safety systems operate properly, NHTSA and automakers can make our vehicles and our roadways even safer," claimed Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "This proposal will give us the critical insight and information we need to save more lives."

Supporters state that the measure merely legislates a device that has already been endorsed by car makers and drivers alike. First commercialized around two decades ago, NHTSA believes EDRs will be installed on more than 95 per cent of all vehicles manufactured next year.

Few of the opponents of the new measure disagree with EDRs as they are currently, but most say that the new law will pave way for a multitude of uses beyond the original remit.

Problematically, few legal limits on them exist as of now. Only thirteen states have any legislation on EDRs at all. If the new regulations are passed, they need to establish just what data can be recorded, for how long, who owns it, and if there will be any sanctions for a driver who blocks his device, or refuses to hand over his data.

Rambam believes that under the banner of safety, police can turn EDRs into their primary monitoring tool, collecting data on whether motorists are speeding, wearing seatbelts and following safety rules. Precedents have already begun to appear when EDR readings are made the basis for fines and court judgements about traffic accidents.

Since technology already exists to transfer any data collected by an EDR to an outside monitoring center in real time, Rambam reckons law enforcement agencies would be foolish not to save resources by simply monitoring driving behaviour from a distant location, as opposed to trying to catch lawbreakers with old-fashioned speed guns and patrols.

And Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, says it’s not just the cops who would like to know how you are driving.

Coney and others are painting a future where all your car behaviour will be accessible to someone outside (whether or not you know that they are watching), from police who will remove driving licenses from consistently bad drivers, to insurance companies giving you a higher premium for being involved in potentially dangerous situations.

In the right hands the new capabilities could save thousands of lives, but complying with them involves handing a lot of power to the authorities. Just how much,A wide range of polished tiles for your tile flooring and walls. will become subject of ever-louder public debate. But one thing is clear already – as technology advances (and all of the data collection devices for the above possibilities already exist) your car is no longer your own private space, and driving it is no longer just a personal activity.

An impressionist vision frozen in time

The leading figures had by now overcome the initial resistance they had encountered in the 1870s when, in the wake of the humiliation the French nation had suffered in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 and the disasters of its aftermath, the impressionist style was felt by its opponents to embody the decadence and loss of national morale that had led to military defeat. Meanwhile a younger group had begun to turn away from the initial spirit of the movement.

When Vincent van Gogh came to Paris in 1886, he found the movement had already divided into two groups, whom he called the impressionists du grand boulevard and the impressionists du petit boulevard - loosely those of the great and small boulevards, alluding to the network of broad straight roads built through the old city of Paris by Baron Haussmann under Napoleon III. The painters of the petit boulevard included both individuals now usually thought of as post-impressionist, such as Gauguin, and neo-impressionists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac.

Seurat (1859-91) is the most important figure of the neo-impressionist style, which is often called pointillism, but which he and his followers preferred to call divisionism; it was his enormous painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-86), hung in the 1886 impressionist exhibition, that most clearly and dramatically illustrated the reorientation of his aesthetic priorities.

Impressionism was above all concerned to capture the fleeting experience of a moment: the specific light conditions of a time of day, or the change of mood in a landscape as clouds gathered or a shower of rain cleared. Authenticity was found in immediacy, in a sense of the artist's presence at the scene, in his spontaneous notation of felt experience. Such a concern with the individual, the particular and the instantaneous as evidence of truth - as distinct from the general, universal truth of classical art - arises significantly in the increasingly anonymous mass society of the later 19th century.

The impressionist sought to capture the experience of the moment through a pursuit of the truth of optical experience - seeing the world not so much as shapes and forms that we understand by reason, but as a collection of colour effects that we perceive in a purely optical manner. Seurat began with the same premises but the impressionist approach seemed to him too improvised. He wanted - and here he was responding to another habit of the late 19th-century mind - to make the whole process more scientific. One might say more objective, but that would reveal the paradox of trying to establish an objective basis for a phenomenon as inherently subjective as colour experience.

In Seurat's view, the process of constructing a simulacrum of true optical experience had to be conducted much more methodically, and therefore could not possibly be carried out before the motif, with all the consequent limitations of time, weather and changing light conditions. Studies would be made outside, but the minute work of calibrating chroma and tonal values would have to be completed in the studio. The very premise of impressionism, that work would be substantially if not entirely completed en plein air, was thus reversed; and the idea of capturing the living, ephemeral quality of an instant was also implicitly abandoned. In his quest for a scientific truth,Best howo concrete mixer manufacturer in China. Seurat ended up with a vision strangely frozen in time.

There is an element of eccentricity in Seurat's work, an odd mixture of modernism and archaism, which is inseparable from the greatness he achieves within a small oeuvre; and although Seurat died at only 31 from what seems to have been an adventitious infection, his work remains vastly superior to that of his followers, as we can see in the NGV's Radiance: The Neo-Impressionists. This, incidentally, is the sort of exhibition we should see more often in Australia - not a motley collection of pictures led by one or two populist names, but a thoughtful and detailed survey of a movement or period in art history.

Seurat painted relatively few works and it would be virtually impossible to borrow either of the two most famous of them, the Grande Jatte (1886, Chicago, Art Institute) or the earlier Bathers at Asnieres (1884, London, National Gallery). The NGV show includes three significant paintings and two oil studies, but these are well chosen - the Bec du Hoc (1885) from the Tate in London is matched with the National Gallery of Australia's study for the same subject and they are displayed to good effect; La Seine a Courbevoie (1885), lent from a private collection, makes an almost breathtaking impact at the opening of the exhibition.

The juxtaposition of the two pictures of the Bec du Hoc, a jutting tooth-like rock formation on the coast of Normandy, is particularly helpful in understanding the optical premises of Seurat's work. The most obvious aspect, the divisionist brushwork, derives from the theory that colours will be brighter - hence the exhibition title Radiance - if they are applied in pure form, in little juxtaposed patches that will be blended in the eye, rather than mixed on the palette, losing some of their luminosity in the process.

But in fact the idea of pure colour begs the question of what such a thing may be, for Seurat's pictures are not composed of dots of what we call primary colours (red, yellow, blue), but predominantly of secondaries (green, orange, violet). And it is indeed impossible to avoid secondaries if one is following the other part of the colour theory that the neo-impressionists inherited from the impressionists, and even from Delacroix. According to this theory, each primary is the complementary or in a sense the opposite of the secondary composed of the other two primaries; this is because it is reflecting the part of the spectrum that the complementary mixture is not, and each is absorbing the part that the other is reflecting. Hence, as anyone can see for themselves, the correct mixture of the three primaries will produce black, simply by absorbing the totality of the visible spectrum.

The theory has two consequences for painters. One is that by setting complementaries beside each other, one can produce more powerful chromatic contrasts; this was what appealed to Delacroix and later to Gauguin as well. The other is that - owing, as we now know, to retinal fatigue - when a body of one colour is brightly lit in a painting, adjacent shadows will be tinted with the complementary of that colour. We can see this on Sydney beaches on a summer's afternoon, when the long pine-shadows are violet against the yellow sand.

Seurat was interested in the brightness and freshness of colour that could be achieved by divisionism, but he was only concerned with the contrast of complementaries to the extent that it served to enhance brightness. Otherwise his priority was harmony, clarity of articulation and visual unity rather than dramatic contrast for its own sake. Thus in the Bec du Hoc pictures, the great mass of shadow in the centre is tinted with orange because of the blueness of the sea behind it, but what is really important is the management of tonal relations, and the way that Seurat has modified and elaborated - one might even say invented - them between the plein-air sketch and the final composition.

In the finished work,Directory ofchina glass mosaic Tile Manufacturers, the bare patch of rocky escarpment just above the central void forms a highlight and deepens the darkness of the adjacent shadow. Less obviously, the whole tooth-like form was darker than the sea behind it in the study, but ends up being lighter than the sea; or more exactly, much of the sunlit slope is tonally equivalent to the sea, but at the point where they meet, because the brightness on the slope is closer and thus stronger, Seurat has brightened the edge of the hill and darkened the edge of the water; in the lower left hand corner of the composition, where there is less light, hill and water are tonally identical.

The same thing happens, perhaps more obviously, in the water on the right: lighter against the dark edge of the cliff, it is darker against the sunlit slope of the foreground hill.The MaxSonar ultrasonic sensor offers very short to long-range detection and ranging. Of course there is no objective variation of light on that area of sea; it is purely an optical phenomenon, but the example tells us much about Seurat's art - his concern for the wholeness of what is seen, his use of logic and theory to supplement what could be apprehended in nature itself, and thus his willingness to depart quite boldly from empirical observation in an almost philosophical meditation on the nature of visual experience.This document provides a guide to using the ventilation system in your house to provide adequate fresh air to residents.

La Seine a Courbevoie and Port-en-Bessin could each be discussed in as much or more detail if space permitted, but one should at least note the reflection, in the first picture, of the woman's orange parasol on her dress, for this principle - a brightly lit body will reflect its colour into adjacent shadow - which derived from the practice of the Venetian school, was one of the things painters and theorists argued about in the earlier debates on colour at the French Academy in the 1660s.

The exhibition is not all about Seurat, of course. Most of the pictures are by his followers, and many are very fine, even if none has the same brilliance.The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. Pissarro stands out, as does Henri-Edmond Cross in several beautiful pictures. Maximilien Luce can be appealing, but tends to be plodding, reducing divisionism to a superficial dotting overlaid on banal naturalism. Even Signac, the principal apostle of the movement after Seurat, never has the same depth of visual intelligence: already in some of the earliest works there is a tendency to the decorative patterning that, together with increasingly bright colours, dominates his later painting.

One of the interests of the exhibition and its catalogue is to recall the link between neo-impressionism and anarchism - a far from obvious association, one might think, but more intelligible when we remember that its contemporary version was essentially a utopian doctrine, and that the move of some of the later neo-impressionists to the south of France was a quest for a simpler, more traditional and autonomous way of life than the industrialised city could offer. There they helped prepare the way for the brief moment of fauvism, another style that flowered in the south of France; Matisse's La Joie de Vivre (1905), for example, drew part of its inspiration from the bright colours of the late neo-impressionists, but also from a romantic anarchistic dream of a new golden age.

The Do It Yourself Year

As a reporter this year struck me as one where the do-it-your-selfers have taken their own destinies in their hands. This short list may not be a top 10 or 12 but does highlight some unique local trends of Utahns who are taking things into their own hands—from creating their own societies, doomsday prep,Find detailed product information for howo spare parts and other products. to funding businesses and economies of their own creations.

In 2012 President Barack Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Businesses’ or JOBS Act that among other things opened the doors for average folks to make investments in small businesses and receive dividends on those investments. Like a kickstarter for the would-be mom-and-pop entrepreneur,Find detailed product information for howo tractor and other products. the act allows hubs to oversee small-time investors to fund local startups (previously law required accredited investors to earn $250,000 annually).

David Brooks a young social entrepreneur talked about his invest local vision with City Weekly in “Crowdfunding SLC,” as a means of giving small business dream the means outside of the traditionally stingy and perhaps elitist finance markets. Brooks also wants to take the crowdfunding idea a step further by signing up crowdfunded businesses to help support local community outreach groups and programs like those in use at the Midvale Boys and Girls Clubs, using his umbrella organization Revolution United.

“If you have a passion and you can turn that into a business and show that to the people and provide a plan—it will come to fruition,” Brooks says.

Occupy SLC may have gotten evicted from Pioneer Park in 2011 but the loose anarchist collective left its mark on the local activist scene especially with Peaceful Uprising. Peace Up got its start after bogus gas lease bidder Tim DeChristopher was arrested for fraudulent bidding of gas parcels in southern Utah, but Peace Up has now taken a page from the Occupy book and adapted a new model of do it yourself community building and radical change that sidesteps working with the system and goes right to the people.

Occupy was widely derided by critics for lacking purpose when all along it’s mission was more about a radically inclusive democratic process than any set, specific goal. To sit in on an Occupy meeting was to watch a group of people talk and talk to ad nauseum--but also to the point of near 100 percent consensus. This near-pure Democracy, coupled with no formal leadership, allows the group to move toward goals that a super-duper majority of participants can agree upon.

Now Peaceful Uprising has applied that model to its own activist community by allowing members to drive its community audits initiative that every quarter highlights a group doing positive hopeful things for the community like the Salt Lake Dream Team advocating for compassionate immigration reform. The audit also focuses on a quarterly issue of injustice to help fight against like tar sands development in the state. Like the Occupy model the audits provide communities an opportunity to pursue their dreams and improve society directly as opposed to writing angry letters to their elected officials and then crossing their fingers.

“What Occupy has done is help communities learn participatory democracy. ...An indoor positioning system (IPS) is a term used for a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building. To learn to be with one another,” says Peaceful Uprising member Henia Belalia.

Ever since the economy shit the bed in 2007 the stability of gold has only increased. But it wasn’t until 2012 that Savneet Singh created Gold Bullion International a company that uses vaults across the world—including Salt Lake City—to store customers’ gold assets. Beyond that the company has “democratized” gold buying by creating a transparent gold exchange market that allows average consumers to buy small quantities of gold, from reputable dealers and store them in their own account. Customers’ gold is not a part of the company’s books so consumers always have access to their gold in secure vaults insured by Lloyds of London.

At the time City Weekly reported on Singh's company, GBI had even launched a new program allowing publicly traded companies to offer investors dividends in gold bars and coins. Gold is valued for its stability and Singh has created a pioneering business that will allow average people to profit from that security and do so completely outside of traditional banks and financial institutions.

“We decided that if we could create a way for people to buy physical assets as easy as buying stock or bonds, we would have a great business,” Singh says. “Why buy paper if you can buy the physical asset?”

While Utah is no stranger to groups and individuals stocking their bunkers in anticipation of the end of the world one group is ready for the end of civilization and has already gotten over it. Transition Salt Lake, a local chapter of an international movement, works to “re-skill” people on their grandparents' lost knowledge of self reliance. Instead of focusing so much on the “how” of the end of the world the local groups offers free monthly classes on skills ranging from gardening, bicycle maintenance, canning, to building solar ovens so no matter the calamity people will be prepared for a smooth post-apocalyptic transition.

It’s also a welcome refuge for the progressive who worries about the end, since while the group doesn’t fixate on what the catastrophe will look like, their biggest concern is peak oil and the sputtering collapse of a fossil fuel-driven economy. But they are also not isolationist in their doomsday prep,Interlocking security cable tie with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals. focusing on building community with all people. So if your biggest end-days worry involves zombies riding zombie bears to your doorstep, fear not, all are welcome to learn and re-skill and share their survivalist knowledge with this cheery and upbeat group of preppers.

“Look around you and see what conditions are in the areas that you can see.” Harrington said while customers generally can’t see what’s going on in the kitchen, unless they were well trained in the principles of safe food handling, they probably wouldn’t recognize what’s good or bad.

“There’re many things that happen in a commercial kitchen that are very different from what you do at home and you may not see them as being a problem or you may overreact and think it’s a problem,” he said.

Instead Harrington advises people look at things they’re qualified to judge. “About the silverware, is it clean?” he asks. “Are there little bits of food residue left? Is there a lipstick print on the glass?” Harrington said if those things catch your attention then the washing and sanitizing isn’t very good. “Something may have survived that process,” he said.

“It’s kind of an old wives’ tale, but look at the restroom. How well is the restroom taken care of?” Harrington said it isn’t necessarily the best indicator, “but it should raise an eyebrow a little bit.”

Harrington also advises customers to observe the conditions of employees in the dining room. “Are they smooth? Are they orderly? Are they efficient? Are things moving gently in an orderly process? Or is it chaotic?” he asked. “Are the waiters running into each other? Are they screwing up the orders?” Harrington said these things can be a pretty good indication of just how things are happening behind the swinging doors. “Again,” he cautioned, “not an absolute, but it does raise suspicion.”

Harrington said most operators do a very good job of addressing health risks in their operations. “Given the complexity of the foods that we eat and the things that we demand from our restaurants, there’s no possible way that we at the health department can absolutely guarantee safety of any retail food.” He said repeatedly that the county health inspection and licensing process is based on the concept of risk reduction. “We try to reduce the risks as low as we can and still allow reasonable access to the food,” he said. The health department oversees nearly 400 restaurants in addition to a myriad of responsibilities, from septic systems to swimming pools, and licensing daycares and motels.One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles.

2012年12月26日 星期三

Brooklyn's Newest and Coolest All-Around Entrepreneur

A few blocks east of New York City’s Central Park, located right across the street from Bloomingdale’s, is perhaps the sweetest of all shops in the city: Dylan’s Candy Bar, an up-market candy store carrying more than 5,000 kinds of candy, apparel, and beauty products. It’s a glamorous take on Willy Wonka, and it’s owned by Dylan Lauren, daughter of iconic clothes maker Ralph Lauren, so you know there’s good entrepreneurial blood pumping through the arteries of this business, even if it is a dentist’s nightmare.

Brooklyn native Egomeli Hormeku found himself at Dylan’s Candy Bar as a teen a few years after the store opened in 2001. He wore a white button down, a navy blazer complete with a pocket square made of old material, a pair of jeans and penny loafers with a penny in each one. The littlest details turn the most heads. In this case, Hormeku turned the head of Ralph Lauren himself.

What a compliment for the teen. There, in the flagship Dylan’s Candy Bar store,Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability. Hormeku was inspired. Maybe we all have our own sweet spot to share with the world, he thought. And yet, it was more than just an inspiration. It was confidence and a challenge to continue to impress.We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. Dylan Lauren went on to grace the cover of FORBES on the May 23, 2011, issue, 10 years after she made her fascination with art, fashion and pop culture a reality. Her father watched his fortune continue to grow into a new decade and he is now the richest man in fashion.

As for Hormeku, since that handshake he has earned a Political Science and Physiological Sciences double major in three years from the University of Arizona, aims to practice Fashion Intellectual Property Law in NYC and change the way people see living. At just 25, he has founded The Hormeku Group — an umbrella for a clothing line, an original rosé brand, a luxury cigar line and a book. And he’s doing it all with the coolest demeanor imaginable.

Ego, as his friends call him, is leaning back on a round stool with a glass of champagne at Ken and Cook in New York City’s Lower East Side on a crisp December night. From under his woven cap, he’s peering toward the pressed-tin ceiling of the dimly-lit bar. Strategy is burning in his eyes.

“You know those kids shooting jumpers way after the sun’s gone down, when they know nobody is watching anymore?” he says. “I feel like that’s me. I want to be the No. 1 draft pick. I want perfection.”

Ego was raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn.Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. The area was a breeding ground for crime in the late 1980s to early ’90s, and the reputation only altered slightly into the new century. But even though the area remained a rough one, and is a region in which gentrification never really happened like other parts of the borough, those who live there grow up strong and stay strong, even if only out of necessity. “Never ran, never will,” is still the slogan of the area.

Ego’s parents made sure their son’s motives always remained positive. Gloria Obuobi, an OB/GYN registered nurse at Kings County Hospital Center, and Kofi Hormeku, a retired case worker for NYC Human Resources Administration, gave him the you-can-do-anything-in-the-world-you-want mentality. He took that motivation and ran with it. In undergrad, he was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity,Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. and was a DJ at parties on campus. Between classes he’d often re-read his favorite book, The Great Gatsby, or flip through a GQ — which is ironic because not too long ago he bumped into GQ’s creative director,High quality stone mosaic tiles. Jim Moore, while almost all of what he wore at the time was from his own Nothing Nice New York clothing line.

While in school, he teamed up with a few friends and wrote The Nerdy McFly Manifesto, a book containing 101 rules for young men on how to create a balance between smart and cool — James Dean meets Steve Urkel. This eventually turned into Hope this Helps, a book tackling demeanor, comportment, contemporary chivalry, chances, choices and education. It was the first idea to see real creation under The Hormeku Group umbrella. From there, he expanded on the creation of other ideas and products.

Constant meetings and construction on the foundation of his business mold the beginning of perfection. Late nights add detail. Ego knows the Lauren family had a clear vision when they started their own respective businesses. He has his own vision, too. When he launches his own flagship store in Brooklyn — he’s aiming for Summer 2013 — one wall will boast a mural of Brooklyn icons. He’s thinking along the lines of maybe Mike Tyson, Jay-Z, Biggie Smalls, Spike Lee, The Three Stooges.

In this store he will sell merchandise from his multiple brands, all geared toward sophisticated men who want to live well and live comfortably. His clothing line, Nothing Nice New York, combines both urban wear and custom tailored suits and ties. All articles of clothing have been designed by Ego, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t wear himself.

Then there’s Vida Chocolate Cigars and Steel Rosé, both of which were designed for individuals who don’t just live for the moment — they define it.

Until his flagship store is erected, all of his products are available online. Custom deals are also being pieced together more frequently. A woman once complimented him on his Nothing Nice tie and loved the smell of cigars. That led to three wholesale orders out of the country to sell his products in international stores — two boutiques in Canada and a pop-up shop in France.

“It’s a wild ride,” he says. “One day I can wake up and sell a few thousand dollars in cigars. The next I might only sell a tie but make someone look and feel like a million bucks. As long as I over-deliver every time. Every day is different but it gets better.”

And it gets better every day. Clubs nationwide are starting to pay attention, some paying Ego to provide hundreds of bottles of Steel Rosé at a time for events. Football legend Emmitt Smith showed up to an after party for The Hormeku Group in New York City’s Meatpacking District. Rihanna once complimented the mogul-in-the-making in SOHO before turning Da Silvano into a frenzy.

“It just really hurt,” Mitchell said. “It was extremely disappointing. I’m really shocked by it, to be honest. Here’s a guy I’ve had in my house, I had a big dinner for the offensive linemen every year, he came to my house and ate dinner, I gave my offensive linemen gifts every year. For him to do that is just reprehensible, beyond words. It’s really disappointing, it really is painful. When you mess with my family, mess with my livelihood, mess with my health, it’s unacceptable. It’s B.S. I just wouldn’t do it to a teammate. I wouldn’t do it. If Lomas has a problem with me, come talk to me. To try to get someone hurt, it’s just mind-boggling.”

Mitchell suffered a broken finger on his passing hand when Brown allowed Packers defensive end Sean Jones to get a free shot at him in a 1994 game. That injury ended Mitchell’s season, and Mitchell noted that it could have been a lot worse than a broken finger.

“People get seriously hurt in this game,” Mitchell said. “For someone to just lay down like that, it’s unacceptable.”

Science in Yasuni Sheds Light

In 1993, Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Boston University administrators asked me to suggest possible sites for a new biological field station somewhere in Ecuador’s eastern rainforests. Instantly, I was fantasizing about all the wondrous things that we could do and see at such facilities, if the location were chosen wisely.High quality mold making Videos teaches anyone how to make molds.

Immediately, a rush of all the unique scientific and educational opportunities inundated my brain. Wow! Just imagine what would come along with a never-before-explored site in a truly intact piece of western Amazonian wilderness. Being a bit of a worrier, a moment later, the initial fantasy was elbowed aside by preoccupations. That “IF” quickly grew exponentially into a list of many practical and logistical considerations. And when I say “considerations,” I mean “complications”; when I say “many,” I mean “big.We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs.”

Certainly in the beginning, if you truly expect to attract visitors of any kind, the place must provide great opportunities to view animals. And nobody cares about insects and spiders – they want the big stuff. If you don’t have something to offer in this realm, most people simply won’t bother to come. If you don’t have visitors, the money dries up and the whole thing falls apart. And if it’s to be successful over any time at all, it has to be reasonably accessible. Yeah, I know, that part is more than a bit of fantasy.

Nature lovers everywhere will tell you that these two characteristics are in their very essence, mutually exclusive. Wild fauna and accessibility? No way, can’t be done. If people, any people, have access, they have impacts; the greater the access, the greater the impacts. But what’s more exciting than a good challenge, right?

How to find a balance? In my opinion, for this endeavor to be worthwhile, we simply had to be far from population centers, developmental and agricultural frontiers, hunting activities and timber harvest. But we certainly didn’t want to encroach upon any lands that rightfully belong to indigenous peoples. Above all, we wanted to be good neighbors to everyone in the region – without actually having neighbors.

To put it simply, we wanted to be able to study and teach about nature itself, not human impacts on nature.We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. Some pragmatic scientists are quick to point out that this is the real fantasy; science should in fact be studying impacts to provide solutions to real problems as opposed to dwelling on a situation that barely exists any longer and has even less likelihood to exist in the future. Well, I’m not quite ready to throw in the towel yet. And besides, I think we should have a legitimate zero point with which to compare our impacts as well.

OK, we had to sacrifice on the accessibility side a hair. I ended up choosing a site that’s a challenge but you can get there from the capital city of Quito in 8 hours – on the north bank of the Tiputini River, along the north central border of the Yasuní National Park. A couple of years earlier, in 1991, a canoeing/camping trip along this same river made it stand out forever in my mind as a paradise for viewing fauna.

On one of the first days, I’ll never forget taking the dugout a short distance up a right-bank tributary, the Tivacuno, where we were soon delighted by the appearance of a giant otter family. While completely enthralled by these chatterboxes 10 feet ahead of the canoe, from the back of the boat, our cook said, “Wouldn’t you rather see something big?” pointing over her shoulder at a 500-pound tapir curiously swimming toward us!

Travelers who go to Africa on safari typically judge the quality of their visit on the “Big Five.” Such a short list doesn’t really exist for visitors to Amazonia; anyone who comes here has to recognize that getting a glimpse of the various classic symbols of the Neotropics requires everything from having a guide with magical powers to putting in some time previous to the trip working on your karma. Rainforest provides serious cover; savannah not so much. I tend to think that’s precisely why it’s so gratifying even when experiences are fleeting.

Seeing any or several of these following species in the wild should be considered a stunning success: jaguar, tapir, giant otter, giant anteater, ocelot, capybara, spider monkey, woolly monkey, anaconda, harpy eagle, curassow, pink river dolphin, scarlet macaw, sloth, giant armadillo, roseate spoonbill, boa constrictor, fer-de-lance, vampire bat, white-lipped peccary, toucans, bushmaster, and the Amazon’s equivalents of the unicorn, the bush dog, short-eared dog, black jaguar, and silky anteater.

I’ll go on into the realm of the aquatic with the black caiman, electric eel, and ocellated stingray, piranhas, peacock bass, tiger-striped flathead catfish, the arapaima, and finally a real oddity showing up from inside the forest about nightfall, skimming the water’s surface to gaff small fish, bulldog bats. Among the invertebrate world, trophy sightings include electric blue Morpho butterflies, bird-eating tarantulas, giant earthworms, peanut-headed bugs (or any of their bizarre wax-bug relatives), giant leaf mantis, army ants, leaf-cutter ants, bullet ants, camou katydids, bearded weevil, elephant beetle, rhinoceros beetle, Hercules beetle, giant stick insects, harlequin beetle, and the white witch (a huge moth). All these, beginning to end, are present in the Yasuní, part of a contingent estimated at as much as one million total species (mostly insects) – or about 1/10th of all life on the entire planet Earth!

Being situated very near the Equator and blessed with abundant rainfall (annually receiving right around 10 feet of precipitation) in ecologically-stable western Amazonia, near the Andean foothills has provided the conditions that produced all this biodiversity. The question now is how this particular patch has managed to survive into this century. An area once equally as diverse, just to the north, has been converted horizon-to-horizon into a cut-over land of oil wells, dusty gravel roads, scattered bamboo huts, open pastures full of introduced elephant grass and practically devoid of its original copious dose of biota.

The difference is that outsiders, in their lust for oil dollars, ran roughshod over that region while they were terrified to venture south of the Napo. Yasuní is the traditional territory of the Waorani,“the fiercest tribe in all Amazonia,” according to their own completely justified description, a nation of warriors that repelled all intruders with deadly barrages of serrated palm-wood spears, until quite recently. Their own densities were always low so their impacts at the landscape level were minimal over thousands of years. Thanks to the Waorani for having kept most outsiders out for so long, and for giving us one last chance to document life at its pinnacle of diversity.

Currently, a wave of acculturation is quickly converting these guardians into their own worst enemies in relation to the traditional resource base. Bush meat markets have turned their hunting skills into money makers and in some parts, they are now depleting the abundant game of their forefathers faster than it can be replenished through natural cycles.

Because there are so many kinds of life in this exuberant ecosystem, seeing any particular one tends to be a challenge. There’s a phrase that sounds just plain stupid when you first hear it, but it’s absolutely applicable. “It’s rare to be common and common to be rare.The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry,” A few things can indeed be seen all the time, but most are only seen now and again, and many are truly once-in-a-lifetime sightings.

From my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina, I made my way to Amazonia for the first time in 1979; I’ve lived permanently in Ecuador since 1990 and chose the land for the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in 1994. After all that time, I still can’t go for more than a few minutes at TBS without seeing something I’ve never seen before – and knowing that in most cases, I’ll never see again. At this point, I’ll admit that new sightings are mostly small creatures, primarily among the insects and spiders, but I have yet to see in the wild several mammals from the list in that earlier paragraph, including the giant armadillo, bush dog, melanistic jaguar, and silky anteater.

But they’re out there, and knowing that is extremely exciting – there’s always a chance. How do I know? The giant digs of giant armadillos are seen every day. And naturally,If you have a fondness for china mosaic brimming with romantic roses,while I wasn’t around, an individual visited our camp every night for a week while I was tending to chores in other parts of the country – and lots of good-hearted students have since made special efforts to show me their pictures posing within feet of this behemoth, and with their cabins in the background. Both the bush dog and black panther have been captured by our camera traps. Now and again, one of our scientists happens upon these canines out in areas rarely tread by humans.

A few months ago, while seeking photographs for a book we just published (Yasuní, Tiputini and the Web of Life), Pete Oxford spent an hour and a half within 8 or 10 yards of a magnificent black jaguar right out on the riverbank, less than half a mile upstream from our camp. A couple of primatologists, Sara Alvarez and Laura Abondano, tell the tale of their study subjects knocking something loose from the canopy (as often happens when spider monkeys hurl their 20-pound bodies from tree to tree) and having fall literally at their feet, the diminutive silky anteater, a fluffy straw-colored ball of fur complete with a baby on its back! In case you’re also a worrier, mother and child were fine; soon after the tumble, they were back up in a tree, the mother feasting on termites.

Better battery life is on the way!

Every day it seems like the “great battery life” I initially started off with on my iPhone is slowly creeping towards “annoying” status as it only seems to last half a day instead of nearly the whole day like it used to. There are several factors as to why my battery drains faster now as opposed to when I first got it, but it’s mostly attributed to increased GPS usage. In fact, in any phone the element that causes the most battery consumption is the GPS chip.Quickparts builds injection molds using aluminum or steel to meet your program. However, our friends at Microsoft may have found a way to cut battery consumption by a great deal.

The current GPS component in a phone can take 30 seconds to get the data it needs via satellite just to locate something on the map, but that’s not all.The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry, After the initial data batch of acquiring a location, it then has to sort through codes in order to calculate the intended location with more precision. That’s a lot of work for one phone to do, especially if you’re running an actual GPS system that’s trying to keep up with you in real time.

A Microsoft Research project has been working on finding a way for the GPS chips inside our phones to consume less power.

We are all becoming more familiar with “cloud” technology and how it’s enabling us to have even more storage by offloading some of our data like music, photos, and documents to another source. You can pull these files whenever you want from the cloud, and put it back as you see fit. The Microsoft Research project intends to use cloud technology to do the same thing for GPS – offload most of the time-consuming components of GPS and only pull the crucial information from the satellites in just a few milliseconds. The other half of the equation is to then combine the data obtained from the satellites and with other important information obtained from public online databases to calculate a device’s past locations. Jie Liu, one of the principal researchers at Microsoft Research, and his team have developed a system based off of these principles and are actively working to make it available to us sometime in the future.

However, right now in this system’s development, this means that you would need continuous data/WiFi/cellular coverage in order to use the GPS. Right now we are fortunate in that many GPS systems continue to work, even offline. This idea would need some tweaking before it would be well-received by incorporating them in our phones. I’ve come across too many “spotty” areas to trust a device to completely rely on cellular connectivity.The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry,

This could be ground breaking technology for the future. So far, it seems our solution for better battery life is to just incorporate bigger batteries. Not a bad idea, but with bigger batteries come bigger phones. The next Galaxy Note is rumored to have a 6” screen – that would literally make the phone one inch away from being a tablet. Maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but are people really interested in a phone that big? I would rather phones be at least in the same range we see them now (the Galaxy Note II is big enough to me) and improve the battery life through internal components.

Liu says that that in a typical mobile phone continuous GPS sensing would burn through a phone battery in about six hours. Six hours is not a lot of time if you’re using your device for a road trip (although one could assume if you’re using your phone for GPS on a road trip, you’ll be taking a car charger along with you). Regardless, say you don’t have a car charger or something happens to yours; it at least sounds nice in theory to not have to worry about your phone and your GPS dying in just six short hours. Even if you’re not on a road trip, we use GPS in our phones every day through other various location-based services,This is my favourite sites to purchase those special pieces of buy mosaic materials from. such as applications, and that can arguably consume a lot more battery life than we might like on any given day.

Readers,Interlocking security cable ties with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals. do you have battery life issues that might benefit from this project? Even if you have what’s deemed “good” battery life on your smartphone – is there ever such a thing as battery life that’s “too good”? Do you think we’ll ever get back to a time where our phones could stay off the charger for days and still have a decent amount of battery life left?

Two tickets posted on Craigslist, a well-known choice of the unscrupulous scalper. Tickets to the Discover BCS National Championship for $1,000 each, a price that seemed too good to be true because, well, it was.

You always hear stories of people that got duped. But rarely do you get an inside look at one of these transactions.

It shows how the Internet has changed the game and how simply peppering people with questions can reveal the fraud.

This year, the Orange Bowl decided not to put ticket prices on the National Championship tickets to help schools flexibly price the seats to students or donors. After I discussed this on Twitter, I was contacted by a man named Paul Crowley, who believed he was in the midst of an alleged fake ticket transaction for the title game between Notre Dame and Alabama.

After we provided scans of the tickets to the Orange Bowl, who told us they believed the tickets were fake, Crowley obviously decided he wouldn't buy them. But to help me describe how such exchanges occur, he followed it through until the point where he'd have to meet the seller with $2,000 cash.

The Craigslist post was for two 50-yard line seats. One could expect to pay $2,500 apiece for these tickets, but this seller was offering a deal, complete with a very specific story.

He said his name was Chris and his wife's name was Susan. He said his wife's stepfather got four tickets to the game but wanted to sell two because two of the people he wanted to go with couldn't go. He volunteered even more on the posting, which has since been pulled. His father in-law, he said, was an alumni board member.

Crowley emailed his phone number to the man, who said his name was Chris Michaels. Crowley's phone rang quickly. The 36-year-old Notre Dame grad had a couple requests before he'd fork over his money, though. He wanted to see the front and the back of the tickets. It was a veteran move to ask for the back, as counterfeiters often don't put as much effort into the back.

2012年12月24日 星期一

The Jalopnik Guide To Driving In Colombia

When I was on my way to Colombia this summer, a majority of the people I told where I was headed responded with, "Isn't that place dangerous?" Of course it's dangerous, but so is Southern California. You could get run over by one of the Governator's Hummers.Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. The world, for that matter, is a dangerous place.

But there's a reason why the Colombia tourism ministry's tag line of late has been "Colombia, the only risk is wanting to stay." True story. I went there, and was never mugged or kidnapped by a drug cartel or leftist jungle brigade. At the end of the trip, I did kind of feel like staying there. The people are friendly, the weather is nice, the landscapes there are stunning, and most stuff is cheaper than it is in the U.S.

You won't see very many American tourists in Colombia. Maybe it's part of some guilt complex associated with the fact that Americans hoover up more coke than anyone else in the world, but people in the U.S. still don't think it's safe. Folks from the Commonwealth countries are wise to Colombia. There's no shortage of Brits and Aussies frequenting the country's many hostels, but not too many Americans.

Driving from one city to another — or even within a city — used to be a Colombian roulette game, today's Colombia is much more tranquil. Violence has dwindled to practically nothing, and the economy and car ownership have burgeoned. It's difficult to classify the spirit of an entire country, but after having traveled around most of it for more than a month (I know, not that long in the grand scheme of things), I'd say unlike in the U.S. and Europe, optimism is palpable there.

Colombia is a pretty big country — a little larger than California and Texas combined (what an unholy pair that would be) — so there are all kinds of different roads. Nearly half of the country's land area is roadless jungle crawling with militias and drug cartels, and the rest is mostly mountainous. It's population is clustered on the Caribbean coast, along three mountain valleys in the interior, and to a lesser extent on the Pacific coast.

You'll find flat, relatively straight coastal roads, a lot of curvy mountain roads, and if you go far enough away from the places where everyone lives, plenty of rutted jungle tracks. Colombia's highways are safe and well maintained, but they aren't really the high speed freeways we're used to in the states. Cars, trucks, and motorbikes move at a slower pace down there, because unlike the American interstate system, human life still touches the highways, much as it did here more than half a century ago.

You'll definitely see vendors in unexpected places (sometimes standing alone at a crossroad in the middle of nowhere, as if waiting for Robert Johnson to arrive), and speed varies with your proximity to the shoulder, regardless of the number of lanes. There will be a lot of small motorbikes cruising next to, or on, the shoulder.

In town, you never know what you're going to get. Medellín has nice roads, but rush hour traffic is a nightmare (particularly since Colombia's emissions laws are a bit dated, so a thick, sickly smog hugs the valley). Bogotá seems always to be choked with traffic, and is a massive, seemingly endless sprawl; like if L.A. were in New York and everyone spoke Spanish. Cartagena and Santa Marta, on the Caribbean Coast, are fine until it rains. Then the roads flood with really poopy-smeeling brown water and everyone (especially motorcyclists) drives very slow. Up in the mountains, the going is slow, and if you're in a cab, your driver might stop to pick up friends in really random places. For example, we were in a taxi on our way to Minca when our driver stopped to scoop up a sack of bananas and a grinning,We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. white robed Indian sucking on a bowl of Coca.

The Pacific Coast and the Amazon are special cases, as there aren't any roads connecting them with the rest of the country. Roads in those regions are catch as catch can, so there aren't many cars to begin with. The ones there are have to negotiate terrible backcountry roads, gravel avenues, and, occasionally — where long gone drug money has left its mark — a stretch of paved road near the ruins of a drug baron's mansion.

Colombian drivers use their horns, and they use them a lot. Their honks aren't usually the drawn out impatient/desperate ones like you'll find in New York City; they're more along the lines of, "Hey! I'm here! How's it going?!" Many cab drivers have amazing muscle memory when it comes to horn honking,The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. able to effect a light honk for easy maneuvers and a loud, but not-too-long blast in more serious situations.

I'm going to go out on a limb and generalize here, but Colombia's drivers tend to be more relaxed near the coasts and in less populated places (the Caribbean Coast is pretty busy), and crazier in big cities like Medellín and, especially, Bogotá.Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. For example, in Medellín, the combination of smog, curvy roads, and bad driving left my skin with a green tinge and my mouth with that sickly-sweet I'm-about-to-vomit taste. In Bogotá, one of our cab drivers negotiated the city's horrible gridlock like the main character in Office Space at the beginning of the film.

Outside of the cities, there's no typical driver, really. Colombians don't tend to drive like assholes, but there's a certain lax attitude about traffic laws and road stripes. They seem to be viewed more as suggestions. That said, people are generally friendly, so you're unlikely to see road rage there.

I didn't see any luxury brands like BMW, Mercedes, or even Cadillac until I had traveled to Medellín, which is a huge city. Even there I didn't see the number you'd see in a big American or European city. Whatever you think is an awesome car in the States, dial it back several notches and you have Colombian standards of auto chic. A BMW 3-series is a big luxury car, and a new Hyundai is pretty nice, too. Most people drive tiny econoboxes and 100 cc motorbikes. I rode in a BMW in Bogotá, and its owner got pretty jumpy anytime a car followed him too closely. He was afraid of getting boxed in and carjacked. Seems like it would be easier to drive a Twingo.

The ultimate vehicle to have in Colombia is, hands down, a Toyota Land Cruiser. Old Land Rovers and Jeeps come in a close second (unless you're in Coffee Country, where Jeeps are king). You really don't need an SUV most of the time, but they're well suited to Colombia's rugged mountains. But to be honest, there were people driving old Renaults on rutted mountain roads, and they seemed to get along just fine. So you don't really need a huge SUV, but they're cocaine kingpin cool.

For the most part, Colombia's roads are a sea of small Renaults, Toyotas, Hyundais, and motorcycles smaller than 150 cc. And for good reason. Gasoline costs somewhere around $5 per gallon in most parts of the country (diesel is a little less), so small, fuel efficient cars are all the rage. Natural gas costs a lot less, so many Colombian car owners convert their cars to run on natural gas. These setups aren't usually custom engineered for any particular vehicle, so efficiency decreases noticeably.

Natural gas is so cheap there,Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability. it actually makes good economic sense to waste half of your Renault 9's small trunk with a yellow tank. If you really want to see the country without spending a ton of money on gas, you can pick up a brand new 125cc motorbike for less than $2,000. A lot of Colombians do because although things there are a lot better than they were 20 years ago, the average daily income there is still only $22 per day. Expensive, gas guzzling cars aren't reality. They don't understand our affinity for big trucks.

The top New Orleans food stories of 2012

You never know what's going to make the history books. In 50 years, will 2012 be remembered as the year of pink slime? The hot-button term, applied to what became a controversial beef product, arguably was the biggest national food story of the year. Also generating headlines: The ban on super-size soda in New York and Chik-Fil-A's CEO's statements on same-sex marriage

Less sensational, but in many ways the real top story, was the severe drought in the Midwest that caused food prices to soar. The collapse of Hostess was big news as well, as the smashed Twinkie still on my desk attests. By the end of the year, though, it looks like someone new will buy and bake Hostess' signature products soon.

As far as national trends go, Time magazine dubbed kale "America's vegetable sweetheart,This is my favourite sites to purchase those special pieces of buy mosaic materials from." and they put "gluten-free everything" on their trend list. They also named 2012 as the year food porn went mainstream, blaming Instagram and other easy-to-use photo-sharing apps for "the reason your Facebook looks like a cookbook."

Forbes.com nominated the boom in Peruvian restaurants and the proliferation of bitters as top trend. I'd have to say that last one is accurate, judging from the giant selection on sale at this year's Tales of the Cocktail.

It was the 10th anniversary of Tales, which has evolved into one of the defining events of the New Orleans culinary year. This is the 2012 year that Hogs for the Cause and Boudin and Beer joined the must-attend list that already includes New Orleans Jazz Fest, Tales, and the New Orleans Food and Wine Experience. Big crowds having a good time? Check.

In local food news,The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry, the biggest story was the destruction of the Hubig's Pies bakery by an early-morning fire in July, followed by instant hoarding and the owners vowing to rebuild.

Only a few weeks later, Hurricane Isaac cleaned out the freezers and refrigerators of south Louisiana citizens, after its slow-poke progress caused unexpected flooding and days-long power outages. In a major stroke of ironic bad luck, owner Horst Pfeifer had to deal with the flooding of Middendorf's, the 78-year-old fried catfish temple. Pfeifer took over Middendorf's after Hurricane Katrina made it impossible to reopen Bella Luna, the restaurant he operated in the French Quarter.

When his two cheesemakers retired to return to Bulgaria, chef John Folse quietly shut down his award-winning Bittersweet Dairy in the summer, with no notice. After queries from shoppers, supermarkets put up handmade signs saying there was no more of the dairy's popular Creole Cream Cheese or its addictive yogurt.

The first Fresh Market in Orleans Parish opened on St.We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. Charles Avenue in the former Bultman's Funeral Home/Borders location. Liz Williams of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum said this proves home cooking is alive and well in New Orleans, since the community is supporting Whole Foods, the expansion of Rouse's and Fresh Market as well.

In addition, the quirky California-based market, Trader Joe's announced its first Louisiana location in Baton Rouge, sending New Orleans members of the Trader Joe's cult into a "We want one too" frenzy. National giant Costco announced plans in May for their first store in the state at the empty shopping center site at Carrollton Avenue and I-10.

Seven New Orleans chefs and restaurants were nominated for 2012 James Beard Foundation awards, but all came home empty-handed. In the land of reality food television, however, many New Orleans and south Louisiana chefs, caterers and cooks raised the area's profile when they competed on one of the most popular programs on the Food Network,High quality mold making Videos teaches anyone how to make molds. "Chopped."

By the end of the year, six had won the $10,000 top prize: Linda "YaKaMein Queen" Green; "Fireman Mike" Gowland; Matt Murphy; Andy Scurlock; Tabb Singleton and,We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. just last week, Nathanial Zimet. One of the competitors reported that the phone at his place started ringing the day after the telecast with calls from first-time tourists planning to visit.Though it appeared anonymously, it was attributed to theologian and poet Clemet Clarke Moore. We all know the storyline of the man of the house, who is awakened on Christmas Eve by a sleigh drawn by eight reindeer landing on the roof.

And likewise, we know the lyrics of the song based on it, “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, about a ninth reindeer with a luminous proboscis, first recorded by American singing cowboy Gene Autry in 1949, and based on a poem written in 1939 by Robert L. May for a children’s Christmas book published by mail-order retailer Montgomery Ward.

The song became an enduring Christmas hit, translated and recorded into an untold number of languages. The Norwegian version, “Rudolf er r?d p? nesen”, was first recorded in the mid 1970s and became a fixed part of the Christmas repertoire. It is included in some 50 collections of Christmas songs sold by the Platekompaniet online recording shop for this Christmas season.

Today, the story of Santa and his reindeer is as ubiquitous at Christmastime as is the tradition of decorating evergreen trees, first observed in sixteenth-century Germany. And, as history suggests, its roots are Nordic.

The first known illustrated description of reindeer pulling sledges is in the travelogue “Opera Lapponia” by Johan Scheffer – a professor at the University of Uppsala in Sweden – was first published in Latin in 1674 and later in English translation.

Bobcat fans hope that win’s a sign of things to come

The Ohio Bobcat men's basketball team finally got back on track with its 93-57 home victory over the University of Maryland Eastern Shore Hawks on Saturday afternoon.

After the 'Cats lost four of their last five games and experiencing major issues in losing all three road games so far this season, I was beginning to lose faith in a team that showed some promise by opening the year with six consecutive victories. Though Ohio entered its game against the Hawks tied with Western Michigan for the best record in the Mid-American Conference (7-4), they needed a strong performance on Saturday to right the ship as conference play draws nearer.

The Hawks entered Saturday's contest with an 0-10 record, losing by an average margin of 20 points in the process. With such a poor opponent, it was absolutely crucial that the 'Cats have a good outing in order to build confidence. Their performance was nothing short of spectacular, as six Ohio players scored in double figures, led by guard Walter Offutt's 15 points, en route to the 36-point win.

It was a total team victory, but guard Travis Wilkins, who entered Saturday averaging just 3.4 points per game, was the breakout star after starting guard Nick Kellogg injured his shooting hand during practice last Friday. Although Kellogg played 18 minutes against UMES, he missed all six of his shots from the floor and ended the game scoreless. That's where Wilkins stepped in. As a three-point shooting specialist, Wilkins made four of his seven three-point shots and finished with 14 points.

Considering the successes of guard Tommy Freeman from a couple of years ago, Wilkins was looking like a disappointment early in the season. Both Freeman and Wilkins fit the mold of a pure shooter who spends most of his time behind the three-point arc. While Freeman had been nearly automatic from long-range, Wilkins seemed to be struggling with his shot, making only nine of 23 attempted three-point shots prior to Saturday's game. However, something clicked against the Hawks, as Wilkins put his early-season struggles behind him.

"I go out there every night expecting to have a good night and not to think about the last game I had and dwell on the missed shots I've had," Wilkins said. "I just have to be ready to continue to shoot through it and make open shots."

While the offense was humming,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale turquoise beads from china, the defense was less than stellar. Even though Ohio forced 24 turnovers and held the Hawks to just 57 points, the stats revealed a defense that could still use some improvement. In their first 10 games this season, the Hawks shot a pedestrian 34 percent from the field. That number jumped to 52.5 percent,Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. including 66.7 percent on threes, against Ohio. The 'Cats have struggled to defend the three-point line all season,High quality stone mosaic tiles. which is a deficiency that has been their undoing in more than one of their four losses this season. Just as in their home game against Oakland on Dec. 8, the Bobcats allowed one player to beat them from deep. This time it was guard Louis Bell, who made six of his eight three-pointers en route to his game-high 20 points. Luckily for Ohio, none of Bell's teammates had similar success.

Even though the Bobcat men still have some improvement to do on the defensive end, their team-oriented offensive play against UMES showed what this team is truly capable of on that end of the floor. They can be a very dangerous team when everyone gets involved,Interlocking security cable ties with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals. and it only helps when guard D.J. Cooper is not relied upon to carry the offensive load. Against UMES, Cooper finished with just nine points while dishing out a season-high 14 assists as part of team total of 29 that tied the school record set in 1995 and 1998.

The Amateur Community Theater of Rowlett is waiting on the construction of a new performance venue. Their old performance location is being torn down as part of development around the Rowlett DART Rail Station. In the mean time they are living by the old expression ‘the show must go on’ and taking their skills on the road.

“My family decided to purchase a building near the clock tower in downtown to relocate our business to. Part of the building will be our business and another part will be a small event place that people can rent out. We will use this part of the building to host the performances of the theater in the future,” said Suzan Fulton, who runs the theater.

Until the new theater is completed, the group is taking its services on the road and branching out to neighboring communities to continue to show off their talents. The group recently performed a series of radio show reenactments at a couple of nursing home and assisted living facilities in Mesquite and Rowlett.

“We did a couple of radio shows this past Saturday at the Christian Care Center in Mesquite and at the Senior Care Center in Rowlett. When we do the radio shows we are trying to bring a show from the time period of most of the series, the 1940s and 1950s. This time we chose some stuff from the George Burns, George Allen and Abbott and Costello. It was really funny. One of the things we did was a take-off of the old Abbott and Costello Who’s on First skit. This one involved taking vitamins,” Fulton said.

Fulton said the group has been doing the radio shows at nursing homes and assisted care facilities for the past several years during the holidays.

“This is just something we felt in our hearts would be something fun and rewarding to do,” Fulton said. “The hardest thing about doing the shows is sometimes we don’t know if they are enjoying it until after because they are real quiet. I had a geriatric doctor tell me once not to expect them to show much emotion. I decided to ask a couple if the music was too loud and I looked down and this one man was tapping his foot. I realized that you can tell by little things that they were enjoying it.”

ACTOR will be traveling around the area next year and performing The Very Great Grandson of Sherlock Holmes by Bill Majeski. The play focuses on a decedent of Sherlock Holmes that is trying to solve a murder and live up to the name of Sherlock Holmes.

The 2012 holiday season has already seen several thieves from across the country steal Christmas decorations from peoples' lawns. On Dec. 2, 2012, Bill and Rosemarie Rush came home to find that almost $400 worth of Christmas decorations had been stolen from the lawn of their San Fernando Valley, Calif.Interlocking security cable ties with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals. home. Among the items stolen were six inflatable decorations and around a dozen plastic candy canes. Two days later, this time in Ann Arbor, Mich., two men stole a combined $1,000 worth of Christmas decorations from seven different homes during the late-night and early-morning hours.

Again, a mere two days later, a Hialeah, Fla. family reported that its inflatable Christmas decorations were also stolen off its lawn. The inflatable decorations included Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Mickey Mouse and a snowman and were worth just over $100. Three days later, on Dec. 8, 2012, the Aguirre family of Visalia, Calif. reported that its homemade Christmas ornaments were stolen from its lawn.

2012年12月19日 星期三

GetWellNetwork adds tracking capabilities to its patient platform

GetWellNetwork,Whether you are installing a floor tiles or a shower wall, based in Bethesda, Md., is integrating real-time location system (RTLS) technology from Framingham, Mass.-based Stanley Healthcare Solutions to its Interactive Patient Care platform.High quality stone mosaic tiles. The integration is designed to enable patients and their families – as well as hospital officials – to identify and track visits to the hospital room by caregivers.

“Keeping patients and their families informed while in our hospital is absolutely vital to providing a positive patient experience and facilitating the best possible outcomes,” said Brian Adams, chief executive officer of Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, which is using the new platform, is a press release. “The information from the combined Stanley Healthcare and GetWellNetwork solution is much more accessible and timely for our customers than traditional paper or whiteboard methods, and it helps improve both patient satisfaction and security.”

Through its recent acquisition of AeroScout, Stanley Healthcare has developed a Wi-Fi-enabled RFID tag that allows hospitals to track the tags through the facility. The tag sends a signal whenever a wearer enters or exits a room, and displays the wearer's name, photo and pertinent information to the patient's in-room video monitor. That data is also recorded so that a patient's family and hospital administrators can track clinician visits to a particular patient.The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag.

“Many healthcare organizations around the world use our solutions for staff and asset tracking, patient flow and environmental monitoring, and the implementation at Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel shows yet another example of the value of RTLS,” said Scott McFarland, vice president of sales at Stanley Healthcare Solutions, in the press release. “Together with GetWellNetwork, we are helping improve the patient experience and satisfaction at Wesley Chapel and other leading healthcare organizations.”

“The integrated GetWellNetwork and Stanley Healthcare solution provides a new level of security, information and peace-of-mind to patients and their families,” added Michael O’Neil Jr., founder and chief executive officer of GetWellNetwork, Inc. “The deployment at Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel is the first integration of RTLS with our patient engagement solution and illustrates the openness and collaboration required of technology providers to make healthcare better for patients.”

Recently named a leader in the interactive patient systems arena by KLAS, GetWellNetwork has built its network around a platform that offers everything from clinical content and information on hospital services to entertainment, Internet access and a recently added Interactive Patient Whiteboard communications exchange, all accessible from the hospital bed. The company also offers links to the patient's electronic medical record and a personal health record and has added mobile capabilities. The company recently announced a deal with the VA to implement its platform in 21 Veterans Affairs Medical Centers across the country.

Facts change all the time. Smoking has gone from doctor recommended to deadly.The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. We used to think the Earth was the center of the universe and that Pluto was a planet. For decades, we were convinced that the brontosaurus was a real dinosaur. In short, what we know about the world is constantly changing.

But it turns out there’s an order to the state of knowledge, an explanation for how we know what we know. Samuel Arbesman is an expert in the field of scientometrics—literally the science of science. Knowl-edge in most fields evolves systematically and predict-ably, and this evolution unfolds in a fascinating way that can have a powerful impact on our lives.

Doctors with a rough idea of when their knowl-edge is likely to expire can be better equipped to keep up with the latest research. Companies and govern-ments that understand how long new discoveries take to develop can improve decisions about allocating resources. And by tracing how and when language changes, each of us can better bridge gen-erational gaps in slang and dialect.

Just as we know that a chunk of uranium can break down in a measurable amount of time—a radioactive half-life—so too any given field’s change in knowledge can be measured concretely. We can know when facts in aggregate are obsolete, the rate at which new facts are created,One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles. and even how facts spread.

Arbesman takes us through a wide variety of fields, including those that change quickly, over the course of a few years, or over the span of centuries. He shows that much of what we know consists of “mesofacts”—facts that change at a middle timescale, often over a single human lifetime. Throughout, he offers intriguing examples about the face of knowledge: what English majors can learn from a statistical analysis of The Canterbury Tales, why it’s so hard to measure a mountain, and why so many parents still tell kids to eat their spinach because it’s rich in iron. The Half-life of Facts is a riveting journey into the counterintuitive fabric of knowledge. It can help us find new ways to measure the world while accepting the limits of how much we can know with certainty.

FBI offers $50K reward in Chicago jail escape

Two convicted bank robbers who pulled off a daring overnight escape from a high-rise Chicago jail had changed from their prison garb by the time they hopped into a cab outside the lock-up, investigators said Wednesday as they expanded their manhunt for the men.

Authorities were raiding houses and combing through records looking for anybody with ties to the inmates who climbed out a jail window and descended 20 stories using a makeshift rope.

The FBI said surveillance footage from a camera near the Metropolitan Correction Center shows Kenneth Conley and Joseph Banks getting into a cab at about 2:45 a.m. Thursday — about two hours after guards were supposed to do a bed check and four hours before workers spotted the rope dangling from the jail. The pair had changed from their orange jail-issued jumpsuits into light-colored pants and light-colored shirts, the FBI said.

"We don't know if they fashioned their own clothes, or what," said Special Agent Frank Bochte.

The FBI was offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension of Conley and Banks, with the manhunt focused mainly on Chicago and its suburbs.

Law enforcement officials said at least three homes in the suburbs south of Chicago where one of the inmates once lived were searched Tuesday, and a suburban strip club where Conley worked confirmed that investigators had visited.

Investigators believe the men had been at a home in Tinley Park, 25 miles southwest of Chicago, just hours before police SWAT teams stormed it. A law enforcement official said the home was that of Conley's mother and that after the woman refused to let the escapees in, the men used a rock to break a window.

The person, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation so would speak only on condition of anonymity, said authorities also searched the home of a former girlfriend of Conley in nearby New Lenox, where the escapees had eaten breakfast.

In Orland Park, which borders Tinley Park, police Chief Timothy McCarthy said records revealed Conley had been arrested several years ago on a robbery charge.

"We looked at our own files and came up with a former colleague, a past associate," he said.

Orland Park officers helped search a house where the associate lives or once lived, he said, but there was no evidence the escaped inmates had been there, he said.

But the chain of events illustrates just the kind of thing investigators are doing: looking through records, arrest reports and even traffic tickets in the hopes of finding where the men went.

Authorities have not said exactly how many people are involved with the search. But the entire 35-member staff of the U.S. Marshal's Service's Chicago office was involved, a show of force that spokeswoman Belkis Cantor said "was rare."

Many questions remained about how the two managed to pull off such an escape from the federal prison in the heart of downtown Chicago. At the top of the list is how they could have smashed a gaping hole into the wall at the bottom of a 6-inch wide window being heard or seen by correctional officers.

Another question is why, in the federal facility that houses some 700 inmates, the correctional officers apparently did not check on the two men between the 10 p.m. headcount and one at 5 a.m. And what was done between the 5 a.High quality stone mosaic tiles.m. headcount and 7 a.m. when the rope was spotted?

Also, authorities have not said how the two men managed to collect 200 feet of bed sheet or how the broke through the wall.Best howo concrete mixer manufacturer in China.

The escape bore a striking resemblance to one at the same jail in 1985. In that case, convicted murderer Bernard Welch and an accomplice, Hugh Colomb, smashed through a window with a bar from a weight set and used bed sheets and an electrical cord attached to a floor buffer to descend six stories to the ground.

William Rollins, a Washington, D.C., police detective at the time who was brought in by the U.S. Marshals Service to investigate, said the noise of breaking the wall would have been deafening. But he thinks other inmates would have gladly made a lot of noise to drown out the sound.

"They will lure a guard into the laundry room and have all the dryers going,We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory." said Rollins,Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injection mould manufacture, now retired, whose investigation is included in a book about Welch by Jack Burch and James B. King called "Ghost Burglar."

Not only that, but he said his investigation revealed that inmates had hidden hacksaw blades in ceiling tiles and drill bits in bed frames.

That’s what a delegation of state and city officials did on a recent tour of the deteriorating school where teachers tape up “caution” signs and water streams down an interior wall every time it rains.

That’s what lawmakers,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale turquoise beads from china, educators and parents would like Gov. Chris Christie to do in order to truly understand the conditions students and teachers deal with every day.

The state has promised money to address the 80-year-old school’s most urgent problems. As Times staffer Erin Duffy reported last week, the funds have not materialized and the 18 most pressing problems – including leaky roofs, corroded plumbing, warped floors and asbestos — are worsening.

The crumbling school also contends with security issues in an city plagued by gun violence. A potential tragedy was averted early this month when a taxi driver warned police an armed student, bent on revenge, was on his way to the school.

It wasn’t the powerful slam of a storm that devastated the building in one ferocious blast. It’s been depleted by the daily toll of time as political machinations, charges of wasting money and squandering opportunities, and controversy over whether to renovate or rebuild in the days when such funding might have been available have done nothing to alleviate the deterioration there.

It’s been a superstorm of human error, erosion and neglect, so it doesn’t qualify for FEMA relief. But the state’s mandate to provide a thorough and efficient education continues to be compromised at Trenton Central High School by the substandard conditions thwarting the best efforts of teachers and keeping students at a disadvantage.

We call on the governor, who showed such compassion to those affected by the hurricane, to visit the school. Perhaps he could hold a town hall meeting there to update the community on funding for repairs or renovation or reconstruction or whatever can be done to improve conditions at the school.

Assessing Gasol, Bargnani, other popular trade targets

Before we delve into this year’s most popular trade topic,Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. it’s important to point out that we’re now just barely past the one-year anniversary of David Stern’s killing the three-team deal that would have sent Gasol to the Rockets and Chris Paul to the Lakers. A player’s value is bound to go up and down and Gasol is unquestionably at low tide right now because of poor play, knee injuries and an uncertain fit with the new-look Lakers, but how laughable does that trade scenario look right now? The Lakers avoided potential calamity by trading Andrew Bynum last summer, but the same can be said for the Rockets and Hornets, who both can’t be complaining too much about the vetoed deal. Houston wound up landing a far better franchise player — 23-year-old James Harden beats 32-year-old Gasol by a country mile — and the Hornets avoided the Lamar Odom headache, enjoy cleaner books and have the makings of a nice core, assuming Eric Gordon can ever get back on the court.

Recalling this bit of history not only illustrates how far Gasol’s value has plummeted but it also reaffirms the logic in the Lakers’ thinking. Moving big for small to land a dynamic point guard was a sensible play with the Thunder and Spurs standing in the way of a sixth ring for Kobe Bryant. Picking Bynum over Gasol made sense in 2011, and picking Dwight Howard over Gasol in 2012 isn’t even up for debate. The calculus has changed: Once Steve Nash is healthy, the dynamic point guard hole will be filled once again. The question now is whether the Lakers are better off trying to make things work with Gasol or moving him to address other problems: a lack of athleticism on the wings, depth or a stretch forward who fits better alongside Howard. Answering that question will be much easier after seeing how Nash’s presence affects Gasol. The simplest answer is there’s no real need to rush in advance of the Feb. 21 deadline, as general manager Mitch Kupchak and Co. seemingly have concluded.

The trickiest part is finding a trade partner. Gasol’s $19 million salary this season and $19.3 million salary next season eliminate some teams from the conversation right off the bat.Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. Also, contenders with big salary commitments will find it hard to make a trade work: High-salary players are needed to make a Gasol trade legal for capped-out teams, but those players are likely to be important to their clubs and thus difficult to deal. From there, any team that might have sought Gasol as a No. 1 guy, like the Rockets did just one year ago, would be foolish to value him in the same way this year. Gasol can play better than his current averages of 12.6 points, 8.8 rebounds and 42 percent shooting. But he’s not getting any younger and his contract length is stuck in purgatory: He’s not on the books long enough to be considered a piece a team can build around, but the presence of next year’s big salary limits his appeal as a trade asset.

In a Lakers season marked by impatience, I’m glad that Kupchak and the Busses were able to come to such a sensible conclusion regarding Gasol’s fate. There is no ticking clock. There is no need for a reactionary move. There is only a team desperate for some strategic navel-gazing, as its health and coaching reboot are now creating something of a fresh start.

The question of whether to trade Gasol is complicated. The Lakers should deal Gasol in the sense that all players should be moved for better ones; Kupchak should trade Kobe Bryant if he were able to get Kevin Durant in return, or Nash were Paul somehow attainable. The calculus would be different with Gasol in that L.A. would most likely be looking to turn one star-caliber player into an assortment of supporting parts, but the prerogative remains the same: If you’re going to cut ties on a player this good, you better make damn sure that your team is getting better in the process.

I just don’t buy the notion that Gasol needs to be moved due to the grave sin of positional overlap — not after he managed well enough alongside Bynum, and especially not after Gasol outsmarted opponents in working from the high post for Spain during the London Olympics. Clearly, the early mid-range returns for Gasol haven’t been spectacular, but this is a player with tremendous basketball IQ going to work for a coach who has already proved willing to adapt his system to the Lakers’ needs. There are some redundancies to work around and some lineup issues to consider, but Gasol and Mike D’Antoni have miles to go in their regular-season schedule and all of the resources necessary to figure this out. That doesn’t mean they will or that Gasol won’t be dealt at some point, but there’s enough reason for confidence to abstain from making a significant, panic-driven change.

That’s why packaging Bargnani with pending free agent Jose Calderon does make some sense,We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. even if doing so requires the Raptors to take back some heavy contracts.Load the precious minerals into your mining truck and be careful not to drive too fast with your heavy foot. Calderon is a useful player for Toronto at this stage in its rebuild, but this could be GM Bryan Colangelo’s last chance to get something for a player who will surely be gone after the season. Better to pull some value from Calderon and Bargnani both than none at all, particularly considering that the Raptors are unlikely to have much cap room until 2014 unless they make some fairly considerable cuts via trade. In that, I see no problem with Toronto’s taking a chance on a potential Gasol deal, if such an offer comes to pass, or any well-compensated gamble provided that any contract it receives expires before 2014. What may end up happening is that the Raps foot the bill for another team’s mistake while also grabbing a prospect or pick for their trouble, though it’s hard to pin down which players/teams might fill that hypothetical scenario.

With Ersan Ilyasova, Drew Gooden and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute already signed to long-term deals, paying both Ellis and Jennings to stay makes even less sense. That core isn’t advancing deep into the postseason regardless of how much talent the Bucks have accumulated on rookie deals. What’s the justification in shelling out? The fact that Jennings is on his rookie deal right now reduces the urgency factor and makes it difficult and unlikely to find return value for him by the trade deadline. Let’s assume the Bucks keep winning at their current rate,This is my favourite sites to purchase those special pieces of buy mosaic materials from. putting themselves firmly in the playoffs. The strategy should be to shop Ellis and deal him if blown away by a return package, seeking young talent and picks or the ability to package him with one of the other questionable contracts on their books. If there’s no deal, playing out the stretch with Ellis and hoping for a good first-round playoff matchup is a fine backup strategy. No real harm done. If we assume the Bucks fall on hard times in advance of the deadline, then the asking price for Ellis simply drops and you try to cash out on him.