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The mysterious diamond trade
By Arun Natarajan December 31, 2006
Businessworld has an article on how the diamond jewelry sector and its "mysterious" practices.
Sightholders are a mysterious order of diamond merchants. De Beers' Diamond Trading Company (DTC) largely sells its rough diamonds only to the sightholders who, in turn, process and release them to the market. They are a crucial and powerful link in the chain of brokers, cutters and wholesalers who drive the $56-billion global retail jewellery trade.
There are 93 DTC sightholders worldwide. Thirty seven of these are Indian. They account for 60 per cent of DTC's global sales. (DTC controls 50 per cent of the global diamond trade.) They are an exclusive and influential lobby. And they are in the middle of a major metamorphosis. (Shreyas Doshi), for several reasons, is one example of the paradigm shift in the business of diamond trading in India. Unlike the archetype, his business is not based out of Opera House, the diamond district of Mumbai. His firm, Shrenuj & Co., is profession…
Helion Ventures profiled in The Economist
The Economist has a profile of Helion Ventures.
Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of information and networking services to the private equity and venture capital ecosystem in India. View free samples of Venture Intelligence newsletters and reports.
Profile of Tutor Vista
Businessworld has a profile of online tutoring firm, TutorVista, which has quickly attracted $12 million in two rounds of venture funding.
Tutor Vista now has around 2,200 students, most of whom are in the US. It has around 90 students in the UK, and a few scattered in countries including Finland, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Canada. Tutor Vista has over 200 tutors as well, largely living in India. Almost all the teachers work from home. Tutor Vista's office in Electronic City now has 60 people; this team will expand to 100 by the end of the month. It is the equivalent of air traffic control. They work round the clock and monitor the teaching sessions, help in scheduling a session with a teacher, organise standby teachers in case one drops out at the last minute, and also make sure the information technology infrastructure is ready and running all the time.
Ganesh has kept the costs of tuition ridiculously low $100 a month to learn as many subjects as the student wants (Obv…
Chip Kaye interview to Businessworld
Businessworld had an interview with Charles R. Kaye, co-president of Warburg Pincus, who is credited with hiring the highly successful India team.
We have got 15 people on the ground here and a portfolio well in excess of $1 billion. India represents the largest single exposure we have outside the US. It is probably 10 per cent of the firm's investments. However, despite some success today, it is still pretty early. The money required to build the infrastructure — residential and commercial — is huge and the number of manufacturing industries that are going to migrate here, especially those with engineering intensity, is also significant. Broadly, the opportunities for investment are huge. It dwarfs anything the private equity industry could ever think about.
...The opportunity in real estate was greater than what we could cover within the scope of our existing private equity fund, especially in the Asian region. So, we have created a separate real estate entity. It will house all our r…
TV9 treads a different path
Businessworld has a profile of iLabs-backed TV9, the regional language news channel with an unusual positioning.
For those who are wondering what TV9 is and why we are writing about it, check out the rankings for the top 10 news channels over the last two years (see 'Where TV9 Stands'). TV 9, set up in 2004, is there along with channels that serve much larger audiences — such as Aaj Tak or NDTV India. This means it has managed to get more people to watch Telugu news than other languages. In the Rs 700-crore (advertising) news broadcasting market, that is a big deal. The Rs 30 crore (approx.) ABCL will now test its mettle in many other national and international markets. It will invest about Rs 60 crore in the new domestic channels and Rs 200 crore in the African one. "Several private investors have expressed their interest. We also intend to go public in the next financial year," says Prakash. Currently, 80 per cent of ABCL is held by iLabs (a venture fund) and Unified Group. Prakash a…
Market for duty free shopping opens up
Businessworld has an article capturing the opportunity (and action so far) in the setting up of duty-free shops at the newly privatized airports.
Will Spentex's big bets pull off?
Following Business Today, Businessworld has a detailed profile of aggressive textiles firm, Spentex Industries.
The process of acquiring the largest capacity has also turned it into a highly leveraged one. This year alone, Spentex has raised Rs 360 crore in term loans and Rs 200 crore in equity. In August, it raised Rs 46.6 crore from the first-ever qualified institutional placement (QIP) in India.
Investors were hopeful that the acquisition spree would drive their investment in Spentex to appreciate sharply in the currently bullish market. Indeed, the news of the Tashkent acquisition had driven Spentex scrip up to almost Rs 73 from the early August level of about Rs 50. But by first week of December, the scrip had fallen back to below Rs 60.
Such indifferent performance is attributed to the sluggish bottomline of the company. "Spentex is growing rapidly but its distributable profits are still not there because of almost Rs 500 crore worth of debt," points out Sangeeta Tripathi, analyst,…
The Naukri story
Business Today has a profile of Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder of Naukri.com, post his company's highly successful IPO.
In March 1997, still operating out of his father's garage and with his brother paying for server space in the us, Bikchandani's text-only Naukri.com went live. India had a total of 14,000 internet connections those days, and most of those were text-only connections. Yet, at the end of a year of operations, Naukri had made Rs 2.35 lakh and by the close of 1998-99, it made Rs 18 lakh. Bikhchandani and his collaborators knew they were onto something.
But late in 1999, Bikhchandani started facing new challenges. The internet was on everybody's lips and other companies had begun to enter the sphere of online job listings. Realising that Naukri was competing with rivals with far greater financial muscle, Bikhchandani, who had initially never wanted funding, decided that some money would be essential to survive. Despite several funding offers, he settled on ICI…
Founder sales gets formalized
San Francisco Chronicle (via Venture Beat) reports on how The Founders Fund has formalized the process of a partial buyout of founders by VC investors through a new class of founder stock called the "FF Class" Stock. (See my earlier posts on this topic here and here.)
Inspired by his personal frustrations as a startup founder, (Sean Parker) came up with a novel arrangement that he hopes will benefit other founders as they build their companies: a new type of stock that allows founders to cash out a small percentage of their stake in a funding round so they don't have to wait until the company is sold or goes public.
Pell, who maxed out credit cards, deferred salary and considered taking out a second mortgage until he could raise serious money and interest from the right investors, says he's relieved that he and his fellow founders don't have to feel rushed to sell the company to get some return on their investment of energy, time and money.
"There is often a te…
"What about India and China?"
Check out this hilarious multimedia holiday card from Blueprint Ventures featuring a successful entrepreneur who thinks he has a good idea of what it takes to be a VC.
Second wave of corporate hospitals
Businessworld has a Cover Story on the second wave of corporate hospital chains - with a special focus on the Max, Fortis and Wockhardt groups - who are aggressively expanding their footprints based on the learnings from their initial forays.
Fortis decided to set up its first hospital at Mohali, Chandigarh, a market that didn't have any other large, tertiary care private hospital. The idea was to attract patients from Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. Simultaneously, it planned secondary care centres in other locations, which would be linked to the big Mohali hospital. It was a classic hub and spoke model.
Soon, Fortis realised that though the population in Chandigarh was prosperous, it wasn't ready to accept a privately run hospital. Patients were used to visiting Post Graduate Institute of Medical Research (PGIMR) or else go to Delhi and sometimes even abroad, for treatment. Equally, the fact that in year one Fortis was just a cardiac care hospital didn't help. People expected la…
The new Indian MNC
Catalyzed by the wave of acquistions, Business Today has a Cover Story on "India Inc.'s new Indian MNCs". The article includes a profile of Spentex Industries which has grown rapidly through the inorganic route. Three years ago, its promoters weren't even in the textiles business, running a profitable trading house called CLC Global. Today, Spentex Industries has a total manufacturing capacity of nearly 570,000 spindles in India and Uzbekistan, edging out erstwhile leaders Mahavir Spinning (550,000 spindles). Nearly 85 per cent of that capacity, or 484,000 spindles, has been added via six acquisitions in the past three years. And roughly 40 per cent is accounted for by one overseas buyout, in Uzbekistan, of 220,000 spindles (plus 236 airjet looms). Mukund Choudhary, Managing Director, Spentex Industries, who is credited with much of this creation, shares his rationale for inorganic growth: "Nine out of 10 people who set up greenfield projects fail." More im…
ISB to conduct Venture Capitalist Development Programme
The Indian School of Business in Hyderabad is organizing a 6-day Venture Capitalist Development Programme in March 2007 aimed at developing future venture capitalists.
The programme is organised by the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and the Center for Executive Education at the ISB, in cooperation with the Wadhwani Foundation and the National Entrepreneurship Network.
Faculty: John Mullins, Gerry George (Both professors at London Business School)
Targeted Participants: Professionals seeking to make a career shift to VC; Analyst and Associates at VC/PE firms; CPAs and Lawyers servicing VC/PE firms and their clients; Professionals in commercial banks, insurance companies and other similar fund-of-fund organizations, who manage or advise investment into VC/PE funds.
Dates: March 23-28, 2007, ISB Hyderabad
Fee: Rs 50,000 (after partial scholarship to all. The actual course fee per participant is Rs 150,000 and Rs 100,000 is funded by Wadhwani Foundation). A few need based …
Tax holidaying in Mauritius
With the little island nation of Mauritius repeatedly being reported in the pink papers as "the largest investor in India" and so many PE and other investors "headquartered" in that country pouring billions into Indian companies, it was bound to attract attention. Especially since some folks in the India government have started to fret about the revenue losses and making noises about reviewing the 'double taxation avoidance treaty' with that country.
Now, in a cover story, Businessworld describes the how and why of operating several shell companies out of "India's favorite tax haven".
Over the past few years, more money has come through the Mauritius route to India than through direct investments from almost any other country. In April-June this year, a total of Rs 4,165 crore came in through Mauritius to India — as against Rs 1,105 crore from the US. By the end of the year, the money flowing in from Mauritius to India could be as high as Rs 15…
Is Unitech for real?
As part of a profile of Unitech, the Real Estate company behind the skyrocketing stock, Business Today provides an overview of this booming sector.
In India, real estate companies have traditionally either not listed on the bourses or if they have, then found the discipline required for quarterly reporting of earnings a bit too much. Remember, the other National Capital Region or NCR-based real estate giant DLF delisted from the Bombay Stock Exchange in 1982 and from the Delhi Stock Exchange in 2003. And even the few that remained listed, such as Unitech (it has been listed for 20 years now), attracted poor investor interest. In other words, few scrips, low free floats coupled with the overall opaqueness of the sector and restrictive policies made real estate stocks backbenchers in market performance. Indeed, the Unitech stock was languishing between Rs 100 and Rs 300 for most of 2004.
Easing of policy and regulatory bottlenecks changed the scenario. Allowing foreign direct investment (…
Changing face of investment banking in India
Businessworld has a cover story on the investment banking industry which is riding high on the wave of global shopping by Indian companies.
The 'India is hot' story is attracting international investment banks, all with deep pockets and strong balance sheets, like bees to a honey pot. Some big names include Goldman Sachs (after parting ways with the Kotak group earlier this year), Merrill Lynch (which increased its stake in the Indian JV to 90 per cent from 40 per cent), Lehman Brothers (after leaving the country at the turn of the century) and Credit Suisse (which has had some run-ins with the regulators in recent times).
Meanwhile, the home-bred players, from Kotak to Kampani to Karvy, are leveraging the increased integration with global markets, a new-found freedom in structuring and financing cross-border transactions and a booming domestic economy to find new, profitable opportunities. These are culminating in deals like Thomas Cook where Indian i-bankers straddled the entire trans…
Real Estate Connect
Venture Intelligence organized Real Estate Connect, a roundtable focused on opportunities and challenges for Private Equity investing in Real Estate Projects, on November 23 in Bangalore. The conference brought together Private Equity funds and developers that have raised or are planning to raise Private Equity capital.
Check out the post event newsletter and photos (slideshow and individual snaps)
Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence, which tracks private equity and venture capital in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.
Global Real Estate Hotspots
By Arun Natarajan November 30, 2006
Knowledge@Wharton has an article based on a panel discussion on destinations for global real estate investors. According to the panel, emerging real estate markets in India and China along with recovering property industries in Germany and Japan, are the most attractive.
(Wharton real estate professor Peter Linneman) described panelist Surendra Hiranandani, managing director and founder of the Hiranandani Group in Mumbai, as extremely popular these days with the hordes of real estate investors trekking to India to investigate its hot property market. "There's an image that, in India, the streets are paved with gold. What's the reality?" Linneman asked.
According to Hiranandani, the Indian economy only began to open up in 1991 compared to China, where free-market reforms began to take hold in 1979. The effects of those changes are just now beginning to become evident in India. He also noted that the capital coming into India is generating greater transparency in busine…
Indian pharma cos. strike more drug discovery deals with MNCs
Businessworld has a cover story on the new drug discovery partnerships being created between Indian life sciences firms and MNCs.Last week, Nicholas Piramal signed an agreement with the UK drug discovery firm Morvus Technology. Nicholas Piramal will use the technology of Morvus to develop drugs in areas such as cancer, diabetes and arthritis. We could shrug it off as a routine development, but for two reasons. One, it is the third R&D collaboration agreement that Nicholas Piramal has signed with an overseas company in the last year and a half. Two, it is the sixth R&D collaboration between an Indian and a foreign company within the last three months. Several more are being negotiated and will be signed within a few months, say sources. Have the Indian pharma and biotech companies found a new strategy for drug discovery and development?
...Last year, Nicholas Piramal made a strategic investment in the Canadian firm Biosyntech, a company that makes gels for regenerative medicine.…
Wanted: India specific VC models
Based on his impressions upon attending TiECon Delhi, Basab Pradhan feels India needs a unique model for the venture business. "VCs and entrepreneurs, who take a cookie-cutter approach to it, are in for a rude shock," he says.
- Unlike in the Valley, Web 2.0 has no relevance to the Indian domestic market. Internet penetration is low (5.4%), broadband is lower (<0.5%). Even if you include use at work, account sharing and internet cafes, the consumer internet is a tiny market. It may be interesting for some compelling ideas or if someone wants to bet on growth. But in my opinion, it is not going to attract much investment unless there is a broader 'global Indian' or a 'click and mortar' play.
- Mobile however is hugely interesting. Mobile penetration in India is twice that of the internet and is growing at rates close to 50%. There are opportunities to develop mobile applications that the developed world never needed because of high internet penetration. Booking a cinema tick…
Paymate, Ji Grahak or mChq: Take your pick
Guest post by Deepak Srinath:
Mobile payments or m-payment are not new buzz in India; attempts at creating m-payment solutions go as far back as 1999 and has even seen some VC investment in the space. However, the market was clearly not ready for it and m-payment was more a conceptual experiment than any real paradigm shifting opportunity. The second coming of mobile payments in recent months is an entirely different story. It has the backing of a 135 million user base that is growing at 5% a month, and a retail economy that is poised to take off into stratosphere.
m-payment is a broad term for any mechanism that allows a user to make a payment for a service or goods, or transfer money to another person using a mobile phone. The m-payment solution typically works in conjunction with an existing bank account or credit card the user holds.
The basic hygiene factors for an effective m-payment solution are:
- Ease of use
- Maximum device support to cover a large user base
- Support for a number…
SEZ: Sizzle or fizzle?
Businessworld has a detailed cover story - here, here and here - on the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) business including the challenges of making money on these ventures.
SEZ builders must have the capacity to inject the capital early and wait for returns — it takes a minimum of eight years to take the project into the payback stage. This is where the serious players will score over the speculators. Their returns will be far higher than those who parcelled out the land earlier. "IRRs of 35 per cent are not unheard of. The average IRR could be 20-25 per cent," says Magazine. After this, the final annuity phase becomes easy. Here, the SEZ generates a steady stream of income and needs minimum management. Utilities and facilities management are, perhaps, the only requirements.
...Unfortunately, many SEZ builders see this more as a grand realty development opportunity than as an infrastructure business — buy, build, sell. That model may bring profits in the short to medium term, but is unlike…
First cut view of Reliance's retain plans
Businessworld has an article on Reliance Fresh, the Anil Ambani group's venture into the neighbourhood convenience store business.
Eleven stores were up and running by the end of last week and 100 more will spring up before the end of the year. The plan is to have 3,000 Reliance Fresh outlets soon. (Several other formats in categories including apparel, electronics, etc., will follow soon.)
Sources say that Reliance believes each Reliance Fresh outlet could earn annual revenues of Rs 3 crore. That's a sale per sq. ft of roughly Rs 12,500. Industry sources say this is in line with what other chains have achieved in the past. For instance, at its peak FoodWorld had managed a Rs 300-crore turnover on its 80 stores. The average size of a store was about 3,000 sq. ft — or sales of Rs 12,500 per sq. ft.
If Reliance Fresh can match that, the 3,000-outlet chain could be in line to clock revenues of about Rs 9,000 crore.
Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence, which tracks priv…
The kids wear market
Businessworld provides some interesting numbers about the market for children's garments as part of an article on suiting specialist Raymond's entry into this segment.
The kids apparel market in India is worth about Rs 27,000 crore of which only about Rs 500 crore goes to the organised sector, growing at an average of 20 per cent against the 30-35 per cent for the overall industry. So far, the organised market was dominated by Lakhani-owned Gini & Jony Apparels with a 30 per cent market share, followed by Weekender Kids and Ruff Kids. Clearly, there is space for more organised players to come in and take a larger bite of the market.
That is what Raymond plans to do. With prices ranging from Rs 299-999 against Rs 295-2,000 for Gini & Jony. ZAPP! is clearly aiming for volumes. Whether it can deliver on the target depends on what Raymond brings to the consumer at a lower price. It is doing the usual things. For example, it has tied up with Warner Brothers for the 'Superman…
Naukri by numbers
Businessworld has a short review of the financials of Info Edge, India's first pure play online services company to go public.
Info Edge, which gets most of its revenues and profit from recruitment classifieds services through Naukri.com, has been growing at a scorching pace. In fact, thanks to the growth this fiscal, the IPO valuation drops by almost a third to 34 times based on annualised June quarter earnings. In the three year period between FY03 and FY06, the company's revenues have grown at a compounded average rate of 110 per cent. Profit before tax (PBT) has grown at an even higher rate of 191 per cent in the same period.
What's also important to note about Info Edge is that it operates at a reasonably high level of profitability. Both in FY06 and in the first quarter of the current fiscal, the company has reported a PBT margin of over 25 per cent.
Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence, which tracks private equity and venture capital in India and Indian-found…
Buyouts feature in Corporate Dossier
Economic Times' Corporate Dossier supplement has a four-part feature on buyouts in India and how they initial few deals have fared. (Part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.)
Infomedia is expected to show a very significant increase in revenue and profits in FY 2007, and will double its profits this year. The erstwhile ACC refractories, now Ace Refractories , is expecting to grow revenues by more than 20%, with exports growing by about 40%.
Meanwhile revenues at VA Tech WABAG are expected to grow at a rate of 30% over last year. MBOs, by the nature of their creation, are a high-risk category. And managing the MBO can be a tricky issue. As the Actis-PTL and Tata Infomedia-ICICI Venture buyouts have shown, existing managements can pose a problem.
...Things are also finally falling in place at Punjab Tractors, which saw a bitter battle for control with the previous CEO Yash Mahajan, till last year. Finally, Actis and the Burmans of Dabur now control the board, and the company has a new chair…
Mike Moritz interview to Business Today
Business Today recently published an interview with Sequoia Capital's Mike Moritz.
I think American investors today understand that a lot of money has rushed into India and the shrewder American investors are pulling back. The shrewdest investments and shrewdest investors in India will be sitting on their wallets. Because of their very justifiable concern that this is already a very overheated market....
...With the exception of a very short list, venture capital as a category has been a very disappointing place for most people to invest for a long period of time. And for some reason, I think there is a whole conspiracy around the venture business of people conspiring to fool investors and prospective investors into thinking that they are going to make a lot of money by being an investor in venture capital, while the history of the last 30 years shows that you will not unless you are with a very short list of firms.
...we would always want the founders to look back and feel that one …
Online travel portals: Can we hear the crash already?
Anurag Gupta has analyzed the economics of the online travel services sector and the results are not very encouraging for the half-a-dozen VC-backed startups in this space. This will remain so even if there is a strong growth in the overall market size in the years since that is likely to be negated by the entry of travel agencies (like Thomas Cook) and foreign online brands (like Expedia).I estimate that close to 1,00,000 Air tickets are being sold every day in India. Out of this nearly 20,000 are being sold online. Online tickets are sold by Online Travel Portals / Agents & Directly by the Airlines Websites. Out of this 20,000 I believe that Online Travel portals are selling around 4-5000 tickets per day.
At an average ticket value of Rs. 3,000 the total revenue (Gross revenue) earned by Online Travel Portals from sale of Airline Tickets would be in the range of Rs 430-540 Crores. The portals would be getting a net commission ranging from 0.5% to 7.5% from various Airlines. At an…
"Buyout firms aren't cartelizing"
Recent months have witnessed large buyouts in the US (like in the case of Harrah's, HCA and Univision) where there was only one bidder - in the form of a syndicate of buyout firms. Now, PE Hub reports that the shareholders of some of these companies have filed a suit against the leading PE firms (including Apollo Management, Bain Capital, Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Providence Equity Partners, Silver Lake Partners, Texas Pacific Group, T.H. Lee Partners and Warburg Pincus) accusing them of cartelizing.
Interestingly, PE Week editor Dan Primack has come out in defense of the PE firms based on a recent deal in which two syndicates competed against each other.
This class-action lawsuit has a timing problem. Namely, today's announcement that Clear Channel Communications has agreed to be bought for around $26.7 billion (including assumed debt) by Bain Capital, Thomas H. Lee Partners and a group of its lending partners.
This was no inside job, with Bain and T…
Should you lead or follow?
At a time when we are witnessing several follow-on financing rounds in India, Fred Wilson has an post on why his firm prefers to be the lead investor in the companies they invest in.
- Lead investing allows Union Square Ventures to establish the capital and governance structures for our portfolio companies. Once these are set, they are hard to change. And every firm has a preferred way to approach governance and capital structures. So the best way to get them the way you want them is to be there when they are set up. That means leading the first venture capital round.
- Lead investing allows Union Square Ventures and the entrepreneur to establish a positive VC/entrepreneur relationship. That relationship is critical to the long term success of the company and getting it right early on is easier than trying to fix it later on. Coming into a Series B or Series C round where there is a dysfunctional investor/founder relationship is a recipe for disaster.
...- Lead investing allows Union Sq…
Online Video is booming: Mary Meeker
Morgan Stanley's Internet analyst Mary Meeker presented an update to her "State of the Internet" presentation at the Web 2.0 conference earlier this week.
I had linked to her 2005 presentation with comments here.
This time around she focuses on how the online video momentum is "building and building".
~60% of Internet traffic may be P2P file sharing of unmonetized video — ramp in tagging (for search) + partnerships + monetization – note recent moves by likes of ABC / CBS / FOX / NBA / Sony / Warner / Universal / Google / Yahoo!. Challenges (especially related to copyright and infrastructure stress) are significant, but over time, consumer demand should rule and content creators should benefit
Top sectors in Indian manufacturing
Business Today has a detailed and well researched feature on top performing sectors within the Indian manufacturing industry.
There are a handful of industries in India that have begun to become globally competitive because a) they have honed their process skills to a great extent, b) have the advantage of being vertically integrated, or c) have been able to tap into the global supply chain of large customers. One test of global competitiveness is the ability to withstand foreign competition in home markets. Another, the bigger test, is the ability to compete with a multitude of suppliers in international markets and win. Apply the second test, and the number of industries that can be considered globally competitive shrinks-to, by expert consensus, five. Which are these? In alphabetical order, auto components, electricals and electronics, pharmaceuticals, textiles, and specialty chemicals.
Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence, which tracks private equity and venture c…
Prospects for Indian Social Networking Sites
In the wake of the YouTube acquisition, Economic Times has a feature on Indian online social networking startups and their prospects.
Sources say six other start-ups are looking to join the ranks of existing sites such as Yo4ya.com, humsubka.com, zhoom.in, meravideo .com, yaari.com and fropper.com to roll out their versions of social networking channels in India. "This is one of the most interesting areas since globally also it has been quite a major hit with very large exits. We are very keen to make investments in this space in India," said Alok Mittal, India head Canaan Partners.
Though the idea is clearly to sell-out after building a certain scale, skeptics feel there is a good chance that some of the start-ups may fail to create a sound business model. In the online space, a proven business model, besides being profitable, needs to focus on innovation and creativity. Video and music are some elements that are essential, not just the text messaging which is being adopted b…
Online real estate listing services
Business Today has an article on online real estate-focused classified sites like 99acres, magicbricks, indiaproperties, etc.
Profile of Pawan Ruia
Businessworld has a profile of buy-and-turnaround specialist Pawan Ruia.
A merchant banker by profession (he is a chartered accountant and has also studied cost accountancy, company secretaryship and law), he worked for Shaw Wallace and Hindustan Lever for about a year before venturing out on his own. His first business move came when he bought two small-scale units, a ceramics unit in the 1980s and a chemicals unit in the 1990s. His father Shyam Lal, who earlier worked for a chemicals company in Renukoot, oversaw their operations. But when Shyam Lal passed away, Ruia shut them down. Later, in 1995, he set up Ruia Cotex, a cotton mill.
...Ruia's interest in dead companies may appear unnatural, but there is a method to his madness. "Both Jessop and Dunlop have high brand value. They have their basic equipment in place. They also have employment-ready staff. It's that much easier to create value from them than starting afresh," he says. Besides, Dunlop has an asset base of Rs 1,500 crore …
How Indian SMEs finance themselves
Knowledge@Wharton reports on an academic study "Financing Firms in India".
The study...challenges the conventional wisdom among academics and public policy experts that corruption automatically impedes economic advancement of developing countries, according to Wharton finance professor Franklin Allen, one of the authors of the study.
"Small- and medium-size Indian companies have found ways to get around [the limitations of the country's financial and legal systems]," says co-author Sankar De, clinical professor and executive director of the Center for Analytical Finance at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. "They depend on informal mechanisms for dispute resolution. They lend and borrow from each other. In many ways, they bypass formal financial markets and courts of law."
...The three most important financing channels for these firms during their start-up and growth periods are founders' family and friends, trade credits and loans from fina…
Businessworld's youth survey
Businessworld has a cover story based on a survey of 5,485 young people surveyed across 15 Indian cities such as Kochi, Jaipur or Bangalore.
Real Estate BPO firm NTrust
Businessworld has a short profile of NTrust, a provider of outsourcing services to US Real Estate companies.
NTrust, floated in 2002, has built a $12 million business in the lease administration space. And it hopes to step up revenues to $16 million by 2007.
...Says Srikanth Ramachandran, president and CEO, NTrust: "Only 25 per cent of the US lease administration agreements are documented online." Which means there is a large outsourcing market to exploit. Real estate agreements require skills like accounting for rent calculation and retailer-builder profit sharing agreements, as well as understanding lease classes and long-term lease payments.
..."An employee in the US is paid $60 per hour and in India the cost comes down to $20 a day. There is enormous cost and time saving."
Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence, which tracks private equity and venture capital in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of Venture Intelligence India newsletters a…
MRO business takes off
Businessworld has an article on the growth of the aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) business in India.
There are about 300-odd third-party MRO units worldwide, of which more than 65 are located in the Asia-Pacific region. But none in India. Even the existing in-house units have a long way to go before they will meet global standards. For now, the domestic market and sheer growth prediction is in itself a sizeable market to cater to. A look at the numbers.
Assuming 1,000 aircraft in 2012 (both commercial and business), there would be a need for roughly, 50,000 weekly checks, 3,500 A level checks, and millions of night halts. Corroborates Prasad: "Given 52 weeks in a year, we expect 50,000 weekly checks. An aircraft undergoes a check after 600 flying hours. And even if an aircraft flies the minimum of 12-14 hours a day, on an average it flies nothing less than 2,500 hours annually, which implies that one aircraft will go for a check 3-4 times a year."
Arun Natarajan is the F…
Why Moser Baer is getting into solar cells
Businessworld has an article on why the Warburg Pincus-backed CD/DVD maker, Moser Baer, is diversifying into the solar cells business.
Guruji and the future of "other" search engines
By Arun Natarajan October 30, 2006
Venture Capitalist Bill Burnham recently argued that it would be futile for start-ups to try and compete with Google, Yahoo and MSN ("GYM") in the core Internet search space.
Any start-up trying to displace Google, Yahoo, or even MSN or Ask (or for that matter any VC trying to fund them) should just get in their car (or hop on a plane) and go look at Google's new server farms at The Dales in Oregon. And if that doesn't convince them they should head up the Columbia river a bit and check out Microsoft and Yahoo's digs. The costs to compete in core search , are now simply to high.
According to him, search innovation will increasingly be about applications and not about the core infrastructure. In fact, he suggests start-ups build these applications on top of the core infrastructure already created by the larger guys.
One can imagine a world in the not to distant future in which an application designer can easily leverage the billions of dollars being spent by Google, Yahoo et…
Rudra Tech's anti-virus software attracts attention
Business Today has a short profile of Chennai-based Rudra Technologies, a company that has come up with an innovative anti-virus software.
Imagine a virus that locks up the files on your pc and then demands a ransom for unlocking them. You're better off just imagining-many users in the West actually woke up one fine day with their PCs flashing ransom notes of a few hundred dollars. Players like Symantec, McAfee, AVG and Sophos, who make up the global $8 billion (Rs 36,800 crore) anti-virus market, have been pulling out all stops to deal with such attacks. But success has been limited. That's because "the anti-virus software available today is reactive rather than proactive,'' says N.S. Basker, Managing Director, Rudra Technologies, a Chennai-based maker of anti-virus software. This means there is always a lag between the time a virus is identified and before an anti-virus software patch can be designed; in between millions of PCs are disabled.
Arun Natarajan is the …
Classic Polo's rising focus on branded garments
Business Today has a short profile of Tirupur-based textiles firm Royal Classic Mills and its aquisition led plans to carve a share for itself in the branded apparel segment.
To improve margins, Royal Classic decided to venture into branded apparel retailing in 2001. In February 2001, the company launched Classic Polo initially in the tee-shirt segment. Today, it has expanded its portfolio of offerings to include shirts and trousers; sports apparel has just been launched under the same brand, and denim wear is on the anvil. Classic Polo alone is a Rs 35 crore brand at ex-factory prices. The company currently has 23 exclusive outlets and sells through another 1,200 multi-brand outlets across the country.
In July 2004, Royal Classic acquired innerwear brand Smash for an undisclosed price. Now the company is on the prowl again looking to acquire brands in the "Rs 15-20 crore range," says Sivaram. "Our intention is to emerge as a major player in the branded apparel wear segme…
'Toll policy held back by disagreements'
Businessworld has an article on how disagreements between the Planning Commission and the Department of Road Transport and Highways is holding back India's policy on toll roads.
India's Natural Gas market
Businessworld has an article on how the uncertain supply of natural gas is affecting India's power and industry requirements.
Canaan Partners launched "Entrepreneurial Challenge"
Canaan Partners has launched "Entrepreneurial Challenge", a value-added Business Plan contest, in partnership with TiE.
"The objective is to identify entrepreneurs who have made a start and can now scale fast with a little bit of help," says Alok Mittal of Canaan. "It has been my experience that most business plan events end on the day the competition ends. By bringing the right partners in place, we will attempt to provide mentorship and capital support to businesses, and try and make the event finals a starting point rather than a culmination."
Online Video Rental Services
Anurag Gupta and Amit Ranjan have analysis of the various online movie rental start-ups in India.
Going global: At what cost?
As Indian companies forge ahead with mega acquisitions overseas, Forex expert A. V. Rajwade striks a note of caution via his Business Standard column. He provides examples of other cross-border acqusitions - Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's PC business and BenQ's acquisition of Siemens' mobile handset manufacturing plants in Germany - which have not provided positive results for the acquirers.
Quite possibly, India's outward direct investment could exceed the FDI inflow in the current fiscal year. And, we are supposed to be a poor, capital hungry country! Clearly, a huge amount of our risk capital seems to find the climate abroad very attractive, even as intending foreign investors in India continue to be deterred by our labour laws, our bureaucracy and our infrastructure. While lauding the entrepreneurial instincts of the Indian businessmen, I am not quite able to overlook certain recent cases of developing countries taking over businesses abroad.
Arun Natarajan is the Fou…
How one foreign retailer is getting around India's FDI limits - legally
Businessworld has an article describing how Australian retailer Woolworth has structured a partnership with the Tatas that allows it to tap the Indian consumer durables market without having to enter into a local joint venture or franchisee relationship.
Woolworths may not be selling anything directly to Indian consumers, but it will have unhindered access to the Indian market through its partner, Tata group's Infiniti Retail.
This is how it works. Infiniti will set up Croma, a chain of consumer electronics outlets across India.
...Woolworths, on its part, has set up Woolworths India, a sourcing company in India. This company will source and supply all the consumer electronics that will sit on Croma's shelves. Croma will buy all its merchandise only from Woolworths India and the latter will not sell its products to any other company. "What we have is two companies working jointly as one unit," says Roger Corbett, independent consultant and former CEO, Woolworths. It will sell to Infinit…
The success of QIPs
Businessworld has an article on the success of qualified institutional placements (QIPs), a new instrument introduced by SEBI for helping Indian companies raise funds through private placements within the country.
Going by the current demand and the strong pipeline of issues, QIPs are the latest revolution in the capital markets. Although all issues so far have been straightforward equity issuances, merchant bankers say convertible issues will be on their way. Kotak Mahindra Capital, which handled the two biggest issues in this category, believes QIPs, along with book-building, are the biggest product introductions in the primary markets since 1999.
The main reason issuers preferred overseas markets earlier was the tedious and time-consuming process involved with secondary issues in India. Follow-on public offerings (FPOs) and rights issues can take as much as four months because almost all the procedures including documentation and regulatory approval are similar to an initial public o…
Rajesh Jain interview in K@W: The future of the Indian Internet is mobile
Extracts from Rajesh Jain (of Indiaworld fame)'s interview to Knowledge@Wharton:
Extracts from Jain's interview to Knowledge@Wharton.
For me, three words help define the mobile Internet. They are: now, near and new. "Now" is about what is happening right now in real time. Wherever I am, I can find the latest cricket scores or the top news stories because my mobile phone is always with me. "Near" is about location -- it can be as small as a neighborhood or it could be a city. If I'm about to take a flight this evening, could I get an alert on my mobile phone if the flight is delayed? Some of this is starting to happen, but it needs to happen a lot more. It could make a real difference to people's lives. Finally, "new" is about new stuff in which I might be interested. Just as a search engine like Google is a good way to find material that has been published in the past, the mobile phone is a great way to keep in touch with future or incremen…
Mobile VAS Connect - Bangalore; Dec 12, 2006
The Mobile VAS sector has emerged as one of the favorite sectors among venture capitalists. However, there are several significant challenges facing the sector - including in the basic business models bring adopted, skewed relationships with operators, etc.
In this context, Venture Intelligence Mobile VAS Connect, scheduled for December 12 in Bangalore, presents an ideal platform for leading Venture Capital investors and top executives from Mobile VAS companies to network, discuss and share best practices.
Confirmed panelists include top executives from Sequoia Capital India, mportal, Nazara Technologies, Helion Ventures, Paymate, ACL Wireless, Phoneytunes, etc.
• Venture Capital funds looking to invest in IT and Mobile Services companies
• IT and Mobile VAS companies planning to raise VC financing
Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence, which tracks private equity and venture capital in India and Indian-founded companies wo…
Looking to raise Venture Capital for your product?
Looking to raise Venture Capital for developing / marketing your technology product? Then, showcase your product to top quality investors at
Mobile VAS Connect
Apply to demo your product to an exclusive audience - consisting of leading Venture Capitalists, Investment Bankers and experienced entrepreneurs - as part of Mobile VAS Connect.
ISB to conduct Venture Capitalist Development Prog...
Indian pharma cos. strike more drug discovery deal...
Online travel portals: Can we hear the crash alrea...
Rudra Tech's anti-virus software attracts attentio...
Canaan Partners launched "Entrepreneurial Challeng...
How one foreign retailer is getting around India's...
Rajesh Jain interview in K@W: The future of the In...
Looking to raise Venture Capital for your product?...


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ClassicReload » Crush, Crumble and Chomp!
Starflight
Blast Chamber
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Forbidden Forest
2 Worms War
3Detris
The Train: Escape to Normandy
Select ratingGive Crush, Crumble and Chomp! 1/5Give Crush, Crumble and Chomp! 2/5Give Crush, Crumble and Chomp! 3/5Give Crush, Crumble and Chomp! 4/5Give Crush, Crumble and Chomp! 5/5
How to play Crush, Crumble and Chomp!
Each game uses different controls, most Amiga games use both mouse and keyboard.
Crush, Crumble and Chomp! Description
Crush, Crumble and Chomp! was a turn-based action game played on a scrolling 2D grid-based map. The game engine was written in BASIC and used character graphics for the map and player, using basic graphics on platforms that supported it. On the Atari 8-bit family, for instance, the map was created out of a custom character set and presented in a low-resolution mode that allowed up to four colors. The same engine was used in most of Epyx's games from the early 1980s, which allowed them to be ported to a variety of home computer platforms with ease.
The game allows the player to recreate a movie monster and attack a city, much in the manner of the classic horror movies of the 1950s. Specifically, the player can create:
Goshilla, a giant amphibian like Godzilla, with a breath and leaving a corrosive trail of radioactive waste.
The Kraken, a giant octopus or squid-like monster, that can attack bridges and seaside ports and then slip into the water to hide from attack.
Arachnis, a giant spider, can clog roads with its web and can escape underground via its network of secret tunnels.
The Glob, akin to the monster in The Blob, can travel underground in the city's sewer and absorb obstacles in its path, including skyscrapers. It also leaves a flammable trail of slime in its wake.
Mechismo, a towering robotic menace, sports an exotic array of alien weaponry, such as ray guns.
Mantra, a giant flying monster, like the infamous Mothra
Space Jockey, a large extraterrestrial with sharp claws and acidic breath
The game also allows the player to "grow" their own monster, with custom abilities they choose. When doing this, the player is given 120 "crunch credits" to spend. Each ability costs a certain number of credits. For example, the ability to "leap tall buildings in a single bound" costs 8 crunch credits. The player can add a number of abilities until their credits are exhausted.
Crush, Crumble and Chomp! features four cities to attack: San Francisco, New York, Washington DC and Tokyo. Combined with five possible objectives and the six (or numerous ones, counting the custom) monsters, this game has robust replay-ability. After attacking a city—the main activity of the game—players are rated on how well they did. Players are rated even if their monsters die in the attack and can achieve a high score for what they accomplished before expiring.
Cheats/Hints/Walkthroughs for Crush, Crumble and Chomp!
Crush, Crumble and Chomp! - additional information
Automated Simulations, Inc.
"Crush, Crumble and Chomp!: The Movie Monster Game" -- Tag-lined title
Sargon 5 - World Class Chess
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Apple II Unknown

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Jennifer Hull partners with senior management teams to develop and implement strategies to improve employee relations, drive performance and limit their liability on employment-related issues. Jennifer's constant exposure — from childhood to present — to the issues confronting small to mid-sized employers (her family and her husband's family are business owners), gives her a businesslike perspective on addressing workplace concerns. This perspective, coupled with her significant experience in both traditional labor matters and employment litigation, arms her with the unique ability to advise clients in a well-rounded, pragmatic manner.
Jennifer's passion is supervisor training – from HR personnel to front-line supervisors. Her sessions are informative, interactive and engaging. She has developed a series of sessions focused on practical, day-to-day things all supervisors must know to be effective (i.e., conducting internal investigations and performance evaluations). Jennifer works with employers to make sure these sessions are tailored to their specific needs. She also provides positive relations training to assist clients with their efforts to remain union-free.
Jennifer was an NLRB Field Attorney in Detroit before entering private practice. Since that time, she has successfully waged corporate campaigns against union organization attempts (one election resulting in zero votes for the union!). Jennifer also has defended numerous unfair labor practice charges (ULPs), including those involving social media issues against non-union companies. She has served as lead negotiator for collective bargaining negotiations, but also helps companies behind the scenes with negotiations. Additionally, Jennifer has a track record of success in defending grievances through arbitration.
If Your Employees Strike Against President Trump, What Do You Do?


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Posted inNews, Politics, State
As Riverview faces funding loss, lawmakers consider plan to expand psych ward at state prison
by Scott Thistle August 23, 2013 August 23, 2013
AUGUSTA, Maine — Key lawmakers on the Legislature's budget-writing Appropriations Committee said Thursday they could support a $3.3 million bill that would expand the mental health ward at the Maine State Prison in Warren but weren't quite ready to sign off on the measure.
Still in question is whether the legislation, offered by Gov. Paul LePage, would help the state avoid losing $20 million a year in federal Medicaid funding for the state's Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta. The figure is about 50 percent of the hospital's budget.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are threatening to cut funding for the hospital because of overcrowding, inadequate staffing and the use of corrections officers to maintain safety in parts of the hospital.
An unannounced survey of the facility by federal staff in May determined several shortcomings, including the use of handcuffs and Tasers on the most violent forensic patients.
For the short term, the state's Department of Health and Human Services has proposed creating a segregated 20-bed forensic facility at Riverview that no longer would be eligible for federal funding, according to DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew.
Mayhew said it wasn't the ideal solution and didn't help improve the state's capacity to treat those with mental illness but it does alleviate some of the federal government's concerns.
She said DHHS was awaiting word from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on whether the department's most recent corrective action plan for Riverview would be accepted.
Mayhew appeared before the Appropriations Committee on Thursday taking questions and updating the panel on negotiations with the federal government.
She said later that in recent conference calls with federal staff she has been encouraged that an agreement will be reached.
Part of the issue is the mixing of forensic patients — those ordered to the facility by the criminal justice system — with other patients being cared for at the hospital. An attack by a forensic patient that left a hospital employee injured first brought shortcomings at the facility to the federal government's attention in January.
In Maine, those who are found incompetent to stand trial or not criminally responsible for their crimes, along with criminal suspects who are undergoing psychological evaluations to determine if they are competent, are housed at Riverview.
The facility also takes inmates from county jails who are facing mental health problems the jails cannot manage. In recent years, the number of people at Riverview in those categories has steadily grown, consuming staff resources and space, and squeezing out others who may have needed the hospital.
Mayhew said overcrowding from forensic patients was so bad in the spring of 2012 that Riverview was closed to any patients who wanted to voluntarily commit themselves to the hospital. The hospital has 92 beds, with 44 of them set aside for forensic patients, but the hospital has been housing an average of 50 forensic patients, Mayhew said, "Because, by Maine law, these patients have nowhere to go but Riverview.
"The ripple effect of that is felt across the entire adult mental health system. As we lose capacity to effectively serve and meet the demands for the civil beds, that creates challenges in hospital emergency departments, the other two private psychiatric hospitals and the other hospitals that have in-patient psychiatric units within the community hospitals," she said.
The inability for those hospitals to be able to transfer patients to Riverview when needed reduces the capacity to help those who need in-patient mental health treatment, she said.
"It's important that we think about these challenges in the broader mental health system," Mayhew told the committee.
LePage's bill to expand the forensic capacity at the state prison would free up space in the hospital by moving some of those patients — all but those who are ruled not criminally responsible — to the Department of Corrections.
Mayhew said other New England states, including Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island, have forensic wards at their state prisons.
The governor's bill, which received the unanimous support of the Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee earlier this year, was held over for consideration in 2014 because it carried a hefty price tag and lawmakers were struggling to close an $880 million state budget shortfall.
On Thursday, Mayhew said that had the measure passed into law the state would be in a better position as it attempts to alleviate the federal government's concerns over Riverview. But Mayhew also noted the measure wouldn't have an immediate effect but would be something the state could point to show it had a long-term plan for handling the ever-growing number of forensic patients in a safer way.
Rep. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, House chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said she believes the committee will pass LePage's bill on to the full Legislature for consideration when it convenes in a special one-day session next week.
But Rotundo also asked that a stakeholders group be formed to review the bill to see if there were any amendments that might be added to better address the problems at Riverview.
That group will include Department of Corrections and DHHS staff, as well as representatives from the county jails and those who advocate for the rights of the mentally ill in Maine.
"It just seems like LD 1515 gives us the opportunity to address those large concerns that CMS and the federal government have," Rotundo said. "Clearly we are all very concerned about the safety and well-being of all of the patients as well as the employees there."
Several lawmakers said that, other than the price tag on the LePage bill, they were supportive of the measure. But they also said they weren't sure it would be the solution the federal government is looking for, so they also supported having the stakeholders group take a look at the bill.
The issues at Riverview also have an impact on a consent decree the state is obligated to maintain as a result of a class action suit brought by former patients of Riverview's predecessor, the Augusta Mental Health Institute.
That decree requires adequate services be provided to mental health patients who were treated at AMHI or any that are now treated at Riverview.
Daniel Wathen, a lawyer and former chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court who is appointed the court master for that consent decree, also addressed the committee Thursday.
Wathen said the idea of a segregated 20-bed ward at Riverview wasn't in the overall best interests of the mentally ill but the state had little choice.
"They've got to do something," Wathen said. "The federal funding of the entire hospital is at risk, or you will make do with just $20 million, so you will do what you have to do in order to maintain that funding."
Wathen also said LePage's bill wasn't an immediate solution but it does send a message to the federal government that the state is trying to resolve its issues around forensic patients.
"It is part of demonstrating our commitment, that not only are we prepared to do what you would require us to do in the short term, but we have a long-term plan and we are moving forward with it," Wathen said.
Scott Thistle
Scott Thistle is the State Politics Editor for the Lewiston Sun Journal. He has covered federal, state and local politics in Maine for nearly two decades. More by Scott Thistle
Previous Authorities shift from 'rescue' to 'recovery' effort in case of missing Ogunquit fisherman's body
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JOHANNESBURG (REUTERS) - South Africa's President Jacob Zuma has no plans to announce a programme for free higher education until he reviews the report of a commission studying the feasibility of such a programme, his office said in a statement on Sunday (Nov 12).
The rand slipped to a one-year low on Friday amid reports Zuma was preparing to introduce free higher education, which would put added pressure on public finances.
Zuma's office rejected a report by the newspaper Sunday Times that he had planned to announce the 40 billion-rand (S$3.8 billion) education plan during his State of the Nation Address last February.
"The President waited for the Commission to conclude its business," the presidency said in a statement.
"At no stage did he plan to make any announcements that would undermine the work of the Commission."
The Mail & Guardian newspaper said on Friday the government was considering a range of budget cuts to pay for free tertiary education. Those cuts might include social grants for the most vulnerable and the budgets for housing, infrastructure and the armed forces, the newspaper said.


Hampton by Hilton Vadodara-Alkapuri is centrally located within the commercial hub of Vadodara, only 500 metres from Centre Square and Vadodara Central Mall. Providing free Wi-Fi in the lobby, it also has a 24-hour snack bar. Modern air-conditioned rooms are equipped with a flat-screen TV, minibar and ironing facilities. Bathrooms come with a shower. Hampton by Hilton is 3 km from M S University and 7 km from Vadodara Airport. Laxmi Vilas Palace is 5 km away while Sayaji Baug, Navjuan Nature Cure Centre and Arbindo Ashram are within 3.5 km of the property. Free parking is available. Guests can arrange day trips at the tour desk, or make use of the business facilities. Laundry, dry cleaning and ironing services are also provided. Local and international dishes can be enjoyed at the hotel's restaurant.
the hotel Hampton by Hilton Vadodara-Alkapuri so we can give you detailed rates for the rooms in the desired period.


I have never known a husky to turn his/her nose up at a tin of sardines in spring water (or olive oil if you have to NOT sunflower oil). Over the last 10,000 years or so 90% of their diet was fish when in their natural habitat. Has the owner tried her on raw foods? I have one of the fussiest dogs on the planet - and easily goes a couple of days at a time - but his weight is good. Also another thing to try is a raw whipped egg, scrambled egg etc. What sort of foods has the owner tried? Can you give us a little more information.


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Epic Trying to Inject More Life Into Gears 3 Maps
By Logan Westbrook Legacy Author September 8, 2011
Every multiplayer map in Gears of War 3 now comes with moving parts.
Videogame architecture, with some notable exceptions, is some of the sturdiest craftsmanship around, and never really changes, no matter what you do to it. Gears of War 3 is going to buck this trend however, as Epic is trying to mix things up and make the game's multiplayer maps feel more alive.
Jim Brown, the lead level designer on Gears of War 3, said Epic had tried very hard with to make the maps feel more dynamic. "There's a lot of motion," he said, "things you can interact with, cover you can destroy, push over, and other things just to make it feel a lot more alive." He said that certain levels could be changed pretty dramatically depending on what the player did. He also said that said that every multiplayer map in Gears 3 would have something moving, or indeed, living, which is probably less ominous than it sounds.
Brown also talked about the philosophy behind the Gears 3 multiplayer maps. He said that symmetry was an important component when it came to the design of the maps, but also that Epic had tried to make the maps look asymmetrical visually. The reasoning for this, he said, was to help players navigate, and also make it easier to devise strategies.
Gears of War 3 comes out for Xbox 360 on September 20th.


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"Warmly welcomed by this Szekler gate's owner, who awaits with open arms all travellers from all over the world."
I am greeting you with this traditional gate inscription in the name of Szeklerland's heart, Harghita County, home of Szekler gates and forests.
Everyone remembers different things about our land. Some remember it after its grandiose mountains or the famous Grace Statue of Virgin Mary of Csiksomlyo. Other remember it after the beautiful Saint Anne Lake or the Killer Lake. But there are some who remember with kindness about its hay carts, grandmothers with head-scarves and the picturesque image of the whole view. For me this land means Homeland, lived by hundreds of centuries by Szekler people that work hard for their livability and assuring well-being for their community. And where we work right now, with our best knowings, abilities, opportunities and estimating traditions, are based on our ancestors experience that were able to maintain themselves after generations through keeping in the same time Szeklerland's natural and cultural treasures. The mountains, forests, mineral springs and traditions arising from all of these make us unique and give us several chances. I am greeting you in Szeklerland! I am honestly wishing you to feel yourself at home, to experience our kind hospitality and in the same time I welcome you to build together a successful and strong region of Szeklerland!


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52 film challenge (week 4)
⭐⭐⭐
This is one of the films that film-history majors watch, and pretty much nobody else (at least not anymore), but it's actually a little bit fascinating.
This silent film is a non-patronizing look at life among the Kiowa and Comanche tribes — set in a time before they were herded into reservations and their previous way of life forcibly taken away from them, but acted by people this had happened to some 50 years earlier.
The story is a pretty straightforward "love triangle" story, but what's amazing about this silent film is that the entire cast, without exception, is portrayed by Native Americans (some 300 all together), and featuring authentic outfits, props, and tepees provided by the tribes.
The acting is of course variable, but convincing enough to impart the story of one brave who feels he "deserves" the chief's daughter and attempts to force her into marriage, while the young girl has already fallen for another brave. True love wins out, which itself is something of a radical idea given the time when the film came out.
The portrayal of the women of the tribes is surprisingly much less patronising than expected; the villain of the piece Black Wolf does have another who pines for him (Red Wing), but he callously ignores her in favor of the Daughter of Dawn (yes, that's her name). He spends most of the movie creeping around and observing from a distance in the standard silent-movie way, helping us uncover developments, whereupon he discovers his rival While Eagle and plots his downfall.
The Daughter of Dawn and her true love, White Eagle.
The simple story is kind of excuse to recreate something like pre-reservation life among two tribes, including great landscape shots of the plains (the film was made in Oklahoma), hunting scenes featuring actual wild buffalo, daring stunts, and some time spent on the day-to-day life of the people. Director Norbert Myles seems to have wanted to a documentary-style drama rather than stigmatize the "savages" as was more the style for the time.
Actual First Nation peoples! Actual outfits, props, and tepees provided by the tribes themselves!
On a story level, this wasn't that far removed from The Searchers (1954), but apart from the interesting historical context and backstory of the film itself — it was presumed lost for almost 90 years before mysteriously resurfacing in 2012 — it's not a film most non-native people would seek out.
It's pretty well-made and sympathetic for a 1920 silent film, and benefits strongly from an authentic Native American cast. The plot is very well-worn nowadays, but I would imagine it captured audiences' imaginations — and maybe won over a few "paleface" hearts and minds — in its day.
Posted in Feature, Film, Review


First of all you need to decide before doing anything how much weight you want to lose. The best way to do this is by calculating the desired weight against your height. There are several methods how to do this and one such reliable one is the BMI. Based on it you can set a healthy weight loss target.
Time management is very necessary in weight loss and people usually overlook to it. Organize everything like at what time of the day you have to do exercises, when to do cooking, when in the week you need to stock up your groceries, and more similar habits. If your days are planned then you will not rush for anything. This will help you in sustaining the weight loss efforts.
Always keep good stock of fruits, green vegetables, healthy meats, cereals, spices, grains, and flavourers. Healthy cooking is one of the most important weight loss tips.
Always try to eat healthy homecooked meals. Whether your family member is cooking or any house help just ensure healthy cooking method is practiced.
Make a change in your snacking habits. Set your French fries aside. Skip deep fried samosas. ban aerated drinks. Get back to healthy snack world and there you will come across several appetisers that will surely satisfy your carving for snacks.


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Bridge Cottage
Peppercombe, North Devon
This thatched cottage is set in Peppercombe Valley next to a path that leads down to a stony, deserted beach. With its orchard and small garden, Bridge Cottage is a reminder of ordinary life lived in remote places over many centuries.
Beds 1 Single, 1 Double
Built using local materials
Bridge Cottage is typical of the kind of building which must always have existed in Peppercombe. Smallholders' and labourers' cottages were built of the local materials most easily available, and developed over the centuries from humble single-storeyed dwellings into decent two-storeyed cottages such as we have here. The materials most readily to hand were rubble stone, cob (mud mixed with straw) and thatch, and it is of these that Bridge Cottage is built, with brick for the chimneys, made as tall as possible to provide a draft in this sheltered place.
The valley at Peppercombe
Peppercombe is a steep and wooded valley, through which a stream runs down to a meadow before tumbling to a beach in a fine waterfall. There is a sloping path for you to reach the shore. The cliffs here are particularly dramatic, formed from an outcrop of red Triassic stone, with the whole magnificent North Devon coast line curving away in both directions and Lundy on the horizon. When this wild and lovely valley was acquired by the National Trust in 1988, we took on this and Castle Bunglow, further down the coombe.
Bridge Cottage stands in Peppercombe Valley, a steep and wooded place from where you can walk to a beach at the bottom of the track.
Bridge Cottage is a fantastic base from which to explore the north Devon coastline. A day trip to Lundy is a must; crossings on MS Oldenburg run from either Bideford or Ilfracombe, both within easy driving distance from Bridge Cottage.
Burton Art Gallery, Dartington Crystal and the Maritime Museum are great for keeping children entertained and learning about the local area.
Hartland Abbey and Tapley Park and Gardens are two beautiful north Devon country estates, both well worth a visit. For more information on things to do during your stay at Bridge Cottage, please see our Pinterest page.
See all our Landmarks at Peppercombe
Please Note: The Landmark Trust does not take any responsibility and makes no warranties, representations or undertakings about the content of any website accessed by hypertext link. Links should not be taken as an endorsement of any kind. The Landmark Trust has no control over the availability of the linked pages.
Via a track from the main road.
Barnstaple – 14.5 miles.
There are two parking spaces on the opposite side of the track. There is a steep cobbled path between the parking area and the entrance to Bridge Cottage.
There is a mix of Rointe and Dimplex Quantum electric panel heaters and an open fire.
Fuel for the fire/stove can be ordered for delivery from TY Property Maintenance on 07971 569 862 or [email protected]
The kitchen is fully equipped with all plates, cutlery, fridge etc.
There is an electric cooker.
There is one bathroom with a shower over a bath.
Does this Landmark have steep, narrow or spiral stairs?
The stairs are relatively steep.
There is a sloping garden (not enclosed).
Built from locally available materials
Bridge Cottage, although itself dating only from the 1820s or '30s, is typical of the kind of building which must always have existed in Peppercombe: smallholders' and labourers' cottages, built of the most locally available materials, developing over the centuries from humble single-storeyed dwellings into decent two-storeyed cottages such as we have here. The materials most readily to hand were rubble stone, cob (mud mixed with straw) and thatch, and it is of these that Bridge Cottage is built, with brick for the chimneys, made as tall as possible to provide a draft in this sheltered place.
Inside, the floorboards of the upper floor form the ceiling of the lower, left visible from below in a building tradition surviving from the Middle Ages. There is evidence in the wall heads that at some stage these had been heightened to provide better headroom upstairs, but otherwise the cottage is little altered. The ground floor is arranged in the universal manner, found in cottages throughout the country, with regional variations.
The central front door opens into the kitchen, which is the larger of two downstairs rooms. The end wall is occupied by the large fireplace, on which, before a range was fitted, most of the cooking would have been done over the open fire, in a series of specially-designed pots, either self-supporting, with legs, or able to stand on a trivet; to the left is the bread oven, and on the other side is the corner recess in which the fuel, usually brushwood or furze, would once have been piled.
The inner room is also heated, and there is no sign that the chimney is an addition. It must always have been a parlour, therefore, showing this to have been a house of good quality. Often the inner room of a cottage was a storeroom, or a bedroom, unheated like the rooms upstairs. On the other hand, the parlour here was not the precious, seldom-visited sanctum that is described by some writers on rural life in the last century. The stairs lead out of it, and off it were the back-kitchen, or larder, and the wash-house, which would more normally open out of the kitchen itself.
Further evidence that this was more than the simplest labourer's cottage is shown by the large wash-house or laundry, with capacity to absorb more than a single family's clothing. One 19th-century wife must have taken in washing to add to the family income.
At the turn of the century, Bridge Cottage was the home of the Hockin family, who had nine children. One of their daughters married Mr Smales, who lived on the other side of the valley, and farmed the site of the Castle for about fifty years, from 1918. Another daughter, Mrs Packington, later came back with her husband to live in Bridge Cottage for many years, the last person to do so. Stephen Smales, who owns the garage in Horns Cross, and his sister, Mrs Eileen Tucker, remember frequent visits to their aunt and uncle, who had no children of their own and therefore made much of their Smales nephews and nieces. The cottage and its garden were beautifully kept, although of course there was no electricity and minimal plumbing. Mrs Packington finally moved out of the cottage in the 1970s, to live with her niece until her death in her 99th year.
To read the full history album for Bridge Cottage please click here.
One of our largest restoration projects
The thatch of Bridge Cottage had not been renewed for several decades, for the last two of which it had been covered with a tarpaulin. After the house fell empty in the 1970s, decay had quickly followed, with the windows broken and the weather getting in.
When the Landmark Trust agreed to take on the building, the first priority was to make it weather proof, and at the same time vandal proof. This work was put underway early in 1989. The roof was stripped of its old thatch. The frame underneath was found to be largely rotten, and to support the new thatch would have to be renewed. However, the old frame also supported the bedroom ceilings, and these we wished to preserve. The architect's solution was to construct a new frame over the existing one, and then suspend the old, weakened timbers from it, to carry the ceilings.
The wall heads had, of course, to be repaired at the same time. This was done in a mixture of rubble stone set in lime mortar, built up on the existing cob, or mud, walls. The new thatch is water-reed, and the roof is finished with a plain ridge, as is the Devon tradition. The work was done by local roofing and thatching firm, C. Robinson.
To finish off this part of the work, the house was securely boarded up. Other commitments did not allow the next phase to begin until the following year. This was undertaken by another local, but slightly larger, general building firm, C.J. Cox. In addition to minor structural repairs, the work consisted in giving the cottage a general overhaul, to make it habitable again.
The windows and doors, the external render and the internal plaster, were all in poor condition. One alternative, and probably the cheaper one, would have been to strip out all the existing finishes and completely renew them, copying the original work. The danger of this approach is that not only do you lose the texture and feel of old materials, but that in addition, however carefully and sensitively the new work is carried out, nothing can stop it being the work of late 20th-century craftsmen, rather than early-19th; and nothing, therefore, can stop the building from becoming a 20th-century creation in the eyes of future generations, even if not of our own.
The other alternative is to keep as much as possible of the original work, and to carefully repair it. The repairs will be obvious, but the reason for them will also be obvious, and will be part of a continuous process in the life of that building, rather than an interruption. This was the approach that Landmark adopted. All the doors and windows were repaired, apart from one upstairs window on the north side, which was entirely missing; and the outside door in the lean-to, which was beyond repair. Inside, the stairs, partitions and upper floors were similarly made good where necessary. The slate floor in the kitchen was lifted to put an insulating membrane beneath it, and in the
parlour, a cement floor was replaced with a similar membrane and a new slate floor. The plaster on the walls was patched, and then limewashed.
The kitchen range was retained, and reblacked, and entirely new kitchen fittings provided. A new bathroom was inserted in the lean-to. The previous facilities for washing consisted of one tap and a bowl in a small porch on the front of the cottage, which we removed. Providing an adequate new water supply was a major undertaking, requiring the sinking of a new well.
On the outside of the building, the taller chimney had to be rebuilt entirely, as did the top of the shorter one. The chimneys pots were not replaced. The render was patched with new lime render, before the whole cottage was limewashed, in a colour to match that found on the old render.
The outbuildings were also derelict. The lean-to on the end of the cottage was coming away from the gable and had to be stitched back to it. The rag-slated roof was stripped and repaired and the slates refixed, with second- hand ones to make up the gaps. In this type of roofing, which is common in Cornwall and West Devon, larger slates are nailed directly onto the rafters, rather than onto battens laid across them - presumably in an attempt to economise on timber. The wash-house, on the other hand, has an ordinary slate roof, of Cornish slate (Countesses, in traditional slate size-names), which also needed repair. After renewing the structure, as many as possible of the old slates were relaid, with second-hand ones to make up. On the ridge, there were some special ventilating tiles, and two of these were retained. The chimney was rebuilt, the walls repointed and the window repaired.
When the undergrowth around the building was being cleared, the privy was discovered underneath a large pile of brambles. This was given a new slate roof, but it was decided that the door was adequate for its purpose. The kennel beside it was made to house the pump for the new sewage treatment plant.
One of the reasons for the cottage being left empty had been the severe damp. To help cure this, the ground was dug away from the upper end and a new retaining wall built of beach pebbles. Then a French drain was dug right round the building. When the earth was scraped away, the stone path was found beneath it, so this was lifted and then laid back over the drain, and then extended to reach round to the wash-house.
With its orchard and small garden, Bridge Cottage provides an area of cleared space and domesticity in the now thickly wooded coombe, a reminder of ordinary life lived in remote places over many centuries.
Castle Bungalow
The views of the coastline from the verand...


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Wallace Notestein (December 16, 1878 – February 2, 1969) was an American historian and Sterling Professor of English History at Yale University from 1928 to 1947. He was married to women's educational pioneer Ada Comstock.

He was a member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace in Europe after World War I.

Early life
Notestein was born on Monday, December 16, 1878, in Wooster, Ohio, to parents Jonas O. and Margaret (née Wallace) Notestein. He was born into an academic family. His father was professor of Latin Language and Literature at The College of Wooster. His uncles were professors and his younger sister Lucy Lilian Notestein became a historian. Notestein graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1900 from The College of Wooster. In 1903 and 1908 he received his Master of Arts degree and Ph.D., respectively, from Yale University.

Career
Notestein joined the faculty of history at the University of Kansas from 1905 until 1907 when he left to teach at the University of Minnesota. During his lengthy tenure in Minnesota, he published his first book titled A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 through the American Historical Association. It was a chronological survey of Witchcraft in early modern Britain. In 1919, Notestein was a member of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace in Europe after World War I. Upon his return, he accepted the role of Professor of English History at Cornell University.

Notestein stayed at Cornell for eight years, during which he was appointed the Goldwin Smith Chair of English History, before leaving to become a Sterling Professor at his alma mater, Yale. During his first year at Yale, he was appointed by British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald to serve on a British commission investigating materials for a history of the personnel of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. He was later honored by the University of Oxford in 1958 with an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. Notestein also received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Yale University in 1951.

Notestein died on Sunday, February 2, 1969, in New Haven, Connecticut from a heart attack.

Personal life
Notestein married women's educational pioneer and former president of Radcliffe College, Ada Comstock in 1943.

Works
A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 (1911)
Source Problems in English History (1915), co-authored with Albert Beebe White
The Stuart Period: Unsolved Problems (1916), co-authored with Roland G. Usher
Conquest and Kultur: Aims of the Germans in Their Own Words (1918), co-authored with Elmer E. Stoll
Source Problem: The Growth of the Powers of Parliament (1921)
Commons debates for 1629 (1921), co-edited with Frances Helen Relf
The Journal of Sir Simonds D'Ewes: From the Beginning of the Long Parliament to the Opening of the Trial of the Earl of Strafford (1923)
The Winning Initiative by the House of Commons (1924)
The Winning of the Initiative by the House of Commons (1926)
English Folk: A Book of Characters (1938)
The Scot in History: A Study of the Interplay of Character and History (1946)
The English People on the Eve of Colonization, 1603–1630 (1954)
Four Worthies: John Chamberlain, Anne Clifford, John Taylor, Oliver Heywood (1957)
The House of Commons, 1604–1610 (1971)

References

Further reading
Theodore K. Rabb, 'Parliament and Society in Early Stuart England: The Legacy of Wallace Notestein', The American Historical Review, 77 (1972): 705–714. JSTOR 1870347.

External links

 Wallace Notestein papers (MS 544). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
 English Historical Library of Wallace Notestein at The College of Wooster
 University Archives Information Files Collection (ua1158). Biographical Files. Archives and Special Collections, Elmer L. Andersen Library, University of Minnesota.

1878 births
1969 deaths
American historians
Yale University faculty
Cornell University faculty
University of Minnesota faculty
University of Kansas faculty
Yale Sterling Professors
Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
Intrusion Prevention Trumps Detection In Health Care
To ensure that doctors have patient information when they need it, providers do more to safeguard systems.
Many health-care organizations are going beyond firewall and intrusion-detection technologies and counting on intrusion-prevention products to safeguard their systems.
"As a health-care provider, we've increased our security, we have a much better capability to reject worms, viruses that a firewall wouldn't be able to prevent," says Randle Moore, chief information security officer at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, which runs the IT systems for about 10 ambulatory-care clinics in Texas, as well as computers used by university researchers involved in projects such as clinical trials.
In a health-care environment, potent viruses can inflict tremendous havoc--not just the kind of viruses that make patients sick, but computer viruses that can cripple electronic medical-record and other patient-information systems.
If doctors are unable to access electronic patient records or digital images such as X-rays when treating a patient because of a system crash caused by a worm, virus, or denial-of-service attack, care can be greatly compromised. On top of that, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requires the protection of patient information.
About two years ago, Moore's organization deployed UnityOne intrusion-protection systems from TippingPoint Technologies Inc. Within a month, when the Sobig.F virus spread through the Houston region for several days, the system blocked more than 1.2 million infected E-mails an hour from entering the university health-science center's systems, Moore says. However, among Sobig.F's victims were parts of the University of Texas that hadn't deployed the intrusion-prevention product, he says.
Since then, the TippingPoint system has blocked millions more potentially dangerous intrusions from entering the health-science center's network. "Our doctors can't be blocked from getting to the clinical information that they need," Moore says.
Traditionally, universities have been more vulnerable to viruses and other security problems than commercial companies, says Andy Salo, TippingPoint's director of product management. They have large populations of student users and systems that can log on to their networks yet aren't under the control of IT organizations, he says.
That also makes teaching medical centers whose systems are connected to university networks potentially more vulnerable to intrusions like viruses, he says.
TippingPoint in October will begin shipping to customers in all industries the UnityOne-100E intrusion-protection system, which includes advanced denial-of-service protection and performs at 100 Mbps.


Living history — the picturesque neighborhood of Beacon Hill is a designated National Historic Landmark and home to the gilded-dome Massachusetts State House. Narrow cobblestone, gas lamp lit streets are lined with ornate Federal-style row houses that are home to the elite, wealthy residents of Boston.
During an afternoon stroll through the quaint streets of Beacon Hill, you'll come across antique shops and boutiques, intermixed with high end restaurants and cafes. Though centrally located in Boston, the lush greenery in Beacon Hill will make you forget the hustle and bustle of the city.