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January 14, 2005: Huygens at Titan
The Huygens probe will usher in 2005 with its landmark mission at Titan. After a seven-year journey strapped to the side of the Cassini Orbiter, Huygens will be set free on Dec. 25, 2004. The Probe will coast for 20 days en route to Titan.
Image right:Artists's rendition of the Huygens probe at Titan. Image credit: NASA/JPL
Prior to the probe's separation from the orbiter, the "coast" timer will be loaded with the precise time necessary to turn on the probe systems (15 minutes before the initial encounter with Titan's atmosphere). Then the probe will separate from the orbiter and coast to Titan for 20 days with no systems active except for its wake-up timer.
Huygens will separate from Cassini at 30 centimeters (about 12 inches) per second and a spin rate of seven revolutions per minute to ensure stability during the coast and entry phase. Five days following the release of the probe, Cassini will perform a deflection maneuver. This will place the orbiter in the proper geometry to collect the data during the probe mission. The probe will continue in this mode until it reaches the top of Titan's atmosphere.
Titan's nitrogen-rich atmosphere extends 10 times further into space than Earth's atmosphere. This means the outer fringes of Titan's atmosphere reach almost 600 kilometers (373 miles) into space. When the probe detects this region of Titan's atmosphere, the sleep timer will go off, awakening the probe's science instruments.
Huygens is equipped with six science instruments designed to study the content and dynamics of Titan's atmosphere and collect data and images on the surface.
Descent Through Titan's Atmosphere
Huygens will make a parachute-assisted descent through Titan's atmosphere, collecting data as the parachutes slow the probe from super sonic speeds. Five batteries onboard the probe are sized for a Huygens mission duration of 153 minutes, corresponding to a maximum descent time of 2.5 hours plus at least 3 additional minutes (and possibly a half hour or more) on Titan's surface. These batteries are capable of generating 1800 Watt-hours of electricity.
Image right: Artist's Concept: Huygens probe separating to enter Titan's atmosphere. Image credit: NASA/JPL
The probe's radio link will be activated early in the descent phase, and the orbiter will "listen" to the probe for the next three hours, which includes the descent plus 30 minutes after impact. Not long after the end of this three-hour communication window, Cassini's high-gain antenna (HGA) will be turned away from Titan and toward Earth.
The peak heat-flux is expected in the altitude range below 350 kilometers (217 miles) down to 220 kilometers (137 miles), where Huygens rapidly decelerates from about 21,600 kilometers (about 13,400 miles) per hour to 1,440 kilometers (895 miles) per hour in less than two minutes.
At this speed, the parachute deployment sequence initiates, starting with a mortar pulling out a Pilot Parachute which, in turn, pulls away the aft cover and deploys the Main Parachute. After inflation of the 8.3 meter (27.2 feet) diameter main parachute, the front shield is released to fall from the Descent Module.
Then, after a 30 second delay built into the sequence to ensure that the shield is sufficiently far away to avoid instrument contamination, the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) and Aerosol Collector and Pyrolyser (ACP) inlet ports open and the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument (HASI) boom deploy. The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) cover is ejected two minutes later.
Image left: Huygens Probe Descent Profile. Click for larger image
Image credit: NASA/JPL/ESA
The main parachute is sized to pull the Descent Module safely out of the front shield. It is jettisoned after 15 minutes to avoid a protracted descent and a smaller 3-meter (10-foot) diameter parachute is deployed. The descent will last between two and two and half hours.
During its descent, Huygens' camera will capture more than 1,100 images, while the Probe's other five instruments will sample Titan's atmosphere and determine its composition.
Data from Huygens will be relayed to the Cassini Orbiter passing overhead. The data will be stored onboard Cassini's Solid State recorders (SSR) for playback to Earth.
Huygens is managed by the European Space Agency. Complete details on the mission objectives and science can be found on the ESA Huygens Site.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory


Plants like you've never seen them before. Instead of stock photos, we show you photos of the plants we carry - like the one you will be receiving..... We take great care to photograph them just for your shopping pleasure. Can't you almost smell them?
And please note our signature burlap wrap. Gift ready... or ready for you. It's just something special we do.
Mail order gardening made easy!


I've been an AdWords consultant for 15 years so I've seen a lot of changes in technology and the advertising industry as a whole. But I'm now starting to see something that is having a profound impact on many small businesses. It is very concerning and I have nothing but empathy for many of these small business owners. I call it the death of the Yellow Pages.
Many successful small businesses that have been around for decades, built their business almost exclusively on Yellow Page advertising. Even though the costs kept going up, it was worth it because it kept the phone ringing and profits rolling in. But as the age of the internet began to take hold, the Yellow Pages book got pushed further and further back on the shelf, until it eventually landed in the trash, mostly because of one phenomenon, Google.com.
Some business owners were quick to see the trend and turned it into a competitive advantage, while others went kicking and screaming into the internet and smartphone age. Many of these reluctant business owners built minimal websites that quickly became out-dated and they resisted learning anymore than they absolutely needed to know about online advertising. They quickly became overwhelmed and confused, but the Yellow Pages were still producing enough leads to make this only a mild frustration. They could still make ends meet.
To make matters worse, many unscrupulous online marketing firms seized on the opportunity to sign up naïve businesses by making flowery claims of "being on the first page of Google" and promising a flood of qualified leads. These firms kept a sizeable list of unhappy clients too scared or confused to make a move, even though the business owners became increasingly disenchanted with their online advertising performance.
Then came the tipping point, the Yellow Pages finally died. This left many business owners stranded. In spite of cutting back staff, reducing inventory, hours of operation, geographic territory and advertising spend, it became an unstoppable downward spiral. They became stranded because they had not invested the time or resources to keep up with changing market conditions.
Many of these same businesses depleted their resources to the point where they simply couldn't afford to make the investment necessary to catch up. And quite frankly, they simply don't have the will.
One thing is now clear, if they have any chance of surviving, they must be able to be found on Google. But they don't have the knowledge to make an informed decision on how best to do it. So they look for anyone who promises to make the phone ring again. And there are still plenty of firms out there that will imply or even promise to make that happen. Even Google will sometimes over promise and under deliver. I go out of my way to make it clear what I can and cannot do for clients and I never promise to make the phone ring.
This is when having an appreciation for the end-to-end online selling process becomes so important. See my post titled PPC Essentials. That's because even a perfectly designed, developed, implemented and fine-tuned Google AdWords campaign can't make the phone ring. All an AdWords campaign can do is deliver a qualified visitor to your website. The website must convince the visitor to take the action you want; fill out a form, call you on the phone or best of all, purchase something. If the website doesn't look professional, if the landing page isn't relevant to the user's search query, if the offer isn't compelling, the visitor will simply hit the Back button. But you still pay for that click.
Most business owners will get that. But what they find difficult to comprehend is how many clicks they must buy to get a lead. They focus on the number of clicks they are buying and can't understand why the phone isn't ringing. There are usually two reasons why this happens.
The campaign was poorly constructed. The keywords used were too broad in scope and in many cases, the campaign manager didn't have a good understanding of keyword matching options and they used too many broad match keywords. See my post titled The Broad Match Effect.
The probability factor. The average conversion rate for a well designed campaign is 3-5%. That means you need to buy about 25 clicks to get one lead (phone call, form-fill, etc.). Multiply your average cost-per-click (CPC) times 25. If your campaign isn't well designed, that number goes up considerably. And remember, that's only a lead, not a sale. See my post titled A Game of Chance.
If the campaign isn't designed properly, it is also reflected in the quality of the lead. You probably know what I'm talking about. You just spoke with someone on the phone and say to yourself, "why did they call me? Did they not read my ad? Did they not look at my website?" The answer is, probably not! The sad truth is that users (of search engines) don't read ads and they only scan web pages. They click on your ad, go to wherever you send them on your website and in 3-5 seconds, decide if they want to stay.
This situation only reinforces the need to design an AdWords campaign that is laser focused on the best prospects. That your keywords are relevant to your ad copy and your ad copy is relevant to your landing page. See my post titled A Chain of Success.
If you ask me to design a campaign for your business, I will rely heavily on what you tell me is a good search query from a qualified user, because you know your business infinitely better than I do. You know the market, your product or service, your competition and your geographic territory. You will need to teach me about your business, and to the extent you are interested, I will teach you about online advertising and Google AdWords. It's a collaborative process.
So whether you decide to hire me or someone else, be aware of what an AdWords campaign manager is capable of and what they are not. If your objective is to get the phone to ring, I can't make that promise and anyone who claims they can isn't being honest with you.
An internet advertiser goes through many phases in their quest to maximize return on investment for their website. This is an indication of how their thought process matures and what they can actually do to improve the ROI.
I want more business – Those who are unfamiliar with internet search advertising usually see it as a new channel, meaning another way to acquire prospects they can convert into customers. Without the benefit of understanding all the various intricacies, processes, technology, etc., they are focused on the end result, more customers. They understand the need for a website and realize that search advertising is a way for people who use search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing), to find their website, out of the literally millions of other websites on the internet.
I want more visitors to my web site – Because being found by the search engines and appearing high enough in the ranking, typically on the first page, seemed relatively easy using AdWords, they naively equate more website visitors with more business. Initially, they are very encouraged by the sudden increase of website traffic and they are already beginning to count the money that they expect to be rolling in. But this increased traffic comes with a cost and then they begin to realize that more traffic doesn't necessarily mean more business.
I want better qualified visitors to my site – Either through their own hands-on experience or through on-going discussions with their campaign manager, they come to appreciate that all visitors are not equal. Unless the initial selection of keywords is extremely well chosen, there will be only a fraction of visitors that actually turn into suspects, then suspects into prospects and prospects into customers. The unfortunate reality is that search engine users don't read ads, they scan them. Especially if your ad is near the top position, users simply click the higher ads and then decide once they see the website, if they want to stay. But you already paid for that click!
I want to know what visitors are doing when they visit my site – Just like a store owner who wants to see why a seemingly competent sales person isn't bringing in sales, even while they are spending all this time with prospects, they will want to know as much as they can about visitors that are coming to their website, especially if they are paying to bring them there. This is why analytics and conversion tracking are so important.
I don't want those kind of visitors, but I do want these kind – Fortunately, technology provides us with tools (web analytics & conversion tracking) that allow us to gather and report information about website visitors. We can see things like, what search engine referred the visitor, what search query they used, what keyword in their campaign was triggered, what pages they visited and what actions they took, like downloading a coupon or buying something! Once we know what keywords perform well and which ones don't, we can take appropriate steps to eliminate or encourage certain visitors to the site.
I want visitors to take some action when they visit my site – The best way to categorize visitors is through their behavior and the best way to understand their behavior is to give them something to do when they visit your site. The more things you can track, the more things you can assign a value to. Once you know what keywords lead to which actions, then you can begin to monetize keywords and visitor behavior.
I want visitors to take a specific action when they visit my site – Once the keywords and visitor actions are prioritized and monetized, then you can begin managing the process! Now you are ready to appreciate my article on PPC Implementation Strategies.
I am willing to pay this much for that type of visitor – When you can assign a value to a specific type of visitor and you have enough historical data on that type of visitor, then you can determine just how much you are willing to spend to get them. Now you are able to look at the process as an investment. You invest this much in a process and get this much out. And remember, search advertising Google AdWords) is the fastest direct response marketing mechanism ever developed. You can adjust your campaign in a matter of minutes!
This article is devoted to some of the reasons for, benefits and mechanics of, AdWords conversion tracking. A good primer for this would be my posts on the Evolution of the AdWords Advertiser and PPC Implementation Strategies.
Direct-response marketing has been around for over 100 years. Since the early days of mail-order catalogs. Pre-internet direct-response marketers were at the mercy of the postal system and the placement of "inquiry cards" appearing in catalogs or magazines. The cycle time for feedback on things such as ad copy, graphics or item popularity was measured in months.
Conversion tracking is arguably the single most important feature of search engine marketing, simply because of how much it reduces the time it takes to receive feedback on many important aspects of the search engine marketing selling process; keywords, search terms, ad copy, landing pages, website features and functions, etc.
Most novice AdWords advertisers view conversion tracking as a nifty feature and not as an essential tool for optimizing campaign performance. I won't say that conversion tracking is always necessary, but there is almost always some value to be gained by implementing some basic functionality. If you aren't willing to consider making conversion tracking a top priority, then you aren't serious about optimizing your AdWords account! If you hire a professional to manage your AdWords account and you don't have accurate, reliable conversion tracking in place, you have significantly hampered their ability to make significant improvements in your AdWords campaign.
My analysis of your AdWords account, whether it is before you retain me or after, will be focused in large part on conversion tracking. How I create and manage your account is highly dependent on whether conversion tracking is in place, working properly and tracks actions that are a meaningful part of the engagement process. Without reliable conversion tracking data, it's like throwing something "over the fence" and hoping it hits the target.
The process of optimizing an AdWords campaign is about knowing what works and what doesn't. You want to focus on and promote what works and filter or pay less for what doesn't. Conversion tracking is a valuable tool to help you do that. At the end of an evaluation period, you may see an increase or decrease in the number of leads or sales, but if we are unable to track these actions back to a keyword and search query in your AdWords account, we won't know what to adjust. If you are expecting some undeniable surge in leads or sales because you have begun an AdWords campaign, you are being unrealistic. If you have some other application that tracks visitor actions, there is no way to import the information we need into AdWords and it won't help. If you rely on email messages from website visitors because your email address is displayed on your website, we are unable to track this action and it can't help optimize your campaign.
If your objective for hiring me is to simply increase traffic to your website, without concern for the quality of traffic, then don't worry about conversion tracking. On the other hand, if your objective is to increase the amount of profit, then we need to begin the engagement talking about conversion tracking. Because if we don't select or create meaningful actions visitors can take on your website that tell us they are interested in what you offer, you have significantly reduced my ability to optimize your account and increased the amount of time it will take to make substantive improvements.
As advertisers, we can't control what prospects search for. We can only try to influence what they see when they perform a search. It does little good to optimize your website or build an AdWords campaign for terms prospects don't use or don't use often enough. Therefore, our first task is to identify what users search for, how often and then match that to what you want to promote.
There will always be more traffic than you can afford to buy. Therefore, we need to determine where is that "fine line" that determines what we display ads for and what we filter out? When I review an account's history, I try to determine what has been working and what hasn't. If there is little or no conversion tracking data, it just makes the process more difficult and take longer.
If you believe the nature of your business and the way you engage with prospects doesn't lend itself to AdWords conversion tracking. Or if you believe designing, developing, implementing and managing website functionality that uses conversion tracking is not worth the investment required. Then you may be at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to optimizing your AdWords campaign.
AdWords conversion tracking is free and relatively easy to set up, assuming you have an appropriate action that is a meaningful part of the selling process that a visitor will take within 30 days. Here is a short YouTube video on how to set up conversion tracking in your AdWords account.
I often find that an advertiser has all the right conditions for implementing conversion tracking, but simply hasn't done it, for one reason or another. If they would allow me to take the time to help them implement conversion tracking before working on their campaigns, I would. The sooner you begin collecting conversion tracking data, the better.
The visitor gets "cookied" using one computer and converts or takes the action on another computer.
Even with these caveats, it's usually well worth the time, effort and expense.
Now that you have a better appreciation for the value of and limitations of conversion tracking, let's peel the onion back a bit further.
Because conversion tracking typically uses a 30-day cookie, cost/conv data for any given keyword on any given day will change based on newly registered conversions. Here is something for you to think about. If you want to know the effect a change you make today has on cost/conv, you need to wait at least sixty days and then look back thirty days. Otherwise you will be dealing with incomplete and misleading data.
You need to resist evaluating a new keyword based on short-term data. Also keep in mind that the number of impressions and clicks can vary considerably from day-to-day. You must be willing to have the necessary confidence, commitment and patience or you should not be doing this.
Depending on your market, conversion tracking data can increase many fold over the life of the cookie, as visitors return to your site (from non-AdWords links) and convert. I make the distinction, "from non-AdWords links", such as a bookmark, organic listing or website referrals, because AdWords attributes the conversion to the last-clicked ad, keyword and search term, even if the keyword or ad is paused.
I make the point about paused keywords because you will continue to register conversions in your account from keywords in your old campaigns, which may be paused, and you probably won't be looking at those keywords when we launch a new ad group or campaign(s).
Now that I've made some important points about the virtues of conversion tracking, I'll admit that it isn't always necessary or appropriate. Each case must be evaluated based on the merits. In those cases where we elect not to use conversion tracking, there are other tools and techniques we can use to optimize your AdWords campaign. Google Analytics provides metrics such as bounce rate, average number of website pages visited, average time on the website and more. In addition, one of my favorite techniques to determine the relative quality of a visitor is their search query. If the visitor's search query is highly relevant to what we are advertising, especially if it indicates an interest in making a purchase, then that search query or what Google calls a search term, is well worth the money spent. In situations where conversion tracking isn't being used or isn't reliable, this is how we will determine the relative performance of the campaign.
In a perfect world, the words you use to describe your product or service would be exactly how people search for it online and your website would use those same words and phrases. Unfortunately, that doesn't usually happen. Website developers and traditional media advertisers who have experience developing advertising copy; brochures, articles, advertisements, believe they can use the same vocabulary that worked for traditional media when they build web pages for visitors from search engines. But that can be a costly mistake!
Achieving a truly optimized search engine advertising campaign goes beyond the elements of your PPC campaign, such as keywords, bid prices, ad copy, etc. It also includes how you design your website, the use of custom landing pages, the words you use on your landing pages and the rest of your website.
Many advertisers, including myself, at one time designed their website from the inside-out. In other words, how they see themselves in the market or how they see the market niche they are in. Instead of from the outside-in, meaning how visitors from search engines think and what they actually search for. The inside-out approach may work fine for prospects from other channels or existing customers. However, visitors from search engines are a unique kind of prospect. They may be somewhat naive about the topic they are interested in. They can also become overwhelmed or confused by the variety of content for what they thought was a very specific topic. They can also be quite cynical and usually have very little patience.
The way you have designed your website may make perfect sense to you, your existing customers and even industry pundants. However, if it doesn't relate well to how prospects from search engines actually search for what you offer, what I call the search vocabulary of your market, then your campaign will be far from optimal.
There are two important reasons why you need to be aware of this. The first has to do with what prospects are thinking when they use a search engine. The second has to do with how the Google AdWords game is played. Let's take a closer look at each of these.
If you haven't already done so, this would be a good time to pause and read my article titled A chain of success and the subsequent linked articles.
If the way you describe your product or service and the keywords you use to build your campaign, do not match how prospects search for what you offer, you will not only limit your exposure to real prospects, but if they do manage to reach your landing page and you do not use their search vocabulary, you will have created what we call friction. It would be as if you were having a conversation with someone with a very heavy foreign accent. For example, you may advertise yourself as a psychotherapist or a psychiatrist. However, when real people with real problems search online, they are more likely to use words like therapy, counseling or help. If you don't take this into consideration when building your campaign, you will be missing out on the biggest segment of your target market. If your landing page does not quickly and efficiently alter their thought process and bring them around to your way of thinking, you will have missed the opportunity to engage with a legitimate prospect. When a visitor from a search engine lands on your website for the first time, you have 3-5 seconds to make a connection. If you don't, they will bounce!
When you think of using PPC advertising, whether it's Google AdWords or Bing™Ads, you must understand that there are rules that manifest themselves in the form of a quality score. These quality scores are a way of incentivizing or punishing you for being relevant or speaking the same language as the search engine user and the search engine's robot. If your keyword, ad copy, landing page and website do not speak the same language as your visitor, you will not only pay a hefty penalty in the form of a higher CPC, but your ad may not display for a significant number of real prospects!
If you think about the process I discuss in the A chain of success, article it is possible to pull the prospect around to your way of thinking and not break the chain, but you need to be very careful. Keywords and keyword matching options, especially negative keywords will insure that your ad only displays for the right suspects. Proper ad copy can perform a valuable translation and qualifying function. Custom landing pages, if designed properly, will keep a qualified prospect engaged long enough for you to pull them into your sales process.
When you have the benefit of historical data in your AdWords and Analytics accounts, you are on your way to learning what I call the search vocabulary of your market. On the other hand, if you are just beginning your online advertising experience and you have built your website with little or no knowledge of your market's search vocabulary, you are at a distinct disadvantage. It means you will essentially have to buy this knowledge. By this I mean you will have to learn it over time, at some expense by buying clicks in order to capture the data. There is no keyword tool in existence that can compare with a rich search term history from your own website, AdWords or Analytics account.
Where you stand in relation to the processes I've discussed will determine where you are along the path to having a truly optimized PPC campaign.
Having a successful PPC campaign means we have to get a lot of things right. We have to make sure we understand and address all the steps in the buying cycle and don't leave anything to chance or the ROI will suffer. After all, online marketing is really salesmanship in print.
Most advertisers I come in contact with struggle, knowingly or unknowingly with one important principle of advertising, understanding and empathizing with prospects from search engines. Visitors from search, organic or PPC, are different from other visitors and your website must take this into account if you are going to have a successful PPC campaign.
Visitors from search are cynical, skeptical and have very little patience. From the moment they arrive on your landing page, you have three to five seconds to make a connection. If you don't, they will leave and probably will not come back.
When we meet someone in person we can size up the situation by looking for body signals, listening to conversation, appearance, etc. But with online advertising, we have to rely on technology and copy (ad text, website text, graphics, etc.). I like to think of the process as a chain, and this chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If any link breaks, we lose the prospect and the resources we spent getting them to this point are wasted.
Ideally, everything is tied together into one continuous thought. If it isn't, if you have left out a step or taken too big a leap in the process or failed to anticipate what they are thinking, you will lose them.
A common mistake AdWords advertisers make is not focusing on relevance. They build campaigns, ad groups, ads and use keywords that are only somewhat related to what it is they are offering in hopes of attracting a wider audience. When that happens, they usually fail at using AdWords as a viable channel for their business.
The trap that we as advertisers often fall into is knowing too much about our own business and not enough about our prospect or our competition. The choices our prospects have besides our own view of the problem they are trying to solve. We focus too much on things like features and not enough on benefits. For example, we see a keyword or query phrase and don't realize how broad the term is.
Have you taken the time to do competitive research? Have you tried searching the major search engines using your most popular search queries? Have you studied your competitor's landing pages, user experience, offers, calls-to-action? Have you opted-into their offer to see how they market to you? If you haven't, then you have a ways to go before your AdWords account is optimized.
Keyword selection and keyword matching options is perhaps the single biggest issue I see when I first look at a client's account. This is especially true when it comes to clients who offer a service. Here is a test you can do yourself. Take some of your most popular keywords and perform a Google search to see who else is bidding for those same keywords. If they aren't selling exactly what you are, then there is a good chance your keyword is too broad.
The other problem has to do with using and understanding how powerful and yet dangerous broad-matched keywords can be when Google experiments with synonyms.
Another way of viewing the successful AdWords model is to look at it through the lens of probability. A successful AdWords campaign is really a collection of proven, high-probability models. What is the probability that someone searching using this search query, who sees this ad and goes to this landing page, will take the desired action. Our objective is to build a campaign that gives us the most number of high-probability models. This means that there will likely be some search queries that resulted in a conversion, but you simply can't afford to focus on that query because you can't make the numbers work. It's simply a matter of economics.
Think of your landing page as your "elevator pitch". Once the prospect arrives at your landing page, or enters the elevator, you better be prepared to give it your best shot because it may be your last!


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Tag: Margot Robbie
Review: I, Tonya
Written by Robert Horton January 5, 2018
Surely Tonya Harding was one of the last great pre-internet tabloid sensations, an unlikely headliner in a tacky saga of criminal intentions and bad taste. Before the internet, a jaw-dropping scandal like Harding's could linger for a while, instead of being instantly elbowed aside by Twitter outrage or the latest meme. The drama unfolded in 1994, when an assailant hit figure skater Nancy Kerrigan in the leg with an iron bar; rumors flew that Harding, Kerrigan's rival, had something to do with the attack. At the Olympics a few weeks later, both Kerrigan (bruised but not broken) and Harding competed amid a swirl of bizarre headlines about Harding's fantastically trashy ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and his beefy, sage-like sidekick Shawn Eckhardt. Gillooly and Eckhardt did jail time for planning the attack; Harding has always maintained she wasn't in on it. The crime was lurid enough, but the story had multiple levels, including economic: Harding was a blue-collar kid who sewed her own costumes out of financial necessity, a contrast to Kerrigan's movie-star looks and classy commercial endorsements.
The movie version of this tale, I, Tonya, works hard to suggest why we might sympathize with Harding: her poverty, the abuse she suffered from her husband and her mother, the snooty condescension of skating's top brass.
Blu-ray / DVD: Oscar winner 'The Big Short' and Guy Maddin's 'Forbidden Room'
Written by Sean Axmaker March 16, 2016
The Big Short (Paramount, Blu-ray, DVD, VOD) – Adam McKay is not necessarily the guy you look to for dramatic outrage at the greed and failure behind the economic collapse of the last decade. He is, after all, the director who guided Will Ferrell through such comedies as Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and The Other Guys. Yet here he is, adapting Michael Lewis' nonfiction book on the reasons behind the financial collapse and coming away with a hit movie, five Academy Award nominations, and an Oscar win for Best Adapted Screenplay (shared with Charles Randolph).
The Big Short is serious and angry. It's also very funny, which is its secret weapon. What's a subprime mortgage? Here's Margot Robbie in a bubble bath to explain it to you. Need to explain what a CBO is without driving audiences away? How about Selena Gomez at a casino?
In the hands of McKay and his co-conspirators, the financial fraud of the 2000s is nothing short of a criminal farce with dire consequences. For us, that is, not the folks who perpetrated the crisis out of greed, criminal neglect, and reckless abandon. In this company of thieves and accomplices, the heroes of this story are a few men who saw through the façade and proceeded to bet against the house. They are, of course, outliers with idiosyncrasies.
Read More "Blu-ray / DVD: Oscar winner 'The Big Short' and Guy Maddin's 'Forbidden Room'"
Posted in: by Sean Axmaker, Contributors, Film Reviews
Film Review: 'Focus'
A good con-artist movie isn't that much different from a good con. It's all about distraction and sleight of hand, creating a false narrative to draw the viewer's attention away from the real plot playing out behind the feint, and leaving behind a story that the mark can hang on to.
In Focus, Will Smith is all arrogant confidence as Nicky, the veteran pro who runs his jobs like a coach fielding a champion team. He's not interested in one big score, but in racking up points in a rapid-fire succession of plays throughout the game.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Whether in the bakery or in the barns, we are used to starting our day before the sun comes up. For that reason, we keep our breakfast light and simple to enjoy on the go. We open at 6am every weekday and have a drive thru for a quick breakfast burrito or cup of coffee!
Enjoy something from the bakery with your morning coffee!


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Gareth's Travelling Adventure
Oceania Sep 2008 1221260400
Asia Jun 2008 1214780400
New Zealand Sep 2008 1221260400
New South Wales Aug 2008 1219618800
Northern Territory Aug 2008 1219273200
Victoria Aug 2008 1219014000
Queensland Aug 2008 1217804400
Brisbane Aug 2008 1217804400
Noosa Jul 2008 1216940400
Fraser Island Jul 2008 1216508400
Airlie Beach Jul 2008 1216335600
Charters Towers Jul 2008 1215558000
Townsville Jul 2008 1215298800
Cairns Jul 2008 1215126000
Has been a while since I last updated, have reached Melbourne but we'll start with some stories about my time in Brisbane. After leaving Noosa in the evening, Dan and I (well me really) did some night driving and arrived in Brisbane about midnight. It was the first big city we had to deal with in Australia and finding somewhere to park for the night became a bit of a nightmare. We ended up driving straight through the city into a southern suburb and sleeping on what we thought was a quite back road. We found out in the morning though that we were right next to a train station and so had all the businessmen walking past us in the morning! Undecided of how to get into the city, we took a drive and found that the parking was really expensive so we drove back to where we were and got the train in instead. Our first impression of Brisbane was a good one, lots of nice buildings compared to the other austalian towns we had been in and there was a nice view of the city from across the river. I guess the sunshine and blue skies helped as well. Our mission for the first day was to find Dan's mate Rob who I also met in Singapore as he had arrived in Brisbane from Indonesia the day before. We met up and shared some travel stories before heading over to Southbank and wandering through some of the museums and art galleries. Dan had managed to secure us another couch to stay on and so we headed back to the van with an address in hand. It was the first time we had 3 in the van and it was pretty cramped up in the front, it felt as though we were off to paint someones house, all we needed was a packet of crisps and a copy of the Sun on our dashboard. After much searching we found the house which we were pretty suspicious of at first glance. The door was ajar and there was rubbish all over the front lawn. We slowly peered in to see a living room full of mattresses and bags as well as guy wrapped in a sleeping bag. We moved through to the kitchen which was filthy, calling out Hello as we went but no-one seemed to be home. Finally someone met us and everyone was outside in the shed behind the house. We were welcomed by a guy who seemed high on something and said that we could help ourselves to the kitchen which we took full advantage of. So we were basically living in a squat, apparently the police had been around that day doing a routine drug search, but the place was somehow quite inviting. There were 4 guys who lived there and the other 11 were couchsurfers who were just passing through. We cooked out dinner and sat out on the balcony before Dan and I slept in the van, not wanted to rest our heads on the manky pillows they offered!
The following morning we caught the ferry into the centre of town and started with a wander around a lifestyles market on southbank. I ended up buying a didgeridoo from one of the stalls that was painted infront of me, as I had been looking out for a cheap but decent one ever since my didgeridoo lesson in Airlie Beach. The rest of our day didn't really involve much more but a wander around the city centre and we ended up booking some tickets to that evenings AFL (Aussie Rules) game at the Gabba (according to Dan this is a famous cricket ground??). After some dinner back at the squat we headed off to see the Brisbane Lions play the West Coast Eagles. The atmosphere inside the stadium was electric and I tried to understand the rules of the game as it went along. By the end of the match I had a reasonable understanding of what was going on, but we weren't all that impressed by the sport. It didn't seem to involve much skill, it wasn't actually all that interesting to watch and it was so long with 2 hours of gameplay! But we had a good evening all together. Back at home we helped ourselves to the BBQ food which include Kangaroo burgers!
Dan and I visited the Brisbane museum on the morning of our final day but it was a huge let down and so after a quick wander through the botanical gardens, we found a grassy spot and chilled out in the sun, knowing that this was probably the last of our warm weather! We met Rob in the afternoon and ended up going to see the new Batman film which was great and hugely popular, I guess cause Heath Ledger was Australian all the Aussies wanted to see his last performance. I filled up on MnM's which was a luxury on my budget and we went to see a free comedy show we had heard about at the Brisbane Powerhouse, a very arty venue made within the old power station. The first couple of acts were pretty funny local acts, but the final act turned out to be a guy from London called Stephen Amos who we all recognised but didn't know where from. It turned out he had been a TV quite a few times and had done the Royal Variety Show back home. He was hilarious and we got chatting to him after the show. He even invited us out to dinner but unfortunately there wasn't enough space in his car! Was a great evening, even better that it was free!
Brisbane was definitely the best Australian town so far, it hasn't got such an open and industrial feel about it like so many of the other towns, and has some pretty old buildings from Aussie standards. There was a lot to see and do and the weather was some of the best yet so we all had a pretty good time there. But a city is a city and so after 3 days we headed on south towards our next stop which was the surfing town of Byron Bay.


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text:
IF YOU'RE PITTING BLOOMBERG AGAINST TRUMP, YOU'RE MAKING A CATEGORY ERROR
So there'll be a prime-time speech at the Democratic convention from Mike Bloomberg:
Michael R. Bloomberg, who bypassed his own run for the presidency this election cycle, will endorse Hillary Clinton in a prime-time address at the Democratic National Convention and make the case for Mrs. Clinton as the best choice for moderate voters in 2016, an adviser to Mr. Bloomberg said.
The news is an unexpected move from Mr. Bloomberg, who has not been a member of the Democratic Party since 2000; was elected the mayor of New York City as a Republican; and later became an independent.
But it reflects Mr. Bloomberg's increasing dismay about the rise of Donald J. Trump and a determination to see that the Republican nominee is defeated.
I don't know why this is "an unexpected move" from Bloomberg, who endorsed President Obama in 2012 (though he did so late in the race and didn't speak at the convention). It's been obvious for months that he's comfortable with a Clinton presidency, but not with Trump or Bernie Sanders. As The New York Times noted in March, when Bloomberg announced that he wouldn't be running for president,
Had both Mr. Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont appeared headed toward victory in the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries, Mr. Bloomberg was determined to run, according to his advisers, several of whom insisted on anonymity to speak candidly about confidential discussions.
But Mr. Bloomberg balked at the prospect of a race against Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton, who has established a dominant lead over Mr. Sanders on the Democratic side.... Mr. Bloomberg said he could not in good conscience enter a race that could lead to a deadlock in the Electoral College -- and to the election of Mr. Trump...
Does it make sense for Bloomberg to speak at the convention? Most people would say yes -- but I don't see the point.
Bloomberg isn't a popular figure -- in a February CNN poll, 28% of respondents had a favorable opinion of him and 34% didn't. He's more disliked than liked by men, whites, Republicans, and older people, and if you think he might appeal to suburban women, note that is numbers are 29%/27% with women and 30%/31% with suburbanites. He's liked in the Northeast, but Clinton already has an excellent chance of sweeping all the states there, and he's disliked in other regions of the country. Moderates like him, but only by a 34%/26% margin.
So what's the point of having him speak? This, obviously:
... with the Republican nominee basing his campaign on his background as a businessman, Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire media executive and philanthropist, may help counter the Trump sales pitch.
But in 2016, Trump isn't running as just a businessman -- he's (dishonestly) running as a businessman who's also a class traitor. He's pretending to be a champion of the common people, and nearly half of America believes that's precisely what he is. If you want to counter Trump, you don't counter him with a businessman who's uncritical of the rich. Not this year.
Bernie Sanders will be a good foil for Trump -- a real economic populist vs. a fake. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, too -- like Trump, they have healthy egos and star power, and they can speak as long as Trump does, but they really do know what they're talking about when they talk policy.
Bloomberg? Unless he tells some tales out of school about Trump's business failings, I don't see what he brings to the convention. He'll probably also speak in favor of immigration, and I'm certain he'll talk about the need to reform our gun laws, but there'll be plently of speakers to do that. (Bloomberg's support for gun control groups is almost certainly the reason his numbers are so low among Republicans and men.)
Warren Buffett might have been effective in this slot -- deserved or not, he has a reputation as a
billionaire with the common touch. As for Bloomberg, while I don't really think he'll send all that many voters permanently into the Jill Stein camp, I don't think he'll win many over, either.
Lit3Bolt said...
I've been sighing for the past few days, just because all of these moves (Kaine, Bloomberg) reinforce the perception that Clinton Is For Clinton, and not the Left.
We've seen the Clinton Triangulation Machine in full swing, because instead of mobilizing the Democratic base, Clinton is instead going for Republicans who maybe just this once, this election cycle, might be Dem-curious.
That's great for HRC...not so great as a long term strategy for the Democratic Party.
Kaine I could handle, he's like a little Biden clone. This is just...well, it makes me think they don't quite get it.
Just another Corporate Democrat.
jsrtheta said...
@Lit3Bolt: It's not the job of the Democratic Party to reflect the aspirations of "the Left." In fact, were the party to veer into this oncoming lane, the result would end in pretty much the same debacle the Republicans now face. I really don't understand this sense that the Democrats have to move to the Bernie side to be a valid choice. In point of fact, Bernie stood about as well-positioned to win in the general as my dog. And the idea that the Left should receive its dream slate of candidates irrespective of electability is juvenile at best.
Simply look at what's happening on the Trump side: Massive bailouts by Republicans. Is this merely because he's an odious toad? No. It's because they recognize that his positions are profoundly unpopular in the nation as a whole. Consider: The furthest right they ever swung was Reagan, and he was adept at appearing harmless while the Dems had the (unfair) perception abroad that Carter was simply incompetent. Throw in the economy, stir, and you have Reagan.
The stampede by voters toward Trump is not the result the party was seeking. Nor is the nomination of Bernie who, sorry to say, is not a Democrat, has no agenda of action, just aspiration, and who would be decimated in the general. An eternal gadfly (and, hence, someone who has never had to be responsible for anything), the reality is that he would face not merely a Republican House, but Democratic office holders who not only have no loyalty: They hate his fucking guts. Zealots are usually immune to reality, and Bernie is their guy. Little matters, like control of Congress, mean nothing to them, because, fundamentally, they have no clue as to how the government works. I encounter this to the point of exhaustion: Bernie Bros slept through American History as much Trumpalos did.
If you think that Hillary is going after Republican votes, you have a magical interpretation of reality. You may not like her, but she's no fool.
And the simple truth is that every time Democrats have chased the "progressive" unicorn, the result was abject humiliation. By all means, champion your ideals. Just don't expect to make a huge difference. Because you never do.
Politics is the art of the possible. It is not the art of precious feels.
@ Jeff Ryan
I like HRC just fine. My main point was like Steve M's, there's a battle of optics here, and the image of the two mainstream parties as a billionaire battleground doesn't help preconceived perceptions about HRC. Nothing more than that.
I'm not a BernieBro, and think him and his followers were horribly naive and missed a lot of opportunities. Sorry that your insults were wasted.
And Hillary is going after disaffected Republicans, same as Obama did. The safe choice, the governing choice. Trump is freaking the fuck out of the financial community. HRC they can deal with and give rates of return. Not so with Trump.
So I guess I'm just kvetching that there could be a choice by HRC that would mobilize the Maoists among us, a la Warren, but I guess there really isn't. That bridge has been burned, a long time ago.
Steve M. said...
Simply look at what's happening on the Trump side: Massive bailouts by Republicans.
Massive bailouts by prominent Republicans. Not by the rank-and-file, who are mostly on board.
And there's a sizable buy-in by blue-collar white males, who've never been as solidly with them.
AllieG said...
Campaigns take what support they can get, they can't make it up. Bloomberg will have as much effect on the campaign as Scott Baio will.
I expect the rubes to shit all over Senator Sanders for the next ten years, nothing naive about. You want to know what naive is, boy? Naive is when I tell you you are welcome to run anyone you choose but I won't vote them, and you shit your panties when you run them expecting me to do as ordered, and I vote a third party. School yard "it's her turn" bullying, belittling, insulting condensending bullshit is naive.
Steve is right, Trump could win this. And you no one to blame but yourselves.
Ten Bears, your kind is all over the Internet,, and I issue the following challenge. Come back in late November and tell us about a "progressive" candidate untainted by compromise you helped get elected. State Rep, Register of Deeds, school board, anything. Until then, you and your kind are just jacking off.
I think Bloomberg represents the real scorn actual billionaires feel for Trump the fake one. But of course it would be better to have the most articulate of the many businessmen Trump has screwed over speak instead. I think the most effective line of attack on Tump is "everyone who's gone into business with him winds up very sorry." White anger at loss of social capital is a real thing, but so is risk aversion, a common human trait.
Yastreblyansky said...
Bloomberg is scheduled Wednesday night, as a minor speaker along with Jesse Jackson and (ugh) Leon Panetta, on a night that climaxes with Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
By two minutes into Biden's speech nobody will even be able to remember Bloomberg's name, except for those hardy no-labelsists, all 14 of them, who really care that Bloomberg was there. Maybe they'll write a piece in the New Republic about the discovery that Clinton is in favor of sensible gun control and against smoking (who knew?!) and convert another 30 or 40. It's really not going to do any harm. (Unless to the extent it focuses attention on however many millions he's plowing into the SuperPac, but I'm not sure a lot of voters are going to be able to pay even as much attention to that as they do to Soros on one side or Kochs on the other, which is really not much.)
Feud Turgidson said...
I haven't felt dread over Trump's chances until now, leaning not just of Bloomberg's endorsement (which makes me uneasy on its own), but of the decision of the HRC to use up precious DNC time to have him speak of it there.
this is stupid. It sends exactly the wrong message out to young voters HRC the Ds are going to need. This is the kind of move that reflects 'strategic political thinking', but in a really bad way - AOT in a way that strongly suggests this sort of mistep is going to happen again and again.
She could throw it away - she cold throw US away.
That's got naive written all over it. You couldn't come with something more substantial than more name calling? That's all you got: school yard bullying, name-calling, chicken-shit little insults.
You people are no different than the fucking Retards.
@Lit3Bolt: there could be a choice by HRC that would mobilize the Maoists among us, a la Warren
Sounds as if you think Bloomberg is the only speaker!
You do realize that Warren is speaking too, and will be in a much more featured spot than Bloomberg? To say nothing of Bernie Sanders who will be in the prime position tonight?
And that other speakers include Al Franken, Bill de Blasio, Sherrod Brown, Undocumented Immigant DREAMer Astrid Silva, and the Mothers of the Movement, and many more members of the authentic left? Along with numerous Democrats we don't love, because that's how the party works.
@ Yastreblyanksy
Hey yeah, sorry about that. Was being extremely bitter and tried to make a joke.
Not really an authentic left guy anyway, I traffic more in media optics, like you, drifty, and Steve M. Just tired of arguing with my authentic left friends that voting for HRC is ok, and stuff like Kaine and Bloomberg don't help the Wall St. narrative...or any narrative at all, really. At this point, who does Bloomberg persuade?
Based on the above posts, I have a couple of points that need making. And then there's the matter of where this might go.
First, it is not just the "prominent" Republicans who are bailing - there are plenty of regular, longtime Republicans from the McCain/Romney wing who are refusing to support this ticket as well. As for "blue-collar white males," they left in 1968 and 1972. They never came back, and aren't about to come back. They are what we called in Chicago "local Democrats/national Republicans." They are blue-collar males and females who voted Democratic until you got to the senate and presidential tickets, and then voted the other side. For the over 20 years I spent in Chicago (including some years spent tending bar, and, believe me, you get a pretty good view of voter sentiment doing that), the white "local Democrats" didn't vote for Democrats at the national level. And they loved Reagan. They are not new, and they were for Trump in spirit even before he ran. They are the Reagan Democrats, and they are not new voters for the Republican side.
I would have liked Warren for VP, but there were two very good reasons she wasn't picked: One, we would lose a Democratic Senate seat, and we simply can't afford that. Two, no matter my preference, it is reasonable to believe that a two-woman ticket is a bridge too far politically.
As for the "progressive" base, please name a time when Democrats won by nominating a Lefty. I can't think of one, and there's a reason for that.
Now, there is a very real opportunity here for Democrats: Let the "experts" decide who hacked the DNC email. If party people start blaming Russia, they will not be believed. But let the party point out the only RNC platform item Trump cared about, namely backing off of any commitment to Ukraine. Trump's forces made sure the plank became a pro-Putin plank. Why? Trump and Priebus should be asked about this every time they are near a microphone or a reporter. Every. Single. Time. I cannot conceive of an acceptable response Trump or the RNC can make. Hang Putin around Trump's neck. Hang Trump's business dealings with the Russians around his neck. Hang all his kind words for Putin, as well as Saddam and the latest North Korean loon around his neck. Then lift and squeeze.
CH said...
One reason for the fact that the D's haven't won by nominating a "lefty" recently, Jeff, is that the D's have not nominated a so-called "lefty" since 1972 (unless you count the incumbent, currently completing his second term). They did, however, find ways to lose several elections with the "centrists" they did nominate: Carter (not Kennedy) in '80, Mondale (not Jackson) in '84, Dukakis (not jackson) in '88, Gore (not Bradley) in '00 (yes, I know Gore won the pop vote, but I also know he never got the keys to Air Force One), Kerry (not Dean) in '04.
@CH - I don't count the incumbent as a lefty. But I do count him where he belongs, a centrist like Bill Clinton. (Had Brown been nominated, do you think he would have won? I sure don't.) You elide over the fact that Carter won his first term, and it wasn't his "centrism" that cost him reelection. It didn't help that Kennedy tried to unseat his own party's incumbent, Carter, and acted like a two-year-old in the process. Jesse Jackson would no more have won in 1984 than the ghost of Eugene V. Debs would have. Same in 1988 - if you are seriously going to argue that Jackson was at any time electable, then I have a problem taking your point, erm, seriously.
McGovern remains, of course, the blueprint for progressive suicide (and hell, I voted for him). And don't forget what the extreme left wing of the party did to help Humphrey back in 1968. Which, of course, led to McGovern. And two terms for Richard Nixon.
But the real problem is that the majority of the party just doesn't want the lefty candidate. If for no other reason than that the Left decimated the party all the way up to 1976. Thanks to the Left, droves of Democrats abandoned the party, allowing Reagan and Bush I to romp to victory and hold the WH for 12 years. Those lost Democrats have never, and will never, come back. If you think Sanders would have snagged them, send me some of what you're smoking.
The reason most of the party spurned Bernie is because they saw McGovern Redux. Hell, even Dean saw that.
Obama won both of his presidential elections by running to the left (universal healthcare, anyone?) and it's worth noting that the Blue Dogs and other centrist Dems have been decimated in mid-term blowouts in 2010 and 2014. Sanders did not win the primary but there's no doubt that he got way more support than the centrists claimed he would.
But hey, keep on running from the spooky specter of McGovern. It's not as if anything in the country or the party or the economy or the electorate has changed since the 70s.
Universal healthcare, universal healthcare,...where have I heard that before?
I'm pretty sure it was long before Obama, but I just can't think where...
I'm not sure I see your point. If you're trying to refute that Obama won two presidential elections by running to the left, you still have a ways to go. Not to mention the other things I brought up that you ignored. I still think the catastrophic failure of centrist Dems to hold Congress in this decade is a bit more relevant than McGovern's loss in 1972.
Jeff, whether a candidate who was not nominated is or was "electable" is and was a matter of opinion. On the other hand, it's a matter of historical fact that the candidates I mentioned, promoted as "more electable" than their rivals, did not get elected. You can blame all that on the left if you like, but it's at least as arguable that the centrists' opinions on electability have certainly not been foolproof.
@CH - Being the most electable in your party doesn't mean you are more electable than your opponent. If you can't see that from the Mondale/Reagan election, you really can't see anything. And if you ignore the historical evidence (e.g., polling) regarding electability, then you have no argument. Were you old enough to vote in the Mondale/Reagan election? If you were, then you are simply choosing to ignore the massive unpopularity of Jackson. It's not just a matter of opinion. It is, at the least, a matter of informed opinion. There are actually ancient documents, like newspapers, that fairly well traced the course of the elections on a, gosh, daily basis. In fact, your proposition that progressive/left candidates would be more successful is pure speculation on your part. Given the fortunes of the two most "progressive" nominees in post-war history, Adlai Stevenson II and George McGovern, the evidence hardly favors your theory.
@McSchwanger - Running to the left? Of McCain? Of Romney? Of course he ran to the left of them, he was the Democrat. That's not "running to the left," really, though, since Romney and McCain were representing the right anyway. Which is my point: It's nonsensical to suggest Obama won those elections by "running to the left." To the left of whom?
As for the failure to win off-year elections, just which demographic failed to show up in droves? The youth vote? Millenials? The ones who voted 7% less than in the presidential election years?
I would also suggest that all the "progressives" here take a break and see how Bernie's "progressives" are behaving at the DNC.
This is precisely what those of us who want a Democratic president, a president who isn't Trump, feared.
I have been watching Bernie-or-Bust-ers being interviewed the past two days, and I wasn't surprised. But I was still hopeful. But this, now,...
They all seem young, and they all seem like someone else is paying their bills, and they all act like two-year-olds.
So, way to go, Bernie. Maybe Trump promised you a nice spot on his cabinet? Because, Bernie, you were warned by your peers for weeks, if not months, that this would happen, and you didn't do shite until it was too late.
And it will be little comfort when you go down in history as the most hated man of this election.
Running to the left of Hillary, for example. Running on "universal healthcare" or at least a public option was (and still is) to the left of mainstream Dem party leadership, who have surrendered the issue since Hillary's stab at it. Which is ironic, because Obama used that issue to get ahead of her in the primary; he ran (all together now) to her left. Or am I still being "nonsensical"?
As for the constant complaint of "young voters don't vote for Democrats", what exactly was the Democratic party doing to court Millennials between 2008 and 2010? Were they talking about the broken educational system and the crushing debt imposed on an entire generation? I don't remember that. I recall Millennials suddenly and laughably becoming the main problem with the U.S. Healthcare system; damn "young invincibles", why won't they buy insurance? Could it be the same reason most Americans don't have health insurance, AKA the cost? No, it must be because they're young and dumb.
Dems got creamed in 2010 and 2014 because they had no message other than "don't give them back the keys", and people didn't turn out for it. The ever-sought after "moderate voter" unicorns the Dems were gunning for so hard stayed home just as much as Millennials did. But I suppose the answer is to continue to ignore the spoiled brats and then get pissed when they don't come out to vote for you. Seems like it's been working out real well.
That's why one of my favorite policy proposals by Hillary is making two-year college "free" by way of taxpaying. It shows that maybe Dem leadership is slowly realizing that Boomers aren't the only voters that matter.
Convention bounce
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Someone recently asked me what to do with the leftover almond pulp after making my homemade almond milk, since it seemed like a shame to just throw it away.
They have a great point. According to estimates, 25% – 40% of the food grown in America is never eaten, and just goes to waste.
So what was my answer? Easy! Make almond pulp crackers!
I love them with a little Himalayan salt and some fresh thyme and rosemary, but you can play with your own combo of flavors. Find something you love? Share with us in the comments below!
Check out my cooking video to see how easy it is!


text:
Aid groups rescue over 1,600 migrants in the Mediterranean in a single day
May 23, 2017 · 6:15 PM EDT
Updated on May. 29, 2017 · 9:45 AM EDT
By Alex Leff
Save the Children workers rescue migrants on a boat in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya on May 23, on one of the group's biggest single-day rescue hauls so far in 2017.
Richard Hall/The World
More than 50,000 migrants have tried to cross the Mediterranean to Europe this year. It's a deadly journey but many survive thanks partly to all the seaborne humanitarian personnel patrolling these waters.
They saved more than 1,600 migrants in the Mediterranean on May 23 alone.
Save the Children took aboard 635 migrants from different boats that needed help after launching from Libya — the organization's biggest single-day rescue since it started patrolling the Mediterranean in August 2016, reported The World's Richard Hall from aboard Save the Children's Vos Hestia ship.
Alex Newman/PRI
"It began at around 6 a.m. Everyone was asleep in their bunks, and we were awoken by the captain, who told us that we were about 10 minutes away from a boat that was in distress," Hall says. It took about an hour to rescue more than 70 people on that boat. Moments later, Vos Hestia's captain spotted about 10 other boats in need of help.
They were in a common search-and-rescue zone, about 13 nautical miles off the Libyan coast.
On the same day, another team with the nonprofit Doctors Without Borders or MSF (for Médicins Sans Frontières) said they took 1,004 migrants aboard their rescue ship.
On Friday, Save the Children's Vos Hestia docked in southern Italy's Corigliano Calabro, a port right in the arch of the boot.
But MSF had trouble docking "due to the security restrictions imposed in Sicily for the G-7."
By Monday, MSF said, after "an extremely difficult few days," it was finally able to disembark its overloaded ship in Naples.
Of migrants arriving in Italy via the Mediterranean this year, the largest numbers have come from Nigeria, followed by Bangladesh, Guinea, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Senegal, Morocco, Mali, Eritrea, Pakistan and Somalia, according to the United Nations.
The nongovernmental organizations have earned public praise for their work. But some groups have also come under scrutiny in Italy — and they've also had trouble with the Libyan coast guard. Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders and other groups accuse Libyan officials of harassing them and migrants in need of help.
Related: Libya's coast guard is 'endangering lives' of migrants trying to reach Europe
The dangers of the journey are severe. On Wednesday, the day after those record rescues, more than 30 people died at sea — "most are toddlers," according to Chris Catrambone, the founder of rescue group MOAS.
Even though the number of migrants boating to Europe has declined from the record 2016 total, more than 1,500 have died or gone missing in the attempt so far this year.
The World's correspondent went aboard the Vos Hestia earlier this month to follow Save the Children as it carried out rescue operations on the Mediterranean. You can listen to his reporting from the voyage on The World, and watch it unfold here, and via the show's Instagram feed.
Here are some of his latest Instagram posts below.
We've arrived in the search and rescue zone, in international waters off the coast of Libya. The team are running drills – going through the rescue process with staff members acting as the migrants. The weather looks favorable for the migrant boats tomorrow, so it may not be long before they are doing it for real. Our correspondent @_richardhall is on board a migrant rescue ship in the Mediterranean Sea this week, where more than 1,300 people have died so far this year. Follow us for live updates.
A post shared by The World (@pritheworld) on May 22, 2017 at 1:47am PDT
Often when rescuers are approaching a vessel in trouble, they don't know the nationalities of those on board. It's Miriam's job to make first contact, calm them down, and explain how the rescue is going to work. That means she sometimes has to run through instructions in English, French and Arabic. This footage was taken during a drill today in international waters off the coast of Libya. @_richardhall is travelling with a @savethechildren ship as they make their third rescue this year.
A post shared by The World (@pritheworld) on May 22, 2017 at 11:58pm PDT
The Vos Hestia carried out it's first rescue of this voyage this morning. The call came through at 6am while most of the crew were still asleep. It was a speedy rush to the stations. Dozens of people now safely on board.
Second rescue of the day underway right now. People are transferred from unsafe dinghies to the Vos Hestia 12 at a time.
One of 550 rescued from the Mediterranean Sea today by @savethechildren team. The relief on people's faces when they step on to the boat is quite something.
A post shared by The World (@pritheworld) on May 23, 2017 at 10:49am PDT
Take a look at this boat and you'll get a sense of how so many people perish on this voyage. The boats are overloaded by greedy smugglers. Many of them are not fit for purpose, and simply fall apart.
The World's @_richardhall photographed this scene two days ago aboard a migrant rescue ship in the Mediterranean. The Vos Hestia ship filled up quickly when Save the Children took 635 people aboard. The migrants slept in all corners of the overcrowded ship, which is now docked in southern Italy.
How do you pass time on a rescue ship? You sing. An impromptu gig taking place on the Vos Hestia right now. People from the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Bangladesh singing songs from home.These guys were pulled from the water 48 hours ago. They are heading to an uncertain future. But they are far from broken.
Land ahoy! We're passing Sicily on our way up the coast. It's the first time the migrants on board have seen land in days. A great relief for many.
EconomicsConflictBusiness, Economics and JobsConflict & Justice
EU refugee crisismigrantsMediterranean crossingMediterranean migrantssave the childrenDoctors Without BordersLibyaItalyMediterranean Sea


The XperiFIX update 3.1 has just been released. With the new version there were a few small improvements and changes to the previous version. In addition, for the first time, this update has received the prepared support for additional devices whose security features within the firmware deviate from previous devices….


After reading Remembering Everything, I'm finally getting around to reading Derek Zanetti's other book -- Existentialism: The Musical.
It's a quick read full of thought-provoking stories and memories. Between this and his music recorded as The Homeless Gospel Choir -- even though he and I have never met face-to-face -- Derek is easily one of my favorite people on this planet.
So this book isn't in the guise of "The Homeless Gospel Choir," instead it drops the facade of the clever name and lets the author just be Derek. In it there are stories that are poems and poems that are stories that cover the mundane every-day world, but Zanetti has a heart that makes the stories sing.
I've been watching the History Channel special on D.B. Cooper which claims to have finally solved the decades-old hijacking case. Count me among the population that hopes that Cooper's identity is never uncovered.
For ten months out of the year, I spend my days working in an office with no windows as I long for the days of summer when I can enjoy the fresh air and sunlight at any given moment.
Today I sat inside and spent five hours working on a puzzle.


text:
Hayden Saunier
Hayden Saunier is the author of the poetry collection Tips for Domestic Travel, published in 2009 by Black Lawrence Press. Her work has appeared widely and her most recent awards include the 2011 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry from Nimrod International Journal and the 2011 Rattle Poetry Prize. Her acting credits include The Sixth Sense, Philadelphia Diary, Hack, the voice of a broken-down stove for Ikea, and dozens of roles in the theatre. Raised in Charlottesville, Virginia, she now lives outside Philadelphia.
DAY PLAYERS IN THE MAKEUP TRAILER
I'm sitting in between a dead girl and a prostitute.
I play a nurse—no nonsense—powder, touch of lips,
"those test results you wanted just came in"
then they'll be done with me. I shake hands
with the prostitute. The dead girl pulls a curtain
back, says "what the hell, there's nudity, so what?"
She's eighteen, grey-blue, naked and they're gluing
latex lacerations on her neck and shoulders,
building up contusions, painting gorgeous bruises
down her arms. She's never done a film before.
She tells us that she's hoping for a line,
that maybe when they see her they'll decide
to let her speak, create a flashback or a dream scene,
shoot a memory of who she was, alive.
The prostitute and I say nothing.
We tilt our chins up for the final brush.
The dead girl's voice trails off, they blue her lips.
I look reliable, the prostitute looks hard-mouthed,
sad-eyed sexy and the dead girl's looking dead.
We're done now, all of us. We're going on.
The more I've thought about it, the more I realize this poem has a series of birthdays, even though it developed directly out of a day when I was playing a nurse in a film. A day player usually performs some necessary piece of plot business ("those test results you wanted just came in") but rarely sees the entire script or knows the story, so the makeup trailer is an illuminating place to find out what's going on. Next to me on this day was a beautiful eighteen-year-old girl being made up to look beaten and dead. She was so excited to be in a movie and as she chattered on and on that she began to look more and more dead and brutalized. It was weird and sad and hilarious--how her dream-come-true was to pretend to be everyone's worst nightmare. I jotted down a few notes about it later that evening. That event is one birthday.
I had been thinking about a poem about women in a dressing room since doing a play called Dimly Perceived Threats to the System with a great ensemble of performers and the women were spaced youngest to oldest in the dressing room like one of those charts about the aging of the human body. The physical relationships in shared dressing/makeup areas are fascinating. We are all seated side by side, dressed, undressed, running lines, getting into character, everyone looking intently at themselves through the process of hair and makeup. It's very intimate and yet most communication occurs through the mirror. I had been mentally working this ground, although unsuccessfully. My ideas were still ideas, very general and, to be frank, a bit grandiose. That's another birthday.
Then, I remember reading Kim Addonizio's poem "Dead Girls," and my mind clicking right back to the makeup trailer. "Dead Girls" is a devastatingly smart poem with a clear-eyed, matter of fact tone and journalistic images. Reading it freed me from the "big" ideas of the earlier dressing room poem and I went back to my journal and found the note: "sitting in between a dead girl and a prostitute." That's when I sat down to actually write. So, three birthdays over about four years and a beautiful example of how poems beget poems.
I found the main framework quickly, based on the tone of the first line and my sense of the poem as an inner monologue. I can be a terrible meddler and I muck things up sometimes if I go at a poem "hammer and tongs" too fast, too soon. I played with it on and off for a day or two and then, once settled, I tweaked and changed and rearranged and made adjustments over several months.
Events over a series of years eventually led to this particular poem. I believe connections get made inside the making of a poem that have no explanation. They feel received, but the poem works on itself when the writer is otherwise occupied--call that what you will--and sometimes problems get solved or discoveries are made in a way that seems given. I like the idea of inspiration for its meaning of "breathed in." Taking in what is around us. Being open to connections of thought and language. That's what I've come to understand about my own "meddling." When I go after the end of the poem too fast, I seem to cut off its air, or push it too far out of its time, and I have to put it away for months or years before I can look at it freshly.
Again, it grew from the first line--I always play with line breaks, lengths and language, and work to keep it concise.
Was there anything unusual about the way in which you wrote this poem?
About two years.
It definitely varies but I probably hold poems back too long. Again, I'm an awful tinkerer.
The poem has its own life. I can't remember now if there was actually an actress playing a prostitute on set, or if she had just been called to the set as I went to makeup—but she wasn't there as described in the poem. That was my fiction to highlight the roles that women are most often called upon to play: beautiful girls who get brutalized, prostitutes with or without hearts of gold, and asexual caregivers. I mean playing those roles literally, in film and television, although it's getting better. Most of my poems are triggered from an actual event but they are all fiction by the time I've finished them. They become something else.
Clearly, Addonizio's "Dead Girls," as mentioned above, but I wrote this when working on my M.F.A. so I was reading wildly and widely. Wislawa Szymborska. Basho. Gerald Stern. Your question about inspiration reminds me to revisit Eleanor Wilner's wonderful poem "The Muse."
Anyone who is willing to step briefly into another world and look around.
I always share work—I find it incredibly useful to have other, trusted eyes on it.
I don't know that it does.
The Hollywood lens through which women are viewed and money is made. Even todays CSIs and the SVUs often feature a beautiful, brutalized girl as the hook.
As close as I could reasonably get to "finished." (Please see numerous references to tinkering, tweaking and meddling.)
JLC August 11, 2012 at 1:40 PM
One of the things I most admire is a narrative that ends in a place very different from its beginning. In this poem every step from line one to the last is clear, decisive, pregnant. Love it.
Donald E. Allen August 28, 2012 at 3:34 PM
Thank you so much. I loved following your poems journey.
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Home Politics 2023: 'El-Rufai Stylishly Campaigning For PDP' – Kperogi
2023: 'El-Rufai Stylishly Campaigning For PDP' – Kperogi
A popular critic of President Muhammadu Buhari government, Farooq Kperogi, has mocked Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai over his comment on the past administration.
Newspot understands that Governor El-Rufai had earlier warned Nigerians against voting for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the forthcoming 2023 general elections.
According to the All Progressive Congress (APC) governor, things would likely go back to how they used to be far back 2015 if PDP is voted for.
Reacting to El-Rufai's comment, Kperogi said it appears to him that the Kaduna State governor is steadily campaigning for the nation's opposition party.
The United States associate professor of journalism said El-Rufai and APC government should know better that Nigerians are eager to see things return to how they were before the ruling party took over power in 2015.
"It looks to me like Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai is stealthily campaigning for the PDP, the party that brought him from obscurity to national limelight," Kperogi tweeted on Thursday, November 26.
He added: "He reportedly said on Nov. 24, 'Don't make the mistake of voting PDP back into office in 2023. If you do, things will go back to what they used to be.
"Most Nigerians, including those who were severely critical of the PDP in 2015, are now so disillusioned with the dreadful ineptitude of the APC that all they want at this point is for "things [to] go back to what they used to be."
In another news, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has warned the people of the state against casting their votes for some group of politicians in 2023.
This is as the Governor blamed the challenges facing the state on former Kaduna Central lawmaker, Senator Shehu Sani, and ex-Kaduna North counterpart, Suleiman Hunkuyi.
He said if not for these two people, Kaduna would have made more appreciable progress.
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text:
A resident took a video in 2018 of water leaking from a pipe in the garage of the Surfside condo that collapsed
Lauren Frias Jul. 1, 2021, 3:05 AM
The Champlain Towers South building in Surfside, Florida unexpectedly collapsed on Thursday morning. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue
A Champlain Towers South resident took a video of a leaking pipe in the building's garage in 2018.
Raysa Rodriguez, who recorded the video, sued the condo association following the collapse of the 12-story building last week.
Her attorney's spokesperson said the video was not part of the lawsuit but exemplified the building's issues before the collapse.
A resident of the Florida condo that collapsed last week recorded a leaking pipe in the garage of the building in 2018.
As of Wednesday, at least 18 people are confirmed dead after Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, partially collapsed last week, with 145 people still unaccounted for.
Raysa Rodriguez, a resident of the building for 17 years, filed a class-action lawsuit against the condominium association on Tuesday.
Her attorney Adam Moskowitz told CNN that Rodriguez sent a complaint to the condo association in August 2018 regarding water leaking in the parking garage.
"She's been complaining for months, for years, Raysa has been telling the building – in photographs and video – she's been saying the building is falling apart," Moskowitz told CNN. "She has video of the garage. There's dripping on her car."
-Manuel Bojorquez (@BojorquezCBS) June 30, 2021
A spokesperson for Moskowitz told CNN that the video was not part of Rodriguez's lawsuit against the condo association but rather exemplified the issues that residents complained about at the building.
"Every week her and her friends are complaining and nobody listened to her. Nobody," Moskowitz told CNN. "And they said 'Your building is fine, your building is safe, don't worry.' This is just ridiculous. That's why we filed a class-action lawsuit because it needs to start now."
"These people need to grieve, but we need to start preserving the evidence," Moskowitz continued. "We need to start getting a receiver involved if there's claims that the homeowners have. We need to make sure the insurance money is frozen and nobody take it, because this is just horrible. The conduct is so atrocious, I've never seen this."
A spokesperson for the condo association declined to comment to CNN due to pending litigation.
It's still not clear what caused the collapse, but experts say a structural failure at the bottom of the building could be to blame.
A pool contractor who visited the building just two days before the collapse took photos of damage in the garage, showing cracks in concrete and wet floors in the pool equipment room.
The deepest area of standing water in the building was said to be located near parking spot 78 in the garage, which was directly under the condominium's pool deck. The Herald reported Sunday that a 2018 inspection report flagged a flaw in the building's original design, with a lack of proper drainage on the pool deck causing "major structural damage."
Lauren Frias


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Q: What's technical difference between official virtualbox and VirtualBox-OSE? What's technical difference between official VirtualBox and VirtualBox-OSE?
My scenario: I'm using Debian sid, it uses a 3.2.0-4 kernel. When you want to download VirtualBox, you have 3 options:

*

*customized for distro: such as Debian, Fedora and so on,

*.bin, and

*source code.

When you install a customized on recommended distro, It means on its kernel, you don't have any problem. When you compile a kernel or install a kernel that virtualbox.org doesn't support you get kernel oops. I posted it on the VirtualBox forum, but I didn't get an answer. Maybe I will just install on a certified  kernel or install VirtualBox from repository.
Question: I don't have any idea on VirtualBox-OSE, such as speed, memory, and etc. Do have experience on it?What's technical difference between official VirtualBox and VirtualBox-OSE?

A: The difference (aside from any distribution-specific patches), and reason that you would get a kernel oops is because the VirtualBox host modules are only compiled for that specific kernel. The likelihood of breakage is high if using another kernel (different symbols, different metadata, etc).

A: Distribution-specifics aside there is no difference anymore. There were some closed-source drivers in the non-OSE package, but they have been moved to an extra package.

Before version 4.0, there were two editions of VirtualBox: a full binary containing all features and an "Open Source Edition" (OSE) with source code. With version 4.0, there is only one version any more, which is open source, and the closed-source components have been moved to a separate extension pack.
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Editions

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Five UK students rushed to hospital after taking 'legal high' Spice
Thursday, May 21, 2015 - 10:41 AM
Two students are still ill in hospital after a drug scare at a UK university.
Five students, reportedly first-year undergraduates at Lancaster University, were rushed to hospital after taking the cannabis-like drug Spice, a legal high sold in shops until it was outlawed in 2009 in the UK, and in June 2010 in Ireland.
The two people still in hospital have been reported as serious or critical, but police or the university have not given further details. The three others have been discharged.
Ambulances and police were called to the Grizedale College halls of residence at around 6.40pm last night, according to the university's online student paper, Scan.
Urgent message: Several students have been hospitalised today after taking legal high Spice – please check on friends and call 999 if needed
— Lancaster University (@LancasterUni) May 20, 2015
In a warning to students, the university tweeted: "Urgent message: Several students have been hospitalised today after taking legal high Spice – please check on friends and call 999 if needed."
Vicky Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for the university, told reporters that police called university authorities to tell them the students had been taken to the Royal Lancaster Hospital.
According to Scan the university also sent students an email, reading: "Five students are in hospital, 2 of them critically ill following a suspected overdose of a drug called Spice.
Update: Three of the five students are now out of hospital. Thank you to everybody for your support and kind messages.
"It is extremely important if you have taken the drug to call 999 immediately and call for an ambulance. Please also check on anyone you think may have taken it.
"Spice is a cannabis-based drug and can be bought over the internet. Packages may be labelled 'not for human consumption'."
Spice is a drug that mimics the effects of cannabis, but can also reportedly have stronger effects due to the chemicals used to make it.
It is classified as a synthetic cannabinoid which contains the same active chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which can lead to paranoia or a change in mood.
DrugScope, a charity and independent centre of expertise on drug use, said Spice is a collection of herbs or plant material which has been sprayed with synthetic cannabinoids, producing a cannabis-like effect when smoked, giving a feeling of relaxation or euphoria.
Side effects include a raised pulse rate, dry mouth, lowering of inhibitions, dizziness, agitation and paranoia.
Before its classification under the Misuse of Drugs Act, Spice was being sold in "head shops" where legal highs can be purchased.
Although now banned, Spice and similar drugs can still be bought on the internet, with China and the Far East the main areas for production.
DrugScope says there are no figures for the extent of the use of Spice but the number of sites selling the drug before the ban suggests a "substantial user base in the UK" and elsewhere.
Some drugs like Spice can be anything up to 10 times stronger than cannabis plants with users having "no idea" of the potency of the drug they are buying.