Today I am going to show you how I use Cricut Access images for stencils. When I have a theme in mind, like July 4th, I create a new project and enter lots of search terms. After I select several images for my theme, I insert them into one project as you see below.
I searched July, July 4th, USA, United States, Independence Day, Statue of Liberty, fireworks, freedom, Liberty Bell and flag. The more terms you search, the more images you will find. After I find several images, I save the file. I named this file "July Images". I could save and name each image file one at a time, but I like to look at them all at once and make a plan for my stencil sets. You can certainly search and create files one at a time.
**There were more images that I could have used, but if you save too many images in one file, Design Space may give you an error message. I usually save about 8-10 images in a file. If there are more than that, I create two files.
After I save the file, I duplicate each file to allow me to take them apart and still have an original for a reference. I look at the images and deconstruct them by detaching, ungrouping, and contouring. I will explain more about contouring in another post. It is a great tool! If they are a single layer image and cannot be deconstructed, like the eagle and star, I still duplicate it to have an extra.
Once I have chosen the images that I want to use, as you see above, I delete the ones I don't want(or the ones that won't make a good stencil). I click>Save As. DO NOT click> SAVE or you will overwrite your original file. Start saving new files by clicking "Save As" each time with a new name for each stencil. I have saved this file(with Save As) as you see it, quite a few times with different names for each stencil that I want to create. Look at the file names below to give you an idea of what I am trying to explain.
Here is the fireworks image. Using "Save As", I named this file "Fireworks with Stars". Then I deleted every other image in the workspace except for the duplicated image of the fireworks. Keep it for reference. I make sure that I take it completely apart so I can see every layer of the image and decide how I want to use it. I know I don't want the blue and black background on the left side, so I delete those.
Now the images can be resized for a cookie stencil. It is best to work on a stencil image when it is about the size you would want for your cookie. Make sure that you go to the Edit panel and look at your measurements. You can change the image size under the edit tab or you can click and drag the resize tool. It is the blue circle with the double arrows in the lower right corner of the images above.
**I always double check the size again just before I am ready to attach the image to the stencil frame before cutting the stencil.
Insert a square for your stencil frame. Duplicate the stencil frame a few times so you don't have to keep inserting squares and resizing them. This saves some time. You can always hide or delete want you don't use at the end before cutting the stencils. I did not put a tab on these stencils, but you know how to do that. If you don't check out the directions HERE.
The red firework needs to be changed for this stencil set to work. It has a small center and many thin pointed areas that may lift if you are airbrushing or you may catch your scraper on them if you are scraping royal icing over them. I'd like for it to be more sturdy in the center and I want it to look more like a firework. So lets change the red firework. After all, these are custom stencils!
Change the color of the circle so that you can see it clearly when you slice it from the firework. Click the lock to unlock the circle proportions.
Change the circle into an oval, then duplicate the oval several times.
I changed the firework to black, but I could have just left the ovals black and the firework red. Not sure why I did that! Drag the ovals over the center of the firework and line them up with the image.
Select the ovals that are on top of the firework. To make sure you have them all selected, hold down the shift key while clicking on them under the 'Layers" tab. They will be highlighted in light blue in the "Layers" panel.
With all of the ovals selected, click>Weld. Now you will see the image listed in the Layers as "Welded Image".
Select the welded ovals and the firework image then Click>Slice. Think of it as subtracting. You are subtracting the welded ovals from the firework. The welded ovals are one image and the firework is one image.
**Remember: You can only slice using 2 images. You can weld as many images as you choose. Slicing is subtracting or taking away one from another and welding is adding together or combining many images.
After slicing the ovals, there are still some black areas of the firework touching. I should have made the ovals a little bigger. I could have hit the undo button and made them bigger. Instead, I just used some of the extra ovals that I duplicated and sliced away the areas that are touching.
That is better. The center is wide open and the black areas are not touching. I like the rough inside edges where I sliced aways the ovals too. I could even use what I sliced for more fireworks.
I did the same thing to the blue firework by inserting circles, changing to ovals, and slicing. Then I changed the colors of the images and dragged them back together to see how they would look on a cookie. To keep this post as short as possible, I decided not to include the yellow firework image in the post, but you can use it as is in another stencil for this set. See the last pic at the end of this post.
**I forgot to take pics of some of the steps the first time around! I had to do it all over again and I took pics this time. That is why the fireworks may look different in some of the of the pics, but the steps are still the same. It was hard to make the images look exactly like the first few pics that I did rember to take, so you may notice that they don't look exactly the same.
Even though I already resized them in the beginning, I am going to put the images as they will look on the cookie and recheck the size when they are together. If needed, resize all of them at once by selecting them and dragging the resize tool or adjusting the numbers under the "Edit" tab. I sized it to fit in a 5.5 x 5.5 stencil and also thought about the size of my cookie, which will be 3.5 inches wide. For fireworks, it's ok if the image is a little taller and wider than the cookie.
Drag each of the images over a stencil frame. I didn't align and center these images. I just placed them where I wanted them in the frame. For this set of stencils, it's ok if the images in each stencil overlap after they are cut. That adds to the firework effect when they are airbrushed in different colors.
**Just a reminder that if your image goes behind another one, use the "Arrange" tool and move the one you don't want to the back.
Once images are attached they turn the color of the frame and everything is dark gray. You will still see the images outlined with black lines. Hide the original image by clicking the eye next to it in the "Layers" panel and you are ready to cut!
**I did add the extra yellow firework you see in the pic above, but I didn't include it in the directions for the post. It is the stencil on the far right. That is why you see 4 stencils in my set.
TIP: I like to attach images to the stencil frame instead of slicing them out of the frame. I do it this way because when you slice an image, save and close the file, it is permanent. If you want to open the file again and make changes, slicing cannot be undone. You will have to start all over. If you attach images and cut a stencil then realize it is the wrong size(or it didn't cut correctly), you can easily make changes to the images by detaching them.
Here are my set of stencils stacked on top of each other. You can turn them over or flip them to arrange them any way you like. They are all cut on clear .007, but they look white because they are stacked one on top of the other. Stencils do not photograph well if they are clear and I am not a professional photographer.
On my cookies, I will use white royal icing as the base and airbrush the fireworks in blue and lemon yellow. I think I will airbrush the stars with yellow sheen or white pearl sheen first. For dimension, I may scrape royal icing over the red fireworks last. There are so many options with this kind of stencil!
Click the Free Download above to cut a star background stencil. I left the original image and a stencil blank in the Layers panel so that you can see what I used to create the stencil. Save the file to your Cricut account. You must have Cricut Design Space on your computer to open the file. Click HERE for the Cricut Design Space link. It is a free download.
I'm glad you are here! Please ask questions, comment, and let me know how these tutorials work for you! I like the feedback. Feel free to email me HERE. Send pictures of your stencils and/or cookies that you stencil from your own custom designs. I would like to create a gallery on this website with photos sent in by all of you.
Check out the next post to create a "Happy 4th of July" word stencil using what you have learned about creating bridges in letters.
I'm getting a flash error, I'm using the new DS3 and I didn't think that used Flash. Do you know why the link isn't working?
I am not sure why that message pops up sometimes. I get it too if there are lots of images. They take longer to download and it slows down your computer. That's when I usually get that error message. I hit refresh and it fixes it most of the time. I did delete a few of the extra images. Try again and let me know if that does not work for you.
Is there a downloadable file for the fireworks?
Yes. There is a link at the bottom of the post.
Hmm only the stars stencil shows up not the fireworks. I get an cricut update plugin error every time! Followed the troubleshooting, which didn't help. I have to use the back arrow multiple times and finally the file will download into the design space.
I'm not sure why that is happening. It may be the version. I saved it with the newest version of Design Space.
I finally got that update plug in error to go away. I uninstalled my design space and then went on to the design space on the internet and logged in there and downloaded the updated plug in. It is now working!!!
I just noticed that you asked about the stars and the fireworks stencil. The stars stencil is a free download. The fireworks stencil is not a download. That is one for you to try and design yourself from the tutorial.
Found a great blog to share with almost a hundred Cricut images in svg download files to download that could used for stencils!!! burtonavenue.com!!!
Thanks Sherrie! I have been following her for awhile. Her files are great for personal use. If you plan to sell cookies with the images on them, there are commercial licenses to purchase in her shop.
Also another great blog for free svg cut files is https://lovesvg.com/. I don't sell cookies – it's only a hobby. I love using stencils!
That is a great site! Thank you for sharing! I started cookies as a hobby too. That is how I got into making stencils. I wanted specific stencils and thought that I would try and make them myself. I finally figured it out and now I have more stencils than I can count!


This article describes some common Azure deployment errors, and provides information to resolve the errors. If you can't find the error code for your deployment error, see Find error code.
AnotherOperationInProgress Wait for concurrent operation to complete.
AuthorizationFailed Your account or service principal doesn't have sufficient access to complete the deployment. Check the role your account belongs to, and its access for the deployment scope.
Conflict You're requesting an operation that isn't allowed in the resource's current state. For example, disk resizing is allowed only when creating a VM or when the VM is deallocated.
DeploymentActive Wait for concurrent deployment to this resource group to complete.
DeploymentQuotaExceeded If you reach the limit of 800 deployments per resource group, delete deployments from the history that are no longer needed. You can delete entries from the history with az group deployment delete for Azure CLI, or Remove-AzResourceGroupDeployment in PowerShell. Deleting an entry from the deployment history doesn't affect the deploy resources.
DnsRecordInUse The DNS record name must be unique. Either provide a different name, or modify the existing record.
ImageNotFound Check VM image settings.
InvalidAuthenticationTokenTenant Get access token for the appropriate tenant. You can only get the token from the tenant that your account belongs to.
InvalidParameter One of the values you provided for a resource doesn't match the expected value. This error can result from many different conditions. For example, a password may be insufficient, or a blob name may be incorrect. Check the error message to determine which value needs to be corrected.
LinkedAuthorizationFailed Check if your account belongs to the same tenant as the resource group you're deploying to.
LinkedInvalidPropertyId The resource ID for a resource isn't resolving correctly. Check that you provide all required values for the resource ID, including subscription ID, resource group name, resource type, parent resource name (if needed), and resource name.
PasswordTooLong You may have selected a password with too many characters, or may have converted your password value to a secure string before passing it as a parameter. If the template includes a secure string parameter, you don't need to convert the value to a secure string. Provide the password value as text.
ResourceGroupBeingDeleted Wait for deletion to complete.
StorageAccountNotFound Check the subscription, resource group, and name of the storage account you're trying to use.
Validation errors arise from scenarios that can be determined before deployment. They include syntax errors in your template, or trying to deploy resources that would exceed your subscription quotas. Deployment errors arise from conditions that occur during the deployment process. They include trying to access a resource that is being deployed in parallel.
Both types of errors return an error code that you use to troubleshoot the deployment. Both types of errors appear in the activity log. However, validation errors don't appear in your deployment history because the deployment never started.
When deploying through the portal, you see a validation error after submitting your values.
Select the message for more details. In the following image, you see an InvalidTemplateDeployment error and a message that indicates a policy blocked deployment.
When the operation passes validation, but fails during deployment, you get a deployment error.
az group deployment operation list --name exampledeployment -g examplegroup --query "[*].properties.statusMessage"
In the portal, select the notification.
You see more details about the deployment. Select the option to find more information about the error.
You see the error message and error codes. Notice there are two error codes. The first error code (DeploymentFailed) is a general error that doesn't provide the details you need to solve the error. The second error code (StorageAccountNotFound) provides the details you need.
Sometimes you need more information about the request and response to learn what went wrong. During deployment, you can request that additional information is logged during a deployment.
In PowerShell, set the DeploymentDebugLogLevel parameter to All, ResponseContent, or RequestContent.
This information can help you determine whether a value in the template is being incorrectly set.
Currently, Azure CLI doesn't support turning on debug logging, but you can retrieve debug logging.
To log debug information for a nested template, use the debugSetting element.
In some cases, the easiest way to troubleshoot your template is to test parts of it. You can create a simplified template that enables you to focus on the part that you believe is causing the error. For example, suppose you're receiving an error when referencing a resource. Rather than dealing with an entire template, create a template that returns the part that may be causing your problem. It can help you determine whether you're passing in the right parameters, using template functions correctly, and getting the resource you expect.
Or, suppose you are encountering deployment errors that you believe are related to incorrectly set dependencies. Test your template by breaking it into simplified templates. First, create a template that deploys only a single resource (like a SQL Server). When you are sure you have that resource correctly defined, add a resource that depends on it (like a SQL Database). When you have those two resources correctly defined, add other dependent resources (like auditing policies). In between each test deployment, delete the resource group to make sure you adequately testing the dependencies.
To learn about auditing actions, see Audit operations with Resource Manager.
To learn about actions to determine the errors during deployment, see View deployment operations.


text:
Inside Robert Bigelow's Decades-Long Obsession With UFOs
Author: Sarah ScolesSarah Scoles
In 1994, a Mormon family bought a 480-acre plot in in Utah's Uintah Basin, thinking they'd get back to the land. But this particular land was weird. It came with too-large-thrice-over wolves that refused to die by bullet, cattle with their reproductive organs sucked clean out, and a multitude of UFOs, as they told the Deseret News in 1996. It was driving them bonkers.
Robert Bigelow saw their story. Today, the Nevada businessman is known for founding Bigelow Aerospace, which spun off a business to sell its expandable space habitats just last Tuesday. But in 1995, he had also founded something called the National Institute for Discovery Science, an organization built to research paranormal phenomena. Soon after reading the newspaper story, he took Skinwalker off the family's hands, and his institute set up shop.
That, at least, is the story told in Hunt for the Skinwalker, a book that I downloaded in audio form one Friday night in January. Bigelow deactivated the National Institute for Discovery Science in 2004, after years of failing to capture the supposedly supernatural. But as the world recently discovered, he didn't give up the cause. In December, a New York Times story revealed that Bigelow Aerospace had conducted a study on UFOs—for the Pentagon. I'd been interested in Bigelow's anomalistic dealings since that article came out; thus, the audio book.
The Pentagon's Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program officially ended in 2012. But similar work continues today—involving people from both the defunct Defense Department program and Bigelow's dismantled paranormal enterprise. They have become part of a for-profit company: To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science, which launched in October 2017 to research and reverse-engineer UFOs, among other goals.
Bigelow has gotten his fingers into lots of private UFO pies. Even before Skinwalker, he helped initiate the UFO Research Coalition, which puts his UFO-hunting career at about 24 years old. Bigelow is not officially involved with To The Stars. But its aims, and its team, seem to line up with his past and his people. So I set off to try to understand that past.
All eight hours and 42 minutes of audiobook downloaded, I got in my car at 5 a.m. the next day with my sister. Pointed toward Skinwalker Ranch, hoping for context and maybe something strange, we sped through the Rockies, trying to beat the ski traffic and a snowstorm. All the while, the staid voice of the book's narrator described the alleged happenings at Skinwalker.
As my sister and I journeyed down I-70, the book's authors—George Knapp, a journalist, and Colm Kelleher, former deputy administrator of Bigelow's institute—presented the paranormal tales almost as matters of fact. Kelleher has a PhD in biochemistry, but his mindset was often anti-scientific. He took coincidences as meaningful; he aw-shucksed every time an "anomalous phenomenon" mysteriously evaded the cameras. The supposed point of Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science was to get away from that kind of softness.
About four and a half hours and several hundred milligrams of caffeine in, I listened to a description of how instrument-bearing institute investigators witnessed a growing yellow light—or maybe a tunnel—from which a faceless black creature maybe emerged. I needed a break. Pausing the book, I pulled over at Rio Blanco Lake, a rare bit of water with an assemblage of red picnic tables. The lake, frozen, stretched to the scrub-covered buttes on the far shore. It was peaceful.
Then came the noises. Great metallic twangs, or thwangs, or something, that seemed to start here, no there, and rush across the landscape as if carried on an invisible wire.
They sounded like trebly light sabers. They sounded like alien spaceship chatter. Like maybe someone had pulled the power lines taut for miles and then plucked them with a giant finger.
"What is it?" I kept saying, deeply unnerved—not because I thought it was inexplicable but because I couldn't explain it.
And then the lake's ice cracked, the break spreading fast like a faultline in an action movie. The frozen water heaved itself into a new position.
With that, the noises explained themselves and stopped. We stood in the silence for a few seconds.
"That's probably the weirdest thing that will happen all day," my sister eventually said.
We continued on our way toward Skinwalker Ranch, where Bigelow's people had, for years, tried to find that weirdest thing, every day. Researching UFOs seems a bit like gambling: You mostly lose, or break even, but the promise that you might hit jackpot is powerful. "The thing about UFOs that makes them so mysterious is that they disappear," says historian Greg Eghigian, who is researching the global history of UFO sightings and alleged alien contact. "Not that they appear." You just have to keep looking and hope they come back.
Toward the end of the book, the authors let us know that Bigelow abandoned studies at Skinwalker in the early 2000s. But he didn't stop looking: In 2007, he got that Pentagon contract—some $22 million to study advanced aerial threats, including some that remain allegedly unidentified.
Around the same time, in 2008, Bigelow created a new company: Bigelow Advanced Aerospace Space Studies, a subsidiary of Bigelow Aerospace.
Archived versions of the Bigelow Aerospace Careers webpage say it "focuses on the identification, evaluation, and acquisition of novel and emerging future technologies worldwide as they specifically relate to spacecraft." (Blair Bigelow, vice president of corporate strategy at Bigelow Aerospace, declined to comment.) Colm Kelleher—co-author of the Skinwalker book—was the company's deputy administrator, according to his LinkedIn page.
Around the same time Bigelow created the new company, he also hitched a star to the Mutual UFO Network, a nonprofit that collects and investigates user-submitted reports of UFOs, according to MUFON's executive director Jan Harzan. "If we were able to fund you so you could put investigators on the ground faster," Harzan recalls Bigelow offering, "could you get better data on some of these reports?" Together, MUFON and Bigelow supported investigators' fact-finding expeditions, and shared data—though for less than a year.
But that didn't stop Bigelow from collecting UFO reports outside of the MUFON collaboration. The FAA, for instance, used to suggest pilots report UFO sightings directly to Bigelow Advanced Aerospace Space Studies. Christopher Rutkowski, who coordinates the Canadian UFO Survey, says Bigelow approached him at a MUFON conference in 2009. "He asked me to help him in his UFO-related efforts by alerting him and his team to any 'good' Canadian cases that needed onsite investigations," he says. One of Bigelow's people checked in with Rutkowski every few months following, for a year or two.
That person doesn't call now. The FAA doesn't instruct pilots to report to Bigelow. The Pentagon program is over. There's no more MUFON collaboration. The National Institute for Discovery Science is kaput. So where's a guy to get a bunch of UFO reports?
The newest answer might be To The Stars Academy—and its newly-launched "Community of Interest." On this site, you can currently view two videos of alleged UFOs—the same footage embedded in the Times story about the Pentagon program—as well as a video interview with a Navy pilot who says he witnessed one of those events and a written report of the same encounter. In the future, the site aims to amass and analyze many more reports of anomalies.
Although a representative from To the Stars claims no affiliation with Bigelow, the overlap between its team and Bigelow's is inarguable: Hal Puthoff, who was on the board of the National Institute for Discovery Science, is now the vice president of science and technology at To The Stars. Kelleher is now To The Stars' biotech consultant. And Elizondo, who was reportedly in charge of the Pentagon program that contracted Bigelow's company, is now To The Stars' director of global security and special programs.
And if the gathered reports are public, Bigelow could check them out, same as anyone else. If Bigelow is as committed to ufology as his last two decades of work have suggested, he could do worse than striking a deal with this group.
When my sister and I arrived at Skinwalker Ranch (now owned not by the institute or Bigelow but by the mysterious Adamantium Real Estate (whoever that nerd is), we were numb to the claims of its strange happenings. To be clear, I don't really believe in much. Not God, or miracles, or magical beasts. I don't believe that anything "defies" the "laws of physics."
I do believe that we probably misunderstand some laws of physics, that our knowledge is, in some cases, incomplete, or even drop-dead wrong. I believe there are things in the universe we don't get yet, that our scientific explanations haven't caught up to. But I also believe that they can. Anyway, I'd driven all the way to the Uintah Valley, and I was sure going to try to look for something strange in the sky. We found a legal gravel pull-off that looked down on the semi-martian land of Skinwalker, and stared at the sky, waiting.
I added an extra layer to my clothes, blew hot air into my gloves, and found a nearby rock suitable for sitting, surrounded by broken glass and scattering of half-smoked cigarettes. And so my sister and I sat, mock-gasping at the lights from low-flying planes.
And then the clouds, which had hung low all day, began to clear. The stars—some of them perhaps supporting life that almost certainly has not come here, but, you know, maybe—were crisp and clear. I turned Hunt for the Skinwalker back on, my phone's speaker pulsing from my pocket.
We scanned the skies; we listened to the tall tales.
"It's good out here," I said to my sister. "But you were right about that ice."
"What?" she said.
"That it was the weirdest thing that would happen all day."
SETI Scientist Explains Mysterious Alien Signal
A mysterious signal coming from the star system HD 164595 was discovered by a Russian antenna this week. SETI astronomer Seth Shostak spoke to WIRED about the possible explanations for the phenomenon.
#UFOs
#aliens
#department of defense

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Discussing about the usage of the disavow tool is on the roof, after the new video released by the Head of Google Webspam Team Matt Cutts. The rules are already the same but still there are so many mistakes people commit while requesting and uploading the file for disavowing links. On the recent video, Matt Cutts clearly explains about the Do's and Don'ts on the usage of the tool. Let's have a brief look on it.
If you find backlink which is irrelevant or from a spammy site and if you are sure to remove it from your site, always send a request to the webmaster of that corresponding site as your initial step. Delaying or on no response, you can rend the help of Google Disavow. Disavow requests are not guaranteed to remove the requested link the very next second but it is openly said by Google that it will take a time span of 45 days. Below are some tips on the usage of Disavow tools for your convenience.
Matt Cutts recommends to use the Machete approach instead of scalpel. Machete disavows all bad backlinks from an entire domain whereas Scalpel picks up only the individual backlink. Incase if your competitors posts something bad about your site with a backlink on another site where you are already getting quality links, then use disavow tool to remove only that Specific URL. Before simply disavowing, always analyze the link and only if you feel it to be irrelevant then send requests for removing.
Frequency of checking the disavow links can be in the span of 2 months (60 days in other words).
After downloading the links and appending, sending request once to Google is enough.


One of the most complex parts of managing a service operation is around the subject of contract management. MindYourService.com simplifies this process by allowing you to create contracts that link to customers, sites, and assets. These contracts can be broken into multiple levels and allow for different labour charge hour rates, discounts, and free parts and labour. In addition to this, you also have the ability to link a contract with a particular service schedule and equipment hire rates.


"Do you remember when, after a long night's drinking, you suddenly realised that the person you were talking to was the most interesting in the world? That you had solved truth and justice, and if you just chatted a bit longer you would get onto beauty before the sun rose?
Well, when Melvyn Bragg interviewed Francis Bacon, and decided to hold the interview over a few glasses of wine, this moment was captured on television forever. Go and watch it now, if you're not familiar. All human life is there. But, why should you watch it in opera form? By expanding it into music, onto stage, Stephen Crowe adds an extra dimension to what might otherwise be pure comedy, making something clever, thought-provoking and still really funny.
This staging is particularly good, showing us paintings in addition to the music and text in ways where all three complement each other while remaining balanced. The direction from Gareth Mattey tends towards poking easy fun at Bacon, but by the end Melvyn and Francis unite in absurdity, laughing at themselves and each other.
One small flaw is the over-physical acting from Gary Rushton as Francis Bacon. The transcript of the interview from which he is singing speaks for itself, and some of the additional clowning does not quite work. When Daniel Lewis' Melvyn wrote a note to the audience it was unreadable from even halfway back. But the slight roughness around the edges only helps to evoke the 'ordered chaos' to which Francis Bacon says all his paintings aspire.
As I filed out of the capacious ADC theatre with only ten-odd other audience members, I heard someone say 'Why is no-one seeing it? We need to tell people to see it!' Precisely. The Francis Bacon Opera is an unmissable experience. It'll make you laugh, educate you in painting and make you think as well, so long as you don't take it too seriously. And at only 45 minutes, it's the perfect introduction to experimental opera.
See original TCS article here. Read Tab review here, and Percussionista review here.


How do you create a blog business plan?
What's the best way to start a money making blog?
One of the most overwhelming parts of blogging is…well, actually starting a blog.
There's so much info out there. There are so many blogging resources, right?
Sometimes you don't know who to turn to or listen to. You're worried you'll make mistakes. You're wondering how to turn all that info into actionable steps.
But after poring through tons of info online, you end up back where you started: Lost and confused.
I realized most newbie bloggers feel this way because they're not approaching blogging from a business mindset.
When you treat your blog like a business from the get-go, your vision for your blog becomes clear.
And the way you do that is by creating a superstar blog business plan you can refer back to whenever you're feeling even a tad confused. Business plans exist to keep business owners on track.
Below, I've outlined the *most* important steps to create a stellar blog business plan that'll give you clarity, vision, and direction.
Ready for a fresh look at your blogging dreams?
Then let's begin with Step 1 below.
Branding isn't just your visuals and how your blog looks. It's how your blog makes your audience feel.
So, how does good branding relate to your blog business plan? Believe it or not, a successful brand boosts customer loyalty and improves your blog's relatability.
Think of good branding as the way your audience connects to your brand. The stronger the connection, the better the brand loyalty your audience has.
Every successful blog has a defined brand identity. You can get a glimpse of a blog's brand identity based on personality traits that come to mind when you interact with a brand.
What are some brand personality traits that come to mind when you read this snippet from Nadalie's homepage?
Notice how these personality traits make Nadalie, and her blog feel soo approachable. You relate to Nadalie almost immediately just based on her warm introduction on her homepage, making you want to stick around her blog for more.
Define the top 5 personality traits you want people to associate with your blog. Make sure these are traits you value, too, since you're going to be the face of your blogging brand. Down the line, make sure each interaction you have with your readers allows those personality traits to shine through.
If you're just starting out blogging, how do you know what's the "standard" for your niche?
How do you know the kinds of services bloggers in your niche provide? Or the way these bloggers monetize their blogs?
An essential step of creating a blog business plan is knowing your niche inside-out.
Getting to know your blogging niche is easier than you think. Why? Because you have a world of successful bloggers in your niche already!
Great business owners understand the standard for their market and niche so that they know exactly how to stand out. This step is crucial in your blog business plan.
Your opportunities: hard to say; Pinch of Yum has great photography, recipes, and resources. However, they offer one main lead magnet — a collection of recipes — maybe there's a better lead magnet I can offer here? Maybe a grocery list plus a collection of recipes?
See how much information you can gain just by doing a bit of research from one blog?
The lesson? Get to know your niche!
You'll be happy you did, and you'll be prepared to take on the gaps in value for your audience.
Research 5 top blogs in your niche. Get to understand their target audience, their opt-in offers, monetization methods, product and services they offer, and opportunities where you can do better.
Ah, the USP. So misunderstood.
And so often neglected by new bloggers as part of their new blog business plan.
What's a USP, you ask?
The USP is what sets you apart. It's the thing you want to be known for.
It's the thing you will be known for as your blogging biz grows. If you define your USP early on, you'll be clear on the value you provide in your blog.
If you don't define your blog's USP, then you're in big danger of confusing not only your audience but also yourself!
So, think about what it is you want to be known for.
Do you want to have the most comprehensive collection of blog content for your niche?
Do you get your audience fitness results in 30 minutes or less a day?
Do you have the first-ever (proven) system for beating procrastination?
Do you have lead magnets that are as good as paid products?
Can you figure out what Natalie Bacon's USP is based on her homepage?
Natalie offers blogging and marketing advice on her blog. But a lot of other bloggers do, too! How is she differentiating herself from the competition?
Natalie approaches teaching blogging from a lifestyle design aspect. This is what sets her apart and makes her stand out in her niche.
There are limitless ways you can frame your USP for your blogging biz. Follow the exercise below to get ideas for yours.
Define your USP! Jot down 10 different ways you can differentiate your blog from the competition. Just keep writing, even if the ideas sound crazy. Glance over your brainstorm when you're done and ask yourself: What do I want my blog to be known for?
Your audience is what keeps your business moving. Treat them right, and you'll treat your business.
The same goes for the converse: Neglect your audience, and you'll neglect your business.
That's why it's key to get to know your audience like the back of your hand.
After all, if you don't "get" your audiences biggest wishes, desires, pain points, dreams, hopes, fears, and pet peeves, how will you possibly provide services and products they'll need?
Doing a bit of research on your target audience goes a long way in your blog business plan.
Don't have an audience yet because you just started blogging? That's totally ok.
You can get to know your would-be audience by checking out the comments in popular blog posts in your niche.
Chances are, you're solving similar problems as your competitors (but differently, of course). You can infer what your audience's biggest problems will be based on what they talk about on fellow blogs in your niche.
Go back to the blogs you researched in Step 2 and find their most popular blog posts. Check out the comments section and start to get a feel for how your audience talks and the issues they struggle with the most.
Let's say I was starting a blog that teaches how to be a successful blogger. Here's one comment I found from a blog post titled, How to Write A Blog Business Plan.
Notice the wealth of info you get just from one blog comment.
From this one comment, we've learned that people who have already started their blog procrastinate writing a blog business plan. It seems overwhelming and scary to start, feelings echoed in multiple comments.
You now have inspiration for a series of blog posts, lead magnets, and even a paid product just by paying attention to what people are struggling with in blog comments.
Read through the comments from a popular blog post in your niche. Write down 10-15 things (big or small) readers in your niche seem to be struggling with. You can quote them directly, too.
You wouldn't have a blog business plan if you didn't know how you'd make money, right?
Thankfully, there are tons of way to monetize a new blog.
And no: You don't need thousands of page views to make money on your blog.
You don't need to sell a high-priced course.
You don't need to become an affiliate for every affiliate program out there.
You just need to see what works best in your niche (based on research you did in Step 2) and go from there.
I've found that most niches do well to start with a small introductory product, like a mini-course or an ebook, in the price range of $7 to $37.
How do you come up with an idea for a product?
Go back to the blog comments you found in Step 4! There's plenty of inspiration in them for a paid product.
And the best part is that you know your audience is genuinely struggling with this problem because they've voiced it in the comments.
Go back to the comments you found in Step 4. See if you can group several of those comments together based on a central problem readers are trying to solve. See how you can package the solutions to these problems as a small information product (<$37).
You need to know how you're going to get traffic to your blog. That's why every blog business plan needs a doable marketing strategy.
Many newbie bloggers make the mistake of trying to be everywhere on social media.
They'll start a Pinterest account and start pinning.
They'll post to their Facebook page 2x a day.
Or they'll tweet 17 random quotes and generic links back to their blog.
Here's the problem with this approach: You'll burn yourself out just as quickly as you started your blog!
Here's the reality: You do not need to be *everywhere* on social media.
You just need to master one social media platform from the start. Why is that?
Because every social media platform requires a certain skill-set for you to learn to grab that social traffic and redirect it back to your blog.
1.7 million monthly viewers on her Pinterest profile, with 27,000 followers.
And her Facebook profile? 363 'Likes' from the date I wrote this post.
Now, this doesn't mean the monthly viewers on your Pinterest profile or your follower numbers are a sign of blogging success (most of these numbers are vanity metrics).
I'm showing you these numbers to prove that smart bloggers choose where they spend their time the most on social media. Pinterest clearly gives Adrian good results, which is why she spends most of her time there.
I suggest beginner bloggers start off with Pinterest because it's relatively easy to grow your organic traffic on Pinterest compared to other platforms.
Start your Pinterest business account or current your current profile to a business one (it's free). Add searchable keywords to your name and Pinterest page description. Next, create boards related to your blogging niche with searchable keywords, too. Start to pin relevant content (starting at 15 pins/day) to these boards, including your own. Do this consistently, and you'll build your Pinterest traffic over time.
If you want to have a clear vision on your blog, then a solid blog business plan is a must.
Have any questions about your blog business plan? Having trouble finding a profitable blogging niche? Maybe you need some clarification on your blog strategy? Then ask away in the comments below!
Ready to create your blog business plan?
Alex runs the marketing blog, Unicorn Copy. Want to work out your blog's business plan even more? Then download the One-Hour Blog Business Plan here.
Very useful information and quite timely for me as I am redefining my niche, audience and steps to attract readers. Thanks for sharing and I am sure I will read your post again!
I'm glad you found this useful! Creating a blog business plan is super helpful — I think most people forget we're actually starting a business when we start a blog! When we approach blogging with a business mindset, we're clear on our vision and goals from the start.
All super great information. I especially appreciated the Pinterest tips. Thanks so much.
I'm glad you found this useful! Yes, people tend to take the "firehouse" approach when it comes to social media, but it's always best to start with one social channel and get really good at it. Pinterest is always a good start for (most) types of bloggers.
1) Pick a general category, like beauty, for example.
2) Keep posting and trying out different topics to see what YOU like to write about PLUS (and most importantly) what your readers love to hear about and what they find useful.
But I don't recommend your interests are as broad as gardening + beauty at once, for example (unless you're spinning those two somehow!).
And you don't have to wait to grow your followers until you monetize. The beauty of planning out your blog from a business mindset is that you can create the foundation for monetization right away. Believe it or not, a lot of what makes monetization successful is understanding your target audience, growing your subscriber list and following, etc. The rest to monetization is simply tactics (which you can always learn).
Hope this helps, and let me know if I can clarify anything else for you.
Yes — people sometimes forget that blogging strategically is actually a business. The difference is that your services, products, audience, and "storefront" is all online. I'm glad this post has reshaped your approach to your own blog.
Very useful resource, thanks for sharing.
Wow this is an incredibly extensive guide on how to start a blogging business – you've thought of everything! I can't imagine the pressure of trying to make money though your blog – it can't be easy! I've had my blog for two years and I haven't monetised it, I can imagine I'd be so stressed if I did!
I'm happy you found this guide useful!
Growing a business (online or otherwise) traditionally isn't known to be a cakewalk… 😅 but that's ok. You learn so much and I highly recommend taking a stab at monetizing your own blog, especially if it's in a subject you and your readers are into.
This is very thorough! Thank you!
Glad you found it so! I tried to make it thorough without overwhelming, especially to any beginner bloggers wondering about monetizing a blog.
These are all valid and helpful tips. I have been blogging for a long time and have been in-need of some refreshing. Nothing picks me up more than listening to other bloggers share what works for them. It really helps motivate me. I'm bookmarking this post so I can refer back to it when I have more time.
Sometimes when we do something for a long time we get tunnel vision.
That's why I always read up on other blogs / industries / businesses entirely different than my own so I can keep "fresh" ideas and perspectives coming (something recommended in the book, Blue Ocean Strategy, which teaches you to tap into markets using unique ways, some even uncommon to your current niche).
Excellent tips and strategies. This sounds like a plan for success. I can definitely use this. Thank you!
Glad you found the advice useful!
Thank you for these tips! I totally agree with the social media thing. You don't have to be everywhere. Right now, I'm focusing on building my brand on Instagram so I spend a lot of time there than on Facebook.
I agree with you 100%! Each social media platform is so unique and attracts its own unique set of users. Trying to be everywhere at the same time is just spreading yourself thin, right?!
Glad you intuitively knew to focus on one and really nail it!
Understanding your niche and your audience is indeed very important. And defining your brand of course. See what your goals are and where you want to take your blog.
Niching down and speaking to your audience — these are so, so important! People can tell when you're not speaking to them (what copywriters call, writing with "empathy"), and it turns people off.
That's why it's good to know (even generally) who you want your target audience to be (a lot of this is also determined by your niche or blog topic!).
You always give such a great advice! Thanks! It is good to have a plan!
Yes, I agree — plans are good because they prove you gave it some thought. Especially if you're starting a blog you want to monetize, a business plan puts the "big picture" into perspective.
I think the ONLY downside to plans is sometimes people try to follow them to a "T" without giving themselves some wiggle room (because life happens, right?).
Thanks — I tried my best to make this beginner-friendly!
I agree! A unified brand reminds you you're working towards some greater vision, right?
I think there's something powerful in deciding, "This is what I want this to be," when it comes to your brand choices.
It's also important for consumers. Creative directors at large-scale companies spend millions each year just on branding and brand awareness campaigns. They understand how important a brand is to a consumer — branding is what lives in people's perception, and good branding boosts memorability, positive impressions, etc.
As an example: think of the "Amazon Prime" tape that comes wrapped around your Amazon shipment. Why would Amazon spend the extra money to print this on packing tape? It's brand awareness, and you seeing their logo reaffirms how happy you are with their speedy, 2-day shipment.
So, to wrap up my point, I'm glad you took the time to focus on solidifying your brand — I'm sure it was worth it!
This was super informative. I've never given too much thought to my brand's personality. Hmm…I'm sure I have one though. Thanks also for the examples. One the best posts I've read on this subject. Well done. Very well done.
Check my response to the comment above for a bit of what I had to say about branding and brand awareness and how they impact readers, consumers, etc.
I've worked with some clients who didn't narrow down their brand and this reflected in their other areas of business — their product was often all over the place, the content wasn't consistent, etc.
Not that a lack of a brand directly means your product or content will be bad. But a unified brand DOES mean you gave all these elements a lot of thought.
Usually, When someone has thought deeply a bit about their 1) niche, 2) own personality, 3) audience, and 4) what they want to sell, the brand starts to form itself and they just need to solidify certain elements (visual, "messaging," or otherwise).
Thank you for writing such an informative post! Now I am focusing on Pinterest as well as I can see most my page views from there!
YES! That's the best thing you can do!
It basically says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.
This has been observed in MANY areas, especially business (where we seem to chase every "shiny object," thinking each shiny object is our one-and-done solution).
That means *most* of what we do to achieve a certain goal doesn't push the needle much.
I like to think in terms of efficiency and when I'm working with clients and bloggers; I always try to find that "golden egg" of an opportunity they have — the thing that's working FAR better than anything else — and scale, scale, scale it!
So, if you find that Pinterest works for you, then by all means, use it to skyrocket your blog's growth. And don't focus on anyone suggesting you try anything else until you feel like you've mastered Pinterest and everything you can get out of it in terms of traffic (test different strategies, different images, on-image text, call-to-actions, etc).
It's important to develop a relationship with your audience. You just never know when a reader might turn into a customer for a brand you're working with. It's happened several times throughout my blogging journey.
What a wonderful informative post about a blogging business plan! I've bookmarked this for reading a second time to completely absorb all of the advice and suggestions. I enjoy learning new things every single day!
Thanks for bookmarking and feel free to reach out to me or Nadalie if you have any questions.
Yes, I agree, a lot DOES go into creating a successful blog.
That's why I'm ok with people frontloading some old-fashioned planning in the beginning so they know what they really want out of their blogs and the overview of how to get there.
This is very informative! This is one of those things where I wished I have done/known before I started blogging. 1.7m monthly viewers??? That's one of my #goals!!! I have bookmarked this for future reference!
Ah, yes — but we all have to learn by trial and error at some point, right?!
1.7m monthly viewers is a bit, isn't it? Adrian now helps people grow their blogs using Pinterest (she got really good at it herself, after all).
Great tips here. Good to have your blog strategy and plans written out for clarity.
Yes, I agree — As I mentioned in the comments of this post, the clarity you get by mapping all of this out in the beginning is invaluable.
Wow, such a thorough advice. Really great tips for newbie bloggers.
It's been 11 months since I have been blogging for fun. Your post will help me take my blog to the next level.
Thank you! Always, I get reminded when I visit your blog that being organized is the way to go…I hope I get to apply these. Bookmarked!
I'm glad you found this post useful, and I'm excited for you to apply them to your goals.
Nadalie has tons of great posts on planning and organization on her blog, so I suggest checking those out, too!
THIS is actionable and helpful. When I started out I pinned ALL of the blog tip pieces yet I didn't ever find a good step-by-step, until yours! THANK YOU and I hope all new bloggers find and can execute their best blog with your tips.
Years ago when I got into marketing and consulting, I also found a lot of lame-o "fluff" posts that didn't help.
Fortunately, for people like you and me, we can learn from others' mistakes and avoid creating content that doesn't help (or worse, frustrates) our target readers.
No one likes "fluff" posts and these kinds of posts actually build a poor brand identity — people will start associating a name with bad content. Chances of a reader coming back to visit those sites again? Close to zero, you bet.
That's why I love blog's like Nadalie's — you can tell the author cares about her readers and what's in it for them.
Happy this helped you, and hope you can apply these tips to your own growth strategy!
As a marketing professional, i must say your blogging business plan is comprehensive and covers all that one needs to think about when starting a new venture!
I felt a little sheepish throwing around words like "USP," thinking it would be irrelevant. But I see blogging as a way to grow a business and I'd love for those who are in the business of blogging to start using terms like these more.
I think applying business-sense to blogging will remove some of the "mystery" blogging tends to have around subscriber growth, making money, etc!
Very informative and insightful. Thank you for the advice…Now I am still struggling how to make money..Adsense or Amazon affiliate?
Typically, Adsense doesn't offer high payouts, so people avoid it for that reason. However, since you're just starting out monetizing, I actually recommend you try both Adsense and Amazon affiliate.
Adsense requires pure traffic to make money. Amazon affiliate requires traffic AND strategic content + affiliate marketing to make money (like where you would place affiliate links, how to get people to click through, how to get people to engage with your content in the first place).
It doesn't take much to set up Adsense — it's mostly a "set it and forget it" thing. And making money off Amazon will require some more strategy in content and affiliate marketing, as I said.
When you're starting out, focus on nailing down your strategy — see, for example, what can drive the most traffic to your blog, and what blog posts resonate with your readers the most, which posts they tend to click on, which affiliate products they like, etc.
Once your narrow this part down, then you can focus on scaling and making more money.
P.S. And of course, my best recommendation will always be to create your own mini-product first as your main monetization strategy!


Various mods might be in the works as well.
A fantastic co-op shooter known as Payday 2 is now out in stores and we're absolutely love playing it here at Co-Optimus. Still, we can't help but wonder what other sorts of additional content might come to the game in the future. Luckily, developer Overkill filled us in on some of their plans currently in the works.
The Safe House is pretty barren at first, but more customization will be coming.
"The safe house is what we intended it to be at release. Just like Bain says when you enter the safe house for the first time, it's not much at the moment, but give it some time. He's working on it and he'll let us do some decorating soon."
"We can't discuss if we have any crossovers planned right now, but we will let you know when/if that should change."
We highly recommend Payday 2 here at Co-Optimus, naming it our E3 2013 "Game of Show" and giving it a great co-op score in our review. The game is currently out for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC and houses a sick 4-player online co-op mode.


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Quarterback of the Future of the Past
Robert Wilonsky August 14, 2006 9:11AM
Yeah, I really miss Chad Hutchinson--especially that winning grin that asked, "Exactly how do you a throw a football?"
Tony Romo threw the crap outta the football on Saturday night. Quarterback of the future; you read it here first or thereabouts. Course, I think I said the same thing about Chad Hutchinson once upon a time, and if I didn't, Jerry Jones sure as hell did; Jerry was all over The Man The Ticket Called "Chuch" like a teenager on a prom date after six shots of J�ger. Didn't give him $3.1 million to quit the St. Louis Cardinals just because he thought Hutchinson was pretty, though his odd resemblance to a dorkier version of Troy Aikman probably didn't hurt a danged bit. But whatever became of Chuch? Did he suffer the same fate as Quincy Carter and wind up getting cut from the Canadian Football League? Or did he and former roomate Richmond Flowers take their show on the road after torturing HBO audiences with what sounded like a strangulated version of Pearl Jam's "Black" on Hard Knocks?
Actually, it says here this morning that the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback has gone back to college--to Stanford. Again. Ya know, the school for which he played football (led Stanford to a 38-0 win over Michigan State in the Sun Bowl) and baseball (pitched in the College World Series that same year) a decade ago. He's 29 now. Not playing football anymore. Never will. Says The San Francisco Chronicle this morning:
"Hutchinson will admit there were a lot of low points along the way. His natural cheerfulness and intense competitiveness helped ease the pain -- as did the $3.5 million bonus he got from the St. Louis Cardinals to leave Stanford and the $3.1 million bonus he later got from the Dallas Cowboys to leave baseball.
Now he's in an international-relations class made up mainly of brainy kids getting a head start on college. His other courses include U.S. Foreign Policy and Chinese/American Relations. He'll have his degree in political science in a couple of weeks, and he already has a job with a Dallas-based commercial real-estate firm that will let him work in the Bay Area.
It's possible that Hutchinson's two-sport versatility doomed him in both sports. He might have returned to the big leagues for keeps if he hadn't heeded football's siren song. If he hadn't played baseball, maybe he wouldn't have developed a slight windup before he threw a football, a habit he had to break in the NFL.
Hutchinson looks at it another way: He thinks he was rushed, to some degree, in both sports before he was ready, mainly because teams felt the need to justify the money they had invested in him."
So he was the David Clyde of the Dallas Cowboys; I buy that. No, wait, he's the Drew Henson of the Dallas Cowboys. I mean...uh...well...did I mention Tony Romo's gonna be awesome? --Robert Wilonsky


The results of this study offer a proof of concept for a strategy to reduce CLABSI rates in pediatric patients who reside in remote and low-resource environments and are undergoing HPN" Fuchs et al 92019).
BACKGROUND: Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) are major sources of morbidity, death, and healthcare costs in patients who receive home parenteral nutrition (HPN). The majority of HPN-dependent children in southern Israel reside in poor communities with substandard living conditions, which creates significant challenges for the safe provision of HPN. We developed a pilot intervention that aimed to reduce the rates of CLABSI and central venous catheter (CVC) replacements in this vulnerable population in our region.
METHODS: Between 2012 and 2014, all HPN-dependent children with intestinal failure who were treated in our center, received HPN through a Hickman catheter, and experienced at least 1 previous CLABSI episode participated in the intervention. The intervention included home visits to assess the caregivers' CVC-handling technique, instillation of prophylactic ethanol lock solution, and the convening of regular multidisciplinary staff debriefings. We calculated CLABSI and CVC-replacement rates before and after the intervention.
RESULTS: Eight patients who served as their own historical controls were included in the intervention (total of 2544 catheter-days during the intervention period). The mean CLABSI rate decreased from 9.62 to 0.79 CLABSI episodes per 1000 catheter-days; the CVC-replacement rate decreased from 2.5 to 1.2 replacements per 1000 catheter-days in the preintervention and intervention periods respectively. The median hospital length of stay and individual monthly cost of medical care decreased compared to those found in the preintervention period.
CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study offer a proof of concept for a strategy to reduce CLABSI rates in pediatric patients who reside in remote and low-resource environments and are undergoing HPN.
Fuchs, I., Rosenbaum, D., Klein, I., Einhorn, M., Pinsk, V., Shelef, Y., Sherf, A., Press, Y. and Yerushalmi, B. (2019) A Pilot Study to Reduce Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections in Children From Extremely Low-Income Settings With Intestinal Failure-Meeting the Challenge. Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. March 13th. .


TREE CHANGE: Ruth Lewis said koalas would have a positive future if new developments were well planned.
How much development can a koala bear?
A BALANCE must be struck to ensure Ipswich's growing population does not put koala habitat at risk, a protection campaigner believes.
Ruth Lewis, president of the Ipswich Koala Protection Society, believes the city's residents and governments must work together for sustainable development.
"Ipswich is still home to a very large and healthy population of koalas, probably the largest in southeast Queensland," she said.
About 4000 koalas are believed to live in bushland around the region.
As land is cleared to make way for new homes sprouting from the dirt, Mrs Lewis said it was understandable koalas faced an uncertain future.
She said the Ipswich City Council was doing the best job it could, with environmental policy also determined by the state and federal governments.
"People want to live in Ipswich because it's close to Brisbane and it's affordable," she said.
Mrs Lewis said as the city's population grew, existing koala habitats would be put under increasing threat.
"There's no point in jumping up and down and chaining myself naked to bulldozers because that's not going to work," she said.
"We're going to get a far better outcome if we all work together professionally."
She praised the council's purchase of land for conservation and said the community had to want a positive future for koals as development continues.
"There will be risks for the koalas and they will be impacted in some areas," she said.
"But then we've got other areas where we've got really big, healthy populations of koalas that the council is doing their best to protect."
Councillor Kerry Silver said the council had a proactive approach to the "tightrope" between development and protection.


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Holiday Hours - 2021
Check Museum websites for their "Know before you go" guide to help prepare you for your visit.
naturalhistory.novascotia.ca
Winter Nature Ornament Recipe
1 cup (approximately) cold water
Fall at the Nova Scotia Museum - 2021
After a wonderful summer season, some of our family of 28 Museums will be closing for winter off season. Next month is your last chance to explore some of our sites until next year, closing dates are listed below.
Nova Scotia will recognize September 30 as Truth and Reconciliation Day to acknowledge and reflect on the legacy of residential schools and the vital role it holds in the reconciliation process.
Archaeology at Fort Saint-Louis 2021 - Part 5
Our team is still on site at archaeology dig at Fort Saint Louis National Historic Site, a seventeenth-century fur trade post situated in an Mi'kmaq coastal landscape.
Archaeology action shot! Wesley lifts our most complete clay tile this year and stows it safely in its own container. Next it will head to the lab to be cleaned and repacked. We re-use pill bottles for smaller, delicate finds too.
Ask a Curator Day 2021
Photo 1: Katie Cottreau-Robins extracting a sample of charcoal from a deep corner of the unit. Charcoal can be sent for carbon-14 dating and give additional insight into the occupation period.
Photo 2: Volunteers Chris and Marian working away on two areas of Operation J.
Archaeology at Fort Saint-Louis 2021 - Day 2 & 3
A quick update, the team was rained out today. They hope to start finding artifacts this week.
Photo 1: SMU grad student Wesley flying his drone for some overhead images of our various excavation units
Archaeology at Fort Saint-Louis 2021
Emancipation Day Exhibit
Items from the Nova Scotia Museum Collection
2021 marks the first year the Province of Nova Scotia officially recognizes Emancipation Day. Emancipation Day is marked throughout the Commonwealth as the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834.
Fundy Field Notes: Who's Living on the Tidal Flats?
As most of us already know, the Bay of Fundy is home to the highest tides in the world, bringing in approximately 160 billion tons of water twice a day and exposing kilometers of muddy tidal flats. But have you ever wondered what could be living in these tidal flats?
Emancipation Day
In Canada the first day of August is designated Emancipation Day, recognizing the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834. In Nova Scotia, Minister of African Nova Scotian Affairs Tony Ince introduced legislation marking Emancipation Day in April 2021.
Fundy Field Notes: A Very Amateur Guide to Rockhounding in Nova Scotia
By Carly Merriam
Phased reopening - summer 2021
The Nova Scotia Museum is pleased to welcome you back to our sites!
On June 15, 2021, Government announced that admission fees to all Nova Scotia Museum sites would be waived for the months of July and August, 2021.
Free admission in July and August does not extend to enhanced visitor experiences, such as special tours or programming.
NSM Current - March 2021
March Break 2021
March 15 to 19, 2021
We are happy to welcome you back to the Nova Scotia Museum. We continue working to create a safe experience for you and our staff. Please note that public health guidelines will continue to be followed at our sites, wearing a non-medical mask is mandatory in our indoor spaces. Check out our "Know before you go" guides on each museum website to help prepare you for your visit.
Nova Scotia Heritage Day 2021
Celebrated the third Monday in February, Nova Scotia Heritage Day is an annual reminder of our storied past and an opportunity to honour the remarkable people, places and events that have contributed to this province's unique heritage.
Nova Scotia Heritage Day Honouree 2021 is Edward Francis Arab (1915-1944)
The Circus Ship Fire
Yarmouth County Museum and Archives — no. 1993:67/4.235
Fall and winter hours
Museum Closures
Given the continued spread of COVID-19 and based on public health officials' guidance some sites have temporarily closed:
Fundy Field Notes - Q & A with Curator/Directors
We asked the Curator of Palaeontology at the Joggins Fossil Institute, Melissa Grey, Ph.D., and the Director/Curator of the Fundy Geological Museum, Danielle Serratos, M.S. to answer a few questions about the museums they work in and why those institutions are so important to Nova Scotia and the world.
My Favorite Things: RMS Aquitania – Her story and her ship's wheel
Maritime Museum of the Atlantic
I've always regarded RMS Aquitania as the greatest ocean liner ever built for the North Atlantic Ocean. There are a number of reasons for this and I hope that this brief history of this remarkable ship will give you an appreciation of what made her so special.
Unlimited Visits
Come for an hour or stay for the day. The choice is yours with an Annual Pass.
KatieCottreau-Robins
Mi'kmaq
NSMremarkable
Tim Fedak
Fundy Field Notes
Fundy Geological Museum
FindingHoneyman
NSM150
NSMCurrents
Museum Maker
Martin Hubley
VanessaSmith
Museum from home
StephanieSmith
Prescott House
Laura Bennett
Blog Post Archive


How much time do Australians spend banking online?
Internet banking is a prominent part of many Australians' lives. How prominent? We endeavoured to find out. We surveyed banking customers from across the country to find out that more than a third bank online two to three times per week. Some (17%) even visit their internet banking page on a daily basis.
48% are keeping track of what they're spending.
Perhaps most surprising is how often Australians choose to visit their bank branch: 30% do so once every six months, and 12% only go once a year.
According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, 12.86 million people used online banking over a six month period between 2012 and 2013 – an increase of 10% from the same period one year prior.


Bicycling enthusiasts are invited to join the Great Scott Cycling Club. The club rides Monday and Thursday evenings from May 6, 2019 through late September.
The group leaves at 6:15 PM (6:00 PM starting in August 31st) from Michael's Cycles in Prior Lake (behind to TJ Hooligans). Get Map.
The club is for all levels of riders. All groups except the A group have a "no-drop" policy.
Helmets are required; road bikes are highly recommended.
This is a social club for riding and gathering afterward for friendship, food, drink and conversation.


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Sherman Andrés Cárdenas Estupiñán ou apenas Sherman Cárdenas (Bucaramanga, 7 de agosto de 1989) é um futebolista colombiano que atua como meia. Atualmente defende o Junior Barranquilla

Clubes
Começou a jogar aos oito anos na equipe que sua família mantinha na vizinhança de sua cidade natal Bucaramanga. Não demorou nas categorias de base do Atlético Bucaramanga, estreando como profissional aos dezesseis anos.

Após breve passagem pelo Millonarios e La Equidad transferiu-se ao Junior Barranquilla.

Após duas temporadas no Junior, foi contratado pelo Atlético Nacional.

Atlético Mineiro
Em 6 de fevereiro de 2015 foi contratado por empréstimo pelo  por um ano, com opção de compra ao final da cessão.

Vitória
Sem espaço no Atlético Nacional, Cárdenas foi emprestado até dezembro de 2017, para o .

Títulos
Junior Barranquilla
Campeonato Colombiano: 2011 (Finalización)

Atlético Nacional
Campeonato Colombiano: 2013 (Finalización) e 2014 (Apertura)

Atlético Mineiro
Campeonato Mineiro: 2015

 Vitória
 Campeonato Baiano: 2017

Ligações externas

Futebolistas da Colômbia
Futebolistas do Atlético Bucaramanga
Futebolistas do Millonarios Fútbol Club
Futebolistas do Club Deportivo La Equidad Seguros
Futebolistas do Club Deportivo Popular Junior Fútbol Club
Futebolistas do Atlético Nacional
Futebolistas do Clube Atlético Mineiro
Futebolistas do Esporte Clube Vitória
Futebolistas da Liga Deportiva Universitaria (Quito)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Barnes, John G. (1952, October). International Judo Federation and European Judo Union. Budokwai Quarterly Bulletin (pp. 13-19).
INTERNATIONAL JUDO FEDERATION
www.ijf.org
The foundation of an International Judo Organization was proposed by JIGORO KANO in the thirties. They were dark times in Japan, however, as militarism was on the rise. KANO was attempting to get the OLYMPIC GAMES held in Tokyo in 1940 and this occupied his errorts which were successful. His untimely death in 1938 derailed his efforts to organize JUDO internationally, and Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 put a hall to any Japanese activity in international organizations. However, due to several reasons. It was not finalized until July, 1951, when the Congress of the EUROPEAN JUDO UNION established the IJF. In 1952, at the Congress of IJF in Switzerland, Mr. Risei KANO was appointed as President. IJF was composed of 13 member federations only from European countries.
The present IJF consists of 198 National Federations, grouped in 5 Continental Unions – EUROPEAN JUDO UNION 49, PanAmerican Judo Union 40, African JUDO Union 37, Judo Union of Asia 36, Oceania Judo Union. The first WORLD JUDO CHAMPIONSHIPS was held in May 1956 in Tokyo, with 31 participants from 21 countries. Thereafter the Champions was held once in two or three years, and later-on every two years. JUDO, a sport in the OLYMPIC GAMES was admitted as an official sport for the Summer Games at the 57th IJF Session held in August 1960 in Rome. The first JUDO matches in the history of the OLYMPIC GAMES were held at the 18th Tokyo OPYMPIC GAMES in 1964.
Since 2009, IJF has organized yearly World Championships and the World Judo Tour consisting of five Grand Prix, four Grand Slams, a master tournament and a Continental open tournament
IJF Presidents
Aldo Tordi, Italy 1951-1952
Risei Kano, Japan 1952-1965
Shigeyoshi
Matsumae, Japan 1979-1987
Sarkis Kaloghian
Argentina 1987-1989
Laurie Hargrave
New Zeland 1989-1991
Louis Baguena
Salvador, Spain 1991-1995
Yong Sung Park,
Korea 1995 -2007
Mr Marius L.
Vizer, Austria 2008- till Present
(http://www.ijf.org)
No. 24 Residences Ouchy-Navigation Avenue de la Harpe 49 Lausanne 1007 - Suisse
József Attila str. 1
21-25 Avenue de la Porte de Châtillon
F-75 680 Paris Cedex 14
General Treasury P.O. Box 3573 Abu Dhabi
IJF & Continental Judo Veterans Events


text:
Q: For $0 \leq a_n \leq b_n$ for every n and $\{b_n\} = 0$ Show $\{a_n\} \rightarrow 0$ If $\{a_n\}$ and $\{b_n\}$ are sequences with $0 \leq a_n \leq b_n$ for every n and $\{b_n\} \rightarrow 0$ show that $\{a_n\} \rightarrow 0$
need help completing proof by contradiction:
Suppose $\{a_n\} \rightarrow 1$. Pick $\epsilon =$ ?  . Since $\{b_n\} \rightarrow 0$
we have, $|a_n -1| < \epsilon$ and $|b_n - 0| < \epsilon$ Since $0 \leq a_n \leq b_n, |b_n - a_n|<$

A: If you want to do a proof by contradiction, you need to assume the contrary of $a_n \to 0$, which is not $a_n \to 1$, but $a_n \not\to 0$, that is$\def\eps{\varepsilon}$
$$ \exists \eps > 0 \;\forall N \; \exists n \ge N: |a_n| \ge \eps. $$
But here a direct proof works fine: (Hint, I'm sure you can fill in the steps) Let $\eps > 0$ we want to find an $N$ such that $|a_n| < \eps$ for $n \ge N$. But $b_n \to 0$. Choose $N$ according to that, now use $0 \le a_n \le b_n$.

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"Look, I'm 80 years old — I might be dead before this project is over. Who knows!" said Donald Rapp, an energetic member of the team who has been retired from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for more than a decade.
To add, Rapp has written two books heavily focused on Mars and ISRU technologies.
What's not to like! Mars is TASTY!
to launch the human crew at the next launch opportunity.
>2 kg/hr of O2 with an energy investment of ~12 kW.
That gives some numbers to work with. So, apparently, a full-scale cousin to MOXIE could produce about 1.5 metric tons of oxygen on Mars monthly. At the least, it gives a very steadfast supply of breathable air. My question would be how tricky is it to ensure 12 kW (hourly I presume) for oxygen ISRU? I'll post this same question on the power thread too.
It says 12kW not 12kWh. So it means a continuously available power of 12kW. If they calculate it 24h/day batteries and app. 3 times 12kW, so 36kW peak solar panel output would be needed. With losses probably up to 50kW.
Screengrabs from the more interesting slides, couldnt find the actual presentation posted yet.
"Mars soil excavator or processor appears to be able to fit on the sample cache rover; power system will need to be supplemented"
If they're looking at soil excavator, that means water ISRU /near-term/. If you solve that, then you go straight to full ISRU. It solves a LOT of problems, means you can do a fully reusable shuttling lander/ascent vehicle, and takes care of the vast majority of the crew consumables. Having lots of water to work with would be an enormous blessing on Mars.
With water ISRU, you have fuel, oxidizer, oxygen for the crew, lots of water for the crew and for maintenance (now you can wash off the dusty spacesuits, wash clothes, clean filters, etc...), and feedstocks for simple plastic production (can make polyethylene and polypropylene from methane and some oxygen, given the right catalysts and reaction chambers).
Add nitrogen recovery (fairly easy compared to mining water), and now you can make up the buffer gas and even make ammonia, which would allow bulk food production when combined with oxygen and methane in vats with the right single-celled organisms... Plus a range of other chemicals.
So this is a very good step. CO/O2 rockets may be a hobby horse of mine, but I think we should go straight to water ISRU from the first crewed mission.
Can i refer you to a very recent dissertation called Risk-value optimization of performance and cost for propellant production on Mars that factors in all the previous work, including NASA DRM 3 and DRA 5 studies, everything that Dr. Rapp has written and then some, and does actual modelling and design trades ? The conclusions are well worth a read.
And then, lets keep this thread on MOXIE or at least on CO2 solid oxide electrolysis ?
I read the conclusions of the study. None are surprising, however the assumptions are that we're trying to do a Mars mission just to do a Mars mission, i.e. Apollo. If you're going to Mars to stay (which is what NASA is supposed to be shooting for long-term, according to our current president), you're going to have to develop water ISRU eventually. So do you design the architecture twice, first with oxygen-only (as currently baselined) and only LATER develop water-ISRU? That sounds like a waste.
As far as keeping the topic on solid-oxide, the slide you presented shows the very first serious analysis of flying a water ISRU experiment on a nearish-term mission. I am very interested in that.
I've seen little analysis about actually using that carbon monoxide as fuel. It seems people either are unaware it's possible, or they're aware but only remember "it has low Isp," dismiss it out of hand as such (even though the Isp is actually over 300s if you use a decent engine, and in my analysis actually does better than basically anything else on an energy-vs-payload-to-LMO metric if you have good mass fraction), and aren't actually aware of a serious trade that incorporates carbon monoxide as a fuel.
If solid oxide and MOXIE tech has a real future in the long-term beyond a niche use maybe for ECLSS, then it requires building a capability to use carbon monoxide as a fuel.
No, it requires capability to liquefy the produced oxygen and burn it with something. Paraffin based hybrid is a candidate for MAV.
Then i can only conclude you are not actually interested in the subject. Like i mentioned, CO based rockets have been discarded like 10-15 years ago.
Which seems to focus on hybrid rockets. Which SHOULD be discarded. Hybrids just aren't a good idea, especially if you're thinking of producing the solid grain in-situ! I mean solid carbon monoxide in a hybrid rocket? Crazy. Not a good idea. Even with fairly normal propellant grains made on Earth, you have chunks fly off and engines routinely blow up if large enough scale. Hybrids just aren't a good idea.
Plus hybrids have inherently crappy mass fraction compared to good liquid pump-fed engines.
No, because people at Lews Research Center built a subscale demonstrator, which required a good mix of unobtainium to construct and near immortal technicians on par with Valentin Glushko who survived fluorine, and despite their best efforts could not ignite it reliably, and only got mediocre performance out of it.
I recently saw correspondence with the lead of that effort at Glenn Research Center (as it's now called), and she certainly thought it was still very promising. And the fact that a non-optimized low pressure version has difficulty igniting in one iteration doesn't mean it's inherently a bad propellant to use, I've had problems getting perfectly good propellant combinations to reliably ignite in some combinations. You're grasping at straws trying to find an authoritative rationale for CO's rejection.
It wasn't "abandoned" for any good reason. The same excuse pops up almost every time it's rejected: "low Isp."
It has been evaluated plenty of times, and every time the answer is : engineering complexity of building an actual working rocket engine that would reliably work in any conditions, is very high. That's just in lab on Earth, nevermind Mars. High combustion temperature combined with materials compatibility issues of high temperature CO make it simply unattractive option. Similar reasons why nobody is flying around LF2/LH2 SSTOs.
High combustion temperature? Not according to these calculations (refer to the column labeled "Ctemp").
Attached are two older papers on oxygen-CO, the second of which maps out the conditions under which the combination ignites. There are some tricks to ignition, but it does not seem an insurmountable problem.
By the way, CO is less toxic and more stable than the hydrazines (N2H4. MMH, or UDMH), and it's in the same flammability class as N2H4 and MMH. It's hazardous, but I don't think it's mad-scientist hazardous.


Orchids woo me with their elegance. If they spoke, opened up their petals as lips and breathed words, their cadence would roll off their tongues with eloquence. In their presence, I am drunk on beauty. I study the lines of their face. Trace with my eyes the silhouette of their tender, tall strength.
I marvel and stare. Feel drawn in by their fragile soil-birthed beauty. All my senses feel alive when I am in their presence. Every stem, petal, bulb, and leaf bear something of natural wonder.
And then they leave me. Go dormant. And I struggle to care for them. I cannot seem to meet their needs. Tend to them in the proper way. They are the Rubik's cube of my world. And then, as with many things circling around my soul places these days, I hear what I could not hear before. I really listen. I listen to things I did not formerly hear. I know. And I am renewed by their lessons.
All around my yard, in the garden, in my home, in my art, things are being born. I hold a vigil of uncertainty. I cannot seem to fall into their rhythm. I am an impatient observer and an anxious excavator of beauty. I believe that I am on guard and alert. I believe that I am eyes-wide open and prepared to receive. I am the citadel guarding the places of new birth. Caretaker of the ordinary and of my art.
But I have not allowed for the full mystery of surprise in all the ordinary and extraordinary things. I have not factored in the unknown. The goings on under the soil. The backstage preparations behind the veil. I am not leaning into the marvelous perfection of the timing of the Spirit of God.
And trust is thrust into the light. Once again.
I feel as though I am doing my part. With my art. Wrapping my soul in words. Preparing the phases and stages of my poetry and prose to fling them out of the nest. Into the spine of a book. Out of one cradle into another. Into the places that hunger for words of hope and faith.
But this a dormant time. Ripening and waiting are part of the care package. Waiting and trusting the unseen things is faith. Breathing out while breathing in and knowing the next breath will come and with it new mercy. That is my designated role. Trusting while breathing.
The orchid that I held onto for a long forever will bloom a second time. The one that I almost walked to the trash can and tossed. The first one of my orchids to bloom again holds signs of beauty a second time.
The bloom is tightly held. It is wrapped and protected. It is just as it should be. Dormant and alive.
I trust my poetry and prose are held in this same place. Of tender waiting. And I trust the cradle will rock and toss a bit, yet, protect my art in every stage before the release.
The spines of a book, they may or may not be out there. But I am waiting and watching. Expecting with renewed hope and wonder. Because my orchid will bloom again.
I also learn so much from tending the garden and plants and animals and how exciting to trust the gentle stirrings, the intuitions of life beginning in quiet places, as all life does. I look forward to waiting and watching with you.
We had one orchid that re-bloomed the day we found our new house (if I remember correctly) it was such a grace.
I love the exquisite beauty of the orchid, exoctic, timeless, breath-taking. The metaphors you weave are as beautiful for what they represent…timeless faith thay mirrors His constancy and grace.
And when He is in the care-taking the flower blooms with an aroma of His spirit and it is worth the wait.
Blessed by your words today!


text:
Q: Makefile and gktmm-3 with .o error I am having error with makefile, when im trying to compile executable with .o files
Error list:
g++ -g -Wall -o main main.o  `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtkmm-3.0`
main.o: In function `_start':
(.text+0x0): multiple definition of `_start'
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/4.8.2/../../../../lib/crt1.o:(.text+0x0): first defined here
main.o: In function `_fini':
(.fini+0x0): multiple definition of `_fini'
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/4.8.2/../../../../lib/crti.o:(.fini+0x0): first defined here
main.o:(.rodata+0x0): multiple definition of `_IO_stdin_used'
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/4.8.2/../../../../lib/crt1.o:(.rodata.cst4+0x0): first defined here
main.o: In function `data_start':
(.data+0x0): multiple definition of `__data_start'
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/4.8.2/../../../../lib/crt1.o:(.data+0x0): first defined here
main.o: In function `data_start':
(.data+0x8): multiple definition of `__dso_handle'
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/4.8.2/crtbegin.o:(.data+0x0): first defined here
main.o: In function `_init':
(.init+0x0): multiple definition of `_init'
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/4.8.2/../../../../lib/crti.o:(.init+0x0): first defined here
/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/4.8.2/crtend.o:(.tm_clone_table+0x0): multiple definition of `__TMC_END__'
main.o:(.data+0x10): first defined here
/usr/bin/ld: error in main.o(.eh_frame); no .eh_frame_hdr table will be created.
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
makefile:12: recipe for target 'main' failed
make: *** [main] Error 1

and makefile is
NAME=main
CFLAGS=-g -Wall -o $(NAME)
LIBFLAGS=`pkg-config --cflags --libs gtkmm-3.0`
SRCS=main.cpp
CC=g++
OBJECTS=$(SRCS:.cpp=.o)
all: main
main: $(SRCS)
    $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(OBJECTS) $(LIBFLAGS)
.cpp.o:
        $(CC) $(CFLAGS)  $< -o $@

Can someone explain my errors? I know that this isn't the best makefile.

A: You have to be sure you use the -c flag on all compile lines which create object files.  Without this flag, the compiler front-end (g++) will create an executable, not an object file.
In your example the suffix rule .cpp.o is creating a file named main.o, but it's actually linking that into an executable.  If you ran ./main.o, it would work.  Then when you try to link that executable into another executable named main, badness happens.
Change your rule:
.cpp.o:
        $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c -o $@ $<


text:
Razzmattazz: 'Hallelujah'
Posted on February 18, 2019 by Metal Mike in Uncategorized // 0 Comments
RAZZMATTAZZ
Released on February 6, 2019 (Good Night Music)
This happens to be the second time I've been fortunate enough to review albums from this band from Reutlingen, Germany. Even though they've been going since 2012, their 2016 release Diggin For Gold was my first introduction. They seem to experience continued success in their home country, and as was noted previously, they don't appear to be particularly concerned about seeking international recognition (even though they are good enough). Of their 2016 release, Sleaze Roxx stated "They have an edge to them, with production, writing, and performance abilities…. They know what they're doing. Well worth investigating."
Razzmattazz guitarist Tom Schaupp explained that former bassist Tommy Wiegand bowed out of this new record due to health reasons, and Peter Ucik got to know the band through some sort of nudist swimming pool thing… I didn't ask further but it seems to be a good story!
Let's get this out of the way. There are already way too many covers of the classic Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah" (KD Lang did it best), and this album is thankfully free of such things. In fact, "Hallelujah" comes in as track number six on the album… sounding more like a modern AC/DC song, with a 4/4 bass and drum line, and a punctuated guitar effort. Guitarist Tom explained, "…The Inspiration for "Hallelujah" came on day as I worked in our rehearsal room. After hours [of work], I had made a single outlet run and then I yelled, 'Hallelujah. I made it.' That was the moment. Sounds more like a 'Eureka' moment, but I guess I'm reading way too much into this theory so you, never mind.
Speaking of AC/DC, it's pretty clear Razzmattazz have been influenced by Angus Young and Bon Scott / Brian Johnson. The album opens with "Gun For Hire" which is a great song based on who the band seems to listen to. "Crazy For Rock And Roll" is a bit more Airbourne in tempo and chorus. Continuing the theme, "Backdoor Man" does seem like an Angus guitar line, but the similarity ends there. I don't mean to downplay the song's appeal or creativity. It's a fun listen.
There's a heavier edge to "Lawbreaker" in the sense that it borders on biker rock. The guitars suggest a road worthy track and it's got the hard edge. Yet, "Cold Rain" presents a bluesy feel with a bit of funky swagger. It does have a vibe to it that isn't particularly unique, but listenable all the same. "Going Down" has a freewheeling '80s sensation with its open single chords and vocals — a real treat. Mashing the AC/DC vs Airbourne motif, "Drive By Shooter" combines the best in both. It has the Angus / Brian performance mixed with the Airbourne sound and pace. Going out on a limb, I'd say "Payment Day" and "As Loud as You Can" are the best reflection of Razzmattazz on this album. It doesn't copy or "sound like" the most obvious references, but more like what I think the band represents. They're upbeat and interesting songs on their own.
In 2017, I listed Diggin' for Gold as one of my favourite albums of the year, and it was. Moving forward to 2019, Hallelujah is just as enjoyable, but not particularly innovative. I guess the new album is more of an extension two years ago, rather than offering anything new and surprising. That's not a dig at the band (think about the success of Bullet) but more of a statement of expectation. When one considers that AC/DC have been more or less recycling the same sound for over 30 years successfully. Alright, that may be true about AC/DC, but unfair to Razzmattazz. If you liked Diggin For Gold, then pick up this album for sure. This sounds like a band that knows its audience and plays for them, rather than blazing new trails. And hey…. good for them. A big thanks to Tom Schaupp for taking the time to chat with me before writing this review.
01. A Gun For Hire
02. Crazy For Rock And Roll
03. Backdoor Man
04. Lawbreaker
05. Cold Rain
06. Hallelujah
07. Going Down
08. Drive-By Shooter
09. Payment Day
10. As Loud As You Can
Peter Ucik – bass
Tom Schaupp – vocals, guitar
Ulf S. Gokeler – drums
Wolle Heieck – guitar, vocals
Band Websites:
Reviewed by Metal Mike for Sleaze Roxx, February 2019
Razzmattazz's "Hallelujah" video:
Razzmattazz – Hallelujah – (Official Music Video) HD
Razzmattazz – HallelujahNach den bisherigen Alben "Rock and Roll Hero", "Sons Of Guns" sowie "Diggin´ For Gold", mit denen Razzmattazz weltweit beste Kritik…
Razzmattazz's "Cold Rain" song:
Provided to YouTube by Believe SASCold Rain · RazzmattazzHallelujah℗ 7hard – a division of 7us media group GmbHReleased on: 2019-02-08Author: Tom SchauppComp…
Buy This for Your Collection
Razzmattazz: Hallelujah on Amazon


text:
Sleeplessness, the Manic Trigger?
Elizabeth Liuzzi
.	 Published on October 23, 2017. August 13, 2018 0
What does the word "mania" sound like to you? Does it sound like a high that some people spend large sums of money, energy, and sanity to attain? Does it sound like an adrenaline rush? The peak of a roller coaster, or a sort of euphoria perhaps? While our mind's eye pictures "highs" in this sort of way, a bipolar manic high can be completely devastating to the person experiencing it. Its effects may include "elevated mood, inflated self-esteem, decreased need for sleep, racing thoughts, difficulty maintaining attention, increase in goal-directed activity, and excessive involvement in pleasurable activities." While a manic episode may sound a little like an amped up version of your morning caffeine rush, its effects may greatly impact not only the individual diagnosed with bipolar but also have lasting effects on the family members and friends who may be affected by actions taken during this time when one exhibits little control over their actions and their related consequences. While manic episodes are an unfortunate reality for most bipolar patients, new research suggests that these extended euphoric episodes could actually be naturally triggered by extended periods of sleeplessness.
It is commonly known today that sleep deprivation affects many aspects of our physical health and our cognition. Insufficient sleep can make it difficult to concentrate, remember, and retain information and even to regulate your emotions. It also contributes to obesity and cardiovascular problems and has also been linked to a much faster rate of developing dementia as one ages. One University of California professor, Matthew Walker, who has spent the last 20+ years of his life researching sleep and its effects on people and their cognition, even goes as far as to suggest that sleep should be thought of like work or any other mandatory responsibility because of its importance to how we function and our longevity. "[Sleep] needs to be prioritized, even incentivized," he says, in order to break the cycle of what he calls the "catastrophic sleep-loss epidemic."
While Walker points to startling physical and mental effects that sleep loss has on our bodies over time, preventative care is not the only reason to get your eight hours of shut-eye per night. Those with pre-existing mental health disorders are also greatly affected by lack of sleep. Bipolar, for instance, had previously been connected with sleep disturbances such as insomnia, but these sleep disturbances were most often thought of as an effect of the manic episodes and not necessarily the trigger. It turns out that lack of sleep can actually precede the patient's decline into mania. The previously-mentioned study, just recently published by Cardiff University researchers led by Ph.D. student Katie Lewis, shows a clear connection between sleep loss and manic episodes in bipolar disorder. According to her findings, "20% of people with bipolar disorder reported that sleep loss had triggered episodes of high mood, whereas 12% reported that sleep loss had triggered episodes of low mood." Though she did find that women and those with bipolar I were more likely to experience this sleeplessness-mania correlation, Katie and her researchers still discovered the same general patterns across her study population even when accounting for age differences, intensity of illness, and other similar variables.
This is a significant finding because a link like this between sleep and manic episodes can prompt new research studies and possible avenues for new treatment options. While this link between bipolar and sleep is relatively unexplored as of yet, research has already been done on the effects of sleeplessness as it relates to depression. Extended periods of wakefulness has actually been shown to be effective in kickstarting treatment for depression, believed by researchers to be due to the fact that lack of sleep prompts your body into a deeper sleep cycle the next time it has a chance to rest. The fact that a deeper sleep cycle can help with mood regulation is an unsurprising result when compared to the Cardiff University study on bipolar. However, much more research still needs to be done on the topic in order to understand its correlation to mental health even more clearly. Perhaps in the future, as Matthew Walker states, the importance of sleep will fully be recognized, and people will begin to think of sleep as a prescription for mental health, and not an unnecessary burden cutting into their social time and leisure activities.
Bressert, S. (2017). Manic Episode Symptoms. Psych Central. Retrieved on October 17, 2017, from https://psychcentral.com/disorders/manic-episode/
Lewis, K. S. et al. Sleep loss as a trigger of mood episodes in bipolar disorder: individual differences based on diagnostic subtype and gender, The British Journal of Psychiatry (2017). DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.117.202259
Meltzer, L. The power of sleep: How shut-eye helps the body as you age. Retrieved on October 19, 2017, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sleep-healthy-retirement-gsk/
Cooke, R. 'Sleep should be prescribed': what those late nights out could be costing you. Retrieved October 19, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/24/why-lack-of-sleep-health-worst-enemy-matthew-walker-why-we-sleep
Firger, J. World Mental Health Day: How Bad Sleep Can Literally Make You Go Crazy. Retrieved October 19, 2017, from http://www.newsweek.com/not-sleeping-enough-go-crazy-mental-health-681203
Klausner, A. Sleep Deprivation Might Be the Antidote for Depression. Retrieved October 17, 2017, from http://nypost.com/2017/09/20/sleep-deprivation-might-be-the-antidote-for-depression/
Categories Bipolar Disorder
Tags BipolarSleeplessness
My interest in the medical field and, in turn, psychology was only discovered relatively recently, through EMT training. After gaining a year of experience learning and providing patient care, I was inspired to return to school to pursue a career in medicine. My unique experiences have taught me that I really enjoy hearing people's stories and getting to know them on a personal level – their struggles and their triumphs, the stories that are hardest to tell and the stories that are their favorites. I think understanding people on a deeper and more holistic level makes us better empathizers, better professionals, and better people, and I hope that my own career in the medical field one day reflects this understanding. My interest in mental health comes not only from my own struggles with anxiety but from seeing firsthand the effects untreated mental disorders have on other people. My hope is that through the Humanology Project people will realize just how common these issues are, and that would equate to less silent suffering and more empathetic understanding. When I am not studying or waiting tables on the weekends, I like spontaneous road trips, anything to do with the beach and the outdoors, and the occasional ostrich ride when I'm at the Curacao Ostrich Farm (which actually only happened once).