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HomeMOVIE REVIEWSWhat did We Learn from the Movie "Paycheck" Starring Ben Affleck?
What did We Learn from the Movie "Paycheck" Starring Ben Affleck?
The movie "Paycheck" starring Ben Affleck really highlights the fact that economic freedom is very fleeting in the United States.
It's very easy to think that the United States is this land of free people. After all, it has a rich history of rebellious colonists and settlers turning their backs violently against the English king.
It's as if people rose up as one and said, "No, we're going to chart our own history. We're going to chart our own way. We're going to be free."
There is quite a bit of a mythology built on American freedom. In fact, if you listen to any typical political debate or you pay attention to materials generated during a typical election cycle, the word "freedom" is mentioned probably most frequently than other words. Maybe the phrase "middle class" comes in a distant second or third.
There's just something about the idea of freedom that resonates with most Americans. After all, the vast majority of Americans came from somewhere else.
Maybe they were fleeing starvation from Eastern Europe, or limited job prospects from Southern Europe, or religious persecution in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. They look at America as a land of second chances.
For a lot of people, America is not just the land of second chances, but third chances, fourth chances, and fifth chances as well. Given this context, it's very easy to look at the idea of freedom and put it on a pedestal.
The problem is, ideals rarely match up with reality. And this is where the movie "Paycheck" starring Ben Affleck comes in.
When you notice that his attitude towards earning a living is kind of problematic, you basically start to realize the disconnect between the freedom that living in America supposedly delivers, and the reality on the ground.
The truth is, until and unless there's some sort of universal basic income where the government basically guarantees a paycheck to everybody, every person is on their own.
Some people are naturally gifted, some people have skills that are heavily in demand, other people just have a unique way of attracting others to hand them money.
Whatever the case may be, there is this Darwinian or market-oriented process where the cream rises to the top and the simple idea of just drawing a paycheck payday after payday doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would go on in a truly free society.
In fact, the sub-context of this movie really highlights the political reality of America today. You have to understand that the 800-pound elephant in the room is not what you think it is.
For the longest time, a lot of societies had to struggle with too many mouths to feed. If you go to places like India, the Philippines, or many countries in Africa, this is still the issue. There are too many people and there's not enough agricultural food products to ensure cheap, plentiful food for everybody.
Well, in reality, this is an illusion because people who have money can access food. They can access quality healthcare. They can definitely get their hands on clean water.
The issue is not so much on food productivity because if trade was liberalized in many of these societies, food would be available. It's only an import permit away.
The real issue is the notion of equity. What kind of society do we live in? Do we live in an inclusive society? Do we live in a society where everybody gets an equal shot?
Well, the problem is, for the longest time, the idea of an equal shot in the United States started to degenerate. It became very clear that regardless of how hard many people tried, they still end up settling for crumbs.
A lot of people would say, "Well, this is just the natural order of things. After all, there is such a thing as the Pareto Principle."
You've heard of the Pareto Principle. It also goes by the name of the 80/20 Rule. In other words, 20% of the population will get 80% of the benefits.
This applies across the board. 20% of people are very, very attractive so they get 80% of the attention and opportunities for romantic partners. 20% of any NBA team account for 80% of their points.
Well, according to this thinking, there's really nothing wrong with any kind of inequality because the cream rises to the top. Well, this is really the subtext of the movie "Paycheck" starring Ben Affleck.
Are we going to accept this? Is this the natural order of things? Or is there a better alternative plan out there? Is there a different option?
And as we come face to face with a fully automated world with the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning, it's only a matter of time until the clamor for some sort of income equity or some sort of income redistribution system becomes deafening.
Because as more and more people lose their jobs because of automation, you can bet that there will be a tremendous amount of political pressure built up for some sort of solution. And the issues present in the movie "Paycheck" starring Ben Affleck will turn out to be just the tip of the iceberg.
While Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has made great strides in making the soon coming mass automation sea change a campaign issue, the mass media hasn't really made this a top priority. This really is too bad. Seriously. No joke. Why? If automation takes place the way it was predicted, there will soon be a huge army of angry unemployed people. Whenever you have such discontentment, you can bet there will be social turbulence.
A lot of what's gone wrong with America can be traced to the fact that it systematically 'overcompensated' for the Great Depression of the 30s. The end result are policies with long term effects that end up making the country worse off.
Can you imagine what kind of bad ideas will come to the fore when people become so desperate and angry enough to demand change? You can bet that it probably won't be a well through out package of solutions.
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Elizabeth Holmes Prison: Who is Elizabeth Holmes?
By Mensah Courage September 7, 2022
Former CEO of Theranos, a blood testing business that advertised the ability to identify diseases like cancer with just a few drops of blood, is known as Elizabeth Holmes.
According to the business, users could self-administer blood tests that were quicker, less expensive, and less invasive.
But in 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that Theranos' testing had significant flaws, casting doubt on their assertions.
They learned that the business actually outsourced its laboratory work and conducted tests using conventional blood testing techniques.
Elizabeth Holmes, her husband William "Billy" Evans, their infant son, and two dogs are currently residing in a nine-bedroom, $135 million home in California.
She is said to have been hiding out at the Woodside Green Gables Estate since at least last March.
Seven different homes are situated on the 74-acre estate in the Silicon Valley community.
Along with three additional swimming pools, a tennis court, and a private orchard, it also has a pool with a Roman theme. The estate's typical home costs $5 million.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This light man's cane is fashioned of round sections of whale ivory alternating with short sections of baleen. The sections gradually increase in circumference gradually towards the top of the cane, but cracks on all but three of the ivory pieces indicates that the cane might have been too light for daily use. Each horizontal band of baleen has a thin brass ring at top and bottom, and the handle ends in a simple, plain knob. The bottom ends in an uncovered ivory terminal.


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Message to Trump: Coronavirus testing in America is a disgrace
Our nation's testing is such that we cannot get a clear picture regarding new infections or recoveries. How is this happening in the richest nation on earth?
American flags fly at half-staff near the Washington Monument on the National Mall, May 22, 2020 in Washington, DC. Getty Images
100,000 Americans lie dead this Memorial Day. The United States has the highest transmission rate of coronavirus in the world, with the most catastrophic numbers of the dead.
So of course Donald Trump went golfing this Memorial Day weekend.
His impulse was to visit the links, to hop in a Trump resort golf cart (thanks US taxpayers) and do something fun for himself, something that he actually enjoys for a change.
Besides he does not know, or care, about the people that have died. They were no one he knew, obviously. The people that he knows and cares for are a very short list.
I personally knew and cared for some of the coronavirus dead, and so that explains why instead of thinking about hitting the links or the beach this weekend, I stayed at home and experienced something different from the president -- immobilizing grief.
When they say America is a divided nation, this is what they mean. Even grief is for the little people now. He can not see it; he certainly does not feel it.
It's about to be June. Most of us have been hiding from this pandemic since mid-March. It may be the reason why you are alive to read this; it's certainly the reason that the number of deaths here, although already the worst in the world, are not even worse than they are now.
There are photographs hitting the internet this weekend of crowded beach communities, with thousands of oblivious Americans out enjoying the sun, completely unmasked and unprotected and eschewing any social distancing, reminding me that the phrase "low information voter" has always been an Ivy League euphemism for stupid.
Sixty-two million Americans voted for a man who thinks COVID-19 can be cured with household bleach or ultraviolet light, after all. You get what you vote for.
Another critical patient is taken to hospital in America.
It's about to be Memorial Day. We have known that this coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19 was coming since January (when, incidentally, Moderna reportedly began their profitable race for a vaccine).
So instead of talking about beach-side-barbecues that can't happen or unmasked get-togethers that shouldn't happen, I want to ask why coronavirus testing in America is such a disorganized disgrace?
Lacking any coordination at the national level, the current national testing drive is not accurate enough to use never mind make a decision from, for crucial questions like when it's safe to travel, take a subway, eat out, go to the beach, or return to work.
There is no sense of national leadership if your guess is as good as Jared Kushner's, and is probably actually better, since it's being made pragmatically, with reference to the facts and not politics.
The national response is such a horrifying scandal now because, according to the press, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is currently conflating viral and antibody coronavirus tests, two very different types of test, which is in turn compromising the data being presented to governors before they reopen their economies.
Blending the data like this means we cannot get a clear picture regarding new infections or recoveries. How is this happening in the richest nation on earth?
How can it be that our president has been manifestly unable to address the most deadly pandemic we have ever faced head on, or the 40 million unemployed as a result of it, with a clear vision for the country and a national action plan, without scoffing at "blue state bailouts" or requesting "quid pro quos" for his help?
pic.twitter.com/a9FJ86ro5O
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) May 23, 2020
Last week infectious disease experts released a new report urgently called on the US Department of Health and Human Services to appoint a panel to oversee and organize national testing. Again, it's almost June. It's past time.
"The panel should include representatives from public health, clinical laboratory, and medicine; the laboratory testing research and development, marketing, and product support industries; ethicists; legal scholars; and elected officials," the report said.
Last week New York State began investigating 157 cases of the COVID-related illness affecting children. There is no category of citizen the virus does not target. So how to explain the lack of urgency and alarm being felt by the president?
With 40,000,000 people out of work, over 1,500,000 confirmed cases of #COVID19 and nearly 100,000 deaths in the US, Trump is spending the day golfing. Hey #MAGA crowd, is our county great yet? #TrumpGolfsWhilePeopleDie #TrumpDeathToll100K #TrumpDepression https://t.co/gVgOb2ZMDV
— Rio Tazewell (@RioTazewell) May 23, 2020
Like Nero fiddling whilst Rome burned, Trump went golfing this weekend whilst a pandemic fills the city morgues with the American dead. Because they are no one he knew. Because grief is for the little people. Tee up and get over it.
When people show you who they are believe them, wrote Maya Angelou. This is who Donald Trump is, and who he has always been, and this Memorial Day, and from now on, we will just have to look elsewhere for all the answers we all need.
Read More: After four years of Trump, are you better off than you were before
Related: US Politics


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Q: home_url() возвращает адрес текущей страницы WORDPRESS Мне нужно получить адрес главной страницы и потом добавить туда дополнительный текст, например мне нужно получить ссылку:
text.ru/project1/ssylka, вордпресс установлен в директорию text.ru/project1/, для этого я пишу:
<? home_url().'/ssylka' ?>

Но если я сейчас нахожусь в text.ru/project1/lol/kek/lol/kek, то ссылка будет выглядеть как text.ru/project1/lol/kek/lol/kek/ssylka, то есть home_url() выводит просто текущий адрес, что я делаю не так? Я пробовал get_home_url(), site_url() - он выводит просто text.ru, то есть не ту директорию, где вордпресс.

A: Ваша задача решается так:
<?= home_url('/ssylka'); ?>

Вот документация, согласно которой функция принимает два аргумента, первый из которых - строка, которая добавляется к окончанию ссылки

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Work in the culture industries. Book review of Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries by Angela McRobbie.
Wallis, R., 2016. Work in the culture industries. Book review of Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries by Angela McRobbie. Cultural Studies, 31 (5), pp. 717-719.


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Q: How does compiler deduce return type from this lambda expression? I am creating a web-socket server in C++ with Boost library. My starting point was a Boost example from this site.
I have a question with this part of code in the on_run method:
 ws_.set_option(websocket::stream_base::decorator(
            [](websocket::response_type& res)
            {
                res.set(http::field::server,
                    std::string(BOOST_BEAST_VERSION_STRING) +
                        " websocket-server-async");
            }));

As it can seen, ws_.set_option takes a websocket::stream_base::decorator as a parameter and this parameter is created by a lambda expression, which takes a Decorator&& type variable as a parameter according to this site.
How does the lambda expression know, it should return a Decorator&&, when there is no trailing-return-type or return statement in the lambda expression?
Last, but no least, where does the websocket::response_type &res come from? There is no ()  including this parameter after the lambda body.

A: websocket::stream_base::decorator is a template function with one template type parameter.
template<class Decorator>
decorator( Decorator&& f );

In this call
ws_.set_option(websocket::stream_base::decorator(
        [](websocket::response_type& res)
        {
            res.set(http::field::server,
                std::string(BOOST_BEAST_VERSION_STRING) +
                    " websocket-server-async");
        }));

the function is called accepting the lambda expression
[](websocket::response_type& res)
        {
            res.set(http::field::server,
                std::string(BOOST_BEAST_VERSION_STRING) +
                    " websocket-server-async");
        }

as its template argument. The lambda expression has by default the return type void because there is no return statement in the lambda expression.

How does the lambda expression know, it should return a Decorator&&

It is the lambda expression itself is used as an argument for the declared function template parameter  Decorator&&.

A: websocket::stream_base::decorator(... calls the constructor of decorator. This constructor apparently takes a callable as parameter. The lamdba that is passed has no return. Its return type is void.
See here (link by Some programmer dudes comment): https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_78_0/libs/beast/doc/html/beast/ref/boost__beast__websocket__stream_base__decorator/decorator/overload2.html.


Montréal, December 2, 2013 – Videotron is proud to partner with Operation Red Nose of Montréal's 30th annual drive safe campaign. As a company that is responsive to its customers and committed to the community, Videotron is pleased to support a homegrown organization that has become a Québec holiday tradition.
Operation Red Nose's Montréal coordinating centre will be baptized the Centrale Vidéotron de l'Opération Nez rouge de Montréal. Québec's telecommunications and entertainment leader will also provide Operation Red Nose with mobile telephones to facilitate communications among its people during the 2013 campaign. Finally, Videotron customers will be able to access Red Nose's drive-home services directly until December 31, 2013 by dialling *NEZ (*639) from their mobile phone.
Operation Red Nose is a non-profit organization founded in Québec City in 1984. Its mission is to encourage responsible behavior (in a non-judgmental manner) with regard to impaired driving by enabling communities to provide a free and confidential chauffeur service to their members, the financial benefits of which are redistributed to local organizations dedicated to youth..
Videotron (www.videotron.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of Quebecor Media Inc., is an integrated communications company engaged in cable television, interactive multimedia development, and Internet access, cable telephone and mobile telephone services. Videotron is a leader in new technologies with its illico interactive television service and its broadband network, which supports high-speed cable Internet access, analog and digital cable television, and other services. As of September 30, 2013, Videotron was serving 1,830,400 cable television customers, including 1,517,600 subscribers Digital TV. Videotron is also the Québec leader in high-speed Internet access, with 1,408,200 subscribers to its cable service as of September 30, 2013. As of the same date, Videotron had 478,000 subscriber connections to its mobile telephone service and was providing cable telephone service to 1,281,200 Québec households and organizations. For the eighth consecutive year, Videotron was ranked as Québec's most respected telecommunications company by Les Affaires magazine, based on a Léger Marketing survey.


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Study Shows Facebook Ads Work Best With A Little Foreplay
Jeff Bercovici Former Staff
I cover technology with an emphasis on social and digital media.
There's a famous saying that half of the money spent on advertising is wasted, but the trouble is figuring out which half. In theory, the internet solved that problem by allowing marketers to see exactly which of their ads generate clicks and sales. That lets them run more of the ads that work and fewer of the ones that don't.
But the even better tracking made possible by Facebook shows it's not that simple. Advertising that may look like it's doing nothing may actually be softening up consumers for the hard sell, while campaigns that only focus on results sacrifice effectiveness.
That's the conclusion of a study conducted by Adaptly, the social ad tech firm, in conjunction with Refinery29 and Facebook. The goal of the study was to determine whether an ad campaign designed along traditional lines -- one that guides the consumer gradually from brand awareness to product consideration to decision -- is any more or less effective than one that consists exclusively of calls to action.
"There's sort of an unanswered question in the world of advertising and media about the effects of delivering messages in a sequence as a way to bring a consumer through the classic purchase funnel," says Sean O'Neal, Adaptly's president. "Intuitively, a lot of advertisers say, 'Let's just skip the first two steps and go straight to the call to action.'"
Answering the question definitively through a controlled study required knowing precisely at what point each trial participant was exposed to each message in the sequence. Before Facebook, that was basically impossible. Even on websites that require log-in, passwords may be shared, leaving advertisers to guess at exactly who is seeing their messages. "An ID is one thing; a true identity is another," says O'Neal.
For its study, Adaptly created a custom Facebook audience of more than 2 million people chosen to resemble Refinery29's core customers. These users were divided into two experimental groups -- one exposed to the three-part sequence, one only to calls to action (CTA) -- plus a control group shown no ads.
The results were unequivocal: The sequencing approach yielded 56% more new subscribers than the CTA-only approach, and 87% better view-throughs (similar to click-throughs).
Source: Adaptly
That may seem obvious to anyone familiar with the workings of human beings: If you want to get a woman's phone number, it helps to chat her up a bit before asking for it. But to advertisers reared on Google keyword ads, the Don Draper approach may seem self-indulgent and wasteful -- even if it's actually the best way to drive ROI. Says O'Neal, "We're trying to, as an industry, unlearn some of those bad habits."
Jeff Bercovici
I've been covering the business of news, information and entertainment in one form or another for more than 10 years. In February 2014, I moved to San Francisco to cover...


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Musical Period
March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany
July 28, 1750 in Leipzig, Germany
Chamber Music Choral Concerto Keyboard Orchestral
Jean-Sébastien Bach
Recent Classical Highlights
The Story of the "Thunderbolt" That Led to Chick Corea Finally Appreciating Mozart
Album Premiere: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Takes on Gershwin and Ravel With 'Broadway-Lafayette'
Classical Music Necrology 2012
Biography by Robert Cummings
Bach was a German composer of the Baroque period and virtuoso organist. His music is notable for its intellectual rigor and emotional expressiveness.
Compositions ↓
Composition Highlights
Avg. Duration
Sonata for violin & keyboard No. 3 in E major, BWV 1016 1720 16:36 Chamber Music
Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV 1050 1721 20:59 Concerto
Italian Concerto, for solo keyboard in F major, BWV 971 (BC L7) (Clavier-Übung II/1) 1735 12:44 Keyboard
Passacaglia and Fugue, for organ in C minor, BWV 582 (BC J79) 1708 13:50 Keyboard
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, for keyboard in D minor, BWV 903 (BC L34) 1723 11:51 Keyboard
French Suite, for keyboard No. 5 in G major, BWV 816 (BC L23) 1722 17:01 Keyboard
Goldberg Variations, for keyboard, BWV 988 (BC L9) (Clavier-Übung IV) 1741 57:07 Keyboard
Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major, BWV 1046 1721 20:40 Concerto
Concerto for violin, strings & continuo No. 2 in E major, BWV 1042 1730 17:12 Concerto
Sonata for solo violin No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001 1720 16:25 Chamber Music
Suite for solo cello No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007 1720 17:55 Chamber Music
Concerto for 2 violins, strings & continuo in D minor ("Double"), BWV 1043 1730 15:31 Concerto
Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B flat major, BWV 1051 1721 17:08 Concerto
Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, motet for chorus, BWV 225 (BC C1) 1726 13:34 Choral
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048 1721 11:33 Concerto
Concerto for violin, strings & continuo No. 1 in A minor, BWV 1041 1730 14:12 Concerto
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068 1731 20:37 Orchestral
Partita for solo violin No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004 1720 28:03 Chamber Music
Fantasia and Fugue, for organ in G minor ("Great"), BWV 542 (BC J42, 57, 67) 1725 11:51 Keyboard
See All Compositions
Dietrich Buxtehude
Wolfgang Amadeus…


This paper presents an experimental study of the strain-rate and temperature dependence of the yield stress for three low carbon steels (percent c = 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4). Tension test results using notched specimens are reported for temperatures of −20°C, 0°C, and 25°C and strain rates from 10−4 s−1 to 200 s−1 . Two regions with different kinetics have been observed. The yield stress shows a low sensitivity to strain-rate at higher temperatures and lower strain rates (region I), but the rate sensitivity is high at lower temperatures and higher strain rates (region II). An approximately linear dependence of yield stress on log strain rate is displayed in both regions. The carbon content of the steel strongly affects strengthening in region I, but weakening appears as the strain rate increases in region II. Deformation in the two regions is analyzed according to standard formalisms. When the yield stress is separated into athermal and thermally activated components, the carbon concentration dependence is shown to isolate to the athermal stress component, which becomes rate controlling at high temperatures and low strain rates.
Yongning L, Jinhua Z, Huijiu Z, Follansbee PS. Variation of Yield Stress With Strain Rate for Three Carbon Steels. ASME. J. Eng. Mater. Technol. 1992;114(4):348-353. doi:10.1115/1.2904184.


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Instructor: Dr. Peter Daszak
Fulfills requirement: Case Study
Dates: September 5, 19, 26, October 3 (Module 1, 4 longer sessions)
Why do pandemic diseases like AIDS, Ebola, influenza and SARS emerge? What causes them to 'spillover' from wildlife to people and spread so rapidly around the world? More than 60% of emerging infectious diseases that affect humans originate in animals and more than two-thirds of those originate in wildlife. Human processes that infringe upon previously uninhabited areas have the potential to profoundly affect our exposure to diseases around the world, causing millions of people to become infected, and costing billions of dollars each year. Yet health assessments rarely take into account the principles of disease ecology, the interaction of the behavior and ecology of hosts with the biology of pathogens. In this course you will gain an overview of the principles of disease ecology with an emphasis on the effect of disease on human, wildlife, domestic animals, and ecosystem health. We will explore the environmental and socioeconomic drivers behind the rise of Ebola, SARS, HIV and other devastating pandemics, and examine the impact of disease on biodiversity and rates of extinction.
Dr. Peter Daszak is President of EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), a US-based organization which conducts research and outreach programs on global health, conservation and international development. Dr. Daszak's research has been instrumental in identifying and predicting the impact of emerging diseases across the globe. His achievements include identifying the bat origin of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), identifying the underlying drivers of Nipah and Hendra virus emergence, producing the first ever global emerging disease hotspots map, identifying the first case of a species extinction due to disease, coining the term "pathogen pollution," and discovering the disease chytridiomycosis as the cause global amphibian declines. Dr. Daszak is a member of the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Forum on Microbial Threats, the One Health Commission Council of Advisors, the Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases (CEEZAD) External Advisory Board, and served on the IOM Committee on global surveillance for emerging zoonoses, the National Research Council (NRC) committee on the future of veterinary research, the International Standing Advisory Board of the Australian Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), and he has advised the Director for Medical Preparedness Policy of the White House National Security Staff on global health issues. Dr. Daszak won the 2000 Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) medal for collaborative research on the discovery of amphibian chytridiomycosis, is the EHA institutional lead for the US International Development Agency Emerging Pandemic Threats (USAID-EPT) PREDICT project, and is Editor-in-Chief of the journal EcoHealth. He has authored over 200 scientific papers, and his work has been the focus of extensive media coverage, ranging from popular press articles to television appearances.
« Global Food Security, Global Oceans, and Local Climates ^ Introduction to Environmental Policy* »


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07/11/2019 Toronto Raptors
Report: Toronto Raptors have 'no plans' to trade Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol or Serge Ibaka before 2019-20 season
Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka are each set to become unrestricted free agents next offseason.
https://images.daznservices.com/di/library/NBA_Global_CMS_image_storage/d2/46/raf_1lxb1coecvw9m1k9s6wajajq0o.jpg?t=1317723801&w=500
By Scott Rafferty @crabdribbles
Marc Gasol, Kyle Lowry, Serge Ibaka (NBA Getty Images) https://images.daznservices.com/di/library/NBA_Global_CMS_image_storage/24/fb/gasol-lowry-ibaka-071019-ftr-gettyjpg_1vmzx9dci7cn31xqplnfetzoge.jpg?t=-591871893&w=500
After losing Kawhi Leonard to the LA Clippers in free agency, the Toronto Raptors currently have no plans to move Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol or Serge Ibaka, according to Josh Lewenberg of TSN Sports.
The Raptors have no plans to trade vets Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol or Serge Ibaka (all on expiring deals) ahead of the season, I'm told. As he's done previously, Masai is expected to give his team an opportunity to sink or swim before choosing a path and deciding on its future.
- Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) July 10, 2019
Lowry, Gasol and Ibaka are set to become unrestricted free agents next summer. For now, the expectation is for the Raptors to run it back - minus Leonard and Danny Green, of course, both of whom left the team in free agency - to see what they're capable of.
Lowry, Gasol and Ibaka will be Toronto's three-highest paid players next season. Lowry will make $33.3 million compared to $25.6 million for Gasol and $23.3 million for Ibaka.
There's no knowing what the market would look like for each of them, but Lowry, Gasol and Ibaka proved last season that they're more than capable of making a difference on a title contending team. There will likely be interest from teams around the league that believe they're a point guard or centre away from making a run in the playoffs.
Lowry has been with the Raptors since the 2012-13 season. He's developed into a five-time All-Star with the team and a one-time member of the All-NBA Third Team. Gasol joined the team this past season from the Memphis Grizzlies, whereas Ibaka was traded from the Orlando Magic to the Raptors in the second half of the 2016-17 season.
The three played a key role in the Raptors winning their first-ever championship last season.


SALT LAKE CITY, April 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- O.C. Tanner, the global leader in employee recognition and workplace culture, announced today it has acquired the recognition and rewards technology and business of Kwench, an India-based company that delivers cutting-edge, easy-to-use corporate recognition solutions. The agreement will combine the global footprint of O.C. Tanner and the software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology platforms of Kwench to enhance value to clients everywhere.
"We've enjoyed tremendous success with our O.C. Tanner India team, and the addition of the Kwench team and technology will combine the strengths of two market leaders to help us better serve our collective client base," said Dave Petersen, CEO of O.C. Tanner. "While we've largely focused on multinational clients, the Kwench focus has been primarily on companies headquartered in India, so this acquisition will fuel even greater growth. We measure progress and success by how many employees and workplaces we can positively impact through our recognition programs and strategies – and we are very excited to welcome the Kwench team into our global organization."
O.C. Tanner's existing footprint in India, including a headquarters in Mumbai and a second location in Hyderabad, will be bolstered by Kwench's local presence and nearly 50 employees.
"We are truly excited to join the O.C. Tanner family and see it as a perfect meeting of minds, culture and aspirations. It is indeed a validation of India's market potential and Kwench's capabilities that the world's largest recognition company has chosen to make this acquisition," said Sunder Nookala, CEO of Kwench.
"As one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, India is an exciting place for business today," said Managing Director of O.C. Tanner India Zubin Zack. "Employee recognition is fast evolving as a key focus area as companies fight to attract and retain the best talent. These are exciting times for Kwench and O.C. Tanner to combine strengths and bring global best practices to the Indian market."


After courts lift school desegregation orders, students of color are more likely to drop out, a new study finds — the latest signal that school segregation harms black and Hispanic kids.
Court-mandated integration efforts across the U.S. have sharply declined in recent decades. Of 480 school districts that had an integration order in place in 1991 (and at least 2,000 students), 214 had the court order eliminated by 2010. Officials often moved quickly to dismantle assignment systems designed to achieve integration.
In those districts where a desegregation decree was lifted, researcher David Liebowitz found immediate and persistent increases in the dropout rates for both black and Hispanic students.
Specifically, lifting the court orders led to a sustained increase in dropout rates among Hispanic students of 3 percentage points, and black students of 1 percentage point, compared to similar districts where mandates remained.
White students were no more or less likely to drop out of high school after the districts resegregated — a finding generally consistent with past research on school integration, which has been shown to help students of color and have little measurable impact on white students.
"If policymakers have an interest in increasing the graduation rate of black and Hispanic youth, one tool in their disposal … is promoting racially integrated schools," said Liebowitz, who conducted the peer-reviewed study as a graduate student at Harvard and is now an analyst with the OECD.
Mandates to eliminate school segregation came after landmark Supreme Court cases, including Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg in 1971. The affected districts educated millions of students in total, and were usually, though not exclusively, in the south.
But in the early 1990s, the Supreme Court made it easier for districts to get out of court supervision — and many did.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg, one of the districts that pioneered using busing to integrate its schools, had its mandate lifted in 1999, for example. School board members would soon put in place a choice plan that put much greater weight on neighborhood assignment. Subsequent research showed that school segregation had significantly expanded, to the detriment of students in newly segregated schools.
Nationwide, schools have become increasingly stratified economically over the last several decades. Racial segregation has also increased by some measures, largely because there are more students of color than before.
That means fights over whether — and how aggressively — to integrate schools continue.
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio recently issued a school diversity plan, which was widely panned as not ambitious enough. In Kentucky, a longstanding integration initiative was recently threatened by state lawmakers, though it eventually died in the legislature. In Charlotte, North Carolina, efforts to (re-)integrate schools persist, but remain contentious.
Liebowitz hopes his findings encourage more places to act.
The directive remains in place under the Trump administration, but Liebowitz worries it will be rescinded.
"If legal doctrine shifts to prohibit consideration of race in the development of policy or on the impact that a policy will have, it may lead to other similar negative outcomes," Liebowitz wrote.


text:
Spiritual Machines
Emotion Meets Electronics on Three New Albums
June 30, 2010 Andre Salles
I'm writing this from limbo right now.
This season of Doctor Who, the 31st, has been one of the program's very best. New Doctor Matt Smith was clearly born to play this role, and new showrunner Steven Moffat overcame some early hurdles to deliver a fine, fine set of stories, all of which wrap together in a 13-episode arc. I've been excited about new Doctor Who every Saturday since Easter, but because I live on this side of the pond, I've had a few hours of limbo every week, between the episode airing in Britain and becoming available online.
These limbo hours are exceedingly difficult this week. The season finale, "The Big Bang," finished airing about an hour ago, and spoiler-free reactions I've seen have been mixed. The penultimate episode, "The Pandorica Opens," was amazing, and if Moffat sticks his landing, it will cap off an outstanding season. But I don't know if he's pulled it off yet, and I won't for at least six more hours. It's frustrating.
So here I sit, distracting myself by writing another silly music column. This week, I've got three remarkably different artists who all rely on electronic beats and computers to create their music. And yet, all three have delivered remarkably emotional pieces of work (yes, even the one without any lyrics). Dive in? Sure, let's.
A decade ago, I named Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP the best album of 2000. I've gone back and forth on that decision since. At the time, I felt we were witnessing the rise of an Important Artist, one with a deep satirical bent and incredible skills at the mic. Marshall Mathers is still a thrilling piece of work, one that leaps over lines of taste and social responsibility with manic glee, and hands out cop-outs like Twizzlers.
But Em's subsequent work has blunted the impact of his first two records. He closed out his opening trilogy with the surprisingly sensitive The Eminem Show in 2002, then fell flat on his face with 2004's Encore, a childish, vile, overlong waste that did incalculable damage to his legacy. And then he disappeared for five years, and no one missed him. It wasn't that long ago that Eminem had the pop cultural reach to pull off his grand-scale satire, but alter ego Slim Shady only works if impressionable people are listening to him.
Last year's Relapse appeared to be the final nail in the coffin. Half the album was a riveting travelogue through drug detox hell, but the other half was a depressing retread, pulling up all Mathers' old tropes: graphic violence, celeb-baiting, and complaining about his mom and ex-wife. Relapse offered nothing new, and tried so hard to be shocking that much of it was just boring. Eminem still has the skill – his internal rhyme structure is second to none, his rapid-fire delivery mesmerizing. But he ran out of things to say 10 years ago, and every album after The Marshall Mathers LP (or at least The Eminem Show) has been unnecessary.
I guess, then, it's faint praise to call his sixth album, Recovery, the least unnecessary of Eminem's latter-day career. But you know what? I don't want to damn this album that way. Recovery is a genuine surprise – far from being Relapse's evil twin, this is Mathers finally flipping over his own story and starting again. This is, for Eminem, a remarkably mature album – Slim Shady is name-checked but never appears, Mathers actually apologizes for wasting our time over the past decade, and he spends 16 tracks trying desperately to prove that he's still worth listening to. He doesn't do this though hip-hop bravado, though. Recovery sounds like one of his 12 steps, an album about doing everything possible to be whole once more.
Does that sound boring? I guess it depends on what you want from Eminem. Ever since The Eminem Show I've been pulling for him to make an album like this, one that's heart-on-sleeve sincere and still lyrically dazzling. Given how deep Mathers has gone before, how much of himself he's revealed, I couldn't figure out why playing Slim Shady still held any attraction for him. On Recovery, Mathers dispenses with his multiple personalities, thereby denying himself his cop-outs, and raps as himself for an entire album. This is exactly what I've wanted for a long time.
I can't tell you how bracing it is heaing "Talkin' 2 Myself" for the first time. The album's second track, "Talkin'" is the first of many songs here about Mathers' healing process, but he actually cops to the fact that Encore and Relapse weren't good discs. "I got something to prove to fans 'cause I feel like I let 'em down, so please accept my apology, I finally feel like I'm back to normal," he says, and it's like a gauntlet. After that, Recovery has to deliver, and for the most part, it does.
The problem is this: instead of just going ahead and making a comeback album, Eminem has written an album all about making a comeback album. Once the untitled hidden track fades, you almost expect the real record to start. But as a statement about coming back, it works well. The beats here are strong, but for the first time in ages, Eminem actually elevates them with his wordplay. His collaboration with Pink, "Won't Back Down," is a grimy march, and Em spits the lyrics out like a gatling gun. "Cinderella Man" is a highlight, the melodic vocalists giving it an earthy feel, and "Almost Famous" is a modern Eminem masterpiece.
Here's how good Eminem is on this album. On "Talkin' 2 Myself," he makes a big deal about the fact that he once considered writing a diss song against Lil Wayne, humbly concluding he'd get his ass handed to him. Seven songs later, he gives the first half of "No Love" to Wayne himself, and then, in the song's second half, blows him out of the water. The final stretches of "No Love" are astounding, Mathers skipping through a hundred rhythmic changes and rhyming every word except the ones you expect. It's a better diss than anything he could have come up with.
I've been talking a lot about Eminem's road to healing on this album, and I don't want to give a wrong impression – he's just as foul-mouthed as ever. When he's not rapping about his own struggles, both with his career and his relationships, he's making Michael J. Fox jokes and talking about making bulimics puke. Most of his jabs are clever this time ("Stick my dick in a circle, but I'm not fucking around"), but if you think he's turned over a new leaf, you're wrong. This is Eminem embracing every part of himself, even the ones that laugh at jokes about Parkinson's disease.
But there aren't any murder fantasies here, and there are several songs that show a genuine weakness, often a verboten thing in hip-hop. And he uses his own image to his advantage on "25 to Life," a raw breakup song that sounds like just another assault on his ex-wife, until the final lines. Maturity is a relative thing, I suppose, and odd as it may be to say, the fact that there aren't any songs here about killing his own children with cyanide or dismembering Britney Spears is an improvement. He's all grown up, kind of.
Some have called Recovery a slog, and I can see what they're talking about. This isn't nearly as provocative as the button-pushing impishness of Eminem's first two albums, and after years of poking at society and running away laughing, it's hard to take Mathers as seriously as he wants here. Some of these songs are also frustratingly average ("W.T.P.," "So Bad," "Seduction"), and the album is, as always, too long. Much of it is informed by the 2006 death of his D12 bandmate Proof as well, leading to an even more straight-faced tone.
But to me, Recovery is the album on which Eminem finally takes hold of his prodigious talent and uses it to make himself whole. There's a real emotional heft to this record, behind the constant swearing and graphic imagery, and for the first time in 10 years, I have no buyer's remorse. This is a hugely enjoyable record, and hopefully the first step in a new direction for Mathers. For the first time, he sounds willing to take responsibility for his words, his influence, and his life, and to these aging ears, that's more compelling stuff than even Slim Shady's most delirious fantasies. For the first time in a long while, I'm looking forward to whatever Mathers does next.
If you're a singer in a rock band, perhaps the most cliched thing you could do right now is turn to electronica for your solo debut. Thom Yorke blazed the trail with the godawful The Eraser, but more recently, artists like Julian Casablancas of the Strokes have taken the dance-beat plunge, and if you find a band more committed to the "rock thing" than the Strokes, you let me know.
Now Bloc Party's Kele Okereke has done the same thing with The Boxer, his just-released solo bow. It would be incredibly easy to slate this record for following a trend, except for two things. First, it's not that much of a stretch for the lead singer of Bloc Party, a band that has had a strong electronic element for its whole career (and amped that element up considerably for 2008's Intimacy). And second, Okereke has written a strong group of songs here, and made what turns out to be a very good album.
Bloc Party has a huge sound, synths and guitars and big beats colliding on nearly every track. The Boxer, on the other hand, is sparse – opener "Walk Tall" is built on nothing but an insistent drum pattern and a wobbly bass noise. The songs here are danceable, yet melodic, and Okereke's voice is folded, spindled and mutilated, but always front and center, carrying the song. "Everything You Wanted" could be a Bloc Party track, Okereke digging deep for a wailing, compelling chorus.
I thought I would like songs like that one the most. Two others on The Boxer are more traditional: "Unholy Thoughts" comes closest to indie rock, with a steady bassline and guitar part, and "All The Things I Could Never Say" is a dark ballad, the kind Bloc Party did so well on A Weekend in the City. But those aren't the tracks I keep returning to. The explosive whirlygig of "On the Lam" draws me in farther, as does the near-ambient "The New Rules."
My favorite, however, is the first single, "Tenderoni." The beat is simply unstoppable on this song, and all I need is the descending bass line, Okereke's voice and the thump-thump-thump. This one gets my blood pumping like no other here. You can call this his Thom Yorke move if you want, but unlike Radiohead's main man, Okereke has fully integrated his electronic textures with his knack for writing kickass, moving songs. Yes, it's a trend, but Okereke transcends it. The Boxer is pretty damn great.
Which brings us to the Chemical Brothers, and if anyone's in dire need of a comeback record, it's these guys.
Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons exploded onto the scene in the late '90s with a pair of extraordinary big-beat workouts, Exit Planet Dust and Dig Your Own Hole. At the time, electronic music was just nudging its nose out of the clubs and onto the radio, and the Chemical Brothers showed what it could be. They invited famous singers into the studio to collaborate, including Noel Gallagher, Bernard Sumner and Hope Sandoval, and for a while, they could do no wrong.
But in the last decade, they've settled for passable instead of excellent more often than not. I'm still not even sure how I feel about 2007's We Are the Night – it sounds like a Chemical Brothers tribute act. It seemed like the Brothers had played their last card, and had shown everything they could do. I don't even remember 2005's Push the Button. I have it, I know I've heard it, I know it features the aforementioned Kele Okereke in a guest spot, I just don't recall the thing at all.
So yeah, the Brothers are in desperate need of a reinvention. And they've picked a strange way to go about it – Further, their seventh album, is almost entirely instrumental, features no collaborators at all, and is meant to be heard as an unbroken 52-minute suite. That's right, the Chemical Brothers have decided to recapture the public's imagination by challenging them with head music, and delivering a full-on assault on the instant-download singles culture. And I kind of love them for that.
I also love Further, the first great Chemical Brothers album since the '90s. I love that Simons and Rowlands expect listeners to settle in and absorb this thing as a whole – opening track "Snow" is five minutes of drumless blips, which leads directly into the 12-minute "Escape Velocity," an ever-building crescendo of sound. The Brothers aren't cruising at full power until the album's 11-minute mark, and even then, it's still building.
Throughout Further, the Chems keep the beats subtle and the sounds watery. The whole shebang doesn't truly kick in until track four, "Dissolve." From there, the songs get heavier and more propulsive, until the submerged-sounding closer, "Wonders of the Deep." (I wish that one had gone on a little longer than its 5:12.) Some parts of the album are weaker (such as the repetitive and annoying "Horse Power"), but as a whole, as an emotional ebb and flow, the thing works.
Best of all, it's the first Chemical Brothers album in a decade that doesn't sound like it was made on autopilot. It's not going to knock the music world on its back like Dig Your Own Hole did, but Further is the finest album these guys have made since those halcyon days. If you have the patience to curl up with this album for its entire running time, it will reward you – it is defiantly an album in an age of quick-hits, and a remarkable one at that.
And now it's time for the 2010 halftime report. Today is the last day of June, and that means half of the year's new releases are already out. The last three months have seen some corkers, so this list has changed considerably since the first quarter report in March. If I were forced to publish my top 10 list right now, under threat of death by vuvuzela, here's what it would look like:
10. Devo, Something for Everybody.
9. The Dead Weather, Sea of Cowards.
8. BT, These Hopeful Machines.
7. Hanson, Shout it Out.
6. Janelle Monae, The Archandroid.
5. Rufus Wainwright, All Days are Nights: Songs for Lulu.
4. Beach House, Teen Dream.
3. Yeasayer, Odd Blood.
2. The Lost Dogs, Old Angel.
1. Joanna Newsom, Have One on Me.
Joanna's still hanging on to that top spot – hard to beat a triple-album of really good stuff. But there's a new Choir album out this week, and new things from Crowded House, Ben Folds, Arcade Fire, Ray LaMontagne, Eels, the Hoosiers, Sixpence None the Richer, Richard Thompson, Interpol and the Walkmen coming over the next three months, so everything could change. (And yes, the Lost Dogs album really is that good.)
Next week, some notes from this year's Cornerstone festival, and a review of that Choir album, Burning Like the Midnight Sun. Now, I'm off to watch "The Big Bang." Come on, Moffat, blow my mind. (Update: He did, sort of. More next week, or the week after.)
Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow my infrequent twitterings at www.twitter.com/tm3am.


text:
@interface BCBalancedMultilineLabelSnapshotTests : FBSnapshotTestCase
@property (nonatomic, strong) BCBalancedMultilineLabel *label;
@end

@implementation BCBalancedMultilineLabelSnapshotTests

- (void)setUp {
    [super setUp];
    self.label = [[BCBalancedMultilineLabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 300, 50)];
    self.label.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue" size:17.0f];
    self.label.backgroundColor = [UIColor whiteColor];
    self.label.text = @"This is a string which wraps onto two lines";
}

- (void)testAdjustsWordWrappingSoLineLengthsAreAsEvenAsPossibleWithLeftAlignment {
    self.label.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentLeft;
    FBSnapshotVerifyViewWithOptions(self.label, nil, @[@""], .001);
}

- (void)testAdjustsWordWrappingSoLineLengthsAreAsEvenAsPossibleWithCenterAlignment {
    self.label.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;
    FBSnapshotVerifyViewWithOptions(self.label, nil, @[@""], .001);
}

- (void)testAdjustsWordWrappingSoLineLengthsAreAsEvenAsPossibleWithRightAlignment {
    self.label.textAlignment = NSTextAlignmentRight;
    FBSnapshotVerifyViewWithOptions(self.label, nil, @[@""], .015);
}

- (void)testDoesNotModifySingleLineRendering {
    self.label.text = @"One line of text";
    FBSnapshotVerifyViewWithOptions(self.label, nil, @[@""], .001);
}

- (void)testAppropriatelyHandlesExplicitNewlines {
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    [self.label sizeToFit];
    FBSnapshotVerifyViewWithOptions(self.label, nil, @[@""], .001);
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Find peace and tranquillity in this Asian-inspired haven whatever time of day. Inspired by natural wood grains, this range is the happy medium between modern intervention and traditional style.
The simple yet stylish features of this collection will not disappoint. Let subtle shades of the Light Grey finish work in harmony against handles in soft-brushed steel.
Use the pockets of storage space incorporated into the design to showcase your personality, whether it's a bespoke piece of art or a prized antique. Add statements using natural metals against the understated grains of cashmere to balance the entire room.


text:
The Avm Center
Clinical Directors
Robert Rosen, M.D.
Milton Waner, M.D.
Francine Blei, M.D.
Terry Amaral, M.D.
Alfio Carraccio, M.D.
Wojciech Dec, M.D.
Aaron Fay, M.D.
Gary Giangola, M.D.
John Ho, M.D.
Oren Lerman, M.D.
Teresa O, M.D.
Rafael Ortiz, M.D.
Salvatore Presti, M.D.
Deborah Shatzkes, M.D.
Charles Thorne, M.D.
Maja Zaric, M.D.
Why all the Confusion?
Helpful Terminology
MOST COMMON CONDITIONS
Books From Our Faculty
AVM Research & Current Concepts
Your Trip To NYC
Patients and their families are often confused by terms they have never heard before, particularly when they are under stress from dealing with an unfamiliar medical situation. The following are some of the terms which you may hear, along with a brief definition.
A diagnostic study in which a catheter is threaded through the arterial system and x-ray contrast (dye) is injected to obtain images of the arterial circulation. Usually used in the diagnosis of arteriovenous (high flow) malformations.
Short for Arteriovenous Malformation. Strictly speaking, an AVM is an abnormal connection between arteries and veins (sort of a "short circuit" in the circulation).
An anti-cancer drug which can be injected directly into malformations, acting as a sclerosing agent.
Metallic coils which are placed through a catheter in an artery to mechanically block it.
Congenital
Some abnormality which is present from birth. Usually not genetically passed on in families (only the specific individual affected).
An antibiotic which can also be used as a sclerosant solution. Most often used in treating lymphatic malformations.
Embolization
The process of intentionally blocking a blood vessel to achieve a therapeutic result. Various materials can be used, depending on the clinical situation.
The chemical name for an alcohol solution which can be injected into arteries or veins, which causes rapid occlusion due to its chemical toxicity.
An abnormality in the genetic make-up which may be passed on in families through varying patterns of inheritance. Most vascular malformations are congenital but not genetic abnormalities.
Chemically nBCA, a special medical adhesive injected into an artery to form a cast of the vessel. Usually used in the treatment of high flow AVMs.
This term is often incorrectly applied to all vascular birthmarks – it is actually a benign tumor of blood vessels seen in infants and young children that generally gets better by itself (a process called "involution"). It is never seen in adults.
High flow AVM
This is a malformation that consists of arteries abnormally connecting to veins ("shunting"). The flow through the malformation is therefore rapid.
Klippel Trenaunay Syndrome (KTS)
A fairly common type of venous malformation usually involving one limb, usually the leg. The range of severity varies widely but usually includes varicose veins or venous malformations, growth disturbance of the limb, and skin discoloration ("port wine stain").
Low flow malformation
This type of malformation consists of abnormal veins or lymphatic tissue, which are both low flow vessels.
Lymphangiogram
Used to study the lymphatric system, requiring a small surgical incision in the foot to place a needle in a lymph channel and inject special contrast (ethiodol, an oil which shows up on x-rays).
A less familiar part of the circulatory system, consisting of small (almost microscopic) vessels and lymph nodes. This system serves two functions: first, it scavenges tissue fluid from the body and returns it to the main circulation, and second, serves as part of the immune system.
A drug derived from bacterial proteins which has been used in treating lymphatic malformations by causing an inflammatory reaction. Not generally used in the U.S.
Trade name for ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer, a non-adhesive material injected to block arteries
Osler Weber Rendu Syndrome
Also known as Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT) – a familial syndrome which includes arteriovenous malformations in various parts of the body, including the lung.
Parkes Weber Syndrome
Similar to KTS, but with an arterial (high flow) component.
Port Wine Stain
Port Wine Stains are a type of venous malformation involving the superficial layers of the skin, causing an area of pink to red discoloration.
Similar to embolization but the abnormal vessels are treated by directly injecting a chemical or drug which intentionally causes inflammation, leading to shrinkage of the abnormal tissue.
Short for Sotradecol (sodium tetradecyl sulfate), a chemical sclerosing agent used in treating venous (low flow) malformations as well as varicose veins.
Sturge Weber Syndrome
A fairly rare genetic disorder which includes specific birthmarks, brain abnormalities, seizures, and cataracts.
Vascular birthmark
A general term usually used to describe a vascular malformation involving the skin and creating a red or purple discoloration.
Vascular malformation
A general term for any congenital abnormality of the blood vessels.
Vascular plug
A metallic mesh device which is passed through a catheter and expands inside an artery to block it; it is detachable, meaning that it can be repositioned or removed the initial placement is suboptimal.
Venogram
A diagnostic study where a needle or catheter is placed in a vein and contrast injected to obtain images of the veins.
About The AVM Center
Why All The Confusion
Treatments & Procedures
The Information contained or referenced on the The AVM Center of New York at Lenox Hill website is for educational and communications purposes only. The site does not provide medical advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional help. The information is intended to support, not replace, the patient-physician relationship and the content is provided only as an educational resource. The website offers hyperlinks to other organizations and web pages and The AVM Center of New York at Lenox Hill is not responsible for information or advice contained on those sites. ©2015 The AVM Center of New York at Lenox Hill.


How much do movers in Kingston charge? The moving cost depends on the size of your home and how far you're moving.
For example, moving a 2 bedroom home to New York City costs $820 - $1000, to Brooklyn costs $820 - $1000, to Queens costs $820 - $1000, to Manhattan costs $810 - $990, to The Bronx costs $800 - $980, etc.


text:
The Political Consequences of Wartime Sexual Violence: Evidence from a List Experiment
See all articles by Belén González
Belén González
Leuphana University of Lueneburg; GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Richard Traunmüller
University of Mannheim - School of Social Sciences
We present the first systematic study into the political effects of wartime sexual violence. Connecting unobtrusive measures from a list experiment to individual survivors' political action, we show that personal experience of sexual violence increases political participation. This effect is substantial in size, holds for institutionalized and non-institutionalized forms of political action, and is robust to unobserved confounding or sample selection bias. To understand why sexual victimization leads to political activism, we derive mechanisms from work on the legacies of violent conflict. Causal mediation analyses suggest that social preferences or 'post-traumatic growth' are insufficient explanations for the mobilizing effect of wartime sexual violence. Instead, survivors of sexual violence are mobilized through their involvement in civic networks. Stressing the agency of survivors, we contribute to the understanding of wartime sexual violence, the role of civil society in post-conflict politics and humanitarian policy.
Keywords: wartime sexual violence, political participation, post-conflict politics, list experiment
González, Belén and Traunmüller, Richard, The Political Consequences of Wartime Sexual Violence: Evidence from a List Experiment (January 30, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3529148 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3529148
Leuphana University of Lueneburg ( email )
Scharnhorststraße 1
Wilschenbrucher Weg 69
Lüneburg, 21335
GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies ( email )
Jungfernstieg 21
Hamburg, 20354
Richard Traunmüller (Contact Author)
University of Mannheim - School of Social Sciences ( email )


Willa Jaśkowy Dworek invites you to 12 comfortably furnished, air conditioned rooms with bathrooms, providing a place to stay for 31 people. Each room has a different style and is equipped with telephone, LCD TV and Internet access.
Standard rooms are prepared to meet all the different needs of our customers. We offer two rooms with a kitchenette and living room with a balcony. We recommend a very comfortable room, prepared for couples wanting to enjoy a high standard, discretion and comfort.
Willa Jaśkowy Dworek reserves the right to change pricing. In our Villa is "Price of the day".
Any information on the price list does not constitute an offer to trade within the meaning of the Civil Code.
The room rate includes breakfast, monitored parking and VAT.


A collection of Easter themed teaching resources ideal to use in your school, Church or early years setting when discussing the Easter story, including a variety of posters and Easter themed images.
A4 Easter display poster featuring pictures of the empty tomb. Ideal for your School, Church or Sunday school displays.
A4 Easter display poster featuring pictures of several decorative Easter eggs, a chick and of course the Easter bunny.
A4 Good Friday display poster featuring a picture of Jesus on the cross in Golgotha. Ideal for your School, Church or Sunday school displays.
A collection of Easter egg themed number bond puzzles showing the different ways to make 10.
A series of Easter egg themed number bond puzzles showing the different ways to make 5.
Decorative Easter themed numberline featuring numbers 1-10 represented by Easter eggs.
A Microsoft Word document featuring a set of 20 Easter egg pictures each with it's own text box.
Microsoft Word editable poster ideal to advertise an Easter service, event or perhaps just to type a prayer.
Microsoft Word editable poster ideal to advertise an Easter party or event.
Microsoft Word editable poster ideal to advertise a Good Friday service, event or perhaps just to type a prayer.
Large Good Friday display poster featuring a picture of Jesus on the cross at Golgotha.
Large Easter display poster featuring a picture of the empty tomb.


text:
Manikin steht für:

 Manikin (CAD-Modell), Menschmodell für CAD-Systeme; 3D und 2D
 Manikin Records, Berliner Plattenlabel
 Manikin (Ostnoimuti), Dork im indonesischen Distrikt Ostnoimuti in Westtimor

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Inside the Grocery Bag of a Food Blogger discusses the many ingredients that I, as a Food Blogger, cannot live without. In addition, you'll learn about a few staple items as well as the surprising differences in cheeses, especially as it relates to tolerance versus intolerance.
If you've been following my blog for sometime then you'll know that I absolutely LOVE flavor! Although I use healthier (mostly organic) ingredients and I do my best to live a healthier lifestyle, I still enjoy the good ole' sweet treats, bold + complex flavors, and everything else in between. Therefore, most of the items that I purchase may be similar to the ones that you buy on a daily or weekly basis. However, because I am a Food Blogger, I tend to shop a bit differently than I use to (and probably many of you). Now, I have to consider my "inventory" ingredients, which are specifically for recipes versus my day-to-day stuff! Yup, that's right! I know. Longer lists and more trips to the grocery store! Ugh!
Since becoming a Food Blogger, I now have to do my grocery shopping almost every week. And if I do manage to stretch things to every 2 weeks, there are always little trinkets that need to be bought in between so that I can create one of my recipes. I guess there's no escaping the store or my pockets, huh!? Haha.
One thing I do know, however—-I definitely look at food differently, especially when buying organic vs. non organic. I do understand that this is a hugely controversial subject because of the fact that most people believe that "organic" ingredients aren't necessarily better than their counterparts, and while this may have some truth to it (when it comes to pesticides being present, etc), I'm still a huge fan of certain ingredients being organic. You can also find out the list of ingredients that I believe should always be organic (vs. not!) by subscribing to my newsletter (it'll be emailed to you by the next day!). Luckily, there are still things like farmers markets, organic markets, etc., which allow you to still get great organic foods.
As you can see, my grocery list can be a bit long, especially when it comes to the little speciality ingredients for my recipes (which can go on and on).
By the way, have you checked out the latest breakfast recipe: Baked Strawberry French Toast Casserole or the 3 Detoxes That You Should Be Doing More Often?
I always purchase the essentials first, which make up 70 % of my bag—fruits, veggies, eggs, milk, sugars, flours, cheeses, breads, meat, and fish.
Then, the other 30% which may include snacks, nuts, other sweets (ice cream, etc.), pastas, and other speciality items, I try to search for bargains in correlation with the healthier brands. For instance, specific stores such as Target (one of my quick Go-to's) may have one of my particular favorite branded items on sale versus my usual go-to place to shop, Amazon Fresh. If that be the case, then I'll split my grocery bag between both places so that I am able to save a few dollars. Unfortunately, I am not the girl who walks through each aisle reading the nutrition labels on her food (not that there's anything wrong with those who do this!), however, I do research about brands and once I resonate with their mission and overall manufacturing process, then I'm pretty much a die hard fan (sometimes regardless of the price). I believe that it's so important to know what goes into our foods, especially when it comes to how certain brands process and package what we eat.
In addition, another great trick to saving on foods (especially when purchasing organic) is to stock up during sales. Personally, when a particular healthier food item is one sale, I'll either purchase more than two (depending on the savings) and store it in my pantry or freezer. Freezing items is a great way to preserve foods just as an FYI—most times for months at a time, even with homemade recipes that are too much to leave in the refrigerator.
Honestly, when it comes to canned foods, I'm not a major fan! There a few things that I purchase canned, however, I always try to get "fresh" ingredients, which ultimately means less processing and altering. But I'm no judge of those who enjoy canned foods. It's definitely a preference, however, I know that most canned foods are higher in salt, sodium, sugars, and all the other stuff that aren't necessarily that great for you. More importantly, I follow the same rule of thumb when purchasing my little guy's snacks as well. He has a handful of pre-packaged snacks (and frozen breakfast items; mostly waffles or pancakes!) that he absolutely LOVES, however, I try to incorporate more homemade snacks, foods, and sweets. Again, it's so important to make sure that we know exactly what we are eating, including what our little ones consume.
Of course, moderation is key here, so no getting carried away! Haha!
Well, there you have it—Inside the Grocery Bag of a Food Blogger.
Inside the Grocery Bag of a Food Blogger.
Yes to buying ALLLL the beans!
Haha! Definitely! I love beans!


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The dancer Oleg Ivenko plays Rudolf Nureyev in Ralph Fiennes's bio-pic.Illustration by Tatsuro Kiuchi
The Current Cinema
"The White Crow" and the Difficulty with Dance Movies
Ralph Fiennes's bio-pic of Rudolf Nureyev's early years casts a trained dancer, Oleg Ivenko, in the lead role.
By Anthony Lane
Who should play the snake? That was a big issue for the creators of "The Bible: In the Beginning" (1966), an all-star version of Holy Writ—or, at least, of its first twenty-two books. The director, John Huston, when asked how the production was faring, had a stock reply: "I don't know how God managed. I'm having a terrible time." For the Garden of Eden section, he found an Adam from California and an Eve from Sweden. (This was the mid-sixties, after all.) Better yet, for the fiend with the fangs, the bringer of all our woe, Huston had someone special in mind: Rudolf Nureyev. "He will slither down the tree," Huston said, adding, "He will be a man-serpent, a kind of hybrid, homo-reptile." How could you not take advice on apple consumption from somebody like that?
This casting coup, alas, did not come to pass. For moviegoers, it's a matter of enduring regret that Nureyev, the most celebrated ballet dancer of his era, left so little trace onscreen. True, there are plenty of filmed records of him in performance; his duet with Margot Fonteyn in "Le Corsaire" is a notable favorite. But his lone starring role in the cinema was as another much-mobbed Rudy, in Ken Russell's "Valentino" (1975), a project that anyone could have told Nureyev to avoid. More than once, he was lured toward a bio-pic of Nijinsky. One such enterprise, as Julie Kavanagh recounts in her 2007 life of Nureyev, was to be written by Edward Albee and directed by Tony Richardson, with Paul Scofield as Serge Diaghilev. It was never made.
Now, by way of rueful compensation, we have "The White Crow," a film about Nureyev—or, at least, about his first twenty-three years. The script, by David Hare, is inspired by Kavanagh's thorough and thrilling biography, and the director is Ralph Fiennes, who also takes the role of Alexander Pushkin, Rudy's teacher at ballet school in Leningrad. Nureyev is played by Oleg Ivenko, in his movie début, who reminds us that dance films, like sports films, come with a built-in headache. Do you cast actors who lack the specialized skill of the characters and hope to smooth over the joins, if you can, with body doubles, cutaway shots, and so on? Or do you cast people who do have the requisite skill but can't, broadly speaking, act? The first option leads to clunkers like "Escape to Victory" (1981), a wartime soccer drama that strove to convince us that Sylvester Stallone would make a plausible goalkeeper. (The director was, yes, John Huston. He was a glutton for challenges.) The second option brings us "The White Crow."
Ivenko is a trained dancer. How good he is, and how accurate his impersonation of Nureyev's style manages to be, I'm not qualified to judge. But he seems a couple of notches too tame; you never imagine, as you did with Nureyev, that one of his great-grandmothers, on a trip to the East, had a fling with a Siberian tiger. Ivenko is also lumbered, poor lad, with dialogue in English as well as in Russian, and some of his line readings are as flat as the boards on which he treads. And yet, despite that, you warm to him and will him on. He finds just the right angle of arrogance when tilting his head, and draws close to the original in his beauty of face and form. Most important of all, he is framed in full figure as he moves. Whether onstage or at the barre, whether practicing alone or bringing an audience to a boil, this Nureyev can be seen whole, in leaps and bounds, with no editor's sleight of hand. As any Cyd Charisse fan will confirm, that honesty matters more than acting. It's what we are used to, if we were raised on Kelly and Astaire, and what we feel entitled to, in our greed for grace.
Structurally, the film is all chop and change, with Hare and Fiennes tacking back and forth across Nureyev's early years. Some viewers will find the result too fussy by half; I liked its restlessness, and the sense of a chafed and driven spirit that refuses to be boxed in. We see Rudolf as a child, raised in drastic poverty, with the colors around him drained to the brink of monochrome. We see him as a lanky youth, taken not just under Pushkin's wing but into his home, too, and into the furtive arms of Pushkin's wife, Xenia (Chulpan Khamatova). And we see him in Paris, in 1961, touring with the Kirov and dazed by the shock of the West—by its cultural storehouse as much as by its unfenced liberties.
There is something boldly unmodish about "The White Crow," staffed as it is by high-minded and unironic folk. Nureyev is first in line to enter the Louvre one morning, so that he can stand alone in front of Géricault's "Raft of the Medusa," inspecting its bundle of bodies arched in despair. Despite the interlude with Xenia, plus a cursory glance at a male bedmate, his cultural appetites get way more attention from the movie than his carnal wants. Of the stormy pansexual surfeit of his later life (he died of AIDS in 1993, at the age of fifty-four) we see no sign.
It's hard, nowadays, to recall how famous Nureyev was. His renown, like that of Maria Callas, was such that he was known far beyond his field of expertise. (In François Truffaut's 1970 film "Bed and Board," the heroine sits in bed, engrossed in a book on Nureyev, ignoring the lover beside her.) What placed him squarely in the spotlight was his defection to the West, at the end of the Kirov tour, and the dénouement of "The White Crow" occurs at Le Bourget airport, in suburban Paris. There, Nureyev is encircled by Soviet officials, as if by a pack of wolves. He has just learned that, rather than accompanying the rest of the troupe to London, he must return to Moscow and dance for Khrushchev: a blatant trap. If he wants asylum, he has to request it from the French police, who are standing nearby, at a bar—"six steps exactly," as he later recalled. Even his flight for freedom is like a dance.
"The White Crow" is muted and restrained, leagues away from the vaulting ecstasy of "The Red Shoes" (1948), and the best performances—from Aleksey Morozov, as Strizhevsky, Nureyev's K.G.B. minder, and from Fiennes himself, as Pushkin—are also the most doleful. The first man is more of a ruminator than a brute, though his threats are solid enough ("I know you must love your mother," he says darkly to the defector, hinting at reprisals back home), and the second is a sad-eyed stoic, pious in his fidelity to ballet and resigned to his status as a cuckold. Asked about his protégé's escape from Russia, he ascribes it, with a touch of envy and awe, to "an explosion of character." Although the airport sequence quickens the pulse, as intended, with our hero forced to decide his own fate on the spur of the moment, the entire movie, even in its calmer passages, strikes me as mysteriously tense. Maybe Nureyev was primed to explode from the start. For him, I guess, every moment was a spur.
At the close of "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018), the mighty Thanos (Josh Brolin) took it upon himself to eradicate half the universe. He had clearly read "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" and set his heart on becoming a cosmic Marie Kondo. Among those swept away were several valued members of the Avengers team (plus, for what it's worth, a huge chunk of the human race), and, ever since, speculation has fizzed as to whether they could possibly come back.
The answer is provided by "Avengers: Endgame," directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, which represents the final chapter of the franchise. Among the survivors are Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), who has somehow fused his two selves, the small clever person and the large green one, and now looks exactly like Shrek. If you'd asked me, in advance, how these heroes could undo the ravages of the past, my money would have been on time travel; that certainly worked in "Superman" (1978), when the Man of Steel circumwhizzed the globe to resurrect Lois Lane. My other hunch was that the new film might turn out to be based on Samuel Beckett's "Endgame," and that the Avengers would spend their days squatting miserably inside ash cans. Captain America could use his shield as a lid.
For a while, in fact, that scenario seems quite likely, since most of the characters have gone to seed. Thanos has renounced mass destruction in favor of tending his vegetable patch, Black Widow sits around eating peanut-butter sandwiches, and Thor is a fat slob. How they eventually get their shit together for a grand and redemptive slugfest, I refuse to reveal. One must, after all, respect the feelings of the saga's devotees, who demand nothing from reviewers but sobs of nonspecific adulation. Anything else is treason. (In future years, I suspect, Marvel fandom will be regarded as a very peculiar phenomenon, and I wish that Michael Moore, say, could interrogate the faithful while the flame still burns.) The one thing you do need to know about "Avengers: Endgame" is that it runs for a little over three hours, and that you can easily duck out during the middle hour, do some shopping, and slip back into your seat for the climax. You won't have missed a thing. ♦
Published in the print edition of the May 6, 2019, issue, with the headline "Leaps and Bounds."
Anthony Lane has been a film critic for The New Yorker since 1993. He is the author of "Nobody's Perfect."
More:MoviesRalph FiennesAnthony Russo"Avengers: Endgame""The White Crow"
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"Avengers: Infinity War" and "Let the Sunshine In"
Joe and Anthony Russo's all-star Marvel extravaganza, and Claire Denis's examination of love and loneliness starring Juliette Binoche.
Siege Mentality in "Stockholm"
Based on bizarre true events, the film probes the intense relationship that its hostages and captors develop—and their deep mistrust of the authorities on the outside.
How To Write A New Yorker Cartoon Caption: Zach Galifianakis & Zoe Saldana Edition
The "Missing Link" stars Zoe Saldana and Zach Galifianakis team up to tackle our cartoon-caption contest.
Annals of Inquiry
A Philosophy Professor's Final Class
This past spring, Richard Bernstein investigated the questions he'd been asking his whole career—about right, wrong, and what we owe one another—one last time.
By Jordi Graupera


They recommend to use 1/4 inch up to 5/16 inch steel slugs, marbles, small paintballs around .4 cal, and airsoft for the Pocketshot. They DO NOT recommend Bb's as they will tear the pouch and may be dangerous.
The Pocket Shot base ring, locking ring, and cap have all been CNC'd in steel to ensure every unit is identical. The material used to make the pocket shot is a fiber reinforced composite that can be found in some top of the line knife and gun handles.
Ammo will seat itself at the bottom of the pouch automatically when dropped in because of its unique design. Shooter should grip the pouch in front of the ammo (towards the open end of the ring) but behind the "power fins" when shooting while the other hand grips the outer ring. Aim at target while pulling back pouch approx. 8 - 10 inches, and let go of the pouch while keeping a firm grip on the outer ring. DO NOT over - stretch. Tip: It is best to pull back the pouch and let go quickly rather than to hold it stretched while aiming for any length of time. When firing, make sure when you let go of the pouch that it is aligned to go straight through the base ring and not to fire an object to the inner side of the ring. Doing so may result in your ammo hitting the side of the inner ring and ricocheting or exploding (in the case of a paintball).
To assemble the Pocket Shot, the pouch lip should be placed over the lip of the ring base.Screw the locking ring down to the bottom of the ring base.The Cap can be turned around and used as a key to fit inside base ring to tightened and loosen pouch from base ring. IMPORTANT: DO NOT SCREW THE RING TOO TIGHTLY TO THE RING BASE. Doing so may result in tearing of the pouch or difficulty disassembling the two parts. Screw cap on ring when Pocket Shot is not in use. Pocket Shot can be stored in packing tube for safe keeping.
This product has power when fired. It's easy to load. I use marbles in it. It goes through thick cardboard like butter. It would be great for your protection at home against 1 or 2 invaders. May be more according to your distance and aim with this product.


text:
Huilaea penduliflora är en tvåhjärtbladig växtart som beskrevs av John Julius Wurdack. Huilaea penduliflora ingår i släktet Huilaea och familjen Melastomataceae. IUCN kategoriserar arten globalt som starkt hotad.

Artens utbredningsområde är Colombia. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Myrtenordningen
penduliflora


Create a more zero waste home with these reusable amber brown glass bottles with BPA free, PET pump which can be used to dispense range of products including hand soap, shampoo and washing up liquid.
With its screw top pump, you can reuse and refill these mason jar bottles over again and is ideal for those who either buy in bulk or for diy beauty and cleaning products.
Amber glass has a UV protection making these bottles perfect for keeping all products fresh and fragrant, this is especially important for storing oils or cleaning products.
All amber brown listings come with a free embossed label, please state what you would like for each bottle in the box below (up to 10 characters).
Materials - Glass bottle, BPA PET plastic pump.


According to Section 608 of the Clean Air Act, emissions from the synthetic chemicals used as coolants –chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), halons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) – contribute to ozone layer depletion. In addition, many of these chemicals and their substitutes, also known as ozone-depleting substances (ODS), are greenhouse gases, which are culprits of climate change.
To combat the dangers of these types of chemicals, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has placed stringent compliance requirements on businesses that use refrigerant-containing assets, such as grocery stores, specialty food retailers, restaurants and convenience stores; they are required to follow strict procedures and processes around the use, management and disposal of refrigerant compounds. This creates unique challenges for the facilities managers of these types of businesses.
Technician Certification: Contractors servicing refrigerated assets must have the proper certification, meaning they have passed an EPA-approved examination.
Recovery & Recycling: Assets must be certified by an approved testing organization stating that they meet requirements for recovery efficiency.
Leaks: Assets with 50 pounds or more of ODS must meet requirements for leak repairs, such as attention within 30 days.
Sales Restrictions: Refrigerants may only be sold to certified technicians.
Record keeping: Dates, charge amounts, servicing and disposal information, and other related information must be documented properly.
Disposal: Refrigerants must be removed prior to asset disposal.
Reclamation: Recovered refrigerant must be reclaimed to regulated purity levels and approved by a certified reclaimer.
Service: Contractors must evacuate assets to established vacuum levels during service and disposal.
Violation of EPA refrigerant regulations can result in extremely harsh punishments, such as fines of up to $37,500 per day. These types of punishments can negatively impact business success, so it's crucial that FMs address EPA refrigerant compliance regulations strategically. One way is by employing refrigerant tracking software.
Refrigerant tracking software is an automated platform that supports management of refrigerated assets, including tracking levels, alerting of leaks and producing EPA-required records. This type of technology is especially critical if FMs have numerous refrigerated assets and/or are managing multiple locations, as it organizes compliance-related data across all assets and facilities on a single platform.
Manage Refrigerated Assets: Track connected assets, like refrigerated cases connected to rack systems that share the same refrigerant, and critical refrigerant data, such as type of refrigerant contained in the asset, total system capacity and last refrigerant use date.
Calculate Leak Rate Thresholds: Use refrigerant use data to calculate the rate of refrigerant leakage and compare the result to the EPA thresholds.
Perform Analysis Against EPA Regulations: Analyze current state of refrigerated assets in relation to EPA protocols and alert to steps required to achieve compliance if necessary.
Generate Records: If leak thresholds are met or met or exceeded, create required leak records and store for easy future access. Additionally, support voluntary annual reporting for EPA's GreenChill Store Certification Program partnership.
These core capabilities of refrigerant tracking software simplify and streamline FM compliance processes, helping improve visibility and avoid costly non-compliance mistakes.
Asset monitoring technology alerts FMs to the HVAC system not operating at optimal efficiency.
A work order is automatically created and sent to a certified service provider within an established network. The contractor is able to accept the order and view details about the reported issue.
The contractor dispatches and arrives at the facility. After identifying the source of the alarm, repairing the leak and charging the system with refrigerant, the contractor makes any necessary notes – such as amount of refrigerant added, date of service, method and location – and closes the work order within the software platform.
The software automatically performs an EPA leak rate calculation using stored asset and technician-provided data. The platform then stores and organizes records for easy access and proof of HVAC unit compliance.
Throughout these steps, refrigerant tracking software automatically completes compliance tasks so that FMs can focus time and energy elsewhere.
Not only does compliance with EPA refrigerant regulations help FMs avoid fines, improve their locations' sustainability and save energy costs by ensure optimal performance of their assets, but it also contributes to maintaining a positive brand image. Consistent EPA compliance supports excellent business reputations by demonstrating a sense of moral responsibility to the environment, as well as providing a healthy and clean environment for customers and employees.
Thus, restaurants, convenience stores, supermarkets and other businesses that utilize refrigerated assets should place a high priority on EPA compliance, including investing in tool and technologies that will help achieve it.
Learn more about achieving and maintaining EPA compliance with refrigerant tracking software.


The story starts with a joke.
A Present for Milo takes full advantage of the iPad's interactive playground, perfectly blending story, animation, sound, and game-like exploration. The good news for readers is Milo is helping define an emerging art form, the story app.
Most kids' books that have been converted to the iPad feel very much like animated movies for the mobile screen. They can add gorgeous visuals and beautiful soundtracks to a story. Kids love them, and rightly so.
But what intrigues me the most are the original stories created specifically for mobile platforms.
Milo is a delicious example of a story app created for the younger, pre-reading set. For look and feel, imagine a mash-up of a Sandra Boynton board book and the television program, Blues Clues. Clearly, the Milo sensibility puts it in the company of winners.
And I'm not the only one who's noticed. Less than a month after its release, Milo was nominated for the third annual Best App Ever Award in the e-book category, pitting it against two Dr. Seuss classics, Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat and the Hat. (Shouldn't adaptations have their own category?) Congratulations, for the nomination. But an e-book? I'm sticking to my label–calling Milo a story app.
Milo is more than an e-picturebook. It sports game-like interactive features. Though, unlike game apps which have a set-up but no ending, Milo retains its story narrative with a through-line that feels complete.
The chase takes Milo through all sorts of interesting places.
It's a simple story. Milo the cat chases a mouse under the sofa and across the piano. The delightful twist ending is perfect for 2 to 5 year olds. If A Present for Milo existed as a print board book, it would be wonderful.
Here's where the story app gets interesting. If you look, hidden in the familiar home landscape, you will discover delightful side animations. For example, when Milo chases the mouse across the piano, the mouse hops across the black keys one at a time and Milo lands on a set of white keys. Clang! When the action pauses, take a moment to explore the room. Tap on the metronome to set it ticking. Tap on the scattered flowers to rearrange them in the vase. Tap on the sheet music to hear a ragtime tune.
Each of the fifteen pages has a wacky sense of adventure. The interactive motifs include flying saucers, hatching birds, race cars, and a lobster playing a pair of mean castanets. And every time you read the story you will find new actions hidden in the pages. The only disadvantage I found is that each small animated action can only be triggered when the previous sound and movement is done. You may tap repeatedly on part of the picture wondering why the next little action doesn't start, or worse, assume that you've hit a dead spot, one that doesn't contain any fun surprises.
Play the musical notes and piano keys.
Here's the interesting thing I found in my non-scientific study: Take an excellent story for very young children, add a perfect blend of animations, sound, and interactive goodies, and you get a story app that is intriguing for a wide-range of ages.
I'm hooked, and I'm squarely middle-aged. My son, at 13 years old (a tough, cynical age, grrr) played through and explored every element. A 70-year-old acquaintance at church (not a gamer-type) saw me sharing the story with some of the kids, and he wanted to find all the hidden characters, too.
A Present for Milo is infused with sheer joy. This infectious quality is the best thing about the new story app. Thank you, author Mike Austin.
The bigger picture is story apps are on the rise, and A Present for Milo has set the gold standard for all current and future writers and developers.
Spoiler warning: In case you didn't see them the first time through, look again. On page one, at first glance it looks like there is but one mouse. I've found as many as five. Late in the story, when Milo and the mouse run in circles, tap the words to trigger some visual reprises, including a spaceship or two. Apparently, the order you trigger the animations changes what you get to play with. Every time through is a new experience!
← Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!


Bay Area-bred singer-songwriter ymtk drops off new EP What You Wish For. Made up of 9 new tracks, What You Wish For features collaborations with Rexx Life Raj,GuapDad4000 and Gemaine, and finds fast-rising, multi-talented beatsmith DTB stepping in to serve as the LP's primary producer. Enjoy this audio stream below after the jump and please share this with friends.


"He's my hero. Because I can only imagine how it would've went if he wasn't armed. We might not be here having this interview," Markus Washington told 6WBRC.
Washington was working at a Birmingham McDonald's when he heard gunfire.
"I was making two quarter-pounders and heard three shots ring, and then exchange of gunfire two more," he said.
The incident occurred at the McDonald's on Lomb Avenue around 10:45 Saturday night – just as the restaurant was closing.
When an employee unlocked the door to let customers – a father and his two sons – out, a masked man barged in and began shooting.
Washington said he hid in the freezer, and from there, heard more than 15 shots fired.
Police said both the father and the masked man were shot, along with one of the hero's sons. The gunman later died from his injuries. The father and his son are expected to recover.
Investigators are not clear whether the perp was robbing the store or targeting someone in the business, police told WVTM.
Washington and his coworkers are thankful the armed father was there at that moment.
Police don't expect the father to face charges.


Buster Posey is consistently over drafted strictly off of reputation and the fact that he is eligible at catcher and plays every day. Don't get caught in this trap. Posey is starting this season as a 29 year old catcher who has been showing declining power, only 14 home runs and a slugging percentage of .434, both of which are his lowest marks since 2011. He plays in one of the least hitter friendly parks in the majors. In addition to low power numbers Buster's batting average is has been on the decline for multiples years. Yes, he is a good player, but not worth taking him where he will end up being drafted as he will not return that value.
I know you're thinking, what Welington Castillo? Yes, Welington Castillo. With the move from Arizona to Baltimore Castillo will remain in a very hitter friendly park and add on his schedule the American League East's home stadiums that include New York and Toronto, both launch sites for baseballs. He no longer will have to hit in San Francisco or San Diego or face Clayton Kershaw. Hitting around him is taking a step forward allowing him to see more quality pitching and maybe best of all the pitching in the AL East is at best leaguer average. Look for big things from Castillo and feel free to wait on him as he won't be a catcher taken early in drafts.


Nice collection of the only coins minted in 1967 I would grade them in UNC condition please judge for yourself from the photos. Glue has leaked from the packaging as can be seen on the photos, hence the reduced price for the sale. Only the half crown sixpence, threepence, penny and halfpenny coins were minted in 1967 and they are displayed here in a purpose made wallet, probably tourist gift but now would make a very collectible 51st Birthday gift. Priced individually and including the wallet would possibly cost more. I will not sell individually, here to be sold as a set! Euro 5 registered postage in Ireland. Postage discounts for multiple purchases please ask.


Plenty of homeowners in South Florida are ready to start a kitchen and bathroom remodeling project. But where do you begin? Adding new countertops and cabinets to your kitchen and bathrooms is a great way to bring greater aesthetic beauty to your home and increase its value.
Here at A to Z Kitchen & Bath Gallery, we have your kitchen and bathroom remodeling solutions. Our team of professionals uses only the best tools, materials and equipment to create the kitchen and bathroom of your dreams.


The video sequence editor is blender's NLEs (non-linear editing system). The VSE is a timeline-based video editor in blender.
Why isn't this MP3 playing in the Video Sequence Editor?
Making video strip end at its last frame after speed modifier is applied?
Video Sequence Editor: Is it possible to specify default strip properties?
How to adjust height of sound strip in VSE?
Save is broken and how to save as mp4?
How to select Video Strip independently from Audio?
Why is Blender's V.S.E. Slow?
How do I sharpen video strips in Blender?
I see the Gaussian blur among others, but no sharpening filter.
VSE Proxy / Timecode Properties panel gone?
How to import a movie file in Blender 2.8 and 2.79 with Python?
there is much new features in the blender 2.8 beta> We've had text overlays in the VSE since 2.6. Does anyone have any new or current work arounds or official ways to get various fonts into the VSE?
How to join two vse video edit projects?
Where the Speed Control Effect Strip Modifier was moved to?
I am using the VSE in 2.80. It used to be in the lower right corner in the default Video Editing layout, with the modifiers.
How to animate Rotation of a PNG image in VSE?
Why is my video playing limited to a couple seconds when i add it to VSE?
How to set chroma subsampling options?
Can you change the font in the Sequencer new Text Effect?
I find the default boring and wonder how to change it.
How can I preview all of my video strips?
I'm editing a phone video, but I want to edit it vertically like this [ ], but Blender has it locked horizontally. Is there a way to flip it? Thanks!
Do I need to save the file so that I could edit my video sequence again?
I've already rendered it and got the output video but I need to edit it again. Can't find the file to edit the video.