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Category Archives: U.S. media
Jazz and Identity: Comment on Lydon's Iyer Interview
Radio Open Source » Blog Archive » Vijay Iyer's Life in Music: "Striving is the Back Story…".
Sounds like it will be a while before the United States becomes a truly post-racial society.
Iyer can define himself as American and he can even one-up other US citizens in Americanness, but he's still defined by his having "a Brahmin Indian name and heritage, and a Yale degree in physics."
Something by which I was taken aback, at IU Bloomington ten years ago, is the fact that those who were considered to be "of color" (as if colour were the factor!) were expected to mostly talk about their "race" whereas those who were considered "white" were expected to remain silent when notions of "race" and ethnicity came up for discussion. Granted, ethnicity and "race" were frequently discussed, so it was possible to hear the voices of those "of color" on a semi-regular basis. Still, part of my culture shock while living in the MidWest was the conspicuous silence of students with brilliant ideas who happened to be considered African-American.
Something similar happened with gender, on occasion, in that women were strongly encouraged to speak out…when a gender angle was needed. Thankfully, some of these women (at least, among those whose "racial" identity was perceived as neutral) did speak up, regardless of topic. But there was still an expectation that when they did, their perspective was intimately gendered.
Of course, some gender lines were blurred: the gender ratio among faculty members was relatively balanced (probably more women than men), the chair of the department was a woman for a time, and one department secretary was a man. But women's behaviours were frequently interpreted in a gender-specific way, while men were often treated as almost genderless. Male privilege manifested itself in the fact that it was apparently difficult for women not to be gender-conscious.
Those of us who were "international students" had the possibility to decide when our identities were germane to the discussion. At least, I was able to push my «différence» when I so pleased, often by becoming the token Francophone in discussions about Francophone scholars, yet being able not to play the "Frenchie card" when I didn't find it necessary. At the same time, my behaviour may have been deemed brash and a fellow student teased me by calling me "Mr. Snottyhead." As an instructor later told me, "it's just that, since you're Canadian, we didn't expect you to be so different." (My response: "I know some Canadians who would despise that comment. But since I'm Québécois, it doesn't matter.") This was in reference to a seminar with twenty students, including seven "internationals": one Zimbabwean, one Swiss-German, two Koreans, one Japanese, one Kenyan, and one "Québécois of Swiss heritage." In this same graduate seminar, the instructor expected everyone to know of Johnny Appleseed and of John Denver.
Again, a culture shock. Especially for someone coming from a context in which the ethnic identity of the majority is frequently discussed and in which cultural identity is often "achieved" instead of being ascribed. This isn't to say that Quebec society is devoid of similar issues. Everybody knows, Quebec has more than its fair share of identity-based problems. The fact of the matter is, Quebec society is entangled in all sorts of complex identity issues, and for many of those, Quebec may appear underprepared. The point is precisely that, in Quebec, identity politics is a matter for everyone. Nobody has the luxury to treat their identity as "neutral."
Going back to Iyer… It's remarkable that his thoughtful comments on Jazz end up associated more with his background than with his overall approach. As if what he had to say were of a different kind than those from Roy Hayes or Robin Kelley. As if Iyer had more in common with Koo Nimo than with, say, Sonny Rollins. Given Lydon's journalistic background, it's probably significant that the Iyer conversation carried the "Life in Music" name of the show's music biography series yet got "filed under" the show's "Year of India" series. I kid you not.
And this is what we hear at the end of each episode's intro:
This is Open Source, from the Watson Institute at Brown University. An American conversation with Global attitude, we call it.
Guess the "American" part was taken by Jazz itself, so Iyer was assigned the "Global" one. Kind of wishing the roles were reversed, though Iyer had rehearsed his part.
But enough symbolic interactionism. For now.
During Lydon's interview with Iyer, I kept being reminded of a conversation (in Brookline) with fellow Canadian-ethnomusicologist-and-Jazz-musician Tanya Kalmanovitch. Kalmanovitch had fantastic insight to share on identity politics at play through the international (yet not post-national) Jazz scene. In fact, methinks she'd make a great Open Source guest. She lives in Brooklyn but works as assistant chair of contemporary improv at NEC, in B-Town, so Lydon could probably meet her locally.
In some ways, Jazz is more racialized and ethnicized now than it was when Howie Becker published Outsiders. (hey, I did hint symbolic interactionism'd be back!). It's also very national, gendered, compartmentalized… In a word: modern. Of course, Jazz (or something like it) shall play a role in postmodernity. But only if it sheds itself of its modernist trappings. We should hear out Kevin Mahogany's (swung) comments about a popular misconception:
Some cats work from nine to five
Change their life for line of jive
Never had foresight to see
Where the changes had to be
Thought that they had heard the word
Thought it all died after Bird
But we're still swingin'
The following anecdote seems à propos.
Branford Marsalis quartet on stage outside at the Indy Jazz Fest 1999. Some dude in the audience starts heckling the band: "Play something we know!" Marsalis, not losing his cool, engaged the heckler in a conversation on Jazz history, pushing the envelope, playing the way you want to play, and expected behaviour during shows. Though the audience sounded divided when Marsalis advised the heckler to go to Chaka Khan's show on the next stage over, if that was more to the heckler's liking, there wasn't a major shift in the crowd and, hopefully, most people understood how respectful Marsalis's comments really were. What was especially precious is when Marsalis asked the heckler: "We're cool, man?"
It's nothing personal.
Leave a comment	| tags: achieved identities, Americanness, anecdotes, ascribed identities, Branford Marsalis, Brown University, Chaka Khan, citizenry, conflict theory, culture shock, dramaturgical approach, Erving Goffman, ethnicity, gender, gender consciousness, global attitude, hecklers, Howard Becker, identity negotiation, identity politics, Indy Jazz Fest, Keep Jazz Alive, Kevin Mahogany, Koo Nimo, Life in Music, male privilege, MidWest, negotiated identities, New England, New England Conservatory, Northeastern United States, of color, Outsiders, reasonable accommodation crisis, Robin Kelley, snark, Sociology, Still Swingin', symbolic interactionism, Tanya Kalmanovitch, Vijay Iyer, Watson Institute, Year of India	| posted in aesthetics, arrogance, audience, blog comments, bloggers, Blogging, Christopher Lydon, Clueing, comment-fishing, commenting, critical thinking, cultural identity, Empowerment, ethics, ethnocentrism, Francophones, freedom, friendliness, globalisation, globalization, identity, Indiana, intellectuals, journalism, local, music, music scenes, naïveté, nationalism, new media, opinions, Orientalism, podcasts, politics, Québec, race, radio, Radio Open Source, ramblings, rants, respect, responsiveness, shameless plug, social mobility, sociocentrism, stereotypes, U.S. exceptionalism, U.S. media, United States
Influence and Butterflies
Seems like "influence" is a key theme in social media, these days. An example among several others:
Influenceur, autorité, passeur de culture ou l'un de ces singes exubérants | Mario tout de go.
In that post, Mario Asselin brings together a number of notions which are at the centre of current discussions about social media. The core notion seems to be that "influence" replaces "authority" as a quality or skill some people have, more than others. Some people are "influencers" and, as such, they have a specific power over others. Such a notion seems to be widely held in social media and numerous services exist which are based on the notion that "influence" can be measured.
I don't disagree. There's something important, online, which can be called "influence" and which can be measured. To a large extent, it's related to a large number of other concepts such as fame and readership, popularity and network centrality. There are significant differences between all of those concepts but they're still related. They still depict "social power" which isn't coercive but is the basis of an obvious stratification.
In some contexts, this is what people mean by "social capital." I originally thought people meant something closer to Bourdieu but a fellow social scientist made me realise that people are probably using Putnam's concept instead. I recently learnt that George W. Bush himself used "political capital" in a sense which is fairly similar to what most people seem to mean by "social capital." Even in that context, "capital" is more specific than "influence." But the core notion is the same.
To put it bluntly:
Some people are more "important" than others.
Social marketers are especially interested in such a notion. Marketing as a whole is about influence. Social marketing, because it allows for social groups to be relatively amorphous, opposes influence to authority. But influence maintains a connection with "top-down" approaches to marketing.
My own point would be that there's another kind of influence which is difficult to pinpoint but which is highly significant in social networks: the social butterfly effect.
Yep, I'm still at it after more than three years. It's even more relevant now than it was then. And I'm now able to describe it more clearly and define it more precisely.
The social butterfly effect is a social network analogue to the Edward Lorenz's well-known "butterfly effect. " As any analogy, this connection is partial but telling. Like Lorenz's phrase, "social butterfly effect" is more meaningful than precise. One thing which makes the phrase more important for me is the connection with the notion of a "social butterfly," which is both a characteristic I have been said to have and a concept I deem important in social science.
I define social butterflies as people who connect to diverse network clusters. Community enthusiast Christine Prefontaine defined social butterflies within (clustered) networks, but I think it's useful to separate out network clusters. A social butterfly's network is rather sparse as, on the whole, a small number of people in it have direct connections with one another. But given the topography of most social groups, there likely are clusters within that network. The social butterfly connects these clusters. When the social butterfly is the only node which can connect these clusters directly, her/his "influence" can be as strong as that of a central node in one of these clusters since s/he may be able to bring some new element from one cluster to another.
I like the notion of "repercussion" because it has an auditory sense and it resonates with all sorts of notions I think important without being too buzzwordy. For instance, as expressions like "ripple effect" and "domino effect" are frequently used, they sound like clichés. Obviously, so does "butterfly effect" but I like puns too much to abandon it. From a social perspective, the behaviour of a social butterfly has important "repercussions" in diverse social groups.
Since I define myself as a social butterfly, this all sounds self-serving. And I do pride myself in being a "connector." Not only in generational terms (I dislike some generational metaphors). But in social terms. I'm rarely, if ever, central to any group. But I'm also especially good at serving as a contact between people from different groups.
Yay, me! 🙂
My thinking about the social butterfly effect isn't an attempt to put myself on some kind of pedestal. Social butterflies typically don't have much "power" or "prestige." Our status is fluid/precarious. I enjoy being a social butterfly but I don't think we're better or even more important than anybody else. But I do think that social marketers and other people concerned with "influence" should take us into account.
I say all of this as a social scientist. Some parts of my description are personalized but I'm thinking about a broad stance "from society's perspective." In diverse contexts, including this blog, I have been using "sociocentric" in at least three distinct senses: class-based ethnocentrism, a special form of "altrocentrism," and this "society-centred perspective." These meanings are distinct enough that they imply homonyms. Social network analysis is typically "egocentric" ("ego-centred") in that each individual is the centre of her/his own network. This "egocentricity" is both a characteristic of social networks in opposition to other social groups and a methodological issue. It specifically doesn't imply egotism but it does imply a move away from pre-established social categories. In this sense, social network analysis isn't "society-centred" and it's one reason I put so much emphasis on social networks.
In the context of discussions of influence, however, there is a "society-centredness" which needs to be taken into account. The type of "influence" social marketers and others are so interested in relies on defined "spaces." In some ways, if "so-and-so is influential," s/he has influence within a specific space, sphere, or context, the boundaries of which may be difficult to define. For marketers, this can bring about the notion of a "market," including in its regional and demographic senses. This seems to be the main reason for the importance of clusters but it also sounds like a way to recuperate older marketing concepts which seem outdated online.
A related point is the "vertical" dimension of this notion of "influence." Whether or not it can be measured accurately, it implies some sort of scale. Some people are at the top of the scale, they're influencers. Those at the bottom are the masses, since we take for granted that pyramids are the main models for social structure. To those of us who favour egalitarianism, there's something unpalatable about this.
And I would say that online contacts tend toward some form of egalitarianism. To go back to one of my favourite buzzphrases, the notion of attention relates to reciprocity:
It's an attention economy: you need to pay attention to get attention.
This is one thing journalism tends to "forget." Relationships between journalists and "people" are asymmetrical. Before writing this post, I read Brian Storm's commencement speech for the Mizzou J-School. While it does contain some interesting tidbits about the future of journalism, it positions journalists (in this case, recent graduates from an allegedly prestigious school of journalism) away from the masses. To oversimplify, journalists are constructed as those who capture people's attention by the quality of their work, not by any two-way relationship. Though they rarely discuss this, journalists, especially those in mainstream media, typically perceive themselves as influencers.
Attention often has a temporal dimension which relates to journalism's obsession with time. Journalists work in time-sensitive contexts, news are timely, audiences spend time with journalistic contents, and journalists fight for this audience time as a scarce resource, especially in connection to radio and television. Much of this likely has to do with the fact that journalism is intimately tied to advertising.
As I write this post, I hear on a radio talk show a short discussion about media coverage of Africa. The topic wakes up the africanist in me. The time devoted to Africa in almost any media outside of Africa is not only very limited but spent on very specific issues having to do with Africa. In mainstream media, Africa only "matters" when major problems occur. Even though most parts of Africa are peaceful and there many fabulously interesting things occuring throughout the continent, Africa is the "forgotten" continent.
A connection I perceive is that, regardless of any other factor, Africans are taken to not be "influential." What makes this notion especially strange to an africanist is that influence tends to be a very important matter throughout the continent. Most Africans I know or have heard about have displayed a very nuanced and acute sense of "influence" to the extent that "power" often seems less relevant when working in Africa than different elements of influence. I know full well that, to outsiders to African studies, these claims may sound far-fetched. But there's a lot to be said about the importance of social networks in Africa and this could help refine a number of notions that I have tagged in this post.
5 Comments	| tags: ADHD, Africa, amateurs, attention, attention economy, attraction, authority, bloggers, blogosphere, branding, brands, Brian Storm, buzzphrases, Buzzwords, capital, celebrities, centrism, clueful, Clueing, confidence, cultural capital, culture, distributed authority, distributed trust, egocentric, expertise, experts, fame, fans, filters, gatekeepers, glamour, goodwill, groupthink, hegemony, hierarchy, importance, influence, information economy, Institutions, J-Schools, journalism, journalists, knowledge management, knowledge people, knowledge workers, landminds, landmines, lead, leaders, legitimacy, mainstream, mainstream media, Mario Asselin, media outlets, MediaStorm, memes, memetic marketplace, microblogging, mindshare, Mizzou, moral enterpreneurs, name, network centrality, network effect, network graph, non-deterministic, non-linear, notoriety, personal brands, political capital, popularity, professionals, puce à l'oreille, qualitative analysis, ranking, ranks, rating, recognition, relevance, renommée, renown, repercussions, reputation, scale, social butterflies, social butterfly effect, social capital, social marketing, social media, social network analysis, social networks, social science, sociocentric, sphere, stars, statistics, stratification, tagfest, tags, talent, transmission, trends, trendsetters, trendsetting, trust, Twinfluence, Twitority, Twitter, Twitter Grader, viral marketing, voice	| posted in A, acquaintances, advertising, advice, advocacy, Africa, arrogance, audience, cluefulness, Clueing, comment-fishing, cultural awareness, cultural capital, cultural diversity, diversity, Empowerment, ethnocentrism, expertise, friendship, globalisation, grassroots, groupthink, hegemony, humanism, individualism, information, innovation, Institutions, journalism, knowledge, knowledge management, knowledge people, localization, location-specific, market economy, marketing, mass media, memes, metaphors, mindshare, moral enterpreneurs, nationalism, networking, new media, news, online communities, openness, Places, prestige, public, rants, readership, shameless plug, soapbox, social butterflies, social butterfly effect, social capital, social networking, social networks, sociocentrism, sophistication, success in life, tagging, tags, trends, trusting people, tv, U.S. exceptionalism, U.S. media, voice, wishful thinking
Gender and Culture
A friend sent me a link to the following video:
JC Penney: Beware of the Doghouse | Creativity Online.
In that video, a man is "sent to the doghouse" (a kind of prison for insensitive men) because he offered a vacuum cleaner to his wife. It's part of a marketing campaign through which men are expected to buy diamonds to their wives and girlfriends.
The campaign is quite elaborate and the main website for the campaign makes interesting uses of social media.
For instance, that site makes use of Facebook Connect as a way to tap viewers' online social network. FC is a relatively new feature (the general release was last week) and few sites have been putting it to the test. In this campaign's case, a woman can use her Facebook account to connect to her husband or boyfriend and either send him a warning about his insensitivity to her needs (of diamonds) or "put him in the doghouse." From a social media perspective, it can accurately be described as "neat."
The site also uses Share This to facilitate the video's diffusion through various social media services, from WordPress.com to Diigo. This tends to be an effective strategy to encourage "viral marketing." (And, yes, I fully realize that I actively contribute to this campaign's "viral spread.")
The campaign could be a case study in social marketing.
But, this time, I'm mostly thinking about gender.
Simply put, I think that this campaign would fare rather badly in Quebec because of its use of culturally inappropriate gender stereotypes.
As I write this post, I receive feedback from Swedish ethnomusicologist Maria Ljungdahl who shares some insight about gender stereotypes. As Maria says, the stereotypes in this ad are "global." But my sense is that these "global stereotypes" are not that compatible with local culture, at least among Québécois (French-speaking Quebeckers).
See, as a Québécois born and raised as a (male) feminist, I tend to be quite gender-conscious. I might even say that my gender awareness may be somewhat above the Québécois average and gender relationships are frequently used in definitions of Québécois identity.
In Québécois media, advertising campaigns portraying men as naïve and subservient have frequently been discussed. Ten or so years ago, these portrayals were a hot topic (searches for Brault & Martineau, Tim Hortons, and Un gars, une fille should eventually lead to appropriate evidence). Current advertising campaigns seem to me more subtle in terms of male figures, but careful analysis would be warranted as discussions of those portrayals are more infrequent than they have been in the past.
That video and campaign are, to me, very US-specific. Because I spent a significant amount of time in Indiana, Massachusetts, and Texas, my initial reaction while watching the video had more to do with being glad that it wasn't the typical macrobrewery-style sexist ad. This reaction also has to do with the context for my watching that video as I was unclear as to the gender perspective of the friend who sent me the link (a male homebrewer from the MidWest currently living in Texas).
By the end of the video, however, I reverted to my Québécois sensibility. I also reacted to the obvious commercialism, partly because one of my students has been working on engagement rings in our material culture course.
But my main issue was with the presumed insensitivity of men.
Granted, part of this is personal. I define myself as a "sweet and tendre man" and I'm quite happy about my degree of sensitivity, which may in fact be slightly higher than average, even among Québécois. But my hunch is that this presumption of male insensitivity may not have very positive effects on the perception of such a campaign. Québécois watching this video may not groan but they may not find it that funny either.
There's a generational component involved and, partly because of a discussion of writing styles in a generational perspective, I have been thinking about "generations" as a useful model for explaining cultural diversity to non-ethnographers.
See, such perceived generational groups as "Baby Boomers" and "Generation X" need not be defined as monolithic, monadic, bounded entities and they have none of the problems associated with notions of "ethnicity" in the general public. "Generations" aren't "faraway tribes" nor do they imply complete isolation. Some people may tend to use "generational" labels in such terms that they appear clearly defined ("Baby Boomers are those individuals born between such and such years"). And there is some confusion between this use of "historical generations" and what the concept of "generation" means in, say, the study of kinship systems. But it's still relatively easy to get people to think about generations in cultural terms: they're not "different cultures" but they still seem to be "culturally different."
Going back to gender… The JC Penney marketing campaign visibly lumps together people of different ages. The notion seems to be that doghouse-worthy male insensitivity isn't age-specific or related to inexperience. The one man who was able to leave the doghouse based on his purchase of diamonds is relatively "age-neutral" as he doesn't really seem to represent a given age. Because this attempt at crossing age divisions seems so obvious, I would assume that it came in the context of perceived differences in gender relationships. Using the logic of those who perceive the second part of the 20th Century as a period of social emancipation, one might presume that younger men are less insensitive than older men (who were "brought up" in a cultural context which was "still sexist"). If there are wide differences in the degree of sensitivity of men of different ages, a campaign aiming at a broad age range needs to diminish the importance of these differences. "The joke needs to be funny to men of all ages."
The Quebec context is, I think, different. While we do perceive the second part of the 20th Century (and, especially, the 1970s) as a period of social emancipation (known as the "Quiet Revolution" or «Révolution Tranquille»), the degree of sensitivity to gender issues appears to be relatively level, across the population. At a certain point in time, one might have argued that older men were still insensitive (at the same time as divorcées in their forties might have been regarded as very assertive) but it seems difficult to make such a distinction in the current context.
All this to say that the JC Penney commercial is culturally inappropriate for Québécois society? Not quite. Though the example I used was this JC Penney campaign, I'm thinking about broader contexts for Québécois identity (for a variety of personal reasons, including the fact that I have been back in Québec for several months, now).
My claim is…
Ethnographic field research would go a long way to unearth culturally appropriate categories which might eventually help marketers cater to Québécois.
Of course, the agency which produced that JC Penney ad (Saatchi & Saatchi) was targeting the US market (JC Penney doesn't have locations in Quebec) and I received the link through a friend in the US. But it was an interesting opportunity for me to think and write about a few issues related to the cultural specificity of gender stereotypes.
4 Comments	| tags: assertiveness, Baby Boomers, Brault et Martineau, cultural specificity, diamonds, domesticity, engagement rings, ethnographic research, Facebook Connect, gender consciousness, gender relationships, gender roles, gender stereotypes, generation gap, Generation X, generational culture, generational differences, generations, global stereotypes, JC Penney, kinship systems, male insensitivity, male sensitivity, Maria Ljungdahl, marketing campaign, material culture, private ethnography, Québécois, Quebec Culture, Quebec women, Quebeckers, Quiet Revolution, Saatchi and Saatchi, sensitivity, sexism, Share This, social marketing, social media, spouses, subservience, Tim Hortons, Un gars une fille, US-specific, wives	| posted in advocacy, applied anthropology, beer in media, cluefulness, comment-fishing, consumerism, cultural awareness, cultural identity, ethnocentrism, Ethnography, Francophones, French, gender, globalisation, localization, market economy, marketing, mass media, musings, personal life, Placeholders, qualitative research, Québec, ramblings, research, shameless plug, social change, sociocentrism, stereotypes, tv, U.S. exceptionalism, U.S. media, United States, Web 2.0, Websites
Blogging and Literary Standards
I wrote the following comment in response to a conversation between novelist Rick Moody and podcasting pioneer Chris Lydon:
Open Source » Blog Archive » In the Obama Moment: Rick Moody.
In keeping with the RERO principle I describe in that comment, the version on the Open Source site is quite raw. As is my habit, these days, I pushed the "submit" button without rereading what I had written. This version is edited, partly because I noticed some glaring mistakes and partly because I wanted to add some links. (Blog comments are often tagged for moderation if they contain too many links.) As I started editing that comment, I changed a few things, some of which have consequences to the meaning of my comment. There's this process, in both writing and editing, which "generates new thoughts." Yet another argument for the RERO principle.
I can already think of an addendum to this post, revolving on my personal position on writing styles (informed by my own blogwriting experience) along with my relative lack of sensitivity for Anglo writing. But I'm still blogging this comment on a standalone basis.
Read on, please… Continue reading
Leave a comment	| tags: 10-year rule, academic blogging, ADD, ADHD, aesthetic of the draft, Anglos, anti-book, Arianna Huffington, Atwater Library, author, authoritarian, authority, authors, authorship, autoritative, Baby Boomers, Baby Bust, Baby Busters, Bernard Arcand, blogwriting, books, canon, creativity, deconstructing, domain-agnostic, Eric Raymond, Exercices de style, expert bloggers, Gabriel Tremblay, general public, generation gaps, Generation X, generations, gourmand reading, Herbert Simon, Huffington Post, Hugh McGuire, indiscriminate, innovation, Intersubjectivity, Jakobson, LibriVox, Low-stakes, Malcolm Gladwell, Medici effect, novelty, organic collaboration, parents these days, Philip Ross, Pierre Assouline, pro-book, Psychology 101, Queneau, Raymond Queneau, release early release often, RERO, Rick Moody, rough drafts, snobbery, snobs, teen blogging, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Theodor Adorno, time to task, verve, wisdom of crowds, yulbloggers	| posted in academics, advocacy, amateurs, arrogance, blog comments, bloggers, Blogging, blogosphere, blogs, Christopher Lydon, Clueing, comment-fishing, Empowerment, enthusiasm, experience, experimentation, expertise, freedom, geek culture, geeks, informal learning, informality, intellectuals, journalism, language ideology, learn by doing, linkfest, musings, new media, nostalgia, online publishing, open-source, opinions, Placeholders, prestige, professionals, Radio Open Source, ramblings, readership, Scientific American, shameless plug, social publishing, specialists, specialization, standardization, stereotypes, taste, teenagers, U.S. media, voice, writing, writing style
Finally! A Drinking Age Debate
This may be more significant than people seem to assume: university and college administrators in the United States are discussing the potential effects of reverting the drinking age back to the age of maturity in their country (18 years-old). This Amethyst Initiative (blog), which was launched last month, may represent a turning point in not only alcohol policy but campus life in the United States.
This "story" has started to go around recently. And it happens to be one I care about. Read about this on Tuesday, while doing some random browsing.
College presidents seek drinking age debate – Life- msnbc.com.
And it's coming back as a source of jokes:
College Presidents Rethinking Drinking Age | The Onion – America's Finest News Source.
Though I may be a big fan of humour, I really hope that people can also take this issue seriously. For some reason, people in the United States tend to react to alcohol-related discussions with (possibly uneasy) humour. Fair enough, but there's clearly a need for dispassionate, thoughtful, and serious discussion about the effects of current laws or the potential effects of new laws.
I have a lot of things to say about the issue but I'lll try to RERO it.
Now, obviously, the media coverage is typical "wedge issue" journalism. Which might well be working. In a way, I don't care so much about the outcome of this journalistic coverage.
What I do care about, though, is that people may start discussing the social implications of alcohol prohibitions. It's a much larger issue than the legal drinking age in the United States. I sincerely hope that it will be addressed, thanks in part to these administrators at well-known academic institutions.
Possibly the best person to talk about this is Indiana University's Ruth Engs, professor of Applied Health Science. Engs has written extensively on the health effects of alcohol, with a special emphasis on the negative effects of the raised legal drinking age in the United States. She also has fascinating things to say about cultural dimensions of alcohol consumption, which happens to be a topic that I have been exploring on my own.
According to Engs, discussion of responsible drinking are quite rare in public events related to alcohol research in the United States. I personally get the impression that responsible drinking has become a taboo subject in those contexts. I certainly noticed this while living (as full-time faculty) on a "dry campus."
It's no secret that I care about responsible drinking. Part of this might have to do with the Éduc'alcool message which has been engrained in Quebeckers over the years: «la modération a bien meilleur goût» ("responsible drinking is more tasteful"). My strong impression is that at least some of those who wish for the drinking age in the United States to remain high share the opinion that, for adults, responsible drinking is more appropriate than binge drinking. They may think that any type of alcohol consumption has negative effects, but it'd be quite surprising if they actually preferred binge drinking over responsible drinking.
Where we seem to disagree is on the most effective strategies to reach the goal of responsible drinking among adults. IMHO, there is at the very least strong anecdotal evidence to show that increasing legal drinking age does very little to encourage responsible drinking. Unfortunately, with issues such as these, there's a strong tendency for advocates of any position to dig for data supporting their claims. Stephen Jay Gould called this "advocacy masquerading as objectivity." I may care strongly about the issue but I'm not really taking sides. After all, we're talking about a country in which I've lived but in which I don't have citizenship.
Let's call a spade a "spade." What's at stake here is the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, which was pushed by the MADD lobby group (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). With all due respect to people involved in MADD and similar anti-alcohol advocacy groups, I have strong reservations as to some of their actions.
As a group, MADD is a "textbook example" of what sociologist Howard Becker has called "moral entrepreneurs." In the United States, these moral entrepreneurs seem to be linked to what Ruth Engs calls clean living movements. What's funny is that, though these movements may be linked to puritanism, Puritans themselves did use alcohol in their diet. So much so that the Mayflower landed in Plymouth Rock partly because of beer.
There's a lot to say about this. From diverse perspectives. For instance, libertarians surely have interesting points about the NMDAA's effects on state laws. Health researchers may talk about the difficulty of alcoholism prevention when responsible drinking is left undiscussed. Teetotalers and Muslims may see this as an opportunity to encourage complete abstinence from drinking. Road safety specialists may have important points to make about diverse ways to prevent drunk driving. Law researchers may warn us about the dangers to the legal system inherent to laws which are systematically broken by the majority of the population. Border officers may have some interesting data as to the "alcohol tourism" related to college drinking. University and college students clearly have diverse approaches to the subject, contrary to what the media coverage (especially the visuals used) seem to indicate.
My own perspective is quite specific. As a very responsible drinker. As a Quebecker of recent European origin. As a compulsive pedestrian. As an ethnographer interested in craft beer culture in North America. As a homebrewer. And, more importantly, as a university instructor who, like Barrett Seaman, has noticed widely different situations on university campuses in the United States and Canada.
Simply put, it seems quite likely that widespread binge drinking on university campuses has originated on U.S. campuses since 1984 and that the trend is currently spilling over to affect some campuses outside of the United States. College binge drinking is not a global problem. Nor is it a problem entirely specific to the United States. But the influence of U.S. college and university campus culture in other parts of the world often comes with binge drinking.
Apart from the fact that I find binge drinking to be extremely detrimental to physical and mental health, my observation is about campus life in general. AFAICT, on university and college campuses where alcohol consumption by a significant proportion of the student population is illegal, illicit alcohol consumption pushes younger students outside of the broader campus life. This self-segregation makes for a very uncomfortable learning and teaching context. In other words, the fact that students hide in fraternity houses or off-campus locations to binge drink may have the same socialization effects as regular campus life elsewhere on the planet, but the isolation of these people is a net loss in terms of generating an academic environment which is nurturing and tolerant.
To be clear: I'm not saying that the legal drinking age in the United States needs, of necessity, be brought back to 18 years-old as it was in several States until fairly recently. I'm not even saying that States should necessarily be allowed to set their own drinking age laws. I simply wish for this debate on legal drinking age to happen. Actually, I hope that there will be real, thoughtful dialogue on the issue.
Really, it's the tasteful thing to do.
3 Comments	| tags: alcohol research, Amethyst Initiative, Éduc'alcool, Barrett Seaman, binge, border control, Canada, clean living movements, debates, dialogue, Europe, forbidden fruits, Howard Becker, illicit behaviours, legal systems, MADD, mental health, moral enterpreneurs, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, National Minimum Drinking Age Act, NMDAA, Public Health, Puritanism, Ruth Engs, teetotalers, university administrators, university presidents, wedge issues	| posted in academic institutions, activism, advice, advocacy, Alcohol, alcohol laws, Beer, beer in media, beer laws, beer politics, Beverages, binge drinking, college life, colleges, consumption, craft beer culture, drinks, Education, ethics, Food, food and society, freedom, grassroots, groupthink, health, journalism, Learning, learning and teaching, linkfest, moral enterpreneurs, news, opinions, optimism, policy, politics, professors, ramblings, rants, responsible drinking, schools, students, Teaching, teaching and learning, U.S. exceptionalism, U.S. media, U.S. politics, United States, Universities
Manufacturing Taste
In a comment to my rant on naysaying, Carl Dyke posted the following link (to a Josh Ellis piece from 2003):
Mindjack – Taste Tribes
The piece itself is rather unremarkable. Although, it does contain comments about a few things which became important topics in the meantime such as recommendation systems and the importance of music listeners for individual artists. I'm not too concerned about the piece and I realize it's "nothing new." It mostly made me think about a number of things about which I've been meaning to blog.
I could react to the use of the term "tribe." And there are obvious things to say in terms of social groups (family resemblance, community of experience, community of practice, communitas, homogamy, in-group knowledge, social network analysis, etc.).
But I guess my take is at the same time more personal and more cultural.
Contrary to what my Facebook profile may lead some people to believe, I am not a fan of anything or anyone. I'm not saying that I don't like things or people. I do. In fact, I pretty much like everyone. But fandom isn't my thing. Neither is fanboyism. So I don't relate so well to Ellis's description of networks based on appreciation of a band. Sure, in the past, I've participated in similar groups, such as online discussions about one of my favorite tv shows (which still has a fairly active online fanbase). And I did join several Facebook groups about things or people I like. But my personal attitude makes me react rather negatively to fanclubs and the kind of "taste-based community" Ellis so regrettably called "taste tribes."
Nobody's fault but my own. I just feel these groups tend to be too restrictive, too inward-looking and, well, too opinion-based.
I'm too much of a social butterfly to spend much time in any one of these groups. My engagement to a group of people can run deeply and my allegiance and faithfulness are sometimes rather strong. But I don't like to restrict myself to certain groups.
Maybe I'm an "alpha socialiser" after all.
The cultural dimension also seems quite important to me, but it's harder to explain without giving off the wrong signals. Not only do I react to what I perceive to be abuses of "pop culture references" (in part because I find them exclusionary), but I perceive a kind of culturally significant attachment to individual "cultural items" ("media," as Ellis seems to call them) in "English-speaking North American popular culture." I'm not saying that this tendency doesn't exist in any other context. In fact, it's likely a dimension of any "popular culture." But this tendency is quite foreign to me. The fact that I conceive of myself as an outside observer to popular culture makes me associate the tendency with the common habits shared by a group I'm not a member of.
I'm sure I'll post again about this. But my guess is that somewhat shorter blog entries encourage more discussion. Given the increasing number of comments I'm getting, it might be cool to tap my readership's insight a bit more. One thing I've often noticed is that my more knee-jerk posts are often more effective.
So here goes.
2 Comments	| tags: alpha socialiser, alpha socializer, arbiters of taste, cliques, communitas, condescension, consanguinity, consensus, cult of personality, cultural references, cynicism, Eckert, endogamy, esoteric humor, Facebook, fanboy, fandom, favourites, grassroots clique, in-group, inside jokes, Josh Ellis, network analysis, Northern Exposure, openness, pop culture, popular culture, sandboxes, snobbery, social butterflies, socialisation, sociocentrism, sophistication, taste, trendiness, tribe, trust, Wittgenstein	| posted in blog comments, comment-fishing, communitas, Communities, community-building, consumerism, cultural awareness, cultural capital, cultural diversity, ethnocentrism, Ethnography, friendship, geek culture, globalization, groupthink, linkfest, mass media, networking, online communities, ramblings, rants, readership, social butterflies, social butterfly effect, social capital, social dynamics, social mobility, social networks, social support systems, U.S. exceptionalism, U.S. media
Cultural References and Mass Media
An effect of my not having a television is that I occasionally miss "references to popular culture." Continue reading
4 Comments	| tags: community of experience, core texts, cynicism, enculturation, Firefly, groupthink, knee-jerk reactions, language diversity, mass media, pop culture, rituals, Serenity, shared experience, télévision, xkcd	| posted in Academia, arrogance, audience, cultural awareness, cultural capital, cultural diversity, cultural identity, culture, diversity, Ethnography, folkloristics, Francophones, geek culture, glocal, hegemony, intellectuals, personal, personal life, Places, popular culture, ramblings, rants, relativism, social networks, sociocentrism, U.S. exceptionalism, U.S. media


"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" to admit you love Elvis. If you do, come and spend "A Night with Elvis" on Saturday, Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. at the West End Fire Hall.
Bring your "Little Sister," your "Teddy Bear," a "Hard-Hearted Woman," "A Big Hunk O' Love," and all those "Hound Dog"s you know who love Elvis music.
If you do, you won't be "Lonesome Tonight." So "Don't Be Cruel" and come out and help St. Matthew's UCC of Kunkletown.
It's CIA group, (don't have "Suspicious Minds" about it, CIA stands for Christians in Action) is asking you to be their "Good Luck Charm" and help their fundraising efforts for their community outreach program to be a success.
The cost of a ticket is $10 per person at the door.
Snacks and soft drinks will be available for sale. BYOB.
It's "Now Or Never" to have a great time and if you support us, we "Can't Help Falling In Love With You."


I had just a quick question is't possible to control the horizontal/vertical view break in views?
I couldn't find any further information about this topic on the forum.
Does someone has an answer to this?
I had a look, I can't find anything in the API which looked promising… Sorry… Perhaps you can see something I missed?
Yeah I looked in the RevitAPI to but couldn´t find anything sadly.
output = "Set RunIt to True!"
Region index. Each region is stored in a list. Since you can have more than one region (splitting the region once results in two regions) you need to tell it which one to split. Lists are zero indexed so first item in that list is 0.
Top and Bottom proportions. Proportions are set using numbers from 0-1, but make sure that they add up to 1. In my case I am using 0.49 and 0.51. That's roughly splitting the region in half, and keeping the two halves equal. Just like in the UI, you cannot split it exactly in half, and keep the halves next to each other, because that would result in regions having one common edge overlapping. Just like in UI, doing 0.5, 0.5 will result in an error. That's why I did uneven halves.
Thanks this was exactly what I was looking!!
I see that in the RevitAPI a lot more possibilities to expend this function I'm going to look more into but thanks again this helps a lot!
Just a little follow up question. I'm not so good yet with the RevitAPI and Python (just started with learning it). But is it als possible to move the splittend crop view?
This I already made it work the problem at the moment is more that I create this break but I want to control the white space between it see picture. In Revit you can control this with the blue arrows. But at the moment I can't control this with the RevitApi module used to split the view in the script from @Konrad_K_Sobon.
Hey, sorry if I wasn't clear… if you change those numbers, doesn't that zone change?
Yeah I know that how to change the zone. But I want to control the white space between the splitted views that are created. I want the views closer if I show 1 m of a top and bottom of a element. Now you just get a large white space between the separated views.
Oh interesting, moving these grab handles?


text:
The Cure Radio
Play All Top Tracks
Lovesong (2010 Remaster)
Pictures of You (2010 Remaster)
London Lullaby (live)
Anniversary: 1978 - 2018 Live In Hyde Park London (Live)
Endurance and validity have long been words attributed to the music and career of England's most legendary alternative band. The band have gone from being the closet secret of the goth crowd to popular acceptance to sold-out stadium tours with nary a break in quality. Robert Smith's romanticism with all things morose was exemplified on their sparse early releases like Pornography and Faith. Smith's formerly monotone vocals took a turn upon the release of The Top in '84 and suddenly he had adopted a kind of feline yelp in his vocals, and tracks like "The Caterpillar" bubbled with an odd, lively energy. Through the end of the '80s the band honed their incredible pop skills to much acclaim as "In Between Days" and "Just Like Heaven" piped out of every incense-lit bedroom from here to Calcutta. Just as their early fan base had begun to drift as the band explored the exceedingly vibrant pop of "Why Can't I Be You" and "Hot Hot Hot!!!," they released Disintegration in '89. A wonderfully dark and beautiful record, marked by Smith's relentlessly stunning guitar work and fluid imagery, it proved to be the band's biggest success. It also laid the groundwork for how the band would spend most of the '90s. Spiking their work with an almost irritating giddiness and melodic melancholy, the band continue to be masters of lush, crimson-hued pop.
The Mission U.K.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This spring and summer, the House and Senate went to work on appropriations bills for the 2018 fiscal year beginning in October. The House completed its legislative session on July 28, and reported all its spending bills out of the House Appropriations Committee. The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved the Senate Commerce, Justice, and Science funding legislation but has yet to mark up in subcommittee its legislation funding the National Endowment for the Humanities or international education.
The House bills largely rejected the major cuts suggested in the FY18 Presidential Budget Request. However, the appropriations bill for the Department of Education (H.R. 3358) provided no funding for Fulbright-Hays programs at the department. The Department of Education's Title VI programs received flat funding in the bill. Notably, the committee approved legislation providing $145 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities and $10 million for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The legislation cuts funds by 3.2 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, from FY17 levels. In contrast, the administration's budget requested that Congress begin the process of ending federal funding for those two institutions. The House Appropriations Committee also rejected the White House's proposal to significantly cut funding for research at the National Science Foundation, appropriating $7.34 billion for the agency overall. This number represents a small overall cut to the agency's funding. However, the House proposal holds flat funding for research and related activities.
The Senate Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (S.1662) allocates the NSF $7.31 billion for FY18, a 2.2 percent overall decrease from the current fiscal year. In contrast to the House bill, the research budget is not shielded from the overall decrease in funding and would receive a 1.9 percent cut.
In both chambers, members of Congress expressed support for federal funding for scientific research, and raised the possibility of increasing funding if the budget cap is lifted. (See a July 14 overview of the House bill from Science magazine and markup of the Senate CJS bill for more information.) The House and Senate are both scheduled to return to Washington on September 5, just four weeks before the start of FY18.
For updates on funding for political science research, information about APSA's advocacy activities, and advocacy tools supporting robust funding for political science, visit APSA's advocacy page.


Our friend, Eek the Owl, has shared with us some frighteningly fun ideas to make the Halloween season even more enjoyable. He has the whole family covered: chefs, crafters, adventurers, and board game aficionados! There's something for everyone in our Halloween Family Activities Guide! Feel free to take a gander and try out some of these activities with your family this Halloween season! And be sure to subscribe to The Big Scare for even more ideas!
Any opinions expressed in the following article do not constitute an endorsement of any product or retailer. The following is for information purposes only. Any instructions are for information purposes only. The Big Scare cannot guarantee you will experience the same results as we did should you opt to use these instructions. Feel free to share ways to improve the instructions in the comments section below. All activities should be conducted under adult supervision.
Our first wise idea involves everyone's favorite holiday activity — baking. And, as Eek points out, it's not just for wintertime. Halloween provides the opportunity to create all kind of creepy concoctions. From cut-out cookies to brownies, they all make perfect October baking projects.
While brownies are devilishly delicious by themselves, there's just something even more appealing about a Halloween Brownie. Making Halloween Brownies is just as easy as baking regular brownies. You do exactly what your favorite recipe (or box) tells you to do, but you change up a few things before putting the batter in to bake. Rather than just pouring the batter into a pan, you want to line the pan with greased aluminum foil. Basically what you want to do is rip out a piece of baking foil and place it in your baking pan, pushing it up against the sides, making sure the whole thing (meaning the entire bottom and all the sides) is well covered. Press the tin foil against the sides of the glass or metal pan so that it hugs it and assumes the pan's shape. Ensure that there is enough room left to lift the foil up out of the pan when the brownies have baked. Then proceed to grease (and flour) it as you normally would or as you are instructed to in the baking directions, so as to prevent the brownies from sticking. Bake the batter as directed. Remove from the oven and let set until cool.
Now comes the fun part. Take some open Halloween cookie cutters (meaning ones that are just outlines that do not have tops which would prevent the cutter from cutting through thick brownies) and cover them in powdered sugar. (Make sure your cookie cutters are deep enough to cut through the thick brownie cake. You can buy these cookie cutters at a number of major retailers. They usually come in "tubs.") Press each cookie cutter all the way through the brownie cake, just as you would with cookie cutters in cookie dough. Carefully remove your brownie shape and place it aside. Continue to press cutters into the remaining brownie cake until the area of usable brownie cake has been cut. Take the cutout shapes and decorate them with frosting, powdered sugar and candies. Use the "scrap" brownies, the unused edges that are leftover, to add layering and detail to your treats — or just eat them!
In a world seemingly run by electronic entertainment, it's sometimes hard to remember that other forms of fun exist., like board games! And when those board games have a Halloween theme, their fun level quadruples.
There are a number of Halloween-themed board games available on the market, and plenty more that can be purchased secondhand. One of the easiest games to track down is Halloween Boo-Opoly. Much like the game from which it derives its objective, Boo-Opoly allows players to buy properties, many of which will be familiar (like Elm Street) and many of which will be new (Gourd Walk). The old railroads are now different creatures of the night, and the utilities consist of Jack-O'-Lanterns and Witch's Brew. Instead of houses and hotels, players may buy Haunted Houses and Full Moons. The gameplay is quite similar to Monopoly, but there are some slight differences. Overall, it's a fun game with a nice design. The only thing that would make it better would be if the playing pieces weren't just plain plastic pawns, and instead were shaped in the forms of Halloween characters.
And if Boo-Opoly isn't quite your game, there are plenty of other options. From vampire games to zombie games, a trip to the local toy store is certain to reap a nice harvest of spooky entertainment — especially at Halloween.
Most families pick up pumpkins from their local grocer (or the super-center which has invaded their neighborhood). And while it is great to have access to affordably-priced pumpkins, there is just something missing from the experience.
So, while you may opt to get your larger carving-friendly produce from the grocery store, a trip to the local (or not-so-local) pumpkin patch should be in order for your family this year, even if you don't make your big pumpkin purchase there. Not only do many patches provide fresh, right-off-the-vine pumpkins, they also provide a ton of activities for your family. The experience that pumpkin patches provide is unprecedented. Many of them have games, hayrides, corn mazes, and photo opportunities that the grocery store can't possibly match.
So, even if you can't afford a large pumpkin from the patch, your family should still make a visit, maybe pick up some Indian Corn or smaller pumpkins, and take advantage of everything that is offered. It will be a memory your family will never forget.
Now that you have found the perfect pumpkin and are already to carve it, you probably are wondering what to do with all of those insides! We have the perfect solution — for the seeds at least!
1. Immediately after carving your pumpkin, remove the seeds and rinse them thoroughly. After they have been cleaned, pad them dry and let them sit for several hours in a warm place.
2. Preheat oven to 300 F. Once the pumpkin seeds are completely dry, place them in a mixing bowl and add 1 tablespoon melted butter for every one cup of seeds. Mix the seeds so that they are completely coated.
3. Sprinkle in garlic powder and salt, enough to taste. Mix until every seed has a light covering.
4. Pour the seeds onto a foil-lined baking sheet. Spread the seeds so that they form a single layer. It is important not to have them overlapping.
5. Place the seeds in the oven and let bake 50 minutes, mixing them every 15 minutes or so.
6. Add additional seasoning as desired and enjoy!
If you have ever wandered into an arts and crafts store in the fall, you have undoubtedly seen a variety of pre-packaged art projects that can be used to dreary up any bright October day.
Kid-friendly foam kits, which let you and your family create haunted scenes out of small pieces of pre-cut foam, are just one example. The variety of these kits has really expanded in recent years, and now you can create all kinds of things: graveyards, haunted houses, masks, monster boxes, cars, and more!
A lot of these kits don't actually require much skill. Some come with foam stickers, meaning you don't even have to glue anything! That is why they are good for the younger set as well as the older crowd. But each kit is different, so be sure to read the box for details before considering a purchase.
One of the nice things about these kits is that they allow for a lot of customization and personalization. You have the freedom and ability to place characters and other scene-setters in a variety of places on the foam bases, while still maintaining the same structure suggested by the manufacturer. You can even add your own foam pieces or mix pieces among a number of kits.
These kits get the whole family involved in the building process and make great decorations when finished. And there are a variety of ways you can incorporate the kits into your Halloween festivities. You can buy one to assemble with the kids on a stormy evening, you can buy a number and have a family foam-building contest, or you can have a variety available at a kids' Halloween party, set up tables, and have the party-goers bring their own creations to life.
Another great option is the Cookie Decorating Kit. We all know the classic Gingerbread House kits that come out at Christmas. In recent years, many manufacturers have introduced Halloween-themed kits. Take for example, the Cookie Graveyard kit from Target. It is easier to assemble than a house, but just as fun. The kit contains a cookie base, cookie tombstones, icing, as well as bat, bone, and ghost decorations, in addition to other candies that can be used to help decorate the edible display. If you can't track down this particular kit, check for alternate versions at other retailers. There are a ton to choose from!
While you may already have enough chocolate in your house during the Halloween season, you may still be tempted to get some more, especially when you can create your own candy concoctions! Companies like Wilton produce a lot of chocolate molds and kits that function as great activities for the whole family. Spooky Chocolate Dipped Pretzels are just one example.
All you need to do is stick the chocolate in a bag, put it in the microwave, squish the bag with your hands, and then pour into the molds. Stick them in the fridge for about 30 minutes. And voila; you have some awesome Halloween treats for all those special little boys and ghouls in your life! What a terrific idea for parties! And these would make great gifts for the office staff on Halloween day!
The best molds are definitely the rats. These things are huge – and you get 4 rat molds, so you can make a whole family at one time. The second best molds are the skeletons, followed the pumpkins. The bats and spiders are fun, but my final versions didn't turn out as great as the previously mentioned molds – though they are still pretty nifty. Regardless, this kit is well worth the affordable price. It makes for a great weekend activity to do with the kids or with yourself. Plus, how can you beat the spooky, edible payoff? The product is available to purchase at various locations: craft stores and other retailers. And if you aren't a fan of homemade chocolate creatures, there are plenty of other food craft kits out there – like the JELL-O Jigglers and the Rice Krispy Treat Pumpkins.
1. Paint the skulls the colors of your favorite sports teams. Even consider painting a logo on the top!
2. Paint your skull with a base color and then add "metalic" coloring for a shiny look.
3. Give your skulls a classic Halloween treatment by painting them orange and black.
4. Give your skulls a tie-dye look.
5. Use stencils to add images to the top and back of the skulls.
Once you're done, consider adding them to your current Halloween decor. Or how about using them as table toppers or as party favors? The possibilities are endless.
We will be adding to this page as we think of more activities, so why not subscribe to The Big Scare for the latest undead updates?


Guide To Family Adventures Up North!
Come and experience Phuket's water park for a wet and wild day. The water park offers fun for the whole family, whether you are after a relaxing day in the water or an adrenalin rush, Splash Jungle has it all! You will have a ball with the giant water bomb cannons, where you are sure to get everyone cooled down. Plus, the fun slide and water spray station in the fantasy's kid's zone will have your little ones in giggles.
This is Phuket's first and only, full circus academy that teaches flying trapeze as well as all major circus arts. They teach all levels from complete beginners to budding professionals, from age 4 years and up! Constructed and operated to the highest safety standards, MACA offers a chance for the family to experience the exhilarating world of circus arts! This is also a great option for children's birthday parties.
Get ready to ride the waves! This state-of-the-art six-tower Sesitec clockwise cableway, has a 200-meter extreme obstacle system 2.0 and 160-meter beginner and training system 2.0. Take a day break from a trip to Phi Phi island or 7-island hopping trip with this afternoon of fun and adventure.
Flying Trapeze Phuket Adventure outdoor activities will give your kids and your family an opportunity of a lifetime to fly on the trapeze. Just 40-minutes from Patong, escape the hustle and bustle and enjoy the panoramic views of this 5-Star Beach. The Trapeze is on the Beach and in the shade, so pack a hat and sunscreen! Finish off with a cold drink on the beach as you watch the sunset.
Phuket FantaSea is a Thai cultural theme park. It is the world's first entertainment park that presents Thai Culture and Tradition as its main theme. Here you will see dancing elephants and tigers, and some chickens too! You'll follow a traditional Thai tale, eat good food, get to shop, and watch some fireworks.
This isn't your average temple. It's quite small, the Buddha is buried waist deep in cement and it's shroud in mystery. This legendary temple in Phuket is surrounded by rumours, legends, twisted facts, and plain fairy tales. Don't touch it! They say those that do will be cursed forever. Come here for a spot of culture on a rainy day.
One for the older kids! Splash down muddy trails, power over bumps, and zoom around obstacles. Along the way, pass by dense mangrove swamps, rubber plantations, and palm gardens. Take breaks to get closer looks at the jungle, you might even see a Venus flytrap as it captures insects in its sticky grasp.
Flying Hanuman offers a high-speed ziplining adventure that sends you flying through the treetops with the speed and grace of a bird. Admire Phuket Island's dense jungle landscapes and forest-covered hillsides while you get your adrenaline pumping. Kids must be over 4 years old to fly and enjoy the experience. Make sure to pack shoes, you don't want to lose any flip flops!
If you're looking for an afternoon of arts & crafts then this could be fun to do. Watch Thai artists demonstrate the art of floral craft arrangements, gel candle making, and T-shirt painting. Bring your creation home as a memento of your memorable trip to Phuket. Kids under 2 go free and there are a few bundles to choose from depending on how creative you're feeling.
Your adventure begins at Sala Beach in the quiet, northeast section of Phuket Island. Pedal through the Thai countryside, passing by rubber trees, palms, and pineapple plantations. Head into the jungle to reach the Bang Pae waterfall, the largest of Phuket's four waterfalls. Here you can take a refreshing dip in the lagoon below the cascade. This is suitable for kids over the age of 11 only.
Phuket Countryside Bike Tour, Website.


text:
Vision for Crissy Field balances subtlety, spectacle
John King May 15, 2015 Updated: May 16, 2015 9:07 a.m.
1of16A rendering of the future West overlook with a cantilevered walkway, among the options that have surfaced in the emerging vision for 13 acres of parkland to be created above San Francisco's Crissy Field.
2of16A design option for the Presidio parkland leading from Crissy Field to the Main Post: terraced landscaped seating leading up to walk along a new bluff.
3of16The proposed concept design for the New Presidio Parklands, which would drape 13 acres of landscaped open space across the former path of Doyle Drive. The design team for the concept is led by James Corner Field Operations, famed for its role in shaped New York's High Line.Photo: James Corner Field Operations / James Corner Field Operations
4of16The proposed 13-acre New Presidio Parklands south of Crissy Field would cover what now is the construction site of the replacement for Doyle Drive, shown in the center of this photograph.Photo: James Corner Field Operations / James Corner Field Operations
5of16One of the picnic areas in the concept design for the proposed New Presidio Parklands above Crissy Field.Photo: James Corner Field Operations / James Corner Field Operations
6of16A key element of the proposed 13 acres of new parkland at the Presidio would be a meeting place called the Zocolo, with a new glass viewing pavilion building as well as seating around a handful of statuesque Monterey cypresses already on the site.Photo: James Corner Field Operations
7of16The setting of the proposed Zocalo as it appears todayPhoto: James Corner Field Operations / James Corner Field Operations
8of16Chrissy Field is the gateway to San Francisco.Photo: FREDERIC LARSON
9of16The grand Prix bicycle race in San Francisco. A spectator cheers the riders as they pass by at Chrissy Field.Photo: John Storey
10of16The Warming Hut at Chrissy Fields.Photo: Kurt Rogers
11of16The Warming Hut at Chrissy Fields has a great view of Alcatraz.Photo: Kurt Rogers
12of16Stephane Cros, of San Francisco, left, and Patrick Bernard, right, of Walnut Creek, prepare to enter the water on their kite boards at Chrissy Field Beach in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, May 22, 2013.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
13of16With the mist-shrouded Golden Gate Bridge in the background, the Dobrov family of San Francisco takes a walk at the west end of Chrissy Field on Friday. The first day of 2010 brought a mild, misty day to San Francisco's waterfront. People ushered in the new decade by taking walks, riding bikes and running.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
14of16Sean Cole and his wife, Savanna, try to get their son Rider to walk in their direction at Chrissy Field Beach in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, May 22, 2013.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
15of16Robin Phillips plays with her son Milo Pollock, one year old, before the start of the "Latch On" gathering on Friday, August 2, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif.Photo: Katie Meek, The Chronicle
16of16The Bay views and rolling green at Chrissy Field are a perfect spot to pop the question, especially if you want a proposal pic with the Golden Gate Bride in the background.Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
There's a tendency today to emphasize big moves in the design of a region's high-profile buildings and landscapes, as if nothing matters except the first gasp of wonder from afar.
The emerging vision for 13 acres of parkland to be created above San Francisco's Crissy Field makes the case for a different reality: the pleasure of close encounters, spaces that offer intimacy as well as the drama of uncluttered views. Subtlety amid spectacle.
This is the balancing act being attempted for the bluff that will drape what once was Doyle Drive in the Presidio, a potentially stunning transition from the edge of the bay to the historic heart of the military post turned national park. The design concepts released this week show real progress toward creating spaces worthy of the setting. The question now is whether they'll survive.
Doyle Drive's conversion from an elevated roadway into what is billed as Presidio Parkway, much of it hidden within tunnels, has allowed park planners to rethink how Crissy Field and the Main Post could be joined after 75 years where they existed in separate worlds. Private donors including the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation already have pledged $35 million toward the project's $51 million budget, and in December the Presidio Trust selected a team headed by James Corner Field Operations to take on the design.
Progress on design
Corner gave a progress report on Thursday to the trust's board of directors, and it shows a landscape coming into focus.
The basic approach is a modified version of what first caught the trust's eye, an extension of the parade ground to a bluff that from above is defined by boomerang curves aimed at the iconic views. The bluff then descends to a more dune-like terrain where the emphasis will be on youth educational programs. Next to the parade ground, a cluster of older buildings and statuesque Monterey cypress trees will serve as what Corner calls the "zocalo," with a visitor center and a starting point for expeditions to other areas of the Presidio.
What's changed during the past four months, as Corner and his team have met with park planners and the public?
The bluff no longer has a cliff-like drop; the plateau leading from the parade ground downplays lawns in favor of succulents and tall native grasses, though a few small lawns for picnics would be mixed in as well. A large amphitheater on the east edge of the site near Mason Street has been traded for a smaller-scale procession of "viewing terraces" that double as a landscaped staircase and face the Golden Gate.
Shifts like these are driven partly by the budget and partly by the drought. More important, they reflect an understanding that there's more to this site than panoramic vistas.
The proposed descent of terraces from the bluff, for instance, would offer a linear nook amid slopes otherwise cloaked in coastal shrubs. The snug mosaic of grasslands, succulents and small lawns would offer a counterpoint to the broad-brush green that defines the parade ground and Crissy Field's vast oval lawn.
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Out with the old as S.F. gets disrupted
Corner's so-called zocalo is especially imaginative.
There'd be a village-like closeness to the collection of small Spanish-style buildings — one of which now houses the Presidio's transit center — and tall sculptural trees. If he had his druthers, Corner would then take down a blocky former cafeteria from the 1970s and replace it with a glass-walled structure topped by a green roof. The new building would offer protected views from inside no matter the weather, as well as an elevated rooftop viewing platform open in all directions. It also would buffer the zocalo's outdoor gathering spaces from the often-unpleasant wind.
Lure of contrasts
This would be an area reminiscent of the entry to Muir Woods, where you're nestled in an almost domestic terrain before confronting nature at its most spectacular. But at Thursday's meeting the idea of new construction ran counter to the wishes of some members of the public who would rather see no building at all, the better to pry open the view all the more.
Realistically, though, it's the contrast of experiences and environments that make a place live in our memory and prod us to return again and again. Look at Crissy Field, where the 20-plus-acre oval lawn is often all but vacant, while the cozy picnic areas near the Warming Hut are popular family destinations.
The current concept is a boiled-down update of three alternatives presented in March, but not the "official" proposal. Instead, what was shown Thursday has two elements: the basic concept and a set of potential options, such as the viewing terraces and new zocalo building, that could be folded in.
Magical concepts
Some of the extras seem superfluous, such as cantilevered extensions of the walk along the bluff that made more sense when the bluff was a cliff. Others could be magical — including a spare artwork that would be a nod to Presidio history, set into the pavement of the bluff's central viewing area and tracing the path of past military missions.
The goal is to have a single detailed proposal ready by mid-September, to be signed off on by the end of the year so that the landscaped bluff could be opened to the public in 2018. It's an exciting date that will be here sooner than we think. When it arrives, let's make sure that the end result is as compelling as the attractions on either side.
John King is The San Francisco Chronicle's urban design critic. E-mail: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingSFChron
For more information on what is called the New Presidio Parklands, go to http://newpresidioparklands.org.
Follow John on:
https://www.facebook.com/johnkingSFChron/JohnKingSFChron
John King is The San Francisco Chronicle's urban design critic, taking stock of everything from Salesforce Tower to public spaces and homeless navigation centers. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of two books on San Francisco architecture, King joined The Chronicle in 1992 and covered City Hall before creating his current post in 2001. He spent the spring of 2018 as a Mellon Fellow in Urban Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.
Life next door to MacArthur BART: 'It's like a small town'
In Dublin, a transit village near BART offers convenience, not community
The Currys


Although the marathon of high-profile Shakespeare revivals that consumed the fall theater season is now over, if you have the stomach for more iambic pentameter, two imaginatively conceived and physically scaled-down Shakespeare productions have just arrived Off-Broadway.
The Fiasco Theater, which previously presented the convoluted romance "Cymbeline" with a small ensemble and low-budget aesthetic and received great acclaim, has returned with the dark and sinister drama "Measure for Measure," which is done with the same actors and in an equally direct style.
Whereas most productions of "Measure for Measure" go to great lengths to stress its threatening atmosphere of abusive power and moral corruption, Fiasco offers a straightforward rendition that was clearly intended to appeal to a wide audience. In fact, the staging is part of the New Victory's annual season of family-friendly programming.
This is hardly the most dramatically compelling production of the play you're likely to see. However, it is enjoyable, marking another achievement from Fiasco, which will hopefully continue to make its way through the canon.
Over at the Public Theater, playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney is staging his own adaptation of the tragedy "Antony and Cleopatra" which alters the setting from ancient Rome and Egypt to 18th century France and Haiti. Co-produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, it has already played London with the same cast.
While McCraney adds many distinctive touches including live music and a pool of water at the back of the stage, he emphasizes atmosphere over the text itself. The performances are disappointing, with Jonathan Cake playing Marc Antony like a hammy, drunken frat boy and Chivas Michael failing to imbue Cleopatra with any sense of authority. In all, it is a clumsy and misconceived production that fails to ignite.


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Q: MS Graph API Calendar Update fails Using Graph API to update calendar that I have created using the API previously gets the following error:
Your request can't be completed. The default calendar cannot be renamed.
Code: graphClient.Users[UserPrincipalName].Calendar.Request().UpdateAsync(calendar);
Any suggestion on this?

A: I could update calendar name from my side. Please seen the screenshot below:

I think it could be you didn't set up the correct permissions.
For necessary permissions you have to set up, please read from official docs from Microsoft.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/calendar-update?view=graph-rest-1.0
It also cloud be a bug for graph API SDK.
I'd recommend you check your permission first, if the permission is correct, than use c# to create HTTP request rather than use graph SDK

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Volvo Car Group and China Development Bank have signed a USD 800 million loan agreement with a maturity in 2021. This loan will support Volvo Car Group in further developing its product program as well as strengthening the capital structure over the coming years.
The first drawdown under the loan agreement will take place in 2013, with further drawdowns planned during 2014 and early 2015. The amortization structure and terms of this loan agreement are equal to the loan agreement of EUR 922 million that Volvo Car Group and China Development Bank signed in 2012.
"This agreement is a further proof of the good relationship between Volvo Car Group and China Development Bank," says Hans Oscarsson, Chief Financial Officer at Volvo Car Group.


Chloe joined the firm in 2016 and is a member of the business litigation group. Before joining the firm Chloe was a judicial extern for the Honorable Joseph N. Laplante, Chief Judge of United States District Court of New Hampshire and for the Honorable Robert J. Lynn, Associate Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court. She also worked as a research assistant for Professor John M. Greabe on "The Riddle of Harmless Error Revisited," published in the Houston Law Review.
Chloe works with many shareholders on various litigation matters.


Information: Humans left Africa some 120,000 years BP. As they populated the world, three main language groups evolved.
Information: The two hemispheres of our brain are evaluating the world in quite different manner.
Information: The universe contains fractal structures at every scale.
Information: Quantum Jumps exist at every level. Examples are given from living as well as non-living systems.


Installation Tools - Products - ZT | Zippertubing Co.
We offer a suite of tools designed for closing Zippertubing® pressure-track products in production line applications and field installations. These tools are designed to offer a faster and more effective way of interlocking our tracks. The slider tools are used as a specialized per project solution, where the pliers can be used for many applications without performance impact. Make sure to get the matching tool for your track installation.
Installation Slider tools designed for closing Zippertubing® D-Track, R-Track and Z-Track products.
Offered in stainless steel, plastic, and metal rings, slider tools are designed for fast and easy closing of Zippertubing® products and intended for use in low volume production line applications or field installations.
Zippertubing Offers Custom One-Off Prototypes & Solutions!
Our team of experienced engineers help you with your component protection needs.
Installation plier tools designed for closing Zippertubing® D-Track-LT or Z-Track products.
Zippertubing® pressure track installation pliers are long cable runs and use in high volume production line installations where operator fatigue become a consideration. Our pliers are made from high grade stainless steel built for durability ease of use.


Lenovo Z2 Plus has been launched in India at a price of Rs. 17,999. The latest smartphone from Lenovo comes with specs like a quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and a 5 inch full HD display. It comes in 3 GB and 4 GB RAM variants, with 32 GB and 64 GB internal storage respectively.
Starting off with the hardware, the Lenovo Z2 Plus comes with a 5 inch full HD IPS LCD display, with the pixel density coming in at ~441 PPI. The phone comes with the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and Adreno 530 GPU.
Coming to the camera department, the Lenovo Z2 Plus comes with a 13 MP camera with an aperture of f/2.2 and Phase Detection Autofocus. A single LED flash assists the camera in low lighting conditions. The rear camera supports video recording up to 2160p at 30 FPS. The phone also supports ultra slow-motion video recording just like the iPhones. On the front, you get an 8 MP camera with an f/2.0 aperture and 1.4 µm pixel size. The front camera can record videos up to 1080p.
On the memory front, the Lenovo Z2 Plus comes in two variants. The first one comes with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage, whereas the slightly costlier one comes with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal storage. That said, the price difference between the two variants is very low compared to the general trend in the industry. This makes up for the missing support for a microSD card.
Coming to connectivity – the Lenovo Z2 Plus comes with support for dual SIM cards and 4G VoLTE, WiFi b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1 and USB 2.0 with a Type C reversible connector. It also comes with a fingerprint sensor including gestures support, allowing you to use the sensor like a touchpad for performing a range of actions. Lenovo calls it UTouch 2.0.
The Lenovo Z2 Plus has been priced at Rs. 17,999 for the 3 GB RAM / 32 GB storage version. The 4 GB RAM / 64 GB storage version of the Z2 Plus is priced at Rs. 19,999. The phone comes in two colours – Black and White.
The Z2 Plus will be sold exclusively on Amazon.in, starting 25th September midnight.


Cargill has introduced TasteWise, a reduced calorie solutions useing the comany's patent-pending technology, application capabilities and ingredients to enable beverage makers to deliver better-tasting, reduced-calorie products.
Cargill uses what it calls "tribology" – the science and technology of interacting surfaces in relative motion – to more accurately mimic and measure what goes on inside the mouth when a beverage is consumed.
According to the company, TasteWise reduced calorie solutions helps speed product development through the utilization of its unique prediction capabilities and new texturizing components. The pre-screened texturizing blends, commercialized as Trilisse blends, optimize mouthfeel in reduced calorie beverages based on specific applications. These proprietary texturizing blends also may allow beverage makers to use less sweeteners or other ingredients to achieve the same mouthfeel.
Cargill has six patents filed on TasteWise reduced calorie solutions, and is now working to extend its capabilities into food products including dressings, sauces and soups.


For Cinco de Mayo, we gathered up 10 of our favorite skateboard graphics that were influenced by the Mexican / Spanish / Latino culture. In no particular order, some of these are available here online and some are past season graphics that are out of stock... Check them out below.
This graphic pays homage to the American Zero classic graphic. Issued for Tony Cervantes.
A spin on the original American Punk graphic from Zero Skateboards. Tony Cervantes pro model.
Jason Jessee's staple graphic from Santa Cruz.
One of our favorite graphics from 5 Boro. An NYC Spanish influenced graphic, "Barrio" meaning district. In this case "Cinco Barrio" translates to 5 Boro.
Although Cliché Skateboards is longer around, we can't pass up on this graphic of Active Pro, Daniel Espinoza. Cliché did this while the World Cup was going on as part of a whole international series.
We should all know by now, Cinco de Mayo isn't Mexico's Independence Day. It's actually on September 16th, according to wikipedia... Here's P-Rod's homage to his heritage as seen in most of his deck graphics.
Girl & Chocolate Skateboards issued out a series recently based on their past skate films such as "LAS NUEVE VIDAS DE PACO" (produced by Spike Jonze & Rickk Howard) I sugguest you do some research yourself and watch the whole film HERE.
Chocolate re-issued this classic graphic exclusively for Active Ride Shop recently. Richard Mulder was one of Active's first official team riders back in the day. Graphic by Evan Hecox.
I found deck while doing google research on another deck. This fits in on this list! In Spanish, "Por Vida" can be translated to, "For Life" in English.
We know there are a ton more we should highlight, but let's not go all night digging up through the internet's archives! Have a happy Cinco de Mayo!
>>>Read about the 5 Mexican Restaurants You Must Try in Long Beach with Chad Tim Tim!


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Bet on Boxing at Bet UK
Got an idea who the next big thing in boxing may be? Or is your gut telling you the underdog is pulling off an upset? Well, no matter what you're looking to bet on, you'll be able to find it in Bet UK's online betting markets. With eight weight divisions and hundreds of boxers looking to take the world championships away from their current holders, we're sure to see some brilliant bouts in 2022. Will Anthony Joshua redeem himself against Oleksandr Usyk after two defeats in his last four fights? Can anyone defeat Tyson Fury? These are the questions that will be answered in the upcoming years.
Boxing Betting Markets
With a range of markets to choose from, boxing fans at Bet UK can place a wager on specific round betting, method of victory, if the fight will go the distance and much more. One of the more popular betting strategies in boxing is to bet on a group of rounds that you think the fight will end in. This is a good way of covering a portion of the fight, a bit like covering part of a Roulette wheel.
Boxing events are usually called six weeks prior to the fight night to give the boxers time to train, also giving boxing promoters a chance to build up the fight. The boxing betting odds and markets will open well in advance at Bet UK, but more markets will be added nearer the time of the fight.
Biggest Boxing Events
Boxing events are announced throughout the year, with popular months being February and December. Promotions showcase their best boxers as Box Office Events but also on other TV channels. Bet UK hosts Tyson Fury & Anthony Joshua odds as well as many others. You can bet on the fact that Bet UK online betting will bring you the latest odds on the biggest and best fighters.
Tyson Fury & Anthony Joshua Boxing Odds
The heavyweight division is a hotbed for boxing talent, and the UK has two of the best. Bet UK will have Anthony Joshua odds and Tyson Fury odds whether they fight each other or different opponents. After an amazing fight trilogy with Deontay Wilder, Fury will be looking for a new competitor to step up; his next challenger will likely be Dillian Whyte as Joshua looks to reclaim his championships against Oleksandr Usyk. 2022 is going to be a big year for British boxing. We're hoping that the year will culminate with Fury vs Joshua, but both fighters need to get to that point first. Whether Fury outboxes an opponent or Joshua gets his mojo back, you can bet on it today at Bet UK.
Boxing Q&A's
Q. What channels are the boxing on?
Boxing fights can be found on several sources. The three most popular are ESPN, Sky Sports Box Office and DAZN.
Q. How many rounds are in a boxing fight?
Professional boxing bouts are limited to 12 rounds. Depending on boxer experience, fights can also be fought over four, six, eight or ten rounds. If a fight has only four rounds, it is either expected to be a squash fight, or both boxers are very inexperienced.
Q. Who won the last big boxing fight?
The last big boxing match was the final fight in the Tyson Fury vs Deontay Wilder trilogy. Tyson Fury won the fight and remained undefeated despite being knocked down twice by the American Wilder. The fight is widely regarded as one of the best heavyweight fights in recent history.
Boxing Betting Tips
Bet UK will be covering all the biggest fights on our sports tips blog. You can expect fresh and updated content, including boxing betting tips, previews and gambling guides. So if you don't know your WBO to WBC or your Fury from your Wilder, then Bet UK will make things clearer. Our resident boxing writer will break down styles and provide tips about the fights, so keep checking back for the latest updates.
More Online Betting At Bet UK
There's more to Bet UK's online betting than just boxing betting. We've also got the most popular sports including football betting, horse racing betting and more. Alongside this, we'll also bring you an array of betting tips such as BTTS tips and our horse racing betting tips. With Bet UK, we'll be bringing you the latest betting markets and odds for the biggest events around the world.


The program requires students to take a minimum of 33 credits. 15 - 18 of those credits are required courses; 15 credits are electives. A minimum of 15 of the 33 credits must be 6600 level courses.
In addition to the required and elective courses, students must pass a written comprehensive examination, defend their thesis prospectus and final thesis, and complete a master thesis.
All courses are either 5500 or 6600 level courses in sociology, or other graduate courses approved by the sociology graduate director.
See the Graduate Catalog for course details.
For questions about the Suggested Program of Study, Theses, Petitions, Examinations, or Graduation, please contact Gesine Hearn, (208) 282-4947.


This Reaction: Superphosphates and ammonia, aqueous solution and ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulphate and calcium nitrate and calcium sulfate and diammonium hydrogenorthophosphate and magnesium nitrate and magnesium sulphate and potassium nitrate Chemical World Consumption Report provides data on the net consumption of Reaction: Superphosphates and ammonia, aqueous solution and ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulphate and calcium nitrate and calcium sulfate and diammonium hydrogenorthophosphate and magnesium nitrate and magnesium sulphate and potassium nitrate in each of the countries listed. The substance covered (Reaction: Superphosphates and ammonia, aqueous solution and ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulphate and calcium nitrate and calcium sulfate and diammonium hydrogenorthophosphate and magnesium nitrate and magnesium sulphate and potassium nitrate) are classified by the Chemical Registry, EC, EU, CAS, or other coding system. In addition, where available this consumption is further analysed by Application or End User sector.
The Reaction: Superphosphates and ammonia, aqueous solution and ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulphate and calcium nitrate and calcium sulfate and diammonium hydrogenorthophosphate and magnesium nitrate and magnesium sulphate and potassium nitrate Report gives Market Consumption / Products / for over 200 countries by 3 Time series: From 1997- 2015 and Forecasts 2016- 2023 & 2023-2028.
Reaction: Superphosphates and ammonia, aqueous solution and ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulphate and calcium nitrate and calcium sulfate and diammonium hydrogenorthophosphate and magnesium nitrate and magnesium sulphate and potassium nitrate Products/Markets covered, 2018 pages, 9744 spreadsheets, 9663 database tables, 582 illustrations. Updated monthly. 12 month After-Sales Service.
The Consumption of Reaction: Superphosphates and ammonia, aqueous solution and ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulphate and calcium nitrate and calcium sulfate and diammonium hydrogenorthophosphate and magnesium nitrate and magnesium sulphate and potassium nitrate in each country by Product / Applications.


These data files contain raw, anonymized response data, as well as a data codebook, from the author survey conducted in May and June 2015 as a part of the Pay It Forward project. The survey was distributed to approximately 15,000 academics at the University of British Columbia, The Ohio State University, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of California, Davis, and received an overall response rate of 14.1%.
Survey conducted using Qualtrics software. Respondents included faculty, graduate students, and post-doctoral researchers from the University of British Columbia, The Ohio State University, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of California, Davis. The survey was open from May 20, 2015 to June 10, 2015. IRB approval for this study was obtained by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Office of Research Compliance.


Even amid a stalled economy, new data from the FBI reports that big cities, those with a population of at least one million, are seeing huge declines in crime.
"one factor frequently cited by criminologists is demographics. Crimes are more likely to be committed by young people, so the crime rate drops when the cohort of young people shrinks, as it has in the past few years. Better policing surely helps too, as has urban revitalization, which is bringing relatively prosperous singles, couples, families, and empty nesters into neighborhoods that had been in decline in years past, improving neighborhood quality and safety."


Home » Buddha - Amazing 3D Lamp, Beautiful decor item with warm romantic light, ideal Gift! FOLLOWS YOU WHERE EVER YOU GO IN ROOM!
The incredible 3D optical illusion of Buddha's face follows you around the room. Beautiful decor item with warm romantic light.
Handmade in Australia. Electrical cord and globe included.
This Buddha is like no others, Ideal Gift!


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Twist Radio review
The Twist Radio iPhone app is a newly launched app that offers something new to the music discovery scene. As a self-proclaimed fan of Last.fm, Twist Radio fits right into my love for music apps since it supports both Last.fm and SoundCloud. It works as an aggregator for music from these two services, which is sort of like a mashup of mainstream music that people are listening and sharing on Last.fm, and indie music that you can discover by browsing artists who upload tracks to SoundCloud. The service is neat because it gives you a taste of music you know you'll love and lets you find new music that you might love based on your previous genre likes.
Twist Radio kind of works like YouTube in that manner, since you find find mainstream and indie together. The only difference is it functions as a song aggregator instead of a video aggregator. Once you find a song you want to listen to using the iPhone app , you just tap it and it will add it to your personalized station for listening to it later. I really enjoyed the search function, because it was laid out well and easy to understand. Once I found music I liked, a quick tap had the music in my station for listening, which is the greatest feature Twist Radio has to offer.
Twist is able to pull from these two services by taking advantage of their API's, which make it easy for people to share their songs. You can add your favorite songs to a station with a quick search and scrobble them to Last.fm when you listen. You can also share these songs with others, which is a pretty neat function that you don't see in many music discovery apps. The only downside to Twist Radio is that because most of the SoundCloud clips are user uploaded, it's a real toss up as to what you'll find on the service.
Twist Radio is available for iPod Touch , iPhone, and iPad devices, so if you're a real music fan who loves listening to great music and finding new music that's not in the mainstream, definitely give Twist Radio a try. I've found some great artists through the SoundCloud integration and I'm finding more each time I listen to music using it. The only thing I wish the app allowed was better SoundCloud integration so if I like something enough from a certain artist, I can pay or donate to them for their music. Still, as a music discovery service, Twist Radio is a pretty great twist on an old application idea.
AppSafari Rating: 4/5
This 3rd Party App is available at the Apple iTunes AppStore. Browse the full list of all AppStore apps filed under the AppStore category.
Download Twist Radio at iTunes App Store
Developer: Rony Fadel
AppSafari review of Twist Radio was written by Darius Reimm on October 26th, 2011 and categorized under App Store, Free, Fun, Music. Page viewed 4980 times, 2 so far today. Need help on using these apps? Please read the Help Page.
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Create Link Inspire – Time to Party!
I'm on vacation this week with family so I'm getting right to this week's Create Link Inspire Party.
So, let's have some fun and see what you've been up to lately. Share your latest and greatest so we can be inspired by you!
The Create Link Inspire Party starts at 9:30 EST on Mondays and don't forget to follow all of your fabulous co-hosts.