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Hello everyone, It’s Ovais here

Firstly I would like to say a massive thank you to all of our Clients and LSP’s for your co-operation and patience when I was dealing with all the bookings, especially the last minute ones! Your support so far has been brilliant!!

I just wanted to let you all know that I am moving onto a new role. I will be responsible for Customer Relationship/User Experience (UX) Design. It’s with great pleasure that I introduce you to our newest team member, Sara. Sara is the new booking co-ordinator and will be contacting you all through email, phone and text. I hope you will build a great working relationship with Sara, as I have had with all of you and I hope the support continues. You will be hearing from Sara soon – so please make her feel welcome!!

Team Lingoing – Joe – Product Manager

Welcome to the first of our team Lingoing blogs! Each week we will be interviewing a member of the Lingoing team and sharing it with you. We hope it will help you get to know us better and what we are all about 🙂

First up is ‘Joe’…..

Full name: Joe Sumray

Job Title: Product Manager

1) Please explain your role at Lingoing:

My job as a product manager involves determining and defining what products Lingoing should create and focus on. To do this I have to take into account the market, customer and company needs. On a day to day basis I can be found on the phone speaking to the web developer, meeting with customers and my fellow Lingoing colleagues.

2) Why Lingoing?

Having the opportunity to work alongside a great team to create products that serve the interpreting and deaf community is extremely exciting and interesting. The team all feel really passionately about what they do and being around that enthusiasm and drive is amazing.

3) What do you do outside of work?

FOOTBALL! I love everything about it – playing and watching. I also enjoy a less well known sport called Crossfit – think of it as extreme circuit training. Other than sport I love to go out to eat and go on nights out with my friends and family.

4) What is your favourite film?

‘The Godfather’ – I am a bit of a gangster film fan and lets face it you can’t get better than The Godfather. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse”

5) Last but not least…What is the worst thing you have ever eaten?

Hmmmmm…I can’t recall eating anything too gruesome (wait for Ovais’s worst food!) but if I was to go for one it would be an old Jewish delicacy known as gefilte fish. It is translated as ‘stuffed fish’ – tastes even worse than it sounds!

Thats all from Joe – tune in next week to read all about the Lingoing co-founder Saduf!

Welcome! (and happy birthday Sad)

Finally…our blog is underway!

We want to start by welcoming you all!. The blog will be a place where we share all the latest news and stories within the deaf and interpreting world. Expect to see interesting interviews, funny stories and plenty of debate! The blog should be a place for all to get involved, so please don’t be shy and have your say!

Ohhh…it is our CEO’s 35th birthday today! Here is the birthday boy cutting into his cake! Happy birthday Sad 🙂


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May 03, 2010

Engirundhu Vandhaayadaa from Five Star

One of the things I like about web is that you get ideas and inspirations from people you don't know.  Inspired by Thinkala's song translations, I am attempting a translation of a Tamil song.  A favourite of mine, no need to say.  In the movie, this song is sung by a girl whose husband runs away immediately after their wedding.  She awaits his return, and this song she sings in someone else's wedding.

I am trying to translate it without ruining the beauty of poetry.  But then, translating poetry is hard, and more so if you are not an expert in both languages.  Please leave a comment if you have a better translation for any part of the song.

The song is here:

Engirundhu vandhaayadaa -- nee
Enai paadu padutha?
Engu kondu sendraayada -- naan
Enai thedi edukka?
Inbam thunbam thunbam inbam
Inbam endru nee
Sogam rendum kodukka
Sugam rendum kodukka

Where did you come from to trouble me?
Where did you take me to?
How'd I find myself?
Joy and sorrow, sorrow and joy,
You gave them both to me[1]

Vaanavillaay aanum vannam ezhaay pennum
Irundhaal innum vaanin azhagu koodum

Sky would be more beautiful
When the man is rainbow, and
Woman, its seven colours.

Suttu viralaay neeyum kattai viralaay naanum
Ezhudhum edhuvum kavidhaiyaaga maarum

With you as the index finger, and I as the thumb
Everything we write would transform as poetry[2]

Vidaamale unai thodarndhidum enai
Ore oru murai manadhinil ninai

Think of me only once,
The one following you always.

Ennai enna seydhaayada?

What have you done to me?

Vaasal vaazhaiyodu vaarthaiyaadal aachu
Iniyum pesa pudhiya kadhaigal edhu?

There isn't more stories to share with the banana tree
That stands in our threshold, talking to me.

Oruvar vaazhum ulagil mounam dhaane pechu
Mozhigal edharku iruvar inaiyum bodhu?

In a world of single person, silence is all talk.
When two unite as one, who needs languages?

Vizhaakkalil ival thanithirukkiraal
Kanaakkalil dhinam vizhithirukkiraal

This girl is alone in all celebration gatherings.
And she's awake in dreams.

Ennai enna seydhaayadaa?

What have you done to me?

[1] This is a super-diluted translation where I've devoured the poetry; sorry about that.  I will make an attempt to atone for it by giving meanings to individual words so you get a better idea of the lyrics.
inbam = joy, pleasure, etc.
thunbam = suffering, sorrow, etc.
nee = you (naan = I)
sogam = sadness
rendum = both (it comes from rendu (in spoken Tamil), which means two; it's written as irandu)
kodukka = to give
sugam = pleasure, happiness

[2] The man and the woman as the fingers holding a pen

  1. I had forgotten how beautiful this song is.

    Only thing I would have said differently:

    Engu kondu sendraayada -- naan
    Enai thedi edukka? I would have translated this as "where did you take me to, for me to find myself". Not sure if I am interpreting it wrongly or too literally. But I don't see it as "how'd I find myself?"

    Then again if you give a piece of text to anyone to translate, there will be as many versions as they are people. Also, any piece of prose or poetry can be made better. Always :)

  2. Thanks Nags, for the comment. Actually, I like your translation better. When I was writing down mine, I was a little puzzled about how to translate that line. Your version sounds much better.

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Appearances can be very deceiving! The Mantis shrimp…

by   Profile Ivana and Janez   When 18th March 2019
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I have always thought that Mantis shrimp are one of the most beautiful creatures you can find and photograph in shallow, warm, tropical and subtropical waters. Their colourful appearance can mislead us in to thinking that they are cute and friendly, but nothing could be further from the truth. They are powerful, armoured killing machines. Usually small in size, at about 10cm, with the largest ever caught at almost 50cm in length, they are small, fast and deadly.

Their second pair of appendages are highly specialised and modified into powerful weapons. Out of 450 species of Mantis shrimp, they only have 2 types of specialised weapon: spears or clubs. These appendages are powerful and can cause serious damage to their prey, which is often much bigger than themselves. Their blow can produce a force of 1,500 newtons at a speed of over 80km per hour. They move their appendages so quickly that the water around them boils (supercavitation) and when the bubbles produced by this movement break, the very high temperature inside them kills their victim instantly, also producing light waves in the process.

Their stalked eyes can move in opposite directions and they are known to be very complex, with numerous types of photoreceptors (16); a lot more than the 3 types found in humans! They have excellent eyesight and are able to see an extensive range of colours.   They are not like other crustaceans, as their carapace only covers part of the head and the first four segments of their body. It is so hard and able to withstand immense pressure that the composition of their carapace is currently being investigated.

They have the nickname “thumb spillers” therefore it's better if they are admired from a distance and not handled. They are able to break the glass of an aquarium, proving the fact that appearances can be very deceiving. They live on their own and don’t hang out together and if kept in captivity will eat everything and everyone around them. With very few natural predators, they are not in danger of extinction, but they are an important part of the marine ecosystem and keep other species in check.

So, admire these incredible creatures from a safe distance and be aware - appearances can be deceiving, even in the underwater world!

Text by Bogna Griffin, BSc (Hons) Applied Freshwater and Marine Biology, GMIT, Ireland

Photos by: Ivana O.K.

If you're a marine biology enthusiast, why not check out these program's from our friends at SSI:

Fish Identification

Marine Ecology / Underwater Naturalist

Written by
Profile Ivana and Janez
When 18th March 2019
Location GMIT, Galway, Ireland

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Never type plain passwords for SSH authentication

It could be said that SSH (Secure Shell) is an administrator’s most important and most frequently used tool. SSH uses public-key cryptography to establish a secure communication channel. The public/private keypair is either

  1. generated automatically, where the (typed or copy-pasted) plaintext password is transmitted over the encrypted channel to authenticate the user, or
  2. generated manually once, where the private key is permanently stored on the client and the public key is permanently stored on the server. This method also authenticates the user at the same time without submitting a password.

Even if it may have been secure in the 2000’s, the first method (typing or copy-pasting the plaintext password) really has become insecure for the following possible side-channel attacks belonging to the category of Keystroke logging:

  1. Security Vulnerabilities in Wireless Keyboards
  2. Keystroke Recognition from Wi-Fi Distortion
  3. Snooping on Text by Listening to the Keyboard
  4. Sniffing Keyboard Keystrokes with a Laser
  5. Hacking Your Computer Monitor
  6. Guessing Smart Phone PINs by Monitoring the Accelerometer
  7. more to be discovered!

Using the clipboard for copy-pasting is not really an option either because the clipboard is simply public storage. In short, using passwords, even ‘complicated’ ones, is really a bad idea.

The second method (a manually generated public/private keypair) is much more secure:

  1. The private key (the secret) on the client is never transmitted (I know, public key cryptography sounds like black magic, but it isn’t)
  2. You still can use a “passphrase” to additionally encrypt the private key. This would protect the key in case it is stolen. This “passphrase” doesn’t have to be stored anywhere, it can be simply remembered like a conventional password.
  3. “Mathematics can’t be bribed”: If every Hydrogen atom in the univerese were a CPU and able to enumerate 1000 RSA moduli per second, it would still take approx. 6 x 10211 years to enumerate all moduli to bruteforce a 1024-bit RSA key.[^1]

There is no earthly agancy which can “hack” strong and proper cryptography, even if they claim that they can. There is a theoretical lower limit of energy consumption of computation. See Landauer’s principle for regular computing and Margolus–Levitin theorem  for quantum computing.

Nothing in the world of cryptography is ‘cut and dried’, but there are certain best practices we as administrators can adopt. Using SSH keys properly is certainly one of these practices.

One thought on “Never type plain passwords for SSH authentication”

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Filling in the Gaps in Residential Shock Protection

Filling in the Gaps in Residential Shock Protection

This piece was originally published in the June 2016 issue of ei, the magazine of the electroindustry.

Steve Montgomery, Chief Operating Officer, 2D2C, Inc.

Electric cords plugged into duplex receptacle.  Low key image with heavy saturations.

Electrical residential safety is getting better every year, as progressively fewer incidences of electrical shock occur. Nevertheless, safety gaps still exist.

Electrical shocks, or injurious exposures to electricity, can occur wherever electrified metal contacts exist. Based on the age and health of the person touching the metal contacts, skin resistance, and path through the body, an electrical shock can be deadly. Seniors and young children are especially susceptible to electrical shock in homes.

Shocking Facts

The human body uses electro-chemical reactions to send messages through nerve networks to control muscles. If electricity flows through a person’s body, it can disrupt nerve signals and damage tissue. Most people can detect just one milliampere (mA) of alternating current (AC) passing through the body. About a 10-mA current can override normal signals to muscles, causing them to fibrillate or “lock up,” and disrupting blood flow to the heart. If a current fibrillates 30 mA AC across the body—or as little as one mA directly across the heart—the heart can stop pumping. Therefore, shock prevention can save lives.

In a home electrical distribution system, most live electrical contacts are covered by plastic cases, plastic wire nuts, electrical boxes, and cover plates. Electrical plugs and sockets, however, provide access points for people of all ages. Two technologies exist to prevent shocks in residential branch circuits: ground-fault circuit interrupters (GFCIs) and tamper-resistant receptacles (TRRs). GFCIs disrupt the source if leakage is detected. TRRs prevent access to live metal contacts. Both are required by the National Electric Code® (NEC) in the U.S. and the Canadian Electrical Code in Canada.

If properly installed, a GFCI protects against current leakage anywhere in a branch circuit. To protect a whole circuit, the GFCI must be located either in the circuit breaker or at the first outlet on the circuit. If the leakage exceeds a human safety threshold, the GFCI quickly disconnects power to the circuit.

Since 1972, the NEC has required GFCI shock protection at outdoor receptacles. It now requires GFCIs in basements, garages, kitchens, baths, pool areas, and outdoors—places where accidental grounding points exist. The NEC has mandated the use of TRRs in hospital pediatric wards since 1981. Today, they are required in almost all locations in new homes.

 Plugging the Gaps

Unfortunately, the isolation provided by TRRs can be overridden with a non-TRR strip outlet, current tap, extension cord, or remotely controlled receptacle. Safety codes should require TRR protection in these devices, and consumers should replace non-TRRs in use.

TRRs use spring-loaded plastic socket shutters to prevent access to live contacts. These shutters are susceptible to jamming open or closed. An electronic approach to TRRs could eliminate these weaknesses. Electronic TRRs keep electricity off at an empty socket until an appliance plug is inserted. If a child sticks a metal object into the socket, the child will not be shocked because electricity would be off.

Leakage to ground exists through heating ducts, metal appliance shells, or other grounding paths where the absence of GFCI protection creates an electrical shock hazard (e.g., a second-story room). Infants have died from sitting on a heat duct while touching the line blade on a partially inserted plug. GFCI protection on all branch circuits or isolating electricity from partially inserted plugs bridges this gap.

Exposed plug blades create a live shock hazard, even on TRR-protected outlets. In Europe, most receptacle designs prevent this risk by recessing the receptacle face so that a plastic shroud inhibits access to exposed plug pins. Many European plugs also use round pins with ceramic insulating sleeves that cover all but the tips of the power pins.

NEMA WD6-2012 Wiring Devices—Dimensional Specifications defines plug blades but does not require blade body insulating material or shrouding to prevent shocks from partially inserted plugs. It is published by the NEMA Wiring Devices Section, which promotes competitiveness, technological progress, and public safety.

Mr. Montgomery is active with several NEMA sections and councils, including High Performance Buildings, Smart Grid, and Wiring Devices.

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Weekly Machine Learning Opensource Roundup – Aug. 9, 2018

100 Days Of ML Code
100 Days of Machine Learning Coding

Making Alexa respond to Sign Language using Tensorflow.js
A project to make Amazon Echo respond to sign language using your webcam

Deep Hive
Using your audience as a hive mind for deep learning

A Vectorized processing toolset for compiling and evaluating expressions on Apache Arrow data. It uses LLVM for doing just-in-time compilation of the expressions.

Utils for streaming large files (S3, HDFS, gzip, bz2…)

Starry brings amazingly 1-2ms response time to Apache Spark when you deploy spark application with local mode.

A python package for animating plots build on matplotlib.

a machine learning dashboard that displays hyperparameter settings alongside visualizations, and logs the scientist’s thoughts throughout the training process

Support Vector Machine (SVM) Explorer
Interactive SVM Explorer, using Dash and scikit-learn

Structured Self Attention
A Structured Self-attentive Sentence Embedding

A PyTorch Implementation of “Neural Arithmetic Logic Units”

Implementation of adversarial attacks and defences.

A stacked generalization framework. Built on top of scikit learn

The ultimate goal of AutoML is to allow domain experts with limited data science or machine learning background easily accessible to deep learning models.

Machine learning library, written in J. Various algorithm implementations, including MLPClassifiers, MLPRegressors, Mixture Models, K-Means, KNN, RBF-Network, Self-organizing Maps.

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SEO Tips: How to Optimise Your Website for Voice Search [Infographic]

Are you looking for ways to generate more traffic from Google? Want to know how to optimise your website for the growing trend of voice search?

Headway Capital share their tips for success in this infographic.

They break things down into the following sections:

  • Speed up your site
  • Secure your site
  • Create a frequently asked questions page
  • Optimise for snippets
  • Markup your data
  • Claim your business listing

Check out the infographic for more detail.

By |Tue, Jan 22, 2019|SEO|

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How to Build Your Return to Work Program

return to work workers compensationA successful transitional duty/return to work program is much more than having an injured employee answering the telephone or sweeping the floors. Unfortunately, too many employers see a transitional duty program, also known as a return to work program as a “make work” situation for both the employer and the injured employee. This approach to a return to work program often ends in frustration for both employer and employee.

Employers who recognize the advantages of a formal return to work program are the employers who benefit the most from having one. A transitional duty program reduces the time the employee is off the job, and by providing physical activity for the employee, speeds up the recovery process. The employer receives a reduction in the cost of both medical benefits and indemnity benefits. Other advantages of an employee working in a modified duty position include:

  • The employee is able to contribute some productivity toward the company’s goals while the employee who is sitting at home contributes no productivity
  • The employee has higher morale knowing a job is waiting for him/her when they are healed as opposed to the employee being at home wondering if the company will have a job for him/her when he/she is healed
  • The employee who is physically active on the job recovers from an injury faster than an employee who is physically inactive at home
  • The employee does not develop a ‘disabled’ mindset and does not learn to expect to be paid for doing nothing
  • Employees who know that their company has a formal return to work program are much less likely to submit a fraudulent work comp claim

Develop Transitional Duty Job Description Before Injury Occurs

To build your own return to work program (or to improve your existing return to work program) start with examining the job requirements of each position within the company. A transitional duty work description should be developed for each type of job. By having a ready to go transitional duty job description before an injury occurs there is no delay in bringing the injured employee back to work in a modified duty position.

In physically demanding jobs where musculoskeletal injuries are common, some employers develop two transitional duty job descriptions for each position. The first transitional duty job description is for severe restrictions and limitations on the physical capabilities of the employee and the second job description for employees with less severe work restrictions.

Transitional Job Should Not Be Limited To Original Position

Too many employers make the mistake of limiting the transitional job to a variation of the injured employee’s original job. The transitional job can be anywhere in the company, it does not have to be in the same department or the same location. The transitional job that is different from what the employee was doing before the injury will broaden the employee’s skill set making the employee more valuable to your company in the future.

ALL Employees Should Participate in Transitional Duty

For the return to work program to be successful, the employee must cooperate and be a willing participant. The best way to ensure the employee’s cooperation and participation is for the employee to know ahead of any injury that all injured employees are automatically enrolled in the modified duty return to work program. The fastest way to destroy your return to work program is to be selective in who participates. If you pick and choose which employees will be provided transitional duty and which ones will not, you create a situation where the injured employee feels he/she is being singled out. This hurts morale and often leads to the employee hiring an attorney, which complicates the resolution of the claim.

As noted above, all employees should know that the company has a transitional duty program requirement for all injured employees. All supervisors and managers should be trained on how the return to work program works. The injured employee’s supervisor should be provided the work restrictions of the injured employee following each of the employee’s doctor appointments. This will allow the supervisor to verify the employee’s transitional duty work assignment meets the doctor’s restrictions.

The first day the injured employee is back on the job, the transitional duty work restrictions should be reviewed with the employee. It should be explained to the employee that the transitional duty job requirements will change each time the treating doctor reduces the employee’s work limitations. This prevents the employee from developing the idea that he/she is going to permanently have an easier position.

If the transitional duty position requires any training for the injured employee, the training should be provided during the first days the injured employee is in the temporary position.

Transitional Duty Should Be Temporary

The transitional duty position should be temporary. If the injured employee has not been released to full employment after 30 days, the work restrictions should be reviewed with the medical provider. Whenever possible, the employee should be given more work within the most recent work restrictions. If the work restrictions are not decreasing, the nurse case manager or the adjuster should be determining why the injured employee is not improving medically.

The employee’s attendance at medical appointments is of utmost importance. The transitional duty job should never be allowed to interfere with the employee’s medical appointments, even when the employee has multiple physical therapy appointments each week.

Be sure to share your transitional duty program with all of your business partners – especially the triage nurse, the treating doctor, the work comp adjuster, and the nurse case manager. With everyone knowing that transitional duty is a requirement at your company, you will get better buy-in from all parties.

By incorporating each of these recommendations into your return to work program, you will build a more successful return to work program.

Michael Stack - AmaxxAuthor Michael Stack, CEO Amaxx LLC. He is an expert in workers’ compensation cost containment systems and helps employers reduce their workers’ comp costs by 20% to 50%.  He works as a consultant to large and mid-market clients, is a co-author of Your Ultimate Guide To Mastering Workers Comp Costs, a comprehensive step-by-step manual of cost containment strategies based on hands-on field experience, and is founder & lead trainer of Amaxx Workers’ Comp Training Center .

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Vanwalk 15-in-1 GoPro Accessory Kit

I recently got a good deal on a GoPro Hero+ so I decided to pick one up. It’s my first GoPro so I don’t have much plans for it yet. I wanted to use it as a HD webcam but to my surprise, you can’t. At least not without a lot of setting up and using third-party drivers and configurations. Too much of a hassle.

I decided to look for some accessories since you don’t get anything out of the box. There are plenty in Amazon. The one kit I ended up purchasing is from Vanwalk. It has good reviews and affordable. Here are a few accessories that I was after.

Comes with a nice bag.

The headstrap is comfortable. The strap expands to fit different circumference. #duckface

The bodystrap is comfortable. It can be adjusted for different body shapes.

Suction cup “thingy”. I may use this on my car’s windshield to capture my commute. I see plenty of crazy things.

They call it a monopod, but it’s really a selfie stick. Gotta have one I guess.

Screwdriver for the screws. Very handy to tighten and loosen the screws.

There are other mounts included for water activities and bikes. It also comes with many extra screws, adhesives, and mounts. I would definitely recommend an accessory kit if you have a GoPro or plan to get one. I don’t know what I’ll be doing with it yet. The price was too good to pass up and I’ve always been curious. The headstrap might be good for hardware reviews I used to do on Youtube but it may get people dizzy. It is a lighter camera and easier to mount in different places. Stay tuned for content from the GoPro.

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The Brooklyn-based band POP ETC‘s latest album entitled Souvenir is just that: something to keep and hold onto. The band’s frontman Chris Chu honed and crafted it over a few years, spending much of his time extracting the energy of New York and infusing it into his anthemic, yet intimate blend of pop music. As an artist who spends much of his time writing music in his apartment, the rhythm of the city suits him, providing him with a source of endless inspiration. It’s in that tension that he operates best. Chu has learned how to navigate the city through his enduring love of food and the culture behind it, so he took us to some of his favorite food spots in the city and gave us his take on making it as an artist in New York.

You’re originally from Southern California but you moved to New York. What is it about New York that you prefer?

Well the winter sucks for sure, there’s no way around that, but there is something to the seasons changing that I like. I love the California weather but sometimes it can feel like the days are blurring together. You lose track of time. There’s something motivating about being in New York, you know your days of good weather are numbered so you are compelled to take advantage of them in a more intentional way. Beyond that, obviously being able to walk everywhere is huge! That said, LA is amazing, and it;s a constant push and pull for me. I have best friends and family in both cities, so it’s almost impossible to choose.

How does the noise/life/claustrophobic nature of the city impact your creative process, if at all?

I find all the stuff happening in the city pretty inspiring, to be honest, it doesn’t ever really feel claustrophobic for me. Working at home on music can feel really isolating at times, and when you hit a wall writing or whatever I love that you can leave the house and instantly feel like you’re a part of the world again. It keeps me sane.

Depending on how you look at it, New York could be a hostile or inviting place for artists to live. What’s your advice to artists for how they might survive/thrive in New York?

To me, the best part about New York is the diversity of experience it offers paired with accessibility. Like I said before, you can leave the house in the morning without a plan and just let your mood guide you around the city. I think it’s important as an artist to resist routine when it comes to life outside of working on your craft because those spontaneous experiences are often what fuel your work. It’s easy to get stuck in your bubble or your daily routine in any city you live in, but if you do have the desire to break out out of that pattern, New York affords you endless experiences and places to explore.

Describe a typical day in the city: guide us through the streets you walk, the places you shop, your favorite restaurants, etc.

I’m pretty all over the place, so it’s hard to answer. I love the Prospect Park and Central Park. The Brooklyn Promenade is amazing. I love walking around all the neighborhoods, they’re all so different.

I also really love food, so I end up journeying out to different parts of the city most days to get food I’m craving. Down in Sunset Park there’s a chinese place called Yunnan Flavour Garden that I love. In Jackson Heights I love this thai place Khao Kang, and there’s a Himalayan place I discovered recently called Tawa that is really spectacular. I like going to markets in those neighborhoods to shop for ingredients as well. Patel Bros for indian stuff, or NY Mart for Chinese, I end up at Mistuwa in Edgewater for Japanese stuff often.

Tell us about your relationship to food, your curiosity for learning about it. What inspired you to appreciate different kinds of food?

It definitely started with my family. My dad and his entire family are all obsessed with food. It’s always the first thing we talk about when we see each other, and the primary consideration of every day. Before we’ve even finished with lunch they’ll be talking about what we should eat for dinner.

I love everything about food. I love seeking out new food in different neighborhoods and parts of the world I’ve never been. I love the history of cuisine and all the things you can learn about a culture and its people through food. I’m interested in it’s affects on our health and the way we feel, and obviously I love eating with other people and sharing that experience. I love the meditative nature of cooking food. I love it all!!

Give us the rundown on your favorite restaurants in your city.

I said a few of these already, but here’s a list:

Yunnan Flavour Garden, Ba Xuyen – Sunset Park

Tanoreen – Bay Ridge

Saravana Bhavan – Flatiron

Yemen Cafe, Hibino – Cobble Hill

Khao Kang, Tawa – Jackson Heights

Izakaya – East Village

Sakagura – Midtown East

Joe’s Ginger – Chinatown

How long did it take you to really pick up on the rhythm of the city and how to move within it?

I’ve been coming to New York since I was a kid. Both of my parents are from here and we have a lot of family in the city, so we’d come to the east coast for a month or so every summer since I was young. There was a time when the business of the city was kind of scary and overwhelming for me, but by the time I lived here as an adult I felt like I fit into the rhythm pretty naturally.

Check out Souvenir here, just in time for summer!

Photos by: Jonathan Chu

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A Lot of Cats Tote Bag

by Kitten Rain

watercolour cacti and succulent Tote Bag

by Vicky Webb

White Stone Phone Skin

by Elisabeth Fredriksson

blending mode T-Shirt

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How Many Homes Have Rooftop Solar? The Number is Growing…

, , Senior energy analyst | September 4, 2014, 1:45 pm EDT
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Remember when the most likely place to glimpse solar in action was the little strip attached to a pocket calculator? Well, fortunately solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies have come a long way, and now it’s common to see PV panels on residential and commercial rooftops around the country. This dramatic rise in residential solar PV installations is depicted below in UCS’s new solar infographic. From 2006 to 2013, the number of homes with solar grew by more than 1,000 percent.

Solar growth predicted to continue

As explained by the infographic and in our new report, Solar Power on the Rise, solar installations are likely to continue increasing at an impressive rate. Projections from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) suggest we’re headed to almost 1 million homes by 2020 (DOE Annual Energy Outlook 2014). If solar costs significantly decline from today’s levels, DOE’s SunShot study predicts that solar installations could grow to nearly 4 million homes by 2020.

There are several reasons for this transformation, like innovative financing and ownership structures that have lowered upfront installation costs. PV panel prices and related components have declined significantly, and the “soft” costs like labor and permitting have gone down as well. Many states have also enacted policies that provide homes and businesses with incentives to go solar, and some states, like California and Minnesota, have created programs to encourage solar installations in low-income neighborhoods.

As a result, new solar rooftops are popping up in more locations across the country and in neighborhoods representing a wider socioeconomic range than ever before. As discussed in our report (see page 6), in 2011 and 2012, the largest number of residential solar systems installed in Arizona and New Jersey were in neighborhoods with median incomes of $40,000 to $50,000 and $30,000 to $40,000, respectively.

Actions needed to support a robust solar energy future

Although most people have a vague sense of solar’s growing contribution to our electricity system, it’s helpful to have a visual that illustrates just how fast the market is growing. But a growing market does not mean that solar supporters can call it a day. The ability of citizens and businesses to capitalize on solar’s potential will not happen by itself. The US electricity sector is still largely supplied by fossil fuel generation, and states need to protect and strengthen their policies that promote clean energy development and adequately price the social and environmental costs of burning coal and natural gas.

The federal investment tax credit, which has helped the solar industry compete against other more entrenched electricity sectors, will significantly decline at the end of 2016 and should be renewed. Utilities need to find new ways to find revenues to operate poles and wires that make our electricity grid work, while encouraging more of their customers to go solar and provide their own clean electricity. And finally, we need to continue supporting research and development that will bring down the cost of solar ever further, and develop complementary technologies that will enable us to overcome the biggest challenge to more solar energy, which is how to rely on it even when the sun is not shining.

As our infographic shows, there’s clearly a solar revolution underway. It’s something to celebrate, but not take for granted. Solar energy generation is still a small percentage of total US electricity generation—less than one percent in 2013. Actions still must be taken to make sure the country develops one of our cleanest and most abundant electricity sources on the planet.

But with more and more people understanding the benefits of going solar, and an increasing number of options to do so, the outlook for rooftop solar growth sure looks sunny.

Posted in: Energy, Global Warming Tags: , , ,

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Most times getting online is not the problem but how to optimize the time online is, without wasting your time,

In this post, I am going to show you how to create a blog for free and make money in 2019. This guide is well explained and if well followed, you will easily start making money from blogging.

How to Create a Blog for Free and Make Money

These are the exact 6 steps required to create a blog for free and make money in 2019.

  1. Choose a niche (blog topic)
  2. Find the right blog name
  3. choose a free blogging platform
  4. customize the look of your blog
  5. start publishing contents (pages/posts)
  6. grow your traffic (audience)
  7. monetize your blog

Let me take you through all the steps.

Choose a niche (blog topic)

Choosing a niche also known as a blog topic is the best part of blogging. A bad niche can ruin your blogging carrier and a good one can build it.

Here are the factors to consider when choosing a blog topic

  1. personal knowledge
  2. passion for it
  3. ability to make money
  4. user interest

Before you can write about a topic, you should have personal knowledge of it and your passion should also grow for it.

Such niche should be monetizable and users (humans) should be interested in it.

Check out this how to choose the right blog niche post of mine where I explained and listed the top paying niches in the blogging industry.

Find the right blog name

A blog name will act as the identity and URL of your free blog. If you don’t find the right blog name then you would have a problem with

  • SEO
  • Users

This is because, the right blog name is the combination of length, keyword, and niche relationship. In that sense, the right blog name must fit into the niche (blog topic) you have chosen.

Here are some useful tips to get the right blog name

  1. Use a blog name generator
  2. Use your name (e.g Blogging Prince) gotten from Prince John Okosun
  3. Pick a keyword from your nice (e.g news site) TVC News etc.

Try what works for you and try to ensure it is not less than 3 words and not more than 14 words. Avoid underscores and hyphens in the name (e.g blogging-prince).

Choose a free blogging platform.

Just the same way you live in your house, that’s the same way your blog lives in a platform. Hence, it is wise to get a free blogging platform that fits the desires of your blog.

A free blogging platform can decide the look and functionality of your blog because you can only make use of the available tools in such a platform.

Here are the 3 top free blogging platforms to choose from

  1. BlogSpot
  3. Tumblr

For users of all these platforms, you get a free subdomain (,, unlimited bandwidth and disk space.

Follow these guides below to create a free blog on these platforms

  1. How To Create A FREE Blogspot Blog [6 Easy Steps For Beginners]
  2. WordPress Blog: How To Start A Free Blog (2019 Guide)
  3. How to Set-up Your Tumblr Blog

Customize the look of your blog

After creating a free blog using the above platforms, the next step is to customize the look of your blog.

Generally, the above-named platforms, provide you with a free theme which you can easily access from the dashboard.

For blogspot >> go to dashboard >> themes >> activate your preferred theme.

Here are guides to show you how to setup themes on blogspot and WordPress

  1. How to Install a Template on Your Blogger Blog: 8 Steps
  2. Beginners Guide: How to Install a WordPress Theme

You can also get lovely free themes online for blogspot and if you are a writer check out these 30 free themes for writers and also these 10 Adsense ready themes.

Start publishing contents

Time to start publishing contents on your new blog. First thing first is to create these pages.

  1. About Us
  2. Contact Us
  3. Policies/ Disclamer.

These pages are necessary, and you can follow these below guides to create such pages.

  1. How to Write a Killer “About Us” Page
  2. How to Add a Privacy Policy in Blogger (BlogSpot)

After creating the pages, you now have to create your very first post. This could be a welcome message or anything that fits well into your blogging topic.

Here are some helpful guides for you too.

  1. Create, edit, or delete a post in blogger
  2. How to Add a New Post in WordPress and Utilize all the Features

Grow your traffic (audience)

As I earlier said, everyone can create a blog for free and make money but not everyone will end up making the money.

For your blog to succeed online, it requires “humans” to visit it and how will humans visit it?

They have to be interested in what you write. So here are the basic tips to grow your traffic

  1. Post consistently
  2. Share your posts to social network
  3. Optimize for search engines
  4. Build a list (email, push notification, chatbot, etc)

These four tips above can go a very long way in growing your traffic over time.

Here are some useful links carefully selected for you

  1. 9 Best Ways To Grow Chatbot Subscribers In 2019
  2. SEO Practices To Get Your Blog On Search Engines

Monetize your blog

These would be no sense in writing about how to start a blog for free and make money without showing you ways to make money from your blog.

Just as my blog stands for, start, design, grow and make money.

In monetizing your free blog, there are a lot of options you would wanna try out. But I recommend you only practice these when

  1. Your blog is at least 4 months old
  2. You have a steady audience already
  3. Readable contents are available on your blog.

After meeting up the above conditions, you can try out the below platforms to make money

  1. Google Adsense
  2. Affiliate Marketing
  3. Sponsored Banners/Article
  4. Sellings of products

These and numerous other ways to make money have been carefully explained in this 23 ways to make money online.

Rounding Up

Though you can easily start a blog for free and make money, I would suggest you get one of the below things

  1. a domain name (.com,.net, etc)
  2. a premium theme
  3. possibly move to (get a hosting)

Reason being that, a subdomain which is available on free blogging platforms is not professional and it can instantly kill the growth of your blog.

While a premium theme comes with more benefits, if you are using blogspot you have got to try Goodness or Ismart blogger template.

Thirdly, moving to WordPress would be one of your greatest achievements, because WordPress brings more functionality and customization.

If you are low on cash, then you can try out hub8 free web hosting which provides you a 100GB bandwidth and 500MB storage enough for starters.


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Mar 272013

The India afternoon was an afternoon where parents could come in and see what we had learned about India. There was a stall that let people eat Indian food like, Chapatis, banana pure, nan bred, potato curry, veggie pakoras,  poppadoms and a super hot chick pea curry.

Mar 272013
P6/7 and P3/4 have been learning all about India, we have learn’ t about Hinduism; here are  some things we have learn’ t,  Hindus believe in many gods like Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma. In India they have 3 seasons, Wet, Dry and Cool.  Some Hindus wear saris, a long piece of material with several patterns. There are over 1 billion people living in India and 750 million of them are all Hindus. Hindus paint patterns on feet and hands with Hena, that is called Mendhi.
Mar 272013

On the 26th of march we had a India afternoon we invited parents and we had stalls ready for the parents to interact with. Like a food stall and a India quiz.  To start of the day we showed power points on different celebrations in India we also made Indian God masks to show to our parents. In p3/4 there Rangoli patterns to do also hand paints and guess the spice. We also set up a build the Taj Mahal with lego stall.

by Robbie and Liam

Mar 272013

In the primary 6/7 class room we have been learning about Indian gods. Mrs Clark has also been telling us Indian stories about the different god and what their job is. The whole class did a god mask for each Indian god there is, for example Ellen’s god was Brahma,  and Alicia’s god was Annapurna. We found out that in most Indian stories there is a god.

We also learned all about saris. A sari is an outfit that women wear in India. We all learnt how to put on a sari( we thought it was hard).Mrs Clark and Miss Brown wore a sari on  India day, the saris had very nice patterns on them. On India day we also designed a sari with the P3/4 class and our mums and dads. We designed it with rangoli patterns and it looked very pretty in the end. We had a very fun day.

By Alicia and Ellen

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Thank You

 Uncategorized  Comments Off on Thank You
Jun 252014

As we break up for the summer holidays, everyone at Robslee would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all our friends and families who have supported us over the years.

Wishing everyone a happy summer.

Mrs Ferguson

Congratulations to our Playground Committees!

 Uncategorized  Comments Off on Congratulations to our Playground Committees!
Jun 232014

As you will be fully aware, this year our pupils and staff have worked extremely hard to plan for and make improvements to Giffnock’s school playground. I am sure you will agree that the playground is unrecognisable from that of less than a year ago.

Our Director of Education, Mrs Shaw, has been so impressed with the work of pupils and staff she has contacted them directly to acknowledge their hard work and offer her support to ensure that the final stages of the development will be completed during the school holidays. Please click here to read Mrs Shaw’s letter to our Pupil Council. With the addition of the £5000 donation from our Parent Council, we will be able to invest in equipment to enhance the variety of sports on offer as well as develop the Adventure/ Eco Area further.

We would like to thank our pupils from Primaries 5 and 6 for their hard work over the year in creating an environment that has been exceptionally well received by all pupils and will be a highlight for all who attend in years to come.

Walk Through The Decades – at Robslee Primary School on Wednesday 11th June: 6pm – 7.30pm

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Jun 202014

We would like to express our thanks to all those who attended our  ‘Walk Through the Decades’ evening at Robslee which was a great success. It was lovely to see all the pupils, parents and staff past & present. We hope you managed to find a small memento of your time here!

If however  you mistakenly took a framed photograph of class 75/76, which was kindly loaned to the school from a former pupil from that class for that evening only, could you please inform the school. We would be happy for you to take a copy but return the original to Robslee or Giffnock PS.  Thanking you, in anticipation.

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Data Integration with Devices is Easier than You Think

Data Integration with Devices
Data Integration with Devices
The concept of the “Internet of Things” (IOT) is about getting devices we leverage in our daily lives, or devices used in industrial applications, to communicate with other devices or systems. This is not a new notion, but the bandwidth and connectivity mechanisms to make the IOT practical is a recent development.

My first job out of college was to figure out how to get devices that monitored and controlled an advanced cooling and heating system to communicate with a centralized and automated control center. We ended up building custom PCs for the application, running a version of Unix (DOS would not cut it), and the PCs mounted in industrial cases would communicate with the temperature and humidity sensors, as well as turn on and turn off fans and dampers.

At then end of the day, this was a data integration, not an engineering problem, that we were attempting to solve. The devices had to talk to the PCs, and the PC had to talk to a centralized system (Mainframe) that was able to receive the data, as well as use that data to determine what actions to take. For instance, the ability determine that 78 degrees was too warm for a clean room, and that a damper had to be open and a fan turned on to reduce the temperature, and then turn off when the temperature returned to normal.

Back in the day, we had to create and deploy custom drivers and software. These days, most devices have well-defined interfaces, or APIs, that developers and data integration tools can access to gather information from that device. We also have high performing networks. Much like any source or target system, these devices produce data which is typically bound to a structure, and that data can be consumed and restructured to meet the needs of the target system.

For instance, data coming off a smart thermostat in your home may be in the following structure:

Device (char 10)
Date (char 8)
Temp (num 3)

You’re able to access this device using an API (typically a REST-based Web Service), which returns a single chunk of data which is bound to the structure, such as:

Device (“9999999999”)
Date (“09162014”)
Temp (076)

Then you can transform the structure into something that’s native to the target system that receives this data, as well as translate the data (e.g., converting the Data form characters to numbers). This is where data integration technology makes money for you, given its ability to deal with the complexity of translating and transforming the information that comes off the device, so it can be placed in a system or data store that’s able to monitor, analyze, and react to this data.

This is really what the IOT is all about; the ability to have devices spin out data that is leveraged to make better use of the devices. The possibilities are endless, as to what can be done with that data, and how we can better manage these devices. Data integration is key. Trust me, it’s much easier to integrate with devices these days than it was back in the day.

Thank you for reading about Data Integration with Devices! Editor’s note: For more information on Data Integration, consider downloading “Data Integration for Dummies


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Tag Archive: Nature

Apr 06

‘Describing Albrecht Dürer’s Philosophy and Practice of Drawing and to What Extent His Drawings Reflect the Way Nature was Perceived at the Time’ by Larissa Warneck

Introduction Albrecht Dürer was one of the leading artists of the Renaissance. His innovative ideas in geometry and the proportion of the human body, his realistic representation of nature, and his imagination in probing new printing techniques, lead to his reputation as the Leonardo Da Vinci of Northern Europe. In this essay I am going …

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My first video on the youtube channel!

Hello everyone!
Just wanted to tell you that I just posted my first video over the channel. I wanted to do this for quite a while, so I just started with introducing myself to you, telling a little bit of my story and how I end up in Sweden. Take a look!

I want to do more videos for you and talk about everything you want to hear! So leave a comment here or over the channel telling me what you want to see in a video. As I said, it was only an introduction, I didn’t say that much, it’s just so you can know me a little bit better. Hope you like it!

Comments (2)

A Brazilian student doing a Master in Digital Media and Society at Uppsala University. Want to talk or have some questions? Send an email to atmarinaamancio(at)
Read more about Marina

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Work After Study: The Series

“How are the job oppurtunities for International Students after their Masters in Sweden?”
“How do I apply for a job after my studies in Sweden?”
“What’s the work environment like, in Sweden?”

This blogpost series will answer all your questions about working in Sweden after your Master’s program. This series is going to contain 5 blogposts, each dealing with different aspects of working in Sweden after your education- from application processes, to work life balance. This blog series is a collaboration between different digital ambassadors. Join us along this series and discover more about working in Sweden.

Follow this series, and discover more about Working in Sweden.
*New Blogpost in this series, every Friday. Stay tuned*
Have any specific questions you’d like to ask about this topic? Leave a comment down below

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An Indian student studying Environmental Engineering and Sustainable Infrastructure at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. Email : supritha.studyinsweden[at]
Read more about Supritha

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 June, 2013 | Chinese Language Blog

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Archive for June, 2013

Transportation in Beijing Posted by on Jun 30, 2013

Getting from point A to point B is a frustrating yet important part of our daily lives. Whether you’re going to class, work, the supermarket, or out with friends, you’re going to have to use some mode of transportation. Living in a massive city like Beijing, there are many forms of transportation available. To help…

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Brickyard Eco-Retreat Video Posted by on Jun 26, 2013

Away from the traffic jams and pollution of Beijing city, you’ll find the Brickyard Eco-Retreat. Nestled in the hills and surrounded by the Mutianyu Great Wall, this hotel/restaurant/workshop/farm focuses on sustainable development in rural China and provides a great place to escape for a few days. 农村 – nóng cūn countryside 瓦厂 – wǎ chǎng…

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Sustainable Development in Rural China Posted by on Jun 22, 2013

It’s no secret that China is a country which is rapidly developing. I mean, just look at this picture that shows the skyline of Shanghai in 1990 and 2010: What a difference 20 years makes in modern China! When one discusses China’s insanely quick development, its countless mega-cities are often the focus of attention. However…

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Which Great Wall is the Greatest? Posted by on Jun 19, 2013

Seeing as how this month has already featured a few posts on the most famous Wall in the world (sorry, Berlin Wall) – the Great Wall Music Festival, how to sleep on the Great Wall, and a video highlight of said overnight camping trip – I figured we’d just keep on going. As I have…

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Daily Activities in Chinese Posted by on Jun 17, 2013

A good way to self-study Chinese is to practice talking about/writing about your day. We’ve covered how to tell time in Chinese and even some advanced time telling in past posts, so make sure you check those out if you haven’t already. Once you’ve brushed up on your time-telling skills, try to talk about some…

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Top 10 Places in Beijing – 798 Posted by on Jun 15, 2013

We’re counting down the Top 10 places in the Chinese capital here, based on my experience living here for over 4 years. With so many interesting places to visit in Beijing, it’s been tough whittling the list down to just ten. In the first post, we explored the student hangout of Wudaokou, which features some…

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Camping on the Great Wall (Video) Posted by on Jun 13, 2013

The Great Wall of China is one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, and rightfully so. While there are many options available for visiting the Great Wall, nothing compares to an overnight camp out in one of the Wall’s many watchtowers. Watch the sunset and sunrise over the hills in the distance, and…

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 Word origins and etymology | Spanish Language Blog

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Word origins Posted by on Jun 13, 2008 in Literature, Spanish Culture, Spanish Vocabulary

We’re going to start a series today with word origins and history (etymology).

1. cirujano

It was around 1340 that the word “cirujano” (surgeon) was registered in the Spanish language, even though  cirujano had already appeared in Siete Partidas (1251-1265) by Alfonso X el Sabio:

“Y esto que diximos delos orebzes se entiende tanbien delos otros maestros & delos fisicos & de los cirujanos & delos albeytares & de todos los otros que reçiben preçio para fazer alguna obra: o melezinar alguna cosa sy errare en ella por su culpa o por mengua de saber.”

During the 18th and 19th centuries the word “cirugiano” was also used. It comes from Latin chirurgia, which comes from Greek kheirurgia (surgical intervention), although etymologically it means “manual work” and “practice of a job”, whjch derives from kheirurgein (working with your hands), made up of kheir (hand) y érgon (work).

2. dicha

The word dicha, which comes from the verb decir, means “things that were said”, but it also means “happiness”, “good luck”. What does it the verb “decir” have to do with the meaning of “good luck”?

The Romans believed that a person’s happiness depended on words the gods said when someone was born, and their fate was written in the dicta (the thing that was said). This old belief is also in the origin of the word hado (fate), which comes from fatum, passive participle of fari (speak, say).

3. iconoclasta

An iconoclast is basically someone who destroys or ridicules cultural icons or institutions. The first iconoclasts were the members of the Oriental Church in the 8th and 9th centuries of our era. In some cases, the Orthodox Christians destroyed the icons of their Catholic counterparts. The word iconoclasta comes from vulgar Latin and it was made up with the Greek words eikon (icon) and the verb klaein (break, destroy).

If you feel curious about the origin of other words or expressions in Spanish, drop us a line and we’ll answer your questions.

See you next time!

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  1. Avery Ash:

    do you know the origin of “las manos?”
    my spanish teacher said that she would give us extra credit if we could figure it out. =]

  2. david carmona:

    The word “mano” comes from the Latin “manus”. Even though it adopted the final -o in Spanish, it retained its original gender from Latin (feminine), ending up as a rare case in Spanish (most nouns ending in -o are masculine in Spanish).

  3. Bluke:

    I am interested in etymologies of Spanish nouns ending in /-a/ that are masculine in gender. el dia, , el idioma. Any insight out there?

  4. Apple:

    I was wondering where the word “cama” (bed) in spanish came from…
    Because I realized the Hindi word Kama means sexual pleasure…. and I know the spanish language gets SOME of it’s words from arabic… so maybe that’s not THAT far off from hindi, y’know?
    Just wondering… any connection?

  5. david carmona:

    The word “cama” in Spanish has an unknown origin, certainly pre-Latin, and probably Iberian or Celtiberian. The connection with Sanskrit is not too far-fetched, and would make quite a nice hypothesis.

  6. Christopher:

    @david there are some spanish words with sanskrit roots, like ‘naranja’ which comes from the sanskrit ‘naranga’ among others, correct?

  7. david carmona:

    That´s correct. We have words like “ajedrez”, “sándalo”, “carambola”, “jengibre”, etc.
    There are also words from caló (Spanish Roma dialect) that can be traced originally to India, where the gypsies came from: “akai”, “churumbel”, “parné”, etc.

  8. A:

    Hi. I would like to know… What is the correct way to refer to a map.

    Is it ==> El Mapa
    Is it==> La Mapa

    and why, and not why not the other…

    My dear Mother-in-Law and I are debating on the issue… Thanks!

  9. My2Cents:

    …and both words meaning toothless. What is the origin of both

    ==> Chimuelo

    ==> Molacho

    Thanks again.

  10. David Carmona:

    The correct form is “el mapa”. Originally, the word comes from the medieval Latin expression “mappa mundi”, where “mappa” refers to “napkin” or “canvas”, as the material maps were painted on. Even though “mappa” is a feminine noun, “mappa mundi” (map of the world) was lexicalised in Spanish as a masculine noun, and “mapa” is an abbreviation of that expression, retaining the masculine gender.
    “Chimuelo” and “molacho” both relate to the word “muela” (back tooth), derived from the Latin “mola”, which also gives us the English medical term “molar”.

  11. robert:

    Do you know the origin of the word “denuncia”? I’m trying to figure out whether it starts off as a legal term or if it originally had another meaning.

  12. Virgilio sandoval:

    What is the origin of the words fulano y mengano. also the origin of the word zutano ??

    • David Carmona:

      @Virgilio sandoval Fulano and mengano come from Arabic, via Southern Spain. They mean “this man” and “whoever”, respectively.
      Zutano and citano are derived from Latin, meaning “known”.

  13. Jessica:

    I’d like to know the origin of the word ‘bisiesto’, leap year. The dictionary says it comes from bisextus in Latin but can someone deconstruct the word a little more? ‘Bi’ frequently means two. Sextus, six? I’m not seeing the connection, except that February is the 2nd month.

    • David Carmona:

      @Jessica Julius Caesar introduced a lot of modifications to the Roman calendar. To make everything fit in the same way we know now, he added an extra day to the month of February, between the 23rd and the 24th. Those days were known as the sixth and fifth before the Kalendas Martias, (March). The new day was called in Latin ante diem bis sextum Kalendas Martias . “Bisiesto” comes from the “bis sextum” part.

  14. Ray Garcia:

    Why do restaurants use the word “apretalados” for shrimp wrapped bacon? Is that even a word?

  15. Ray Garcia:

    Oops, that was supposed to say bacon wrapped shrimp. Usually called Camarones Acapulco…and i figured if anything else it should be Camarones Apretadas…

  16. sand:

    Does anyone know how to find the origin of medical abbreviations? I found the definitions but not the origin of the abbreviations – HELP – must finish my assignment in 2 days

    • David Carmona:

      @sand Can you share with us the abbreviations you are having problems with?

  17. sand:

    thanks I found the info

  18. Curious:

    Does anyone know the etymology of the word “pinchos”? And do you have a citation for it?

    • David Carmona:

      @Curious It depends… are you referring to an object or food?

    • David Carmona:

      @Curious “Pincho” as an object comes from the verb “pinchar”/”punchar”, from the Latin “punctiare”, which also gives you “puncture” in English.
      “Pincho” as a portion of food comes from the Basque “pintxo”, which is derived from the original Spanish word “pincho”. However, this meaning is particular to the Basque Country, and now used widely in Northern Spain to refer to tapas or small portions of food to be consumed while drinking. They were traditionally served in a skewer or with toothpicks, to be consumed easily.

  19. Curious:

    David, both if you have the info . . . .Thanks.

  20. juancarlos:

    Your exchange of spanish word etymologies really caught my attention. Would anyone have the origins of the word ‘lastima’? Am doing an in-depth research on the spanish words and its origins. Would be grateful for any inputs from you guys. Thanks.

  21. movie trailer updated:

    Very nice post and straight to the point. I am not sure if this is truly the best place to ask but do you people have any ideea where to hire some professional writers? Thanks 🙂

  22. quietthinker:

    What’s the origin of the term “darse cuenta de”?

    • David Carmona:

      @quietthinker It doesn’t have an origin. It’s not an idiom.

  23. quietthinker:

    But there’s no known source for the word itself?

  24. bt:

    What is the origin of the word ‘derecho’ as in “Usted tiene derechos” and what is it’s connection to it’s English counterpart, right?

    • David Carmona:

      @bt It comes from the latin “directum”, meaning something that’s right, straight or rigid. In English, it comes from the Old High German “reht”, which also meant straight, correct, or moving in a straight line. The connection is that there is a common Indoeuropean stem formed by the letters REG- and slight variations of it in multiple languages, all referring to the same idea.

  25. kokori:

    Your article really helped me thank you i wait for the next

  26. Lil:

    What is the origin or “abur” I know what it means but not where it comes from. Sounds Arabic to me

  27. DeWayne Guyer:

    Can you please tell me the etymology of “hormigón” meaning concrete in Spanish and what connection it may have to “hormiga” meaning ant. Thanks.

  28. Matt:

    can you explain the meaning of Prieto, and why it would be used as a last name?

  29. Patricia Kaiser:

    What are the origins of Spanish words, desayuno, and despertar? It seems that these two words must be related.

    There are so many words in Spanish with the prefix des- , but des- seems to mean many things. Is there a resource you know that will define such and similar prefixes?


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School Management Matters, But Can We Change It?

David Evans's picture
This blog post is co-authored with Moussa P. Blimpo and Nathalie Lahire.
School Management Matters
Recent test score data has highlighted the crucial role of teachers in education. A series of studies (summarized by Hanushek & Rivkin in the table below), demonstrates that better teachers have big impacts on student performance. This is consistent with – for example – evidence from Chile that better evaluated teachers have better student results, and evidence from Mexico City (p. 109 in Bruns & Luque 2014) that shows better student results for teachers with better classroom management.

Source: Hanushek & Rivkin 2010

Beyond the classroom, does school management matter? Last year, Bloom et al. released the results of a massive data collection exercise, surveying 1,800 schools across 8 countries: the Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Sweden, the UK, and the US. They gathered data using an instrument of open-ended questions to measure four broad areas of school management. We provide a simplified description below:
  1. Operations: Are there “meaningful processes that allow pupils to learn over time”? Are there teaching methods that can allow all pupils to achieve learning objectives? Does the school uses assessment to verify learning?
  2. Monitoring: Is the school’s performance measured, reviewed, communicated to staff, and acted on?
  3. Target setting: Do school, individual, and department targets align? Does the school have targets tied to pupil outcomes? Are those targets sufficiently difficult to achieve?
  4. People / talent management: Is good teacher performance rewarded? Does the school have a way to deal with underperformers? How does the school manage and retain teachers?
These management measures draw on earlier work on workplace management, such as Black & Lynch (2001) and Ichniowski, Shaw, & Prennushi (1997).

Across countries, the differences are stark, as you can see in the figure below. (That’s an average score across the 20 total management questions.) Furthermore, the management score correlates positively and significantly with student test scores, controlling for a variety of factors. (The correlation is highly significant for the pooled sample and for Brazil and for India separately.)

Of course, these shouldn’t be interpreted causally, but to us, they suggest that there is value in exploring school management more.

Source: Bloom et al. 2014
Trying to Change It in The Gambia
In a recent intervention, the government of The Gambia sought to change school management as a way to improving teaching and learning in the classroom. (We’ve just released a paper on it.) The program was called Whole School Development, or WSD. In it, school principals, teachers, and members of the community all participated in a comprehensive school management training program. The program covered six areas: (1) community participation, (2) learner’s welfare and the school environment, (3) curriculum management, (4) teaching and learning resources, (5) teachers’ professional development, and (6) leadership and management. The training lasted between 10 and 20 days, much of it in local language and using drawings to reach non-literate parent participants.

School committees (including the principal, teachers, and parents) were then encouraged to design a school development plan. They received a one-time $500 grant to jumpstart implementation.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the program, we worked with the government to randomly assign each of 273 schools into one of three groups: (A) Whole School Development (with a grant), (B) Grant only, and (C) control schools. Comparing WSD to the Grant-only group tells us whether the training did anything, separate from the money. We then followed these schools over four years.

The WSD decreased both student and teacher absenteeism, and it improved at least some measures of teacher practice (teachers calling on students by name, for example). But those intermediate improvements weren’t sufficient to translate into higher average test scores. One possible explanation for that is that the program attracted lower performing students who weren’t enrolled at the beginning of the project to enroll in school; we used Lee’s trimming procedure to check for this and didn’t find any evidence that it’s driving the results.

The grant alone had no impact on either absenteeism or test scores. (The grant did increase parent’s reported involvement in school decision making, however, so apparently they did meet to figure out how to spend the money!)

The Role of Parental Human Capital
If you’re asking parents to get more involved in the management of the school, it likely matters how much human capital the parents themselves have. So we interacted parental literacy (at the district level, which is the level for which it was available), with the two treatments to see if it mattered. It did! The WSD program interacted with adult literacy had a positive, significant impact on student test scores for both math and English. (Still no impact for the grant; sorry, grant!) You can see the relationship in the figure below. When parents have higher human capital, they can more effectively help in school management.

Source: Blimpo, Evans, & Lahire 2015

Before we get too excited (and we’re pretty excited), what else could parent literacy be a proxy for? It could be a stand-in for socio-economic status: Richer children have more literate parents and also have access to other resources. But when we interact socio-economic status – measured two different ways, through student interviews and through district-level census data – with the program, the effect is insignificant. What if adult literacy is a proxy for baseline ability of the students? We interact the program variable with baseline student test scores and find no effect.

So, while we can’t rule out every possibility, this evidence strongly suggests that getting the communities involved in managing the school will only be effective at improving student learning if the parents have a critical level of human capital. And while other forms of school management may have improved as a result of the program (through the principal and the teachers, as observed in improved teaching and reduced absenteeism), these weren’t sufficient by themselves to improve student learning.

These results are consistent with recent cross-country evidence showing that increased school autonomy is associated with higher student test scores in higher income environments but lower test scores in lower income environments.

Source: Hanushek & Rivkin 2013

School management matters. But to change it, the agents have to be able to access the training they’re receiving and have the skills and support to put it into action.
Bonus reading
  • Of course, one component of this program in The Gambia was a school grant, with little apparent effect. Evaluations of two other school grant programs have recently been released. In Senegal, school grants were effective when funds were focused on teaching and management rather than school materials. In Indonesia, researchers showed that low-intensity ways of informing parents about the grants didn’t boost parent engagement, but higher intensity ways (holding a meeting or sending a targeted text messages) did.
  • How much do teachers matter for student learning? How much does school management matter? How much do school grants matter? If you want a fuller summary, you can always turn to this review of the research. Or this one. Or this one. Or this one. Or this one. Or this one. Or this one. Or a summary of them all. Or just read a couple of hundred studies yourself.
  • If this isn’t enough education research on The Gambia for you, there’s much more. In 2007, The Gambia was the site of one of the early implementations of the Early Grade Reading Assessment. In 2014, a paper came out measuring the impact of the teacher hardship allowance (it worked to increase the qualified teachers in hardship districts, not at the expense of non-hardship districts). And for everything you’d want to know about the Gambian education system, it’s all here in a pithy 270 pages. There are ongoing evaluations on improving early reading in the early grades and teaching physics and math in the upper grades. More results coming soon!

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My love of gardening is followed by my love of creating, which is actually what gardening is all about. So, whether it’s Art or Gardening I am in my up most happy place creating. I hope you enjoy my baby steps into animating and if one day I become good I  hope to hear from Spielberg.  (Insert laugh track here…)

Toonie Tuesdays began on YouTube back on January 30th 2018

I’m pleased to introduce you to Wilson and Harley

(Click on Each Video to View)

With each new frame I created I grew excited daily to bring these two characters to life. I began drawing my heart out digitally using a digital Pen Tablet and SketchBook Pro.

Winter time in Northern Ontario, Canada can become challenging in more ways than one and to keep a feeling of ” Well Being” can be a tricky thing when the daylight hours are at a minimum and the dark skies of a snowy winter can alter how you feel each day. So, I battle my way through the winters here doing things that can offer me smiles and enjoyment. Last winter I had an indoor garden all winter long, but I also had those gnats flying around all last winter too, due to them hatching from the store bought potting soil.

Between shoveling off my deck and snow-blowing the driveway many times I began creating something fun for myself. I figured if I could make myself giggle I just might be able to bring a few smiles or two to other folks who are struggling to find their own Winter time smiles.

Now, I know these are not the best around and some folks may even say they are not very good, but this is the beginning of animation for me and I started out not knowing what on earth I was doing. Baby steps remember, and learning as I go.

When I hear something that I’ve drawn has made someone smile or just felt better then I know I am on the right track with this path I’ve taken. These are not merely for my own enjoyment they are for you my friends here.  The folks who are sitting here reading this typed out message and watching the birth of Wilson & Harley….

When I arrived at this point in time for creating the above animation I’d been pondering (I do this a lot) for many hours over just how I wanted to change up my skills and thought of something that just might work out.

Bam !  I was blown away by what I created here and I am very excited for you all to see….

So, I think I’ve kept you all here much too long and I’ll save the next ones for future blog posts. If, you’ve made it thus far I truly Thank you from the bottom of my heart and I hope that I’ve left a few smiles in my wake…. hugs

5 thoughts on “Animating my way through Winter…

  1. I think it is wonderful to see how you have developed you skills here, Laura. Using your own cookery video for Wilson to watch was so well done. I can’t even begin to imagine how you do that. I always love the small details in your films too, the throw on the bed, and how they sit on the sofa.
    Well done indeed!
    We actually still have some snow on the fields here. This was the worst winter since 2012, and only lasted for ten days. We got a tiny taste of what you go through every year.
    Best wishes as always, Pete. x

    1. Hello there Pete, there are many small details that most will miss as the short videos play along. Did you notice the newspaper Wilson was reading? I was so happy when the video inside of a video worked out well for me and now just wait … Thank you and take care, Laura

      Liked by 1 person

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Mother Bear and her two Cubs

September 22nd brought around Fall again for another season of cool temperatures, leading into the magical display of the beautiful Fall Colors here in Northern Ontario, Canada.

Although, with this change in the weather it also signals to the bears that old man Winter is soon approaching and they better get busy storing up for a long winters nap deep in their dens.

My fearful day of a mother bear with her almost grown cubs begins in this video and lasted for two days.  But, first let me set the scene for you.

September 25th I went outside with my pup and sat on my deck, which is 7 feet above the ground. I usually walk down into the garden every morning with her, but we were in a two week heat spell of over 37 C, so I opted to sit on a little wooded bench as my pup went down into the backyard. If, I’d done what I always do by going down into the backyard with her ~ This day might not have turned out well for me and my pup. Mother bears will protect their young with a vengeance… 57 sightings in the city so far this year, alone.

She began barking, ferociously and I quickly stood up to see what was the matter, and I could hear claw sounds on the tree just on the other side of my 4 ft. wooden fence. My thoughts were they sound too large to be a squirrel or raccoon.

I stood at the railing of the deck, 7 feet above the ground giving me a good vantage point. My brain in those few seconds couldn’t register  what I was seeing. My pup barking loudly at a huge mother bear who was crawling down the tree.

I noticed two cubs that were almost grown high in the branches of the same tree. My first instinct was to run down into the yard and pick up my dog. Well, almost 60 years old I don’t run as fast as I use to, and then common sense kicked in big time. I needed to get the bear away and for my pup to come to me. If, I’d been in the backyard, the bear would have seen this as aggression on my part and danger to her cubs.

The mother bear by this time had enough of my dog barking at her and she stood, resting her big old paws on the top of my back fence, two feet away from my pup on the other side. My pup was standing on her hind legs with her paws on the fence.

I began screaming for her to come to me, and for the bear to leave. The mother bear began growling at my pup and for a few seconds I knew this creature could easily reach and grab her up. That would be a nightmare and the end of my pet.

So, I calmed down and knew to deepen my voice to a baritone sound waving my arms high in the air. I began screaming from deep within my inner core. The mother bear got back to all fours and started to walk away, but my pup froze from this odd sound coming from me. She’d never been yelled at until that day. I calmed down again and called her to come. She did… Here is part one and two of this day.

And, here is part two…


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Next on the agenda was Oktoberfest, a famous 18 day fair that began as a celebration of Crown Prince Ludwig’s wedding in 1810 (yes). People liked it so much that it continued every year right into current times.

We lost so much time at the slow beer hall dinner that we had only an hour instead of the 3 hours promised by the travel brochure. Some people were not happy and complained that it was the reason they came on the trip. Eventually, those in charge decided to pay the bus driver overtime and extend the time by an hour. Then we received the wonderful news that the bus could not get anywhere close to the fair grounds to drop us off and we would walk 30 minutes there and 30 back to the bus parking area. It was a  Geh aus der Holle (Walk from Hell) Leaders walked as fast as possible so the complainers could have more time to drink beer.

I was half dead by the time I dragged my sore leg up the hill to get there. I saw some stairs and decided to sit there and wait as I was too exhausted to do anything else. Oktoberfest, by the way, is the Wilson County Fair with beer — lots of beer. There was a parade earlier with fancy horses and beer wagons, but we came at the end of the fair and missed it, of course. I saw one stray beer wagon with horses, which gave me an idea of what we missed and aggravated me even more.

The main event at Oktoberfest is beer and drinking. Each major brewery in Munich has a large wooden structure for serving called (appropriately) a “bier hall.” In addition, there are bier tents belonging to other breweries as the bier halls are always full.

Believe it or not, there was one thing I really liked. It was that many Germans at the festival dressed in traditional dress. The guys wear leather shorts called laden hosier. The ladies wear what we would call a square-dancing dress, full skirt with peasant blouse, apron and tight vest. I also liked the kettle corn, but didn’t need to go to Germany to get that.

Ein zu viel Bier

A German man sat down on the steps nearby. He tried to talk to me in German. I hadn’t the faintest idea what he was saying. Probably, “May I sit here?” Germans are very polite. When I didn’t reply, he sat down, passed out and went to sleep, laden hosier and all. Germans drink a lot of beer, which it is cheaper than water, but do not condone intoxication. Unfortunately, a few folks over indulge and he was not the only one drunk.

I must admit that German beer is very good with a taste different than American beer. I like the wheat beer best. I asked someone why they did not export beer and was told, “Because they drink it.” When you order a small beer, it is served in a glass that looks like about a liter.

We decided to leave and try to get back to the bus without leaving another trail of tears. By the time we got down the hill and drove an hour back to the hotel, everyone was half dead. Why didn’t we skip the pork, go to the Oktoberfest and let people eat there, we wondered?

Since complaining seemed to be the only way to get anything, I complained to the tour director about the walk up the hill at 90 mph and asked him to slow it down to a stroll from now on. Most of the peeps were old and many of us could not walk so fast. It seems that river tours appeal more to older people than young folks.

As long as I’m complaining, the hotel was new and nice, but way too far out of Munich. It was supposed to be closer to the river, but the extra hour we had to drive might as well be on the day we leave Munich as on the day we were there.


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Hi Dave,

Nice find! Thanks for posting the link.

That's a pretty broad indemnification clause quoted in the analysis. It will probably end up in court as BP will almost surely try to break it (or bend it a little) to push some of the monetary (and criminal??) penalties off onto its partners. Already, as noted before, Transocean has been named a defendant to the government's civil lawsuit. That indemnity clause is going to play a big role there.

But courts have to be careful about upsetting that clause, as they appear in pretty much every contract between two companies doing business together. Even the tiny, tiny company I used to work for had such clauses in its contracts.

And if the courts do rule that this part of Transocean's contracts have to change, you can just bet that dayrates will be raised to compensate for the increased risk such changes would impose.

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Archive | April, 2015

Indian Fish Curry

28 Apr

fish curryThis came from a friend, Elaine Stein, who got it from and modified it slightly, using a little less cayenne pepper and adding the green beans, which is a great idea. Even with this amount of cayenne it was plenty spicy, so if you don’t like it hot, use just a dash of cayenne. I added the suggestion of using parsley for garnish if you like, instead of cilantro, which many people don’t really like.

The recipe looks complicated but it’s really not.

2 tsp. Dijon mustard
¾ tsp. ground black pepper
¼ tsp. salt
1½ Tbs. canola oil
4 fillets firm white fish (cod works well), about 1½ lb.)

1 onion, coarsely chopped
4 cloves garlic, coarsely shopped
1-inch piece ginger root, peeled and chopped
20 raw cashew pieces
1 Tbs. oil

Spices (mix in a small dish):
½ tsp. cayenne pepper
½ tsp. ground turmeric
1 tsp. ground coriander
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar

½ cups chopped tomatoes
¼ cup vegetable broth or water
½ lb green beans, cut in half
¼ cup chopped cilantro or parsley for garnish

Mix the mustard, black pepper, salt and oil in a zip-lock bag and add the fish. Marinate in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the onions, garlic, ginger and cashews in a blender or food processor and pulse until the mixture forms a paste. Heat the 1 Tbs. oil in a skillet over medium-low heat and stir-fry the paste for1 to 3 minutes. Add the spice mixture and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and broth or water and heat through.

Layer the fish in a greased baking dish, top with the green beans and then sauce. Cover and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily. Garnish with cilantro or parsley and serve with cooked basmati rice.

Serves 4

Miracle Bars: easiest cookies ever

21 Apr

passover miracle barsWhen we make sweets for Passover, the ultimate accolade is, “This is good enough for regular!”

Well, these easy-t0-make bars really are, probably because they contain no matzoh meal or matzoh flour — not even potato starch!

I got the recipe from a collection of Passover recipes that came into my email in-box; I apologize that I can’t credit the source.

It’s one of the easiest recipes I’ve ever made, and it would be a great one to make with young children, who can dump the ingredients into a bowl and stir. And they’re gluten-free!

The recipe says you can shape them into cookies instead of bars; I haven’t tried this. My own suggestion is to consider replacing the chocolate chips with Craisins or dried cherries — or add those in addition to the chocolate chips.

The original recipe also called for a 9 x 13-inch pan. I used an 8-inch-square pan and it worked well; I think in a 9 x 13 pan the squares would be too short. I also changed the baking time and temperature slightly.

Another bit of advice: the first few bars tended to stick to the pan, even when I greased it well — after the first few came out crumbled I was able to pry out the others intact. The second time I made this recipe I put a piece of parchment paper in the pan before adding the batter — and had no broken bars!

1 cups ground almonds
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs (extra-large work best)
1 cup chocolate chips
Optional: 1 cup Craisins or dried cherries in place of or in addition to chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. The batter will be thick; do not add water or other liquid.

Grease an 8 x 8-inch square baking pan and put parchment paper on the bottom. Or lightly grease a cookie sheet if you plan to make cookies. Spread the batter evenly in the pan or shape into cookies and place on the greased cookie sheet.

Bake square pan for 30 minutes (cookies will take less time) until the top is nicely browned and the center of the pan looks dry; do not undercook.

Cool completely in the pan, then turn out and cut into 16 squares. (If making cookies, cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.)

Pasta with Creamy Wild Mushroom Sauce

14 Apr

mushroom pastaI think I told you awhile ago that I was part of a BzzAgent campaign on behalf of HemisFares brand pasta, available at the Kroger family of stores. They sent me a free sample of pasta so I could tell people how wonderful it is. I promised another recipe using the pasta and here it is.

I love the HemisFares fusilli bucati lunghi — it’s long strands of spiral pasta with a nice al dente texture even when cooked a little longer than the directions call for. I wanted to pair it with a fairly substantial sauce. This is a very tasty and fairly easy recipe.

The original sauce recipe said it made enough for a pound of pasta, but I used a half-pound, and there wasn’t a lot of extra! The original also called for heavy cream, but I used half & half. I also didn’t have shallots, so I substituted the white end of scallions.

½ lb. uncooked pasta (the fusilli is a good choice; farfalle – bow ties – is another)
1 Tbs. butter
12 oz. presliced exotic mushroom blend
½ cup chopped onion
⅓ cup finely chopped shallots
1 Tbs. minced garlic
1½ tsp. salt, divided
¼ tsp. ground black pepper
¼ cup dry white wine
⅔ cup half & half
½ cup grated fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
2 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley

Cook pasta according to package directions; drain.

Melt the butter in a large, nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms, onion, shallots, garlic, 1 tsp. salt and peppr and cook for about 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until liquid evaporates and mushrooms are tender. Remove from heat.

Add the cooked pasta, half & half, cheese and parsley, tossing gently to coat. Stir in the remaining ½ tsp. salt.

Serve immediately.

Serves 4