text:
On loneliness

I’ve been feeling more lonely, more often, over the last few months. There, I admitted it.

I do enjoy my own company and usually *need* time on my own to stay sane.

But lately, it’s felt a lot more like ‘lonely’ than ‘alone’.

I have friends, but I no longer seem to have a best friend. She’s got her hands very full with two small children, a husband and a hectic life. She’s been drifting away from me for a few years now, if I’m honest. And it’s not for the lack of trying on my part – but after being turned down repeatedly when I suggest we meet up for coffee, or a drink, or even dinner if she can get away, I’ve kind of stopped asking. (She never calls me to suggest a get-together.) I miss her so much. She could always make me laugh until I wheezed. And she was always the person I could tell anything to.

So there’s a big gap in my life without her. I have other friends, but none who I feel I can call at 10pm when I’m having an anxiety attack. Which sucks, because I’ve been having a few of those recently, relating to a health issue.

How I wish that when I wake up in the middle of the night, and scary out-of-proportion thoughts flood my head, and my breath gets shallow and fast, and my heart thuds in my chest, that I had someone I could snuggle up to. Who would put a comforting arm around me and tell me that it will all be OK and that he’s there for me, and that I’m not crazy. And tell me to go back to sleep and it will all seem less awful in the morning.

Because it’s starting to feel like I’m never going to have that. That I’m weird and there’s something strange about me that just puts people off. Is it how I look? Should I lose weight? Do I walk funny? Do I smell bad?!! Or is it this unapproachable aura I apparently project, that makes me seem prickly or aloof and just not the kind of person you’d want to get to know. How is it that everyone else knows what to do to find The One?

I’m dreading getting older and having to deal with health issues on my own. Having to cope with the ageing and eventual loss of my wonderful parents without support. And not having a companion to hang out with and weather life’s ups and downs with.

Yes, I love being single. But no, I do not want to be single for the rest of my life.

I think I’m having a mid-life crisis

If men go out and buy sports cars or motorbikes, and trade their partners in for younger, blonder models, what do we women do to demonstrate our midlife crises. I’ve heard that each time a woman turns 40, a cougar is born. I quite like that 🙂

I did get my first tattoo at 39… does that count? My 40th birthday is looming and I’ll no longer be a single-thirtysomething… I’ll be a single-FORTYSOMETHING. Eeek. When I started this blog I guess I assumed that I’d lose my single status before I lost my thirtysomethingness.

I am very, very aware that my 30s are nearly over. What have I achieved? It’s been over two decades since I left school, two decades as an adult. Shouldn’t I be more grown up by now? More secure in what and who I am? Don’t all adults have life sussed out? Erm, no… most of us don’t.

On my 39th birthday, I made a list of ‘things to do before I’m 40’. Exciting stuff, worthy stuff. A list to make my 40th year a fun and exhilarating one. Things to take my mind off this big birthday that’s approaching. Well, 6 months later, I can tick off very few of those things. Which makes me feel like a bit of a failure really. Sheesh but there is so much pressure, so much *expectation* for us to be inspired, motivated, run marathons, climb mountains, reach for the stars, etc. etc. I’m all for having goals and working towards them but if I see one more motivational poster in my Facebook news feed, I will not be responsible for my actions.

Is 40 such a big deal? Is it really the new 30? Women certainly look a lot younger at 40 these days that they did a generation or two ago. Or perhaps that’s all relative, and I look pretty ancient to 12 year olds.

How much more time do I have left? If I’ve got 40 years, of how many of those will I be healthy and fit and able to do the things I want to do? What do I want to do, achieve, give, find, explore and accomplish in the second half of my life?

I worry that the next 40 years will go by as fast as the first 40 have and at 80 I’ll be saying, “Wait!! What happened to my life? I still want to…”

How to be alone [video]

Five million people have already seen this… I watched it for the first time today.

How to be alone:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k7X7sZzSXYs

I should make an intelligent comment about it, or quote my favourite few lines. But all I can say is that it made me cry. I’ve had a crappy weekend – week, really. I’ve been socially awkward, unable to contribute to conversations; my speech paralysed by not knowing what to say, not having a funny or witty comment, not having an anecdote to share. By wondering what impression I’m making, and then it’s a vicious circle as saying nothing seems better than having my words met with slightly confused stares and the less I say the harder it is to come up with words.

I’m torn up about a comment I made to a close friend – something stupid and thoughtless and unintentionally hurtful. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say it… well, I did and now I regret it and I apologised and took it back, but still feel like a Bad Person.

Jarring with everyone, I feel entirely isolated, unlovable, misunderstood, mediocre and defeated.

Next week will be better. It has to be.

Coping on your own

A good friend has recently lost her husband after over 30 years of marriage. Before they were married, she lived at home. She has never lived on her own and now she has to adjust to it. That’s a HUGE adjustment. Not only is she dealing with her intense grief, and the trauma and sadness of her husband’s illness, but she is alone for the first time in her life.

Her sons are a huge support, and she has many family members and friends who are there for her. But they’re not there at 2am when she has an anxiety attack, or when she could really do with a hand with unpacking her groceries… or the thousands of other little things she’s so used to having her husband alongside her for.

My heart really goes out to her. Much as I love being single, it’s not something she has chosen and it’s inappropriate for me to trot out the reasons why being single is amazing. It’s going to be a hell of a change for her. She’s going to have to be strong and brave – and I think she’s going to discover who she really is for maybe the first time in her life.

Love and hugs to you, H.

xx A

Something’s got to give…

Sheesh. I am so snowed under with work at the moment that I’ve not had time to post on here for ages. I love what I do, and I have great clients, but I can’t keep all these balls in the air much longer. In fact, I dropped one earlier and am bracing myself for the client’s response tomorrow (eek!).

Anyway, when I am really busy with work, being single sucks. Continue reading

Plus ones

If I’m not dating anyone, I would always rather go to an event or function on my own, than find a suitable rent-a-friend to take as my date. Not just because it leaves me free to flirt with any single guys there, but because I find it stressful to be there with someone who is there for the sake of being my ‘plus one’ (note – I’m quite happy to go with a boyfriend).

A few years ago my old junior school was celebrating its centenary and a group of us who’ve been friends for over 25 years decided to take a table at the gala dinner. All the others are married and I thought it might be weird to go on my own, so I asked my friend S if he’d come along as my date. S and I are 100% platonic – I love him to bits as a friend, but we’d last all of 30 seconds as a couple, not to mention that neither of us has had the slightest romantic inclination to the other anyway in the 16 years we’ve known each other.

We arranged to meet outside the function venue and I was relieved to see he had made an effort to dress nicely (although to his credit, he usually does  – and no, he is not gay!). But things went downhill from there. He spent the evening either chatting up a single girl who had joined our party at the last minute (he ended up dating her for a couple of weeks) or ignoring everyone, me included, and having an intense text message exchange with one of his friends-with-benefits. It was so bad that when the evening ended, one of my other friends said, ‘Should I text message S to say goodbye?’

I know S well enough to give him a piece of my mind and not have it ruin our friendship (I think it’s like water off a duck’s back to him actually!). I was furious – I’d asked him to be my date, had paid for his dinner (which was not cheap) and he’d made no effort to ‘accompany’ me or make an effort to be friendly to and interested in the rest of our party (single girl excepted)… embarassing me instead. I would have far preferred to be there on my own instead of having to worry about my date’s behaviour!

Perhaps it’s a sign of the economic times, but I’ve noticed that it’s rare now to get an invitation to a function like a wedding and have ‘plus one / and partner’ included on the invitation. I’m quite happy about that – the pressure of finding someone to go with and the stress of wondering whether he’ll behave is something I can do without 🙂


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Best commercial carpet cleaners : Carpet stairs landing.

Best Commercial Carpet Cleaners

best commercial carpet cleaners
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  • (Carpet cleaning) Carpet cleaning, for beautification, and the removal of stains, dirt, grit, sand, and allergens can be achieved by several methods, both traditional and modern.
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  • Concerned with or engaged in commerce
  • Having profit, rather than artistic or other value, as a primary aim
  • a commercially sponsored ad on radio or television
best commercial carpet cleaners - Carpet Pro
Carpet Pro Commercial CPU 2 Upright Vacuum Cleaner
Carpet Pro Commercial CPU 2 Upright Vacuum Cleaner
The Carpet Pro CPU-2 is a true commercial machine and includes many conveniences not found in a typical commercial machine including an Easy Bag Change System and a By-Pass Motor System. The Carpet Pro CPU-2 also uses a Motor By-Pass System which means all of the dirt goes directly into the bag and NOT through the motor. This means you can pick up a nickel or screw and not worry about braking a set of fans which is a common problem in many other commercial machines. Instead of using plastic or wood for the brushroll or plastic for the baseplate, the Carpet Pro CPU-2 uses metal for both part increasing durability and preventing a broken brushroll or baseplate. The brushroll is sealed off with rubber end caps preventing hair and debris from getting caught in the brushroll and melting either the side wall of the machine or the brushroll; a problem commonly found many other vacuum cleaners. The Carpet Pro CPU-2's brushroll uses Commercial-Grade Stiff Gold Bristles to ensure you are getting the most dirt out of your rugs as possible. The Carpet Pro CPU-2 has a hose inlet located at the back of the machine allowing the user to insert an optional hose and tools if ever necessary. The Carpet Pro CPU-2 uses a commercial grade 40-foot cord so you can plug in once and clean an entire floor in many cases! The cord is heavy duty and yellow so the user is aware of the cord at all times. To prevent you from spending time unravelling the cord, the Carpet Pro CPU-2 has a Quick Cord Release located on the cord hook. This allows for simple hassle-free cord removal. Since the handle takes a lot of stress when used the Carpet Pro CPU-2 has a metal handle for increased durability. The User has to be comfortable while using the machine which is why the handle has been fitted with foam for comfort. The Foam also prevents slippage while the machine is in use. The Built-In Furniture Guard helps protect furniture and walls if the this vacuum were to ever bump into walls or furniture.

88% (18)
Airglide Carpet Cleaning 66 Charles Street,Boston,MA 02114 (617) 275-5131 carpet cleaners cambridge
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Portapower Commercial Vacuum Cleaner
Item #: HVRC2094. PortapowerT Commercial Vacuum Cleaner, bag adapter kit, and disposable bag. This powerful 2.2 peak hp motor doubles as a blower and is lightweight for easy carrying. Includes an eight-piece attachment set:Triple-Stretch hoseCrevice toolWall/floor brushDusting brushFurniture nozzleTwo-piece chrome steel wand setShoulder strapProduct Features:Reusable cloth bag; adaptable to paper bags33 1/2' cordUL and OSHA Approved for commercial useBag Adapter Kit (HVR4010050N) and Disposable Bags (HVR4010038N), sold separatelyManufacturer's one-year commercial warrantyCustomers also search for: Canister Vacuum;Carpet;Cleaner;Commercial Vacuums;Floor Cleaner;Floor Sweeper;HOOVER;Portapower Vacuum;Sweeper;Vacuum Cleaner;Vacuum Cleaners

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Swirly Skull

Today brings us a "swirly skull" from Wayne Chisnall.

I can't decide if this reminds me more of spaghetti noodles or of mop strings. What do you think? Thanks for the conundrum, Wayne.

The "Countdown To Halloween" has only 4 days left. I just might show up at your house. You did buy your candy, right?

jacqueline said...

This is cool - although my first impression was HAIR, rather than noodles.

Gypsy Moon Art Studio said...

Very cool. My first thought was spaghetti, even before I read that you thought that, too! Anyway, I love it!


text:
using context menu (PopupMenu) with DataGrid's selected item!

Sep 18, 2010 at 8:03 PM
Edited Sep 19, 2010 at 2:32 PM

Hello Sir,

W.R.T creating popupmenu dynamically .

i am binding IsEnabledProperty  like this ,

var pm = new PopupMenu();
pm.AddItem("Accept Chat", delegate { AcceptChat(); });
AcceptChatBtnBinding = new Binding() { ElementName = "SessionsDG", Path = new PropertyPath("ItemsSource"), Converter = new ButtonsEnablityConvertor(), ConverterParameter = "AcceptNextChatBtn" };
pm.PopupMenuItem(0).SetBinding(Control.IsEnabledProperty, AcceptChatBtnBinding);

but an excpetion is occuring here are the details

Message = Catastrophic failure (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8000FFFF (E_UNEXPECTED))

StackTrace =

  at MS.Internal.XcpImports.CheckHResult(UInt32 hr)
   at MS.Internal.XcpImports.DependencyProperty_GetDefaultValue(DependencyProperty dp, DependencyObject propertyOwner, UInt32 propertyOwnerTypeId)
   at System.Windows.CoreDependencyProperty.GetDefaultValue(DependencyObject propertyOwner)
   at System.Windows.Data.BindingExpression.GetValue(DependencyObject d, DependencyProperty dp)
   at System.Windows.DependencyObject.SetValueInternal(DependencyProperty dp, Object value, Boolean allowReadOnlySet)
   at System.Windows.Data.BindingOperations.SetBinding(DependencyObject target, DependencyProperty dp, BindingBase binding)
   at System.Windows.FrameworkElement.SetBinding(DependencyProperty dp, Binding binding)
   at V3COC.Views.Home.GenerateMenu()

anyclue on whats going on.

OR how do i enable/disable popupmeuitem based on the value of the field ( Say "State") of the DataGrid's SelectedItem ?

Sep 19, 2010 at 5:14 PM
Edited Sep 20, 2010 at 12:02 AM

Sorry but I haven't yet implemented the IsEnabledProperty in the PopupMenuItem but will certainly do so within the week. So stay tuned...

Meanwhile you can easily fix it yourself by adding the following lines of code to the PopupMenuItem class:

public static readonly DependencyProperty IsEnabledProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("IsEnabled"typeof(bool), typeof(PopupMenuItem), new PropertyMetadata(OnEnabledChanged));
public bool IsEnabled
get { return (bool)GetValue(IsEnabledProperty); }
 set { SetValue(IsEnabledProperty, value); }

And this is how you would use it:

pm.PopupMenuItem(0).SetBinding(PopupMenuItem.IsEnabledProperty, AcceptChatBtnBinding);

One workaround that does not require fiddling with the source code is to set the IsEnabled property in the Showing or Opening event(see Demo2).

Sep 19, 2010 at 11:11 PM
Edited Sep 20, 2010 at 2:04 AM

thank you sir ,

now i can set the IsEnable Property , but it's not disabling it . even when i set it in this way(without using binding)

pm.PopupMenuItem(0).IsEnabled = false;

even visiblity is not working

pm.PopupMenuItem(0).IsVisible = false;

how much time did it took you to write these controls?

Sep 20, 2010 at 4:07 PM
Edited Sep 20, 2010 at 4:45 PM

Please try running your code again with the latest change set here:

Hopefully this will fix all issues you've encountered before.

Sep 21, 2010 at 6:28 AM

Working now ,

thanks & GOD bless you.

i asked earliar , how much time did it took to write these controls .

Sep 22, 2010 at 6:01 PM

I havent't kept track of the time I spent on it because i'm doing it on a hobby basis.

But as a rough estimation I can tell you that i've spent most of my free time on it, which very roughly averages to 20hours a week, and since I've been on it for nearly 6 months now I can conclude that it cost me around 500 hours of work(and fun also). Thats is definitely much more time than I expected when I first started it!

Sep 23, 2010 at 4:00 PM
Edited Sep 23, 2010 at 8:51 PM

I must admit , that it was a big big contribution to my project . and yes , other open source main menu control and context menu controls are much less in quality and functionality.

thank you so much.

May GOD bless you for the help you offered to us.

out of curiosity, one last personal question  , where are you from ?  which country?if you dont want to disclose it here , you can email me @

Nov 5, 2010 at 7:39 PM

Thanks for showing your appreciation Jamal.

No worries, there is nothing top secret about where I live. I'm from Mauritius, a small island in the Indian Ocean. There's not much happening here but its a nice place to live.

Nov 7, 2010 at 3:23 PM

ok tc.


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text:
Submission + - Nmap 6 Released! (

Chankey Pathak writes: "The Nmap Project is pleased to announce the immediate, free availability of the Nmap Security Scanner version 6.00 from It is the product of almost three years of work, 3,924 code commits, and more than a dozen point releases since the big Nmap 5 release in July 2009. Nmap 6 includes a more powerful Nmap Scripting Engine, 289 new scripts, better web scanning, full IPv6 support, the Nping packet prober, faster scans, and much more!"

Submission + - Researchers Can Generate RSA SecurID Random Numbers Flawlessly (

Fluffeh writes: "A researcher has found and published a way to tune into a RSA SecurID Token. Once a few easy steps are followed anyone can generate the exact numbers shown on the token. The method relies on finding the seed that is used to generate the numbers seemingly randomly, but once known can be used to generate the exact numbers displayed on the targetted Token. The technique, described on Thursday by a senior security analyst at a firm called SensePost, has important implications for the safekeeping of the tokens. An estimated 40 million people use these to access confidential data belonging to government agencies, military contractors, and corporations. Scrutiny of the widely used two-factor authentication system has grown since last year, when RSA revealed that intruders on its networks stole sensitive SecurID information that could be used to reduce its security. Defense contractor Lockheed Martin later confirmed that a separate attack on its systems was aided by the theft of the RSA data."

Submission + - EU offers Google Chance to Settle Prior to Anti-Trust Enquiry ( 1

Fluffeh writes: "The EU has accused Google of abusing its dominant position in advertising to benefit its own advertising services at the expense of competitors. In a twist however, rather than initiating formal proceedings, the EU has given Google a chance to settle the whole matter without much fuss. They outlined four changes that Google can make that will put it firmly back in the good graces of the EU. Google has been given "a matter of weeks" to propose remedies to the four issues — which all tie in with how search results are displayed, their format and their portability to other platforms. This matter has come before the EU based on complaints by a few small companies and Microsoft."

Submission + - Judge orders Verizon subscriber identities sealed (

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In one of the mass "John Doe" cases based on single BitTorrent downloads of films, Malibu Media v. Does 1-13, a pro se litigant made a motion to quash the subpoena. The Court granted a stay of the subpoena, pending its decision on the motion to quash. Unfortunately for John Doe, Verizon had turned over its subscribers' identities 5 days BEFORE the response was due, thus possibly mooting both the stay and the motion to quash. Fortunately for John Doe, the Judge wasn't too happy about this, ordered the information sealed, directed plaintiff's lawyers to destroy any copies, and ruled that they can't use the information unless and until the Court denies the motion to quash."

Submission + - Perl 5.16.0 Released (

An anonymous reader writes: Perl 5.16.0 is now available with plenty of improvements all around. You can view a summary at and all the change details at With Perl on an annual release schedule, and projects like Mojolicious, Dancer, perlbrew, Plack, and Moose continuing to gain in popularity, are we in the middle of a Perl renaissance?

Submission + - Supercomputer in Iceland Crunches Big Data Using Renewable Power (

kenekaplan writes: The supercomputer at the Thor Data Center is based on a cluster of 288 HP ProLiant BL280c servers. The Intel Xeon Processor L5530-powered cluster is comprised of 3,456 compute cores with 71.7 terabytes of usable storage, and pumps out 35 teraflops of performance.

While building and shipping the machine's parts to Icelandic-produced CO2, the machine — and in fact all of Iceland — is powered 24/7/365 by a mix of nothing but renewable hydro and geothermal power. To light up Iceland's electrical grid, no fossil fuels puff, smoke or burn.

Submission + - Sign the White House petition for open access to research (

dstates writes: You paid for it, you should be able to read the results of publicly funded research. The National Institutes of Health have had a very successful open access mandate requiring that the results of federally funded biomedical research be published in open access journals. Now there is a White House petition to broaden this mandate. This is a jobs issue. Startups and midsize business need access to federally funded technology research. It is a health care issue, patients and community health providers need access, not a few scientists in well funded research institutes, and even wealthy institutions like Harvard are finding the prices of proprietary journals unsustainable.

Submission + - The Cloud's Unspoken Hurdle (

n7ytd writes: The Register has a piece today about overcoming one of the biggest challenges to migrating to cloud-based storage: how to get all that data onto the service provider's disks. With all of the enterprisey interweb solutions available, the oldest answer is still the right one: ship them your disks.
Remember: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway."

Submission + - 'Copyright cop' system for U.S. ISPs delayed (

zacharye writes: The new “six strikes” anti-piracy policy soon to be implemented by a number of major Internet service providers in the United States will reportedly stumble out of the gate. The policy, which is set to be adopted by Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other ISPs, will see action taken against users caught downloading pirated files in six steps, ultimately resulting in bandwidth throttling or even service suspensions. The system responsible for managing the new policy may not be ready on schedule, however, and the targeted launch date of July 12th may slip back as a result...

Submission + - Court won't reduce student's music download fine (

quantr writes: "A jury in 2009 ordered Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., to pay. A federal judge called the penalty constitutionally excessive, but the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it at the request of the Recording Industry Association of America.
Tenenbaum's attorney, Harvard law professor Charles Nesson, said he's disappointed the high court won't hear the case. But he said the 1st Circuit instructed a judge to consider reducing the award without deciding any constitutional challenge.
Nesson said Tenenbaum is just entering the job market and can't pay the penalty.""

Submission + - Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case on Surveillance (

TheGift73 writes: "WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to address one of the biggest controversies surrounding the response to the Sept. 11 attacks – the government’s aggressive use of electronic surveillance. The justices will decide whether a challenge to a 2008 federal law that broadened the government’s power to monitor international communications may proceed.

The challenge was brought by lawyers, journalists and human rights groups who say the law allows the government to intercept their international telephone calls and e-mails. Some of the plaintiffs say they now meet clients or sources only in person.

The government contends that the plaintiffs have not suffered an injury direct enough to give them standing to sue. Last year, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Unites States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled for the plaintiffs on that threshold question.

Judge Gerard E. Lynch, writing for the court, said the plaintiffs had shown that they had a reasonable fear that their sensitive communications would be monitored and had taken “costly measures to avoid being monitored.” That was enough, he wrote, to establish standing to challenge the law as a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. The panel did not rule on the constitutionality of the law.

The full Second Circuit declined to rehear the ruling by a 6-to-6 vote."

Submission + - Allowing the mind to wander aids creative problem solving (

ananyo writes: From the Nature story: Scientists from Archimedes to Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are said to have had flashes of inspiration while thinking about other things. But the mechanisms behind this psychological phenomenon have remained unclear. A study now suggests that simply taking a break does not bring on inspiration — rather, creativity is fostered by tasks that allow the mind to wander.
The researchers gave 145 students 2 minutes to list as many possible uses for an everyday object (the creative thinking task).
Participants then either rested, undertook a demanding memory activity that required their full attention or engaged in an undemanding reaction-time activity known to elicit mind-wandering. A fourth group of students had no break. The researchers then set the students a second set of unusual-uses tasks and found those that had, in the interim, been set the undemanding task that encouraged mind-wandering performed an average of around 40% better than they did before. The students in the other three groups showed no improvement.

United States

Submission + - White House visitor logs provide window into lobbying industry (

TheGift73 writes: "Before 9 a.m., a group of lobbyists began showing up at the White House security gates with the chief executives of their companies, all of whom serve on President Obama’s jobs council, to be checked in for a roundtable with the president.

At 1 p.m., a dozen representatives from the meat industry arrived for a briefing in the New Executive Office Building. At 3 p.m., a handful of lobbyists were lining up for a ceremony honoring the 2011 World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals.

And at 4 p.m., a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs arrived in the Old Executive Office Building for a meeting with Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

It was an unremarkable January day, with a steady stream of lobbyists among the thousands of daily visitors to the White House and the surrounding executive office buildings, according to a Washington Post analysis of visitor logs released by the administration. The Post matched visits with lobbying registrations and connected records in the visitor database to show who participated in the meetings, information now available in a search engine on the Post’s web site."

Submission + - Human water use accounts for 42% of recent sea level rise (

scibri writes: During the latter half of the twentieth century, global sea level rose by about 1.8 millimetres per year. The combined contribution from heating of the oceans, which makes the water expand, along with melting of ice caps and glaciers, is estimated to be 1.1 millimetres per year, which left some 0.7 millimetres per year unaccounted for.

It seems that the effects of human water use on land could fill that gap. Researchers report in Nature Geoscience that land-based water storage could account for 0.77 millimetres per year, or 42%, of the observed sea-level rise between 1961 and 2003. The extraction of groundwater for irrigation and home and industrial use, with subsequent run-off to rivers and eventually to the oceans, represents the bulk of the contribution.

It would be even worse if we weren't also locking up lots of water from rivers behind dams like the Hoover Dam.

Slashdot Top Deals


text:
Moving On

This blog has been a great experience for the semester.

When my life slows down a bit, (if that ever happens…) I honestly think I would enjoy keeping up a blog.

Aside from food and fitness, I have a very strong passion for home remodeling.

So, when the day comes that I finally own my own house…

{Hopefully within the next year!!}

Look out for a new blog chock-full of great new home remodeling and decorating ideas!

Where I am relocating for my new job, the housing market is completely under water.

I will be paying >$1000/month for a little 1 bedroom apartment, but could be owning a nice little starter house for >$700/month mortgage payments!

Since we plan on staying in the area for a while, and the $700/month mortgage payments would still leave us with a comfortable budget, we are excited to find a temporary apartment but be on the lookout for a nice little starter house.

So, enjoy your summer and thanks for tuning in!

Growing Up

So, I have some exciting news…

I got a big girl job!!

…At my DREAM company!!

With this job comes a lot of new things.

Currently, I am working like mad to find a place to live where my new job is, since I start in 2 short weeks!

Sometimes I think I’m crazy… I mean, I could have pushed back my start date a little further.  But, what is the point?

Sure, it would have been nice to have more time to move, but I would be missing out on that extra experience, and the extra paycheck!

I get 3 weeks vacation my first year, though I doubt I’ll take all of the days.   Either way, I figure I’ll take that time off if I decide I need a vacation.   I’ve always been like the Energizer bunny, though… Run, run, run!!!

5 Minute Homemade Salsa

I made another promise last week for a great, quick and easy salsa recipe.  So, without further ado…

5 Minute Salsa

3 cups diced tomatoes (or about 2-15 oz. cans)

Handful of cilantro

Juice from 1 lime

1/2 onion, chopped

3/4 tsp. garlic powder, or 1-2 cloves

2 tsp. kosher salt

2 tsp. white vinegar

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (omit if you can’t take the heat!)

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and whir away until a smooth consistency is achieved, just like you’d get in a restaurant!  Best after refrigerating for a few hours to let the flavors meld.

A quick word of advice, don’t use the canned tomatoes with garlic!  You’ll keep the vampires away, but won’t like the flavor that lingers in your mouth!

Recipe originally from

Go-Go Juice

Last week I posted on how to beat the no-workout blues, and promised I would post later on my favorite pre-workouts.

It is now later 🙂

There are all kinds of different pre-workouts, and for the most part, I try to keep mine pretty basic.

Some can get pretty crazy with all their additives, stimulants, and whatnot.

In general, I like to avoid supplements containing creatine and any crazy fat burners.

Fat burners, because I don’t like taking anything that forces my body to work in a way different than it’s natural functions.  I don’t see any good that can come of it…

And creatine, because I don’t want to retain water or get big muscles 🙂  Some of you men out there might be interested in what creatine has to offer, but I’ll pass.

So… my two favorite pre-workouts are, (Drumroll, please)

Optimum Nutrition AMIN.O ENERGY

The grape flavor is fan-freaking-tastic, it tastes just like grape Pixi-Stix.  This pre-workout supplies you with the amino acids your muscles need to rebuild themselves, while also providing a good dose of energy in the form of caffeine.  I use this supplement when I’m in the mood to go to the gym, but wish I has a little more energy to get a good workout.  I also use this while studying for a quick pick-me-up and help me focus since I have ADD 🙂

Black Market Labs AdrenHERlyn

This pre-workout is one I try not to take as much primarily because it contains raspberry ketones, and I don’t want my body relying on substances such as ketones… I feel like it could mess with my metabolism, ya know?  Not that it has been proven, but I’m just not comfortable with it.  Anyway, I do like this pre-workout because it gives me the focus and drive to drill through a tough workout without the jitteriness or sick stomach I get from most other pre-workouts.

Do you have a favorite pre-workout for the days when a banana just won’t cut it?  I’d love to hear about them!

Breakfast of Champions

We’ve all heard it from our mothers, teachers, and even the media,

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

We keep hearing about it, because it is so true!

But, are you treating it like it’s the most important meal of the day?

Every morning I have two eggs with a bowl of oatmeal.

To some, that sounds soooo boring!

But, to keep it interesting I make it different all the time.

I often prepare and season my eggs in different ways, or top them with things like fresh homemade salsa (great recipe coming your way soon!)

My oatmeal is often filled with my favorite, a dollop of peanut (or almond) butter and a little squirt of Smuckers Reduced Sugar Strawberry Jam (every bit as good as the original!)

Othertimes I’ll throw in cinnamon and raisins or apples.

It is extremely important to be getting whole-grain carbs and protein in your system right away in the morning so your brain and body have the energy they need to kickstart your metabolism!

What is your favorite “breakfast of champions?!”

Workout Slump

Do you ever have those weeks where you just can’t drag yourself into the gym?

I’m having one.

Crazy days filled with obligations, job applications galore (don’t remind me), work, school, projects, blah, blah, blah…

All excuses, really.

What do you do to motivate yourself to go to the gym?

I’ve tried a number of things, what generally works for me is actually changing into my gym clothes, and taking a pre-workout.

Generally, the pre-workout gets me so wired up that the only way for me to stay sane with that much energy is to go burn it off at the gym. (I’m extremely sensitive to any and all medications, pre-workouts, etc)

If that doesn’t work, I’ll go on pinterest and look at workout examples and seeing all the super-fit girls on there makes me wish I could look like them… so I decide to go workout like them so actually give myself a shot at it!

Right now is a procrastination attempt to avoid the gym, so I suppose I should start sipping on my favorite pre-workout (more on that later!) to get that ball rolling!

My “Quest” for the Best Protein Bar

A couple of weeks ago I was preparing for a big trip that I knew would involve a lot of rushed days and no time for quality meals.  To solve this, I found three options:

1)  Get fast food or gas station food

2) Starve

3)  Find a shelf-stable, healthy alternative

I decided that options 1 and 2 weren’t very good, so went on an online expedition to find the best snack/meal alternative/protein bar that not only tasted good, but was also good for me.

I soon discovered an almost cult-like following for a line of protein bars called Quest protein bars.  They have a “regular” and an all-natural line.  The bars are gluten-free, and aspartame-free.  They are also high in protein, and claimed to taste great!

Out of desperation curiosity, I ordered a dozen bars in assorted flavors and anxiously awaited their arrival.

Is it bad when the part of your trip you are most excited for, is to be able to try a protein bar?

Anyhow, the trip finally came and excitedly tried my first protein bar, Strawberry Cheesecake flavor.

it was…

Not fabulously amazing as I had hoped, but I brought my expectations back down to reality and was very pleasantly surprised!

Keep in mind, these are protein bars, not Grandma’s cookies.  That being said, they still taste good!

My favorite flavors are Strawberry Cheesecake, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and Apple Pie.

Give them a try and let me know what you think!

Fitness on the Road

While I love seeing the world and experiencing new things, traveling also tends to come as a minor annoyance to me for these two reasons:

1.  It is difficult to keep a healthy diet and eat at the times that work best for my body

2.  It is difficult to get a good workout in!

Most gyms these days have fitness centers and pools, but from my experience, these fitness centers are generally in a state of poor disrepair and oftentimes only consist of cardio equipment.

So, I went out and found a great in-room strength workout to supplement a run around the area or in the cardio room of my hotel.  Props go out to for coming up with this plan.

As always, 3 sets of 12-15 is best.  Try to keep rest time between exercises minimal.  This is broken down into levels of fitness, if you are new to fitness, then stick to level one.  If level one or two looks too easy, then do level three!

Protein Snacks!

As promised, here is my recipe for protein bars/muffins.

The recipe is based off Jamie Eason’s Lemon Protein Bars, although I did modify it a bit.  If lemon isn’t your thing, I encourage you to simply Google “Jamie Eason protein bars” and you will find an array of recipes.  She has chocolate, carrot cake, pumpkin, and all kinds of flavors I have yet to try because I love these lemon ones so much!

1 C. oats or oat flour

2 scoops vanilla whey protein powder

1/4 tsp. salt (to help activate the baking soda)

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 C. lemon juice (I buy the frozen containers of Minute Maid lemon juice, but fresh works best)

4 egg whites

5 packets Stevia

1 C. applesauce

2 Tbsp water

Preheat oven to 350 F.  If using oats, process in a blender or food processor until a fine powder.  Combine all dry ingredients together in a bowl, then add in the egg whites, applesauce, water, and lemon juice; the batter will be somewhat thin.  Pour into a greased 8×8 pan, or muffin tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until set and a toothpick comes out clean.

These are best kept frozen or refrigerated.  The recipe makes 16 squares, and a serving is 2 squares but I have a hard time keeping myself from eating them all!

Give them a try, you won’t regret it!

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

I have been craving pizza like mad lately.

So much so, I almost ordered an entire pizza for myself last night from Papa Johns.

Thankfully, I resisted the temptation, but spent all day today dreaming of that hot, salty goodness.

I finally couldn’t take it anymore, and so I improvised.

You know all those recipes floating around on Pinterest for cauliflower pizza crusts?  Welp, I broke down and tried one.

Credit: ClosetCooking

And you know what?

It was actually good!

I combined a few recipes I found to suit what I wanted and what ingredients I had, and ended up with this:

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Half a bag of frozen cauliflower (fresh would work too)

1 egg

1-2 Tbsp oat flour

1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 450 F.  Process the cauliflower in a food processor until it looks like rice.  Then, place the cauliflower in a microwave-safe dish and microwave for 7-8 minutes on high.

Allow the cauliflower to cool slightly, then wring out as much excess water as possible.

Combine the cauliflower with the remaining ingredients, and shape into a pizza crust on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until a light golden brown.

Remove from the oven, and top with your choice of toppings.  Return to the oven for ~10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and toppings are hot.

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DALLAS, TX–(Marketwired – Mar 1, 2017) – Zen Technologies, Inc. (Zen), a wholly-owned subsidiary of The CHRON Organization, Inc. (OTC: CHRO), announced today that it has entered into a strategic marketing partnership with the Oklahoma Grocers Association (OGA) to offer the Zen Technologies Commercial Zero-Cost Program™ to members of the OGA. The OGA is a state trade association that represents the food industry of over 1,800 independent grocers, convenience stores, suppliers and wholesalers throughout Oklahoma. As part of the agreement, a portion of the proceeds will be paid to the OGA for each location Zen upgrades.

The OGA was founded in 1938 and is a branch of the National Grocers Association, which represents tens of thousands of retail and wholesale grocers who comprise the independent sector of the food distribution industry. Jeff Bay-Andersen, Zen’s VP of business development, and Ron Edgmon, OGA’s president & CEO, began discussing the potential partnership between the two companies in December 2016.

“We’re so excited about this deal because grocery stores benefit from these savings more than almost any other industry, and on top of that, Oklahoma regulates energy so business owners are always looking for new energy solutions,” Bay-Andersen said. “Additionally, through the OGA we are connected to the National Grocers Association and plan to take this program nationwide.”

At an average annual energy cost of more than $4 per square foot, energy costs make up the largest portion of the annual operating budget after labor costs in the grocery retail industry, making supermarkets the most electricity-intensive type of commercial building, according to Energy Star. With Zen’s Zero-Cost Program™, supermarket owners will be able to save a minimum of 25 percent of monthly energy costs, if not more. There is no cost to the grocery store upfront for the energy saving solutions as the equipment is paid back from the savings generated monthly. The program is available in both regulated and deregulated energy markets nationwide.

“I just got back from the NGA trade show in Las Vegas and I could not stop talking about this partnership with my colleagues,” Edgmon said. “They were all incredibly interested in learning more about it because there is simply no one else catering to this issue within the grocery retail market. The timing could not be more perfect.”

Please visit the Company’s corporate site, www.chronorganization.com, and join the email lists for additional posts from The CHRON Organization, Inc.

Zen Technologies, Inc. (Zen) is a 21st century home services company whose mission is to bring all the benefits of the “Smart Home” to millions of homeowners and apartment dwellers across the United States. Zen provides a custom, “concierge solution,” for each of our consumers, featuring the most modern and effective products and solutions for home automation, security and monitoring. Zen combines our exclusive and customizable product solutions with green energy services, which allows our consumers to save money on their monthly energy costs, while reducing their long-term carbon footprint. To learn more, visit www.livewithzen.com.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements. The words “believe,” “expect,” “should,” “intend,” “estimate,” “projects,” variations of such words and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not a forward-looking statement. These forward-looking statements are based upon the company’s current expectations and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the company’s filings at www.OTCMarkets.com

Contact Information

The CHRON Organization, Inc.
Email: investors@chronhomeservices.com
Phone: (469) 626-5275
Fax: (469) 626-5101


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Tag Archives: santa rosa

Animal Survivor’s & Evacuee’s Shelter from Firestorm

Oh, a storm is threat’ning
My very life today
If I don’t get some shelter
Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away ~Mick Jagger & Keith Richards

gimme shelter: caring for horseys ~d nelson

This week wind’s continually enraged
local fires’ ferocious, insatiable appetites.
Heroically, domestic animals were rescued
and evacuated to the fairgrounds and other shelters.
I smile to your living, scorched fur presence.

gimme shelter: relieve my saddness ~d nelson

Breathing in, through a particulate respirator
I calm my body, that you may feel safe
and cared for and can calm your precious body, too.
I somehow see in your eyes & body language
the sadness of being displaced & relocated.
The trauma of surviving, after witnessing
those who ran for shelter from smoke
& flames, but were consumed by the cataclysm.

Overhead a constant roars of helicopters
& air bombers carry water & fire-retardant,
fighting a real war of survival from above,
while hundreds of firefighters from all over the West
drain their sources to save people, animals & drought-ravaged forest.
Dozens already known dead, hundreds missing.
Over 5700 structures destroyed. It’s all beyond sad.

Humbling to be here whilst hillsides, valleys,
homes just 8 miles away were lost to the inferno.
South a short distance from where I now type,
hotels, business’ and entire neighborhoods, gone.
The local high school & college are shelters for newly homeless people.

Last Sunday I stopped to grocery shop at trader joes in Santa Rosa
after chatting about music while checking out,
headed back to my small Mendocino County town.
Later that evening Coffey Park & Fountaingrove neighborhoods were consumed.
Just a block from where I had stopped to shop.
Looking at news articles I happen to read about a musician
who fortunately heard the sheriff’s evacuation loudspeaker outside.
He & the girlfriend quickly packed up the guitar, the dogs and got in the car.
In the rearview mirror was a rapidly approaching fireball scorching Coffey Park.
Reading that he worked at trader joes, I recognized he was my cashier.

It’s heartbreaking to here, now whilst my hometown of Sonoma
& much of Sonoma County also continues to burn.
Breathing in, I feel mostly calm. Breathing out noticeable emotional overload.
May I live in such a way that honors those who are gone.
Gratitude, expressed in this song, for being offered shelter when needed.
As I sleep lightly & often use earplugs to keep from being awoken,
it could have been me. I likely wouldn’t have heard evacuation orders
as sheriff’s car drove past in the middle of the night.

When a feeling of sadness, despair, or anger arises, we should stop what we are doing in order to go home to ourselves and take care. We can sit or lie down and begin to practice mindful breathing. The daily practice of breathing can be very helpful. A strong emotion is like a storm, and when a storm is about to arrive, we should prepare so we can cope with it. We should not dwell on the level of our head and our thinking but bring all our attention down to the level of our abdomen. We may practice mindful breathing and become aware of the rise and fall of our abdomen. Breathing in, rising; breathing out, falling. Rising, falling. We stop all the thinking because thinking can make the emotion stronger.
We should be aware that an emotion is only an emotion; it arrives, stays for some time, and then passes, just like a storm. We should not die just because of one emotion. We should remind young people about this. We are much more than our emotions, and we can take care of them whether we are feeling anger or despair. We don’t think anymore, we just focus 100 percent of our attention on the rise and fall of the abdomen and in that moment we are safe. Our emotion may last five or ten minutes but if we continue to breathe in and out, we will be safe, because mindfulness is protecting us. Mindfulness is the Buddha in us, helping us practice belly breathing…
We are like a tree during a storm. If you look at the top of a tree, you may have the impression that the tree can be blown away or that the branches can be broken anytime, but if you direct your attention to the trunk of the tree and become aware that the tree is deeply rooted in the soil, then you see the solidity of the tree. The mind is the top of the tree, so don’t dwell there; bring your mind down to the trunk. The abdomen is the trunk, so stick to it, practice mindful, deep breathing, and after that the emotion will pass. When you have survived one emotion, you know that next time a strong emotion arises, you will survive again. But don’t wait for the next strong emotion to practice. It is important that you practice deep, mindful breathing every day.
– Thich Nhat Hanh


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Polonia: A Case Study

Diaspora is a term that I’ve never come across in my years of studying the media. Yet when I learned that it refers to a cultural group of people who have scattered from their original geographic homeland, I immediately lit up. My whole life I’ve been exposed to diasporic media, thanks to my family’s strong Polish cultural ties.

In particular, I remember growing up with the sights and sounds of TV Polonia, an international television station servicing Polish people living outside of Poland. Delivered alongside the myriad of international television stations offered by cheap satellite TV companies, TVP is a station that caters to one of the world’s largest diasporic populations.

With between 15-20 million people of Polish descent living outside of Poland (MSZ, 2014), it comes as no surprise that a station dedicated to this group exists. TVP, and its radio subsidiary, report primarily on key Polish issues often ignored by the media within Australia.

In today’s internet age, the importance of a dedicated diasporic station such as this may have arguably diminished. Yet for the less computer-savvy amongst our population (my grandparents included), TVP was, and continues to be, a key source of Polish news and entertainment in an otherwise very Australia- and US-centric media landscape.

In a nation that prides itself on multiculturalism (at least ostensibly), diasporic media such as TVP plays a pivotal role in allowing our diverse population to maintain a cultural link to their old homeland.

Global Echo Chambers

No discussion of globalisation and the media is complete without a foray into the world of social media. Hailed by many as the ultimate connective medium, social media has the potential to bridge the gap between cultures and countries. Social media as a medium should be McLuhan’s ‘Global Village’ coming to life. But is it?

While it certainly has the potential to be, more often than not social media acts as nothing more than a convenient echo chamber. Rather than encouraging us to explore the vast wealth of different cultures and opinions available around the world, the majority of social media platforms have been developed or evolved (often by design) to be reflections of our own cultural beliefs and standards.

Conventional ‘friendship’-based social media networks such as Facebook will inherently give users a view of the world that is centric to their socioeconomic situation and geographic region. Put simply, despite being a ‘global network’, Facebook is little more than the online version of your local community. Even then, the Facebook Wall is designed to hide content that users would find ‘boring’ or disagreeable (Edgerank, 2014), limiting your online world to the small fraction that you’ll find most agreeable.

Yet even when we delve into more global networks like Twitter or Reddit, we find that users will choose to segment themselves into very niche or specific topics or regions. Reddit itself has appropriated the term ‘circlejerk’, to refer to the never-ending reinforcement of popular ideals or viewpoints on the site’s respective ‘subreddits’.

Despite our growing dependence on global social media networks, our ability to limit ourselves to a very narrow perspective of the world is becoming easier and simpler. With an ever-increasing number of geo-specific, language specific and purpose-specific social media networks coming into existence on a near daily basis, this trend is unlikely to slow down.

We are more globally connected than ever before in history. Yet our global village is starting to look an awful lot like a set of global echo chambers.

Edgerank, 2014. Edgerank. Available at http://edgerank.net/

Race in Context

In my research proposal, I outlined my desire to research the impact of gaming on the public sphere. Looking at the topic of race and ethnicity in the media, I found that video games present an equally fascinating case study in this field, too.

Many modern games (CoD in particular) have used race as a defining characteristic. The ‘good guys’ (usually white, typically American or British soldiers) fight against the evil Arabs/ Russians/ Germans/ Muslims.  My classmate Lachlan has gone into greater detail on the topic in his blog post, so I won’t comment too heavily on the negative use of race in games.

Rather, I wanted to explore the positive use of race in gaming. Extra Credits, a lecture series that delves into issues pertinent to the study and development of video games, explored the topic with their Race in Games episode.

The Extra Credits team make particular mention of LA Noir, which utilises race and racial issues heavily. In their episode, they look into the way in which the LA Noir developers have used character reaction to racial issues as a narrative device to define and add depth to characters.

We each carry around ‘baggage’ regarding racial (and other) issues. Game developers can tap into our extrinsic feelings towards these issues in order to define characters, dictate mechanics or advance the story.

The way in which race and racial issues are addressed is what sets apart games like Call of Duty from LA Noir. When used to define game mechanics, race becomes nothing more than a caricature or stereotype, which we are forced to adopt in order to complete the game. Yet when properly and intelligently utilised, race and racial issues can become powerful and rich storytelling devices. And through the interactive nature of the medium, it has the potential to force us to reflect upon our own feelings towards race and racial issues.

Gender and the Media

Gender and the Media

Let me preface this by saying that I wholeheartedly agree with the need for greater representation of women and women’s issues in the media. The growing media awareness of anti-female behaviour in countries such as India is nothing short of phenomenal and a great boon for gender equality worldwide. So when I say that I take issue with studies of ‘gender in the media’ that focus entirely on women, know that I do so without condemning the much-needed awareness of women’s issues and gender inequality that are being raised.

Western media and academia is quick to criticise gender inequality toward women (and rightfully so), though has failed to apply those same standards of criticism when presented with cases of gender inequality toward men.

A TV Show that presents certain female characters as incompetent in ‘male’ tasks is lambasted mercilessly by critics in news articles. Yet portrayals of male incompetence in ‘female’ tasks are the stuff of comedy gold. Advertisements that sexualise or objectify women are rightfully attacked by feminist media sources, and yet the same standard is rarely applied when the gender roles are reversed (O’Brien, 2013).

When workplace inequality toward women is uncovered, the media (both independent and commercial) immediately demands explanations and solutions. Obama’s push to eliminate the pay gap (Fram, 2014) between men and women has received staunch support from countless media sources, particularly the independent media in the US. Yet we dismiss as a fact of life, that 9/10 workplace deaths are male, or that the average male works up to 6 hours more per week than his female counterparts.

The media has blossomed in its willingness to discuss violence, discrimination and sexual abuse toward women. Yet media coverage of violence or sexual abuse towards males is significantly more lax. Worse still, there are cases in which media outlets have portrayed such stories as little more than idle curiosities or humorous, often under the category of “Weird News”.

Even in our entertainment, we’ve come a long way from laughing at the Pepe le Pew’s unwanted sexual advances, yet we still find it hilarious when our male characters are sexually assaulted or sexually blackmailed.

Yes, women have been, and continue to be, discriminated against in many facets of life. Yes, social issues affecting women do exist. Yes, it is fantastic that the media and academia study these issues and bring them to light. Yet when presented by the long list of male-specific issues in society today, men are told by the media and society to ‘be a man’ or ‘man up’ or that they deserve a bit of discrimination as payback for the years of discrimination women faced. And very rarely do we stop to ask “why?”

When studying ‘gender in the media’, we need to take a more holistic approach. Gender issues are not a binary Male/Female tug of war. When looking at gender issues, we should never take an “Us verse Them” attitude. We must recognise that different gender issues exist for both men and women, and not dismiss them entirely because of a “they did it first” attitude, as some journalists are want to do.

As students studying media and culture, we must recognise when the media takes action to address gender issues and also when it fails to act, for both men and women.

Fram, A. 2014. “Obama Signs Actions Taking Aim At Gender Pay Gap”, Huffington Post, 08 April, Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/obama-pay-equity_n_5112161.html

O’Brien, S. 2013. “Diet Coke: Sexist against men”, The Herald Sun¸ 09 February, Available at: http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/seewhatsusiesays/index.php/heraldsun/comments/diet_coke_sexist_against_men

Enabling the Storyteller

With the dawn of the online sharing age, society’s ability to exchange thoughts and ideas has never been greater. The artist and storyteller is only ever a few clicks away from a global audience, where once they were relegated to the confines and restrictions of museums or the mass media. The freedom of ideas and ease of exchange has given rise to aesthetic journalism on a global scale.

Cramerotti (2009) describes aesthetic journalism as social, cultural or political investigation presented in an artistic context. This change of context forces us to reflect (even if only on a subconscious level) on the context with which we receive our ‘actual news’ – television news segments, newspaper articles and snappy sound-bites.

With the ubiquity of smartphones and unlimited access to global audiences, storytellers and citizen journalists are better equipped than ever to share a message or spread a viewpoint. From YouTube to WordPress, DeviantArt to independent news publishers, artists and storytellers have countless platforms and methods with which they can share their work. Presenting their research in the form of a documentary, artwork, video, song or metaphor, artists and storytellers are able to show us just how clouded our current interpretation of the world may be.

Take YouTube icon FriendlyJordies, a comedian who comments and reports on current political issues through the use of satirical infomercials and news pieces. Though it may be heavily biased, his parody of the infomercial and news story format actually lends credibility to his claims.

Visit his YouTube profile here.

That’s not to say that art has never before challenged social norms. Even blockbuster cinema hits like “Avatar” have made commentaries on our society’s political and environmental dilemmas. Historically, art has long been a platform through which we can ponder societal issues and debate the status quo.

Aesthetic journalism’s true value comes from its ability to challenge traditional journalism’s accepted formats and aesthetics. By selectively bastardising or subverting the format through which journalistic investigation is presented, aesthetic journalism encourages us to think about the format and style of traditional news. And in understanding the format, we are better equipped to appreciate the way in which it shapes or influences our understanding of the world.

Cramerotti, Alfredo, 2011, “What is Aesthetic Journalism,” in Cramerotti, Alfredo, Aesthetic Journalism: How to Inform Without Informing, Intellect, London

Automation, Big Data Analytics and the End of Traditional Journalism

The digital age has ushered in an age of crisis for traditional news media organisations and journalists alike. Falling advertising revenue and the rise of citizen journalism has led a dramatic drop in the profitability of news media and traditional journalism (Pavlik, 2013). Pavlik believes that innovation has the potential to reinvigorate the field of journalism, yet fails to consider the implications of innovation on the viability of journalism as a profession. With ever-increasing innovation in the field of analytics in our data-rich world, it is likely that our concept of news and journalism will undergo a radical shift in the not-too-distant future.

In 2011, a young startup in Chicago began work on a news automation service. Known as Narrative Science, the company utilises big data analytics and social media analytics to create simple yet readable news stories. These stories are written and published with minimal human oversight, reporting on topics such as sport, finance and even politics (Levy 2012). Similarly, tech giants like Google and IBM are constantly improving upon their big data analytics capabilities, finding faster and more effective ways to track trends and sentiments through social media and other online sources.

News organisations are already making use of this technology, using social media analytics to find trending topics and to gauge public sentiment (Bartlett 2013). Already, technological innovation has led to a partial automation of the first step in a journalist’s job – finding what to write about.

At the risk of propagating conjecture, is it not altogether likely that the entire journalistic process could one day be automated? As Narrative Science has shown, computers are more than capable of writing simple articles with minimal human input. I propose that with the continual improvement of analytics platforms and the growing amount of data for these platforms to process, computers will one day (sooner than many journalists would care to admit) be able to write stories faster and with more accuracy than any journalist. And for a fraction of the cost.

What does this mean for news media organisations and journalists? As this technology becomes cheaper and more effective, news organisations are likely to begin adopting it, though will probably face harsh competition from established digital companies like Google and Facebook. With diligent editorial oversight and careful criteria selection, news organisations (particularly the big media conglomerates) will be able to tailor their stories to suit their readership and filter out any stories that conflict with their advertiser’s interests.

For journalists however, the outlook is far grimmer. While journalism as a profession is unlikely to outright disappear, computer-automated writing is poised to take over a significant portion of the work currently undertaken by journalists. Consider the following possibilities, some of which are already nearly a reality:

  • In a crisis, news-writing software will be able to aggregate official and social media channels to form a cohesive, informative and unbiased story. Quotes, videos and pictures could be sourced from these channels to provide a potentially unbiased report on any given crisis.
  • Sports results and players can be analysed to create a report on any given sporting event. Furthermore, player/team performance could be compared to past games, social media and current news stories to add a depth of analysis to the report.
  • Analysis of social media channels (combined with any other sources of data that news companies can acquire) could lead to the creation of stories reporting on trends within particular topics or fields (eg, polling results could be combined with social media sentiment analysis software to develop a report on a country’s political climate during an election).

As the distinction between human-written and computer-written stories becomes thinner and thinner, the number of journalists employed by these organisations will decrease. The journalist’s sole bastion may reside in the field of investigative journalism, which is far more difficult to automate.

Yet investigative journalism has all but disappeared from the commercial mainstream media, fuelled by the conflict of interests between media conglomerates’ revenue streams and the public idealisation of an unbiased media (McChensey, 2004). This has relegated the field of investigative journalism primarily to independent online news sources and blogs, such as Vice and Crickey. In a world in which the sporting, financial and current affairs mainstays of a newspaper publication are written by computers, the average journalist may find themselves working for one of these independent publications, likely in an investigative role.

It may well be that in the future, the news we consume will be split neatly into two categories – computer-written and human-written. At the rate with which this technology is improving, given enough time we won’t even be able to tell the difference.

Levy, S 2012. “Can an Algorithm Write a Better News Story Than a Human Reporter?”, Wired, Published 24/04/12, Available at: http://www.wired.com/2012/04/can-an-algorithm-write-a-better-news-story-than-a-human-reporter/

Bartlett, R 2013. “How newsrooms can use social analytics to guide editorial strategy”, Journalism.co.uk, Published 19/06/2013, Available at: http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-newsrooms-can-use-social-analytics-to-guide-editorial-strategy/s2/a553295/

McChesney, R 2004. “The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st century”. Monthly Review Press. p. 81

John V. Pavlik, 2013, “Innovation And The Future Of Journalism,” Digital Journalism, 1:2, 181-193

The shortcut to the bottom of the barrel

Let me ask you a quick question: “Someone offers to sell you a bat and ball for $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?” Most people will quickly answer that the ball costs ten cents (hint: it doesn’t), revealing an interesting phenomenon that shapes the decision making process defining the public sphere. When answering the question, most people will avoid the mental arithmetic, and simply resort to a mental shortcut, by using what they know near instinctively (that $1.10 minus $1 is ten cents). People apply this mental shortcutting process to most of their decisions, thereby making assumptions and defaulting “to the answer that requires the least mental effort.” (Lehrer, 2012) The public sphere is no more immune to this than any other facet of our lives. McGuigan (2005) describes the concept of uncritical populism, which states that consumers aren’t just “passively manipulated recipients of commodity culture”. Rather, the content that we consume is a reflection of what we want. And as the mental shortcutting principle shows, what we want (for the most part) is a public sphere that grants us improved knowledge and understanding of the world with minimal mental effort. Given the choice of a public sphere dominated by mentally and ethically challenging discussions, versus a public sphere dominated by easily-digestible sound bites and celebrity stories, its little surprise that the general public chooses to engage with the latter. When a consumer limits their ‘world’ to celebrity gossip, breaking news and sports successes, they are simply using a mental shortcut to satisfy their desire for understanding. The mainstream media, recognising the consumers’ desire for an easy-to-understand worldview, has adapted – simplifying complex issues, sensationalising popular issues and ignoring the issues that may lead to unwanted mental effort by the consumer. Combined with undue influences by those in power (i.e. the media owners), this propensity for shortcuts is taking us further and further down the road to a trivialised culture, as portrayed in Stuart McMillen’s comic “Huxley vs Orwell”. huxley-orwell-amusing-ourselves-to-death Are we shortcutting ourselves to the bottom of the barrel; to a world in which true public discourse is drowned in a sea of irrelevance?


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4 Steps How to Make an Icon

When you need to create an icon for your app or some file/folder, use SoftOrbits Icon Maker. This program works for any resolution and image format and doesn�t require specific skills in work with graphics. Here is how to make an icon by drawing it manually:

  • Launch Icon Maker on your PC
  • In the start dialogue choose 'Create a new icon' option
  • Select required format to make icon specifically for your operating system
  • Check necessary image format and color palette and press OK
  • Draw your icon and save the file

Icon Maker allows creating static or animated icons. For the animated one you need to draw all frames in one project and save them to GIF or ANI format. There is a simple way how to make icons in batch: the program has a batch mode for generating icons from numerous images in preset size and format. Just insert all source images and choose required formatting. In order to make icons in batch, go to Batch Mode > Create Batch Icons in the main menu of the program. This way you can also generate icons from one file in many resolutions (for all supported operating systems and devices).

With this Icon Maker it is easy both to draw a freehand icon and make an icon from existing graphic file. The program supports a lot of graphic formats that gives ability to generate icons without pre-conversion. The program allows to existing image into a program that will cut it to the size you choose. A plenty of graphic effects is on hand, as well as drawing tools. This is the simplest way of how to make an icon following the general concept of some app design (based on the app logo or other ready-made elements).


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Achieving Microservices Flexibility… Through Patterns!

Whether organizations turn to microservices to solve issues with existing applications or build greenfield applications, creating applications that consist of many single purpose microservices introduces the need for those individual services to interact in real-time to provide value to the end user.

Today REST is most commonly used for these interactions, and it works fine for some situations, but as discussed in my previous blog post there are many advantages to using messaging instead, not the least of which is the ability to use a wide range of synchronous and asynchronous message exchange patterns. These patterns, such as publish/subscribe, request/reply, one-way notification and multi-request/single-response have been a staple of enterprise architecture for many years, and they are ideal for microservices since they are inherently distributed. To prove this point, lets look at how you might solve a real-world problem.

Meet Sol-Beer

The problem I have chosen to solve is near and dear to my heart (as I hope it is to yours!). Imagine you’re at a party where the supply of beer has begun to dwindle? Wouldn’t it be awesome if someone would magically appear and restock the supply? Well, let me present to you the Solace Beer Online Store, which I’ll call Sol-Beer. It makes this dream come true by combining the convenience of an e-commerce platform with a rapid delivery platform. Not only does this use case solve a real-world problem, it proves out many of the common challenges developers face encountered when creating a microservices architecture. Without further ado, lets jump in!

The problem faced here can be broken down into a set of discrete components, which of course must interact to provide value (i.e. beer). The components are:

  • Web App – An e-commerce site you can use to order beer.
  • Inventory Manager – Component which keeps track of our e-store inventory.
  • Billing – While free beer would be amazing, this is the real world and collecting money is a requirement. This component can reach out to a credit card processor and collect funds.
  • Logistics – Component which ensures product gets delivered to the customer
  • Delivery Vehicle – The car which transports the liquid gold.

With the components defined, we need to orchestrate these components (i.e. services) so you can be the hero who solves the party’s beer problem.

The RESTful/Synchronous Approach

So let’s say you’ve read that microservices are synonymous with REST, or assume that the use of an “technology agnostic protocol” means REST. Because REST over HTTP is inherently synchronous and only natively supports request reply, the orchestration of services would look like this:

The customer initiates the order using the Sol-Beer Web App, which acts as the orchestrator by synchronously invoking the Inventory Manager, Billing and Logistics services before returning success or failure response to the customer. If we further decompose these interactions into a sequence diagram, it reveals some serious flaws in the architecture:

Here’s what’s wrong with this architecture:

  • Lack of Flexibility: The Web App must be programmed to invoke the Inventory Manager, then the Billing Service. If you want to add a new service (such as fraud detection) to the system, it would mean editing either the WebApp or Billing service – defeating the purpose of single purpose services!
  • Slow/Unreliable Response Time: The use must always wait as long as it takes for the Inventory Manager, Billing, and Logistics services to return. A hiccup with any of these services means the user doesn’t get a response, and we all know that user-experience is critical for e-commerce interactions.!
  • Excessive Coupling: Should the WebApp know about these services? Should the inventory manager be responsible for finding a car? This kind of overlapping functionality is a direct violation of the idea that microservices should be small and single in purpose.
  • Difficult Service Discovery: Service discovery is a challenge when you have many delivery vehicles as part of the system, and it’s further complicated by the fact that they’re moving and coming/going online.
  • Complicated Scaling: Let’s take a case where the logistics component has become a bottleneck. Naturally, we would want to horizontally scale that service since this is a microservices architecture. But with this architecture we’d also have to scale the WebApp and the Inventory Manager since they are all blocking on the Logistics service – a waste of resources since they are just in a blocked/wait state anyway.

It is apparent that if we were only to use REST as the communication protocol between our services, we would have a mess and not realize many of the benefits of microservices architecture.

Enabling Event-Driven Microservices with Messaging

To leverage the power of event-driven microservices you need to shift your thinking from “invoking services” to “initiating and capturing events.” Think about systems publishing events that can be consumed by 0 or more downstream services and interpreted within the context of each service. The amount of flexibility and decoupling this provides is astounding. Let’s take another look at the architecture behind Sol-Beer with that in mind.

Look what happens when we add messaging to our microservices architecture – the services are fully decoupled and no longer know about each other. Also, the responsiveness of the Sol-Beer WebApp is determined solely by the Inventory Manager because all other activities are only called later. Our site is now better able to handle large demand spikes because the only services that need to be scaled are the WebApp and the Inventory Manager. The other services can be scaled to average load as they no longer impact the customer’s order experience. Let’s look at the message exchange patterns that make up our new architecture.

Request/Reply can easily be implemented by using messaging, but why would you use messaging instead of REST?

Remember when I said you need to start thinking think about events instead of services? Let’s use that concept for when the client places his order to our web app. Our business processes dictate that the inventory needs to be reserved in order to return a message of “your order is being processed.” The web app should only know that an order event has occurred and been confirmed. It doesn’t need to know if that confirmation comes from the inventory manager, billing or both.

Here you see how the generated event can be produced and consumed by the inventory manager, and a response event can be sent back to the customer once it’s confirmed. There are a few key concepts here:

  • First that events are sent onto topics. These topic names are strings which can contain a hierarchy; thus supporting interest-based subscriptions.
  • Secondly, services will bind to a queue to consume events. These events will be attracted to the queue based on the queue’s subscription.
  • Lastly the queue will be non-exclusive meaning that multiple consumers can receive messages from the queue in a round-robin fashion to support service scaling. Essentially the messaging component replaces the need for a load balancer!

Since the Sol-Beer store produced an event, this event can be consumed by 0 or more recipients. In our case, it is consumed by the Inventory Manager, but what if we wanted to have those events also consumed by an analytics engine? This is where the big benefit lies as you can add these kinds of capabilities without touching the Web App or Inventory Manager. Microservices are all about the ability to create new capabilities faster after all.

One-way Notification

The combination of messaging and event-driven architecture really begins to shine when events can be sent in a “fire and forget” way. The one-way notification pattern is a great example of this mode and was performed in the previous step when the inventory manager sent a message indicating that an order’s set of products were reserved. From a process perspective, one service that would be interested in those events would be billing. The below diagram shows the billing service consuming those events and acquiring funds from the customer.

A common challenge with microservices architecture is the need to avoid XA transactions which aren’t supported. From the business perspective, if the credit card bounces, we need to cancel the order and remove the reservation on the product so others can buy it. By making use of the concept of “eventual consistency” we can avoid XA transactions entirely. The key to eventual consistency is that the events must never be lost, or the system will be in a perpetual state of inconsistency. Unlike REST, messaging can guarantee the delivery of information, even in the event of component or network problems.

In our case, if there were no funds, the Inventory Manager needs to listen to these events so it can undo the product reservation and let the customer know their order has been cancelled due to a payment problem. The key is that the Billing service does not know what steps need to be taken to roll back the order; it simply produces events indicating “paid” or “not paid.” Clean and elegant!

Single Request-Multi Response

If you have ever used Uber or Lyft, you will have seen that the drivers react immediately if their phone dings with another customer in the area needing a ride. Those notifications go to all drivers in the area, and it’s the first to respond that wins the ride/business. This is exactly how the Sol-Beer store delivery mechanism is intended to work. The ability to send an event to multiple clients and receive multiple responses is key to this use case and messaging is a perfect enabler. This diagram illustrates how this can be implemented:

Once the Inventory Manager has fulfilled the order, it sends an event to the topic order/ship/<order number>/<delivery zip>. If you’re wondering why we would include delivery zip in a topic name, that’s because if each car subscribes to events for a certain geography, we have a clean routing mechanism so drivers won’t be overwhelmed by events outside of their area. In this case, the Logistics manager receives ship notifications and sends out an event indicating that it’s looking to locate a delivery vehicle.

Until now we’ve been using the JMS API as that is commonly used for communication between applications within an enterprise, but for a car or mobile device MQTT or WebSocket is more appropriate. Solace makes it easy to use the right tool for each job by supporting many open APIs and standard wireline protocols.

Each car or mobile device presents the driver with a notification that an order is ready to be delivered, and they can choose to accept or deny the opportunity. As stated before, the Logistics service only needs a single accept and for fairness selects the driver who responded first.

The use of messaging is most commonly associated with the Publish/Subscribe message exchange pattern. Publish/subscribe is an element of some of the message exchange patterns we have explored, but it can also be used directly to enhance the user’s experience. In our case, wouldn’t it be great if the customer could track the delivery vehicle, in real-time, that contains our order? As farfetched as it sounds, many believe that these types of capabilities will be the future of e-commerce. For example, what if you opted into a FedEx or UPS service where they could deliver a package to your parked car while you are at work. In our case, the user will navigate to our web app and using a mapping service such as google maps will be able to track his beer in real-time!

Because we used publish/subscribe these events could be consumed by multiple components based on their interest. There is no reason for the Web App to consume these events unless a user navigates to that screen. Logistics, on the other hand, may wish to always receive these events to ensure the driver follows the predefined route and that they do not speed excessively.

Hopefully the Sol-Beer store will be implemented one day by a company and fulfill my dreams! In the meantime, I hope that you found it an interesting way to look at the various ways message exchange patterns can unlock the full benefits and value of microservices architecture. Consider adding these patterns to your tool box and experience the real benefits provided by event driven microservices. The next phase of our microservices journey will be to implement the Sol-Beer store using Solace, Spring Boot and Pivotal Cloud Foundry, so stay tuned!


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JinkoSolar Plans to Separate Its Solar PV Project Business

Solar PV ProjectSHANGHAI. JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd, a global leader in the solar PV industry, today announced that its Board of Directors has authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives with respect to JinkoSolar’s downstream solar PV project business. The Board intends to consider a broad range of alternatives including, but not limited to, an IPO, pre-IPO financing or merger and acquisition of the business.

“We believe that the separation will support the sustainable growth of our downstream PV project business, and the Board of Directors and management team are always committed to further enhancing value for all JinkoSolar shareholders,” said Mr. Xiande Li, Chairman of JinkoSolar. “Given that our downstream PV project business is expected to exceed 500MW of installed capacity by the end of 2014 and with the clear commitment of the Chinese government to renewable energy, solar energy in particular, and a growing market, we believe now is an appropriate time to prudently explore strategic alternatives for this business.”

JinkoSolar management, together with its financial and legal advisers, will explore strategic alternatives, including the exploration of the separation of its solar PV projects business into a separate company through a spin-off or other transactions that will benefit the Company’s shareholders.

The Company would like to note that there can be no assurance that the Board of Directors’ authorization above will result in any transaction, or that any transaction, if pursued, will be consummated.

About JinkoSolar

JinkoSolar is a global leader in the solar PV industry with production operations in Jiangxi and Zhejiang Provinces in China and sales and marketing offices in Shanghai and Beijing, China; Munich, Germany; Bologna, Italy; Zug, Switzerland; San Francisco, the United States; Queensland, Australia; Ontario, Canada; Singapore; Tokyo, Japan; and Cape Town, South Africa.

JinkoSolar has built a vertically integrated solar product value chain, with an integrated annual capacity of approximately 1.5 GW each for silicon ingots, wafers and solar cells and approximately 2.0 GW for solar modules, as of December 31, 2013. JinkoSolar sells electricity in China and distributes its solar products to a diversified customer base in the global PV market, including Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, the United States, Eastern Europe, China, India, Japan, South Africa, and other countries and regions. To find out more, please see: www.jinkosolar.com

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements constitute “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates” and similar statements. Among other things, the quotations from management in this press release and the Company’s operations and business outlook, contain forward-looking statements. Such statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in JinkoSolar’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 20-F. Except as required by law, the Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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Monday, December 28, 2015

My Christmas Eve Outfit 2015

Dress Ted Baker

Can't believe that Christmas Eve was looking like this! And it was so warm! Don't take me wrong, I love this weather and I wish all winters were like this (hate snow) but I want just a little bit of snow just on Christmas Eve! At least so that the ground is covered or maybe some frost. But I had a lovely Christmas and I hope you had that too! ♥

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Posts Tagged ‘Abdou Diouf’

Can You Name 32 Nations and Authorities…

November 30, 2007

… where French is one official language, even the only one?

If you thought that French was the language of France exclusively, you will have to reconsider. There is also:

  • Belgium
  • Switzerland
  • Canada
  • the tiny but immensely rich Monaco and Luxembourg
  • Bénin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Centrafrique, Chad, Comores, Congo, DRC, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Togo
  • Haiti in the West Indies
  • and even Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean.

Because provincial governments (the French-speaking Wallon Community in Belgium, Quebec and New-Brunswick in Canada) are also full-fledged members of OIF, the total number is correct.

But French is also considered as a ‘shared language’ in another 23 countries of the world, which brings the general total of OIF’s members to 55.

These include countries like Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in South-East Asia, Marocco and Tunisia in Northern Africa, Egypt, Lebanon, etc.

The source is the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF in short). Its present, very active, Secretary General is Mr. Abdou Diouf. Students interested in exercising their skills in translation and/or interpreting can find his beautifully-written speeches here. The map is also taken from their website and can be downloaded as a pdf.

As I was navigating the site, I found that OIF has a fund that can offer grants to NGOs mainly, to cover some of the costs of translation/interpretation in the field of francophony.


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Tuesday, August 2, 2016

An All-American Finale

The school bus will be headed around the corner soon, but don't give up on summer just yet. There's still plenty of August to go, and then there's September. Give summer the end-of-season finale it deserves by celebrating with All-American style.

Show your patriotism this Labor Day with red, white and blue decor. Arrange colorful fresh flowers in a woven basket, and add a bit of bling with sparkly star picks.

Try this easy as pie, or easier than pie, Cherry Balsamic Galette. It will surly bring smiles to those who are lucky enough to get a slice. Don't forget to top it with a scoop of creamy, vanilla ice cream.

Cherry Balsamic Galette
1 refrigerated pie crust, room temperature
1 ½ pounds tart cherries, pitted and halved
3 tablespoons flour
⅓ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ tablespoons balsamic vinegar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
Coarse sugar for sprinkling

Heat oven to 375 F. On a parchment lined baking sheet, unroll pie crust. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar and salt. Add cherries and stir to combine.
In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar and vanilla. Pour over cherry mixture and combine.
On a parchment lined baking sheet, unroll pie crust. Add cherry mixture to the center, leaving a two-inch border around the edge.
Fold edge up and over the filling, creating pleats all around.
Whisk egg with 1 tablespoon of water and brush onto crust. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until crust is golden brown. (Recipe from Jennifer Ruple)

Decorate some mason jars with pre-printed burlap ribbon, wrap some jute, or garden twine, around the top, and then garnish with little star stickers.

Use them to hold silverware, straws or sparklers.

Remember to enjoy the sun, warmth and greenery, and hang on to summer as long as you can!

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narc - poor man's snapshots Icon

narc - poor man's snapshots

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narc provides simple and efficient "snapshot-like" archiving of a file hierarchy over time on any Unix-like filesystem that supports hard links.

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Monitor your Office 365® (O365) Exchange™ mailboxes and system applications with the SolarWinds® Server & Application Monitor unified platform.

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SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor allows you to monitor your hybrid IT applications and systems. Monitor Microsoft® Office 365 Exchange side by side on your on-premises Exchange server and other applications. Check, track, and report on O365 user/shared mailbox growth, users over quota, archived mailboxes, inactive mailboxes, mobile device, mailbox groups, and more. You can also monitor Microsoft portal access to help ensure you’re meeting your SLAs.
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The Project Identity Icon

The Project Identity

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Project Identity aims to develop an Open source Biometric Solution i.e. complete set of tools and libraries for Biometric identifiction systems.
This project has intial code done by students as their summer project at Echo IT Labs Pvt. Ltd.

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Monitor your Office 365® (O365) Exchange™ mailboxes and system applications with the SolarWinds® Server & Application Monitor unified platform.

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SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor allows you to monitor your hybrid IT applications and systems. Monitor Microsoft® Office 365 Exchange side by side on your on-premises Exchange server and other applications. Check, track, and report on O365 user/shared mailbox growth, users over quota, archived mailboxes, inactive mailboxes, mobile device, mailbox groups, and more. You can also monitor Microsoft portal access to help ensure you’re meeting your SLAs.
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Someone in a community on Livejournal went to the premier of Dark Knight in Chicago and she has shown us pictures of Gary Oldman. If you have been living under a rock or have been lame (and by lame I mean a loser, not lame like you can’t walk. God. I’m not that insensitive okay?) for, I don’t know, the entire history of the world and you don’t know who Gary Oldman is, see EXHIBIT A immediately.

It is nice to load your flist and see Gary Oldman there, watching you watch him (kinky).

Posted on July 18, 2008, in Adventures with Sparkle Pants, Boys are pretty. Bookmark the permalink. Comments Off on Also.

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