text:
Tagged: Criticism Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Gerrit Eicker 10:11 on 20. December 2011 Permalink
    Tags: , , , Appification, , , , , Criticism, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Journalism 2012

    What will 2012 bring for journalism? Social media bubble burst? Tech criticism? Appification? http://eicker.at/Journalism2012

    • Gerrit Eicker 10:11 on 20. December 2011 Permalink | Reply

      NJL: “Predictions for Journalism 2012 – To close out 2011, we asked some of the smartest people we know to predict what 2012 will bring for the future of journalism.”

      NJL, Carrie Brown-Smith: “The social media bubble may burst, and more predictions for 2012In 2012 we will see a growing gap between newsrooms that are innovating and those that are…not. – 2011 saw a number of promising examples news organizations going beyond ‘digital first’ platitudes to actually trying things and making it work, and I’m optimistic we will see this trend continue. … 2012 will be a good year for local television.2012 *might* see a bursting of the social media bubble, or at least convince us that it is harder game to play than we thought. – This might seem odd coming from an avid social media user who developed two new courses on it for our journalism department and who even has been christened with that dreaded ‘social media guru’ title on more than one occasion [ack]. And assuredly, I do think social media is an incredibly important tool for news organizations to use to promote their content, improve their reporting, and engage their audiences… Journalism schools will increasingly step up to the plate to play a leadership role in journalism innovation in 2012.

      NJL, Dave Winer: “We need to improve tech criticism. Here’s how. – At the end of this year I’m thinking about the need for proper criticism of software, alongside other arts like theater, movies, music, books, travel, food and architecture. It’s finally time to stop being all gee whiz about this stuff. Tech is woven into the fabric of our culture, as much as or more so than the other arts. And it’s headed toward being even more interwoven. – We all need this, on all sides of the art. As users and creators. … The goal would be to move away from the lone inventor myth and see tech projects as more like film production or a even more apt, a TV series. Software is a process.

      NJL, Nicholas Carr: “2012 will bring the appification of mediaFor years now, the line between the software business and the media business has been blurring. Software applications used to take the form of packaged goods, sold through retail outlets at set prices. Today, as a result of cloud computing and other advances, applications look more and more like media products. … As traditional media companies have moved to distribute their wares in digital form – as code, in other words – they’ve come to resemble software companies. … The old general-purpose web, where everyone visited the same sites and saw the same stuff, is rapidly being supplanted by specialized packages of digital content geared to particular devices – iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Kindle, Nook, Xbox – or to particular members-only sites like Facebook and Google+. … Apps are as much content-delivery services as they are conventional software programs. Newspapers, magazines, books, games, music albums, TV shows: All are being reimagined as apps. Appified, if you will. – Appification promises to be the major force reshaping media in general and news media in particular during 2012. … Appification opens to newspapers the powerful marketing and pricing strategy that the Berkeley economist (and now Google executive) Hal Varian dubs ‘versioning.’ Long a cornerstone of the software business, versioning is the practice of creating many versions of the same underlying informational product, packaging them in different ways, and selling them at different prices to different sets of customers. … We already see versioning strategies at work in the ‘metered’ programs operated by a growing number of papers… The orthodox view among online pundits has been that paywalls and subscription fees won’t work for general-interest newspapers, that people simply won’t pay for a bundle of news online. … That won’t mean the end of the industry’s struggles, but it does portend a brighter future. And that’s good news.

    • Gerrit Eicker 20:47 on 20. December 2011 Permalink | Reply

      NJL, Robert Hernandez: “For journalism’s future, the killer app is credibility – We know that Content is King. There is no doubting this concept. If you don’t have ‘it,’ no one is going to engage with you. We know that Distribution is Queen. In this modern age, what’s the point of having ‘it’ if no one will find it? My prediction is that this ruling monarchy will be augmented by… a prince. Perhaps a duke? Whatever. And it’s called Credibility.We want to trust journalism. And to do so, we need to trust journalists. – And bypassing the blogger-vs-tweeter-vs-media company-vs-journalist debate, it is going to come down to one thing: Credibility. – Can I reliably trust you to tell me what is going on? If the answer is yes, then I don’t care if you work out of a newsroom or out of your garage.”

      NJL, Dan Gillmor: “2012 will be the year of the content-controller oligopoly – Journalists will start paying serious attention to an issue that will ultimately determine whether they can participate in the digital world: control. – We are moving rapidly from an era of an oligopoly of content providers to an oligopoly of content controllers: new choke points. … This consolidation, to a very few companies plus increasing government intervention, is even more dangerous – and information providers of all kinds are finally starting to grasp what’s happening. … Search engines… wire-line Internet service providers… mobile carriers… Apple… the copyright cartel… government: The forces of control are getting more powerful every day. They are a direct threat to journalism and innovation. Journalists are starting to take note – and we can only hope it’s not too late.

      NJL, Martin Langeveld: “A look back at my 2011 predictions, along with a fresh batch for 2012 – The Eurozone crisis gives way to the dollarzone crisis as Congress continues to deadlock over budget and debt issues. The Dow falters, dropping 10% by mid-year. The prospect of a President Gingrich lifts hopes briefly, but when Obama is re-elected while Republicans retain the House and retake the Senate, it sinks another 5%. Newspaper stocks fail to beat the market, but all the digital giants (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, AOL and Apple) are all in positive territory well ahead of the Dow.

    • Gerrit Eicker 18:25 on 26. December 2011 Permalink | Reply

      NJL, Amy Webb: “Big data, mobile payments, and identity authentication will be big in 2012 – When Google launched its new social network Plus, it made headlines for requiring users to create accounts with their real names and identities. At the time, Google argued that people behave better when they use their real names – it even went so far as to call Plus not a social network, but a digital identity service. Some are now questioning how and when Google would be using our digital identities. Outside of social media, police departments in the U.S. have started using MORIS, which snaps on to an iPhone and enables officers to scan the irises of alleged criminals. In Brazil, police offers are starting to fit glasses with biometric cameras which can scan 46,000 data points on a face and query a criminal database in real-time. Siri, an application acquired by Apple for the iPhone, can recognize individual voices and infer contextual information based on the user. In 2012, our fingerprints may not matter nearly as much as our eyes, faces, and usernames.

      NJL, Gina Masullo Chen: “Next year, personalization platforms will bring us more choices, not fewer – News has always been about making choices among lots of information; technology just helps us make those choices more smartly. … If I were creating this future, a large component of it would include offering greater customization of news and information for readers. … People choose what they like, what interests them, what gratifies their own needs, and what fits how they see the world. – In 2012, technology may help them make those choices more quickly and easily.

      NJL, Tim Carmody: “Next year, Kindles, iPhones, and tablets will truly grow up – In consumer technology, five year cycles are really interesting. … Why does this matter for 2012? Well, besides five years of iPhone, we’re also looking at five years of Kindle. That’s two five-year anniversaries that really signal the point when mobile reading became mainstream. You could also call it the five-year anniversary of the tablet as a media device, because really, that’s what the Kindle is, form factor-wise. … With e-readers, in general, I don’t think we’ve really figured out how touchscreen reading devices are supposed to work, how to blend what we’ve learned from tablets with what we’ve learned from e-readers. … If I could make an analogy, 2011 for reading devices was like the first color/video iPod. 2012 will be the iPhone year. It seems like we made big leaps forward only because we don’t actually know what the real leap forward looks like yet.”

      NJL, Burt Herman: “In the coming year, social media journalists will #Occupythenews – Social media’s essential role in serious journalism can no longer be ignored. Next year, social media journalism will finally grow up. – Journalism will be more collaborative, embracing the fundamental social nature of the Internet. The story will be shaped by people involved in the news, curated by savvy editors from diverse sources and circulated back again to the audience. This is the new real-time news cycle. … Journalists have always taken masses of information and condensed it into something digestible for readers, adding context and insights. More than ever, journalists will curate sources outside their newsrooms to tell their stories. … It’s up to the new generation of social media journalists to #Occupythenews – and to make sure society doesn’t miss the stories that, diffuse and elusive though they may be, are crucial to understanding our world.

      NJL, Rex Sorgatz: “LA is the future (kill me now) – Let’s get this out of the way: I hate LA. – I hate LA the way that any good New Yorker hates LA, with a passion bordering on paranoid psychosis. I hate the faux culture, I hate the vapid people, I hate the unctuous politics. … But I am here to preach a new sermon: LA is the Future. It pains me to say, but it’s time we all sucked up the fresh sludge spewing from the organic juice pumper. … Let’s start here: Right now, I pay over $200 per month to have 1,600 TV channels pumped into my apartment. How many of those channels do I watch? A dozen, max. – This is clearly broken. Really broken. Stupid broken. – And we all know this has to end, somehow. And we all know it will end, somehow. … But I think we can all agree that this broken system is going to be fixed, somehow. – And when that happens, the fallout for the LA-based television industry will be catastrophic. … When the collapse hits, capital will rush out of the traditional entertainment industry faster than you can say ‘Lehman Brothers.’ … It will be fun, it will be exciting. And I might even hate LA a little less.

      NJL, Vadim Lavrusik: “Curation and amplification will become much more sophisticated in 2012 – A big question for the coming year: How will the right communities get the right kind of news? – Ladies and gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the technology. We have the capability to build a sustainable journalism model. Better than it was before. Better, stronger, faster. … For the last year, much of the focus has been on curating content from the social web and effectively contextualizing disparate pieces of information to form singular stories. … Because anyone can publish content today and report information from a breaking news event, the role journalists can play in amplifying – and verifying – that content becomes ever more important. … Curation itself will continue to evolve and become more sophisticated. … The coming year will see a more balanced approach. … Information will, in this environment, inevitably reach the citizenry; at stake is the quality of the information that does the reaching. If content is king, distribution is queen.

      NJL, Steve Buttry: “From a dropped paywall to a social media Pulitzer, expect a year of transformation – We will see more newspaper-company transactions in 2012. … [P]eople with sufficient wealth appear to have bought the companies outright, taking on little or no debt. … The winner of the 2012 presidential election will work harder on reaching voters through social media than through the professional media. …Digital First Media will continue to lead the way in transforming the digital news business. … We will see some major realignment of journalism and news-industry organizations.

      NJL, Paul Bradshaw: “Collaboration! Data! 2012 will see news outlets turning talk into action1. 2012 will be the year we finally move away from the traditional homepage – The ‘stream’ as an interface will move from being the preserve of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to being a serious consideration for news website homepages. We’re all 24-hour news channels now. 2. In 2012, ‘Collaboration Is King’3. News organizations turn talk into action on data – Any news organization that is serious about its fourth estate role is building the skills to interrogate those datasets.”

      NJL, Dan Kennedy: “2012 will bring ‘the great retrenchment’ among newspaper publishers – Paywalls may become more popular in 2012; that doesn’t mean they’ll be enough to save a flailing industry. … The great newspaper retrenchment may prove to be more than a dead-cat bounce. As the economy slowly improves, the newspaper business may well enjoy a semi-revival. But before long, the forces that have been undermining newspapers since the rise of the commercial web in the mid-1990s will come back to the fore. … For the most part, though, you can be reasonably sure that newspaper companies will continue to cut costs, maximize profits (or minimize losses), and do their best ostrich imitations until they find themselves under siege once again. – They’re standing up for traditional values – and what could be more traditional than failing to plan for the future?

      NJL, Emily Bell: “2012 will be a year of expanded ‘network sensibility’ – Making predictions about journalism is a hopeless business: Jay Rosen, who is much wiser than I am, said he never does it, and I salute him for that. … The network sensibility will grow in newsrooms that currently don’t tend to have it as part of their process – it is still seen in the vast majority of places as more of a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘must have.’ … While this use of distributed tools and new platforms continues at speed, I think we will also see some much-needed closer scrutiny on what this new reality means for journalism and its constant redefinition of products and services. … Journalists have always been very skilled at stories and projects and fairly awful at thinking about platforms. We need more engineers who want to be journalists, and we need to teach students more about the implications of publishing in a digital environment – whatever the format their journalism originally takes.

      NJL: “Amazon conquers, Patch dies, a Facebook-only outlet is born…and more predictions for 2012 – [P]redictions about the business of, and platforms for, journalism, from and platforms for, journalism, from Brian Boyer, Rick Edmonds, Kevin Kelly, Joy Mayer, Alan Murray, Alan Mutter, Geneva Overholser, Howard Owens, and Sree Sreenivasan.”

  • Gerrit Eicker 08:14 on 4. November 2011 Permalink
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Business Practices, , , , , , , Criticism, Debiasing, , Economic Incentives, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Replication, , , , Search Bias, Search Engine Bias, , , , , , , , , , ,

    Search Engine Bias

    Does Google favour its own sites in search results? New study: Google less biased than Bing; http://eicker.at/SearchEngineBias

    • Gerrit Eicker 08:14 on 4. November 2011 Permalink | Reply

      SEL: “Does Google favor its own sites in search results, as many critics have claimed? Not necessarily. New research suggests that claims that Google is ‘biased’ are overblown, and that Google’s primary competitor, Microsoft’s Bing, may actually be serving Microsoft-related results ‘far more’ often than Google links to its own services in search results. – In an analysis of a large, random sample of search queries, the study from Josh Wright, Professor of Law and Economics at George Mason University, found that Bing generally favors Microsoft content more frequently, and far more prominently, than Google favors its own content. According to the findings, Google references its own content in its first results position in just 6.7% of queries, while Bing provides search result links to Microsoft content more than twice as often (14.3%). … The findings of the new study are in stark contrast with a study on search engine ‘bias’ released earlier this year. That study, conducted by Harvard professor Ben Edelman concluded that ‘by comparing results across multiple search engines, we provide prima facie evidence of bias; especially in light of the anomalous click-through rates we describe above, we can only conclude that Google intentionally places its results first.’ … So, what conclusions to draw? Wright says that ‘analysis finds that own-content bias is a relatively infrequent phenomenon’ – meaning that although Microsoft appears to favor its own sites more often than Google, it’s not really a major issue, at least in terms of ‘bias’ or ‘fairness’ of search results that the engines present. Reasonable conclusion: Google [and Bing, though less so] really are trying to deliver the best results possible, regardless of whether they come from their own services [local search, product search, etc] or not. … But just because a company has grown into a dominant position doesn’t mean they’re doing wrong, or that governments should intervene and force changes that may or may not be “beneficial” to users or customers.

      Edelman/Lockwood: “By comparing results between leading search engines, we identify patterns in their algorithmic search listings. We find that each search engine favors its own services in that each search engine links to its own services more often than other search engines do so. But some search engines promote their own services significantly more than others. We examine patterns in these differences, and we flag keywords where the problem is particularly widespread. Even excluding ‘rich results’ (whereby search engines feature their own images, videos, maps, etc.), we find that Google’s algorithmic search results link to Google’s own services more than three times as often as other search engines link to Google’s services. For selected keywords, biased results advance search engines’ interests at users’ expense: We demonstrate that lower-ranked listings for other sites sometimes manage to obtain more clicks than Google and Yahoo’s own-site listings, even when Google and Yahoo put their own links first. … Google typically claims that its results are ‘algorithmically-generated’, ‘objective’, and ‘never manipulated.’ Google asks the public to believe that algorithms rule, and that no bias results from its partnerships, growth aspirations, or related services. We are skeptical. For one, the economic incentives for bias are overpowering: Search engines can use biased results to expand into new sectors, to grant instant free traffic to their own new services, and to block competitors and would-be competitors. The incentive for bias is all the stronger because the lack of obvious benchmarks makes most bias would be difficult to uncover. That said, by comparing results across multiple search engine, we provide prima facie evidence of bias; especially in light of the anomalous click-through rates we describe above, we can only conclude that Google intentionally places its results first.”

      ICLE: “A new report released [PDF] by the International Center for Law und Economics and authored by Joshua Wright, Professor of Law and Economics at George Mason University, critiques, replicates, and extends the study, finding Edelman und Lockwood’s claim of Google’s unique bias inaccurate and misleading. Although frequently cited for it, the Edelman und Lockwod study fails to support any claim of consumer harm – or call for antitrust action – arising from Google’s practices.Prof. Wright’s analysis finds own-content bias is actually an infrequent phenomenon, and Google references its own content more favorably than other search engines far less frequently than does Bing: In the replication of Edelman und Lockwood, Google refers to its own content in its first page of results when its rivals do not for only 7.9% of the queries, whereas Bing does so nearly twice as often (13.2%). – Again using Edelman und Lockwood’s own data, neither Bing nor Google demonstrates much bias when considering Microsoft or Google content, respectively, referred to on the first page of search results. – In our more robust analysis of a large, random sample of search queries we find that Bing generally favors Microsoft content more frequently-and far more prominently-than Google favors its own content. – Google references own content in its first results position when no other engine does in just 6.7% of queries; Bing does so over twice as often (14.3%). – The results suggest that this so-called bias is an efficient business practice, as economists have long understood, and consistent with competition rather than the foreclosure of competition. One necessary condition of the anticompetitive theories of own-content bias raised by Google’s rivals is that the bias must be sufficient in magnitude to exclude rival search engines from achieving efficient scale. A corollary of this condition is that the bias must actually be directed toward Google’s rivals. That Google displays less own-content bias than its closest rival, and that such bias is nonetheless relatively infrequent, demonstrates that this condition is not met, suggesting that intervention aimed at ‘debiasing’ would likely harm, rather than help, consumers.”

  • Gerrit Eicker 09:14 on 18. August 2011 Permalink
    Tags: , , Brand Connection, Brand Connections, Brand Evaluation, Brand Evaluations, Brand Failure, Brand Information, , , , , Criticism, , , , , , , , , , SBC, Self-affimation, Self-Brand Connections, Self-concept, Self-view, , , ,

    Study: Fanboys treat criticism of favorite brands as a threat to their positive self-view; http://eicker.at/Fanboys

  • Gerrit Eicker 07:38 on 1. July 2011 Permalink
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , Criticism, , , , , , , , , , , , , Google Plus Notfication Box, , , , , , , , , Google+ Notification Box, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Google Plus Reviews

    Google Plus is a technological masterpiece, but cloning Facebook is not an innovation; http://eicker.at/GooglePlusReviews

    (More …)

    • Gerrit Eicker 07:39 on 1. July 2011 Permalink | Reply

      BI: “Save for some minor improvements, Google+ offers nothing groundbreaking enough to drive the masses from Facebook. Almost every feature from ‘Circles‘ to ‘Streams‘ has a counterpart feature in Facebook. – The only notable exception is ‘Hangouts,’ the feature that lets you host group video chats with your friends. … All these criticisms don’t mean I think Google+ is a bad product. It’s actually well-designed and easy to use. … At the end of the day, Google+ is a solid product on its own. But it’s not rich or new enough to get people to make the switch.

      DT: “Google+ is almost a direct clone of Facebook. While it is an impressive effort, particularly on the discovery side, there appears to be little to drive you from Facebook to it. If emulation is the greatest complement, Google paid Facebook a huge compliment and the quality of Google’s offering is impressive. The problem for Google is that Facebook users seem to be relatively happy. There are concerns with regard to privacy on Facebook, which could play for Google if folks weren’t more concerned with Google’s privacy practices. Much as you likely wouldn’t be interested in an even trade for a house or car that is identical in all ways to the one you have, folks likely won’t switch from Facebook to Google+ in significant numbers. And with social networks, the big value isn’t the product, but the number of your friends that are on it.

      WP: “There are some really great features in the network worth mentioning. For one, the navigation bar, which pushes you alerts on network activity without being too intrusive, and the group video chat function, Hangouts, is way beyond any free video chat service I’ve seen. – But there are problems, too. … Getting me to switch from Facebook is going to rely on whether I can fold G+ into my daily routine. … Overall, Google + was fun to use and has a lot of potential. I could see using it in addition to Facebook, but until Google weaves more of their existing services into G+ and opens it up to include more of the people I want to connect with, it won’t become my main way to socialize online.”

      AF: “To be honest, my gut reaction after using Google Plus was initially, ‘Why on earth would anybody switch to this from Facebook?’ – However, when I loaded up Google Finance as I do every morning, I suddenly realized that I was asking the wrong question. The reality is that users won’t have the option of not using Google Plus. – Google already has more users than Facebook, over one billion. They aren’t going to suddenly leave Facebook in droves, they’re just going to spend more time on all the sites in Google’s network. That big notifications box in the top right of all Google sites is the reason why. … No, Google Plus is not a ‘Facebook killer,’ but despite the company’s numerous failed attempts at getting into social media, the new Plus product gives users no other option but to accept the fact that Google is becoming exactly that: social.”

      Winer: “It was after seeing how they had inserted this into search that I decided I had made a mistake by opting-in. Remembering that it was impossible to opt-out of Buzz (I still accidentally click on the link from time to time, as a Gmail user, you can’t get rid of it) I figured that it would be similarly impossible to rid myself of Google Plus. … One of my Twitter friends sent me a link to the opt-out page. … I have opted-out. In theory. I’ll let you know if it worked.

      Winer: “I don’t think Google has a choice. Their ‘social’ offerings have been rebuffed repeatedly, and they will continue to be rejected by users, no matter how promising they are, no matter what they are, different from Facebook, a Facebook clone, doesn’t matter. Why? You can’t make revolution with employees. Can’t be done. They don’t know how to do it. … So if I were Larry, I’d make the cloud to end all clouds and price it really cheap for any entrepreneur who’s willing to stake their future on being the next Big One.”

      AdAge: “Facebook’s traffic will not suffer. People will keep using Facebook. But when you have a tight little group, you may find Google+ to be just right for sharing with that group. So I think Google+ will catch on with lots of groups — Boy Scout troops, book groups, college cliques, that kind of thing. It may build a nice niche out of these groups, and extend the value of Google Groups in general. It will get people to spend more time on Google. But it won’t replace or even dent Facebook any time soon. – What does this mean for marketers? First – yes, you should keep a close eye on this, and consider advertising on it to the groups that matter to you. If Google+ makes it easy for companies to create brand groups, that’s worth a look (when it happens). – But I think you can safely ignore Google+ for at least 12 months.

      RWW: “Circles are a lot like Facebook’s friend lists, a feature which Facebook has shown less support for and interest in over time. … To continually differentiate itself from Facebook, and keep Circles from becoming an organizational overhead nightmare, Google Plus needs to get smarter, quickly. Google should use its engineering brilliance to build algorithms that do relationship management for you. It should know when you change jobs (you update LinkedIn, for example) and suggest or enact a Circles change to reflect that.”

      TNW: “In case you hadn’t noticed by now, demand for access to Google+ is astronomic right now, and when demand for something is exceed supply, the scammers and others looking to make a quick buck will undoubtedly come out to play. – There’s no difference here. Access to Google+ is currently on sale on eBay for prices ranging between $0.99 and $27 by a number of sellers claiming to offer ‘instant delivery’.

      • Gerrit Eicker 08:19 on 6. July 2011 Permalink | Reply

        Jarvis: “To paraphrase Mark Zuckerberg, it is too soon to know what Google+ is. But I’ve been trying to imagine how it will and won’t be useful to news. … Google+ likely won’t be good for live coverage of breaking events… G+ should be good for collaboration on reporting. … If Google gets its synergistic act together and incorporates Google Docs – and some of the tricks from Wave – into G+, then this could be a very good collaboration tool for communities… G+ will be good for promoting content. … G+’s identities likely won’t be as reliable as Facebook’s, as it is easy to create an account and identity on there are not the social pressures for authenticity. … G+ may be a good place to find photos from news…”

      • Gerrit Eicker 09:18 on 9. July 2011 Permalink | Reply

        AdAge: “Google’s new social network Google+ may never dent Facebook’s dominance, but its entrance into the fray is scrambling the emerging market of startups billing themselves as Facebook alternatives. …They might be fighting an uphill battle if Google+ has staying power after its hype-filled limited release. If nothing else, Google just sucked a lot of oxygen out of the room, and one founder said privately that Google+ is causing a re-think on how to forge ahead. – ‘It’s going to be very hard to be a David,’ said Charlene Li, founder of the Altimeter Group, a social media advisory firm, noting that Google’s existing user base gives it a huge advantage. Conversely, startups will have to start a relationship with people looking for a Facebook alternative from scratch.”

      • Gerrit Eicker 07:38 on 15. July 2011 Permalink | Reply

        Winer: “Not entirely happy about this, but I re-joined Google Plus today.”

  • Gerrit Eicker 07:22 on 31. October 2010 Permalink
    Tags: , , , , Consumer Interests, , Criticism, Demonisation, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Facebook Balancing

    Ray bringing balance: Three reasons to stop demonizing Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg; http://eicker.at/FacebookBalancing

  • Gerrit Eicker 17:42 on 31. May 2010 Permalink
    Tags: , , Criticism, , , , , , Opposition, , , , Slapp, , , , Strategic Lawsuit, ,

    Is Slapp, the strategic lawsuit against public participation, returning to the (social) Web? http://j.mp/9hDLOL

Compose new post
Next post/Next comment
Previous post/Previous comment
Show/Hide comments
Go to top
Go to login
Show/Hide help
shift + esc


Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response

WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: text/html

WARC-Type: response

text:
Experience Success With These Easy Self Help Ideas

It may be arduous to know the place to begin a self-development program. We’re all such advanced and distinctive beings, it is arduous to know precisely the place to get began. This text was made to point out you tips on how to begin taking easy actions that may lead you to your objectives. This text comprises a variety of concepts for making you extra profitable.

You’ll miss a possibility in the event you keep away from making the precise choice relating to private growth. It’s worthwhile to face these selections with confidence, even in the event you aren’t completely positive. If you make the precise selections, you’ll improve private growth. Even incorrect selections enhance the educational course of, and result in higher growth, by offering an overview for what you should not do. A unsuitable alternative solely ensures that your subsequent alternative will likely be higher.

Try to encompass your self with individuals who suppose such as you do. Like-minded folks will assist strengthen your resolve whereas reinforcing optimistic attitudes.

Deal with making your time spent working as productive as potential. One efficient option to work extra effectively is to schedule extra common break instances. It could appear counterintuitive, however you’ll be able to truly improve your productiveness by taking frequent breaks. That manner, you may be refreshed while you return to work and motivated to provide at a a lot greater stage.

Private Growth

If you wish to make progress within the space of private growth, it is advisable declare lowliness. If you understand your house within the universe, you understand that you’ve got loads to be taught. When you undertake this mindset, you may be extra open-minded and receptive to new data, which can result in self-improvement.

You’ll want to learn optimistic books with reference to private growth. The very best private growth books may give you new concepts and recommendation that might change your life ceaselessly. Select a e book that has gotten good evaluations as a result of there are some books about self enchancment that aren’t written very nicely.

Deal with your self bodily to get essentially the most out of your private growth actions. Easy issues comparable to getting loads of high quality sleep, consuming a nutritious weight loss plan and exercising commonly will preserve your vitality ranges up and offer you a greater likelihood of reaching the non-public growth objectives you have got set for your self. Although many take these easy issues with no consideration, they’re typically arduous to include into private habits.

Humility is a key consider private growth. It’s worthwhile to know that within the grand scheme of issues, your issues are very insignificant. Staying conscious of this can broaden your perspective and improve your quest for data, resulting in a greater you.

Set up a wet day fund. Most of us depend upon bank cards to pay for sudden bills. Nevertheless, you’ll be able to defend your self from this occurring by depositing just a few {dollars} right into a financial savings account every week. You’ll be shocked at how rapidly your emergency fund will improve. This fund will assist you to develop within the brief and long run, our debt will go down and never develop.

Deal with your self bodily to get essentially the most out of your self enchancment actions. Not getting sufficient sleep, getting quite a lot of train, and consuming nicely can assist you keep on prime of your recreation, and assist you to win at private growth. Despite the fact that it sounds easy sufficient to do, it is also one of many hardest issues to get into.

When you do not maintain your self, you will not have the ability to maintain others. Irrespective of how far alongside you’re in your private growth journey, it is advisable loosen up and replicate each occasionally.

Train is for everybody, not simply people who find themselves making an attempt to lose just a few kilos. There are various causes to train. Train stimulates the manufacturing of drugs in your physique that assist calm you.

Prepare a gathering to talk with a counselor or clergy member. These people are educated to take heed to your issues and are extremely expert. They’re there that can assist you analyze and kind by points and emotions that happen in your private journey to enlightenment. Talking with an expert is a good step towards private growth.

It’s not possible so that you can correctly look after those you like, except you maintain your self first. No matter the place you’re in your path, whether or not you’re thriving or failing, take the time to relaxation and restore your self.

Go to the films with a good friend to assist overcome nervousness. This provides you the chance to interact in a social exercise that doesn’t have quite a lot of danger. It can be an efficient manner so that you can turn out to be extra snug with being close to a big group of individuals.

Attempt speaking to the pastor at your church, or a therapist; it may possibly assist. These folks have plenty of coaching and expertise with this kind of factor. Their job is to take heed to you and your issues and assist you to acquire a brand new outlook in your state of affairs. When you communicate to an expert you’ll really feel a lot happier and more healthy.

Maybe you have got set excessive objectives for your self and preserve failing to achieve them. If that is so, it’s a good suggestion to cease and suppose why. Learn how others have succeeded on the similar factor. It’s possible you’ll discover the issue to be that you’re aiming for not possible objectives and never utilizing your sources sufficiently to perform your objectives correctly.

You need to all the time deal with everybody with respect, no matter who they’re or what they’re able to do for you. The way you deal with somebody says loads in regards to the sort of character you possess.

Attempt to rid of your lifetime of disorganization. Finishing a company undertaking will make you’re feeling assured and productive. This additionally helps relieve you from stress attributable to disorganization. When you realize the place every little thing is, you in all probability really feel calmer.

Getting out and dwelling your life can actually improve your quest for private growth. It’s worthwhile to selected to actively take part in your life as an alternative of being a spectator. Do not be a spectator who is not collaborating in your world. Take motion and dwell!

Work out what you need your life to be and do what it takes to perform it. Daydreaming about a great life shouldn’t be going to take you wherever. Take motion with the purpose of realizing your goals.

You’ll be able to discover ways to method powerful conditions in your life with out shedding your cool. Follow staying calm only one state of affairs at a time, and your capability to deal with hectic occasions will develop with every success. Take a second and focus in your respiration method.

Your physique and thoughts run collectively in good concord, so it stands to motive that the healthiness of 1 will influence on the healthiness of the opposite. Exercise commonly and attempt to devour a nutritious diet full of nutrient-rich meals. Remember {that a} wholesome physique helps guarantee a wholesome thoughts.

Consolation buying shouldn’t be a good suggestion. When you follow one thing you want as an alternative of buying, you’ll not spend some huge cash and get into debt.

Are you inflicting your self pointless stress? Keep calm and apply rational evaluation to your state of affairs. You’ll be able to normally repair any mistake, or discover a option to work round it. Take a look at what you have obtained as an alternative of specializing in what you misplaced.

Your physique’s well being and your psychological well being are two sides of the identical coin, and every has a detailed impact on the opposite. Train commonly and eat a scrumptious and nutritious diet of nutritious meals. At all times keep in mind that wholesome minds and our bodies stroll by life collectively.

Try to discover new methods to problem your self. These challenges can open new doorways and develop higher character and character. You would possibly be taught new concepts and domesticate new abilities. It’s possible you’ll even be fortunate sufficient to do one thing that has by no means been executed by anybody. Do what you wish to do, somewhat than what others do.

As you’ll be able to see, private growth is less complicated than it seems to be. By breaking your self enchancment course of into small, manageable objectives, you will end up nearer to your objectives by the tip of daily. You’ll follow what you are searching for to undertake as behavior, and you will improve your personal morale to proceed. The following pointers are solely a springboard, it is as much as you to construct a greater life.

As a way to develop as an individual, a superb suggestion to comply with could be to maintain your physique. When you really feel thirsty, hungry, and many others., it is advisable right that problem straight away. Begin to take heed to what your physique is telling you, and act on what you are listening to. You will turn out to be higher attuned, and the end result will likely be higher total private growth. Ignoring these wants might trigger your physique to disregard you.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

warcinfo:
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2020-05
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for January 2020
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-129.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.16 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.1-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/


text:
Paris Adrift by E.J Swift

Image result for paris adrift
Paris was supposed to save Hallie. Now… well, let’s just say Paris has other ideas.

She’s linked to a hole in time and chosen by fate to prevent a terrible war. Tumbling through Paris’ turbulent past and future, Hallie changes the world—and falls in love.

But with every trip, she loses a little of herself, and every change she makes ripples through time, until the future she’s trying to save suddenly looks nothing like what she hoped for… (taken from Amazon)

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion. This will be available on February 4th.

What first interested me in this book was its comparison to Midnight in Paris, a movie that I love. I can’t say I see much of a resemblance, aside from the obvious (they both involve Paris), but I’m grateful for that blurb because otherwise this book might have passed me by.

Hallie is our main character, a woman who feels out of place in her own skin. She’s decided to travel to Paris, more to run away from something than to run toward anything. There, she gets a job at a bar and joins an eclectic group of friends. She finds a sense of family, a boyfriend, and-oh yeah- a time anomaly in a taproom. Soon, Hallie is traveling through both the past and future, making changes. Whether she’s fixing things, or causing irreparable damage remains to be seen.

On the surface, my description probably makes this book sound like a lighthearted romp. It isn’t at all. It explores the idea of small changes having big impacts, discusses problems in our present, and touches on themes of self-acceptance and change. It does all that in a fast-moving, unique way. I loved it.

There were several things that set this book apart from other time-traveling books. There wasn’t nonstop action, the futuristic gadgetry wasn’t everywhere, and a good chunk of time spent was actually traveling to the past as opposed to the future. I tend to shy away from books involving time travel because it’s hard for me to handle the problems that tend to arise when writing about that subject. This book handles those stumbling blocks with aplomb.

I liked the bohemian feel of the group of friends, how they were all dissatisfied with how the world works and desperately wanted to affect change, but were unsure how to start. I think many people can relate to that (and no, I’m not going to start a religious or political argument, I promise). I actually think the conversations Hallie had with her friends were some of the most interesting parts of the book. You know a writer is talented when the musings and dialogue are just as interesting as any action scene, if not more so.

While there was a climax of events, what I most enjoyed was how things got there. The ending, while good, almost didn’t matter because the meat of the story was so well done. I definitely recommend reading this one.

The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Image result for the tiger and the wolf"In the bleak northern crown of the world, war is coming . . .

Maniye’s father is the Wolf clan’s chieftain, but she’s an outcast. Her mother was queen of the Tiger and these tribes have been enemies for generations. Maniye also hides a deadly secret. All can shift into their clan’s animal form, but Maniye can take on tiger and wolf shapes. She refuses to disown half her soul so escapes, rescuing a prisoner of the Wolf clan in the process. The killer Broken Axe is set on their trail, to drag them back for retribution.

The Wolf chieftan plots to rule the north and controlling his daughter is crucial to his schemes. However, other tribes also prepare for strife. Strangers from the far south appear too, seeking allies in their own conflict. It’s a season for omens as priests foresee danger and a darkness falling across the land. Some say a great war is coming, overshadowing even Wolf ambitions. A time of testing and broken laws is near, but what spark will set the world ablaze? (taken from Amazon)

I received this book as winner in a contest, courtesy of the author and Dave at the Write Reads.

Bleak in some ways, yet utterly compelling, this book is a masterpiece. It’s unlike many other fantasies that I’ve read. Instead of a linear story, where I have an idea of where things are going, this felt more like a window into a world. The story was less important than the book as a whole, if that makes sense.

In this world, humans can shift into animal shapes. It feels very tribal, in that there are clans and each clan can shift into only one shape (that of the clan’s animal totem). Maniye is an exception. She’s the daughter of the Wolf clan’s chief, but her mother was of the Tiger clan. Maniye can shift into both forms. This is an ability she hides, only known to herself and her clan’s priest, who is most definitely not on her “side.”

Instead of discussing where the story goes, I’m only going to say that in many ways it’s a coming-of-age tale. Maniye struggles with her identity, her messed-up relationship with her father, and finding her place in the world. The fact that the world features shape-shifters, and many fights, is a benefit to the reader.

The strength in the writing, for me, comes down to the excellent world-building. While the characters and story are interesting, the world is engrossing. I loved reading about the different tribes and how their lifestyles varied from each other. I especially liked the Laughing Men. The idea was so original!

This book will not be for everyone. It’s not your usual fantasy. It’s stark and without fantastical frills (if that makes sense). It is, however, incredibly good.

I highly recommend this book to fantasy readers who like fully-realized worlds, and don’t mind slower builds.

One? by Jennifer L. Cahill

Image result for one by jennifer cahill

                   It’s London in the mid-nineties before Facebook, iPhones and ubiquitous wifi.
Zara has just moved to London for her first real job and struggles to find her feet in a big city with no instruction manual. Penelope works night and day in an investment bank with little or no time for love. At twenty-eight she is positively ancient as far as her mother is concerned and the pressure is on for her to settle down as the big 3-0 is looming. Charlie spends night and day with his band who are constantly teetering on the verge of greatness. Richard has relocated to London from his castle in Scotland in search of the one, and Alyx is barely in one place long enough to hold down a relationship let alone think about the future. One? follows the highs and lows of a group of twenty-somethings living in leafy SW4. (taken from Amazon)

Thank you to the author for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion. This book is available now.

After reading the blurb about One?, I was expecting a bit of a FRIENDS vibe. Instead, it felt a bit more like the show Sex and the City. There is a difference, and it does come into play in my review, so please bear with me.

This book felt like gossip between friends, which is the feeling I got from the (maybe one) episode of Sex and the City that I’ve seen. It seemed sort of bubbly, for lack of a better term. It’s about four roommates as they navigate life. There’s Zara, the new girl; Penelope, who’s a bit of a partier; Gerry, who’s supposed to be hot stuff; and Charlie, a musician.

The theme of the book is relationships. It focuses on the relationships the roommates have with each other, as well as those they have with others. It’s not quite my bag, but I can absolutely see the appeal of this book to those whose taste lean toward the sweet and romantic.

My biggest pet peeve with this book happens to be the punctuation. Commas were often used in place of periods, which frustrated me. There was also a liberal smattering of exclamation points. I think an editor could easily help with that, but it was irritating.

My end verdict is that if light romantic contemporary fiction is a genre you gravitate to, you’ll enjoy this book.

                                                              About the Author

Jennifer was born in Dublin in Ireland and was educated at University College Dublin. She honed both her ability to write, and her love of writing, in UCD while studying Spanish, which was one half of her International Commerce degree. She went on to Business School in Dublin and moved to London after graduating, and life has never been quite the same for her since. When she is not writing she works with individuals and blue-chip clients to help them navigate and master change. She spent ten lovely years living in Clapham and now lives in Notting Hill in West London.

                                              About the author, in her own words:

I write contemporary fiction and try to capture the essence of a place and time in my books. Above all, my aim is to make you laugh, and hopefully learn a little, as you recognise yourself, your friends and your exes in my books. I love hearing from my readers, and you can contact me via my website, or @JLCAuthor on Twitter.

Always Gray in Winter by Mark J. Engels

9781945247194: Always Gray in Winter
      A distant daughter. A peculiar device. A family lineage full of secrets. When werecat Pawlina Katczynski finally resurfaces, her location previously unknown to anyone close to her, the reunion is short of welcomed. Instead, she finds herself thrust tooth and nail—tooth and claw—into a feud between opposing werecat clans as her family and their enemies reignite a battle that has raged for years. Always Gray in Winter invites the reader to join the feud and see if blood is truly thicker than water… (taken from Amazon)

Thank you to the author for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Unfortunately, this book wasn’t for me. I don’t often read militaristic books, which could have a lot to do with it, but I spent a good chunk of the book feeling confused. The story was told from many different points of view: Hana, Mawro, Pawly, and Lenny to name a few. I struggled to keep track of what was happening to each of them.

I found the idea of feud between two clans interesting, and would have liked to know more about the origin of the feud. While it was a cool jumping-off point, I felt that it could have been explored more.

As I said above, I don’t often read military books. Many of the things that are probably completely understandable completely threw me. I had to reread a few sections to make sure I hadn’t missed something. There was also a flashback that confused me. I struggled to figure out where the flashback began and ended, if that makes sense.

I did like the idea of werecats being the subject of the book. I’m a big fan of creativity in books, and I must say that this was a very creative concept. However, I’m wondering if it would work better as a graphic novel, or maybe even an anime-style cartoon. Seeing it unfold, as opposed to trying to keep track of the many characters, might clear up some of my confusion.

Have you read this book? What did you think? Maybe I need to read it again? Let me know your thoughts!

The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington

As destiny calls, a journey begins.

It has been twenty years since the godlike Augurs were overthrown and killed. Now, those who once served them — the Gifted — are spared only because they have accepted the rebellion’s Four Tenets, vastly limiting their powers.

As a Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war lost before he was even born. He and others like him are despised. But when Davian discovers he wields the forbidden power of the Augurs, he and his friends Wirr and Asha set into motion a chain of events that will change everything.

To the west, a young man whose fate is intertwined with Davian’s wakes up in the forest, covered in blood and with no memory of who he is…

And in the far north, an ancient enemy long thought defeated begins to stir. (taken from Amazon)

                     I could honestly boil my thoughts on this book down to one word: “amazing.” This book has everything I like in a fantasy (except for dragons). I immediately became engrossed in the story, enough so that I bought the sequel about halfway through reading this first installment.

The world is fully developed, and the history is fascinating. There used to be people known as augers, who wielded extreme magical abilities. They- and their allies, known as “gifted”- were defeated before the book opens. Throughout the book, the fallout from that defeat, as well as the changes in laws and how they affect the world, often comes into play.

Davian finds out he has the (now forbidden) powers of an auger. He is given a talisman, and told to follow it to learn how to use those abilities. His best friend, Wirr, goes with him. They learn that Devaed, an ancient enemy, has been marshaling his armies, and is prepared to bring war and destruction down upon everyone.

From there, things become complicated. Stakes are raised, new friends, (as well as new enemies) are introduced. Sometimes the enemies are confused with friends. Not everyone is who they say they are, and several characters have hidden agendas. I loved every moment of intrigue, every revelation, and every sword thrust. It was epic.

All of the characters were fantastic, but two really stood out to me. I loved Wirr. He was complicated and smart, and he thought ahead. He was an intriguing character because of his ability to look at the bigger picture. I also loved Caedan. He’s the very definition of a conflicted character. He has no memories, and has been accused of a horrific crime. He can’t say with certainty that he is innocent, and I adored that about him. I am a huge fan of complicated characters, and his storyline was excellent.

Another great thing about this book is that not everything was wrapped into a neat little package by the end of the book. I’m desperate to dive into the sequel and see what happens next. There are so many things that were only hinted at, and I’m curious to see how they play out. I have theories, but I could be dead wrong. I was completely off about one of the characters in this book, which was excellent. Usually I can see things coming a mile away, but this caught me off guard.

Basically, this book is incredible. If you like fantasy at all, read this book as soon as humanly possible.

Have you read this? What did you think?

The Woman in the Mirror by Rebecca James- ARC Review

Image result for the woman in the mirror by rebecca james
For more than two centuries, Winterbourne Hall has stood atop a bluff overseeing the English countryside of Cornwall and the sea beyond.

In 1947, Londoner Alice Miller accepts a post as governess at Winterbourne, looking after Captain Jonathan de Grey’s twin children. Falling under the de Greys’ spell, Alice believes the family will heal her own past sorrows. But then the twins’ adoration becomes deceitful and taunting. Their father, ever distant, turns spiteful and cruel. The manor itself seems to lash out. Alice finds her surroundings subtly altered, her air slightly chilled. Something malicious resents her presence, something clouding her senses and threatening her very sanity.

In present day New York, art gallery curator Rachel Wright has learned she is a descendant of the de Greys and heir to Winterbourne. Adopted as an infant, she never knew her birth parents or her lineage. At long last, Rachel will find answers to questions about her identity that have haunted her entire life. But what she finds in Cornwall is a devastating tragic legacy that has afflicted generations of de Greys. A legacy borne from greed and deceit, twisted by madness, and suffused with unrequited love and unequivocal rage. (taken from Amazon)

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion. This will be available on March 17th, 2020.

Eerie and compelling, this is a perfect rainy day read. I had a hard time putting this book down; I was so completely immersed in the odd, spooky story of the Winterbourne women.

This book took place in two separate times, with the narrative switching easily back and forth. Alice went to the Winterbourne estate in 1947 to become a governess (why is it always a governess in spooky stories?), the previous governess having vacated the position abruptly. Alice immediately falls in love with everything about Winterbourne, from the two children she nannies to the widower who also lives there. However, all is not idyllic. Something is off, and things start to spiral out of control.

In many ways, this made me think of The Turn of the Screw. At times, I wasn’t sure whether Alice was the most trustworthy of narrators. As she descended into madness (or did she?), it became more and more difficult to discern what was really happening. The changeable nature of both the book and Alice were fascinating.

The other part of the narrative took place in present day and followed a woman named Rachel. She learns that she’s inherited Winterbourne, as well as a host of unanswered questions about who her relatives were. I didn’t connect with her character at all; in fact, she really annoyed me for a good chunk of time. I didn’t like that she was so wishy-washy. The parts with her in it were less interesting to me than the parts about Alice.

The atmosphere of the book was excellent. There was something about the way it was written that conveyed tension and a sense of wrongness, without ever overdoing it. Each word was placed with care and used to great effect.

My big quibble with the book is that the female characters had terrible taste in guys, every last one of them. I really couldn’t understand what the draw was to the widower, in particular. He was a world-class jerk. However, the rest of the book was excellent.

I highly recommend this one.

Kingdom for a Stage by Heidi Heilig

Image result for kingdom for a stage
Jetta is a wanted criminal. The army wants her for treason against the crown, for the sabotage of Hell’s Court temple, and for the murder of General Legarde. They also want her for the power in her blood―the magic that captures wandering spirits to give life to puppets, to rocks, to paper . . . to weapons. They’re willing to trade the elixir that treats Jetta’s madness for the use of her blood. The rebels want her, too, to help them reclaim their country. Jetta may be the one who can tip the scales in this war.

But Jetta fears using her power will make her too much like Le Trépas, the terrifying and tyrannical necromancer who once held all Chakrana under his thumb―and who is Jetta’s biological father. She’s already raised her brother from the dead, after all. And scared off Leo, the only person who saw her as she truly is. With Le Trépas at large and a clash between the army and the rebels becoming inevitable, Jetta will have to decide if saving her country is worth sacrificing her soul. (taken from Amazon)

There are spoilers for For a Muse of Fire (first in the series) below. You can find my review for that book here.

                                                     ** Here Be Spoilers**

                          Oh man, I loved this book! From the plot-line to the characters, everything was done well. It was a worthy sequel to For a Muse of Fire, which was a huge relief after some of the sequels I’ve read lately.

Jetta is a great character. She’s tough without being cold and emotionless. In fact, her emotions are a big part of what makes her so tough. She has an illness that is most definitely bipolar (as confirmed by the author). I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but books that feature mental illness with consideration and respect automatically get extra points from me. This one in particular means a lot, since I also have bipolar. It is a mental illness that is rarely represented in YA, and even more rarely mentioned in the fantasy genre. Heidi Heilig’s choice to not only feature it in a fantasy, but to show both the positive and negative aspects of it is pretty stinking cool. But I digress.

In this book, Jetta has been offered a medication that will help with her illness, in exchange for the use of her blood by the crown. Whoever uses the blood can bind souls to inanimate objects, essentially animating-and controlling-them. The crown wants to use her power as a weapon against the rebels, who Jetta sympathizes with.

The rebels also want to use Jetta. Meanwhile, she’s afraid to use her power at all, worrying that it will make her like her biological father. He’s a monstrous necromancer, and everyone is afraid of what would happen if he- or another like him- came to power.

Of course, there’s also ye random romantic entanglement with Leo, another rebel. I’m not a huge fan of their relationship because it often came across as an unnecessary distraction from the rest of the plot, but I admittedly don’t like most dramatic bookish relationships.

I liked that Heilig didn’t pull punches. I was justifiably concerned about what would happen to some of the characters in the book. I like when an author gives things a sense of urgency, and she does that very well. I raced through this book, enjoying every moment of it.

I feel like this series is very underrated and deserves way more hype. It’s well-written and fast-paced, with memorable characters and an interesting plot. The mental illness representation just pushes it even higher in my esteem. I highly recommend this book.

Have you read this book? What did you think?

Reverie by Ryan La Sala- ARC Review

All Kane Montgomery knows for certain is that the police found him half-dead in the river. He can’t remember anything since an accident robbed him of his memories a few weeks ago. And the world feels different―reality itself seems different.

So when three of his classmates claim to be his friends and the only people who can tell him what’s truly going on, he doesn’t know what to believe or who he can trust. But as he and the others are dragged into unimaginable worlds that materialize out of nowhere―the gym warps into a subterranean temple, a historical home nearby blooms into a Victorian romance rife with scandal and sorcery―Kane realizes that nothing in his life is an accident, and only he can stop their world from unraveling. (taken from Amazon)

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for honest opinion. This is available in stores now.

What drew me to the book was the comparison to Inception, a mind-bending movie that I really liked, though the gorgeous cover definitely helped. I’m a big fan of twisty plots, so I had high hopes.

This book just didn’t do it for me. It felt too big, and at times I worried that the plot had gotten away from the author. I’m not sure that makes much sense, but it’s the impression I had. It’s difficult to become immersed in a book when you are unsure if the author can deliver on what he set out to do. It was actually mildly stressful.

The characters didn’t really stand out all that much to me. One of them actually shot rainbows, and I couldn’t stop thinking of Aoyama from My Hero Academia: he has a laser that shoots from his naval and for some reason that image kept popping into my mind as I read this. Poesy, the drag queen sorceress was my favorite by far. The other characters just didn’t interest me.

The concept was interesting, but felt a bit shaky on delivery. The descriptions were fantastic, however, and I consider the prose itself the strong point of this book. La Sala definitely knows how to turn a phrase.

I think this is one of those books that many people will love;  it just didn’t butter my biscuit.

Cadaver Swords by Emmett Swan- ARC Review

Image result for cadaver swords
Chimber was a master grave digger and knew his business. But when the Queen of the nation of Dalmeer called out the Gravedigger’s Guild to bury thousands of citizens that had perished from a mysterious poison-laced cloud, he was not prepared for what he found. Before his very eyes, bodies thought dead began to rise up, walk, and huddle together in dark groups. Soon, an unstoppable cadaver army was laying waste to the land.

With the good people of Dalmeer under siege and the army in disarray, Chimber wants to do his part to defend his home town. But as a gravedigger, he isn’t usually needed until after the killing is done. As he watches a battle unfold from the cover of a nearby hill, an unflappable female warrior gets felled from her horse by a mob of cadavers. Risking life and limb, he slides down to the battlefield and manages to save her life.

Chimber and the warrior establish a bond and agree to journey into the Northern Wastes to find the one being that may be able to save the nation—the mysterious Medium of the Blue Mountain. But she is surrounded by a strange tribe of female ice pixies that have little interest in helping those from the southern lands.

If Chimber can convince the Medium of the Blue Mountain to join their cause and return to Dalmeer’s capital city in time, they just may save the people of the land from the bite of cadaver swords. (taken from Amazon)

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion. This book is available now.

Epic in scale, this was a slow read for me.  It took me a very long time to get all the way through. However, once I did, I ended up really enjoying it.

With this book, what stood out to me was the world-building. It was so incredibly creative! The setup of the geography was pretty cool. There were several islands within relatively close proximity, which made the timing more believable. I am a big fan of fantasy books that feature a journey of some sort because it allows for so many different kinds of encounters, so that was a win for me.

Climber’s buddy Jern was probably my favorite character. The relationship between the two was fun to read. I know I’ve mentioned in other posts that I don’t always like the main character, but I did enjoy Climber. It was good to read a main character that wasn’t a giant ball of angst.

The author was very judicious with his fight scenes. They were well-written, but they weren’t the crux of the story. I liked that he understood the fine balance between action and story. Many authors rely too much on one or the other.

I recommend this one to fantasy readers who don’t mind some slow set-up.

Have you read this book? What did you think?

Death Train and Anxious Anna by Daye Williams

Anxious Anna & The Souls by [Williams, Daye] DEATH TRAIN by [Williams, Daye]

Thank you to the author for providing me with these novellas in exchange for my honest opinion.

I went back and forth on whether to review these two novellas in one post, or separately. I finally decided on one because they both examine similar themes, albeit from different angles.

Death Train is about a man who stores aboard a train that delivers souls to the Underworld. He is attempting to save the souls of his deceased loved ones. While this story is ostensibly about saving his family, what made me invested in this story are the underlying themes of grief, and dealing with loss.

The story moves along quickly without ever feeling trite. While the descriptions are absolutely incredible, sometimes I’d get lost in them and have to remind myself of what was happening. Daye Williams has a very detailed writing style. It was fascinating to get a glimpse into his mind, so to speak. I quite enjoyed this one.

Anxious Anna also explores themes of mortality and the fear of the unknown. This story is about a young girl who, on her eighth birthday, is so terrified by the idea of growing old and dying that she manages to break the binds of Time and goes on a journey wherein she must come to grips with her fears and decide whether to return home.

This one was a little more difficult for me to grasp. Again, it was very well-written, but I felt a little lost at times. The descriptions were beautiful, but I couldn’t connect with Anna as easily. Taken separately, both of these novellas are good. Read back-to-back (I read Anxious Anna first), they paint a vivid picture and are thought-provoking. These stories can be read quickly, but they’ll stick with you and make you think.

Have you read either of these novellas? What did you think?


text:
During the 1990s I was predominantly focussed on my educational work, which took me far and wide. I was, however, based in England and had the privilege of teaching art and design to enthusiastic students at Brockwood Park School in Hampshire. My own works evolved quite naturally out of classroom projects with students, and reflect the two-way flow of inspiration that took place between us.

Please click on the titles below the detail thumbnails to view full-size images and notes.


WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: application/xhtml+xml

text:
Sponsored Links

Want to beat your Scrabble friends no matter where you are?

Word Solver Android AppWordSolver Android App!

1 Definition of Specie

The definition of specie, the meaning of the word Specie:

Is specie a scrabble word? Yes!

  • n. - Coins collectively

Synonyms of specie

Show Advanced Options

Specie is worth 10 points in Scrabble, and 12 points in Words with Friends

There are 6 letters in specie: C E E I P S

1 Anagram of Specie

Words that start with specie

Words that contain specie

Words that end with specie

Words that can be created with an extra letter added to specie:

43 words found using the letters in "Specie"

6 Letter Words

5 Letter Words

4 Letter Words

Sponsored Links

3 Letter Words

2 Letter Words


text:
Mockingjay Soundtrack Released, Stop What You’re Doing And Pre-Order Now!!

The track list for Mockingjay was released today and if you have not pre-ordered it, I would rethink your priorities.

Screen Shot 2014-10-21 at 2.16.34 PM

Lorde, who was personally hand-picked to curate the soundtrack for the film, sure put a lot of time, creativity, and thought into the music and artist selection. The two previous soundtracks have included artist such as Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Of Monster and  Men. The soundtracks included both an eclectic accumulation of music from indie hits to alternative rock. Just from reading the list of artist that were handpicked by Lorde, the Mockingjay soundtrack looks like it will have a bit of a darker side to it. The collection of artist that were picked have more of a  R&B and hip hop background. It seems fitting to stick to that style of music to add to the deeper feelings and the emotional twist and turns that will be present in the third installment of The Hunger Games.

via iTunes

via iTunes

“Yellow Flicker Beat” was the initial single off of the soundtrack and in typical Lorde fashion it did not disappoint. (More info on “Yellow Flicker Beat” and to listen the full song, click here!) Lorde went solo on the first hit to draw attention to the record, and will make an appearance on a few of the other songs on the soundtrack. Lorde did not shy away from getting insane collaborations for the soundtrack. I mean, who else can get HAIM, Pusha T, and Q-Tip on the same song with Lorde!??! Other artist include XOV, Charli XOX, not to mention a brand new track from Grace Jones. Also, did I mention Kayne West stopped by to contribute!?

The latest single of the soundtrack is by The Chemical Brothers, featuring Miguel, titled “This Is Not A Game.” Check it out here.

The track combines the style of alternative rock, a bit of rap and hip hop, and a touch of EDM. Oh and Lorde causally stops by with a few tunes during the song.

Here’s a full track list for Mockingjay soundtrack.

1. Meltdown – Stromae ft. Lorde, Pusha T, Q-Tip & Haim
2. Dead Air – CHVRCHES
3. Scream My Name – Tove Lo
4. Kingdom – Charli XCX ft. Simon Le Bon
6. Lost Souls – Raury
7. Yellow Flicker Beat – Lorde
8. The Leap – Tinashe
9. Plan The Escape (Son Lux Cover) – Bat For Lashes
10. Original Beast – Grace Jones
11. Flicker (Kanye West Rework) – Lorde
12. Animal – XOV
13. This Is Not A Game – The Chemical Brothers ft. Miguel
14. Ladder Song – Lorde

Also, what is with track number five?!? I am really hopping the rumors are true and the spot is being filled by The Lumineers with an a cappella appearance by Jennifer Lawrence singing “The Hanging Tree.” Guess we will find out soon enough! The full album will be released on November 17th.

Also bonus footage! With tickets being released for pre-sale this week, Doritos teamed up to bring us short tv-spots. Check out this clip where we get the first glimpse of what is really happening to Peeta while in The Capitol.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Logo

You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s


text:
Sensitivity in a Sentence  🔊

Definition of Sensitivity

the tendency to be easily upset, influenced, changed, or damaged by outside factors

Examples of Sensitivity in a sentence

Because of her sensitivity to sunlight, the woman has to protect her fragile skin. 🔊

The child’s sensitivity allowed her to be upset by every cruel and unkind word that was said to her. 🔊

While pregnant, the woman has a sensitivity to smell and can’t stand the stench of eggs. 🔊

Other words in the Negative Emotions category:

Most Searched Words (with Video)


text:
Artist Cathy Wade worked closely with Clifton Steel to produce a new piece of public art for Longbridge. We talked to her about the production process.

WB: Can you briefly outline the project – what it was, where it was and why it was!

CW: ‘Star Map’ is a work made from laser cut stainless steel that came out of long term research undertaken during my residency with WERK’s Longbridge Public Art Project. It is directly informed by conversations with residents about the history of the site and the diverse skills that were gathered together by the creation of Lord Austin’s factory at Longbridge. I mapped the Longitude and Latitude and date of Lord Austin’s first speculative site visit to the car plant to explore the night sky present that evening. This enabled me to look at a specific situation and place, that has been through much flux and change through a single enduring event. The night sky is a constant for us, it shifts with time and seasons and gives us a guide to our location, this all felt very pertinent to the redevelopment of the wider site, that the role of the factory should offer a wider citation of the ingenuity and skills present in Longbridge.

Philips Planisphere, 1900

WB: How did you come to work with Clifton Steel? It sounds like it was a conscious decision to manufacture locally? Was that important to you?

CW: It was integral to the works connection to history and site to work with a local manufacturer. This has been a constant throughout my work for the project and often leads to unexpected and rich conversations. For instance, Service Point Birmingham have been really great at supporting my last minute deadlines and demands for A0 neon prints; ever since one of their workers drove past a set of posters I had made for a project with Turves Green School on their commute home. As ‘Star Map’ focusses on the specialist skills that manifested in Longbridge it would have been a great shame to bypass the potential for a really beneficial conversation with a manufacturer in the city, for a project that you order in from somewhere else. A few years back I attended a talk by Mike Smith Studio and was really struck by the conversation that was being had about the presence that artists had through the manufacturing process, that they were there all the time or handed over the plans and waited for the final result. I really wanted to be able to see what was happening with the work and understand the complexities of its transformation from a graphic into a physical work.

WB: How did the process of working with Roger and Clifton work? Was it a simple ‘translating’ job, i.e. you had a very clear idea before you started and they just realised it, or was it more of a conversation where the work developed though your engagement with Clifton Steel? Was there anything unexpected?

CW: The first conversation I had with Roger was about the maximum dimensions that they could laser cut a sheet of steel, luckily what could be cut pretty much mapped what I needed. Roger totally got the project, which was an amazing thing to have with a manufacturer, so it was a case of designing the work and delivering it in a format that could be interpreted by a laser cutter. I explored how the scale of ‘Star Map’ would work through an exact size drawing in my studio. I wanted a sense that the work was not going to disappear on the wall it is placed on, and that it worked as a constituent part of the wider lighting scheme I was working on.

Cathy Wade Star Map Drawing, (detail)

I was keen at this point not to work digitally, that the laser cut marks should reflect my drawing process and feel organic in the final work. The drawing was then translated into a CAD file, which was the crucial point in which the work would either land or completely fail. Here Clifton was really supportive and allowed me to be present through this process, we discussed the elements of the work that could be laser cut and those that needed to be engraved. The work has been formed by Clifton’s understanding of materials and their willingness to really converse with you how best to realise what the work could be. We had to resolve how to make the work into a lightbox and this was where Roger really problem solved things in a way that I would have struggled to do. I really appreciate the skills that they brought to the work, and the interest that they took in its creation and realisation.

Weirdly the most difficult point in the project was the works installation, we had to drill a hole through an external wall to get to the works fuse box. This involved getting one of the biggest drill bits that any of us will see in many years.

Cathy Wade, Star Map, Stainless Steel and LED lighting, commissioned as part of Longbridge Public Art Project (LPAP) by WERK, manufactured by Clifton Steel, 2016.

WB: How long did the whole process take?

CW: Any project in the public realm has a long time scale, from its proposal as part of a wider scheme, the discussions that are undertaken with planners, developers and engineers. As with all works made over a long time period ‘Star Map’ went through many changes, how it functions and what it says was looked at with a high degree of criticality that helped the work develop its character as an element of the lived environment of Longbridge. From the initial commission discussions with St Modwen’s to the works final installation was just under two years. In terms of the works manufacture, once we had agreed the plan for the work it was manufactured in stages of cutting, polishing, engraving and proofing for the external environment.

WB: Top tips – would you do anything differently next time? Did anything work particularly well? Or not turn out quite like you anticipated. What would you tell yourself if you could go back to the future!

CW: I would always like to go back into the future …. imagine the potential there. If I was to go back to look at this project, I’d tell myself that Clifton Steel were going to be great supporters throughout the whole process and that they were going to realise ‘Star Map’ to exactly the level that I hoped the work could manifest at. When I went to see them in December last year, I realised that they had produced something that lit and unlit felt really exciting to me. That it had been a real privilege to work with them and that if I really needed to extend anything it would be my working knowledge of the fonts I could use for the work. It’s always tricky to put text next to an image, it can make both elements feel over obvious. It’s the one aspect of the work that I sometimes look at and wonder how else it could function, but that’s what development of your practice is there for. ‘Star Map’ is the anchor of the wider lighting scheme, there are a lot of other aspects that I’m still finessing in terms of how the lighting round it can work. I really enjoy the fact that it now has it’s own life, switching off and on with evening and dawn and that it will be a constant (as much as any public work can be) for the pedestrian route into Longbridge.

You can find out more about Cathy at


text:
China’s Ultra-Rich Lawmakers Make U.S. Officials Look Poor

  • Share
  • Read Later
Feng Li / Getty Images

One of China's richest men, Zong Qinghou (Left), chairman of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., leaves the Great Hall of the People after a session of China's National People's Congress on March 10, 2011 in Beijing, China.

Talk about the 1%. The richest 70 members of China’s legislature added more to their wealth in just the last year than the combined net worth of all 535 members of the U.S. Congress, the President and his Cabinet, and the nine Supreme Court justices, Bloomberg reports.

Here’s how the numbers stack up: The top 660 U.S. officials pooled from all branches of government have a combined net worth of $7.5 billion, Bloomberg finds. That’s nearly 35% less than the $11.5 billion that China’s 70 lawmaker tycoons added to their riches last year. Their total net worth stands at 565.8 billion yuan ($89.8 billion), according to figures from the Hurun Report, a Shanghai-based magazine that publishes a Chinese rich-list every year. “It is extraordinary to see this degree of a marriage of wealth and politics,” Kenneth Lieberthal, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at Washington’s Brookings Institution told Bloomberg. “It certainly lends vivid texture to the widespread complaints in China about an extreme inequality of wealth in the country now.”

(MORE: Revolt in China: After Protests, a Village Gets Blockaded by Local Authorities)

In the last three decades, China has staged something of an economic miracle. Through economic reforms and rapid urbanization, it has lifted over 600 million of its 1.3 billion citizens out of poverty, according to World Bank estimates. Clocking a growth rate of 10%, China surpassed Japan in 2010 to become the world’s second largest economy. But progress in China has been uneven at best and many have slipped through the cracks of its economic evolution. China’s per capita annual income in 2010 was $2,425, less than in Belarus and a fraction of the $37,527 in the U.S., Bloomberg points out. And much like other rapidly developing economies, the Asian giant is grappling with income inequality. China’s Gini co-efficient, a widely recognized measure of how wealth is distributed, crossed the 0.4 mark two years ago, touching “alarming” inequality levels. (The number of billionaires in the country doubled between 2009 and 2011, according to Hurun.)This widening gap between the rich and the poor has, in recent months, been the source of much social unrest and rebellion. Last year, residents of the village of Wukan in southern China took to the streets protesting real estate deals they say have impoverished residents while enriching local leaders.

The intermingling of political power and China’s sprawling private sector is tricky business. The Communist Party has gradually increased the number of party cells it maintains inside private businesses, the Economist reports.  And it has been over a decade since those working in the private sector were first invited to join the party. (It has been reported that China’s richest man, Liang Wengen, may soon become the first private businessman to join the party’s ruling Central Committee.) China’s National People’s Congress, a nearly 3000-member legislative body that is set to resume business in Beijing on March 5, counts among its delegates some of the country’s wealthiest real estate executives and business movers and shakers. Lawmaker Zong Qinghou for instance is China’s second richest person and chairman of the beverage company Hangzhou Wahaha Group. And Wu Yajun, a legislator whose family wealth soars upwards of 40 billion yuan ($6.5 billion), is an influential property baroness.

(MORE: The U.S. and China Are Still Wary After All These Years)

It’s not as if the U.S. Congress is not dominated by the rich. The financial gap between average Americans and their representatives has considerably widened over the years, a Washington Post analysis reveals. Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives more than doubled from $280,000 to $725,000. Even so, the wealthiest member of the U.S. Congress is no match for the Chinese. Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, had a maximum wealth of $700.9 million in 2010, according to figures obtained from the Center for Responsive Politics. If he were in China’s NPC, he would be ranked 40th, according to Bloomberg.

MORE: Why Do We Fear A Rising China


text:
Pakistan Leader Calls For U.S. To End Drone Strikes

The prime minister made the comments hours before leaked documents showed a history of the Pakistani government secretly cooperating with the drone strike campaign

  • Share
  • Read Later

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan called for President Barack Obama to end the U.S. campaign of drone strikes in his country Wednesday — but the entreaty was awkwardly undercut by a report that detailed the Pakistani government’s history of secretly endorsing the the drone campaign.

Sharif’s public plea followed a meeting with Obama at the White House. He told reporters after the meeting that he “brought up the issue of drones in our meeting, emphasizing the need for an end to such strikes,” Reuters reports.

Pakistani leaders have long decried the unmanned drone program in public, but the Washington Post reported Thursday that leaked documents showed the two countries cooperated on drone strikes between 2007 and 2011.


text:
Antiwar Billboards Are Up in Ireland

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 10, 2019 Limerick, Ireland, now has billboards up at Clare Street, John Street, John Street in Waterford, and Dublin Road in Singland. The billboards are part of the promotion of an upcoming global […]

Ads Going Up on Buses in Alaska

The Alaska Peace Center is putting these ads on buses starting March 4th:

Regarding the idea that peace is boring ...

Anything War Can Do, Peace Can Do Better

By David Swanson, January 8, 2019 William James’ idea of the need to create a moral equivalent of war first struck me, decades ago, when I read about it, as about as sensible an idea as inventing a new way […]

Billboards to End War Going Up and Not Going Up

By David Swanson, Director, World BEYOND War New billboards are going up around the United States and elsewhere opposing war. Some are not going up because the message is deemed unacceptable. Many more are being planned. This ad at right […]

Billboards Project

Billboards Project

Related posts. See lots of designs here. See explanation of the 3% calculation here. World Beyond War billboards are funded entirely by contributions made here by supporters of ending war. Billboards and other big ads are going up: In September […]


text:
Hints on Heating, Heroines and Horses – Radon to Jargeau, France

The Fab Four – Ready to Roll in Radon

A Drive through Le Perche towards Orléans

I was gagging for a cuppa!

I’d used my last tea bag and my supplies were all buried somewhere within Big Blue. Mark had laid down the law; no foraging until the bikes came off the back of the van.

Since we were making a succession of brief, one-night stops to make headway away from the rain, I feared that might be some time.

Our route – south through the rain. So we re-routed…

If you wondered which route we had chosen to travel south through France, the rain in the picture above follows it exactly.

If you wondered about our re-route to avoid the rain, see the weather picture below from just a few days later. It was following us!

…except that it followed us heading east!

It is not just the weather that made mid-October an interesting time to travel. 30th September and 15th October are the magical dates in the camping calendar when most campsites close for the season. Thus, part of our planning had to centre around which campsites were still open.

Our brief and soggy overnight in Radon ended with a pack howl, initiated by our lead singer, Ruby. It was encouraging to wake and find that the torrential rain and storms of yesterday had given way to a dry, warm and even slightly sunny backdrop for our drive through the French region of Le Perche.

The Percheron – a draught horse from Le Perche region of France

It took me a while to realise that it was THE Le Perche; home to the magnificent Percheron heavy horses. Despite careful scrutiny, I caught only a glimpse of a giant, green model on a roundabout. I can’t say that it did justice to “the noblest, absolutely most gorgeous horses in the world.”

The only Percheron in Le Perche – a green model on a roundabout!

The landscape, on the other hand, led me to understand how one writer was so smitten that she bought a house there within three days! Click here to find out how such a thing can happen.

The picturesque, rural landscape of Le Perche is peppered with glorious, medieval towns, such as Bellevilliers and Bellême, which perches atop the crest of a hill. With caravan Kismet in tow, we couldn’t stop to explore, but we did admire each town as we drove through – a major benefit of avoiding the toll roads. We stopped for money in Bellême and added the whole region to our list of ‘places we must come back to.’

Luckily, I didn’t know that Bellême has a tea room serving more than twenty types of tea, or that the farm of Le Village nearby is where Laurent Renou breeds Percherons. Otherwise, I too might never have left!

Dropping out of the pastoral perfection of Le Perche, the scenery levelled into France’s larder of flat mono-culture. Approaching the mighty River Loire, the narrow road to our campsite at Jargeau passed through an encampment of travelling fairground folk. Our pitch was grass, although it didn’t seem to be too wet. On first sight, the campsite seemed idyllic; right on the banks of the Loire and within walking distance of the town.

Our pitch at Camping l’Isle aux Moulins, Jargeau

Wary of the travellers, I left Mark to set up and walked the dogs on the beach beside the river. Never mind the fairground folk, the worst hazard was the sticky burrs. As The Pawsome Foursome raced through the scrubby vegetation along the riverbank, hundreds got stuck in their coats. I had to stop every couple of minutes to tease them out, so that they didn’t matt too deeply into their coats. By the end of the walk, the tips of my fingers were sore and tingling, as though I had practised juggling using batons coated with hairy caterpillars. The absolute highlight was Lani scooting her backside straight over a little heap of burrs that I had just removed from Rosie. Not her best decision!

Later, avoiding both burrs and travellers, Mark and I strolled into town. Jargeau is not a metropolis. Its claim to fame is that Joan of Arc was wounded there while fighting off the English on 12th June 1429. A statue in the town depicts her holding her hand to the wound on her forehead.

In the 12th century church of St Etienne, whose soaring, vaulted ceilings were filled with soft, choral music, I experienced for the first time the sense of heavenliness that the cathedral builders aimed to re-create on earth. At least it helped to dispel today’s ear worm; Joan of Arc (Maid of Orleans) by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

The Pups Pose with my Ear Worm!

We fancied a beer, but honoured our commitment to Stoptober when we failed to find a bar that grabbed us. It’s not fair; with my supplies of PG Tips buried somewhere in Big Blue, I can’t even be tea total!

As we meandered back through the cobbled streets, a vivid rainbow formed over the Loire. Jargeau is close to the Forêt d’Orléans, but we didn’t love the campsite or the river walk and decided to push on. Everything in the caravan was muddy and damp; we needed to do laundry. The joys of wet-weather caravanning with four mucky pups in the mix! We had arrived too late to get anything dry, although the campsite laundry charged a rather steep €5 per load.

The remains of the rainbow over the Loire

Then, with that impeccable sense of timing that heating systems reserve for cold-snaps and Christmas Day, Kismet’s boiler packed in. The error message flashed up too briefly to read, although repeated quick glimpses eventually led to a diagnosis of an ‘Alde overheat red fail’. The manual suggested bleeding the system of air and checking the fluid level in the expansion tank. We topped up the tank with a little fluid (oooh) but thankfully didn’t need to bleed the air (ahhhh.) We checked that the circulation pump was responding and waited fifteen minutes for the fluid to cool down – and nothing happened.

So, we resorted to the Holy Grail of Hindispensible Hints – You Tube. A six-minute home video of someone burrowing beneath the cushions on their caravan sofas indicated a single, precious nugget of information; disconnect the 12V cables from the boiler and it will reset.

Oh no! Not an Overheat Red Fail!

And so it was that we and our wet caravan were returned to the wonderful world of hot water and heating!

It’s a Dog’s Life – Returned to the Wonderful World of Hot Water & Heating

Join us next time as we discover the magnificent, medieval bastions of the Bourgogne.

Need some Halloween reading? How about my latest book; Dogs n Dracula – A Road Trip Through Romania – finalist in the Romania Insider Awards! In it, you will discover the truth about Werewolves, Dracula and Prince Charles – and how to Boldly Go Where No Van Has Gone Before!

7 thoughts on “Hints on Heating, Heroines and Horses – Radon to Jargeau, France

  1. I am so glad I’ve found your blog! My terriers Derek, Roy and I are setting off in the car in the next few weeks from Wales for our winter ski season to Baqueira. Your tips are so helpful especially the info about dog fleece coats for the snow. The terrors have never been so far or ventured abroad 🙂

    1. Hi Maire – I am so glad that the blog is helpful. I know we struggled to find the information that we needed. I am sure that Derek and Roy will love the snow. I think most dogs do. Our four LOVED it the first time we came to Italy. Keep me posted and let me know how you all get on. Safe trip and enjoy Baqueira. I have never skied the Pyrenees but it looks idyllic and I am sure that I will get there onw day.

  2. We also avoided rain this year when we popped into France at the beginning of June. We had to go all the way to Perpignan after 3 days in Normandy. Totally missed the D-day celebrations. What we do to avoid bad weather. We don’t have hot water in the van, but we do have a diesel heater and a backup electric one. Not done camping in winter yet. I still need to work! Hope you have a great trip.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s


text:
Never Losing the Light: Kingdom Reward

I know so often you think of “reward” in the tangible realm. Money, friends, houses, land, jobs… and yes, these are rewards. But, only one type.

When I say, “Remember your reward” I am speaking of heaven, yes, but not just a heavenly kingdom to come.

(Oh, no.)

I am also speaking of possessing The Kingdom here and now.

My Son told you, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

Think of it!

All of the attributes of Christ and His Kingdom, My Kingdom, within you!

Is this not great reward?

How often My child you become enmeshed in gathering the trappings of an “earthly kingdom.” Wealth, position, prominence, power… how My children chase after these things! Running here, chasing there, looking, always looking to outward earthly things. But, child…

Child, I tell you, you have a glorious Kingdom dwelling within you.

I Am there.

The Spirit is there.

My Son is there.

I know these things are beyond your earthly comprehension—but not beyond your earthly possession.

(You have glory in you.)

How many of My children walk about, chasing after something so much less than they already possess.

(Not you Sweet Heart.)

You are to spread the news of My Kingdom far and wide.

(And for that, I AM glorious IN YOU.)

“… remember your reward.” Hebrews 10:35