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Last week, an obscure little videogame called Cyberpunk 2077 was released quietly to absolutely zero over-hyped expectations. For the people who happened across it, it proved to be pretty good. Just kidding, of course. The release of CP2077 was anything but quiet and as rumors of lawsuits begin to circulate, it’s likely to stay that way. But I’m not here to rehash the release drama (for more on that, start here and here). This isn’t a review; just a few half-thoughts based on my experience with the game.
I’m playing the game on the PS4 which, contrary to what you might have heard, is where the game really shines. In the game, consciousness is capable of being ‘downloaded’ onto a “stack” and then uploaded into other humans with compatible hardware, a common motif in cyberpunk stories such as Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon series that leads to the questioning of reality – is this real or just all in my ‘head’. Playing this game on the PS4, with its litany of bugs, extends this feeling to the player. Wait, is that guy just sitting on air, floating? Weren’t there like 15 NPCs here just before I turned around? Uh… Jackie, your chopsticks are freaking out, man! Why are all these NPCs doing the Jesus Christ pose? DID THAT PERSON JUST TURN INTO A TABLE? I have no fucking clue what is ‘real’ and what is the result of a damaged and deteriorating (in-game) brain or (real-life) videogame. It’s all so weird and yet fits into the diegetic logic of the world just barely enough to provide an interesting link between player and player character. Even the crashes lend the game an enhanced sense of danger: when things get choppy in the middle of a fight, you have to balance not moving too fast so as to overload the chugging system and dodging attacks.
This game is, in my mind, the first PC game ever released on consoles. I mean that somewhat literally: it remediates the experience of PC gaming for the console, or rather, the experience of trying to play games on a PC. From at least the time of the Nintendo Seal of Quality, console gaming has had one benefit over PC gaming: ease-of-use. Because the consoles are closed systems, they’re easy to design games for – not as many hardware contingencies to plan for or around. You buy a game for the N64, it’s going to play on any functioning N64, right? Windows-based PCs are a bit harder to account for – what runs perfectly on one might be a hot mess on another – and so installing and optimizing the game (and the near-inevitable troubleshooting that entails) became part of the gaming ritual on the PC. As a result, one gets used to tinkering with settings, updating drivers, and holding your breath at the occasional graphical glitch in hopes the whole program doesn’t crash. Console gamers missed out on this….until now!
Occasionally lengthy install times have been a part of console gaming since the PS3 (anyone remember heads exploding when Metal Gear Solid 4 was released?). By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about Cyberpunk 2077’s install taking roughly an hour, but really, that’s just the beginning. To get the game running on my Standard PS4 Slim, I’ve had to adjust graphical settings, turning off all the “extra” effects to improve framerate and adjusting the default gamma settings to so I can see what the hell is happening in the game’s dark spaces. Furthermore, I don’t play a lot of FPS on console so I’m very novice at aiming and looking with the thumbsticks. Luckily, CP2077 is generous with its advanced controller settings, allowing me to tinker with options like “vertical turning bonus,” “turning ramp-up time,” “turning delay,” and more, so I can adjust the way the game responds to the movement of my thumbs. All of this requires a period of trial and error as one makes small adjustments to the settings and then returns to the game to test them out.
These options are a welcome (and undoubtedly necessary in this case) addition to console games on the software side of things, but they really expose just how closed off the hardware is from us. With a PC, researching error codes is an experience fraught with anxiety but tinged with hope – there’s a fix, but it might require me to update some esoteric driver (which requires a whole new round of research and troubleshooting), or at worst, replace some component or another on my rig. Regardless of the fix, there is a feeling of agency inherent in being able to change the conditions of the machine to get the program to run (more or less) correctly. On the PS4, there is no feeling of agency once you get past the game’s internal settings. My game has crashed several times and I’ve stopped even looking up the error code. One such code (CE-34878-0) can reportedly be caused by corrupt game save files or a broken hard drive. OR it could just be a random software bug. Take your pick. All options have one thing in common: there’s not much the average PS4 owner can do about it (save shelling out for a new system in the case of the broken hard drive). My agency in those instances boil down to the choice of reporting the crash and uploading data about it, or not. Either way, I just have to hope it doesn’t happen again (or at least doesn’t happen in the middle of a mission).
This whole thing has me thinking about one of the core aspects of the cyberpunk genre: hacking. The basic tenet of any cyberpunk setting is that rules were meant to be broken: biology, social norms, any and every cyber law are all subject to the whims of the “user.” To be honest, I rolled my eyes a bit when I encountered the crafting mechanic of the game – I’m just sooo tired of its ubiquity in games right now – but I have to admit that it (the idea of crafting anyway) fits into the cyberpunk ethos. There needs to be a good deal of tinkering with the detritus of this technologic society, a “making-do” that requires an adaptive, strategic implementation of what is at hand. It is debatable whether CP2077’s crafting system captures this in any meaningful or novel way, but the hoops one has to jump through to simply play it, to my mind, leads one to a similar “hacker” disposition.
There’s no denying that Cyberpunk 2077 is a hot mess that seems to miss more than it hits. I feel for all the devs that have dreamed about its release through the last near-decade they’ve worked on it and will possibly (likely?) continue to face crunch conditions as they work to fix all the problems that clearly plague this game. The release of Cyberpunk 2077 highlights so effectively some of the major problems with the games industry on both the parts of production and demand. The leadership at CDPR has clearly, inarguably botched this project, but consumers’ demand and impatience help to reinforce the conditions that led us to this point. And the hundreds of people who’ve worked hard on this game are caught in the middle. I have faith that the game will be improved eventually, but let’s not rush it. I would rather enjoy the work of devs who are paid well and have plenty of downtime/time off months down the road than to have another hastily garbled game made by miserable people rushed out to meet the needs of the fickle “gamer” audience. In the meantime, let’s enjoy this version of Cyberpunk 2077 while it lasts.

domain: game


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PEN America Condemns Arrests of Iranian Filmmakers as a “Brazen Violation” of Human Rights
Arrests Came After Filmmakers Called on the Government to End Violence Against Protesters
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(New York, NY)—In response to news that several Iranian filmmakers—including Mohammad Rasoulof and Jafar Panahi—have been arrested after publicly calling for the Iranian government to end violence against protesters, PEN America released the following statement:
“The Iranian government’s decision to detain Mohammad Rasoulof, Mostafa Aleahmad, and Jafar Panahi marks a brazen violation of their human right to free expression and speech,” said Julie Trébault, director of the Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) at PEN America. “This is another egregious example of the Iranian government’s abuse of power by repeatedly arresting and detaining anyone who criticizes them or tries to exercise their right to free speech. We strongly condemn the detentions of Rasoulof, Aleahmad, and Pahani and call on the Iranian authorities to release them immediately, along with other imprisoned writers and public intellectuals in Iran.”
Iran is the fourth-worst jailer of writers and public intellectuals in the world, holding at least 21 writers in detention or prison for their work during 2021, according to data collected in Pen America’s the Freedom to Write Index. PEN America honored Iranian writers Baktash Abtin, Reza Khandan Mahabadi, and Keyvan Bajan with the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award in 2021, recognizing their courageous commitment to free expression in the face of great risk and imprisonment.
Filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad were arrested on July 8 for “inciting unrest” and “disrupting the psychological safety of society,” according to the state news agency IRNA. Rasoulof and Aleahmad had recently organized a group of Iranian filmmakers to publish an open letter condemning the government’s use of violence against protesters and urging authorities to “lay down their arms.” The IRNA report also referenced Rasoulof’s filmmaking as evidence of his purported history of “undermining” state security. A Dubai-based Iranian writer and producer Kaveh Farnam, who has worked extensively with Rasoulof, told Screen Daily that Rasoulof’s previous films and opinions may have also contributed to his arrest. On July 11, filmmaker Jafar Panahi was arrested outside of Evin Prison in Tehran after attempting to get information about Rasoulof’s detention.
Rasoulof and Panahi have both been detained for their work in the past and are barred by the Iranian government from making films and from leaving the country.
Mohammad Rasoulof is a director and screenwriter whose recent film There Is No Evil, was awarded with the 2020 Golden Bear for Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival, but Rasoulof is barred from traveling outside Iran and was unable to accept the award in person. The film examines the impact of the death penalty in Iran. In February 2022, Rasoulof released Intentional Crime, which examines the death in custody of Baktash Abtin, a prominent poet, filmmaker, who was the 2021 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write honoree.
A director and screenwriter prominent in the Iranian New Wave film movement, Jafar Panahi’s works include Taxi, a documentary-style film from the point of view of a Tehran taxi driver for which he won the 2015 Golden Bear for Best Film, and This is Not a Film, which Panahi made while under house arrest. Mostafa Aleahmad directed and screenwrote Poosteh.
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.
Contact: Suzanne Trimel, firstname.lastname@example.org, 201-247-5057

domain: politics


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COVID-19 still poses a substantial risk. Keeping up with masking and testing is critical for ensuring the safety of others.
WSN Editorial Board • Sep 26, 2022
The NYPD’s response to the Brooklyn subway shooting showed once again that they don’t keep us safe. It’s time to pursue other options.
WSN Editorial Board • Apr 18, 2022
The right-wing media wants you to hate unhoused people. Don’t let them egg you on.
WSN Editorial Board • Apr 11, 2022
NYU’s response to attacks on Asian students on its campus has been extremely dismissive. The university must urgently address the safety concerns of Asian students.
WSN Editorial Board • Mar 7, 2022
Mayor Adams wants to make our trains safer by removing unhoused individuals. His plan, unfortunately, relies heavily on policing and other forms of carceral violence.
WSN Editorial Board • Feb 28, 2022
By instituting discounted subway fares for the NYU community, the university could do its part to support students in need and provide stimulus to local businesses.
WSN Editorial Board • Feb 14, 2022
In light of Justice Stephen Breyer announcing his retirement, it’s time for another member of the Supreme Court to follow suit. Chief Justice John Roberts should announce his retirement to allow his seat to be filled before the midterm elections.
WSN Editorial Board • Jan 31, 2022
NYU’s “flexible” plan for in-person learning is flexible in name only. The university should require professors to offer options for remote learning.
WSN Editorial Board • Jan 24, 2022
WSN previously reported that NYU would be meeting the demonstrated financial need of every student in the class of 2025. The new policy should be extended to all current NYU students, not just the students of the future.
WSN Editorial Board • Dec 6, 2021

domain: news


Public comments on the Tri-Lakes Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) draft of the 2020 Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP) will be accepted until Saturday, April 13. The draft is available at the following locations within city limits: MPO office, 1000 Central Avenue; City Clerk’s office at City Hall, 133 Convention Boulevard; Transportation Depot, 100 Broadway Terrace; Garland County Courthouse, 501 Ouachita Avenue; and Garland County Library, 1427 Avenue. It is also available online at wcapdd.org. The document is part of the metropolitan transportation planning process. All comments must be received in writing by email or by postal service and must be postmarked by Saturday, April 13. For information call MPO Study Director Emmily Tiampati, (501) 302-5028.


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Jurgen Klopp has called on his Liverpool team to improve on their best-ever start to a Premier League season as statistics show the Christmas No 1s traditionally suffer a dip after 25 December.
"We did really well so far and we have to do even better from now on, because you can see all the other teams are doing really well," Klopp said on Monday ahead of the Boxing Day home match with Newcastle United.
Klopp's call for further improvement comes against statistics that show in all but four seasons of the Premier League the team leading at Christmas suffered a downturn in form and in points per match (ppm) thereafter.
Twice before Liverpool have led on 25 December and even though they improved their form post-Christmas each time, they could not claim an elusive first Premier League title.
The Merseysiders were overtaken by Manchester United in 2008/09 and then by Man City in 2013/14.
Only one of the four teams who led on 25 December and maintained or improved their form claimed the title. That was Jose Mourinho's Chelsea side of 2004/05, whose ppm average went up to 2.6 after Christmas.
Arsenal are the only other leaders not to suffer a slump, maintaining their form but losing out to Man Utd in 2002/03.
Fourth time lucky?
Overall, Liverpool have led three times at Christmas and not claimed a first Premier League title.
But their fans will hope that the fact the last four teams to have led the Premier League on Christmas Day have all gone on to win the title in May will be more relevant.
Fate of Christmas No 1s
|Season||Team||PPM pre-25 Dec||PPM post-25 Dec||Final pos|
*PPM denotes average points per match

domain: sports


text:
SPC and its partners intend to move the drilling rig to a new location in the eastern part of the Sampang PSC to drill a new exploration well, Herbras-1.
The Company does not expect the above to have any material impact on the earnings per share and the net tangible asset per share of the SPC group of companies for the current financial year.
SPC is a regional oil and gas company with interest in oil and gas exploration and production, refining, terminalling and distribution, marketing and trading of crude and refined petroleum products. It is an associated company of Keppel Oil & Gas Services Pte Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Keppel Corporation Limited.
SPC holds its interest in the Sampang PSC through its wholly owned subsidiary, Singapore Petroleum Sampang Ltd.
Dukuh-1 is located approximately 10 kilometers south of the Jeruk oil discovery and about 40 kilometers south east of the city of Surabaya.
Participants in the Sampang PSC upon completion of the participation by PT Petrogas Oyong Jatim in the Sampang PSC will be as follows:- Singapore Petroleum Sampang Ltd with 36%; Santos with 40.5%; Cue Sampang with 13.5% and PT Petrogas Oyong Jatim with 10%.
Santos (Sampang) Pty Ltd is an Australian based energy company, operating internationally, with interests and operations in every major Australian petroleum province and in the United States, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Egypt.
Cue Sampang Pty Ltd is an Australian publicly listed oil and gas exploration, and production company, based in Melbourne. Its operations are in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia.
Petrogas is a wholly owned subsidiary of PT Petrogas Wira Jatim ("PWJ"), a limited liability company in the form of Regional Government Business Enterprise established under the laws of Indonesia. PWJ is set-up and wholly owned by the Provincial Government of East Java, Republic of Indonesia, to manage its 10% Indonesian Participation interests within the East Java provincial boundaries such as the Sampang and Madura Offshore PSCs.
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domain: geography


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O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home!
A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone.
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
As a student at the Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio. from 1956 to 1964, I sang this hymn many times. From fourth grade on we all had to attend morning and afternoon services in the school chapel. Grade by grade, in alphabetical order by name, we twice daily filled the pews, fourth graders up front by the stage and lecturn, eighth graders in back beneath the organ loft. In five years of chapel services I gradually progressed from low-man-on-the-totem-pole status in the front row to a position with far greater prestige and a much better view about thirty feet back, all the while sitting, alphabetically, between classmates Roland Crawford and Skip Fazio. As we rose again and again, opening our worn hymnals to sing verses hinting at peace and permanence. Skip's peach fuzz turned into stubble, Roland's voice dropped an octave, and I grew at least a foot.
I believed in God, the almighty white-haired patriarch in whose honor the chapel services were held, and I didn't want to begrudge Him the daily offerings of hymns and prayers. But over the years the words "A thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone" nourished in me an inkling that there was something higher and more powerful than even God-on-High. If God's evenings lasted a thousand ages, that meant He lived a lot longer than I. But it also meant that His evenings and therefore His days, years, and life eventually ended. If He was enjoying Himself, maybe time passed too quickly, like it always does when you're having a good time. And if He wasn't enjoying Himself if angelic harp music and schoolboy hymns bored Him then what was the advantage of His longevity? In any case, time, the all-pervasive, impersonal force that was sweeping me through Hawken and through life, was apparently sweeping God too.
* * *
Coincidentally, while I was serving my pew term in Cleveland, Carl Gustav Jung, then in his eighties, was at home in Zurich, Switzerland, composing his autobiography. Writing of his own school days, Jung, the great psychologist who broke with Sigmund Freud to found the school of analytic psychology, revealed that he too had early-on developed an impersonal inkling. Jung recalled picking up a book in his father's library and reading that God was a "personality to be conceived of after the analogy of the human ego: the unique, utterly supramundane ego who embraces the entire cosmos."
God a personality? Jung wouldn't buy it. Ego and personality, he reasoned, were by nature limited and fault-ridden. If God is unlimited, if He is everything and therefore spread out everywhere, then how can He have a personality? And if He is perfect, then how dare we endow Him with an ego? Schoolboy Jung had experienced that his own ego was "vain, self-seeking, defiant, in need of love, covetous, unjust, sensitive, lazy, irresponsible," and subject to "errors, moods, emotions, passions, and sins." Certainly, he thought, the Supreme must be egoless.
Thus two twentieth-century thinkers one from Cleveland, one from Zurich came to question the supremacy of God-the-person by way of experiencing the flaws of man-the-person. How could anyone propose, both Jung and I wondered, that personality and supreme perfection are compatible?
* * *
In answering this question, India's time-honored Vedic literature discloses that Jung and I fell into the same impersonal trap.
I fell, I now realize, by mistakenly accepting the old-man conception of God and by consequently overlooking scriptural references to God's immortality. If God ages, I figured. He must die also. To this inkling Vedic authorities reply that although the Supreme Person is the original being and therefore the oldest of all. He never ages. The Brahma-samhita states, adyam purana-purusam nava-yauvanam ca: God lives eternally not as a white-haired patriarch but as a fresh blooming youth. Time can neither age Him nor deteriorate His transcendental abode. He is time, the Bhagavad-gita says. And other Vedic texts corroborate: time is the energy of the Supreme Person that sweeps the entire cosmic manifestation along to ultimate destruction. Meanwhile the Supreme Person Himself remains aloof, enjoying transcendental pastimes with His pure devotees.
But although God is a person an active enjoyer like us we shouldn't think that His character and personality are like ours in every respect. This was Jung's mistake or one of them, anyway. While Jung rightly observed that our personalities are always limited and our characters often unsavory, he wrongly concluded that God's personality would have to be the same. To refute this notion, the Srimad-Bhagavatam, which is the topmost of the Vedic texts, describes at great length the unlimited attributes and activities of God-the-person. asserting that the spiritual character of God is spotlessly free from the negative qualities our own egos presently generate. Our personalities are sometimes repugnant, but God-the-person, or, to use Srila Prabhupada's terminology, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is known as "Krsna," or "the all-attractive one."
Krsna is everything and spread out everywhere in the sense that everything is His energy, as heat and light are energies of the sun. The elements that make up our bodies and the rest of the universe are Krsna's material energy, while we ourselves the individuals who animate these bodies are eternally part of Krsna's spiritual energy. Everything within and beyond our experience emanates from Krsna.
Despite the pervasiveness of His energies, however, Krsna remains a person. If you ripped this page from the magazine, tore it to pieces, and threw it all over the room, the page would no longer be available for your edification. That's because the page is material. Krsna, however, distributes Himself all over by His "pieces" (His various energies) yet remains personally available, shining like the sun. That's because Krsna is the perfect, omnipotent, completely spiritual Personality of Godhead. He is, as Jung should have gleaned while reading his father's book, "unique" and "utterly supramundane." The Vedic literatures warn us not to rely solely on our experience and logic to understand Him.
Our own personalities are always limited, as Jung correctly observed. But they are vain, self-seeking, and in so many other ways a pain in the neck only when we forget that we are eternal parts of Krsna, and that our natural function is consequently to cooperatively serve and satisfy Him. Satisfying Krsna results in our own satisfaction, just as feeding the stomach nourishes all parts of the body. But in forgetfulness of Krsna's supremacy we vainly think ourselves supreme, falsely identify with our temporary material bodies, and seek only to satisfy our own bodily senses. This self-seeking mentality puts us at odds not only with each other but with Krsna Himself as well. In such an unnatural state of affairs our original Krsna conscious personalities show deformed and ugly faces. We should not, therefore, compare our present personalities to God's personality point for point, since such a comparison will naturally lead us to doubt, as Jung and I doubted, that the Supreme has a personality at all.
* * *
I wouldn't label Jung "impersonal" in the usual sense of that word. He was a jovial, affable man who gave full attention to the personal lives of his patients. In his writings he championed the cause of the individual over what he considered the mass-mindedness of modern societies, which reduce us individuals to a pile of statistics. Nor did Jung fail to acknowledge the important role ego plays in an individual's psychic maturation. He even flatly refused to formulate a fixed theory to explain the human psyche, because he felt that a single theory could never do justice to everyone. Theories had to be chosen and adjusted to fiteach individual. What worked for you might be detrimental to me.
Jung's adjustability makes it difficult not only to label him "impersonal" but to label him anything. Nevertheless, beginning with his childhood aversion to the idea of God-the-person, it is possible to trace an impersonalistic thread through the tapestry of his life's work. That thread is particularly evident in one of Jung's most intriguing and controversial concepts something he called "the collective unconscious."
It even sounds impersonal. And not so terribly intriguing either. "Collective" suggests the opposite of "private" or "individual." And unconscious? While a person may sometimes fall unconscious, he or she is least interesting or personable that way. "Collective unconscious" could suitably describe the ambiance of an enormous one-room flophouse, or of a mass grave.
However, just as the Vedic literature warns us not to use mundane logic to judge the Personality of Godhead, so Jung cautions that the collective unconscious is beyond our ordinary sensual and intellectual experience. It is a powerful dynamic entity. In fact, although Jung never says that God and the collective unconscious are one and the same, he does closely identify them. Psychologically speaking, man's experience of one is indistinguishable from his experience of the other.
To me that sounds unclear, and Jung is certainly hard to decipher at times. Some of his critics accuse him of obscurity, while Jung's admirers express the same idea euphemistically when they say he is "mystical" or "rich in suggestion." And Jung himself explains, "I have no definite convictions not about anything, really. . . . [But] in spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidity underlying all existence. …"
So the collective unconscious is, for certain, a Godlike "solidity underlying all existence." It is also a little more tangibly, I'd say our common heritage. Jung accepted the theory of evolution and felt that as a result of evolutionary development we all have a lot in common not only physically, but psychically as well. Evolution has given you and me a heart, a stomach, a head, a neck, ten fingers, etc. We also have egos, those conscious streams of "I am" that wend their way through our days and years from early childhood to old age. And we both have subconscious minds, whose depths harbor repressed or long-ignored desires and memories, and in whose shallows, just deep enough to keep our conscious shores litter-free, information more pertinent to our daily lives treads water, ready for quick recall.
To have these things in common doesn't mean, of course, that we literally share them, as town dwellers, for instance, used to share the town commons to graze their livestock. Your stomach won't digest what I eat, nor does my mind mull over your inner thoughts. Although our physical and psychic anatomies are identical, we have different stomachs and minds, different hearts, and, most important, different egos. We are distinct individuals.
Jung conceived of the collective unconscious, however, as something we do literally share. It is a town commons of the psyche deep within our beings, a hidden primordial psychic field on which all humanity stands and from which we all receive guidance and inspiration. Conscious egos, Jung said, are relatively recent evolutionary arrivals. They arose from the collective unconscious as plants grow from a rhizome.
Jung gave the collective unconscious credit for the back stage control of almost everything we think and do. He maintained that while our egos, with their personal wills, have an important part to play in life, we have mistakenly crowned them monarchs of our psychic territories, unaware to what degree the ego is carried along by an impersonal force beyond its grasp. That force flows from our psychic commons, from "the one psyche which embraces us all."
Which is not just intriguing, but pretty spooky, if you ask me. I have always thought of myself as an ego, as that little old stream of conscious "I am." I'll concede that my "I am" is carried along by another force a force that back at Hawken I had identified as time. But time, however mysterious, is something external that acts upon me, whereas the collective unconscious, according to Jung, is me. It's part of my own self, and of your self too. In fact, Jung defines "self " as a union, an integration, of the conscious, personal realm and the unconscious, impersonal realm of the psyche.
That's an awful lot of integration. First of all, we're integrated with each other already in that we're an outgrowth of the same "rhizome." Secondly, since that rhizome is closely identified with God, we're already integrated with Him too. And thirdly, the self itself, said Jung, is also nearly identical with God, or as Jung murkily puts it, with the God-image in the human psyche.
Follow? Let me summarize: our almost-God selves are an integration of the conscious/personal with our almost-God rhizome.
With all due respect, this is just plain mixed up. Take Jung's adjustability, add a generous dollop of uncertainty, blend everything with a gallon or two of obscurity, and you've got an exasperatingly convoluted, richly-suggestive Jungian goo. Here a Jungian might remind me that Jung never claimed to have a clear theoretical framework. He called his work "a circumambulation of unknown factors." A Jungian might also point out that the collective unconscious, being in many respects the opposite of consciousness, is by nature irrational and therefore difficult, even impossible, to define or describe. Upon introduction to our antithetical psychic partner, we chauvinistic egos are bound to feel befuddled and threatened.
I can't swallow these explanations either. There's something insidious about them. I haven't yet accepted the collective unconscious as my psychic partner, and look at what Jung is asking me to do. He's suggesting that I integrate my long-separated psychic neighborhood, making room for this total stranger, this foreigner from the other side the unconscious side of the psychic tracks. Jung even has the nerve to suggest that this spooky stranger was here first, that he's God, and that the neighborhood really belongs to him. The newcomer is not only God, he's me and you too. How can you say such things in public and not expect to encounter nasty backlash from upstanding, well-bred conscious egos like myself ? No wonder Jung's idea of a collective unconscious, when understood at all, is controversial.
* * *
But vitriol aside, the idea of a collective unconscious has a unique charm and urgency. It is at least an attempt to provide a meeting ground for a world fractured by divergent social, political, and religious interests. It gives us an inkling of our primeval brotherhood, a brotherhood still much touted by religious leaders but buried for all practical purposes by sectarian feuding. It offers us a clue how to sublimate our selfish, ego-centered ambitions by recognizing a central collective entity, a greater impersonal self. Largely on the basis of the collective unconscious, Jung called for a potent, nonsectarian faith to counteract the pseudo religions and fanatical political ideologies of this age.
The big trouble with Jung's idea of the collective unconscious is that his schoolboy mistrust of personality influences it so heavily. Otherwise, the Vedic literatures confirm that two selves dwell in our bodies. One self is the conscious ego, and the other is known to Vedic authorities as the Superself, or Supersoul. The Supersoul is collective in that "it" is within each and every body. But "it" is far from unconscious or impersonal. On the contrary, the Supersoul is a personal expansion of the eternal, all-cognizant, all-perfect Personality of Godhead, Krsna.
Here again we run into the same question Jung raised as a child: How can God be everywhere in this case in everyone's body and still be a person? And again the answer is that Krsna, unlike us, is unlimited and omnipotent. He does as He likes. More specifically, the Vedic literatures explain that Krsna expands Himself into an unlimited number of spiritual personalities identical with Him. The Supersoul is one such expansion. As the sun, shining down at noon, falls upon the heads of millions of people yet remains one, so Lord Krsna in His Supersoul expansion shines into the hearts of all living entities in all species of life yet remains one person. While both you and your body are Krsna's energy, the Supersoul is Krsna's very self.
The Supersoul could be called unconscious only in the sense that we are currently unconscious, or ignorant, of Him, and in the sense that His consciousness is not defective like ours. Forgetting the Supersoul, or Krsna, is in fact our greatest defect, because in so doing we also forget our own eternal, spiritual selves. Our forgetful friend Jung, for example, proposed that our conscious selves are Johnny-come-latelys on the psychic scene, outgrowths of the collective rhizome.
Yes, the Vedic literature says, we are outgrowths of Krsna in that we are His energy, yet we are eternal that is, without beginning or end. Krsna is eternal, and we are eternally individual fragments of Him. Krsna is the eternal sun, and we are the sunshine. Although the sun and the sunshine exist simultaneously, one is the origin of the other. According to the Bhagavad-gita, there was never a time when Krsna and ourselves did not exist, nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.
In the Gita Krsna also states that He (as Supersoul) is situated in our hearts, supplying us with memory, knowledge, and forgetfulness. In other words, Krsna, not the collective unconscious, directs all our psychic activities. Without memory and knowledge we can't think or do anything, and without forgetfulness of our eternal life with Krsna we can't strut about in this temporary world imagining ourselves supreme and independent. So, according to our particular desires, Krsna equips us with intelligence as He sees fit.
The Supersoul directs not only human beings but animals as well. Whenever even rudimentary intelligence is evident, the source is Krsna, and the receptacle, or secondary source, is one of His eternal, individual parts. For example, the Supersoul gives bees the intelligence to construct a hive, collect nectar from flowers, produce and store the honey, and so on. Bees, ants, whales, human beings all get their instinctual, mental, or intellectual powers from Krsna, who is seated in our hearts (or, you could say, in the depths of our psyches) as the Supersoul.
Jung's outstanding accomplishment was to understand that a higher authority governs our psychic activities. Phenomena such as the sudden inspiration of an artist or a scientist, the predictive powers of a psychic, as well as Jung's own visions and premonitions, helped to convince him that this higher authority exists. In addition, recurrent themes in myths and ideologies throughout human history led Jung to conclude that unseen psychic molds and channels which he called "archetypes of the collective unconscious" have always directed man's consciousness.
Equally outstanding, however, was Jung's inability to grasp that this unseen authority is a person. The collective unconscious, Jung discovered, serves as a witness, a guide, a governor, a regulator, a knower even as a friend. Are these not personal qualities? And if consciousness, intelligence, and rationality are the accouterments of ego in this world, then couldn't Jung at least suspect that the director of intelligence and consciousness has an ego?
No, he couldn't. Throughout Jung's life his fear of personality and ego robbed him of a fuller understanding of the psyche.
Both psychic selves the self and the Superself are persons, Lord Krsna explains, and we can understand their respective positions only through devotional service:
To those who are constantly devoted to serving Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me. To show them special mercy, I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance.
People who fear personality are especially averse to the supreme personality. Krsna obliges such people by supplying them with forgetfulness of Him, or by revealing Himself to them only as "a solidity underlying all existence."
On the other hand, those who have lent an impartial ear to the Vedic accounts of Krsna's wonderful transcendental character have nothing to fear. They fully devote themselves to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, carefully following the direction of the Vedic literatures and of Krsna's representatives. To these devotees Krsna is eager to reveal Himself as the Supersoul in their hearts and to destroy with the brilliance of transcendental knowledge the darkness causing us to falsely identify our eternally perfect egos with our temporary and fault-ridden bodies.
* * *
As for little old vitriolic me, the Supersoul poses no threat. I am happy to recognize that He is in charge of my psychic neighborhood. After all, He is not a stranger but my long-forgotten friend and master from the other side the supremely conscious side of the psychic tracks. And yes, the Supersoul is God. He was in the neighborhood first. And the perfection of my self is to integrate with Him by constantly endeavoring to please Him with my service.
But no, Supersoul and I are not the same person. He is God; I am His servant. And there's no threat of my being displaced, or replaced, or blended into some divinely obscure goo. The Supersoul and ourselves exist eternally, and the all-attractive opportunity we now have to awaken our loving relationships with Him is the true basis for the potent, nonsectarian faith Jung was seeking.
The collective unconscious, while intriguing, was not in the least bit lovable.

domain: literature


text:
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, so don’t let an illness, injury or accident keep you from celebrating a happy, healthy holiday season with your family and friends. Whether you’re outside shoveling snow or inside preparing
your favorite seasonal dishes, our 12 holiday health and safety tips are sure to help keep the season bright.
Share our holiday safety infographic with your friends and family to spread holiday health tips as well as cheer. Click on the image below
to see our full holiday safety infographic.
Cooler temperatures are no excuse to let your health and wellness fall by the wayside. In fact, fall is the perfect time to take advantage of some of the highlights of the season, from incorporating seasonal fruits and vegetables into your diet to kicking
your fitness routine up a notch with fall-friendly activities.
NorthShore University HealthSystem has created an infographic filled with fall health tips and creative fall fitness suggestions. Click on the image to see our full
Fall into Wellness infographic.
Every flu season is different but there’s one thing you can count on: there will be one. Flu season in the U.S. can
begin as early as October and continue into late May. Perhaps you’ve already noticed an uptick in coughing and sneezing on the train, in the office or at school, but it’s not too late to take action and keep your family happy and healthy throughout flu season.
Curtis Mann, MD, Family Medicine at NorthShore, shares some top tips for keeping the flu from catching up with you and the rest of your
family this season:
Do you make sure to get the flu vaccine every year?
Between the morning rush of getting out the door on time and organizing schedules, breakfast isn’t always top of mind.
However, it should be.
Michael Rakotz, MD, Primary Care Physician at NorthShore, notes that it is the most important meal of the day, especially for kids. He offers his insight on some healthy breakfast
options to help fuel you and your kids throughout the day:
What is your daily breakfast go-to food? Do you change it up throughout the week?
The New Year is upon on us, and with that comes the resolution of many: to lose weight and adopt more healthy living habits.
Goutham Rao, MD, Primary Care Physician at NorthShore, weight loss can be achieved through incremental behavior change. He provides some quick tips about healthy behaviors to help lose weight.
Healthy behaviors include:
What tips do you have to stay trim in 2012?
For more information about Childhood Obesity, please check out Dr. Rao’s book, Child Obesity: A Parent’s Guide to a Fit, Trim and Happy Child.

domain: medical


text:
Dear readers and followers,
last year, we told you, that Web companies such as Google and Facebook from the Silicon Valley ramp up efforts to connect the world to their services, they are increasingly looking to the skies and higher: to the space.
Today, Google is close to investing in rocket maker SpaceX, according to several people familiar with the talks, creating a formidable alliance in Silicon Valley’s accelerating Internet space race.
This way, is not news, At Google, several signs point to satellites. Actually, Previously Google bought drone-maker Titan Aerospace last year and now it's in talks to buy Skybox Imaging, a startup that creates high-resolution satellite images, for $1 billion.
Moreover, in 2014, Google hired Brian Holz, who was chief technology officer at O3b Networks, which has launched special satellites to try to broadcast signals that would power new Internet service in developing countries around the world. Google had previously made a financial investment in O3b and one of its employees sits on O3b’s board. The startup’s recently-launched satellites faced technical setbacks this year.
Google also recently hired Dave Bettinger, who had spent 18 years at satellite firm VT iDirect, which supplies high speed broadband and other communications to military services and the oil and gas industry, according to people at Google. VT iDirect also suffered some product delays recently.
The purpose of the today deal, which is still in the works, is to support the development of SpaceX satellites that could beam low-cost Internet around the globe to billions who don’t have it.
The price and terms Google and SpaceX are discussing couldn’t be learned although one person familiar with them said Google has agreed to value SpaceX north of $10 billion and that the size of the total round, which includes other investors, is very large.
SpaceX’s investors include Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Valor Equity Partners. The company, which has been developing rockets to lower the cost of space travel, hasn’t raised a primary round of funding in several years.
Remember that this blog is free, but you can support us with Flattr

domain: finance


text:
Denmark based slots provider Magnet Gaming has agreed a deal to distribute its full portfolio of titles to Chanz.
The provider’s entire range of HTML5 slots is due to be made available to the Estonian social gaming operator’s site chanz.com, with a design to work seamlessly across a range of platforms.
Anton Krasnitski, a member of the management board at Chanz, said: “We are always looking to add the best slots games to our site, and with the quality of Magnet Gaming’s portfolio, we have certainly done that.
“We know our players will love the social side of Magnet’s games, as well as the top-quality graphics, sounds and narrative. We look forward to a long and beneficial relationship.”
Latest titles Treasure Coast and Haunted House, will join popular favourite Fish Tank, Gold Rush, Diamond Express and Candy Kingdom, in being made available to Chanz customers.
Thomas Nielsen, Head of Game Licensing at Magnet, added: “We are delighted to be working with Chanz, an operator who shares our belief that gambling should be sociable and fun.
“We are constantly developing our games to promote gambling as a form of social entertainment and are confident our slots will go down really well with their players.”
Magnet Gaming, based in the Danish city of Aalborg, hold a number of agreements that see their games available via Microgaming’s Quickfire, NYX’s OGS, EveryMatrix’s CasinoEngine, and iSoftBet’s GAP distribution platform.


I have ca 30 % of my desktops and laptops flagged with the alert that more than 1 Anti-Virus is installed, even though all of them are only running one installation of F-Secure Client Security. How do I resolve this (old error, exactly the same error in SW6.2 and SW7).
This topic was created during version 7.0.
The latest version is 7.5.00107.
I think I tried that at some point but I'll try it again. Then again you would think that SW should be able to recover from this since in a real case you'd remove the extra AV.
Another thing that I noticed is that newer versions of F-Secure installs 10 different programs, so it might also be that SW thinks there are multiple installs of F-Secure on the machine.
Trya this, maybe after a update of f-secure the software doesn't clear the wmi info.


text:
The railway system in Cambodia consists of two lines totalling some 650km in length
although much of it is out of use at present due to damage caused by the civil war in
the 1970s and subsequent lack of maintenance. The line from Phnom Penh to Poipet on the
Thai frontier was built in the 1930s and operated until closed by the war in the 1970s.
Services recommenced as far as Battambang in the 1980s but were suspended again in 2008.
The section east of Poipet was badly damaged in the war and has not been used since.
Between 1965 and 1969 the 266km long line from Phnom Penh to the port of Sihanoukville was built only to be closed by the war shortly afterwards. As with the other services operated again from the 1980s until 2008; but in this case the line has been refurbished and re-opened in 2016.
To view any full size image and caption details please click the maroon button below each thumbnail


text:
The dollar plunged by the most since the Federal Reserve announced the start of its Treasury bond-buying program seven years ago, as signs of a slowing U.S. economy helped derail bets on diverging policies between global central banks.
The U.S. currency sank more than 1.7 percent against six of its biggest peers amid concern that growth in the world’s largest economy is cooling. Currency traders are catching up to the bond market, where 10-year yields sank to the lowest in a year Wednesday and futures are sending the strongest signal yet that traders expect the Fed to stand pat this year.
“The currencies market has been at odds with the rates market, and now the rates market is winning,” said Peter Gorra, head of foreign-exchange trading in New York at BNP Paribas SA. “There’s a disconnect where the Fed says it’s four hikes while the market says it’s like 0.7 hike this year — someone is wrong.”
Concern about a global demand slump and policy makers’ response to a slowing growth worldwide has put the $5.3 trillion-a-day market in disarray. The dollar’s pullback this week has reversed all the yen’s decline against the greenback on Friday when Bank of Japan introduced negative interest rates to revive inflation, which is stuck near zero.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the U.S. currency against 10 global peers, slumped 1.6 percent as of 3:13 p.m. in New York. It dropped as much as 1.9 percent, the biggest loss since 2009 when the Fed opened another front in its battle to boost the economy by pledging to buy as much as $300 billion of Treasuries and stepping up purchases of mortgage bonds.
The dollar slid 1.8 percent to 117.78 yen, erasing all the gains since the Bank of Japan’s surprise Jan. 29 move to negative interest rates on certain deposits. The greenback fell 1.6 percent to $1.1089 per euro, after sinking to the lowest since October.


text: Sandown Motor Holdings (Pty) Ltd, formerly Sandown Motors (Pty) Ltd, commenced trading in May 1982 when it was awarded the Mercedes-Benz franchise for Sandton. In 1989, Ellenby Motors in Pretoria was purchased and, at approximately the same time, Malbak Motor Holdings acquired the Group. The Company enjoyed phenomenal growth acquiring Orbit Motors in Cape Town and Eikestad Motors in Stellenbosch in 1995. On 01 November 1997 Management re-acquired the Group from Malbak. In August 1998, the Company was awarded the Mercedes-Benz franchise for Worcester, formerly the territory of Masonic Motors, and renamed the operation Orbit Motors Boland. In March 1999, the Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Worcester operations were awarded the franchise for Chrysler Products. On 01 April 2001 the Group was awarded the franchise for Mitsubishi products in both Johannesburg and Pretoria and Mitsubishi dealerships were opened in Bryanston and Centurion. In June 2001 Daimler AG acquired a majority interest in the Group while the Group Managing Director, Mr Roy McAllister, retains a significant interest and management control of the Group. In September 2002 the competitions board ruled in favour of Daimler AG's new network strategy and in consequence, the Sandown Motor Holdings Group acquired certain dealerships in specific geographical areas and disposed of others outside of its designated trading area. Sandown Motor Holdings is currently investing extensively in new brand-specific dealerships in Gauteng The Company's Head Office is in Bryanston.

domain: economics


text:
- Nearly 70% of the areas which are open natural ecosystems overlap with those which the government calls wastelands.
- Grasslands, part of open natural ecosystems, sequester 146 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year and support 500 million livestock and over 20 nomadic tribes in India.
- Land-use change such as intensive agriculture, afforestation drives and renewable energy projects threaten open natural ecosystems.
“Policymakers and planners think that open lands hardly contribute anything and can be used for some development pathway,” said Vivek Saxena, the CEO of Haryana State Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), in November 2022. He was speaking at a panel discussion titled Conserving Open Natural Ecosystems for People, Carbon and Biodiversity on November 15 on the sidelines of COP27 held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Saxena said that open natural ecosystems are essential, particularly in discussions about climate change, carbon sequestration, and supporting biodiversity and livelihoods.
But what are open natural ecosystems?
What’s in a name: Open natural ecosystems or wastelands?
Across the world, open natural ecosystems (also called ONEs) include cold and hot deserts, rock outcrops, boulder and rubble fields, wetlands and marshes, and diverse grasslands and savanna ecosystems. By some estimates, they occupy about two-thirds of land on Earth.
However, a study and extensive mapping project published in August 2022 by scientists Abi Tamim Vanak and MD Madhusudan noted that in India, nearly 70% of the areas with open natural ecosystems overlap with those the government calls ‘wastelands’. India started mapping wastelands in 2000 when the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) produced the first Wasteland Atlas of India for the Department of Land Resources (DLR), Ministry of Rural Development. In 2019, nearly 17% of India’s land was categorised as a wasteland. This included ravines, grasslands, shrublands, waterlogged and marshy areas, pastures and even coastal areas.
Are wastelands truly ‘waste’ lands?
Depends on whom you ask.
In the Wasteland Atlas of India, the foreword notes that the raison d’etre of that document is to enable “devising strategies to bring back such wastelands into the productive folds once again.” So as per the government, wastelands are unproductive.
It further states, “It is thus imperative on the part of policymakers to keep such precious and finite resources [land] in healthy conditions to ensure basic ecological services [are] unhindered, socio-economic and political security unquestioned and resilience to climate change unchallenged.”
In a nutshell, it assumes such lands are lying around, offering no ecological or socio-economic benefit to anyone — whether it is the flora, fauna or humans. More importantly, it assumes (some of) these lands do not contribute to climate change resilience and must be diverted to better use.
But as Saxena noted, open natural ecosystems are essential. Why?
Grasslands, part of open natural ecosystems, sequester 146 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year (almost as much as tropical forests), support 500 million livestock and 50% of fodder production, and over 20 nomadic tribes in India, noted Abi Tamim Vanak speaking at the COP27 event. Vanak is an ecologist and conservation biologist at Bengaluru-based Ashoka Trust for Ecology and Environment (ATREE) and has worked extensively on grassland ecosystems.
Where does the term ‘wasteland’ come from?
“Wastelands, unlike forests, are not a natural category of land. They are constructed socially and historically,” said Madhusudan, wildlife biologist and Obaid Siddiqi Chair, Archives at National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS), at a lecture at the Bangalore International Centre (BIC) in May 2022.
The origin of the word comes from English philosopher John Locke who expressed that whatever was not economically productive, idle and undisciplined land was waste. The colonial powers used this rationale to make the land “productive.”
At BIC, Madhusudan added that this transformation and disciplining of such territory carries significant ecological and social costs. “The wastelands maps we make have condemnation all over it both for these lands and the people,” he said.
The wasteland definition is still in use by governments of independent India. As per the latest Atlas, over 557,66.51 sq. km. of India’s land is “waste.” The Indian government hopes to make these lands productive by enhancing and developing them for soil conservation measures, groundwater recharge, tube well irrigation, solar and wind energy projects, and commercial plantations of crops like oil palm.
“With India being mostly semi-arid, we fail to recognise that we have large areas – almost on par with the forests – that are open natural ecosystems,” he said.
These “wastelands” are, in fact, home to quintessentially Indian species like the blackbuck, the lesser florican, toad-headed lizards, and many more, he said. They are also a source of culture, identity and livelihood for billions of Indian people, primarily agro-pastoralist communities.
Are there different kinds of open natural ecosystems?
If you haven’t heard of India’s open natural ecosystems, it is because they are largely misunderstood as degraded forests, seasonally dry tropical forests or wastelands.
One such rich and diverse open natural ecosystem that has suffered significantly because of this misclassification is grasslands. Indian school textbooks may mention Africa’s savannahs, the steppes of Europe and Central Asia, and the prairies and pampas of the Americas but miss out on mentioning their counterparts closer home.
India has many types of grasslands. Some categories, as described in the Ecology and Management of Grassland Habitats in India published by the Wildlife Institute of India in 2015, include coastal grasslands such as the ones found on the shores of Andaman and Nicobar islands, or the salt marshes of the Rann of Kutch, riverine alluvial grasslands on the banks of Ganga and Brahmaputra rivers, the montane grasslands found across the different mountainous regions of the country and differ according to their altitude, slope and rock strata.
They have several sub-categories including but not limited to alpine meadows such as the Marg in Kashmir or Bugyal in Uttarakhand, the trans-Himalayan steppes found in high-altitude regions of Lahaul, Spiti and Kinnaur districts of Himachal Pradesh, grasslands of the North East Hills including Dzukou valley and Saramati grasslands in Nagaland or the Ukhrul grasslands of Manipur and Sholas of Western ghats.
Sub-Himalayan tall grasslands are found where the slopes of the foothills meet the plains of the Gangetic basin. The Terai extends from Jammu to Arunachal, and parts fall in Assam, where they are home to the great one-horned rhinoceros.
Tropical savannahs and wet grasslands are found all over the Deccan plateau and Western India, as well as hill slopes in the tropical areas of Northern India, such as the Aravallis, Shivaliks and the sub-Himalayan foothills.
Wetlands aren’t restricted to any particular part of the country and can be found “in vast stretches found in the water-logged areas of the sub-Himalayan tracts, Terai, abandoned paddy fields, seasonal pools and shallow lakes, low lying areas near the sea coasts.”
How have the grasslands been affected?
India’s savannah grasslands have existed since as long as 50 million years ago, Vanak noted at the International Grasslands Congress Proceedings in 2015.
But between 1880 and 2010, 20 million hectares of grassland and shrubland and 26 million hectares of forests were lost, particularly following the Green Revolution. Grasslands reduced from 18 million hectares to 12.3 million hectares between 2005 and 2015 alone.
However, while the loss of forest cover has always attracted popular imagination and the legislature’s attention, the loss of savannahs has gone unnoticed, experts at ATREE have observed.
Grasslands are often lost because of land use change such as intensive agriculture, afforestation drives and green energy projects (such as solar and wind), Vanak said.
As Saxena has pointed out, there is a need for a reorientation of planning processes and sensitisation of stakeholders – including the officials and people – involved or linked with the grasslands and afforestation activities.
“It (afforestation) should not be mainly tree-focused. It should be based on a landscape-based focus and with the appropriate recognition and importance to the respective ecosystem services,” Saxena said.
He appealed for a mapping exercise to understand the extent of India’s grasslands and the historical damage they have suffered.
Banner image: Grasslands interspersed with pockets of montane Shola forests in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. Photo by Anand Osuri/Wikimedia Commons.


GAITHERSBURG, Md. (WDVM) — Lakeforest Mall has become the center of attention for those in the upper Montgomery County area. Over the years the shopping mall has seen countless store closures, but a new proposal could turn it all around.
The Gaithersburg Mayor Jud Ashman and the city council presented a draft of the Lakeforest Mall Master Plan during a council meeting this week. Details in the plan includes nearly a thousand townhomes, condominiums, apartments, retail space, and parking for residents and newcomers to the area. The plan also includes affordable housing.
“It’s important that the final draft of this master plan does include the different housing types and these different opportunities but it doesn’t discourage higher end housing,” said Jud Ashman, City Of Gaithersburg, Mayor.
Officials will host a public comment hearing on the proposed plan in June.


text: Developed by and for people with allergies, asthma and chemical sensitivities. Gentle Wash is free of petroleum solvents, fragrances, dyes and any other common triggers for respiratory or skin irritations. Gentle Wash is non-caustic/pH neutral at ready-to-use dilutions. Effectively dissolves and removes acid and alkaline-based soils. Safe for all washable fabrics, including gentle-care items. No animals were used in the testing of this product.

domain: chemistry


Scopul nostru este sprijinirea şi promovarea cercetării ştiinţifice şi facilitarea comunicării între cercetătorii români din întreaga lume.
Autori: Marc A. Hampton, Bogdan C. Donose, Elena Taran and Anh V. Nguyen
Editorial: Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 329, p.202-207, 2009.
The interaction between hydrophobic surfaces in aqueous solutions is particularly important because it is encountered in many industrial processes. Even though advances in surface science have been tremendous, the nature of the hydrophobic interaction remains one of the greatest challenges. In this work an atomic force microscope (AFM) was used to measure the normal and lateral interactions between a silica bead and a smooth silica substrate hydrophobised by esterification with 1-octanol. The experiments were performed in water and in water after alcohol-water exchange, a method which has been shown to increase the occurrence and size of nanobubbles at the hydrophobic surface and in turn result in a longer range hydrophobic force due to capillary bridge formation. It was found that the alcohol-water exchange had a significant impact on the friction force due to the increased size of the capillary which increased adhesion.
Cuvinte cheie: friction, adhesion, hydrophobic force, alcohol, nanobubble, atomic force microscopy


text:
- Benjamin Moore is lead manager of the fund, supported by Roberta Zeno and David Dudding as deputy managers
- The managers focus on high quality companies they believe offer sustainable returns and strong growth potential over the long run
- Performance has been strong over the long term, but the fund has struggled more recently
- The fund features on the Wealth Shortlist of funds chosen by our analysts for their long-term performance potential
How it fits in a portfolio
The CT European Select fund aims to grow your investment over the long term by investing in high quality European companies. The managers mainly invest in larger, more established European businesses. We think it could be a good choice for exposure to Europe within a global investment portfolio or sit alongside other European funds using different investment styles within a broader portfolio.
Benjamin Moore was appointed lead manager of the fund in January 2021 having been co-manager since April 2019. He’s been part of Colombia Threadneedle’s (CT) European equities team since 2015, where he initially analysed European smaller companies and served as deputy manager of the European Smaller Companies Fund. Prior to this, he spent six years with Goldman Sachs as a European small and mid-cap equities analyst.
Roberta Zeno, who is a deputy manager of the fund, joined CT last year. Her career in financial services started in 2008 and over that time she’s worked for Close Brothers Asset Management, S&P, and Schroders in roles including equity research.
David Dudding is also a deputy manager of the fund. Given his experience and success on this fund in the past, we’re encouraged he remains involved as deputy manager. He’s also lead manager of the CT Global Focus fund, of which a third invests in Europe, so he still spends a lot of his time analysing European companies. It also means he continues to work closely with both Zeno and Moore, sharing ideas and discussing market trends.
The managers are supported by a well-resourced European equities team at CT. This group of analysts act as an important source of ideas for the managers and provide plenty of challenge and debate when it comes to investment decisions.
The managers look for high quality companies they believe offer sustainable returns and strong growth potential over the long run. They prefer companies who operate in industries with relatively few competitors and boast strong pricing power - the ability to pass on rising costs to consumers without denting demand too much. A competitive advantage that others struggle to replicate is another trait the managers like.
A long-term investment focus is part of the team’s DNA. They look at what's going on within individual companies, rather than trying to predict the impact of wider economic or political events, which may have little bearing on a company's longer-term success. Fewer changes are made to the portfolio over time as a result. They also invest in a relatively concentrated number of companies, meaning each investment could have a big impact on performance, which increases risk.
Though the managers have made some changes to the portfolio this year. They decided to invest more in Inditex, the parent company of fashion brand Zara, because of its growing strength in the market and quality of its online channel. They also purchased car manufacturer Porsche Automobil. The company recently listed on the stock market and the team believe its brand is strong. They’re also impressed by its efforts in electric vehicles and its growing relationship with Volkswagen.
On the other hand, paint and coating company Azko Nobel, and Epiroc, the manufacturer of mining and infrastructure equipment, were sold. The managers focus on inflation protection and pricing power, but don’t believe Azko Nobel is offering the same level of protection it once did. Epiroc was sold due to its weaker share price and the managers' preference for Sandvik, an engineering company they feel has better prospects.
Roughly three quarters of the portfolio is invested in companies across Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Some of these companies conduct business across the globe which means they're not only dependent on customers in the European countries they're based in.
The managers invest more in some sectors than the index, including industrials, consumer staples and information technology, due to the promising opportunities they find. They’ll pay less attention to sectors composed of companies that don’t have pricing power, such as real estate, energy, and utilities. The financial sector could be included here, but the team have found some opportunities through insurance companies and certain banks including FinecoBank.
The European franchise of funds is an important one for CT. A number of good-quality managers have come through the ranks within the European equities team, and broadly speaking their funds have performed well over the years.
There have been some changes within the team in recent years though, which is something we're mindful of. That said, we feel progress has been made here, including the way CT incentivises its employees. We’re also pleased to see that the relationship between all three managers appears strong and collaborative. Team changes are something we’ll continue to monitor though.
CT believes well-managed companies that look to the future are better positioned to navigate the risks and challenges inherent in business. In recent years they’ve developed several proprietary environmental, social and governance (ESG) tools. Our meetings with CT fund managers suggest these tools are relatively well-used by the investment teams. Managers are also generally aligned with the view that an understanding of ESG factors is essential if you want to get a full view of a company’s risk/reward profile.
The firm’s Responsible Investment team carries out analysis on mega trends, carbon, climate change, and many other areas, and research is available for all CT fund managers to access. They are also accessible to fund managers for advice on ESG-related topics and coordinate the firm’s voting and engagement activity. Engagement progress and voting activity is reported in a quarterly Responsible Investment report.
ESG issues form a part of the team’s research and they engage with companies on multiple factors. They believe this is especially important when assessing the sustainability of a company’s competitive advantage and the scope to produce long-term returns. Culture and governance analysis is playing an ever more important role in their process. They believe these factors can have a significant impact on the long-term sustainability of a business, and governance should be at a high standard for a company to make it into the fund.
This fund is available at an annual ongoing fund charge of 0.65%, after a 0.15% discount available through the HL platform. The charge before the discount is 0.80%. This makes it one of the lowest-cost actively managed funds in the European sector available through HL.
The fund discount is achieved through a loyalty bonus, which could be subject to tax if held outside of an ISA or SIPP. The HL platform fee of up to 0.45% per year also applies.
The fund’s performed well over the long term, returning 140.16% versus the FTSE World ex UK index’s return of 136.88%* over the last ten years. Our analysis suggests this performance has mainly been driven by the managers’ stock-picking ability. They’ve been able to pick companies that have performed well over the long term, regardless of what size they are or which country they’re based in, but remember past performance isn’t a guide to future returns.
Moore became lead manager at the start of 2021 and the performance of the fund has been mixed since then. The fund held up well over parts of 2021, buoyed by several names that responded well to the pandemic and supply chain issues, including semiconductor manufacturer ASML, speciality chemical distributor IMCD and healthcare companies Siemens Healthineers and Novo Nordisk.
But this year has been a difficult period. The fund has underperformed the FTSE World Europe ex UK index by 8.10% over the last 12 months, after facing a number of headwinds. Moore favours a style of investing known as growth, which has been out of favour with investors, and so has detracted from performance. He’s also missed out on the gains made in the energy sector. Spikes in energy prices meant that some energy, utility and oil and gas companies surged ahead. Moore doesn’t invest in these areas.
One thing we like about Moore is despite the fact his process is out of favour with investors and the fund is facing a number of challenges, he remains true to his investment philosophy. He only wants to invest in high quality companies which offer sustainable returns and strong growth potential over the long run. Over this period, healthcare giant Novo Nordisk and insurance company Tryg have been two of the fund's strongest performing companies, demonstrating strong pricing power and robust business models.
|Annual percentage growth|
| Oct 17 -
| Oct 18 -
| Oct 19 -
| Oct 20 -
| Oct 21 -
|CT European Select||-6.35%||15.65%||7.52%||28.73%||-19.71%|
|FTSE World Europe ex UK||-5.64%||11.54%||-4.21%||33.83%||-11.61%|
Past performance is not a guide to the future. Source: *Lipper IM to 31/10//2022.
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Welcome to the Cayman Islands
Are you looking for a little adventure? Or perhaps you're planning your first visit to the Cayman Islands. No matter what your interests are, Cayman offers something for you. Explore our exciting land and sea activities & adventures, hotel packages, and other special offers.
Grand Cayman is the largest of the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. George Town, its captial, is home to the Cayman Islands National Museum, dedicated to Caymanian heritage. Beaches and vibrant coral reefs are the island's hallmarks.Discover Grand Cayman
The most easterly of the Cayman Islands, the Brac is 12 miles long and just over a mile wide. Early Scottish fishermen who settled here gave the Island its name; Brac being Gaelic for bluff, named after the limestone ridge that runs down the centre of the Island reaching an elevation of 140ft.Discover Cayman Brac
Ten miles long and a mile wide, Little Cayman is truly little: the airport, post office and fire station are all housed in one building, there is one shop and one bank on the Island, and with a permanent population of about 150 people, humans are vastly outnumbered by birds and iguanas.Discover Little Cayman
The Explore Cayman Difference
Our team of local editors has been curating content about the best things to do in the Cayman Islands for the last 14 years.
Plan Your Trip
Getting to the Cayman Islands
Getting to Grand Cayman couldn't be easier with the domestic carrier, Cayman Airways, and numerous international airlines offering direct flights daily.
When is the Best Time to Visit?
Learn about the climate of the Cayman Islands and find the best time to travel with average temperatures and information on the hurricane season.
Your ultimate guide to getting around in the Cayman Islands with transportation options and helpful tips on driving and renting a car.
Visas and Entry Requirements
Guide to the immigration and visa requirements for visiting the Cayman Islands: find brief overview of what visitors need to travel to Cayman.

domain: travel


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July 29, 2013
University of Georgia football coach Mark Richt, left, signs an autograph for Paul Handmacher, middle, while he chats with UGA men’s basketball coach Mark Fox on Monday at UGA Day at the Gwinnett Center in Duluth. (Staff Photo: Keith Farner)
Stories this photo appears in:
University of Georgia coaches Mark Richt, Mark Fox and Scott Stricklin visited Gwinnett on Monday with new President Jere Morehead for the final stop on a statewide tour to meet with fans and discuss the upcoming seasons.


After more than three decades, students of municipal schools in North Delhi will don a fresh look with the civic body introducing new designer uniforms. NDMC Education Committee Chairman Rekha Gupta on Thursday displayed the newly designed uniforms – maroon red check shirt and coffee coloured pants or skirts – and said: “The new uniforms will be the new face of our schools.”
The uniforms which have been designed by Indo-British Garments free of cost will clothe 4.5 lakh students studying in 780 municipal schools and will be distributed by the month of June. Earlier, primary school students would get Rs.300 and secondary students would get Rs.500 to buy uniforms but the students sought after their other expenses and did not buy uniforms. This initiative would assure that all the children get uniforms.
Ms. Gupta said the distribution of uniform will be through a store managed by the company which will get the tender on the requisition of principals of the schools. “Many more ventures would be taken up soon to build a future of our students, which would include better infrastructure and better education.”
This is part of the civic body’s 4D principle (Desk, Dress, Discipline and Development) and while the work desk and dress is almost complete, the work on discipline and development of building is ongoing, she said.


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BOSTON, Mass. – Junior Kelsey Armstrong (Groton, Conn.) had 11 kills and senior Kasey Cameron (Reading, Mass.) added 10 kills and four service aces to help the Western New England women’s volleyball team defeat Wentworth, 3-0, in Commonwealth Coast Conference action at Tansey Gymnasium.
With the win the Golden Bears won their second straight contest to stand at 18-10 overall and remain undefeated in CCC play at 6-0. The Leopards, playing in their final home match of the 2014 campaign, fall to 13-12 (2-5).
Wentworth grabbed the first point of the afternoon with a block from sophomore Stephanie Nihan (Dracut, Mass.) and freshman middle hitter Caroline Shea (Abington, Mass.). The Leopards capitalized on an attack error to lead 2-0. However, Western New England would strike back with five straight points with sophomore Jenna Luck (Dumont, N.J.) serving for the Golden Bears. Both teams had great play at the net, especially from Leopard sophomore Jordan Young (Derry, N.H.) and Golden Bear senior Kendra Ouimette (Conway, Mass.). Western New England made it 24-14 thanks to an unassisted kill from junior Olivia Lathrop (Farmington, Conn.). Shea gave the Leopards hope with a kill to make the score 24-15, but service error ended the first set 25-15.
The Golden Bears opened the second set with three straight points, but Wentworth responded with four of their own to lead 4-3. Both teams went back-and-forth in scoring, but with the score tied at eight, Cameron recorded a service ace to give Western New England a lead they wouldn’t lose. Lathrop had big kills at the net throughout the second and lead Western New England to the 25-17 win.
In the third Western New England led from start to finish, opening with six straight points and on a 15-4 run. With the score at 22-11, the Golden Bears wrapped up the match with a kill from freshman Amy Thompson (Schenectady, N.Y.), ace from Ouimette, and finally a solo block from Lathrop to win 25-11.
Senior Carolyn Hajdusek (Northfield, N.H.) had nine kills and hit .615, Lathrop had eight kills and three blocks, sophomore Jessica Sincero (Verplanck, N.Y.) had 22 assists and a pair of blocks, and senior Grace Kucharski (Avon, Conn.) had 16 digs.
Junior Hannah Bailey (Plymouth, Mass.) had five kills and 10 digs for the Black & Gold, while freshman Sydney Meyers (Arnold, Md.) added four kills and seven digs. Nihan and Shea each had two blocks, senior Shannon Ponce (San Jose, Calif.) had 16 assists, and classmate Sam Curran (Quincy, Mass.) had 16 digs.
Both teams continue conference play on Tuesday with Wentworth traveling to Gordon and Western New England traveling to Roger Williams in a battle of CCC unbeatens.


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This is our new house...in the snow.
Each year on Valentine's Day, I take some sort of treat to all our widows and singles. I have yet to find them all at home, but I try! This year I made strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese icing...and a chocolate heart on top!
This is one thing I just love to do...
And this past weekend, was our church valentine banquet. I got to do the food and while I had some anxious moments (will there be enough...will the everything go as I've planned?) it was all perfect.
Decor by Janet Hendrix
My homemade truffles at each place.
My new favorite...twice baked potatoes...they were the best!
Melinda and Vicky helped me on Saturday and I must admit by the end of the night, we were pooped! But it's the best sort of tired...when you've made others feel loved and pampered in some little way. I am the one who is blessed!

domain: food


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The seasons are changing! If your houseplants love to enjoy the summer outdoors, it is time to start bringing them in for fall & winter. Get those houseplants nice and cozy indoors!
Our three step process ensures that your plants receive all of the attention they need during this transition! Begin by prepping your space - this is where your plant will be moved to inside. You want to ensure this space is ready for your plant! Next, take the time to acclimate your plant. It might take a few days of acclimation before your plant is ready to be inside full time. Lastly, your plant care routine might need to change to provide your plant with the best care possible in this new season!
Not all of these tips are required, but they will help your plants have a stress-free transition and encourage future growth!
Step One: Prep Your Space
Clean the windows so that they can let in maximum light. Depending on where you live, sunlight might be hard to come by in fall and winter. Give your windows a good cleaning (inside and out) to remove built up dust and dirt and ensure the sunlight is able to stream in!
Get a grow light if you have a dark house. You don't have to have large, sunny windows to keep your plants happy! Think about getting a grow light if your plant is going to be moving to a dark area in your house. You can also replace your current lamps and lighting fixtures with full spectrum bulbs to give your plants a little extra boost of light!
Run a humidifier to keep the air moist. Most houseplants comes from tropical regions of the world, meaning they thrive in moist and humid air! Unfortunately our heaters and furnaces dry out the air, especially during the fall and winter. Set up a humidifier to run near your plants to give them a boost, or use a pebble tray!
Step Two: Acclimate the Plant
Gradually move your plants to shade. If your plants have been outside in the sunshine, you want to gradually acclimate them to the indoors. Do this by moving your plant to a shadier and shadier spot each day to get them used to the change in light conditions.
Inspect (& treat) for pests. Carefully inspect your plant for any signs of bugs or pests that might try to hitchhike indoors. Apply appropriate treatment if pests are spotted to prevent infestations. You can also use neem oil or insecticidal soap as a preventative measure! If you are still worried about bringing pests inside, you can quarantine your plant in an area where any potential pests would not get to your other plants. If you don't see any evidence of pests after a few days of quarantine, your plant should be fine to rejoin the rest of the house!
Repot if your plant needs it. If your plant has outgrown it's current pot, take some time to repot it into a larger one. This will allow your plant some extra breathing room and space to grow for the next few months. Do this as early in the season as possible to give your plant time to acclimate to it's new pot! You can also avoid repotting by trimming your plant back so that it fits it's current pot. Snip off any unruly growth and broken or browning leaves so your plant can conserve it's energy during the dormant months.
Step Three: Adjust Your Care Routine
Water less often. Plants typically take longer to dry out during the fall and winter due to decreased growth. Avoid issues such as overwatering by using careful judgement when watering your plant. You may find that your plant takes twice as long or more before drying out!
Keep your plant's leaves clean. Gently wipe down your plant's leaves regularly to prevent a build up of dust. This will help your plant stay clean and improve photosynthesis - a process through which plants make food for growth!
Rotate for even growth. Don't let your plant become lopsided! Rotate your plant a 1/4 turn each week to ensure even growth on all sides of the plant. This is especially important during fall & winter when light levels are decreased. You plant will be stretching trying to find the light and will end up growing in one direction, unless rotated frequently.
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domain: agronomy


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Is Animal Cruelty a Crime in Arizona?
Harming animals isn’t just morally corrupt, it’s also a crime in Arizona.
Such crimes are taken seriously and a recent legislative change introduced even harsher penalties for harming animals.
The Existing Laws
Until recently, the Arizona regulations defining and sanctioning […]

domain: law


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Last year while searching in a bargain bin I ran across a lot of games for about $5 I bought every single one ran home and ran a price comparsion. Most of them were suppose to be $19 and up so I was really excited. But I stored them on my shelf and never opened most. Finally around November 06 I opened URBZ. I thought it would be a quick play and I would just store it away but no, I ended up playing for 4 hours that day!
That was the beginning of my love affair with SIMS and I also realized what my favorite genre of games were.
Ok about the game, I would have scored it a 10 but there is a glitch in a game that made it annoying, actually two. The first is if you sell all of your trash in the beginning when you get to the end there is no trash and you can't finish your rep mission with the artsies and the second glich is...well here is a hint SAVE SAVE SAVE because sometimes especially near the end the game will freeze.
I was upset about the artsies rep mission because I completed everything there is in the game but that. This game has unlocked the doors for me to buy Sims 2, Sim City and Sims Pets and I am praying that a Sims will come out for the Wii.
Other Helpful Reviews for The Urbz: Sims in the City
The Urbz is an awsome game which sets you in a mini world of awsomeness. You can create your own character from scratch and asks you to answer a few questions and depending on your answers you gain a Rep group and di... Read Full Review
The urbz sims in the city is a great game and I'm proud to have it the only bad thing about the game was that you get robbed too often and it's just depressing all those simleons and you get every 5 minutes the good thin... Read Full Review

domain: entertainment


ORIGIN PC announced today the exclusive availability of their new FROSTBYTE 360 liquid cooling system. With the FROSTBYTE 360 ORIGIN's professional overclocking teams are reaching speeds up to 5.2 GHz allowing them to routinely set new benchmark records and stay on top of the competition. Featuring silent pumps, a high efficiency triple 120 mm radiator, and zero maintenance, the FROSTBYTE 360 liquid cooling system allows for extreme overclocking in a more affordable solution. The award winning ORIGIN PC GENESIS configured with the FROSTBYTE 360 starts at $1,599.
"Until now, extreme overclocking required hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of components including pumps, radiators, coolant hoses, fittings, and expensive water blocks," said Kevin Wasielewski ORIGIN PC CEO and cofounder. "With the Frostbyte 360, a maintenance free liquid cooling solution, ORIGIN PC customers can enjoy top-end CPU performance at a fraction of the cost."
The ORIGIN FROSTBYTE 360 is the most cost-efficient high-performance liquid cooling system in the industry and it's backed by the best service and support. The FROSTBYTE 360 is a maintenance free solution and every ORIGIN PC is covered by free lifetime 24/7 toll-free technical support based in the U.S.
ORIGIN PC's Exclusive FROSTBYTE 360 Liquid Cooling System features:
- ORIGIN professional CPU overclocking up to 5.2GHz on multiple cores
- Micro-channel copper CPU block and 360 mm high efficiency copper radiator
- Embedded temperature sensor delivers the copper surface temperature with an accuracy of +/- 1C
- Ultra silent operation and exceptionally low weight
- Factory sealed, maintenance free operation
- Thermal resistance as low as 0.085 C/W
ORIGIN systems feature a 1 to 3 year free shipping and free part replacement warranty combined with the best in class integration, quality testing and support. ORIGIN PC offers a free life-time 24/7 phone and online service guarantee and each customer has a dedicated support team and free life-time labor for upgrade needs.
Last updated: Apr 7, 2020 at 12:06 pm CDT


THE FULL IN-HOUSE
OVER 14 HECTARES, 200M JETTY 10.000DWT
ASME : U, U2, S - NBBI : R, NB - ISO 3834-2:2006
fabrication & construction
maintenance service & testing
AlphaECC is a medium-size steel fabrication company with a team of more than 700 permanent employees at various disciplines including mechanical, welding, electrical and instrumentation, thermal, insulation and coating. AlphaECC also owns a fully-furnished facility with an area of 145,000m2, including 150m waterfront jetty, heavy loaded transportation up to 2,000 mt, over 10,000m2 covered heavyduty workshops and more
Despite a prolonged downturn in the oil & gas market, Alpha-ECC was placed with a big new order from Norway.
In early September, AlphaECC successfully carried out the load-out of steel piles and conductor with total weight up to 1,800 tons for Sututrang Full Field Development Phase I Project.
AlphaECC recently delivers the largest ever built high pressure vessel to PV Gas owned Hamrong-Thaibinh project in the North province of Vietnam.
AlphaECC has just successfully completed 60days offshore campaign. Safety, quality and ontime performance has been delivered, thank to the amazing effort of AlphaECC offshore team, with the great supp
The full in-house capacity and resource, from Designing/Engineering; Manufacturing; Testing and Commissioning, enable AlphaECC to reliably supply projects for both onshore and offshore industry
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Admiral, parent company of insurance comparison site Confused.com, has reportedly decided to end talks over the sale of a stake in the company.
Admiral had hired Merril Lynch to look at its options, while potential investors were believed to have included InterActiveCorporation and French insurer Axa.
Rival website Moneysupermarket.com has been valued at £1bn in advance of its planned share offering this month, while Confused.com is believed to be worth around £600m.
Confused.com hits out at Direct Line ads


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US non-profit organisation ACHIEVE Kids Tri Inc is kicking off the Washington DC Triathlon weekend with the 2011 ACHIEVE Benefit – held this coming Friday 17 June at the Washington Hilton – to support youth triathlon summer camp programs.
On the back of a strong 2010, ACHIEVE Kids continues to seek much needed support from the triathlon community in 2011. The nationwide non-profit organisation teaches kids the basics of triathlon training and racing to ensure a healthy continuation of its motto: ‘enriching lives through sport’.
Highlights of the 2011 ACHIEVE Benefit evening include live and silent auction items from DC Triathlon sponsors.
Two ticket options are available for this year’s event:
Benefit ticket: US$45 online pre-event booking (US$50 at the door)
Includes a chance to win an XTERRA Vortex3 Wetsuit, live and silent auctions, appetizers and cocktails.
ACHIEVE Benefit Tri-A-Tour package: US$100 online pre-event
No tickets will be sold at the door for this package. Includes a chance to win an XTERRA Vortex3 Wetsuit, live and silent auctions, appetizers, cocktails and a night-time tour of Washington DC.
The Tri-A-Tour departs from the Washington Hilton at 8:15pm, right after the 2011 ACHIEVE Benefit, and returns by 9:30pm – with drop offs at host hotel the Grand Hyatt and the Washington Hilton.
The Tri-A-Tour includes a guided bus tour, including a race-course preview, and takes in famous DC monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, a peek at the new MLK Memorial and more!
In addition to the night-time view of the monuments, the Tri-A-Tour participants will meet and hear from pro-triathletes from around the world competing in the 5150 triathlon series. Tour participants also receive guided talks about the unique history of DC, alongside complimentary champagne and an ACHIEVE Hat!
ACHIEVE Kids Tri is dedicated to enriching the lives of young people through the sport of triathlon. Athletes learn how to train for the swim, bike, run and transitions of a triathlon in a free six-week camp that is open to disadvantaged youth aged 9 to 14.
At the end of every ACHIEVE camp, the athletes put all their hard work into action at a USA Triathlon (USAT) sanctioned kids’ triathlon. As they navigate the challenges of a triathlon, they also build essential life skills in fitness, nutrition, discipline and self-confidence.
Please view the ACHIEVE website for more information, or contact Michelle Harburg, Program Director (michelle[at]wseminc.com), +1 734 277 2921.


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Uganda coffee | All coffees
Discover our extensive range of hand picked arabica coffees from UK artisan coffee roasters. All our coffee is delivered to you, directly from the roasters, so you get the freshest coffee possible. Select either whole bean or ground to match your coffee making method.
Try our advanced searching and filtering to find the coffees you love.
Tags: Aeropress, Africa, Best for Filter, Black, Cafetiere, Casa Espresso, Espresso, Filter, Floral, Fruit, Ground, Letterbox Friendly, Natural Process, Recyclable Packaging, Stove Top, Uganda, With milk
Casa Espresso: Uganda, Kisinga, Natural
From Casa Espresso: Named after the main Coffee Station, this coffee is brought from the surrounding areas for processing from the many local smallholder farms. Ranging from 1300-1600 masl and consisting on SL28 and SL14 varietals mainly. The coffees are floated and sorted, dried on raised African beds then dehulled....
Rounton Coffee Roasters: Uganda, Kisinga, Natural
From Rounton Coffee Roasters: This is our second offering of a Ugandan coffee, which is a result of Rounton Coffee working alongside the Rwenzori Coffee company. We are excited to be able to showcase such a high quality cup profile as a result of such a direct and sustainable relationship,...


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Devil in a Blue Dress
Format: Paperback / softback
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
Published: 8th Oct '20
30th Anniversary edition of the bestselling, award-winning novel with a timely new introduction by the author.
‘I need to find somebody and I might need a little help looking…’ It’s the summer of ’48 in the city of Angels and there’s heat on the streets when Daphne Monet hits the sidewalk. Heat when she disappears with a trunkload of somebody else’s cash. Easy Rawlins is a war veteran just fired from his job. Drinking in a friend’s bar, he wonders how to meet his mortgage when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will locate Miss Monet, a blonde with a reputation. It’s a simple decision, but for one thing. Nobody warned him – better the devil you know… In the sleazy, fearful city, Easy must rely on his instincts, not just to solve the case, but to save his own life.
|Dimensions||22 × 129 × 198 mm|


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Vast forests did not cover all of Kentucky. In the south-central portion of the state an area or open grasslands known as the "Barrens" made a stark contrast to the heavily forested terrain surrounding it. The Indians had repeatedly burned the forests that red the region as a mans to stampede and kill big game. These fires created an open Ji that in turn drew all types of wild game to feed elf its lush grasses. Buffalo herds migrated eastward across the Mississippi to Illinois, and then to Kentucky. These herds came to the and multiplied, providing food and clothing for the Indians.
The open lands of the Barrens also drew settlers who found the treeless areas to cultivate. Originally the pioneers thought the treeless grasslands infertile because of the lack of forestation. They soon found the soil to be some of the best that they encountered . Farms and communities soon began to cover the area. In 1798 Barren County became the county of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Taken from parts of Green and Warren coutnies Beginning in 1815, the county had 1,000 square miles taken away to create portions of Allen , Edmonson, Hart, Metcalfe, and Monroe Counties.
Although Barren County had a railroad, most of south-central Kentucky remain isolated for development became a topic for most civic and government ions. A dam on Barren River had economic potential in the promotion of tourism. By 1960, construction of a 146 foot-high dam began on the river. When completed the dam had created Barren River Lake. The lake covers 10,000 acres and shoreline of 141 miles. The Louisville Corps of Engineers designed and built the dam. They continue maintain the lake.
A movement by the people of Barren to establish a park next to the lake became a reality on January I, 1965. The state purchase adjoining farms to extend the park site and the Louisville Corps of Engineers donated acreage to round out the parks boundaries. In 1966 the park constructed a boat dock with a marina. The Department of the Interior, Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, approved a total development of $3,469,000. A federal grant of $1,734,500 funded fifty percent of the estimated cost.
In 1971 the Louie B. Nunn State Lodge opened. The lodge overlooks the beautiful 10,000-acre lake. Barren River Lake is located in some of Kentucky’s most scenic countryside. On the first weekend in June the park hosts Glasgow Highland Games, a festival celebrating Scottish . Thousands of people attend this pop : event each year.