Once, somewhere in the middle-top of Nevada, I saw a mustang. It was once and never again. Wild horses are not an everyday sight in America even though, in every American’s ego, there’s a horse running wild and free. I was traveling north, alone, and would eventually travel east, and all around me was the expansive, oppressive Southwest. For miles I had been driving in silence without a single hint of fauna, human or otherwise. I was semi-hypnotized by a dirt backdrop that went on, on and on, and by the realization that I was leaving all this Western stuff behind me forever. For a change of scenery, I turned my head to look left, and there it was: a light brown horse running fast alongside my car with the mountains behind it, spraying dust from its feet like you see in movies. I’ve always told people I saw a mustang that day, though in truth I know nothing about horses and can barely tell a mustang from a mule, especially if both are running. But I grew up in the Southwest, where sagebrush is considered a flower and all horses are mustangs. So a mustang it was I saw that day, and it took my breath away.
Last week, I read that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management was planning a roundup of 1,700 wild horses in eastern Nevada. This happens every so often, though it’s an event largely distanced from Americans not living in the West. For much of the 20th century, America’s wild horses were seen as pestilence, primarily by American ranchers, and they were treated as such. Wild horse carcasses, on the other hand, were profitable sources of glue, clothing, violin bowstrings and, most lucratively, pet food. More than a million horses were destroyed in the United States between 1900 and 1950. From 1934 to 1963, the Bureau of Land Management and its predecessor paid private contractors to kill wild horses and let them profit from the carcasses, to the horror of wild horse advocates. With public pressure, the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 gave horses protection, and the BLM’s role changed. Instead of elimination, the agency was suddenly charged with the preservation and protection of wild horses (and burros) “from capture, branding, harassment, or death:”
That Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people.
Since 1971, America’s wild horses have been allowed to live on reservations of sorts, corralled in public rangelands monitored by the BLM. But according to the Bureau, these rangelands have room for only so many horses. Overpopulation, it says, could mean the destruction of a “thriving natural ecological balance,” and could create mass starvation. So every once in a while, to control wild horse populations, the Bureau of Land Management gathers up excess horses deemed a threat to the environment and to themselves. Without roundups, the BLM claims, the program is unsustainable.
The videos of roundups I’ve watched online are all similar. A band of horses — maybe seven or 10 — is running across a field, the desert, the prairie, in Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming. A helicopter comes up low behind them. The helicopter will swoop left, swoop right, driving the horses toward a trap. The horses will fake left, fake right, trying to outrun the helicopter. They will stick together for as long as they can, changing direction on a dime. Sometimes a single horse will make a break, racing along the brush with the helicopter at its heels — left, right, left, right, the helicopter moving closer and lower. The horse or horses will be urged nearer the pens, and then, suddenly, they will be in the pens, standing with horses gathered earlier. A metal gate will be closed behind them. When the pens are filled, the horses will be loaded onto trucks and taken away.
Melancholy music is another thing these videos share; the trill of Native American flutes or sentimental piano arpeggios are common accompaniments to a roundup video. This is because most videos are created by people who stand opposed to the roundups. Roundups, protestors say, contradict the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, contradicts the horses’ ability to be wild and free-roaming and to enrich the lives of the American people.
Once the horses are rounded up, the Bureau of Land Management offers them to the public for adoption. (I remember well the television spots advertising these adoption programs when I was a child. Oh, how I longed to see a family of burros living blithely in my bedroom.) Protestors don’t deny these adoption programs exist. What they claim, however, is that the programs are cruel, sloppy, and mismanaged. The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign Injuries asserts that spontaneous abortions, trauma, and death are common. Horse families are pulled apart, it says. Horses with “defects” and those too traumatized to tame are euthanized. Also, finding private adopters is difficult — owning a horse is no minor venture in any economic climate. The organizations and individuals allied to stop wild horse roundups say the many horses who aren’t adopted are sent to long-term corral facilities, or purchased by “killer buyers” who resell the horses for food (pet and human). It’s all about the oil industry, say some: The “mixed use” clause in the 1971 act allows drilling on protected lands and horses get in the way. It’s all about the beef market, says PETA: Wild horses compete with ranch animals for grazing. Those specific protests aside, for many Americans, the very sight of wild horse roundups violates the historic and pioneer spirit of the West. “The mustang is as American as George Washington,” drawls Viggo Mortensen in a public service announcement for the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, played over clips from his film Hidalgo. “Sad,” “greedy,” “a national disgrace,” write online commenters. “ENOUGH of this madness! I want my country AND MY Mustangs back.”
To be measured, the word “wild” is loaded. Loaded, and false. The more accurate term for America’s horses is “feral.” Feral, like pigs. For American mustangs to be truly wild, their ancestors would have to have been native — an uncommon circumstance for anyone gracing this Union. Horses were first brought to the Americas by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, as essential as guns and swords and European disease in conquering the territories. Across the Americas, natives were gripped with a documented terror of the beasts. On horseback, a man is a centaur, quick and towering.
Year by year, the horses began to separate from their owners. Some were relocated to Native American tribes, who in time became adept at horse trade and theft, and learned to incorporate horses into all aspects of tribal economics and tribal mythology. Some horses survived war when their owners did not. If a horse’s rider died, the horse would drift off into the wilderness, making its own way, joining others whose riders had met with a similar fate. In the 19th century, Western ranchers would release their horses into the wild to forage for the winter, and then recapture whichever animals they could come spring. Slowly, these domesticated horses unhinged themselves from civilization and blended into the natural landscape of the New World.
America’s horses are foreigners, but their history contains an extraordinary fact: Horses evolved in North America, long long ago, in prehistoric times. They were here before any of us, and so are more American even than George Washington. Around 45 to 55 million years ago, the first hints of Equus thrived in the wet, subtropical forests that spread across the North American continent, little leaf-eaters not larger than dogs. Around 35 million years ago, as climate changes turned forests to plains, the taller, grass-eating ancestors of Equus ferus evolved. Horses would eventually make their way to Eurasia, we know not exactly how, possibly over a land bridge in the Bering Strait. Those left behind disappeared. But long ago, before George Washington, before any of us, the horse roamed the fields of North America, indigenous, wild. So you could say that horses were introduced to the Americas by Spanish conquistadors. Or you could say they were brought home.
To me, the aura of prehistory still surrounds the modern-day horse. Standing by horses, I’ve always felt myself in the presence of dinosaurs, of ancient creatures far removed from my everyday existence. It wasn’t so long ago that horses were essential to the daily lives of Americans — our primary mode of transportation, a necessary weapon in our wars against nature and each other — and yet today, what living being feels more exotic, more superfluous when you stand right close? In the presence of a horse, one is in the presence of a great mystery, a mystery that is incomprehensible, awesome, and unnerving.
Just off the coast of Georgia, on a barrier island named Cumberland, the Dungeness mansion stands in ruins. Past a hot thicket of oaks and marsh and armadillos a great lawn opens out, and as you approach the old mansion, you see families of feral horses drifting among the wreckage, eating grass, mindless of visitors. The horses, like the Dungeness, are leftovers from Cumberland’s bungled attempts at civilization, and their story runs parallel to the island’s history. The 16th century brought the Spanish, who lived there until French pirates and infection wiped the island clear of inhabitants. In 1733 English General James Oglethorpe built the first Dungeness as a hunting lodge among a series of forts as protection against the Spanish. But the ultimate success of the English in Georgia made a fortified island irrelevant. Cumberland was again abandoned, the remnants of the forts and the original Dungeness faded away. In the late 18th century, Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Greene picked up the loose threads of the vacant island, building a new Dungeness on a thriving slave-run plantation. Then the Civil War came, and the inhabitants of Cumberland found themselves on the now-familiar wrong side of history. The second Dungeness was deserted as well, burning down in 1866. In the 1880s, the industrialist Thomas Carnegie arrived with his wife Lucy, and together made Cumberland their winter retreat. Among their first tasks was to build a third Dungeness on the site of Greene’s Dungeness. There the Carnegies wintered happily until the Great Depression, when Cumberland evicted them, too. Once more, Cumberland played host to an empty Dungeness. And in 1959, when the last of the Dungenesses burned down, the island was left mostly deserted. Today, Cumberland Island is a national park, and one of the most undeveloped sites in the United States.
As each party quit Cumberland, their horses were left behind. Now the island belongs to them — at least, this is how it feels. The feral horses of Cumberland move around the island like ghosts. A colt stands over the fading tombstone of Robert E. Lee’s father. A lone horse trots along the barren, dune-fringed beaches, indifferent to the passing of time. The illustrious residents of Cumberland are gone and, in their place remain ruins and horses.
There’s definitely an “Ozymandias” air to Cumberland: the inevitability of destruction, the laughter of the gods in the face of our hubris.
“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Toward the dunes, there’s a herd of Carnegie-era cars sinking hollowed with rust into the earth, and the wild horses of Cumberland wander unperturbed in the distance. The cars, and the horses, are reminders of how quickly and easily a civilization can be built, and how easily a civilization can go, back to the beginning, into Nature’s hands. Don’t look away, the horses say to us, don’t take leave of your purpose. For the instant you do, they say, Nature will fill the vacuum. Nature is patient.
For 500 years, horses have been integral to our fight for civilization. What would the modern city be without the horse? Or modern agriculture, or warfare, or exploration? We made the horse our tool. And somehow, they slipped from our grasp. We cannot use the wild horses, and we see how little they need us. So we try to protect them or we try to destroy them—whatever it takes to bring the horses back under our control. As much as they narrate our adventurous past, America’s wild horses embody the fragile barrier between civilization built and civilization gone. If an American “Ozymandias” were written, it would need, above all, the image of a riderless horse, that ubiquitous metaphor for glory, and for loss.
On July 15, the Cloud Foundation — a horse advocacy group suing the federal government on the grounds that gathering wild horses is illegal — convinced a federal appeals court to order a temporary stay on the proposed Nevada roundup. A few days later, the court lifted the emergency injunction and gave the Bureau of Land Management the go-ahead. The court has announced that it still intends to hear further appeals from the Cloud Foundation, but Rachel Fazio, the foundation’s lawyer, says that the roundups will likely be complete by then. Nonetheless, she admits, in the whole history of the world no one had successfully stayed a roundup for even a day. The battle is certain to continue. Whether we deem them invasive pests or indigenous heroes, there’s something in the aloof, majestic horse that we need, something we can’t ignore, something that reminds us of ourselves. Wherever there has been a battle lost or a building demolished, there it is: the terrifying, wonderful, riderless horse, that ubiquitous image of glory, and of loss. • 29 July 2011


text:
Are you interest in a winter trip? There are many options available from cozy cabins, small resorts, or comfort and hardcore camping. Activities include ice fishing, cross country skiing, snow shoeing, or dog sledding.
There a few sponsors (outfitters and lodges) who provide winter lodging, trips or rent winter gear:
Help keep the flying moose flying by supporting BWCA.com

domain: travel


text:
[miau] If you are a fan of the Wild West, then Western Belles by IGT will literally knock your socks off. There is a huge assortment of the most stunning western beauties to ever grace the reels of a slot machine. One is more revealing than the next, and they are all scattered around the game and the bonus features. The design and layout of Western Belles is stunning, and the sounds are exactly what you would expect if you were saddled up with these young ladies down on the farm.
The first thing you need to do before playing Western Belles is to get acquainted with all the symbols of the game. The lower paying symbols range from the Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten, and the Nine. The ladies boot and hat are next up the pay scale, followed by the two beauties in the tan and blue shirts. The wild symbol is the red lipstick kiss, and the bonus symbol is the trigger for the free games bonus feature.
One of the reasons that Western Belles is so popular, you are given the opportunity before spinning the reels to guarantee yourself an expanding wild symbol on each spin. This does come with a price, but it adds an element to the game that could explode your winnings potential. The 5 reel and 40 payline video slot is pulled right from the pages of the Wild West, and you will spend hours marveling at all the stunning ladies that grace the reels throughout game play.
The risqué design of Western Belles is appealing to a wide audience, revealing quite a lot of skin in comparison to many other tame video slot games of this theme. The wild symbol during game play comes in a variety of forms. it can be a single symbol on a reel, it can come stacked, and it can turn into the expanding wild as well. All of these combinations provide the player a great opportunity to score a bundle of loot from these fine ladies. Enable the expanding wild option and you are guaranteed to see it each spin.
Trigger 3 or more of the bonus symbols and you are awarded 5 free spins in the bonus round. The expanding wilds are even more visible in the bonus round, taking up multiple reels from top to bottom. Don’t let these lovely ladies distract you from the fact you are going to score some serious winnings while in the bonus round. Before each spin of the reels, the controls for selecting the bet size and number of lines is very straightforward. You also have the option each spin to ensure that the wild symbol is in play. If you are a fan of anything Wild West, then the Western Belles will provide you hours of entertainment and fill your bankroll with riches beyond your belief.

domain: game


text:
The Transitions Sound Design Elements Collection
The ultimate arsenal of whooshes & transitional Sound Design Elements! Transitions is a 2 CD, 1229 element sound design package, plus a corresponding CD ROM of WAV files. Crammed with over 100 royalty free categories of transitions - including powerups, beams, electrostatics, fly-bys, vinyl sounds, rumbles, evolvers & grainy breakups - Transitions is the third set in the 'Noise Generator' collection of sound design products, giving producers an edgier, more offensive, in-your-face selection of sound design.
First, a definition: a 'Transition' is defined (in almost 98% of the cases in this collection) as an event with a sloped attack that builds to an abrupt climax - or builds to a climax and then recedes. Good for aurally accenting wipes, fades, dissolves - or gaping holes in your audio imaging that require covering up. Of course, radio can also utilize these sounds for sweeps and transitions, or just make their productions sound very, very different than what's out there now.
The sounds on these discs come from a variety of sources, some real and some synthesized. But they all obey one cardinal rule: they were designed to sound different than anything else out there. The only exceptions being sections (like the 'Synthy' section on disc two) where we acknowledge that other libraries may feature similiar sounds - but we decided to include them, because they're useful. These 'emulative' sounds comprise less than 5% of the sounds in this collection.
Transitions comes with two color-coded, fully-indexed audio CDs, one CD ROM and a 24-page booklet, giving comprehensive information on all 1,229 sounds on the disc, organized by type and sound length. The CD-ROM contains 16-bit, 44.1 k, WAV files and is both Apple and PC-compatible. This CD ROM should also work in AKAI S5000/6000 series samplers with OS1.3 or later as well as any EMU or Kurzwell samplers that can import WAV files.
(C) 2015 Sounddogs.com,
Inc. TM All Rights Reserved
Call toll-free 877-315-3647

domain: entertainment


text:
Sound The Groove is proud to host our breast cancer benefit, the Pink Ribbon Riot, at The Federal Underground of Downtown Long Beach! Wear your PINK and join us for an amazing night for an amazing cause! We’ll have live bands all night, music in between the bands while we get the acts on and off stage, photographers, inflatable flamingos, and anything else we can throw in the mix. All acts will be from the greater Long Beach/ Orange County/ LA area
Please Note: Tickets are always cheapest when purchasing through a performing artist. Tickets will also be available online and at the door, but they are more expensive and subject to capacity. Support local music!
If you’d like to perform in this event, or are just interested in performing in general, hit us up at www.soundthegroove.com/livemusic!
Sound The Groove is proud to return to Harvelle’s Downtown Long Beachwith our infamous Masquerade Bash! Brace yourself for a fun night filled with live-bands, DJs, photographers, masquerade masks, hosts and anything else we can throw in the mix! Come get weird with us and party with your rock stars!
Sound The Groove is proud to return to Harvelle’s Nightclub in Downtown Long Beach with our 2017 Winter Bash! Brace yourself for a fun night filled with live bands, DJs, dancers, photographers, and anything else we can throw in the mix!
Special Guests (in no particular order): Slim Tailor, The Band Sebastian, Liquid Circus, The Program, Stan Nirenberg, Mint Trip, Lunar Oddities

domain: artistic


CREEPER DESCENDER waits above at 10' then desends down to 6' while head turns side to side to come face to face with patrons.
Comes with Character, pneumatics, programmed controller, motion sensor. (Plug & Play).
Custom Sound, MP3 Player & Power Speakers Optional.
Mounts on top of your walls at an angle towards patrons.
Foot print for rig is 32" d x 24" w x 31" h.
NOTE: All Characters heads can be interchanged to any mechanism to suit your needs!
NOTE: Shipping calculator is an estimate only. If you are buying more then one prop it will most likely be less.


text:
Today I want to talk a little bit about intuition or gut instinct and how to test yours and improve it.
This short post is particularly relevant for discretionary traders, but I’m sure systematic traders will also find it to be a worthy read.
For starters, what is intuition?
Simply put, intuition is knowing something without knowing exactly why you know it. Typically, it shows up as an abstract gut feeling rather than a conscious bout of logical thinking.
At its core, intuition is a pattern recognition skill, but it’s processed on an unconscious level in the brain.
For example, when you meet a person, you usually have some type of intuition about them based on how they look and carry themselves.
Your brain is unconsciously picking up on the little behavioral cues that person is displaying (like some micro facial expressions, eye movement, hand gestures, feet and body orientation, etc.)
These little behavioral cues give you a ton of information on that person—whether they’re kind, benevolent, inviting, confident, shady, unreliable, insecure, and the list goes on.
And immediately, based on previous the experiences you’ve had with those micro, unconscious cues, you just ‘know’ what’s going on with that person and what to expect from them even though you yourself haven’t consciously thought about it.
That’s an example of how intuition works. It’s unconscious pattern recognition and information processing going on in our brain… and we use it every moment of our life–we’re constantly following our intuition.
So, while our in-the-moment intuition is quite intangible and difficult to describe or pinpoint, it is an ability that can be practiced and improved upon, so that it becomes more reliable.
And I think, as a trader–more so as a discretionary trader—refining that ability should be one of your top priorities.
The only real way to get better at listening to your intuition and separating real intuition from some mere insubstantial feeling is to practice it in small and controlled ways.
What do I mean by small and controlled?
Before you even think about using your intuition in the market with your hard-earned money on the line, I would recommend that you first test it, develop it, and learn to trust it.
Let’s break down these steps…
Test Your Intuition
First, find ways to test your intuition, where if you’re wrong, it doesn’t matter–you don’t risk losing anything.
One of the things I recommend doing–and I’ve been doing this myself for years now—is to try to guess what the weather will be like on any particular day without looking at the weather forecast.
This is a nice little way of testing your intuition and seeing how accurate it is. Ideally, do it often to get a better reading on how reliable your intuition is.
Another option is filling a big opaque jar with marbles or pieces of candy, and then guessing how many are in the jar.
Do it with someone else, and whoever’s the closest wins some money or something like that.
That’s another really fun way for you to test your intuition, without really risking anything substantial.
Develop Your Intuition
The second step is to develop and refine your intuition. Here are two ways to do that:
1. Step Back.
Let’s roll with the weather example once again. It’s pouring rain outside right now… what’s the weather going to be like 2 hours from now?
Well… we don’t know for sure. But we could look at the season we’re in; we could look at what the past few days were like, and based on that data we can come up with an intuitive answer.
If you think about it, that’s exactly what we do in trading… it’s very much like predicting the weather. The market is doing XYZ right now… what can we infer from this based on historical data?
Based on what the market did in the past, what should happen or could happen? And how much I’m willing to wager on it?
That’s what trading is all about. You step back, you look at the bigger picture, and you make an informed guess.
So, start practicing this with the weather. It’s a nice and harmless way to test your unconscious pattern recognition skills. It’s also a nice way to keep your mind sharp.
But don’t just do it with the weather. Think of some other small ways to develop your intuition. For instance, maybe when you get a phone call, don’t look at it right away and try to guess who’s calling.
2. Quiet Your Mind.
When our minds are busy, it becomes hard to tap into our natural intuitive abilities.
As you all know, meditation is one of the best ways to cultivate a calm and quiet mind. Not only that, meditation also helps you be more in tune with your feelings.
By taking some time every day to practice, you’ll slowly open a space for your intuition to speak to you and for you to recognize when it’s doing so.
If you want to learn more about meditation, check out these articles:
Alternatively, check out the Trading Psychology Mastery Course. It’s a 2-week deep home immersion mindfulness-based trading psychology course where we explore the practice of meditation.
Trust Your Intuition
Now’s the time to put it all into practice in the market.
Outside of market hours, look for your trade candidates, and as per usual, do your analysis. Quiet your mind and allow your well-practiced intuition to surface. And take note of your observations.
And during market hours, do the same… quiet your mind, and execute.
But this time, since real money is on the line, expect some conflicting signals in your body and mind making it harder to determine what is genuine intuition and what is just mindless fear.
So, as you begin use your intuition in the market, I would recommend that you start trading with small trade sizes. This will mute certain emotions and help you listen to your intuition and trust it.
Remember, you’re learning to exercise your intuition muscle, and so it must be done in a controlled setting at first. That’s what small sizes help you do. Later, you can slowly work your way up.
So, this is how to develop your unconscious pattern recognition skills—aka intuition.
The steps are simple: test, develop, and trust.
Sometimes, you’ll see that you have a gut instinct but it’s just a small one, so you’re not completely sure. And other times you’ll see that have a gut instinct where you’re like, “I know this is right, I just have to follow my gut.”
The above steps will teach you how to actually read your intuition, how to determine how certain you are with your guesses, and how to trust your inner voice when it speaks.
But keep in mind: No matter what you do as a trader, whether you’re a systematic trader, a discretionary trader, a day trader, a scalper, an options trader, a crypto trader, a futures trader, whatever… managing your risk is paramount.
This allows you to be wrong and stay in the game for the other opportunities the market will hand you.
So, be intransigent there and no matter how you trade or what you trade, you will have a long-lasting trading career.
Speaking of trading career, a trader wears many hats — they’re analysts, risk and money managers… they’re their own coach as well. But perhaps above all, a trader is a business owner. This is really important.
My Trading for a Living Course is getting a major update on June 28th, and trading as a business will be one of the main themes we’ll explore in the course.
In short, a trading business is like a little privately owned casino. Casinos are businesses. They have table limits, they take the bets that are to their advantage, and all of that is clearly stipulated in their business plan. And they simply let the probabilities work for them over many small bets. That’s how they’re profitable despite a few winning gamblers here and there.
And that’s really how a profitable trading business operates. If you want to learn more about the course and the upcoming updates, check out this post.
Thanks for reading.
Memorable Lines From This Post
In trading… it’s very much like predicting the weather ... Based on what the market did in the past, what should happen or could happen? And how much I’m willing to wager on it?
Start trading with small trade sizes. This will mute certain emotions and help you listen to your intuition and trust it.
[Managing your risk] allows you to be wrong and stay in the game for the other opportunities the market will hand you.
A trading business is like a little privately owned casino. Casinos are businesses. They have table limits, they take the bets that are to their advantage ... that’s really how a profitable trading business operates

domain: psychology


text:
Potongan Diskon setiap pembelanjaan min 500K, CODE : DUFENG20
Light of Egypt and enigmatic queen whose beauty was legendary: this is Nefertari. This precious Tarot introduces the mysteries of the Nile Valley as seen through her timeless eyes. With valuable gold printing this is the most opulent Egyptian Tarot ever created.
There are no reviews yet.

domain: library


text:
Frostbite in hands and fingers is a painful injury that we can sometimes get from exposing our skin to freezing temperatures for too long. It happens commonly to people who are stranded outside (for example, if your car breaks down). We've all felt the effects of being outside in the cold weather. Your hands start to feel numb and may even feel painful after a certain point; however, when is it actually frostbite? If your fingers are red, pale and/or numb, you're most likely on your way to suffering from frostbite (this is also called frostnip, which is commonly mistaken for frostbite). If you're experiencing these initial symptoms, find a way to warm your hands as soon as possible. If you do, you likely won't suffer any permanent damage.
Here are 3 signs that you may have frostbite in your hands:
Frostbite is the actual freezing of the tissues in your hand. Ice crystals will form inside your hands, causing damage between cells. When you first get frostbite (a mild case), it's just the skin that is damaged. As the frostbite progresses, it goes deeper and starts affecting tissues and maybe even bone. The longer your hands are exposed to the cold, the more damage your hand will sustain. People with a history of alcohol or drug abuse, diabetes, previous frostbite, mental illness, a history of becoming dehydrated, a history of smoking, and/or poor nutrition can be more likely to suffer from this injury.
If you're experiencing any of the symptoms above (blisters or black skin), head to the emergency room as soon as possible. While awaiting transport to the ER, please follow these tips:
As mentioned above, do not attempt to treat frostbite yourself. In the emergency room, your doctor will treat the frostbite through a rewarming process, most likely by placing the fingers in a water bath at a very specific temperature. After the finger(s) have thawed, your doctor will then determine the severity of the frostbite and decide on a treatment plan. Your fingers will likely be swollen. Your doctor may try elevation, narcotics or other medication, hospitalization or even amputation if the finger cannot be saved.
Frostbite in hands, if severe enough, can cause permanent damage. The best way to avoid this is to wear proper clothing when outside in freezing temperatures and always be prepared with warm clothing and/or blankets in your car. Learn more about frostbite.

domain: health


Oscar Grant family and BART issue joint statement on New Year's tragedy
Grant family calls for peace, love and forgiveness
As the year anniversary of the tragic officer-involved shooting at Fruitvale Station of BART passenger Oscar Grant draws near, the Grant family and the BART Board of Directors are joining together to thank the public for their continued support for the reforms taking place in the BART Police Department.
Additionally, Oscar Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, wants to emphasize that people should honor her son’s memory on January 1 through "a day of celebration not demonstration." She added, "It is our hope that this day be a peaceful day to remember Oscar and the others who have been lost to violence."
"We want the public to know we are a family of peace, love and forgiveness," Oscar’s uncle Cephus Johnson said. "In the year since my nephew was killed, I truly believe positive changes have occurred in the BART Police Department and many more will come. We want to thank the public for their continued involvement in making the BART Police the best it can be as we enter 2010."
"On behalf of the BART Board of Directors, we want to again express our deepest and sincerest regret and our heartfelt condolences over the loss of Oscar Grant," BART Director Carole Ward Allen said. Ward Allen chairs the BART Police Department Review Committee, which is guiding the implementation of the changes within the police department. "We look forward to making more positive changes in 2010, including the hiring of a new police chief and working with the State Legislature to quickly amend the law so BART can implement independent citizen oversight of the BART Police Department."
"This has been one of the most gut-wrenching episodes in BART's history," BART Board President James Fang said. "But through community involvement, non-biased professional assistance from the outside of BART and of course the extremely strong effort by our Board, particularly the efforts of Carole Ward Allen, we have learned from this tragic incident. Our prayers and deepest sympathies go to the Grant family on this inauspicious one-year anniversary of Oscar Grant's death."
"We want to thank the Grant family and the public for their support, which has been critical to making the reforms underway in the Police Department and we look forward to their continued support in the new year," Director Ward Allen said.


Before we cover PWA examples, let’s get into why we need it.
Native mobile apps are effective in interacting with customers but creating an app is costly, time-consuming, and requires numerous iterations.
And for them to function on multiple operating systems across devices and browsers, you need different app versions compatible with that OS.
Obviously, creating and managing apps can be a lot of work and is not always feasible for businesses.
That’s why the demand for Progressive Web Applications (PWA) is rapidly increasing.
Progressive Web Apps allow merchants to create web-based apps that generate near-native level experience for users. They can operate on any browser and across all devices without downloading or installing the app.
PWAs are quick to build and deploy and great at offering a positive user experience by creating a fast, seamless browsing and purchasing experience.
So it’s no surprise that companies that implemented PWAs have got excellent results. For instance:
- By reducing the size of their app by nearly 97%, Twitter observed a 65% boost in pages per session, 75% more Tweets, and a 20% decrease in bounce rate.
- Nikkei witnessed 2.3 times more organic traffic, 58% more subscriptions, and 49% more daily active users after converting to a PWA.
- Hulu saw a 27% boost in repeat visitors after switching from a platform-specific desktop experience to a Progressive Web App.
Here are some stunning PWA examples from various industries to give you a better idea of how the technology helped to scale businesses.
- PWA Examples #1: Flipkart
- PWA Examples #2: Uber
- PWA Examples #3: Debenhams
- PWA Examples #4: BMW
- PWA Examples #5: Pinterest
- PWA Examples #6: Rakuten 24
- PWA Examples #7: Spotify
- PWA Examples #8: Starbucks
- PWA Examples #9: Twitter
- PWA Examples #10: Nikkei
- PWA Examples #11: The Washington Post
- PWA Examples #12: Tinder
- PWA Examples #13: JD.ID PWA
PWA Examples #1: Flipkart
After its Android app, Flipkart’s progressive web app, known as Flipkart-Lite, is the company’s second-largest transaction channel.
But in 2015, Flipkart, one of the most prominent eCommerce in India and the biggest competitor of Amazon India, wanted to shut down its mobile website.
Here’s what happened next that led to the implementation of Flipkart PWA.
In 2015 the company decided to allow buyers to place orders only through the mobile app and cease mobile website operation due to poor user experience. They discovered that delivering a user experience as efficient as the mobile app was becoming increasingly difficult. In fact, the same year, Flipkart also wanted to discontinue its desktop site!
“(The previous mobile website experience) was not good enough,” Amar Nagaram, vice-president of engineering at Flipkart, told The Economic Times.
But then the company decided to rethink its strategy for mobile web and develop a Progressive Web App to allow an app-like fast browsing experience.
They started developing Flipkart Lite, a Progressive Web App that combines the greatest features of the web and the main Flipkart app. To provide a fast-loading mobile web experience that consumes less data, and re-engages consumers, the PWA uses new, open web APIs. As a result, users get a quick, native app-like user interface (UI) when browsing the web. Even on shaky networks, it loads almost immediately when they return.
Flipkart Lite Offline Experience. Image: Medium
The eCommerce marketplace’s web app is only 100KB in size, i.e., 100 times less than the 10MB Android app and 300 times smaller than the iOS app. It also requires fewer data to download.
- Average time on site increased to 3.5 minutes from previously 70 seconds before the implementation of Flipkart Lite.
- User time spent on the site was tripled.
- People who access Flipkart Lite via the home screen icon account for 60% of all visits to Flipkart Lite and have 70% greater conversion.
- 40% higher re-engagement rate.
- Three times lower data usage.
PWA Examples #2: Uber
The next PWA example comes from the ride-hailing company Uber.
For Uber, the desktop website is as essential as their native app. The company says first-time users were likelier to book their first ride online than download the app. So it makes sense to build something that ensures superior web browsing for those customers.
Uber chose a Progressive Web App called m.uber to offer their users a dependable, trustworthy, and lightning-fast solution.
The new Uber Progressive Web App is accessible via almost all major browsers, even on low-end devices, and from anywhere.
Uber aims to give their customers an easy way to access their service whenever they needed, especially in an emergency, irrespective of the network speed, location, and device.
PWA seemed to be the perfect solution for Uber. It’s a time- and cost-effective option to maintain a solid online presence that can function flawlessly even with a weak connection and offer a lightning-fast page load experience.
Their goal was to allow Uber users to request a ride as soon as possible. So the company implemented some changes for their new PWA.
m.uber is written in ES2015+ with ES5 transpilation using Babel and is intended to operate quickly, even on 2G networks.
According to Uber, they wanted to maintain the excellent user experience of the native app while reducing the client footprint and speed.
Riders using low-end devices, including those not supported by the native client, can use m.uber, which is compatible with all major browsers and provides an app-like experience. The size is also incredibly small, only 50kB, making it possible for the app to load swiftly even on 2G networks.
PWA Examples #3: Debenhams
Debenhams was dealing with a typical issue in the modern web world. Although mobile traffic was growing, conversions were not keeping up.
The squeeze was evident. It was time to give its mobile web strategy priority. So the team went ahead with PWA, which eventually increased their revenue by 40%.
Not seeing conversions going up despite heavy traffic, Debenhams thought their users might have encountered obstacles that kept them from converting.
Jim Hingston, Head of Digital Product at Debenhams, said “If we didn’t improve conversions and traffic continued to shift, our digital and overall growth would slow.”
Debenhams decided to undergo a significant digital makeover in order to avoid loss of sales, especially during busy shopping seasons.
Their previous internet strategy was preventing online conversions. They realized that a subpar web strategy was unsustainable and that they needed to boost mobile growth.
The team strategically created a Progressive Web App because the mobile web attracted more customers than the Debenhams native app. Hingston says, “We decided to launch a PWA because the customer experience drives it, it’s credible technology, it offers an app-like experience on the web, and it offers the best performance.”
Debenhams used the Mobify Platform To build a PWA. The strategy improved mobile customer experience and prepared them for future transformation initiatives.
Thanks to their initiatives, Debenhams boosted their customer journey from browsing to purchasing from 2X to 4X.
They also noticed:
- A 40% boost in mobile revenue.
- A 20% increase in conversions.
- And overall above-market online growth was brought about by Debenhams’ PWA.
PWA Examples #4: BMW
Since its inception, BMW has been known as the epitome of design, perfection, fashion, innovation, and performance. Needless to say, when BMW’s digital team made the decision to update and improve its mobile website, they had specific expectations for how it should function, appear, and feel.
They wanted to create a mobile website that functions just as well as their automobiles and “wow users with high-quality images, smooth full-screen videos and state-of-the-art interactive design.”
Here’s how it all happened.
The BMW team prioritizes the needs of their consumers, and the same applies to the website. “From the start, our goal was to attract new car enthusiasts with highly engaging content – and in a way that tangibly reflected our vehicles. To do that, we needed the brand’s new digital home to become a data-driven content platform, built around high-performance technologies,” said Joerg Poggenpohl, Global Head of Digital Marketing at BMW.
Present-day users have high expectations and a short attention span. They expect the website to load quickly and remain responsive, with minimal delays.
Therefore, the BMW team wanted to make sure users got exactly what they wanted.
The BMW team and their marketing agency collaborated with Google’s team of mobile experts and utilized various web technologies, including PWA.
They put effort into rebuilding BMW.com in such a way that users can’t help but adore it. The website has a classy touch; it loads quickly, maintains stability, and provides easy navigation even in the most challenging network situations.
Image: BMW Mobile Web
The team created a website that set new benchmarks for performance, design, and usability.
- People clicking from BMW.com to a BMW sales site increased fourfold – from 8% to 30%.
- Four times faster page loading speed without compromising on the quality.
- The number of mobile users increased by 50%.
- The new site got 49% more online visitors than the previous site.
PWA Examples #5: Pinterest
It would amaze you to know how Progressive Web Apps can boost a business, as happened to Pinterest. That’s why we consider Pinterest to be a classic PWA example.
If you don’t know yet, Pinterest’s new mobile web experience is a Progressive Web App. Pinterest PWA started because they wanted to expand globally, which brought them to the development of mobile web.
But they realized their outdated, slow online experience only converted 1% of users into new sign-ups, logins, or app installations. So the team decided to invest in the PWA because they thought it would significantly increase the chances of new conversions.
It took approximately 23 seconds before the UI was usable, writes Addy Osmani from Google.
Image Source: Medium
As discussed earlier, their conversion rate was also taking a hit because of slow responsiveness.
Zack Argyle, an Engineering Manager at Pinterest during that time, says in his article that in 2017 they started rewriting their mobile website from scratch as a PWA.
Image Source: Medium
Their mobile web revamps resulted in a significant enhancement of core business metrics and performance.
- Weekly active mobile web users have grown 103% YoY, with 156% growth in Brazil and 312% in India.
- In terms of engagement, consumers were 295% more likely to save a Pin to a board, and the number of Pins seen grew by 401%, while session length increased by 296%.
- There was an increase of 843% in new signups and a 370% increase in logins YoY.
- Mobile browser surpassed all other platforms for new sign-ups since the release and became the #1 platform.
- Additionally, 800K weekly users started using the PWA less than six months after it was fully released.
PWA Examples #6: Rakuten 24
Rakuten 24, provided by its parent company Rakuten Group, Inc., is one of Japan’s best-performing digital marketplace platforms. Rakuten 24 is an online store that works with big international and local companies to offer a wide range of products people need daily, like medicine, drinks, pet supplies, baby products, and more.
The primary objective behind building a PWA was to increase mobile consumer retention and re-engagement.
The results post-PWA implementation are remarkable. Rakuten 24 saw a 450% increase in visitor retention rate over one month after making their web app installable compared to the prior mobile web flow.
Rakuten 24 recognized the following areas to work on and increase market share with customer experience:
1. As a new service, Rakuten 24 was not in a position to invest the time and money in developing platform-specific apps for iOS and Android. An alternative option was required to address the needs of their online consumers.
2. Many people mistakenly believe that Rakuten 24 is a seller on Rakuten-Ichiba, the largest e-commerce service in Japan. The team realized they needed to make investments for growing brand awareness and user retention.
Rakuten 24 made the decision to implement Progressive Web App (PWA) features on an incremental basis, starting with installability. This helped them with enhanced traffic, visitor retention, average sales per customer, and conversions.
The team created an install prompt using the beforeinstallprompt event to have greater flexibility and control over the behavior of their install dialog.
They also created custom installation instructions for users who couldn’t install the PWA from the banner. To ensure that their PWA worked properly even when the user was offline or on a poor network, the Rakuten 24 team used the workbox-webpack-plugin.
They also adopted a cache-first strategy for CSS and JS assets. And it used “stale-while-revalidate” for images that remain unchanged to increase network resilience.
For a period of over a month, the team noticed the following benefits:
- Compared to the rest of their online users, Rakuten 24 boosted visit frequency per user by 310%.
- Additionally, it observed a 200% boost in conversion rate.
- A 150% increase in sales per customer.
- And a 450% increase in visitor retention.
PWA Examples #7: Spotify
Spotify, an audio streaming and media services provider with millions of songs and podcasts, is an excellent example of a Progressive Web App.
Similar to what Debenhams experienced, Spotify also saw a poor conversion rate despite having a large user base.
As The Fader estimated in 2015, out of 75 million monthly Spotify users, only 20 million were paying subscribers. That’s just about a 26.6% conversion rate, which is low for a famous brand like Spotify.
Fast forward to 2019, 100 million premium members and 217 million active users as of the first quarter with a conversion rate of 46%.
Image Source: The Verge
How did they achieve this exponential growth?
The answer is simple – by building Spotify PWA, known as open.spotify.com.
Here’s how they’d done it.
Spotify is a household name, but even then, prior to developing PWA, the conversion rate was low. So among many changes and updates, PWA also made it to the list.
In comparison to its desktop app, Spotify PWA is significantly better. It’s more adaptive, reactive, and responsive. It also has better in-app animations. Taken together, these modifications create a seamless and customized experience for users.
Spotify PWA offers a native look and feel. It delivers a fantastic user experience for desktop users, with optimal accessibility, speed, functionality, and responsiveness.
Image: Spotify PWA on Mobile Web
With the help of a PWA, Spotify continued giving its users an excellent listening experience.
Following the implementation, Spotify’s free-to-paid conversion is said to have increased from 26.6% in 2015 to a record-breaking 46% in 2019 before skyrocketing to a staggering 58.4% in 2021.
PWA Examples #8: Starbucks
In 2015, Starbucks made its mobile app available across the country, but the online ordering was still not available through the web browser. Meaning, if someone wanted to order, they needed to download the app for it.
The Starbucks team realized it was time to add online ordering capabilities to the website to keep up with the growing online customer base, especially those who couldn’t use the app.
The Starbucks team wanted to build a system that would be accessible and available to both existing and new markets. This led them to develop Starbucks Progressive Web Application.
The Starbucks team wanted to design a shopping experience that works even when users are offline. They wanted customers to explore the menu, personalize orders, and add products to their shopping carts even when they weren’t connected to the internet.
Since we already know that Progressive Web Apps work great in slow and poor networks, rural settings, and places where internet connection is relatively unstable, PWA was an obvious choice.
Starbucks also wished for a similar ordering experience at par with the native mobile app and a platform with images, animations, and interactions, while still meeting the requirements for a PWA.
Clearly, the team needed to put in a lot of effort to check all the boxes and to make sure the ordering system was easy to use and reliable so that the customers and the company – both parties would enjoy the interaction.
Starbucks used GraphQL to turn an outdated API into an effective, efficient one and structured the complicated data set and business logic for use across all clients.
They also created the offline mode functionality by setting up caching. It helped them to download the data for each menu item, store the data on prior orders, and store static pages so the PWA could work without the internet.
Image: Starbucks PWA. Source: Formidable
Starbucks PWA is quick, effective, and simple to use yet still retains the native app’s look and feel. The app’s smooth animations give it a native feel, and its small size makes it snappy and incredibly responsive.
Customers can use the PWA without an internet connection, view menus and nutritional data, and personalize orders.
Because a large portion of the app may be accessed without an internet connection; it can be used by users who occasionally experience internet outages in regions that may not always have reliable access to the internet. Plus, Starbucks PWA is also faster and 99.84% smaller than the iOS app.
TL;DR: it’s everything that the team wanted and planned for!
PWA Examples #9: Twitter
Twitter is not only a social media platform, but it’s also the place where people come to find out what’s happening all over the world. 328 million active users each month use it to access, produce, and share information on the social media platform.
Twitter wanted its mobile web experience to be quicker, more dependable, and more entertaining because over 80% of users surf using mobile devices.
The goal behind building Twitter Lite was rapid loading, higher user engagement, and reduced data consumption.
And since 2017, Twitter Lite became the default for all Twitter users on the mobile web.
Twitter Lite Progressive Web App also blends contemporary web and native capabilities to give the users an app-like experience.
Every month, hundreds of millions of users use mobile.twitter.com. Several users from rural setups, and places with flaky networks needed a better, faster, and a reliable solution to use Twitter.
Twitter used an incremental approach to employing service workers for offline and network resilience, beginning with a special offline page that was displayed anytime a network connection was unavailable.
Millions of people now have easier access to Twitter thanks to Twitter Lite; all they need is a smartphone or tablet with a browser.
Twitter Lite is a mobile web experience that uses fewer data, loads quickly even on slower connections, is resilient on unreliable mobile networks, and only occupies a small portion of the device’s memory (less than 1MB).
The team also improved the speed, with up to 30% faster launch times and faster navigating across Twitter.
Twitter Lite offers all of the essential features of Twitter, including a timeline, Tweets, Direct Messages, trends, profiles, media uploads, notifications, and more.
Twitter Lite offers additional features in Google Chrome and other modern browsers on Android devices. Users can receive push notifications, stay up-to-date on the news, and do more with it.
A temporary loss of connection doesn’t interrupt browsing because Twitter Lite also provides offline support.
Key improvements after implementing Twitter PWA:
- Pages per session increased by 65%
- 75% more Tweets were sent.
- The bounce rate was reduced by 20%.
PWA Examples #10: Nikkei
Nikkei is one of Japan’s most reputable media companies, with a publishing history spanning more than 140 years. They receive approximately 450 million monthly visits to their digital platforms in addition to their print publication. In November 2017, Nikkei successfully launched a Progressive Web App at https://r.nikkei.com to enhance user experience and advance their online business.
With more people primarily using their cellphones to access the internet, Nikkei witnessed a sharp increase in mobile traffic trying to access the website.
However, they discovered that their site wasn’t properly optimized for mobile web and was extremely slow to load.
“The value of speed is indisputable, especially for financial news. We made speed one of our core metrics, and our customers have appreciated the change.” Taihei Shigemori, Manager, Digital Strategy, told Google.
Their website averaged 10 seconds on the Speed Index and took about 20 seconds to become consistently interactive. Nikkei wanted to improve the user experience by decreasing the load time and speeding up.
This ensured that the top articles were always available and loaded almost instantly because they were stored using Cache Storage.
They introduced a web app manifest which, when combined with their service worker, allowed the users to easily install the PWA.
Nikkei saw significant performance improvements and positive business impact:
- Two times better speed index.
- Time-to-interactive is 14 seconds faster.
- 75% faster load time with prefetch.
- 2.3 times as much organic traffic.
- 58% more subscriptions.
- Daily active users increased by 49%.
- Page views each session increased by double.
PWA Examples #11: The Washington Post
In 2019 The Washington Post launched a lightning-fast mobile web experience, significantly improving its mobile news site’s load times for both content and advertising.
The Post improved the user experience by combining its own technology with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and PWA.
Chief technology officer for The Washington Post, Shailesh Prakash said, “Mobile is the future. Our goal was to create the fastest mobile news site, setting a new standard of speed.”
“Consumers demand light and fast ads, and with ad blocking and viewability concerns across the industry, this new technology moves us even closer to a solution,” said Jed Hartman, chief revenue officer for The Post.
He went on adding, “Ad experience and user experience go hand in hand, and we are committed to helping our advertisers improve their results and create a better experience for their audience with faster content delivery.”
The old mobile site of The Post was significantly slower compared to the new PWA version. As a news publishing company delivering and making trillions of news articles available at lightning speed without compromising on the quality or user experience, PWA seemed to cater to it all.
When readers are using slow or 2G or 3G networks, load time becomes an issue. So even on that front, a Progressive Web App is a smart choice.
The Washington Post PWA is a single-page web app that uses the browser’s “service workers” to prefetch and cache material in the background. This results in a browsing performance so streamlined that it even functions offline.
Image: The Washington Post
The new mobile site loads almost instantly—under one second—and is just as quick when a user is browsing offline or using airplane mode. Even in situations with limited bandwidth, shaky signals, or no wifi, when consumers click on a Post story, the text, advertisements, and photos load instantly.
The Washington Post’s Head of Product, Joey Marburger, stated in an interview with Beet.tv:
“In our public-facing beta of the PWA web app, we’ve seen about 5x engagement – page views per visit, a number of stories read.”
PWA Examples #12: Tinder
Tinder offers a PWA for desktop and mobile users called Tinder Online. This online dating and networking company has over 60M monthly users in over 250 countries.
It’s important to note that in comparison to their original app experience, Tinder Online, the new web experience sees more interactions, resulting in more swipes, more profile edits, and more time spent by users every session.
As with some progressive web app examples we discussed previously, Tinder is no different when it comes to common challenges. Slow loading time hampered user engagement and user experience, and they were losing out on mobile web conversions as well as interactions.
Tinder Online’s first goal was to get people to use it in new markets, and it tried to have the same features as V1 of Tinder on other platforms.
Tinder’s PWA load times were reduced from 11.9 seconds to 4.69 seconds, and as a result, user engagement reached an all-time high.
Tinder has seen amazing gains since launching its progressive web app. Most significantly, they’ve observed the following in comparison to their native apps:
- 61% faster app load speed, from 11.9 to 4.69 seconds.
- Delivering the core Tinder experience just requires 10% of the data investment cost.
- Web users swipe more frequently than the native app
- Compared to native apps, there are more user messages on the web.
- The web receives more profile updates than native apps.
- Web session times are longer than native app sessions per user.
PWA Examples #13: JD.ID PWA
JD.ID is an Indonesian e-commerce website offering delivery services for various goods, including electronics, home goods, apparel, accessories, and sports equipment. JD.ID, which already serves more than 350 locations in Indonesia, wanted to grow its online presence by improving performance and building a powerful network-independent experience for its Progressive Web App.
With this improved experience, JD.ID increased its overall mobile conversion rate (mCVR) by 53%- thanks to its conversion rate optimization technique. Its mCVR for installed users rose up by 200%, and its daily active users by 26%.
The results helped the company become one of the country’s most popular and trusted e-commerce companies.
Due to unpredictable network accessibility across the country, JD.ID was seeking a solution that would maintain the functionality of its website and user experience at all times.
Users who had visited its website but hadn’t downloaded the iOS or Android app represented Jd’s sizable acquisition opportunity.ID didn’t want to miss it.
In order to reduce network difficulties and enhance user experience, the JD.ID team used Workbox to make sure its PWA worked effectively even when the user was offline or on a poor network. Workbox made it simpler to implement their three-part PWA caching method:
1. Network first, falling back to the cache.
2. Cache first, falling back to the network.
3. Network only
With caching techniques, installation, and push notifications, JD.ID increased its mobile conversion rate increased, and the company saw other benefits, like:
- The mCVR increased overall by 53%.
- Users’ mCVR increased by 200% after installing the JD.ID PWA.
- Due to higher re-engagement from push notifications, daily active users from mobile platforms grew by 26%.
Delivering exceptional user-friendly experiences beyond the usual limits is the only way for businesses to succeed in the digital age.
Superior user experience, uninterrupted browsing, and fast loading pages are essential to make your customers happy so they keep using your product.
Today’s PWA examples helped us understand how other businesses reaped the benefits of Progressive Web Apps and encouraged more businesses to adopt this technology.
You can also be on the list if you implement the right PWA solutions for your eCommerce. We offer PWA Magento and PWA Shopify solutions to merchants to see their businesses make the list similar mentioned above.


text:
An experiential gift makes you closer to the person who gave it to you!
Whether or not money can buy happiness is an idea that everyone contemplates, but the latest research suggests that it can -- to a point. Ask anyone who doesn't have enough money, and they're not likely to say they enjoy stressing to make rent or trying to tough out an injury because they can't pay to see the doctor. But once basic needs are met -- and you're financially stable -- the psychological reward of "being rich" plateaus. Sure you could buy nicer things or the latest tech toy, but science tells us that experiences outweigh more opulent material items -- even when it comes to gift-giving.
As Sarah Gervais, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Nebraska writes, "One reason is that we often share experiential purchases with other people. Even when you’ve driven that new car into the ground, you’ll still be telling stories with your family and friends about that time when you went on vacation to Colorado, and you’ll even be chuckling about when the car broke down and you had to spend the night in the shady motel."
Meanwhile, a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research gave $15 to a control group to spend on a gift for their friends. They were asked to rate their relationships before and after exchanging gifts, and friends who received movie tickets reported feeling closer to those people than others who received things such as wine aerators or articles of clothing.
“Experiential gifts evoke greater emotion than material ones, and it’s that emotional intensity that makes us feel more connected to the giver,” says Cassie Mogilner Holmes, an associate professor of marketing at the UCLA.
With all that said, a lot of children perceive a sense of security. They know where their food is coming from, they don't have to pay a mortgage, worry about insurance and a lot of things that adults stress over, which makes us think that experiential gifts may, in fact, be superior to the new iphone, apple watch, or gaming system on their list.
Not to mention that most of us want to strengthen our relationships with our children, help them establish relationships with others, allow them to develop their emotional intelligence, build confidence, and have them spend a little less time on their phones, tablets, computers etc.
After all, the more positive experiences they have, the more they can share with others, and the more memories they can look back on. So if you're thinking about giving the gift of experience this year, consider one of these!
Cheley Colorado Camps -- Estes Park
Cheley has been around since 1921 and provides young people the chance to meet others, learn life skills, and have a blast in one of the most beautiful natural surroundings in the world. With nearly 100 years of practice, attending a Cheley camp is often a multi-generational affair, meaning it could bring kids closer to their parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents!
Overdrive Raceway -- Colorado Springs
Who doesn't love blasting around a track in a go-kart? Overdrive offers two levels of karting, a full bar, food, and something for everyone -- even those with disabilities. Overdrive owner Jim Mundle is a double amputee who wants to make sure everyone is included no matter what.
Aspen Flying Club's Discovery Flight -- Centennial
[caption id="attachment_29081" align="alignnone" width="553"]
Do you know someone who loves aviation? Book them a discovery flight and take in all of those mountain views from the air!
Skiing at Monarch -- Chaffee County
[caption id="attachment_29083" align="alignnone" width="519"]
We know skiing in Colorado has become outrageously expensive, but if you're willing to cruise down highway 285, you can get to Monarch Ski Area in about three hours and get a lift ticket for $60-$80. Stop by downtown Salida for great food, drink, and coffee.
A Show at The Denver Center For Performing Arts -- Denver
Catch your favorite broadway musicial, world-class concert, or improv performance right in the heart of downtown, then hit up Pizza Republica for a market board and a bite of pizza.
Music Lessons at Swallow Hill -- Highlands - Lowry - Englewood
Whether you're looking to brush up on your playing, learn a new instrument, or explore a new genre, Swallow Hill has something for everyone at all levels.
What are your thoughts, people? Do you have an experience you'd like to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below!


Officials and analysts say that much would depend on how and when the talks fell apart. Both Iran and the United States — along with its five negotiating partners, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China — are reluctant to walk away from the talks, meaning they are likely to drag on even if they don’t meet the March 31 deadline.
Missing that deadline, a goal set in November for a political agreement that would leave technical details to be resolved later, would have no practical effect. The deadline of real consequence is June 30, when an interim deal now limiting Iran’s nuclear program will expire.
And even if the negotiators make Tuesday’s deadline for a political agreement that could be a vague placeholder to buy more time, the talks could still break down later over the technical details due by June 30, as well as continuing friction over Iran’s policies in places like Yemen and Iraq.


Bentiu refinery to relieve S. Sudan power woes
The Managing Director of Nile Petroleum Corporation, Chol Deng Thon, has said the Bentiu Oil Refinery is functional, but it is only affected by poor roads, hampering the supply of fuel for local consumption.
Chol made the statement last week during his briefing to the committee on petroleum at the Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA). The committee had demanded an update on the activities of the company.
However, Chol did not disclose how many barrels of refined oil are produced each day.
He said the seasonal rain had made it difficult for the corporation to deliver the refined products to locations in Juba and other parts of the country.
He added that refined products like diesel are being used by GPOC- one of the oil companies operating in Unity State and Ruweng Administrative Area.
Triggering local production
He revealed that the ‘‘heavy fuel’’ has only found its route to Sudan, but they are working hard to deliver it to Juba instead of exporting it to Sudan.
Chol said the heavy fuel if transported to Juba, could be useful for power generation to reduce the cost of power production.
He stressed that the Nilepet and the ministries of transport, roads, and bridges are reconsidering using river transport during the rainy season.
“We plan to deliver fuel to Juba so that the Ezra power plant can be operational, and that can significantly reduce the cost of units for electricity; and maybe it can cut it by half when we use heavy fuel, which is produced locally here as opposed to receiving it or importing it from the Gulf States,” Chol explained.
“The refinery is currently up and running. We are currently working with the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Road to make the road passable so that fuel can be delivered to greater Bahr el Ghazal and also greater Equatoria, and we will use the River Nile to deliver heavy fuel to Juba.”
Last year, the former Managing Director of Nile Petroleum Cooperation (NilePet) said the devastating floods had hampered the construction of a road connecting to an oil refinery in Unity State.
Several factors have impaired the smooth progress on road-building between the oil field and the fuel refinery, the former NilePet Managing Director Eng. Bol Ring Muorwel, revealed when he visited the site in Unity State to examine the local refinery last year.
Ring underlined the importance of having a local refinery, saying it would reduce reliance on petroleum imports from neighbouring countries.
“Fuel scarcity will be something of the past if the local refinery officially starts operating as the fuel supply centre in South Sudan,” said Ring.


text:
Bela Tamasi1,Noemi Mihalik1,Judit Dohan2,Tibor Kovacs3,Judit Harsing1,Bernadett Hidvegi1,Marta Marschalko1,Sarolta Karpati1,Peter Hollo1
1Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary, Department of Dermatology, Dermatooncology and Venereology.
2Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary, Department of Ophthalmology.
3Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary, Department of Neurology.
Corresponding Author: Bela Tamasi, Semmelweis University, Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Dermatooncology, H-1085 Budapest, Hungary.Tel: +361-459-1500; E-Mail: firstname.lastname@example.org
Received Date: 21 Mar 2016
Accepted Date: 30 Mar 2016
Published Date: 01 Apr 2016
Copyright © 2016 Tamasi B
Citation: Tamasi B, Mihalik N, Dohan J, Kovacs T, et al. (2016). HIV-Associated Generalized Papular Mucinosis and Neurosyphilis. Mathews J Dermatol. 1(1): 005.
Background and Aims
The association of cutaneous mucinosis with other conditions is frequent. While the rare coexistence of papular mucinosis with HIV infection has already been documented, any relation of the disease to syphilitic infection has not been proved yet. We present on a patient with generalized papular mucinosis, HIV infection and neurosyphilis.
Mucinosis; HIV; Syphilis; Neurosyphilis.

domain: medical


text:
DHAKA: The ruling Awami League will celebrate its 61st founding anniversary tomorrow (Wednesday) with countrywide programmes, including paying homage to its paramount leader Mujib.
The party owes its origin to the then Awami Muslim League formed at Rose Garden in Dhaka on June 23, 1949. The progressive leaders and activists of the party excluded the word ‘Muslim’ from the party’s name and established Awami League in 1953, completing its emergence as a non-communal political party.
Elaborate programmes have been chalked out to mark the anniversary of founding of the country’s oldest party, which has ruled the nation for a number of terms since its inception.
The programmes include the hoisting of the national and party flags at party offices across the country at about 5:15 am and placing floral wreaths at the portrait of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at Bangabandhu Bhaban at 7 am.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to be chief guest at a discussion to be organised at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre at 4pm.
Party’s district, upazilla and thana units will also arrange programmes on the occasion.
Party general secretary and LGRD Minister Syed Ashraful Islam urged “all leaders and activists of Awami League at district and upazila levels to observe the day in a befitting manner”.
BDST: 1320 Hrs, June 22, 2010

domain: history


Tags Resolution 1973
Tag: Resolution 1973
Assassinating Qaddafi is widely believed here to be the only reason NATO continues to re-bomb, some as many as five times, the so-called “command and control center” sites that these days could be just about anywhere in Tripoli.
It is with a heavy heart that I am writing this letter to appeal to you to take heed of the message that the House of Representatives sent out to Americans on June 24 by rejecting the text authorizing U.S. military intervention in Libya and ending the on-going attacks against the Libyan people with the most extravagant excuses, like the attacks are there to protect them.
“All of our institutions have failed us if they do not use their power and act against this crime against humanity being carried out in Africa today. I received a call this morning from an Ivorian friend who calls it genocide what Sarkozy’s troops are doing there. Blood, blood, everywhere. Depleted uranium in Libya. Generations to come will suffer the health effects. We must try to stop President Obama. He has the power to say no. So far, he is good at saying yes to all the wrong people. So we must do more than we think we can. Anything less places more blood on everyone’s hands.” - Cynthia McKinney


text:
IRAQ: RESILIENT MARKET
The sectarian violence that is engulfing Iraq has had one small, unexpectedly positive, spin-off: a resurgence of investor interest in the country, according to Iraq-focused fund managers.
The crisis worsened last week as Sunni militants battled for control of oil refineries in the north of the country and threatened to march on Baghdad.
But despite the conflict, Sanjay Motwani, who runs a $34m Iraq fund at Sansar Capital, an emerging markets fund house, said: "I have had enquiries from people asking if right now is a huge opportunity.
"The people interested are contrarian investors, and they tend to recognise that even when there is very bad news, the market tends to be resilient."
Iraq's stock exchange dropped 6 per cent last week, which Mr Motwani considered a positive sign.
"Long-term investors are taking advantage of the ridiculous bargains because of the valuations," he said. "That is why you are seeing the market be a lot more resilient than if this happened in another country."
A second Iraq-focused fund manager, who asked to remain anonymous, agreed, saying: "Our larger investors are looking at this as a potential buying opportunity. The volatility does not bother them too much."
He warned, however, that the initial market recovery is likely to be fleeting. "The Iraqi market still has pretty substantial downside," he said.
Sherif Salem, who runs the $21m Invest AD Iraq Opportunity fund, also said he had received "a lot of interest", particularly from wealthy individuals in Europe and Asia.
The political crisis has, however, stalled investor commitments. "A lot of people are interested in talking about Iraq but obviously what is going on now is not helping the investment case," he said.
Despite the conflict, Mr Salem remained positive about investment opportunities in Iraq, particularly in banking, telecoms and consumer goods.
He said: "Iraq is the usual frontier markets story, except I think this one has even higher growth potential, given it is coming from such a low base."
|February, 16, 23:45:00|
|February, 16, 23:40:00|
|February, 16, 23:35:00|
|February, 16, 23:30:00|
|February, 16, 23:25:00|
|February, 16, 23:20:00|
AOG - The Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) is to invest around $22bn on new energy projects across the next five years, with the renewables sector accounting for an increasing share of electricity generation, according to CEO Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer.
TRANSCANADA - TransCanada Corporation (TSX:TRP) (NYSE:TRP) (TransCanada or the Company) announced net income attributable to common shares for fourth quarter 2017 of $861 million or $0.98 per share compared to a net loss of $358 million or $0.43 per share for the same period in 2016. For the year ended December 31, 2017, net income attributable to common shares was $3.0 billion or $3.44 per share compared to net income of $124 million or $0.16 per share in 2016.
ROSATOM - February 13, 2018, Moscow. – ROSATOM and the Ministry of Scientific Research and Technological Innovations of the Republic of Congo today signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of peaceful uses of atomic energy.
FRB - Industrial production edged down 0.1 percent in January following four consecutive monthly increases. Manufacturing production was unchanged in January. Mining output fell 1.0 percent, with all of its major component industries recording declines, while the index for utilities moved up 0.6 percent. At 107.2 percent of its 2012 average, total industrial production was 3.7 percent higher in January than it was a year earlier. Capacity utilization for the industrial sector fell 0.2 percentage point in January to 77.5 percent, a rate that is 2.3 percentage points below its long-run (1972–2017) average.

domain: finance


text:
The international TEEB-initiative has spotlighted this „Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity”. Focussing specifically at Germany and its forests, two articles have recently been published in the journal ‚Ecosystem Services‘, which present the results of the German contribution to TEEB from a scientific point of view.
The first of these articles focuses at climate policy and the respective role of the various land use forms. Forests have an exceptional position here: actually, they are a sink rather than a source of carbon in Germany. The potential for carbon sequestration, however, is already largely exploited by current forest management. Remaining potentials for increasing carbon sequestration do not always harmonise with nature protection goals.
The second article puts ecosystem services of forests to the fore. Based at current knowledge, it quantifies and assesses which ecosystem services forests provide especially in the rural areas of Germany, what these services are worth in economic terms to forest enterprises and society, and how the provision of these services can be safeguarded and, possibly, be increased.

domain: geography


text:
Madison Square Garden Co. said it has named long-time media executive John Sykes to its board of directors. Sykes, who becomes an independent Class A director of the company, is expected to become a director of MSG’s media company once it completes its planned spin-off.
MSG said in October that it planned to split into two companies – a media unit housing its regional sports networks and a sports and live entertainment unit including its professional sports teams and its arenas. The split is expected to be completed sometime this year.
Sykes, currently president of entertainment enterprises at iHeartMedia, has a 30-year history in the media business. He was a co-founder of MTV, p[resident of VH1, president of network development for MTV and CEO of Infinity Broadcasting (formerly CBS Radio).
“We are very pleased to welcome John to our board,” MSG executive chairman James Dolan said in a statement. “John’s significant expertise in building and managing some of the world’s most powerful and enduring media brands will add considerable value as we pursue our proposed spin-off and seek to increase shareholder value across all of our businesses.”
An active philanthropist, Sykes joined Jim Dolan and Harvey Weinstein in 2001 to co-produce “The Concert for New York City,” which raised more than $35 million in aid for 9/11 victims and heroes. In 2012, the three entertainment executives teamed up again to co-produce “12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief,” which raised more than $50 million to assist the millions of people in the tri-state area impacted by Superstorm Sandy. Sykes currently serves on the boards of the Robin Hood Foundation, Shazam Mobile, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications.
“I am honored to be joining MSG’s board during this exciting time,” Sykes said in a statement. “I have tremendous respect for Jim and the other board members, and look forward to working with them on the continued evolution and growth of the company.”

domain: news


There are currently no items in your cart.
Various Easy Guitar Singles: 1 items found
Guitar - Difficulty: easy-medium
Easy Guitar with Notes & Tab. Composed by Various. Hal Leonard Easy Guitar. Children's. Guitar tablature single. Easy guitar notation, guitar tablature, chord names, lyrics and guitar chord diagrams. 128 pages. Published by Hal Leonard (HL.702178).
Usually leaves our warehouse: Within 24 hours


text:
Artist | Professional | Varied
Thanks for checking out my gallery.
I've been doing Backgrounds, Visual Development and Art Direction for Disney, Dreamworks, Universal Studios and the animation industry since 1989. I worked in many small animation studios before joining Disney's Paris-based animation unit for three years, where I painted backgrounds for such animated films as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Runaway Brain" and served as head of background for the 1995 feature, "A Goofy Movie".
Relocating to California in 1996, I continued my association with Disney, where I did painted backgrounds and concept artwork for "Dinosaur", "Hercules," "Tarzan", the Stravinsky Firebird finale for "Fantasia 2000" and "Treasure Planet". I also worked on Dreamworks' "Shark Tale" doing concept Artwork and paintings.
In 2004, I became Art Director, first on a CG animated short movie for Studio Arts in Los Angeles, then for the animated segment of Disney's live action/animation movie "Enchanted", and eventually for the CG feature film "9", produced by Tim Burton and directed by Shane Acker, for which I got an Annie Awards Nomination (the equivalent of the Academy Awards for Animation) in the category "Best Production Design for a Feature Production".
I worked for a few months as production designer on the upcoming movie "Heroes and Monsters" and as a visual development artist for Universal Studios on "Despicable Me".
I am currently working at Hasbro studios on the CG animated TV show "Transformers Prime" for which I won 2 Emmy Awards back to back in 2011 and 2012.
In parallel to my work in Animation, I have been developing my own paintings for Art Galleries. My inventory has almost entirely sold.
I now share my time between doing artwork and Martial Arts/Fitness (I have been in Martial Arts and Sports since the age of 13).
I live in Toluca Lake, California and frequently travel all over the world.
I am currently preparing my first art book.
Current Residence: North Hollywood, USA
Favourite style of art: Anything that has evolved into a true art form, and doesn't look like crap.


text:
A review for Debora Galan and Silk (9/22/2014)
This is an up-and-coming band to keep your eye on — simply put, phenomenal! Debora gathered her band together along with a back-up singer and her manager. The whole team was… on time, professional, polite, all smiles, on key, and completely in sync with one another. The performance ranged from smooth jazz to some more upbeat takes on a variety of songs. The venue was very high profile, corporate – Debora has the innate knack for picking up on the ‘vibe’ of the guests, and all evening performed the music accordingly. The hotel general manager finally had to conclude the event, as no one wanted to leave! So much thanks goes out to the whole band, from myself (the event coordinator) to too many guests to count.


Comcast has beefed up its high-definition (HD) tier in Oregon and southwest Washington State with the addition of 11 new HD channels, and the MSO is offering its AnyRoom service to digital customers.
The new HD channels will include: Disney Channel HD, ABC Family Channel HD, Discovery Channel HD, TLC HD, Science Channel HD, Food Network HD, Animal Planet HD, SciFi HD, CNN HD, AMC HD and TBS HD. In addition to the HD channels, the NHL Network will launch in standard-definition (SD) on Comcast’s sports and entertainment tier.
Comcast’s AnyRoom service allows customers to select video-on-demand (VOD) programs on one TV and view them on any other TV in the home with a Motorola digital set-top box (STB). Comcast’s digital cable customers who have VOD service do not need to make any changes or add equipment to use the free AnyRoom feature.
In order to provision the AnyRoom service, Comcast associates customer accounts with its VOD backoffice to start an on-demand offering in one room and then finish it in another room.
AnyRoom made its debut in New Jersey last month (story here), and Comcast said the service would be rolled out in other markets this year. Comcast plans to offer the service on Scientific Atlanta STBs later this year.
More Broadband Direct:


text:
The ground-breaking ceremony of the Millet Processing Unit was held at Tiptur, Tumakuru district in Karnataka, on 28th January 2024.
Sadguru Sri Madhusudan Sai had addressed nearly 1,000 farmers who are supporting the Annapoorna Morning Nutrition programme by providing Ragi, which is a millet ingredient for the SaiSure Millet Multi Nutrient Health mix when farmers had visited Sathya Sai Grama few months back. In view of the year 2023 declared as the ‘International Year of Millets,’ the government school children will receive SaiSure Millet (Ragi) Multi Nutrient health mix along with milk as part of the morning nutrition programme. Annapoorna Morning Nutrition programme has reached out to nearly 30,00,000 children across 25 states and 4 union territories in India. In February, with the launch in the state of Karnataka, the number is set to expand to 90,00,000 children.
Farmers and agriculture are the backbone of our society. They work hard to supply food items for everyone living in the nation throughout their lives. Cultivating Ragi crops for the benefit of the good health of the government school children has been the most valuable effort that these farmers have put in. Thanks to their selfless act, lakhs of children are receiving healthy morning nutrition.
Hundreds of farmers assembled at the event. They came to the event as curious observers to see for themselves if what the Annapoorna Trust members told was true and genuine. But on understanding the selfless intention behind this morning nutrition programme, they were delighted to be a part of this. Moved by the cause, they even came forward to donate a few extra bags of Ragi for every quintal we bought from them. Further to this, they were very pleased to know that there would be no intermediaries or commission agents and they would be paid directly for their efforts.
Directly linking the farmer’s produce to solve the problem of malnutrition was long awaited! Annapoorna family has become bigger today by embracing nearly 3,000 families of farmers. Truly, this is a grand witnessing of Vasudaiva Kutumbakham!


text:
This sweet family was so fun! Tacie wanted a fun session showing lots of sweet interaction between their family.
My favorite kind of session. I had so much fun and the light down this sweet country lane was top notch.
Tacie is an awesome photographer over at T Wright Photography here in town as well. Check her page out, she is great!
Thanks so much you guys!!


text:
Unity 3D Game Developer Forum : In MisterNinjaBoy's official community forum, you get more than just the youtube channel, you can join the Unity3D game developer community, were questions are answered, where you meet ot
A forum for the responsible pickup enthusiast.
Official Forum of the Forza Race Divison Removed on: 10/01/2018
An automobile club for the enthusiast who enjoys the last of the big GM cars. The rear wheel drive B and D bodys.
Official VMRD business
Official forum for the radio station to discuss about the station, music and other topics.
The official forum for Chatlands website Overgrowth.
The official forum for the KSR clan
Official UcE Wolfenstein Enemy Territory forum page
Forum used for all uses for Alvaris Confederation in Nationstates.
This is a site for Subaru enthusiast that live in WV or nearby. . .
Free forum : Bliss is an active, skilled and friendly clan. We are here to have fun and enjoy all the good moments. Time has come for Bliss to shine in Begone. Like a storm from above, or a bunch of
The unOfficial Dueling Nexus Forum. Dedicated to the sharing of deck profiles, deck ideas, and other yugioh related topics. Come in and play Yu-Gi-Oh! with us!
dueling, nexus, forums, #official, dedicated, sharing, deck, profiles, ideas, yugioh, topics, play, yu-gi-oh!, hand, pokemon, network, mega, capitalg, azneyes, slaydra, simplyunlucky, opening, youtube, yuginono, duelist, duel, game
Based on Sword Art Online, the 'Tales of' Series, and Japanese RPGs. People are kidnapped and inserted into a virtual reality world, where they must fight to escape or die trying.
OldSchooL Lineage 2 clan official forum
Giving Honor to Plazma Burst Since the Genesis
Official forum of the Entropia Universe Obsidian Society
A collection of custom designs, design resources and downloads for websites, photographers, designers, coders, business owners, anime lovers, technical engineers and motion graphics enthusiast.
coding, game, develop, publishing, photography, metals, css/html, splash, page, themes, games, intro, xbox, robotics, design, development, posters, gaming, stationery, mechanical, engineering, world, news, buttons, logos
This is the official website for the NTC 2017 tournament
The Deftones are a band from Sacramento, Ca. found guilty of a crime they didn't commit, they promptly broke free from a maximum security prison and now live as soldiers of fortune.
The Last Airbender: New Chapters RP - take your own voyage through the massive world of The Last Airbender.
A webzine dedicated to metal and rock music.
The official home for the wrestling e-federation Ring of Chaos.
The official Forum for Augustine: Despondent and other projects like Slender: Darkplaces and Zombie Shootout. Other projects and developers welcome!
Free forum : The official MSB pitch forum. An idea farm, a concept warehouse. The next MSB classic starts here.


text:
Guardians of the Galaxy
- Dolby Atmos
- Assisted Listening Device
- Descriptive Video
In the far reaches of space, an American pilot named Peter Quill finds himself the object of a manhunt after stealing an orb coveted by the villainous Ronan.
Assisted Listening Device: Available
Closed Caption: Available
Descriptive Video: Available
Open Caption: Not Available
Directed By: James Gunn
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel
Showtime presented in
Purchase Tickets for This Movie
There are no showtimes available.