Giving Thanks: Scientists Seek World Record for Most Pieces of Used Toilet Paper Collected

?Once the diversity of the microbial world is catalogued? it will make astronomy look like a pitiful science.? ?Julian Davies

For Neil Armstrong, the big step was the moon. For Jeff Leach it is the colon.

Jeff Leach called me not so long ago to ask me about mine. Well, that isn?t totally right. He called to tell me about other peoples. Is that worse?

In the colon live ?trillions of bacteria (though such estimates are guesses as wild as those about the numbers of stars), a universe of planet-sized cells just above the sphincter. These bacteria are important, but uncharted. The most poorly known feature of these beasts is how they vary from one person to the next and why. This is a version of the belly button mystery I discussed last week?the mystery of what determines just which microbes you have and depend on (or fight). Leach wants to understand what determines the wild life of your colon, badly.

Most readers of Scientific American are aware that their bodies are covered inside and outside with microbes on which his or her life, odor, and much else depend?their cloak of cells. But this consensus is new. In the 1960s Lynn Margulis posited that the mitochondria in our cells and chloroplasts in plant cells were relictual bacteria, evidence of ancient symbioses. She also argued that symbiosis were everywhere, a dominant feature of evolution. She was right on all counts, the founding mother of the microbiome. She was also ignored. Not long after, Carl Woese went into his lab proposing to look at the nucleotides of bacteria to create evolutionary trees of microbes. He was laughed at, but went on to found modern evolutionary biology. Then, in the 1980s, while using LCD and driving around with his girlfriend Kary Mullis had the idea to use the enzymes in an Archaean (a group of microbes that Woese put on a totally unique branch of the tree of life) to amplify DNA and, in essence, produce much more of it for analysis. Together these accomplishments set the stage for the modern field of microbial ecology and evolution. For all of this work, Margulis, Woese and Mullis were regarded as crazy. Now their accomplishments are so well accepted that, among young students, they seem scarcely to be regarded.

Leach wants to take the insights of Margulis and the tools of Woese and Mullis and go big. He is a go big or go home kind of guy. He has the ?let?s go kick some butt,? demeanor of a high school wrestling coach one win shy of the state championship. His perspective is that he can only really understand what is going on by seeing samples of feces (from toilet paper wipes) from thousands and thousands of samples. With those samples, Leach wants to study the variation among people in terms of their gut microbes (or at least the ones that end up in feces). This is the perspective of someone new to the field, someone with the good fortune to be able to work after the earlier, harder, times. Leach wants to see with the tools he has inherited. Galileo had a telescope. Anton Von Leeuwenhoek had a single-lens microscope. Leach has bundled up pieces of used Charmin, that and modern genetics.

[Image 1. Jeff Leach sampling home and body microbes in Namibia. The home samples are part of our Wild Life of Our Homes project; yourwildlife.org].

Leach thinks that there are healthy microbial communities and sick ones, that most of us tend to have somewhat to very sick ones and if we understand the variation we might understand how to eat, live, and farm (microbes) in such a way as to favor the healthy ones. This is an exciting idea, but it, like hundreds of other exciting ideas about gut microbes, still needs to be tested. The field is in its stumbling infancy. The field needs the data; Leach needs the data.

Leach is an anthropologist. He specializes in talking to people, not probing them. He needs help and so he has been making phone calls and in a global version of phone tag he has pulled together a super team of microbiologists, and then me, to try to help with his endeavor. The leaders of this large endeavor are now Leach, Rob Knight at the University of Colorado and Jack Gilbert at University of Chicago and Argonne National Lab, but the team is a who is who of the microbial ecologists of the body, intellectual descendents of Margulis, Mullis and Woese. Knight and Gilbert are now leading the technical part of the project and Leach is coordinating its public reach and offering anthropological context. ?Knight and Gilbert will use fancy molecular tools inspired by Woese and Mullis to see which species are in the feces of those who are sampled and then tell the participants about those species. My job, I think, is to help coordinate what we tell folks about those species. I?m the microbial biographer (stay tuned here for the edited biography)

But here is the problem, a problem we have encountered in our own studies of belly buttons and homes (yourwildlife.org). Microbial ecology and evolution take time. Processing samples is slow and budgets are fixed such that the more people are interested in projects, beyond some limit, the more can be understood about the invisible world, but also the longer it takes to get the job done. Leach had the idea to get around this problem by funding his project via Indiegogo (it sounds like a rash you get from being on Leach?s wrestling team, but it is actually a crowd-funding website). Participants will donate funds to have their samples processed, enough funds to cover the cost of processing their samples (which pays for their piece of a robot, a technician and a postdoc?yes, and this is terrible, the robot gets paid the most). As a starting point, he and Rob Knight have decided that if 275,000 are raised, it will be enough to get the project off the ground (again, damned robot). The project is called American Gut (to be followed, one hopes, by Australian Gut, Thai Gut, etc?, following in American Idol footsteps). You can donate here, but there is also a comment section so if you don?t have the cheddar you can always just leave a note.

[Image 2. Rob Knight in his lab at the University of Colorado].

What is interesting and exciting about this project is that, for your money, it does not propose to deliver health miracles, a thinner fitter you or really anything practical in the short term. It proposes instead to produce science, the science of America?s colonic diversity and the science of you. In this era in which science seems to be getting beat up left and right (though mostly right), a time in which the call is to lower taxes and ignore climate change, will Americans pay for such knowledge? Margulis, Woese and Mullis never appear to have gotten their greatest work funded by the federal government. They did it on shoestrings and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. But what if the work the public is willing to pay for is different from the work that tends to get funded, what if the public cares more about the ecology of their bodies than do review panels? This is just what Leach, Knight and Gilbert are hoping for.

Even if Americans won?t pay for their science there is a back up plan. Leach and crew can offer that thing that seems to have even more cache, a world record. I haven?t checked with Guinness, but I am willing to bet that if Leach can really gets thousands of samples he will have the world?s largest collection of pieces of used toilet paper. If not for science or personal knowledge, you can still support Leach in his quest to be the champ.

As for Margulis, Woese, and Mullis? Woese continues to work. Mullis gives lectures. Margulis died last year. I can?t help wondering what she in particular would think of this and other microbiome projects. Her edited biography has just been released. Reading it reminds me of her reckless intellect, but also her battles. She fought her whole life to do what she loved, to study the microbes that she thought (rightly) run and own the world. Now the grandeur and importance of those same microbes have been recognized, enough so that athletes want to know about their microbes and celebrities do too. I have to hope Margulis would want to be sampled, to see her own trillions of symbionts. I think she would; toward the end of her life she was delighted to find a new species of single-celled beast in the pond where she liked to skinny dip. It had been swimming with her all those years, her private mystery. Would that we could have found a new species lurking in her gut too. But the reason I really wish she were still around is to help us think wildly about the data that result from Leach?s samples and those from other projects like our belly button or homes projects, to see the answers so outrageous that even once we articulate them no one will believe them for tens of years.

Giving thanks: Thank you Lynn Margulis, Carl Woese and Kary Mullis for letting us see what was so long invisible. Thank you invisible microbes for letting us exist.

?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=06eb8b663d404dee8501f146f7628da0

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Tablet maker Pandigital no longer offering warranty replacements, reminds us it's now out of business

To be completely fair, Pandigital officially called it quits back in July of this year, when it handed the remaining of its assets to a liquidator in order to comply with the don't-call-it-a-bankruptcy process. Now, however, the creator of that 7-inch Novel slate has been contacting former customers -- that are experiencing tablet woes -- to let them know it will no longer be able to offer such customer service, noting that "due to this liquidation process any further requests for warranty replacements cannot be honored." Given its earlier filing with the Credit Management Association, the notice doesn't exactly strike us a surprise, but it does tell us not to expect the Supernova maker to splash a comeback any time soon. You'll find the original email sent to troubled customers right after the break.

Due to this liquidation process any further requests for warranty replacements cannot be honored.

Please be advised that Pandigital, Inc (the 'Company'), executed a General Assignment for the benefit of its creditors in favor of Credit Management Association on July 13, 2012 (the 'General Assignment'). A general assignment is a common law means of concluding the affairs of an insolvent debtor as an alternative to the Chapter 7 bankruptcy process. Pandigital is currently in the process of liquidation by the Assignee.

You are receiving this email as you have recently been shipped a warranty replacement for a Pandigital product.

Filed under: Tablets

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Via: Android Central

Source: The Digital Reader

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/21/pandigital-out-of-business/

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Motherhood Mindfully: Mindful Parenting: Reducing Holiday Stress

The increased spending
and overloaded calendars that often happen this time of year can turn the
holiday season from merry to miserable for many Americans. A University
of Missouri Extension specialist offers tips to help families
reduce stress during the holiday season.

Lucy Schrader is the coordinator for the MU Extension Building Strong Families Program, which helps families build on their strengths to improve their relationships. More than 22,000 adults and nearly 6,000 youth in 11 states have participated in the program.

?Families are dynamic and they aren?t perfect,? Schrader said. ?The holidays are a high-stress time due to more obligations on the calendar, the blending of cultures or families who may not get along, overwhelming financial stress, and high expectations for traditions.?

Schrader says National Families Week from Nov. 18-24 is the perfect time for families to practice communication techniques before the holiday season gets busier. She suggests one way that families can spend more time together is to participate in the Million Minute Challenge, a grassroots effort that encourages face-to-face time among families and friends, during National Game and Puzzle Week, which is also this week.

?Small things can make a big difference, and playing games together can be one way to find that quality time,? she said. ?By playing games together, family members get to know each other better, talk, laugh and be silly.?

Schrader suggests the following tips to help families manage stress during the holiday season:

• Try to celebrate one good thing each day, whether it?s getting out the door on time or taking a few minutes to chat about school or work.
• Talk with each person in the family, including children, and let them know about changes in schedules or upcoming events.
• Remember that kind words and acts go a long way. A hug or heartfelt ?thanks? are meaningful and simple ways to express appreciation.
• Show self-respect and be nice to family members who may be struggling with changes to routines or health behaviors.
• Be realistic and communicate up-front about what the family can do.?Identify which traditions are most important and which can be skipped or delayed, whether kids or adults can help with chores or events, and when the family plans to stay home and relax.
• Take a slow, deep breath at multiple times throughout the day.

Schrader and the Building Strong Families Program are affiliated with the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences Department of Personal Financial Planning and MU Extension.

Source: http://motherhood-mindfully.blogspot.com/2012/11/mindful-parenting-reducing-holiday.html

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Project Change Management: What is Project Management? What ...

What is project management? At root, it is a management process that can be applied to any initiative large or small that must deliver within a certain timeframe and cost, in order to meet specific objectives.

There are a number of significant principles that determine success in any project, and in summary they are as follows:

- Precise Business Needs - Successful projects are business driven and address the 'why' of the project. This is known as the business case and is important in that it provides the basis for all decision making.

- Defined Benefits - Projects are about translating the business need into the business benefit which is derived from the new capability delivered by the project. N.B. Programme management will impose the disciplines to define and quantify and management the realisation of these benefits via benefit profiles and benefit management.

- Explicit Plans - Effective planning, allows people to work together in a co-ordinated way in order to achieve the project objectives, and is dependent on the appropriate level of granularity and presentation.

- Project methodology - A set of defined methods, processes and practices that are repeatedly carried out to successfully deliver projects. The project methodology will: create a project roadmap; monitor time, cost and quality; control change and scope; minimise risks and issues, and manage staff and suppliers

- Agreed Deliverables - Quite simply a 'deliverable' is an unambiguous way of defining responsibilities in terms of outputs rather than inputs. Each phase, area and task within the project plan should have a tangible deliverable associated with it - something that can be seen, and physically validated.

- Pro-Active Decision Making - Project work has little momentum of its own, unlike routine work. All parties involved are therefore required to take the initiative and actively look for ways of driving and improving the project outcome.

- Single Point Responsibility - In business tasks are only completed successfully when people have unambiguous accountabilities. 'Single point responsibility' for results is of the very essence. The Project Manager is ultimately responsible for making the project happen.

- Active Follow-Up - Plans have practical value only when they are used to help people do their daily work. They are similarly used as a means of identifying problems while there is still time to overcome them. Plans must therefore be used throughout the entire project in order to allocate tasks and monitor achievement.

- Open Communications - Time must be invested in communication as it is the key to a successful project. By effectively communicating the project and issues everyone involved has the opportunity to take the initiative and contribute fully with ideas and decisions.

- Good Teamwork - Teamwork in projects is absolutely critical but does not happen automatically. Project work involves people from different parts of the organisation, often with competing priorities and different perspectives, which can make teamwork all the more difficult to achieve. Teams must therefore be actively developed by the Project Manager.

- Strong Leadership - By an individual who is committed to the project objectives, and who has a completely clear view of where the project is going and how they intend to get there leads a successful project. The leadership qualities of the Project Manager are as important as their technical management skills.

Change management - The value added by project management

What is project management within the context of an organisational strategy? It is the dynamic management process that utilises the appropriate resources of an organisation in a controlled and structured manner, to achieve clearly defined objectives and to deliver a capability to meet an identified strategic need.

It is important to stress that it is the benefits and not the capabilities that fulfil the strategic vision. But to realise these business benefits we first need the capabilities that are delivered via successful project management and from the benefits are derived.

In a change management context, whilst project management is crucially important, good project management alone will not guarantee success. It is Programme Management that will lead to the realisation of the business benefit envisaged in the organisational strategy.

Programme management provides the more holistic perspective - that takes in the bigger picture. It provides this via a supplementary framework that takes the longer and wider view of the management of any and all other activities that are necessary to ensure the realisation of the business benefits.

My own approach to change management goes even further than programme management and includes:

(1) A thorough analysis of organisational culture- as it this that determines how your people will respond to a change initiative.

(2) A pre-programme review and planning process.

In my view these 2 additional steps are necessary to analyse and connect the strategic vision with a successful project level implementation - and to do so in the critical context of the cultural and people issues.

Source: http://koftikafe.blogspot.com/2012/11/what-is-project-management-what-value.html

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As leaders negotiate Gaza truce, civilians caught in crossfire - World ...

A three-story building in Gaza was flattened by an overnight Israeli airstrike that was targeted at a Hamas militant. NBC's Richard Engel reports.

By NBC News staff and wire reports

Updated at 8:43 p.m. ET: As Israel entered its fifth day of airstrikes on Gaza, a missile targeted at a top militant flattened a three-story building, killing 10 members of a family.

The attack, which came as Middle East leaders attempted to negotiate a ceasefire, triggered fear that Israel could launch a ground offensive and lead to war.

Twelve people died in the overnight attack, including four children and four women. At least 75 Palestinians have died so far in this nearly week-long conflict. More than 600 have been injured.

---

In Israel, where half the country is now within reach of rockets, three people have been killed. Dozens have been injured.

More than a hundred rocket attacks were launched from Gaza, triggering more panic and fear in Israel's commercial capital where sirens were last heard during the Gulf War. NBC's Martin Fletcher reports.

In Tel-Aviv, the country?s commercial capital, sirens sounded for the first time since the Gulf War. Targeted attacks Sunday on the trendy city were shot down, the Christian Science Monitor reported.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama said?he fully supported Israel's right to defend itself and called for an end to the firing of missiles into Israel by militants inside Gaza in order for a peace process to go ahead.

"If this can be accomplished without?a ramping up of military activity in Gaza, that is preferable," Obama said during a visit to Myanmar. "That's not just preferable for the people of Gaza, it's also preferable for Israelis because if Israeli troops are in Gaza they're much more at risk of incurring fatalities or being wounded."

The conflict between the two sides ratcheted up after Israel launched an air strike Wednesday that killed Ahmed al-Jabari, Hamas?s top military leader. Hamas, deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Israel, won parliament seats in Gaza in 2006 and took control of the area in 2007.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has plagued Israeli border towns for years.

After Jabari was killed, the Israel Defense Forces posted a video of the airstrike on YouTube. Then they tweeted: ?We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead.?

In Cairo, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi worked behind the scenes to broker a truce. He said "there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees.''

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which?unraveled?with recent violence.

Ammar Awad / Reuters

Two sides exchange deadly airstrikes, rocket attacks.

In Jerusalem, an Israeli official declined to comment on the negotiations. Military commanders said Israel was prepared to fight on to achieve a goal of halting rocket fire from Gaza, which has plagued Israeli towns since late 2000, when failed peace talks led to the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.

The conflict speaks to a much broader question of whether Israel should cede land so that Palestine may become a state. The U.N., European Union and Russia agree there should be separate states, with Gaza being included in the Palestinian state.

In May 2011, President Barack Obama also agreed: ?We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.?

That would leave Israel with just nine miles at its narrowest, however, which its leaders say would be difficult to protect.

Related:

'Some indications' Hamas-Israeli truce is possible, Egypt says

Key players in the Israel-Gaza cross-border conflict

How Israel's 'Iron Dome' intercepts incoming rockets in Gaza conflict

Rockets from Gaza fired on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

Ground offensive
Israel was prepared to substantially broaden its operation in the Gaza strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday as military planes continued to bomb targets in Gaza City.

"The Israel Defense Forces have attacked more than 1,000 terror targets in the Gaza Strip," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting. "We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations and the Israel Defense Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation."?

He gave no specifics and made no mention of the possibility of a ground offensive.?

But Israeli cabinet ministers decided on Friday to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000 and around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Maj.-Gen. Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: "Definitely.''

?We have a plan. ... It will take time. We need to have patience. It won't be a day or two,'' he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.

The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion over the New Year of 2008-09, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

'Huge bang'
At least two rockets fired from Gaza toward Tel Aviv, Israel's?commercial?capital, were shot down Sunday by Israel's Iron Dome air shield, witnesses and officials said.

NBC's Paul Goldman saw at least one missile being intercepted by Israel's anti-rocket defense system over the center of the city.

"I was taking cover and heard a huge bang," Goldman said. "(I) looked up and saw the explosion in the air above me. I could smell the fire."

Israel's strikes were causing widespread damage, Mohyeldin reported from Gaza.?"These strikes are portrayed as precision strikes, but they are anything but that given how densely populated the area is," he said.?

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

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Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/18/15252420-as-leaders-negotiate-gaza-truce-civilians-caught-in-crossfire

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Essence of corporate gifting | Giftex Blog - Blog on Corporate Gifting ...

Corporate gifting, a detailed note on the Monginis site elaborates, is a long-term investment in professional and personal relationships that hold the key for future. There are several articles to strike a chord for any organization, such as food consumables as gifts. As the popular saying goes, ?the way to man?s heart is through the stomach??

Monginis is among the top cake brands in India, committed to making ?personalized? deliveries across most cities in India, giving you unlimited creativity thanks to their experience of handling corporate gifting of reputed companies.

They also have a range of crispy, crunchy cookies, with longer shelf life and transport friendly. The most popular amongst them are Shrewsbury, Tutti Fruity, Choco-Chips and Badam Cookies. The brand makes hand-made chocolates in different flavours and shapes. These are packed in very attractive boxes, but if one desires to have a special exclusive packing, it can also be organized.

Monginis can create a special bonding between you and your Customers / Clients, can also help you in keeping your Employees happy, and handle the prestigious Corporate Special occasions. With appropriate gifts, you can:

• Send warm wishes with a wonderful gist to attract new clients
• Build existing relationships
• Thank clients and business associates
• Recognize employee?s performance
• Celebrate milestones and successes
• Remember staff birthdays and anniversaries
• Bring a smile on someone?s face?..

A survey by American Express revealed that almost half of corporate gift selections are now food-related, replacing the flowers and gift cards that have dominated earlier. Flexibility, choice and the near-universal appeal of indulgent foods allow businesses to easily find a custom solution that invokes a positive feeling and a sense of bonding in recipients.

Corporate Gifting Occasions

Birthdays / Anniversaries: People are most receptive and are happy on their birthdays / anniversaries.Birthdays & Anniversaries Cake. It?s a landmark in their lives. There cannot be any other better timing to approach them than these.

Festivals: Diwali, X?mas or New Year are among the most popular gifting occasions;

Special Days Like Doctor?s Day could be a very good opportunity to approach them.

Foundation day or Annual Day of an organization

New product launch;

New office / factory opening;

Why cakes for Corporate Gifting ?

Cakes are strongly associated with celebrations and happy moments. If organization is targeting birthdays / anniversaries for gifting, then there cannot be a better gift than the Cake to create an everlasting impression. For festive occasions like X?mas / New Year, cake is the most appropriate gift.?????? Last but not the least, it stands out in a clutter of gifts one receives on popular occasions

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Source: http://blog.giftex.in/corporate-gifting/essence-of-corporate-gifting/

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Steward Hailed By Queen Of Soul And Boxing Royalty ? CBS Detroit

LARRY LAGE,AP Sports Writer

DETROIT (AP) ? Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward was celebrated by boxing royalty and the Queen of Soul at a star-studded memorial service Tuesday in the Motor City.

Steward, the man who made the Kronk Gym famous, died of colon cancer last month at the age of 68.

His family took its time to plan a memorial befitting a beloved public figure ? and it was a hit.

Champions he trained ? including Thomas Hearns, Lennox Lewis, Wladimir Klitschko and Evander Holyfield ? one he worked out only briefly ? Sugar Ray Leonard ? and another he didn?t train at all ? Roy Jones Jr. ? all paid their respects.

?What a spectacular turnout of support,? HBO Sports commentator Jim Lampley said. ?Over here, you have a section that I would call the Hall of Fame section. You would have to go to Canastota (N.Y.) in midsummer to the Hall of Fame to see anything even remotely approaching this group.

?There are five legitimate heavyweight champions sitting in the first two rows and the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world.?

And if that wasn?t impressive enough, Aretha Franklin sang a stirring rendition of ?I?ll Fly Away? in front of a few thousand witnesses at Greater Grace Temple. Franklin, a friend of Steward?s in Detroit for decades, said she wouldn?t have missed the memorial for anything.

?He had a million-dollar smile you couldn?t deny,? Franklin told The Associated Press from her front-row seat. ?I?m so glad he made the Kronk Gym what it was, helping countless young boys become men and many amateurs become champions.?

A private dinner and party in Detroit followed the service.

The city closed the original Kronk Recreation Center ? a hot, sweaty basement gym ? after vandals stole its copper piping in 2006. It was allowed to remain open, but it put Steward in a difficult financial situation and he later rented space at a gym in Dearborn so his young fighters could train.

Now, there isn?t a Kronk Gym anywhere ? and his family is hoping to change that.

?We closed it after he passed, but we?re going to restructure it and we want it done correctly,? Sylvia Steward-Williams told The AP, sitting in her father?s second-floor office at his brick home on Detroit?s west side. ?We want to get a good foundation, like it was in the beginning, and build it back up.?

Steward, who was born in West Virginia in 1944 and moved 11 years later to the Motor City, trained boxers born and raised in Detroit such as Hearns. He was hired by boxers from all over the globe.

Lewis was trained by Steward from 1994 to 2004, a period that included victories over Holyfield and Mike Tyson.

?I?ve been interviewed by a lot of TV stations around the world, they have put Emanuel Steward a league of great trainers,? Lewis said. ?And I say, he is the greatest trainer that ever lived.?

Steward was an accomplished amateur boxer who chose to become a coach in the ring, starting in 1971 with a part-time position at Kronk for $35 per week.

Hearns put the gym ? and the trainer affectionately called Manny ? on the map. Hearns was the first man to win titles in four divisions and he won five overall.

The boxer known as Hitman lost some of his most famous bouts. Hearns was knocked out in the 14th round by Leonard in 1981 in what Steward later said that was the most painful experience of his life and was on the short end of a three-round fight with Marvin Hagler in 1985 that is considered one of the best bouts in history.

On an emotional day, which started in the morning with family, close friends and former fighters gathering at two homes Steward owned, Hearns was so overcome with emotion when he stepped up to the pulpit that he had to step back, wipe tears off his cheeks and gather himself.

?If it wasn?t for Emanuel Steward, it would be very difficult to be where I am today,? Hearns said. ?He wasn?t just a trainer to me, he was like a dad.?

Jones was trained by his father, and he told the AP he wished his mother hadn?t talked him out of hiring Steward to be his trainer when he turned pro.

When Jones got behind the microphone at the memorial, he compared Steward to Michael Jordan and Barry Sanders ? one-of-a-kind talents that can?t be replaced ? and said he has always carried a red-and-yellow Kronk Gym bag to every fight.

?There was no other gym on the planet that produced that much talent,? he said. ?I may not be a Kronk fighter by contact, but by heart I am.?

Steward suffered cardiac arrest while he was hospitalized near Chicago last month, and it proved too much to overcome as he also fought cancer. Just three days after retaining his three heavyweight titles in Germany, Klitschko traveled to Detroit with fresh bruises and cuts on his face to honor Steward, his trainer and friend.

?Emanuel Steward lives in the hearts of each of us,? he said. ?Not just the people present in this room ? the people around the world.?

Klitschko?s new trainer is fellow heavyweight Johnathon Banks, a Detroit native who was trained by Steward. When Banks arrived at Steward?s house on Tuesday, Sylvia Steward-Williams hugged him and shared four words that left him in awe.

?It?s your time now,? the trainer?s eldest daughter whispered in his ear.

?I never expected that to come out of her mouth, especially to me,? he said softly. ?But those are shoes that will never be filled. There?s no replacement for Emanuel. I?m just pouring water on the seed he already planted.?

___

Follow Larry Lage on Twitter: http://twitter.com/larrylage

(? Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Source: http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/14/steward-hailed-by-queen-of-soul-and-boxing-royalty/

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The Real Homemaker's Challenge:: Approval

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I think there?s are trap I fall into many days, weeks, and even months; especially the Holiday months! Today, I want to talk about Approval: I worrying about gaining the approval of men {or mainly women ;o)} rather than God. I am no longer being hospitable I?m hosting.

The Real Homemaker?s Challenge 1- Approval:

You know what I?m talking about. As we are preparing our homes for guest, these thoughts creep up: ?Is this clean enough for them.? ?Maybe they?ll rave about my creative decorating!? ?They are going to be talking about this party for months!? I worry about each persons? personality and if they will like my tastes, think I?m a weirdo, or be discussed by my kids destruction of the downstairs bathroom after I cleaned it and discovered as the door bell was ringing. I, for real, secretly wonder if they?ll think I?m super cool because I have labels on my kids toys and when they get here, it appears that they actually put them where they?re supposed to go. {oops, not so secret anymore}
Sorry, did I miss yours? Feel free to list them in the comment section below. We?re here to confess it and move past it!

When you hear those unhealthy thoughts of approval creep up in your head, begin praying. I am not saying this to sound all spiritual, I?m telling you this because it?s tried and true. It?s much harder to wonder what another man is thinking of your cute new outfit when you?re eyes are focused on the loving gaze of your hubs! So it is with the approval of men and women, if you are focused on what your Father approves of, you?ll be less likely to be so concerned about what others approve of.?

Things I like to pray for when prepping:

• Jesus, let my house be clean enough that my guest feel comfortable in this space.
• Jesus, allow my meal to give their bodies just what they need today.
• Jesus, help me show patience to my children so I may show your love through calm parenting while possibly stressed with guest(s) in our home.
• Jesus, prepare my ears and toosh to settle in for long, meaningful conversation that encourages, uplifts, and heals.
• Jesus, I really want this fellowship {friendship} to grow and honor you.
• Jesus, may all that goes on in this home glorify you!

I?m sure you can come up with many more simple things to ask of Jesus when preparing your heart to be hospitable rather than host. I want to provide some other resources the Homemaker?s Challenge already has to keep the focus on glorifying God this season and through that hopefully bless those who come through our homes.

What?s your biggest challenge when it comes to approval and homemaking?

Miss day one? Catch up here:

INTRO to Heart Issues Series

Here?s the layout for the series {keep in mind, the link will not work until the post has been published}:

Comparison

Envy

Idolatry

Source: http://homemakerschallenge.com/2012/11/13/the-real-homemakers-challenge-approval-2/

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Computer memory could increase fivefold from advances in self-assembling polymers

ScienceDaily (Nov. 13, 2012) ? The storage capacity of hard disk drives could increase by a factor of five thanks to processes developed by chemists and engineers at The University of Texas at Austin.

The researchers' technique, which relies on self-organizing substances known as block copolymers, was described this week in an article in Science. It's also being given a real-world test run in collaboration with HGST, one of the world's leading innovators in disk drives.

"In the last few decades there's been a steady, exponential increase in the amount of information that can be stored on memory devices, but things have now reached a point where we're running up against physical limits," said C. Grant Willson, professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the College of Natural Sciences and the Rashid Engineering Regents Chair in the Cockrell School of Engineering.

With current production methods, zeroes and ones are written as magnetic dots on a continuous metal surface. The closer together the dots are, the more information can be stored in the same area. But that tactic has been pretty much maxed out. The dots have now gotten so close together that any further increase in proximity would cause them to be affected by the magnetic fields of their neighboring dots and become unstable.

"The industry is now at about a terabit of information per square inch," said Willson, who co-authored the paper with chemical engineering professor Christopher Ellison and a team of graduate and undergraduate students. "If we moved the dots much closer together with the current method, they would begin to flip spontaneously now and then, and the archival properties of hard disk drives would be lost. Then you're in a world of trouble. Can you imagine if one day your bank account info just changed spontaneously?"

There's a quirk in the physics, however. If the dots are isolated from one another, with no magnetic material between them, they can be pushed closer together without destabilization.

This is where block copolymers come in. At room temperature, coated on a disk surface, they don't look like much. But if they're designed in the right way, and given the right prod, they'll self-assemble into highly regular patterns of dots or lines. If the surface onto which they're coated already has some guideposts etched into it, the dots or lines will form into precisely the patterns needed for a hard disk drive.

This process, which is called directed self-assembly (DSA), was pioneered by engineers at the University of Wisconsin and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

When Willson, Ellison and their students began working with directed self-assembly, the best anyone in the field had done was to get the dots small enough to double the storage density of disk drives. The challenge has been to shrink the dots further and to find processing methods that are compatible with high-throughput production.

The team has made great progress on a number of fronts. They've synthesized block copolymers that self-assemble into the smallest dots in the world. In some cases they form into the right, tight patterns in less than a minute, which is also a record.

"I am kind of amazed that our students have been able to do what they've done," said Willson. "When we started, for instance, I was hoping that we could get the processing time under 48 hours. We're now down to about 30 seconds. I'm not even sure how it is possible to do it that fast. It doesn't seem reasonable, but once in a while you get lucky."

Most significantly, the team has designed a special top coat that goes over the block copolymers while they are self-assembling.

"I've been fortunate enough to be involved in the experimental work of the top coat project from its inception all the way to our final results," said Leon Dean, a senior chemical engineering major and one of the authors on the Science paper. "We've had to develop an innovative spin-on top coat for neutralizing the surface energy at the top interface of a block copolymer film."

This top coat allows the polymers to achieve the right orientation relative to the plane of the surface simply by heating.

"The patterns of super small dots can now self-assemble in vertical or perpendicular patterns at smaller dimensions than ever before," said Thomas Albrecht, manager of patterned media technology at HGST. "That makes them easier to etch into the surface of a master plate for nanoimprinting, which is exactly what we need to make patterned media for higher capacity disk drives."

Willson, Ellison and their students are currently working with HGST to see whether these advances can be adapted to their products and integrated into amainstream manufacturing process.

Other industry collaborators are Nissan Chemical Company, which partially funded the research, and Molecular Imprints, an Austin-based company co-founded by Willson that is a pioneer in nanoimprint lithography.

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---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Texas at Austin.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. C. M. Bates, T. Seshimo, M. J. Maher, W. J. Durand, J. D. Cushen, L. M. Dean, G. Blachut, C. J. Ellison, C. G. Willson. Polarity-Switching Top Coats Enable Orientation of Sub-10-nm Block Copolymer Domains. Science, 2012; 338 (6108): 775 DOI: 10.1126/science.1226046

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/ITMA4yhy0m4/121113122234.htm

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UT Arlington physics team demonstrates new power generation technique

Public release date: 12-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Traci Peterson
tpeterso@uta.edu
817-272-9208
University of Texas at Arlington

A University of Texas at Arlington physics professor has helped create a hybrid nanomaterial that can be used to convert light and thermal energy into electrical current, surpassing earlier methods that used either light or thermal energy, but not both.

Working with Louisiana Tech University assistant professor Long Que, UT Arlington associate physics professor Wei Chen and graduate students Santana Bala Lakshmanan and Chang Yang synthesized a combination of copper sulfide nanoparticles and single-walled carbon nanotubes.

The team used the nanomaterial to build a prototype thermoelectric generator that they hope can eventually produce milliwatts of power. Paired with microchips, the technology could be used in devices such as self-powering sensors, low-power electronic devices and implantable biomedical micro-devices, Chen said.

"If we can convert both light and heat to electricity, the potential is huge for energy production," Chen said. "By increasing the number of the micro-devices on a chip, this technology might offer a new and efficient platform to complement or even replace current solar cell technology."

In lab tests, the new thin-film structure showed increases by as much at 80 percent in light absorption when compared to single-walled nanotube thin-film devices alone, making it a more efficient generator.

Copper sulfide is also less expensive and more environment-friendly than the noble metals used in similar hybrids.

In October, the journal Nanotechnology published a paper on the work called "Optical thermal response of single-walled carbon nanotube-copper sulfide nanoparticle hybrid nanomaterials." In it, researchers also say also found that they could enhance the thermal and optical switching effects of the hybrid nanomaterial as much as ten times by using asymmetric illumination, rather than symmetric illumination.

Coauthors on the Nanotechnology paper from Louisiana Tech include Yi-Hsuan Tseng, Yuan He and Que, all of the school's Institute for Micromanufacturing.

"Dr. Chen's research with nanomaterials is an important advancement with the potential for far-reaching applications," said Pamela Jansma, dean of the UT Arlington College of Science. "This is the kind of work that demonstrates the value of a research university in North Texas and beyond."

Chen is currently receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop nanoparticle self-lighting photodynamic therapy for use against breast and prostate cancers. In 2010, he was the first to publish results in the journal Nanomedicine demonstrating that near infrared light could be used to heat copper sulfide nanoparticles for photothermal therapy in cancer treatment, which destroys cancer cells with heat between 41 and 45 degrees Celsius.

Next month, the Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology will publish Chen's work successfully coupling gold nanoparticles with the copper sulfide nanoparticles for the photothermal therapy. Such a material would be less costly and potentially more effective than using gold particles alone, Chen said. The new paper is called "Local field enhanced Au/CuS nanocomposites as efficient photothermal transducer agents for cancer treatment."

###

Chen is also leading a UT Arlington team exploring ways to develop various nanoparticles for radiation detection. That work is funded by a $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The study of nanoparticles and their potential beyond the lab is an important part of the work going on at UT Arlington, a comprehensive research institution of more than 33,200 students and more than 2,200 faculty members in the heart of North Texas. Visit www.uta.edu to learn more.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 12-Nov-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Traci Peterson
tpeterso@uta.edu
817-272-9208
University of Texas at Arlington

A University of Texas at Arlington physics professor has helped create a hybrid nanomaterial that can be used to convert light and thermal energy into electrical current, surpassing earlier methods that used either light or thermal energy, but not both.

Working with Louisiana Tech University assistant professor Long Que, UT Arlington associate physics professor Wei Chen and graduate students Santana Bala Lakshmanan and Chang Yang synthesized a combination of copper sulfide nanoparticles and single-walled carbon nanotubes.

The team used the nanomaterial to build a prototype thermoelectric generator that they hope can eventually produce milliwatts of power. Paired with microchips, the technology could be used in devices such as self-powering sensors, low-power electronic devices and implantable biomedical micro-devices, Chen said.

"If we can convert both light and heat to electricity, the potential is huge for energy production," Chen said. "By increasing the number of the micro-devices on a chip, this technology might offer a new and efficient platform to complement or even replace current solar cell technology."

In lab tests, the new thin-film structure showed increases by as much at 80 percent in light absorption when compared to single-walled nanotube thin-film devices alone, making it a more efficient generator.

Copper sulfide is also less expensive and more environment-friendly than the noble metals used in similar hybrids.

In October, the journal Nanotechnology published a paper on the work called "Optical thermal response of single-walled carbon nanotube-copper sulfide nanoparticle hybrid nanomaterials." In it, researchers also say also found that they could enhance the thermal and optical switching effects of the hybrid nanomaterial as much as ten times by using asymmetric illumination, rather than symmetric illumination.

Coauthors on the Nanotechnology paper from Louisiana Tech include Yi-Hsuan Tseng, Yuan He and Que, all of the school's Institute for Micromanufacturing.

"Dr. Chen's research with nanomaterials is an important advancement with the potential for far-reaching applications," said Pamela Jansma, dean of the UT Arlington College of Science. "This is the kind of work that demonstrates the value of a research university in North Texas and beyond."

Chen is currently receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop nanoparticle self-lighting photodynamic therapy for use against breast and prostate cancers. In 2010, he was the first to publish results in the journal Nanomedicine demonstrating that near infrared light could be used to heat copper sulfide nanoparticles for photothermal therapy in cancer treatment, which destroys cancer cells with heat between 41 and 45 degrees Celsius.

Next month, the Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology will publish Chen's work successfully coupling gold nanoparticles with the copper sulfide nanoparticles for the photothermal therapy. Such a material would be less costly and potentially more effective than using gold particles alone, Chen said. The new paper is called "Local field enhanced Au/CuS nanocomposites as efficient photothermal transducer agents for cancer treatment."

###

Chen is also leading a UT Arlington team exploring ways to develop various nanoparticles for radiation detection. That work is funded by a $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The study of nanoparticles and their potential beyond the lab is an important part of the work going on at UT Arlington, a comprehensive research institution of more than 33,200 students and more than 2,200 faculty members in the heart of North Texas. Visit www.uta.edu to learn more.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/uota-uap111212.php

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Successful Sales Management: Saga Pet Insurance - No Thankyou

Saga Pet Insurance - No Thankyou

We all understand, or at least should, insurance companies are in business to make money. In their case that means paying out less in claims than taking in premiums.

OK, so insurance is there to cover the possible, not probable, disaster. ?We understand. ?And there's a compact, implied at least, between us insured and those insurers. We play fair with each other, and everything works out fine.?


But it turns out at least one insurer doesn't believe in the play fair bit. ?We've given them a bunch of business in the past, but won't anymore, because they only understand one side of what's fair.

We've been paying Saga Pet Insurance up to ?500 each year for the last five, without a claim in sight.

Recently, our pet Bouvier de Flandres developed some skin problems the vet recommended should be investigated.

We agreed of course. ?He's been part of our family for more than 10 years, and we're insured.

Except it turns out we weren't, to the extent we thought, at least.

The vets bill came to ?661.00.

We discovered to our horror the insurance only covered 75% of any claim. ?That was bad enough. ?Having paid out ?500 in premiums we were looking at a cost to us of ?165.

If only we'd been that lucky.

By the time Saga Pet Insurance?had sliced, and diced, the treatment into pieces, and disallowed any item with an individual cost less than ?75.00 we knew we'd been screwed.

Out of the total bill of ?661.00 we find ourselves paying out ?393.50. ?Saga Pet Insurance had decided to pay ?266.00 out of our ?500.00 premium.

We won't argue. ?We're sure this is all covered in the terms and conditions, in the small print.

But we won't be spending any more money on premiums with Saga Pet Insurance. ?And we'll look closely before renewing any of our other Saga Insurance policies.

There's a lesson here for all sales people. ?You can fool people some of the time, but you won't get away with doing it every time.

My Blog List

Source: http://successfulsalesmanagement.stevensreeves.com/2012/11/saga-pet-insurance-no-thankyou.html

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What You Should Know About Being Friends With Your Ex

What could possibly be wrong with developing a friendship out of your broken relationship? Simply put, everything. Attempting a friendship could destroy the last vestiges of the bond that the two of you spent a lot of time putting together. It could crumble your remaining respect and turn into something full of resentment and pain. It's simply easier now to go your own way rather than take the risk of a friendship that will lead to much more negativity down the road.

No matter how attractive a friendship with your ex may seem on the surface, it's not worth the heartache that is simply going to be inevitable. Friendship has its benefits, and it's difficult to see past the pleasant aspects of keeping in touch and remaining close to see the potential landmines underneath. As tempting as it may seem to stay in touch and active in your ex's life, it's best to resist temptation and not have to deal with the fallout when it happens - and it's a certainty, not a possibility.

A lot of relationships begin as friendships initially - then one or more of the people involved develop deeper feelings and things eventually progress into something more. Because of that, the idea of a friendship surviving the ruins of a failed relationship seems even more appealing than normal. What could be the point of throwing a whole friendship away due to the fact that a romantic relationship happened to end?

Maybe you pride yourself on being a good listener, and your ex knows more than most how valuable that particular trait can be. They feel comfortable coming to you when it may not be easy to approach someone else with their particular problem or circumstance. You do your best to be objective and give them advice that can help them, without interjecting your own emotions or levying your interest into the equation.

Real life is not a magical fairy tale where everything always has a happy ending and people always get along. Friends don't always agree, and those disagreements that occur naturally are going to become even more pronounced. The baggage already associated with your friendship due to your previous romantic involvement is going to weigh heavily on your ability to stay friends, and the scale is going to tip decidedly in one of two directions, depending on what occurred during the breakup itself.

If you ended the relationship, you need to understand the reality of what's really going on in your ex's mind behind the brave front they want you to see. They see a friendship as a means to an end, and ultimately your ex wants to transition from simple friendship to a romantic relationship again. They want to get back together, and they're more than willing to do whatever it takes in the meantime to make sure that the two of you stay connected so that you don't walk away completely before they can put their plan into action.

If your ex is the one that broke up with you, you may be trying to duck and cover before you have to read any more. You already know the truth - all you can think about is getting back together, but you just don't know the right way to go about it. While you're waiting for the answer to magically appear, a friendship keeps you from losing your ex entirely. You can stay a part of each other's lives while you weigh your options and try to put a definitive plan into place.

Trying to make a friendship out of a romance is just asking for additional pain. It's a convenient excuse to keep your ex in your life or to try and gain the upper hand to make your relationship come to life again. When their ex refuses their advances or continues to be oblivious to their sometimes-blatant attempts, the feelings of rejection are often overwhelming. That leads to resentments, bad feelings and even more hurt overall.

Think About Your Options:

Is a friendship really what you're after here, or are you holding out some hope for something more? You probably aren't hurting for friends of the opposite sex - in fact, handful is usually plenty. Are you using the friendship to cling to the remnants of a failed relationship because you're simply unwilling to let go? If so, you need to understand that the concept of a friendship may seem plausible in theory, but it's much more difficult to put into practice - if not downright impossible.

If You Already Agreed to a Friendship:

If you're already in the middle of a post-breakup friendship with your ex, it's not too late to start turning things around and making a big move with a potentially huge payoff. You don't have to remain in the friend zone forever - and you haven't doomed yourself to a life of loneliness while they go off and date other people. It is possible to break the cycle, as long as you're willing to risk being honest - and not just giving in to whatever they say they want.

If you're realizing that a friendship is simply not what you had in mind when the two of you ended things, it's time to make a change. That means taking a good hard look at what you want - and the path that you need to take to get there. It's going to require some honesty, some vulnerability and a lot of openness, but none of those things are negative when it comes to a relationship. It's part of what draws people together overall, and the chances are good that your ex doesn't want to lose you - otherwise they wouldn't have stayed your friend in the first place.

What To Do Next

By now you hopefully realise that being friends with your ex is not a good idea if you want to get your ex back. There are more effective ways to go about this and they centre on learning about the psychology of the opposite sex. First off it is crucial that you understand why you were dumped, when you start seeing things from your ex's perspective you can put things right again. Learning how to go about contact with your ex after the break up is also vital. If you get this right your ex will be crazy about you again.

Source: http://www.streetarticles.com/friendship/what-you-should-know-about-being-friends-with-your-ex

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Bill Lawson: Coming Together to Tackle Unemployment Among Veterans

Now that Campaign 2012 is quickly becoming a distant memory -- and as the effort to build bridges after a hotly-contested race intensifies in Washington and across our great nation -- here's something that we can all agree is an important problem that we can all help solve: unemployment for veterans with disabilities.

Every American has a role to play. Every community has a job to do in this all out effort to help this highly skilled, virtually untapped, human resource -- veterans of the best military force in the world -- secure good, competitive careers. We all can help these injured heroes become independent, productive tax payers, and help them reach their full potential.

First a word about unemployment figures: we heard about them a lot in the recent election. But throughout all these conversations and debates, we didn't hear anything about how much higher unemployment is for veterans with disabilities -- three to eight times higher it has been estimated. Nor did we hear anything about how much harder it is to secure a good career when you still face the barriers of fear and discrimination.

Imagine that 20-year-old soldier who was shot in the neck and paralyzed in Afghanistan. He's skilled. He's loyal. He's courageous. He's energetic. He's a team player. He overcomes adversity every day. But he's paralyzed and unemployed. He just can't seem to get a break.

How can we tackle this problem?

Paralyzed Veterans of America does it through our Mission: ABLE campaign. The jobs piece of that is called PAVE, Paving Access for Veterans Employment-- which involves all sectors in finding a sustainable solution to unemployment. Through PAVE, we connect directly with injured veterans at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) spinal cord injury centers. Our growing network of career counselors across the nation work with these awesome potential employees every step of the way in that journey back to the work force.

The counselors also directly connect and engage employers and educate them about the advantages of hiring veterans with disabilities. They also dispel any myths there may be about the cost of adapting workplaces for workers in wheelchairs. By the way, adaptation can be a straight forward as moving chairs out of an office to make way for a worker who uses a wheelchair. And there is plenty of government help to make places-of-work barrier-free for those who have served and sacrificed for our freedom.

How many veterans have we helped? We are working with more than 1,600 clients and this figure is growing every day. We've secured careers for close to 500 hard-to-place veterans. We've partnered with more than 450 employers including well-known brands such as Walgreens, Best Buy and Microsoft.

So as we celebrate Veterans Day, please join us in being part of the solution to this vexing but surmountable problem.

Take a look around your neighborhood. Reach out to unemployed veterans with disabilities - indeed any unemployed veterans you know in your community and tell them that Paralyzed Veterans of America is here to help them find good, competitive careers. Suggest they visit Operation Pave for details.

If you are an employer, please take a look around your workplace. If you have no veterans with disabilities working for you then that's a problem -- but it's a problem we can solve together. We need you to reach out to us. We can help connect you with some outstanding potential employees and help you play your part in paving access for veterans employment.

This is a strategy that we believe is not just good for veterans; not just good for business; it's great for the country we all love.

?

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-lawson/unemployment-veterans_b_2111058.html

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The Cinema, Games, and Politics of Webmaking: #MozFest Sunday ...

I'm here at the morning opener for the Mozilla Festival, which has been an amazing two days of creativity, learning, and hacking towards creating a writeable society.

To start, Brett Gaylor announces the launch of PopcornMaker 1.0, which pulls media from across the web into the video frame. He shows us a video of an editing session in PopcornMaker to tell us the story of PopcornMaker. First, he pulls in a soundtrack from soundcloud. He shows us a picture of university students who brought Popcorn.js to Mozfest in Barcelona in 2010. David Humphry and Brett found their community. Between 2010 and 2011, they brought together a group of mostly teenagers to create popcorn.js 1.0. When they launched at the Mozilla Festival in 2011 with the world premier of "One Millionth Tower," professional journalists started to get excited. In 2012, Mozilla Webmaker committed to a new release every month. The project now has 5,000 bug tracker items closed, with 60,000 lines of code.

Brett ends by thanking the team that worked on PopcornMaker. "The formula is simple: you work hard, you love what you do, and always be shipping." You can try it out here.

Mark Surman calls PopcornMaker a hunch which has been wildly successful. Mark asks us to imagine if every video on the web had a "view source" button. That's where video can and will go.

---

Just like open source cinema, which leads to a whole world of media that we can hack, Mark says that the next space will be games. If we could "view source" on games, then we can do more to write the digital world of gaming around us.

Jo Twist, the chief executive of UK Interactive association for Entertainment. "Games are awesome," she tells us and shows us a slide of Angry Birds. The games industry is a multi-million pound industry and plays out on many different platforms: apps, packaged games for consoles, and online games. She guesses that Britain's games industry is worth ?3.266 billion.

Jo tells us about Unity and HTML5 and the amount of money that people are likely to spend on games. Jo shares a quote from an early article about Electronic Arts. Games are "something along the lines of a universal language of ideas and emotions. Something like a smile."

Jo then shows us projects that she has been involved in. Sweatshop invites players to manage child labour. She tells about games for change like Way and Peter Molyneux's new game Curiosity.

Jo tells us that the idea that people can be creative with code is the heritage of the games industry, but that the industry lost sight of this and is trying to bring it back. She tells us about initiatives like Games Britannia and the NESTA report on Next Gen abilities. Through the Next Gen Skills campaign, Michael Gove has put code into school curriculum. Next, they are trying to get the arts into STEM. She tells us about projects that make game programming easy like Game-o-Matic and Scratch. Finally, Jo points us to projects like the Raspberry Pi and the Ouya, a hackable games console.

Jo ends with a quotation by Douglas Rushkoff, arguing that we have a choice between programming and being programmed. She encourages us to connect with UK IE if we're interested in learning more about the UK games industry.

---

Learning needs to be built into the systems we design, argues Mark Surman. In order to help people to learn how to code, we need to show our source and help people learn from that source. That's the vision for Webmaker, and we need to do this across all parts of our world, including games.

Tech isn't enough. We all need to cop an attitude. We need to bring fun, playfulness, and tricksterism into play. On that note, Mark invites Media Lab director Joi Ito to the stage.

Joi holds up two hands to ask everyone a question: "how much of everything that you use do you want to make? show 0 if you want to just consume; show 10 if you want to make every single thing. Lots of people hold up hands with 6 or 7 fingers. "You're all a bunch of weirdos."

Joi talks about his childhood in Detroit. His sister Mimi did very well, magna cum laude, with multiple PhDs. But Joi hated education. He thought it was something that people did *to* him, but he did want to learn. He loved games, but he was lonely as the only Japanese kid in a culture that wasn't interested in Japanese kids. Then he found the Internet. Online, he found mentors and friends that he could learn with. Joi's sister Mimi calls him and "interest-driven learner." Online, Joi found communities, hacking, and MMORPGs. And somehow, Joi says, he was able to stumble through life, get a job, and have fun.

Here at the #MozFest, we're really lucky. As a teenager, Joi was sitting in a room in a lab trying to write code and sucking it at it. Here at the festival, now that the Internet exists, we're finding commmunity, learning from each other, and having fun. And no-one is picking on us. He compares us to the X-Men. We're a bunch of weirdos, but we're happy weirdos because we have a community. Community is important because tools don't get better on their own. At Mozilla, we're participating in community and writing code for each other.

Joi now talks about a future of people who hold up ten fingers and try to make everything we use. That's a scary future to some people. As makers, we have fun, but other people can be afraid of that. He calls the Mozilla Festival a conspiracy of amazing people who are trying to overthrow the traditional society of consumers. He shows us a photo of the 2010 UK student riots; to the rest of the world, this is what people think about when they imagine a society of makers.

Go buy a sex pistols album and raise your fist, Joi tells us. He cites Lessig's argument that code is law. Coders often don't want to be political. But we can't escape it. What we're doing is very disruptive and it's scary to some people. We have lots of governments trying to lock us down. One of Joi's friend, Basel, who would be here today, is in prison right now because he participated in Mozilla and Creative Commons and hacker spaces in Damascus. He's a scary thing because he's doing work that governments can't control. And they try to control the Internet; China just shut down Google over the weekend (it's back up now). Joi also tells us about the upcoming ITU meeting in Dubai to change how the Internet is regulated (see "Crashing the Party: A Scheming Session for the ITU" this afternoon).

Joi ends by acknowledging that it's important to have fun and create. But we don't win simply by making things or simply by changing the world's laws. We win by creating movements, create community, and fighting to keep the Internet open.

Mark Surman reflects on his own high school experience. He was the one punk rock kid in a 10,000 person mill town in Northern Ontari. He got picked on, but what punk rock gave him was a way to learn media and learn to make media. He didn't play the guitar, but he had scissors and a photocopier and glue. The punk rock attitude injects fun but it also builds a movement. Here at Mozilla, we're building a movement at the same time we're building tools.

Mark tells us to bake our attitude into the things we offer and bring out into the world. That's what's going to bring people in so they can write the digital world and not just read it.

Mark ends with advice for us at 3pm. Our goal for the day is to look at what we have and then say, "Fuck it. Ship it."

Source: http://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/the-cinema-games-and-politics-of-webmaking-mozfest-sunday-morning

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