MasterCard to Power Nigerian Identity Card Program

The Nigerian National Identity Management Commission and MasterCard today announced at the World Economic Forum on Africa the roll-out of 13 million MasterCard-branded National Identity Smart Cards with electronic payment capability as a pilot program. The National Identity Smart Card is the Card Scheme under the recently deployed National Identity Management System. This program is the largest roll-out of a formal electronic payment solution in the country and the broadest financial inclusion initiative of its kind on the African continent.

As part of the program, in its first phase, Nigerians 16 years and older, and all residents in the country for more than two years, will get the new multipurpose identity card which has 13 applications including MasterCards prepaid payment technology that will provide cardholders with the safety, convenience and reliability of electronic payments. This will have a significant and positive impact on the lives of these Nigerians who have not previously had access to financial services.

The Project will have Access Bank Plc as the pilot issuer bank for the cards and Unified Payment Services Limited as the payment processor. Other issuing banks will include United Bank for Africa, Union Bank, Zenith, Skye Bank, Unity Bank, Stanbic, and First Bank.

The announcement was witnessed by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy in Nigeria, who stressed the importance of the National Identity Smart Card Scheme in moving Nigeria to an electronic platform. This program is good practice for us to bring all the citizens on a common platform for interacting with the various government agencies and for transacting electronically. We will implement this initiative in a collaborative manner between the public and private sectors, to achieve its full potential of inclusive citizenship and more effective governance, she said.

Todays announcement is the first phase of an unprecedented project in terms of scale and scope for Nigeria, said Michael Miebach, President,Compare prices and buy all brands of earcap for home power systems and by the pallet. Middle East and Africa, MasterCard. MasterCard has been a firm supporter of the Central Bank of Nigerias Cashless Policy as we share a vision of a world beyond cash. From the programs inception, we have provided the Federal Government of Nigeria with global insights and best practices on how electronic payments can enable economic growth and create a more financially inclusive economy.

Chris E Onyemenam, the Director General and Chief Executive of the National Identity Management Commission, said We have chosen MasterCard to be the payment technology provider for the initial rollout of the National Identity Smart Card project because the Company has shown a commitment to furthering financial inclusion through the reduction of cash in the Nigerian economy. He added MasterCard has pioneered large scale card schemes that combine biometric functionality with electronic payments and we want to capitalize on their experience in this field to make our program rollout a sustainable success for the country and for the continent.

Access Banks involvement in this project is testament to our ongoing efforts to expand financial inclusion in Nigeria, said Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, CEO of Access Bank. The new identity card will revolutionize the Nigerian economic landscape, breaking down one of the most significant barriers to financial inclusion C proof of identity, while simultaneously providing Nigerians with a world class payment solution.

Unified Payments is the foremost transaction processor and pioneer of EMV processing and acquiring in Nigeria, owned by leading Nigerian banks. We will use our expertise and experience to guarantee the success of the project and ensure that the data of Nigerians are protected. We look forward to working with other partners in delivering value to all stakeholders, said Agada Apochi, Managing Director and CEO, Unified Payments.

The new National Identity Smart Card will incorporate the unique National Identification Numbers (NIN) of duly registered persons in the country. The enrollment process involves the recording of an individuals demographic data and biometric data (capture of 10 fingerprints, facial picture and digital signature) that are used to authenticate the cardholder and eliminate fraud and embezzlement. The resultant National Identity Database will provide the platform for several other value propositions of the NIMC including identity authentication and verification.

Thanks to the unique and unambiguous identification of individuals under the NIMS, other identification card schemes like the Drivers License,Manufacturer of the Jacobs rfidtag. Voters Registration, Health Insurance, Tax,An handsfreeaccess is a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building. SIM and the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) will benefit and can all be integrated, using the NIN, into the multi-function Card Scheme of the NIMS. When fully utilizing the card as a prepaid payment tool, the cardholder can deposit funds on the card, receive social benefits, pay for goods and services at any of the 35 million MasterCard acceptance locations globally, withdraw cash from all ATMs that accept MasterCard, or engage in many other financial transactions that are facilitated by electronic payments. All in a secure and convenient environment enabled by the EMV Chip and Pin standard.

Tiger Woods may not like TPC Sawgrass all that much, but you would never know it from the surgical precision with which he dissected Pete Dyes dastardly design on Thursday.He saw the bracelet at a bestrtls store while we were on a trip.

Woods, who fired a nearly flawless opening-round 5-under 67,About solarstreetlight in China userd for paying transportation fares and for shopping. got off to a good start to his 2013 Players Championship, with a birdie on the second hole of his opening round. The world No. 1, who has made no secret of his discomfort with the tricky home of the mens so-called fifth major, had to wait until the ninth to can another, but from there he went on a birdie barrage to card his first-ever sub-70 opening round at Sawgrass.

The 14-time major champion, who made four straight birds between Nos. 9 and 12, added another on the par-5 16th, and almost posted his first bogey-free round at Sawgrass. Hitting 10 of 14 fairways and 12 greens in regulation, as well as making 11 one-putts certainly didnt hurt on a day when Woods needed a strong showing.

By the time he teed off as part of the afternoon wave, Tiger was already looking up at early clubhouse leader Roberto Castro, who tied the course record with a 63. Even good pal Rory McIlroy, who has missed the cuts in all three previous appearances at The Players, went low, posting his first sub-par round (66) at The Players.

Rory McIlroy puts Black Thursday behind him with bogey-free

"He's tough," barked the Don, placing himself neatly at the heart of the story.Universal bobblehead are useful for any project. McIlroy has not felt the Trump embrace all week. The moment he sprinkles some stardust around the Cadillac Championship, up pops the master scene stealer to bask in the associated glow.Our aim is to supply drycabinets which will best perform to the customer's individual requirements. "Good job," said Trump. "You're hitting it well."

McIlroy is second in the betting exchanges for the Masters behind you know who. That tells you how much his game has improved since Thursday, never mind the size of the canyon crossed since last week. On a day when the wind made scoring notionally harder, McIlroy peppered the pins throughout the front nine, starting with an eagle courtesy of a 7-iron approach described as one of his best, and claiming a birdie at the fifth.

McIlroy climbed from a tie for 50th at the end of the first day to the top 10 when he signed for his card and a 10-under-par total. Two birdies in the closing three holes and a 12-foot par putt at the last embellished a round that he said he never saw coming when he pitched up at Doral in crisis.

"I was pretty down about my game coming into the week but a few days like this does my confidence the world of good," McIlroy said. "I thought a day like today was a long way away. That's one of my problems. When things are bad I always think things are further away than they are. I just have to let things happen and know that if I put in the hard work the results will come."

McIlroy's strikes against par were balanced by persistent bogeys on the opening three days, but there was none of that vulnerability yesterday. This was McIlroy as you could not have imagined during the Honda nadir when he walked off the course mid-round, an episode he described as the lowest point in his career. With his confidence returning rapidly, McIlroy was swinging with authority and clearly enjoying the feeling of stress free golf.

The contrast with his playing partner George Coetzee, a young South African who also hits it a mile and goes for everything, demonstrated how fickle a game this can be. Coetzee teed it up a shot better off than McIlroy on four under par. Three holes into the round he was five down, having three-putted twice and sent a wedge into the water at the third from the middle of the fairway. An inveterate smoker, Coetzee never had greater need of a Marlboro as he walked to the fourth tee.

This tournament could hardly have fallen better for sponsors Cadillac. The major themes have been dominated by the game's two biggest names, one recovering from crisis, the other, Tiger Woods, re-establishing his credentials as the greatest force in the game. After three rounds featuring a record 24 birdies, Woods reported that he had never hit the ball as far and that the aim was to be better than he has ever been. His performance this week has reinforced the feeling that Woods is ready to embellish his CV with more majors, five years after claiming his 14th.

South Florida lost the sunshine yesterday and the wind picked up. Woods was through the first in two, leaving himself a difficult downhill chip out of clawing Bermuda grass. It cost him his birdie chance. At least as impressive as his ball-striking has been the return of the superior attitude that does not permit negativity. He did not rue the missed opportunity, he looked forward to the next.

His manipulation of a 3-wood is smoothing to behold, sending his ball past the drives of most. Woods arrowed his ball to the left of the second fairway, fired his approach to 15 feet on a green quicker than a porcelain tile and drained the putt. Take that. The greater the demand, the higher Woods' playing partner, Graeme McDowell, climbs to meet it. The plan was to focus on his own ball and hang on if Woods hit the turbo. Like the great counter- puncher he is,Basics, technical terms and advantages and disadvantages of bestplasticcard. McDowell led with a couple of stiff jabs of his own, starting his round birdie, birdie.

A birdie at the fourth re-established the four-shot lead with which Woods started the day. A McDowell bogey at the fifth extended it to five. All donations gratefully accepted, not that Woods needed any.

Meanwhile on the back nine, McIlroy began the run for home with two more birdies. The cameras had lost interest by then, but they will not be gone long. McIlroy is scheduled to appear just once more before the Masters, at the Shell Houston Open in three weeks. So thrilled is he with the upturn in form he has elected not to add an extra tournament to his schedule before then.

It runs on an energy-efficient Intel Core i5-3317U which is a popular Ultrabook processor. It's powerful enough for standard computer stuff, like MS Office, going online and playing less-demanding games.Please click the images below to view more pictures of stonemosaic tiles!

The Core i5 is a dual-core chip that runs at 1.7 GHz with a turbo boost speed of 2.6 GHz and an integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 solution. The processor - which is based on Ivy Bridge - also has HyperThreading and 3MB of cache.

The HP Envy TouchSmart 4 we tested has a 500GB hard disk and a 32GB startup SSD. The 5400 rpm hard disk comes from Hitachi and the SSD is a Samsung PM830. The notebook has 4 GB DIMM RAM, and it's possible to instead put two 8 GB modules in there for a total of 16 GB. Like many other Ultrabooks, it doesn't have a DVD burner.

The HP Envy TouchSmart 4 has one USB 2.0 port on the right, and two USB 3.0 ports on the left. The other connectors consist of a gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI and a memory card reader. It has a single-band wireless card, the Intel Centrino 2230 which has two antennas for 300Mbit/s. That's better than most laptops in this segment. The wireless modules also provides Intel Wireless Display and Bluetooth 4.0.

The touchscreen is a TN panel, but at this price point we had expected an IPS screen, and we had hoped for a resolution that's higher than 1366x768. At least it features 10 touchpoints. For a computer monitor, it's important that the brightness is spread evenly in the greyscale from black to white, and that the primary colours are where they should be in terms of colour fidelity.

In the grey radient green, blue and red are too far from their ideal values. The gamma of 2.05 is lower than the ideal 2.2. That makes the screen lighter than it should be in relation to completely black and completely white. The color range is narrower than the sRGB spectrum. The individual brightness isn't great, with major peaks for blue and magenta. Only red was below 10 DeltaE94 points, the other colors are far above it. The lower the better, five is the upper acceptable limit, and three is good.Wear a whimsical Disney luggagetag straight from the Disney Theme Parks!

The space trucking system

Many people wonder what all the fuss is all about when they keep hearing the phrase “cislunar architecture.” Many of us are using the phrase to refer to what is essentially a space trucking system, with the equivalent of truck stops and cargo loading yards (freight terminals). Lets use the trucking analogy to explain what we are talking about.

You do not use an expensive truck to carry a load just a single time, and then immediately send the truck to the junkyard to be scrapped. Trucking businesses could not operate this way. Some truck cab and trailer combinations today are probably worth close to a quarter million dollars new. Some cabs alone are close to $100,000 used. Most of the current rockets used today cost over $100 million, so large rockets can be up to 1,000 times more valuable than a tractor-trailer, yet all of them smash into the ocean or desert and become scrap metal after just one flight.

For rockets that take off from the ground, one obvious way to allow re-use is for them to land on the ground intact. SpaceX and some other companies are trying to do just that. Quite a few rockets have now accomplished short flights and landed again safely. Without wings, the landings must be vertical. Re-use with a vertical landing was first done by the DC-X at White Sands on September 11, 1993.

For rocket vehicles in space, the problem is different. We do not want to bring the vehicle back to the ground to refuel, since it is extremely costly to get it up into space in the first place. Once it is in orbit, we want to be able to re-use that vehicle in space over and over again.

However, there is currently no fuel supply or “space gas station” in space where such a vehicle could refuel. After all, what good is a truck without fuel? What good would the Interstate routes be without gas stations? When we refer generically to space “fuel”, we usually mean two propellants: a real combustible fuel such as hydrogen or kerosene, and an oxidizer like oxygen.

All along our interstate and other major roads, we have truck stops designed to service and refuel large trucks. The space equivalent we really need is the waystation,Do you know any howo spare parts wholesale supplier? and its most important feature is the propellant (fuel and oxidizer) supply—the depot.

At truck stops, the gasoline or diesel fuel is safely kept in underground tanks. The kind of high energy rocket propellants used in space and in the shuttle’s External Tank are liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, which are so cold that they want to boil away constantly. Non-cryogenic propellants like hydrazine do not boil away but have much less energy.

Cryogenic propellant has to be kept in a cryogenic propellant depot, which consists of heavily insulated storage tanks, shaded so the sun never shines on them, and equipped with a cryo-cooler, a refrigeration unit which keeps the fuel below its boiling point, hundreds of degrees below zero, so it never boils away. The cooler (and the rest of the waystation) is powered with arrays of solar panels like those used on the space station. Some people at NASA refer to waystations as “Gateways,” but those proposed officially so far by NASA have no depots and are not built or serviced by reusable vehicles.

Just like a truck stop, a waystation needs equipment to transfer or pump the fuel, which would be in zero gravity, from tankers bringing fuel to the depots and, later, from the depots into the vehicles that need to be re-fueled. In this case, the tankers delivering the fuel are other reusable rocket-powered vehicles with tanks of fuel as their cargo, or extra fuel in their tanks. The fuel (propellant and oxidizer) would be transferred into and from the depots at special fuel transfer docking ports attached to the depots. The technology to prove that the fuel transfer systems would work in space is in development, but the funding for it is currently very limited.

The fuel could be produced on and launched from the Earth, Moon, or Mars, and be sent into orbit. The fuel produced on Earth would be off-loaded at a small waystation in low Earth orbit (LEO), at an altitude similar to the Space Station. However, due to the artificial space debris problem there, we need a better location, if we want to safely accumulate and store large numbers of space vehicles and large amounts of propellant.

So, what does cislunar mean? It simply refers to the space around the Earth that includes the Moon, and its orbit, and all of the five Earth-Moon Lagrangian points or L-points. These L-points are locations or zones in empty space near the Moon and in its orbit around the Earth, that provide ideal locations for space transport hubs like the waystations. The “points” are actually areas of “gravitational balance” between the Earth and Moon, that constantly move around the Earth in synchrony with the Moon about once a month. Some of these points are also very good locations for waystations.

L5 has been considered as a good location for a space colony for about 40 years. L1 and L2 are both close to the Moon: L1 is an area about 58,000 kilometers (36,000 miles) in front of the Moon, while L2 is a similar distance behind it, and almost as wide as the Moon.

Besides their convenient location near the Moon, one reason that both L1 and L2 are ideal locations for waystations is that dangerous artificial space debris cannot accumulate there. Objects have to be kept there deliberately by small amounts of stationkeeping thrust. These safe zones would allow us to accumulate large numbers of space vehicles and large amounts of propellant with a much lower risk of damage or puncture, since only natural objects such as meteoroids and tiny asteroid fragments could hit them.

Another reason that L1 and L2 are good locations is that vehicles can leave from them and go to many different locations, such as the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and also back to LEO, using only a minimal amount of fuel.Get the best deal on solar panel in the UK and use our free tools. This is like having your trucking company’s terminal right next to the intersection of two main interstate routes, with an on-ramp right outside the company’s gate. The Moon is only 12 hours flight time away from L1 and L2.

The existing space station is not a waystation since it lacks the ability to refuel even one space tug. Another thing the station lacks is cargo-handling ability. While it can dock or attach large pressurized modules, it has very limited ability to transfer large cargo items between vehicles outside the pressurized volume where the astronauts live. A real waystation would be able to do this and serve as a logistics base. If we want to mount expeditions to the Moon or Mars, we will want to be able to move large objects from one vehicle to another without needing spacewalks. In any case, the objects would weigh many tons, far too large for astronauts to move by themselves.

Companies that have large fleets of trucks need to have freight terminals: large yards next to factories and distribution warehouses where the big trucks can be loaded and unloaded. In space, just like on the ground, you cannot do very much without equipment and supplies. When equipment is delivered, you need some place to deliver it to, or you may need to trans-ship it to another location.

A waystation/logistics base would act like a space version of a freight terminal yard and warehouse. At the LEO waystation, cargo and/or fuel would be transferred from the reusable tug and tanker “capsules” launched into orbit (which would then return to Earth and land), to in-space tugs and tankers meant to deliver it to other locations such as L1 or L2. Each vehicle’s cargo hold would need movable restraints to hold the cargo item rigidly once it was placed.

To move and store cargo, a waystation needs docking positions to keep the vehicles firmly in one spot, and a large, mobile robot arm that can reach out in a vacuum, grab cargo from one vehicle, and place it into another one. The robot arm takes the place of forklifts and similar cargo-moving equipment used on the ground. The arm does not have to lift the cargo, but it must contend with the mass of cargo without breaking itself. It needs to be able to move the cargo precisely out of one vehicle and into (or attach them to) another vehicle. This work could be done under the direct supervision of crew members or by remote teleoperation. Most waystations would probably have the robot arm mounted on rails running along one side of an open truss beside one or more rows of docking stations (mounted on the adjacent sides of the same truss), where cargo vehicles are parked. This “docking truss” takes the place of the freight yard.

The waystation’s docking positions are not like the pressurized docking ports that the International Space station uses. Most of the cargo items, like a lunar habitat module, would be too large to be moved into the pressurized area. Cargo items would be moved in vacuum, directly from one unpressurized cargo hold to another. The waystation would probably also have some thermally shielded cargo storage areas to temporarily store cargo items. Cargo could be inside pressurized cargo containers if needed. If crew access is not needed, these pressurized containers would not need to be docked to a pressurized port.

Why is in-vacuum large cargo handling needed? In previous expedition concepts, an item would be loaded into a lander, which would go to a destination, land,All our plastic moulds are vacuum formed using food safe plastic. be unloaded and then be abandoned—the “Land and Abandon” model. If we are able to reuse the vehicles, we will need to be able to refuel them and also load them with new cargo items when they return to the waystation.

A waystation would have a crew habitat and reserve food and life support stocks for any crewmembers that were transiting through to use, just as some truck stops have restaurants and accommodations for truckers. The habitat could double as a refuge in case of emergencies, to protect crew members from solar radiation storms or problems with vehicles. In deep space, there is twice as much galactic radiation (cosmic rays) than in LEO, and also the danger of a solar radiation storm. The crew module would need to have a “solar storm shelter” surrounded by lots of mass (food, water, and equipment) to protect the crew from the radiation.

If a waystation had very heavy traffic, it might eventually have a permanent crew stationed there. The crew module area would also have one or more multiple docking adapters attached to it, just like the ones on the space station, to allow multiple vehicles with crews on board to dock and let the crews enter and maintain the waystation. It would also have large solar panel arrays and heat radiators similar to the space station’s set to power the crew habitats, the cryo-coolers for the depots, the small station-keeping electric thrusters, and the cargo-handling robot arm.

A variety of vehicles would work with the waystations to gain access to various locations in space. Reusable boosters would have reusable second stages and reusable cargo and fuel capsules (tugs and tankers) that would deliver only to the LEO waystation. Then liquid-fueled or electrically (plasma or ion rocket) powered tugs would move the cargo and fuel to other locations, such as L1, L2 or geosynchronous orbit (GEO). These vehicles then would return back down to LEO via aerocapture (using the Earths atmosphere as a free speed brake) to get another load.

At L1 or L2, lunar ferries would carry cargo, equipment, and fuel down to the lunar surface and then return to L1 or L2 for another load. Such a round trip is only possible if the high-powered liquid oxygen and hydrogen is always available for the vehicles to use, stored in the depots at the waystation.The stone mosaic series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics and listellos. To keep the cost of developing and building the various vehicles low, they would use many of the same components, such as rocket engines, tanks, and crew cabins.

The first thing that we would probably do with a waystation located at L1 or L2 is to set up a base at one of the lunar poles, to gain access to the lunar surface for science and to mine water ice there for rocket fuel. Some of the cargo items would be crew habitats, lunar rovers, power generating equipment, and fuel production and storage equipment.

Once produced, the lunar propellants could then be sent up to the waystation on the lunar ferries, as it would take far less energy to move fuel from the Moon to L1 than to move fuel from Earth to L1. To move the lunar fuel to L1 as cargo, the lunar ferries would also use more lunar fuel as propellant.Do you know any howo spare parts wholesale supplier? The cost savings from the fuel production would allow continued scientific exploration of the lunar pole. Other areas of the Moon would also be accessible from L1, and the presence of multiple ferries at the waystation would allow rescue missions. Additional lunar water could be used as radiation shielding around the waystation’s crew habitat.

If we wanted to send a manned expedition to Mars, about 20 reusable vehicles with the required propellants would be accumulated at the L1 or L2 waystation. Transit windows for Mars expeditions open about every 26 months and only stay open for about a month.

With the very large stores of cryogenic fuel stored at the waystation’s depots, one vehicle a day could easily depart from the waystation on its way to Mars, creating a true Mars fleet. Having multiple vehicles creates a much safer expedition for the crew. A similar mission launched from the waystation could investigate individual asteroids, but would need only a few vehicles.

The whole point of having a cislunar transportation system, with reusable vehicles as well as waystations equipped with propellant depots to refuel them and with cargo handling capability, is to make access to the Moon, Mars, GEO, and asteroids much less expensive and much more reliable. As long as our space transportation system depends on expendable rockets (large or small) and has no reusable in-space vehicles, fuel depots, or logistics capability, it is not truly a system at all, and doing anything in space will remain either exorbitantly expensive or impossible.

Here's to the brave ones

I remember watching Jodie Foster when I was much younger. She had these huge, expressive eyes and this memorably unpolished crunch in her manner of speech. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it then, but I remember thinking that she never seemed altogether there. It was as if her golden tresses shone to distract from some secret she kept hidden, away from the public’s eyes.

At the recently concluded Golden Globes,Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable mold making supplies and accessories! Foster came out in the same way many celebrities have as of late—award in hand, subtly acknowledging a partner, saying that those who matter in her personal life have always known, and talking about her right to privacy.We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale turquoise beads from china. It took her 47 years within the industry before coming out with it, with the support of many and to the utter surprise of no one. Ricky Martin, whose own coming out was on the same news flash level as “bears shit in the woods” and “the Pope is Catholic,” was one of many who tweeted out support of Foster’s “bold” move. He said, “On your terms. Its [sic] your time! Not before nor after. Its [sic] when it feels right!”

Now, just to be clear, I am actually straight. I do, however, have an inordinate amount of gay friends that I hold as close to me as I would my own heart. And while, all over the world, the dialogue has turned to whether or not it has become passé for celebrities to clarify what their sexual preferences are, I find myself envious for the ones that I love.

We come from a culture that relates to one another with almost distasteful familiarity, greeting one another with how much weight we think the other person has lost/gained since we last saw them. We are in each other’s business all the time, constantly sharing stories about people our friends don’t even really know. And because we are so familiar with one another, we are also incredibly prone to passing judgment on things we don’t necessarily understand, like same sex love.

Our society is patriarchal, traditional, and rather straight, as it were. We have allotted spaces for gayness. We’re fine with gay people being gay so long as they’re in the parlors or at the gym or making clothes or in the entertainment industry. So long as they’re being funny and don’t flaunt their relationships with their partners in public. So long as they aren’t making us uncomfortable by asking to be recognized as an actual civil union or to have children or to not be defined solely by their sexual orientation. The second we feel threatened by such unfamiliar territory, we are suddenly very quick to whip out words like “unnatural,” “abomination,Product information for Avery Dennison cable ties products.” and “hate the sin, love the sinner.”

Frankly speaking, however, Manila is teeming with card-carrying members of Team Rainbow, to the point where I cannot turn in any direction without running into someone who happens to be gay. There are public figures whose sexual preferences are of the “open secret” variety, or at least perennially in question. (Holler at me, Piolo Pascual.Wholesale various Glass Mosaic Tiles from china glass mosaic Tiles Suppliers.) It’s a case common for those who prefer not to risk their careers by making a big show of their preferences, but a practice so detrimental to a more realistic understanding of homosexuality.

In 1993, Michelangelo Signorile published “A Queer Manifesto,” a piece that not only pushed for those closeted to come out, but for anyone who knew someone closeted to convince these gay loved ones to come out. To some extent, it seems a bit much, but it is also beautifully determined at crushing the hate associated with the idea of being gay. One of the things to note about Signorile’s piece is that it discusses the responsibility of those who are gay to broaden the idea of what it means to be gay. Signorile writes, “We must all tell our parents. We must all tell our families. We must all tell our friends. We must all tell our coworkers… If they don’t know we’re queer—if they think only the most horrible people are queer—they will vote against us.”

There’s a responsibility to clarify that being gay is not just men who put on make-up or wear dresses, and that even men who do such things on their off days can handle business just as well as their straight counterparts do. We want people to understand that being gay doesn’t make you a sexual predator (unless you are actually a sexual predator, which has more to do with being sick than it does with being gay). We want people to understand that these emotions aren’t as unnatural as we’ve been told, that it’s not a choice someone would make if they really could, that you cannot be “turned” gay simply by being around someone who is. We want people to understand that you don’t have to be ashamed,New Ground-Based indoor positioning Tech Is Accurate Down To Just A Few Inches. because love is and will always be love, and not even straight people have the best grasp on what that actually means.

It is in this vein that I hope for the Philippines, for a Jodie Foster kind of enlightenment. For a moment where we can see someone with soulful eyes and a career filled with remarkable talent taking the stage to tell us how who she’s been attracted to hasn’t minimized or amplified her potential. I hold out hope for someone brave enough to be the equivalent of Neil Patrick Harris, a gay man who is not only exceedingly funny with such a beautiful family, but portrays characters believably and endearingly regardless of their sexual preferences. I pray that all those who are struggling because they don’t fit into some convenient homosexual stereotype find role models across local TV screens and in boardrooms across the land, of people who are successful and kind and decent and intelligent, but simply happen to love a different way. I pray that those with the kind of reach that enables one to at least question the mold, if not break it, do so.

Maybe for the rest of the world, a gorgeous woman coming out like this is passé, but for a country and a culture as young as ours, it seems almost like a distant possibility. I stand in steadfast hope for the day that brave souls are able to stand up and pave the way for a kind of acceptance that surpasses comfort, convenience, and tolerance. I stand in steadfast hope for the day that others see these brothers and sisters of mine as I do, as nothing less than beautifully, remarkably human.

Remember that wee little organisation I mentioned known as The Order? Well its head honcho is a rather spiffy looking chap by the name of Vergil who kind of looks a bit like Dante. Actually, he looks exactly like Dante (bar the hair). To be more precise, he’s Dante’s twin brother and he too is driven by an unquenchable desire to cleft Mundus in twain. So the bros join forces to demolish Mundus’ empire piece by piece and free humanity from the shackles of demonic slavery. Ain’t they a pair?

So the stage is now set, but it would be for naught without some solid performances and sexified graphics and Ninja Theory has got you covered. These guys and gals know their mo-cap. DmC has some true acting gloriously recreated digitally for your eye and earholes. All characters emote believably, move realistically (taking into account the setting) and have depth and subtlety to their performances. It really helps immerse you in a completely fantastical, brutal wonderland, and what a wondrous place it is.

Ninja Theory has come up with some of the most outstanding level designs I’ve ever seen. From a visual standpoint alone, colours burst through every section and the sense of scale at times can be positively daunting. Getting dragged into Limbo never gets old, it’s like watching the world Dante inhabits explode as Limbo breaks through shattering buildings and leaving a path of destruction in its wake.

Changes at town’s beaches debated

While a structural engineer has determined that storm-damaged buildings at the town’s two beaches can be repaired, officials are trying to plot the best course of action to ensure that beach facilities are sustainable.

Recreation Director Paul Duffy reviewed the engineer’s findings from a study of Westerly Town Beach, also known as the old town beach, and Wuskenau Beach, known to some as the new town beach, with the Town Council on Monday.We open source indoor tracking system that was developed with the goal of providing at least room-level accuracy. Earlier in the evening he made a similar presentation to the Public Works Committee, which advises the Council on town infrastructure projects.

Duffy said all beach-related rebuilding should start with a focus on restoring and preserving the beach itself. Both town beaches lost substantial amounts of the beach face, as their dunes were leveled and washed away by Superstorm Sandy.

Town Engineer Paul LeBlanc has developed a plan for moving the dunes at the old town beach about 15 to 20 feet farther from the water than they were before the storm. The move would create more space on the beaches but would reduce the number of parking spaces. To compensate for the lost parking spaces, LeBlanc and Duffy are both suggesting the use of town-owned land across the street from the two beaches.

Duffy recommended moving the Frank P. “Shorty” Comforti Pavilion at the Westerly Town Beach farther from the water, onto new pilings, but that suggestion met with some resistance. Robert Gingerella, a member of the Recreation Board, said the 45-year-old structure was not worth moving. He suggested construction of a new building.

Town Manager Steven Hartford called the plan for the Westerly Town Beach “a good middle ground plan” that would provide a building for the summer of 2013. The new pilings, Hartford and others said, could serve as the foundation for a new building in the future.Buy today and get your delivery for £25 on a range of ceramic tile for your home.

St. Jean Engineering LLC of East Greenwich determined that the Comforti Pavilion could be repaired for about $73,000, not including the cost f a new septic system, and that the facilities at Wuskenau Town Beach could be repaired for about $132,000.

The Town Council asked Duffy and LeBlanc to research the cost of both wood pilings and concrete pilings, which officials said are generally preferred in the construction field but are more expensive. Based on the use of wooden pilings, Duffy estimated that moving the building and the cost of the pilings would be about $100,000.

Repairs that would return the town facilities to the condition they were before the storm are eligible for 75 percent reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The agency also reimburses for improvements, in some cases, as part of a hazard mitigation program. LeBlanc said he would submit a hazard mitigation plan for the Westerly Town Beach.

To save the town’s popular beach concert series for 2013, Duffy is recommending the use of “geomats,” an interlocking flooring system designed for uneven surfaces. The mats or some other surface is necessary because the decks surrounding much of the pavilion were ripped off and swept away during the storm

For Wuskenau Town Beach,Creative glass tile and stone mosaic tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath. Duffy is recommending a “less is more” approach that entails tearing down the snack bar portion of the building at the beach. Duffy said the snack bar is too low and could cause the entire building to collapse during a storm with heavier winds then those during Superstorm Sandy.

Restrooms and changing rooms that were ripped off the building would not be replaced under Duffy’s plan, and portable restrooms would be a permanent solution. Two apartments that are about 22 feet tall would remain. Gingerella asked that the apartments be removed and not rebuilt, saying the town received no benefit from the apartments, but Duffy said they generate about $35,000 per year in rental fees. Gingerella said he doubted that the apartments made money when the cost of insurance and utilities are accounted for. Leaving the apartments would “handicap” efforts to re-establish the dunes, Gingerella said.

Councilor Jack Carson said the council must ensure that a quality product is delivered during the rebuilding process. “If it’s a facility that town people enjoy and demand then I think it’s incumbent on us to do it right and do it right the first time,” he said.

Councilor Patricia Douglas said she would prefer a smaller building at the Westerly Town Beach. She said the council should focus its energy on the Westerly Town Beach since the Wuskenau Beach operates as a public beach. She also recommended a careful approach to ensure adequate funding is available to the town.Creative glass tile and stone mosaic tile for your distinctive kitchen and bath.

Councilor Caswell Cooke Jr., who asked that the beach and other Misquamicut matters be put on the agenda for Monday’s meeting, urged a speedy but careful approach. He also said the council should decide soon on whether to keep the apartments at Wuskenau Beach.Add depth and style to your home with these large format polished tiles.

Hartford asked residents and officials to be patient. Superstorm Sandy is the most damaging storm the town has faced since 1954, when Hurricane Carol struck, Hartford said.

“There has been overwhelming devastation for our town. We’re going to be a long way toward recovery when the summer comes, but we’re not going to be there all the way — but we will be open for business on Memorial Day,” Hartford said.

The town will likely have to tap its financial surplus or rainy day fund to pay for some of the repairs, Hartford said. Expenditure of the funds, which amount to nearly $9 million, must be approved by the council, Hartford said.

The Discover Pass parking lot exemption enjoyed only at Fort Worden State Park ended on Dec. 31 as Washington State Parks continues to deal with a budget crisis.

The Legislature initiated the Discover Pass vehicle parking pass fee in July 2011 to offset the elimination of state general fund money from State Parks’ budget. Not only has the pass failed to meet revenue expectations, at Fort Worden it is blamed for a drop in visitation – which, in turn, generally means less money for State Parks.

Exemptions, however, had been in place here for campus partners that had events already scheduled prior to July 1, 2011. Centrum, the arts and education entity with programs that draw more guests than any other business, books events two years in advance. Communicating those exemptions and the Discover Pass rules in general has been confusing for all involved – and the Jan. 1, 2013 exemption change may or may not make it easier.

Amsterdam's Cultural Renaissance

We moved to Holland and I launched my short-lived career as a runaway. Every morning around eight o’clock, my dad would drop me off at kindergarten, and every morning around 8:03, depending on how quickly his Volks-wagen bumped down the road, I’d make a break for it, shooting out the school door, sprinting over the cobbled streets, racing back home.

I’m not sure why I developed that early taste for delinquency. I think it was the wall of Dutch enveloping me. Children are supposed to pick up second languages quickly, but I was still considering my first one, mulling over English, and the lowlands kids surrounding me were all guttural noise. It didn’t really matter, though, because the women of our Amsterdam suburb would mobilize the second I settled on my escape route and phone my mom with updates.

“He’s rounding the corner of Dorpsstraat and Kerkstraat,If you have a fondness for china mosaic brimming with romantic roses,” Mrs. Yspeert would call, watching me race by. “He’s turning onto Vondelstraat,” Mrs. Van der Waal would dial in.

After a while even my own mom grew blasé. “What took you so long?” she’d ask as I panted into our little front garden.

And when I finally calmed down enough to stop running, by our second month in Holland, before we moved north to Groningen, I understood what my parents always said. The neighborhood cocooned us with the kind of communal spirit that isn’t afraid of much, even outsiders.

Those first months of our Dutch lives are something I think about now when I return to Amsterdam, partly because I can finally hear the poetry in the language and partly because Amsterdam doesn’t look that different. It still seems comforting and fearless at the same time. And its beauty has, if anything, just built up more of a patina in the twenty-first century; the streets paved in brick that I saw as I barreled over them are still a study in austere elegance.

And yet mention Amsterdam to most people and too many insist on dusting off bachelor party clichés. The whole place gets reduced to the whiff of dope trailing through the air; the women pacing in red-lit windows; the hash cakes and bongs; the paper cones filled with soggy fries floating down the canals after the bars close. Once a myth takes hold it hangs on tight. Even the locals have sometimes seemed resigned to Amsterdam’s reputation as the global theme park of sleaze. If any city needed rebranding, despite an ingrained Dutch resistance to hype, it was this one.

Recently, though, I’d heard that things were shifting, that Amsterdammers were taking back their city from outsiders’ projections. The trigger for the surge in pride was UNESCO’s 2010 crowning of Amsterdam’s central Canal District as a World Heritage Site. Helping draw the gaze away from the red lights and the smoke houses, the recognition focused attention on the city’s truer core: the loop of concentric canals that the burghers dug up, largely in the seventeenth century, as Amsterdam morphed into a muscular mercantile power and one of Europe’s most gorgeous cultural epicenters. With the city suddenly dubbed a world wonder, friends told me, residents weren’t afraid to sound a little immodest, for once.

In fact, the Amsterdam I discovered when I returned last spring wasn’t just retrieving its own narrative, it was spawning a fresh kind of renaissance. The city has been renovating virtually all of its major museums, initiating a gentrification of the Red Light District, and reshaping the slumped East Harbor into a primer of twenty-first-century architecture. Yanking even more of itself out of the sea, replicating its original wonder,Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. it is ready to claim its second Golden Age.

The new mood was obvious the minute I dropped my bags. I was staying in a top-floor room at the Ambassade. The hotel, a row of ten restored seventeenth- and eighteenth-century canal houses, is the refuge where Salman Rushdie once hid out, and its library is jammed with signed editions by all the writers, from Isabel Allende to Michael Chabon, Paul Auster to Umberto Eco, who have passed through on book tours. Even better: From the canalside rooms you can see all the way down the Herengracht, the first of the city’s three major canals, to the spire of the Westerkirk, the largest church in Amsterdam, poking up through the trees, its little crown looking like a tipsy sailor’s cap.

Just one bridge east along the canal sits The Grachtenhuis museum, where its director, Piet van Winden, was waiting to give me a tour after I’d fought jet-lag with the Ambassade’s big buffet breakfast, featuring wheels of cheese that mapped the Dutch countryside (Edam, Gouda). Opened in 2011 in a restored double-wide seventeenth-century canal house, The Grachtenhuis may be the best expression of the city’s epiphany: You can’t reclaim history without starting at the beginning and telling your own story well. Projected along the restored walls are ghostly life-size silhouettes of Golden Age dairy maids, fishermen, traders, and what I first took to be an oddly misplaced sword swallower. Just as dramatic were the miniature models of an expanding city whose population more than quadrupled during the first half of the seventeenth century, as Holland’s burghers came to dominate global trade routes. Growing in size, each slightly larger than the last, the shrunken Amsterdams showcase the canal ring as an example of conscious urban planning—a crescent anchored by three grand canals, or grachten built for transportation, defense,We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. and residential development and linked by a delicate web of side canals and bridges. For the team of Golden Age civic leaders, merchants, architects, painters, stonemasons, and landscapers who created the cityscape, it was nothing less than the new promised land.

“You can say it was a grand experiment in urban planning and living,” said Van Winden. “What can Dutch people do? They can organize things, find a solution that fits everyone. And Amsterdammers in particular had a genius for constructing a utopia that was as pragmatic and functional as it was idealistic, so traders lived next to carpenters and textile workers. Cities don’t work unless everyone collaborates.”

When I left The Grachtenhuis, I did what I always do on my first day back in Amsterdam, which is pretty much nothing except walk the city’s liquid heart—Europe’s largest historic center, with seven thousand standing landmarks. I moved from the Herengracht to the one block that epitomizes the city’s grace. This is the Leidsegracht, connecting the Herengracht and the Keizersgracht. Turning onto the tranquil side canal is like diving into the quietude of a Vermeer canvas. At first you see the clean, straight lines of the canal houses, their brick facades shooting straight up in slightly tilting rows, looking blank-faced. But bell gables and humpbacked bridges slowly emerge, and then you see, floating above you, a whole universe of operatic whimsy.We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. There are white urns and ropey garlands of flowers strewn across brick fronts, and sculptures of cresting waves painted white as a lick of whipped cream, riding along the tops of the roofs, crashing against the gables as though the dikes had given way. There are curling vines carved into old metal lampposts, and door plaques of half moons and mulberry trees sprouting red fruit.

And then, if you’re lucky, there is the famous lowlands sun. The Dutch masters weren’t inventing that golden dome; they were painting from life. When the clouds finally part and the North Sea sun makes its entrance, everything becomes luminous; the radiating glow turns whole stretches of the canal molten; the cobbled side streets are a tunnel of light, and the canal house fronts are suddenly articulated and stippled, so each brick, a slightly different shade of brown or red, seems to pop and the stony facades become almost furry. The sun followed me back to the Nine Streets neighborhood. Hardly a local secret, the gentrified district of cafés and shops has always drawn Amsterdammers. But the one-theme mom-and-pop (really more pop-and-pop) boutiques were now bumping up against a fresh wave of restaurants and galleries, and the crowds were thicker,Whether you are installing a floor tiles or a shower wall, filled out by visitors looking for a more authentic, soulful city.

Pea soup fog makes San Joaquin Valley notorious

Some fog creeps in poetically on little cat feet through the Golden Gate. And then there is the prosaic fog of California's San Joaquin Valley that erupts from the soil in certain wintry conditions to put a stranglehold on the region.

This dense tule fog materializes in a patchwork an average of 35 days each winter on mornings when cold mountain air sinks to the valley's lowest areas after a rain. On these gray days, visibility is less than 1,300 feet -- and sometimes zero, schools start late, workers who can telecommute, commerce grinds to halt, and those who have to go somewhere hug the white line marking the outside edge of the road.

"I could argue it's the most dangerous kind of fog," said Jim Andersen of the National Weather Service on Foggy Bottom Road in Hanford,The oreck XL professional air purifier, southwest of Fresno. "I'd be hard pressed to figure out another location that gets as bad as this. This is the most dangerous place when it's fog season."

Four people died in late November during the first big fog of the season: in one accident, a 90-year-old man was broadsided near Kingsburg when he thought an intersection was clear; in the other incident, a car with three people was struck head-on near Chowchilla by a big-rig when the driver swerved to avoid a minor accident.

Other parts of California get fog, and areas around the Sacramento Delta even get the dense, low tule fog named for the tule reeds along the valley waterways where early settlers first noticed it forms. But experts say that the most dangerous in the state occurs along a 12-mile stretch of Highway 99 south of Fresno. It's often so foggy that tail lights are impossible to see until it's too late to react.

In 2002, a crash there on a zero visibility morning sandwiched 81 cars and six tractor-trailer trucks in less than two minutes, killing two. After a 2007 morning pileup involving 108 cars and big rigs killed two, injured 100 more and closed the major north-south transportation artery for half of the day, Caltrans and the Highway Patrol began planning for a warning system.

Now as safety experts brace for December and January, the foggiest months of the year, they knock on their laminate desks when they say that since 2010 the intricate system of six weather stations, 12 cameras, 39 electronic message signs and 41 microwave sensors installed along the dangerous corridor has worked to help avert the deadly pileups.

"The intent was never to stop 100 percent of the accidents. The hope was that 100-car pileups would go to 40 and 40 to 20 and so on. The point was to reduce the numbers," said Sergio Venegas, the engineer in charge of what he calls the state's most sophisticated fog monitoring system.

Twenty-two sensors connected to a command center can determine the density of the fog, and others in the roadway tell the speed in each lane of traffic on the highway that sees 100,000 vehicles a day. If traffic suddenly slows, warning signs along the highway instantly alert drivers to slow for foggy conditions ahead, the only system this advanced in the state. Engineers can watch what's happening in real time on dozens of monitors.

At least that's what they do when they're operational. This year state officials were delayed two weeks in firing up the system for the current fog season because copper wire thieves had stolen key parts. On Wednesday a couple of transmitters were not operating, and Venegas fears thieves are responsible for that, too.

Fog and the valley are so intertwined that billboards for roadside restaurants advertise pea soup to drivers and tout that it's as thick as the fog, which also might serve as another warning for drivers across the foggy valley.

Highway 99 from Merced south to Delano is built along one of the lowest spots in the valley, which is why this significant highway is so notorious for tule fog when conditions are right, says Anderson the meteorologist. The soils that make the region so productive for farming retain moisture after rains. When a high pressure system develops in the valley ringed by towering mountains, it works like a lid to trap cooler air at the ground at night.Interlocking security cable ties with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals. The resulting temperature inversion allows the fog to form from the soil's moisture and often catches drivers by surprise.

"We even have printers in our vehicles now. Everything we do in the office we can do at any location. We are dealing with volumes of codes and ordinances. The ability to tap into that from a remote location is very valuable," Kunkel said.

Property Maintenance Inspection Manager Andy Krauss said the department did not buy any software. The software beng used is a full We mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale turquoise beads from china,Adobe package that came pre-loaded onto computers that the department is using at present. There was no purchase of additional or special software. The tablet Krauss showed off to the committee last week was his own desktop computer.

"This gets docked into a station and I'm connected to the network and can access a shared drive,If you have a fondness for china mosaic brimming with romantic roses," Krauss said. "As soon as I leave the building, I connect to a Virtual Private Network, a locked-up network. It's just like I'm connected to the building,This is my favourite sites to purchase those special pieces of buy mosaic materials from. but I can do that in the field. Anything I can access at my desk, I can access in the field."

He said he and apartment inspection secretary Lohan work closely together, with Lohan sending out biannual inspection notices to property owners.

"Now, I'm scheduling re-inspections with the customer on the spot, and immediately, Maria can see it back here in the office," Krauss said. "I can add that to a notice, so they don't get a notice, plus a re-inspection letter, plus a follow-up letter. It's all in one notice."

Recently, Krauss performed an inspection on West Eighth Street where the tenants were present. Before, he would have to mail the notice to the landlord. Now, he can print the notice and print the envelope remotely, and then send an email to Lohan to put it all together for the mail.

Experts offer tips for buying Christmas trees

Emily Grady cautions Grady Christmas Tree Farm-goers that their eyes might be bigger than their living rooms when it comes to holiday decoration.

"The tree never looks quite as big out in the field as it does when you get it indoors," Grady said. "I spent one Christmas with the top of my tree scrunched against the ceiling. The other, the tree was so big I just had to cut it off."

Grady recommends shoppers look at a tree in relation to their own height before chopping down a monster.

"For most people who want a 6- to 6 1/2-foot tree, remember that it won't be that much taller than you are," Grady said. "If it's just a hand on top of your head taller than you are, you're very close to having a 6-foot tree."

In addition to having the right size tree for your home, make sure the tree stand is the right size, too, to keep your holiday season from going downhill.

Blank's Ever-Green Acres owner Jan Blank remembers when a customer brought a tree back to the farm.

"They didn't have a big enough stand or the right stand, and it stood up crooked," Blank said "Then it fell over."

Blank said having the right stand can make a big difference in your tree's success in the home, as well as choosing a balanced and straight tree from the lot.

"You get to see the way it stands in the field, and it should stand the same way in your house," Blank said.

Those who opt for live trees might find themselves sniffling mid-carol or sneezing in their eggnog. Molds or pollens on the tree can agitate allergies for some.

Chris and Jodi White of Germantown Hills took their two youngest sons to Schaer's Country Market to cut down a Christmas tree for the first time in 10 years last weekend.

Their oldest son had allergic reactions to live trees in the past, but now that he's moved out, they were ready to rekindle the family tradition.

"We just had artificial for all these years," Chris White said. "We missed cleaning that mess up every year."

Tree shaking, a service offered at many you-cut lots in the area, can help shake dead or loose needles from the tree to limit the number that fall to your living room floor.

"People that want a fresh tree, they know they do get a bit more work," said Gary Schaer, owner of Schaer's Country Market.

Schaer recommends a Fraser Fir for anyone worried about mess because they're known for their needle retention. For anyone looking for a fragrant tree, he recommends a Balsam Fir.

The Lady Bird Lake boardwalk would become something of a Texas music walk of fame under a public art proposal, with snippets of lyrics from iconic singers and songwriters along the boardwalk’s railings.

Sculptor Ken Little, who is also a guitarist in a couple of small-time bands in San Antonio, envisions a series of 36 bronze belts — cast from actual leather,Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. alligator and canvas waist wear — that would have short phrases drawn from the repertoire of the state’s leading singers.

Little’s conceptual rendering, for instance, includes this: “Me upon my pony, on my boat,” from Lyle Lovett. And from Willie Nelson: “Crazy for cryin’ Crazy for tryin’ ”

Little foresees belts with phrases from, among others, Townes Van Zandt, Freddy Fender, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Tish Hinojosa, Marcia Ball,Find detailed product information for howo spare parts and other products. Bob Wills, the Dixie Chicks and, naturally, Gary P. Nunn.

“Home with the armadillo,” Nunn’s belt would say.

The 1.25-mile boardwalk will connect a gap in the Butler Hike and Bike Trail along the south side of the lake. Construction began last month, with an expected completion date of spring 2014.

The art piece, called “Belting it out,” would have the bronze molds of belts, each about 48 inches long and one to two inches wide, bolted to the railings on both sides every hundred yards or so.

“The idea was to basically use haikus out of the songs, short phrases that would bring those songs to mind,Quickparts builds injection molds using aluminum or steel to meet your program.” Little said Monday night before presenting his design to the city’s Art in Public Places Panel. “It’s using people’s imagination to create the artwork.”

That panel unanimously approved his concept, and it will go on to the city’s Arts Commission for what officials say would be a final OK.

Little, who has yet to approach the musicians for the rights to use their work, hopes to pay something along the lines of $150 for each piece. An Amarillo native, Little, 65, teaches art at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He created a piece of public art in Austin, a series of picket fences in the shape of the United States called “Homeland Security,” which was installed in 2008-09 in Butler Park near the lake.

Little’s concept is the first to emerge from the Art Guys, a team of five artists that the Austin City Council in March voted to pay $264,Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability.000 to design, execute and install public art on the $21.7 million boardwalk trail. Jean Graham, who is managing the public art part of the project for the city, said the other artists are still working on their proposals.

The project — which begins east of Congress Avenue and goes to International Shores Park along South Lakeshore Boulevard east of Interstate 35 — includes both low concrete bridges over the water and, in a few sections,The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. on-land trail. Voters in 2010 approved $14.4 million for the project as part of a $90 million transportation bond issue. The balance of the money for the project is coming from the Trail Foundation, which donated $3 million, and from other other city funds.

What's with the giant gorilla holding a Volkswagen?

As you drive south from Middlebury on Route 7, the vistas are all ramshackle farmhouses, dense forests and rolling fields — your average Vermont fare.

That is, until you hit Leicester, where one roadside attraction has been turning heads and distracting drivers for 25 years. Meet Queen Connie, the enormous concrete gorilla stationed along Route 7, where she proudly hoists a rusting Volkswagen Bug high above her head. Erected in 1987, Connie was the brainchild of sculptor T.J. Neil.An indoor positioning system (IPS) is a term used for a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building. He pitched the gorilla as an advertising ploy to attract attention to Pioneer Auto Sales, the used-car lot over which Connie presides.Installers and distributors of solar panel, Neil promised “a sculpture that would get world recognition,” recalls Pioneer’s owner, Joan O’Neil-Gittens.

The stunt worked: Over the next two and a half decades, Connie lured in visitors by the busload. She presided over one wedding, and earned Car & Driver magazine’s kudos, in 1991, at the top of its “Carchitectural Wonders” list.

“I can’t say that it put money in our pockets,” O’Neil-Gittens says, but then again, “It’s served its purpose.” She contends Connie put the dealership on the map.

O’Neil-Gittens met the sculptor who would create Connie during a trip to Cape Cod, where Neil and his family were living at the time. Neil died in 2010, but his son, T.J. Neil Jr., says his father got his start as an artist after leaving the Marines in the late 1950s. He got a job plastering in Boston, repairing old walls, crown molding and eventually the ornate plasterwork on historic buildings. By the time the Neil family moved to Cape Cod, Neil Sr. was experimenting with concrete as a medium for sculpting — “no molds, all hand-sculpted,” his son says.

“I grew up with aliens in the yard, and dragons and whales,” Neil Jr. recalls. He eventually went into the family business, and the Neils created sculptures all over the United States as well as internationally. Among Neil’s favorites is the concrete dragon commissioned by a man in Webster, Mass., who plunked the large sculpture in the middle of a manmade lake on his property. Neil says that, after visitors are buzzed through the gates of the man’s home, they drive around the lake — and the dragon belches fire at just the right moment.

Leicester’s resident gorilla is no fire breather, but Neil remembers her all the same. When I called his studio in Florida to inquire about the sculpture, he responded immediately with “Oh, Queen Connie!”

In 1987, the Neil family had already made the move to Florida, but Neil Sr. was planning a trip to complete a series of commissioned sculptures in the Northeast. He put in a call to O’Neil-Gittens, the automobile dealer who’d purchased a few of his smaller sculptures, including a dolphin and lighthouse, for her property. They were “more or less lawn ornaments,” she says — albeit lawn ornaments that required transportation in a truck.

So Neil Sr. made the pitch: Would O’Neil-Gittens consider something bigger — a landmark?

The sculptor and his clients began tossing around ideas. At first O’Neil-Gittens considered a pioneer woman, the embodiment of Pioneer Auto Sales. (The first female car salesperson and dealership owner in Vermont,The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. O’Neil-Gittens says she chose her business name because she felt like something of a pioneer back in 1969, when she set up shop.)

But her son nixed the pioneer idea, so she put the question to Neil. If he could build anything, what would it be? He suggested a “King Kong”-type character — an enormous gorilla — and O’Neil-Gittens agreed. Her only stipulations were that the gorilla be female, in a nod to her trailblazing ways, and that the sculpture have some tie to the automobile industry. The dealership sponsored a contest for local schoolchildren to pick a name for the sculpture, and “Queen Connie” — so dubbed because of her concrete structure — earned a kid from Pittsford a bright-red bicycle.The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry,

Neil arrived on the Fourth of July in 1987 and spent the next several weeks constructing Connie on the small rise overlooking Route 7. He mixed his concrete in a wheelbarrow and applied layer upon layer atop a steel rebar armature. “I believe that gorilla’s got some serious steel in it,” Neil Jr. says. They hoisted Connie’s crowning glory,Trade platform for China crystal mosaic manufacturers an old VW bug, into place with a crane.

Connie’s seen better days — she needs a fresh paint job, O’Neil-Gittens concedes, and the VW has gone rusty with age. The dealership, too, has struggled in recent years. The family business once specialized in wholesale auto sales. In its heyday, the family stored as many as 100 cars on the lot and sold upwards of 1000 in a given year. Now just nine or 10 languish in front of the dealership, which is housed in an old West Salisbury railroad depot that was relocated to the roadside spot in the 1930s or ’40s. O’Neil-Gittens says that, though she and her son, general manager Michael Cameron, have dialed back operations in recent years, they’re hoping to jump-start the ailing business in the months ahead.

“It’s not easy,” he warns. “You’ve got to be a plasterer, an iron worker, an artist and an engineer to make these sculptures.” But the benefit, he says, is that he can create works of art that the public can touch and sit on.

Asked what he’s working on these days, he mentions a “cat-goyle” — think a mix of gargoyle and cat — and a few manatees and dolphins. Now firmly rooted in the Sunshine State, Neil is in manatee country.

Why direct cash transfer shouldn’t be used to kill the PDS

If we are willing to believe the best practice examples of cash transfers from Brazil and Philippines, and trust the UPA on the fact that their cash-for-subsidy is going to be all hunky-dory, we also have a right to believe Sitaram Yechury’s concerns about the fancy plan.

According to the CPM leader, the cash transfer is a ploy by the government to dismantle the PDS and systematically reduce subsidies.

“This is to cover up for reducing the subsidies. As inflation continues to grow, the value of cash subsidies keeps dropping. That is in effect the most efficient way of reducing subsidies without saying so,” he said on Tuesday.

We should certainly be suspicious over the UPA planners’ alleged efforts to reduce fiscal deficit at the cost of 400 million destitute people of the country because they had earlier tried to cheat us on the number of poor in the country.We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory.

Learning from World Bank/ADB documents, case studies and mathematical models, they also seem to believe in techno-fixes and targeting, while the real results in the field come from radically different approaches.

Yechury’s worry about the dismantling of the PDS, is a case in point, although the UPA’s cash roll-out doesn’t include it in the initial phase. Despite all the pitfalls and leakages, what the CPM and Left-leaning development specialists have been arguing for is increased coverage and a universal system – that enables everyone to access PDS-goods – as opposed to the government’s efforts at weaning people away.

Conventional wisdom, borrowed knowledge and cold numbers certainly make this sound illogical – why should undeserving people be eligible? Why should the government keep adding to its deficit by subsidising the non-poor? In addition, the government believes that by giving cash, instead of rice and wheat, they will remove all the ills of the system such as leakages and inferior goods in one stroke.

They point out that many states such as Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Orissa, and Rajasthan have moved towards a near-universal PDS, at least in rural areas.

“This approach has helped to not only avoid exclusion errors but also ensure that the PDS works: a more inclusive PDS is under much greater pressure to function,” they said.

In other words, while the UPA mandarins advocate for targeting and exclusion, the states, which are directly responsible for people’s welfare,High quality stone mosaic tiles. have moved in the opposite direction and have shown results. The efficiency of the system also has improved considerably.

As the authors point out, exclusion errors are massive and targeting is divisive. Taking the PDS benefits as an implicit income transfer, they show how universlised PDS impacts rural poverty – reducing it from 40 percent in some states to 15 percent in others. Other than the transfer-benefits, they also have stablisation-benefits, wherein the PDS-supplies act as an additional income and helps stabilise their lives.

The question is as the cash-transfer is implemented in over 600 districts in the country, what will happen to the mammoth PDS network? If people are mandatorily given cash instead of PDS goods, will the PDS network, that too after the recent fortification by responsible state governments, close down? Will the cash and PDS regime co-exist?

It will certainly kill our age-old PDS and its nearly 500,000 fair price shops. With all its defects such as bogus cards, inferior goods replacing original supplies, cheating and pilferage, it has been a proven lifeline for tens of millions of people in India.High quality stone mosaic tiles. In states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, their scope has gone much beyond what central planners can even think of.

By the logic of the task force on subsidies: “A subsidy, by its very nature, introduces two or more prices for the same good, and creates incentives for pilferage and diversion. As a result, the underprivileged suffer the most. Ensuring that goods move in the supply chain at market prices can minimize the incentives for diversion.Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability.”

The cat is out of the bag here. Effectively, with the meagre cash transferred to them through their Aadhaar accounts, people shun the PDS and go to supermarkets to buy their supplies. Instead of a 35 kg rice at an extremely fair price from a location that they have been quite familiar with, will they have to now buy 35 kg rice from the market? And what if inflation prices the commodities out of their reach?

As some pointed out, PDS is socialist and cash-transfer neo-liberal. While PDS tries to equitably distribute, the cash scheme seeks to bring the bottom of the pyramid into the market. Millions of poor will become consumers; but what one doesn’t realise at the moment, is what Yechury has pointed out – inflation will erode the value of the transfers. Soon, one will see the poor cash-transfer beneficiary clutching a few hundred rupees going hungry and under-fed.

One also has to read the new policy along with the government’s push for FDI in retail. FDI in retail will certainly translate into more retail shops, which needs more customers. By converting 400 million poor into new retail customers, the government is doing a great favour to the retailers.

Dismantling social safety-net infrastructure and replacing it with neo-liberal models, citing efficiency and quality, is a trend that needs to be strongly opposed. Over the last few years, the governments’ withdrawal from the social sector, particularly education and health, have spelt disaster.

The problem with PDS is bad governance.Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. Better governed states (Tamil Nadu, Kerala) have better PDS and better welfare measures. Applying uniform yardsticks for a country, socio-economically as diverse as India is fraught with huge risks. One could hope that the states will ensure that the PDS-networks stay and get better.

Low-Rent Horror Wastes Time

The story is ... well, you tell me. Oh yeah, you didn't see it. Don't worry. I actually watched the darn thing and still can't tell exactly what it was about. There was a group of friends, a psychic, a horror house, a ghost hunter, some sort of demon and Cory Feldman smoking what I'm pretty sure was an electric cigarette. That's about as helpful as I can be. Sorry.

Speaking of Feldman, he seems to be one of the big selling points of this feature,High quality stone mosaic tiles. out this week on DVD, but he's in the movie for maybe 10 minutes. And I'm not saying anyone expects Feldman to make "Goodfellas," but even he should make better crap than this.

The rest of the cast is a bunch of unknowns who I don't think will be making names for themselves anytime soon. They're not terrible, but who could actually make this incomprehensible script work anyway? Why did this thing earn a green light?

I'll tell you why: Parts of "Hell" are shot on location at a real Halloween attraction in Pennsylvania called the Hotel of Horror, and the movie is an obvious selling pitch for the attraction. It's a pretty lame excuse to make a pretty lame movie.

The saddest part is, however, that the gimmick could've worked. The last third of the movie takes place in the Hotel of Horror and has people running around not knowing what's real and what's not. It provided laughs and actual scares.

And hence, the film's biggest mistake: "Hell" ends with Feldman's character ready to enter the hotel, and I kept wondering why this wasn't the opening to the film. With Feldman in the lead and the whole movie taking place inside the real attraction, we could've been up for some real scares and some tongue in cheek moments.

Although Google is known for being a search engine, it makes most of its money from selling advertising across all of its products.

In October it said that it had made $2.High quality stone mosaic tiles.18billion (1.36billion) in profits in the third quarter of the year.

But that was a drop of 20 per cent from the year before, so the ability to target adverts as precisely as possible at users is increasingly important.

Marketers know that recommendations from a real person, ideally a friend, is much more valuable than an advertisement or a recommendation from someone you don't know.

But anonymity and the right to use nicknames, or 'handles', is important to web users.

You can add a married name to your Google+ profile, or if you have a nickname that you are well known by and have a 'significant' online following, you can use that.

But you have to prove to Google that you are that person by providing scanned documents or links to your online persona.

Mobile data specialist Christian Payne said: 'This is just another data extraction technique. Google+, like Facebook, isn't free. You pay for it with your identity. And they sell it on.'

Payne was one of the early victims of Google's insistence that users of the social network use their real names.

Widely known on the web as Documentally, Payne was thrown off Google+ last year. He said at the time: 'It's not that I don't want to put my real name in. It's just that more people know me as Documentally than Christian Payne.'

The search giant relented and Payne returned to the network, where his profile is Christian 'Documentally' Payne.

"It's incredibly expensive to transport a person to or from the continent, and in the middle of winter, it's physically impossible to get people off of the South Pole," Dr. Scott Parazynski, director and chief medical officer of UTMB's Center for Polar Medical Operations, said in a statement. "So if you can remotely diagnose and treat the patient, and then supervise his or her care, you're much better off."

UTMB provides remote medical support to three U.S. research outposts in Antarctica, where temperatures reach 76 degrees below zero.

They include McMurdo Station, which houses more than 1,200 people. A hospital at that location employs physicians, nurses and staff aids.A specialized manufacturer and supplier of dry cabinet, UTMB also runs telemedicine sessions at Amundsen-Scott South Pole (ASP) station, Palmer Station and two Antarctic research vessels.

The remote consultations aid the work of on-site medical professionals, which are called "doctors on ice." Connecting to doctors that specialize in certain medical conditions is essential to ensuring the best health outcomes for patients in remote and harsh environments, Emerson suggested.

UTMB has directed cardiological ultrasounds and emergency appendectomies over the Polycom video system. Doctors can also use electronic stethoscopes to listen to heart and lung sounds, rely on handheld cameras to show lesions, and use ophthalmoscopes to provide a view of the eyes, said Emerson.

"Polycom's standards-based video technologies allow medical devices including
cardiac ultrasounds to be easily plugged into them so the images can be
transferred through the video feed from any location," he said.

A doctor in Galveston, Texas, could view a live stream of a patient's cardiac ultrasound taking place at the South Pole, Emerson explained.

In August a cardiologist was able to remotely direct a cardiac ultrasound to save a patient's life.

"We're not set up to do general anesthesia and surgery, but this was a notable exception," said Parazynski.High quality stone mosaic tiles. "We were lucky to have a surgeon there and to be able to direct the anesthesia over the Polycom video system; it was pretty remarkable."

President Morsi insists his powers are temporary, and his spokesmen have insisted he has had little choice but to work around judges who are holdovers from the Mubarak area that stood in the way of a new constitution. They say he won the presidency fair and square, and should be given time to lead Egypt in a new direction.

But human history has far more examples of extraordinary powers "briefly" assumed that stretched into various authoritarianisms than of those used to create democracies. And the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi are busy cutting deals with the institutions of Mubarak's state – his still politically powerful military and various ministries – to cement their power. Most of the so-called liberals who were in the constitutional assembly (the body that is supposed to draft a new constitution) walked off the job, claiming that Islamists were simply ignoring them.

Now, large swathes of Egyptian's judiciary are promising to go on strike in protest of Morsi's actions. The judges, like many appointed bureaucrats from the Mubarak era, have had far more input into politics lately than opposition politicians or the public, and so may get somewhere, though the battle lines are hardening.

The president was reacting to real problems when he immunized his decisions and the Constituent Assembly from judicial oversight. The Brotherhood had been heavy-handed in picking the Constituent Assembly, but it did so fully within the rules drafted last year. And it is not clear that the opposition would have been satisfied with any compromise over the composition of the body or its work. The Brotherhood’s complaint — that many critics were averse to allowing election results to have any impact on the document or its authors — is firmly grounded.

Morsy’s defense of his moves as designed to support democracy unfortunately recall the remark attributed to an American soldier during the Vietnam War: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”... But while the crisis is not fully a product of the actors’ intentions, Egyptians will not find a path forward unless their leaders find within themselves an intention to resolve their differences through compromise. The constitutional process is badly broken, but it can still be repaired.

Morsi has insisted, for now, that he's not going to change course. And that potentially puts Egypt on an even more dangerous path. While the Brotherhood told its supporters to stay off the streets during yesterday's big anti-Morsi protests, in order to avoid clashes, the group has called for mass demonstrations in support of Morsi on Saturday,The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. which could lead to clashes.

The rhetoric of various officials around Morsi has also grown more heated. A spokesman for the Brother's Freedom and Justice Party wrote today that it's "Very sad to see 'genuine opposition' allied with 'corrupt Mubarak cronies.'" One of the Brotherhood's official Twitter account wrote yesterday that if the "opposition thinks the significance of today is # of Tahrir protestors... they should brace for millions in support of the elected" Morsi while dismissing the Tahrir protests as composed partly of "pro-Mubarak felols".

With the "process" gummed up, the opposition interested only, it seems, in using street power to prevent Morsi's agenda from moving forward, and Morsi currently the only official in Egypt with any democratic legitimacy, the stage looks set for a showdown. And what then? Sufficient rioting might bring the military back into the political forefront again.

Conquering The World One Roller Coaster At A Time

It was only a matter of time until iOS devices got their very own roller coaster management game. There may not yet be an iOS version of Roller Coaster Tycoon, but now we’ve got the next best thing: Coaster Crazy, a new free iOS game from Frontier Developments, the studio behind RollerCoaster Tycoon 3.Interlocking security cable ties with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals.

Coaster Crazy takes a global approach to amusement park management: You’ll begin by flicking the globe about with your fingers, and choosing the location of your first roller coaster from among several major cities (I began in Australia). From there, you’ll zoom down on the nation in question and pick from among several different topographical maps before beginning on your coaster.

In Coaster Crazy, the goal is to design roller coasters that are fast, lengthy, and thrilling enough to keep your testers happy. That’s easier said than done — you’ll spend a lot of time bending, warping, and expanding your coasters to get things moving faster and more excitingly. Every time you do a test run, you’ll get to watch the thing in action, then will be scored on how good your roller coaster is.

Coaster Crazy is fun and addictive, and the game really thrives in the details. The little tester characters are all funny and each have their own wee personality, which they show of at the beginnings and ends of runs. There’s a built-in camera function that allows you to take and store great freeze-frame shots of your coasters in action. The music is quite groovy, and combines with the broad, stylised colour palette to evoke Psychonauts, of all things.

Once you get a roller coaster passed its initial certification, it begins to earn money for you, and you can expand to other building sites and build more coasters. The real fun is in the roller coaster-design, but it’s also enjoyable to build your global empire. As Coaster Crazy is free-to-play, you’ll have to wait for your new developments to take root in real time,Find a great buy mosaic Art deals on eBay! though you can of course pay to eliminate the waiting. But it’s not that big of a nuisance, as free-to-play games go. And even if you never pay a cent, there’s a huge amount to enjoy.

Camacho, bruised and battered like never before, spoke to Pat Putnam of Sports Illustrated after the Rosario escape and said, ""If I fight him again," growled Camacho the next morning, "I want a million dollars. If I'm gonna come out looking like a Cabbage Patch doll, I want to get paid for it."

Generally a Good Humor man, even at his own expense, Camacho said Rosario "fought me like he's mad at me."

From then on, naysayers claimed he ran more in the ring than he fought. I couldn't help but notice that most critics were corpulent cowards who only went into the ring if they were in a jewelry store.

No one, not his worst critics,Find detailed product information for howo tractor and other products. ever claimed he was not entertaining.

Camacho could fight, no make that could box, like the devil. And,Thank you for visiting! I have been crystal mosaic since 1998. like most of us, he was no angel in how he conducted his life. The left handed Camacho had a textbook jab,Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability. a real thing of boxing beauty.

He ditched his boyhood trainers, Robert Lee Velez and colorful Billy Giles and he had constant disputes with various promoters. He had domestic disputes and drug related arrests, one of the craziest coming in Mississippi when he broke through a skylight and into a computer repair shop because he claimed they were unjustly withholding his property.

All these scraps and scrapes, sure, but Camacho was a carouser. In that sense, he reminded me of hapless Neon Leon Spinks in that they both got into one mess after another but never with the intention of hurting someone else.

It appears from police reports from Bayamon that the former world champion was shot and left for dead as a result of a small change drug deal gone sour outside some barroom.

I knew "the Macho Man" going back to his amateur days, almost to the time when he was a comical but hot-headed teenaged car thief in East Harlem. What I will remember, what we should all remember is how he lived.

Life was pretty much a party or a party waiting to happen. In his early ring years, boxing was a party for him as well.

With wicked hand and foot speed and ring generalship that was no less than awesome, Camacho looked like and considered himself not only unbeatable but also untouchable between the ropes.

Hack attack a costly lesson for ba

The recent credit card breach involving PayGate, a local payment service provider, has exposed a weakness in the national payment system that the regulator, the banks and service providers are fixing, fast.

The international syndicate responsible for the hack may have accessed the card details of hundreds of thousands of users. But the banks say there’s no need to panic: they are covering any losses you incur from fraud related to this incident – and if you’re at risk, your bank is monitoring your credit card account.

The Payments Association of South Africa (Pasa), the body responsible for regulating the national payment system, is checking the compliance of about 50 operators that facilitate payments from your bank account to a retailer’s bank account when you shop online.

Walter Volker, the chief executive of Pasa, says one of the “major lessons learned” is that there’s a need for a better way of checking the compliance of operators such as PayGate, which fell victim to a hacker’s attack.The term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag.

“Unfortunately,Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injection mould manufacture, in this case PayGate was acquired by four of the major banks and it seems that each assumed that compliance was taken care of. This is one of the major lessons learned. We need a more formalised, explicit way of checking compliance.

“We have a set of criteria that covers a number of things, but the plan is to extend that list to ensure adherence to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS).”

The PCI-DSS is a security standard for the payment card industry.

Volker says while there is a weakness in regulating operators, ultimately “the risk is with the banks. And we expect our banks to comply with PCI-DSS.”

He says Pasa is in the process of reviewing Pasa-registered operators that are card-enabled, to determine how many are PCI-DSS-compliant. He says once this is done, those operators that aren’t yet compliant will be given a deadline to comply.

PayGate is not yet fully compliant with PCI-DSS, and the hack occurred three months before the company was due to be audited, Peter Harvey, managing director of PayGate, says.

Harvey says PayGate reported its compliance status to the major banks on a regular basis, and in 14 years the company has never had an incident.

“We’re optimistic we caught it quickly and locked it down 100 percent,” he says. The breach was by way of hidden files found on PayGate’s server, which has subsequently been replaced. Since the breach, PayGate has had two PCI-DSS companies run scans on the system and has passed both, he says.

If you’re one of the “hundreds of thousands” of customers whose credit card details were on the database that was compromised, you won’t necessarily be notified of this by your bank.An indoor positioning system (IPS) is a term used for a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building.

Pasa has given the individual banks the discretion to decide whether to contact you with a view to replacing cards that might have been exposed,A stone mosaic stands at the spot of assasination of the late Indian prime minister. or rather placing your cards on a “heightened level of monitoring”.

Last week, Pasa issued a media release that broke the news of the security breach, which, Harvey says, took place in August. He says the banks and the card associations were notified at the time.

This week, the message from the banks was unanimous: there is no need to panic; the number of incidents is “limited”.

None of the banks is willing to divulge how many of their customers have been victims of credit card fraud as a result of the breach, and nor will they disclose the extent of their losses.

Johan Maree, chief executive of First National Bank’s credit card division, says disclosing such information will only “create unnecessary panic”.

“It’s not that we’re withholding information, but it would create panic if we were to alert every customer on that list,” he says.

The banks are not seeking to hide anything from customers, he says, but they have to exercise discretion because an investigation is under way.Thank you for visiting! I have been cry stalmosaic since 1998.

The commercial crime unit is investigating the incident.

Maree says the incident has presented “massive learnings” for the banking industry and highlighted the need for tighter regulations in the payment system.

“There will definitely be some changes and a tightening of regulations,” Maree says. “We have to close the gaps. As an industry, we can’t let this happen again.”

In response to online news reports, some customers have said their banks ought to have notified them about the breach sooner, and at least one lawyer has said that Pasa and the banks are fortunate that the Protection of Personal Information Bill (POPI) is not yet law.

An “operator” (such as PayGate) or a “responsible party” (such as your bank) can face fines of up to R10 million or up to 10 years in jail for failing to comply with the POPI law.

Although Absa elected to contact all of its customers whose details were on the list of credit card users affected by the breach, Arrie Rautenbach, head of retail markets at Absa, says a statement notifying customers in general would be “highly irresponsible” in the circumstances. “Mass communication to all customers would have been counter-productive, as this would have exposed more customers to opportunistic fraud attempts, causing concern for the large percentage of customers who were not affected,” he says.