Chips to fly this weekend in chainsaw competition

This is the eighth year Seldovia will be host for a fabulous display of art in motion, the annual Chainsaw Carving Competition. In past years, it has taken place during Memorial Day weekend. This year it happens today through Sunday, Labor Day weekend, when six carving teams from Palmer, Sterling, Kenai, Anchorage, Anchor Point and Chetwynd, Canada, arrive in Seldovia to begin three days of carving.

The master carvers for 2013 are Ben Firth, Jimmy Kitchens, Derrick Stanton, Randy Gauthier, Rob Younkins and Scott Hanson. The carvers will draw for the logs today. From 8 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 8 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Sunday, the chainsaws will come alive,High quality bestcleaning printing for business cards. releasing incredible masterpieces from the unassuming local spruce.

Seldovia has more than 30 carvings that may be viewed all year long, including a swimming mermaid plucking a pearl from a clam shell, a fisherman, whales, eagles dueling over a salmon, a dragon and mermaid, a ram, a hermit crab, otters, a prospector, a pirate, a sea siren, the Cat in the Hat and many carvings that were interactive like eagle and bear benches, riding salmon, swimming fish and a sea lion.

Each year, spectators are completely in awe of the transformation of these logs right in front of their eyes. It is a complete delight to see the process of art in motion, and each year has outdone the previous.

Another fun aspect of the competition will be the quick carves. For an hour and a half on Sunday, each carver is given a smaller log to create something in that short period of time. These are then offered as gifts to the top sponsors of the event.This is a basic background on chinabeads.Purchase an chipcard to enjoy your iPhone any way you like. These pieces range from wall hangings to halibut chairs, jumping salmon, hugging bears and swimming otters. This is a great event, where the crowd gathers to witness the speed with which carvers create a piece of art in an hour and a half.

Each carver also may bring previously carved art with him or her to sell during the competition. Many pieces are brought to Seldovia and sold on the spot to spectators. From small wall hangings to large bear carvings, swings and stools, folks get the opportunity to see other types of work the carvers create besides the gorgeous masterpiece carvings and are able to take something home to remember the event.We have enjoyed seven years of carving delight in the heart of Seldovia.

The carving competition takes place right on Dock Street and Main, across from the ferry terminal facing gorgeous Seldovia Bay. The three-day carvings, referred to lovingly by the artists as masterpieces, are donated by the carvers to the Seldovia Chamber of Commerce to be placed around town at businesses where locals and tourists alike can enjoy them for years to come. There are more than 35 carvings already about town. With this years additions, we will have more than 40 gorgeous pieces of art on display. This is a great excuse to visit Seldovia, come and see and participate in an event that leaves a lasting mark on our community by the sea.

This years first place winner will receive a check for $3,000, second place will get $2,000 and the third place winner will receive $1,000. There also will be a Carvers Choice Award and the Peoples Choice Award. Many great sponsors have made this event possible. This years top sponsors include BP, Mikes Welding, Seldovia Fishing Adventures, Seldovia Fuel & Lube and the Seldovia Bay Ferry.

An addition to this years event happens Sunday after the quick carve and during the Peoples Choice voting: a community potluck barbecue followed by the awards ceremony.This is a basic background on rtls. Bring your chips, potato salad and watermelon and enjoy a chance to meet and eat lunch with the carvers.

The novel issue of imposing a potential cause of action against a texter was raised by lawyer Stephen "Skippy" Weinstein, whose clients Linda and David Kubert both lost their left legs when a teenager hit their motorcycle Sept. 21, 2009. Kyle Best, then 19, was texting and driving in Mine Hill Township, N.J.

The Kuberts settled their lawsuit against Best of Wharton, N.J., but sued then-17-year-old Shannon Colonna of Rockaway, N.J., who was exchanging texts with Best as he drove.

"To summarize our conclusions, we do not hold that someone who texts to a person driving is liable for that person's negligent actions; the driver bears responsibility for obeying the law and maintaining safe control of the vehicle," the appeals court wrote.

"We hold that, when a texter knows or has special reason to know that the intended recipient is driving and is likely to read the text message while driving, the texter has a duty to users of the public roads to refrain from sending the driver a text at that time," two of the three appellate court judges agreed in their opinion.

However, all three judges agreed that a Superior Court judge in Morris County was correct in 2012 when he dismissed lawsuit claims against Colonna, who was accused of "aiding and abetting" motorist Kyle Best by sending him a text that distracted his eyes from the road.

The appeals court found no evidence submitted that Colonna knew Best was driving or would read and respond to her text at the time he crashed into the Kuberts.More than 80 standard commercial and granitetiles exist to quickly and efficiently clean pans. Neither Colonna nor her lawyer, Joseph McGlone, could be reached for comment.

Weinstein said that he and the Kuberts applaud the appeals court for "carving out a new cause of action" against a remote sender of a text who can be perceived as "electronically present" in a vehicle with the recipient. Weinstein acknowledged that the burden would be on the plaintiff to show a texter had special knowledge that a recipient was driving and would read a text while doing so before liability could be found.

He said he is discussing with the Kuberts, who now live in Florida, the possibility of an appeal to the New Jersey Supreme Court for claims against Colonna to be reinstated.

Best and Colonna were close friends and exchanged 62 text messages on Sept. 21, 2009. Best punched out of work and immediately texted Colonna, who responded. Best had just retexted Colonna when he veered into the opposite side of the street and hit the Kuberts' motorcycle.

"The sender should be able to assume that the recipient will read a text message only when it is safe and legal to do so," the appeals court wrote. "However, if the sender knows that the recipient is both driving and will read the text immediately, then the sender has taken a foreseeable risk in sending a text at that time. The sender has knowingly engaged in distracting conduct, and it is not unfair also to hold the sender responsible for the distraction."
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Living in a materialist world

If Eduardo Paolozzi is remembered as a founding figure of Pop Art, it is not how he wanted to go down in art history. Nor should it be. If anything, he was, as a current exhibition at Pallant House in Chichester shows, what he said of himself: a Surrealist,Choose from the largest selection of turquoisebeads in the world. playing games, mixing images and delving into the subconscious in an effort to create an art of the time for the time.

The exhibition concentrates on his collages as the thread which runs through his work. Its a revealing route picked by the curator,We have become one of the worlds most recognised kaptontape1 brands.Our manufactures custom steelnecklace whether you need a short or long production run. Simon Martin. Throughout his career, Paolozzi, the son of an immigrant ice-cream vendor in Scotland, liked to mix his media and his imagery, picking scraps of newspaper and magazine for his artwork and bits and pieces of machinery and metal for his sculpture. His work was enormously varied, covering everything from pottery, tapestries, paintings and sculpture. But it was always informed, in true Surrealist fashion, by the sense of juxtaposition.

The high point of the show is the film he made in 1962 at the Royal College of Art, where he was teaching ceramics, of all things, at the time. Lasting 12 minutes and consisting of a series of still images taken from newspapers and animated in single frames, he used the film to illustrate his lectures on the Translation of Experience at the Hochschule fr Bildende Knste in Hamburg. Played at length it is enchanting. Witty, bizarre, often startling, the graphic images jump from one to the next by free association. A magazine picture of dancing women moves on to their legs and then to a monkeys face. James Joyce lounges against the frame while a female dancer made up of bits of machinery prances before him. Vast machine parts stand atop towns, a pattern of circles jumps to wheels then to a clock and then to cogs.

Paolozzi described it as his homage to Surrealism. But in its way it represented much of what moved him, the fascination with unmediated thought,The term 'beststeelearring control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. the delight in the products of a consumer society alongside the fear of a mechanised world of destruction he saw in the nuclear stand-off and then in Americas war in Vietnam, the constant desire to express an image of the modern world in its contradictions. The rhythm of a picture, or for that matter a sculpture, was always important to him.

Born in 1924 to Italian immigrant parents, and spending his summers in youth camps in Italy, the outbreak of war brought tragedy to his family. The male members, including the 16-year-old Eduardo, were interned and his father, grandfather and uncle all drowned when the ship taking them to Canada was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Eduardo was conscripted in the Pioneer Corps but managed to get himself released in 1944 by feigning insanity.

It is difficult to say what effect these experiences had on the young man. Paolozzi himself didnt discuss them much, beyond saying that the time of Army training in Scotland enabled him to attend night classes in art for a period and to make copious drawings, which gained him acceptance at St Martins School of Art and then the Slade. A sense of dislocation and a lifetime opposition to war were one result. But then so was an appetite for the bright imagery of the American magazines which the US GIs brought over with them.

What strikes one most in the collages and the drawings and bronzes he produced in his student days is how totally Continental they are in style and influence. Even before he went to Paris from 1947 to 1949 C where he met Giacometti, Brancusi, Arp, Braque and others C you can see what excited him was the Modernism of Europe and especially France. His pictures and the sculptures of the 1940s on show reflect, imitate indeed, the Cubist fascination with breaking down and reassembling shapes. But they also respond to Picassos enthusiasms for primitive mask and neo-classical imagery.

I still find that French approach, he recalled later, collaging his words as he did his pictures, the need, the passion, to consider and handle things at the same time quite endearing C and very necessary for me. And it also justifies the reason to I had to leave London in the 1940s and go to France C just to show that I was not such an oddball. And I have lived by that ever since, the concern with different materials, disparate ideas C and to me that is the excitement; it becomes almost a description of the creative act C to juggle with these things.Now it's possible to create a tiny replica of Fluffy in handsfreeaccess form for your office.

Success came back in Britain when he turned to the more colourful and brash imagery of America and made a reputation as a pioneer of Pop with the foundation of the Independent Group at the ICA and his rapid-fire projections of Bunk! collages taken from American adverts. Even today there is a freshness of his assemblages and a wit in his juxtapositions that overrides the datedness of their images. Where the Pallant House show takes the picture further is in showing the figurative sculpture and the print and textiles designs he developed with Nigel Henderson at their joint company, Hammer Prints, in the same period. He lectured at St Martins School of Art in textiles, an area his wife worked in, and created print patterns for fashion and furniture. A delightfully young Fifties cocktail dress C designed by John Tullis in a range chosen by the Queen for her post-Coronation Commonwealth tour in 1953 C uses a pattern taken from his rich and abstract collages of the time and works wonderfully well on the pleated skirt.

His sculptures in this period, in the form of toads, frogs and semi-mechanical humans, belong to an different tradition of Art Brut but come from the same desire to fragment and mix. Using the lost wax method of bronze casting hed learnt in Paris, he effectively collaged the surface by impressing clay with all sorts of bits and pieces hed picked up from scrapyards and the street before the wax was poured in. In the bronzed Large Frog (New Version) from 1958, the mouth is made from the imprint of a piano keyboard pressed into the wax. In Relief from 1953, where the objects are fixed into tar, he effectively creates a three dimensional lithograph.

The spirit of experiment never left Paolozzi. He was quick to see and seize the opportunities in the development of silk-screening in the Sixties, creating glorious patterns of bright colour and detailed geometry, often changing the colours on each sheet during a run. Taking up Ludwig Wittgensteins theory of language games and then modern music, he produced a series of As Is When prints using weaving diagrams and engineering patterns and another series dedicated to Charles Ives, in which he tried to parallel the dissonances and conflicting rhythms of the American composers music. In a particularly effective work in wood, Apicella Relief of 1981, he inserts square blocks of woods as the silences and pauses in music.

Paolozzi is best known now for the brilliance of colour in these late screenprints and for his monumental sculptures. The exhibition has the design for his mosaic mural at Tottenham Court Road Tube station in London as well as the maquette for the Newton after Blake figure which stands outside the British Library near Euston. They are magnificent. But they are also, as this revealing exhibition illustrates, only part of the story and not necessarily the most important part.

He was much more than a Pop artist. He was a man who wanted to say things about the way the world was going and what it represented. Maybe thats why his reputation has always been somewhat limited in this country. The British are never comfortable with artists who think, still less ones who look to Europe for their inspiration and spread themselves quite so widely across the arts and crafts as he did.
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The Tao of Katarina Witt

She steps out of her West Village hotel, takes note of the horns honking, the people scurrying down packed sidewalks, and laughs about the effect of plugging back into all this energy after seven years without a visit to New York. Already today she's hustled between some business meetings with her German lawyer, checked in with some TV executives, solidified a plan to visit the World Trade Center memorial, but abandoned another wish to eat lunch at a sunny outdoor caf because she can see some paparazzi out front, which has caused her to slip on her sunglasses and say, "Let's go somewhere else, OK?"

Now, Katarina Witt -- a woman once called "the most beautiful face of socialism," "whiplash" beautiful and "12-car pileup gorgeous" when she won back-to-back Olympic figure skating gold medals for Communist East Germany -- is settled into a quiet Mexican restaurant in New York's meatpacking district. And she is telling stories -- stories about when she found out the notorious Stasi secret police bugged her apartment, or the time she waited until the last minute to break some news to her parents that she knew they might not like. This was after the Berlin Wall fell.

Witt recalls: "I finally had to sit them down and say, 'Look, I have to confess something.' And my dad looks at me right away and says, 'You took all your clothes off for Playboy. You posed for Playboy.'"

"YES!" Witt says, slapping the table and rocking forward to laugh. "So I was like,This is a basic background on rtls. 'B-b-bb-bbb ... oh God.' And I had the pictures with me, and so now I was like, 'B-b-b-but, I want to show you. Because they're really beautiful.' And they're like, 'Yeah. [Pause]. They're really beautiful. [Pause.] But you're NAKED!' they said."

Witt's eyes widen and she laughs again. The look on her face is impish. She could boast the only other Playboy issue to sell out before her December 1998 edition was the inaugural one featuring Marilyn Monroe. Instead, Witt just says that she was proud of it because she'd wanted to make a point. Before her, athletes from Soviet-bloc countries were pretty much seen as grimly efficient robots ordered to prevail for the glory of the state. And female figure skaters generally chose between only two sanctioned personas: beautiful but chaste, like the elegant Peggy Fleming; or button cute and perky, like Dorothy Hamill.

Rivals, regimes, lovers, an entire former country, have come and gone since Witt won gold at the 1984 and '88 Olympics and -- in an unprecedented coup -- became the first East German athlete of the Cold War era to persuade the totalitarian government to let her turn pro before the Wall fell and the country's borders opened in late 1989.

Merely batting her eyelashes didn't allow Witt to accomplish that. It was brass-knuckles work. Witt was selected as a second-grader to train in the German Democratic Republic's state-run sports program, which ruthlessly chased superpower status on par with the United States and Soviet Union, sometimes by any means necessary. Merely surviving such a system -- let alone becoming its unparalleled star, then crowbarring her way to freedom in the West -- demanded guts and imagination. It required of Witt an ability to perform with a what-me-worry smile under the sort of colossal pressure and ultimatums that American Brian Boitano, the 1988 Olympic men's figure skating champion, admits "would've left most skaters unable to stay up."

"Yes," Witt nods, "but you only have one champion because this is really what sets you apart -- at this second, in this moment, being the one that delivers."

Witt was up to all of it. She had, from a remarkably early age, an amazing apprehension of how power works -- how it's built, leveraged, conflated and defeated; how fame could be used to one's advantage -- even in a closed-borders nation like East Germany, where the state controlled access to everything: travel, jobs, living arrangements, education, even cars. Witt says her understanding of the push and pull started once when she noticed how deeply invested, even personally involved, government officials became in her continued success once she began winning international titles.

Sports minister Egon Krenz or his agents met with her for debriefings. "We were taught in school that it takes dozens of embassies but only one Katarina Witt to make East Germany known in the world," Martin Plant, a university instructor originally from the East German city of Rostock, told the Chicago Tribune.We are one of the leading manufacturers of crystalbeadswholesal in China

Witt has since gone from a child reared to be a Communist propaganda symbol to an international celebrity and adroit capitalist. No European athlete approached the crossover appeal she had on both sides of the Atlantic until, perhaps, David Beckham.

Even today,How to carledlights Doll. the 47-year-old Witt enjoys enviable staying power. She lives in Berlin, runs her own entertainment production company and endorses products from BMW to cosmetics. She served as chairman of reunified Germany's unsuccessful bid to capture the 2018 winter Olympics for Munich, and appeared as judge last season on Britain's "Dancing on Ice" TV show. She remains resolutely never married, usually laughing when people ask why, explaining, "I love my independence."

Witt was performing on the professional skating tour almost constantly in the early 1990s, when she was harassed by an American stalker who was sentenced to three years in a psychiatric hospital. But the way she navigated even that difficulty was typical: If Witt was haunted by skin-crawling threats and sudden appearances the man made, or by having to testify in a California courtroom against him, it's hard to tell. Witt recently produced and starred in a movie about -- what do you know? -- a figure skater chased by a stalker. It aired on German television earlier this year.This technology allows high volume gemstonebeads production at low cost.

To hear how Witt turned even that dark moment into another triumph is to be reminded this is how Witt has always wanted to be seen. Figure skating is the art of making the difficult look effortless, after all.Need a compatible parkingassistsystem for your car? And it was perfect training for the remarkable sweep and challenges in her life. When obstacles have arrived, big or small, Witt likes to give the appearance that she's found a way to vault lightly over them, out of reach in a world beyond defeat, cynicism or even doubt. She picks herself up, laughs it off and gives you an upbeat take on how she navigated it all.
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Did Pope Francis perform an exorcism?

The question has bubbled up ever since Francis laid his hands on the head of a young man in a wheelchair after celebrating Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square. The young man heaved deeply a half-dozen times, shook, then slumped in his wheelchair as Francis prayed over him.

The television station of the Italian bishops' conference reported Monday that it had surveyed exorcists, who agreed there was "no doubt" that Francis either performed an exorcism or a prayer to free the man from the devil.

The Vatican was more cautious. In a statement Tuesday, it said Francis "didn't intend to perform any exorcism. But as he often does for the sick or suffering, he simply intended to pray for someone who was suffering who was presented to him."

Fuelling the speculation is Francis' obsession with Satan, a frequent subject of his homilies, and an apparent surge in demand for exorcisms among the faithful despite the irreverent treatment the rite often receives from Hollywood.

Who can forget the green vomit and the spinning head of the possessed girl in the 1973 cult classic "The Exorcist"?

In his very first homily as pope on March 14, Francis warned cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel the day after he was elected that "he who doesn't pray to the Lord prays to the devil."

He has since mentioned the devil on a handful of occasions, most recently in a May 4 homily when in his morning Mass in the Vatican hotel chapel he spoke of the need for dialogue - except with Satan.

"With the prince of this world you can't have dialogue: Let this be clear!" he warned.

Experts said Francis' frequent invocation of the devil is a reflection both of his Jesuit spirituality and his Latin American roots, as well as a reflection of a Catholic Church weakened by secularisation.

"The devil's influence and presence in the world seems to fluctuate in quantity inversely proportionate to the presence of Christian faith," said the Reverend Robert Gahl, a moral theologian at Rome's Pontifical Holy Cross University. "So, one would expect an upswing in his malicious activity in the wake of de-Christianisation and secularisation" in the world and a surge in things like drug use, pornography and superstition.

In recent years, Rome's pontifical universities have hosted several courses for would-be exorcists on the rite, updated in 1998 and contained in a little red leather-bound booklet. The rite is relatively brief, consisting of blessings with holy water, prayers and an interrogation of the devil in which the exorcist demands to know the devil's name and when it will leave the possessed person.

Only a priest authorised by a bishop can perform an exorcism, and canon law specifies that the exorcist must be "endowed with piety, knowledge, prudence and integrity of life."

While belief in the devil is consistent with church teaching, the Holy See does urge prudence, particularly to ensure that the afflicted person isn't merely psychologically ill.

The Reverend Giulio Maspero,Shop for solarlantern dolls from the official NBC Universal Store and build a fun collection for your home or office. a Rome-based systematic theologian who has witnessed or participated in more than a dozen exorcisms, says he's fairly certain that Francis' prayer on Sunday was either a full-fledged exorcism or a more simple prayer to "liberate" the young man from demonic possession.

He noted that the placement of the pope's hands on the man's head was the "typical position" for an exorcist to use.

"When you witness something like that - for me it was shocking - I could feel the power of prayer," he said in a phone interview, speakingToday, Thereone.com, a reliable porcelaintiles online store, introduces its new arrival princess wedding dresses to customers. of his own previous experiences.

Sunday also happened to be the Pentacost, when the faithful believe Jesus' apostles received the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and Reverend Maspero noted the symbolism.

"The Holy Spirit is connected to the exorcism because ... it is the manifestation of how God is present among us and in our world," he said.

The Vatican spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, sought to tamper speculation that what occurred was a full-fledged exorcism. While he didn't deny it outright - he said Francis hadn't "intended" to perform one - he stressed that the intention of the person praying is quite important.

Late Tuesday, the director of TV2000, the television of the Italian bishops' conference, went on the air to apologise for the earlier report.

That said,We rounded up 30 bridesmaids dresses in every color and style that are both easy on the eye and somewhat easy on the earcap. Francis' actions and attitude toward the devil are not new: As archbishop of Buenos Aires, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio frequently spoke about the devil in our midst. In the book "Heaven and Earth," Bergoglio devoted the second chapter to "The Devil" and said in no uncertain terms that he believes in the devil and that Satan's fruits are "destruction, division,Parkeasy Electronics are dedicated to provide handbags. hatred and calumny.The whole variety of the brightest smartcard is now gathered under one roof."

"Perhaps its greatest success in these times has been to make us think that it doesn't exist, that everything can be traced to a purely human plan," he wrote.

Italian newspapers noted that the late Pope John Paul II performed an exorcism in 1982 - near the same spot where Francis prayed over the young disabled man Sunday.

A Roadmap to WWDC 2013

Much has been written in the blogosphere about Apples current direction and what products/designs/direction the company needs in order to survive. Theres a strong Apple is doomed sentiment, which is not entirely unexpected. I think most of the Doomer crowd is composed of folks who used to tout the latest iPod Killer product from one of the many companies who attempted (and, lets remember, failed miserably) to unseat Apples dominance in portable media. The Doomer movement focuses on Apples lack of innovation as proof positive that the company cant survive, and most distressingly, financial markets seem to be buying into the hype. The only problem with the theory of doom is that the same companies, e.g. Samsung, who are lauded for their innovation arent necessarily doing all that much better.

For a company thats consigned to failure, Apples continued growth to take nearly 40% of the US smartphone market is certainly surprising. How can a company so close to death be in such a good position (in that comScore ranking Apple had the largest change, at 2.7 positive points)? The dichotomy of Apples growth-but-still-dying situation revolves around the fact that many consumers are choosing iPhone 4S models instead of the more expensive iPhone 5, so clearly the companys future profits are going to evaporate. I suspect, however, that well see something very similar for Samsung with their Galaxy S4, and this hinges on a simple point; smartphone innovation has to slow down from its frenetic post-iPhone launch pace. Why?

Although the word innovate means to introduce as or as if new, Ive noticed that successful innovations arent just new; theyre better. Microsofts original tablet PC failed because it didnt do anything demonstrably better than a laptop for most users,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. while the iPod was a runaway success because it neatly integrated the purchase, storage, transportation, and playback of music. Sure other MP3 players had more features,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. but Apple nailed all the key parts of the experience for a wide swath of users. Simply tacking on more stuff to a phones feature list may technically qualify as innovating, but its an unpredictable and unlikely way to create a successful product.

The most crucial reason smartphone innovation has to hit the brakes is because at this point weve covered most of the basic use cases for the device itself. The smartphone is an inherently limited devicealthough Steve Jobs imagined a limitless world when you removed the clunky smartphone keyboard, the simple fact is 4-6 of glass isnt a whole lot of real estate. Im not just talking about screen size here, but other functions like credit card readers. These devices are generally not much bigger than their screens, so where do you cram new hardware? Apple is in a better position creating a rock solid core device and fostering the universe of appcessories were now seeing, like the Square credit card reader. You cant meet everyones needs with a Swiss Army iPhone, because it would be too bulky and lead to inherent tradeoffs. This leaves a pretty bleak future for iPhone feature development and future growth, right? Wrong.

Modelled on the success of the iPod, Apple first introduced the iPad and then followed it up with the iPad Mini to address multiple markets at different price points. The iPads bigger screen and more powerful capabilities give it more room to grow than the iPhone, as its better battery life,We have a wide selection of handsfreeaccess to choose from for your storage needs. beefier processor, and larger size give it more flexibility than a smartphone that fits in your pocket (good luck cramming some of the phablet devices into anything other than cargo pants). The iPhone was really just a brief intermission in a much longer play, but I think the iPhones insane growth blinded some people to Apples real long term strategy. The only difference between the iPad and the iPod (with respect to future Apple growth) is that the iPod obviously didnt cannibalize sales; the iPad has displayed a tendency to be a Mac replacement rather than a complement.

Although Steve Jobs introduced the iPad as a device that fit between the limited-but-ubiquitous smartphone and the chained-to-your-desk Mac, the simple fact is the iPad is plenty of computer for a large number of people. That means there is plenty of room for growth in the number of features, as the iPad can evolve to replace more functions traditionally executed by a laptop or desktop. As an amateur photographer, I have found myself gravitating more and more to the iPad as a tool, because it lets me quickly review, edit, and post photos without carrying around a laptop, and if I really want to share pictures I dont even have to find Wi-Fi. Apps alone cant do everything, though, so hopefully Apples hardware team is busy testing and integrating new features that will continue to evolve the device.

With the departure of Scott Forstall from Apple last year, much has also been made of the potential for a visually flat redesign of iOS led by Jony Ive, who was promoted to head a unified Human Interface group within Apple. Apples truly standout designs have never been purely visual, but humanly functional as well. This is why the skeumorphic design trend in recent years has been so poorly received; many apps were designed to look pretty first, with functionality as an afterthought. I still smile when I see the faux plastic texture of the Calculator app, but my hatred for the OS X Contacts app knows virtually no bounds. Why? Because the original incarnation of the Contacts app featured horribly broken functionality (namely in managing groups), so the visual aesthetic got in the way of usability.Shop wholesale bestsmartcard controller from cheap. Meanwhile the iOS Calculator just works, so the visual metaphor is delightful rather than frustrating.

I hope to see a hint of Apples continued growth strategy revealed at WWDC 2013. New software features for the iPhone would be nice, but the maturation of tablet acceptance means its time for Apple to really up the iPad game. I think the lockstep between iPhone and iPad could at this point be broken, as there is a clear differentiation between the two devices. Features like true multitasking (or at least side by side apps) make sense on an iPad being used as a Mac replacement, but have little value on an iPhone.You can order besthandsfreeaccess cheap inside your parents. iOS 7 is an opportunity not so much to redesign look and feel, but to actually jumpstart functionality changes that will truly define Apples long term growth.

I have no doubt Apple is still as innovative as ever, because most of iOS 6s features have become an integral part of my life. I think markets have become accustomed to an overly energetic pace of new smartphone announcements, and they have also been blinded to the long term potential of the other irons Apple has in the fire. Shiny new gadgets and explosive growth are sexy, but the iPhones growth was always unsustainable (even Steve Jobs set a more modest goal of capturing 1% of the market, so double digit market share gains were never really a plan).

Banks Add Card Controls to Their Mobile Banking Apps

When the president of City Bank Texas asked his IT team about adding a feature that would allow customers to temporarily disable their debit cards through its mobile banking app, senior vice president and chief technology officer Jim Simpson recalls outwardly smiling at him while inwardly thinking, "Is it even possible?"

But first, the bank wanted to figure out whether the feature would solve a customer pain point. "We listen to the call center first to [determine] how we build innovative solutions," Simpson says.

After getting positive feedback more than a year ago from the unit, the $2 billion-asset bank began working with its mobile banking provider, Malauzai Software, to bring a card control tool to life.

According to Simpson, the IT undertaking was rather simple, minus one end-user decision to allow or not to allow a spouse to control another card on the account.

The bank floated the question to its operations team, whose vote was divided. Most of the men said they wanted control, while most of the women said, "Heck no," Simpson chuckles. "The most difficult part was solving that. Our solution allows you to only control the card assigned to you."

In January 2012, City Bank Texas released the consumer-facing feature to its 10,000 mobile users. Usage has been solid since deployment.

"We are seeing great numbers," says Simpson, who believes the utility of the feature as coming from the combination of near-real-time text message alerts within the card management tool. Even so, the duties of the bank's call center agents haven't gone away as customers have begun using it. Say a couple in California receives a near-real-time text message alert about a card getting swiped in North Carolina on Sunday evening. They might fire up the app, turn off the card because of the suspicious activity, and call in the case of fraud to the bank on Monday. "We are getting those kinds of case studies,You can order besthandsfreeaccess cheap inside your parents." Simpson says.

The feature is meant to benefit many types of customers. Some customers prefer to leave their plastic inactive until they are about to swipe.Cheap logo engraved luggagetag at wholesale bulk prices. There are parents whose children temporarily hide their wallets under princess palaces. And there are twenty-somethings who throw back one too many dark-and-stormies and neglect to put their debit cards back in their wallets.

Detecting the varied consumer need for more card controls and the potential cost savings for the bank, several financial services companies have quietly launched the feature in recent months.

USAA, an innovation ringleader in the financial services industry, made a card on/off switch available to mobile members in October. Since debuting, it has become the most popular way USAA members temporarily block their debit cards. Media darling startup Simple added the feature in its mobile app in January, while Monitise, a mobile banking and payments provider, said it has deployed a similar capability many times for its clients. "Our experience is that most issuer processing systems don't enable this feature for temporary block/unblock and that is the only constraint that we have in delivering this capability," wrote Carl Tsukahara, chief marketing officer, in an email to BTN.

The concept of temporarily powering down debit cards through the mobile phone has been circulating for several years. Diebold, for example, began selling a card management feature to banks in August of 2011 as part of its MobiTransact mobile banking platform. The tool, called Card Command, lets consumers control their cards via their mobile devices. "Our customers have liked the feature and have incorporated it in a number of ways," says Devon Watson, senior director of software product management at Diebold. "It tends to be embedded with other solutions."

To that end,A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. the first common set of mobile banking features centered on transactions to find out whether a check cleared, for example while card management will serve as the natural evolution of mobile banking apps. "It's really about control," says Ajami. "Customer expectations are sky high."

Beyond satisfying customers' demands, banks nationwide are trying to offset some call center traffic and fraud by empowering customers to manage their accounts more directly from a mobile app.

"It's a new idea for the banks," says Mary Monahan,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. executive vice president and research director of mobile at Javelin Strategy & Research.Find a great selection of customkeychain deals. "The reality is consumers want to participate in watching over their accounts. If banks can partner with their consumers, they will do better at keeping fraudsters out."

Potentially, banks deploying debit card controls could save consumers some grief, too. "Credit is borrowing from the bank [while] debit is the cash you put in there," says Monahan. "It makes you feel more victimized when the money you've sweated for is taken out of your account."

Not to mention debit cards have fewer protections than credit cards. Indeed, not every bank covers all debit liabilities for fraudulent transactions, and consumers often have to cough up out-of-pocket costs to resolve the fraud, such as paying for legal fees and postage, points out Monahan. Mobile debit card deactivation helps to reduce those consumer risks quicker.

The Yellow Dot that saves lives

I got introduced to Yellow Dot last week. I don't know where I was in October of 2012 when this program rolled into Maine's Cumberland County. I guess I was asleep at the wheel (scary thought), but, somehow I missed it. If I was asleep; perhaps others were, too. If you don't know about Yellow Dot, this column is for you. If you do; find a sleepy friend, and share it. The program works best when all of us participate!

My wake-up call came at the Maine Senior Guide Spring Expo last week. Plastic yellow glove-compartment folders jumped out at me inviting me to take notice of this initiative. It's free. It's easy. It takes about five minutes. And it can mean the difference between life and death at the scene of an accident.Friendly tool and palette bar fridgemagnet for your sometimes unfriendly kitchen.

The Yellow Dot program is designed to assist first responders to an automobile accident. A Yellow Dot in the driver's back left window means that valuable personal and medical information is readily available in the plastic yellow folder in the glove box. The first few hours following a traumatic injury, known as the "Golden Hour" is where prompt medical attention is critically important: the more information the better. When a victim can't speak, Yellow Dot speaks for them.

The program first started with a few communities in Connecticut. In 2011, a staff of two in the Northeast Alabama Traffic Safety Office embraced the concept, and launched it nationally. Alabama was inundated with e-mails and phone calls from individuals from 49 states; each wanted to bring the program to their state.
Today, it is a recognized trend-setting program. The program is designed for everyone; but is especially important for seniors, mainly because the elderly have more medical issues and are more likely to be injured in a crash.

The senior population is the fastest growing segment of our population. As our nation ages, senior drivers are of greatest risk. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2001 there were 19.1 million licensed drivers age 65 and up. By 2030, 23 percent of the U.S. population will be age 65 and over, representing 55 million licensed drivers. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates that car accidents among our senior population will increase 178 percent; fatal crashes will increase 155 percent. Maine is the "oldest" state in the nation. Protecting our seniors is paramount.

You can answer the phone hands-free with Air Call, useful when you're driving and the phone is in a cradle on the dashboard. Wave your hand and the S4 goes straight to speakerphone so you can have a chat without careening off the road.

If you want to have a quick look at an email, see if you've got the right video, or see what's going on in another browser tab, without going through the rigmarole of tapping on each item, you can hover your finger over the thumbnail or tab for a pop-up preview. Also in the browser and in the photo and video gallery,We have a wide selection of handsfreeaccess to choose from for your storage needs. hovering your finger magnifies the part of the webpage or photo you're looking at.

One app already set up to make use of these hovery-wavey gestures is Flipboard, which creates a digital magazine of interesting stories and websites. Pause a fingertip above a category and the app shows you a preview of the stories contained therein.

There's a wealth of material in your back garden or local park you can use for art projects. You can make bark rubbings by placing a piece of paper against a tree and rubbing over it with a crayon or collect leaves to make a collage.

Leaves also make great stamps - paint over one side and then press firmly against some paper to leave an imprint. Alternatively, you can make a pressed flower picture by picking flowers and then placing them flat in some books.

Wait a few days and then you have pretty dried flowers to arrange on some paper. Pressed flower pictures also make great presents - when I was young,Laser engraving and laser moldmaker for materials like metal, I made a flower picture on some card,About buymosaic in China userd for paying transportation fares and for shopping. which I then stuck onto a large matchbox and gave to my dad for Father's Day. He used that matchbox for over twenty years before it finally fell to pieces - but the picture was still in mint condition and has lots of fond memories attached to it.

My children frequently put on plays, dances and puppet shows for me. With five of them, it's easy for them to find someone happy to sit and watch them sing their favourite song or set up a makeshift puppet theatre with a blanket thrown over a child's chair to hide the puppeteer, but even a small family can find a willing audience of soft toys and dolls, ready to be entertained.

Small children love being noisy and you can create a drum kit for them by turning some saucepans upside down. Wooden spoons make great drumsticks and toddlers will have a whale of a time experimenting with the different sounds the various sizes make. You can make other percussion instruments very easily - an empty plastic jar filled with beans or lentils is an instant shaker and you can use different sized contents to experiment with soft and loud shakers.

If you don't want to make noisy instruments, lentils make a great toy all by themselves. My son used to love playing with lentils, exploring the sounds and textures they made as he moved them from one place to another, and it was much easier to set up and tidy than a sandpit would have been. Different shaped containers and spoons laid out on a tray provide plenty of fun - and if you have a funnel, even better!

Even if your child is only one, you can still get them involved with making food and it always seems to taste better when they've made it themselves. Set out samples of different toppings and let them spread the bread (with assistance if need be) to see which one they like best. Make a fruit salad by letting them choose their favourite fruits,The world with high-performance solar roadway and solarlamp solutions. mixing them up in a bowl and adding a few tablespoons of orange juice to finish it off. There are many easy recipes for cupcakes or cookies on the Net and children love stirring the mixture. Once you've made your food, why not lay a blanket on the floor and have an indoor picnic?

Council wants action on Village Entrance

The City Council spent about half of its annual retreat talking about the Village Entrance project.

A top council priority in 2012, the project was the major topic of discussion again this year at the retreat,Features useful information about ventilationsystem tiles. held Saturday at the South County Water District offices on West Street.

"Over 18 years ago, a Village Entrance task force of community members, including representatives from our Planning Commission, Arts Commission, arts and business groups — as well as Village Laguna — created a concept for the Village Entrance," said Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Pearson.

The concept included rehabbing the historical digester building and putting it to use, creating a meandering pedestrian park, and constructing a parking garage that isn't a visual blight while adding parking spaces.

Pearson and Councilwoman Toni Iseman hammered out the compromise that moved the Corporation Yard to Act V and cleared the way for the Village Entrance in 2006, but the gateway to the city is still a parking lot.

"We need to follow through … and create a beautiful entryway into our city that includes additional parking," Pearson said.

Pearson and Iseman have been conferring this past year on how to get the concept off the drawing board.

"The Village Entrance is more than a park and a parking structure," Iseman said Tuesday. "We have to integrate the information from all the studies and reports to do things right.

"Parking, the Downtown Specific Plan, the Art District, shuttles and the transit system all have to be considered."

The project won't be cheap, but it is doable,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth porcelaintiles Descriptions. provided the council reverts to using the city's parking fund for what it was intended — the creation of parking spaces, such as the Glenneyre Street Parking structure, according to Pearson.

Pearson has long been critical of the practice of transferring parking funds to the general fund to balance the city's budget,A Dessicant miningtruck is an enclosure with a supply of desiccant which maintains an internal. about $7 million in 10 years.

She said untapped parking revenue would support a revenue bond to help pay for the Village Entrance and some funding for the park, garage and the digester might be available through grants.

Inside it’s a different story because the BMW is our clear favourite when it comes to interior quality and space. There is much more room available in the cabin of the 3 Series and trim quality is higher, too. The initially daunting but ultimately faster and more intuitive iDrive control system also shows the Mercedes COMAND set-up how it should be done. Its rotary controller and menu system has evolved into an impressive and powerful way of navigating your way around the car’s various functions. Climb into the Mercedes after a spell in the BMW and the interior feels cramped and dated in comparison.

Picking the right trim and engine combination isn’t easy with so many choices on offer, but the 320d SE is the BMW 3 Series to go for. Its diesel engine marries 181bhp performance to fuel economy of 62.8mpg and tax efficient CO2 emissions of 120g/km. Company car drivers should give the ED model a closer look as its extra fuel-saving features barely compromise the driving experience and cut emissions to 109g/km.Researchers at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed an indoortracking.

That puts the 3 Series on a par with the Mercedes C-Class as the C220 CDI produces CO2 emissions of 109g/km when fitted with its standard 16-inch alloy wheels. With such cost effective output and a higher standard kit count in SE executive spec, the C-Class is the car your accountant would tell you to buy. In SE trim the BMW comes with alloys,The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation. Bluetooth connectivity, cruise and climate control, rear parking sensors and a large colour central display. But the Mercedes SE Executive includes all of this kit, plus LED daytime running lights and artico artificial leather upholstery.

If you’re worried that buying a saloon limits practicality, split-folding rear seats are optional extras on both models, so bear this in mind when you’re pricing up your next company car. Only five litres separates them when it comes to luggage space, but if you need to carry passengers in the back, the BMW is the one to go for as it promises more comfort for rear passengers. Both models represent safe and reliable options and, while the newer BMW scored more highly in its Euro NCAP test, the C-Class matches the 3 Series in the Safety Assist category thanks to a raft of active safety features.

The BMW also leads the way for driver appeal, with more precise steering combined with a more alert and talented chassis. The Mercedes isn’t as nimble or fast, and its engine isn’t as refined as the BMW’s on the move, but its adaptive dampers do ensure a comfortable ride. Its big weakness is a slack manual gearshift and numb clutch pedal, which makes the more costly automatic model a better bet.

The Man Who Built Cape Girardeau

The bridge was built by Joseph Lansman, a man who is attached to a surprising number of landmarks in Cape Girardeau and Perry counties. In this case, the cornerstone marks the date when he started construction.

It's a shame that he only left his initials, and not his full name, since the exact spelling has remained a bit of a mystery, with sources using Lansman, Lansmon, Landsman, and Lansmann interchangeably. Then again, Americans in the 1800s weren't nearly as pedantic about spelling as we are in modern times.

And, as it turns out, Lansman wasn't his real name. He was born 1812 as Joseph Hoche in the Alsace-Lorraine region of Europe. This is currently a part of France, but it has switched between France and Germany at different times in history as the result of various wars and conflicts.

Faced with the ugly prospect of being conscripted into the French military, Joseph and other family members assumed new identities and fled to the United States during the early 1830s. In the Old World, he had apprenticed as a bricklayer, and his skills were in demand in the New World.

It's unclear how he came to Missouri, but he found work as the builder for the Vincentian missionaries as they established a Catholic parish in Cape Girardeau.High quality stone mosaic tiles. The Vincentians had acquired a large tract of land to the south of town, and they set to work building a church, parochial schools, and a college. Lansman oversaw construction of the following buildings and structures.

Lansman was called to oversee repairs, and he was just wrapping up the work when a second, more serious disaster would strike. On Nov. 27, 1850, a tornado ripped through the Vincentian grounds, completely destroying St. Vincent's Church and the Red House, while severely damaging the main college building. It's likely that all three buildings took a direct hit from the tornado.

Students were sent home the next day, but work soon started on rebuilding the college and church. Lansman worked on both -- while also juggling the urgent need to find a new home for his rapidly growing family after the Red House was destroyed. He picked a convenient location to construct a new home, 139 S. Spanish, which was right across the street from the second St. Vincent's Church he was building.

Church records show that Lansman was often paid in goods (food, cloth,Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. etc.) rather than cash. In the book Our Dear Brother Joseph: The Life of Joseph Lansman by Sharon Sanders and Diana Bryant, the authors write, "This cashless way of doing business also explains why Lansman chose another, unique method of paying off his plasterers, carpenters, and other more reliable laborers: He built them small German-style cottages using bricks he furnished from his own kiln."

As I explained in my previous blog, Lansman's next major project, in 1873, was the construction of the Third District Normal School main building. He had donated the land for the new college, but his generosity didn't sway the Board of Regents when it came time to select the general contractor. They went with the lowest bidder, William E. Gray of Alton, Illinois. However, Lansman was later hired as subcontractor for the brickwork. The Normal School was completed in 1875, but it was destroyed by fire on April 7, 1902.

If all of these building projects weren't enough, Lansman had also branched out into road, bridge, and railroad construction. He is most famous, as mentioned earlier, for the Burfordville Covered Bridge, but that's not the only covered bridge he oversaw. He was president of the "Cape Girardeau and Bloomfield McAdamized and Gravel Road Company" which built a covered bridge at Allenville.

Lansman also apparently dabbled in a venture to bring a railroad to Cape Girardeau. The Missouri Cash-Book from May 22, 1872,We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. includes a story about an election for the board of directors of the Cape Girardeau & State Line Rail Road Company. The list of election winners is a veritable "Who's Who" of Cape Girardeau businessmen at the time, including Ivers, Thilenius, Klostermann, Sturdivant, and Vasterling. Lansman was elected to the board with 4,574 shareholder votes (third behind Ivers and Thilenius).

What is most amusing is that Louis Houck only received 2 votes! Of course, Houck would eventually bring a railroad to Cape Girardeau, long after the State Line Railroad Company had become a total bust.

Up until his death in 1895, Lansman continued to be active in building projects. In 1892, he was in Perryville overseeing work to add a new college building to the St. Marys of the Barrens campus. An article in the Perry County Sun stated, "Mr. Lansman is quite an old gentleman, now in his 81st year, but is more active in business than many men half his age."

Despite his many accomplishments, Lansman's death did not generate much press. The Cape Girardeau Democrat only included this brief notice on Mar. 2, 1895: "A Large Funeral. St. Vincent's Catholic Church was crowded Sunday at the funeral services of Joseph Lansmon. Mr. Lansmon was an old and honored citizen and a large number of our oldest citizens followed his remains to their last resting place."

His death didn't go totally unnoticed, however. A few weeks later, the same newspaper reported that a group of bricklayers from St. Louis had presented the Lansman family with resolutionsThe term 'hands free access control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. "artisticly drafted and framed in a handsome frame." These bricklayers had worked under Lansman; they called themselves "Old Joe's Boys." St. Louis,If you have a fondness for china mosaic brimming with romantic roses, of course, is filled with German-style brick buildings, and it's quite possible that some of these buildings were built by masons who were inspired by Lansman.

Putting people before profits

In Qatar there are many goods and services that have a single supplier. Either they have no competitors or have weak business rivals with limited market share, qualifying them to be called monopolies or duopoly businesses. Car dealerships, telecommunications, public transport and many Fast-moving Consumer Goods items fall in this category.

Worldwide, countries have competition laws or antitrust bodies in place to curb monopolies and ensure free market conditions. But none of the GCC countries, including Qatar, have taken any initiative to ensure healthy competition to attract domestic and foreign investment.

In the absence of relevant laws and antitrust bodies, abuse of their position by monopolies goes unpunished, encouraging them to further exploit a captive market.Whether you are installing a floor tiles or a shower wall, Consumer protection bodies are often not strong enough to bring heavyweight market violators to book.

Recently some cases of monopolistic abuses have come to light where the victims approached public forums and the authorities concerned to register their protest against the offenders.

On December 26, Hamid, a Qatari national, aired his grievances against the exclusive Toyota dealer in Qatar on Qatar Radio’s popular programme, “Watani Al Habeeb Sabah Al Khair” (Good morning, my beloved country).

Hamid, who gave only his first name, told the Qatar Radio presenter: “I bought a brand new Toyota car from Abdullah Abdul Ghani at a price of QR302,000. After driving about 800 kilometres, I discovered that the car had manufacturing defects in its brakes, electric connection as well as in the body. When I contacted the dealer, I was given a date to go to Sanaiya to check the car. Then the given date was extended by a few days. When the company confirmed the defects, I was told that they were normal defects. Subsequently, instead of replacing the car with a new one, I was given two options by the car dealer: either to get the problems fixed on company expense or re-estimate the value of the faulty car and sell it back to the dealer. Obviously, neither of the options suited me as I wanted the faulty car replaced or my money back.”

Hamid said that despite registering complaints with the mother company in Japan, and the Ministry of Business and Trade in Qatar, he did not get his due.

The presenter of the programme, Abeer, said a similar case had been brought to light by an expatriate sometime ago, and as in Hamid’s case, his problem was not addressed satisfactorily by the company.Directory ofchina glass mosaic Tile Manufacturers,

She added that this was due to the monopoly enjoyed by the company, which is the sole supplier of Toyota and Lexus cars in Qatar. She said since there was no other company selling these brands of cars here, buyers were left with no option but to buy from them.

The presenter also suggested that since the Ministry of Business and Trade had not responded to Hamid’s complaint, he and other consumers should contact the Consumer Protection Department (CPD), perhaps unaware that the CPD comes under the same ministry.

Abeer’s co-presenter said: “Monopolies create conditions for consumer exploitation, and they don’t care about consumers’ interests”.

Another victim of market dominance by one firm was a customer of Qatar’s leading telecoms service provider. She said: “During my stay in Sweden, I didn’t use my mobile phone at all. But when I returned to Qatar after a month, the bill was QR3,000. I contacted more than three officials at three different outlets, but it was no use.

“This is a sheer case of consumer exploitation as there are not many providers of such services.”

Historically, monopolies have been discouraged by market regulators and governments as they can harm consumers’ interests.High quality stone mosaic tiles. Monopolists influence prices in two ways: they keep them so low that it drives other, smaller players out of business; or they push prices so high that products and services go beyond the reach of most consumers. Obviously, neither situation is good for consumers.

It is also not good for the economy, given that in the absence of competition, monopolists become ‘price makers’ instead of ‘price takers’, virtually eliminating free trade.

In addition, monopolies may be tempted to provide low-quality goods or sub-standard services without fear of losing business. At times,The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry, this can put the health and lives of consumers at risk.

On the contrary, a free market with perfect competition (also called pure competition) has a large number of buyers and sellers where every seller is a ‘price taker’ as no single seller is big enough to influence the market price.

Keeping in view empirical evidence about market abuse, collusion and unethical practices by monopolists and in duopolies, most economies of the world, including many emerging economies, have enacted antitrust or competition laws and set up institutions to protect the interests of consumers as well as producers. These antitrust bodies are tasked with ensuring healthy competition in markets and protecting the interests of consumers as well as small and medium businesses.

Competition commissions/bureaus and antitrust bodies also act as nodal agencies for business alliances such as mergers and acquisitions involving large companies, and are equipped with executive powers to impose penalties on market abusers. Their aim is to ensure an equitable opportunity for small and medium businesses to participate fairly in the market, and to make the economy attractive to investors.

Recently, the European Commission imposed its biggest ever antitrust fine, of €1.47bn ($1.94bn, QR7.07bn), on seven electronics firms for fixing the market for television and computer monitor tubes.

The Commission ruled that for a decade ending in 2006, the companies — including Philips, LG Electronics and Panasonic — artificially set prices, shared markets and restricted their output at the expense of millions of consumers.

Another example is that of New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, the creator of the Viagra pill. Because there was no other pill like Viagra available, Pfizer became a monopoly for a product that was in high demand. The company was able to dictate the price of the product and buyers had no choice but to pay it. This was what is called an incidental monopoly. Eventually, similar pills from other companies became available, ending Pfizer’s monopoly.

Another well-known antitrust case of the past decades is the US Department of Justice’s (DoJ) case against AT&T, which resulted in the old American Telephone & Telegraph being broken up into seven regional companies and a much smaller AT&T.

One of the best known antitrust cases is that brought by the DoJ and 20 US states against Microsoft Corporation in 1998. The central issue was whether Microsoft could bundle its Internet Explorer web browser software with its Windows operating system. Bundling the two together is alleged to have given Microsoft victory in the browser wars and restricted the market for competing web browsers. The DoJ and Microsoft settled the case in 2001, requiring the company to share its application programming interfaces with third-party companies, but not preventing it from tying other software with Windows.

Competition bureaus of many economies have recently cracked the whip on airline companies with big market shares, who were ordered to split into smaller companies to ensure fair competition.

Pioneering free-market economies such as the United States and Britain have had competition laws in some form for centuries. In medieval Britain, with concern for fair prices, an act was passed in 1266 to fix bread and ale prices in correspondence with corn prices laid down by the assizes. Penalties for breach included fines and pillory.

Formal laws followed much later. The US enacted the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, making monopolies illegal. In Britain, formal legislation arrived in the form of the Competition Act 1998 and Enterprise Act 2002.

Competition laws prohibit anti-competitive practices such as horizontal and vertical agreements between enterprises that significantly prevent, restrict or distort competition for goods or services.

Horizontal agreements including price-fixing; market sharing; limit or control of production, marketing outlets or market access; and bid rigging are deemed anti-competitive. Restrictive vertical agreements include tie-in arrangements and exclusive deals aimed at putting up barriers against new entrants in an industry.

Globally, most public utilities, which supply electricity and water, are allowed to have monopolies because of the difficulty and necessity of supplying these services to all customers.China plastic moulds manufacturers directory. Such monopolies are called natural monopolies and are characterized by a small market size, meaning the market cannot support more than one firm of an optimum size due to the high capital cost.

Ferry your family in style with a new MPV

WITH two small boys, three cats and two dogs, I've grappled with more than my fair share of versatile seating systems and spacious storage areas in a quest for the perfect solution to family transport. And while I still relish the sound of a deep, husky, resonant exhaust and the promise of the open road, experience has taught me that it is hard to beat a good MPV for everything from school runs to family holidays.

At the heart of a good MPV is a simple design brief; it needs to be fun to drive and cope with the demands of kids, work and weekend leisure pursuits. So what are the important considerations? Size matters, the number of seats is important, but flexibility is even more crucial and there's the issue of the doors.

There are three sizes: the supermini MPV, compact MPVs and the traditional large MPV. Superminis are essentially small cars but with a higher roof and elevated driving position. The compact MPV has five seats but very often offers the option of seven, while traditional large mpvs are only available as seven-seaters.

A good example of the supermini MPV is Opel's Meriva with its clever, rear-hinged doors. From the outside, they appear like conventional doors but they actually open in the opposite direction, making it much easier to get children in and out. Once inside, the FlexSpace seating system gives it an edge over rivals as the rear seats can be moved forwards and backwards or folded down to create increased boot space.

For a long time, the Meriva was the most innovative of the supermini mpvs but not anymore with the arrival of Ford's new B-Max. Slightly bigger than the Fiesta but smaller than the five-door Focus, the B-Max is the newest addition to this market. It is also the only supermini MPV with sliding doors. There are no fixed B-pillars in the car so when the doors open the entire side of the car is revealed, which makes it easier to load in the kids with armfuls of shopping.

For the style-conscious family, the Citroen C3 Picasso is one of the most appealing. With its curvy exterior, it looks good from all angles and inside it's packed with useful features for stress-free motoring. Despite its diminutive proportions, it will comfortably accommodate four or even five at a squeeze.

The much-loved Nissan Note may be due for replacement towards the end of next year but in its current form it is a versatile route into economy driving. Solid and very reliable, the Note has consistently been a strong seller in Ireland. Inside, it is deceptively spacious and it drives well.

If supermini mpvs are too small for your family's needs but the seven-seaters are simply too big, the attraction of greater flexibility in a compact package is immediately obvious. Those with young kids will be glad of the extra boot space and room, both often compromised in big, seven-seat MPV.Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings?

Renault pioneered the compact MPV more than 15 years ago with its Scenic model and, despite facing increasing competition, it remains one of the most popular choices for the school run. Rivals offer more versatility and a better ride but the five-seat French MPV is a smart family car that is spacious, versatile and has a big, well-shaped boot.China plastic moulds manufacturers directory.

One of our favourites, the Ford C-Max offers the best driving dynamics and is a treat to drive, the steering is crisp and the ride is incredibly smooth. The C-Max has a host of options and one must-have is Ford's automatic parking system. Just touch the button and the C-Max will squeeze itself into a parking spot. The C-Max is also available in Grand seven-seat version.

The only compact MPV to come with sliding rear doors,The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte. making it easier to access the rear seats, is the Mazda 5. On the road it is good to drive, although for some, the ride may be a little harsh compared with rivals. Overall, the Mazda5 is a stylish five- or seven-seater option model and makes for a nimble and sporting family runabout that won't let you down.

Opel's family favourite, the Zafira, has remained at the top of its game for the past few years and its trademark has been its flexible seating. The new Tourer version of the Zafira can be configured in six different seat guises in a matter of seconds. Space and storage is impressive throughout and with the seats folded it boasts an incredible 1,860 litres. Smooth,Load the precious minerals into your mining truck and be careful not to drive too fast with your heavy foot. roomy and stylish, there are few vehicles better suited to family motoring.

The larger people-carriers have been eclipsed in recent years but for those in need of seven seats there are some good options out there.

Peugeot's seven-seat 5008 brings a new level of sophistication and Gallic style. With flexible seating arrangements and heaps of space, the 5008 will more than cater for the needs of a growing family. As good to drive as it is to look at, this handsome and practical seven-seater is a very clever piece of engineering.

Ford's S-Max is the one to choose for ferrying your brood to school -- while enjoying every minute of it. It has unsurpassed chassis balance and refinement, and offers great space inside. Despite the sporty feel of the S-Max, it manages to encompass the core traits of the MPV such as space, safety and practicality.Our vinyl floor tiles is more stylish than ever!

The Seat Alhambra and the Volkswagen Sharan are virtually identical so the choice comes down to badge and price. Either way, if maximum interior space combined with maximum fuel economy is what you're seeking in a reliable family car, you won't go wrong. With sliding doors for easy access inside, they boast a removal van-like capacity of storage with a maximum of 2,297 litres.

Sandy Leaves Toxic Trouble

After Hurricane Sandy had picked up a good part of the East River and dumped it on Greenpoint, and Reuters photographer Gary He had just stood on the Pulaski Bridge, snapping photos of the partially blacked-out skyline of Manhattan, he ended up taking one of the most comically iconic images of the storm’s aftermath: the Brooklyn Snorkelers.

“I was headed back to the car to transmit,” he told The Observer, “when I saw a few people wading around below. The water was three or four feet deep, so I figured I’d get what I could from the bridge, since I’m not too keen on swimming in Newton Creek overflow. When I looked through the viewfinder, I saw that one of the guys was wearing a snorkeling mask, so I went down the stairs get a closer shot. I asked them why they were out, and they just responded that they were going to rescue a friend.”

The snorkelers were Mike Lee, James Maher and Lennon Bergland, who was outside the frame. Mr. Lee explained that the three friends were going in search of a friend who was stranded on top of her building. The water was cold and smelled like gasoline, he said, adding, “I’d like to emphasize that at no point did we put our heads underwater.”

“They were incredible lucky,” said Ashley Mortenson, M.D., an emergency room physician formerly with New York Beth Israel. “People with Hep A and other communicable illnesses defecate into the sewer system, not to mention the toxic chemicals that get mixed in during a flood.”

“Even if that water just gets on your mouth or a musocal membrane, you may be in for a rough few days,” said Leonard Bielory, M.D., of Rutgers University.

Here’s the thing about hurricanes: even after the immediate risks subside and the floodwaters recede, secondary hazards remain for weeks and months, most notably contaminated water, infectious diseases and toxic mold. Without electricity, pumps and wastewater treatment plants can’t function,” said Matt DaRin, principal of BluePoint Environmental. As a result, affected areas of New York and New Jersey have been facing the same water issues grappled with throughout the third world.

Storm water from the hurricane overloaded the sewage system, flooding parts of New York City and New Jersey to a depth of 13 feet above sea level with a sludge of river water,Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. human feces and contaminated industrial sediment. Floodwaters can also contain a wide range of other toxins, including chemicals from cars, dry cleaners and gas stations, and household chemicals such as paints, pesticides and solvents that had been stored in basements. For people exposed to floodwaters—including hundreds if not thousands of good samaritans currently hip-deep in muck—these industrial chemicals can also be absorbed through the skin and increase a person’s future risk of cancer.

Eleven years ago, New Yorkers rushed to “the pile” to dig through the rubble of the World Trade Center, and many are now experiencing the after-effects of exposure to a stew of toxins. Indeed, the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund has allocated nearly $4.3 billion to the 40,000 to 90,000 people who have experienced serious medical issues linked to their participation in the recovery efforts. It’s altogether possible that some of Sandy’s cost won’t be felt for years to come.

Exposure to floodwater is dangerous,Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injection mould manufacture, and doctors are already seeing repercussions “There is a serious risk of diarrheal illnesses such as E. coli or salmonella, as well as hepatitis A. If you get a laceration while in the floodwaters, you run the risk of sepsis from raw sewage,” said Dr. Mortenson, “It’s the perfect setup for skin infections.If you want to read about buy mosaic in a non superficial way that's the perfect book.”

The storm overflow from the Hurricane Sandy caused the polluted Gowanus Canal to spill over its banks, and it is difficult to trace where the contaminated water went from there. In addition to industrial chemicals and high levels of lead in the canal sediment, the Gowanus Canal water is perhaps best known for harboring active strains of gonorrhea.Find detailed product information for howo spare parts and other products.

The floodwaters that overwhelmed the Gowanus and other formerly industrial locations have also stirred up contaminated sediment—containing arsenic and carcinogens such as PAHs and PCBs—mixing it with raw sewage and disperse it across residential areas.

Particularly in New Jersey, home to numerous industrial brownfields or Superfund sites, floodwaters may have breached some of the asphalt barriers meant to seal in the toxins, mixing contaminated soil into the waters that spread farther into adjacent neighborhoods and even playgrounds and dog runs.The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility.

Now’s probably a good time to get a flu shot. “When you have hundreds of thousands of people throughout New York and New Jersey sleeping in unheated apartments for several days—along with limited access to fresh food and potable water—you’ve got conditions that can lead to a cold or flu outbreak,” Dr. Mortenson pointed out. “Whenever you crowd sick people together with a large population that has compromised immunity, you’ve got a giant incubator for communicable disease.”

Sandy’s timing was probably a blessing—and not only because the proximity to the election likely helped turn on the spigot of federal assistance.

“The cold weather has worked in our favor in a few ways,” Dr. Bielory added. Critical medicines, including insulin, “would go bad much faster without refrigeration if this had happened in the summer,” he said. And it’s also too cold for mosquitoes and flies to breed in the standing water throughout New York and New Jersey, so there is less risk of a West Nile virus breakout.”

Another bit of good news: low temperatures are inhibiting mold growth, though buildings that harbored standing water for any period of time are susceptible.

“The first 48 to 72 hours after a flood situation are the most critical. If water is allowed to stand after that, the probability of mold grows exponentially,” said Mr. DaRin of BluePoint Environmental. “Right now, the cold weather is working in our favor, but as power is restored and heat comes back on, it’s a different story.

The amusing action is a myth

And assumption what? Contrary to aggregate that amusing action wonks acquaint us, bacon and career progression appear out way aloft added factors for this group. Should that surprise? No.

I accept had this altercation with abounding 'social anything' promoters and the catechism I consistently accession is: 'When humans appear into a accurate company, what are they actually searching for?' I get a aggregation of answers but they about consistently centermost about the abstraction that somehow, humans wish to carbon their clandestine lives through admission to amusing tools, they wish bead asleep simple solutions with which to do their job all captivated up in a abundant aggregation adeptness that ethics advancing learning. I altercate this is the amiss answer.

Instead, I altercate that new hires wish actually what I see in this blueprint - a abundant bacon and the befalling to beforehand (i'e. enhance position and paycheck.) They may anticipate that what the amusing army says is what they'll get but that doesn't appear in the absolute world. It is alone as humans get earlier that they amount things like plan activity antithesis added than added factors. I appropriately altercate that in adjustment to beforehand one's career, the one affair that will actually authority humans aback is getting confusing in any way. The burden to accommodate is able in abounding companies and even added so in ambiguous times area captivation assimilate a job comes aloft appealing abundant aggregate else.

Recently, I arrested in with one of our grandchildren who is 22 and works in a alarm center. The aggregation uses an SAP arrangement which he describes as 'crap' because it takes always to do things. I asked how this affects his adeptness to do the job. The acknowledgment was not surprising. 'You acquisition means to plan about the 50 odd clicks bare to get something done.' I asked whether a bigger arrangement would be welcome. That catechism had never occurred to him and afresh it doesn't surprise.

Contrary to what I apprehend from 'social anything' folk, the all-inclusive majority of humans go to plan to get paid and hopefully beforehand their careers. They're not sitting about absorption how abundant bigger the abode could be if alone they had the latest agleam new amusing toy.

Once again, bacon comes out on top although now, we see work/life antithesis as the additional a lot of important affair that humans amount for befitting them in their job. That doesn't abruptness either accustomed the accepted bread-and-butter uncertainty. The alone age accumulation area aggregation adeptness acme the after-effects is in the 37-44 age group. Even there, career progression is a abutting second. Training and development is consistently the everyman ranked agency for all age groups.

What I am seeing in these after-effects is a echo of the past. If I put on my 'fresh out of school' hat on and anticipate about the things that mattered at that time, I would accept called the aforementioned as the 18-29 group. The aforementioned goes for choices I would accomplish in every age accumulation in this poll with the barring of the 45+ age accumulation area I would accept admired aggregation adeptness aboriginal and plan activity antithesis second.

The 'social anything' army apperceive that in adjustment to accompany change, aggregation adeptness and top administration buy in are analytical to success in bringing that change. However, if I apprehend the harder luck belief about amusing acceptance and change I am larboard cerebration that it is generally the additional and third bank administration that are absolutely critical. Yet this is the accumulation that is the a lot of resistant. Why? This analysis would assume to accommodate the basic of an addition argument.

That is, if bacon and career progression are consistently top of the ancestor beyond age groups again how are you traveling to behave in the absolute world? The acknowledgment is cocky evident. You will do aggregate accessible to bottle the cachet quo.Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injectionmould manufacture, It is alone afterwards you accept accomplished your plan goals that absorption goes elsewhere.Find a plasticinjectionmold Manufacturer and Supplier.

Where does this leave us? The advancing agitation about the capability of 'social everything' seems to accept skewed in favor of those who seek to maximise the appulse on the final consumer.Lixan Industries is a precision plastic mold and injectionmold manufacturer in china. In added words, it has become addition business tool. However,Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious floortiles from The Tile Shop. its absolute capability is ambiguous if the ascendant belvedere is Facebook which in about-face has an commercial business archetypal and which has apparent brands airing abroad because they don't acquisition it as able as the amusing army would accept them believe.

I accept that in adjustment for any business to become amusing in the way that abounding suggest, you accept to alpha from the inside. You accept to anticipate about developing behaviors which animate the demography on of amusing with the accessible addition that there has to be something in it for the being tasked to behave in a added amusing manner. That would betoken the architecture of a acquirements adeptness area the chump and agent absolutely amount and area the absence commercial archetypal is challenged.The reality of convenient handsfreeaccess contro.

Learning art

Learning art,This is a really pretty round stonemosaic votive that has been covered with vintage china . history, nutrition

Armed with toothbrushes, tweezers and dental picks, students in the Hansen Alternative Program carefully cleaned up and put the final touches on a mosaic mural last week.

The 21/2-by-5-foot wall hanging features a bowl of whimsical fruit and vegetables and the message “Hansen Eats Healthy.”

“I really like how it looks right now, and it’s not even finished,” said fifth-grader Sadie Quimby, as she searched for small pieces of tumbled glass to fill in some of the cracks. “It’s really colorful.”

The mural’s permanent home will be near the lunch cards that hang on the wall in Hansen Elementary School’s cafeteria.We are the largest producer of projectorlamp products here. It was designed by artist-in-residence Tina Moreschi.

She is a Hansen parent who is studying art history at The Evergreen State College.

Artist-in-residence is an unpaid position; Moreschi volunteered about 100 hours to work with students in creating the mural.We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds designUK chickencoop Specialist. In return she’s been using the hours and experience – which included giving a lecture on the history of mosaic art for the students – as part of her coursework at Evergreen. Hansen officials paid for supplies used in the project, valued at about $250.

Moreschi said she wanted to lead the effort to share her love of mosaic art and to give students a chance to work on a longer-term project that involved art – a subject that’s been virtually eliminated in many elementary schools, she said.

“I thought it would be important for the kids to get this experience and to learn about a medium they might not otherwise know about,” Moreschi added.

Fourth- and fifth-grade students in the Hansen Alternative Program – a multi-age program known as “HAP” that includes higher levels of parental involvement and more hands-on learning experiences for children than traditional classrooms – began working on the mural in early April.

First, they studied a unit on nutrition. Then Moreschi worked with students to draw examples of healthful foods.

“I took something from everybody’s picture and incorporated it into the mural,” she said.

Small group of students took turns, spending about 20 minutes a day working on the mural.

Fourth-grader Supraja Kadagandla said she’s glad she was able to be part of such a big project.

“Personally, I love art,” she said. “I’ve never had the time to do something more complicated. It’s really fun.”

Moreschi said the project involved about 30 pounds of tumbled glass, which students broke using double-wheeled nippers and adhered with Weld Bond glue.

Fifth-grader Sowmya Dudda said her favorite part of the mural was the broccoli,We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design which is wearing sunglasses.

“I think it’s the part that stands out the most,” she said.

The mural’s design also included sky, the sun and a rainbow. In addition to adding some color to the lunchroom, Kadagandla said he hopes it will inspire students to make better food choices.

HAP teacher Matt Samson said he’s grateful for Moreschi’s dedication and believes students benefited from the art history lesson and technical skills that they learned in creating the mural.

Carolina Mattress Guild grows with innovation

THOMASVILLE | Neal and Kathy Grigg started Carolina Mattress Guild with five employees in a 5,000-square-foot space 20 years ago in High Point.

Today the mattress maker employs about 85 people at its 68,000-square-foot headquarters on Interstate 85 Business Loop in Thomasville, with 65 of those individuals in production and the remainder in sales, administration or driving trucks. A second facility in Orlando, Fla., which opened in 2009, employs another 15 people. The local plant produces 85 models of mattresses while the Orlando facility makes 65.

With Neal's executive experience at Leggett & Platt, which makes bed springs, and Kathy's eye for design, the business quickly grew. The Griggs moved the operation to Thomasville in 1993 for more space and opened the current headquarters in December 2000. But within five weeks of opening their new facility, a spark from welding work in the production area set off a blaze that quickly engulfed the factory filled with fabric and foam.

“We saw firsthand what happens when foam burns — all the black, acrid smoke,” Kathy said, noting the facility was gutted due to the high amount of smoke and water damage. No one was injured.

For several months they leased some temporary production space in High Point, ran administrative operations out of some trailers parked in front of the headquarters and were back on their feet by the High Point Market in April 2001.

Kathy said the fire was hard on everyone, but she proudly noted it led the company to become the first manufacturer in the U.S. to make a flame-retardant mattress in 2003, which is now standard and required by law.