Just bought a 2nd hand laptop and it has a 1st gen i7 720qm 1.6x4. It's supposed to go to 2.6 or something under load but it just refuses to! The only way I can get it to exceed 1.6ghz is to use throttlestop and force the turbo.. The laptop is still fairly fast but it's just annoying! I've changed the powerplan, checked the temps, latest chipset drivers etc but nothing seems to work. It has the latest BIOS but it doesn't have any options in there. These are the maximums. The amount of Turbo Boost can be limited by power consumption (TDP), the amount of current flowing through your CPU (TDC) or the core temperature. It's usually power consumption that limits Turbo Boost. When fully loaded with something like Prime95, power consumption will exceed the Turbo Boost power limit and so Turbo Boost gets completely turned off leaving your CPU running at the default 12 multiplier or 1600 MHz. For Turbo Boost to fully work, you need to make sure the C3 and C6 sleep states are enabled. unused Cores need to be able to enter one of these sleep states so the remaining active cores can Turbo Boost up to the higher multiplier. The Turbo TDP and TDC power limits are locked in these processors so they are kind of lame. Their big brother the Core i7-920XM Extreme CPU can run fully loaded over 100% faster than the 720QM. If you can keep a 920XM cool enough, they can run all 4 cores fully loaded with a 24 or 25 multiplier compared to the 12 that you will get when your 720QM is fully loaded. Big difference. Time to start saving up. You won't be disappointed. It's a very good monitoring tool for these CPUs and can accurately calculate just how much Turbo Boost you are really getting during normal use. You can turn on the Log File option and go do some gaming and then when you are done you will have a record of what multiplier your CPU was using. It varies hundreds of times a second. ThrottleStop uses high performance timers within the CPU to calculate an average multiplier while this is going on. The sad part is that Windows background tasks often keep 2 or more cores active so you will never see the full 21 multiplier unless you disable 3 of your 4 cores which isn't a very practical thing to do to a Quad. I don't think you fully understand just how beastly the 920XM really is. Maybe this will open your eyes. svl7 over at Tech|Inferno knows how to get the most out of a 920XM. Yes, this is definitely a laptop and all 4 cores are fully loaded. This is a whole different performance league compared to what a fully loaded 720QM can run at. Matt - The 720 isn't bad. I'm looking to buy a couple of games in the future so that will probably test it more. General OS tasks are fine though. I just like having fast things I guess.. that looks serious!! That looks like a desktop version though with some serious cooling? A laptop might be harder to get me most out of? Can you select the turbo multipliers using throttlestop with the 920XM?? 200quid seems like a bit of a bargain when i see that.. are there 2nd and 3rd gen i7's that have that capability? The only issue is this motherboard has the PM55 chipset so a bit old now, so things like sata3 and usb3 are missing etc. Not sure weather to buy a new laptop or just beast this one up.


The Financial Services Club is a unique service designed for Senior Executives and Decision Makers from any firm interested in understanding and planning strategies for the future of banking and finance. September 25, 2012 How do you behave when no-one is watching? During my trip around the Middle East, I met a lot of banks looking at a lot of new ventures with lots of dialogue about new business models, new products and services, new organisational structures and new ways to communicate with staff, customers and stakeholders. One of the key questions was how to maximise human resources. OK, now you could debate whether humans are resources or assets or whatever, but the core of this answer was that humans need to be valued and have values. We concurred that the clearest way to convince people of their role is to give them a very memorable understanding of what the company is about and then let them get on with it. A kind of values or principles based organisational model. Now I've seen this model in practice in many firms and they are often the best in their field. These firms have vision, mission and values statements, but their statements rock and roll, are passionate and are lived by everyone in the company, not just the CEO. Let's take an example of the difference between a firm with passion and one without. Here are two banks. The first has a statement of vision, mission and values as follows: Our Vision: To take our place as the most powerful, most profitable and most admired bank. Our Mission: Having regard to ethical values, to meet our customers' financial needs in the fastest and most appropriate way; to continue innovative works in order to achieve; and to have human resource with superior qualities, supported by the best technological infrastructure and service packages. Our Values: To exceed customer expectations in service quality. To be a pioneer in the implementation of technologies that create great experiences for our customers, employees and shareholders. To keep our reliability at the utmost level through the contribution of a strong capital structure and liquid assets. To make a positive contribution to the community To respect meritocracy during hiring processes, improving knowledge and skills of its employees, creating the most preferred work environment. These are laudable statements, but they fail. The reason they fail is that no-one can remember them. Turn away from the screen now, and tell me what this bank's third value is. You can't remember, can you? Even if you went to this screen every single day and read these statements, I doubt that over the weekend with your family you could tell them what your company's vision, mission and values are. You may think it's because you don't work for this bank that you cannot remember them, but even if the bank rolled this out with dry mist and bass beats of One Direction blaring out through the conference hall, give it a week and I bet these statements are forgotten. This is because most companies create such vision, mission and values from formulaic workbooks and workshops, using facilitating consultants who lack passion. Believe me, I've been there and done the workshops, got the t-shirt and wear the badge. Now let's try a different bank. Here's their vision, values and mission. Vision: to be the FIRST choice bank. Mission: to have our customers always vote us FIRST choice. Values: F riendly I nformed R esponsive S ervice-Oriented T rustworthy It's very similar to the previous set of visions, values and mission, but it's simplified, targeted and memorable. What is this bank's third value? I bet you remember now, as the acronym FIRST makes it easy to remember. But it's not just a veneer over the top of the organisation, but a layered approach with detail behind each value about how it is measured and managed. This is why every person from the CEO to the Janitor knew how friendly, informed, responsive, service-oriented and trustworthy was measured and rewarded. Everyone remembered the program. They knew that Friendly meant don't read from scripts. Informed means that you must know how to describe the firm's products and services in a way that is easy to understand for the customer. Responsive means dealing with customer's questions fast. Service-oriented means being clear about what the customer needs and how to deliver. Trustworthy means only sell what the customer needs and not what they don't. No PPI mis-selling or subprime mortgages at this bank. I could take this dialogue much further and into more depth, but the difference between the former and latter banks is that values are something that should live and breathe in a bank, or any other firm for that matter. They are not a plaque on the wall or a paper on the desk, but the way in which the bank thinks, acts and behaves. They are shared from the CEO to the Janitor and are so memorable that all of the company can articulate what these values mean for the bank and for them as an individual. In other words, it becomes the bank's culture. It's heart and soul. It's culture. It's core. It's the guiding light by which people behave when no one is watching. This last piece is Bob Diamond's statement from his BBC 2011 Lecture :  "For me, the evidence of culture is how people behave when no-one is watching". How do people know how to behave when no-one is watching? How do they know right and wrong? Because the bank's shared their values with them and made it quite clear: "our value is to be trustworthy by selling the customer the right things, treat them as the centre of your focus and view the customer as being King or Queen." Alternatively: "our values are to be rich by selling the customer whatever they will buy, treat them as punters and view the customer as a muppet." Yep, values, visions and missions are simple. It's about culture and about the way the bank behaves from the top-down, not when no-one is watching. Simple. TrackBack TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.typepad.com/services/trackbac\\... Comments You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post. First class comment Chris and thanks - it could not have been more timely for me. I'm much involved just now on the matters of organisational values and giving them real life in the everyday 'how we do things here'. Whilst your take is primarily on the private sector, my current focus is on third sector organisations. Growing numbers of such organisation in the UK are opting for the social enterprise route. I, however, judge that a proportion of them are/will suffer from inadequate attention to the impact this has on their hitherto non-profit culture and on the staff and (voluntary) board members. These staff and members most likely did not join the organisation motivated by notions and practices of entrepreneurial and commercial behaviour. A move over to the entrepreneurial stance will, however, either have an impact on existing values, or the nature of that move will be governed by the existing values. I'm now scoping out the potential usefulness of this whole theme being approached on a cross-sector basis. Thanks again. Diamond's statement from his BBC 2011 Lecture: "For me, the evidence of culture is how people behave when no-one is watching". Nope. It's the demonstration of character. Which can be reinforced by culture to be sure. But behavior always reflects character


The same thing happened to Pippi JRT when she was 8 months old. A muzzled Akita pinned her and was head butting her and she was screaming her head off. The owner said oh it's all right he can't hurt her he's wearing a muzzle But as his head was twice the size of her whole body he could and was hurting her. The same thing happened to Pippi JRT when she was 8 months old. A muzzled Akita pinned her and was head butting her and she was screaming her head off. The owner said oh it's all right he can't hurt her he's wearing a muzzle But as his head was twice the size of her whole body he could and was hurting her. Makes your blood boil doesn't it? Big hugs xxxxx Yeah we're OK now. This GSD had her pinned down, and Daisy was yelping Now you know how gutsy Daisy is.. wouldn't yelp for nothing I was shouting get off her, and the bloke just carried on with his walking.. and conversation. Hope you are OK now. I hate dog walkers on their phones too - I do the same as mv; go another way if I see someone on the phone and put Kilo on the lead if I have to take an important call. Where I used to walk before I moved a lad used to walk along reading a book whilst his dog did as it pleased!!


Western Horse Review Full Description Western Horse Review is about Canadian life in the west. Mind you, not geographically -- for we have found the idea of "the west" is alive from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast -- but rather as a state of mind. For most of us who embrace this idea it includes the horse in some respect. At home in our pastures and barns, on the magnificent trails of this country, and certainly, in the competition arena. Also in our accruements and passions. One could say, in our identities. In our appreciation of the majesty of the animal, in the subtle nuances of the horse's work, and our various sports. Our idea of western style is also about a life that is engaged with western culture -- appreciative and honoring the land, from the cowboy tradition to current trends and views. It's modern, but respectful and mindful of tradition and history. It's photography, books, gear, travel, music and food. It honors the trainers, competitors, artisans, musicians, authors, photographers, artists and even regular folk, who spend their lives devoted to keeping our idea of the West in Canada alive. It's about appreciating the richness of our Canadian idea of how to live in the western way, recognizing its authenticity, and celebrating how it enriches all of our lives.


The Worst Sound in the World is a Knife Scraping a Bottle Researchers at Newcastle University wanted to learn more about why our brains make us recoil from unpleasant sounds like nails on a chalkboard or screaming. So they looked at the brains of a group of volunteers (who no doubt regretted their decision after this test) and played them a series of sounds to find where the recoil response was coming from. They also asked people to rate the sounds they heard from most to least pleasant, leaving them with a (slightly less than definitive because of its small sample size) list of the very worst sounds on the planet. At the top? The sound of a knife scraping a bottle . After rating 74 sounds, participants in the study found these ten to be the worst. The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience , imaged subjects' brains while they were played a series of sounds ranging from soothing to godawful, and also shed some light on why we recoil from unpleasant sounds, finding that sounds in the 2,000 to 5,000 Hz range tend to trigger a response in the amygdala, a region of the brain responsible for regulating emotion and fear responses. That makes some sense, as one of the most glaring sounds of danger -- a fire alarm -- rests right in the middle of that range at about 3,200 Hz. Researchers also released a list of the four sounds rated the least unpleasant, including applause, a baby laughing, thunder, and flowing water. This, of course, means that the most pleasant sound in the world is a baby sitting next to a river and laughing at a thunderstorm while people nearby clap. Which doesn't actually sound too pleasant, but hey, what do we know? No video or audio file? Darn, I was curious about what that sounded like, well I guess I'll just have to ruin a perfectly good knife and bottle Anonymous Okay -- measuring the amygdala response and then saying it's "unpleasant" is a bit overrated. For example, hearing a women scream might make me feel afraid -- I wouldn't rank that sound as "unpleasant", though, because it's more of a "warning scream". ttp://www.facebook.com/ami.kismet Ami Kismet .....knife on a bottle and ruler on a bottle.... when does anyone encounter those sounds in every day life? ttp://www.facebook.com/zach.fortier Zach Fortier Wait what? "Chalk on a blackboard." Seems pretty normal to me. Bullroarer Ok... I just pulled out a knife and raked it across a wine bottle. Not exactly a pleasant sound but not the worst by far. Now some crying, whiny, kids and babies out there downright make my ears bleed.


I never used to think of myself as elite upper class. I always grew up thinking of myself as a middle-class kid from a middle-class family. Part of the 99 percent, you know? Well, I dined out for all three meals today. About $50 NZD altogether. Yes, that's entirely too much money to be spending on food and I don't normally do that. It's actually kind of disgusting, isn't it? If I would just forgo that for a week or two and cook pasta instead, I could save enough money to buy a brand new Wii for my flatmate's birthday. Or save a few families' lives in another country somewhere. I'd probably be healthier, too. Here's where I'm going with this: I'm not in the 99%. I'm not in the 53% either, in case you were wondering. I'm in the 1%. Anyone who makes over $34k USD per year is in the top 1% of elite wealthy people in the world. Yeah, you heard me right: there are all kinds of people getting checks and foodstamps from the US government who are actually in the top 1% of the richest people in the world. That's how big of a deal this is. Almost half of the human race alive right now represents the bottom 5% of income earned in a given year. Think about that: that's billions of people getting only 5% of the money in the world divided up among all of the while most of the people reading this are probably all the way at the TOP of the pyramid. And yeah, I know: it's just too big. You can't even get your mind around it. I'll tell you straight up that I can't. Something about the knowledge that if I'm ever sad or annoyed about anything... well, there are people just a few islands over who are being methodically raped / sold into slavery / tortured / executed / etc (three letters which cover a lot of things I'd rather not even think about.) Oh, and then I guess a lot of them are dying and going to eternal Hell that is horrifying beyond our wildest dreams. And I get sad about some sports team losing some ball game. Why am I not sad about that? I mean, it's not like it's a big deal or anything, right? Or if I'm ever happy about much of anything... well, there are people right now who are being saved from all of that even as I type this. So why am I not completely ecstatic about that? Why am I not celebrating and shouting and telling everyone I know? I think the answer is disgusting and obvious and simple as human nature itself. Out of site; out of mind. And what does it take to wake us up? There's this big game we play of materialism and society and status and madness. It's the water we swim in. What does it take to snap us out of it? I've been given this beautiful and amazing life for no apparent reason while other people my age have sons and daughters eating mud and drinking disease and dying of starvation. And that's why we need pain. That is exactly why we need sorrow to break through all of our first-world comforts. That's why it's a good thing that my body has started to fail me more and more each year. What it takes to shatter the illusion that I can live for myself. That's why all of us need to see the stars and get the flu and lose everyone we will ever love. It shakes us out of our happy fantasy land and into real life -- even if only for a few minutes before we stick our heads back in the sand. We go to ridiculous lengths to keep ourselves distracted and stuck inside our own tiny empires. TV and Facebook and shopping malls and commutes and weekly schedules. And it ALWAYS eventually comes crashing down, because there is meaning to life and it has *nothing* to do with any of that stuff. You never could take it with you. Anything or anyone or anywhere: it will all leave you eventually. We all want to be the center of our own little world. We all want to get everything and give nothing. Reality is the direct opposite if that. We live in an incalculably huge, enormous, beautiful and terrible world. And none of us are anywhere near the center of it -- but for those who have been given much, much will be expected -- and he who seeks to find his life will lose it. And we want to tell ourselves there's a certain point of "good enough" where you can't ask for any more than that, right? How much giving is enough? You've got to be smart and not stupid. You've got to be more sensible than to just ruin yourself, right? And I try to convince myself that I'm doing the best I can with what I have. But the more I think about that phrase, the less I'm sure what it even means. And really, when it comes down to doing the BEST with what you have... is there anyone who ever does? 1 Hey Brad, as always I enjoy reading your thoughts. Whenever I think about the whole "People starving in Africa" topic, I prefer to remember that the goal is to help bring them a higher quality of life, not to drag us down to a lower quality of life. If I don't do this then my mind can't turn off the GIVE MORE mode -- to the point that I think if I'm not living in a cardboard box then I should feel guilty, and that is not how it should be. You're also right that we could all use a reality check every once in a while, but I don't think that we need to lose everyone we ever love to be blindsided by reality. Being broken for a time can definitely be a good thing, but the point of brokenness is to be built up stronger than before, not to be crushed into oblivion. "But for those who have been given much, much will be expected -- and he who seeks to find his life will lose it." -- Absolutely! I REALLY like this Bible verse, and I think you hit the nail on the head there. We've been given a lot of gifts, both tangible and intangible, over the course of our lives. We should be using those gifts to make the world a better place. However, neither of us are Superman (you're more like Batman anyway). So although we can not save the world single-handedly, we can make a world of difference within our sphere of influence. At least, that's how I try to roll. =) Coderman @ September 12, 2012 2:31 am 2 This reminds me of a topic we discussed during a religion class at good old St.Mary's High school. Only a few of us are going to be like Mother Theresa... What about the individuals who are invalids , who cannot give of themselves? Are they going to earn their place in heaven? My teacher, Sister Alice, who, by the way taught my sister, your aunt Claire , taught me and my children.! said something I will never forget. "They also serve, who only stand and wait" they give the rest of us a reason and a way to serve God. We may not be able to "SAVE THE WORLD" but we can contribute in some way where ever we are... Love you Brad Please pray for me and my up coming surgery. You can help one person right now by doing that... Grammy Mary Grammy @ September 12, 2012 2:51 am 3 There are a whole lot of ways in which I couldn't have said this better myself! Brings to mind a LOT of different scriptures...like Isaiah 58, 1 Timothy 6:6-10, & Matthew 16:24-28...& on & on. I think that Cody's right about not being Superman, & Grammy Mary is right about contributing where you are, but I also think that you're on the right track...are we really doing the best with what we have? The answer is probably no. It's definitely possible to steward resources differently than we do, & to live with less & be content, & to take the money saved & use it to relieve suffering & advance the kingdom. There are a lot of practical ways to go about doing that...it takes wisdom & prayer to know exactly what you should be doing yourself, I guess. How do you think you go about becoming the sort of person who REALLY cares, thinks, & prays about human suffering? Grammy Mary -- I haven't met you, but I will pray too! SP @ September 12, 2012 3:37 am 4 I agree with you Brad. I also agree with your family and friends. As Coderman pointed out, I don't think we should feel guilty about not living in a cardboard box. I mean, how can we look after others if we're not in a position to look after ourselves, right? It is all about doing what you can where you can. A little bit can go a long way. And it's not always about giving away money or material things either -- it's also about using your gifts, skills and wisdom to help others so that they can help themselves (whether those people who need help are across the world or right under your nose; whether they're starving or just need advice) I'm still getting to know you, but knowing what I know so far, I think you're already making a difference in people's lives -- by your music, by sharing your thoughts on this blog (so even if those people who're reading this are the elite 1%, you're inspiring them to go out and do their bit for the world!), by caring for your friends, family, and for the less fortunate. If you want to do more, that's great and it is your choice what you do, but I don't think we have to feel like we're not doing enough. At the end of the day, every little bit helps. And also I think it is more meaningful to the giver and receiver, if help is given freely with love in your heart rather than tainted by feelings of guilt and obligation. Just my thoughts anyway ^_^ miniNinja @ September 12, 2012 4:47 pm 5 About being happy / sad about those things... yes, out of sight out of mind -- but also, I think that to some degree -- if we constantly think about those things all the time, then paralysis comes in. The state of the world is so huge I doubt any human could properly contemplate all those things at once and respond appropriately. Or at least, I can't. When I worked in NGOs I remember the shock and sadness that hit so often every time a disaster struck and we collected donations...... to the point my mom told me that if I wanted to work there I had to get past the emotions and get on with it. About waking up and pain: yes, absolutely. But I agree with Coderman -- that the point of brokenness isn't to be crushed into oblivion... hmm, this is a topic that is too wide to broach in a comment box. Hmm, there is so much you have written in your post and as always I find my mind spinning as I try to pen down here the things I am thinking!! Discuss next time I see you? 6 WOW! So I have some seriously *wise* friends and family! I think I'm even more fortunate than I knew, because that definitely counts on the list of things I have going for me, you know? Coderman, Grammy, SP, miniNinja, and Mel -- all you guys: THANKS so much for the encouragement and extremely wise words! It means a lot to me. Also: Grammy -- I'm definitely praying! Big Bad Brad @ September 18, 2012 10:38 pm 7 Seriously: I keep re-reading these comments and they really hit the nail on the head in so many different ways. With that said, invitations all ACCEPTED to talk more about it... Big Bad Brad @ September 18, 2012 10:41 pm Leave a comment Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website BM@W Whatever that means. This is the site for all kinds of thoughts from the mind of Brad Moore. Whether those thoughts are coming from an eloquent musician / thinker / writer - or just from a Nebraska farmboy who somehow wandered into a South Pacific island nation... you may have to decide for yourself.


Featured: Paul Rudd on Grace, Bar Mitzvahs and This is 40 The actor delivers a knockout turn as a Christian evangelical whose life spirals out of control in 'Grace,' a new Broadway play. I'm not sure we've seen you kill anyone before, in a film or on stage. I don't think I have! This is a very interesting and different part for me. And there are not many plays that open right with someone blowing their brains out. Rudd and Kate Arrington play hotel owners with a holy mission. (Joan Marcus) Is theater more creatively satisfying for you than acting in film? Acting in a play takes a lot of focus, concentration, and energy. The big myth is that you have a show at night so you have your days off, and that isn't the way it works. Your day revolves around the show. I spent the early part of my career doing plays and independent movies, and while I'm grateful that I'm still working and consider myself extremely fortunate, over the last few years I've gotten jobs in big studio movies that have much higher visibility; I hit that [Judd] Apatow trend. And those movies are very creatively fulfilling because the actors are involved in many different capacities. Was it strange to be a Jewish kid growing up in Kansas? This evangelical subject matter must hit pretty close to home. Oh yeah, man, I grew up in the Bible Belt. While I'm not the born-again Christian I'm playing, I know a lot of people who are because I was surrounded by that. The idea of gospel-themed hotels is -pretty wild. Ever had any strange -business ideas of your own? When a friend and I were in college these "Don't Be A Dick" shirts were popular, so we made one about safe sex. We actually made good money. You also DJed bar mitzvahs. What's the craziest thing you saw happen? I was just out of college and going to acting school, so I got this job working on the weekends. I had never seen bar and bat mitzvah receptions that were such huge deals. The Laker girls were at one. It was surreal. It was a weird job. What were your most-played songs? "U Can't Touch This" was pretty big at the time and "I'm Too Sexy," by Right Said Fred. You had your classics like "What I Like About You." It was good to start a set with "In the Mood," by Glenn Miller, because then you got the grandparents up and dancing. You don't throw MC Hammer at them right out of the gate. These are the tricks of the trade. Your next film, This Is 40 , is out soon. Did your outlook change when you hit 40? You think, Oh my God, the weight of even the word 'forty.' But my father died when I was 39, and I was still in a daze by the time I turned 40, so I didn't process that the way I should have. Marlow Stern is the assistant culture editor of Newsweek and The Daily Beast and holds a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has served in the editorial department of Blender magazine, and as an editor at Amplifier Magazine and Manhattan Movie Magazine.


Financial Fair Play equals nothing, but someone is going to go bust Billy the Dog McGraw runs his finger over Uefa's financial fair play rules, gets it snagged on a sharp bit and scuttles off to the local A and E for a quick repair. There is a report on the BBC web site this morning that "Two of English football's top-four clubs could be excluded from European competition in future as they fail Uefa rules that are about to be introduced." This is interesting to me at least because in the last few days a whole swirl of stories relating to the new financial regs have emerged.  There's been little on them for months, and suddenly everyone and his grandmother's pet rat are dripping pieces into the media.  What, one might ask, if one had the time and was not already 10 minutes late for work, is going on? Well bugger work for a bunch of soldiers, I'm staying put while I type this up. As our august overlords of the news, the BBC, point out, the Financial Fair Play Regulations do not come into force until 1 June and will not really bite until 2013.  So why suddenly get multo agitato just now? The BBC says that "a study of recent accounts by BBC Sport shows Chelsea and Manchester City would fall well short of the rules if they were being applied today.  City were 110m in the red while Chelsea showed a deficit of over 50m. Uefa's rules allow clubs to run up losses of 65m over the first five years." c Uefa will have the power to ban any side that repeatedly flouts the rules from European competition, but as we have noted in past discussion, any revenue earned from side businesses such as property, hotels or media are excluded.  Hence the Manchester City plan to build lots of emporia in sunny Manchester next to the ground, and Tottenham's plan to build a superb six star hotel next to their ground, making use of the exquisite local features, the water fountains, the open garden spaces, and the proximity to more prostitutes and drug dealers than you can shake a stick at.  (Some of that sentence is ironic, some of it is true -- you have to sort it out.  I would do it but I am too busy typing this). Using this bit of rope Manchester IOU can get out of some of their problems because the interest payments incurred by the Glazer family won't count.  So although Man U made a pre-tax loss of 79m in 2010 according to the Uefa Book Cooker in Chief, they made a profit of 42m.  Clever eh?  (That fellow used to work at Lloyds). Arsenal would also easily meet the guidelines, posting a surplus of 55m.  But you, me, Andersred of Man U  (whose knowledge of such things is spoken of from the plains of Cornwall where their supporter base is to the wild uplands of Mongolia when the Ulan Bator clan climb aboard their bus for home games) and Swiss Ramble have some doubts about the rest of the gang. Take Manchester C and Chelsea (I wish).  Andersred considers that a ground like Arsenal's might pull in enough dosh for Chelsea.  Swiss Ramble, the other financial blog of note on such matters reckons Man City have a cunning plan relating to property. But for any of this to work -- indeed for the clubs to survive, the financial players need the Champs League each year.  There is no choice in this for Man City, Chelsea and Man U if they are going to meet the Uefa requirements.  Arsenal can survive outside the top four, because the finances are so sound.  But if Man U Man C Chelsea and Arsenal do constantly secure the top four, for the little clubs like Tottenham and Liverpool trying to break into to the big boys room, life is tough and money is hard to come by. Of course this is Uefa, so there's always a laugh on the horizson.  This time it is Uefa general secretary Gianni Infantino.  Try this one for size... "The English clubs are among those generating the highest revenues in Europe.  The basic rule is the break-even rule that says you cannot spend more than you generate, so if you generate more than the others you have an advantage. So I am not worried at all about the English."   Yes, well, I suppose so.  Like Nat West, Lloyds and Northern Rock...  Or come to think of it, Woolworths. "They know what these rules mean and how we will implement them. I am sure that tomorrow they will put their finances in order so they are able to break even.   Our president spoke to Manchester City's owners over a year ago when we started with this process and they were very happy with it." So there we have it.  Uefa speaks to Man City and Man City says, there there little man, let the big boys sort it out. Of course clubs can change -- that's true.  As Mr Infantino said, "Ten years ago Arsenal reported less income than Chelsea, Liverpool and Newcastle.  Now it is more than those clubs and in 2009 more than double Newcastle's.  This shows what is possible with good management and careful investment."  Yes, except this is now the post-wanker crisis recession doom gloom and end of the world.  No one lends money any more. Elsewhere there are reports that Sheikh Mansour (I have to use his real name because I have used up all the Shake Rattle and Roll jokes, and the titles of those wonderful Frank Zappa albums like Sheikh Yerbooty, and Sheikh Yermoney) has sent club officials to hold talks with European football's governing body to discuss how they can comply with new regulations. Uefa's head of licensing Andrea Traverso stated: "We are in talks with the club, they are aware of the rules and they probably have a strategy to raise their income." Michel Platini said: "Last year in Abu Dhabi I met up with the owner of Manchester City and he promised they would live with the rules and regulations." Roberto Mancini said the 27m-signing of Edin Dzeko was the end of his spending until next Tuesday when he had promised to take his wife out for a meal.  He also said they need another two or three players in the summer (that bit is true). Platini also said, "There will be no witch hunt," which I think is a shame.  I like witch hunts.  Not that I have anything much against witches of course, but given that a witch hunt involves chasing people who don't exist with powers that don't exist who undertake tasks that don't happen, witch hunts involve the rather futile passing of time for no particular benefit -- which makes it an ideal activity for Uefa. Just look at the figures: 655 top clubs in Europe reported a loss in 2009 and the combined deficit across Europe's 53 football nations was 1bn.  Spending on player wages is up almost 10%, with clubs spending 64% of their income on these and other staff expenses.   73 European clubs are spending more than 100% of their revenue on wages. An analysis of the accounts of the EPL clubs last year for the Guardian showed that almost three-quarters of them would fall foul of the new Uefa regulations, if they were applied tomorrow. Because tucked away in the deepest of deep print in the smallest typeface ever conceived in the history of eyesight it says that if clubs can show that they are travelling in the right direction, that their losses are reducing year on year and can point to them being a result of contracts signed before June 2010 when the rules were enshrined they are safe. So even though costs are rising across Europe at around twice the rate of revenue, and only four leagues (Germany, Austria, Belgium and Sweden) broke even overall. Yes, at the start of all this I did naively think that maybe we were onto something here, and that Uefa might just get it right for once.   But now it seems that it is all for nothing -- expect the fact that as Ireland, Portugal and Greece have found, eventually if you go on spending lots of money you don't have something goes bang.   The only interesting question now is, which big club goes bang first. Barca were close last year when they failed to pay their players.  Liverpool got right to the edge once their were owned by the bank.  Everton are struggling on day by day but just can't sell themselves even for 1p.   Rangers have to find a new buyer and have to win their case against Revenue and Customs to survive (lose both and they vanish totally).  Man U are dependent on the Emperor's New Clothes act of the Glazers (look money, look no money).  Even the astounding Tiny Totts who print their own money in their off-shore hideaways are talking about selling off players if they don't get into the Champs League again. In effect Uefa has made itself irrelevant.  Our old capitalist chum Market Forces will run the show, and that means someone will get hurt.  It always ends in tears. Nice Article... Although I dont really believe a lot of doom predicted for the big clubs is going to happen. Sooner or later, the big businesses always find a way out through whichever way be it creative accounting or getting the rules changed. I'll again say what i had said a long time ago regarding the financial fair play rules -- Big clubs will get a way around it. Many months ago, this very same site told how ManU will not be able to follow the rules bcoz of massive losses and now we're being told that they're running a profit according to the rules?? Thats why i said, big clubs will have a way around these rules. UEFA need the big clubs for their own revenue, so dont expect them to hit the hammer on their own finger. The fact that the Financial Fair play was originally meant to start from the 2010-11,but was postponed by Uefa till 2013 says it all. I have to agree with Dark Prince in that regard. I do not think the rules are going to be applied fairly across the board. Certain big clubs are too important for UEFA's revenues to leave them out. The likes of ManCity may get banned though, if nothing else but to make a show of seriousness about the rules, though I doubt even that will happen. But I think the article said as much anyway. That UEFA are basically not going to act. They will shut their eyes to all the madness going on, and eventually the madness will claim its own victims. there is never going to be a level playing field, the champions league would end up like the europa league over night if the big clubs werent allowed in and the competition would be discredited because the best teams werent allowed to pay, the perceived power of UEFA / fifa would be embarrassed because the big clubs could make their own competition set their own tv revenues and sky would pay it, the greedy clubs like barca would gladly cut schalke, shaktar out of a piece of the pie, the golden rule is he who has the gold makes the rules. ersonally I would like to see a competition where each league nominates their all stars and you have premier all stars versus la liga all stars and so on. The scary thing for me with arsenal is we have adapted the ajax model and I confess I dont know the reason why it failed but it did and ajax were very successful. I think it all went wrong the day Uefa asked JL Dehaene to be president of the committee that would look at things. I even wrote an article about it here on Untold. Seems a century ago. And I then warned: if Uefa take on this Belgium former politician to implement the FFP rules, it would lead to nothing. Because JL Dehaene is know in Belgium for doing nothing. Oh, and when he did something it was such a terrible law that if you asked 100 people how the rules should be read you got at least 110 different answers. I then hoped I would be wrong but it seems that I was right with my prediction. The one thing we can be sure of is that, in order to comply, all other clubs (other, that is, from Arsenal) will have to change the way they operate. And change always entails risk. Chelsea have already done things like not renewing the contracts of Ballack, Deco, Cole etc. that they would not have done had it not been for the FFP regulations. And one glance at the table shows what effect that has had in weakening Chelseas position this season. The sale of Ronaldo by Manure probably falls under the same heading. Yes, they may still win the league, but they have never sold their best player before, at any price, and it's likely that it's to do with proving that their balance sheet is 'moving in the right direction'. Spurs are talking today of 'streamlining their squad' because it's bigger than anyone elses -- when we all know that all squads are 25 players strong so that's bollocks designed for uninformed City ears and to demonstrate to UEFA that they are 'moving in the right direction' despite still not getting a new stadium and still being managed by a serial bankrupter of clubs. The most common mistake when assessing the effects of change is to over estimate them in the short term and to under estimate them in the long term. Change is already happening and the effects of that change are already noticable. But in five years time (and maybe a lot less) football could look quite different to how it looks now and those differences will suit Arsenal very nicely thank you. If UEFA wanted to screw Arsenal they wouldn't be publicly holding them up as the template by which they want all clubs to be run in the future. And the other clubs have' where they can, tried to screw us by spending money that they don't have. And their main screwdriver is being taken away from them! Cripes! Master William Mcgraw, is it capitalism for the poor and communism for the rich all over again? of course it is. the posturing is ridiculous until you realise just what a logistical nightmare is involved if you were going to rigorously delve into the finances of football clubs and just how many layers of specialist paper pushers are in for a big pay day, and of course the backhand brigade will be warming their envelope passing hands and various branches of the tax offices of various counties will be doing their best for the tax dodging elite all on our coin. the future looks muddy, the future looks vodaphoney, Oh bollocks!- Give me my arsenal to take the pain away and please god, blight the trolls with leprosy and open sores they're ruining Untold for Me. Tony/Walter/Billy, Totaly off topic I know, Id like to ask a question though. What if anything have you heard about an immenent announcement from the Arsenal board as quoted on Arseblog the other day ? Whats your thoughts on the youth chamions league due to start this summer with group games and a knockout phase in january. Do you feel it will be unbalanced as most clubs have all their youth out on loan to gain experience and only spanish clubs will benefit as they play together in the second divison ? Sorry about been off topic there was no where to ask these questions Regarding financial fair play. I think most people will believe it when they see it. @shard, When you see thoroughly dysfunctional organizations trying to reposition themselves for another big pay day, it is amazing just what shiny new dawn is promised to keep the proles looking in the other direction while the sharks slip into position out of sight. no one believes they can carry it off or that they have thought this out thoroughly, the only reason anyone has tried to cut costs on players is the credit crunch and the recession, but what better time to come out sabre rattling than when you enemy is preoccupied with surviving a bigger threat! it would go a long way if anyone could explain the qatar world cup just for starters. I agree Ugandan Goon..That's a good point. It actually is quite amazing when you think about it, that there isn't a larger acknowledgment that there is bound to be rampant corruption in the game..From people in general I mean, I understand why none of the media will talk about it. I mean, just the vast sums of money alone would be enough. But when you factor in that they operate in a world where there are no clear laws, no defined jurisdictions, and that they are only answerable to themselves and no one else, then how can anyone in their right minds not agree that there is bound to be corruption? I was shocked to see that at the start of the World Cup in South Africa, when after the opening ceremony Jacob Zuma and Blatter went to meet the players, it was Sepp Blatter who took precedence.. Doesn't that have to be some sort of a breach of protocol? Or does the FIFA president outrank a Head of State? while we're on the subject of finance- there have been pockets of fans calling dein back to the club, i am yet to so read a convincing argument against our current financial model. everyone is tightening their belts and yet we should throw money around? 50 million, say, for a world class striker, proven in the premiership, with champions league experience? I am yet to hear a convincing argument from all who say that Wenger should go, or that we need massive changes. They have one or two reasonable, and reasonably good points, but when you force them to put it in context and build the argument as a whole, then you realise it's all bluster and very little substance. It's just headless chickens running around in the belief that the sky is about to fall on their heads... Yes, it is as ridiculous as that. @Redgooner -- picked up on the imminent board announcement a couple days ago on Arseblog. He did not seem to know much about the forthcoming announcement, but did say Lady Nina was becoming conspicuous by her presence at recent games, and he suspected the whole thing may have "an orange glow about it" -- which I assume is a reference to Usmanov. Just hope it isnt Usmanov doing too much anyway -- if in charge, he would certainly be prone to breach the fair play rules! Pure speculation but maybe just Nina selling her shares to Usmanov but even if she did, would imagine Stan + board would not allow a takeover -- heres hoping! Or maybe Deins coming back! Sorry being very silly there! Guess we will find out soon if there is actually anything going on. @shard, Clearly, the worlds meanest party organizers have decided they are going to step up the entry fee by employing more of their friends to riffle through your pockets anywhere they chose right across the planet! World government sucks! Anybody see Wenger's press conference? I know there will be, and already are, people who take his comments out of context, and call for blood on the streets, but I love it when Arsene comes out fighting. He makes some good points too, but I think part of him wanted to just stick the knife into the more fickle fans. I guess that sort of attitude will not be to everyone's liking, but as I said, I love it when he fights back. @ Shard, I agree with the part would you swap the FA cup for chamions league qualifiaction each year.Id sooner have 0 FA Cups and 15 champions league qualifications even it means listening to we won nothing for 6 years. The points he make are valid and a lot of our frustration is as much to do with the crap the media are saying about us winning nothing more than going through 6 years without a trophy. we have gone longer before and it seemed shorter because every muppet out there wasnt constantly on about it. Agree Shard -- his comments oozed intelligence. Sections of the media and so called fans will brand him a satisfied loser as you say but these fans need to get over themselves and as for the media, we all know their agenda... The fact is, we are competing against clubs financed by billionaires, a club who has half the refs, the FA and most British managers in its pockets and we are not doing so badly. Great to hear Wenger on the attack. There will be many interpretations on his words,I believe he is categorically telling all and sundry he has not been given the finances, at least not until very recently. There are a few things wrong that need to be fixed -- for instance some of the Barca pressing and work ethic would not go amiss. I also think a revamp of coaching staff would help My favorite bit of all -- he would love to manage us for another 20 years! Wenger has not helped by saying things to the effect that if this team do not win silverware in the next couple of years -- he will have failed....but this press conference seems to be a new stance. Wenger, unlike Jose and to a lesser extent, Arry is not a quick fix merchant and never will be. Fans cannot take silverware for granted -- look at what we are up against. Some fans seem to have imploded after the Carling Cup -- if this competition hits them so badly, says a lot about them as fans. On a happy note, we have Lee Mason as ref this weekend, you know -- they guy who managed to single handedly get the Mancs back in the game when 2-0 down against West Ham. Should befun1 Who honestly didn't see this coming? Did you really expect the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea, and Barcelona to be excluded from European tournaments because their books aren't in order. Anyway, when is Arsenal going to start fighting fire with fire and stop thinking that one day Jesus Christ himself will come down and tame the sharks and the lions and make sure all Football Clubs live within their means. Maybe Wenger should be president of UEFA when he eventually leaves Arsenal, as I have faith in Wenger's moral code(although I wouldn't leave him alone with my wife). What is it they say about the victors writing history? Well, this is it. The victors are Man United and Barcelona and they are the ones who write the UEFA rules. If Arsene Wenger wants to have the authority to re-write the way football is run he has to win (I think he knows this), but the question is, "Do we have enough in the squad to pull this off?". If the answer is "YES" (Wenger's answer is YES) then we sit and wait for these players to get us to the promise land. If the answer is "NO"... The next question is, "Does spending 30 million pounds on players to improve the team hurt our perceived righteousness?"...If the answer is "YES" (Wenger's answer would be YES) then sit and wait for these players to pull off a miracle. If the answer is "NO", then we go out there, buy the pieces needed to get us to the mountain top and we worry about paying off that money later. The most important thing to do is to WIN, the next important thing to do is remember why we want to win. It is not just because we want glory for Arsenal, but because we want to show the world that Building a club around A FEW PURCHASED PLAYERS is just as effective as just splashing cash on every free agent on the market.


Does your safety get engaged by accident? Like it gets bumped into safe when you are firing? If this is whats going on, check to make sure you didnt lose the safety plunger that puts pressure on the safety lever. There is no real way to tighten a safety. The only thing would be to try to make sure the pin that puts pressure on it is there and working. You could try using a stiffer spring so there is more pressure. Other than that the only thing could be buying a cheap safety and seeing if that works better for you.


Two subspecies or ecotypes have been described: the plains bison ( Bison bison bison ), smaller in size and with a more rounded hump, and the wood bison ( Bison bison athabascae )—the larger of the two and having a taller, square hump. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] Furthermore, it has been suggested that the plains bison consists of a northern ( Bison bison montanae ) and a southern subspecies, bringing the total to three. [ 7 ] However, this is generally not supported. The wood bison is one of the largest wild species of bovid in the world, surpassed by only the Asian gaur and wild water buffalo . It is the largest extant land animal in the Americas. A bison has a shaggy, long, dark brown winter coat, and a lighter weight, lighter brown summer coat. As is typical in ungulates , the male bison are slightly larger than the female and, in some cases, can be considerably heavier. Plains bison are often in the smaller range of sizes, and Wood bison in the larger range. Head-and-body length ranges from 2 to 3.5 m (6.6 to 11.5 ft) long, the tail adding 30 to 91 cm (12 to 36 in). Shoulder height in the species can range from 152 to 186 cm (60 to 73 in). Typical weight can range from 318 to 1,000 kg (701 to 2,205 lb). [ 10 ] [ 11 ] The heaviest wild bull ever recorded weighed 1,270 kg (2,800 lb). [ 12 ] When raised in captivity and farmed for meat, the bison can grow unnaturally heavy and the largest semi-domestic bison weighed 1,724 kg (3,801 lb). [ 13 ] The heads and forequarters are massive, and both sexes have short, curved horns that can grow up to 2 feet (61 cm) long, which they use in fighting for status within the herd and for defense. Calf Bison are herbivores , grazing on the grasses and sedges of the North American prairies . Their daily schedule involves two-hour periods of grazing, resting and cud chewing, then moving to a new location to graze again. Bison mate in August and September; gestation is 285 days. A single reddish-brown calf nurses until the next calf is born. If the cow is not pregnant, a calf will nurse for 18 months. At three years of age, bison cows are mature enough to produce a calf. Bison bulls of that age may try to mate with cows, but if more mature bulls are present, they may not be able to compete until they reach five years of age. Bison have a life expectancy of approximately 15 years in the wild and up to 25 years in captivity. For the first two months of life, calves are lighter in color than mature bison. One very rare condition is the white buffalo , in which the calf turns entirely white. White bison are considered sacred by many Native Americans. The term "buffalo" is sometimes considered to be a misnomer for this animal, as it is only distantly related to either of the two "true buffalo", the Asian water buffalo and the African buffalo . However, " bison " is a Greek word meaning ox -like animal, while "buffalo" originated with the French fur trappers who called these massive beasts bœufs , meaning ox or bullock—so both names, "bison" and "buffalo", have a similar meaning. Though the name "Bison" might be considered to be more scientifically correct [ by whom? ] , as a result of standard usage the name "Buffalo" is also considered correct and is listed in many dictionaries as an acceptable name for American Buffalo or bison. In reference to this animal, the term "buffalo", dates to 1625 in North American usage when the term was first recorded for the American mammal. [ 14 ] It thus has a much longer history than the term "bison", which was first recorded in 1774. [ citation needed ] The American bison is very closely related to the wisent or European bison . Although they are superficially similar, the American and European bison exhibit a number of physical and behavioral differences. Adult American bison are slightly heavier on average due to their less rangy build, and have shorter legs, which render them slightly shorter at the shoulder. [ 15 ] American bison tend to graze more, and browse less than their European cousins, due to their necks being set differently. Compared to the nose of the American bison, that of the European species is set farther forward than the forehead when the neck is in a neutral position. The body of the American bison is hairier, though its tail has less hair than that of the European bison . The horns of the European bison point forward through the plane of its face, making it more adept at fighting through the interlocking of horns in the same manner as domestic cattle, unlike the American bison which favors charging. [ 16 ] American bison are more easily tamed than their European cousins, and breed more readily with domestic cattle. [ 17 ] The bovine family (taurids and bisonids) diverged from the common ancestral line with water buffalo and African buffalo about 5 to 10 million years ago. [ 18 ] Thereafter, the family lineage of bison and taurine cattle does not appear to be a straight forward "tree" structure as is often depicted in much evolution, because there is evidence of interbreeding and crossbreeding between different species and members within this family, even many millions of years after their ancestors separated into different species. This cross breeding was not sufficient to conflate the different species back together, but it has resulted in unexpected relationships between many members of this group, such as Yak being related to American bison, when such relationships would otherwise not be apparent. However, Y chromosome analysis associated wisent and American bison. [ 20 ] An earlier study using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) fingerprinting showed a close association of wisent and American bison and probably with yak, but noted that the interbreeding of Bovini species made determining relationships problematic. [ 21 ] "Last of the Canadian Buffaloes", 1902, photograph: Steele and Company The steppe bison ( Bison priscus ) diverged from the lineage that led to cattle ( Bos taurus ) approximately 2 to 5 million years ago. The bison genus is clearly in the fossil record by 2 million years ago. [ 22 ] The steppe bison spread across Eurasia and was the bison that was pictured in the ancient cave paintings of Spain and Southern France The European bison or wisent arose from the steppe bison, without fossil evidence of other ancestral species between the steppe bison and the European bison, though the European bison might have arisen from the lineage that led to American bison if that lineage backcrossed with the steppe bison. Again, the web of relationships is confusing, but there is some evidence that the European bison is descended from bison that had migrated from Asia to North America, and then back to Europe, where they crossbred with existing steppe bison. [ 22 ] At one point, some steppe bison cross bred with the ancestors of the modern yak. After that cross breeding, a population of steppe bison ( Bison priscus ) crossed the Bering Land Bridge to North America . There is evidence of multiple crossings of bison to and from Asia starting before 500,000 years ago and continuing until at least 220,000 years ago. The steppe bison spread through the northern parts of North America and steppe bison lived in Eurasia until approximately 11,000 years ago [ 23 ] and North America until 4,000 to 8,000 years ago. [ 22 ] Bison latifrons (giant bison or longhorn bison) is thought to have evolved in midcontinent North America from Bison priscus , after the steppe bison crossed into North America. [ 24 ] [ 25 ] [ 26 ] Giant bison ( Bison latifrons ) appeared in the fossil record approximately 500,000 years ago. [ 22 ] B. latifrons was one of many species of North American megafauna which became extinct during the Quaternary extinction event . It is thought to have disappeared some 21,000–30,000 years ago, during the late Wisconsin glaciation. [ 27 ] The Bison latifrons (giant bison or longhorn bison) species was replaced by the smaller Bison antiquus . Bison antiquus appeared in the North American fossil record approximately 250,000 years ago. [ 28 ] Bison antiquus in turn evolved into the Bison occidentalis , then into the yet smaller Bison bison —the modern American bison—some 5,000 to 10,000 years ago. [ 29 ] [ 30 ] Some researchers consider Bison occidentalis to be a sub-species of Bison antiquus . [ 31 ] Pile of American bison skulls to be used for fertilizer in the mid-1870s During the population bottleneck, after the great slaughter of American bison during the 1800s, the number of bison remaining alive in North America declined to as low as 541. During that period, a handful of ranchers gathered remnants of the existing herds to save the species from extinction. These ranchers bred some of the bison with cattle in an effort to produce "cattleo". [ 32 ] Accidental crossings were also known to occur. Generally, male domestic bulls were crossed with buffalo cows, producing offspring of which only the females were fertile. The crossbred animals did not demonstrate any form of hybrid vigor, so the practice was abandoned. The proportion of cattle DNA that has been measured in introgressed individuals and bison herds today is typically quite low, ranging from 0.56 to 1.8%. [ 32 ] [ 33 ] In the United States, many ranchers are now utilizing DNA testing to cull the residual cattle genetics from their bison herds. The U.S. National Bison Association has adopted a code of ethics which prohibits its members from deliberately crossbreeding bison with any other species. Despite being the closest relatives of domestic cattle native to North America, bison were never domesticated by native Americans. Later attempts of domestication by Europeans prior to the 20th century met with limited success. Bison were described as having a "wild and ungovernable temper"; [ 34 ] they can jump 6 feet (1.8 m) vertically, [ 35 ] and run 35–40 mph (56–64 km/h) when agitated. This agility and speed, combined with their great size and weight, makes bison herds difficult to confine as they can easily escape or destroy most fencing systems, including most razor wire . There are approximately 500,000 bison in captive commercial populations, mostly plains bison, on about 4,000 privately owned ranches, and approximately 30,000 animals in environmental and government preserves. [ 36 ] According to the IUCN , there are only 15,000 animals that are considered wild bison in the natural range within North America, defined as free-ranging and not confined primarily by fencing. [ 37 ] American bison live in river valleys, and on prairies and plains. Typical habitat is open or semi-open grasslands, as well as sagebrush, semi-arid lands and scrublands. Some lightly wooded areas are also known historically to have supported bison. Bison will also graze in hilly or mountainous areas where the slopes are not steep. Though not particularly known as high altitude animals, bison in the Yellowstone Park bison herd are frequently found at elevations above 8,000 feet and the Henry Mountains bison herd is found on the plains around the Henry Mountains , Utah, as well as in mountain valleys of the Henry Mountains to an altitude of 10,000 feet. Bison are increasingly raised for meat and hides; the majority of American bison in the world are raised for human consumption. Bison meat is generally considered to taste very similar to good beef, but is lower in fat and cholesterol , yet higher in protein than beef, [ 38 ] a fact which has led to the development of beefalo , a fertile hybrid of bison and domestic cattle. In 2005, about 35,000 bison were processed for meat in the U.S., with the National Bison Association and USDA providing a "Certified American Buffalo" program with birth-to-consumer tracking of bison via RFID ear tags. There is even a market for kosher bison meat; these bison are slaughtered at one of the few kosher mammal slaughterhouses in the U.S., and the meat is then distributed nationwide. Recent genetic studies of privately owned herds of bison show that many of them include animals with genes from domestic cattle. [ 39 ] For example, the herd on Santa Catalina Island, California , isolated since 1924 after being brought there for a movie shoot, were found to have cattle introgression. [ 40 ] It is estimated that there are as few as 12,000 to 15,000 pure bison in the world. The numbers are uncertain because the tests used to date— mitochondrial DNA analysis—indicate only if the maternal line (back from mother to mother) ever included domesticated bovines and thus say nothing about possible male input in the process. It was found that most hybrids look exactly like purebred bison; therefore, appearance is not a good indicator of genetics. The size of the Canadian domesticated herd (genetic questions aside) grew dramatically through the 1990s and 2000s. The 2006 Census of Agriculture reported the Canadian herd at 2006 195,728 head, 34.9% increase since 2001. [ 41 ] Of this total, over 95% was located in Western Canada , and less than 5% in Eastern Canada . Specifically Alberta was the province with the largest herd, accounting for 49.7% of the herd and 45.8% of the farms. The next largest herds were in Saskatchewan (23.9%), Manitoba (10%), and British Columbia (6%). The main producing regions were in the northern parts of the Canadian prairies , specifically in the parkland belt , with the Peace River region (shared between Alberta and British Columbia) begin the most inmportant cluster, accounting for 14.4% of the national herd. [ 41 ] Canada also exports bison meat, totaling 2,075,253 kilograms (4,575,150 lb) in 2006. [ 42 ] A proposal known as Buffalo Commons has been suggested by a handful of academics and policymakers to restore large parts of the drier portion of the Great Plains to native prairie grazed by bison. [ 39 ] Proponents argue that current agricultural use of the shortgrass prairie is not sustainable , pointing to periodic disasters, including the Dust Bowl , and continuing significant human population loss over the last 60 years. However, this plan is opposed by some who live in the areas in question. [ citation needed ] American bison galloping. Photos by Eadweard Muybridge , first published in 1887 in Animal Locomotion . Bison are migratory and herd migrations can be directional as well as altitudinal in some areas. [ 43 ] [ 44 ] [ 45 ] Bison have usual daily movements between foraging sites during the summer. In a montane valley, bison have been recorded traveling, on average, 3.2 km a day. [ 45 ] The summer ranges of bison appear to be influenced by seasonal vegetation changes, interspersion and size of foraging sites, the rut and the number of biting insects. [ 43 ] The size of preserve and availability of water may also be a factor. [ 45 ] Bison are largely grazers, eating primarily grasses and sedges. On shortgrass pasture, bison predominately consume warm season grasses. [ 46 ] On mixed prairie, it appears that cool season grasses, including some sedges, compose 79–96% of their diet. [ 47 ] In montane and northern areas, sedges are selected throughout the year. [ 43 ] Bison also drink water or consume snow on a daily basis. [ 45 ] Female bison live in maternal herds which include other females and their offspring. Male offspring leave their maternal herd when around three years old and will either live alone or join other males in bachelor herds. Male and female herds usually do not mingle until the breeding season, which can occur from July through September. [ 48 ] However female herds may also contain a few older males. During the breeding season, dominant bulls maintain a small harem of females for mating. Individual bulls "tend" cows until allowed to mate, by following them around and chasing away rival males. The tending bull will shield the female's vision with his body so she will not see any other challenging males. A challenging bull may bellow or roar to get a female's attention and the tending bull has to bellow/roar back. [ 49 ] The most dominant bulls mate in the first 2–3 weeks of the season. [ 49 ] More subordinate bulls will mate with any remaining estrous cow that has not mated yet. Male bison play no part in raising the young. Bison herds have dominance hierarchies that exist for both males and females. A bison's dominance is related to its birth date. [ 50 ] Bison born earlier in the breeding season are more likely to be larger and more dominant as adults. [ 50 ] Thus bison are able to pass on their dominance to their offspring as dominant bison breed earlier in the season. In addition to dominance, the older bison of a generation also have a higher fertility rate than the younger ones. [ 50 ] Cows nurse their calves for at least 7 or 8 months but most calves seem to be weaned before the end of their first year. [ 45 ] Bison have been observed to display homosexual behaviors , males much more so than females. In the case of males, it is unlikely to be related to dominance but rather to social bonding or gaining sexual experience. [ 51 ] Bison mate in late spring and summer in more open plain areas. During fall and winter, bison tend to gather in more wooded areas. During this time, bison partake in horning behaviors. They will rub their horns against trees, young saplings and even utility poles. Aromatic trees like cedars and pine seem to be preferred. Horning appears to be associated with insect defense as it occurs most often in the fall when the insect population is at its highest. [ 52 ] Cedar and pines emit an aroma after bison horn them and this seems to be used as a deterrent for insects. [ 52 ] A bison wallow is a shallow depression in the soil, which is used either wet or dry. Bison roll in these depressions, covering themselves with dust or mud. Past explanations and current hypotheses suggested for wallowing behavior include grooming behavior associated with shedding, male-male interaction (typically rutting behavior), social behavior for group cohesion, play behavior, relief from skin irritation due to biting insects; reduction of ectoparasite ( tick and lice ) load; and thermoregulation . [ 53 ] While often secure from predation due to their size and strength, in some areas, bison are regularly preyed upon by wolves . Wolf predation typically peaks in late spring and early summer, with attacks usually being concentrated on cows and calves. Observations have shown that wolves more actively target herds with calves than those without. The length of a predation episode varies, ranging from a few minutes to over nine hours. [ 54 ] [ 55 ] Bison display five apparent defense strategies in protecting calves from wolves: running to a cow, running to a herd, running to the nearest bull, running in the front or center of a stampeding herd, and entering water bodies such as lakes or rivers. When fleeing wolves in open areas, cows with young calves take the lead, while bulls take to the rear of the herds, to guard the cows' escape. Bison typically ignore wolves not displaying hunting behavior. [ 56 ] Wolf packs specializing in bison tend to have a greater number of males, as their larger size compared to the females allows them to wrestle their prey to the ground more effectively. [ 57 ] Healthy, mature bulls in herds rarely fall victim to predators. The grizzly bear can also pose a threat to calves and sometimes old, injured or sick adult bison. Bison are among the most dangerous animals encountered by visitors to the various U.S. and Canadian national parks and will attack humans if provoked. They appear slow because of their lethargic movements but can easily outrun humans—bison have been observed running as fast as 40 miles per hour (64 km/h). Between 1980 and 1999, more than three times as many people in Yellowstone National Park were injured by bison than by bears. During this period, bison charged and injured 79 people, with injuries ranging from goring puncture wounds and broken bones to bruises and abrasions. Bears injured 24 people during the same time frame. Three people died from the injuries inflicted—one person by bison in 1983, and two people by bears in 1984 and 1986. [ 58 ] Buffalo hunting (hunting of the American bison) was an activity fundamental to the Plains Indian tribes of the United States, which was later adopted by American professional hunters, leading to the near-extinction of the species around the year 1890. It has since begun to recover. Year American bison (est) Before 1492 60,000,000 1890 750 2000 360,000 Range history of bison in North America Original distribution of plains bison and wood bison in North America. Holocene bison ( Bison occidentalis ) is an earlier form at the origin of plains bison and wood bison. Holocene bison Wood bison Plains bison Map of the extermination of the bison to 1889. This map based on William Temple Hornaday 's late-nineteenth-century research. Original range Range as of 1870 Range as of 1889 Distribution of public herds of plains bison and of free-ranging or captive breeding wood bison in North America as of 2003. Two of the major problems that bison face today are the genetic bottleneck and lack of genetic diversity that has been caused by the very small number of bison that survived their near extinction event. A second genetic problem is the entry of genes from domestic cattle into the bison population, through hybridization. [ 39 ] Officially, the "American buffalo" is classified by the United States government as a type of cattle, and the government allows private herds to be managed as such. This is a reflection of the characteristics that bison share with cattle. Though the American bison ( Bison bison ) is not only a separate species, but is usually regarded as being in a separate genus from domestic cattle ( Bos taurus ), they clearly have a lot of genetic compatibility and American bison can interbreed with cattle, although only the female offspring are fertile in the first generation. These female hybrids can be bred back to either bison or domestic bulls, resulting in either 1/4 or 3/4 bison young. Female offspring from this cross are also fertile, but males are not reliably fertile unless they are either 7 ⁄ 8 bison or 7 ⁄ 8 domestic. [ 59 ] Moreover, when they do interbreed, crossbreed animals in the first generation tend to look very much like purebred bison, so appearance is completely unreliable as a means of determining what is a purebred bison and what is a crossbred cow. Many ranchers have deliberately cross bred their cattle with bison, and it would also be expected that there could be some natural hybridization in areas where cattle and bison occur in the same range. Since cattle and bison eat similar food and tolerate similar conditions, they have often been in the same range together in the past, and opportunity for cross breeding may sometimes have been common. In recent decades tests were developed to determine the source of mitochondrial DNA in cattle and bison, and it was found that most private "buffalo" herds were actually cross bred with cattle, and even most state and federal buffalo herds had some cattle DNA. With the advent of nuclear microsatellite DNA testing, the number of herds known to contain cattle genes has increased. Though approximately 500,000 bison exist on private ranches and in public herds, some people estimate that perhaps only 15,000 to 25,000 of these bison are pure and are not actually bison-cattle hybrids. "DNA from domestic cattle ( Bos taurus ) has been detected in nearly all bison herds examined to date." [ 60 ] Significant public bison herds that do not appear to have hybridized domestic cattle genes are the Yellowstone Park bison herd , the Henry Mountains bison herd which was started with bison taken from Yellowstone Park, the Wind Cave bison herd and the Wood Buffalo National Park bison herd and subsidiary herds started from it, in Canada. A landmark study of bison genetics that was performed by James Derr of the Texas A&M University corroborated this. [ 61 ] The Derr study was undertaken in an attempt to determine what genetic problems bison might face as they repopulate former areas, and it noted that bison seem to be doing quite well, despite their apparent genetic bottleneck . One possible explanation for this might be the small amount of domestic cattle genes that are now in most bison populations, though this is not the only possible explanation for bison success. In the study cattle genes were also found in small amounts throughout most national, state and private herds. "The hybridization experiments conducted by some of the owners of the five foundation herds of the late 1800s, have left a legacy of a small amount of cattle genetics in many of our existing bison herds." He also said, "All of the state owned bison herds tested (except for possibly one) contain animals with domestic cattle mtDNA." [ 61 ] It appears that the one state herd that had no cattle genes was the Henry Mountains bison herd in the Henry Mountains of Utah . It is also notable that the Henry Mountain herd was started initially with transplanted animals from Yellowstone Park. However, the extension of this herd into the Book Cliffs of central Utah involved mixing the founders with additional bison from another source, so it is not known if the Book Cliffs extension of the herd is also free of cattle hybridization. A separate study by Wilson and Strobeck, published in Genome , was done to define the relationships between different herds of bison in the United States and Canada, and to determine whether the bison at Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada and the Yellowstone Park bison herd were possibly separate subspecies, and not plains bison. It was determined that the Wood Buffalo Park bison were actually cross breeds between plains bison and wood bison, but that their predominant genetic makeup was truly that of the expected "wood buffalo". [ 8 ] However, the Yellowstone Park bison herd were pure plains bison, and not any of the other previously suggested subspecies. Another interesting finding was that the bison in the Antelope Island bison herd in Utah appeared to be more distantly related to other plains bison in general than any other plains bison group that was tested, though this might be due to genetic drift caused by the small size of only 12 individuals in the founder population. A side finding of this was that the Antelope Island bison herd appears to be most closely related to the Wood Buffalo National Park bison herd, though the Antelope Island bison are actually plains bison. The first thoroughfares of North America, except for the time-obliterated paths of mastodon or muskox and the routes of the Mound Builders , were the traces made by bison and deer in seasonal migration and between feeding grounds and salt licks . Many of these routes, hammered by countless hoofs instinctively following watersheds and the crests of ridges in avoidance of lower places' summer muck and winter snowdrifts, were followed by the Indians as courses to hunting grounds and as warriors' paths. They were invaluable to explorers and were adopted by pioneers . Among Native American tribes, especially the Plains Indians, the Bison was considered a sacred animal and religious symbol. According to University of Montana anthropology and Native American studies professor S. Neyooxet Greymorning, "The creation stories of where buffalo came from put them in a very spiritual place among many tribes. The buffalo crossed many different areas and functions, and it was utilized in many ways. It was used in ceremonies, as well as to make tipi covers that provided homes for people, utensils, shields, weapons and parts were used for sewing with the sinew." [ 63 ] The Sioux consider the birth of a White Buffalo to be the returning of White Buffalo Calf Woman , their primary cultural prophet and the bringer of their "Seven Sacred Rites". Among the Mandan and Hidatsa , the White Buffalo Cow Society was the most sacred of societies for women. First postage stamp with image of bison was issued US in 1898—4¢ "Indian Hunting Buffalo". Part of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition commemorative series. The American bison is often used in North America in official seals, flags, and logos. In the United States, the American bison is a popular symbol in the Great Plains states. Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming have adopted the animal as their official state mammal , and many sports teams have chosen the bison as their mascot. In Canada, the bison is the official animal of the province of Manitoba and appears on the Manitoba flag. It is also used in the official coat of arms of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police . Several American coins feature the bison, most famously on the reverse side of the " buffalo nickel " from 1913 to 1938. In 2005, the United States Mint coined a nickel with a new depiction of the bison as part of its "Westward Journey" series. The Kansas and North Dakota state quarters, part of the " 50 State Quarter " series, each feature bison. The Kansas state quarter has only the bison and does not feature any writing, while the North Dakota state quarter has two bison. The Yellowstone National Park Quarter also features a bison standing next to a geyser. Other institutions which have adopted the bison as a symbol or mascot include:


IT is a load of old poo - it's official That quote is basically a polite way of saying IT and poo are pretty much the same thing, so thanks to Chandrakant D. Patel, the director of HP's sustainable information technology laboratory for his contribution to the great "It is a load of old s**t" debate, in a report in the New York Times . Patel was, apparently, talking about a report from HP that suggests cow manure could soon power datacentres. According to HP, a dairy farmer could rent out land, create a poo-to-fuel converter, and sell the energy to datacentre operators located nearby, and make a return on their investment within two years. "The average cow makes enough waste per day to power a 100-watt light bulb," Michael Kanellos, editor in chief at Greentech Media, told the New York Times . Staff in large enough IT departments might want to consider relocating the office loo next to the datacentre room. Who knows, you might even earn a bonus for reducing energy costs.


Sydney's Battleships -- Stream A Couple Of Videos by New Music Michael on November 16 2012 Working on some non-music tasks last night at the computer, and at the same time trying to get through some of the listening required by my overflowing inbox. Trying to keep it under control. It's not easy. But this band made it easier, because oh my god they're good. From Sydney, Australia. Speaking of which, I wonder if my friend Jennifer is still there. I should check in with her. Or if she's reading this she should email me. At any rate, Battleships are an indie rock / folk quartet that are captivating. Alluring. Mellow but with a grab-you-by-throat-throw-you-down-to-the-ground aesthetic. You can check out a couple of videos, the one above is "In Retrospect", and the one below is "Your Words". Their newest 7" has just been released featuring the track "To You". It's got a total of seven tracks on it, including of course the tracks from the two videos. It just dropped last week (I checked on iTunes first, it's definitely there).


Yeah, i'd echo that. The Snake is a great album. I don't rate Crock of Gold very highly though. There are some fantastic tracks on it such as St.John of Gods and Mother Mo Croi but i find it too sanatised and country for my personal taste, he seemed to have lost some of his bite (excuse the pun). The Snake is a great rock & roll album. The first two tracks on full blast can't be beaten Sadly there's not that much of Shane's solo stuff to be discovered, but as already mentioned, Snake and Crock of Gold are (in my humble opinion) highly brilliant. Since I'm a big country fan as well, I welcome the country influence on the latter. If you just want to start with a few tracks instead of full albums, here's what I'd recommend: St. John of Gods Lonesome Highway Snake with Eyes of Garnet The Song with No Name More Pricks Than Kicks Victoria Nancy Whiskey bla bla bla...btw: his live album with the Popes ( Across the Broad Atlantic ) is brilliant as well. It features some really good live versions of Pogues tracks as well. in_the_morning wrote: Sadly there's not that much of Shane's solo stuff to be discovered, but as already mentioned, Snake and Crock of Gold are (in my humble opinion) highly brilliant. Since I'm a big country fan as well, I welcome the country influence on the latter. If you just want to start with a few tracks instead of full albums, here's what I'd recommend: St. John of Gods Lonesome Highway Snake with Eyes of Garnet The Song with No Name More Pricks Than Kicks Victoria Nancy Whiskey bla bla bla...btw: his live album with the Popes ( Across the Broad Atlantic ) is brilliant as well. It features some really good live versions of Pogues tracks as well. Across the Broad Atlantic is a lovely little live album however I would say the pogues numbers are probably the weakest on it. They just don't pack the same punch if that makes sense. Further evidence that the pogues are not just Shane's backing band. Their music makes some already brilliant lyrics into powerful songs. in_the_morning wrote: Sadly there's not that much of Shane's solo stuff to be discovered, but as already mentioned, Snake and Crock of Gold are (in my humble opinion) highly brilliant. Since I'm a big country fan as well, I welcome the country influence on the latter. If you just want to start with a few tracks instead of full albums, here's what I'd recommend: St. John of Gods Lonesome Highway Snake with Eyes of Garnet The Song with No Name More Pricks Than Kicks Victoria Nancy Whiskey bla bla bla...btw: his live album with the Popes ( Across the Broad Atlantic ) is brilliant as well. It features some really good live versions of Pogues tracks as well. Across the Broad Atlantic is a lovely little live album however I would say the pogues numbers are probably the weakest on it. They just don't pack the same punch if that makes sense. Further evidence that the pogues are not just Shane's backing band. Their music makes some already brilliant lyrics into powerful songs. agree! What I meant was that some of the Pogues tracks on Across the Broad Atlantic do have a refreshing and good sound in their own rights (for example "Streams of Whiskey" or "Rainy Night" or "Fairytale"), however, compared to the Pogues' musicianship (although comparing is a bit of a silly thing to do) they are not that great anymore. You just have to listen to Across the Broad Atlantic and then followed by Pogues at Brixton 2001 , so yes, you are right. Nevertheless, Shane's live album is great, some very raw and powerful renditions on it. Fr. McGreer wrote: The Snake is a great rock & roll album. The first two tracks on full blast can't be beaten Agreed. But if you can choose, get the original version. It was later re-released with a different track order, and padded out with duets with Sinead O'Connor & Marie Brennan and another couple of tracks. All may or may not be good songs depending what you like, but I thought it killed the flow of the "album" and made it a compilation instead. Those duets just don't mesh! Does anybody else think it's funny that Shane & The Popes released two studio albums AND a two-disc "best of"? I one-disc collection of non-album tracks should have been plenty, i'd think. And for the record, I quite like both albums, and a number of the b-sides. In these days of downloading for free, you should check it all out. Some of the live stuff is laughably terrible, but some of it surprisingly good. Fr. McGreer wrote: The Snake is a great rock & roll album. The first two tracks on full blast can't be beaten Agreed. But if you can choose, get the original version. It was later re-released with a different track order, and padded out with duets with Sinead O'Connor & Marie Brennan and another couple of tracks. All may or may not be good songs depending what you like, but I thought it killed the flow of the "album" and made it a compilation instead. Those duets just don't mesh! Does anybody else think it's funny that Shane & The Popes released two studio albums AND a two-disc "best of"? I one-disc collection of non-album tracks should have been plenty, i'd think. And for the record, I quite like both albums, and a number of the b-sides. In these days of downloading for free, you should check it all out. Some of the live stuff is laughably terrible, but some of it surprisingly good. Wasn't that called the rare old stuff or something? I think I have it somewhere Fr. McGreer wrote: The Snake is a great rock & roll album. The first two tracks on full blast can't be beaten Agreed. But if you can choose, get the original version. It was later re-released with a different track order....... Definately. Nancy Whiskey is a great track but does not fit in straight after Church of the Holy Spook. I do like the duets, especially the version of Haunted. Sinead is just amazing on that track and struggle to choose a favourite between all the versions released (box set included).


Top in Technology An indigenous language chat application for mobile devices has created a shimmer of hope for the survival of aboriginal culture across the province and country. FirstVoices Chat is an iPhone application with over 100 keyboards for indigenous languages compatible with Facebook Chat and Google Talk. [...] Top Feature As athletes and coaches we spend a lot of time working on physical, technical and strategic skills in our particular sport. But is that enough? What about the mental aspect of the game? How important is it for athletes to prepare their psychological mindset? [...] We Need to Talk About Kevin is tedious psychological horror These two put a lot of work into developing a convincing family scowl. Sometimes directors and actors work at cross purposes, causing a film to be disjointed and aimless, regardless of a clever scene here or a good performance there. Unfortunately, such cross purposes plague We Need to Talk About Kevin and are likely responsible for much of its failure as a film. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a celebrated psychological horror drama that follows Eva Khatachadourian, a reluctant mother, as she deals with her demon-seed son Kevin and the aftermath of his horrific actions at school. The film has no fixed timeline and jumps around to moments before and after Kevin's crimes with no discernible pattern. The sequencing of events merely reflects Eva's fragile mental state. She is as much consumed by the horrors of Kevin's childhood and her failure as a mother in the past as she is by the aftermath of his crimes she deals with in the present. Tilda Swinton, the pale, androgynous actress known for her roles in The Chronicles of Narnia and Michael Clayton , plays Eva. Swinton is a fascinating actress; she carries this film and gives an impressive performance despite its failings. This is because We Need to Talk About Kevin is most interesting in its exploration of Eva's depression and hatred for her child, Kevin. Eva never wanted to have a child and from the early moments when baby Kevin refuses to stop crying, we realize she hates the kid. In one hilarious scene, Eva is out with Kevin in his stroller and takes a break beside a jackhammer in the streets of New York City, basking in the machine's loud noise as it drowns out her child's wails. The scene is extremely honest, but little touches like this are few and far between and can't save the film from its glaring tonal mistakes. One major error is that director Lynne Ramsay seems to think this is a horror film. She makes the film impressionistic and fills it with stylistic flourishes. It's as if she intends to pummel the audience into terror through exaggeration and the relentlessly depressing tone of everything occurring onscreen. While Tilda Swinton plays the character as though she's in a psychological drama about a mother dealing with the devastating consequences of her son's horrific actions, Ramsay does the subject matter an injustice and mistakenly gives it a horror genre treatment. Swinton mines a fascinating situation and explores the question of whether parents have any responsibility in the actions of their children. Unfortunately, Ramsay doesn't seem at all interested in actually exploring this question. She's too interested in her stylistic touches. For example, everything in the film is splattered with red -- red blood, red sandwich jelly, red paint, red tomatoes, red lamps, red chairs, red cans in a grocery store. Everywhere Eva goes, she is surrounded by red. This is meant as a way to skewer the perception of the events; we are supposed to be seeing everything as Eva sees it, and because she is fixated on the blood her son spilled, everything gets a red tinge. However, instead of its desired effect, the oversaturation of red just becomes a running gag. Ramsay intended horror and instead produced camp. In another scene, Eva is terrorized by children in Halloween costumes on her way home from work, and all the while Buddy Holly's "Everyday" plays on the car radio. This is meant to be terrifying but is instead laughable. In almost every scene involving other people, the townsfolk just stare at Eva as though they are characters out of Village of the Damned . There's nothing wrong with these tropes in genre movies, but not in this context. In essence, Ramsay is playing camp horror seriously and the result is a film that is repetitive and preposterous. Perhaps the film's biggest sin is that Kevin is a B-movie villain. Instead of a complex portrait of a sociopathic child, he is merely a demon seed. He is evil from the moment he is born and no action of his makes us question that designation. This would be fine for a genre film, but for something exploring such challenging subject matter, it is reductive and a little offensive, as if it were explaining away Columbine by saying the killers were merely "bad seeds." Exploring whether Eva is at all responsible for Kevin's development becomes a lost cause. There was never any chance for Eva to teach Kevin to be good since he's pure evil from the get-go, and her obsessing over her own responsibility is fruitless. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a film that had potential, but the dissonance between the subject matter and the execution leads to a disastrous outcome. There is nothing wrong with making a film exploring an absolutely evil individual, but don't use that individual to explain away complex and challenging subject matter that is rooted in real life. The evil acts that occur in real life can never be so easily explained away by the conventions of the horror movie genre.


October 20, 2012 summiting all over the place wow! sewing summit was insane. and lovely. and overwhelming. i met somewhere around a zillion awesome people, took some classes, ate a lot, talked about embroidery, listened to lectures, and even managed to fit in a little sleep. and wouldn't you know... i captured most of it on instagram (@imaginegnats). here are my recommendations for successful summiting... ack very late the night before you leave. shove everything handmade that you own in your suitcase, as well as lots of embroidery hoops. ok, the hoops are only necessary if your silly self volunteered  to teach two impromptu embroidery classes while summiting. (more on that soon) leave your house early enough in the morning that you can't even find coffee until you get to the airport, book a flight with a very long layover at an airport with questionable wifi, and when you can't stop sniffling (stupid allergies), buy extra tissues and remember that chocolate solves anything. what else? you might want to remember to take a pic of yourself with your BSF, Allegory of {sew} Allegorical ... you know, that person that kept you sane when all of the sewing and people and excitement got to be a bit much. and eventually you should troll the internet for pictures on others' summit posts that you want to steal reappropriate for your own use. Wow - what a fabulous time you have had. How wonderful to meet in person those you have cyber talked to. I'm sooo envious! Glad you managed to fit in some stitching, sewing and other crafty stuff. Xx. K LinkWithin search Loading... all *free downloads* are original graphics of imagine gnats. you may print, share, and/or alter for your personal use only; you may not use graphics for commercial purposes. you are welcome to share links to any tutorials, patterns, or inspirations you find here. when linking to or sharing any photos or graphics of imagine gnats or imaginegnats.com, kindly link back to the original source or list appropriate credit. any patterns or tutorials should be shared as links back to original post.


JR “The Wrinkles of the City” Los Angeles Behind-the-Scenes Earlier this year, acclaimed street artist JR canvassed Los Angeles with large-scale, black and white portraits taken in low-income urban areas. Adding “wrinkles” in the smooth veneer of LA’s glamorous facade, the recent TED award-winner’s efforts were part of “The Wrinkles of the City,” an initiative to explore and introduce the oft-forgotten individuals and stories that inhabit great cities. Arrested Motion photographer and filmmaker Carlos Gonzalez of theonepointeight most recently released a video for MOCAtv, a short feature consisting of behind-the-scenes footage from the experience. Watch the film above and let us know your thoughts.