Thursday, May 31, 2012

South Africa's Mandela celebrates party's 100th

This video image taken from SABC television shows South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela as he receiving a torch to celebrate the African National Congress' centenary from ANC chairperson Baleka Mbete, unseen, in Mandela's home village Qunu in rural eastern South Africa Wednesday May 30, 2012. Nelson Mandela's African National Congress brought its centenary celebrations to his home village in rural eastern South Africa. (AP Photo/SABC via AP video) SOUTH AFRICA OUT

This video image taken from SABC television shows South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela as he receiving a torch to celebrate the African National Congress' centenary from ANC chairperson Baleka Mbete, unseen, in Mandela's home village Qunu in rural eastern South Africa Wednesday May 30, 2012. Nelson Mandela's African National Congress brought its centenary celebrations to his home village in rural eastern South Africa. (AP Photo/SABC via AP video) SOUTH AFRICA OUT

This video image taken from SABC television shows South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela, left, receiving a torch to celebrate the African National Congress' centenary from ANC chairperson Baleka Mbete, right, in Mandela's home village Qunu in rural eastern South Africa Wednesday May 30, 2012. Nelson Mandela's African National Congress brought its centenary celebrations to his home village in rural eastern South Africa. (AP Photo/SABC via AP video) SOUTH AFRICA OUT

This video image taken from SABC television shows South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela, left, receiving a torch to celebrate the African National Congress' centenary from ANC chairperson Baleka Mbete in Mandela's home village Qunu in rural eastern South Africa Wednesday May 30, 2012. Nelson Mandela's African National Congress brought its centenary celebrations to his home village in rural eastern South Africa. (AP Photo/SABC via AP video) SOUTH AFRICA OUT

This video image taken from SABC television shows South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela, left, receiving a torch to celebrate the African National Congress' centenary from ANC chairperson Baleka Mbete in Mandela's home village Qunu in rural eastern South Africa Wednesday May 30, 2012. Nelson Mandela's African National Congress brought its centenary celebrations to his home village in rural eastern South Africa. (AP Photo/SABC via AP video) SOUTH AFRICA OUT

(AP) ? Nelson Mandela's African National Congress brought its centenary celebrations to his home village in rural eastern South Africa Wednesday.

State television released images of a delegation led by the governing party's national chairperson, Baleka Mbete, visiting the anti-apartheid icon's Qunu home with a barrel-sized replica of the torch lit during the party's 100th anniversary celebrations earlier this year. Mandela, surrounded by grandchildren and his wife, spoke briefly as he sat in an armchair, telling Mbete he was happy to see her.

Mbete joked that she wasn't sure what was warming her more, being near Mandela or being near the lit torch. She added that he should enjoy his retirement, but "we want you to know that we miss you all the time."

Mandela, who makes few public appearances, arrived in Qunu on Tuesday from Johannesburg, where he also has a home. Next month is his 94th birthday, and he often celebrates birthdays in the village where he grew up.

In February, Mandela was hospitalized in Johannesburg for a test to determine the cause of an undisclosed stomach ailment.

The Nobel peace laureate spent 27 years in prison for fighting racist rule. He became South Africa's first black president in 1994 and served one five-year term.

Associated Press

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Relationship Between Students and Teachers | Reference and ...

This instinctive resistance can take many forms, the refusal to do what is necessary, if the resistance, disobedience, insubordination or notified and the lack of motivation. Manifest, the counter may experience a delay or the opposite of what is expected. This can be expressed as a passive, negative, or belligerence and is a universal phenomenon at certain stage of development that has led to the term ?adolescent rebellion.?

Consider a rebellious teenager. I think that to ignore most theories about stress and stress of growing up on the most important question. The reason that the relationship of hostility have focused on physical changes, emerging sexuality, the new demands of society and the struggle between a child and into adulthood, delayed development of the neocortex of the brain, and other such advice. It is true that the young people on their hormonal changes, vulnerable, emotionally unstable, unpredictable, egotistical, and hypersensitivity-based. But on closer examination, we conclude that the most important factor in the life of a difficult time for young people and teachers in particular, the struggle for power.

Although various manifestations, the underlying dynamics are simple: to force the reaction was defensive. On a side note, the code (but not obliged) to a totally relaxed completely without stress teaching model treats all feelings are dealt with. The reason for this is that the student is never seen or do you regret for the defense called their behavior because of the level of development, not the behavior of the students directly.

If the count is normal for infants, children and students of all ages, but also in adults. This phenomenon explains why it is a busy young man with the taboo and why they sometimes have the opposite of what is expected. Adults and teachers will misinterpret will meet with young people as a strong expression, as manipulative as the attempt to impose its will, or if an adult accidentally press the button. An attempt to dynamically handle the traditional coercive techniques is a recipe for disaster, because no one likes a surge in young people.

Counter is an antidote is not obliged to prevent the driving experience. The key is the influence, not to focus in line. The art of influence is to encourage people to influence them. The teacher who wants to dominate the influence of non-greater success, less stress and more fun in their relationships with their students.

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Activist Post: Putting a Priority on Health and Medical Preparedness

Gaye Levy, Contributor
Activist Post

A little over a year ago, I wrote about the importance of good health and good physical fitness to long term survival.? After huffing and puffing during a recent hike, I realized that the time had come to reassess my personal health and fitness goals and to bone up on personal medical preparedness.

Somewhat egging me on was a recent reminder from Dr. Bones (aka Dr. Bones at the Doom and Bloom Nation and co-author with Nurse Amy of The Doom and Bloom Survival Medicine Handbook), that this is one area of survival prepping that tends to fall to the bottom of the priority list.

But surely, we are remiss if we overlook the positive aspects good health and both physical and mental fitness during times of stress. I don?t know about you, but for me the ultimate stress would be a major natural or man-made catastrophe.

Think about it. You might have six months of food, six months of water, a sustainable food garden, a fully stocked first aid kit, tools, supplies and generators that would allow you to live off the grid if the SHTF.? But what if you had to flee? What if you had to grab your boots, bags and backpacks and really get the heck out of dodge? Could you make it? How far could you walk in dangerous weather conditions or uncertain terrain? And the stress. Could you cope?

The Personal Fitness Inventory

These are all important questions that might be answered by taking a personal health and fitness inventory by asking the following questions:


Health:? What the state of your general health?? Do you take a lot of prescription drugs?? Is your weight in proportion to your height?? Do you check your blood pressure regularly and do you see a dentist at least once a year for a general checkup and cleaning?

Fitness:? Do you exercise regularly?? How far can you walk briskly without getting winded?

Mental Balance:? Are you happy?? Can you cope with the stresses of daily life?? Do you consider yourself mentally ?balanced??

It is my belief that these three survival tools (health, fitness and mental balance) work together so that improvement in one area should help the other two.? Want some recommendations?

  1. If you are overweight or have a curable health condition, what are you waiting for? Now is the time to start that diet, fix that bum knee, and yes, get those teeth taken care of. Stock up on some supplements (a multivitamin, calcium, magnesium, fish oil) and don?t forget to take them. Even if you don?t have health insurance, shop around for some low cost clinics and make the investment in your health.
  2. I believe that the best piece of fitness equipment is what nature gave us, our own two feet. That means that with comfortable clothes, some hiking shoes or sneakers and the will to move, we can get in shape pronto. All that is required is a bit of time, some place to go, and if you are so inclined, an mp3 player with music or an audio book.
  3. Mental balance is a toughie because what works for one, may not work for someone else. The Mayo Clinic says that the effects of stress on the body include:
Evaluate the stresses in your life and work on the one or two items over which you have some control.? For example, if the clutter in your home is driving you nuts, take an hour a day for the next week to de-clutter your living space.? When that it done, tackle the next item.? The key is to set aside and forget about those items you cannot control ? you will only frustrate yourself and set yourself up for failure.
It always surprises me how great a difference even the smallest change can make to one?s well-being.
Without being overly simplistic, working on these three aspects of health preparedness will go a long way toward seeing us through a disaster, a personal or economic crises or even when the SHTF.? But there is more to it than simply good health.?

Medical Preparedness ? An Open Letter to Preppers

Remember I mentioned Dr. Bones?? Well Dr. Bones? (who along with Nurse Amy are, in my opinion, the go-to source for learning the skills needed to get through almost every emergency medical situation) has provided me with an Open Letter to Preppers regarding the importance of medical preparedness.? (And not to worry, I will give you a link so you can download a copy to share with your family, neighbors and friends).

Hey Prepper Nation,
After gathering food and building a shelter, many people in the preparedness community consider personal and home defense to be the next priority in the event of a societal collapse.? Certainly, defending oneself is important, but have you thought about defending your health?
In a situation where power might be down and normal methods of filtering water and cleaning food don?t exist, your health is as much under attack as the survivors in the latest zombie apocalypse movie.? Infectious diseases will be rampant in a situation where it will be a challenge to maintain sanitary conditions.? Simple chores, such as chopping wood, commonly lead to cuts that could get infected. These minor issues, so easily treated by modern medical science, can easily become life-threatening if left untreated in a collapse scenario.
Don?t you owe it to yourself and your family to devote some time and effort to obtain medical knowledge and supplies?? The difficulties involved in a grid-down situation will surely put you at risk for sickness or injury. It?s important to seek education so that you can treat infectious disease and the other ailments that we?ll see.? There will likely be a lot more diarrheal disease than gunfights at the OK corral.? History teaches us that, in the Civil War, there were a lot more deaths from dysentery than there were from bullets.?
Some say 'Beans, Bullets and Band-Aids', but I say 'Beans and Band-Aids, then Bullets'.? I suppose, as a physician, that?s not too surprising.
If you make the commitment to learn how to treat medical issues and to store medical supplies, you?re taking a genuine first step towards assuring your family?s survival in dark times.? The medical supplies will always be there if the unforeseen happens, and the knowledge you gain will be there for the rest of your life.? Many medical supplies have long shelf lives; Their longevity will one of the factors that will give you confidence when moving forward.
It?s important to know some illnesses will be difficult to treat if modern medical facilities aren?t available.? It will be hard to do much about those clogged coronary arteries; there won?t be many cardiac bypasses performed.? However, by eating healthily and getting good nutrition, you will give yourself the best chance to minimize some major medical issues.? In a collapse situation, an ounce of prevention is worth, not a pound, but a ton of cure.? Start off healthy and you?ll have the best chance to stay healthy.
When I say to obtain medical knowledge, I am also encouraging you to learn about natural remedies and alternative therapies that may have some benefit for your particular medical problem.? Essential oils, herbal remedies, and other time-honored methods of healing should not be overlooked as you put together your medical supplies.? I cannot vouch for the effectiveness of every claim that one thing or another will cure what ails you; suffice it to say,? that our family has an extensive medicinal garden and that it might be a good idea for your family to have one, also.? Many herbs that have medicinal properties grow like weeds, so a green thumb is not required to grow them.? Many of them do not even require full sun to thrive.? Even the White House garden has a collection of these beneficial plants.
I?m not asking you to do anything that your great-grandparents didn?t do as part of their strategy to succeed in life.? In a collapse situation we?ll be thrown back, in a way, to that era.? We should learn some lessons from the methods they used to stay healthy.? Those homespun skills will give you a head start to being an effective medic for your family.
The non-prepper members of my family wonder why I spend all my time trying to prepare people medically for a collapse situation.? They tell me that I can?t turn everyone into doctors, so why I should try??? Am I trying to turn you all into doctors?? No, there?s too much to learn in one lifetime; even as a physician, I often come across things I?m not sure about.? That?s what medical books are for, so make sure that you put together a library. You can refer to them when you need to, just as I do.?
I AM trying to turn you into something, however: I?m trying to make you a better medical asset to your family and/or survival community than you were before.? If you can learn how to treat common illnesses and injuries in times of trouble, I will have succeeded in my mission.
Dr. Bones
Good advice and a reminder to all of us that our work is never done.? We must continue to educate ourselves and continue to acquire skills so that we can truly be an asset rather than a burden to our survival community.? And to that end, here is a download link so you can share this message: Medical Preparedness: An Open Letter to Preppers and their Families and Friends.

The Final Word

Surviving the unthinkable is something I hope we will never have to do. But if the worst happens, I want to be in top shape both mentally and physically. This is not rocket science. It is simply a commonsense solution to some universal problems we Americans have when it comes to taking care of ourselves.

Read other articles by Gaye Levy here.

Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!

Gaye Levy, the SurvivalWoman, grew up and attended school in the Greater Seattle area. After spending many years as an executive in the software industry, she started a specialized accounting practice offering contract CFO work to emerging high tech and service industries. She has now abandoned city life and moved to a serenely beautiful rural area on an island in NW Washington State. She lives and teaches the principles of a sustainable, self-reliant and stylish lifestyle through emergency preparation and disaster planning through her website at BackdoorSurvival.com. SurvivalWoman speaks her mind and delivers her message with optimism and grace, regardless of mayhem swirling around us.

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Acne treatment that actually works - Health and Fitness - TypePad

acne treatment that actually worksAntibiotics also kill the good bacteria in your stomach which help with the fight against acne. acne treatment that actually works Modern Skin Care Options Acne Laser Removal Having acne trouble is a major concern for many and appears to be a growing trend in the medical skin care world. It is encouraging for acne sufferers to know that scientific research is being conducted every day on acne prevention and control. For highly resistant acne, Baby Quasar is an efficient alternative. In the beginning you may find that your acne help is getting worse. Teenagers are particularly vulnerable to this attack on their self- confidence and can even trigger withdraw and depression, along with feelings of anger and frustration. Don? t pick at your acne does simply because it actually can result in extra irritation, bleeding, and increase your potential for creating scarring damage that acne treatment that actually works is usually permanent. Some Back that Acne Causes Acne does not only occur on someone? s face; it appears all over people? s bodies. Reasons Why the T- Zone Is A Hot Spot For Acne Breakouts Yes, the T- Zone is the area of the face where acne commonly appears. So you should take extra precautionary measures to keep it glowing and breathing all the time. Contrary to what you might believe, some of them are not going to be effective or will be limited in efficiency. The flawless digestion can give you healthy regular life. Little side effects are a big benefit: Over the years herbal acne treatment is gaining in popularity. It encompasses many treatments, substances and techniques. Shalitaetalhavealsoshownasignificant anti inflammtory effectof the420 nmlight. Apart from this, you should consult with your doctor regarding your personal biological matters ( if any) and circumstances, so that this history will be helpful for the doctor to assess the proper measures. Turmeric: This is a beneficial for skin conditions. Having a spiritual life means how your general attitude in meeting everyday challenges of life makes you feel. 1. You may think that these steps are quite simple to pursue but for some people, they merely take these suggestions for granted when thinking of ways on how to stop acne. Overwashing your face can cause the skin to become too dry and you could age prematurely. If you take prescribed drugs, most likely the side effects will be more severe. Cure Acne Fast At Home Acne can affect you regardless of your age or acne gender. Finally, the repairing lotion soothes the skin, provides moisture and treats the pores with micro formulated benzoyl peroxide to protect the skin against future breakouts. His name is Mike Walden. Whenever they can? t sustain the pace, the skin? s pores perform the function. For this reason there is a huge amount of information on the internet about this condition. Though, these side effects would not does sunlight help acne appear treatment to be serious, they can cause damage to your skin in the long term. The face, back, acne chest, and shoulders contain a large concentration of these glands. Be sure to take a high quality multi vitamin- Often , acne is a works sign that you need more in your body in the way of nutrition. Acne can be solved ? you simply need to ensure that sunlight you treat the underlying sources! And have a full 8 hours of sleep.

For further information and advice on back acne treatment, please visit my website Back Acne- Get to Know How to the Get Rid of What Causes Oily Skin? In spite of various help available treatments for acne, there are many patients who fail to respond adequately or who Programs that suggest mega doses of up to 10 grams or more of acne facial B5 each day may be unnecessary. To be honest, Sulfur is a powerful cleansing agent; however, its effectiveness in clearing acne has not been established. And here? s what you can do about You need to develop some good habits & take proper care of the skin using organic & natural skincare products. Like all skin problems,

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Sales contracts for US homes dropped in April

In this Saturday, March 17, 2012, photo, ann unidentified woman carries a cat in a carrier pat a pending sale sign outside a home on the market in south Denver. A gauge of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes fell in April from nearly a two-year high in the previous month. The decline was the biggest in a year, but sales are still well ahead of last year's level for the same month, suggesting the housing market is improving slowly. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

In this Saturday, March 17, 2012, photo, ann unidentified woman carries a cat in a carrier pat a pending sale sign outside a home on the market in south Denver. A gauge of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes fell in April from nearly a two-year high in the previous month. The decline was the biggest in a year, but sales are still well ahead of last year's level for the same month, suggesting the housing market is improving slowly. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

In this Saturday, March 17, 2012, photo, an unidentified woman passes by a pending sale sign outside home on the market in south Denver. A gauge of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes fell in April from nearly a two-year high in the previous month. The decline was the biggest in a year, but sales are still well ahead of last year's level for the same month, suggesting the housing market is improving slowly. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

(AP) ? A gauge of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes fell in April from nearly a two-year high in the previous month.

The decline was the biggest in a year. Still, sales are well ahead of last year's level for the same month, suggesting the housing market is improving slowly.

The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that its index of sales agreements dropped to 95.5, down from March's reading of 101.1.

A reading of 100 is considered healthy. One year ago, the level was 83.5.

Contract signings typically indicate where the housing market is headed. There's a one- to two-month lag between a signed contract and a completed deal.

The decline could be a sign that a milder winter accelerated some home sales that normally take place in the spring.

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said pending home sales rose in the first quarter of the year at a 28 percent annualized rate. Most economists were expecting a decline in April.

"The decline is bigger than we expected, but the underlying upward trend is still intact," Shepherdson said.

Contract signings rose 0.9 percent in the Northeast in April from March. But they fell in the other three regions. The biggest decline was in the West, where signings fell 12 percent. Signings dropped 6.8 percent in the South and 0.3 percent in the Midwest. Still, all four regions reported higher sales activity last month than in April 2011.

The March national reading was the highest since April 2010, the final month that Americans could qualify for a federal home-buying tax credit.

That helped drive completed sales of both previously occupied homes and new homes in April near two-year highs.

Home prices rose in March from February in most major U.S. cities for the first time in seven months, according to the Standard and Poor's/Case-Shiller index.

While the nation's weaker cities pushed the overall price index down to its lowest level since the housing bubble, price declines have slowed nationally and prices rose in 12 of 20 major markets.

Modest sales and rising prices add to other encouraging signs for the housing market, which has mostly slumped since the bubble burst five years ago.

Builders are breaking ground on more homes and requesting more permits to build single-family homes later this year.

Long-term mortgage rates have never been lower. The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 3.78 percent last week, the lowest since long-term rates began in the 1950s.

Still, the pace of home sales remains well below healthy levels. Economists say it could be years before the market is fully healed.

Many people are having difficulty qualifying for loans. Or they can't afford larger down payments required by banks. Some would-be buyers are holding off because they fear prices could keep falling.

A better job market has made more people at least open to buying. Employers have added 1 million jobs in the past five months, though the gains slowed in April and March. The unemployment has dropped a full percentage point since August, from 9.1 percent to 8.1 percent in April.

Economists estimate that employers will have added 160,000 jobs this month. The government will issue the May jobs report on Friday.

Associated Press

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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Designer shoes ? hogan shoes retail merchants ? Article Directory ...

Designer shoes ? hogan footwear retail stores

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Hogan footwear retail market is dynamic, as they come, you?ll want to have a simple comprehending of how buyers make a decision to order your product. Like what has been mentioned earlier, pricing is very essential, it?ll either pull your buyers to you, or to force them aside from the competitors.

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hogan shoes keep have to be to fit your customer?s environment-based. Know all around you what you want, after which let them eat these details is all require a bit bit far more. Even though these items are totally important, you should not neglect among the main factors that figure out precisely what is hot and what exactly is not within the system hogan footwear industry fashion trends. To become positive, to keep up with style brand hogan shoes shop in Paris or New York.

Try will be the insight of the recent industry trends, and generate the suitable adjustments. I never stated there would be extremely simple to create their own brand names hogan shoes sale footwear store. It?s achievable, since it?s comfy, trendy layout.

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What Will Facebook?s Perfect Storm Of An IPO Leave Behind?

calming-manatee-2The Facebook IPO was supposed to be Silicon Valley's shining moment.?It's the book-end for the decade of recovery that followed the first wave of consumer Internet companies. It was the debutante ball for the next great Silicon Valley company, the one with the most potential to last a generation or longer. Instead, it's turned into a public relations disaster. If we look a little more closely though, the Facebook IPO probably has more devastating consequences for the rest of the late-stage private market than it does for the company itself.

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Needle-free device could deliver powdered drugs

"You'll just feel a sharp sting..." No, don't look away, because these words may soon be a thing of the past. A needleless device that jets medicine through the skin could bring an end to painful injections. It could also provide developing countries with a way to deliver powdered drugs, which do not require refrigeration.

There are several needleless systems already on the market, which use explosive forces to eject a liquid drug through a narrow opening at pressures high enough to penetrate the skin. However, they are designed to eject the drug in an "all or nothing" fashion, releasing the same amount of medicine to the same depth every time.

To counter this limitation, Ian Hunter and Nora Hogan at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, together with Andrew Taberner at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, developed a device based on a "Lorentz force" mechanism.

This consists of a coiled wire that is wrapped around a powerful magnet at one end and attached to a piston at the other. When a current is applied to the wire it interacts with the magnet, pushing the piston forwards. This in turn pushes a liquid drug through a hole the width of a mosquito's proboscis and into the skin. The force can be controlled by varying the current applied to the coil, which allows precise control over dose and depth.

Targeted drugs

Because existing needleless devices offer less control they generally deliver less of the drug to the target site. In some cases, say Hunter's team, just 10 per cent of the drug reaches the correct tissue. Their tests in animal tissue showed that the new device delivers more than 80 per cent of the drug to the target.

The team is now working on adding a vibratory mechanism to their device to allow it to transform powdered drugs into a form suitable for injection. "If you vibrate a powder the drug crystals jiggle around, become energised and behave in a similar way to a fluid," says Hunter.

If successful, their device could help increase the availability of drugs in the developing world, because powdered drugs are more stable than liquid drugs at room temperature ? liquid drugs must be refrigerated to keep them stable. "It's early days but we're pretty excited," says Hunter.

Journal reference: Medical Engineering & Physics, DOI: 10.1016/j.medengphy.2011.12.010

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Want To Improve Your Home? Try Using Some Of This Advice

Replace your old curtains with new ones. A faded set of curtains will take away from the look of the entire space. By eliminating them you will add a dramatic feel to your room without having to go through all of the work of painting the room. It is an affordable and easy way to get a new look.

Before making a major investment in landscaping materials and plants, check with your local garden center. Most lawn and garden companies are more than willing to discuss preliminary landscape design and strategy for little to no cost. This ensures that you select plants that are compatible with your maintenance expectations, soil type, and amount of sun and shade.

Building a free-standing bird feeder is an easy home imporovement project. Choose a window with a view of a location which is comfortable from your standpoint as well as the brightly colored birds in your area. You will soon be entertained while providing a safe haven for our wild friends.

Age your new wall paneling a few days before installing it. New paneling is typically stored at the warehouse in large tightly compressed piles. When the individual pieces are removed from those piles and exposed to room humidity they sometimes shrink. Providing an aging period of a few days in your home will keep you from suffering the consequences of the shrinkage.

If your kitchen is in need of a renovation that you can?t afford, consider simply repainting your cabinets and replacing their hinges. You won?t have made any major functional changes, but your kitchen will appear much nicer and newer. Replacing hinges ensures that cabinet doors fit snugly instead of hanging open, and the new paint will brighten up the whole room.

You need to define the reason for your home improvements before starting so that you stay on track though out the renovations. Some of the reasons you might focus on could be to add more space, or to increase the homes value, or even to make it more energy efficient.

Installing new appliances into your kitchen to replace any that might be out dated or in poor working condition can refresh an individuals kitchen. These new appliances can be chosen to maximize any aspect of the kitchen. Whether they have new features, better performance, or just look better, one or several new kitchen appliances can be great for home improvement.

When undertaking major landscaping home improvement projects, always consult with your neighbors about drainage before work begins. An ideal landscaping plan involves draining all water off of your property. Often the convenient way to do this is to dump it on your neighbor?s property, but they are not likely to be happy with this! It is possible to coordinate mutually beneficial drainage plans, but it cannot happen without clear communication.

There?s no need for a full bathroom remodel when you can make your bathroom more functional and stylish by installing new fixtures. Update the shower with a more adjustable shower head or there are even models that mimic rainfall! New sink faucets, towel racks, cabinet hardware or mirrors are other effective choices. Change out your fixtures and you will update your style with out breaking your budget.

Hopefully the information that you have just read will help you realize that home improvement isn?t as scary as it can seem. There are wrong choices that can be made, but if you stick to these tips, you will have the information you need to make good choices and have a great and valuable home.

Alda Padgett information sites with regards to Bookcases

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Vacation Travel ~ TRAVEL LEISURE E BRUXELLES CITY

e-bruxelles-city.com - Human beings love to see new places and acquire new information. It is their basic behavior. The whole world is so vast in terms of its different people, culture, food, customs and beliefs. People always want to mingle with people from other countries and share information with them. It is very difficult to have breaks in your hectic daily schedules. So when a vacation is on the cards, they try to utilize the time in a best manner. Traveling outside your country and spending some quiet and wonderful moments with your family and friends at beautiful scenic locations around the world is a common phenomenon now.

You must plan your trip perfectly so that you won?t face any problem in new places. Proper preparation must be done regarding the booking of your tickets, the accessories you need to carry along, your staying and the things you need to be careful about at your new destination. All these vital information are available on a number of online sites. The vacationsbesttraveldeals.com mentions many attractive tourist destinations of Europe, Asia and Africa. As cruise travels are increasing day by day, the site is very informative about various cruise service providers and their offerings.

Europe is the commercial center of the world. Most of its countries are wealthy and are full of modern amenities and services. Countries like Germany, Greece, Italy and France have rich history and cultural heritage. Various ancient structures and monuments always draw large crowds. International tourists come in large numbers to enjoy the beauties of its clean beaches, stunning mountains, lakes and waterfalls. There is Rome, the capital city of Italy where you can see some of the historical building like Colosseum which is now one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Milan is another big city of Italy that is world famous for its designer tastes. Italian people are very romantic, colorful and passionate. So tourists always find it easy to adapt to that environment.

The famed Black Forest in Germany is a beautiful region with spectacular scenery and pictorial villages. The lakes, footpaths and snowy hills in winter make this a dream destination for walkers, hikers, skiers and swimmers. Germany is turning out to be a hot holiday destination for both young and old travelers. The country of Greece is full of history and culture, with many bits and pieces left behind from the ancient Greek civilization. It is also famous for its mythology. Stories of Gods and Goddesses such as Zeus, Nike and Athena are well-known all over the world. For travelers, the Greek islands provide some of the best scenery, fantastic weather and rich culture to spend their spare days.

The country of Turkey spreads in two continents, on both sides of Europe and the Middle East. It is a country that has witnessed much transformation in recent years, but one that has not lost the magic, rich history and beauty of its past.

If you have enough time in your hands and to feel the nature closely, then cruise travels will be the best option. Alaska cruises, Canada cruises, Bahamas Cruises and Caribbean cruises are famous for their inexpensive service offerings and hospitality.

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SpaceX: Space Station crew likes what it sees in new transport vehicle

The crew of the International Space Station got its first look at the inside of its newest visitor ? SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship ? Saturday morning. For the next several years it'll be carrying cargo and astronauts to the space station.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / May 26, 2012

NASA flight engineer Don Pettit and International Space Station Commander Oleg Kononenko enter the SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft for the first time as European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers watches after hatch opening Saturday.

NASA/Reuters

Enlarge

The crew of the International Space Station got its first look at the inside of its newest visitor ? Space Exploration Technologies Corporation's Dragon cargo ship ? Saturday morning and pronounced it a keeper.

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The craft made aerospace history Friday by becoming the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to rendezvous and dock with another spacecraft on orbit.

?I spent quite a bit of time poking around in here this morning looking at the engineering and the layout, and I'm very pleased,? observes Don Petitt, a space station flight engineer and the crew member who guided the station's robotic arm as it grappled the craft for docking Friday morning.

RECOMMENDED:?Beyond SpaceX: Five companies seeking to change space travel

SpaceX developed the Dragon to carry cargo and eventually crew, and based on his initial inspection of the craft's interior, riding in a human-rated Dragon ?is not going to be an issue,? he said.

The mission began with a flawless launch May 22 from a pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The crew opened the hatch to the cargo craft at 5:53 Eastern Daylight Time Saturday.

This mission, which is slated to end with Dragon's return to Earth May 31, is a demonstration flight. It consists of a final set of tests the craft and its controllers must pass in order to begin delivering on a $1.6 billion contract SpaceX has with NASA to carry cargo to and from the station between now and 2015.

Speaking from within what would be the Dragon's relatively spacious cabin as a capsule for humans, Dr. Petitt acknowledged that in the midst of the grab-and-dock process Friday, he and his colleagues, Andre Kuipers, a European Space Agency crew member, and NASA's Joe Acaba didn't have much time to contemplate the mission's place in history.

With an additional 24 hours to think about it, however, Petitt likened the event to the Golden Spike that symbolized the final link joining eastbound and westbound segments of the first transcontinental railroad line. The spike was driven into that last wooden rail tie on May 10, 1869.

?This is kind of the equivalent of the Golden Spike,? he said

?Nobody remembers who pounded that spike in,? he added, injecting some humility into the docking event. ?The important thing is that the railroad was completed,? providing the initial infrastructure for widespread settlement of the American West.

On Sunday, the crew is scheduled to begin unpacking Dragon, which arrived with just over 1,000 pounds of clothing, food, and other items the crew needs. In addition, it's said to carry a surprise care package ? something crew members look forward to with each arriving resupply flight.

After his informal inspection of Dragon's interior Saturday, Petitt noted that it carried about as much cargo as his pick-up truck. The craft consists of two segments ? the pressurized capsule and an unpressurized ?trunk? that doubles as the segment mating the capsule to the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket at launch. SpaceX has designed an extended trunk for the craft.

Dragon is designed to loft up to 6 metric tons of cargo ? somewhat less than Europe's automated transfer vehicle and about the same as Japan's cargo craft. Unlike these, however, which burn up on reentry, Dragon can return with up to 3 metric tons of hardware, experiment samples, and space-station components NASA might want to analyze or refurbish.

That capacity could increase if NASA needed it, said SpaceX founder and chief designer Elon Musk during a post-docking press briefing late Friday morning. SpaceX would just build a longer trunk, he said.

Indeed, returning cargo is one of the features Dragon is demonstrating on this mission. It is slated to return to Earth ? splashing down in the Pacific May 31 ? with about 1,400 pounds of ?down mass,? including some space station components NASA wants to spruce up and return to the orbiting outpost. It's an important capability, NASA officials have noted. While a returning Russian Soyuz craft can carry small amounts of cargo from the station, until now, no other craft serving the station has the ability to bring hefty payloads back. That was the space shuttle's role.

Cargo craft built by Japan and Europe are flying only a combined seven missions between now and 2015, when the final Japanese mission launches. SpaceX and a second company, Orbital Science Corporation, are slated to fly 20 resupply missions through 2015, turning them into the main lifelines between Earth and the station, NASA officials say.

RECOMMENDED:?Beyond SpaceX: Five companies seeking to change space travel

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Deadlocked? (TIME)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

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Justice Department probes whether BP execs lied to Congress: WSJ

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PS Vita?s first real shooter plagued with day one connectivity woes

Resistance: Burning Skies players may have to wait to get their online shooting thrills

In my review of?Resistance: Burning Skies I note that the multiplayer experience is by far the highlight of the package. This is important because a true, console-quality?online shooter has never been achieved on a?portable console. Unfortunately, while my pre-release multiplayer games were smooth and ran almost perfectly, today's launch of the game hasn't gone nearly as smoothly.

I attempted to connect to a multiplayer game earlier this morning and eventually timed out after failing to connect. I gave it a couple more hours and tried again, but the result was the same. After searching for certain keywords on Twitter I found that others were having similar issues, and it seems the game's multiplayer structure just wasn't quite ready for the influx of gamers wanting to play on day one.

Developer Nihilistic Software?tweeted that it is aware of the issues and is working on the fix, though no further updates have been provided. We reached out for a more concrete answer, but haven't heard back yet.

A launch day server snafu is hardly unique, and titles from all the major publishers have stumbled out of the gate at one time or another. We can only hope that the issues are sorted out quickly, as the online multiplayer is undoubtedly the main reason most people picked up the game as soon as it hit store shelves.

This article was written by Mike Wehner (@MikeWehner) and originally appeared on Tecca

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An eBook Standards Carol Part 1: Ghosts of Formats Past | Shaggin ...

Hey folks, brace yourselves for a lot of information about the eBook format wars; I?m going to switch hats for the next two posts and write as a technical writer rather than a novelist. I?ll get back to the ghosts and goblins soon, I promise.?This post began with a two-part post over at A List Apart about the state of standardization in the current eBook market and where it might be going, including the need for a standard format that everyone can use. You can read Part One here and Part Two here, then come on back.

I shared the post with JW Manus, as she?s explored quite a bit with formatting eBooks and even taught me some tricks that I didn?t know. I was interested in seeing her take on it (and she is sharing her thoughts in tandem with my own here ? we?re going for complimentary posts here, so please read hers, too, it?s a worthwhile read), but we ended up in a discussion and I realized that I, too, actually have some things to say about the current state of eBooks and format standardization. Here is the drive of my argument, cleaned up just a bit:

?I?ve come to realize that I?m fortunate in some ways, as I?ve been fighting the formatting wars for close to 13 years when creating documentation (I?ve become a style sheet wizard, which helps in HTML transformations, but that?s a hard-fought victory). Standards can definitely be a double-edged sword. Implementation is everything ? MS Word, for example, has some standards, but the implementation is incredibly sloppy. Anyway?he?s right in that we?re becoming a bit more platform agnostic, but everything seems so very patchwork. The most reliable application that I have found for converting Kindle files is an antiquated command-line application. We have to use the ridiculous workarounds that come with translating legacy file formats, and the future is just more of those workarounds if we continue down the same path of everybody following their own paths. This line, in particular, echoes something I?ve written on my blog: ?The publishing landscape of 2012 looks similar to the music landscape of 1998, crossed with the web designs of 1996: it?s encumbered by DRM and proprietary formats, it treats customers as criminals, it?s fragmented across platforms, and it?s hostile to authors who want to distribute their work through independent channels.??

Essentially, I realized that I had lived through so much of the period described above that I should talk some about what that was like, and what I learned. Here?s a bit of my own journey, and how I see things eventually playing out, from the standpoint of a technical writer.

My career journey began in 1995, when I acquired a steady point of access to the Internet via my University?s connection. Sure, I had been on before, using a patchwork combination of friends? Prodigy and AOL accounts (the latter kind of not really qualifying but a mindblowing deal at the time). This was the REAL wild west of the Internet: our browsers didn?t have images unless they were running on high-powered computers, which you almost never saw; our chat was IRC, and while it could be simple to use, it was also very flexible and allowed you to do incredible things ? for yourself or to others; and the quickest way to send files was a shared FTP site. Having your photo online was unthinkable. You get the picture.

I started learning rudimentary HTML at the time, though pretty much all HTML was rudimentary. So few people were creating their websites ?and there were so few browser options that things were opened wide up. Remember, Internet Explorer wouldn?t even debut until the end of the year ?- as if we would ever use that. Your options were either the text-based Lynx, Netscape (formerly Mozilla), Omniweb, and Grail. I only heard of the latter, but never saw them. HTML as a standard was still fairly new, and didn?t have anywhere near the features that it would support in ten years, so you were pretty safe writing a web site in a certain way; browsers would handle HTML in the same fashion. My original site is long-gone, or I would show what I?m talking about. What you need to know is that it was fairly straightforward: these tags did that, and you?re ahead of most of the game if you can italicize words or indent.

Internet Explorer 1.

Internet Explorer is pretty much where that started to go off the rails. This is probably a familiar pattern to most folks ? open standard is established, big company comes along and bastardizes the format into a proprietary format that enables said company to corner a part of the market. Microsoft was bad about this, but are far from the only culprits. Suddenly your HTML might not look the same in Internet Explorer as in Netscape. You had to start customizing your code for certain browsers. You other Internet graybeards will no doubt remember this, along with the ?Optimized for Netscape? disclaimers on sites:

I think you can probably see where I?m going here. The fragmentation just got worse and worse over the years, as new browsers came and went and different companies dug in their heels. Yes, HTML was supposed to be an international standard, but no one could really enforce this. So too, today do we have a myriad of different major eBook formats. Most draw on HTML, but have their own implementations and interpretations of the tags. Here?s just a sampling, though I?m sure you?re familiar with most:

  • ePub
  • eReader (pdb)
  • HTML (yes there are still eBooks that are pure HTML)
  • Kindle (.azw and .kf8, also works with MOBI)
  • Mobipocket (MOBI)
  • Microsoft .lit (LIT)
  • Acrobat (PDF)

And so on. You get the idea. Loads of different formats out there, and no one ?ring to rule them all?. These each have their own advantages and drawbacks, which I?ll talk about in the next post. For now, I think you might have a picture of where the web and HTML lie around the turn of the century: the whole thing was a mess (and we haven?t even talked about things like VRML, Java, or SGML, but we?ll get there soon). The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the international standards organization that governs?well, web standards, saw the need to move the web forward with new features but also an increasing need to have everyone speaking the same language.

Enter XML. We?ll talk some about that in the next entry.

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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The gambler who wasn't made the list - yet - Casino News Media - Yes

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The gambler who hasn't made the list - yet - 24th May 2012


An honorarble mention in this year?s Rich 200 must go to David Walsh. While his estimated wealth falls short of the $210?million cut-off in this year?s ranking, the Taswegian stands out this year for his ability to make Australians feel uneasy.

It?s not just the contents of his Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), perched on the banks of the Derwent River just outside Hobart, with its excrement-producing Cloaca exhibit, display of human ashes and artist Chris Ofili?s The Holy Virgin Mary depicting the mother of Jesus surrounded by female genitalia and including elephant dung that will discomfort some.

It is the fact that in a year when arguments about gambling reforms have drawn vicious lobbying from the pubs and clubs industry and threatened to bring the machinery of parliament to a halt and when there?s growing concern about gambling generally that Walsh has so overtly used a fortune accrued from wagering to build a temple to art ? celebrated by many of the same people who decry gambling.

In fact, the country?s largest private museum, which opened early last year, has contemporary Australian art fans salivating. Its contents include Sidney Nolan?s Snake, a 46-metre-long, nine-metre-high collation of 1620 different painted panels, and works by Brett Whiteley, Arthur Boyd, Charles Blackman and Russell Drysdale. Mona also treads solidly into ancient territory with the mummy and coffin of Pausiris and a cast bronze votive figure of Isis and the Infant Horus, from 600-300BC.

The public loves it. Mona drew more than 330,000 visitors last year ? almost half from outside Tasmania. The collection is doing great things for tourism to the Apple Isle and for Australia as a whole.

?The only time I can think of in recent history that [we had] something this big, audacious, generous and gifted was probably in America,? Edinburgh Festival director Jonathan Mills gushed last year. ?It?s the Getty, the Guggenheim, it?s on that level.?

And yet, revelations that Walsh?s $175?million project was funded in part by his friend and fellow gambler Zeljko Ranogajec, whose gambling syndicate makes money out of the rebates that totalisers give in exchange for placing large bets ? reducing the pool of winnings for ordinary punters placing smaller bets ? only adds to the unease.

It?s no doubt a contradiction the private Walsh enjoys. If he were a miner or industrialist, his generosity would be unambiguously celebrated. That?s the sort of background Australia has come to expect of its arts patrons. Still, taking from the poor and giving to middle-class causes is something state-owned lotteries have always done. Walsh could argue he is doing the redistribution more directly, by cutting out the need for a lot of grant applications. Or he might not.

?I invent a gambling system,? Walsh writes in the introduction to his book Monanisms. ?Make a money mine. Turns out it ain?t so great getting rich using someone else?s idea. Particularly before he had it. What to do? Better build a museum; make myself famous. That will get the chicks.?

The extent of Walsh?s own fortune is unclear. He has a collection of properties in and around Hobart, one of which he co-owns with Ranogajec, along with the premium Moorilla Estate winery and vineyard and Moo Brew brewery.

It remains to be seen how Walsh views his own cash flow. Is Mona, with its stated $100?million worth of artworks, simply vanity spending? Is Walsh a patron in the traditional sense or should this be seen as an initial investment into a new realm of money-making ventures?

Features of the museum, with its iPod-based self-guide system, which explains exhibits while simultaneously collecting useful data for curators on what visitors are viewing and the length of time they spend at each artwork, along with a bar in the museum selling Moo Brew beers and Moorilla wines lend themselves to replication. A side project is the 10-day Mona Foma (Festival of music and art), which this year ran for the fourth time.

It may all be just another investment. The 50-year-old Walsh has already said in interviews he intends to exploit his high-profile attraction.

?I want to use Mona as a marketing tool to drive some products that I hope will make some serious money.? (Fairfax Media)

A serious man - 28th May 2012...

Tom Waterhouse just lost $400,000. It's 2.25pm on a Saturday in Melbourne and Waterhouse is working, with 20 of his staff, in his weekend "office", a gloomy bunker at Moonee Valley Racecourse. The course itself is a ghost town - there are no races here today - but the bunker, a low-ceilinged and exceedingly unglamorous space, is animated by the kind of urgency you see in a termite colony that has just been kicked. There are lots of computers, screens, mobiles, TVs tuned to six race meetings, and young guys with fashionable facial hair - Waterhouse's "wagering officers" - who yell out stuff like "The eight in Sydney to win $5000" or "$4000 each way on Top Fluc One!"

At the centre, meanwhile, is Waterhouse, standing at a high table, sucking on a vitamin C tablet. He is dressed in a dark-blue suit and mint-green tie. His eyes are blue, his skin pale, his teeth ruler straight and pearly white. On the table before him are four computer screens and 10 mobile phones, the numbers of which are known only to VIP clients, 100 "high net worth individuals" whose minimum bet is $1000. He won't tell me their names or, in fact, anything about them, except that all but one are men.

The first thing you notice about Waterhouse is that he is the exact opposite of what you expect. He doesn't drink alcohol or coffee, nor does he smoke or swear. Instead, he says "Oh, gosh". He is distractingly, almost distressingly polite: "When I first met him he was so nice I thought he was taking the piss," his marketing manager, Warren Hebard, tells me. Above all, he does not get ruffled. Getting ruffled would indicate either a lack of control, which he has in spades, or a surfeit of emotion, which he hasn't. And yet, like his mega-risk-taking grandfather, Bill, Waterhouse is known for taking on the biggest punters, for winning and losing bathtubs full of money in the course of an afternoon. In 2008, he lost $1.175 million in 10 minutes, only to make it all back by sundown. Not long after, he lost a further $2 million (for good, this time). When, this afternoon, it becomes apparent that he has just done $400,000 on one race, he issues only the slightest wince, pops another vitamin C and returns to his screens.

Waterhouse, who turns 30 this June, is the managing director of www.tomwaterhouse.com, one of Australia's largest corporate bookmakers. The company, which has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin, offers odds on not only thoroughbreds, harness racing and greyhounds but also on rugby league and rugby union, cricket, tennis, Australian rules and, as Hebard puts it, "every other sport you can think of, from Swedish handball to two flies crawling up a wall".

Waterhouse makes the most of his family name, which has been intimately associated with bookmaking and horse racing for 112 years. (His father, Robbie, still works as a bookie; his mother, Gai, is a celebrated trainer.) But his real business is in creating as many markets as possible for punters to wager on: Waterhouse now offers odds on everything from who will win Dancing with the Stars and the Miles Franklin Literary Award to the final sale price of painter Edvard Munch's masterpiece, The Scream. "As long as it meets my licensing conditions and it passes the smell test, meaning it's not too weird, I will bet on anything," he says.

Perhaps more than any other bookie, Waterhouse embodies the changes that have recently transformed Australian gaming. Ever since the easing, in 2008, of regulations governing cross-border betting and gambling advertisements, overseas and domestic bookmakers have been battling each other for a piece of the local market, where punters wager more than $20 billion a year. Corporate bookmakers such as the foreign-owned SportingBet and SportsBet barrelled in, going toe to toe with on-course operators, including Waterhouse, who had been working "on the rails" since 2003, building his VIP business under the tutelage of father Robbie and grandfather Bill. By 2008, Tom was Australia's biggest on-track bookie; at the Melbourne Cup that year, he held more than $20 million over four days, more than all the other bookies combined.

But there is only one Melbourne Cup a year. Thanks to the advent of pay TV and online gambling, normal race-day attendances plummeted throughout the 2000s. "I haven't been to the races in three years," Waterhouse says. "It's dead. At the same time, I realised people still want to have a punt, they just wanted to do it from their couch or on their iPhone."

And so, in 2010, Waterhouse launched his online business, which he promoted in a multi-million-dollar campaign of free-to-air, print and online advertisements, including paying $70,000 to have his face plastered on a Melbourne tram. The company now has 80,000 clients, boosted by the purchase last year of the databases of two corporate bookmakers who had recently gone bust. Waterhouse employs 60 staff, and is recruiting overseas for 40 more. Robbie Waterhouse calls the strategy "growing broke", explaining, "The business is expanding at such a rate that it requires every dollar Tom has."

According to Warren Hebard, the marketing spend is now $20 million a year, a mere fraction of company turnover, which he puts in the "hundreds and hundreds of millions".

Recently I had dinner with Waterhouse at Nobu, a Japanese restaurant in Melbourne's Crown complex, where he lives in a $1900-a-night villa apartment on the 31st floor. Waterhouse has a perfectly acceptable home in Sydney - an apartment in Balmoral on Middle Harbour, just around the corner from his parents, that he bought in 2009 for $3.5 million. But Victoria's more favourable gambling laws mean he spends half his life south of the border, necessitating a yoyo-like schedule of at least three business-class flights to Melbourne and back a week. Such an arrangement is fine for now - he and wife Hoda Vakili, whom he married last year, don't have any children, a situation Waterhouse plans to remedy.

"I want to have six kids," he says. "As soon as possible."

"Seriously?" I ask.

"Seriously," he says.

Thanks to his 2006 appearance on Dancing with the Stars (he was knocked out in the third round), and his frequent partying with the likes of Charlotte Dawson and Tim Holmes ? Court, Waterhouse has become known as something of a red-carpet junkie. He certainly knows how to spend his money: there are the skiing trips to Aspen, the holidays in Italy and, of course, the yearly pilgrimage to London, where he attends Royal Ascot and picks up a new suit from his father's tailor in Savile Row. His marriage last year was similarly five-star: bucks' and hens' nights in London, ceremony in the Sicilian seaside town of Taormina, followed by, as one newspaper put it, "lunch in Switzerland" and the honeymoon in Monte Carlo.

Not surprisingly, plenty of people don't like Waterhouse. The consensus is that he is too rich, too young and too lucky. Others don't like the fact he's a bookie. "Self promoter, making $ off the misery of others," one tabloid newspaper reader commented after an article on him last year. When news emerged that Vakili had undergone emergency surgery in January after injuring herself in Aspen, readers responded with an outpouring of indifference: "Should wipe the smug smile off their faces for a few weeks at least," one wrote.

I'm as jealous as the next guy, but "smug" isn't the right word for Waterhouse, who, in person at least, is self-effacing to the point of invisibility. He is softly spoken and reflexively formal. "Mum thinks I dress very boringly," he says. "Always in a dark suit and white shirt." When he was nominated for the Cleo Bachelor of the Year Awards in 2005, he was one of only two people out of 50 who opted to keep their shirts on for the photo. (The other was Guy Sebastian.) For now, he says, his life is defined by work: he goes to bed at midnight and rises at 7am, and takes only one day off a week. "Until I was married I worked seven days a week," he says. "Even when I'm on holidays I'm on my computer six or seven hours a day."

He is partial to fast cars: he has owned a Porsche 911 and currently drives a silver Mercedes SLS Gullwing (retail price: $496,000). But to picture him driving it fast, let alone crashing it, is to picture the Pope smoking crack. His optimum mode of relaxation is going to the movies with Vakili, which he does at least once a week. "We'll get the choc tops, a Slurpee," he says. "It's really great."

He also likes tennis, though playing him requires a certain kind of patience. "This is the problem with Tom at tennis: he is so formulaic and robotic," friend Jason Dundas says. "He never goes for a winner, because he knows the formula is that whoever can hold the rally longest wins. And so he plays the game to never hit a foul, and just hits these lollipops; he never goes for that Rafael Nadal cross-court winner because he knows that the chance it will go out is higher than it will go in, and he calculates that all in his head and wins the game every time. It's so annoying."

It's impossible to separate Waterhouse from his family, which has, since the First Fleet, shown a Flashman-like knack for controversy. When Governor Arthur Phillip was speared by Aborigines at Manly in 1790, it was Lieutenant Henry Waterhouse who was there to pull out the spear; Henry also brought the first thoroughbred racehorse to the colony, along with the first merino sheep. Later the family operated a Sydney ferry service, ran pubs and a sly-grog operation, even dabbled in opium smuggling.

The first bookmaker in the family was Charles Waterhouse, who got his licence in 1898, but it was his son, Bill, who would take it to another level. Through a combination of brains, balls and ruthlessness, Bill, who had initially practised as a barrister, became arguably the world's biggest gambler, a "leviathan bookie" who in the 1960s took on high-stakes punters like "Filipino Fireball" Felipe Ysmael and "Hong Kong Tiger" Frank Duval in million-dollar betting duels.

With his suit, hat, tote bag and cigarettes - 100 a day at one stage - Bill, who turned 90 this year, epitomised the old-style bookie. In his autobiography What Are the Odds?, he writes about arming himself with a .38 Smith & Wesson in the 1970s, and about his various entanglements with gangster George Freeman, "marijuana salesman" Robert Trimbole and the late Kerry Packer, who apparently died owing him $1 million. ("You can go and get f...ed and whistle for it," Packer reportedly told him. "You'll get nothing from me.")

"I don't pretend to be Simon Pure," Bill Waterhouse writes. "I have sometimes cut corners to get what I needed, but I am certainly no crook." Yet his name has been associated with virtually every scandal in horse racing bar the death of Phar Lap. Chief among these was, of course, the Fine Cotton affair of 1984, in which a handy sprinter named Bold Personality was painted with Clairol hair dye and substituted for a weaker horse called Fine Cotton. Bill and son Robbie, who had put money on the horse, were both charged by the Australian Jockey Club with "prior knowledge" - something they have always denied - and banned from racetracks for 14 years.

Tom insists he can't remember much about it: "I was two years old!" he tells me. Nor did it feature much in conversation. "It's a little bit like religion; I try not to bring it up."

It's tempting to see in the younger Waterhouse a reaction, conscious or otherwise, to the family's picaresque backstory. But it seems Tom has always been serious. Like his father before him, he attended the elite Sydney private school Shore. But where Robbie had gained a name for running a student betting ring, Tom became a senior prefect and house captain. "He is a seriously, like very, very, very ambitious guy," long-time friend David Chambers says. "He controls his emotions, he doesn't let them control him."

Chambers, who grew up around the corner from Waterhouse, says "Tom was always super competitive ... and a little bit bizarre. One day he came to school and said, 'You guys are all taking sick days: that's soft. I am never going to take a sick day.' He just thought it would be fun. And we were all like, 'Yeah, whatever.' But he never did, the whole time we were at school."

Horse racing dominated the Waterhouse home. "It was always discussed around the dinner table," Robbie says. "Every aspect of it." Tom got his first horse, a Shetland pony, for Christmas when he was five. Yet he had no interest in an on-course career. Instead, after school, he started a commerce degree, majoring in finance and marketing, at Sydney University. "I wanted to go into finance," he says. "It seemed like a good industry to be in."

Then one day in 2001, Robbie asked him if he'd come and "help out on the bag" at Rosehill. "Within about 20 minutes I was hooked," he says. Waterhouse was only six months into his course, but he immediately rearranged his timetable, moving his classes to Monday and Tuesday so that he could attend the races for the rest of the week. He got his licence for the dogs, then for thoroughbreds. Coming from racing royalty had its advantages. Gai, daughter of legendary trainer Tommy J. Smith, taught him horses; Robbie taught him analysis. ("Dad still gets up every day at 3am so he can do seven hours studying all the results and times.") And Bill showed him how to gamble. (Bet bigger if you're winning, smaller if you're losing, and always keep an eye on cash flow.)

Yet there were mishaps. In 2007, one of Waterhouse's biggest punters, the CEO of a big listed company in the US, placed a bet with him of $1.2 million. As he had never taken a bet that big, Waterhouse laid off the risk by "betting back" $800,000 with other bookies. When the CEO's horse lost, "I thought, 'Oh gosh, I've won $400,000! I'm going to buy a Ferrari!' But come Monday I had to pay $800,000 to those other bookies while my guy took the knock [refused to pay]."

Waterhouse pursued the debt through the courts, but has never got all of it back. (Courts are a recurring motif with bookies. In 2010, Waterhouse was in the Federal Magistrates Court chasing $2.6 million that he said Sydney businessman Andrew Sigalla owed him. And in January this year he placed a caveat over brothel-owner Eddie Hayson's Parramatta Road business, Stiletto, as security for $1 million in gambling debts.)

The movement of money away from the track and onto the internet has done much to sanitise racing. "In the days of the SPs, if you took the knock they'd come round and cut your toes off," veteran race writer Max Presnell says wistfully.

The perils of 21st-century gambling are more prosaic. Addiction. Bankruptcy. Family break-up. Waterhouse was raised in a religious household. "We went to church every Saturday night," he says. "I still pray occasionally, just to reflect on family and loved ones." But the moral dimension of his business doesn't trouble him. "I always say to people who bet with me, 'Anything in excess is bad for you: shopping, eating, gambling.'?"

When in doubt, he invokes what he calls The Toilet Test: "If you feel uneasy about the bet, if you need to duck off to the toilet all the time, then you're betting too much. It's like anything else - if you feel uncomfortable doing it, chances are it's not a great thing to be doing."

The boardroom of Waterhouse's North Sydney office is an impressive space: there's a giant antique table, a cabinet full of trophies and a life-sized portrait of Bill Waterhouse, form guide folded under his arm, standing beneath the Harbour Bridge. Tom is explaining how he prices his odds when I spot, high up in the cabinet, Bill's original white leather tote bag.

"Do you want to see it?" Tom asks excitedly.

"Yes," I reply, imagining it to be full of interesting stuff: betting stubs, track programs, old pencils worn to the nub. But when Tom opens it up, it's empty. "Oh," I say, disappointed.

"It's basically just like a big purse," Tom says. "That's the way it worked." (Fairfax Media)

When the crowd funds a flop, what next? - 29th May 2012


Backers of high-tech video glasses have had enough of waiting for their crowdfunded returns.

Crowdfunding website Kickstarter was used to raise $US340,000 for a project to build a pair of HD-video recording glasses, but almost a year on, people who invested in the project have not received their products and the project creators have seemingly disappeared.

Kickstarter has denied responsibility for a growing number of apparently failed crowdfunding projects, but donors who claim to have been ripped-off are fighting back.

Crowdfunding is a way for individuals to make their dreams a reality, as touted by websites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo which provide the social media tools to tap friends, family, and their extended networks for the capital needed to build a product.

In the embryonic stages the quirkier ideas garner media attention and are oversubscribed, often raising more money than initially requested.

While the success stories are well-documented, there is a growing list of stillborn projects where money has been collected by the project owner (95 per cent) and by Kickstarter (five per cent) but donors haven't received their promised returns.

The websites stress the responsibility rests with the project owner and the donor - they shy away from calling them "investors" as this would attract different regulatory compliance - but some frustrated donors are taking action.

The ZionEyez project trajectory is typical other Kickstarter consumer tech product success stories, but so far it doesn't feature the same happy ending.

The four founders asked for $US55,000 to build Eyez, a pair of glasses that could record HD video. After extensive media coverage (including by Engadget, Mashable, Forbes and Rolling Stone) it raised $US343,415 from 2106 backers when the funding round closed on July 31.

Since then the founders have missed the original delivery deadline of the northern "Winter 2011" and donors' growing concerns over product delivery are not being directly addressed.

There are more than 850 comments on the project page, some asking for a class action, and including one donor's correspondence with ZionEyez.

"Thanks for reaching out to us. We will be releasing another engineering update for our KS Backers in the near future. Thanks for your patience and support!"

Bill Walker was one of the donors who committed the $US150 required to secure a pair of the glasses.
In an attempt to claw back the donations he built the site zionkick.com to organise legal action against the founders of the ZionEyez project.

They must provide a reasonable time for the product to be delivered, he said.

"At the present time we (interested backers) are playing the waiting game," Walker wrote via email. "We have to give them a period of time in which to perform before filing fraud charges. When a period of time elapses that would satisfy the legal eagles...then we attack. Until then we bide our time."
"Their attorney CEO knows the heat is on so he might be insisting they produce something, even if it's on the level of the $US59.95 products currently on the market. Produce anything that will satisfy the spirit of what they said they were going to produce.

"In the meantime Kickstarter takes their 5 per cent and insists the backer is totally responsible for vetting the money grubbers."

Kickstarter did not respond to specific questions about whether it would intervene in the ZionEyez project, and pointed to their frequently asked questions (FAQ) page which says the creator is responsible for fulfilling a project's promise.

"Kickstarter doesn't issue refunds since transactions are between backers and creators, but we're prepared to work with backers as well as law enforcement in the prosecution of any fraudulent activity. Scammers are bad news for everyone, and we'll defend the goodwill of our community."
ZionEyez did not respond to requests for comment.

Crowdfunding projects fall outside the general consumer protections afforded by the Australian Consumer Law and NSW Fair Trading's jurisdiction, according to a Fair Trading spokesperson.

This is because the project is not a form of business trading, and a consumer-supplier relationship does not exist. The risk is amplified when dealing with international sites, the spokesperson said.
"Whenever dealing with an entity that is from outside Australia, consumers should be aware that should something go wrong, redress can be much more difficult to achieve than when the trader is domestically-based," the spokesperson said.

Donors do have some avenues for legal recourse but this could be expensive, according to Rouse Lawyers special counsel Kurt Falkenstein, who specialises in start-ups and has helped some raise money via crowdfunding.

The crowdfunding websites should take responsibility, he said.

"The principles of contract law still apply to crowdfunding ? and if you misrepresent or falsify information that induces someone to enter a contract, you are liable ? so the terms and conditions of the crowdfunding platform are vital," Falkenstein said.

"The hard thing with contract law is enforcement ? are you going to go to court over tens or hundreds of dollars?

"Consumer law may apply where goods or services are promised but not delivered ? you can't promise to provide something and not do it ? but then you are relying on the ACCC.

"For me, if hundreds or thousands of people are ripped off, the platform should help those people band together and enforce their rights."

There is always a risk that these websites can be exploited, according to Alan Crabbe, co-founder of local crowdfunding website Pozible. He did not respond to a question whether the site had any undelivered projects.

There are safeguards against this, including filtering projects based on national/state investment laws, checking the project creator and holding photo ID, and tracking unusual activity on projects, he said.

Crowdfunding websites are not legally responsible for failed projects, according to StartSomeGood.com co-founder Tom Dawkins, but this does not mean they won't be judged in the court of public opinion.
The key is to curate the projects , he said, so the sites, project creators, and donors are ensured of the greatest chance of success.

"We don't believe we are legally or functionally responsible but, after the project concludes, we know people will hold us responsible anyway."

"We reject a lot of projects because they're too fantastic and unachievable. We try and make sure that we do feel proud of every project on our site, that we feel comfortable and stand by it."

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