Creativity Cards at Pottery Barn Kids

I was just looking around for gift ideas and came across Creativity Cards - a creative way for children to pass their time on the Pottery Barn Kids site. These cards are made of wood in bright colors and patterns to spark your child's interest. With these 10 small and 10 large cards, kids will be able to create all kinds of structures with the vivid color palette and their wonderful imagination!Also available is the Curved Wood Building Set which includes 20 pieces in four different shapes that fit together to create more structures.Both of these educational toys are perfect for helping your child develop hand-eye coordination! Check them out at Pottery Barn Kids!Creativity Cards $ 19.99Curved Wood Building Set $29.99 Technorati

Depressive realism.

So I was looking up stuff about mah new drug Topamax (an anti-seizure med they give you for migraines now) and came across this phrase depressive realism, which is the proposition that people with depression have a more accurate view of reality (source: Wiki).People without depression are more likely to have inflated self-images and look at the world through "rose-colored glasses", thanks to cognitive dissonance and a variety of other defense mechanisms.Well, couldn't one just be "normal," meaning that you view reality accurately in that it pretty much sucks because it's cold and boring and you get such small fucking portions of it, but even so it's not depressing because sometimes there's cake to eat and music to listen to and kittehs to play with (in my reality anyway). I think that's how I view it. Then again, maybe no one would call me normal, eh?Dykman et al (1989) argued that, although depressive people make moreaccurate judgements about having no control in situations where in fact theyhave no control, they also believe they have no control when in fact they do;and so their perceptions are not more accurate overall.Yah, I think that's true, from my very limited and anecdotal experience with depressive peeps. Also, and it's more of an academic question than anything else, when do you help someone? If a person is content with a delusion, if it works for them, maybe you should just leave them alone. I'm thinking of my father who believes my deceased mother visits him. It seems to make him happy to believe this, and he's relatively functional otherwise, so ... where's the harm? In any case, there's nothing I can do about his delusion.People will relentlessly believe what they wish to.

The Tri-County Animal Shelter in Hughesville, Maryland SUCKS

Just a quick post to say how sucky the Tri-County Animal Shelter in Hughesville, Maryland is. It's antiquated, it's stinky, it's loud and depressing. And whatever employee I talked to on Monday April 20, who said that no dog fitting Whiskey's description was there, should be fired. She also asked me if he was micro-chipped, which I thought was strange. Since they should not have ANY dogs that are micro-chipped, since they should be scanned when they are taken in. If the person said they had new animals come in within the past 24 hours and was unsure, I would have been there. But no, she told me that no dog fitting Whiskey's description was there and I could look online at pictures of the strays (there was no pic of Whiskey). I knew that if someone found him, they would call the # on his tag. The pic below with his ID was taken just last week.I posted on the Lost & Found on our craigslist and another popular regional website in their classifieds. I put up a lost dog sign, drove around the neighborhood etc. The shelter is located in another county - about 30 miles away. My neighbor, the one who watched Whiskey when we were away, stopped by the shelter and ta-da found Whiskey.I was happy and shocked on one hand, and furious with the Animal Shelter on the other hand for lying/being incompetent. And something is waay too fishy with how by coincidence his tag is missing. I think whoever in the neighborhood called to report a dog running (walking) loose, removed the ID tag to be mean.

Observe and Report's Shocking Sex Scene Draws Fire

Seth Rogen's next battle won't be against bad guys in The Green Hornet. Instead, he should be girding up to defend himself against furious feminists who have launched an internet offensive over a scene from his new R-rated movie, Observe and Report. A video (embedded above) on the Feministing blog offers up a "big Friday feminist 'fuck you' to Seth Rogen and the crew who made Observe and Report." The vlogger calls out Rogen for a brief but shocking sex scene between his character in the movie, bipolar mall cop Ronnie Barnhardt, and Anna Faris' completely loaded makeup clerk, Brandi. See also: Review: Observe and Report Delights and Disturbs Seth Rogen Goes From Geeky Comic Hero to 'Super Antihero' Gun-Loving, Zombie-Hating Twins Geek Out in Observe and Report The controversial scene, which takes place after Brandi goes on a pills-and-tequila binge worthy of a lost weekend in Tijuana, shows an apparently unconscious Brandi and a jaw-dropping and profane punchline that earned big laughs during the two screenings I've seen. Feministing fails to see the humor. "It's not funny, Seth," vlogger Courtney says before demanding an apology from the actor. "You're basically giving [men] permission ... to not take rape seriously. I didn't think that was worth the laugh." Others are joining the anti-Observe and Report campaign. In addition to Feministing's video, there are angry tweets ("This shit is not ok, ppl. Pls RT & help spread the word!") and the perhaps-inevitable Facebook protest group ("We won't see Observe and Report because it is flippant about rape"). Observe and Report director Jody Hill (The Foot Fist Way, Eastbound & Down) called his shockingly funny film both "polarizing" and "sad" in an interview with Wired.com. "We definitely wanted to make something that was like provocative and weird and kinda dangerous," Hill said last month after his movie's world premiere at the South by Southwest festival. A fan of movies like Pulp Fiction that break from the standard Hollywood formula, he admitted that Observe and Report is "not for everybody." "I wanted to do something where like the main guy makes bad decisions and he's kind of an asshole," Hill said. "And you know, if there's a theme with the works we've done, that's only as a response to that kind of mainstream bullshit." In a separate interview with Wired.com during SXSW, Rogen said he had no idea how audiences would react to the genuinely twisted Observe and Report, in which he moves into uncharted territory with his portrayal of "super antihero" security guard Ronnie, a character that is far darker than his usual nice-guy roles. "I cannot begin to predict," said the comic actor who previously starred in such geek-friendly fare as Superbad, Pineapple Express and Zack and Miri Make a Porno. "And I never can, to be honest. But this [movie], I'd say even more so than the others, I really don't know. There's no precedent for this one." During a panel discussion about Observe and Report during SXSW, Rogen's co-conspirator Faris said she relished the opportunity to play the obnoxious Brandi, a role she nails with pitch-perfect comedic timing. But in an interview with A.V. Club, she says she was surprised that the sex scene made it into the picture. "I'm so grateful I was cast," she said, "but when I read the script, I thought, 'Well, this is Warner Bros. This is a studio movie, so this is all gonna be softened up. It's a comedy, right?' So when we were shooting it, even the date-rape scene — or as I refer to it, 'The Tender Love-Making Scene' — I just thought, 'We'll shoot it, but it's not gonna be in the movie. I don't have to worry about that one.' And yet there it is." So there it is indeed. Have you seen Observe and Report? Let us know your reaction to the movie that's splitting critics into two distinct camps: Those who denounce it as "bitter, ugly and painful to watch" and those who call it "fucking amazing." (For the record, I'm in the second camp.) Report your observations in the comments section below. See also: Review: Observe and Report Delights and Disturbs Gun-Loving, Zombie-Hating Twins Geek Out in Observe and Report Seth Rogen Goes From Geeky Comic Hero to 'Super Antihero' Review: Zack and Miri Scores With Funny Porno Farce SXSW: Observe and Report Makes Violently Funny Premiere

It has rained for over a week

One rainy day, I came home from school and ayi and Zuri were watching a movie. They're not allowed to do this but I didn't mind because it was raining so hard. Anyway, they were watching it in French which cracked me up. Neither one of them cared what was said. Zuri is mesmerized by the movie "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." I've never known him to have such good concentration.Yesterday was a good day in Carleigh-world. Last week, I had misplaced my favorite metal-ish, double-insulated cup that I bought in the states (because they're so expensive here). The first place I went actually LOOKED for it for me (and in several places). In the past, when you lose something here and go back for it, they just tell you, without looking as if they are all-knowing, that they don't have it. Alas, no cup. The second place HAD it! I was so happy; I had even run into a friend and told her that I thought it would be a miracle if they actually would return my cup.Secondly, because it was STILL rainy, I asked the cab driver to wait for me. I told her that I would give her 5 yuan if she would. Later, she refused to take it! This is actually the second driver to do this in just a few days so maybe I should change my opinion on the "All Chinese are out to steal money from Westerners." There are some honest people out there, I'm VERY happy to report.

The biggest music spring

'I Diddent See The WHOLE THING!'

That was Maia's anguished cry at the end of the penultimate chapter of "Charlotte's Web" last night. I was crying by the end of it myself, because that last line, "No one was with her when she died," is one of the saddest in all literature. After I got that line out in a whisper, Maia put her head on my chest and wailed. Matt ran into the bedroom, John at his heels, and we all sat on the bed and tearfully mourned Charlotte."I thought you said you had seen the movie," I said.She sat up and shook her head. "I diddent see the WHOLE THING," she cried, full of grief and reproach. "I diddent see the END."Once we had pulled ourselves together, we read the last chapter, which was also sad in its own way, but happy-sad, and she had settled enough to read to herself before she fell asleep. "That book's a one-timer," John said to her in a wise voice. "It's so good, you can only read it one time."Shattering a small person's literary world is exhausting, so I went to bed. About a half-hour later, I awoke to find Maia climbing up on the bed. "I'm lonely," she said. "I want to be with you."I want my children to be familiar with grief and loss and healthy ways to deal with those emotions, but I am not heartless, so I let her cuddle up with me and we talked about the book."Why would somebody write a book like that?" she asked, and we talked about writing as catharsis and sharing and vicarious experience. She said she understood, and we curled up and went to sleep.

Reining in the Credit Card Companies

It's too late to do me any good. I got the notice from my bank two weeks ago that they were raising my credit card interest rate from 10.9 percent to 13.9 percent. It could have been a lot worse, or course. The credit card companies have been raping the American consumer for months with sudden and unannounced rate hikes, sometimes as much as 10 percent or more. It's not enough that we are bailing their asses out with hundreds of billions of dollars in TARP funds from the federal government. They are now reaching straight into our pockets for the cash. But the days of rapacious credit card companies may soon be over. In his weekly address to the country on Saturday, President Barack Obama told Congress he is tired of it, too, and he wants a bill to control credit card abuses by the end of the month. "Americans know they have a responsibility to live within their means and pay what they owe," he said in his radio and Internet address. "But they also have a right not to get ripped off by the sudden rate hikes, unfair penalties and hidden fees that have become all too common." The Credit Card Holders' Bill of Rights has already passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate, according to the Associated Press. The president said he would like to sign it by Memorial Day. "You shouldn't have to fear that any new credit card is going to come with strings attached, nor should you need a magnifying glass and a reference book to read a credit card application. And the abuses in our credit card industry have only multiplied in the midst of this recession, when Americans can least afford to bear an extra burden," Obama said. The House bill would prohibit double-cycle billing and retroactive rate increases, and prevent companies from giving credit cards to anyone younger than 18. Of course, this bill will have to pass the Senate before it becomes law and it probably will. But I am willing to bet that it will never get the support of the two Republican senators from South Carolina, Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint. These ethical mites and political dinosaurs believe that the American public should be a buffet for for corporations to feast upon. But the day of Republican dominance is over and nothing could better reflect this new age than legislation to curb the credit card companies. And now we hear President Obama talking tough about controlling the cost of health care and using the Justice Department to bust up dangerously large corporations. Yes, there is definitely a new sheriff in town. [ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Young Ones

Found by dvdaddict, Amazon UK Deals Finally dropped below the £10 mark. If you didn't buy it previously then nows the time! Next best is £12.73 @ The Hut Its fair to say that when The Young Ones first blasted onto television screens, thered never been anything quite like it. Yet the manic adventures of Rik, Neil, Vyvyan and Mike didnt take long to gain an audience, and over 25 years later, the programme still enjoys a well-deserved cult-following. Both series of The Young Ones are grouped together in this special DVD set, and theres plenty to enjoy. In among the violence, the anarchic comedy, and the wonderful childishness of it all, are many, many belly laughs. How about when The Young Ones represented Scumbag College on University Challenge, for instance? Or Alexei Sayles Balowski family? Or the occasional break so a band could be worked in to play a song? The influence of The Young Ones has been notable since it was first broadcast, not least in the spawning of its sequel-of-sorts, Bottom. Yet the two series here prove to be far more than an opportunity to see where a particular strand of comedy really began to gather pace. Instead, they still provide many bellies full of laughs, and its arguable that, in spite of the imitators it spawned, nothing has come close to The Young Ones since. And this DVD collection more than proves the point. --Jon Foster DVD Description A mad, helter-skelter, rude, awesomely violent, unpredictable, swaggering, staggering, joyously infantile, exhilarating steamroller of a sitcom, The Young Ones provided the breakthrough for the new generation of aggressive and forthright 'alternative' comedians. Join Rik, Vyv, Neil and Mike in their crazy and surreal comedy adventures!

Belly pain

My belly will get pain on 1st day of menstrual.

Take deep breath and control the rhythm to the pain, do good for it today!

Paid Full Time Season Internship

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following. Other duties may be assigned. TV duties: 1. Complete tape duplication, web compression and basic editing requests and deliver/distribute upon completion for internal and external departments as assigned by the Broadcast Services Manager. 2. Create compilation reels and miscellaneous cuts editing as assigned by the Broadcast Services Manager. 3. Assist Broadcast Services Manager with Tape Library archival procedures. Responsibilities include: labeling tapes, returning tapes to correct storage location, and recycling/degaussing tapes for re-use. Radio duties: 1. Serve as assistant to the Radio Producer for all Magic radio broadcasts. Provide production support, as assigned. 2. Responsible for gathering pre-game sound and serve as Broadcast Coordinator for all home game broadcasts. 3. Responsible for gathering production elements for all radio broadcasts and productions (including halftime features) as assigned. 4. Assist Radio Producer with writing and producing radio commercials for Magic broadcasts, including upcoming home game promotion spots. 5. Archive and log sounds bites and game broadcasts for future productions and maintain organization of audio suite and audio library. QUALIFICATIONS 1. Hours required: 30-40+ hours per week 2. Good driving record (driving record background check required). 3. Seniors and recent college graduates. Vocational broadcasting students accepted as well.

Is there a Doctor in the House?

Dear Friends,Is there a Doctor in the House?During these hard times, many Americans have realized just how critical solving our nation's health care crisis has become. Closer to home, thousands of Virginians and their families have lost their employer-provided health care and are living on the bubble, hoping a medical disaster does not strike their household.Currently, we have no Democratic doctors in Virginia's House of Delegates. As the Chief of General Surgery at INOVA Alexandria Hospital, I have the expertise and perspective Virginia's legislature needs when considering health care policy. I have personally witnessed the disastrous effects this latest economic downturn has had on Virginia's patients. I am committed to providing the best health care possible for both insured and uninsured patients alike. As chairman of a local free medical clinic, we provided free clinical and surgical healthcare to uninsured patients who would otherwise have to go without the necessary medical services. I continue to serve through "Project Access", a program which connects uninsured patients with doctors who will provide them necessary care.Our campaign for Delegate in Virginia's 35th District is an extension of my life's work to help people. My perspective as a practicing surgeon and my involvement in the community will enable me to give better direction for Virginia's General Assembly to consider policies beneficial to the health and well-being of Virginia's citizens. It is imperative that every Virginian has adequate preventative health care regardless of their circumstances.With your help, I will be the only Democratic "Doctor in the House"The election is on Tuesday, June 9th. We need your help and support. We will be sending out weekly email updates about the campaign, and we'd love your feedback. We hope that you will get involved with our campaign.Together, we can!The Omeish for Delegate TeamPlease visit Esam Omeish's campaign website for more.http://www.omeishfordelegate.comTo contribute:http://www.omeishfordelegate.com/contribute.html

Male harassment influences female movements and associations in Grevy's zebra (Equus grevyi)

Behav. Ecol., Vol. 18, No. 5. (1 September 2007), pp. 860-865.In traditional models for social organization, female movements and association patterns track resource distribution, whereas males track females. More recently, this model has been expanded to include feedback effects of male behavior, especially sexual harassment, on female decisions. In Grevy's zebra (Equus grevyi), males defend territories containing resources attractive to females, who form unstable groups. Past research has explained female behavior based on resource distribution and needs alone. Lactating females have been found to have restricted movements and fewer male associates than nonlactating females, a pattern we find in our study. This pattern has previously been attributed solely to the higher water needs of lactation. However, in our population, both lactating and nonlactating females are typically close to water. We test the hypothesis that male harassment also influences female ranging and associations with males. This effect is predicted to be greater for lactating females because harassment has higher costs to them. We find that lactating females experience higher harassment rates than those of nonlactating females. Lactating females tend to move faster during harassment periods, whereas nonlactating individuals do not. Lactating females experience lower harassment rates if they spend more time with a particular male, whereas nonlactating females' harassment rates do not depend on their allocation of time to a primary male. We suggest that females concentrate their time with one male in order to reduce male harassment. Even in species such as Grevy's zebra without strong male-female bonds, social interactions may be a significant driver of female distribution. 10.1093/beheco/arm055Siva Sundaresan, Ilya Fischhoff, DI Rubenstein

Successful Open Source

I view the Eclipse Foundation like a standards organization in many ways. Both are typically non-profit. Both typically have 10% or less of their membership doing 90% or more of the work. Both are providing code or standards that can benefit the community that is using them; however, it is pretty much the norm that a small group benefits the majority. It has been this way ever since the founding of these types of organizations. I agree that it should not be this way.So the question we really need to ask is what makes a successful open source or open standards project? What is the actual goal? Is it to benefit the community as a whole, or only the members that pay for it? If the latter, what is the incentive then for the community to contribute?InfoWeek in 2007 ran a article titled "How to Tell the Open Source Winners from the Losers". The same six sections in the article apply to open standards as well as to open source. In particular is page 3: "No Community, No Project". It's support from a user community and not necessarily a commercial interest that tends to drive successful open source/open standards projects. In summary are these points:Community Support not Commercial AgendasActivity and Transparency at all levels (planning, discussions, support, etc.)Focusing on the Big Picture (i.e. keeping the communities needs over individual needs).The community that uses the code or standard that is produced is going to expect to have support. What you produce is going to be a product. Whether that is a framework, a working IDE, a RCP application, a widget, a set of data standards, or specifications. In the eclipse world, the community has come to expect a IDE, in particular a Java IDE. In the standards world, this is the specification or data standards that are produced. To me the key to a successful project is not necessarily the commercial interests or funding, but the interest of the community. The community is what will make your project successful in the long term. Nuture it, encourage the participation...and most importantly INTERACT with it.

The Garden

The Garden - TrailerTHE GARDEN is an engaging and powerful look at the famous political and social battle over the largest community garden in the US (located in South Central Los Angeles). A follow-up to Kennedy’s award-winning documentary OT: OUR TOWN, the film shows how the politics of power and greed (backroom deals, land developing, green politics, money) tragically intersect with working class families who rely on this communal garden for their livelihood. Equal parts THE WIRE and HARLAN COUNTY USA, THE GARDEN exposes the fault lines in American society and raises crucial and challenging questions about liberty, equality, and justice for the poorest and most vulnerable among us. Kenneth Turan of the LA Times said: “It’s tempting to call “The Garden” a story of innocence and experience, of evil corrupting paradise, but that would be doing a disservice to the fascinating complexities of a classic Los Angeles conflict and an excellent documentary that does them full justice.”Directed by: Scott Hamilton KennedyStarring: Scott Hamilton Kennedy, Vivianne Nacif, Dominique Derrenger, Stuart Sender, Julie Bergman Sender

handmade

Simultaneous optimization for concave costs

(2003), pp. 499-505.We consider the problem of finding efficient trees to send information from k sources to a single sink in a network where information can be aggregated at intermediate nodes in the tree. Specifically, we assume that if information from j sources is traveling over a link, the total information that needs to be transmitted is f(j) . One natural and important (though not necessarily comprehensive) class of functions is those which are concave, non-decreasing, and satisfy f (0) = 0. Our goal is to find a tree which is a good approximation simultaneously to the optimum trees for all such functions. This problem is motivated by aggregation in sensor networks, as well as by buy-at-bulk network design.We present a randomized tree construction algorithm that guarantees E [max f C f /C*( f )] 1 + log k , where C f is a random variable denoting the cost of the tree for function f and C* ( f ) is the cost of the optimum tree for function f . To the best of our knowledge, this is the first result regarding simultaneous optimization for concave costs. We also show how to derandomize this result to obtain a deterministic algorithm that guarantees max f /C*( f ) = O (log k ). Both these results are much stronger than merely obtaining a guarantee on max f E [C f /C* ( f )]. A guarantee on max f E [C f /C* ( f )] can be obtained using existing techniques, but this does not capture simultaneous optimization since no one tree is guaranteed to be a good approximation for all f simultaneously.While our analysis is quite involved, the algorithm itself is very simple and may well find practical use. We also hope that our techniques will prove useful for other problems where one needs simultaneous optimization for concave costs.Ashish Goel, Deborah Estrin