Lucio Bilderback

Books to Refresh You when Days Are Hot

Summer is here, bringing with it hot days, stormy nights, and a desire for all things light and fresh. Who wants to eat a heavy meal or exercise in a dark, dingy gym on the free and lazy days of summer? From the same
 standpoint, who wants to read a heavy, philosophical, intellectual book while sitting on the beach or sitting on a screen porch waiting for the rain to stop and the game of catch to resume?

Chick-Lit is loosely defined as a genre of books aimed at women. These books tend to be light, popular, and quick and easy to read. Like a cool salad or a glass of pink lemonade, they refresh the palate and offer a not-so-guilty pleasure for a summer day. So grab your paperbacks and head for a sunny spot to relax away your summer day.

The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisenberger

Recently released as a motion picture, this book follows Andrea Sachs a young would-be writer who lands her first publishing job as the personal assistant to big name fashion editor Miranda Priestly. With the free clothes, the celebrity parties, and the promise of a job anywhere in the industry at the end of a year, this seems like a young woman’s dream job. It isn’t. Tormented by Miranda, Andrea finds herself slowly being drawn into this fashion world and letting it consume her entire life.

The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin

The appropriately named Nanny has been working as a nanny to upscale New York families for years when she first meets Mrs. X. Faced with a child who at first seems to be a monster, Nanny struggles to use all of her talents to succeed in this new position. When Grayer begins to warm to her, however, she realizes that it is perhaps Mrs. X who is more of a monster. At the same time, Nanny meets a boy in the X’s building and begins a romance which leads her to question even more her role in the modern caste system of NYC.

The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank

audiobook

This days im interested in SEM

SEO is Essential to the Health of Your Website

There are many benefits or pros for utilizing organic search engine optimization. Some of the main pros are ones that are usually of main concern with most people starting a business, and that is cost. Organic search
 is generally not as expensive as other means of search engine optimization such as a campaign that is sponsored. If you are able to implement the means of the organic search engine optimization yourself then you are really in the clear for saving money. The only costs that are usually racked up by organic optimization are from bringing in an outside company to do the work. Of course if you don't know what you are doing when it comes to SEO then this might be your only option. While it is not that difficult it can be time consuming and you do have to know how to do it right.

Why is Organic search engine optimization better?

* Organic listings usually result in more click throughs by web searchers as these listings are usually pretty objective and unbiased. The fact which has been determined by statistical analysis is that more people do click on organic searches than on the sponsored or paid for listings. Most results in the search engines, especially Google tend to be organic. Organic results are also seem to last longer. If you spend the time and the work then you have a greater shot at staying on the top of the searches. It beats hoping that you don't run out of money to pay for your listing. Some organic searches have lasted for months and even years. The fact that they are so cost effective makes organic searches a great ROI or return on investment.

So What are the Cons?

I do want to say that unless you have citations that show a RR of higher than 20, I'm not really interested in discussing the relative merits of diet change, weight loss, cholesterol control, heart disease control therapies, pharmacologies, etc. I just think findings that have a lower RR than 20 are really worth about, especially in a general and largely theoretical discussion like this. not epidemiologically sound and from my perspective are not worth considering. They're more like tilting at windmills or lashing out against the dark, and are little than faith healing.

If using that BMJ editorial by Glasziou to justify this thinking, really misread his point — a point by the way, that many biostatisticians would disagree with. His point applies only to single cohort and case-series studies, not randomized trials. Moreover, he argues for a threshold of relative risks ranging from 5-10 to essentially take these studies as "definitive," not a threshold of 20.

Using an effect magnitude threshold to assess biomedical research is a very poor substitute for actually using good judgment in reviewing the methodology used, its limitations, and the potential for unaccounted for confounding that may exist. To justify doing this based on the notion of signal-to-noise makes no sense because the RR alone does little to capture "noise."

In fact, the conventional statistics (p-values, confidence intervals) are quite good metrics of precisely what might be described as signal-to-noise. Take the example of a one-sample t-test. The t-test Z is defined as the mean difference times the root of the sample size divided by the standard deviation of the difference. In other words, it is signal (mean difference or effect size) divided by noise (standard error). Most statistical approaches used are parallels of this. Even modern empirical approaches (bootstrapping, jackknife, permutation testing) provide statistics that are for all intents and purposes, a measure of signal-to-noise. If there is a demand for more critical vetting of study outcomes, a lower alpha level does a much job of this than looking at the RR. RR is signal only — no for sample size, no for variance. This makes no sense at all.

Consider the easy example of my case-series of two patients — a man and a woman. I followed them for a few weeks and the man had a heart attack while the woman didn't. Are you satisfied with the conclusion that men have a RR of infinity for heart-attacks relative to women? Of course not. So you say "well, I'll look at the sample size. It sucks. I look at the sample size and the error statistics in making my judgment." Fine, but this is essentially captured in a rigorous quantitative way with the results of hypothesis tests typically presented in papers.

The magnitude of the relative risk is NOT a good reflection of a "real" effect despite or regardless of confounding. In other words effect size and confounding may be correlated on average, but they are poorly so. This is throwing out the baby with the bath water to the extreme. the fact that an arbitrary high RR ignores the impact of baseline outcome incidence on potential results for a study. Not only is the example of a RR of > 10 or > 20 a bad idea, it's mathematically impossible in many circumstances. Take a disease in which 10% of patients consistently have spontaneous resolution and the other 90% die. If a drug for this condition yields a 90% cure rate, your true relative risk will be 9. Studies that sample populations treated and untreated with this agent will have a mathematical limit for the point estimate of RR that is always potential for confounding even after careful control of known confounders with appropriate statistical adjustments. Let me be clear though: establishing unequivocal causality in the absence of a randomization, sample size, and blinding is near impossible, regardless of the magnitude of effects reported in such studies. In this sense, I'm more conservative than that BMJ article, because I don't assume truth or causality from any single study like that, regardless of the magnitude.

Lost in this is the fact that science is an empirical study — it may always be seeking the "truth" but it will never find it. evidence evolves over time. In the case of biomedical research, that evidence is an accumulation of the results from an aggregate of studies of varying quality, in the context of pre-clinical data that often includes animal models and in vitro data. A single study is never definitive — even RCTs. That doesn't mean the results are valueless and to be ignored, and it doesn't mean that authors' conclusions from a study are also taken on faith. It means you do the ideal you can with the information you have. To do so with biomedical research in good faith requires educating yourself about the methodology in the first place.
posted by drpynchon at 9:29 AM on May 13 [7 favorites]

A controversial agreement between the say of Montana and Ted Turner, involving the transfer of 100 buffalo from Yellowstone National Park to the media mogul's Montana ranch for an experimental breeding program, was a featured story in the New York Times recently. Turner, the founder of CNN, also has a national chain of restaurants that serve buffalo.

His plan has brought attention to the future of bison, a still-threatened symbol of the American West, and hopes for returning huge numbers of the animals to the wild. But it also highlights rising consumer demand for what many Americans once considered an exotic meat.

Now a Protected Species

After being hunted to extinction, buffalo became a protected species in the 1890s. There are now about a half-million bison in North America today — with all of them on private ranches.

Bison make up only a fraction of America's red meat industry, but buffalo meat has more protein and less fat than beef, and is typically raised on grass from to finish, avoiding time in crowded feedlots — an attraction for health- and eco-conscious consumers. In the 1990s, bison began appearing in many American supermarkets, usually as a specialty item. Like the cattle industry, the recent economic downturn affected bison prices and reduced the size of commercial buffalo herds. But as with beef, consumer demand has rebounded.

According to the National Bison Association, “bison demand has consistently grown in double digits for the past five years.” The Association 70,000 buffalo were slaughtered in the U.S. last year under federal and say inspection — more than double the processing figures for 2002.

The Denver Post reports that the average retail price of ground bison has gone from about $5.30 a pound in 2006 to $6.20 — with buffalo steaks selling for $15 to $20. And the USDA estimates that American consumers eat 1 million pounds of bison each month.

The Year of the Buffalo

Horse toys can keep your horse busy and happy when she's in her stall. Left alone, horses can get bored and anxious, and that often leads to destructive behaviors and habits. But before you spend a lot of money on horse toys, try a few of these inexpensive alternatives.

Raid The Recycling Bin: Your recycling container is a rich source of potential horse toys. Plastic milk jugs and detergent bottles can be hung in your horse's stall. Filled with a few pebbles, they make an exciting (to your horse) rattling sound when head butted. Clean milk jugs can also be used as a treat delivery system. Put a few pellets of grain inside, leave the cap off and put it on the floor. As your horse rolls the jug around, pellets magically appear! Fun and food! What a deal!

The Vegetable Aisle: Horses love carrots. Play a little horse game by hiding a few chunks of carrots around the stall (but not in the bedding). On a ledge, mixed in with the hay…anywhere she might explore with her ever-curious mouth.

The Hanging Spud: Find an extra large turnip and bore a hole through it. Thread a rope through it, tie a knot in the bottom and hang it from the ceiling. Tether turnip! This is a fun and tasty toy that's easy and cheap to make.

Bobbing For Apples: Float an apple in her water bucket. Your horse will find this curious and intriguing.

Attention Sports Fans: A real leather football is a safe and durable toy for horses. The genuine article can be pretty pricey, though. Yard sales are a good source for used footballs. Keep your eyes open for big yoga balls and hula hoops, too.

Sounds Like Fun: A metal bell can entertain some horses. One caveat: over time (like more than five minutes), bells can be pretty annoying for people, so use your best judgement here.

Equine Opera: While there is no hard scientific evidence to confirm it, some horses seem to respond favorably to relaxing music. Classical? New age? Folk? Cruise around the dial to find her favorites. Hopefully, you'll have similar tastes.

You Gotta Have Friends: Horses are herd animals and need the companionship of herd mates. If you can't rush out and acquire another horse, consider a goat. Horses love goats! They have enormous personality and require very little upkeep. If a goat is even a bit much for you, a barn cat is another option. And they keep the rodent population under control, an added bonus.

Whatever boredom buster you choose, be sure to change it often. Horses aren't hard to entertain, but they do like variety. Changing sights, sounds and textures helps to desensitize them to frightening stimuli, too, so they're less afraid of normal changes in their surroundings.

Let Practical Horsekeeping show you how to become an efficient, effective equine expert! Moira Clune and Noreen Girao provide helpful horse care information with a practical twist at http://PracticalHorsekeeping.com/ Our free horse care ezine shows you the fastest, safest, smartest ways to care for your horse and create an organized, appealing environment that works for horse and rider! Sign up today and get our free, veterinarian approved Colic Preparedness Report that shows you exactly what to do in a horse colic emergency. Join us today at http://www.practicalhorsekeeping.com/horsecarenewsletter.html and start getting practical!

Recommend : Demac Jobs Cardiff

I woke up in a panic only to find that I was alone. He wasn't there just like in my dreams. I had dreamed he'd been taken from me, that something horrible had taken him from me. And apparently I was right. It was obvious to me that he hadn't been in bed for a while; the covers next to me were fixed and lain out perfectly like they had been before I went to bed. There was an indent in the covers yes, but they weren't moved in the slightest; had he slept there last night and left early morning? I didn't know.

I looked around to see if there was any sign of him having been in the room and there was a coffee mug on the nightstand. That was evidence enough that he'd been here. I scooted off my side of the bed and reached for my cellphone on the nightstand nearest to me. Flipping it open I saw that there was no missed calls and decided to call him.

Ring Ring Ring…
I waited for an answer and it wasn't until almost 10 seconds later that the line picked up.

"Die? Is that you?" Dae asked me and just his voice made me sigh in relief. "What's wrong babe?"

"I was a bit scared…. I had a nightmare and then you weren't here when I woke up." I admitted.

"They called me in to look at some case files for a few murders that have been going around. All you alright?" Dae asked again as he shuffled through some papers. He then put them down and ran a hand through his hair, "If you're not alright I can come home if that's what you want. I'll just bring the case files with me."

I shook my head, "I don't want to burden your work, I know you're busy, I was just worried." I smiled and got up fully from the bed to walk into the bathroom. I reached and turned on the light before looking at myself in the mirror. I had dark circles under my eyes and I could tell that my collarbone was sticking out a bit more than it usually did. I wouldn't eat though until Dae came home, it was always like that; plus it was about 3am.

"Babe are you sure? It wouldn't be a problem." Dae grabbed the papers and stuffed them back into their respective file folders before stacking them and putting them in his messenger bag. He grabbed the bag and headed out the door, waving to his superior. His boss nodded his head, knowing what was going on and let Dae leave with no other word. "I'm coming home Die, can you turn on the lights for me then?"

"Mmm, I'll do that." I flipped my phone shut and walked out of the bathroom after no further inspection of my body. I trudged towards the living room, turning on the lights then into the kitchen to get myself a glass of water. I was surprised when I saw a glass of water already sitting on the counter when I entered the kitchen; it scared me slightly. I honestly didn't know what to think about it and eyed it. "Hmm…" After a moment I went to grab for it but it disappeared; confused, I shook my head and saw nothing there.

"Guess I'm just tired…" I concluded as I grabbed a new glass and turned on the facet to fill it with water. I brought the glass up to my lips and sipped at the liquid before going back into to the living room then the bedroom and sat up crosslegged on the bed. I found the remote in an instant and clicked the power button so the massive HD TV turned on from the other side of the room. The humming sound of it turning on soothed my worries. Nothing really was on besides paid programming, so I went to the movie channels to find a good random movie to watch. I decided on a horror flick, Someone Behind You, a Korean thriller that I truly loved.

As I watched the movie, random noises started to appear in the house. I swore I was going crazy but I tried to ignore it. It wasn't until the front door opened to let me know that Dae was home that I really worried. What if it wasn't him? What if… Dae walked into our bedroom and found me sprawled out on the bed on my stomach. I had my chin resting on my hands and my feet swinging back and forth, "There you are," I smiled.

Dae laughed softly as he came over to me and kissed my forehead, "I'm sorry for leaving so late in the night, waking you up." He put his messenger bag on the bed and pulled out the case files. "Wanna look at them with me?"

"Am I allowed?" I asked, rolling over so I could sit up. I grabbed one of the case files and flipped through the scattered papers; it was nothing more than a female who got murdered by her lover. Her throat was sliced open, exposing her esophagus, her eyes jabbed with spoons that were still in the sockets. Her mouth was sliced open like Joker, with her hands tied behind her back and feet chained too tightly together. The pictures fascinated me. I liked going through case files with Dae, but there were some that were too classified that even my eyes weren't allowed to see.

"Anything interesting?" Dae asked as he picked up one, came by my side to sit down with one leg cross on the bed and the other hanging over the side. He flipped through the case file he was holding and smiled, "These sound like the ones from a few years ago, you think?"

"This one's interesting. The way the boyfriend cut her throat open and exposed it. It was like he was trying to give us a message." Dae looked at me as I spoke. I think he found it fascinating that I had the mind of a killer, though I've never killed. I had a mild fixation on murders and death and I was a major masochistic that liked to look at his own cut marks after an episode. I wasn't sure what brought it all on, but I found myself licking my lips as I looked at the pictures.

"Die?" He asked me before he tapped my shoulder.

"Hmm? Oh." I smiled and looked up at him. "Sorry, got carried away for a second." I set the papers down on the bed and leaned over to kiss him on the lips, "They're interesting, might be a copy cat from the others, but you can't be too sure. They're all different people, different murderers, but it's intriguing cause they all have something in common… the way the throat was sliced." I stated, my eyes following down to the papers he was holding and pointed at the throat of the victim. "See?"

Dae nodded, "You really have an eye for these things. Why aren't you working with me? Why am I doing all the work?" He frowned and it made me laugh. "Cause I have health problems and you prefer to work and make the money to support little old me." I tease. He leaned to kiss my nose and nod, "That I do, I prefer to be the man of the house, don't you forget it."

And how could I? It made me feel good to know that I had someone like him; a protector of sorts. A lover willing to do anything for me. "I love you too," I giggled before going through the case files again. We'd stay up until dawn looking at the files and jotting down notes from what we found. We'd then fall asleep in each others arms with the papers scattered every which way on the bed. It was our way of bonding with his work, it was our way to really get the most out of what he did.

We'd wake up, have coffee and he'd take me out to breakfast. We'd go shopping for a bit before he had to head to work and the process world start all over again. He'd come home late and leave early in the morning because of an emergency call. I'd wake up and wait for him with nothing more to do than watch movies. It was our system and it worked for us. It was our way of life. While he played with the dead, I played with what we liked best in life, each other.

i found those photos. Nice right ?

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Description

Title: Baby Deer
Image size: 7" x 8"
Paper size: 8.5" x 11"

This photograph is printed on certified archival Hahnemuhle Fine Art paper (285gsm) using an Epson 3800 with Epson archival inks – a combination that creates the look and feel of custom darkroom fiber prints.

Carefully packaged in a protective sleeve. Shipped in a bendproof mailer.

•• Print does NOT come framed. Framed images are just for example••

(All images © 2008 Sharon Montrose. All rights reserved).

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR PAYPAL ADDRESS IS CORRECT. MAILING LABELS ARE AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED FROM THE ADDRESS IN YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT – NOT THE ETSY ADDRESS. THANK YOU!

Added on Mar 31, 2010

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Guest Passes let you share your photos that aren't public. Anyone can see your public photos anytime, whether they're a Flickr member or not. But! If you want to share photos marked as friends, family or private, use a Guest Pass. If you're sharing photos from a set, you can create a Guest Pass that includes any of your photos marked as friends, family, or private. If you're sharing your entire photostream, you can create a Guest Pass that includes photos marked as friends or family (but not your private photos). Learn more about Guest Passes!

Royal Challengers Bangalore proudly presents Anil Kumble's Wide Angle that brings together the great player's abiding passions – cricket, photography and wildlife. It gives a glimpse into the lives of his contemporaries beyond the boundary and our wild animals within theirs. Wide Angle, coffee table book of rare sensitivity, a document of drama brings alive personalities while giving a peep int the soul of the man who bowled India to more victories than anyone else. Although it is a book of cricket, it is not a cricket book so much as the story of what it means to be a player in a country that is so passionate about the sport. Shining through the pages of Wide Angle are personal experiences of one of the toughest men to have played the game, his unique take on men and matters subtly woven around stories in the dressing room, stories on tour and the sheer joy of capturing moments in history.

Says Dr. Vijay Mallya, Chairman, The UB Group, "Anil's eye for detail, grit and meticulous planning have led him to take on any challenges be it on-field or off it. Wide Angle is a precious coming together of this unique game changing ability. We are proud of his leadership for Royal Challengers. It is Anil's mentorship and experience that makes Royal Challengers one of the most sought after teams by the IPL fans. It is an honor to be present at this glorious occasion alongside one of the greatest achievers in the world of cricket."

Releasing the book at an elegant ceremony held at Hotel Gardenia in Bangalore, Shane Warne, the Australian legend recalled his long association with Kumble. "He is a rare combination of a gentleman and a fierce competitor and one of the jewels of the sport," he said.

With a Canon camera in hand, Kumble began to paint pictures as a teenager to stop a "good moment from running away". Wide Angle is a repository of memories, intense, casual, and celebratory. Mr. Alok Bharadwaj, Sr. Vice President – Canon India said, "we are proud to participate in a living legend's memorable journey. Kumble has shot most of his pictures with his Canon – cameras that don't just take pictures, but create memories."

The book is being printed and distributed by India's premier online Digital Photography company Canvera who have won many awards for the quality of their coffee-table-books. Canvera has built a full ecommerce site that will allow cricket lovers around the globe to preview and buy the book.

The final word must go to Anil Kumble himself: "This book will give you some insight into what
happens in a cricketer's life outside of the game itself." The book, produced and marketed by TENVIC (A Division of Anil Kumble Sports Pvt. Ltd.); is priced at Rs. 5,900/= and is available for purchase exclusively on http://wideangle.canvera.com.

###

Much of photography’s past is on display at the Association of International Photography Art Dealers Photography Show, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary. But if you are concerned about the future of the medium, there are only a few hints of what might be to come.

Mainly it is a show for collectors of vintage prints. Among the 72 dealers, scores are presenting usual-suspect inventories: Evans, Weston, Arbus and so on. Some, however, have exercised more creativity.

Photology, for one, has a marvelous display of small, sexually provocative Polaroids by a select few, including Helmut Newton, Carlo Mollino, Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe. At Hemphill there is an understatedly poetic series of pictures of old buildings in the South taken in the 1970s with a Kodak Brownie by William Christenberry.

Two galleries present remarkable, though very different, triplets.

Monroe has Eddie Adams’s famous 1968 picture of a South Vietnamese officer shooting a Vietcong suspect in the head, flanked within the same frame by shots in which the prisoner is being escorted by soldiers before his execution and has fallen to the ground after.

Bruce Silverstein has three variations on a subtly surreal 1948 portrait of a preteen girl with strangely bright eyes and curiously dark skin (she’s white). She seems an eerie blend of innocence and witchy experience.

Similarly weird pictures of children by Loretta Lux are at Yossi Milo, but they are in color and slightly distorted digitally. “Marianne,” in a neat powder-blue coat, is lovely if a little spooky, but the strangely solemn, big-eyed twins in polka-dot dresses in another image are scary. They look as if they escaped from Stanley Kubrick’s film “The Shining.”

There is a lot of work in the show that blurs the line between commercial and fine art. Danziger has pictures of the punk goddess Patti Smith by Annie Leibovitz. At PDNB Gallery there are still-life pictures of food by Robyn Stacey. A watermelon with a chunk cut out of it simultaneously calls to mind Baroque-era Spanish Realist painting and illustration for a contemporary gourmet food magazine.

As for the future, Bryce Wolkowitz offers a variety of electronically animated works, including a self-portrait by Shirley Shore that appears on a framed flat screen. Using a program she wrote, Ms. Shore created a composite image in which randomly changing pixels from pictures of herself and about 40 relatives and friends combine into a shimmering, constantly shifting single portrait.

One photographer who definitely has a future is Alex Prager, a young Los Angeleno who makes staged color photographs of women that synthesize the influences of Cindy Sherman, Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Douglas Sirk. Her coolly romantic pictures are at Yancey Richardson, and she will be included in a show of new photography at the Museum of Modern Art in the fall.

this is the personal blog of yoon s. byun. the content here is not affiliated with any company or organization. the pictures here are copyrighted by yoon s. byun.

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