Before embarking on a home remodeling project, it is important that all plans are well-thought out to ensure success. For kitchen remodeling, floor plans need to be drawn out and that task involves figuring out where cabinets and appliances will placed. First of all, you would need decide on how you would like the kitchen to be used. Some homeowners prefer their kitchens to serve only one purpose and that is as a place to cook the food that will be served on the table. However, there are some that want their kitchens to also have an eating area. When planning out your Raleigh home remodeling project, make sure to decide on how you would want each room to be used so you can make arrangements accordingly. The next thing that you would need to decide on for your kitchen are the cabinets.
For this aspect, you need to assess the condition of your existing cabinets so you can gauge whether they need replacing or if a fresh coat of paint will do. If you want to replace your cabinets, make sure to choose high quality materials so you can be assured of their lifespan. Since you are already spending for your kitchen remodeling Raleigh project, make sure that it will be worth it by not compromising the quality of the materials just so you can save on costs. Lastly, hire a contractor that you can trust. Before deciding on which company to hire, conduct a background check and ask for recommendations from family and friends so you won?t get ripped off from labor costs.
If there were any doubts that the tone of the Connecticut Senate race has become one of the most negative in the country, a glance at either side's abusive and sometimes wacky campaign ads should clear them up.
Republican nominee Linda McMahon's personal fortune has played a key role in turning the blue state into a Senate toss-up. It has allowed her to inundate voters' mailboxes and television sets with aggressive ads at a level that Democratic candidate and three-term congressman Chris Murphy has only recently been able to match thanks to contributions from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
But the push-back may be paying off for Murphy: A Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday morning shows Murphy ahead at 49 percent and McMahon at 43 percent, a 7-point swing from three weeks ago, when McMahon had a slight edge.
Take a look at some of the more outrageous ads seen over the course of the race:
After being hit by Murphy's charges of shadiness, McMahon ratchets up her portrayal of Murphy as a corrupt deadbeat:
Murphy hits back by casting McMahon as a friend of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and an enemy of Social Security:
McMahon hurls another jab at Murphy's 2008 home loan?and another empty chair makes an appearance this election season, as McMahon attacks her opponent's record of attendance in Congress:
And finally, perhaps the most derisive of the lot, McMahon takes aim at Murphy's campaign donors (a few of which she actually shares):
It happens to almost every adult on the planet. You bend to retrieve something off the floor and suddenly a stabbing pain in the small of your lower back, where your lumbar vertebrae are located, tells you you?ve done something terribly wrong. ?At least 80 per cent of people, if not more, will get a backache at some point in their lifetime,? confirms Cathy Christie, a physiotherapist with Doug Christie Physiotherapy in Winnipeg.
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Here?s what you need to know about lower back pain.
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1. Symptoms can vary from mild to almost disabling.
You may suffer a mere nagging muscle ache, but you may also be among those unfortunate enough to get shooting or stabbing pains or muscle spasms up your back. Some people have such severe back pain that they?re unable to stand straight or rotate their back. Most people (80 to 90 per cent) recover from the back injury that has caused the pain within four to six weeks, says Dr. Jill Hayden, a research fellow at the Institute for Work and Health in Toronto.
2. It?s usually many minor mis-movements over time that cause lower back pain.
The wrong motion done often enough is the main cause of lower back pain. ?Most often people develop lower back pain by recurrent minor strains to their back,? says Christie. A poor setup at your desk where you?re constantly twisting your back to look at the monitor or turning to acknowledge coworkers at the office door is a prime example. ?Lifting things is also hazardous for your back, but it doesn?t have to be a one-time, single lift that does it; it can just be picking things up repeatedly over the years and bending down the wrong way to do it,? she adds. If you?re not bending your knees to pick things up off the floor and holding whatever you?ve retrieved close to your body, you?re doing it wrong.
3. Bed rest is the worst thing to do for an injured back.
?When someone has an episode of lower back pain, bed rest predisposes her to the condition becoming chronic,? says Hayden. Instead, she recommends that, as much as possible, people stay active, keep going to work and maintain daily activity levels. These sentiments have been echoed by public health officials in Australia, as well as by those in Alberta, where the slogan Back Pain ? Don?t Take It Lying Down helps raise awareness of what not to do when you injure your back.
4. Back pain essentially gets better on its own.
Apart from staying active, there isn?t much you can do to hasten recovery after you?ve injured your lower back. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may reduce pain and inflammation, and spinal manipulation (chiropractic treatment) can be effective in the short term, says Hayden.
?Using heat or ice to alleviate back pain is a matter of preference, although Christie advocates ice during the first few days after the injury. Muscle relaxants have not been proven effective by legitimate research. ?When you first injure your back, you have to pamper it a bit and be careful of what you do; pay attention to how you get out of bed, how you get up and down from the chair and how much time you spend sitting,? says Christie. ?But when your back is a bit better, it?s time to start your exercise program again.?
5. Core strength is critical to prevent lower back pain.
To keep your back healthy, your fitness program should include stretching muscles in the back of the thigh and in the hips and back. You also need good posture. For this you need to keep the truncal region stable when you bend over, pick things up off the floor, stand, sit and walk. Truncal strength can be achieved through a variety of exercises, but evidence now suggests that both yoga and Pilates work wonders for improving core strength and flexibility.
Habits that cause back pain
It?s not just one major injury but many minor mis-movements over time that cause lower back pain. Here are habits that can affect your back:
? Sitting for long periods of time can exacerbate a sore bck. Sitting actually puts more compression on the disks in your back than standing ?so sitting is not necessarily a rest for your back,? says Christie.
? Carrying an overloaded backpack to and from school every day is another source of low back pain.
? The wrong footwear ? stilletto heels for example ? can throw your spine out of alignment and contribute to lower back pain.
? In contrast, shoes that provide good support or help correct foot problems reduce stress on the back and legs.
? Good cushioning in the soles of shoes absorb shock while walking or running and protects the lower back.
No point trying to be objective on this one. We love the Vikings. Always have. Always will. That?s why we scour every source imaginable to see what?s being said about the purple and gold. Sign up for our daily BringMeTheNews Vikings newsletter and join us in the hunt?
Few have worked as closely with Cam Newton as Warren Moon, and the Hall of Fame quarterback is still defending last year?s pupil, even while acknowledging his need to improve.
Moon thinks placing too much of the blame for the Panthers? 1-5 start (and the firing of general manager Marty Hurney) at the second-year quarterback?s feet is wrong, and any suggestion he?s a bust is ridiculous.
?I think a lot of this is because so many people want to say ?I told you so? about him, but couldn?t because he was so good last year,? Moon told Yahoo?s Mike Silver in a wide-ranging interview. ?I think people are overreacting. How can he be a bust? He just had one of the great years a rookie has ever had, and now he can?t play? Come on.?
Moon acknowledged he?d like to see Newton adopt a more even-keeled approach, something he?s done more of in recent weeks. But as he did prior to the draft?last year, Moon thinks there?s an undertone of racism to some of the criticism.
?I don?t understand it,? Moon said. ?I heard somebody compare him to Vince Young. It?s the same old crap ? it?s always a comparison of one black to another black. I get tired of it. I get tired of defending it.
?If you want to compare him to someone because of his demeanor, compare him to Jay Cutler. There are a lot of guys who whine and moan. Cam?s not biting anybody?s head off or pushing his linemen. He?s just disgruntled, and not handling losing well, because, think about it, he basically didn?t lose in college.
?I don?t think Cam?s as bad as Cutler, because Cutler looks like he doesn?t give a damn sometimes, or he?s yelling and cussing at someone. Cam, he just looks down when they?re losing.?
Moon also doesn?t think the Panthers coaches are putting Newton in good positions to succeed by ignoring the run game with the talent they have, and leaning too heavily on the read-option principles he ran in college.
?I don?t know why they got away from what they were doing last year,? Moon said. ?They were running more of a pro-style offense, and now they?re going more to the read-option, the stuff he did in college. I think some of it is coaching. I think some of it is they don?t have enough good players yet. And there?s no question he?s not playing as well as last year.
?That offense doesn?t allow you to be an NFL-type quarterback. It?s a lot of tricks, sticking the ball into a running back?s stomach, trying to freeze the defense. Even though he can do that and had success with it in college, I don?t think it serves him well in the long run. You can?t keep going back and forth. I think he?s a little bit confused with the footwork, and I think that?s one of the problems with his accuracy ? his feet are crossed up. Why this change? I think it?s backfiring. I think they?re out-thinking themselves.?
BEIRUT (AP) ? An international mediator told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that he hopes a four-day holiday truce can take hold in Syria this week, warning that another failure will worsen the fighting and increasingly threaten neighboring countries.
Yet even this modest effort ? the international community's only plan for scaling back the violence ? appears doomed to fail.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy, said the Syrian regime and some rebel groups promised to lay down their arms during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which begins Friday. However, President Bashar Assad's regime denied Wednesday that it had committed to the plan and a radical Islamist group fighting alongside the rebels said it won't comply. Other rebels dismissed the idea as irrelevant.
Previous cease-fire missions have failed, in part because neither the rebels nor the regime have an incentive to end the bloody war of attrition. Both sides believe they can still make gains on the battlefield even as they are locked in a stalemate, and neither has faith in negotiations on the terms of a political transition proposed by Brahimi.
As Brahimi briefed the Security Council, the death toll in the 19-month-old conflict crossed the threshold of 35,000, activists said, and more violence was reported across the country.
Two car bombs killed at least eight bus passengers in the capital Damascus and 12 regime soldiers near a military checkpoint in the north, while regime airstrikes on villages near a besieged army base killed 12 civilians, activists said. They also posted a video showing at least 13 bodies laid out Wednesday in a room in a Damascus suburb, some of them women and children. Each side blamed the other for the deaths.
Brahimi told the Security Council by video conference from Cairo that he hopes a truce will allow humanitarian aid to reach war-stricken areas and start transition talks, said a U.N. diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private.
However, months of horrific bloodshed and deep distrust between the combatants make it unlikely they will embark on the path outlined by Brahimi. The Syrian opposition says it won't negotiate unless Assad resigns, something the Syrian leader refuses to do.
"The Syrian regime throughout its reign and up until now signs everything but violates everything," Haitham Maleh, a veteran Syrian opposition leader, said after he and others met with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby in Cairo.
Maleh said there is concern the regime would exploit a cease-fire to take back rebel-held territory. The opposition will not accept any political solution that does not include Assad leaving his post, he said.
Brahimi has served as envoy since September, taking over from former U.N. chief Kofi Annan, who quit after failing to end the Syria fighting. Annan had pushed a six-point plan, including an April 12 cease-fire that was to lead to transition talks but never took hold.
Annan's successor has been blunt about the difficulty of his assignment, trying to lower expectations. He suggested Wednesday that even the holiday truce is a gamble, saying that failure could make the situation in Syria even worse, according to the U.N. diplomat.
Still, the international community has little else to offer. There is no appetite for military intervention, while harsher U.N. action against the regime has been blocked by Assad allies Russia and China, two Security Council members with veto powers.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she supports Brahimi's cease-fire so that "Syrians could celebrate in peace."
"We'd like to see the violence come to an end, there's no doubt about this, and we'd like to see a political transition take hold and begin. We've been calling for that for more than a year," she added.
Opposition reaction to Brahimi's truce plan ranged from lukewarm acceptance to downright rejection.
Abdelbaset Sieda, head of the main opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Council, said rebel fighters would hold their fire during the holiday unless attacked by regime forces. However, his group has no control over rebels fighting on the ground.
Rebel commander Zahran Aloush of the al-Islam brigade outside of Damascus said he's ignoring truce efforts. "How can I expect a cease-fire from a regime that has never given us anything, ever," he said via Skype.
The al-Qaida-linked group Jabhat al-Nusra, which fights with the rebels and has claimed a number of large suicide bombings against regime targets, said it will not lay down arms.
"There will be no truce between us and the prideful regime and shedder of the blood of Muslims," the group said in statement posted on militant websites. "We are not among those who allow the wily to trick us, nor are we ones who will accept to play these filthy games."
In Damascus, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdessi said the truce proposal was still "being studied" by Syrian army leaders and that Syria's decision would be announced Thursday. Brahimi also told reporters that a formal Syrian announcement was expected by Thursday.
Brahimi hasn't said how compliance would be monitored. Annan's truce plan was more comprehensive, calling for an open-ended truce, a pullback of troops and heavy weapons from urban centers and supervision by U.N. monitors.
In Wednesday's violence, 20 people were found dead in a building in the Damascus suburb of Douma, said local activist Mohammed Saeed, speaking via Skype. The dead included 10 women and four children, he said.
An amateur video posted online showed bodies scattered on the landings of a stairwell and sprawled out on tile floors. Among the bodies were those of two young boys, one with a hole in his head, and a woman. A thick stream of blood flowed from a doorway. Another video showed 13 bodies wrapped in blankets and laid out in two rows.
The videos matched activist descriptions of the event, but because Syria imposes tight restrictions on foreign journalists, their authenticity could not be independently verified.
The state-run news agency SANA quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying that 25 people were killed in Douma on Wednesday and that they were victims of a massacre carried out by "armed terrorists," the regime's term for opposition fighters.
Also Wednesday, Russia's chief military officer said Syrian rebels have acquired portable air defense missiles, including U.S.-made Stinger missiles. In remarks carried by Russian news agencies, Gen. Nikolai Makarov didn't say how many such missiles the rebels had and who supplied them.
A Syrian rebel told The Associated Press in Turkey that the insurgents obtained dozens of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, but would not say who provided them.
The Syrian opposition has urged its foreign backers to send heavy weapons, saying rebel fighters cannot break the stalemate as long as Assad can bomb them from the air. However, the Obama administration has refused to do so, saying the weapons might fall into the wrong hands and eventually be used against the U.S. and its allies.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland denied that the U.S. has provided any Stingers to Syrian rebels. She challenged Russia to provide evidence suggesting otherwise.
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Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Maggie Fick in Cairo, Bradley Klapper in Washington and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed reporting.
What if the smallest bits of matter actually harbor an undiscovered world of particles?
By Don Lincoln
Image: Craig Cutler
In Brief
In 1869 Dmitri Mendeleev created the periodic table of chemical elements by noticing that elements' properties fit into a repeating pattern, which physicists later explained as a consequence of atomic structure. A similar story may be playing out in particle physics again today.
The 12 known elementary particles have their own repeating patterns, suggesting they are not truly fundamental but actually tiny balls containing smaller particles, which physicists tentatively call preons.
Other evidence argues against this possibility. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, along with several lesser-known experiments, may finally settle the question.
The universe is a complex and intricate place.
We can move easily through air and yet not through a wall. The sun transmutes one element to another, bathing our planet in warmth and light. Radio waves have carried a man's voice to Earth from the surface of the moon, whereas gamma rays can inflict fatal damage on our DNA. On the face of it, these disparate phenomena have nothing to do with one another, but physicists have uncovered a handful of principles that fuse into a theory of sublime simplicity to explain all this and much more. This theory is called the Standard Model of particle physics, and it encapsulates the electromagnetic forces that make a wall feel solid, the nuclear forces that govern the sun's power plant, and the diverse family of light waves that both make modern communications possible and threaten our well-being.
This article was originally published with the title The Inner Life of Quarks.
Citizens' Empowerment Center invites leaders of major parties to participate in debate; Yachimovich, Mofaz, Lapid accept invitation, Netanyahu yet to respond
Tzvika Brot
The Citizens' empowerment Center plans to hold an election debate at the Tel Aviv University on January 1, which will include the leaders of all of Israel's major political parties.
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According to the center, so far Labor chairwoman Shelly Yachimovich, Kadima chairman Shaul Mofaz and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid have confirmed their attendance.
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Foreign Minister and Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman gave his general consent while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bureau has yet to reply to the invitation. Lieberman has already announced he is willing to participate in a debate but only if all major parties chairpersons will join, including Netanyahu.
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The Center's invitation said: "The Israeli public is looking forward to an open debate between the party leaders. A TV debate is the best way to expose the parties' visions, increase transparency of the candidates' agenda and their accountability to the public."
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The first obstacle in adopting the American debate model is the expected refusal by PM Netanyahu to take part in it. Elections debates have not been held in Israel since 1999 as in most cases the leading candidates declined to attend them.
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The Center requested Yoni Cohen-Idov, who won the world debate championship in 2010, to supervise the debate in January.
NEW YORK - Shares of the biggest oil companies dropped Tuesday as crude oil tumbled to a 3-month low on fear of slower economic growth.
Benchmark oil was down $2.46, or 2.8 percent, to $86.19 in morning trading in New York ? and down about 6 percent since last Thursday. In London, Brent crude was off $1.63, or 1.5 percent, to $107.81.
Weak or cautious forecasts this week from major manufacturers including 3M Co., Korean steel maker Posco and heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar contributed to concern about global economic growth.
Slower growth would mean less demand for gasoline and other forms of energy, and that fear sent oil stocks lower.
In midday trading, Chevron had the biggest drop of the major U.S. oil companies. Shares fell $3.36, or 3 percent, to $109.38. They hit an all-time high of $118.53 earlier this month. Exxon Mobil Corp. fell $1.94, or 2.1 percent, to $90.25; and ConocoPhillips fell $1.12, or 2 percent, at $55.92;
Among the European majors that trade in the U.S., Royal Dutch Shell shares fell $1.86, or 2.7 percent, to $67.21; BP PLC dropped $1.07, or 2.5 percent, to $41.57; and Total SA lost $1.51, or 2.9 percent, to $50.10.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
New England Patriots defensive end Rob Ninkovich (50) sacks New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez (6) to clinch a 29-26 Patriots win in overtime of an NFL football game in Foxborough, Mass., Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
New England Patriots defensive end Rob Ninkovich (50) sacks New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez (6) to clinch a 29-26 Patriots win in overtime of an NFL football game in Foxborough, Mass., Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
New England Patriots wide receiver Brandon Lloyd (85) cannot catch a pass in front of New York Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie (31) in the fourth quarter of an NFL football game in Foxborough, Mass., Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
New York Jets kicker Nick Folk (2) celebrates his second field goal of the fourth quarter with holder Robert Malone (3) during an NFL football game against the New England Patriots in Foxborough, Mass., Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez (6) celebrates his touchdown pass to tight end Dustin Keller (81) against the New England Patriots in the fourth quarter of an NFL football game in Foxborough, Mass., Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
New York Jets strong safety Yeremiah Bell, left, tackles New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker (83) after a catch in the third quarter of an NFL football game in Foxborough, Mass., Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) ? The New England Patriots played just well enough to win the game. They still haven't shown they have what it takes to win their division.
Not if they keep wasting leads.
The Patriots escaped with a 29-26 overtime victory over the New York Jets on Sunday, one week after squandering a 23-10 lead they held midway through the fourth quarter in a 24-23 loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
"Those last couple of drives we moved the ball better" against the Jets, Tom Brady said. "I wouldn't say they were great drives, but they were good enough."
Enough for the Patriots to take sole possession of first place in the AFC East, where all four teams began the day at 3-3. The Patriots (4-3) lead the Jets and Buffalo Bills (both 3-4) and the Miami Dolphins (3-3), who were idle Sunday.
"We know the Jets are going to be there all the way through," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. "There's a lot of football left to be played. I don't think anybody clinched anything today. I don't think anybody got eliminated today."
The Patriots led 16-10 at halftime and 23-13 after Brady and Rob Gronkowski connected on their second touchdown of the game, a 2-yarder with 2:39 left in the third quarter. New York rallied to go ahead 26-23 when Mark Sanchez threw a 7-yard scoring pass to Dustin Keller with 5:44 to go in regulation and Nick Folk kicked two 43-yard field goals with 2:06 and 1:37 remaining. The second followed Antonio Allen's recovery of Devin McCourty's fumble on the kickoff.
"Our emotions were high and everyone was full of energy," Allen said, "but they took it right back."
Brady led a 54-yard drive capped by Stephen Gostkowski's 43-yard field goal on the last play of the fourth quarter. The Patriots got the ball to start overtime and another 54-yard series set up Gostkowski's go-ahead 48-yard kick.
If the first team with the ball gets anything less than a touchdown, the other team gets a chance.
Sanchez moved the Jets from their 15-yard line to their 40. Then he was hit low by Jermaine Cunningham and high by Rob Ninkovich for a sack. The ball popped out and Ninkovich recovered it, ending the game.
For the fourth time this season, a Patriots game was decided in the final two minutes. And, for the first time, they won.
"The whole time I'm thinking, 'Hey, this can't happen again. We've just got to fight all four quarters, hold them to a field goal at the end,'" Ninkovich said. "In overtime we said, 'Hey, it's overtime. We know we're going to get a chance, so let's go out there and finish this game.'"
The game might not have reached overtime had the Jets capitalized on their chances late in regulation.
"We made too many mistakes but we had our opportunities," New York coach Rex Ryan said. "It just stinks being on this end of it."
Trailing 23-20, Sanchez threw a good pass to a wide-open Stephen Hill that would have given the Jets a first down inside the Patriots 20-yard line with just over two minutes left. But Hill dropped it and New York settled for one of Folk's four field goals.
"I think he was trying to make a big play," Ryan said. "You've got to catch the ball first then worry about making the run."
Then the Jets managed only a field goal after Allen's recovery.
"We said it earlier in the week," Sanchez said. "You can't kick field goals against this team. You've got to get seven points."
In the Patriots three losses, Gostkowski missed a 42-yard field-goal attempt on the next to last play of a 20-18 loss to Arizona, Justin Tucker kicked a 27-yarder on the last play of a 31-30 Baltimore win and Sidney Rice caught a 46-yard touchdown pass with 1:18 left in Seattle's victory.
"It comes down to a few plays," Brady said. "When you make the plays you win the game."
Brady completed 26 of 42 passes for 259 yards. Sanchez was 28 for 41 for a season-high 328 yards and one touchdown.
But it was the strip sack on the last play that decided the game.
"In overtime, Bill came to us and said we're going to need the rush," defensive tackle Vince Wilfork said. "We all understood that we had to get after it."
Said Sanchez: "We got pressure inside and I didn't feel Ninkovich on the outside."
That play ruined the Jets' chance to go 3-0 in the division and take over first place by themselves.
"It makes this one hurt a little more," Sanchez said. "The most important thing is next week. We've got a shot against Miami at home and then we'll end up getting (the Patriots) in the back end at home as well."
NOTES: The Jets rushed for 106 yards, led by Shonn Greene's 54. A week earlier in a 35-9 win over the Indianapolis Colts, he had a career-high 161 of the Jets 252 yards rushing. ... McCourty returned a kickoff 104 yards for a touchdown, the second longest in team history as the Patriots tied the game 7-7 after Greene's 1-yard scoring run. ... Greene's fumble into his end zone ended in a safety when Sanchez deliberately kicked the ball out of the end zone, giving the Patriots a 16-7 lead. ... The Patriots gained at least 350 yards for the 16th straight regular-season game, tying the St. Louis Rams of 1999-2000 for the most in NFL history.
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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL
During the 1970s and ?80s, many of the social sciences experienced a development that came to be known as the ?cultural turn?. This referred to a growing awareness that language and symbolism are component parts of how the social world fits together and changes over time. Culture is not simply stuff that gets discussed by art critics, but permeates day-to-day life. Not only that, there are some types of activity that can only be understood if their cultural elements are taken into account, for otherwise they simply appear ?irrational? or mistaken. The phenomenon of working class people voting for political parties that benefit the rich is a prime example.
The question then arises of how far should the cultural turn be extended. Unsurprisingly, the social sciences that are most committed to ?hard? scientific and quantitative explanations are also those which have been least receptive. It is no coincidence that these are also the ones with the greatest respectability in the bastions of Oxbridge and Whitehall. At the top of this list sits economics, with political science not far behind. Meanwhile, human geographers, anthropologists, sociologists and historians of science have been happy to explore cultural explanations, as many of them never aspired to scientific objectivism or policy influence in the first place.
This exploration of language and symbols has been lampooned as frivolous by more orthodox scholars and policy-makers. But over the past thirty years, these less politically authoritative social sciences have been slowly pushing their cultural analyses further towards the territory of economics and political science.? More recently, they have penetrated that territory, exploring how even financial markets, accounting standards and technocratic policy elites are shaped by cultural codes and norms.
A great deal has been said and written about how the present economic crisis has (or should have) undermined the validity of orthodox economic methods. Part of the purpose of the Uneconomics debate has been to develop this challenge, as demonstrated by Phillip Mirowski?s polemical contribution. But less has been said about how this crisis represents an overwhelming endorsement for the emergence of more culturally-conscious forms of economic and political analysis.
Can you really hope to understand why bankers would risk their entire banks, without also understanding something of the destructive exuberance of finance culture since the 1980s? When core pillars of financial governance, such as ?shareholder value? and central bank inflation-targeting, start to backfire, surely it is important to understand how certain numerical indicators come to attain symbolic authority in the first place. What is going on when regulators and credit-raters place their faith in statistical risk models?????
Dealing with these issues requires an anthropological sensibility, which is attuned to questions of symbolic representation and organizational norms. So much of the financial crisis comes down to a single problem, of allowing models of reality to be mistaken for reality itself. The paradoxical result was that the quest for transparency began to generate its own opacity. Accounting reports obscured the messiness of organisations. Simple credit ratings hid the intrinsic complexity of the firms, mortgages and products that were being evaluated. As Andy Haldane, Executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England, said, when interviewed for Uneconomics:
We [economists] forgot the key part, which is that the models are only true if the assumptions that underpin those models are also true. And we started to believe that what were assumptions were actually a description of reality, and therefore that the models were a description of reality, and therefore were dependable for policy analysis.?
Haldane points out that many of the giants of 20th century economics recognized this threat, including Keynes and Hayek. Economists were once more alert to uncertainty and the limitations of quantitative models of the future. Keynes and Hayek can both be read as offering a warning against excessive confidence in economic knowledge, whether on the part of policy-makers or investors. Part of the goal of the Uneconomics debate has been to give support to heterodox economic perspectives, which give far greater prominence to uncertainty and historical evolution. Judith Marquand?s splendid piece showcases this.
And yet declaring that we simply do not know, as John Gray has done for example, is scant consolation, given that certain strategically placed individuals clearly did know what was going on in the build up to the crisis. More seriously, this level of agnosticism is often propagated by certain parties to protect themselves, as Linsey McGoey?s article discussed. As I argued in my opening Uneconomics essay, it is no coincidence that many of the best interpretations of the crisis have come from anthropologists such as Gillian Tett and journalists such as Michael Lewis. Digging around, uncovering stories, being a nuisance; these are the skills necessary to reveal what?s going on inside institutions that use their preferred model of transparency and reporting, precisely so as to hide what is really going on. Thus with the experience of her campaigning against third world debt, Ann Pettifor took a look at the developed countries back in 2003 and could see clearly: The coming first world debt crisis. Or David Potter, with a background in global manufacturing, tried to warn about the bubble and sees the current realities with a practical eye in his interview with Uneconomics.
Only if we recognize that economics is part of the reality it seeks to describe, can we begin to understand how the crisis occurred. Again, this might have sounded like zany postmodernism a decade ago. But now, all serious policy thinkers accept this to some extent. This is why Haldane now gives speeches about the history of statistical risk models, a topic that was once the preserve of constructionists, such as Ian Hacking or Alain Desrosieres. It is why one recent review of corporate governance has called for less accounting, not more.? It is also why we need to cast a critical light upon the types of economic expertise at work in Whitehall, as the CRESC authors did in their contribution.
In launching the Uneconomics debate, I was aware of a large number of economic sociologists, geographers, political economists and anthropologists producing fascinating work on economic practices and institutions, deserving of larger public audiences. As impressive as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz are, we already know what they think, not least because it is partly determined by their methodology. But scholars who research institutions and cultures produce interpretations and narratives that are often genuinely surprising and transformative. I felt we needed to hear from them, and hoped that Uneconomics would provide a platform.
As the deservedly acclaimed CRESC keep demonstrating, this isn?t necessarily an either or: orthodox economics can be married to qualitative interpretations, histories and ethnographies. Their paper on British industrial policy (which I reviewed for Uneconomics) demonstrates that greater institutional sensitivity can have a policy pay-off. Hayekian ignorance regarding the future is not the only alternative to unthinking trust in numbers. Some knowledge gaps can and should be filled, if necessary by qualitative forms of evidence. Economics may be good at providing models, but other social sciences can provide examples. We may be witnessing the fallout of what happens when policy-makers try to govern with one but not the other.
Leading think tanks have also recognized the current crisis as an opportunity to bring economic and cultural analysis together. Last year, the ippr published a report seeking to renew the implicit cultural and political sociology of the centre left, accompanying it with a journal issue marking the twentieth anniversary of the closure of Marxism Today. They argued that Marxism Today had performed a key role in the genesis of New Labour, in providing interpretation of capitalist evolution, and not simply statistical analysis, which needed repeating for the current era. This year, Matthew Taylor, former advisor to Tony Blair, used his annual lecture at the RSA (of which he is Chief Executive) to provide a cultural theory of contemporary forms of power.
A few months in to the Uneconomics debate, Aditya Chakrabortty, economics leader writer for The Guardian launched a blistering attack on the social sciences, arguing that following the financial crisis:
With the all-powerful [economists] temporarily discredited, an opportunity opened up for the sociologists, the political scientists and the rest to charge in, have their say ? and change the way public policy is shaped? So have the non-economists grasped their moment? Have they hell. Look at the academic conferences held over the past few weeks, at which the latest and most promising research in each discipline is presented, and it's as if Lehman Brothers never fell over.
Chakrabortty generously recognized Uneconomics as an attempt to do otherwise, but was generally pessimistic about the capacity of the social sciences to challenge orthodox economics. Whatever the validity of Chakrabortty?s claims, his piece sparked a very welcome debate amongst academics as to whether they were taking their public responsibilities seriously (for a stern rebuke, see Andrew Gamble?s answer). Unperturbed by all the protestations, Chakrabortty wrote a second piece refusing to budge.
Was Chakrabortty being unfair? It depends on exactly how you understand the public responsibilities of social science. No academic wants to risk the charge of ?irrelevance? any longer, and many social scientists were fiercely aggrieved. The problem is that ?relevance? is not something that can be easily or quickly grasped.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, some academics are born relevant, some achieve relevance and some have relevance thrust upon them. Economists tend to be ?born relevant?, in having tools to evaluate public policies and predict their outcomes. But these tools can look very blunt when the world is suddenly turned upside down. As the funding environment gets tighter, the research councils are imploring academics to ?achieve relevance?, by chasing some mercurial entity known as ?impact? and demonstrating value to their ?user groups?. No funding bid is now complete without a shopping list of podcasts, twitter feeds and blogs, through which the applicant promises to hurl themselves out of their ivory tower and land with an impactful thud upon the public below.
I would argue that those analyzing economic, elite and financial cultures have had relevance ?thrust upon them? by the events of the last few years. Donald MacKenzie, for example, had been observing derivatives trading for several years before the crisis broke. He came to this subject via the circuitous and (to most people) obscure route of science studies, taking in studies of eugenics and nuclear missile accuracy along the way. Yet he was surveying the esoteric world of Credit Default Swaps and Collateralized Debt Obligations (the derivatives which initiated the crisis) long before the media had ever heard of them. If he?d been chasing ?relevance? in 2003, this wouldn?t have happened. As with all research and development, the social sciences cannot know what they will uncover or where, until they uncover it.
As an experiment in public knowledge, however, Uneconomics had mixed results. Via email lists, facebook and twitter, I tried to attract contributions from scholars whose work would otherwise remain confined to the academic world, but to very little avail. Of course, there is no good reason why my precious debate should be recognized as a worthwhile platform by anyone else; most people quite understandably feel they have more important things to write, and limited time to write them. The incentives governing an academic career nowadays do not strongly induce engagement beyond one?s peer group, regardless of the research councils? rhetoric of public engagement.
Worse, many scholars may view it as a career risk to step outside of the peer-reviewed sphere, and have a journalistic blog post near the top of their Google ranking. The insecurity of academic careers and the deep uncertainty surrounding higher education generally means that no sensible social scientist would suddenly switch from their area of specialism, and start studying investment banking, just because that was what was in the newspapers that week. Apart from anything else, this isn?t the vocation that leads people to conduct lengthy and rigorous research in the first place.
Part of CRESC?s success derives from its kibbutz-style pooling of research resources. Their working papers and books published on the financial crisis generally have five or six authors named on them, enabling a form of rapid response that no individual scholar would be able to achieve (CRESC managed to put out a paper on the Libor scandal within three weeks of it breaking). Could this co-operative research model be replicated? It does depend on academics being willing to suspend egos.
All of this leaves unanswered the question of what precisely will or should constitute public engagement of the social sciences, especially when they have ?relevance thrust upon them?. During the English riots of August 2011, the BBC demonstrated a lamentable inability to find anyone able to speak intelligently and authoritatively about the phenomenon, with the result that David Starkey was invited onto Newsnight only to espouse racist drivel. The media has a responsibility here too. The Guardian?s New Political Economy Network (a collaboration between Commentisfree and heterodox economists) represents one possible model. Stepping-stones are needed between slow and laborious journal articles and the shouting matches of the blogosphere. Hopefully Uneconomics has provided one small example of this.
The only fully-accessible home ever designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright is among the latest properties to be named to the National Register of Historic Places.
The U.S. Department of the Interior recently added the Laurent House in Rockford, Ill. to its list of historic places.
The home was designed by Wright in 1949 for Kenneth Laurent, who was paralyzed while serving in World War II. In addition to switches, built-in desks and other features and furnishings designed to accommodate an individual using a wheelchair, Wright crafted the house so that it?s beauty could be appreciated from a seated position.
Read more of Michelle Diament's Disability Scoop article HERE.
(PET CARE) The cat flea is one of the most abundant and widespread species of flea on Earth. Not only do fleas cause incessant scratching, but they can also lead to tapeworms. Read on to learn how you can control and treat fleas in cats. ? Global Animal
Don?t let fleas be a pest for you an your pet. Photo Credit: Johanna Goodyear
Cats acquire fleas easily and frequently. Every cat guardian has seen the routine before. The cat goes outside a couple of times during a week, then by the weekend the poor cat is scratching itself, making noises constantly to get your attention, and rolling around on the floor to alleviate an itch on its backside. More often than not, the problem is coming from flea bites. Most people who own cats are familiar with their cats acquiring fleas and start to feel helpless because they do not feel they can help their cats. However, just because flea bites are a common occurrence for cats does not mean your cat has to live with these types of struggles. There are easy ways to keep your cat from acquiring flea problems in the first place.
Many cat guardians want to test their cats first to be sure they have fleas before they do anything else. If you would like to test your cat for fleas, there are a couple of ways to do it. The best way is to first try bringing your cat outside. Then, brush his or her hair with a comb as the cat stands on a bright white piece of paper. As you brush, you will notice little brown insects fall onto the sheet if your cat has fleas. If you find these brown insects, then you know it is time to get treatment immediately. However, even if you do not find the fleas, it is difficult to be sure; some cat guardians become frustrated when they cannot find the fleas but the cat continues to scratch itself as though something is bothersome. Another way to find if your cat has fleas is to brush your cat and put any flea ?dirt? on a wet paper towel. If any of it turns red with blood, your cat has fleas.
The only way to be absolutely certain that your cat is flea free is to purchase and apply some kind of topical treatment for fleas. These treatments are effective not only in treating a current itch or flea problem, but also preventing future infections. Treatments like this are usually in some kind of ointment or lotion form, so the cat feels better as soon as the treatment is applied. Application is easy. Simply rub the ointment over the cat?s backside, taking care to reach the infected area. Once you have rubbed your cat, you will notice your cat will instantly stop scratching itself because the itching has gone away.
The fleas will also disappear within days, and your cat will be back to living a happy, normal life. Be sure to continue to apply the treatment roughly once a month, especially if your cat goes outdoors on a regular basis. See your veterinarian for your cat?s specific needs or if you have any questions about the treatment you are using. Overall, your cat will appreciate you for your help and will love that he or she can finally start living flea free.
Welcome to the latest issue of This Week in Social Media Law, my weekly roundup of issues at the intersection of social media and the law.
On tap this week: ownership of social media accounts, teachers and online relationships, cybersecurity awareness, Canada?s anti-spam law, and the Children?s Online Privacy Protection Act. For your liking, tweeting, sharing, recommending, and plus one-ing pleasure:
Yours, mine, and ours ? whose accounts are they, anyway?
The legal battle over the ownership of social media accounts is just beginning, and it?s likely to be a messy fight. Case in point: the most recent lawsuit, Linda Eagle?s dispute with her former employer Edcomm over her LinkedIn account, involves issues that touch on a wide range of federal and state laws, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (the federal anti-hacking law), trademark law (related to confusion or the likelihood of confusion), and state law claims relating to conversion (regarding a company laptop), misappropriation (of the account), and invasion of privacy.
Attorneys Martha Zackin and Brandon Willenberg (law firm Mintz Levin) think that a clear and comprehensive social media policy can help clean up the mess before it starts. Travis Crabtree (from law firm Looper Reed) agrees, but wonders if fighting over social media accounts is worth the trouble:
?It seems to me that Eagle is spending a lot of efforts for loss of access to her account for 22 weeks? What was the real damage? From Edcomm?s perspective, what was the real gain? If there were trade secrets on the account, there are prohibitions and ways to address that without seizing the entire account (or at least seizing it for that long).?
Beware the ?Parental Paparazzi?
Should teachers be ?friends? with the parents of their students? Probably not, writes Jackie Wernz from law firm Franczek Radelet, because it could expose the teachers ? and the school districts they work for ? to a wide range of unintended consequences. Like charges of misconduct for posts deemed inappropriate by the ?parental paparazzi,? or confusion over official and unofficial school-related communications. Perhaps not surprisingly, Wernz advocates for policies, procedures, and guidelines that cover social networking (without crossing the line drawn by the NLRB, of course). But the best answer might be to just say ?no.? (Franczek Radelet)
October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
But it may be too early to start celebrating. President Obama?s proclamation of October as National Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a reminder, write Amy Malone and Cynthia Larose of law firm Mintz Levin, that everyone ? from individuals to government agencies to small businesses to law enforcement ? needs to understand cyber threats and take measures to protect online privacy and security. (You don?t have to take their word for it: the FBI and the country?s top three financial institutions will tell you the same thing.) Don?t expect National Cybersecurity Awareness month to be the end of it, however. Growing concern is leading the government to take a more active role in addressing cybersecurity issues, which is likely to include an executive order on cybersecurity?that covers some of the same ground as the failed Cybersecurity Act of 2012.?
How do you say ?anti-spam? in French Canadian?
Canada?s anti-spam law is scheduled to take effect in 2013, but businesses can start preparing now (even if all of the rules haven?t been finalized). The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission just issued two information bulletins on its rules, which cover obtaining consent and effective unsubscribe mechanisms. Who says social media and internet law isn?t sexy?
At this rate, the rules may never catch up with the technology?
After more than two years in the making, the Federal Trade Commission?s recommended changes to the Children?s Online Privacy Protection Act could be finalized by the end of the year. The FTC wants the rules to include mobile devices, geo-location information, and behavioral advertising tracking cookies, and to make the rules applicable to a broader range of websites. (Sheppard Mullin)?
More important than training, nutrition, supplementation and even? more than anabolic steroids! Don?t do this and you have no chance of? building your perfect body!
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The Internal Revenue Service yesterday released the cost of living adjustments affecting dollar limitations for pension plans and other retirement-related items for Tax Year 2013.
In general, many of the pension plan limitations will change for 2013 because the increase in the cost-of-living index met the statutory thresholds that trigger their adjustment.? However, other limitations will remain unchanged because the increase in the index did not meet the statutory thresholds that trigger their adjustment. Highlights include:
- The elective deferral (contribution) limit for employees who participate in 401(k), 403(b), most 457 plans, and the federal government?s Thrift Savings Plan is increased from $17,000 to $17,500.
- The catch-up contribution limit for employees aged 50 and over who participate in 401(k), 403(b), most 457 plans, and the federal government?s Thrift Savings Plan remains unchanged at $5,500.
- The deduction for taxpayers making contributions to a traditional IRA is phased out for singles and heads of household who are covered by a workplace retirement plan and have modified adjusted gross incomes (AGI) between $59,000 and $69,000, up from $58,000 and $68,000 in 2012.? For married couples filing jointly, in which the spouse who makes the IRA contribution is covered by a workplace retirement plan, the income phase-out range is $95,000 to $115,000, up from $92,000 to $112,000.? For an IRA contributor who is not covered by a workplace retirement plan and is married to someone who is covered, the deduction is phased out if the couple?s income is between $178,000 and $188,000, up from $173,000 and $183,000.
- The AGI phase-out range for taxpayers making contributions to a Roth IRA is $178,000 to $188,000 for married couples filing jointly, up from $173,000 to $183,000 in 2012.? For singles and heads of household, the income phase-out range is $112,000 to $127,000, up from $110,000 to $125,000.? For a married individual filing a separate return who is covered by a retirement plan at work, the phase-out range remains $0 to $10,000.
- The AGI limit for the saver?s credit (also known as the retirement savings contribution credit) for low- and moderate-income workers is $59,000 for married couples filing jointly, up from $57,500 in 2012; $44,250 for heads of household, up from $43,125; and $29,500 for married individuals filing separately and for singles, up from $28,750.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2012) ? NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has ingested its first solid sample into an analytical instrument inside the rover, a capability at the core of the two-year mission.
The rover's Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument is analyzing this sample to determine what minerals it contains.
"We are crossing a significant threshold for this mission by using CheMin on its first sample," said Curiosity's project scientist, John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "This instrument gives us a more definitive mineral-identifying method than ever before used on Mars: X-ray diffraction. Confidently identifying minerals is important because minerals record the environmental conditions under which they form."
The sample is a sieved portion -- about as much material as in a baby aspirin -- from the third scoop collected by Curiosity as a windblown patch of dusty sand called "Rocknest." The rover's robotic arm delivered the sample to CheMin's opened inlet funnel on the rover's deck on Oct. 17.
The previous day, the rover shook the scooped material inside sample-processing chambers to scrub internal surfaces of any residue carried from Earth. One earlier scoopful was also used for cleaning. Additional repetitions of this cleaning method will be used before delivery of a future sample to the rover's other internal analytic instrument, the Sample Analysis at Mars investigation, which studies samples' chemistry.
Various small bits of light-toned material on the ground at Rocknest have affected the rover's activities in the past several days. One piece about half an inch (1.3 centimeters) long was noticed on Oct. 7. The rover team postponed use of the robotic arm for two days while investigating this object, and assessed it to be debris from the spacecraft.
Images taken after Curiosity collected its second scoop of Rocknest material on Oct. 12 showed smaller bits of light-toned material in the hole dug by the scooping action. This led to discarding that scoopful rather than using it to scrub the processing mechanisms. Scientists assess these smaller, bright particles to be native Martian material, not from the spacecraft.
"We plan to learn more both about the spacecraft material and about the smaller, bright particles," said Curiosity Project Manager Richard Cook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. "We will finish determining whether the spacecraft material warrants concern during future operations. The native Mars particles become fodder for the mission's scientific studies."
During a two-year prime mission, researchers are using Curiosity's 10 instruments to assess whether the study area has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the project and built Curiosity. For more about Curiosity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .
You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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How a Forex system are operating in real time Online foreign exchange trading happens in real-time. Fx rates are constantly changing, in intervals of seconds. Quotes are accurate with the time they're displayed only. At any moment, a different rate can be quoted. When a trader locks in a rate and executes a transaction, that transaction is immediately processed; the trade has been executed.
Up-to-date exchange rates As rates change so rapidly, any Forex software must display probably the most up-to-date rates. To achieve this, the Forex software is continuously communicating that has a remote server that gives the most current exchange rates. The rates quoted, unlike traditional bank exchange rates, are actual tradable rates. A trader could lock to your rate (referred to as freeze rate ) only as long as it can be displayed.
Trading online on Forex platforms The internet revolution caused a significant alter in how Currency trading is conducted throughout the world. Till the creation of the internet-Forex age towards the end of the 1990s, Forex trading was conducted via phone orders (or fax, or perhaps-person), posted to brokers or banks. The majority of the trading may be executed only during business hours. Identical was true for the majority of activities related to Forex, like making the deposits needed for trading, let alone profit taking. The net has radically altered the Forex market, enabling 7 days a week trading and conveniences such as the use of bank cards for fund deposits.
Forex on-line: basic steps In the main, the individual Trader is required to fulfill two steps prior to trading: Register on the trading platform Deposit funds to facilitate trading
Requirements vary with each trading platform, but the steps bear further discussion:
Registering Registration is completed online through the individual trader. Types of forms used in the. Some may be simple, where other medication is longer and more time-consuming. In part, this is often assigned to governmental or other authorities requirements, though some Forex platforms require more information than is definitely needed . Incidents where have to have a face-to-face meeting, or to obtain hard copies of required documents for example a passport, or drivers license. The main element requirements for registration would be the traders complete name, telephone, e-mail address, residence, and sometime s also the traders yearly income or capital (equity) and an ID number (passport / drivers license / SSN / etc.). Typically, the Forex platform just isn't instructed to manage a thorough check, but rely around the registrant to become truthful. Nevertheless, each Forex platform conducts certain routines, to be able to check and verify the authenticity of the details provided. Registrants are needed to declare that funds used for trading are certainly not in question, and therefore are not the effect of any criminal act or money laundering activity. It is mandatory as part of an international anti-money laundering effort.
It can be advised that this reader becomes informed about Anti-Money Laundering regulations, as well as the procedures associated with the prevention of this criminal activity.
Depositing funds New registrants must deposit funds to facilitate trading. However, the tastes the Forex platforms today require that, in addition to funds used for actual trading, an extra amount be deposited. Known as maintenance margin or activity collateral, its purpose is made for the platform a great additional guarantee. A number of the platforms that want an additional deposit do pay interest within the collateral, which can be frozen under the traders name. The Eforexoptions.com Trading Platform doesn't require any additional guarantee, and allows trading with 100% with the amount deposited. Eforexoptions.com has the capacity to provide these advantages as it assures guaranteed rates and prevent-Loss. Which means that prepare yourself for some not be any additional requirement of funds as a result of a gap that creates that you surpass the Stop-Loss. See 20 issues you will need to consider (Chapter 9) for further.
Trading online The trading platform operates around the clock even as the global Forex market runs night and day. However, many online Forex market makers require the download and installation of software specific to their own trading platform. Consequently, accessibility is bound to prospects terminals that contain the software. Since Forex trading is borderless, and could be performed at the same time, it's obviously advantageous to possess use of trading from as much locations as it can be. The Eforexoptions.com Trading Platform is usually a fully web-based system, so this means trading might be conducted from any computer attached to the internet. Traders are just required to log-in, ensure they've got available funds to trade, or make new deposits, and commence trading.
The Trading Platform: real-time software The primary feature of any Currency trading platform is real time access to forex rates, to deal and order making, to deposits and withdrawals, and to monitoring the status of positions and ones account. The Eforexoptions.com Trading Platform system uses web services to continuously fetch probably the most current fx rates. The most up-to-date data displays without the requirement of a website refresh. This consists of account status screens for example My Position, which updates continually to mirror modifications in rates and also other real time elements.
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Who knew that slapping a heart on the side of a 3D rendered cube would turn it into one of the most beloved video game characters of the past five years? Definitely not Valve, otherwise the developer would have had this Companion Cube Ice Tray on the market ages ago. More »
