Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Product Review: Nivea Sparkling White Acne Oil Control

Hello ladies! I am back with another review! I promise this will be the last for this month for sure!?

I have used up my Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser a month back and I felt so bad about it. I was thinking of getting a new one but I remember I got the Nivea Sparkling White Acne Oil Control whitening cleansing foam so might as well try it.?

This is a whitening product which is not really my thing since I already have fair skin. I don't want to be whiter that I really am, This is good for combination to oily skin which is my skin type as of the moment.?

It is packaged in a white shiny tube that has pink accents at the front part of the tube. The packaging is really nice and is close to the standard packaging of Nivea which is simple and clean.?

Its claim is it has two times smaller molecules that will clean deeper into the pores to prevent acne and reveal fairer skin. The cleanser has a white color that is quite frothy already. It has a faint floral green scent to it. Its not overwhelming to the nose when you wash your face which is good.?

I have been checking out some drugstores to check the price of this but I haven't seen this being sold to my local drugstore, but I saw online that this costs 75php which is great if you are on a budget. It takes off the shine but not totally which is okay since it will give the skin that natural shine.

One thing though that disturbs me is the cap. The cap is a little flimsy so sometimes even if I close the cap it would open back again.

Things I like about this:
- Did not break me out.
- Has a faint floral green scent.
- Easy to use.
- Took away too much shine and oil from my face.
- Cheap price

Things I don't like about this:
- The cap is too flimsy.

Verdict?
I like this product. I do feel that it made my skin lighter but not into a pale white state but more of a glowing way which is more healthy to look if you ask me.

Will I repurchase?
Maybe not. I like this product no doubt but I don't really prefer whitening products anymore.

What is your favorite cleanser to wash off dirt and oil? Let me know on the comment box below :)

Much Love!

xx Alice


Source: http://photoescape06.blogspot.com/2012/10/product-review-nivea-sparkling-white.html

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Romney's campaign challenges criticism from Chrysler, GM over Romney TV ads (Star Tribune)

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

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How Food Texture and Flavor Can Suppress Hunger | UA Magazine

Researchers found that subtle changes in a food?s flavor and texture can increase the expectation of how filling it will be and suppress hunger, regardless of the number of calories.

?Light products? may help people lose weight, but often lack the capacity to give proper feelings of fullness. Therefore, British researchers studied how the ?filling capacity? of low calorie products can be improved.

In the first experiment, they added a thickening agent (tara gum) to a yogurt drink to see whether or not it increased the sensation of thickness, stickiness and creaminess, and explored how the drink affected the participants? expectations of fullness and satiety.

The results showed that the participants were able to accurately pick up subtle differences in drink texture even though the taste remained the same.

In a second experiment, the participants rated how filling they expected a yoghurt drink to be by selecting a portion of pasta that they thought would have the same effect on their hunger. The subjects evaluated 8 versions of the yogurt drink, consisting of high and low calorie versions in four sensory contexts: low sensory, creamy, thick, high sensory (thick and creamy).

The researchers found that both the thick drinks and the creamy drinks were expected to be more filling than the low sensory versions. High sensory drinks further increased expected fullness. However, their contributions to expected satiety were not equal, only thickness (and not creaminess) had an effect on the expectation that a drink would suppress hunger over time.

Keri McCrickerd, who led this study, explained, ?Hunger and fullness are complicated issues because it is not just the calories in a food or drink that make it filling. Signals from the stomach are important but so too is how the drink feels in the mouth. In our study both creamy flavor and texture affected expected fullness, but only thickness seemed to affect whether hunger was expected to be satisfied. This may be because thick texture is a characteristic of food that we associate with being full. Consumer expectations are important and our study shows that consumers are sensitive to subtle changes in oral sensory characteristics of a drink, and that thick texture and creamy flavor can be manipulated to enhance expectations of fullness and satiety regardless of calories.?

Source: Science Daily
Photo: Darwin Bell/Flickr

McCrickerd, K., Chambers, L., Brunstrom, J., & Yeomans, M. (2012). Subtle changes in the flavour and texture of a drink enhance expectations of satiety Flavour, 1 (1) DOI: 10.1186/2044-7248-1-20

Source: http://www.united-academics.org/magazine/28606/flavor-and-texture-alter-how-full-we-expect-a-food-to-makes-us-feel/

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Water, fire and darkness: NYC after the superstorm

Water reaches the street level of the flooded Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in New York. Sandy arrived along the East Coast and morphed into a huge and problematic system, putting more than 7.5 million homes and businesses in the dark and causing a number of deaths. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano)

Water reaches the street level of the flooded Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012, in New York. Sandy arrived along the East Coast and morphed into a huge and problematic system, putting more than 7.5 million homes and businesses in the dark and causing a number of deaths. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano)

This combination of photos shows above, lower Manhattan dark after the hybrid storm Sandy on Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, and below a fully lit skyline on Jan. 6, 2012, both seen from the Brooklyn borough of New York. In an attempt to lessen damage from saltwater to the subway system and the electrical network beneath the city's financial district, New York City's main utility cut power to about 6,500 customers in lower Manhattan. But a far wider swath of the city was hit with blackouts caused by flooding and transformer explosions. (AP Photo)

Streets are flooded under the Manhattan Bridge in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, N.Y., Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. Sandy continued on its path Monday, as the storm forced the shutdown of mass transit, schools and financial markets, sending coastal residents fleeing, and threatening a dangerous mix of high winds and soaking rain. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

A construction crane atop a $1.5 billion luxury high-rise in midtown Manhattan dangles precariously after collapsing in high winds Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, as a huge storm bore down on the city. Some nearby buildings including the Parker Meridien hotel, were evacuated as a precaution and the streets below were cleared around the nearly completed high-rise is known as One57, which is in one of the city's most desirable neighborhoods, near Carnegie Hall. (AP Photo/Verena Dobnik)

A woman uses her mobile phone to photograph New York Harbor at Battery Park, at the southern tip of Manhattan, Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. Defiant New Yorkers jogged, pushed strollers and took snapshots of churning New York Harbor on Monday, trying to salvage normal routines in a city with no trains, schools and an approaching mammoth storm. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

NEW YORK (AP) ? New York City awakened Tuesday to a flooded subway system, shuttered financial markets and hundreds of thousands of people without power a day after a wall of seawater and high winds slammed into the city, destroying buildings and flooding tunnels.

Scenes of the damage were everywhere. At least 50 flooded homes in Queens caught fire and were destroyed. A hospital removed patients on stretchers and 20 babies from neonatal intensive care, some on respirators operating on battery power.

Where usually bustling crowds and traffic jams streamed through sidewalks, streets and subways, they were largely empty. And high above midtown, the broken boom of a crane continued to dangle precariously over a neighborhood.

"Oh, Jesus. Oh, no," said Faye Schwartz, 65, Tuesday morning as she surveyed the damage in her Brooklyn neighborhood, where cars were strewn like leaves, planters deposited in intersections and green metal Dumpsters tossed on their sides.

The storm was once Hurricane Sandy but combined with two wintry systems to become a huge hybrid storm whose center smashed ashore late Monday in New Jersey. New York City was perfectly positioned to absorb the worst of its storm surge ? a record 13 feet.

Water lapped over the seawall in Battery Park City, flooding rail yards, subway tracks, tunnels and roads. Rescue workers floated bright orange rafts down flooded downtown streets, while police officers rolled slowly down the street with loudspeakers telling people to go home.

"We knew that this was going to be a very dangerous storm, and the storm has met our expectations," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "This is a once-in-a-long-time storm."

In Queens, nearly 200 firefighters tried to contain an enormous blaze that consumed 50 homes in the Breezy Point neighborhood. They had to use a boat to make rescues, firefighters told WABC-TV. They climbed an awning to reach about 25 trapped people and take them down to a boat.

Officials weren't immediately able to pin down the cause of the blaze.

Water surged into two major commuter tunnels ? the Brooklyn Battery and the Queens Midtown ? along with seven subway tunnels under the East River. The agency is assessing damage and will restore the system as quickly as it can, MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said.

The rains and howling winds left a crane hanging off a luxury high-rise in midtown Manhattan, causing the evacuation of hundreds from a posh hotel and other buildings. Inspectors were climbing 74 flights of stairs to examine the crane hanging from the $1.5 billion building.

After a backup generator failed, New York University's Tisch Hospital began evacuating more than 200 patients to other facilities, including 20 babies from neonatal intensive care, some of them on respirators operating on battery power.

Without power, the hospital had no elevator service, meaning patients had to be carefully carried down staircases and outside into the weather. Gusts of wind blew their blankets as nurses held IVs and other equipment.

About 670,000 homes and businesses were without power late Monday in the city and suburban Westchester County.

In Schwartz's Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook, residents who ignored a mandatory evacuation order awoke to debris-strewn streets and a continued blackout. About 2 inches of mucky dirt and leaves covered streets crisscrossed by downed power lines after water sloshed 12 blocks inland.

The doors of the Fairway grocery store were blown out. Several cars left in the parking lot were shifted by flood waters overnight and were left crammed door to door.

Schwartz and her husband rode out the storm on the third floor of the residences above the Fairway and said white-capped flood waters reached at least 3 feet around the building.

"It was scary how fast the water came up," she said.

The facade of a four-story Manhattan building in the Chelsea neighborhood crumbled and collapsed suddenly, leaving the lights, couches, cabinets and desks inside visible from the street. No one was hurt, although some of the falling debris hit a car.

The city shut all three of its airports, its subways, schools, stock exchanges, Broadway theaters and closed several bridges and tunnels Monday as the weather worsened. By evening, a record 13-foot storm surge was threatening Manhattan's southern tip and utilities deliberately darkened part of the borough to avoid storm damage.

It could be several days to a week before all residents who lost power during the storm get their lights back, Miksad said.

On Tuesday, the New York Stock Exchange was to be closed again ? the first time it's been closed for two consecutive days due to weather since 1888, when a blizzard struck the city.

At 4 a.m., few people were out on the streets. Times Square was lit but empty of people. Round-the-clock restaurants and bars that would have been wrapping up after last call were closed. Only a handful of taxis plied the streets ? but there was an abundance of emergency and police vehicles.

Uptown, windows of apartments and businesses glowed. But to cross through midtown was to be swallowed by darkness. Only a few emergency or backup lights appeared in buildings.

Late Monday, an explosion at a substation at 14th Street and FDR Drive contributed to the power outages. No one was injured, and ConEd did not know whether the explosion was caused by flooding or by flying debris.

Earlier in the day, another 1 million customers lost power in New York City, the northern suburbs and coastal Long Island, where floodwaters swamped cars, downed trees and put neighborhoods under water.

At least six people were killed in the New York City area, most by falling trees. The dead included two boys, ages 11 and 13, who were killed when a tree fell on a home in suburban Westchester County.

On coastal Long Island, floodwaters swamped cars, downed trees and put neighborhoods under water as beachfronts and fishing villages bore the brunt of the storm. A police car was lost rescuing 14 people from the popular resort Fire Island.

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Tom Hays and Larry Neumeister in New York, and Frank Eltman on Long Island.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-10-30-Superstorm-NYC/id-04ad2689d65748b88bf617e01c2abd43

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PFT: Panthers say DeAngelo drawing interest

Tracy Porter, Mike Cerullo, Mike Mallory, Tony Oden,AP

Earlier today, I mentioned that the latest court filing from Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma in the bounty case contains no new facts or legal arguments.

Man, was I wrong.

Attached to the brief is the email sent by former Saints assistant coach Mike Cerullo that resurrected the NFL?s investigation.? In a November 2, 2011 message to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, Cerullo states as follows:? ?So I have info on Saints Joe Vitt Lying to your NFL Investigators on Bounties from 2010, along with proof!!!? I was there, in the cover up meetings, with players and Joe, I love the NFL and want to work there again, but I am afraid if I tell thge [sic] truth I will never coach again in NFL, But I was fired for a situation that the Saints encourage.? All I want is a Job back in the NFL as a QC Coach anywhere, so If talking to you jepodizes [sic] that I will have to get back to you, but The Saints are a Dirty Organization.? Contact me.?

The message contains proof of Cerullo?s alleged bias against Vitt.? As alleged by Vilma earlier in this process, Cerullo had vowed revenge against Vitt for firing Cerullo.? Separately, Cerullo?s zeal to return to the NFL calls into question everything he says.? Also, Cerullo?s reference to being fired ?for a situation that the Saints encourage? requires that claim to be explored and compared to the stated and actual reasons for his termination, in order to properly evaluate Cerullo?s overall perspective and mindset.

The email is attached to a new declaration from Vilma?s lawyer, Peter Ginsberg, who explains that the email was produced by the NFL on October 23, 2012.? Ginsberg contends that the NFL completely removed Aiello?s response.

The Cerullo email is marginally relevant to the effort to disqualify former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue as the bounty suspension hearing officer.? But it will be extremely relevant to the overall appeal and litigation process, given that it makes a full cross examination of Cerullo even more critical to a fair disposition of the case.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/29/panthers-privately-claim-a-contender-has-inquired-about-deangelo-williams/related

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Club Paranormal

Club Paranormal

Recently, you've been seeing unnatural things...like ghosts. So, you join a recent club at school; to the normal eye called Club P, but you see it as Club Paranormal.

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Game Masters:

This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?Club Paranormal?. Anything posted here will also show up there.

Topic Tags:

Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.
This is the auto-generated OOC topic for the roleplay "Club Paranormal"

You may edit this first post as you see fit.

RUMBLEROAR'S ARMY!

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Jadebud98
Member for 1 years



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Obama and Christie make unlikely traveling companions

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - No one's calling it a "campaign" event. But it will surely dominate the presidential campaign on Wednesday when Democratic President Barack Obama and New Jersey's Republican Governor Chris Christie inspect storm damage in the hard hit coastal state - together.

Had Obama been traveling with any old Republican governor, few would have taken notice.

But Christie is not any old governor. He's young, at 50, and a possible Republican presidential contender as soon as 2016, should Mitt Romney happen to lose.

And he's not just any critic of Obama. As keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention in August, he was the party's critic-in-chief.

Christie has continued to play that role as one of the highest-profile surrogates for the Republican presidential nominee, Romney.

Indeed, it would be hard to find a more unlikely duo six days before a presidential election - and Christie knows it.

"If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics then you don't know me," Christie said Tuesday.

He was responding not to the announcement of the joint tour, which had yet to become public, but to questions about all the praise he has been heaping on Obama during and after Sandy hit New Jersey.

The unlikely partnership began just hours after the worst of the storm knocked out power for 2.4 million people in New Jersey, south and west of New York City. Christie was quick to applaud Obama and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in interviews on major television networks on Tuesday morning.

"The federal government response has been great. I was on the phone at midnight again last night with the president personally," he told NBC's "Today" program.

"The president has been outstanding in this. The folks at FEMA ... have been excellent," said Christie, once thought to be a contender for the White House this time around or possibly Romney's vice presidential pick.

"I don't give a damn about Election Day. It doesn't matter a lick to me at the moment," Christie later told reporters in a press conference about the storm damage. "I've got bigger fish to fry."

Sandy made landfall in New Jersey on Monday night, leaving behind a trail of flooded homes, toppled trees and downed power lines in the nation's most densely populated region. At least 30 people were reported killed along the eastern seaboard.

Obama's handling of the storm's aftermath and Romney's response to it have the potential to become political issues, and both campaigns are taking care to avoid missteps.

The president again canceled his formal campaign activities for Wednesday to deal with storm recovery efforts. Romney on Tuesday transformed what was intended originally to be a campaign stop into a storm relief event in Ohio.

Liberal group Americans United for Change was quick to circulate Christie's comments.

Earlier on "CBS This Morning," Christie said he spoke with Obama three times on Monday as the storm hit. Obama declared New Jersey a major disaster area so the state can quickly receive federal aid.

"I can't thank the president enough for that," Christie told CBS.

And what about Romney?

Asked on FOX News on Tuesday whether he would tour stricken parts of his state with the Republican nominee, Christie said:

"I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested. I've got a job to do here in New Jersey that's much bigger than presidential politics, and I could care less about any of that stuff," he said.

(Reporting By Susan Heavey; Editing by Fred Barbash and Claudia Parsons)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/republican-jersey-governor-christie-praises-obama-144204623.html

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How To Buy Or Sell Commercial Real Estate | Overseas Property

It really is not so hard to start investing in commercial real estate. You should be sure to research your options before making a move. This article teaches you helpful advice so that you can make the most out of your experience.

Eliminate as many definitions of default (i.e., actions that constitute default) as possible before beginning to negotiate a lease with a new tenant. So a tenant can?t default on a lease they sign with you in this type of situation. A default is frustrating and costly.

You will need to have all of your financial information if you want to procure a commercial real estate loan. Without financial statements, a bank cannot verify your income and will not allow you to borrow money.

Your investment may require a large amount of time to begin with. First, you will need to search for an opportunity and purchase the property, as well as perform any repairs that are required. Do not give up because this process takes too much of your time. The rewards will show themselves later.

Focus on a single investment each time. Your center of attention should be placed on a specific investment, whether it is an office building, land, apartments, retail, etc. You can?t be successful if you try to focus on more than one type of real estate investment at a time. Choose one type of investment and put all your attention on making it successful. It is always more advantageous to be great at one thing than sub-par with many.

Borrowers have to order appraisals with commercial loans. Your bank will refuse the appraisal if you try to submit it. Make sure you have all your paperwork in order before you even apply for your loan.

Use your digital camera to take pictures of the property. The picture needs to show defects like carpet spots, wall holes, or discolored sinks and tubs.

Get the credentials of any person who will be doing an inspection on a property you are trying to buy. Pay particular attention to the credentials of any pest-control experts because many of them are not licensed. This can help you avoid headaches after the sale.

To find a trustworthy real estate firm, inquire about their methods on how they make a lot of their money. The representative?s answer should be open and honest and should make it clear whether or not the interests and principles of the firm are in line with yours. You should understand how they will look out for your interests, and when they might shift their focus to their own profit.

As you already no doubt know, smart commercial real estate investing takes time and research. This article has provided you with a good foundation for you to use in your deals, but continue to learn more and keep up with new opportunities in your area.

Source: http://www.davidstanleyredfern.com/property-overseas/how-to-buy-or-sell-commercial-real-estate-2

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Video: Cost of Closing Trading for Two Days

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/49613416/

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UPWARD Basketball and Cheerleading Registrations | Media ...

Smart as a bird: Flying rescue robot will autonomously avoid obstacles

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2012) ? Cornell researchers have created an autonomous flying robot that is as smart as a bird when it comes to maneuvering around obstacles.

Able to guide itself through forests, tunnels or damaged buildings, the machine could have tremendous value in search-and-rescue operations. Small flying machines are already common, and GPS technology provides guidance. Now, Ashutosh Saxena, assistant professor of computer science, and his team are tackling the hard part: how to keep the vehicle from slamming into walls and tree branches. Human controllers can't always react swiftly enough, and radio signals may not reach everywhere the robot goes.

The test vehicle is a quadrotor, a commercially available flying machine about the size of a card table with four helicopter rotors. Saxena and his team have already programmed quadrotors to navigate hallways and stairwells using 3-D cameras. But in the wild, these cameras aren't accurate enough at large distances to plan a route around obstacles. So, Saxena is building on methods he previously developed to turn a flat video camera image into a 3-D model of the environment using such cues as converging straight lines, the apparent size of familiar objects and what objects are in front of or behind each other -- the same cues humans unconsciously use to supplement their stereoscopic vision.

Graduate students Ian Lenz and Mevlana Gemici trained the robot with 3-D pictures of such obstacles as tree branches, poles, fences and buildings; the robot's computer learns the characteristics all the images have in common, such as color, shape, texture and context -- a branch, for example, is attached to a tree. The resulting set of rules for deciding what is an obstacle is burned into a chip before the robot flies. In flight the robot breaks the current 3-D image of its environment into small chunks based on obvious boundaries, decides which ones are obstacles and computes a path through them as close as possible to the route it has been told to follow, constantly making adjustments as the view changes. It was tested in 53 autonomous flights in obstacle-rich environments -- including Cornell's Arts Quad -- succeeding in 51 cases, failing twice because of winds. The results were presented at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in Portugal Oct. 7-12.

Saxena plans to improve the robot's ability to respond to environment variations such as winds, and enable it to detect and avoid moving objects, like real birds; for testing purposes, he suggests having people throw tennis balls at the flying vehicle.

The project is supported by a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Cornell University. The original article was written by Bill Steele.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/SBxanr6uZfw/121030173047.htm

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Chicken Chorizo Stew |

?

beach cottage surfer boy stew chorizo recipe

G?day Beach Cottage girls!

Do you love yourself a little Too Easy fix it and forget it meal that you can sling in your slow cooker / crockpt, or shove on the stove top and do nothing else to?? Perhaps you have a hungry surfer boy or six in the house that you need to feed?

Well let me tell you, if there is one thing I can write about on this here blog, it?s throwing things in your slow cooker and coming out the other side looking very very good.

?

beach cottage recipe easy stew

This recipe has been with us for ages now ? it came about though through being faced with leftovers from a roast, a sad and lonely sausage, a few past their best carrots fading fast and more cans of pulses that one woman in an old cottage somewhere in a cottage Down Under could ever want or indeed, need.

I decided that the only thing for it was a dump & go in the old crock pot and hope for the best.

beach cottage blog recipes

I have spent a lot of time learning this craft of slow cooking?from the early days when I pulled out that little lonesome crock pot from the back of the cupboard when Beach Cottage Baby number 3 was a few months old and we could not face another plate of pasta and found many a recipe calling for a can of mushroom soup, to nowadays where I have up my sleeve a plethora of things that I have dabbled and fiddled with until I have got it right.

easy simple crock pot slow cooker recipe

I was, recently, on a cookery book reading marathon, there may or may not have been a bathtub and white subway wall tile involved.? While reading I was aghast to read one of the writers abhorring the use of one of these gadgets in his kitchen.? Dude?? Hello?!

Clearly, clearly, clearly, he had never sat on a tiled kitchen floor in the middle of an English village, about the month of August with a huge 10lb third baby and a husband out for 14 hours a day in floods of head-banging tears.? Clearly not.

But I dear Beach Cottage girls have and it is with this insight that I present you with another Too Easy Surfer Boy recipe.

beach cottage recipe collage

Make this for the males in your house, or indeed when the girls want to snuggle up on the sofa with comfort food and watch Meryl Streep movies and all will be so very good in the world.

?

?

2 x cans chickpeas

1 x can tomatoes

2 cups cooked chicken

2 x tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 to 2 cups chicken stock/broth

1 x large chorizo sausage

2 medium onions

2 carrots

handful fresh garden herbs

3 cloves garlic

salt & pepper

cheese

bread

(serves 4-6)

1. add all to your crock pot / slow cooker

2. cook on high 4 ? 5 hours

3. serve topped with cheese & crusty bread

**Beach Cottage Recipe Notes

*adjust the chicken stock to your needs (ie how much time it will be cooking for) and your slow cooker hence why I have put 1-2 cups ? my new slow cooker cooks hotter than my old one and I find I am adding more liquid, best always to start with less then you can add more, but if it looks too liquidy (pls no grammar/spelling emails) just move the lid ajar and let some evaporate off?? *any vinegar will do but balsamic is good *you might want to lose a clove of garlic? *I often, especially if I feel like annoying my kiddos, add a teaspoon of dried chilli? *any old veggie sitting in the bottom of the fridge can go in here? * on the stove top / hob this works after an hour or so, which plausibly means that it can be hurried together when you get in, left while you do all the Arsenic Hour stuff and come back to it ready to go, but really a couple of hours is best *by large chorizo sausage I mean one that is about 6 inches long, let?s not get rude here *garden herbs to me mean anything that is thriving under the Aussie sun, here I threw in Oregano, Italian parsley, Thyme and a sniffle of Basil? *I mostly make this on Tuesdays with the leftovers and the bones from Sunday?s roast chicken, I throw the bones in a pot for the stock and use the chicken for the stew

There is not fancy schmancy here, the recipes I throw in my crock in the middle of the day when all in the world is good, will not, I don?t believe, win me any awards, indeed will not catapult me to the dizzy heights of tv reality fame on Masterchef or the like.

easy stew recipe

But, they will do many a thing.

They will mean my family think I am an awesome cook, which I am by far not, they will also think I slave over them, which I so do not (which in turn allows me some pretty good cards to present when needing to blackmail anyone for anything) and more importantly, in one big old fell swoop the recipes I pop in that little beauty, time and again, week in, week out, mean that all is done when we walk in the door from sport and that there is no clear up save throwing one big ole pot from one side of the kitchen counter to the dishwasher on the other.

Does a double whammy like that float my little Beach Cottage boat?

Oh yes, I do think so.

See you soon lovelies, I am back from a long walk by the sea with Barls, it?s pretty warm here today, there was talk of a swim too?

Sarah x

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Source: http://www.abeachcottage.com/2012/10/chicken-chorizo-stew.html

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Monday, October 29, 2012

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Number of View: 8

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Thursday, October 25, 2012

Biden Salutes Breast Cancer Survivors

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Taylor Swift Debuts Music Video for "Begin Again"

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/10/taylor-swift-debuts-music-video-for-begin-again/

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Reclaiming rare earths: Improving process to recycle rare-earth materials

ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2012) ? Recycling keeps paper, plastics, and even jeans out of landfills. Could recycling rare-earth magnets do the same? Perhaps, if the recycling process can be improved.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Ames Laboratory are working to more effectively remove the neodymium, a rare earth element, from the mix of other materials in a magnet. Initial results show recycled materials maintain the properties that make rare-earth magnets useful.

The current rare earth recycling research builds on Ames Laboratory's decades of rare-earth processing experience. In the 1990s, Ames Lab scientists developed a process that uses molten magnesium to remove rare earths from neodymium-iron-boron magnet scrap. Back then, the goal was to produce a mixture of magnesium and neodymium because the neodymium added important strength to the alloy, rather than separate out high-purity rare earths because, at the time, rare earth prices were low.

But rare earth prices increased ten-fold between 2009 and 2011 and supplies are in question. Therefore, the goal of today's rare-earth recycling research takes the process one step farther.

"Now the goal is to make new magnet alloys from recycled rare earths. And we want those new alloys to be similar to alloys made from unprocessed rare-earth materials," said Ryan Ott, the Ames Laboratory scientist leading the research. "It appears that the processing technique works well. It effectively removes rare earths from commercial magnets."

Ott's research team also includes Ames Laboratory scientist Larry Jones and is funded through a work for others agreement with the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology. The research group is developing and testing the technique in Ames Lab's Materials Preparation Center, with a suite of materials science tools supported by the DOE Office of Science.

"We start with sintered, uncoated magnets that contain three rare earths: neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium," said Ott. "Then we break up the magnets in an automated mortar and pestle until the pieces are 2-4 millimeters long.

Next, the tiny magnet pieces go into a mesh screen box, which is placed in a stainless-steel crucible. Technicians then add chunks of solid magnesium.

A radio frequency furnace heats the material. The magnesium begins to melt, while the magnet chunks remain solid.

"What happens then is that all three rare earths leave the magnetic material by diffusion and enter the molten magnesium," said Ott. "The iron and boron that made up the original magnet are left behind."

The molten magnesium and rare-earth mixture is cast into an ingot and cooled. Then they boil off the magnesium, leaving just the rare earth materials behind.

"We've found that the properties of the recycled rare earths compare very favorably to ones from unprocessed materials," said Ott. "We're continuing to identify the ideal processing conditions."

The next step is optimizing the extraction process. Then the team plans to demonstrate it on a larger scale.

"We want to help bridge the gap between the fundamental science and using this science in manufacturing," said Ott. "And Ames Lab can process big enough amounts of material to show that our rare-earth recycling process works on a large scale."

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/CLvDkhbELrQ/121024175520.htm

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Twitter principles of social networking increase family success in nesting birds

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

New research carried out by scientists at Universities in Exeter, France and Switzerland reveals for the first time the importance of social networking in producing a successful family.

The study found that, regardless of how big and healthy individual chicks are, what really matters to their chances of surviving and breeding is how siblings in the nest interact with each other, with cooperative families faring best.

Differences in patterns of feeding between mothers and fathers were a key factor in determining the behaviour of their offspring, according to the study published online today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Mothers selected weaker, hungrier nestlings while fathers did the opposite, choosing those who were the most competitive.

Dr Nick Royle, from the University of Exeter, was involved in the study, alongside scientists from Universities in Toulouse, Bern and Basel. He said: "Whilst it is well-established that large, strong offspring are generally expected to be more successful than small, less well-nourished offspring, it has not been previously shown that the success of both individuals and families as a whole depends on the structure of social interactions among offspring."

"As any parent knows, parental care can be hard work and there is often a squeeze on the availability of resources in families. This sets the scene for conflicts of interest among family members over how these resources are allocated. Our study shows that the most successful families are those that are best at resolving these conflicts; parents and offspring that are most effective at responding to each other are the most successful."

Scientists from the University of Exeter's Centre for Ecology & Conservation worked with colleagues from the Universities of Basel and Bern in Switzerland and the French Universit? Paul Sabatier alongside French scientific research organisation CNRS. It was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

63 broods of begging great tits breeding in nest boxes in woods around Bern in Switzerland were filmed when the nestlings were 10 days old, when both parents feed the young using different methods of selecting which nestlings receive food. The researchers examined the network of social interaction between the siblings, and then monitored the parents and their offspring to see whether they survived and went on to breed the following year.

Great tit mothers prefer to feed hungrier, smaller nestlings whereas fathers choose stronger, larger nestlings to feed. So in families where mothers provide most of the food, the young are more 'gregarious'. They moved around more and interacted more strongly with one another as the hungrier nestlings tried to move closer to their mothers to be fed. In broods where fathers fed more than mothers, nestlings moved around much less because the more competitive offspring took up the best positions near him.

Small and medium-sized broods fared better when the mother was the main feeder, whilst larger broods were more successful when the father provided most of the feeds. This could be because of constraints on space in larger families, making it harder for chicks to move around and jostle for position and easier to respond to fathers, with their simpler feeding rules, not mothers.

Dr Nick Royle concluded: "Users of Twitter will know that the more interactions they have, the more successful their profile is likely to be, and it's similar for nesting great tits; at least at nests where mothers provide most of the feeds. When fathers do most of the work offspring are much less gregarious. For young great tits social networking is related to the amount of physical contact each nestling has with their siblings, not the amount of tweeting they do. But using our social networks measure enabled us to demonstrate a novel link between how family members interact with one another and the success of those families."

"Our approach is not just applicable to social interactions in birds, however, or just for families. It could also be applied to understanding what patterns of social organisation best determine success between competing groups of humans, such as in business or team sports."

###

University of Exeter: http://www.exeter.ac.uk

Thanks to University of Exeter for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/124760/Twitter_principles_of_social_networking_increase_family_success_in_nesting_birds_

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PFT: Fujita?s season over; career too?

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Vikings punter Chris Kluwe isn?t gay.? But if he were, we suspect he?d gladly announce it.

He?d do it because, in his mind, people are people and they should be who they are, and the rest of us should accept it.? But there would be a collateral benefit, in Kluwe?s opinion.

?The first gay athlete to come out will have endorsement deals the likes of which you?ve never seen,? Kluwe told Bob Costas on Tuesday?s Costas Tonight on NBC Sports Network.? ?Think about Gatorade, think about Nike, think about those huge companies that want to stamp their brand, their logo on this generation?s Jackie Robinson.? You?re telling me that?s not the biggest marketing opportunity in 50 years?? I mean, it?s huge.?

Kluwe, who recently debated a chair on the topic of same-sex marriage, thinks the NFL is much closer to being ready to accept a gay player than it was when he arrived.? ?When I first got in the league, you could definitely tell the older guys, the seven- and eight-year vets, they?d grown up in the ?80s and ?90s and that influenced their way of thinking and the way they acted towards each other,? Kluwe told Costas.? ?Now that I?m one of the seven- and eight-year vets, I look at the rookies coming in and it fills me with hope that these guys, they just, they don?t really care about what other people do with their lives because it doesn?t affect them.? They realize that other people should be free to live their own lives, you know, should be free to get married to who they want because at the end of the day, they?re allowed to get married to whoever they want.? So you know, I?m hopeful for the future and hopefully we can dispel this stereotype of the NFL being this macho, close-minded culture.?

When it happens, it will be a big deal for the player?s team ? for a little while.

?I think it?s something that will receive media attention for probably a good week and a half, two weeks, but it will die down because people will realize it doesn?t matter what your sexuality is when you?re out on the field on Sunday,? Kluwe said.? ?It matters can you play football?? Can you help us win football games?? And at the end of the day, it doesn?t matter what you?re sexuality is.? So hopefully we?ll be able to do our part to create a more welcoming culture so that someone feels comfortable in coming out and one day people will be able to be who they are.?

It?s a simple yet eloquent vision.? People will be able to be who they are.? Every sports team, company, and institution should aspire to that standard.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/24/scott-fujitas-season-definitely-over-career-possibly-over/related/

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Surface RT review: Microsoft tablet mixed blessing

19 hrs.

Surface RT, Microsoft's first foray into personal computing, is a hardware?success, and the company should be proud. Windows RT, the operating system that runs on it, is less of a reason for self-back-patting, however. While it doesn't completely tarnish the Surface experience, it often comes darn near, and it certainly keeps this from being a home run for Microsoft.

The promise of Surface is simple: You get a tablet when you want a tablet, and you get a laptop when you want a laptop. For the most part this is true. You can lounge with your Netflix videos and Kindle books, you can listen to all-you-can-eat music or stream rented movies with integrated Xbox services, using the "Modern" style of navigation that's easy to flip through with a finger.

You also get an Office suite that includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint, along with a surprisingly useful pair of keyboard-and-trackpad options ? the Touch Cover and the Type Cover ? which are sold separately but should be a required purchase for anyone going the Surface route.

Having used the tablet for the better part of a week, for both work and play, on land and in the air, I can say that these two modes can both be satisfactory. In fact, on an airplane, the size of the 10.6-inch-screen tablet is perfect for a tray table, the built-in kickstand makes the whole thing extra stable when watching a movie, and the Touch Cover stays out of sight (adding to stability) when not needed, and flips out easily when you're ready for typing.?

I keep falling in love with the thing, only to be yanked out of infatuation by the recurring appearance of "classic" Windows. It's not just when I launch Office apps, which are not touch friendly and require a mouse/keyboard interaction; it even happens when interacting with the tablet in ways that really don't necessitate the old interface. For instance:

  • Why do I have to go deep into classic Windows to add music to the finger-friendly Xbox Music app?
  • Why are there two control panels, a Windows 8 version and a classic version, with overlapping settings and controls?
  • And if I am forced to interact with Windows of olde, then?why can't I install my own?apps, such as the Chrome browser, or migrate?files from an old Windows PC to this supposedly Windows-endowed machine?

The truth is, I really wish I could be blissfully ignorant of the inner workings of this operating system. The only benefit I see to the classic Windows environment?is the ability to enjoy Microsoft's bread-and-butter productivity apps, so why not just launch them separately, instead of inside faux Windows 7? I am having a hard time seeing why these things must go hand in hand, especially when no other maker of Windows software will be inclined to release its software in this way. (That is, they will either build new apps in the Modern UI, or they will continue to support full Intel-chip laptops and tablets with classic Windows apps.)

OK, I've made the point, and it's not the most original of points. A lot of people are trying to understand Microsoft's keeping-old-Windows-while-fundamentally-reinventing-Windows approach that is Windows 8. It's especially perplexing in Windows RT, where you seriously get zero benefit of classic Windows, but now that I've made that clear, it's time to get back to the tablet itself, and why it really can be so charming.

Let's start with battery life.

Having never met a Windows laptop that didn't die a quiet, lonesome death every time I left it unplugged overnight, I was stunned to see how exceptionally well the Surface RT manages power. Even under heavy use, the battery will carry you at least eight hours, but even more impressive is the fact that if you leave it sitting for hours or even?days on end, the battery will?show little if any signs of expenditure. Even if you have your Exchange email, messaging and all kinds of social feeds on, you can expect very little draw when your screen is off. Better still, the battery charges quickly, and can be completely topped off in two hours.

When it comes to Surface engineering marvels, another is the ultra-suave $119?Touch Cover and its chiclet-key-endowed sibling, the $129?Type Cover. Microsoft has long been a major designer of mice and keyboards, and Panos Panay, the hardware guy in charge of Surface development, came from keyboards, but that still?doesn't prepare you for how elegant a job the company did on this. I hate to say that it's Apple-like in its simple yet high functionality, but there's really no other company that could integrate such an accessory with such grace.

So what is it? A pressure sensitive pad that you type on? What's the big deal? I promise you, get to a Microsoft store on Oct. 26, if only to try this out. The thing is so smart, it knows when you're just resting your fingers on the keys and when you really are trying to get words out. And the popping sounds you hear when you type, while?seeming?corny at first, actually give you the feedback you need to touch type without looking, enough to make you forget that all you're really doing is slamming your fingers down on a fake-suede placemat.

In the end, I think I prefer the mechanical keyboard that is integrated into the Type Cover, but in terms of pure, original engineering, the Touch Cover is the greater accomplishment.

When Microsoft hosted reporters at its campus in order to introduce the Surface tablet, the company gave a great deal of attention to the screen. The gist of the discussion, led by all-around Microsoft Research genius Steven Bathiche, focused on why screen resolution ? in the form of the "retina" displays found on the iPad and other Apple products ? are just one part of a discussion that should involve other factors including screen construction, contrast and graphics processing.?

Bathiche's bottom line: The way we perceive images on an LCD screen can't be boiled down to just one number. He's right that in most cases,?the Surface's screen looks as good or better than an iPad's. Still, when you're looking at straight text, it falls short of the iPad in resolution. If you just want to sit around and read books on a tablet, the full-sized?iPad is still the champ (even?though Apple has to pay for that bonus screen resolution with extra battery juice).

I only have two actual hardware gripes about the Surface RT. They are minor, but worth mentioning.

The magnetic power connector never locks in?without some fiddling, and the wear and tear is already starting to show after just?a week. This comes as a shock given that a) the magnetic Type Cover and Touch Cover lock into the Surface so smoothly with so little coaxing b) the power connector is essentially a ripoff of Apple's MagSafe charging cable, which locks in easily, and c) I haven't had to charge the thing very much!

The other surprising failure is the speaker system. They're not just tinny, as most mobile device's speakers are ? they distort sound when any volume is applied. It was as if, in the midst of all this thought going to every other aspect of the design, the speakers were simply forgotten.

As you use Surface RT, what you see is the robustness and power of something that isn't just an overgrown phone. The way you can view two apps at once ? Twitter and a movie, or a movie and mail, or mail and a photo album ? lends more credence to the idea of not just consuming content but creating it. (And why not do both at the same time?)

If you're a wired person with networked hard drives, Bluetooth speaker systems and DLNA media receivers, you will find that the Surface is built to support all of them, straight out of the box ? though not always without trouble.

The USB port on the side will take your disks and peripherals like OMG a real computer! You can add an HDMI or VGA connection with $40 adapters. And if you value cheap storage like I do, you will be glad to know that you can add a fast 64GB Micro SD card for just $43, so you don't have to regret not splurging on the high-end 64GB model.

And lest you think you caught me in a contradiction, I will state plainly that none of the power features I have mentioned require classic Windows to exist ? some are even found in Android devices.

The next stage for Microsoft isn't actually convincing you to buy this thing. If you have some money and a real fondness for the ways of Windows, you could jump right in and have a good time, and if you're shopping for gifts for your grandma, well, any of the iPads would be a way better bet.

No, the next stage for Microsoft is to drum up so much third-party app support for this thing that everybody's like wow, you can do all that? Because right now, there's a gap between what you can imagine doing on this thing and what developers actually let you do with it.

Ah developers?...?You can practically hear an echo in the Windows 8?app store right now. There's a serious lack of games and, aside from Netflix and Kindle Reader, not much major video, music and book apps.

I am glad to say that NBC News is in there, too, yet while it looks good, most or all of the apps I tried out on the Surface?ran jerkily, without the grace you'd expect given this machine's hardware specs. The conclusion is that nothing has been optimized for Surface RT, and that even developers who have taken the plunge have much work to do before their customers will be happy. It may be a long while before anything great turns up.?

Surface RT, available starting at $499 for a Wi-Fi model with 32GB of storage, should in no way be written off. It may have a hard time catching up to the iPad ??especially now that its entry price is $329?? but when it comes to replacing PCs,?it's the only other tablet that matters. And if Microsoft can get developers fired up ? and hopefully sort out the schizophrenia of the classic Windows/Modern UI experiences ? then it will be following Apple in a way that should be a victory for all of us. It will be a true shame if this thing ends up on the pile of nifty ideas that went nowhere (Zune HD, anyone?), but if it does, we'll know why.

To get a better sense of the Surface RT experience, please watch my video, embedded at the top and bottom of this review.

Wilson Rothman is the Technology & Science?editor at NBC News Digital. Catch up with him on Twitter at @wjrothman, and join our conversation on Facebook.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/surface-rt-review-microsofts-new-tablet-mixed-blessing-1C6643458

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