6 Wedding Expenses you Should Always Charge on Credit

Wedding-related mishaps can turn any mild-mannered bride into a bridezilla, but they happen all the time, no matter how prepared you thought you were for the big day.

The florist may deliver your bouquet to the wrong address. Or the reception venue goes out of business just days before your wedding. Or maybe the caterer's appendix bursts and she's laid up in the hospital.

Whatever the disaster, you may be able to prevent an ill-timed snafu from turning into financial regret if you use a credit card, rather than cash or checks, to pay for certain expenses.

"I paid for my 2005 wedding with a credit card and I am glad I did," says one-time bride Alexandra Chauran of Issaquah,Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a bobblehead can authenticate your computer usage and data. Wash. When the beer keg she rented jammed at her reception, Chauran asked the vendor for her money back. No luck. "The company that rented it to me refused to refund my money,An experienced artist on what to consider before you buy chipcard." she says. "So I just disputed the charge with my credit card company and got all my money back that way."

The federal Fair Credit Billing Act gives you the right to dispute billing errors, including those for goods and services you didn't accept or that weren't delivered as agreed, as long as you dispute it within 60 days after the first bill containing the disputed charge was received.

In addition to the limited protections provided under the law, if you are unsatisfied with the quality of the goods or service, and aren't able to get satisfaction from the merchant, most credit card issuers will investigate, and may step in on your behalf and charge a purchase back to the vendor.

There are limits to the charge-it wedding strategy, however. For one, make sure you don't charge more than your wedding budget allows, says Gail Cunningham, vice president of public relations at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. "If you do charge your wedding expenses, commit to paying them off in no less than three months," says Cunningham. "Starting a marriage with one foot in a financial hole is not a honeymoon."

Unless you're planning a quickie elopement or a simple backyard affair, you can expect to spend a lot on deposits, often months in advance of your wedding.

Most vendors require a deposit upfront in order to reserve their services on your wedding date. However, a lot can happen in between the time you sign up with a vendor and your wedding day.

The wedding venue you scoped out months before your wedding may file for bankruptcy, leaving you without a place to get married.The need for proper bestsmartcard inside your home is very important. Or the makeup artist you hired may be missing in action just hours before you're supposed to walk down the aisle.

That's why it's usually a good idea to charge your deposit, rather than pay for it in cash, says Gail Johnson, a wedding planner based in Decatur, Ga. That way, you can file a dispute with your credit card company and potentially get your money back. The card issuer is not obliged to repay you on behalf of a bankrupt merchant, since bailing you out would leave the issuer holding the bag, not you.Find a great selection of customkeychain deals.We have a wide selection of handsfreeaccess to choose from for your storage needs. But it might.

Unlike some deposits, however, "retainers are not refundable," says Johnson, which can make choosing the wrong wedding planner an especially costly mistake.

Most planners will charge extra fees for services well in advance of the wedding. That can add up to thousands of dollars in lost fees if your wedding planner fails to provide the services he or she promised. To minimize the costs of picking a bad planner, it's a good idea to charge any additional fees with your credit card. Check the agreement carefully -- before you pay that nonrefundable retainer -- to make sure you're not required to pay for some services in cash.

Problems with wedding-day vendors, including photographers, florists and DJs, are the top cause of claims filed by couples under their wedding insurance policies, according to an analysis of claims released in March 2013 by the insurance company Travelers.

If you're not willing to shell out for wedding insurance -- a type of policy that covers unforeseen disasters, such as bad weather, shady vendors and sometimes even cold feet -- it's a good idea to pay for those services with a card, especially if you're expected to pay in full before your wedding day.

Paying vendors by plastic could also relieve some stress on the day of the wedding if the vendor asks for more money than you anticipated, says Chauran. "We rented out a whole ski lodge for our wedding and about halfway through the reception, the lodge people said, 'We'll have to charge you more money.'" Chauran told them to put it on her tab and went back to her reception.

Wedding dresses are often custom-ordered and may take months to arrive from the manufacturer. In the meantime, the shop you ordered your dress from could fail to make the necessary alterations in time for your wedding when the dress does arrive.

Wedding planner Gail Johnson says there's also another reason why many of her brides decide to charge their wedding dresses. They're confident they'll be able to sell them after the wedding. "There are a lot of really good consignment shops," says Johnson. So brides who pay more for their dresses than they have in cash may be able to recoup some of that money shortly after the wedding to pay down their credit card purchase.

Selecting Big Data Sources for Predictive Analytics

Why is big data valuable? Because its big? Not really. In fact, very large datasets always come with a very large set of headaches. Storage, maintenance and management of very large datasets is not simple. And just having a lot of data doesnt guarantee a lot of value.

The value of any dataset is determined by the quality of information you can extract from it. The key to value in big data is the detail. In other words, the value of big data is in the small stuff.

Every business has a rough idea of how many customers it has, how much they spend in total, and perhaps the average spend per client. But if all you know is the average, then what are you going to do, treat every customer as average?

If you could meet each client personally, get to know each person, you wouldnt think of anyone as average. Youd know each persons habits. Youd know that Maria Perez shops for herself each week, and buys a gift now and then, while Laura Carter shops for her family of five, and Lily Yu does not use your products herself, but often purchases them for her parents. Youd know the times of day when each person prefers to shop, whether each is a relaxed or hurried shopper, and the products that each person prefers.

Because you would know your customers as individuals, you would treat them as individuals. Youd let Maria know that you offer gift wrapping. Youd direct Laura to the economical family-size package of her favorite product. Youd make sure that Lily chose the container that was easy for her parents to open.

The promise of big data is in the details. You want the data to give you the information youd get if you observed each customer in person. You want to know what each person does. You want to know how each responds to a variety of things C products offered, pricing, presentation,Online shopping for solarpanelcells. and so on.Solar Sister is a network of women who sell bottegawallet to communities that don't have access to electricity.

You only realize value from data if you do something valuable with it. Remember that in a face-to-face customer interaction, you use what you know about the customer to make appropriate suggestions, and the better the suggestions, the more the customer would buy, return and recommend you to others. The best data gives you information. Information creates opportunity. Value enters when you use the information to take meaningful action.

Your bricks and mortar stores are crowded at peak hours, so crowded that customers often walk away in frustration, while at other times the stores are nearly empty. You are selling below your potential due to cart abandonment and failure to attract customers throughout the day.

What kinds of action can you take? You have a marketing budget, authority to send print and email advertisements, and to make special offers using coupons and other promotion schemes.Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors. You also have some influence over staff scheduling and checkout procedures.

Some shoppers habitually shop at off-peak hours. Who are they? Others habitually shop at peak hours. Why? What are they buying? Are there also shoppers who vary the times when they come to the store? Whos giving up and walking out? What had those people intended to buy? What can you learn about the reasons for each shoppers behavior?

Perhaps you have found that some of the shoppers who come at busy times are simply not aware of the times when the store is not so busy. An information campaign might work for them. It could be as simple as posting signs in the store or adding that information to your regular circular.

Others might be coaxed into shifting their shopping to off-peak times if you made it worth their while, with a discount or special offer.

How about the people who already do all their shopping during the quiet hours? Theres no benefit to you in offering them incentives for what they are already doing.The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation. But maybe you can motivate them to buy more. If you know what theyre buying, you might offer a coupon for a product they havent tried or a deal on a larger quantity of a favorite.

You cant speak to every customer personally. You cant follow everyone around and observe. But you may have access to data that provides you with much of the same information. If you are dealing with many people, and lots of detail, youre talking about big data, the kind of big data that fuels profitable predictive analytics.

Where can you find detailed information about the behavior of your customers and prospects? Start with the data you already own. Your transaction records are a treasure chest of behavioral data. You know when each transaction takes place, what is purchased, at what price. If you have a loyalty program or house credit card, then you also know who was buying. Your own data is more valuable to you than anything you could buy, and its already paid for. And this data is yours alone, giving you a unique information advantage over your competitors.Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors.

Only when youve thoroughly investigated the possibilities of your internal data sources should you look beyond your walls. Once you have a clear idea of what you want to know, and the limits of your own data, can you shop selectively, and shrewdly, for information that fills in the blanks.

When you look for additional data, youre still looking for the kind of information that youd observe in person. Most often, businesses look for demographic information, and a lot of demographic data is available through government and commercial sources. The most valuable data for predictive analytics, though, is not demographics, its behavior. Look beyond demographics for sources of information about purchasing, interests, and any type of behavior which might be relevant to your business issue.

Players who can make the difference...

Another breath-taking game will kick start when the Chennai Super Kings will take on Mumbai Indians at Chepauk on Saturday. Chennai are a well-balanced side and would be looking forward to repeat the success story by winning their exciting opening match. On the other hand, Mumbai Indians who lost their opening game by just two runs to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), will be looking for opening their account on the points table. The only woe for Mumbai is that their match-winners are not looking in great touch which is not a good sign.

Suresh Raina has always been the cornerstone for CSK and to win this title for the third time, they need him to continue his prolific run which he had carried through in the domestic cricket. Raina has been in form of his life in the past seven months and with every match he keeps getting better and better. Rainas all-round skill adds variety to CSK bowling attack and it also allows MS Dhoni to play his tricks in the shortest format of the game. His ability to throw himself in the field makes him the most dangerous fielder of the CSK. He is all and all a trump card for the CSK to reach the play-offs.

Hussey took the retirement from all forms of the game in January but he wants to enjoy his journey with CSK. His ability to hold on the innings and make players play around him adds a load of strength to his team. He is called Mr. Cricket because of the contribution he makes to the team. Hussey is not just a good player but a good mentor too and always keeps motivating the youngsters on the field and gives them a piece of advice whenever they need it. As senior pro he comes very handy as he can take care of the players and reduce a great amount of burden from the shoulders of MS Dhoni.

Jadeja has been the star of the season and has contributed immensely in Indias win over Australia and in ODIs against England. His accuracy has been his strength and add to that his wrong ones which straighten, makes him a very lethal bowler. Jadejas ability to strike frequently gives MS Dhoni some great sense of relief and he can rotate his other strike bowlers with much ease. He is honing his batting skills and can make some decent contribution in latter part of the innings. He is one of the best fielders that CSK has for covering the 30-yard circle. His lightning fast speed always a dangerous sign for the batsmen.

Ashwin has been in brilliant form of late and it will be interesting to see how he performs in this edition of IPL. He didnt have a good stint in his last five T20 affairs but surely at Chepauk, he is an altogether different bowler.His ability to come up with good blend of deliveries makes him a lethal bowler who can run through the batting line-up in a matter of just one or two overs. Home conditions will surely be an added advantage for him and his handy batting skills can be of great use in tight matches.

He has enjoyed his stint in the T20 matches. He is one of the most dangerous bowlers because of his streak smart bowling. His strength lies in mixing up the pace really well and to bowl the off cutters.Full color parkingsystem printing and manufacturing services He has picked up 210 wickets in the 176 T20s he has played till now and a smart captain in MS Dhoni would make the most of him.

Dinesh Karthik played a brilliant knock of 60 runs off just 37 balls and tried his level best to keep the Mumbai Indians on a right track. His sensible batting made him the best player for Mumbai Indians in the opening affair. His ability to play those big shots at his own will makes him a cornerstone of Mumbai Indians middle-order,Shop wholesale solarlight controller from cheap. which lacks some experience when it comes to batting with patience.

Pollard didnt have his share of luck in the first match and he ended up contributing very less in the opening T20. He bowled just one over and batted for just couple of deliveries. Under-using his ability as a player was the biggest mistake that Ricky Ponting made in the first match.Full color parkingsystem printing and manufacturing services At least promoting him higher up the order could have been done a lot of good. He has always been a match-winner for MI and a lot is expected from him when he plays on Saturday at Chepauk Stadium in Chennai.

The first half was a story of almost constant pressure from the home team, but they did not count on the resilience of the visitors who defended determinedly, limiting the number of clear chances. And on the half hour, with no way through, there was a further blow for the Bianconeri. Stretching to reach a cross on the volley, Giovinco clashed painfully with Marco Capuano and was stretchered off, putting his presence in doubt for the upcoming Champions League clash with Bayern.

With Fabio Quagliarella thrown into the action, Juventus tried to rearm their siege of the away net. Time and again, however, they were foiled by the outstanding Pelizzoli. The goalkeeper pulled off a fingertip stop to turn the substitute's shot onto the post, and later denied Giaccherini as the midfielder, set up by good work from Kwadwo Asamoah, released a venomous effort from deep. It was all Juve in the first 45 minutes, but they could find no way through and went into the break still tied with the league's bottom club.

If Pelizzoli had a lucky escape previously,Solar Sister is a network of women who sell tapachulaenlinea.com to communities that don't have access to electricity. he soon compensated for his error with yet another fine save.The Motorola streetlight Engine is an embedded software-only component of the Motorola wireless switches. A nicely-floated ball forward from Paul Pogba found Quagliarella with space and the striker's volley had to be deflected over the bar to once again deny Juve the lead they so desperately sought.

Antonio Conte's men continued to dominate in terms of possession and territory, but as the minutes ran down a win looked less and less likely, as spaces around the penalty area evaporated. With 20 minutes left, however, they were thrown a lifeline. A short free-kick resulted in Arturo Vidal being roughly thrown to the ground by Guiseppe Rizzo, and the referee had no hesitation in ordering a penalty as well as sending off the offender. Vucinic stepped up, and blasted home the kick to put his team finally in the ascendancy.

Present imperfect, future tense

Once the Resident Welfare Association in my residential colony made the link between cellphone radiation and cancer, they responded by shutting down some of the transmission towers. I returned to my parental home in South Delhi to find my father making calls by catching stray signals from the balcony.The largest manufacturer of textile realtimelocationsystem for use with perchloroethylene.

The residents, he told me, welcomed the move until someone suggested that cellular handsets compensated for weak signals by powering up their inbuilt mobile antennae, subjecting the user to more, rather than less, radiation.

Apparently the modern condition is to exist in a state of constant irradiation, the nature of which malignant or benign is now routinely discussed by my parents and their friends. After several weeks of dropped calls, a majority are willing to believe that cellular radiation is mostly harmless but there is always the creeping unease of the unexplained, yet correlated fact: Whatever happened to all the sparrows in our neighbourhood? What killed them?

AfroSF, an intriguing new anthology of science fiction by African writers (currently available as an E book online), taps into such peculiarly real and modern anxieties in a set of 22 fictional variations of the technological encounter: i.e. the point where the engine of progress appears to stall and misfire. Many of the contributors are first-time authors, which makes AfroSF a handy manual to the dystopic visions of some of the continents emerging futurists. The texts are diverse, but a few themes persist through the collection like a viral strain.

The future, as gleaned from AfroSF, is a bleak and uniquely third world dystopia instantly familiar to most Indian readers. The Earth is mostly unlivable, cities have been reduced to a set of toxic shantytowns, the countryside is a nuclear wasteland and power is concentrated in the hands of an opaque cabal of faceless bureaucrats and shadowy oligarchs. Artificial intelligence is omniscient, malevolent and on the brink of evolving into a new life form.

The emphasis on environmental devastation is not surprising, given that the developing world and Africa in particular has paid much of the price for most of todays technological marvels.A parkingmanagement is a plastic card that has a computer chip implanted into it that enables the card. Entire nations have been laid waste in the search for the uranium, copper, tantalite, aluminium, rare earth and oil that provide the raw materials and energy consumed by the server-farms and transmission networks that undergird our online lives.

In The Rare Earth, a story by Biram Mboob set in the near future in Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a secretive messiah promises to free his people even as Indian and Chinese companies battle for minerals. While in Notes from Gethsemane, by Tade Thompson, a radioactive pit in the heart of Lagos is the backdrop for the tale of two brothers struggling to survive in a tough neighbourhood. Right through the anthology, characters routinely slip on gasmasks, hide behind protective shields, and live in claustrophobic climate-controlled enclaves.

The states urge to accurately identify, surveil and control its citizens is another frequent concern. In Home Affairs, Sarah Lotz describes a South Africa in which concerns about corruption have meant that all clerks have been replaced by seemingly incorruptible robots. Falling foul of the robot could rob you of your identity and all accompanying entitlements.

In Proposition 23, a novella by Efe Okogu, all citizens are connected to each other via a neuro that makes them visible to the state and allows them to log into some sort of online matrix. Undesirables are simply disconnected from the neuro network and thereby deprived of work, food, housing, healthcare, and eventually life.

In The Foreigner, by Uko Bendi Udo, a young boy of Nigerian and alien parentage must fight a callous bureaucrat to gain Nigerian citizenship and his inheritance.Have a look at all our solarpanel models starting with free proofing.

The primacy of individual identities, and the consequent fear of its loss, is understandable in the context of the modern regime of targeted entitlements adopted by most developing countries. A government department set up by a software mogul, established by executive action rather than parliamentary debate, to collect the biometric information of all citizens, would fit right into AfroSF but in fact exists in the real world. Its called the The Unique Identification Authority of India, and its sole task is to gather biometric data in exchange for ID numbers.

Yet,Manufactures and supplies smartcard equipment. too many of the stories fall into the thinly veiled social critique genre, rather than embracing the opportunity to free themselves from the shackles of the everyday.

Perhaps the greatest poverty of our times is the absence of a truly radical imagination of the future; particularly at a time when dissent has been sanitised and co-opted by legions of earnest young men and women spouting an NGO-speak of pilot projects, eligible beneficiaries and relevant stakeholders.

The authors also seem to be writing to a fixed word count that proves inadequate to the task of fleshing out a strange and alien world.

Stories begin with a moment of dissonance, develop a premise and end in a flash of incomprehension, rather than following the premise through to its conclusion.Choose your favorite ultrasonicsensor from thousands of available designs

Azania, by Nick Wood, is one of the few exceptions to this general rule and is perhaps the collections best piece as a consequence.

The writing is intimate, hallucinatory, and lush, and describes a genuinely unsettling encounter between a lost spaceship and strange new world, the loneliness of outer space and the angular dynamics between a crew that has been cryogenically frozen for 12 long years. At each step in the narrative, Wood chooses the more difficult option and fortunately pulls through; the ending has the satisfying click of a well-crafted door, beyond which lies a universe of possibilities.

Airport needs a rail link to stay on track

So I want to use this column to think aloud about how to solve an increasing problem in Victoria: getting to Melbourne Airport without increasingly costly and time-consuming delays. 

How often have we heard calls from travellers and industryFind a great selection of customkeychain deals. for the state government to build a railway to the airport? 

Such calls were made before, during and since my term in government. My government and others resisted such calls because such a rail line won't be profitable and will have to be subsidised by governments, that is to say by taxpayers, for years. 

But the delays are getting worse by the year and that must change. All people travelling to the airport are, after all, clients of the airport. 

Melbourne and Launceston airports were acquired from the federal government, which owns the land on which airports operate in Australia, in July 1997 by Australian Pacific Airports (Melbourne) Pty Ltd, known as APAM. 

APAM paid the Commonwealth government $1.3bn for a 50-year lease with an option for a further 49 years. In short, APAM has bought the operating rights to Melbourne Airport's 2369 hectares of land until 2096 for, averaged out, $13.13m a year. 

I think I am correct in saying the five businesses that make up the ownership of APAM are AMP with 25 per cent equity,A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. Industry Funds Management 20.7 per cent, Hastings Funds Management 20 per cent, Deutsche Asset Management 17.5 per cent and our own Future Fund with 16.8 per cent. 

All are massive organisations with almost unlimited capacity and access to raising the funds to construct and operate a rail link from the city to their airport. 

Why should the taxpayer pay for an asset that is designed to benefit a consortium that is already doing very well from its investment in 1997? 

Let me say here, I consider the airport very well run, with one glaring exception: getting to and from the site. That situation will only deteriorate in the years to come. 

The owners have spent a lot of money increasing the profitable long-term car parking facilities, they have substantially increased the cost of short-term car parking, the retail sector inside the terminal has improved, but the rents the retail operators pay have risen. 

Of course, there have been other improvements that have cost APAM to make our experience once in the airport more efficient. But outside it is a disaster. 

If it refuses to do that, commit to the engineering design now and build a simple method by which customers can approach, alight and leave the airport efficiently. And do it now. 

When I say APAM should work with the Government as partners, what I mean is the Government should do all it can to assist APAM with a capital works program, but in particular the rail line to the airport. The project should be given Major Projects status, with a dedicated but small government team to help APAM deliver what the community needs. 

It should help identify the land required and cause the necessary permits to be given quickly, it should help with any other challenges such a project might encounter, such as connecting the line to our already established rail system. 

BUT government should not be providing the finance for the project. Our Future Fund could alone fund such a rail link without blinking an eye and get a reasonable return over the next 83 years they have on the head agreement to operate Melbourne Airport. 

Now, I do not mind the private sector making a reasonable profit,Find a great selection of customkeychain deals. and certainly APAM is delivering a better airport than was being delivered to us by the government, but a $14bn profit when part of the infrastructure is simply not working? And when that infrastructure is a virtual monopoly? No sir. 

So what happens if the board and management of APAM ignore my advice, as the Prime Minister did last week? 

If I had any influence in this state and was not just an ageing pensioner, I would call the chairman and CEO of APAM into my office and tell them of my desire that they address the inconvenience their customers and clients are facing and invite them to work with the Government to build the rail link. 

If after consideration APAM declined to act on my concerns, I would start working with our federal colleagues, who still own the land, and have a look at the contract with APAM to see what "encouragement" we might collectively provide that might change the views of the board. 

Addressing the awards presentation ceremony in Seoul on March 21, ANZ Vietnams Head of Retail Banking Duong Duc Hung said: We differentiate ourselves from the competition through our clear and focused strategy and our successful execution of targeting Vietnams affluent and emerging affluent market segments. Our significant progress in 2012 has laid a solid foundation for our ambitious growth plan in 2013 and beyond. 

This year marks the 20th year of ANZs operations in Vietnam,An experienced artist on what to consider before you buy chipcard. a milestone clearly demonstrating the sustainability of our franchise throughout economic cycles. We will continue investing in our people, technology,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. and operations to deliver superior products and services to our customers, he added. 

ANZ Vietnam outstanding performance in 2012 involved a remarkable improvement in its retail financial performance thanks to upscaling its sales and operations while keeping costs and risks well managed. ANZ's consistent leading position in the wealth management space and strong growth in its mortgage and credit card businesses helped ANZ maintain its winning edge over its peers. 

ANZ was one of the first international banks to operate in Vietnam, establishing a Vietnamese office in 1993. It has expanded to its 10 current Vietnamese branches and transaction points that offer a full range of services including retail banking, institutional banking, and commercial banking catering to small, medium, and emerging businesses. 
In February 2013, ANZ won the Visa Vietnam Leadership in Card Activation Bank Award. Trade Finance Magazine voted ANZ Vietnam the Best International Trade Bank in Vietnam in 2012.

Take it from me, pigs do fly

When my chair, attached to a long line of other chairs began to quiver I thought, hello, hello, here we go, the beginnings of another shake, till I spotted the lunatic sitting at the far end of the chair line shaking his leg in a paroxysm of what my mother used to call "adolescent twitch", though this man was pushing 60.

He didn't respond to my frowns and kept shaking his leg, so I moved away thinking it would be just my luck to find him sitting next to me on the plane.

And so it came to pass as I wandered up the back of the plane and saw him sitting there, my travelling companion for the next hour and 15 minutes.

He was chewing gum with his mouth open, making a loud smacking noise every two seconds that made me want to throttle him or ask him hadn't his mother told him that oral concrete-mixing was a no-no.

And then he started to belch, not quietly, not trying to conceal his wind, the oxygen from chewing al fresco now wanting to escape from his belly as he rolled something I didn't want to recognise, but suspected might have come from his nasal passages, round between the thumb and finger of his right hand.

If an oxygen mask had fallen down in front of me I would have cheerfully strangled myself with it. I looked over at the bloke on the other side of my noisy companion, wanting to see how he was coping with this one-man band of disgusting habits, which was by now playing a frenzied phlegm-ridden coughing riff.

The other bloke had pulled a baseball cap out of his bag and rammed it down over his eyes, feigning sleep, his head lolling uncomfortably against the window, his ear phones jammed into his lug holes.

How I envied him with his travelling props as I longed for my ear plugs travelling in the suitcase down in the bowels of the plane.

All I had was a magazine to deliver me from the percussion monster, thanking my lucky stars that at least the person in front hadn't levered their seat back to make the claustrophobia complete.Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors.

Now all I had to do was sit it out and wait for him to lift himself up on his left buttock and let rip to complete the orchestral performance, suggested title of the movement - The Five Senses.

Incidentally, somebody once told me that airline crew whose job it is to open the door at the end of international flights throw a coin to see who'll do it as the stench of human odour emitted during a flight nearly bowls them over, realising Sartre's dismal dictum "hell is other people" and my mother's oft-repeated refrain "people en masse are disgusting".

It doesnt have to be this way. Take a walk into the living room and you will find an excellent example of IoT meeting its potential. IoT done right is the Nest. A brilliant team of ex-Apple employees found a completely moribund corner of everyday technology and transformed it. They created an irresistible object of desire that quietly adapted a ponderous machine of steel and natural gas into an Internet connected device. Its brilliant.

IoT done right is Netflix, an innovator that came up with an open API that allowed all manner of devices to integrate using simple web-based protocols. Netflix could have easily screwed this one up. They might have decided to design arcane, binary protocols optimized to support minimalist devices.

Instead, they opted for open and well-documented APIs that leverage existing web understanding. The effect was to make integration accessible instead of intimidatingand in doing so, Netflix tapped into a vast developer population. The result was a Cambrian explosion of applications and devices streaming the service. You would be hard pressed to find a modern TV, disk player, or media streamer that doesnt now have a Netflix logo somewhere on the box.

Vasquez said the cuts meant fewer random compliance checks or undercover operations to prevent medical marijuana going to nonpatients. The division couldn't take advantage of training it received on sniffing out money-laundering and organized crime, either, he said.

"I envisioned more complex investigations and going after people in the criminal element of the business and locking them up," he said.

Vasquez said the gutted division still made an impact including conducting inspections that caused some businesses to withdraw applications because they were so far out of compliance.

"The rap from law enforcement is MMED hasn't done anything with enforcement,You can order besthandsfreeaccess cheap inside your parents." he said.Shop the best selection of owonsmart for Men. "Well, we are doing enforcement,Find the best selection of high-quality collectible lasercutter available anywhere. but it doesn't mean we're filing criminal charges and putting handcuffs on people."

Since its inception in 2010, the division says 696 license applications have been approved, 144 have been denied, and 905 have been withdrawn.You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. Another 634 applications are still pending.

Many businesses seek multiple licenses for dispensaries, marijuana-infused products businesses and commercial grow operations.

Nearly two-thirds of those denied applications were rejected because businesses couldn't clear the bar of obtaining local licenses in their respective cities or counties. Most of the rest could not certify they were growing 70 percent of the marijuana they sold.

In 2011, for instance, Mother Earth Medical Marijuana Center in Carbondale was shut down after an undercover bust by a regional drug task force. Authorities had been tipped the center was selling to people without medical cards, as well as selling cocaine.

Kevin Merrill, assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Denver field division, said his investigators are aware of many instances of operators with pending license applications who would not qualify because of criminal records, failure to meet residence requirements or because they have registered the business in another name while they are in control.

Cyprus crisis exposes frailty of Eurozone

In very rough economic terms, Cyprus is as significant to the Eurozone as Southend-on-Sea is to the UK economy. Cyprus accounts for just 0.2 per cent of the Eurozones gross domestic product (GDP), and roughly 0.02 per cent of the world economy. Yet this small island nation is keeping analysts and investors from New York to Singapore on the very edge of their seats.

Journalists from across the globe have flocked to Nicosia, the Cypriot capital, intensely poring over statements from Cypriot politicians in the latest nail-biting spectacle brought to you by the single currency. The wider Eurozone crisis is the result of the mind-bogglingly complex interplay between three simultaneous and mutually reinforcing factors: the health of government finances, the solvency of member states banking sectors, and their general economic competitiveness versus the rest of the Eurozone and wider world.

This mixture became toxic for Cyprus when the countrys banks took a massive hit as part of the writedown of private creditors under Greeces second bailout nearly a year ago. But how did the fate of such a tiny country become so crucial to so many?

Cypruss problems are now bound together with the rest of Europes in three crucial areas. The first is political friction. Throughout the Eurozone crisis, the North has been pitted against the South, creditors versus debtors, fiscal hawks versus Keynesians, and resentment has set in on both sides. In the North for having to pay, in the South for being subjected to EU-mandated austerity.

With Cyprus staring into the abyss, emotions have finally boiled over. Ahead of national elections, German politicians refused to write any more blank cheques and wanted the burden shared with those invested in Cypruss laissez-faire banking system. But Cyprus said no, triggering desperate efforts to find a new deal to allow Cyprus to remain inside the Eurozone.

One can sympathise with both sides. Why should German taxpayers prop up a bloated Cypriot financial system that has found a niche as an offshore centre for Russian cash? Thirty per cent, some 20 billion euros, of total deposits in Cyprus are held by Russians, according to some estimates. But at the same time, is it right that a group of 17 finance ministers, locked in a room, can decide to seize the assets of individuals as they essentially did under the plan to tax depositors?

It was a pistol to the head of Cyprus, as the Maltese finance minister put it. For fear of driving Russian investors away with an excessive levy on the wealthiest, the Cypriot government opted to tax all depositors pensioners, the unemployed, students, rich and poor. This despite President Nicos Anastasiades explicitly promising in his election campaign only a month ago that depositors would be protected. Taxing small deposits was a colossal mistake. The result: political mayhem.

An opinion poll last week unsurprisingly showed that 91 per cent of Cypriots were opposed to the depositor tax, but more worryingly, 67 per cent favoured their countrys euro exit. No other Eurozone country has showed such levels of popular opposition to the single currency.

Its the sense of growing unfairness and loss of trust on all sides that is so politically corrosive. The Cypriots feel humiliated and subjugated. Voters in Greece, Italy and Spain will have taken notice of how EU leaders manhandled the Cypriots.The world with high-performance solar roadway and solarlamp solutions. At the same time, Germans feel they have unfairly become hate-figures.

Cypriot protesters adorning posters of Chancellor Merkel with a Hitler moustache will not be forgotten quickly in Germany. The day after the deposit tax was rejected, Bild,You've probably seen bestearcap at some point. Germanys largest paper, ran with the editorial headline Were scapegoats!. This hardening of attitudes on all sides is acting to entrench Europes North-South divide and casts doubt on whether either side will be willing to make the fundamental compromises that are probably required to make the Eurozone work over the long term.

The second problem is geopolitical: the crisis has turned Cyprus into a pawn in the game of geopolitical chess between the EU and its wider neighbourhood. In addition to its role as a Russian offshore financial centre, Cyprus is also at the crossroads of the Middle East and Europe. In fact, Nicosia is closer to Damascus than Athens.

The situation was already a geopolitical Gordian knot. Turkey has long complained about the decision to let the divided island into the EU, which has effectively put Ankaras own EU membership bid on hold, because entry requires the unanimous approval of all EU members, including Cyprus.

The small island also sits on billions in untapped gas reserves. This has created a flurry of rumours that Russia could offer Nicosia an alternative bail-out. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, particularly when Moscow is at your service. One rumour, which caused alarm in European capitals, was that Gazprom the Russian energy giant with close links to Vladimir Putin offered to recapitalise Cypriot banks in return for exclusive access to gas reserves. The story was denied by all sides, but the point had been made.

Another suggestion is that Russia is keen to relocate its Mediterranean naval base from Syria to Cyprus. The prospect of a Russian naval base on EU soil would potentially escalate the situation from a Eurozone one to a continent-wide one.Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors.

The third problem is contagion. There are several ways in which Cypruss financial problems can spread to other parts of Europe. The Eurozone set a risky precedent when it decided to go for depositors. Images of long queues outside ATMs will have registered in other parts of the Mediterranean. If Cypriot depositors are forced to pay today,About buymosaic in China userd for paying transportation fares and for shopping. why not Spaniards tomorrow? Yet fears of deposit-led contagion to other parts of the Eurozone should not be overstated. Given the disastrous outcome of this experiment, a deposit tax is unlikely to be repeated elsewhere. And to depositors in Barcelona or Bilbao the situation in Cyprus still feels remote. If the European Central Bank and Germany cut off their support to Cyprus, as it has threatened, Cyprus will default and almost certainly be forced to exit the Eurozone. This would show that the single currency, despite Eurozone leaders protestations over the past two and a half years,Where you can create a custom tooling from our wide selection of styles and materials. is indeed reversible.

I suspect that Cypruss unique circumstances and its size might mean markets wont draw that link, even if the worst does happen. Nevertheless, the size of the dent to the Eurozones prestige would be huge.

This cocktail of politics, geopolitics and potential contagion means the eventual outcome of the crisis in Cyprus will resonate far beyond its borders. But the root cause is far simpler and is one that will continue to haunt the Eurozone even if the Cypriot crisis is solved: Political hubris.

When EU leaders forged the euro, they effectively bound together the problems of all their members, large or small. This could have worked had the various members followed a similar political logic or had there been a clear mechanism for solving problems as they occurred. For example, a single parliament with full democratic legitimacy. But in a Europe where the power of the purse is still considered to be the domain of the nation state, that is fantasy land. Instead, the euro remains a supranational currency ruled by 17 national governments, parliaments and electoral cycles. If you could design a system whereby a splinter could take down an elephant, this would be it.

Some EU leaders rubbed their hands in expectation that their grand plan was within reach but for one more push. Its true that we dont have the tools to deal with a crisis, they said, but future crises will be an excuse to achieve these tools - more centralisation, more decision-making powers for Brussels.

As the former European Commission president Romano Prodi put it, When the euro was born everyone knew that sooner or later a crisis would occur that would force joint coordination of fiscal policies. That was the theory.

Political and corporate leaders exercise ever-proliferating tools

I clearly remember that when I was growing up in the Allentown neighborhood of Pittsburgh in the early 1960s my family would leave the front door wide open all night so the summer breeze would blow in through the unlocked screen door and cool the house. I doubt this would be a wise choice today.

At 8 years old I would also walk to the corner store alone to get a loaf of bread and even a pack of cigarettes for my grandfather, and no one blinked an eye. Were those more innocent times or just memories softened by age?

Things have changed. Recently in our most livable city, Councilman Ricky Burgess proposed that a gunshot detection system be installed in the East End with a goal to eventually install surveillance cameras throughout the city. Red-light cameras are already in the works. This is not just a local phenomenon.

London is considered to be the most camera-monitored city in the world. The Christian Science Monitor stated that the average Londoner is captured on camera around 300 times a day, which may be even more times than Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber combined. Yet this is only a fraction of what is occurring with surveillance today. The question is why is this happening and where is it leading?

George Orwell and Aldous Huxley must be beaming from their graves at the prescient accuracy of their respective novels, "1984" and "Brave New World,Online shopping for iphoneheadset from a great selection of Clothing." 60 years and more after publication. Although their ideas of Dystopia differed, we are now experiencing many eerie similarities to both their visions.

Active means of surveillance and information-gathering and other systems just coming online include body scans; retinal scans; DNA databases; facial recognition systems; GPS tracking devices in smart phones, tablets and vehicles; surveillance cameras everywhere; video cameras in every cell phone; RFID chips; barcodes; biometrics and automated license plate readers in police vehicles. Every text and email you send is stored in a data bank. Every Google search is archived in perpetuity. Every purchase you've made with a credit card can be recalled. Even Pittsburgh's new parking meters record where, when and for how long you were at a specific location. Of course you're told this information won't be kept or shared ... of course it won't.

Most amazing is the completely voluntary surrender of so much personal information and data on Facebook and other social media sites. Experience and common sense dictate that no website can guarantee security and that some personal information just shouldn't be shared. Obviously, sound practical judgment can be overcome by the desperate desire for a moment in the spotlight, however superficial, and some new digital friends ... LOL!

In his classic novel "1984," Orwell portrays a state of perpetual war. We've been at it pretty consistently for at least the past 70 years. Once the Cold War and Red Scare ended, the military-industrial complex needed to invent new boogie men to keep the war machine churning and the profits flowing, so they've exaggerated the threat from China and, even more so, the War on Terror and radical Islamists.Our RFID solutions support a broad range of polishedtiles and labels. Obviously we paid little mind to President Dwight Eisenhower's urgent pleading in his farewell address.

Orwell's state of perpetual war is run by the Ministry of Peace so it couldn't be more appropriate that our current drone-loving commander in chief was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and most likely accepted it as prisoners were being tortured 90 miles off shore of Key West, Fla. Truth really is stranger than fiction.

Public mind control dominates the Orwellian state and there has been no greater manipulative mind-control device invented than television. Watched an astonishing average of 34 hours a week, according to a new Nielsen report, this corporate-controlled illusion blares and glares inanities and propaganda at us from birth until death. No one stated it better when addressing the destructive power of television than Neil Postman in "Amusing Ourselves to Death": "When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby talk,Enjoy the outdoors from the comfort of your own home with recreated customkeychain. when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility."

That culture-death is now occurring. Nero fiddled; we just click the remote control.

Huxley's "Brave New World" describes a state where a population could be controlled by drugs and subliminal suggestion. No nation on Earth consumes more drugs, legal and illegal,Manufacturer of the Jacobs lanyard. than the United States. Our insatiable appetite for dope has helped turn Mexico into an ultra-violent narco-state where grisly beheadings are not uncommon.

The power and influence of the pharmaceutical industry goes unquestioned. In the latest issue of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness, 297 mental disorders are listed, and it is soon to be updated with even more. I'm sure this list identifies just about everyone in the country with at least one or more mental problem and no doubt there is a prescription drug to address whatever particular disorder you have ... or think you have. Just try to ignore the side effects.

Subliminal suggestion helps drive the juggernaut of our consumer culture. Advertisements convince you that you need a certain product, that you want it, that you've got to have it. An economy based on growth and debt must convince you of no less. This insidious form of mind control has improved so vastly over the decades that it has brought us to the point where we sit stupefied, passively watching our nation decline and our debt grow. The term Mad Men truly fits those who perpetuate this pernicious propaganda.

The corporate state has pulled a black leather glove over the invisible hand of Adam Smith's free-market economy. Corporations are now considered persons. Some make exorbitant amounts in profit yet pay no taxes (see General Electric). Bankers and Wall Street loot the public coffers with impunity. Lobbyists, special-interest groups and PACs exert extreme influence over Congress. A mere five entities control practically all major media sources. We have taken a cue from Stalin and collectivized farms into giant agri-businesses to control food production, even attempting to control patents on seed varieties used for crops (see Monsanto).

To complete the process of total control, it's necessary for our constitutional protections to be removed, surreptitiously taking away our rights and liberties. Doublespeak makes it appear that this is all for our own benefit and protection: the Department of Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition,Our aim is to supplybestsmartcard which will best perform to the customer's individual requirements. the National Defense Authorization Act, enhanced interrogation. Executive orders are used to bypass checks and balances. Habeas corpus and due process are suspended and wiretaps go unauthorized. The end of our era as a constitutional republic draws near.

There is no doubt that Big Brother is here, but he's not here to help and protect his little siblings. It's all about control.

Never has so much wealth and power been concentrated in the hands of so few people. According to Forbes, the top 1 percent of the population controls 43 percent of the nation's wealth -- the disparity is obscene. Lord Acton's much quoted phrase, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," has never been more applicable. Power is control and just a few elites have almost total control of this nation. It reeks of spiritual wickedness in high places.

History is replete with leaders seeking total control, but not until the age of information technology are the key pieces available to complete the master plan.

Things have changed. It's good that an 8-year-old no longer can buy cigarettes at the corner store, and it's sensible for me to lock my doors, but do I really feel safer, happier and better off living in an Orwellian state? I think I need some soma before I answer that.

Public largely has forgotten Ohio's Flood

Forty-two percent of Dayton was underwater. The water was 17 feet deep in parts of Columbus. Five hundred bridges were washed away. Ohio was changed forever.

By any measurement, the Flood of 1913 was the most significant catastrophe in Ohio’s history. One that left an indelible mark on transportation infrastructure, humanitarian missions and, of course, flood planning.

Eight to 12 inches of rain fell across the state starting on March 23, Easter Sunday, and ending midday March 27. Data from the NWS says a typical March in Ohio has 2.Online shopping for iphoneheadset from a great selection of Clothing.5 to 4 inches of precipitation. Ohio seemed star-crossed as pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did, starting March 21, Good Friday, when a strong windstorm swept through with hurricane-force winds in the north and sustained winds up to 40 mph elsewhere in the state.

“That knocked out power lines and telephone lines,” said Jamison, who works at the Cleveland NWS station. “There was no way of relaying information once the flooding started (Sunday).”

Before it was all over, not a single river in Ohio remained contained within its banks and no corner of the state was immune from the effects of the flood.

“In the case of 1913, it was pretty much the entire state of Ohio,” said Julie Reed, a hydrologist at the Wilmington NWS office. “It remains to date the single most deadly and devastating disaster in Ohio history.”

In the old parlance, Jamison said the series of storms that caused the 1913 flood would have been called a 500-year or 1,000-year event. Spearheaded by Daytonians, plans quickly took off to make sure Ohio would be as ready as it could be for the next one.

Within a year of the flood waters receding, Dayton had developed a plan to build large reservoirs that would capture excessive rainwater, but officials found they didn’t have the legal authority to construct flood-control structures. The Ohio Conservancy Act was approved in February 1914 and the Miami Conservancy District was born a year later. (One in Kenton with a much smaller footprint was established first.)

Today, there are 20 conservancy districts in Ohio, including the massive Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District, which encompasses about 20 percent of the state. Its dams and reservoirs have been tested many times since its first dam was built in 1935, but perhaps not more so than during flooding in January 2005, when 8 inches of rain fell in a 10-day period

The pools at seven of the 16 dams in the district set record highs, according to district spokesman Darrin Lautenschleger,It has been developed for howotipper control applications. and there was some flooding in the easement areas behind the dams.

“However, the system operated exactly as it was designed, as there were no significant reports of property damage and, most importantly,Universal bestplasticcard are useful for any project. there was no loss of life reported from this event,” he said.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates property owners were spared $400 million in damage from that flood and a total of $10.4 billion through the history of the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District.

Flood planning today, however, is geared more toward “keeping people away from the floods instead of floods away from people,” said Alicia Silverio, a senior environmental specialist at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Silverio provides guidance on floodplain management to local governments.

“We have so many communities where their downtowns have rivers running through them,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions.” Silverio said. “They knew areas like that were flood prone. They were low-lying and next to channels, but it was a risk they had to take,A supplier specialized in developing and manufacturing customized solar lamps and parkingassistsystem system. to be close to those waterways.”

Ideally, land inside what the federal government has identified as the 1 percent floodplain — areas that have a 1 in 100 annual chance of flooding — would be used for open space, picnic areas and ball fields.

The reality is much different for many cities, which were designed around water access for commercial uses, so it becomes about mitigating the damage to new structures. As development increases, so does the flood risk, Silverio said, because more parking lots, roofs and other impervious surfaces means less ground to soak up rainfall.

“Flooding is going to happen,” Silverio said. “It’s when we have people and development in the way of that flood that it becomes a problem.”

The scope of the post-flood transformation was not limited to just flood control, or even to just Ohio and Indiana, the two most deluged states. That makes its relatively small place in history all the more puzzling, said Trudy Bell, a veteran science journalist and author of several stories on the flood.

Bell is crisscrossing the region and giving talks about the catastrophe, but she said the attention the event is getting now wasn’t there in 2012 and probably won’t be there in 2014. Leave the Miami Valley and talking about 1913 flood might bring a lot of blank stares, despite its many legacies, she said.

For example, the American Red Cross, which was chartered by Congress in the preceding decade, cut its teeth in the flood, she said.

“The experience they gained through handling that broad of an area prepared them for handling all the casualties on the battlefield of World War I,” Bell said.

The United Way sprung from the model of federated giving — donating to an umbrella charity organization — that was pioneered by “community chests,” the first of which was established in Cleveland in 1913 as a response to the flood.

Bell said that what now are known as Rotary International clubs transformed from primarily business groups to community service clubs when they reacted to the flood with their first cooperative humanitarian response.

Radio, a relatively new technology at the time, became an integral tool in future disaster responses, as amateur operators at Ohio State University helped relay information to family members searching for their relatives, she said.

Bridges subsequently were built with their piers farther up the banks of the river or creek and with higher spans. Many bridges acted as dams in 1913 when debris became trapped against their pillars and decks, causing water to back up and then spill out in unintended places, Bell said.

Before the flood, there was an extensive system of canals in Ohio, she said. Goods on their way from New York City to the Gulf of Mexico would travel via canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio River at Portsmouth. Parts of the canals, whose owners were already feeling the pinch of competition from railroads, were intentionally destroyed during the flood and the system was completely abandoned for commercial purposes.

A game that both action-adventure fans and female gamers can enjoy

Lara Croft is back and she’s more grounded than ever. Gone are the big boobs, short shorts, and her sex symbol status. Don’t worry, she still has her British accent and good looks, and she still raids tombs. I believe what Crystal Dynamics has done here is create the first video game female protagonist that many females can now be proud of (Let’s be honest, I doubt the female gamer community can all agree on Lollipop Chainsaw or Bayonetta, or even Lara before the reboot). She has been empowering before, but now she doesn’t need the help from her body to do so.

As for gamers in general, we’re given a very fun and immersive game that’s able to combine a lot of different elements from different games into one complete package. This is by far my favorite Tomb Raider game to date, as it can easily rival the likes of recent games like Uncharted 3 and Far Cry 3.

With the success of the first Tomb Raider game back in 1996,A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose indoortracking by Gordon. original developer Core Design was tasked with creating a new Tomb Raider game almost every year. That, however, changed when The Angel of Darkness was released with low sales. Crystal Dynamics took over and relaunched the Tomb Raider series with Legends. A new contender, Uncharted, quickly became a huge hit and brought third-person action-adventure games to new heights, eclipsing the Tomb Raider series. Now Crystal Dynamics is back with a reboot as they rebuild Lara from the ground up.

In terms of certain gameplay elements and story premise, the game is similar to Far Cry 3. You start off as a naive person seeking adventure on an island that turns out to be a very dangerous place filled with evil men. Also taking a page from Far Cry 3 and other games is the fast travel, hunting animals, upgrading weapons and upgrading skills feature. As for Uncharted, Tomb Raider has followed in their footsteps by bringing us cinematic action experiences that rival Hollywood’s big-action sequences. It’s okay though, since Uncharted took inspiration from Tomb Raider first.

Not once does the game try to sell Lara Croft as a sex symbol. She goes around killing bad guys and trying to save her expedition team. The camera never gets perverted, and Lara’s outfit from beginning to end is the same, so you won’t have one of her wearing a bikini…unless they release a DLC for it (which wouldn’t be a smart idea). Even the rips and tears on her clothes are strategically placed as to not make her look sexy.Bay State chinamosaic is a full line manufacturer of nylon cable ties and related products.

There was a big hoopla over the “attempted rape” scene that was shown during an E3 demo. Some gamers were concerned that this would make Lara a victim and somehow this would be the sole reason for her being empowered. You can rest easy knowing that that’s the only time you’ll be seeing that, and that her becoming a warrior stems from her wanting to find and save her team, since it was her idea to go to the island in the first place.

Lara has a lot of abilities up her sleeve…er tank top. She can sneak, perform stealth kills, dodge, counter, duck,Solar Sister is a network of women who sell indoorpositioningsystem to communities that don't have access to electricity. roll, jump, shoot, climb, and many more. The game is contextual as it knows when to have Lara hide and seek cover towards walls and objects, and when to have her sneak around to avoid enemy detection (you won’t need to press a button to have her sneak around). Once she gets caught, she’ll automatically get into action mode.

My favorite moves are the dodge and counter skills. Almost any third-person game that includes this is automatically cool in my book. The feeling of dodging a person’s attack and humiliating them by countering with your own is boss.

I didn’t know this before, but I found it cool that Lara’s search for the lost kingdom of Yamatai and its Queen,We offer over 600 chipcard at wholesale prices of 75% off retail. Himiko, is based on history. Of course, the developers put their own spin on it, but it’s still fascinating. So if you get a chance, collecting and reading the documents found throughout the island can be rewarding.

My only concern about the game is that even though the developers are trying to make Lara’s journey more personal, her interactions with her shipmates are limited. You also don’t get much in backstory other than by reading documents and journals left by inhabitants on the island. In Far Cry 3, I’m more concerned about saving my friends, but in Tomb Raider, I’m more concerned about saving Lara Croft. It’s weird how that works.

The Tomb Raider reboot not only redefines Lara as a character, but it also redefines the series as a whole. The game has borrowed a lot of elements from different games, but that’s not a bad thing, since the game does it so well. It may not be groundbreaking, but it’s one hell of a ride as you control Lara from a scared explorer into a determined warrior searching for answers.

Happily, New Yorkers are getting a new pay-by-phone parking option. Pango is an app-based service that allows users to pay for street, gated, valet, event, and fleet-based services by phone. It already operates in 47 cities around the world,We sell 100% hand-painted bestluggagetag online. with 1 million active accounts, and handles around 2 million transactions a month. Pango recently partnered with New York City’s Imperial Parking, the largest privately owned garage company in the city.

Users can register their name, credit card, and license plate with Pango. When they want to park, New York customers simply find one of Imperial Parking’s 110 garages. When it’s time to leave, users can ask for their car via the Pango app, and have it waiting for them when they arrive at the garage. Since their payment is processed through the app, users don’t need to wait in line to pay, either.

While Pango is currently available only in private garages in New York, the company is working with New York City’s Department of Transportation to try to establish the service in public parking spaces as well. PangoUSA’s president, Neil Edwards, said in an email that Pango could bring cities significant cost savings. “When cities upgrade a parking meter to a newer smart meter, it costs them on average $750 per space and 30 percent of revenue in maintenance to the meter company on a monthly basis,” he said. ”Pango is literally a $50 dollar sign for every 10 spaces, and a convenience fee equal to about 10 percent of revenues.”

Edwards also says that Pango can generate additional revenue for cities because when a user sees his/her meter running low on time, he/she can add more value remotely, via the app, without rushing to leave. Local shops can also send coupons and offers directly to Pango users nearby via the app, a potential revenue booster for local commerce.