Saturday, November 4, 2006
On November 13, Toronto residents will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Toronto Centre (Ward 28). One candidate responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Edward Chin, Paula Fletcher (incumbent), Patrick Kraemer, Suzanne McCormick, Daniel Nicastro, and Michael Zubiak.
For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 crashed 1,750km (1,100 miles) north-west of Rio de Janeiro killing all people onboard, on Friday September 29. National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) has confirmed that the crashed Brazilian airplane did crash into a smaller aircraft. Rescue workers and air force personnel are searching the wreckage for bodies
By Sally Smith
Physiotherapy for the treatment of Pelvic Floor Dysfunction.
If you are a sufferer of Vulvodynia aka Vulvar Vestibulitis or any form of pain in the pelvic or vulvar region then you may benefit greatly from specialized physiotherapy targeting the pelvic floor region.
The following is a pelvic floor exercise for you to do at home that if done properly and regularly will reduce pelvic, abdominal and vulvar pain.
Step 1.
Lift/Draw your Pelvic Floor Muscles )PFM) upwards and forwards, towards your pubic bone or belly button.
You may feel a tightening or squeezing sensation around your urethra, vagina and anus.
Step 2.
Make sure your bottom, legs and upper stomach muscles are relaxed.
Step 3.
Keep breathing normally while you are holding your PFMs steady.
Step 4.
Hold this upwards and forwards movement for 5 seconds.
Rest for 10 Seconds.
Step 5:
Repeat this 10 times in a row.
Step 6.
Do this 2 times a day (preferably when you wake up in the morning and before bed each night) in the following positions (one position per set):
-Lying down, legs straight.
-Lying down, knees bent.
-Side lying.
-Standing Up.
-Sitting up Straight.
-Walking.
Being in control of your pelvic floor muscles is crucial for everyday life. If you experience pain, knowing when and how to relax your PFM will relieve this discomfort.
Practice these exercises until they are second nature and your pain will fade away with time.
If practised regularly these exercise routines will make a noticeable difference to pain symptoms relating to pelvic disorders. It may take several weeks before benefits become aware, it is important not to give up and to regularly perform these exercises. Pelvic Disorders, such as Vulvodynia can be extremely painful so any form of relief is welcome. If these exercises don not work then you may be suitable for biofeedback treatment. Biofeedback treatment is administered by a specialized technician, usually a physiotherapist. If pain persists consult your doctor. For further information consult a physiotherapist specializing in pelvic floor rehabilitation.
Living with Vulvodynia aka Vulvar Vestibulitis| Symptoms, Treatment, Cure, Real Stories
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Monday, September 20, 2010
One of London’s most well known murals could be restored after years of neglect if plans by a group of community activists gain public support. The Fitzrovia Mural at Whitfield Gardens on London’s Tottenham Court Road was created by two mural artists and commissioned by Camden Council in 1980, but the mural has since decayed and been vandalised.
Plans will be presented at a public meeting this Tuesday, to include details of the restoration and promote local public space in contrast to potential commercial developments and the focus of the London 2012 Olympics. If enough funds are raised from charitable trusts and public donations the mural could be restored during the summer of 2011.
Plans to be put forward by the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association, and the London Mural Preservation Society, will present ways to fund not only the restoration work but also projects to raise awareness of conservation, heritage, and the residential and working community. The heritage and mural project hopes to involve many local people who could learn new conservation skills. Also planned are workshops with local children to involve them in their heritage, an exhibition by local artists, guided tours and a celebratory event at the end of the restoration project. In addition to this, a booklet would be produced containing collected oral histories of the people involved and a preservation trust to protect the mural in future years.
The playful painting was created on a Camden Council-owned building in 1980 by artists Mick Jones, (son of the late Jack Jones, trade union leader) and Simon Barber and is a mash up of scenes depicting problems faced by the neighbourhood over the preceding decade.
There is also a caricature of poet Dylan Thomas, who lived in Fitzrovia, and a mocking portrayal of then leader of the Greater London Council, Conservative politician Horace Cutler, who is pictured as a bat-like creature. Other characters include an anonymous greedy developer and a property speculator counting piles of cash.
Peter Whyatt of the neighbourhood association is jointly leading the project to restore the mural. Yesterday he told Wikinews he had a number of concerns about the possible success of the project.
“There are a great number of problems with getting this project off the ground and we also need to act pretty quickly for a number of reasons,” said Mr Whyatt.
“Firstly the mural is in a terrible state and deteriorating quickly. There is more graffiti being daubed on the site every month because one bit of graffiti attracts another bit. We really need to start the work in the next 12 months because going through another winter with the condition of the wall will causes more problems and inevitably more expense. We want to keep as much original artwork on the site as possible to keep the costs down. This is a big mural and it will be expensive to restore,” he continued.
“And that brings me to my second concern: cost. If we don’t get other community organisations on board to bid for money for this with us and to involve their beneficiaries and volunteers, it will be very difficult to secure the money needed. Money is very tight at the moment because to the current financial climate. We need to get support at this meeting on Tuesday and some firm commitments from people and organisations to get involved.
“Lastly there is a danger of a commercial development on the site. A public-private partnership to create a new art feature. Because of the existing mural’s subject matter – it mocks property speculators, and land developers, etc – a commercial scheme probably backed by a property developer would not want to restore the mural’s original message. They’d want some “good news” scheme, some greenwash idea that paints them in a positive light.
“However, despite these problems, Camden Council have offered to do a condition survey on the mural. This will save us a lot of money. But having said that there are five council departments to deal with to get permission for this restoration work, and they don’t always talk to each other.
“But if the public and local voluntary organisations show their support, we can make it happen,” Mr Whyatt concluded.
The mural restoration will be just one part of a year long project of heritage and conservation awareness-raising. “The project is not just about the mural but also wider plans to promote awareness of heritage and conservation in an area of London under threat from commercial development. In fact the bulk of the project is about the heritage and conservation and the mural is just one part of it, and the most visible because of its situation,” Mr Whyatt later added.
There will be a public meeting about the heritage and mural project at 7.30 pm tomorrow (Tuesday), at the Neighbourhood Centre, 39 Tottenham Street. The public can also comment about the proposals on the Fitzrovia Heritage and Mural website.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Every September, the Apple iPod is redesigned. Last year saw the release of the iPod Nano 5th generation, bringing a video camera and a large range of colours to the Nano for the first time. But as Apple again prepares to unveil a redesigned product, the company has released their quarterly sales figures—and revealed that they have sold only 9m iPods for the quarter to June—the lowest number of sales since 2006, leading industry anylists to ponder whether the world’s most successful music device is in decline.
Such a drop in sales is not a problem for Apple, since the iPhone 4 and the iPad are selling in high numbers. But the number of people buying digital music players are concerning the music industry. Charles Arthur, technology editor of The Guardian, wrote that the decline in sales of MP3 players was a “problem” for record companies, saying that “digital music sales are only growing as fast as those of Apple’s devices – and as the stand-alone digital music player starts to die off, people may lose interest in buying songs from digital stores. The music industry had looked to the iPod to drive people to buy music in download form, whether from Apple’s iTunes music store, eMusic, Napster or from newer competitors such as Amazon.”
Mark Mulligan, a music and digital media analyst at Forrester Research, said in an interview that “at a time where we’re asking if digital is a replacement for the CD, as the CD was for vinyl, we should be starting to see a hockey-stick growth in download sales. Instead, we’re seeing a curve resembling that of a niche technology.” Alex Jacob, a spokesperson for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents the worldwide music industry, agreed that there had been a fall in digital sales of music. “The digital download market is still growing,” they said. “But the percentage is less than a few years ago, though it’s now coming from a higher base.” Figures released earlier this year, Arthur wrote, “show that while CD sales fell by 12.7%, losing $1.6bn (£1bn)in value, digital downloads only grew by 9.2%, gaining less than $400m in value.”
Expectations that CDs would, in time, become extinct, replaced by digital downloads, have not come to light, Jacob confirmed. “Across the board, in terms of growth, digital isn’t making up for the fall in CD sales, though it is in certain countries, including the UK,” he said. Anylising the situation, Arthur suggested that “as iPod sales slow, digital music sales, which have been yoked to the device, are likely to slow too. The iPod has been the key driver: the IFPI’s figures show no appreciable digital download sales until 2004, the year Apple launched its iTunes music store internationally (it launched it in the US in April 2003). Since then, international digital music sales have climbed steadily, exactly in line with the total sales of iPods and iPhones.”
Nick Farrell, a TechEYE journalist, stated that the reason for the decline in music sales could be attributed to record companies’ continued reliance on Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, saying that they had considered him the “industry’s saviour”, and by having this mindset had forgotten “that the iPod is only for those who want their music on the run. What they should have been doing is working out how to get high quality music onto other formats, perhaps even HiFi before the iPlod fad died out.”
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When Jobs negotiated a deal with record labels to ensure every track was sold for 99 cents, they considered this unimportant—the iPod was not a major source of revenue for the company. However, near the end of 2004, there was a boom in sales of the iPod, and the iTunes store suddenly began raking in more and more money. The record companies were irritated, now wanting to charge different amounts for old and new songs, and popular and less popular songs. “But there was no alternative outlet with which to threaten Apple, which gained an effective monopoly over the digital music player market, achieving a share of more than 70%” wrote Arthur. Some did attempt to challenge the iTunes store, but still none have succeeded. “Apple is now the largest single retailer of music in the US by volume, with a 25% share.”
The iTunes store now sells television shows and films, and the company has recently launced iBooks, a new e-book store. The App Store is hugely successful, with Apple earning $410m in two years soley from Apps, sales of which they get 30%. In two years, 5bn apps have been downloaded—while in seven years, 10bn songs have been purchased. Mulligan thinks that there is a reason for this—the quality of apps simply does not match up to a piece of music. “You can download a song from iTunes to your iPhone or iPad, but at the moment music in that form doesn’t play to the strengths of the device. Just playing a track isn’t enough.”
Adam Liversage, a spokesperson of the British Phonographic Industry, which represents the major UK record labels, notes that the rise of streaming services such as Spotify may be a culprit in the fall in music sales. Revenues from such companies added up to $800m in 2009. Arthur feels that “again, it doesn’t make up for the fall in CD sales, but increasingly it looks like nothing ever will; that the record business’s richest years are behind it. Yet there are still rays of hope. If Apple – and every other mobile phone maker – are moving to an app-based economy, where you pay to download games or timetables, why shouldn’t recording artists do the same?”
Well, apparently they are. British singer Peter Gabriel has released a ‘Full Moon Club’ app, which is updated every month with a new song. Arthur also notes that “the Canadian rock band Rush has an app, and the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, led by Trent Reznor – who has been critical of the music industry for bureaucracy and inertia – released the band’s first app in April 2009.” It is thought that such a system will be an effective method to reduce online piracy—”apps tend to be tied to a particular handset or buyer, making them more difficult to pirate than a CD”, he says—and in the music industry, piracy is a very big problem. In 2008, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimated that 95% of downloads were illegitimate. If musicians can increase sales and decrease piracy, Robert says, it can only be a good thing.
“It’s early days for apps in the music business, but we are seeing labels and artists experimenting with it,” Jacob said. “You could see that apps could have a premium offering, or behind-the-scenes footage, or special offers on tickets. But I think it’s a bit premature to predict the death of the album.” Robert concluded by saying that it could be “premature to predict the death of the iPod just yet too – but it’s unlikely that even Steve Jobs will be able to produce anything that will revive it. And that means that little more than five years after the music industry thought it had found a saviour in the little device, it is having to look around again for a new stepping stone to growth – if, that is, one exists.”
Sunday, August 21, 2005
A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.
If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.
There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”
There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.
Front yard landscaping for dummies
by
Marshall Julian
Front yard landscaping plans needs to be such that it merges the man made house with natural elements easily and softens the general look. Front yard landscape ought to be an inviting place which directs the visitor to the house easily. Certain principles needs to be taken into account when you are creating your yard landscape design. Given listed here are some landscaping plans and ideas which will help in creating your entry landscape.
The Layout Plan There are 2 forms of layout designs, the symmetrical design and also the asymmetrical design. No matter which pattern you choose, it’s important that you balance out every one of the elements of the landscape, and importantly produce a feeling of unity inside elements. Symmetrical designs means using a mirror like division with the entry and house. Symmetrical designs are suitable for houses that have a central driveway and door in the heart of your house, and equal variety of windows on both sides from the door. For such houses, a symmetrical landscape design is useful. In a symmetrical design, plant the sun and rain inside the yard like bushes in almost many of us to give a well-balanced look. Though, symmetrical landscape design could be a bit difficult to achieve, they compliment nicely with houses that have symmetrical design and a formal look. Alternatively asymmetrical designs give a more stimulating look and so are better to create and plan. However, it is important that you simply balance the asymmetrical landscaping plans in front of the house properly. Also, arrange every one of the elements in such a way that everything provides feeling of unity. A good example of asymmetrical landscape design would be having the location from the pavement somewhere towards the left side of the house. To balance this house, plant the shrubs and bushes as you’re watching house, on either side from the pavement and trees at the edges of your home. You can observe inside the top and middle image, entry landscaping plans which stick to the asymmetrical pattern. This was about planning the fundamental layout, which lays down the foundation of the softscape and hardscape elements. Adding Softscape Elements The softscape materials or elements utilized in front yard landscaping plans would be the plants, for example, the trees, shrubs, flowering plants, the lawn, etc. After deciding your layout, you have to create a wise collection of the timber that you simply desire to plant inside your entry. Make sure you opt for the bushes which can be a variety of two seasons, so that they help to accentuate the yard in the summer and winter weather. Another essential point in choosing the shrubs and trees is ensuring that trees and shrubs together are compatible. It is advisable to choose native plants, because they have previously adapted towards the soil, water and weather. The proper placement of the shrubs and the trees is essential, so keep in mind these front yard landscaping ideas. Never plant trees right in front of the house, and steer clear of planting the shrubs too near to the pavement or driveway. Shrubs needs to be planted on each side of the driveway, and should be placed in a bizarre numbered number of 3 or 5. While planting trees, think about the size and space an adult tree will require and possess enough area surrounding it. Plant the trees in the edges of your home, to soften the pointed edges of the roof. It is possible to plant some trees at the front end near the edges of your home, and few at the back, that will blend the man made house nicely within the entry and backdrop. To include flowers for the yard, be sure you just choose a few quantity of plants like 2 – 3 flowers of contrasting colors, and prevent a riot of colours. Too many accents needs to be avoided, as it will spoil the appearance. You will see at the center image, there are very few flowering plants, but nonetheless the home and the yard looks good and inviting. Even without adding any flower plants, you can develop a beautiful front yard landscape. For ground cover, you can either go for a lawn, or spread plants evenly which may have a maximum expansion of around one foot. Selecting hedges is about you, according to whether you’ll need a screen and boundary around your home. Ensure you select the hedge type wisely, and plant it around 15 – 20 feet from the street. Adding Hardscape Elements The hardscape materials or structural materials would be the fences, walls, paving, etc. Ensure you use a driveway which can be around 10 feet wide, if your driveway also serves as the street leading to your front door, make it wider. This makes walking on the driveway easy when a car is parked about the driveway, preventing stepping on the lawn. There are many selection of materials for that pavements. Apply for a brick wall which is the most attractive material, or choose stone, wood or concrete material. Many people also choose metal fences just like the one shown in the centre image, but a majority of prefer the traditional wooden fences. When you have a more impressive budget, and good level of space then you can consider going for a secluded courtyard design, or accent your yard having a water fountain or a garden pond. They were some guidelines that will actually create leading yard landscaping plans according to the individual’s choice of house design. So, be sure you bear in mind every one of the important points, and design a front yard landscape which looks good and is also inviting.
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Sunday, August 21, 2005
A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.
If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.
There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”
There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
The Vancouver Canucks, hockey team to Vancouver, British Columbia, unveiled it’s new home and away uniforms today. Keeping the trade-mark Orca, the jersey has remixed the colors as well as adding a green stripe for both the home and away uniforms. This is the 5th jersey the team has gone through since 1970 when the team was founded.
The redesign has been met with some criticisms. John Carter a graphics arts instructor at a local college was quoted as calling the redesign an “utter disappointment.”
The design uses the same core colors in the original design, and on the back it also has their original jersey’s hockey stick symbol. The president and CEO of the Canucks, Chris Zimmerman, recognizes this saying, “Our goal when we set out was to celebrate our heritage and to design a sweater that reflects our extraordinary city and province. “We wanted to unveil a sweater that reflects our past and our future.” Zimmerman also went on to say the design represents, “who we are and the connection to the community.”
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Rico Daniels is a British TV presenter living in France who is known for his two television series — The Salvager — whilst he still lived in the UK and then Le Salvager after he moved to France. Rico has been in a variety of jobs but his passion is now his profession – he turns unwanted ‘junk’ into unusual pieces of furniture. Rico’s creations and the methods used to fabricate them are the subject of the Salvager shows.
Rico spoke to Wikinews in January about his inspiration and early life, future plans, other hobbies and more. Read on for the full exclusive interview, published for the first time: