For the estimated 80 million domestic cats that are kept as house pets, there are as many roaming free.
Those numbers shouldn't be surprising, considering the rate at which felines are able to reproduce. I've previously written about the overpopulation issue with cats and dogs, and getting these numbers in check has been the focus of many. Spay and neuter programs and protocols are helping to make progress.
First, understand that from a biological standpoint, we are in a battle with pets. Reproductive success drives evolution, pure and simple. It's the strongest biological factor in any species. Biology has a way of taking over, jumping any hurdle that is put in its path and compensating. The pets themselves have no control over their biological drives, and therefore can't curb their behavior when it comes reproducing.
Comprised of a clowder of free-roaming cats that are the descendants of unaltered tame cats somewhere in their ancestral line, the social structure is by no means random: at its core, it has at least one sexually-active dominant male and fertile females who are often well-bonded and who will help care for their respective litters and each other. Colonies are often formed around shelter — be it a wooded area, abandoned house, under a porch area that doesn’t get that much foot traffic or something else — and a food source of some sort.
Because of their unique resiliency, feral cat colonies have posed a special challenge. The structure and reproductive patterns of these groups have piqued the interest of researchers and got them thinking: Could the way that a feline in a feral colony is sterilized impact the overall numbers of new litters that are born?
First, TVHR is not a common way to address feral cat populations. Trap, neuter and release TNR on the other hand, is a more widely-accepted approach to controlling feral cat colony populations, and for a lot of reasons.
Because TVHR isn’t put into use as much and because the life span of feral cats is far shorter — an average of three years as opposed to the 15 that their Indoor Positioning System — it’s been difficult to extrapolate the long-term data that helps to give some solid numbers that researchers would be looking for. Each computer run simulated the feral cat population over 6,000 days, tracking individual cats on a daily basis, thus predicting effectiveness of TVHR.
Those two things are very advantageous: the cats don't reproduce, and because they no longer produce reproductive hormones, behaviors like fighting, spraying and howling are reduced, addressing the needs of the community-at-large. Behaviors like those would be troublesome to anyone who lives in close proximity to a feral colony.
A possible advantage to vasectomy as opposed to neuter procedure is that though the tube that carries semen is cut, the animal retains their testicles and their reproductive hormones. For that reason, upon being returned to the colony, the cat preserves his dominant position and can continue mating with females without producing kittens — and quite possibly protect their turf from other male competitors that are “intact”.
Conversely, a neutered male loses his dominant position in the colony, and the next most dominant male takes his place — and the cycle continues. It's important to note that when a female cat that has not been sterilized mates with a male that has had a vasectomy, she enters a 45-day pseudo-pregnancy, dipping the chance of fertile mating even further.
Your DSLR probably came bundled with a standard 18-55mm lens. This is a solid jack-of-all-trades that sports a nice wide angle and reasonable focal length. However, any photographer worth their salt needs to bolster their kit with a few additional lenses — otherwise you might as well have stuck with a high-end compact camera. In almost all cases, the type of lens employed will have a bigger effect on image quality than the camera itself.
For most photographers, a telephoto zoom lens makes the most sense for your next purchase. Most DSLR models offer affordable 55-200mm lenses that are great for capturing faraway action, such as animals at the zoo.
An ultra-wide-angle zoom lens is also worth putting on your shopping list: this will allow you to take great panoramas without any tedious stitching and are also great when you need to capture everyone in crowded group photos, making them a staple of wedding photographers. On the other end of the spectrum is the macro lens with a fixed aperture: these let you get up close and personal with the camera’s subject and are a great way of documenting nature.
One of the simplest ways to improve your DSLR’s performance is to install the latest firmware upgrade. These are usually available on the manufacturer’s website and may include everything from improved auto-focus tracking to recording RAW video files. Firmware updates are also free, which is good news for photographers on a budget.
In addition to official vendor updates, you can also find custom, third-party firmware for many DSLR models. These are capable of super-charging your camera with a wide range of features that the manufacturer didn’t include.
No really. Many dismiss 3D as a fading fad, but when it comes to user-created content the technology is more than just a gimmick. It’s capable of adding a whole new dimension to your photos both literally and figuratively. Imagine watching your baby’s first steps in a format that you can almost reach out and touch — it might seem vaguely cool now, but what about in twenty years when you kids have flown the coop? Adding 3D functionality to your DSLR will make your recorded memories far more tangible.
One recent example is the Kúla Deeper: a snap-on hardware accessory that allows you to create 3D photos and movies. The accessory adds a pair of mirrors on either side of your DSLR lens for dual image capture. The Kúla Deeper works with most regular DSLRs although viewing the results naturally requires a 3D-compatible display. Charmingly, there’s also an Anaglyph mode which lets you watch the movies with a pair of retro red-and-blue 3D glasses. Bless.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/!
Monday, September 2, 2013
Defining casual luxury
I love its change of seasons and the energy that the younger generation of emerging designers bring to the table. Also, when purchasing piece after piece of boutiquery, the texture and colour of fabric is what informs me and gets me charged. Retail should, for the most part, be enjoyable, regardless of whether you're buying a lipstick or a car; and more than anything else, that is what I want for every person that walks through our doors. Life is kind of tough for everyone right now; everyone's a bit hard-pressed, so when you have that opportunity or that moment to have that interaction, they should be made to feel good; to be left with a great impression.
I must say, through this business I've met some great individuals. I aspire to turn my customers into friends. It's nice to be able to say to them "How are your kids?", "How's your family?" or "What happened last weekend?" Boutiques are able to connect to customers in a way big department stores or shopping online can't, so it's important to me to be afforded the privilege to cultivate those relationships.
I don't like to dress up, I've left that behind me, now. I really only dress up when I have to; whatever function requires me to and, thankfully, I don't go to a lot of those. I love a casual look that I can start out in the morning and can take me right into the evening, because when life takes over, I seem to always be going by the 'seat of my pants'. The concept of going home to change rarely happens for me very well and fortunately, I'm good with that. I like to have pieces in my wardrobe that meet the requirement of a full day: work, lunch, dinner, if I have to meet up with friends for a night out. Jamaica's relaxed lifestyle and the fact that I don't work corporate allow me to fully exercise my casual tastes.
As you mature, I think one tends to learn more about oneself and what we naturally prefer and so, with that said, I like to be comfortable; that's my thing. I don't want to have to be constantly readjusting my outfit once I'm out the door, I want to be left to concentrate on the other things in my life that need to get done. I don't have a lot of clothes nor a huge wardrobe, but I like timeless pieces that I can keep and wear over and real time Location system. I know many people don't like to wear the same thing twice, but I definitely play favourites. Whenever a much-loved piece 'dies', I'm really saddened and find myself organising the hunt for its swift replacement.
They're not playing slots or video poker. No, they're trying their hand at upcoming games such as "Titanfall" and "Ryse."
This is the GameStop Expo. The world's largest video game retailer first organized the gathering of its most passionate customers last year during its annual meeting of store managers. While the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles is no longer open to the public, the GameStop Expo offers everyday gamers a chance to preview upcoming titles and hardware.
The expo's more than 5,000 attendees waited in snaking lines inside a cavernous Sands Expo hall early Wednesday to test-drive Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4, the next-generation systems due out this November. "Call of Duty: Ghosts," "Titanfall," "Ryse: Son of Rome" and "Battlefield 4" were among the most popular games on display.
"I'm here to see and play all the next-gen consoles and games for myself," Shawn Smoak, a 22-year-old self-professed "Sony fanboy," said while waiting to try out "Titanfall." "You can read everything you possibly can about them online, but until you actually get your hands on the controller, you don't really know anything. That's what this is all about."
Beyond the expo hall in meeting rooms at the Venetian casino and Sands convention center, more than 5,000 managers from company's nearly 4,500 stores in the U.S. spent three days learning all about how to sell new games and hardware to customers like those at its expo. The retailer currently boasts about 25 million members in its PowerUp Rewards program.
GameStop launched the gamer gathering last year after the Grapevine, Texas-based company's international divisions successfully hosted their own events. (Last year's EB Games Expo in Australia welcomed more than 30,000 attendees.) Admission for Wednesday's event ranged from $20 for student tickets to $100 for VIP access that included early entry.
"We didn't want to be in the live events business," said GameStop CEO Paul Raines. "This was something that was pulled out of us. The customers wanted it. The PowerUp Rewards community was asking for us to give them an opportunity to see new products and games. People love it because this is the only place where they can play `Titanfall' right now."
Frazier, a black sociologist at Howard University and the first black president of the American Sociological Society published the first edition of his book in France in 1957 and it was later translated into English and a second edition was published in 1962. Much of the book is dated as the size and importance of the black middle-class has dramatically increased over the past 50 years. Blacks have become an integral part of all areas of American life up to and including the presidency of the United States. Yet the perception of exclusion remains. Forty years after the publication of "Black Bourgeoisie," Ellis Cose published "The Rage of a Privileged Class" that was a look at the black middle-class. In it he details the frustrations of black professionals who in spite of their greatly improved status in American society still felt marginalized.
In spite of the passage of the civil rights laws of the 1960's and progress made by blacks over the last 50 years, events such as the Zimmerman trial reveal to what extent we are still two separate societies. The explanation that would be given by most black commentators is the persistence of racism. The basis of disparate impact law is the notion that if imbalances exist in the numbers of minorities in an occupation, the starting assumption is that the reason is racial prejudice. By analogy, if a white Hispanic shoots an unarmed black teenager, the reason is racial animus and the burden of proof is on the white to prove otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/!
I must say, through this business I've met some great individuals. I aspire to turn my customers into friends. It's nice to be able to say to them "How are your kids?", "How's your family?" or "What happened last weekend?" Boutiques are able to connect to customers in a way big department stores or shopping online can't, so it's important to me to be afforded the privilege to cultivate those relationships.
I don't like to dress up, I've left that behind me, now. I really only dress up when I have to; whatever function requires me to and, thankfully, I don't go to a lot of those. I love a casual look that I can start out in the morning and can take me right into the evening, because when life takes over, I seem to always be going by the 'seat of my pants'. The concept of going home to change rarely happens for me very well and fortunately, I'm good with that. I like to have pieces in my wardrobe that meet the requirement of a full day: work, lunch, dinner, if I have to meet up with friends for a night out. Jamaica's relaxed lifestyle and the fact that I don't work corporate allow me to fully exercise my casual tastes.
As you mature, I think one tends to learn more about oneself and what we naturally prefer and so, with that said, I like to be comfortable; that's my thing. I don't want to have to be constantly readjusting my outfit once I'm out the door, I want to be left to concentrate on the other things in my life that need to get done. I don't have a lot of clothes nor a huge wardrobe, but I like timeless pieces that I can keep and wear over and real time Location system. I know many people don't like to wear the same thing twice, but I definitely play favourites. Whenever a much-loved piece 'dies', I'm really saddened and find myself organising the hunt for its swift replacement.
They're not playing slots or video poker. No, they're trying their hand at upcoming games such as "Titanfall" and "Ryse."
This is the GameStop Expo. The world's largest video game retailer first organized the gathering of its most passionate customers last year during its annual meeting of store managers. While the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles is no longer open to the public, the GameStop Expo offers everyday gamers a chance to preview upcoming titles and hardware.
The expo's more than 5,000 attendees waited in snaking lines inside a cavernous Sands Expo hall early Wednesday to test-drive Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4, the next-generation systems due out this November. "Call of Duty: Ghosts," "Titanfall," "Ryse: Son of Rome" and "Battlefield 4" were among the most popular games on display.
"I'm here to see and play all the next-gen consoles and games for myself," Shawn Smoak, a 22-year-old self-professed "Sony fanboy," said while waiting to try out "Titanfall." "You can read everything you possibly can about them online, but until you actually get your hands on the controller, you don't really know anything. That's what this is all about."
Beyond the expo hall in meeting rooms at the Venetian casino and Sands convention center, more than 5,000 managers from company's nearly 4,500 stores in the U.S. spent three days learning all about how to sell new games and hardware to customers like those at its expo. The retailer currently boasts about 25 million members in its PowerUp Rewards program.
GameStop launched the gamer gathering last year after the Grapevine, Texas-based company's international divisions successfully hosted their own events. (Last year's EB Games Expo in Australia welcomed more than 30,000 attendees.) Admission for Wednesday's event ranged from $20 for student tickets to $100 for VIP access that included early entry.
"We didn't want to be in the live events business," said GameStop CEO Paul Raines. "This was something that was pulled out of us. The customers wanted it. The PowerUp Rewards community was asking for us to give them an opportunity to see new products and games. People love it because this is the only place where they can play `Titanfall' right now."
Frazier, a black sociologist at Howard University and the first black president of the American Sociological Society published the first edition of his book in France in 1957 and it was later translated into English and a second edition was published in 1962. Much of the book is dated as the size and importance of the black middle-class has dramatically increased over the past 50 years. Blacks have become an integral part of all areas of American life up to and including the presidency of the United States. Yet the perception of exclusion remains. Forty years after the publication of "Black Bourgeoisie," Ellis Cose published "The Rage of a Privileged Class" that was a look at the black middle-class. In it he details the frustrations of black professionals who in spite of their greatly improved status in American society still felt marginalized.
In spite of the passage of the civil rights laws of the 1960's and progress made by blacks over the last 50 years, events such as the Zimmerman trial reveal to what extent we are still two separate societies. The explanation that would be given by most black commentators is the persistence of racism. The basis of disparate impact law is the notion that if imbalances exist in the numbers of minorities in an occupation, the starting assumption is that the reason is racial prejudice. By analogy, if a white Hispanic shoots an unarmed black teenager, the reason is racial animus and the burden of proof is on the white to prove otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/!
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