... und dabei immerhin so ehrlich, dass der aufmerksame Leser allem Phrasengeklingel des Autors zum Trotz erkennen kann, dass das System dem eigenen Anspruch eben nicht gerecht wird, nämlich systematisch das Risiko aus den Investments herauszunehmen.

Im Einzelnen: das vom Autor vorgestellte System hat eine momentumgetriebene Wachstums- und eine Hedge-Komponente. Gute Idee eigentlich. Er hat den Anspruch, das von Warren Buffett einem breitem Publikum vorgeschlagene Buy&Hold-Modell für den S&P500 (mittlere Rendite in den Jahren zwischen 2008 und 2016 ca. 8,5%) um 3,5% p.a. zu schlagen. Das gelingt dem Autor auch.

In den Backtests.

Wer genau hinsieht, erkennt, dass der Vorteil des "12%-Systems" in den Jahren 2008/2009 entstanden ist. Danach hat es die Performance von Buy&Hold dramatisch verfehlt. in 6 von 10 Jahren war das Halten der Aktien besser als das "Optimieren". Dass am Ende die Gesamtperformance besser war, lag alleine am dramatischen Einbruch der Aktien 2008 und dem nicht minder dramatischen Rebound 2009. EIN EINZIGES Ereignis sicherte dem System also einen Vorteil, alle anderen nachfolgenden Ereignisse führten per saldo zu einem systematischen Nachteil. Für einen Systementwickler ein No-Go-Fact! Ein singuläres Ereignis ist statistisch gesehen kein Ereignis, sondern von Zufall nicht zu unterscheiden - v.a. hinsichtlich seiner Auswirkungen. Von daher: wer Momentum-Ansätze verfolgen möchte, der nimmt das Buch von Antonacci zur Hand, dessen Ideen funktionieren seit ihrer Veröffentlichung auch nicht mehr ;-) ...

Man muss sich einfach klar machen: Momentum-Ansätze folgen dem Gedanken, dass Assets gekauft werden, weil ihr Preis steigt. Laut Warren Buffett das dümmste Argument, ein Asset zu kaufen ... Momentum heißt, der Herde hinterherzulaufen. Das funktioniert oft, ist aber eben auch extrem berechenbar. Wer hin und her handelt, ist ein Teilnehmer an einem Kontrahentenmarkt, der misst sich mit anderen Marktteilnehmern, die ihreseits ebenfalls hin und her handeln. Langfristig entscheidet der Wert eines Assets über die Entwicklung des eigenen Investments, kurzfristig aber entscheidet der Preis. Und der schwankt eben nicht nur, sondern das Verhalten der Masse wird von großen Kontrahenten in diesen Preisschwankungen systematisch ausgenutzt. Scharfe Einbrüche sind für professionelle Marktteilnehmer in einem Nullzinsumfeld eine Einladung zum Einstieg, für Momentumhändler ein Signal zum Ausstieg. So geraten billige Aktien in die Hände anderer Leute - nicht die Situation, in der man sich wünscht auf der Verkäuferseite zu stehen. Genau das passiert aber systematisch bei dem hier besprochenen Modell. Von einer Extrem-Baisse abgesehen, bietet es keinen Schutz gegen Marktschwankungen und erfüllt damit seinen Zweck nicht wirklich. Vielmehr hängt sein Erfolg vom Zeitpunkt des Einstiegs ab und ist daher zufällig. Genau dieser Umstand qualifiziert ein schlechtes System!

I am deeply inspired by Warren Buffet and really wished to learn more about him, his life and the lessons I could acquire and adopt in my life. This book lists nine habits that Warren follows in his daily life and how we cash incorporate those habits into our lives and be as successful as he is.

A good concept and highly motivating.

Any casual reader whose knowledge about Silicon Valley comes from the headlines or the news online might get the impression that Steve Jobs and the Google and Facebook guys invented the place. Obviously, this is far from true. But even more serious coverage tends to focus on a handful of high-profile individuals who have played outsize roles in the development of the high-tech industry. Stanford historian Leslie Berlin sets the record straight with her engrossing new book, Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age. 

Troublemakers chronicles a critical period in the Valley's history (1969-76). Those seven years witnessed "the most significant and diverse burst of technological innovation of the past 150 years . . . Five major industries were born: personal computing, video games, advanced semiconductor logic, modern venture capital, and biotechnology."

"Innovation is a team sport," Berlin writes in the introduction to her book. She makes clear that her intention is to tell the stories of more than just the usual suspects. "Troublemakers . . . feature[s] some of the most famous names in Silicon Valley history, while also profiling seven other individuals in depth." More famous people such as Steve Jobs and Larry Page make brief appearances. Berlin's account highlights:

Bob Taylor, who led the creation of the rudimentary computer network at the Pentagon, in a sense "inventing" the Internet;
Mike Markkula, the man who made it possible for Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to launch and build Apple;
Sandra Kurtzig, a software pioneer who was "the first woman to take a technology company public;"
Bob Swanson, a cofounder of Genentech;
Al Alcorn, who designed the video game Pong that launched the game giant Atari; and
Niels Riemer, the man who patented recombinant DNA for Stanford University, thus kickstarting the biotech industry.
Every one of these seven people could be the subject of their own biography. Berlin brings their stories to life through one-on-one interviews—all but Bob Swanson are still alive—while placing their accomplishments into the context of their time and place. As a professional historian specializing in this region—Berlin is Project Historian for the Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford University—she deftly meshes personal accounts by her subjects with extensive archival research.

To my mind, the most impressive of these seven individuals is Bob Taylor. As a key player at ARPA (the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency, now called DARPA) in the 1960s, he helped lay the foundation for the Internet. Later, in the 1970s, as the director of computer science research at Xerox's PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), he assembled what was widely considered the most talented group of computer scientists anywhere in the world—and possibly the most talented ever brought together anywhere. These extraordinary men (and a handful of women) created the Alto, the world's first personal computer with a graphic user interface (GUI), mouse, windows, and networking ability. It's astonishing to most observers that the Xerox Corporation failed to commercialize the Alto. Only years later did Apple's Macintosh begin to approach the capabilities of the Alto. (A former key player at PARC thought of the early Mac as a toy.)

I ordered this book as soon as I heard about it and read it as soon as it arrived. I've worked at a start-up and worked in the Silicon Valley area for most of my life. I had heard of Diaspora and I have a strong interest in large scale web application design.

Unfortunately this book was a great disappointment. Most stories are linear and to the extent that they cover events outside of the main narrative, these digressions support the overall account.

This is not true of More Awesome Than Money. There are digressions on free software, there are digressions on people in the free software movement, there were so many digressions that I can't recall them all. Most of these digressions are not terribly interesting and they go on for pages, interrupting the flow of the story.

I'm not sure why the book is so larded with digression. Did Dwyer feel that he didn't have enough of a story for a full book and he had to fill space with tangential topics? Or did he feel that he could not tell the story of Diaspora without lots of background digressions to provide context? If the latter is the case, he is not a good enough writer to pull this off. The book comes across as disjointed. I found myself skipping over the pages so I could actually learn something about the Diaspora founders and what they were doing.

Although there were many digressions on the history of free software, Dwyer was unable to provide any background on the technical issues Diaspora faced. For example, how did Diaspora handle hosting and scaling? They had a huge waiting list, so perhaps scaling as more users were added was not addressed. Did they consider cloud hosting (e.g., Amazon Web Services)? What where some of the issues they struggled with in designing and building Diaspora? Although I don't expect technical detail, I think that these are things that could have been explained so a general reader could have understood them.

Dwyer does have some interesting sections. The sections on the Kickstarter funding and the later attempts to get venture capital funding (which never materialized) were interesting.

Like many startups, the founders eventually had a fair amount of conflict, which can probably be attributed to the fact that they were young. For example, in Dwyer's account they were not good at communicating with each other, which resulted in people feeling left out of company decision making. But even this got tedious, since it became an account of hurt feelings and petty misunderstandings.

I have Hatching Twitter sitting on my book shelf waiting to be read. I should have read that book and given this one a pass.

The Delta Meets Detroit: Aretha's Blues. YOU GOT THAT RIGHT! People forget that Aretha Franklin used to sing the blues--and boy could she sing it. She didn't try to sing it like the blues men of the day either. She didn't have to "growl" like KoKo Taylor or Etta James. Aretha just went straight "church" with her blues and sang it as if she was singing for all women who knew something about it. Not only did Aretha sing the blues, she could play it too. She was a phenomenal piano player; always, always, you could hear her gospel roots. The infusion of her gospel roots with the blues is just as riveting as her idol's--Ray Charles. She "rips" it with Mabel John's You're Just Taking Up Another Man's Place (ha!--she'll have ya shoutin') and then goes to church with a simple little "ditty" called You Are My Sunshine. Got a man you need to tell off girls--listen to Be as Good to Me as I am to You. Listen to Aretha wail "...if you can't find it in your heart to do for me, then just don't darken my front door..." She goes on--"using my time, my heart, my love day after day..."

Although some of the songs are on other CDs that I have of Aretha's, this CD is still a nice compilation with some OUTSTANDING surprises (specifically the Mabel John piece).

This CD is like a rare jewel. Got the blues? Play this CD and go to church with Aretha--you won't have the blues for long.

I gave this book a 5star review because of the way the author draws you into the story and keeps you there until you're finished reading.

Absolutely love it. It is so well done and I know hubby will love this for christmas. The only disappointing thing is it arrived with glass smashed so will have to pay extra to have glass replaced before christmas. Caution glass sticker inside the box not visable to courier is pretty pointless. I'm still happy with my purchase regardless

I wired the Wagan 400w inverter to clean12v battery terminals using a 6 ft run of 6 awg copper wire. Followed product manual for install and operation instructions. The inverter worked fine with a phone charger plugged into the usb port. I unplugged the usb charger and then plugged a 75 watt load into one of the ac outlets. Worked as normal. Roughly 3 minutes later, smoke and burning inside the inverter. Disconnected from power as quickly as possible. Let the inverter cool, then attempted to try again. Undervoltage alarm now stays on no matter the source (tried 12v plug as well and another battery) and will not operate. After looking thoroughly at the reviews of other Wagan products, it seems like my experience is far from an isolated incident. Unfortunate, as Wagan products seem well designed with extremely competitive specs and price.

The style is a flattering fit, and the material is comfortable

In the introduction to this story, Benson explains that he felt he owed a utopian story of the future to Catholics who were horrified at his "depressing" - yet eerily accurate - projection of the social and political trajectory of secular humanism, which in "Lord of the World" ushers in the AntiChrist. "Dawn of All" is his opposite, encouraging vision, of a world prepared at last to receive Christ as ruler.

In Dawn of All, an apostate priest of Benson's time (early 1900's) is hospitalized and slips into a coma. He awakens with extreme memory loss, to a world that has rejected atheism, socialism, secular humanism... and has recognized the reconciliation of man and God through Jesus Christ and the sacraments of the Catholic Church. This former priest experiences shock and revulsion - what of personal freedom and individuality? Yet he can not deny that the people in this society are actually more personally free and more freely individual. He still resists - how can science be reconciled with faith? It can't, but he can not deny that both science and the miraculous work together effectively, when each acknowledges the other.

Still unwilling to concede that the world he sees is good instead of terrible, he is appalled when the state puts to death a priest charged with heresy, who refuses either to submit to the authority of the Church or to leave the Church and live in a mild form of exile. But he is appalled again when "Socialists" (atheists) rebel, commit murders and plan the imminent annihilation of entire cities to restore "freedom".

Finally he sees that only the Church has the moral authority to rule men, because it represents God, the love of God, and the authority of God on earth.

As a Catholic living in today's world, which eerily resembles the horrific society so well illustrated in "Lord of All", I was fascinated in reading "Dawn of All", a world prepared for the throne of Christ as Ruler. I wished I could go live there!

But I was also, as a Catholic, a little bit repelled by the main character. Throughout the book, the protagonist is actually puzzled by Catholics. He is ultimately persuaded of the truth of faith by the success of the Catholic Church as a beneficient ruling power... not by a conversion of soul, which he never does experience. He never considers God, Christ, sin, individual suffering, judgement, or his own soul. Instead, he is won by the vision of of a social and political structure that he concedes is morally authoritative, superior, merciful, just, and yet willing to sacrifice and suffer when there is no other morally superior choice.

This was especially strange considering that Monsignor Benson was a very, very insightful and skilled observer of the journeys of individual souls. "None Other Gods" is a masterpiece in this regard.

I think only Catholics could really enjoy reading this book (as I did). However, as a Catholic, I've found other novels of Benson's to be superior. This was refreshing (I thought, "WOW!" many times), but not ultimately as incisive as "Lord of All" or as brilliant as "None Other Gods".

There is absolutely no other novel that explores this idea that I'm aware of. I recommend it, but with the expectation that science fiction lovers seeking interesting material from a century ago will like other books better.

Age of Ultron is about unintended consequences. When powerful people like the Avengers take action there is no way they can tell how they will affect others and the world. There are two such examples in the movie. First, the Maximoff twins of Pietro played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Wanda played by Elizabeth Olsen lost their parents to a Stark munitions in Sokovia which left with them extremely bitter and angry, and was why they were working with Hydra. Second, Tony Stark played by Robert Downjey Jr was still traumatized by his near death experience saving New York City from Loki and the Chitauri with a little boost from Wanda Maximoff. He convinces Bruce Banner played by Mark Ruffalo to help him create an artificial intelligence defense system for the world. That backfires however when it gains its own consciousness and becomes Ultron the antagonist in the film. The fact that both of these events were linked to Tony Stark showed that his ego could lead to as much bad as good.

Like the best of the Marvel movies there are great action scenes. My favorite is when Wanda drives Banner crazy and Stark has to bring in a super suit to try to subdue the Hulk in Kenya.

As usual there are a ton of Marvel Easter Eggs in the film. For example, Ultron goes to Ulysses Klaue played by Andy Serkis to buy vibranium which he stole from Wakanda. This was the first hint of the Black Panther. Ultron also cuts off Klaue’s arm which in the comics becomes his sonic cannon. In the Black Panther movie it’s replaced by a Wakandan ray gun. The film was also setting up the Infinity Wars films with Loki’s scepter having one Infinity Stone which was placed inside the Vision. Then Thor goes to a magical pool and sees all the Infinity Stones. At the end, Thor warns that someone was manipulating events with the Infinity Stones. That was Thanos. At a party at the start of the film the Avengers each try to pick up Thor’s hammer. Captain America played by Chris Evans is the only one that can make the hammer shift. That actually plays out in Avengers End Game. Wanda also gives each member of the Avengers a nightmare. For Thor he’s warned that his power will lead to the destruction of Asgard. That’s foreshadowing Thor: Ragnarok. For the first time the name Hawkeye is used when the Avengers hide out at Barton’s home and his wife calls him that. The Black Widow also calls Iron Man Shellhead which was how he was referred to in the Avengers’ comics.

Don't forget the secret endings as usual.

Overall, one of the best Marvel releases.

We now have a reasonable collection of these colourful and very well presented soft cover first level reading books. So we obviously like and would recommend them to the youngest super hero fans out there.

Our 5 year old son continued to come home from school with stories about super heroes. We’re not really in to the topic, but he is fascinated and knows most of them. So we got him a set of books within in this series as a start. They are great for guided reading; he will read the easy, obvious words, I help him with the more difficult ones and obscure names like T’Challa. Against my wish I now know more about the superhero back stories. But it’s really great for him as it captures his interest. We soon worked through our first batch of super hero booklets. And I’ve now started to order more recent, single books. Black Panther, as a super hero for children is great given its diversification from the standard super hero type, also as it relates to Africa.

I continue to be amazed by the concept and which there was something similar around when I had to learn to read many decades ago.

漫画の最高傑作！！
何回読んでも見ても飽きないし毎回ワクワクさせられます！！
本気でハマったマンガデス！！

More coherent than part one (durch Wuste und Harem), which was a sequence of loose bits;this is one flowing story, about the adventures of Kara Ben Nemsi and a pack of companions through, the title gives the game away, wild Kurdistan in the 1880s. Exploration, customs, landscapes, battles, treachery, mysticism (the ancient Marah Durimeh), friendship; exciting, but old-fashioned in that the story goes slowly, there are long intermezzos on Christianity, the hero is so heroic and the baddies so bad that it sometimes irritates a bit...
Still, I re-read this with pleasure; and it's free! Thank you Amazon, for a trip back to my youth when I read these books in Dutch. I will stick an old German cover on the image site for the general feeling of old-fashioned excitement!

Rory Connor is a gambling man plain and simple. Born into a poor family, even his mum knows that someday he will make something of himself. He collects rents from the local habitants for the local gentry. The patriarch dies, leaving his plain, spinster daughter to carry on the family business.

Rory is pressed to find gambling games that will afford him more cash in order to buy a house for his upcoming marriage and a small business venture for his brother. Rory pilfers a small amount of cash to enter a fixed game with the Pitte brothers, a local gang. A mistake that cost him Rory his conscious as a close friend goes to jail for a year for thievery Rory committed. He manages to win a large amount of money but is badly beaten and left for dead.

While recuperating he is visited by his fiancé and also Charlotte Kean, the lady of the manor. It's easy to see that she is smitten with him and continues to engage him in his rent collector's role.

He marries his intended but is plagued with guilt over his misdeed and confesses during a nightmare. His new wife is furious at what he's done and leaves him to return to her family. She is then commissioned by the mistress she works for to accompany their family on sea voyage, where they are all lost at sea. While mourning is loss, a year goes by and Rory is promoted to bookkeeping by Charlotte.

Finally no longer able to contain her affections for Rory, Charlotte makes propositions him with an offer of marriage--in name only. He will not be required to fill his marital duties and will in fact reside in his own apartments.
Rory of course makes her his wife in every way, giving her a happiness that she could only dream of.

Charlotte has been busy collecting evidence against the Pitte brothers and a crew of malcontents that plague the docks, and in fact were responsible for beating Rory and other crimes against the local humanity.

Though everyone is whispering about Rory's marriage to Charlotte, he finds himself falling in love with his plain, gentle wife. She informs him that she is with child, and he is beyond happy--until he learns that his first wife has returned, a shell of her former beautiful self, and bitter when she finds out that he has remarried.
She threatens to expose him even as Rory declares to her that he loves his new wife and that she is expecting.

The Pitte brother's burn Rory's brother's business and redemption is satisfied when Rory enters the burning building to save him. With his body on fire, he manages to save his sibling, but incurs fatal burns and survives long enough to declare his love once more to charlotte.

Catherine Cooks tells stories the way we author's today are no longer allowed to. Always filled with passion, and redemption, Catherine always showed the cruelty as well as the beauty in the lives of those who weren't always rich and powerful. Her stories includes their downfall, as well as their redeeming qualities. As with most of her books, I highly recommend THE GAMBLING MAN.

Me gusto mucho el libro. Sobre todo porque se puede conocer la historia desde otro punto de vista que no es el de Bella. Los nuevos personajes. Ver como fue que surgieron y mal-convivieron estos neofitos. Diego y Fred, Riley, y sobre todo Bree, te hace sumergirte mas profundamente en el mundo de los vampiros de Stephenie. En esta historia maravillosa que ha creado y que hemos disfrutado.
El final, aunque triste, creo que fue lo mejor, porque cuando lees Eclipse, crees que Edward esta hablando con Bella y cuando lees esa misma parte en este libro, te das cuenta que los dialogos encanjan de una forma magnifica y que no solo esta preocupado por Bella, los Vulturis y su familia, sino que hace todo lo posible por salvar a Bree de su final. Esa comunicacion entre ellos, entre Bree y Edward fue de lo mejor. Muy valiente Bree, le hizo saber todo lo que pudo. Su personaje me gusto y de haber logrado integrarse a los Cullen, creo que lo hubiera logrado, despues de todo, tanto ella como Diego y hasta Fred no estaban mal encaminados a pesar de su comienzo con Riley y Victoria.

Recomiendo el libro. Una vez mas Stephenie Meyer me hace disfrutar de una buena lectura. Thank Stephenie!

I won't comment much on the story itself since it's very individual from person to person. I like the story that's why I bought this DVD. It is very romatic but suffers from a lack of character building plus many of the storylines leaves me wanting to know more and are often told to fast and lacks depth. I would imagine the book has all I'm missing in the movie but I haven't read it.

I was shocked when I saw this DVD on my tv. The transfer is VERY VERY poor. it looks as if this DVD was recorded of a cinema screen and not a pure source. Also the sound has sort of a hollow ring to it as if it too wasn't recorded from a pure source. I first saw Till we meet again on tv where I live some weeks ago and I was amazed of the image quality of film shot more than 15 years ago and presumeably not on film stock but I don't know this. So naturally when I ordered the DVD I was certain that the image quality would at least be up to par with the tv broadcast but sadly it wasn't. I cannot recommend buying this DVD simply because the poor image and sound quality ruins the experience.

Penny Jordan wrote 187 books for Mills and Boon and after reading a lot of them, my overall view is that she should just avoid writing about royal families. She writes a lovely book about normal down-to-earth heroines, but when she becomes embroiled in the politics of royal families... It just no longer works somehow.

This is basically a rewrite of an earlier novel of hers ("Bride for His Majesty's Pleasure" - which was dire I hasten to add), but The Price of Royal Duty is a better reworking of this.

The book itself actually has quite a strong start with royal Santina Princess Sophia hitching a ride on the Maharaja of Nailpur's (is that in Manchester?) private jet, unbeknownst to him. She's on the run from an arranged marriage, which he has already refused once to help her get out of (despite the tried and tested trick of oh-dear-my-ballgown's-fallen-off-can-you-shield-me-in-your-arms-whilst-I-cover-my-nakedness earlier on in the royal ball announcing her brother's - and her's - engagements). He then discovers her (naked again!) in the bedroom of his private jet and decides that to protect her reputation, he needs to marry her. There was a moment when I thought it was going to get really exciting and they were both going to get kidnapped by a slightly dodgy air steward, but no, the moment passed, and lovely, feisty Sophia suddenly morphs into dull as ditchwater dutiful wife.

She then marries him (the next day) and they both trudge along together telling themselves they don't love the other and that all this is about is conceiving the royal heir. The marriage, it is clear, is built on sand, with the ghost of Ash (the Maharajah's) first wife featuring a lot in it - not a literal ghost (it's a mills and boon after all) but she definitely manages to come between the couple, despite being dead after strangling herself with her sari in a car accident.

As usual, there's a series of misunderstandings, poor decisions and rules that they tell themselves they must live by which just make them unhappy and would be solved a lot sooner if they just talked to each other instead of just having lots of sex and then him sneaking off back to his private quarters to feel guilty about his dead first wife (if only he hadn't made her wear that sari!)

However, it's a Penny Jordan book so there ARE some redeeming factors. Nobody writes a romantic line like her (consider: "Here in this room was everything in his world that held real value, Ash found himself thinking. Here was everything he could ever want or need because here was Sophia.") and the romance of India/Manchester is beautifully portrayed in a series of scenes.

My favourite line is when Ash realises that he loves Sophia (cutting it fine, I had to wade through 240 pages of self-inflicted angst before he finally admits this): "A bond of the truest kind of love, given from the heart of a man who'd had to overcome so much to be able to make that gift." The sad fact of the matter is that the main thing he's had to overcome is their mutual stupidity and inability to communicate.

Not the best Penny Jordan I've ever read, but it's okay. I particularly liked the interview with the author at the end of my edition where she describes her working day and how she spends the first part of the day reviewing her work to make sure it makes sense - yes, she should have done a bit more of that.

This is a good box set and should continue to fall in price as more of the series (after the fourth film) get their cinema release and beyond. Almost a must for any Harry Potter fans that don't already have two or more of these four films!

I like all the Harry Potter films in this set, and though I am not always in the mood for the second and third installment the others (especially the first of course!) are somewhat better. One might wish to wait for what will one day inevitably be the "Complete Boxset" or "Ultimate Edition". However, that is still several years away I bet, so I am quite happy to have this half of the series now and wait for the rest later. Although whether they will release a set for the rest of the series is unlikely. If you see this for £25 or less, then I say it's a bargain while they're still making the rest of the films.

Some of the teen angst in the "middle films" is of little interest to me, but considering the target audience of the first film I am objectively impressed with how the series is evolving.

In this boxset of "Wizard School films" I would say that my order of preference of the films is: 1, 4, 3, 2. Agree or no? :)

I love this game and ended up having to order another copy because I'd lent it to a friend and it got damaged. So upon receiving my copy I was very disappointed to find that it didn't work. It only loads to the automatic save before the start menu (it doesn't even make it to the menu) at first I thought it was my tv or cords and upon checking and changing all of them I put another game in. It worked fine. I put this copy in and same thing happened again. I'm terribly upset as it is one of my favourite games to play on the PlayStation 2.

The picture on the screen shows a large size book and I didn't see any dimensions, so when I received it I was very disappointed. A little leary about ordering anything else. Sorry

Something in the Air (aka Apres Mai), 2012: As the French title suggests, this film is less about the spirit of 1968 than about the slow but sure dissolution of that spirit. Assayas sets his film in the Paris of 1971 and focuses on a group of high school students whose main form of entertainment is covering their school grounds with revolutionary posters and graffiti at night. Assayas captures the excitment the kids feel when printing subversive literature and riding their mopeds to the site of yet another of their revolutionary night raids, but its also clear that he views them as hopelessly privileged and therefore more than one step (and social class) removed from the realities of working class conditions and revolution. The film is supposedly about Assayas' own youth but if this is a memoir it is an extremely strange one because we never get very close to the main character, Gilles. Its as if Assayas wants to revisit the era but is hesitant to revisit (or reveal much about) his earlier self. All we ever really learn about Gilles is that he knows that he's less interested in being a participant in the events of his youth and his time period (both of which he knows to be vanishing things) than in articulating a response to life in general (he seems to be living his life not in the moment, but in preparation to become the artist that he knows he wants to be---but he treats this self-awareness as a kind of curse that separates him from his friends). The way Gilles articulates that response to himself is through paintings, but the way Assayas articulates that response to us is through music. Its abundantly clear that the art form that matters most to director Assayas is music (and perhaps what he really wants to do here is not revisit or at least not directly confront his earlier self--that would be too painful, difficult--- but revisit the atmospheres and music that shaped his younger self and laid the groundwork for his current one). This story is not told with words--the characters say very little of interest to each other--- but with images and very carefully chosen musical selections that imbue those images with a very wistful form of youthful longing and tell us exactly how it felt to be a very sensitive/observant/self-aware 17 in 1971. The first selection we hear is from Syd Barrett's The Madcap Laughs called "Terrapin" which plays as we watch Gilles paint alone in his bedroom studio for the first time and the last selection is Kevin Ayer's "Decadence" that serves as the ultimate articulation of what it must have felt like to have been so young in such a time and to have been the only one not to have believed in any of it (in revolution, in love, in youth itself) and yet still be so young and have so much of life ahead of you. If you can forgive the lack of characterization, this evocation of Paris (and other European locales) in 1971 is a visual and sonic marvel. Other songs featured on the soundtrack: "Strings in the Earth & Air" (written by James Joyce and performed by Dr. Strangely Strange), "Know" by Nick Drake, "Abba Zaba" by Captain Beefheart, "Air" by The Incredible String Band, "Why Are We Sleeping?" by The Soft Machine, and "Sunrise of the Third System" by Tangerine Dream.

Update:
Finally got this to work and it’s been flawless the last two days. Follow the instructions here and only use the file download link here not from the App Store! Love it now.

Original review: Doesn’t work at all. Upgraded software and upgraded box. Best I can get on my Android 10 device is a screen saying “Product is not authorized”

I never had these licorice toffees before, but I had a hankering for old fashioned British sweets. There USED to be a sweets shoppe in San Francisco, but the owner sold it to be a doctor. Go figure.

I found these and ordered them on a whim...and SO GOOD. I was actually going to save one bag for my mother-in-law, who loves licorice, but I left it on the kitchen table and my mom opened it and started snacking on it. I actually don't care for licorice and neither does my mom...but it's sweet enough that we can snack on it. My husband thought the combination would be awful, but in his opinion, it doesn't have a strong toffee flavor so it doesn't conflict with the licorice. We all agree.

Would recommend trying if you like toffees!

Attention! Ce cardstock N’EST PAS BLANC! Il est couleur blanc cassé avec des petites taches de couleurs. Il ne faut pas se fier au mot « white » dans le nom de couleur
« Stardust White ». - voir ma photo de comparaison entre le présent produit et un carton blanc de la même marque -. Maintenant que c’est dit, parlons du cardstock en lui-même. Je l’utilise en carterie (scrapbooking) et au final je suis enchantée! J’achète les produits cartonnés de la compagnie Neenah dans le 80lb et le 110lb dans le blanc (Classic Crest Solar White) et dans la couleur papier kraft (Desert Storm) en 80lb et 100lb depuis des années et j’en apprécie grandement la qualité. Cette fois je cherchais un carton de bonne qualité mais dans le 65lb et moins cher pour faire des détails qui ne sont pas visibles à la fin du projet comme de créer de la dimension à mes cartes. Il remplit très bien cette fonction et au final, je le trouve tellement beau que je m’en sert tout autant pour les parties visibles de mes projets! Produit d’excellente qualité!