From Apple's Spaceship HQ to GE's Boston campus, these solar-integrated designs are raising the bar.

A plan to protect more than 11 million acres of land in the American West has been scrapped after months of talks inside the Beltway.

After a drubbing in the media, the formerly popular brand is making amends.

These apps make shopping convenient with capabilities like visual searches, price comparisons and recommendations.

The troubled life of Nate the terrier gets a Hollywood ending thanks to George and Amal Clooney.

Far from being gross, the slime of a banana slug is a marvel of nature.

Toxic compounds called PFAS have been linked to cancer and immune problems, and they may also make it tougher to keep off weight.

Doctor and adventurer Ken Kamler sees a world full of medical miracles and sacred places, and he talks to MNN about the value of staying true to one’s self.

Russian tycoon Dmitry Itskov says the technology will be a reality by 2045.

Scientists have just made the most precise measurement yet of how fast the universe is expanding.

The magnetic pole is moving faster than at any time in human history, causing major problems for navigation and migratory wildlife.

Here's what you need to know about a Japanese plant called ashtabi known for anti-aging properties. We even tell you how to grow it.

British architect Mark Siddall is designing homes that work at every stage of your life.

Sharon Bishop, CEO at Close Brothers Premium Finance, discusses the lessons that leaders can learn from their staff.

Close Brothers, Sharon Bishop, explains how the management technique is helping her.

Before applying one needs to do a lot of home work i.e. research work, that can include talking to a financial experts, going through bank literatures etc.

Understand hair loss and what treatments can be used to prevent/reverse baldness.

It’s a commonly quoted statistic that nearly half of American families have no retirement savings. For many people facing retirement, their homes may be the only asset they have to help fund their post career living expenses. Over the last few years there have been a lot of stories about reverse mortgages where retirees sell […]

The post Reverse Mortgages for Retirees – Boon or Bane? appeared first on RSS News Feed.

As harvest beckons, outdoor enthusiasts are invited to be 'forever wild' at this wine country hiking and biking event.

The Rev. Milton was eponymously honored with the Reverend Jerome R. Milton Track: Home of Champions

UkeySoft Software Inc. a multimedia software development company has released Apple Music Converter for users to save Apple Music songs, playlist and albums forever by removing DRM from Apple Music.

Available worldwide and available free of charge for Apple iOS and Samsung mobile devices

John Tucker of Kaplan Lawyers PC said that lawmakers can make our roads safer by mandating safer technologies on large trucks.

Low-level Light Therapy Provides a No Drug Approach to a Chronic Condition

Floweraura adds everlasting "Forever Roses" in its Valentine Day Collection

KetonX Discontinued and Pruvit's Exclusive Patent Rights Confirmed

B.BéNI is a New England based inspirational jewelry company that offers men's necklaces, B.BéNI offers a wide selection of jewelry including bracelets, necklaces, sterling silver, earrings and Christian jewelry that will touch the heart

Critically Acclaimed Portrait of Mahatma Gandhi by Anand Jon Alexander featured at University of Southern California "connecting art and law for liberation", featuring actor Danny Glover, Senator Holly Mitchell, and ReStore Justice.

Terry's book, 'What Did Jesus Say? The Seven Messages from the Master' contains over 500 Bible verses spoken directly by Jesus as recorded in the red-letter edition of the New King James Bible, organized by subject, without added interpretations

Rev. Richard Klingeisen is a pastor and educator at St. Mary Parish of Reedsville, Wisconsin and St. Michael Parish, of Whitelaw, Wisconsin. He is proud to announce a new podcast interview series, A Life of Giving.

Tom Davenport, Babson College professor and coauthor of the HBR article "Reverse Engineering Google's Innovation Machine."

Vijay Govindarajan, director of the Center for Global Leadership at the Tuck School of Business and coauthor of the HBR article "How GE Is Disrupting Itself."

There is a great opportunity for government contractors to save on sales or use taxes paid for consumables used on government contracts. The U.S. Government is not subject to sales/use tax, however, government contractors typically pay tax on their consumable purchases. Government contractors may be paying tax on many of their overhead purchases needlessly. Sales...

The post Reverse Audits for Government Contractors appeared first on Anders CPA.

NECA's top three legislative items for the week of January 6, 2020.

1. Senate to Vote on America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act 

On February 12, 2020, NECA joined dozens of other organizations and sent a letter to Senate leadership urging quick action on the NECA-supported America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act (ATIA) (S. 2302).

NECA’s Look Ahead: NECA has long believed that we must find a sustainable solution to our nation’s surface transportation. We were encouraged last summer when the bill passed out of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) and was the largest highway bill ever passed, authorizing $287 billion over five years. We will be continuing to urge the swift passage of this important legislation.

2. Take Action: Tell Your Representative to Support H.R. 5644 to Prohibit Reverse Auctions

The Construction Consensus Procurement Improvement Act of 2020 (H.R. 5644) would prohibit the use of reverse auctions on federal construction projects. The Senate already passed this important legislation, and NECA remains optimistic that this sensible reform can pass the House and be enacted into law. Tell your Representative to cosponsor H.R. 5644 today!

NECA’s Look Ahead: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a report stating that using reverse auctions to procure construction services did not guarantee the lowest price nor did it establish any clear benefits over the traditional sealed-bid approach. Awarding contracts solely on price requires contractors to cut costs in materials and labor, ignoring the importance of quality construction and the consideration of life-cycle costs.

3. Recess Weeks are for In-District Visits

Congress was in recess this week, which is the perfect opportunity to set up a meeting with your Member of Congress at home in your districts. In-district visits are a great opportunity for your congressman to tour your company, jobsite, or training center to learn about NECA and the electrical contracting industry. Visit NECA’s Congressional Visit Toolkit to learn how to set up your meeting today!

NECA’s Look Ahead: Remember, you can earn 5 points for your NECA chapter with each in-district visit in the Chairman’s Challenge. You can also earn points for sending a letter through our Legislative Action Center or attending the upcoming National Legislative Conference. 

Can't be in lockdown forever, have to focus both on lives and livelihoods: Raghuram Rajan

A hike in taxes on fuels, which will add to government’s revenue, helped lift sentiment.

On Saturday May 9, 2020, the featured stakes at Florida's Gulfstream Park will be the Sunshine Forever Stakes, a tribute to the champion grass runner who was the first stallion retired to Old Friends, the non-profit Thoroughbred retirement facility based in Georgetown, KY. The son of Roberto out of the stakes-placed mare Outward Sunshine (by […]

The post Former Old Friends Retiree Sunshine Forever Honored With Stakes Race Saturday At Gulfstream appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Trainer Mark Casse believes the performance by Gary Barber's War of Will in the 2018 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf (G1) may have been good enough to win had he gotten a better trip War of Will's fifth-place finish, though, turned to be a blessing in disguise. “He could have easily won the Breeders' Cup. If […]

The post War Of Will Back On Turf For Saturday’s Sunshine Forever Stakes At Gulfstream appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Last week we discussed the Santa Clara county study, in which 1.5% of the people tested positive for coronavirus. The authors of the study performed some statistical adjustments and summarized with a range of 2.5% to 4.2% for infection rates in the county as a whole, leading to an estimated infection fatality rate of 0.12% […]

Grand Canyon Association (GCA), the official nonprofit partner of Grand Canyon National Park, today announced a $1 million donation from Arizona Public Service (APS) that will establish the Grand Canyon Trails Forever Endowment to help preserve and protect Grand Canyon’s trails. This is one of the most significant private, philanthropic gifts in Grand Canyon’s history. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/grand-canyon-association-receives-one-million-dollars-from-arizona-public-service-to-initiate-the-trails-forever-endowment-at-grand-canyon-national-park.htm

Rather than opting for the costly and complex process of using stem cells to cure age-related macular degeneration, scientists used skin cells.

The post Irreversible No Longer: Blind Mice See Again Thanks To New Method of Synthesizing Lost Cells appeared first on Good News Network.

The CALIFORNIA COURT OF APPEALS has reversed a $9.4 million court judgement in favor of music producer QUINCY JONES. JONES and the estate of MICHAEL JACKSON had been battling over royalties … more

88RISING presented ASIA RISING FOREVER, an online live stream fundraising festival last night (5/6) featuring performances by many of their artists and other ASIAN recording acts from around … more

This image shows a particular optical illusion that confronts us every day. Notice the difference between the black text on a white background and the reverse. With reversed type — light text on a darker background — the strokes seem bolder.

Black text on white is very familiar, so we can be forgiven for thinking it correctly proportioned. For familiarity’s sake we can say it is, but there are two effects happening here: The white background bleeds over the black, making the strokes seem thinner. With reversed type the opposite is true: The white strokes bleed over the black, making it seem bolder.

One of the most obvious examples of this is with signs where the letters are punched into the surround then lit from inside. In his article, Designing the ultimate wayfinding typeface, Ralph Herrmann used his own Legibility Text Tool to simulate this effect for road and navigational signs.

One might say that characters are only correctly proportioned with low-contrast. Although objective reality hails that as true, it isn’t a good reason to always set type with low contrast. Type designers have invariably designed around optical illusions and the constraints of different media for us. Low-contrast text can also create legibility and accessibility problems. Fortunately, kind folks like Gez Lemon have provided us with simple tools to check.

As fascinating as optical illusions are —  the disturbing, impossible art of Escher comes to mind — we can design around reversed body type. On the Web, increasing tracking and leading are as simple as increasing the mis-named letter-spacing and line-height in CSS. However, decreasing font weight is a thornier problem. Yes, we will be able to use @font-face to select a variant with a lighter weight, but the core web fonts offer us no options, and there are only a few limited choices with system fonts like Helvetica Neue.

Reversing a logotype

For logotype there are plenty of options, but it makes me slightly uncomfortable to consider switching to a lighter font for reversed type logos. The typeface itself is not the logotype; the variant is, so switching font could be tricky. Ironically, I’d have to be very sure that that was no perceivable difference using a lighter weight font. Also, with display faces, there’s often not a lighter weight available — a problem I came across designing the Analog logo.

The logotype worked well when testing it in black on white. However, I wanted a reversed version, too. That’s when I noticed the impact of the optical illusion:

It looked bloated! Objective reality be damned; it simply wouldn’t do. After a few minutes contemplating the carnage of adjusting every control point by hand, I remembered something; eureka!

Punching the paths through a background image in Fireworks CS4 removed the illusion. (Select both the path and the background then using Modify > Combine Paths > Punch.) Is this a bug? I don’t know, but if it is, it’s a useful one for a change!

I grinned. I was happy. All was well with the world again. Lovely! Now I could go right ahead and think about colour and I wouldn’t be far from done. This is how it emerged:

A final note on logotype design & illusions

Before we even got to actual type for the Analog logo, we first had to distill what it would convey. In our case, Alan took us through a process to define the brand values and vision. What emerged were keywords and concepts that fed into the final design. The choice of type, colour, and setting were children of that process. Style is the offspring of meaning.

I always work in greyscale for the first iterations of a new logo for a few simple reasons:

1. The form has to work independently of colour — think printing in greyscale or having the logo viewed by people with a colour-impairment.
2. It allows for quick testing of various sizes — small, high contrast versions will emphasise rendering and legibility issues at screen resolutions, especially along curves.
3. I like black and white. :)

I realise that in this day and age the vast majority of logos need to perform primarily on the Web. However, call me old-fashioned, but I still think that they should work in black and white, too.

Brands and display faces emerged with consumer culture during the 19^th Century. Logotypes were displayed prominently in high streets, advertising hoardings, and on sign boards. In many instances the message would be in black and white. They were designed to be legible from a distance, at a glance, and to be instantly recognisable. Even with colour, contrast was important.

The same is true for the Web today; only the context has changed, and the popularity of logomarks and icons. We should always test any logo at low resolutions and sizes, and the brand must still have good contrast (regardless of WCAG 2.0) to be optimal. A combination of colour and form works wonders, but in a world of a million colours where only a handful are named in common parlance, having the right form still seems a smarter choice than trying to own a palette or colour.

A final word

This article was prompted by a happy accident followed by a bit of reading. There are many references to optical illusions in design and typography books. The example image at the start of this article was inspired by one found in the excellent Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works by Erik Spiekermann and E.M. Ginger. There’s also plenty of online material about optical or visual illusions you can dive into. There’s also more on . Oh, and don’t forget the work of M. C. Escher!

Human eyes are amazing. In two sets of watery bags we get a wide-angle lens with incredibly sharp focus and ridiculous depth of field. Apparently our brain is even clever enough to compensate for the lag in the signal getting from retina to cortex. I know next to nothing about ocular science. Spending a morning reading and thinking about optical illusions, and contemplating my own view here in the garden office is pretty awe-inspiring. If only my photographs were as good as my eyes, illusions or no.

Randall D. Eliason: The government's motion to dismiss the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn is like nothing I've ever seen. It's a political screed dressed up as legal analysis, promoting the "deep state" conspiracy fantasies of President Trump. It epitomizes the politicization of the Justice Department under Attorney General William P. Barr. It is, in the truest sense of the word, lawless.

Embodiments of the present disclosure include methods and compositions for functionalizing molecules, such as oligonucleotides, with functional groups, including polyhistidine tags useful in affinity methods. Some embodiments include methods for modifying and purifying complex mixtures of molecules by exchange of functional tags.

The disclosure is generally related to an irreversible thermochromic ink composition and, more particularly, to an irreversible thermochromic ink composition comprising a carrier and thermochromic capsules, the thermochromic capsules comprising a shell and a core, the core comprising an eradicable dye capable of becoming substantially colorless and/or of changing color from a first colored state to a second colored state when exposed to an eradicator.

A reversible thermosensitive recording medium including a support, a reversible thermosensitive recording layer provided on the support and an antistatic layer, wherein the antistatic layer is provided on at least one of the reversible thermosensitive recording layer and a surface of the support opposite to the surface thereof on which the reversible thermosensitive recording layer is provided, wherein the antistatic layer contains spherical fillers and a curable conductive polymer, and wherein the spherical fillers satisfy the following Expression (1): 4≦average particle diameter of the spherical fillers/thickness of the antistatic layer≦6 Expression (1).