Jamie Lynn Spears

Spears' little sister 'cancels wedding'Britney Spears' sister Jamie Lynn has reportedly called off her wedding to the father of her daughter - months after she was forced to deny rumours of a split.The pop star's younger sibling hit the headlines at 16 when she announced she was expecting a child with her boyfriend Casey Aldridge, who she vowed to marry.Following the birth of their daughter Maddie Briann in June (08), the teen couple became the subject of fervent tabloid speculation which suggested they were living apart after Aldridge cheated on Spears.The Zoey 101 star came forward in October (08) to deny the persistent infidelity rumours and re-iterate her plans to tie the knot with her boyfriend.But now the 17-year-old is said to have scrapped her plans to walk down the aisle with Aldridge once and for all - after deciding she doesn't need an official ceremony to make her happy.A source tells U.S. magazine OK!, "The wedding’s off. They are still in love, living together and very happy, but they have no plans to get married. Jamie Lynn has everything she wants and feels no need for a ring and piece of paper."And the publication alleges that Spears has also decided to give up her acting career - so she can focus on raising her toddler.The insider adds: "She has told friends and family she’s never coming back to Hollywood. She feels that part of her life is over. Jamie Lynn enjoyed every minute of doing Zoey, but since she’s had Maddie, her life has changed completely."She's happy being a real hands-on Southern mother and hopes to continue that for years to come with Casey right by her side. Jamie Lynn knows she needs to make a living when she grows older, so she’s already discussing her career options with advisers. She wants Maddie to grow up in comfort."

Do you have any ring in your fingers?

I was wondering because my mother has brought me some ring. There might be people who might be wearing there engagement ring or some rings with precious stones. Some might be wearing some ring just for style. But this ring of mine is according to ASTROLOGY, my mother believes a lot in astrology and she read about astro-rings with gemstones according to sun-sign and birthday. So she has brought me this silver ring with nine different stones ("NAVRATNA")

Wearing skirts

In my era I was taught to always wear a slip under my skirt. In a way I can see how that makes sense because of the gauzy material summer skirts are made of. However, it's summer. The slip just doesn't fit in with keeping cool. On the other hand I don't want to be on "exhibit" nor appear inappropriately dressed I've seen many women wearing skirts without a slip. I can see their legs. Seeing legs is not offensive. After all, we wear shorts. What's the trend these days? Slip or no slip???

Jens von Pilgrim

I admit it: I like Startrek. This is why I called a special pattern used to adopt editors for using them in a 3D scene with GEF3D "Borg-Factory-Pattern" (a borg factory modifies an object after it has been created by a "normal" factory using assimilators). Kristian Duske recently "3d-fied" the Ecore Diagram Editor---but he did not use the borg factory. So, why didn't we need the borg technology to assimilate this editor to be used in a 3D scene? The Ecore Diagram Editor is based on GMF. Frankly, I have lots of respect for GMF. I know GEF pretty well, but GMF with its thousands of new extension points, policies and stuff... it's like... like.. yeah, it's like a Borg cube. The good thing about that is that borg technology is already on board. We beamed Kristian on board of that cube, and he returned with a some nice providers enabling us to add 3D-behaviour to existing GMF editors. GEF3D needed some more examples anyway, so we 3d-fied the Ecore editor, and some of the UML editors of the UML Tools (which are also GMF-based), viz. the class, activity, and use case editors. The best thing: We only had to write a bunch of classes. For example, the 3D UML class editor plugin consists of 8 classes with only 212 statements (measured by c_count). The 3D versions of these editors are available from GEF3D's SVN repository (plugins org.eclipse.gefd.examples.uml and org.eclipse.gefd.examples.ecore). To give you an impression about what you need to 3d-fy an existing 3D GMF-based editor, here is a brief description on how we adopted the UML class editor (a tutorial about GEF3D is planned for June, since then don't hesitate to post your questions in the GEF3D newsgroup!): First, a new plugin is created, with a UMLDiagram3DPlugin activator, which is not really needed. A new editor class UMLDiagramEditor3D subclasses the original UMLDiagramEditor. Instead of a 2D viewer we have to instantiate a 3D viewer, actually, this need the most code since we have to copy and paste some code from the base classes. Only one editpart and figure have to be exchanged, that is the pair for the diagram, here the package. We have to provide new 3D versions for these two classes (PackageEditPart3D, DiagramFigure3D). The new edit part has to be created by a new factory UMLEditPartFactory3D, which subclasses the original UMLEditPartFactory This factory has to be injected into the editor somehow. This is done using a GMF provider UMLEditPartProvider3D. Since we only need this provider for our 3D editor, we have added a very dirty hack to identify which editor calls the provider. This is hack is really dirty (better not look at the provider ;-) ), and I hope to find a better solution. Finally we have to exchange the policy which creates the 2D feedback handles and replace it with a 3D version. Again, this is done by a provider called UMLEditPolicyProvider3D, the 3D policy is called Handles3DEditPolicyThat's it. And what do you get for that? The result is an UML editor with the diagram projected on a plane in a 3D scene. You can use the camera to orbit and move around. Since it's derived from the original 2D UML editor, it is (more ore less) fully editable. Try to select classes and move them around, create new classes and so on. You can even open the very same UML model in the 3D editor and 2D editor simultaneously, changes are reflected in both editors automatically!The 3D version of the UML Tool's activity diagram editor (on the right hand side, 2D version on the left). Note the 3D handles and the transparent feedback figure!Unfortunately there are some open issues which restrict the 3D editor: no edges can be drawn (sometimes, you can draw edges but don't see any feedback, sometimes the Eclipse IDE crashes when you try to do that). You cannot open more then one 3D editor at a time, we have a problem with the texture manager. And there are some other bugs... So many bugs? Yes, but only a very few lines of code to 3d-fy an editor. So, 3D-fy your editor and help us fixing the bugs!You may ask, huh, that's great, but why should I want to 3d-fy my editor? Well, I can think of many use cases: display multiple diagrams within one 3D scene and draw inter-diagram connections, annotate your diagrams with 3D elements (e.g. metrics drawn as 3D bars on top of classes), exchange some of your 2D figures and provide real 3D editors.

I want Spring

I am so undecided with the blog...Maybe I'll change it up every week...I thought this layout says "SPRING" all over it : )The kid's are officially out of school for their Spring Break. Unfortunately, I still have to go into work. The rest of the staff (the teachers, principal and associate principal) are off Thursday and Friday for Teacher's Convention. I was supposed to go but we are having quite a few problems with are online registration (which is new for us and the parents) so I am staying in the office to deal with any phone calls that may come through tomorrow and on Friday. Oh well...them are the breaks. At least it'll be quiet in the office and I can turn up the music and have fun (wishful thinking). Yesterday I had a 70 minute bike with some speed drills and today I had a 60 minute run. I have actually been fairly sore from my 10km run on Sunday. Ouch!! Riding the bike yesterday didn't help. This morning the alarm went off at 4:35 am and I didn't get up. I was too sore. I decided that I will feel better in the evening. Luckily such was the case and I just finished up with a zone 2 HR run. Tomorrow I have a Zone 1-2 90 minute bike. Trevor is working at home with the kid's and then tomorrow night they are going off to oma and opa's for a sleep over till Friday night when we have bible study. Saturday I have 3 hour bike and 20 minute run and Sunday a 16 mile run....sounds like fun, right?! Next week no work...no school (I do have an assignment due on March 30th, so I'll work on that). The kids and I will be working on their Disney Scrapbook with my help and hopefully by the time they return to school they will have a few pages done...I'l keep my fingers crossed.

How much is your time worth

Everyday I potter down to myLot and read about the excitement that people feel when they find a new PTC site that pays 2 cents a click. Or how they made a dollar in a day typing responses to discussions. I am guilty of this too. However, if someone was to come to you and ask "what's your time worth?" what would it be. A dollar a day? A dollar an hour? A dollar a minute or perhaps a dollar a second? (Or the equivalent in your own currently). When I worked I earned as much in half an hour as I do in a month here - and I'm not on the minimum payout. I don't come here for the money - but I did once. I still feel mildly elated though when I've chalked up another dollar on her. Why should that be?

Paineiras Hedge Fund Buys Brazil Bonds on Economy

By Alexander RagirApril 1 (Bloomberg) -- Theodoro Messa’s Paineiras Hedge FIM hedge fund beat 96 percent of its peers this year on bets Brazilian bond yields will fall as the central banks slashes borrowing costs to shore up Latin America’s largest economy. Messa is buying bonds and avoiding stocks because the global recession will persist longer than investors expect, requiring Brazilian policy makers to deepen interest rate cuts, he said. He predicts zero economic growth for Brazil in 2009. “Growth is the problem around the world right now; it’s not inflation,” said Messa in an interview from Paineiras Investimentos’ office in Rio de Janeiro. “Market expectation for rates are too high across the board.” Messa’s $112.6 million Paineiras hedge fund increased 11 percent this year after jumping 20 percent in 2008. The Bovespa stock index slid a record 41 percent last year as commodity prices tumbled amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Brazil’s economy shrank 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter, the most in more than a decade, heightening speculation the central bank will cut lending rates to a record low to prevent a recession. Policy makers will reduce the benchmark rate to 9.25 percent by the end of the year from the current 11.25 percent, according to a central bank survey of Brazilian economists. Falling Interest Rates Real interest rates, or the difference between the central bank’s benchmark rate and inflation, are likely to fall below 5 percent in coming years from the almost 7 percent the bond market is pricing in now, said Messa, a partner at Paineiras. His hedge fund benefited at the end of last year as local- currency bond yields fell. The local-currency inflation-linked bond due in May 2015 yielded 6.93 percent today, down from 10.79 on Oct. 24. Bond yields move inversely to price. Paineiras was founded two years ago by Antonio de Padua Bittencourt and Ney Marinho, former partners of Banco Icatu SA, a Brazilian investment bank in the 1990s that was acquired by a company that is now part of Itau Unibanco Banco Multiplo SA. Brazil’s Bovespa index climbed 9 percent in the first quarter on speculation interest-rate cuts will spur economic growth and government stimulus packages from China to the U.S. will bolster demand for commodities. ‘Opportunity’ for Stocks “Bond yields fell violently and while I think they have a bit more to fall, I don’t think they’re as attractive” as stocks, said Carlos Eduardo Ramos, who oversees the equivalent of $2.2 billion as chief investment officer of BNY Mellon Arx in Rio de Janeiro. “Within fear lies opportunity. In moments of crisis like this it’s good to look for good, cheap companies.” The Bovespa index dropped to 9.76 times estimated earnings, almost half the 17.05 price-earnings ratio it fetched on May 20, when the gauge touched a record high. Brazil’s economy will expand 1.2 percent this year, compared with a previous forecast of 3.2 percent, policy makers said this week in their quarterly inflation report. Economists polled by Bloomberg predict 0.8 percent growth, according to the median of 15 estimates. Messa said the outlook for stocks is “very uncertain” as the economy slows. “The world, and Brazil, will take quite a while to recover,” said Messa. ”Nothing is certain, but rates falling a lot more is just the most probable scenario.”

More Short Fiction

From the same "book:" Annalie sat somewhere in the middle third of the lecture hall. She was wedged inbetween the metal chair and its battered desk-like offspring, as well as inbetween her own backpack and the bags of the students on either side of her. Having managed to pull the miniature pretend desk out of the metal arm of the immobile chair, she had discovered that it operated on a slant, which kept her heavy Physics textbook in continual danger of sliding down into her stomach. She wondered where she would find the room to take notes, should notes ever become necessary. Note-taking, however, wasn’t very important at the moment. Annalie was in the 10:00 section of PHY 101, “Physics and You.” The electronic registration program Annalie had worked with over the summer had suggested PHY 101 as an ideal way to fulfill part of her general education science requirement, and Annalie’s father had suggested that it was best to get all of the gen-ed stuff out of the way as soon as possible. So Annalie sat, five minutes into the first class session of “Physics and You,” listening to the instructor explain the course syllabus. She wasn’t quite sure why the professor wasn’t really a professor but rather a graduate student who looked down at the overhead projector as he read his own syllabus aloud, and she wondered vaguely why he didn’t trust any of them to be able to read it on their own. Annalie had already been to a music history class earlier that morning, and the professor had started them right away on a discussion of the differences between music and other forms of organized sound; now Annalie was stuck in “Physics and You,” listening to a shaky-voiced graduate student explain the attendance policy. College was strange, and – in Annalie’s mind – inconsistent. Annalie could feel a slight breeze coming from one of the open windows. She ached to go outside. She had spent most of her free time outside when not busy with the demands of Orientation Week, wandering all around the campus. She had gotten Danielle to go with her once or twice, but it seemed like whenever she stuck her head into anyone’s dorm room, they were either logged onto their computer or attached to their cell phone. Libby, in particular – Annalie could not even begin to describe how disappointed she was about Libby. She had never had a sister; only Chris, who teased her and who was too old to be a really good kind of friend (besides the fact that he was her brother, which made some kinds of friendship difficult), and although she had had several friends in high school (mostly other choir dorks like herself), she liked the novelty of having a very close, sister-type friend. Someone she might actually be able to talk to. For a while Annalie had tried to count the number of words Libby had said to her, but somewhere around forty she lost count and stopped caring. Libby’s mouth seemed to be continually moving, but none of her words were particularly directed towards Annalie. They were directed towards Troy, Libby’s boyfriend, who went to the nearby state school and who was on Libby’s cell phone so often, it was as if he were pumping some kind of vital life force into her ear. Meanwhile, in “Physics and You” – Annalie had gotten distracted in her own thoughts – a real cell phone rang. Half the students in the room bent down to fumble with their bags. It played through a hyper-speed version of Pachebel’s Canon in D twice before its owner finally retrieved it and turned it off, tossing her permed hair over her shoulder and saying, for the benefit of everyone in the room, “Oh my god, oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Annalie shifted in her seat as much as she could, then stopped her Physics book from exercising its rights to the law of gravity and pressing itself into her ribs. The graduate student, irritated at the phone interruption, went back to describing his grading scale. The breeze was becoming more and more imperceptible by the minute

Don't Let Global Roaming Get You Down

Don't use your home mobile and, if you must, send an SMS

Buy a phone card and call from a landline

Use an International SIM Card for your mobile calls

lttss

Listen to the songs,lol