A good example is a SInC company that developed on-body motion-capture technology.  The product is superb and takes away many of the limitations of doing mocap for film, TV and games animation within a “light studio”, therefore quite reasonably they focused on the media markets.  What they soon learned (mainly from their customers) was that their technology had enabled whole new mocap markets in industrial design and ergonomics, sports medicine and biomechanics research.  Each of these new markets is potentially bigger than their initial primary market.

So a key aspect for new technology entrepreneurs is to keep an open mind to potential markets and to finds ways to promote the innovation far more widely, you may find customers where you never expected.  This is one way that a good incubator can help as they can access their networks to canvas market feedback for new products.

As we enter an economic downturn, it becomes even more important how companies present and market their products and services.  Now, it’s not just about being flexible in targeting your markets, what about re-aligning the benefits of your product to the changing concerns of your customers.  Last year they may have wanted quicker now they want more efficient, companies are less concerned with carbon footprints and more with saving fuel.  It’s important to re-assess the features of your products and make sure they best suit to your customers ‘perceived’ needs.  As the marketeers would say – “where’s the customers’ pain”, well check it hasn’t moved!

Mike Herd, Sussex Innovation Centre, July 2008

We have 10 Pekin duck eggs incubating at the moment, they have been in for 7 days, so I will candle them today and see if they are developing. I also added 2 Australorp eggs just to see what will happen. The chook eggs should be done in 21 days, whilst the ducks take 28 days.

My office is based in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine.  I'm also the winner of the 2008 SBA Home-Based Business Champ for Maine and New England.  My services are free to micro and small businesses.

My goal for this blog is help micro and small business grow!!  I will be looking for your ideas and comments.  Have a question just ask it.  This is forum for all of us.  You also have great information to share about your business experience. Plus I will post information updates, links, articles and more to help you grow your business!!

Thanks,

James Macomber

Within Silicon Valley, Yahoo! (YHOO) has a reputation for being bureaucratic and slow to innovate, especially in contrast to rival Google (GOOG). To infuse itself with startup energy, Yahoo began an offsite incubator late last year called Brickhouse (BusinessWeek, Feb. 26). Its job is to shorten the time it takes to bring new ideas to market. "The goal is to take the idea, develop it, and make sure it's seen by senior management quickly," says Salim Ismail, whose business card reads, simply, "Head of Brickhouse." "We need to iterate, see customer reactions, and launch fast," he says. Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr, the photo-sharing site acquired by Yahoo in 2005, is credited with doing so. She wanted to keep Flickr's startup culture alive inside the bigger, slower parent company. Now it's up to Yahoo to make that culture its own.

How does the Brickhouse model work? Any of Yahoo's 13,000 employees can submit proposals for possible new products. Up to 200 ideas are submitted each month. A council of five top company executives, including CEO Jerry Yang and his co-founder, David Filo, vets only the best five to 10. Before Brickhouse began, there were far fewer suggestions and they tended to be brief one-liners. Now, says Ismail, "employees post screenshots, create mock-ups, present cases, and describe potential hurdles."

In February, Brickhouse unveiled its first product, Pipes, a free software tool that lets users gather and mix RSS feeds from many Web sites. Pipes received critical raves by bloggers for its ease of use. The site was so busy its first day that it crashed. But how Yahoo will monetize the venture is unclear.

Next up is Fire Eagle, set for this fall. It's a Web-based software platform that, for example, lets people meet up with co-workers and friends more easily by broadcasting their whereabouts, often tracked by GPS, in online posts or cell-phone text messages. Fire Eagle took only three months to develop—about 65% less time than the fastest development of typical Yahoo products. With boosts from Brickhouse, the pace of innovation at Yahoo may be accelerating—but will it be fast enough to catch Valley rival Google?

Source: Business Week

The component also includes a class to use the mail hide feature over at recaptcha.net that allows you to render an email address as something like user...@foo.com and the reader has to solve a recaptcha to see the complete email address.

No documentation has been made yet but I will include some basic usage of the component in this post.

Display a ReCaptcha in a form

First you need to register at recaptcha.net to get a set of public/private keys for the domain you want to use the recaptcha on. If you develop something locally and you use localhost as hostname you will need to register localhost on the recaptcha site to get the keys. Once you have the keys you are good to go!

When displaying the captcha you will only need the public key. The private key will be used when you verify the user input to see if a user has solved the captcha or not.

[sourcecode language="php"]
/** @see Zend_Service_ReCaptcha */
require_once 'Zend/Service/ReCaptcha.php';

$publicKey = 'my public key from recaptcha.net';
$reCaptcha = new Zend_Service_ReCaptcha($publicKey);
?>

[/sourcecode]

Replace the public key with your own public key and you will see something that hopefully resembles this screenshot:

Verify the user input

Now that we have our recaptcha in place we need to verify the user input. To do that we have to expand the block of php code at the top of our example here a bit.

PS! The syntax highlight plugin manages to write !emptyempty in the code below, so you'll need to fix that if you copy the code.

[sourcecode language="php"]
/** @see Zend_Service_ReCaptcha */
require_once 'Zend/Service/ReCaptcha.php';

$publicKey = 'my public key from recaptcha.net';
$reCaptcha = new Zend_Service_ReCaptcha($publicKey);

// See if the form has been posted and that the two fields from the
// recaptcha are not empty
if (isset($_POST['submit']) &&
!empty($_POST['recaptcha_challenge_field']) &&
!empty($_POST['recaptcha_response_field']) ) {
// Set the private key. We need this to verify user input
$privateKey = 'my private key';
$reCaptcha->setPrivateKey($privateKey);

// See if the input is valid
$response = $reCaptcha->verify($_POST['recaptcha_challenge_field'],
$_POST['recaptcha_response_field']);

if (!$response->isValid()) {
// Not valid. Add the error message from the recaptcha web service
// to the recaptcha object so it will be shown in the recaptcha
$reCaptcha->setParam('error', $response->getErrorCode());
} else {
// Success! The recaptcha has been solved
}
}
?>

[/sourcecode]

And thats it!

Hide email addresses with Zend_Service_ReCaptcha_MailHide

If you need to display an email address you can hide parts of it using the Zend_Service_ReCaptcha_MailHide component. You need a separate pair of public/private keys for this so head over to recaptcha.net and grab those keys.

Lets say we want to hide mynewemailaddress@domain.com. Do something like the following piece of code:

[sourcecode language="php"]
/** @see Zend_Service_ReCaptcha */
require_once 'Zend/Service/ReCaptcha/MailHide.php';

$publicKey = 'my public key';
$privateKey = 'my super duper private key';

$mailHide = new Zend_Service_ReCaptcha_MailHide($publicKey,
$privateKey,
'mynewemailaddress@domain.com');

print($mailHide);
[/sourcecode]

The output of this will be myne...@domain.com except that the "..." part will have link to a JavaScript popup that displays a recaptcha, and once the user solves it, the complete email address will be displayed.

So ... feel free to play around with the component and if you find some errors or feel that something is missing, let me know! I will add some more stuff about custom themes the next couple of days and maybe make a Zend Framework theme for the recaptcha.

My first daughter, precious jewel,
Nearly never made it.
Far too early she arrived,
Sick and jaundiced, but she thrived.
Mother’s milk delivered later
To her lonely incubator
Kept my daughter with it.

So of course she was so special.
Had to be, so flourished.
Born in her creative skills,
Latent wonders, magic thrills,
Yet her strongest and eternal
Were to be her gifts maternal;
Babies she has nourished.

Max, the Mum, so strong and loving,
Caring, she amazes.
All her children, stars so bright,
Testaments to her insight,
Echo Max’s clearest thinking.
Magnifying, spreading, linking
Goodness that she raises.

Max, the artist, deeply knowing,
Works with real feeling.
What she does is so precise,
Secure within her own advice,
Nurturing her thoughts aspiring
Just as she instructs her offspring.
Quietly revealing.

This was also written off of prompt #9 on Scott Wood's journal - begin a poem with "It wasn't like him" as the first line. Here's what I came up with - another chained hay(na)ku. (Am I working those chained hay(na)kus lately or what?) Anyway, enjoy.

-Nicole

It
wasn't like
him at all

to
cry, to
shed one tear

but
his newborn
son was entombed

inside
an incubator,
unconscious, barely breathing

except
for help
from a machine.

He
couldn't withhold
the inner storm

anymore;
in a
solo, silent moment,

the
tears came
without any hesitation.

Written 6/8/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http://ravenswingpoetry.com/2008/06/08/it-wasnt-like-him">

To pique your curiosity, here's three of the photos:

I always thought that the chicken comes from the yolk. It's interesting to note that it's not so.

Technorati Tags: birth of a chicken, chicken and egg, egg yolk, egg white, haha.nu, egg to chick, incubator, incubation, egg shell, omelette

The Incubator's Summer Season began on May 29 with Witness Relocation's Vicious Dogs on Premises, a playful, funny and extremely physical performance piece which will run until June 14th. On a pink set lined with fuchsia fake fur, 4 actors play a wild game of improvisations interspersed with carefully set and choreographed scenes. It's a pleasure to watch the actors as they cover a wide range of performance styles: from intimate personal revelations (as people rather than as actors), to loud, expressive dancing, to more classical role playing, their bodies are constantly present and energized. (The performers are all alumni of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and their acting definitely reflects their strong training).

Vicious Dogs on Premises is something of a great improvisational act. Artistic director Dan Safer changes the order of the scenes every night, enjoying the spontaneity and excitement which this brings to the actors' performances. Safer himself performs each night: in a little desk on the side of the pink stage, Witness Relocation's artistic director dictates the beginning and end of each scene by using a bell. The actors frantically respond to him, running downstage every time he rings his bell in order to read what's next on the evening's play list. And the list encompasses all sorts of subjects: love, death, sex and violence, all make their appearance on the stage . As unexpected relationships develop among the characters, the scenes never last long enough to settle into them. And just when it looks like the evening will be a series of disconnected events and vignettes, a love story pops up, bringing the whole piece together into a (somewhat) more conventional narrative.

Vicious Dogs on Premises is a funny, playful and well directed piece, a meditation on the turmoil that comes about when faced with "too many choices", a problem well reflected in the frantic energy of the performance. Don't miss Witness Relocation's wild and exciting physical theater, an auspicious beginning to the Incubator's Summer Residencies.

Vicious Dogs on Premises

May 29--June 14
Tuesday, Thursday--Saturday, 8p.m.
Sunday, June 1, 8p.m.
Friday, June 13 and Saturday, June 14, additional 10p.m. performances
Tickets: General $17/Student $12
Purchase in advance here or by calling 212-352-3101. Cash only at the door.
For more info on Witness Relocation: www.witnessrelocation.org

By the end of the evening I felt elated: curators for Tiny Theater! have brought together an interesting and diverse group of performance artists. From puppetry to neo-futurism, the 6'x6'x6' metal cage on the stage was inhabited by very different performances: sometimes the cube looked spacious and empty, as in SPi Company's They Are Bad People, where two actors simply sat on chairs for the entire performance. At other times, the cube felt crowded (see the very sexual Five (Eduardinos)) or extremely constraining, as in 6-Speed, the New York Neo-Futurist piece in which actors toasted cookies and swayed on metal bars like children in a jungle gym. Each performance used the space more or less effectively, but overall the evening had a wonderful rhythm and energy.

Curators of Tiny Theater! have also successfully brought together different kinds of performances. For the most part, the tiny performances were entertaining: filled with humorous characters (such as the she-Kermit-the-Frog in The Barber of Saskatoon) and ironic props (as The Angel of Repose's spinning halo in The Alternative Lifestyle Fair). Yet there were also more sobering pieces. In Portrait of JB, for instance, a woman dressed in white walked around the stage carrying the bleeding severed head of a pig, while a man smoked a cigarette in the back of the theater. Overall the evening was gracefully crafted and the differences among the pieces worked well within the rhythm of the festival.

I highly recommend seeing one of the three remaining performances. Here's more information:

TINY THEATER 8p.m. Thursday--Saturday, May 22--24. Additional 11p.m. performance Saturday May 24. $15 cash at the door, or reserve in advance here or by calling 212-352-3101.

Ontological Theater at St. Mark's Church, 131 E. 10th Street (at 2nd Avenue)

In case you can't make any of these shows, look out for upcoming Summer Residencies at the Incubator.

It is a month since the birth of Lucky (see below) who now roams the garden as a thriving adolescent. We've become old hands at the incubator business, so when another sitting hen gave up midway through her term, we just whisked her eggs into the warmth as easily as you please. A week later we watched them hatch.

And now we have a challenge that is entirely new to us: to rear chicks without a mother hen. We're quite used to the sight of fond mums leading their brood across the lawn, stopping periodically to gather them up close. She teaches them everything: what to peck, where to scratch, how do drink. How would we manage all this ourselves?

First things first: keep the babes warm. The incubator was too hot for the hatchlings, hence the hastily assembled box fill with straw. A pair of spotlights was rigged overhead, and there the chicks, still a bit wet from hatching when we first installed them, gently recovered, ate and drank, stood up and fell over, stood up again and flexed their wings. A week on their are running about, scratching heartily, pecking noisily, cheeping constantly and filling the room with life. The children love them - who can resist the sight of five furry heads turned towards us whenever we enter the room?

Without a protective hen we can at last observe chicks at close quarters, and one of the surprises is how much they sleep. We thought the frequent cuddle time with mum was just for warmth, but in fact, chicks are just like little children - they rush around till they are exhausted and then they grind to a halt. You can see it happening: their little eyes close, their knees buckle and they nod forwards until they are lying entirely prone, beaks down in the straw. And there they stay, all tumbled over each other.

In their waking times they are typical chickens, only smaller and funnier. They shove their food off its plate and then forage for it, scratching large chunks of straw aside. One invariably stands in the way while food is being dole out and gets covered, so the others peck it clean. Another will run around the box with a juicy morsel, chased by the others who are ignoring a perfectly good meal on the plate. They would rather jump into the water jug than wait patiently for their cup to be filled. Competition certainly runs deep.

But there are still plenty of unknowns about keeping chicks in the house. They are just trying their luck at escaping from the box, though they don't like the freedom and they squawk to be put back in. How will we integrate them with the rest of the flock outside? We still have to find out.

They are awake now, cheeping gently and pecking at the new, shove-proof container in which we have started serving their meals. Yet I just watched one fight the urge to sleep. It stood still and faltered, eyes drooping, and though its legs crumpled it would not give way. Up it sprang, beady eyes bright, ready to go on with the business of life. It's hard work being a chick.

I am serving on the Organizing Committee of BOSC this year (though obviously through my serving on the O|B|F's Board I have been involved with the conference for years, but in rather minor roles), and for a number of reasons I am extremely excited (and in fact humbled) that we were able to recruit Julian. Julian is one of the principal architects of the Croquet Project, an open-source peer-to-peer software platform for creating deeply collaborative multi-user on-line virtual world applications. (He has a number of other claims to fame, which the Wikipedia entry on him lays out nicely and I therefore won't repeat those here.) 

Why should this matter to people developing (or using) software that solves bioinformatics problems, who supposedly constitute most if not all of the BOSC attendees? The overall theme of this year's conference are emerging technologies and how they might be used to tackle hard problems in our field. Most of us have probably heard about things like grid computing, Web 2.0, mash-ups, or even the semantic web and how they might impact our ability to advance science.

Personally, however, I think that at least as much if not more than any of those over the next couple of years 3D immersive virtual worlds (also called 'metaverses') will fundamentally alter how we explore data, models, or even algorithms and code, and how we collaborate with each other to form teams and communities — or even "virtual organizations" — when and as we need them, to educate, innovate, and synthesize.

In fact, a number of early adopters ranging for example from an Open Notebook chemistry lab to Nature Publishing Group is setting foot in Second Life to examine its utility for teaching, communicating, and creating science. Virtual worlds have even become a research subject themselves; the peer-reviewed Journal of Virtual Worlds Research has just been launched, as has been a similarly aimed mailing list. 

What is particularly intriguing about Croquet in this regard as a platform, compared to, for example, Second Life, is that to me it fits so well into how we do science and its value system. Not only is it fully open-source, and hence other than skill poses no limit to the ability to tinker and to scrutinize, its architecture is peer-to-peer, rather than client and (centralized) server. The idea that the only server to run a BLAST search against would be at NCBI, and that they could only run against sequence databases at NCBI, sounds silly, if not inane — why should this be any different for our ability to collaborate?

Aside from all this, Julian gives great talks. He spoke at NESCent in November last year, and I found his talk both entertaining and inspiring. In fact, this let us to explore ideas on collaborating with Julian and others to virtualize the hackathons that we have run, but I'll say more about that in a separate post.

And if that's still not enough reason, consider the fact that he is actually a biologist (evo-devo or evolutionary biology, to be precise), though (I think) he no longer works in that capacity.

As a company emerging onto the scene, you tend to be shocked when you realize that there is legitimate buzz being generated about your products and your ideas. And that couldn't have been more evident when we received word early this week that MailHarbor was selected as a finalist for the Maryland Incubator Company of the Year Award, in the Best New Company category. We know that we've been working hard over the last few months, but to be considered for this award is quite an honor. We'd like to thank the selection committee for keeping us in mind throughout the long selection process and we'd also like to thank the Baltimore Emerging Technology Center for giving us all of the help and support a young tech company could need.

The Maryland Incubator Company of the Year Awards presentation will be held at the Center Club in downtown Baltimore on June 10, 2008

For a full list of nominees: http://www.mdincubatoraward.com/2008/2008finalists.html

For our press release: http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2008/5/prweb904064.htm

So here we are in #nescent on Freenode, and this week is declared as trial week to help everyone overcome the activation barrier and evaluate the utility for themselves. I've been very impressed by the willingness of almost everyone to follow along and give it a try. The first three days have seen some lively conversations, and even though some were on the light-hearted side (I guess I'm at fault here), some weren't.

In my mind, the context of this goes much beyond an easy means for our resident scientists to ask each other for advice on commonly encountered situations. Compared to IM (such as iChat or AIM) and email, IRC is always on, it doesn't need to be initiated. Questions can be tossed on the table, everyone will see them immediately, and it's at the leisure of every user at which level, and at which point she wants to engage, or disengage. In some ways I see it like a virtual coffee table that you can join casually right on your desktop, without leaving or even disrupting your work.

At a journal club-turned-brainstorming session last week, several NESCent postdocs distilled the keys to synthetic science (the 'S' in NESCent stands for Synthesis, and is what is supposed to set NESCent most profoundly apart from a more traditional "research lab" in evolutionary biology). The keywords that stuck out (at least to me) centered around thinking across scales, interdisciplinary, reductionist, and integrative, in ways that are unfamiliar, using a common language.

Nurturing synthetic science along these attributes in my mind inevitably seems to greatly benefit from, or even require collaboration, the basis of which is scientists from different disciplines, working at different scales, in fields or viewpoints unfamiliar to each other, talking to each other and establishing a common language between them. That is, nurturing synthesis needs incubators, providing of which is I guess one of our main distinct roles.

Which leads me back to our new IRC channel: maybe it can become one of those incubators, and it could serve that way much beyond the physical walls of NESCent. It's always on, requires relatively minimal effort to join (see a comparison of client software — for example, XChat works really well on Macs — and a list of basic commands; our channel is #nescent on Freenode), and for now is open to anyone in the world. So if you want to meet a bunch of really smart people who do amazing work in evolutionary research and have a lot of ideas about taking the field to new levels, here's your chance to do so at your leisure. (And yes, I'm hanging out there, too, though so far I've mostly supplied the light-hearted side :-)

Next Monday, PHIT will be auditioning folks in groups of 8 at the Arden Theatre - but if you want in, you'll have to schedule an audition appointment by emailing PHIT with your interest no later than 5pm on Friday.

More details can be found here...

Ahora bien, si bien algún desprevenido podría creer que el principal objetivo de la India es focalizarse en ese negocio, la realidad indica todo lo contrario.

Si bien los mercados de Call Center son una solución de corto plazo para solucionar problemas de empleo, por la gran cantidad de mano de obra que emplean, no son empleos que generen un valor único, y por lo tanto la radicación de estas empresas corresponde a ventajas economícas puntuales (niveles salariales, políticas fiscales de incentivo, etc.).

Por ese motivo, hace aproximadamente 20 años los universitarios de la India comenzaron a capacitarse en las mejores escuelas de negocios de EEUU. En un principio los estudiantes se quedaban a trabajar en empresas Americanas, con el consecuente desarraigo en tan distinta cultura. Actualmente y creo que por mucho tiempo estos profesionales graduados comienzan a volver a su país, transformado en un mundo nuevo de oportunidades.

Básicamente creo que corresponde a una convergencia de factores:

• Con una población de 1.130 M de personas tienen la masa crítica para desarrollar cualquier negocio.
• Los salarios comienzan a acomodarse y como se puede ver en distintas publicaciones económicas se esta gestando una nueva ola de magnates en ese país. Lógicamente, estimula el crecimiento de los salarios, con la consecuente activación del consumo interno.
• Tuvieron un PLAN!: si increiblemente en algunos países se planifica a más de 2 años! JAJA. Parece mentira pero hay que remarcar a estos países que tienen un horizonte de 25 años y se plantean que función quieren cumplir en el mundo, porque entienden que un mundo especializado hay que buscar un nicho y explotarlo.

A continuación adjunto un video del World Bank, en donde explican la experiencia que tuvieron con la creación de una Incubadora IT.

When we decided to incubate eggs I undertook a good deal of reading in order to prepare us. I understood that our eggs would take 21 days to incubate, that the first day of incubation was counted as day 0 and that we could expect our chicks to first of all poke a wee hole in the egg (called pipping) then take up to twelve hours to escape from their shell.

Whilst the eggs were incubating, we periodically candled the eggs to see the development of the embryos. From that, we're fairly certain that at least two of the eggs are infertile but we have kept them in the incubator just in case. A candler is quite an expensive piece of equipment so we sufficed with a lamp and some cardboard which wasn't as reliable as a candler, so to err on the side of caution we removed only the faverolle egg which exploded around day 7.

This was all great and good until I discovered on Wednesday that bantam eggs can hatch from day 19, which was Thursday, and we didn't have our brooder finished! We have four large fowl eggs (Salmon Faverolles), five Silkies and five pekin bantams incubating.

Our first egg had pipped when we got up yesterday morning and eventually hatched at 8pm last night, and at that time two other eggs had pipped. One of the other chicks had hatched by the time Bob got up with the baby at 4am but as yet the other eggs haven't hatched. I think the other bantams possibly won't make it as they haven't pipped yet.

Today is day 21 so by tonight the majority of our hatch should be completed but for first timers I'm really proud that we have two healthy chicks. Hopefully when we get back from our day trip we'll have a few more chicks although knowing our luck they'll all be cockerels!

Here's a photo of our son #2 looking at his new friends. He's been very excited about them today.

photo credit: xarley

By 4pm the chick had managed to got most of the shell loose and was just sitting in it. I think my wife managed another 4 hours before squealing when it finally made it out. I think we have another 2 eggs that have pipped so we should hopefully have another 2 chicks out and about by the time we wake up in the morning.

Now we come to the issue of keeping any cockerels. I'm of the opinion that we don't need one so any that survive this stage we would just be rearing for the dinner table 2-3 months down the line before they mature and get their singing hats on. My wife on the other hand reckons one cockerel would be nice and I'd get to build it a wee house with blackout blinds in an attempt to keep it quite when the sun comes up. I'm not so sure the neighbours would appreciate that though should our attempts at silencing fail.

The Toronto Independent Music Awards are an indie awards ceremony, showcase series and seminar founded in 2004. The concept evolved out of a frustration for the lack of true support for independent musicians. The TIMAs serve as a platform to award and acknowledge up-and-coming independent artists regionally and locally. Our ultimate aim is to create an infrastructure to give independent artists a hand in ways that are actually useful by providing industry connected prizes and community support!

Sounds a lot like those incubators/facilitators we hear about supporting ICT in Waterloo....

What's in it for the musicians?

- We had over 35 different MAJOR and INDEPENDENT MEDIA at our showcases and at our awards date.

-If you are a selected winner, you not only receive a MAIN PRIZE and UNIQUE PRIZE, but you get to showcase your music in front of a SOLD OUT CROWD at the following award show to take place at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto.

- We have a team of INDUSTRY PROFESSIONAL JUDGES that are trained in each genre category, judging is completely blind and all scores are compiled by Bonaccorso and Cancelliere accounting firm.

Any budding musicians out there should check this show out, or register over at their website (Toronto Independent Music Awards).

Q: I'm not sure if you or "the asshole" still respond to these questions, because anything that I've found on the internet or improv resource center about Philly improv seems slightly outdated. No offense to Philadelphia, but much offense to the internet. My question is simple. I am originally from Austin, where I was involved with the short form scene there for a few years, after which I moved to New York and got a heavy addiction and a hearty obsession with long form at the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre. Now, I'm living in Philadelphia for two months and I'm having wack ass improv withdrawals and I can't seem to find what I need. Can you help me? Can you tell me where to score some good improv? Do you know a local improv dealer, preferably specializing in long form, but short form will definitely give me my fix.

Your friend in improv land,
- S

A: Dear Junkie, awww shit. Welcome to the 215!

If you are looking to play in, why don't you try the Incubator (sometimes known as the Fakeout). It is run by a very nice man named Rick Horner; and it meets almost every Sunday at some place. Want more than just vague ideas of where things happen? Check out this post on the IRC.

- Alexis

Article Summary 

•  12 years ago when the Toronto Fashion Center for the Promotion of Fashion Design (the official title of TFI) was born.
• The fashion industry in Toronto was losing talents to other fashion centers and manufacturing firms were moving to regions that could offer lower costs.
• TFI's success could also be measured by its long line of success stories: Serena Deparis, David Dixon, Noel Crisostomo, Ewa Majak, Anna Staffiere, Crystal Siemens, Joeffer Caoc to name a few.

So how does the TFI do it?

• TFI provides a support group to the designers. We're like family. Everyone shares the facilities and has to pitch in with cleaning up and maintaining work stations. By sharing equipment and space, young designers are able to defray start-up costs.

With 6,200 sq.ft of studio space, offices and production facilities, the TFI helps smooth the transition of young talents from design student to self-supporting designer. The TFI's resource center makes available to its residents and outreach members trade publications, newsletters and other fashion industry resources which normally will be out of reach to them due to high costs.

One very important aspect of TFI's work is the bi-annual New Labels Fashion Show wherein up and coming designers are featured. Residents and outreach members can showcase their collection at the New Labels Fashion Show which is attended by thousands of fashion buyers and media representatives.

To be a resident of the TFI, you have to be:

• A graduate of an accredited Fashion Program in Canada
• Or have industry or work experience
• Must submit a three-year business plan
• Must have a portfolio of your work
• Must have proof of financial support

For further detail visit: http://www.fashionwindows.com

The Equity Model branch is particularly relevant to entrepreneurs, spinouts, joint-ventures and startups (or the business incubators who assist them).

The decisions below Equity Model elaborate the startup strategy (incorporation, funding), end-game (shareholder exit strategy) and organization (governance, org design, leadership, relationships).

Many entrepreneurs are technologists who have limited experience with these broader and somewhat "fuzzier" decisions.  This demonstrates the value of a decision pattern; by stating each of these fundamental questions as a "bite-sized" and well-framed decision and providing ~10 criteria to consider, we can dramatically reduce the fuzziness of these decisions and highlight the most important data to gather to accomplish due diligence.

The Equity Model decisions can be applied to non-profit organizations as well.

Bunty is a Silver Laced Wyandotte bantam and Mac is a Scots Grey.

Matt also gave us 1o hatching eggs for our incubator. It's only a smallish one but that along with the 5 eggs we were sent with it means we've hopefully got a good chance of getting a few more hens within the next 3-4 weeks. They are a mix of breeds and I couldn't name a single one of them despite hearing them many many times over the last few hours.