Technical Diving With Bubba and Clem

ANIMATION TOOLS :

The highly technical and superior trained divers, Clem and Bubba, went on a dive trip to Cozumel. They were of the new breed of divers, "The Technical Diver". These diver's were well equipped. They had twin steel 120 double tanks, and a couple of high tech titanium regulators. Bubba's Octopus regulator has a 13.45 meter hose. Perfect for those technical deep cave penetration dives. They have no less than six dive computers, all Trimix, Nitrox, and Air-Trox ready! Each has a knife for each leg (one of them has a 10 inch blade), a knife for each arm, and two of those neat little fishing line cutters.

Technical Diving With Bubba and Clem

These boys have custom made dive suits that have 46 dive patches on them. Clem has 47 on his because he saw a sea lion once. They have a set of super duper "el stiffo" split fins with stainless steel thrust plates built in. Their masks are all black. This provides stealth and cunning when diving on the brightly colored coral reef. They both are very cool because they each used 54 pounds of
weight stuffed neatly into their Navy Ranger BC that has 8 flip-out side wings and 11 stainless steel custom made D-rings. They were well equipped and well prepared for their dive safari. Each had 2 pouches crammed full of all the necessary technical dive gear for the half an hour dive on the coral reef. A spare knife sheath, 10 rescue flares, and a 1/4 roll of toilet paper in a dry bag, and
Clem had one of those fold up tin foil signaling survival suits.

Strapped on each BC was a set lift bags that would hoist a '53 Buick off the bottom. Attached to it was a cave diving reel with 7.3 miles of rope hooked to it. In another pouch was a copy of the NEW Nitrox tech manual, Bubba had two copies. This fancy BC has 4 inflation valves and each has one of those "diver alert" attachments. Strapped on the back of the BC was another bag full of really high tech gear. A 406 EPIRB, 16 road flares, yellow and green smoke cans, and 3 signaling mirrors. But the coolest thing was the new signal sausage with a 4000 feet of line. A mandatory piece of equipment when diving in Cozumel on the remote and dangerous reef 200 yards from the civilized world.

Now these boys had been trained! And trained RIGHT! You better believe it! They sought some of the best Tech Trainers in the business including Willy, the oil change specialist at Jiffy Lube. Willy was the founding member of "Deep Underwater Member Association of Scuba Schools". Most people just use the acronym, DUMASS

The boys had a two hour discussion on the merits of using their custom built dry suits with the little fancy bottle of Argon gas to pump them up. After all, Argon has 0.00023 pounds more buoyancy than air does. This will be absolutely required for safety purposes. The water temperature was only 87 degrees. Burrr... Chilly! Better to wear the dry suits. They looked around the boat
and saw some girl divers wearing only a bikini. And some, "Recreational divers" wearing only a flimsy wet suit that didn't even have arms or legs. Geeeezzz did them guys get ripped off, they thought. They said in a whisper to each other, "look at them divers
they don't have a tenth of the stuff we got". "They must not be super superior technical divers like us".

Bubba and Clem, our high tech heroes, are just about ready to get their abundance of technical gear ready for their dive. They break out their emergency kit, a small suitcase with everything in it. First they break out the band aids (Bubba likes the ones with little animals on them) and proceed to wrap each one of their toes to ward off blisters. Next they break out the sun tan lotion. They got
the special SPF 723 kind. "Sunburn and dehydration are factors that can increase the risk of decompression sickness". So, as they were trained, they smear the lotion over their entire bodies.

Now they have to put on their tights and cover up their very manly bodies. The Lycra skin slides on over SPF lotion smoothly. They take on the appearance of divers now. They "don" their dry suits, and "Suit up" for the "long and arduous" dive 30 minute
dive.

At last they have the complete costume on and are ready to pose for a picture. They hand a crew member a 1948 Kodak Brownie camera and ask him to take the picture. With a grin, he obliges. Who knows it might make the cover of a technical diver's manual.

Time to dive. All the sissy divers in bathing suits, single tanks, only one computer, no lift bags, and NO RESCUE SAUSAGES, go to the rear of the boat perform a beginner non-technical giant stride entry. Not Bubba and Clem, they saw Mike Nelson roll over the side of boats many times on Sea Hunt. They know how! In fact better than 'ol Mike. Clem goes first and with a tremendous splash he enters the water and proceeds to sink to the bottom in 55 feet of water. He ends up upside down stuck in the sand as all the sissy divers hover motionless in the current staring in bewilderment.

Now comes Bubba. Over the side he goes, not knowing that the 13.45 meter hose is caught on the tank rack. As he goes butt first over the side. Thank God for the real long hose! He sank to a depth of 13.45 meters and dangled from the hose like a "full metal jacket Ameba"

The dive crew frees the long hose and Bubba plunges to the bottom. One of the girl divers, in nothing but a bikini, digs Clem out from the bottom using the folding entrenching tool strapped to his tanks. Then she moves over to Bubba who is trailing 13.45 meters of hose from his regulator and digs him out too. The boys still can't get off the bottom, so they inflate several of their BC wings and at last they rise up like a haunt from a graveyard off the bottom. Not too bad they only took out about 7 acres of coral. The sissy recreational and girlie divers can hear the metal to metal clank of dive gear. Interesting enough, there was no fish! No schools of fish like they had seen on the travel channel. Clem decides that this is a good time to try out his brand new fish caller! But first, he swims over to Bubba and secures his hose to the back of Bubba's tank using fancy half hitch double dock clinch knot.
He had been taught this very useful knot in the last "adventure seeker" technical dive class. Clem has been ITCHING to use this knot
on something ever since.

Bubba is so thankful he reaches in his dive pack and offers Clem a bottle of Gatorade that is stored in a water tight stainless steel self refrigerating case. Clem nods his head as he accepts the gift. He opens the bottle, bumbles it, and it sinks to the bottom.

They drift along with the rest of the group looking in amazement at the coral reef with no fish. They had heard of critters in dive class and now they were swimming in the realm of wild man-eating sharks. This is better than high cotton.

As the dive is ending and they look at their fancy instruments and determine that Clem has 678.07 pounds of air left and Bubba has a whopping 732.09 pounds left in their twin 120's. They look at the separate dive timer and see they have been down 22 minutes. They figure the sissy divers with one tank must be completely dry by now. Clem blunders over to two sissy girl divers and peaks at
their gauges, one has 1700 pounds and the other about 1900 pounds left. Clem does some quick cypher decoding and determines that they must have had tanks hidden in the reef and changed them during the dive. Clem is the smart one of the two, he can do goesintos in his head.

During safety decompression stop, Bubba decides to send up his lift bag with 4000 feet of rope hooked to the cave reel. He is very proud of himself. He knows that this is going to save countless lives. He now sees 23 divers tangled in the rope, and wonders "Who the hell trained these people!?! The damn sissy divers are messing up the safety line! He has heard about some technical divers
using a parachute to get up, and thinks that the one he used back in the army days would work perfect for super fast ascents. He makes a note on his waterproof mini PC to go to the Army-Navy store and buy a used parachute for next trip.

But, Clem knows how to fix the problem of these damn divers. He simply extracts his the 8 inch Poulin chain saw from the watertight pack, and cuts the rope freeing all the divers. He knows that the babe in the yellow bikini will think of him as her hero.

Being the technical trained divers that they are, they let all the divers get on the boat first. They attempt to climb on board, Bubba first. Now Bubba is 5 foot, 8 inches and weighs 285 pounds. Plus the he has 196 pounds of technical gear. As he steps on the ladder, and it snaps! Plunging him back into the water. All he can think of is the gal in the yellow bikini....

Still floundering, in the flat dead calm seas, the entire crew is tries to get them aboard. But with all of the specialized gear they have attached to them, it appears impossible. Neither can get the other out of the stuff. The boat crew determines that they have to tow
these guys to the pier.

As other boats pass, the laughter can be heard by the ancient Mayans on the mainland. Some of the divers on the other boats actually toss fruit and coins to Bubba and Clem. Cameras are clicking and video is running. It's gonna be a big time party in town
tonight. The infamous Carlos n Charles will be renamed Bubba n Clems by midnight.

As they near the downtown pier, Bubba is thinking about a new show on the Discovery channel called the "B & C High Tech Dive Show". The girl in the yellow bikini comes to mind as the new starlet. The boys are hoisted out of the water by a crane on the pier and a huge crowd has gathered to see what behemoth sea creature has arisen. With a lot of help the lads are freed and head back to
their hotel.

The first order of business is to download their dive computers into their 157 gigabyte laptop PC. They brought them along so they could hook up to AOL and be sure to post in the scuba forum that they were in Cozumel on a highly technical scuba dive that only
well trained and disciplined divers could do. They lie around with just a towel on waiting for dinner time and get to talking about the future. They figure that there is no doubt, in anybody's mind, that they are the best divers around and have the most current and technical dive gear available. They decide that is time to make a calendar with a diving girls on it, maybe they could have a contest
to pick them out.

Suddenly, Clem remembers the girl in the yellow bikini was talking about a night dive. That's it! They will do a night dive! They call down to the dive shop and are told to be at the dock at 7 pm ready to go. The dive shop calls in two extra crew members help with all the technical specialized gear. They check to see if their huge diver lights are fully charged. They get 4 back up lights, each having 12 D-cell batteries and strap them on their BCs. They're going to need a half a dozen glow sticks too.

Down at the boat they see 22 divers ready for the nocturnal plunge. Clem spies the yellow bikini girl too, he knows that she is impressed with him and only showed up because she must have heard that he was going. They all board the boat and the head out for the dive site. They get all strapped into their stuff and add the extra backup lights and strap on the battery pack (which is the size
of a 50 cubic foot tank) to the side of one of the tanks. This time they double check the 13.45 meter hose. They add 10 pounds each to their weight belt because the lack of sun light makes you more buoyant.

The guy on AOL, an army frogman, told them about night diving in Cozumel. They remembered that you don't shine the light in anyone's eyes and turn them off when you get to the top. There's some really neat folks on AOL, they haven't seen anybody they didn't like yet.

Time to suit up. Clem remembers to put his hard cover copy of the PADI technical diving encyclopedia in his waterproof pouch this time. Remember these boys have plenty of book training. The guys get dressed up and look real cool with all the tools and lights and strobes dangling everywhere. Maybe we can be on the cover of Rodale's diving magazine they think.

They enter the water, approach the coral rock, and turn on the behemoth lights. These lights make a 747 landing light look like one of those pocket pens that the doctor looks into your throat with. Clem cooked an Oscar Meyer weenie by holding it in front of the light bulb when he first got the light.

The coral rock bursts into a rainbow of color! But as the boys get closer, fish start dropping from the shock of the light output. Bubba thinks this is great! Heck this was better than throwing M80s in a lake and watching the fish float up.

Back aboard the boat a group of guys from Georgia are intrigued by all the stuff Bubba and Clem have in their dive bag. This inspires Bubba and Clem to become instructors. They heard it is easy to be a PADI instructor! So they will go to Florida and be one soon as they get home.

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Top Five Free Text To Speech Online Services

ANIMATION TOOLS :

Nowadays, more and more people use text-to-speech (TTS) technology to improve their reading efficiency and save time. But, for newbie computer users, it's too complicated to download and install various software, including speech engines and voices. Fortunately, there are many websites supply free online speech synthesis services without any software download and installation. The following recommendations are the top five sites with lots of unique features.

Top Five Free Text To Speech Online Services

1. AT&T Labs Natural Voices Text-to-Speech Demo

The AT&T labs official text to speech demo is the best online program to experience and use the famous high-quality human sounding AT&T Natural Voices for free. And the demo is very easy to use. The whole process contains only three simple steps.

Step 1. Choose voice and language from the voice list.
Step 2. Input or paste text for conversion.
Step 3. Click the "SPEAK" or "DOWNLOAD" button to synthesize your text to wave audio file!

If you want to try more AT&T Natural Voices of other languages, the Wizzard Software AT&T Natural Voices Demo is the obvious choice.

2. imTranslator TTS Utility

The TTS section of the imTranslator website supplies a TTS utility with animated speaking characters. This program will read the text in the most realistic, human-sounding way in a variety of languages: English U.S., Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian and European Spanish.

Additionally, you may adjust the speed of the speech if the default speed doesn't fit you. The reading word will be highlighted automatically while playback.

Another exciting feature of this utility is Virtual Keyboard that allows multilingual text input in most popular languages.

For webmasters, imTranslator allows you to add TTS functionality to your website. To incorporate the TTS Voice to your website, just copy several lines of HTML code and paste it into your web page. And there are four styles (floating button, iframe, link, banner) available.

3. iSpeech TTS Demo

Listen to anything you used to read with iSpeech TTS service. There is no software required because iSpeech is a software as a service. That means you don't have anything to install or any bloat-ware, malware or spyware risk. You simply enter the text or upload the document you would like to convert to speech.

The quick start demo on the home page is easy enough. Just enter some text and play! Now anyone can listen to any text content with minimal effort, no software installation and no technical expertise.

Besides the easy demo, iSpeech also supplies a more powerful and complex text to speech service for registered users (the registration is free). This advanced text to speech service allows you convert text directly or upload files of various formats to convert.

iSpeech also lets you upload any supported document, website, blog, etc. and click convert file or the listen button.

Another great feature of iSpeech is the iSpeech Library. All your conversions are remembered by iSpeech and are accessible from the Library where you can listen to and download them whenever needed. This feature is very useful when you have plenty of speech conversions.

4. IVONA TTS Tool

The online IVONA TTS Tool allows you to experience text-to-speech technology by just one click, using their unique and crystal clear IVONA voices.

You may want to use another interface of IVONA - the IVONA Recording. This advanced interface allows you to backward/forward sentences and paragraphs.

5. vozMe TTS Program

vozMe allows you to convert text to speech or MP3 audio files directly. All you need to do is enter your text and click the "Create mp3" button. vozMe now supports six languages, including Espanol, English, Italiano, Hindi, Portuguese and Catala.

Another great feature of vozMe is "Speech in Your Browser". vozMe lets you add a speech synthesis bookmarlet to your browser. After installing the male or female voice bookmarklet, select any text as you browse, click the "vozMe" button in your browser and you will hear the text.

For webmasters, vozMe supplies a variety of utilities to help you add speech to your website, such as Wordpress plugin, Template for Blogger, Joomla plugin or code, and common code of adjustable text/image links or buttons.

All of the above online services are free to use, no software download and installation. They are the easiest way to learn about text-to-speech technology, but not the best. If you want to experience all the features of this technology like faster conversion, easier opening, clipboard reading, pronunciation corrections, speech control tags, etc., you will need a professional text-to-speech software, such as 2nd Speech Center.

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Band Logo Ideas for the Perfect Image As Your Brand Mark

ANIMATION TOOLS :

Your band's brand mark is the first thing that the customers will notice and image is the most important component of that brand mark. It sets the entire mood of the emblem. So if you are trying to design your own monogram for your musical group, then you need to make sure that you select the right picture for your trademark.

Band Logo Ideas for the Perfect Image As Your Brand Mark

Below mentioned are some band logo ideas for the image that should adorn your trademark.

1. A Musical Instrument:
One of the best pictures to use in your group logo is illustrations of musical instruments. You can choose the instrument according to the type of music you produce so that it reflects the true essence of your brand. For example, if you have a rock band, then you can use pictures of electric guitars. Similarly, if you are creating classic music, then you can use pictures of a violin or a flute. You can use your creativity for the designing process by using 3 dimensional or origami effects for the illustration. This will help make your image distinct from others.

2. A Fierce Animal:
If you want to add a fierce look to your emblem without the use of words, then it is a good idea to use wild animals for that. This is only a good idea for rock and metal bands or groups that produce aggressive music. Here, you will need to show your cleverness along with innovation. For that you can use images of clever animals and then craft them creatively. For example, you can craft a group name by using the slopes of a snake.

3. An Object Related To The Kind Of Music You Produce:
If you want to give a subtle message through your emblem, then you can use pictures that understatedly point towards your music. For example, if your songs refer towards love and violence, then you can illustrate a rose and a sword in your monogram. Similarly, if your songs are directed towards spirituality, then you can create wings and a halo in your trademark.

4. Abstract Art:
Abstract art is another popular addition towards emblems of musical groups. Modern art and abstract designs give the monogram a contemporary feel which is perfect for almost all kinds of music. If you search the tool band logo, you will see that they have also created an abstract image of a tool in their emblem.

In conclusion, to select the best image for your monogram, make a list of objects that can represent your brand and choose the best one. Remember that your monogram will be described by its image so you want to make sure that you choose an image that depicts the true essence of your musical group.

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Pet Exercise Pens - A Great Way To Keep Your Pets Healthy While Keeping Them Safe!

ANIMATION TOOLS :

Do you have a pet that is busy chewing on everything in sight? Do you have to put him on a leash? Do you feel guilty for doing so? I can help relieve the guilt and make both you and your pet happy by introducing you to pet exercise pens.

Pet Exercise Pens - A Great Way To Keep Your Pets Healthy While Keeping Them Safe!

There are different types of pet pens so you need to look around for one that will be right for your animal.

Knowing your pet's weight and measurements will help in choosing the correct size pen that he will be comfortable in.

A pet exercise pen will allow him to be confined while still being able to move around they are designed with lots of visibility so your dog or cat can still interact with the family members.

These pens are ideal for owners that are on the go. They are easily set up or taken apart for easy storage and are very transportable.

If you are a dog trainer or involved in dog shows where you have to move them from one place to another, then pet exercise pens is ideal for you.

These pens come in many different sizes, colors and styles which you can choose one or several that fits your needs.

With a pet exercise pen you will no longer have to worry about your pet getting into mischief or hurting themselves as soon as your back is turned.

There are pens for small pets such as:

1. Midwest Black E-coat Exercise Pen
24 inches by 30 inches. Very durable and can withstand the elements. Perfect for outdoor use, but can be used indoors as well. No tools needed for the easy setup.

2. Pet Gear Home N Go Pen for cats and dogs up to 50 lbs: Comes in different colors, perfect when transporting pets. Great for indoor and outdoor use, ideal for pets up to 50 lbs.

3. Pet Gear Travel Lite Pen for Pets up to 50 lbs. Easily setup and is ideal for both indoor and outdoor use. They are great for traveling and keeping your small pets safe and secured.

These are just a few of the pet pens available. You can find them in different sizes depending on the size of your dog. Remember you want to find one that your pet can be comfortable in and that will make it easier for you to keep him confined.

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Interview With Terry, The Reading Tub, Inc

ANIMATION TOOLS :

How and when did The Reading Tub get started? What’s its mission?

Interview With Terry, The Reading Tub, Inc

I have always loved to read and, when our daughter joined us in November 2001, I found sharing books with her to be great fun! One day I was talking with my sister-in-law about children's books (positives & negatives) and she suggested I start a website for parents and teachers.

So I did. I found a do-it-yourself website company in June 2003 and started playing around with ideas. The whole thing started out as a hobby site, with some research, and lots of input and creative ideas from two close friends. Within a year, it had started to grow, and authors started to find us. So I married my love of books with my passion for literacy and launched The Reading Tub, Inc. as a non-profit.

Our mission is to give adults (parents, teachers, librarians, tutors, grandparents, et al.) the tools they need for helping kids with reading. The website has two parts. There is what I call the literacy services side: facts about literacy, information about reading with kids, stats, etc. Then there is the reading side: our unique profiles that help parents find books that match their child's interest whether they are an infant being read to, a pre-teen who is reading independently, or a child (of any age) who is struggling with developing their reading skills.

When I started the Reading Tub, I focused on the "learning" aspect of literacy. That's where "Turning a page … Opening the World"® comes from. Get a child to love (or even just like) reading and you will expand his natural curiosity and imagination … and along the way engender a love of learning.

But our goal really is bigger than just learning. It's simply to bring reading home to families. This is my mantra because it is a statement captures the various facets of children's literacy and reading on several levels. We want to …

• Encourage parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles to read with the children in their lives … even kids who can read independently can benefit from time shared reading aloud with Mom or Dad.

• Help the adults find great books that match their kids' interests and reading levels (and skip the over-hyped stuff!).

• Provide information that explains why reading with a child at home is so important.

• Post articles and provide links to resources that help parents/grandparents/teachers teach their children to read.

Who are your reviewers and how may an author or publisher contact you about a review request?

Our reviewers are parents who read with their children and kids who are reading themselves. Some of the parents are teachers or former teachers, some are reading mentors, some just like to read books with their kids. It is very important to us that when someone is trying to find a book for a child, that they know what other children think of the book. Professional reviews are great, but getting feedback from the person who is the intended audience is particularly important to us. We try to wear several hats … like the grandparent who wants to find a book for a child, but wants to know what other kids thought about it first.

In March 2004 we partnered with Be the Star You Are!® another non-profit that empowers children and families through positive media. Their message is that to be a leader you must be a reader. BTSYA runs an after-school center for youth at risk, and they created a Teen STAR Book Review Team. We send them books for the 9 to 12 target audience. The kids read the books and write the reviews. I post them on the website with their logo.

Authors and publishers can contact me through the Website. We have a contact form just for that purpose. I would like to add a footnote. We are more than happy to introduce the world to books published for kids, and we would love the opportunity to read yours. But our role is not to help you sell them. Over the years we have had authors who get angry at us for only recommending that someone borrow their book at the library and not buy it. I can truly appreciate the pride authors take in their work – we do, too – but asking for a review doesn't guarantee that the reader will rave about it.

We are a public charity dedicated to children's literacy and family reading. Our goal is to help get our kids excited about reading. We think telling people to ask for the book in their local library is an endorsement, too. Not everyone can afford to buy books for a personal library.

When we review a book, we are looking at its substantive qualities: did our child like this book? is this a story we enjoyed reading with our child? Does it have educational value (explicit or implicit) that can bring reading to life and make it relevant? Would we recommend that others read this book? We just want to make sure that kids have the skills to READ your book.

Do you have any data on how many American children read compared to other countries?

The National Center for Education Statistics has a chart that dates to 2003. In that chart, "Reading Literacy" for US students is 11th among OECD countries (countries participating in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development), and 15th when about a dozen non-OECD countries are added. [cite: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d06/tables/dt06_397.asp]

Statistics can be very valuable, but they can also be very pliable, so I try to use them judiciously. Generally, I will overlay them with behaviors and practices that are relevant to literacy in its broader terms. For example, one way to encourage kids to read is to have adults MODEL reading. If a child sees you reading then s/he will accept reading as something important. Well, I read an article not to long ago that said in a recent AP Poll, 1 of every 4 people polled (1,000 surveyed) did not read one book last year. That's 25% of the adult population.

Layer on top of that that more than 20% of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level, and in 1992, more than 44 million adults could not read well enough to read a simple story with a child. [Cite: as presented on http://www.getcaughtreading.org] Blended together, it is a pretty clear picture of the behavior pattern we're creating for our children.

Think about the long-term impact on our kids and their future success. Analysis of a study published by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2006 shows that nationwide, 38 percent of public school fourth-graders and 29 percent of eighth graders still read below basic levels. For fourth graders, state scores of children reading below the basic level range from 32 percent in Delaware to 67 percent in the Discrict of Columbia. That means one in three children are struggling in reading. Until recently, data suggested that the greatest deficiency was reading abilities among boys; data released this summer is showing that girls, too, are now struggling with literacy.

Then we send our kids to college! Kenneth Gray, in his book The Baccalaureate Game: Is It Right for All Teens? (1996), noted that 80 percent of entering freshman cannot read well enough to do college work. That analysis is now more than 10 years old, but I would venture that things haven’t changed much, because for the Fall 2000 semester 76 percent of colleges and universities were offering at least one remedial reading, writing or math course. And it doesn't look like things will change soon.

What seem to be the most popular genre/themes with young children, middle readers, and young adults?

We ask visitors to register with the Reading Tub® so we can determine their reading interests. Having that data helps us prioritize the placement of books we already have for review; and it also helps us see if we are "thin" in a category that match our visitors' interests. If we need to, we can send out a query to authors and publishers to refill the shelves with books that fit their interest categories.

Most of our visitors who registered are reading with kids ages 3 to 8. In that audience, "picture books" is the most common answer, but that covers a broad array of subjects. Animal stories and adventure are neck-and-neck for second place. In houses where families are reading with kids in the 9 to 12 audience, adventure beats out fantasy (though not by much). I need to add, though, that there are lots of registered readers who have no preference for a genre.

Do you think there’s a saturation of the fantasy genre at the moment, or simply enough to meet the demand?

The short answer is yes. One of my parent reviewers asked that I please give him a break from the fantasies. He wants to be able to have enough diversity in what he's reading to give each book a fair review. And when you have too many fantasy stories together they begin to read like they're using the same formula.

That said, for the reader who loves fantasies, there are some great ones out there. We created a page on our site to list some of the really good books we've found. Here's the link: [http://www.thereadingtub.com/search_displayNew.asp?id=1]

I am pleased to report that we have gotten some (what I think are cool) historical fiction novels lately. I can't wait to see those reviews come back.

The Harry Potter series has been wonderful for spurning creativity and getting (and keeping) kids reading, and there seems to be a rush to become the next JK Rowling. As a former editor, I think that there may be times when authors or publishers rush to get something out there so they don't miss that "hot" genre. So sometimes, I think they push too hard or forget to take a step back and get a fresh look at what they've got. I've seen some books that are being touted as a series in Book One. It seems to me that if you're holding out information for the next book, you could be shortchanging your readers on the first one.

What seem to be the best books for reluctant readers?

It is really important that reluctant readers feel they are moving through a book quickly. They tend to like books with lots of 'white space' around the edges and they need pictures to take up some of the page. Shorter sentences and action-driven plots also help.

During the school year, I volunteer with a program that offers tutoring to first graders who are struggling with reading. It is an incredibly enlightening experience, and last year I worked with a boy who would get discouraged when we read books that had more than two or three sentences on a page. So then we would partner read. He got to practice his reading, and I helped by moving the story along. In some ways it is more important to keep the child reading (he can see the words you read) than it is to MAKE him read everything on a page.

For third and fourth graders, we need books with pictures that offer more sophisticated plots. They don't want to read Henry and Mudge or the Froggy books anymore. That just reminds them of how hard it was to read when they were in first and second grade. I have been very impressed with some of the books we've seen with more sophisticated stories and adventures. They are an excellent bridge and can encourage struggling or remedial readers.

How much reading is good reading?

I'm not sure about the best way to answer that. The general recommendation is 20 minutes per day, though I have seen a recommendation for 10 minutes/day, too. Reading with a child is a dynamic, individual process. The goal is to create a positive association with reading. The more it is forced, the more the child will struggle against it.

Reading isn't always about practicing letter sounds or learning words. Some of the best reading can be the shared experience of flipping through the pages of a book to look at the pictures, and maybe talk about them. You can encourage your child to read just by sitting together and sharing a book. Wordless books are great for that.

As kids get older, the actual reading part will be more important. Reading is the one skill that has to be practiced at home, every day. You want to do your best to make this a positive experience. As much as you can, find books that match their interests and reading level. Librarians and teachers are incredible resources that can help you with that. The more you can offer books on subjects they like, the easier it will be to get in that practice time.

My daughter is just starting to read, so we've transitioned from some of the great books we love to share to books with vocabulary and sentence structure that suits her ability. She will rave about a book, and my husband will complain that it's "boring." But that's part of the process … simple and repetitious. So we sprinkle in some of the family favorites with the learning-to-read titles to keep it fun for everyone.

How do you see the future of children’s books now that electronic and print-on-demand publishing are becoming increasingly popular?

I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, I think they offer parents an educational alternative to television and computer games. On the other hand, though, it is yet another format that sits a child in front of a screen. Like TV, sitting at the computer could become a babysitter that absorbs lots of time and doesn't encourage human contact. The average Kindergartener has spent more than 5,000 hours in front of a TV! That's a lot of "screen time."

We have received and reviewed a number of electronic books. Some are CDs that you listen to in the car or on your home stereo. Others are DVDs. Some are books with virtual pages that you click with a mouse and require someone to read the screen. We have received some DVD stories that include audio (i.e., there is a reader and moving highlights to point out words as it reads). We have also gotten multi-media products that offer the story, as well as additional educational material.

The multi-media products are my favorite, because I think they engage a child more than just a book. They also don't require my 100% participation for reading the book and give the child a sense of independence in their reading.

Are ebooks and POD books popular with your readers?

Actually, I have found eBooks hard to place with families. Most of our reviewers like/ want the experience of sharing the book with their child. Unless you have a laptop, when you read a book on the computer, you need a desk and enough space for two chairs. It's not quite the same cozy experience.

We were reading an eBook on the computer recently and my daughter complained that it was just like watching TV. She tends to like the eBooks that are CDs that she can put in her little Boombox. She will listen and re-listen to those stories for hours. I like that. She gets the benefit of reading by learning words and language, but she also has to use her imagination to visualize the characters and events.

I think if you have children who read independently, eBooks and POD titles could be popular. Especially when you are traveling!

What can people do to help The Reading Tub and literacy in general?

Please read with a child. Just 20 minutes of reading each day can make a HUGE difference in a child's reading achievement. There is a website called Ladders to Learning, and they had this to say about why we need to read with our kids: The group of children who were read to on a daily basis were 1.6 times as likely to be rated by their teachers as being near the top of their kindergarten class in learning skills, and 2.3 times as likely to be near the top of their class in communication skills. These relationships hold true regardless of the income of the child’s household and the education of the child’s mother.

If you don't have children, visit your local library and see if you can volunteer to read during story time. Or call your local family services center to see if there are programs you can volunteer with. If you're worried about "how" they teach reading these days, don't be. The important thing is that a child has an adult who supports them and says "I believe in you" just by helping. Last year we commissioned a set of articles about Guided Reading by Cathy Puett Miller, the Literacy Ambassador. The articles offer steps about ways to read with a child. Here's the link: http://www.thereadingtub.com/pdfs/our_guided_reading_set.pdf.

We would love to have some more book reviewers. We have a list of more than 200 titles on our "wish list." Some of these are books that people have asked us to read, but we haven't been able to get to them because we have so many sitting on our shelves already. All it takes is a trip to the library to read one of these books.

When you visit our Website, please take the time to register. We don't ask for a lot of information, and we don't send out a lot of eMail. We just want to know about the books you are reading with kids (grandkids, kids in playgroup, kids at school). Tell us your zip code and we can add your local library to our list. We don't have any registered readers in Nebraska or North Dakota, so if you know someone … spread the word. I would love to have a link to at least one library in every state by the end of the year!

Some people believe there’s simply too much sex and violence in young adult novels these days, while others believe books should reflect our present culture and society. What’s your opinion?

I don't know that I would limit the "too much" label to just young adult novels. I have been very surprised at the content marketed to younger children in picture books and early reader chapter books.

That said, we don't tend to get many books that cause us to raise an eyebrow. It may be that our target audience is younger; or it could be that authors/publishers for YA material don't see us as fitting their review demographic.

I would like to add, though, that we have received some incredible books for young adults that our teen reviewers have loved. The teens see stories with lots of action and characters they can relate to; the parents see books with wholesome stories and life lessons.

Keeping an eye on what our kids read is part of being a parent. I would put it in the same box as knowing about what movies they watch, what video games they play, or who their friends are. I think there is more to our culture and society than sex and violence. Yes, there is plenty of it and it is marketed to our kids as "cool." We can only shield our kids so much. At some point, we have to have faith that they will make the right choices. As parents, we get the "pleasure" of making the hard call when we have to.

Is there anything else you would like to say about you or your organization?

The Reading Tub® is the result of my own love of reading. I am very lucky to be able to build this resource and share my enthusiasm with others. If we can inspire just one person to read with a child, then we will have helped the world!

Thank you for this opportunity to share my passion.

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Why Do the West and the East Think Differently?

ANIMATION TOOLS :

One of the challenges to maintaining a happy and productive workplace can be cultural misunderstandings - and given the highly cosmopolitan societies in which many of us now live, the opportunities for cultural misunderstandings in the workplace are surely higher than ever. So how is it that different cultures have come to approach life so differently in the first place?

Why Do the West and the East Think Differently?

Richard E. Nisbett explores this theme in his book The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why. Nisbett traces the intellectual roots of the East and the West back to ancient China and Greece respectively, and shows how the differences between their ancient societies are still reflected in the world today. For example, the Greeks esteemed individual liberty as the ultimate ideal, whilst the Chinese valued family and harmony; the Greeks prized logic and the cut and thrust of debate, whilst the Chinese strived to find the middle road between opposing views.

So why was this?

Nisbett proposes that the societal differences between East and West can be traced back to the natural environments of China and Greece. For example, the fertile plains of China favoured agriculture, and agricultural societies need to work together well in teams. But the mountains and coastline of Greece favoured fishing, hunting, animal-rearing and trade - all reasonably individualistic occupations that required relatively little interaction with others.

The implication of this was that the Greeks came to see themselves as independent free-agents, who thought about the world in terms of individual objects, and who developed logic as a tool for settling social conflict so that the best view always prevailed. The Chinese, on the other hand, came to see themselves as interdependent parts of a greater whole, who thought about the world in terms of a series of complex interrelationships, and who favoured compromise for dealing with conflict.

Thus the Greeks invented rhetoric, and by extension science (though paradoxically, the ancient Chinese were far more technologically advanced), and the Chinese invented holistic healing.

So how does this affect the way that we think today?

Nisbett describes various laboratory tests that demonstrate how Easterners and Westerners respond differently to reasoning, attention and perception tests; Westerners generally tend to focus on objects, whereas Easterners like to consider the context as a whole.

In one test, American and Japanese subjects were asked to memorise the contents of an underwater fish scene. When asked to recall what they had just seen, the Japanese subjects made many more references to background elements such as rocks and seaweed, and on the relationships in the scene that involved background elements. They also tended to begin by describing the overall scene ("It looked like a pond"), whereas the Americans tended to focus on the main objects, such as the largest fish.

These different ways of viewing the world are also reflected in Eastern and Western languages. Western infants - born into a culture that tends to focus on individual objects - generally learn nouns much more rapidly than verbs, yet for Eastern infants - born into a culture that tends to emphasise the relationships between many objects - the reverse is true. This is because nouns are used to label individual objects, but verbs are used to describe the relationships between elements as they interact.

In fact, the Japanese have many different words for "I", depending on the context of who you're talking to; this is because the focus is not on the individual "me", but on the relationships between "me when I talk to my colleague" or "me when I talk to my spouse".

So what can we learn from all of this?

Yes, we are all different based on the culture into which we've been born. It's important to understand that where a Westerner may value freedom or the ability to make up their own mind, an Easterner may value ties with family and friends or living peaceably. Depending on our backgrounds, we all have different approaches to leadership, teamwork and problem solving; but being aware of these differences is an important step towards developing a mutual understanding and creating a positive workplace environment where everyone feels at ease.

Check out a video of Richard E. Nisbett discussing cultural differences at an instinctive level at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIkGwJrhMqM.

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Computer Animation

ANIMATION TOOLS :

Computer helps for giving artificial life to images/graphics. In advance method of animation making, computer software has a great role. Computer only can help for making 2-D and 3-D animations easily. Animation is a graphic art that is unstable, uniquely run one after another within a frame area to create an illusion of movie. Software have that feature to shape the graphics one after another in a certain frame area. After compiling the frames, it generates a compact file that shows all the frames running the images sequentially.

Computer Animation

Computer and Animator

Computer helps the animator for designing graphics, frame settings, color compositions, compilation of files. The computer technology brings the update methods through software that helps the animator putting his enormous ideas.

Virtual Animating Synthetic Motion

Popular animation movies have many types of characters and objects. For making them, the animators should know some basic knowledge on Kenematics, Articulated figure, effectors, Geometric (key frame techniques), Physical dynamics, Behavioral in individual and as a group and Motion Control Methods (MCM) etc. In 2-D and 3-D animation work some specific functions should be used. Kinematics is the study of the time related properties of motion such as position, acceleration, velocity and independent of the underlying forces that produce the motion. Articulated figure is a structure that consists of a series of rigid links connected at joints, frequently only revolute or rotary joints in computer animation. End effector is the free end of a chain of links, for example, a hand at the end of an arm in human character.

Motion twin, time line effect, morphing, masking, blurring, expanding, transitions, transform and explode are such activities used for object motion. Frame by frame motion in certain software is the best media for character motions. You can make some action buttons, movie clips for an interactive animation.

For character (i.e. human) animation the type of information of primary importance in animating an object, especially an articulated figure is very important. For a key frame system this is the angle of each of the joints. In a forward kinematics system the motion of all the joints in character is explicitly set by the animator. The animator would move the shoulder, arm, elbow, fore arm, hand, eye and lips. In inverse kinematics the animator moves the end effector and the system computes move the corresponding positions.

Animation software Tools

Software is a fantastic tool for creating the animated films, web site animations, animated comics, interface and emotional faces. Some exclusive Computer Animation creator software are eFrontier MotionArtist, efrontier Anime Studio, Anime Studio Pro, Morpheus Photo Animation Suite, Animations Plus, Cosmic Blobs, Macromedia Fireworks, Morpheus Photo Morpher, Poser 6/Shade LE Bundle, 3D Figure Design and Animation, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Flash Pro, Fireworks, Istopmotion (Macintosh), Comic Life Deluxe, Poser Figure Artist, Animations & More, Cosmic Blobs - Expansion Pack Collection, Adobe LiveMotion, PodMedia Creator, Fisher Price Magna Doodle, 3D Album Picture Pro, Macromedia Flash Pro , CoreFX Three Level Complete Drawing, Eovia Carrara 4 Pro Win/Mac , Poser Figure Artist , Headline Studio 1.0 , iAnimator, Wild Photo Effects (Jewel Case) , WebRazor Pro 2.0 , Corefx Three Level , ProVenture Creative Animator , Net Ad Creator and many more.

AniBoom has a great role on computer animation in electronic media. AniBoom informs the application and more about computer animations in television and film industry.

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