The Rule of 20 in Acol Bridge

The Rule of 20 is a technique used by players in the card game of bridge. Bridge is played by four players and each player is dealt a hand of 13 cards. Before the bidding starts each player adds up the number of points in their hand, counting four points for each ace, three for each king, two for each queen and one for each jack that they hold. Then,starting with the player to the left of the dealer and working clockwise around the table, the bidding is usually started by the first player to hold 12 or more high card points (HCP).

Can you open the bidding with fewer than 12 points?

Usually if a player holds fewer than 12 points they will pass. Sometimes though, because of its shape or make up, a player might think their hand is suitable for opening the bidding even if it doesn't contain 12 points. How can the player decide whether to pass or open the bidding? This is where the Rule of 20 comes in. It is used in just one situation - when deciding if your hand is suitable for opening the bidding and you hold fewer than 12 points. The Rule of 20 will help you decide if a hand with fewer than 12 points is suitable for opening.

Using The Rule of 20

If no-one else has opened the bidding when it comes to your turn and you think your hand is good enough to consider opening, you should start by adding up your high card points. Then add to that total the length of your two longest suits. If the total is 20 or more, your hand passes The Rule of 20 and you can open the bidding if you want to.

Here are some examples to help you understand.

Hand 1

(spades) A 7 5 4

(hearts) 6 5 3

(diamonds) A K 8 5 3

(clubs) 9

Hand 1 has 11 HCPs. The lengths of the two longest suits are five and four. This makes a total of 20, so the hand is suitable for opening.

Hand 2

(s) 8 3

(h) A Q 9 5 4

(d) K J 6 4 2

(c) 5

Hand 2 has only 10 points but has two 5 card suits. So adding the points (10) to the length of the two longest suits (10) gives a total of 20. It passes the Rule of 20 so we can open with one of a suit.

Hand 3

(s) Q J 4

(h) A 7

(d) 10 7 5

(c) K J 8 6 3

Hand 3 has 11 points, but adding in the length of the two longest suits (5 + 3) only gives a total of 19. This hand doesn't pass the Rule of 20 and so isn't suitable for opening.

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Timber Rejuvenation - The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

Timber or lumber is one of the most convenient materials used in structures, especially for the home. We usually use timber for fences, decks, walls, ceilings, floors, dens, gazebos, steps, doors, and so on. During early times, most houses were made from high quality timber materials. Over the years the problem with timber is that it slowly deteriorates.

Like most materials, timber serves us well for building, however, it is also important to note that timber requires more maintenance and care than concrete does. Over time timber develops little organisms that attack timber from within and If not acted upon, these organisms may weaken the wood surface. Thus, timber rejuvenation is necessary to keep all the bugs away and to stop it from deteriorating.

Timber rejuvenation involves a process that helps in maintaining your timber and with this rejuvenating process helps the surface of the timber to look new again. Rejuvenating of timber is necessary to strengthen your wooden home structures and is essential in the preservation of old wooden houses.

Just like any process, timber rejuvenation requires a bit of preparation. Firstly the wood surface must be cleaned, and dried. All other unnecessary dirt and materials including stains must be brushed away. Timber rejuvenation is primarily done through the use of water pressure cleaning. Water pressure cleaning helps repel stains, parasites, and other nasty elements that can destroy timber. Water pressure cleaning is amazing when cleaning timber and It effectively removes the dirt and stains while not damaging the surface. It is important to consider the amount of pressure to be used and this process should be done by a timber rejuvenating specialist.

Water pressure cleaning requires training and expertise and cannot be done by just anyone. In some instances, other formulations or solutions are to be applied to the surface of the timber and this is done in order to preserve the timber. These solutions prevent parasites and other organisms infiltrating the timber, thereby protecting and preserving the material. A sealer is also applied.

Vacuuming is also done as well to thoroughly clean it to make sure that the surface is dry before other applications are added. If the timber is partly damaged, more intense cleaning solutions should be applied. After this process the timber or surface is then oiled. A few days must go by before the surface can be washed. For the kitchen, timber and other wood surfaces can be polished with oil to clean and smooth the surface. For large areas a professional timber rejuvenating service is a must. So always remember to look after your timber surfaces, because if you do it will last you a lifetime.

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Spring Baby Showers - Adding A Little Spring To A Special Day

Spring is a fabulous time to hold a baby shower. The world is in bloom around us. It's a season of new starts, new lives, and new hopes. What better time of the year could there be to celebrate a new baby? Here are a few great ideas to help you incorporate spring into your shower.

The beautiful temperatures that come with spring in many areas encourage outdoor shower. For this reason, garden baby showers are very popular for the spring. A garden party can be held in a pretty backyard garden or at a local garden that hosts parties. The parties theme can just be a garden baby shower, or you can go with a theme such as a baby is blooming. Use floral themed invitations, and give personalized seed packets or individual flowers as party favors. No worries about decorations, the beauty of nature can not be beat. Plus, surrounded by nature your guests are sure to relax and enjoy themselves.

Tea parties are also very popular for spring showers. If you are in an area where springs are too cold to host a party outdoors, or where spring is rainy, a tea party can be way to bring a spring feel indoors. The light femininity of a tea party, especially one decorated with flowers and florals is perfect for a baby shower. Have the shower at a beautiful tea room. Or, decorate with lots of flowers and serve tea and finger sandwiches. Use tea party themed baby shower invitations. Give your guests personalized tea packets and honey for their party favors. Decorate simply with flowers and pretty dishes. No matter how old she is, every girl at heart loves a tea party.

A less common, but quite fun idea for a spring baby shower is to hold it at a zoo. In the spring most zoos are celebrating their new babies too. So, having a baby shower will fit right in. For games your guests can go on scavenger hunts for the new babies at the zoo. They can also match the names of the baby animals to the type of animal. You can use almost any animal themed baby shower favor, making it easy to find one that you will love. Decorations can be fairly minimal, and can be done in a zoo animal, jungle, or baby animal theme. Invitations can feature adorable baby animals. Since this is a popular shower theme year round, you'll have no trouble at all finding everything you need to make the party perfect.

If you'd rather have a more traditional setting, such as a home, restaurant, or party venue, consider a spring theme. There are many spring friendly themes to choose from. A baby is blooming, flowers, baby animals, a pea in a pod, and baby zoo animals are all themes that work wonderfully for a spring baby shower. Even the pastels we often use for babies mix wonderfully with spring. Especially if you add in a few flowers.

Whether you choose a garden shower, a tea party, the zoo, or a more traditional theme, bringing in a bit of spring cheer is sure to enhance the shower and bring a smile to everyone's faces.

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Kindle Fire Product Review

I recently purchased a Kindle Fire, replacing my original Kindle, which had seen increasing use over the last few years. Ironically, the Kindle Fire was purchased at a traditional brick and mortar establishment, as I wanted to check out the size and weight of the device prior to purchase. I use the term ironic, as these types of devices may represent another building block in the future demise of the brick and mortar operations selling them. My decision would be Kindle versus Apple iPad, with size, weight and interface key factors.

My immediate take on the Kindle Fire was very positive. It was larger than my original Kindle, but small enough to be considered a book substitute. I found the screen much easier to read than my original Kindle, and it offered all the advantages of a color display. Two major enhancements included the ability to browse the web and to download apps, including very important and useful apps, such as Angry Birds. The web browser works wherever one can find Wi-Fi access, including HotSpots. The Apple iPad was also very impressive, offering greater functionality albeit at a larger size and weight, at about 21 ounces compared to the 14 ounces of the Kindle.

I purchased the Kindle Fire for, selling for $199 as of that time, and was on my way. The Kindle Fire is almost like having your own personal public library in the palm of your hand. Many classics are free, or very inexpensive eliminating the need to drive to a bookstore or local library. The Kindle Fire, and perhaps eReaders in general, offer an expansive personal library, allowing users to specifically (or randomly) choose almost any new book sample or classic. Striving to mix in some of the classics with my recent business selections (Blink and Steve Jobs) I also downloaded: Mountain Interval (Robert Frost), Prufrock and Other Observations (T.S. Eliot), Walking (Thoreau) and The Wreck of the Hesperus (Longfellow). These are not entirely random as the appearance of several characters in Woody Allen's movie, Midnight in Paris, provided the catalyst to review some of these works. And that's one of the great advantages of the Kindle, within seconds of hearing about, or thinking about a book or an author, you can be reading a favorite classic or contemporary work.

Amazon also offers a Kindle Owners' Lending Library program ($79 per year) which provides a free library of books (currently about 5,000) and access to a free video streaming service with over 10,000 movies and television episodes. It also provides free shipping on Amazon purchases and is essentially a "no brainer" if you purchase a book or more per month, as the estimated costs would be over $100 per year to do so.

The Kindle Fire supports web surfing and downloading and streaming of video. I use the former often, but have not yet used the latter. The Kindle Fire, eReaders and tablet type solutions will change future consumption of content. I've seen friends who I would consider "technology laggards" rapidly adopting eReaders and tablets. The convenience of being able to transport a dozen or more books on any vacation or business trip, sample any book before purchasing, changing font size and brightness to accommodate personal preferences and access to a growing online library are just a few of the catalysts driving behavioral changes. Though not all books are yet available on the Kindle, I've seen estimates of 650,000+ and I'm sure this will grow rapidly to accommodate consumer purchasing habits as more people move to eReaders. Bottom line, as of this writing, I think the Kindle Fire is a great solution for almost anyone who likes to read.

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Can Virtually Anyone Launch Their Own Successful E-Book Publishing Business?

Many people often wonder whether or not it's possible to generate some useful income on the Internet with e-books. As you probably already know, e-books are becoming increasingly popular. There is a simple formula that many successful e-book publishers have used in the past, are using today, and will use in the future to make a lot of money in this industry.

That formula basically revolves around the idea of figuring out what topics people are interested in and then producing e-books that contain the advice and information that people interested in those topics are seeking. That's basically all there is to it. Obviously, there are a lot of other details and need to be taken into consideration as well. But the truth is, it's easier than ever before to make money on the Internet publishing e-books.

One concern that a lot of people have is whether or not they need to personally be able to write the e-books that they publish. Nothing could be further from the truth. Stop and think about how large publishing companies operate. For the most part, various authors are responsible for creating the content. The publishing company focuses on marketing and sales.

When it comes to e-books, your primary goal will be to generate sales. While it's certainly true that you can author and the e-book if you'd like to, it's not required. Some of the most successful e-book publishers in the marketplace today don't bother with any of the content creation themselves. It's far easier to either acquire the content or to have a topic expert create the content using their own knowledge and expertise. This is truly a win-win situation because people who buy the e-book get genuinely useful information and you as the e-book publisher can rake in easy profits.

You definitely owe it to yourself to seriously consider the benefits associated with launching an e-book publishing business. Not only do you get to set your own hours, but you also have the opportunity to work from virtually anywhere in the world where there is an Internet connection. The money can be really good, too. In fact, it it's not unusual for somebody to be able to generate some useful income within 90 days of launching their e-book business.

To the extent you're interested in making a lot of money with e-books, it's certainly possible provided that you're willing to put in the effort.

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Video Recording for Transcription - It May Not be Worthwhile

If you're planning to make a video recording for transcription, whether digital or analogue, the first thing you need to consider is the reason for recording video rather than audio. If you have other reasons for wanting video - for instance to record the body language in a training session or meeting, or because you're recording TV or film footage, then you may want to consider transferring to audio before sending to your transcriptionist. I'm not aware of any transcription machines that will play back video footage, and there is significant time involved in transferring video to audio tape in order to transcribe it. If you are recording video in a meeting or focus group, in order that the transcriptionist can better identify speakers, then you need to carefully consider how best to set up the cameras or the effort may go entirely to waste. You also need to consider your location and that of your transcriber - for instance as we are based in the UK we only accept videos in European format (PAL) rather than NTSC as used in America.

If you have recorded video in order to help the transcriptionist identify speakers, the transcription has to be carried out first from the audio tape, and then read through while watching the video tape to check that speakers have been correctly identified. As the video does not have transcription-style playback controls this is again time-consuming.

If you have a video made of a focus group, meeting or round table discussion for instance, please remember to provide us with a seating plan so that we can actually identify the different speakers from their positions in the room. This may not always be 100% effective, as it depends on the positioning of the camera, but it will help. A client once sent us a video and said 'Oh you won't need a seating plan; everyone has a name card in front of them.' However, the video camera was situated in the corner of the room and looked over the shoulders of six of the twelve participants, meaning that their bodies entirely blocked the view of the place markers. It also meant that we couldn't tell with 100% certainty who was speaking as we could only see the backs of half the participants!

It is important to understand that it takes around four hours to transcribe one hour of clear, good-quality one-to-one interview from audio tape, and it can take much longer if the quality is poor in any way. The additional time taken to record the audio from the video and then check back will probably be in the region of 1 to 2 hours per hour of video recording. So an hour of analogue video recording may take from five to seven plus hours for an interview and substantially more for a group session.

Other factors that increase the time taken, such as strong accents, background noise or a need for verbatim transcription (please see the information on our website about the differences between verbatim, intelligent verbatim and edited transcription) will also increase the time taken to transcribe.

Digital recording is becoming more affordable all the time and it has many advantages over analogue recordings, so if you are making analogue recordings consider switching to digital. Digital video has many of the same issues as analogue video but you will at least have a better quality recording in almost all cases! It may also be practical to make a video (analogue or digital) for your purposes e.g. examining body language, but make a digital audio recording at the same time for your transcriptionist. Although you will then need to check through to ensure voices have been identified correctly, the cost of transcription will be considerably less than if the transcriptionist has to convert the recordings to audio and then check back using the video.

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