The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is a 1965 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick, it was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1965. The novel takes place in a future 2016 where, under United Nations authority, humankind has colonized every habitable planet and moon in the Solar System. Like many of Dick's novels, it utilizes an array of science fiction concepts, features several layers of reality and unreality and philosophical ideas, it is one of Dick's first works to explore religious themes. The story begins in a future world where global temperatures have risen so high that in most of the world it is unsafe to be outside without special cooling gear during daylight hours. In a desperate bid to preserve humanity and ease population burdens on Earth, the UN has initiated a "draft" for colonizing the nearby planets, where conditions are so horrific and primitive that the unwilling colonists have fallen prey to a form of escapism involving the use of an illegal drug in concert with "layouts."

Layouts are physical props intended to simulate a sort of alternate reality where life is easier than either the grim existence of the colonists in their marginal off-world colonies, or Earth, where global warming has progressed to the point that Antarctica is prime vacation resort territory. The illegal drug Can-D allows people to "share" their experience of the "Perky Pat" layouts; this "sharing" has caused a pseudo-religious cult or series of cults to grow up around the layouts and the use of the drug. Up to the point where the novel begins, New York City-based Perky Pat Layouts, Inc. has held a monopoly on this product, as well as on the illegal trade in the drug Can-D which makes the shared hallucinations possible. The novel opens shortly after Barney Mayerson, P. P. Layouts' top precog, has received a "draft notice" from the UN for involuntary resettlement as a colonist on Mars. Mayerson is sleeping with his assistant, Roni Fugate, but remains conflicted about the divorce, which he himself initiated, from his first wife Emily, a ceramic pot artist.

Meanwhile, Emily's second husband tries to sell her pot designs to P. P. Layouts as possible accessories for the Perky Pat virtual worlds—but Barney, recognizing them as Emily's, rejects them out of spite. Meanwhile, the UN rescues Palmer Eldritch's ship from a crash on Pluto. Leo Bulero, head of P. P. Layouts and an "evolved" human, hears rumors that Eldritch discovered an alien hallucinogen in the Prox system with similar properties to Can-D, that he plans to market it as "Chew-Z," with UN approval, on off-world colonies; however Chew-Z does not require the prop of the external layouts and seems to have certain undefined qualities that make the use of Chew-Z more addictive than Can-D has been. This would destroy P. P. Layouts. Bulero tries to contact Eldritch but he is quarantined at a UN hospital. Both Mayerson and Fugate have precognitions of reports that Bulero is going to be responsible for murdering Eldritch. Under the guise of a reporter, Bulero travels to Eldritch's estate on the Moon, where Eldritch holds a press conference.

Bulero is forced to take Chew-Z intravenously. He enters a psychic netherworld over which both he and Eldritch have some control. After wrangling about business with Eldritch, Bulero travels to what appears to be Earth at some time in the not-too-distant future. Evolved humans identify him as a ghost and show him a monument to himself commemorating his role in the death of Eldritch, an "enemy of the Sol System." Bulero returns to Earth and fires Mayerson because Mayerson was afraid to travel to the Moon to rescue him. Mayerson, in despair, accepts his UN conscription to Mars but Bulero recruits him as a double agent. Mayerson is to inject himself with a toxin after taking Chew-Z in a plot to deceive the UN into thinking Chew-Z is harmful and cause them to ban it. On Mars, Mayerson buys some Chew-Z from Eldritch. Mayerson tries to hallucinate a world where he is still with Emily but finds that he does not control his apparent hallucination. Like Bulero, he finds himself in the future. Mayerson arrives in New York two years hence where he speaks with Bulero and his future self about the death of Palmer Eldritch.

He encounters several manifestations of Eldritch, identifiable by their robotic right hand, artificial eyes, steel teeth. Eldritch offers to help Mayerson become whatever he wants, but is so controlling of the Chew-Z alternate reality that Mayerson decides he'd rather be dead than continue to be manipulated by Eldritch; when a despairing Mayerson chooses death, he finds himself forced into Eldritch's body right at the point in the timeline where Bulero is ready to shoot a torpedo at Eldritch's ship. It appears that Eldritch's plan is to preserve his own life essence housed in Mayerson's body while allowing Mayerson himself to die in Eldritch's place. Eldritch, intends to live on in Mayerson's form and enjoy the simple if arduous life of a Martian colonist. Mayerson, stuck in Eldritch's body and mistaken for him, is indeed nearly killed by Bulero in the near future, but before the fatal shot can be fired he is awakened from his Chew-Z trance in the present by Bulero, who has just arrived on Mars.

Bulero is willing to take Mayerson back to Earth but refuses to after learning that Mayerson did not inject himself with the toxin. Mayerson is now confident that Bulero will kill Eldritch, so the sacrifice of taking the toxin in order to ruin Eldritch's business is unnece

The North Carolina Baptist Assembly is a Christian retreat owned and operated by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, the state's largest denomination. The grounds of the retreat, located adjacent to Caswell Beach on the eastern end of Oak Island, is the former site of Fort Caswell, a military base, occupied by various branches of the U. S. armed forces for most of the period between 1836 and 1945. Most people still refer to the Baptist Assembly as Fort Caswell. Sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway, the assembly is about 35 miles south of Wilmington and 70 miles north of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Located just across the ICW is the city of Southport whose historic houses and buildings include Fort Johnston, the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport, year-round ferry service across the Cape Fear River to the NC Aquarium and Civil War battleground site at Fort Fisher; the 250-acre property was abandoned by the Navy after World War II and in 1949 was purchased by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina as surplus property for US$86,000.

It is now used as a year-round coastal retreat and conference center for churches, associations and other affiliates of the Baptist State Convention. One of the facility's main purposes has been to serve as a camp for the youth of North Carolina's Baptist churches during the summer months; because of the influx of visitors during summer youth weeks, young adults and college students are hired to live and work at the assembly. Many of the current full-time employees and administration started out as summer staff in years past; the facilities, which include housing and program buildings such as Hatch Auditorium which hosts the Civil War Roundtable and the Smith Conference Center, are used by non-Baptist church and educational groups. It can accommodate over 1,000 people at a time, still houses military personnel stationed at the Sunny Point Military Ocean Terminal, a military port north of nearby Southport, during conflicts such as Operation Desert Storm. Official Site Baptist State Convention of North Carolina

The St. Louis Soccer League was based in St. Louis and existed from 1907 to 1938. At its founding, it was the only professional soccer league in the United States. St. Louis teams, which began competing in citywide leagues in 1890, organized the Association Foot Ball League in 1903. In 1907, the St. Louis Soccer League was established as a rival to the AFBL. In 1908, the two leagues merged; the league featured four teams each season. The merger brought St. Leo's from the AFBL into the SLSL, where the team, the league's only professional squad, dominated the standings for seven years. In an attempt to undermine St. Leo’s, several individuals involved in the league attempted to remake the SLSL as an amateur league; the effort was defeated but it led to split. Those teams dedicated to full professionalism joined St. Leo’s in the Federal Park League while the amateur teams moved to Robison Park; the split brought the Ben Millers into the Federal Park League. When the two leagues reunited in 1915, Ben Millers replaced.

While the two leagues crowned separate champions during the 1913–1914 season, the 1914–1915 saw a city champion when the top team in each league, St. Leo’s from Federal Park and Innisfails from Robison Field, played for the title. Innisfails won the championship. Following the 1914–1915 season, the two leagues reunited. In 1916, the newly established U. S. Football Association assembled a team of U. S. players for a Scandinavia. These games became the first in the history of the national team. Of the players on the U. S. roster, only Matt Diedrichsen from Innisfails was selected from outside the north east U. S; the entry of the United States into World War I drained all four teams by drafting players into the military, with St. Leo’s affected the most. In 1926, the SLSL expanded to include Chicago Sparta, but the team did not complete the season, withdrawing on November 11, 1926. In 1935, the SLSL began a period of instability which led to its eventual dissolution four years later. In 1939, the league expanded to include teams from Cleveland.

Teams from these two cities and St. Louis had competed against each other from time to time, but this year, the SLSL decided to formalize the competition, called the “Inter-city Soccer Loop”; the league, which had experienced considerable internal strife including lawsuits between teams over player tampering had collapsed. The St. Louis Municipal League, which ran the lower St. Louis city divisions, became the only league; as such its top division became the de facto St. Louis first division until the creation of the St. Louis Major Soccer League in 1948. Before the establishment of the National Challenge Cup in 1914, most teams participated in city, state or regional competitions; the only opportunity for teams from one region to test themselves against the best on a national level came from ad hoc cups and off-season tours. In 1913, the St. Louis Soccer League came to national attention when St. Leo’s tied the Paterson True Blues, winners of the American Cup. At the time, the American Cup was the most recognized regional cup and was the de facto East Coast championship.

While the newly established United States Football Association established the National Challenge Cup in 1914, it was not until 1918 that the St. Louis teams entered the cup, they had difficulty getting past the Chicago and Cleveland teams, but in 1920 Ben Millers stunned the east coast teams by knocking off Fore River to become the first club outside of the northeast to win the cup. SLSL teams went to the next four finals, taking only the 1922 title. SLSL team went to the final in 1926, 1929 and every season from 1932 to 1939; the list includes the years in their city if not St. Louis. During the 1913–1915 seasons, the SLSL expanded to eight teams competing in two separate leagues, the Federal Park League and the Robison Field League. For those teams which competed during those two seasons, their leagues are noted in italics; when the SLSL was established, St. Louis boasted dozens of other leagues. In 1913, the St. Louis Municipal League consolidated many of these disparate leagues into a multi-division organization which sat below the SLSL.

While St. Louis did not have a promotion / relegation system between the SLSL and MUNY, teams moved between the two leagues. St. Louis soccer teams depended on sponsorship; when sponsorship changed, the teams changed their names as well. When the team remained the same, except for their names, the new names are listed below the original name when those changes are known; some of the teams, such as St. Matthews, may have been the same team, but the information available does not allow us to make that determination, so they are listed as different teams. Andersons 1931–1935 Athletics 1913–1914 Barrett Hoovers 1923–1924 Bartunek Slavias 1938–1939 Ben Millers 1913–1935 Blue Bells 1909–1911 Burke's Undertakers 1935–1939 Business Men’s A. C. 1912–1913 Chicago Sparta 1926, 1938–1939 Central Brewery 1935–1936 Coca Colas 1930–1933 Columbia A. C. 1913–1915 Columbus Club 1910–1915 → Naval Reserve F. C. 1914–1918Compton Hills 1914–1915 DeAndreis 1921–1922 Hellrungs 1929–1931→ Stix and Fuller F. C. 1931–1934 → St. Louis Central Breweries F.

C. 1934–1935Hellrung & Grimm 1935–1936 Hoover Sweepers 1922–1923 Innisfails 1907–1908, 1909–1921 Irish American A. C. 1911–1912 Lindell Trust 1938–1939 Lotus 1936–1937 Madison Kennel 1928–1930 Manewals 1914–1915 (R

KGLA is a Spanish speaking formatted radio station serving the New Orleans, Louisiana area. The station is now owned by Crocodile Broadcasting, of Louisiana, broadcasts at 830 kHz with 5000 watts of daytime and 750 watts of nighttime power from Norco, Louisiana. On December 11, 1987, the station signed on as WADU with an Adult Contemporary format targeting the western suburbs of New Orleans, it became a Spanish Contemporary outlet with the WFNO call letters on March 25, 1996. For much of WFNO’s existence under the moniker “La Fabulosa 830,” programming was general and centered on Regional Mexican and Tropical Music formats along with a variety of drive time programs that included local and international news updates. Other programming included sports talk programs airing in the afternoons, religious programming, public affairs programs, radio news magazines that included news and reporting from CNN en Español. Near WFNO’s largest format change on July 1, 2011 to a Regional Mexican station under the moniker “La Raza 830am” along with the consequent changes to sister station KXMG to a Spanish Contemporary Hit Radio formatted station, WFNO played a music format more aligned to Spanish Contemporary Hit Radio format with announcements in Spanish between songs that included “...the best is yet to come,” alluding to the soon-to-come KXMG “La Mega 107.5” on the FM dial.

During this transitional time, a short-lived Rock en Español formatted program aired on weekday afternoons called “Órbita 830”, but was subsequently canceled after WFNO and KXMG switched formats. Programming on WFNO's La Fabulosa, included shows such as “El Vacilón de la Mañana,” which aired on sister station KXMG “La Mega 107.5” with radio personalities Nasty and Potris. El Vacilón on KXMG, as it was known on WFNO, is still a morning drive time show. However, when the program aired on WFNO, it included local news updates and international news bulletins from CNN en Español Radio. Other previous programs on WFNO included a midday music show hosted by José Hidalgo followed by a sports talk program with Emilio Peralta and Marco Antonio García. In the evenings, drive time shows included sports talk programs like “Fútbol de Primera con Andrés Cantor”. Thursday evenings would air "Estudio Abierto" with Carolina Rossell, a community affairs program with interviews. Weekend shows included the award-winning "Suplemento, la revista informativa y cultural de fin de semana", hosted,produced and directed by professional broadcasters Rafael Shabetai and Claudia Losua-Vivianco.

Due to programming changes in 2012 by the new management and after 10 years on the air on WFNO, Suplemento the cultural radio magazine hosted by broadcasting veterans Rafael Shabetai and Claudia Losúa-Vivanco decided to end its show on WFNO and moved to another local station, KGLA Tropical 1540AM-105.7FM, on its original air time of Saturday mornings. In 2012 management decided to move the show from its original airtime on Saturday morning to Sunday mornings; the show lost all its advertisers and most of its audience, due to the fact the vast majority of the Hispanic audience was attending church services in the time slot, allowed to them. The last show broadcast on WFNO aired on 12/29/2013, it can be heard now on KGLA. On March 11, 2013, WFNO changed moniker from "La Raza 830am" to “La Caliente 830am.” The morning drive time show changed from “Las Hijas de la Mañana” to “El Despertador de la Mañana” with new on-air talent. In May 2015, WFNO returned to its original moniker "La Fabulosa 830am" when it was acquired by Crocodile Broadcasting.

It departed from the non profitable regional Mexican format, that did not suit the southern Louisiana audience, is now programming Latin salsa, bachata and other rithms. New owners are in the process of overhauling the station content; the sale to Crocodile Broadcast was consummated on September 9, 2015, at a price of $825,000. On August 1, 2019, WFNO swapped call signs with sister station KGLA. Programming consists of a continuous Latin music format. Query the FCC's AM station database for KGLA Radio-Locator Information on KGLA Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for KGLA

In telecommunications, the cliff effect or brickwall effect is a sudden loss of digital signal reception. Unlike analog signals, which fade when signal strength decreases or electromagnetic interference or multipath increases, a digital signal provides data, either perfect or non-existent at the receiving end, it is named for a graph of reception quality versus signal quality, where the digital signal "falls off a cliff" instead of having a gradual rolloff. This is an example of an EXIT chart; the phenomenon is seen in broadcasting, where signal strength is liable to vary, rather than in recorded media, which have a good signal. However, it may be seen in damaged media, at the edge of readability; the term is used in economics for an unrelated phenomenon. This effect can most be seen on digital television, including both satellite TV and over-the-air terrestrial TV. While forward error correction is applied to the broadcast, when a minimum threshold of signal quality is reached it is no longer enough for the decoder to recover.

The picture may lock on a freeze frame, or go blank. Causes include rain fade or solar transit on satellites, temperature inversions and other weather or atmospheric conditions causing anomalous propagation on the ground. Three particular issues manifest the cliff effect. Firstly, anomalous conditions will cause occasional signal degradation. Secondly, if one is located in a fringe area, where the antenna is just strong enough to receive the signal usual variation in signal quality will cause frequent signal degradation, a small change in overall signal quality can have a dramatic impact on the frequency of signal degradation – one incident per hour versus problems every few seconds or continuous problems. Thirdly, in some cases, where the signal is beyond the cliff, viewers who were once able to receive a degraded signal from analog stations will find after digital transition that there is no available signal in rural, fringe or mountainous regions; the cliff effect is a serious issue for mobile TV, as signal quality may vary particularly if the receiver is moving as in a car.

Hierarchical modulation and coding can provide a compromise by supporting two or more streams with different robustness parameters and allowing receivers to scale back to a lower definition before dropping out completely. Two-level hierarchical modulation is supported in principle by the European DVB-T digital terrestrial television standard. However, layered source coding, such as provided by Scalable Video Coding, is not supported. HD Radio broadcasting used only in the United States, is one system designed to have an analog fallback. Receivers are designed to switch to the analog signal upon losing a lock on digital, but only as long as the tuned station operates in hybrid digital mode. In the future all-digital mode, there is no analog to fall back to at the edge of the digital cliff; this applies only to the main channel simulcast, not to any subchannels, because they have nothing to fall back to. It is important for the station's broadcast engineer to make sure that the audio signal is synchronized between analog and digital, or the cliff effect will still cause a jump forward or backward in the radio program.

The cliff effect is heard on mobile phones, where one or both sides of the conversation may break up resulting in a dropped call. Other forms of digital radio suffer from this. In economics, the "cliff effect" is a positive feedback loop, where downgrading a single security can have a disproportionate cascading effect; this has become pronounced with respect to the assessment of credit risk in a bank's portfolio. If a credit rating agency has the expectation that the credit risk of a position rises, it will downgrade its rating; as a consequence, a bank faces additional capital charges in order to comply with national capital requirements. During the subprime mortgage crisis banks had to increase their capital because many ratings were downgraded. In time banks needed their capital most to cope with high losses, this term emerged in the consultative process on reforms regarding existing capital requirements, namely criticizing the procyclical "cliff effect". Digital television transition Link adaptation

Megan Ann Reinking is an American stage and television actress. She has appeared on Broadway in multiple shows including Dracula, the acclaimed revival of Hair, The People in the Picture and most Million Dollar Quartet at New World Stages, as well as featuring in the first season of Boardwalk Empire. Reinking was born in Ames and grew up in Cedar Rapids, where she graduated in 1999 from John F. Kennedy High School, she performed at Theatre Cedar Rapids. She earned her BFA in Musical Theatre from the University of Michigan, graduating in 2003. Megan Reinking, Broadway World Megan Reinking on IMDb Megan Reinking at the Internet Broadway Database