New Years’ Eve fireworks Australia 2023: Sydney display breathtaking as city capitals light up

December 31, 2022

Australia has farewelled 2022, a year many would rather forget for one with promise and hope as the Covid pandemic shadow is put in the country’s rear vision mirror.

Millions of Aussies flocked to harbors, foreshores, riverbanks, and beaches to savor the multi-million-dollar fireworks displays.

Sydney’s world-famous harbor and bridge were lit up in a spectacular display, while the skies over Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide featured spellbinding firework shows.

Revelers were out in force to make up for time lost in the last three years, as celebrations were dampened by the black summer bushfires in 2020 and the Covid pandemic the following two years.

Party-goers made their way into the nation’s CBDs in droves to ring in 2023 in style – with local and state government organizers putting on celebrations bigger and better than ever before.

Crowds in the nation’s focal point Sydney, hit around the million mark as thousands queued up well in advance earlier in the day to vie for a spot on the steps of the iconic Opera House.

The Importance of Branding and Labeling in Dental Product Marketing

An Essential Guide to Rough-In Plumbing in Toronto: What You Should Know

The Complete Handbook On Water Line Renewal

Advantages and Disadvantages of Trenchless Sewer Repair

Revitalizing Your Home: Exploring Windows and Doors

Stand-up forklifts with fork-like attachments: Widely used for efficient intra-building goods movement

The Harbour City saw an Indigenous smoking ceremony at 7.30 pm kick things off before the family-friendly fireworks display dazzled the nation.

In New South Wales’ capital, 13,000 fireworks totaling $ 7 million lit up the sky from the Opera House, Harbour Bridge, and rooftops around the city.

In a nod to the upcoming World Pride festival taking place in Sydney in February, the progress pride flag colors were projected onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge at 11 pm.

While in Melbourne’s CBD, crowds built up quickly with families and groups of friends flocking to parks for early fireworks, before an estimated 450,000 people continued on to see in the new year.

In what felt like Melbourne’s out of Covid party, revelers took advantage of life without masks with fireworks set off from a record 30 rooftops in celebrations worth around $4 million.

Perth put on a show from start to finish with its first-ever family-friendly show kicking off at 9 pm before their traditional Swan River spectacular at midnight.

Brisbane, Adelaide, and Hobart celebrated with two fireworks displays, however, severe weather forced Darwin’s shows to be canceled.

On the Gold Coast, around 30 tonnes of fireworks brought vivid colors and patterns to the skylines at Coomera, Broadwater Parklands, Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach, and Coolangatta.

Festivities in Western Australia’s central Kimberley region and Menindee in far west NSW had they’re dampened as they were faced with rising floodwaters.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk

Like it? Share it with your friends!

Casu marzu: The world’s ‘most dangerous’ cheese

The Italian island of Sardinia sits in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea, gazing at Italy from a distance. Surrounded by a 1,849-kilometer coastline of white sandy beaches and emerald waters, the island’s inland landscape rapidly rises to form hills and impervious mountains. And it is within these edgy curves that shepherds produce casu marzu, a maggot-infested cheese that, in 2009, the Guinness World Record proclaimed the world’s most dangerous cheese. Cheese skipper flies, Piophila casei, lay their eggs in cracks that form in cheese, usually fiore sardo, the island’s salty pecorino. Maggots hatch, making their way through the paste, digesting proteins in the process, and transforming the product into a soft creamy cheese. Then the cheesemonger cracks open the top — which is almost untouched by maggots — to scoop out a spoonful of the creamy delicacy. It’s not a moment for the faint-hearted. At this point, the grubs inside begin to writhe frantically. Some locals spin the cheese through a centrifuge to merge the maggots with the cheese. Others like it au naturel. They open their mouths and eat everything. Casu marzu is made with sheeps’ milk If you are able to overcome the understandable disgust, marzu has a flavor that is intense with reminders of the Mediterranean pastures and spicy with an aftertaste that stays for hours. Some say it’s an aphrodisiac. Others say that it could be dangerous for human health as maggots could survive the bite and and create myiasis, micro-perforations in the intestine, but so far, no such case has been linked to casu marzu. The cheese is banned from commercial sale, but Sardinians have been eating it, jumping grubs included, for centuries. “The maggot infestation is the spell and delight of this cheese,” says Paolo Solinas, a 29-year-old Sardinian gastronome. He says some Sardinians cringe at the thought of casu marzu, but others raised on a lifetime of salty pecorino unabashedly love its strong flavors. “Some shepherds see the cheese as a unique personal pleasure, something that just a few elects can try,” Solinas adds. Archaic cuisine It’s illegal to sell or buy casu marzu When tourists visit Sardinia, they usually wind up in a restaurant that serves porceddu sardo, a slowly roasted suckling piglet, visit bakers who sell pane carasau, a traditional paper-thin flatbread, and meet shepherds who produce fiore sardo, the island pecorino cheese. Yet, if you are adventurous enough, it’s possible to find the casu marzu. It shouldn’t be seen as a weird attraction, but a product that keeps alive an ancient tradition and hints at what the future of food might look like. Giovanni Fancello, a 77-year-old Sardinian journalist and gastronome, spent his life researching local food history. He’s traced it back to a time when Sardinia was a province of the Roman empire. “Latin was our language, and it’s in our dialect that we find traces of our archaic cuisine,” Fancello says. The cheese can only be produced at certain times of year when the sheeps’ milk is right There is no written record of Sardinian recipes until 1909, according to Fancello. That’s when Vittorio Agnetti, a doctor from mainland Modena, traveled to Sardinia and compiled six recipes in a book called “La nuova cucina delle specialità regionali.” “But we have always eaten worms,” says Fancello. “Pliny the Elder and Aristotle talked about it.” Ten other Italian regions have their variant of maggot-infested cheese, but while the products elsewhere are regarded as one-offs, casu marzu is intrinsically part of Sardinian food culture. The cheese has several different names, such as casu becciu, casu fattittu, hasu muhidu, formaggio marcio. Each sub-region of the island has its own way of producing it using different kinds of milk. ‘Magic and supernatural events’ Foodies inspired by the exploits of chefs such as Gordon Ramsay often come in search of the cheese, says Fancello. “They ask us: ‘How do you make casu marzu?’ It’s part of our history. We are the sons of this food. It’s the result of chance, of magic and supernatural events.” Fancello grew up in the town of Thiesi with his father Sebastiano, who was a shepherd who made casu marzu. Facello shepherded his family’s sheep to grazing grounds around rural Monte Ruju, lost in the clouds, where magic was believed to happen. He recalls that, for his father, casu marzu was a divine gift. If his cheeses didn’t become infested with maggots, he would be desperate. Some of the cheese he produced stayed for the family, others went to friends or people who asked for it. Casu Marzu is typically produced at the end of June when local sheep milk begins to change as the animals enter their reproductive time and the grass dries from the summer heat. If a warm sirocco wind blows on the cheesemaking day, the cheese-transforming magic works even harder. Fancello says it’s because the cheese has a weaker structure, making the fly’s job easier. After three months, the delicacy is ready. Mario Murrocu, 66, keeps casu marzu traditions alive at his farm, Agriturismo Sa Mandra, near Alghero in the north of Sardinia. He also keeps 300 sheep and hosts guests in his trattoria, and keeps casu marzu traditions alive. “You know when a form will become casu marzu,” he says. “You see it from the unusual spongy texture of the paste,” Murrocu says. Nowadays, this isn’t so much down to luck as the ideal conditions that cheesemongers now use to ensure as many casu marzu as possible. They’ve also figured out a way to use glass jars to conserve the cheese, which traditionally never lasted beyond September, for years. High fines Sardinia’s unusual cheese dates back to Roman times Though revered, the cheese’s legal status is a gray area. Casu marzu is registered as a traditional product of Sardinia and therefore is locally protected. Still, it has been deemed illegal by the Italian government since 1962 due to laws that prohibit the consumption of food infected by parasites. Those who sell the >>Read more
>>Read more
Kelly Clarkson has filed to legally change her name in wake of divorce from Brandon Blackstock

‘My new name more fully reflects who I am: Kelly Clarkson seeks to change her name to Kelly Brianne in wake of divorce By Adam S. Levy For Dailymail.com Published: 04:04 GMT, 18 February 2022 | Updated: 04:04 GMT, 18 February 2022 Kelly Clarkson has filed to legally change her name to Kelly Brianne. The entertainer, 39, on Monday said she desired to make the name change – which is her first and middle names – as her ‘new name more fully reflects who’ she is, according to court docs reviewed by US Weekly. Another hearing on the matter is slated for March 28, the outlet reported. The latest: Kelly Clarkson, 39, has filed to legally change her name to Kelly Brianne, as she said her ‘new name more fully reflects who’ she is. The singer was snapped last month The Fort Worth, Texas-born star has spent more than a year and a half working through her divorce from Brandon Blackstock, 45, with whom she shares daughter River Rose, seven, and son Remington Alexander, five. Prior to the breakup, she was also the stepmother of his two kids with ex-wife Melissa Ashworth, Savannah, 19, and Seth, 14. The Kelly Clarkson Show host initially filed for divorce from Blackstock in June of 2020 saying there were ‘irreconcilable differences’ in the marriage, which began when the couple wed in October of 2013. In court, last month, the A Moment Like This songstress conceded 5.12 percent of the $17.8 million Montana ranch they lived on to Blackstock, which is worth around $908,800, according to the outlet. The My Life Would Suck Without You artist was court-ordered to pay Blackstock $150,000 in monthly spousal support, with an extra $45,601 earmarked toward their children. The Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You) performer, who shares joint physical and legal custody of her two kids with Blackstock, told Extra last fall that she and Blackstock had ‘a lot of help as far as therapists or child psychologists’ for their children because they want to do it right,’ adding, ‘Everyone’s sad and it’s OK to be sad.’ ‘I know with me and Brandon, it’s just a difficult thing because we’re in different places,’ she said. ‘And it’s like, we both agree on the main things, but it’s a hard thing when you’re not together all the time, for me personally. ‘As long as you make sure it’s about the children and their best interests, then we’re both on board.’ Read more at DailyMail.co.uk
>>Read more
Auto insurance for teen drivers

Is there a newly licensed driver in your home? Reduce the stress by understanding the implications for your car policy. For parents, the excitement of having a first-time driver in the house is usually tempered with worry. With little driving experience, immature drivers are at a higher risk for accidents. Of course, safety concern is uppermost in most parents’ minds but other stressors—like the high cost of insuring your new driver and the financial liability implications of a teen driving mishap—can be reduced with these steps. Before getting a learners permit, make a call to your insurance professional Your agent or rep can clearly explain the costs involved in insuring a teenage driver. The good news is, as your teenager gets older, insurance rates will drop—providing he or she has a good driving record. Therefore… Involve your teen in the car insurance discussion From the outset, it’s important to talk to your kid about the relationship between driving a car and the attendant responsibilities, including insurance costs. Explain and reinforce driving safety tips and the serious consequences of driving infractions or accidents, including increasing the cost of insurance. Encourage positive behaviors Auto insurers offer discounts or reduced premiums to: Students who maintain at least a “B” average in school Teens who take a recognized driver training course College students who attend school at least 100 miles away from home and don’t bring their car to campus Choose the right auto insurance company It’s generally less expensive for parents to add teenagers to their auto insurance policy than it is for teens to purchase one on their own. By insuring your teenager’s car with your insurer, you may also qualify for a multi-vehicle discount. That said, insurance companies differ in how they price policies for young drivers, so do some research into prices to be sure to find the best fit for you and your teen. Assign your teen to the right car Find out how your insurer assigns drivers to cars—some insurers will assign the driver who is the most expensive to insure (generally the teenager) to the car that is the most expensive to insure. If possible, assign your teen to the least valuable car. Note that with this kind of arrangement there can be no exceptions; your teen must use only the car to which he or she is assigned, even in an emergency. If your teenager is involved in an accident with an unassigned car, penalties could be imposed and your own premiums might increase. Increase your liability insurance for greater protection If your teen gets into an accident, state minimums for liability insurance will not be enough to fully protect you from lawsuits. Consider purchasing higher amounts of liability coverage—if your teenager is found negligent in an accident and the damages exceed your insurance limits, you will be held financially responsible and could be sued in court for those amounts not covered by your insurance. Depending on the value of your financial assets, you may even want to have the extra protection that a personal umbrella liability policy provides. Raise your deductible to save on your premium The higher your deductible, the more money you can save on your premium, so consider raising your deductible from the minimum amount required. You may want to use those savings to increase your liability insurance.
>>Read more
What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is a service that allows organizations and individuals to post a website or web page on the Internet. A web host, or web hosting service provider, is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for the website or webpage to be viewed on the Internet. Websites are hosted or stored, on special computers called servers. When Internet users want to view your website, all they need to do is type your website address into their browser. Their computer will then connect to your server and your webpages will be delivered to them through the browser. Most web hosting companies require that you own your domain name in order to host with them. If you do not have a domain name, the web hosting companies will help you purchase one. The basic features of a web hosting plan include: Disk Space All web hosting accounts offer a certain amount of disk space that you can use to store your web files. It is recommended that you have some sort of estimates on what you need for various tasks – the amount of space you need for your emails, web files, databases, etc. By breaking down your usage, you can better estimate how much space you should go for. Bandwidth or Data Transfer Very often web hosts talk about bandwidth and data transfer as the same entity. However, they are in fact, different. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred at one time. Data transfer is the actual amount of data transferred. Think of it this way. If bandwidth were a tunnel, the bigger the tunnel the more cars can pass through it. Data transfer would then be the number of cars allowed to go through the tunnel in a given time period, say a month. The less bandwidth you have, the slower it takes your website to load, regardless of your visitor’s connection type. Visitors will have to wait their turn. The less data transfer you have, the more often you will find your website unavailable because you have reached the maximum amount of data allowed to be transferred. To determine what is sufficient, you need to take into consideration the size of your website and the number of visitors you have in a month’s time. Email Accounts Email accounts are a common feature of web hosting, especially if you are hosting a domain. There are three main types of email accounts: POP3, forwarding, and aliases. POP3 accounts are the traditional inboxes. You have space on the server to store your emails, and at the same time, you can use an email program to download your mail. Each login and password combination usually equates to one account. Forwarding mail accounts are useful if you are employing the service of another company to filter your emails for you. Rather than storing your emails on your mail server, emails are redirected to another email address. Aliases accounts are similar to forwarding mail accounts. Some hosts allow you to set up a catch-all alias, which is often used to collect emails sent to addresses not recognized by your mail server. FTP Access After you have created your web pages on your computer, you need to transfer those files to your web server. The files are transferred to the server by use of FTP. FTP is also the protocol of downloading your web files from the server to your computer, ie. backing up your website files.
>>Read more
Liability and safety tips for dog owners

Most dogs are friendly, loving members of the family, but even normally docile dogs may bite when they are frightened or when protecting their puppies, owners or food. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 4.7 million people are bitten by dogs annually, resulting in an estimated 800,000 injuries that require medical attention. More than 50 percent of dog bites occur on the dog owner’s property, and they account for one-third of all homeowners insurance liability claims. Dog owner liability Dog owners are liable for any injuries their pets cause in the following instances: if the owner knew the dog had a tendency to cause that kind of injury; if a state statute makes the owner liable, whether or not the owner knew the dog had a tendency to cause that kind of injury; or if the injury was caused by unreasonable carelessness on the part of the owner. There are three kinds of law that impose liability on owners: Dog-bite statute – The dog owner is automatically liable for any injury or property damage the dog causes, even without provocation. “One-bite” rule – In some states, the owner is not held liable for the first bite the dog inflicts. Once an animal has demonstrated vicious behavior, such as biting or otherwise displaying a “vicious propensity”, the owner can be held liable. Some states have moved away from the one-bite rule and hold owners responsible for any injury, regardless of whether the animal has previously bitten someone. Negligence laws – The dog owner is liable if the injury occurred because the dog owner was unreasonably careless (negligent) in controlling the dog. In most states, dog owners are not liable to trespassers who are injured by a dog. However, a dog owner who is legally responsible for an injury to a person or property may be also responsible for reimbursing the injured person for medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering and property damage. Protect yourself—and your assets Homeowners and renters insurance policies typically cover dog bite liability. Most policies provide $100,000 to $300,000 in liability coverage. If the claim exceeds the limit, the dog owner is personally responsible for all damages above that amount, including legal expenses. Most insurance companies will insure homeowners with dogs. However, once a dog has bitten someone, it poses an increased risk. In such a case, the insurance company may charge a higher premium or exclude the dog from coverage altogether. Some companies will require dog owners to sign liability waivers for dog bites. Some will cover a pet if the owner takes the dog to classes aimed at modifying its behavior. A single lawsuit—even if won—can end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the greater a person’s assets, the more potentially is at risk. The personal liability coverage available through a standard homeowners or automobile policy simply may not be enough, so you may want to consider purchasing a personal excess liability policy. Also known as an umbrella liability policy, it protects you against personal liabilities—such as dog bites—that could impact a substantial portion of your assets. The amount of umbrella liability coverage usually ranges from $1 million to $10 million, and covers broad types of liability. Most insurance companies have required minimum amounts of underlying coverage—typically at least $250,000 of protection from your auto policy and $300,000 of protection from your homeowners policy. If you own a boat, then you must also have boat insurance with a specified minimum amount of coverage. Personal excess liability insurance is relatively inexpensive. The first $1 million of coverage costs about $150 to $300 per year, the second million about $75, and subsequent increments of $1 million cost about $50 per year. Be a responsible dog owner Ultimately, the responsibility for properly training and controlling a dog rests with the owner. The most dangerous dogs are those that fall victims to human shortcomings such as poor training, irresponsible ownership and breeding practices that foster viciousness or neglect and abuse. To reduce the chances of a dog biting, the following steps are recommended by the CDC when getting a dog: Consult with a professional (e.g., veterinarian, animal behaviorist, or responsible breeder) to learn about suitable breeds of dogs for your household and neighborhood. Spend time with a dog before buying or adopting it. Use caution when bringing a dog into a home of with an infant or toddler. Dogs with histories of aggression are inappropriate in households with children. Be sensitive to cues that a child is fearful or apprehensive about a dog and, if so, delay acquiring a dog. Never leave infants or young children alone with any dog. Have your dog spayed or neutered. Studies show that dogs are three times more likely to bite if they are NOT neutered. Socialize your dog so that it knows how to act with other people and animals. Discourage children from disturbing a dog that is eating or sleeping. Play non-aggressive games with your dog, such as “go fetch.” Playing aggressive games like “tug-of-war” can encourage inappropriate behavior. Avoid exposing your dog to new situations in which you are unsure of its response. Never approach a strange dog and always avoid eye contact with a dog that appears threatening. Immediately seek professional advice from veterinarians, animal behaviorists, or responsible breeders if the dog develops aggressive or undesirable behaviors.
>>Read more