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Just like all the fine things in life: wine, cigars, and diamonds: cannabis can also be measured in terms of quality. The sight, touch, taste, size, aroma, and sensation of a marijuana bud is all determined by the cleanliness of the air in which the plant grew, the composition of the soil, and the temperature shifts that it endured.

Knowing Quality Bud from Shwag

It's important to know the good quality stuff from the shwag. Whether you're a connoisseur or simply a novice; knowing how to assess the quality of a cannabis bud is necessary to have the best experience. If you want to know the telltale signs of top-shelf bud then read on.

Visually Inspect the Bud

Sometimes the only way to get an idea of the quality of a bud is by the way it looks. It is important to know the clues that will tell you how awesome the weed you're assessing is. One of the best visual ways to assess cannabis is by the trichome content. If the bud has loads of trichomes then you are sure to get a good buzz. Trichomes are the small crystal-looking resin glands that make the bud look frosty. These trichomes contain cannabinoids like THC and CBD.

Another visual way to assess a cannabis bud is by its color. Healthy buds are usually nice and green, purple, or may even look orange depending on the pistils on the bud and the strain. When you smoke the bud, the ashes should burn white-grey ash.

Look For a Tight Trim

The trim of the flower should be done well. Look for a tight trim; extra leaf matter should have been removed so that the bud is fully revealed. Excess stems should also be removed and the only part of the stem that should be left is at the base of the flower where it was cut from the plant. Over-trimmed flowers should be avoided as this usually results in a lower trichome content.

How to Spot Mildew or Mold

When assessing a bud be sure to check for red flags. Powdery mildew can look like trichomes if you don't look closely. A bud should glisten in the light, but if it has mildew on it will not. If you see something like baby powder on it or a cottony appearance it's probably powdery mildew.

Another red flag and type of mold is botrytis (also known as bud rot). This mold is more difficult to see as it is inside the flower. It may not be until after you purchase the bud, go home, and start breaking it up that you notice that the bud has brown or grey mold inside. You mustn't smoke it.

Gently Squeeze the Bud

Touching the bud is another good way to assess its quality. When you gently squeeze the bud, it should bounce back to its original form. Squeezing the bud can also tell you if it has properly been cured. It should have a bit of a stickiness to it, but if it hasn't been cured correctly then it will feel too wet. The stem is another indicator of how well the bud has been cured. A properly cured stem will have a definite snap when you bend it.

Smell the Bud for Quality

One of my favorite ways to check the quality of a bud is by smelling it. It's an instinctive thing we all seem to do when you open a new bag of buds: you hold it up to your nose and inhale the sweet aroma. This can also tell you if a bud has mold on it, or if it smells wet then it hasn't been cured properly. Good quality marijuana will often smell skunky, pine, fruity, cheese, or earthy.

Taste the Bud

Lastly, you can taste if a bud is of high quality. Oftentimes, the aroma of bud will match the flavor. Just like a good liquor, the taste should be smooth. When you inhale the smoke, it shouldn't burn your throat; neither should it leave a harsh taste in the back of your throat.

In Conclusion

After reading this article you can easily be on your way to becoming a cannabis connoisseur. Next time you find yourself buying marijuana don't just settle for anything. Take the time to study the bud instead of choosing one based on whatever name sounds good to you. You will be impressed by the difference that quality bud makes.

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Penske Truck Leasing recently held a dedication ceremony at the Lincoln Tech campus in East Windsor, Connecticut, as the company branded a diesel training lab and adjacent corridor. The lab will be utilized for hands-on diesel technology training, which introduces students to various topics such as vehicle and engine system maintenance and repair, industry certifications and career opportunities in the industry.

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Over the last 10 years, Penske has hired more than 1,000 Lincoln Tech graduates nationally to work as truck maintenance technicians in its regional operations.

“The next generation of diesel maintenance technicians is vital to the Penske talent pipeline and the entire industry”, said Andrew Vassil, area vice president of Penske Truck Leasing. “As we support Lincoln Tech’s diesel program, that support is also absorbed by the students who receive its first-class training – in an ideal environment. Properly trained diesel technicians fuel uptime and supply chain efficiency.”

Diesel truck technicians are a key component in keeping essential supply chains moving; nearly every good consumed in the U.S. is transported by truck. The U.S. trucking industry hauls more than 70% of all transported freight. Penske works with leading technical schools, and related organizations such as SkillsUSA and the TechForce Foundation, to meet the current and future demand for technicians.

“Teaming with Penske Truck Leasing will not only help our graduates start rewarding careers in a fast-paced, engaging industry – it will also help keep the American economy moving forward as the workforce grows,” said Lincoln Tech President and Chief Executive Officer Scott Shaw. “Penske’s support of our effort to bridge the skills gap will be invaluable in addressing the ongoing shortage of skilled technicians.”

Penske Truck Leasing operates and maintains one of the industry’s largest fleets with its truck maintenance technician workforce comprising about 8,800 of the company’s 37,000-plus associates. Visit Penske’s career site: https://technician.penske.jobs to learn more about technician careers and to apply for technician openings across North America.

By: Move Ahead Staff

Injective, the first universal DeFi protocol for cross-chain derivatives trading, has announced the successful public launch of its main network alongside a $120 million protocol incentive program named Astro for traders, market makers and DeFi projects.

A newly minted unicorn, Injective streamlines fully decentralized trading with a fast and secure layer-2 exchange that allows individuals to create unlimited financial markets for assets such as crypto, commodities, NFTs, forex, and much more. Injective enables 24/7 trading and allows its users to trade with zero gas fees. All transactions are entirely transparent and secured by Tendermint-based proof-of-stake consensus with instant finality. Recently, major institutions such as Siam Commercial Bank and Binance have put their institutional weight behind Injective as well as they act as validators for the protocol.

Injective is a Cosmos SDK based chain that enables decentralized trading for a diverse array of financial instruments such as perpetual swaps, expiry futures, and traditional spot markets. Unlike its counterparts such as FTX and dYdX, every component of the Injective is built to be fully trustless, censorship-resistant, publicly verifiable, and interoperable while providing an intuitive user experience comparable to centralized exchanges. 

Injective has already seen substantial levels of adoption with over one billion dollars in daily trading volume across more than 25,000 unique monthly users. Renowned market makers and funds such as Cumberland, QCP Capital, CMS, and Bitlink are all early backers of the project and helped provide advice on the initial design and development of the protocol itself. Injective rose to prominence last year as they became one of the first protocols to list commodities such as gold on the exchange.

To accompany the mainnet launch, Injective is also releasing a $120 Million incentive program named Injective Astro to help promote liquidity and trading on the protocol. To help put this number into perspective, $120 Million will make Injective's Astro program one of the largest liquidity incentive programs within the orderbook DEX space and by far the largest within the entire Cosmos ecosystem.

The program will begin by allocating the funds specifically to market makers and traders who utilize the protocol. Through the Trade & Earn program, traders will be able to earn a rebate for every trade that they place on the exchange rather than having to pay a fee as is the case on all other platforms today. To further encourage user loyalty, Injective has introduced a decentralized VIP system to progressively reward users as they increase participation and volume. This is the first time an exchange VIP system has been implemented fully on-chain with zero intermediaries.

Injective Astro will extend far beyond the trading incentives to further catalyze ecosystem growth through a multi-stage process. Injective Labs also plans on assigning more funds toward incentivizing new projects to build on Injective. So far Injective Labs has publicly backed NFT auction house Burnt Finance which famously worked with Injective to burn Banksy painting and minted an NFT after the act. The news was covered across all major media and the video itself has garnered over ten million views in China alone.

The frontend interface created by Injective Labs called Injective Pro was released last month. Injective Pro restricts all US users in order to properly comply with guidelines set forth by governing bodies such as the CFTC. Uniquely however, developers can build new exchange interfaces on top of Injective which allows individuals to rapidly create region or asset specific exchanges while being able to leverage the powerful backend protocol. For instance, a developer can deploy a decentralized exchange that only focuses on futures trading.

Over the past few months, Injective has taken steps to ensure complete decentralization of the protocol itself. Every transaction on Injective is verified by a decentralized group of validators that currently secure some of the fastest growing projects in the industry today such as Cosmos and Terra. Users can view all trades on-chain via the Injective Explorer regardless of whether the trade was placed via a frontend interface or the institutional grade Injective API. All markets launched on Injective must be approved by a DAO vote from which Injective Labs abstains. All of these aspects empower the global community to dictate the future of Injective.

The launch of Injective mainnet and the Astro incentive program follows the release of the Injective Bridge – an IBC-enabled cross-chain bridge that supports seamless Cosmos and Ethereum-based token transfers. Injective also touts its fast withdrawal times back to Ethereum which currently stands at less than 10 minutes which is far lower than other layer-2 solutions where withdrawals can take up to a week to process.

“Our mission at Injective has always been to build the most powerful cross-chain protocol for completely decentralized derivatives trading. As Injective interconnects new chains, the ecosystem will continue to serve as a DeFi gateway for trading across the multi-chain universe. Injective's Ethereum-native tooling allows users to simply create and trade new cross-chain markets without the typical roadblocks associated with making transactions across distinct blockchain networks,” said Eric Chen, the 23-year-old computer science dropout co-founder and CEO of Injective Labs.

The team at Injective Labs has been building it since 2018 and validated the product  with the largest funds, market makers, and institutional traders. Injective was one of the first projects to be incubated by Binance Labs and recently raised a $10 million round from the likes of Pantera Capital and Mark Cuban.

About Injective

Injective is the first cross-chain protocol built for decentralized finance applications. On the Injective exchange, anyone can access, create, and trade unlimited DeFi markets such as futures and perpetuals. Developers can also build cross-chain Ethereum-compatible projects that are lightning fast and achieve instant transaction finality. Injective is backed by a prominent group of stakeholders including Binance, Pantera Capital and Mark Cuban. For more information please visit https://injectiveprotocol.com/ 

Crowdfunding platforms are booming now that the concept of crowdfunding is becoming increasingly popular. A lot of businesses and entrepreneurs are trying to bite a chunk out of this profit pie, and we can’t really blame them. If you’re planning on creating a sustainable crowdfunding business, now’s probably the best time for you. “How to start a crowdfunding site?” is one of the most commonly asked questions by people who’re willing to start a crowdfunding business. In this article, we’ve decided to discuss this in detail. Read this till the end if you want to learn about building crowdfunding websites. […]

The post Starting a Crowdfunding Website from Scratch appeared first on Crowdfunding software.

A lot of people mistake crowdfunding for means of raising money online. However, it is a bit more than that. There are different types of crowdfunding businesses on the internet, and there’s a handful of successful businesses as well. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful in starting a crowdfunding business. Then again, it must be done right if you want to launch it successfully. In this article, we’ll discuss how to start a crowdfunding business, and we’ll also discuss how to do it properly so you can profit from it. Let’s get started! How to Start Crowdfunding […]

The post Starting a Crowdfunding Business Simplified appeared first on Crowdfunding software.

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