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Bryce Tutorial - Position the moon on a desired spot
Author: Ravenhair
Tools Needed
• Bryce 5
This tutorial is going to help the ones who are new to Bryce to loose their fears when it comes to position the moon on a right spot without having to use the little trackball.
Step 1 - Setting up the scene
After you have opened Bryce, you need to set up the scene and the objects you want to use, for this tutorial, I made this gate, how I made it? Well, that's another tutorial, and I am using the Director's View in this case.
Now let's go back to the scene, set your camera to “Eye Level Camera” and drag the scene a bit down as shown on the image below.
To drag the scene, you need to use the little hand that you see in the green circle.
Step 2 - Opening the Sky Lab
Now we are going to open the Sky Lab, it is the little cloud with the little rainbow like indicates the image below.
Once at the Sky Lab, you will see that it appears just the sky, the little down arrow under the sky images gives you the option of “Render in Scene” and “Render Against Neutral”, you need to choose “Render In Scene” because you can take a better look at what you are doing.
Step 3 - Going from Day to Night and the Full Moon
Now, you need to change the day for the night, so, click on the little sun like the image below shows, and don't be afraid of not seeing the moon yet, she will come in a minute.
To position the moon on the right spot, go to where the Azimuth and Altitude are and set these numbers
Azimuth: 180
Altitude: -17
Just like the image above indicates, and there was the moon!
Step 4 - Let's "dress" the moon.
You probably notice that the moon looks with that little blue line around it, that is because there is no moon image set up yet.
Go to where it says Moon Phase, and click on the little dot there, it activates it, then drag the moon image under the dot that it already turned orange when you had it activated until you see the full moon, also click where it says “Moon Image” and place the Earthshine and Softness according to your taste, I did make like:
Earthshine: 100
Softness: 1
Then go to the Sun/Moon size, turn it on, and select the size you want, I used the default for this tutorial.
The image below shows you how to set these controls.
Step 5 - Changing the Sky mood
Now, that you have the moon positioned where you want it to be, I decided I wanted the moon to be right in the center of the gate, so, it will stay there, and, it is time to play with the sky a bit, just use Sky and Fog controls and set up the colors you want, this case, is your choice of colors, the image displayed here is just a sample.
And you are done, just render your image and see if you like it.
Step 6 - Final words.
When entering the moon position using numerical values, and using the Director's View, keep in mind this:
1- On the Azimuth, numbers bigger than 180 will move the moon to the right, numbers smaller than 180 will move it to the left.
2- On the Altitude, the smaller the number (we are working with negative numbers for this one), the higher the moon will show on the scene.
An example:
The image below shows a variation, noticed that the moon has moved to the right and it is a bit higher.
In that case, I set up the Azimuth at 182 and the Altitude to -20.
This other variation, I changed the moon back to Azimuth 180 and the Altitude to -5
I hope this tutorial helped you, and that the problems of setting up the Moon on the desired spot is already over.
If you think you need some extra help on that, email me at
Thanks for reading it. | <urn:uuid:fc8d687c-e002-4ef2-8539-1f3c13f58c4b> | http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/tutorials/bryce/bryce-sky02 | en | 0.91432 | 0.027618 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
How Do I Turn Off Notifications On Facebook
Notifications, be they messages, alarms, or social applications, typically aren't anything new; they're an approved part of our mobile experience. How Do I Turn Off Notifications On Facebook: The majority of can probably agree though, there's a great line between helpful as well as frustrating, which Facebook appears to have not a problem entirely ignoring.
Prior to we explore the particulars, allow's introduce the levels at which you could regulate Notifications.
Initially, you could administer to Notifications each your account, implying that particular sorts of Notifications will behave continually, regardless of what tool you make use of.
You could likewise have the ability to control them at the operating system level, implying you could subdue all Notifications or block particular applications. This has the designated impact of stopping talking an application at the source.
Finally, in many cases you could shut off, or at the very least reject, disturbances from the annoying app. This holds true with the Facebook on Android, however not on iphone.
How Do I Turn Off Notifications On Facebook
Facebook Account Notification Settings
The suggestion here is, that if you do not want Facebook to alert you when it's somebody's birthday, or alert you to a Close Friend's activity, then you could transform them off on the Facebook web site, or through any kind of iphone or Android gadget with the app mounted.
Here, on the iPad, we open up the Facebook app, touch the 3 lines in the upper-left corner to reveal the sidebar, scroll down and tap "Settings" then "Notifications".
On any type of Android device running the latest Facebook application, touch the 3 lines in the upper-right edge to open up the sidebar, scroll down to "Account Settings" and after that tap "Notifications" on the resulting screen.
Finally, on the web site, click the arrow in the upper-right edge to show the dropdown menu, as well as click "Settings" then "Notifications".
It's within these Settings that you could readjust the birthday Notifications, to name a few. Let's take a better look at "What You Get Notified About" on the Facebook internet site.
It has simply a couple of even more choices compared to on the mobile applications. For instance, from the internet site you can make a decision if you obtain Notifications for tags based upon who does the tagging (Friends or Friends of Friends).
Also, if you take care of a Web page or Pages, you could choose which, if any kind of alert you when there's activity on them.
Proceed and also tap "Birthdays" and also you see it's a basic choice, either on or off.
The other products you might wish to keep in mind from these account Notification Settings, include "Friends' life events" and also "Group activity".
As an example, let's state one of the teams you come from is extremely hectic as well as you're constantly obtaining signals. You could transform that team's Notifications off in the group itself, or you might explore the account Settings and also manage it there.
It is necessary to understand, some Notifications will certainly simply constantly occur. When somebody writes on your timeline, you'll get an alert. When you post a standing upgrade, and also good friends comment or like it, you'll obtain Notifications. When a person tags you in a picture, Notifications.
If these seem like a disturbance or disturbance, you need to address each event that generates Notifications (or possibly a lot more merely, not join social networking), to transform them off.
You could see what we imply in the complying with screenshot. Let's say you talk about somebody's article and then you start obtaining Notifications each time another person talks about it. If this frustrates you or reaches be excessive, you could go back to that blog post as well as click "Stop Notifications".
In a similar way, if you upgrade your status, you will literally look out on all task that then happens on it (like, comments, and shares). To shut off these Notifications, you actually have to access the post's Settings from the drop-down menu.
The takeaway from this is that Facebook has a lot of means to pest you as well as handling them, isn't usually really user-friendly. That claimed, considering that chances are excellent you utilize Facebook on your phone or tablet, you can reduce to the chase and turn them erroneous, meaning you won't look out of any type of activity unless you open the application and check it.
Blocking Facebook Notifications on Your Device.
We actually type of covered this currently for Android 5, however, for the sake of thoroughness, if you're making use of a tool running Lollipop, open your Settings, faucet "Sound & Notification -> App Notifications" and then choose your app.
In this situation, we choose Facebook. We're going to tap the slider button next to "Block" so we never see Notifications from the Facebook app on this gadget. It matters not currently how your account or app is set up to alert you, absolutely nothing is making it through.
iOS gadgets such as apples iphone and also iPads have gadget Notifications manages also. To configure them, open the Settings and also touch "Notifications".
Once again, we tap on the Facebook application. You could finagle points a little bit, such as selecting noises as well as a design (banners or notifies), but if you simply want to turn them all off, then touch the slider next to "Allow Notifications" and you're done.
That's how you block Notifications from Facebook (or any other app) on Android 5 and iphone 8. If you utilize an earlier version of Android with Facebook, and you intend to switch off Notifications for it, then you will need to adjust the app's Settings.
Shutting off Facebook's Notifications on the Android App.
Having the ability to block Notifications on the device is a superb attribute if your os supports it. Possibilities are however, you use a variation of Android before version 5 (a minimum of up until you update), which implies if you intend to turn off Notifications, then you need to do so at the app level. Note, you could still make these changes on a Lollipop tool for an extra fine-grained technique than simply turning all Notifications off entirely.
Once again, tap the 3 lines in the upper-right corner of the application, scroll down and also tap "App Settings".
And voila, you've obtained a lot of Notifications Settings to rake through. You can entirely transform them off, established shake and also LED Settings, choose the ringtone, or adjust them to ensure that you only see particular ones such as comments, friend requests, event invites, etc.
And that's it for Facebook Notification control. It's kind of difficult, once you have a suggestion just what's involved, you could make the essential adjustments so it does not drive you crazy.
We advise beginning at the top as well as making your account adjustments initially, if you've got thousands of pals, you possibly do not would like to know about all their birthdays. It's the same forever occasions, and so on. From there, depending on the system you're making use of, you could turn app Notifications to a flow, or shut them off completely.
Currently, you tell us what you assume. Facebook Notifications obtained you down or do you have it understood? We welcome your remarks and also questions, so don't hesitate to speak up in our discussion online forum. | <urn:uuid:8865208d-0a95-47c6-ae94-3f952c2ba5e8> | http://www.jason-queally.com/2018/03/how-do-i-turn-off-notifications-on.html | en | 0.946521 | 0.037839 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Fox's Warm Bargain
Published June 1, 2005
Countries: Argentina
Age Levels: Primary Grades
Not very long ago two little Viscachas lived in the grasslands on the pampas of Argentina. The Viscascas were rodents like their cousins, the mice. But, while mice are small, viscachas are same size as small rabbits.
The two Viscachas were good amigos (friends). They played together. They shared everything with each other. If one found a nut to eat, both gnawed until the nut was gone. It was very pleasant to live on the great pampas of Argentina. The day times were comfortable. The two had enough to eat and enough to drink. The only problem they had was that at times the night air became very cold. When the wind blew, both Viscachas shivered throughout the night.
One day as they played, they saw something red caught on a bush. When they got close, they saw it was not one object - but two. Two pieces of a red blanket had either been thrown away by someone or had blown away in the Argentine wind. The blanket had ended up in the bushes near where the two friends lived.
"This is a treasure," said one Amigo to the other. "A blanket to keep us warm at night."
"A better treasure if the blanket was still sewn together instead of torn into two parts," his friend reminded him. "Some person must have forgotten it or thrown it out because it was torn."
"Let us try to fix it," said the first amigo. "It is not big enough to keep either of us warm right now."
As the two amigos sat sniffing the air and wondering what to do with their treasure, Sor Fox came along. He had a long nose and a long tail and a crafty brain.
"Buenos Dias, Amigos. Good day, friends," said the Fox. "What have you here?"
"We have found a treasure," both answered at once. "We found a blanket that can keep us warm on cold nights. But it is too small for either of us unless we can find a way to sew it back together."
"You are in luck," said the crafty Fox. "I happen to own a needle and thread that you may use if you will let me share your warm blanket on cold nights."
Señor Fox loaned them the needle and thread. He watched them sew the blanket together. He took his needle back and went on his way. The two amigos were so happy. They ran about in the warm sunshine during the day finding bits of food and playing games together. Then night came. A cold wind started to blow over the pampas. The two Viscachas ran to where they had their blanket stored and saw Señor Fox coming towards them.
"Remember the bargain we had?" he asked. I gave you my needle and thread to sew up your fine red blanket. You promised that I could share it on cold nights."
"Si (yes)," they told him. "Es Verdad! (That is true!)" They welcomed him to come under the blanket and get warm.
Then Fox said, " Since my thread sewed up the middle of the blanket, I should sleep in the middle." He crawled right under the middle part of the blanket and left the two Viscachas under the outside edges of the blanket. The side of them next to the Fox was warm. But, their other side was cold and uncomfortable.
It seems that only Senor Fox got a warm bargain out of their agreement. They were still left out in the cold. So, look out if a Fox ever tries to make a bargain with you. You can be sure he will get the warm bargain, while you will be left out in the cold.
Note: A good source for tales from South America is The King of the Mountains, A Treasury of Latin American Folk Stories, written in 1960 by M.A. Jagendorf and R.S. Boggs. The two collected more than five dozen tales from across Central and South America and retold them for the children of the world.
Dr. Mike Lockett is an educator, storyteller and children's author from Normal, IL. Dr. Lockett has given more than 4000 programs across the USA and as far away as eastern Asia. Contact Mike by writing to in order to book him for a storytelling program or young authors program or to inquire about purchasing his books and CDs. The illustration at the top was created by Chung - Yi-Ru, copyright 2014, owned by Mike Lockett. More stories and information about storytelling can be found at | <urn:uuid:9c090676-9d23-435c-b4bb-77fbb4ae3beb> | http://www.mikelockett.com/storytelling?rec_id=1 | en | 0.966991 | 0.04267 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Fontana Supports Call for Opening Window to Allow Child Abuse Victims to Seek Justice
The recommendation for eliminating the statute of limitations was one of four suggestions made by a statewide grand jury that uncovered allegations of abuse by priests and a coverup by the Catholic Church. The abuse allegations covered several generations.
Fontana released the following statement after speaking at the news conference:
“We need to eliminate the statute of limitations and allow victims to seek justice. We must ensure that the rights of victims are preserved. Child abuse victims of years past must deal each day with the injustice. It took courage for victims of abuse to come forward, testify before the Grand Jury, and tell their stories.
“Now, it’s up to the men and women of the General Assembly to give victims standing so they can seek the justice that has eluded them for decades and generations.
“We need to do the right thing and allow child abuse victims to get the accountability and transparency they deserve.”
# # # | <urn:uuid:1742a844-798d-46e1-937d-0eb267fbf9a2> | http://www.senatorfontana.com/fontana-supports-call-for-opening-window-to-allow-child-abuse-victims-to-seek-justice | en | 0.937611 | 0.073781 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Agreement is the expression of grammatical information in the ‘wrong place’: a relation that can be described in terms of controllers, targets, domains, categories and conditions. The Surrey Database of Agreement encodes information on agreement in fifteen genetically diverse languages and contains reports for the sample languages, providing pointers to examples illustrating different instances of the phenomenon. | <urn:uuid:0b8f6780-a25f-4153-ad78-514d9296a47c> | http://www.smg.surrey.ac.uk/agreement/ | en | 0.806998 | 0.101396 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Ten months after beginning his teaching career, Nathan Horton left the United States and trekked to Kyrgyzstan to teach English as a foreign language. After almost two years of teaching English in central Asia, he returned home to California and began teaching English in a Russian/Armenian/Ukrainian school. In 2013, Horton transitioned to Fairmont Private Schools and has taught English, geography, and United States and world history in the schools’ ELL programs.
“Language acquisition in content courses is tantamount to pairing salty and sweet, or barbecues and the Fourth of July: you appreciate the other so much more because of their convergence,” says Horton as he describes merging English language teaching with other subject areas. Watching students master the geography of Chilean cuisine or the form and function of Europe’s many bridges and waterways is even more incredible when listening to them explain and extrapolate in a second or third language.
In Horton’s classroom, he believes the best method for increasing lower-level student participation is to diversify instruction:
“I love watching students “speak” through taking pictures, drawing mental maps, creating films, and producing “vocal cartographies.” I have found that the more things I am able to present, the more likely it is that some of it sticks and gets a student going in the right direction (geography pun intended).”
In a content-heavy course like U.S. history or geography, students are constantly having to remember and apply (or “rinse and repeat,” as Horton says) vocabulary, syntax, and grammar to material they may already be familiar with, but must now attempt to grasp in English. Horton describes the situation as being akin to a novice freestyle swimmer: relatively new to the activity and being asked to manage the breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly stroke, all the while just trying to remember to stay afloat. Teachers and instructors are obligated to keep ELL students afloat. In the classroom, this means “staying afloat” with vocabulary, while simultaneously adding new “strokes” to form a well-rounded learner. Language acquisition in a content course, much like learning to swim, should not be done alone.
Covering reading, speaking, listening, and writing is a balancing act for both the teacher and the student. Teachers want to see an improvement in a student’s language skills, but, at the same time, want to see and hear him or her wrestle with complex material. Horton stresses ideas and cerebral thought in his content courses, so he strives to frequently give students time to talk in their native language, ensuring that ideas are expressed as clearly as possible.
A common teaching strategy employed by Horton is based on consistency. He begins each class with a reading and writing activity that lead to speaking exercise. In a geography course, Horton displays a “Map of the Day” and students respond to a few topic questions in their notebooks. After formulating some written ideas, students are paired up to discuss or are encouraged to present to the class. Horton states,”I constantly encourage to BE, ASK, and DO: Be at school on time, ask questions every day, and do the work. The students who do these things are the students who reach their own definitions of “success.”
Another interactive activity for geography class, Horton has students create three to five minute silent films that represent an analogy for colonialism, for example. These silent films must include the Six Elements of Story discussed in class, and on viewing day, the class must correctly identify the analogy and the six elements.
“Viewing day is a great day because students want to talk to each other about their films and they are required to do it in English. This particular presentation is a good gauge for me to see English, geography, history, and critical thought working together.”
Horton will also have students teach a fifteen minute history or geography lesson as a teacher of another discipline. For example, if the class is learning about the United State’s involvement in World War II, students will randomly draw disciplines such as science, mathematics, art, and languages. They then assume the role of that teacher and lead a lesson about World War II. A science teacher might teach about the atomic bombs, or an art teacher may focus on the paintings of Norman Rockwell. Seeing the creative intelligence of the students is half of the fun.
Horton believes that our first language is something most of us didn’t learn, but rather had happen to us. Horton attributes language learning to eating and walking. When looking around we don’t judge one another by saying, “He eats better than me,” or “She walks much more effortlessly than me.” Rather, we compare ourselves, and often become self-conscious, about the things we have “learned.” This makes the ELL classroom a special and delicate place. “He speaks better English than me,” or “She writes much more effortlessly in English,” are very real concerns for the ELL student. The more opportunity students have to interact in different activities, the better it is for their confidence. As confidence rises, so does curiosity, which often creates those “manifestations of the human spirit.”
Share This | <urn:uuid:001835e1-913e-49cc-8d44-bcc4fcccaa23> | http://www.thesysintl.com/2016/08/24/creative-ideas-teaching-ells-subject-areas/ | en | 0.965256 | 0.029037 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
A Legacy of Spies, by John le Carre
This 2017 work has a wonderful opening, offering just the perspective, just the framework, that has always fascinated me. A retired spy, Peter Guillam, living in France, is summoned to London. Because certain lawyers are challenging a decision he and his superiors made a generation ago during the Cold War, a decision that resulted in the death at the Berlin Wall of one of their operatives, Alec Leamas, plus an innocent girl, Elizabeth Gold. The lawyers are acting for the two children of those victims.
What I loved so much is this perspective of a mature narrator reviewing a more innocent past, and seeing that past in a new light. Often a more ironic and more introspective light. And in doing so here, le Carre is also revisiting the climax of his first successful espionage novel, A Spy Came in from the Cold. This involved the British penetration of the Soviet and East German spy apparatus, a splendid accomplishment for those times. And that early novel is a highlight of the author’s career, just as the espionage story was the same for Guillam’s career.
But now Guillam also sees the challenge to this past escapade as a challenge to the legitimacy of his entire career. Whereas the new generation sees only the dark side of that operation, and these children of the two victims are seeking justice for the death of their respective parents.
Such questioning is a frequent theme in the author’s other espionage novels. Indeed, his hero Guillam, expresses his own reservations near the end of this tale: “How much of our human feeling can we dispense with in the name of freedom, would you say, before we cease to feel either human or free?” As a former spy himself, a member of the British Secret Service that is called here the Circus, le Carre has long felt that bringing forward the dark side of espionage is a legitimate way to portray his former profession.
The problem for me is that much of the novel involves flashbacks to memorable events of the Cold War. For Guillam seeks to recall those past events in order to justify them to himself before he faces any tribunal. But the problem is that many of the details of the operation are introduced through official reports of the World War II era, a technique that may help Guillam recall the past but which have no perspective, and which, each time, slows the dramatic flow of the those events.
The result is that we have lost the perspective of the present evaluating the distant past. Instead, the past is evaluating the past. And as Guillam attempts to remember the details of his past effort that is now being challenged, there is a further complication. Because the operation and its aftereffects were quite complicated, and are not easy to follow
This is Le Carre’s 24th novel, most of them espionage novels. And he is 85 years old. One senses that this may be his last such novel, and that he may have used his first spy novel as a crutch to recreate once again the world that he was so much a part of.
One wonders, indeed, if he may also be poking us in the rib, as if to say: here’s another look at that early novel that you were not aware of. But one must also say that this latest work has the intellectual and moral depth that one expects from a le Carre novel. What it lacks is the dramatic tension as the discovery of the operation’s deaths become known. There is one surprise death, but, being in the past, it does not have a major impact. And surely more of the self-doubt and guilt that Guillam now feels in the present should have also existed at the time of the operation. Instead, there may have been sorrow back then at the operation’s failure, but there is no suggested second-guessing of their actions by these gung-ho operatives.
This work offers a behind-the-scenes look at the author’s first successful novel. It thus deepens the moral evaluation of that novel by raising new doubts about the legitimacy of our heroes’ actions. What it also reflects is an elderly author revisiting his past, and finding new depths to explore. As Robert McCrum says in the Guardian: “’Le Carre’s new novel displays a grand old man of English letters conducting a masterclass in the genre he has made his own.”
If this is the last of le Carre’s espionage novels, it is a good way to go out. Even if it lacks intense drama, it probes the impact of a major event that has rested, quietly, within one man’s conscience. That is the legacy that this spymaster now acknowledges. (August, 2019)
Stern Men, by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Force, by Don Winslow
This is the story of why they don’t.
Midnight in Europe, by Alan Furst
This 2014 novel is a fast read, and a highly polished and professional work of espionage. But it has little depth, No, for example, moral issues. Or psychological issues. And no real danger confronts its hero, Christian Ferrar, a Spanish exile who is a lawyer at a distinguished French law firm in Paris.
What this novel does achieve is an effective portrait of pre-war Europe. This is a strong point of most of Furst’s novels, and here he focuses on the Spanish Republic’s efforts to obtain anti-tank canon and artillery shells for use against the more powerful armaments employed by the forces of Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
Ferrar’s two assignments are finding the canon and the specific shells that fit the Republic’s older weapons, and then arranging their delivery to the Republican forces in Spain. Which involves fast-moving but routine events, requiring Ferrar and his colleagues to ferret out the armaments from Eastern and Central Europe. Which also means he must deal with idealists and gangsters, and with arms traders and aristocrats, plus Max de Lyon, a mysterious arms merchant. Encounters with them also capture the 1930’s atmosphere, as they range from shady Paris nightclubs to the city’s plush apartments, as well as from a brothel in Istanbul to a dockyard in Poland,
But one of the novel’s problems is that there is little linkage among these events; they simply present hurdles to be overcome. That is, there is no building of suspense, no solving of one problem that leads to the next. Nor are there serious villains who offer threats to Ferrar’s two missions. The only problems are getting control of the armaments and making the delivery.
But, of course, such missions turn out to be not that simple. In one case, the team loses control of the cannon shipment and must take over a train in Poland to deliver it. In another, the shells are found in Russia, but Stalin’s policy refuses to sell the shells to his supposed allies, the leftists in Spain. And so, after the shells are found, they must be stolen, hidden on an ancient steamer, and then transported across the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. This sequence builds high drama as the novel draws to a close.
There are personal detours, of course, to flesh out Ferrar’s character and pique our interest. For example, he is a ladies man, and has at least three affairs during the course of his undercover work. He also has other responsibilities at his French law firm that fill out his life as a lawyer, but do not impact the search for armaments. At other intervals, Furst captures the atmosphere of European life, where people know that war is approaching but are not sure when and where. Still further atmosphere is created on a Paris-Berlin express train at night, on hectic car rides in Paris and Poland, and the climactic voyage through a storm and outrunning a patrol boat.
When in mood for a fast-paced thriller, another tale by Furst would be welcome. But despite the atmosphere, these works are not literature, and they lack the psychological probing and moral complexity that is a trademark of the best espionage novels. (July, 2019) | <urn:uuid:35dcf1f9-a25b-4484-83b2-50ee362fe078> | https://aliterarycavalcade.net/2019/08/ | en | 0.97365 | 0.02384 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Writing a Voxel engine from scratch in Vulkan
This is a series of posts that I originally published to my Facebook feed in late 2017. I repost them here for posterity because I still hope to find the time to continue the project.
November 13, 2017
Why are build systems and dependency management for C and C++ open source software still unsolved problems on Windows in 2017? I wanted to render some text in my toy Vulkan 3D engine so I figured I'd do the right thing and use FreeType, Harfbuzz and Pango. FreeType for rendering individual glyphs, Harfbuzz for shaping lines of text and Pango for laying out entire paragraphs. Making FreeType work was a breeze. Harfbuzz was painful, with lots of broken links, missing documentation and a more involved build process. Pango I completely gave up on. It's ridiculously convoluted and pulls in the entire world in dependencies. No wonder most people give up on the endeavour entirely and resort to hacking bitmap fonts manually. What a waste of time! I only ever get a few minutes here and there while Leonie is sleeping...
November 16, 2017
I'm reading up on modern approaches to global illumination in 3d engines. The process of tracing individual rays of light through complex 3d scenes, following them around for multiple bounces to create realistic reflections, refractions and shadows. It's mind boggling how much we can get away with brute force methods on contemporary graphics hardware. Millions of rays through millions of voxels 60 times per second. The supercomputer under everyone's desk today is truly marvelous. And yet I agree with Halvar Flake that there's no such thing as 'enough compute resources'. Exciting times watching where this will lead...
November 21, 2017
A few thousand lines of code later and I can render a first simple scene. The screenshot shows a MagicaVoxel (https://ephtracy.github.io/) scene and a little soldier dude in the background who's just there to make sure alpha transparency works. Voxels are flat shaded and colored from a palette. The vertex shader looks up a color value in a 1D palette image, performs the lighting computation and forwards the result to the fragment shader which is just a pass-through.
November 22, 2017
Leonie spent her first hour in the day nursery all alone today (and rocked it!). So I had time to bang out 200 more lines of code and implement Multisample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA). This is another one of these crazy brute force methods where the power of modern (graphics) hardware is just amazing. What we're trying to do is make sharp edges appear less jaggy/pixelated. So instead of drawing a red line with only red pixels we interpolate sub-pixel values and fill them with colors like "half-red, half-transparent". The effect is quite dramatic as you can see in the attached two images comparing MSAA ON vs OFF. Now the way to achieve this is to render the entire scene at a multiple of the screen resolution and then scale it down again. So basically the graphics hardware is doing the work to fill a screen 8 times the size and then throws away most of that information again. There is some smarts in modern hardware to avoid being quite so dumb, but this is an accurate description of how the first implementors approached it.
Here's a great explanation of the details:
November 23, 2017
Leonie is spending more time in the day nursery so I have more time for coding ;-) Today was a major milestone. The image may not look like much and just another model but it is significant:
I store my voxels in cubic chunks of 32^3. So far I have only ever rendered a single chunk and didn't worry about crossing chunk boundaries. The model you see below is significantly bigger than a single chunk though, so I needed to tackle a whole slew of new problems.
First, since I plan on having very many chunks, more than the graphics card can store at once, I needed a way to only keep the set of chunks currently around the camera in graphics memory. To this end I have implemented a Least Recently Used (LRU) Cache. This keeps track of the chunks rendered recently and if memory gets tight, drops off the ones that haven't been touched in awhile. The LRU cache is implemented as a combination of a hash_map and a list to make all operations O(1).
Second, I needed a way to actually manage memory on the graphics card. My vertex buffers differ significantly in size, depending on the exact content of the chunk. Empty space in the model requires no triangles to render while complex stairs and such require very many. So I implemented a First Fit memory allocator that tracks allocated blocks. The LRU cache decides which blocks to keep and the First Fit allocator decides where to put them, hopefully maintaining low fragmentation.
Third, I needed a way to efficiently query for neighboring chunks and chunks around the camera. To this end I'm using an R*Tree (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-tree) as a spatial subdivision structure that allows for efficient intersection and coverage queries. So far I'm only using it for neighbor queries, but the next step will be querying for the camera frustum.
November 25, 2017
Added a heightmap reader (what you see is a section of Tamriel from Elder Scrolls - for some reason that turned up as the first hit for my heightmap Google search). Then wasted a day trying to figure out why my frustum math was broken. In the end it turns out that one of my assumptions on how GLM works was incorrect and the matrix is stored transposed relative to what I expected. Oh well. Now I can query my R*Tree for chunks intersecting the camera frustum, so that's good.
I've been looking for more heightmaps and was slightly disappointed:
- most algorithmically generated data sucks/is boring. Once you've seen a few of these you've seen them all. With a bit of experience it's often possible to directly discern the noise function they've used for generating the terrain.
- real digital elevation data is often freely available from agencies like the US geological survey. Even up to 1m resolution which would be perfect for my use case. However, they often provide it in custom data formats only supported by expensive Geo information systems. I don't want to waste time writing an importer for that. Sucks.
In an ideal world I'd have a synthesizer system based on something like TensorFlow. A neural net trained on real world elevation data that then synthesizes new textures from that input. Ideally with the option of accepting coarse additional human input as a guide. E.g.: "I want a mountain here, but feel free to fill in all the rest." Should be possible to build.
November 27, 2017
I was trying to load a huge heightmap to test my caching strategy. Turns out Visual Studio's default setting of building x86 binaries tripped me. It's tricky handling a multi gigabyte dataset in a 32 bit address space which only affords you 3GB of RAM if you're lucky (no fragmentation). So I had to change my project's configuration to build a 64 bit x64 binary. That change by itself was trivial - except for a few warnings about the now larger size_t type my code built just fine. The issue was rebuilding all dependencies (SDL, SDL image, boost, Google protobuffers, gunit, harffbuzz, FreeType). This took a while. Luckily Vulkan is a prebuilt library and GLM is a header only library.
After that was fixed I had to debug an issue with my caching strategy. I had to update it to be able to deal with zero byte chunks. This may seem a bit counterintuitive, but a chunk may completely disappear when producing a mesh from it, even if it is actually non-empty and contains voxels. Specifically this is true for fully solid interior chunks. A chunk completely surrounded by other solid chunks will not get any polygons created for it and result in a null mesh.
So now I can cruise over a giant heightmap with chunks happily streaming in and out of the GPU.
November 27, 2017
Lots of algorithms on voxels are of the "embarrassingly parallel" nature. So far I have been holding off parallelizing anything. I thought I'd make it correct first and fast later. However, testing with the large heightmap took about 8 seconds for loading and generating meshes from it. This became old pretty fast. So I looked at intel's Thread Building Blocks (TBB) library for writing parallel code. It seems very well designed and integrating it only took a few minutes. The parallelized loading code got a nice near linear speedup from 8 seconds to about 1.3 seconds utilizing all my 8 cores. Quick win!
There are even more optimizations to be had by utilizing the SIMD instruction set and processing entire rows of voxels at once instead of one by one. This is far more involved though and makes the code much more rigid. Since I haven't finalized the data format yet and in fact don't even know what properties I'll eventually store per voxel, I'm postponing this for now. But it does look like a fun challenge! In any case, storing the data in a column oriented and SIMD friendly manner (i.e. structs of arrays instead of the more familiar arrays of structs OOP design) should have cache benefits even if I don't use the enhanced instruction set right away.
November 29, 2017
Leonie has been sick the past few days so we had some bad nights and little time for hobby projects. I still managed to implement a few things:
1) Improved MagicaVoxel file format support. See attached screenshot.
2) Greedy meshing. This is the biggest and trickiest new feature. Took me quite a while to get right and the resulting code is 7 nested loops and a goto (!). It's pretty cool though. When naively meshing a voxel grid you create quads (pairs of triangles) per cube face. That means 12 triangles for a single voxel. This adds up quickly! One way to simplify this is to perform what amounts to two dimensional run length encoding. You merge neighboring voxels with the same surface properties into larger rectangles and create a single big quad to cover all of them. The downside is that the mesh topology gets worse (because you introduce t-junctions), but the amount of geometry you have to send to the GPU is reduced dramatically (for my models a factor of 4x to 6x).
More background on meshing voxels:
And before you ask about the nested for loops. You go through the chunk volume in axis aligned slices and greedily construct rectangles:
for axis in [0..3]
for side in [0..1]
for dimension one in [0..chunksize]
for dimension two in [0..chunksize]
for dimension three in [0..chunksize]
while horizontal run continues
while vertical run continues
for length of horizontal run
The goto is just an early out of one of the inner loops in case the surface properties no longer warrant merging voxels.
3) More parallelization work. Since the new meshing strategy is about twice as expensive computationally as the naive approach I needed to speed it up. I took advantage of Vulkan's ability to record command buffers in multiple threads and use secondary command buffers. If we need to mesh multiple chunks in a frame the work is branched out to multiple threads on a TBB (intel thread building blocks) thread group. Compared to the serial version this gives me a 3x to 4x speedup. The remaining performance bottlenecks are the boost RTree traversal and memory allocations for the meshes. The former is amenable to parallelization as well, but would require me to hack the boost library which I'd like to avoid for the time being. I could play around with different allocators for addressing the latter, but that will probably not improve things dramatically. Better to find a way of avoiding allocations altogether
December 3, 2017
"compiler is out of heap space in pass 2"
;-( Don't you just love it when your tools fail you?
December 8, 2017
My first tree! This may seem unremarkable, but required a lot of work. The other complex models I posted were all hand made with the external modelling package MagicaVoxel and required painstakingly placing each individual voxel. This tree on the other hand is procedurally grown. If I change just a handful of easy parameters or the random seed I can grow a new tree or an entire forest.
The intuitive approach for growing a tree would be to start at the root and grow out branches one by one. And in fact, many algorithms do just that and use L-Systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-system). However this has a few downsides: One, the resulting plants tend to look very fractal and with a discernable repeating structure. Two, it is extremely hard to avoid self intersection with this approach. Branches will grow straight through other branches or the stem of the tree. Even if you manage to solve this for a single tree, the problem gets compounded if you want to grow a forest where branches should not intersect neighboring trees. Three, finding good parameters and rulesets for these algorithms is hard.
So instead of using L-Systems I chose a Space Colonization Algorithm (see paper below). The crucial insight of this algorithm is an observation of what a tree is trying to achieve: grow its branches into the light. Thus you start from the goal instead of from the bottom. Seed a volume of arbitrary shape (I'm currently using a simple sphere) with randomly distributed attraction points. These will determine the shape of the crown. Then you grow branches towards these attraction points following a few simple rules:
1) each attraction point only influences the closest branch segment
2) an attraction point that is closer than a given threshold to a branch segment gets killed off
3) every iteration of the algorithm you add new branch segments to the tree, growing in the average direction of all attraction points influencing the new segment
4) keep going until no attraction points are left or none can be reached within a radius of influence
It's a beautifully simple idea with remarkably lifelike results. And as a bonus growing an entire forest (or roots for that matter) is no different than growing a single tree - you distribute attraction points everywhere and start with more than one root and voila - a forest. You need to perform lots of nearest neighbor queries to thousands of attraction points every iteration. This is expensive, so to make it efficient I'm resorting to using an R*Tree (the data structure ;-)) as a space partitioning mechanism. I'm a little proud that despite the complexity of the algorithm and a significant amount of code my very first execution of the program led to the result you see. Usually such things require a few attempts to get right ;-)
Now the next task is to give the tree, especially the trunk, volume. Leonardo da Vinci observed that trees are essentially a network of pipes transporting water from their roots to the branches. As such, the rule for the width of a tree is to keep the pipe capacity constant. That is, starting from the terminal branches progress towards the trunk and whenever branches merge preserve the surface area of the intersection disks. This is easy enough to compute - however drawing "thick" lines is surprisingly hard. Even just the single voxel width line drawing algorithm isn't entirely trivial. An exercise for another day.
Lastly, the trees as a network of pipes model is only correct for trees in moderate climates where transporting water is the primary concern. Trees in desert climates are more interested in storing water and you end up with funky shapes like baobab trees. Essentially barrels with a few sticks on their heads. Should be an interesting task to adapt the algorithm to such specialized trees. Coniferous trees and weeping willows should pose cool challenges too.
"Modeling Trees with a Space Colonization Algorithm"
Aside: Department of Algorithmic Botany?! How cool is that?
December 9, 2017
The voxel editor I use, MagicaVoxel, encodes the color of a voxel in a single byte. This implies every model has a palette of at most 256 unique colors. Typically every model uses its own palette, tailored for that specific model. A tree would use mostly greens and browns while an 80s style arcade might be all bright neon. This presents a problem if you want to create a scene containing more than one model, e.g. an arcade underneath a tree. We need to squeeze the colors of both models into a new, joint palette somehow. Preferably while preserving as much visual fidelity as possible.
The way I solved this dilemma is by creating a master palette that covers a broad range of colors. When loading a model into my scene I now need to remap the model's colors to the best matching color in the master palette. Images are typically stored in RGB (red, green, blue) color space. This is fine for sending to a monitor, but it is terrible for computing distances (=differences) between colors. RGB space doesn't match the human visual system's perception of what constitutes close colors very well at all. Humans have evolved to be much more sensitive to differences in green than blue for example. The color space should reflect that.
Luckily a bunch of people created such a color space back in the 70s. It's called Lab (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lab_color_space). You take your RGB values and transform them through a bunch of magic numbers and square roots. The resulting space reflects human perception much better and a special formula for color differences, CIELAB delta E (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_difference) has been devised. I think they ran actual experiments where humans were shown colors side by side and should press a button if they thought they were different. Whatever the details, today this deltaE color difference is used for measuring color reproduction quality in print, textiles, photography and many other domains.
Anyway, back to my tree over the arcade: I load both models and remap their private palettes to the master palette by picking the best matching color according to deltaE. If the master palette contains anything even close to the original colors the models come out nicely at the end and I can have a merry collection of things in a single scene. Win!
While researching some of this I found forum entries where people painstakingly did this remapping manually in MagicaVoxel. Maybe I should release a tool and ease their pain ;-)
December 10, 2017
I fell down a completely unexpected rabbit hole today. When I generated my first tree I was just drawing it as a stick figure, thinking that extending those thin limbs to branches with volume would be easy. Boy was I wrong. Now the Leonardo pipe model of a tree does give me correct radii for every branch. This just required careful traversal of the tree data structure. But actually rendering thick lines proved to be a hard problem indeed!
A line with volume is a cylinder in 3D. To draw a cylinder into a voxel grid you need to scan convert it. That is, you need to find all the voxels partially covered by the cylinder. The cylinder is given in parametric form, i.e. as its two endpoints and a radius. The task is to somehow iterate this and compute integer grid coordinates without visiting a single grid cell more than once or, worse, missing one.
A plethora of efficient scan conversion algorithms exist for the 2D case. We have been projecting any kind of geometry down to a 2D grid of pixels (the screen!) since the beginning of computing. Projecting them into a 3D voxel grid is something else entirely though and the literature is depressingly thin on the topic. True 3D displays are rare (although the Zürich Christmas market would be perfect with its lines of LEDs dangling above the street), so few people have tackled the problem.
I found some ancient papers but no ready made solution. I'm interested in your ideas!
What I did in the meantime is write a brute force solution:
Compute the smallest axis aligned bounding box containing the cylinder. This is not trivial by itself and warrants another post sometime. It involves some cool tricks to make it efficient. We know all voxels touching the cylinder must be contained in this bounding box. Now we iterate the bounding box and ask for every single voxel: "am I in the cylinder?". This can be done relatively efficiently by computing a few dot products to get the distance of the query point to the endcaps of the cylinder and the axis. If the query point passes the tests we draw it. Voila, a thick line or cylinder.
This works well enough for cylinders that are roughly parallel to an axis and not too long. It gets miserably inefficient if you have a long thin diagnoal cylinder. The volume of the bounding box relative to the volume of the cylinder will be huge, making my simple algorithm do way too much work.
The other issue, even if I had an efficient cylinder rendering algorithm, is how to make multiple cylinders meet up without gaps. If you have two cylinders meet up at an angle you'll have a wedge missing between them, making my trees look as if someone started cutting them down. I'm thinking rendering capsules instead of cylinders will mitigate this problem. But maybe an entirely different approach is needed and I should use some sort of spline or so.
Anyway, attached is the current state of the art. The white floating voxels are the attractors that led to the current tree shape.
December 11, 2017
Today I grew a bunch of trees simultaneously, letting them compete for the same set of attraction points. I also spread the attraction points in a more interesting pattern than just a simple sphere. With a little bit of imagination you can see the forest ;-)
I also experimented with different exponents for the pipe capacity model of the trees. The "correct" solution is to use 0.5, i.e. the square root for calculating the radius given the area of a disc (2 * pi * r^2). I tried using things like 0.3 and 0.7 to have the trees thin out faster or slower. But the results didn't look convincing, so I stayed with the original model (which I think produces relatively slim trees? What do you think?).
Then I implemented an algorithm for scan converting a solid sphere or ball. Because of the inherent symmetry this is much easier than discs, cylinders or any other three dimensional structure. There's an efficient algorithm for circles which a certain Mr Bresenham came up with a long time ago. It also takes advantage of the symmetrie and basically mirrors the octants of a circle around the center point. It uses only simple integer operations and is thus pretty efficient.
To convert the Bresenham circle algorithm to three dimensions we observe that we can build up the ball as a stack of vertical slices. So we apply Bresenham twice in a row: once to compute the radius for a given vertical slice and again to actually render that slice. Works like a charm.
Now why did I want balls? (haha). Because stacking thick cylinders at angles cut wedges into my tree trunks (see images). To fix this I'm now rendering a ball as a joint between any two cylinders. Problem solved.
December 18, 2017
I can generate lots of trees now. Question is: where should they grow? Spawning them randomly across the map leads to a very chaotic and busy look. It also doesn't necessarily feel realistic. The other extreme, growing them in strict rectangular patterns is boring and only ever happens in plantations anyway. Halfway between the two extremes one could assign each tree to a grid cell and then wiggle it (randomize) the position only within that cell. Better, but also not the look I was hoping for.
What we really want is blue noise. Did you know noise has color? Most people are familiar with the term white noise, but there are also pink, brown, blue and others [1]. Anyway, there's an efficient algorithm for implementing Poisson Disk sampling [2] in arbitrary dimensions. The idea is to generate a bunch of points that are at least a certain distance d and at most 2*d apart from one another. In two dimensions you start by picking a single point on the plane randomly and put it on an "open" list. You create a number k of random points in the annulus surrounding that point. Check for each of the newly generated points if the minimum and maximum distance conditions hold (see below). If so, put them on the open list. Iterate until the list is empty by popping a new reference point from the open list.
Ordinarily to make sure the distance criteria are being obeyed you'd have to check every point against every other point. This would be terribly inefficient for a large set of points. So we use a grid of cell size min_distance / sqrt(num_dimensions). Every point we keep is marked in this grid. Now to check whether a newly generated point is a valid candidate we just have to traverse the grid in its neighborhood. If all cells are empty, we can keep the point. If a cell is occupied, we compute the exact distance (since the grid only gives us an approximate answer), checking the condition again. The grid is constructed such that we need only check one cell in the diagonal directions and two cells in horizontal and vertical directions.
Now the last tricky bit to get right is how to uniformly sample points from an annulus, or ring. If you naively choose a point by picking a random angle and distance in [min_distance, max_distance] you'll end up with points clustering closer to the inside of the ring than the outside. The reason of course is that there's more surface area on the outside of the ring for the same number of points. To compensate for this we observe that the surface grows quadratically and we thus should choose a random distance according to:
distance = sqrt(random * (max_distance^2 - min_distance^2) + min_distance^2)
Voila, now the points are uniformly distributed on the ring.
The result is now a bit too regular for my liking, but I'll explore two ways of fixing this next time ;-)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise#Blue_noise
[2] https://www.cct.lsu.edu/~fharhad/ganbatte/siggraph2007/CD2/content/sketches/0250.pdf
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Family or friends visiting or just for yourself a nice piece of cake always tastes. Give your cake an extra touch with fruit or other toppings. It's just a piece of cake!
Product Information
Cake baking tin
Everyone knows the English tradition of drinking tea with a delicious piece of cake in the afternoon. Of course people also eat cake with us, but first the cakes need to be baked ...
Baking a cake?
Apple cake, cherry cake, a cake in chocolate, ... delicious as a dessert with coffee. But if Jan or Piet wants to make a delicious cake, how does he start?
Recipes & baking tins?
Recipes for delicious cakes can be found everywhere, both on the internet and in various specialized books and / or magazines. Finding a ready-made cake recipe should succeed. However, good cake baking tins are less easy to find. But if Jan or Piet wants to make a delicious cake, how does he start?
CBP? The cake baking mold!
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DPS for a few classes
Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Raynrace, Dec 11, 2014.
1. Ravengloome Augur
I mean I've done it before but the return on investment is low outside of particular events/scenarios. Certain classes benefit from it more than others though. Casters get little to nothing from it as an example.
2. SaderakhBertox Augur
combined damage = the big picture of a player's contribution to a raid....
Well I think looking at a single guild's combined parse for an evening of raiding is a horrible way to judge whether a class is "balanced" or not hehe...
3. Hatsee Augur
Err, no. If you sit for 20 minutes after every single event so everyone has everything up, and the casters all die at the start, then pop everything to get mana back, then die again... Maybe.
Bahdah, Esero and Romance like this.
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Professional job interview tests – can you answer them directly from your head?
No matter how much knowledge and experience you have with almost everything from IT side – when you go to a job interview, you can expect unexpected questions, and when I said “unexpected questions” and I’m not thinking about most stupid questions on planet like “Where do you see yourself in our team for 10 years” or “Why should we employ you -and not someone else” – I mean exactly the very professional questions that you should know and are expected to know.
For example, for a whole day I hang over the command console and nRemoteNG, a black window in front of me all day that I’m Saša Matić – and then I go to a job interview and I stuck down with the question: “With which command you can copy the file xxx.txt from folder AAA folder to folder BBB but to leave the original permissions from source.” Simply, you come across questions in things you never worked with – for example, I have never copied with need to save original file permissions – but of course if I had to do it, I would try first “man cp” and I would see which parameter is related to it – and in this case that is parameter ‘p’ as a ‘preserve’, so the original command would be: cp -p /path/to/AAA/xxx.txt / path / to / BBB
In the tests below, there are tests for three IT positions, from which I was applied for two – System Programmer for Linux, Junior System Administrator and Linux System Administrator (I was not on the Junior test, one of blog followers sent me a test through Facebook) – with sone questions where I still have no answers. All tests were required answers directly from the head and without using any help (man, Google, others). The questions were marked in the way I did them and how I knew them (without any googling for this blogpost) and questions marked with the red color are questions where I didn’t have answer, so if somebody had the answer – he can wrote on comment area of this blog.
BTW, I’m System Administrator and the paradox is: I have the least knowledge for Junior System Administrator position – based on test. I deliberately put a click on the answer in + to try to first hear yourself … whether you would know the answers from the head, without googling and anything else. All answer bellow are from head and I did not use Google, man or anything else for making of this blogpost.
Test for job position:
System Programmer for shell
I’ve answered on all questions on this test correctly – but I had some little mistakes based on typo, for example instead of ‘fi’ I put somewhere ‘fa’ or instead ‘read’ I put ‘reda’ – but that was not a problem for people who held the test – for them it was only important to know that there was, as they said, the right way of thinking and knowing the syntax. In the test, you had a VirtualBox machine for testing purposes – but without a PuTTY/SSH approach (just typing directly into VirtualBox) – so the test code was absolutely impractical … so I hit everything out of my head and without testing. The deadline for completing this test was 30 minutes.
1) Create a shell script that will do the following
• Input parameter: Enter folder name:
• Print out the total number of files within that folder
• Make a file in which the result will be in a human friendly format and print where this file is located
• Display “Completed”
The answer
read -p "Enter folder name: " FOLDERNAME
if [ -d ${FOLDERNAME} ]
echo "There is `find ${FOLDERNAME} -type f | wc -l` files in ${FOLDERNAME}" | tee /tmp/output_file.txt
echo "File with result is: /tmp/output_file.txt"
echo "Completed"
echo "There is no folder with name ${FOLDERNAME}. Sorry, try again."
2) Create a shell script that will do the following
• Input parameter: Enter user:
• Input parameter: Enter password:
• Login to mysql with that login credentials
• Create a file containing a list of all available databases
• Display “Complete” if login was successful
The answer
read -p "Enter user : " DB_USER
read -p "Enter password : " DB_PASS
mysql -u ${DB_USER} -p"${DB_PASS}" -e "show databases;" > /tmp/output.txt 2>/dev/null
if [ $? = 0 ] ; then
echo "Complete"
echo "Something goes wrong, does user ${DB_USER} with password ${DB_PASS} exists?"
3) Create a shell script that will do the following
• Create file with next information in one line: Timestamp – Hostname:
The answer
echo "`date` - `hostname`: " > /tmp/output_file.txt
4) Create a shell script that will do the following
• Input parameter: Enter first name
• Input parameter: Enter last name
• Print on display: Hello Lastname, Firstname
• Create output file with a result
• Print current date and time in human friendly format
The answer
read -p "Enter first name: " FIRSTNAME
read -p "Enter last name: " LASTNAME
echo "Hello ${LASTNAME}, ${FIRSTNAME}" | tee /tmp/output_file.txt
echo "Today is: "$(date +'%A, %d.%m.%Y (%H:%M'\))
5) Create a shell script that will do the following
• Read all lines from file /root/test.txt
• Show all line on display but with line numbers
The answer
grep -n "" /root/test.txt # :-)
6) Create a shell script that will do the following
• Input parameters: Enter the Source Folder:
• Input parameters: Enter the Destination Folder:
• Create that Destination folder – if doesn’t exists
• Copy everything from Source Folder to Destination Folder
The answer
read -p "Enter the Source Folder: " SOURCEFOLDER
read -p "Enter the Destination Folder: " DESTINATIONFOLDER
if [ ! -d "$SOURCEFOLDER" ]; then
echo "There is no source folder: ${SOURCEFOLDER}"
exit 1
7) Create a shell script that will do the following
• Input parameter: Enter 1st number:
• Input parameter: Enter 2nd number
• Print bigger number
The answer
read -p "Enter 1st number: " NO1
read -p "Enter 2nd number " NO2
if [ ${NO1} -gt ${NO2} ] ; then
echo "${NO1} is bigger"
echo "${NO2} is bigger"
# Bonus :)
if [ ${NO1} -eq ${NO2} ] ; then
echo "Numbers are equal"
Test for job position:
Junior System Administrator
This is a test that was sent to me by one of blog’s followers, and it’s about a big company operating in the whole territory of Serbia. Half of these questions I have no idea how to answer, and if I went for testing I would fairly blur myself because there are many questions for Junior System Administrator which I don’t know – and I am System Administrator (without this Junior shit)…and I would not even be in the last 10 in this test. These are questions for the junior system administrator – I could only imagine how look like questions for Senior System Administrator.
1. A Linux command that requires a new IP address from a DHCP server is:
The answer
dhclient -r
2. Windows CLI commda for check: When will domain password expired:
The answer
# Question id confused, I guess they were thinking about this
net user %USERNAME% /domain
3. Do you know which services can be connected via the SSO or did you already had the opportunity to implement something like that in the Windows / Linux environment?
I have no idea what is a answer and I will not google it. If someone have a answer – please write it in comment area – but without googling!
4. Advantages of Linksys WRT54GL router?
I have no idea what is a answer and I will not google it. If someone have a answer – please write it in comment area – but without googling! I guess, as far as Linksys is concerned, it’s a low price – but for this particular model – how the fuck I should know directly from my head. I can also assume that as far as WRT is concerned, it is a firmware that can easily be adapted to local needs.
5. What is the main advantage of the latest version of Samba server?
I have no idea what is a answer and I will not google it. If someone have a answer – please write it in comment area – but without googling! I will wroute here some default stuff for related to new software versions – improved security, disabled weak protocols (SMBv1 for example) and similar shit
This is box title
The answer
7. Default ports:
SSH:__ DNS:__ HTTP:__ SSL:__ VNC:__ RDP:__ PPTP:__ L2TP:__ FTP:__
The answer
SSH:22 DNS:53 HTTP:80 SSL:443 VNC:5901 RDP:3389 PPTP:1723 L2TP:1701 FTP:21
8. What is the command to create permanent links in Linux and how to delete them?
To be honest – I have no idea what is ‘permanent link’ (that is a reason why I marked this question with red), I guess they were thinking about symbolic link…and in that case it’s ln -s /source/file /destination/link, and it they thinking about hardlinks – command is the same but without ‘-s’ parameter. Delete will be with: rm /destination/link
9. What is WPAD?
The answer
A file that provides an automatic configuration for using proxy servers on client devices.
10. Windows CLI command for refresh of Group policy:
The answer
gpupdate or you can force it with: gpupdate /force
11. Recommended commands for update on Ubuntu:
The answer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
12. Glassfish is:
The answer
Application server
13. Where is default profile config in Linux?
The answer
14. OpenVPN make a problem with users without administrator rights. What is the solution?:
I have no idea – directly from head. I guess there is some explanation in OpenVPN Wiki/howto (I google it – there is explanation on OpenVPN wiki – but you cannot answer directly from head).
15. After installing CentOS minimal server autocomplete function does not work. How to make it work:
The answer
yum install bash-completion (I googled this, because I installed bilion of CentOS servers and I never had this kind of problem).
This is box title
The answer
yum localinstall package.rpm
17. How to create a secure connection between DHCP and DNS server on the Linux server:
18. What is a different between Thin and Tick RAM memory allocation in VMware ESXi server:
I hear now, first time about the Thick and Thin memory space, I know about storage provision – but nothing related to RAM. If by the same philosophy, Thick takes 100% of the allocated RAM regardless of how much it is used until Thin takes only as much as it is used on the hypervisor. However, memory reservation is done in very different way, so – I do not know the answer to this question from the head and I mark it red (it is possible that the trick is a question) so if you have a response – public, I will not google it…
19. Describe in short line:
$IPTABLES -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 5900 -i $INTERNET_if DNAT --to
The answer
Port forwarding to
20. With which command I can edit the document opened by the VI editor, and which command document closes the document by saving the changes?
The answer
insert or little letter i.
:wq! or :x!
Test for job position:
Linux System Administrator
On this test, I’m blamed for all money. Although I knew all the questions, the brain was blocked because I came to test after full-time work on some fucking problem but successfully settled in the end and immediately after the first shift at work (eyes, brain, spine distroyed) so that when I left with I told the talk “Goodbye” to people because there is no excuses. Later, I got a feedback from that company – they just want to see do I know how to approach the problem and know which program or command is there at all about? – for example for question, “Which command is used on computer A to copy the file from computer B to computer C “- it was enough for them to just mention the scp and basic syntax of the ‘scp file blabla…’, not the whole command.
Here I will enter the correct questions (I am now rested, fresh and all I know) but I will mark in the answers what I knew and what not from the head.
Copy the entire contents of the AAA folder to the BBB folder, but leave original permissions
The answer
# I didn't know from head about 'p'
cp -pa AAA/. BBB/
Selinux is short from what?
The answer
Security-Enhanced Linux
Create a 250MB file
The answer
# I didn't know whole syntax from head even I doing this very often
dd if=/dev/zero of=filename bs=1M count=250
How to find all files older than 30 days and that are greater than 20MB and delete them
The answer
# I didn't remember about 'size' - other from this command I know
find /path/ -type f -mtime +30 -size +10M -exec rm -f {} \;
How to copy, using only one command from a computer with IP address - one folder with all files from a computer - to a computer
The answer
# I could not remember full syntax because I never did this
# The farthest thing I did was scp some-file user@IP:/path/to/ folder
scp user@* user@
I added you a new disk ... extend it to the existing LVM (I even made the blog and instructions from this but the brain block). Print all steps and syntax.
I did not know this directly from a head, even though I worked a million times. I knew the fdisk part in the first place and pvcreate/lvcreate commands… so I answered that I do not know my mind and fuck it. Paradox is – I create manual about this on this blog (in Serbian).
What is called a daemon that fills /var/log/messages?
This is the only question that I really did not know, and the answer is: syslogd
How do give read and execute permissions to members of the dev group for folder named ccccc?
The answer
# I did not know from head and I know it's about ACL. I was to fucking tired....
setfacl -m g:dev:rx /ccccc/
List all information and structure from file /etc/passwd
The answer
Username, Pasword (is set), UID, GID, Info, home folder and default shell. I forgot here password and info part, but fuck it – I will use cat /etc/passwd to see what is inside for God dammit
File in Tomcat where is defined default port and main log file in Tomcat are...?
The answer
server.xml and catalina.out
Where you can see Oracle errors while Oracle works?
The answer
alert.log (I dont know where is relation between this question and Linux, but OK, I know this one)
Default port for Tomcat is....and on what 2 ways you can change it?
The answer
Default: 8080 and you can change it on server.xml file or with port forward.
On which file is information about user password?
The answer
/etc/passwd (is password set for user) and /etc/shadow (encrypted password)
Can a swap be extended without restarting the server?
The anwer
It can, add a separate swap file of so needed size and do a mkswap and swapon without restart…and put this info in fstab
Which command is used for monitoring of server load?
The answer
top, wmstat, sar (if sysstat is installed)
What will happen if RAM and SWAP are 100% full?
The answer
System starting oom_kill_process who kills heavy processes to freeing RAM for normal work.
What is use of hosts.allow file?
The answer
It defines which service can be accessed from where and how (if ALL: ALL is set in hosts.deny).
(here I mashup this with file /etc/hosts so I gave some answer that have absolutely nothing with this file hosts.allow). | <urn:uuid:ac5bf4a7-e58f-4500-9968-13f175336e4c> | https://kompjuteras.com/en/professional-job-interview-tests-can-you-answer-them-directly-from-your-head/ | en | 0.920172 | 0.13275 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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Abbie Johnson
Abbie Johnson
Updated on 12 Nov 2018 ・ 2 min read
How ‘Netflix and chill’ became an urban term
The days when the term ‘Netflix and Chill’ consisted of lonesome, solitary innocence are well and truly behind us, for some they aren’t even memorable. So, just how did the innuendo-free phrase become the sexually-fuelled euphemism it’s known for today?
Netflix Chill Girl
Let’s start at the very beginning. Shockingly, Netflix have been around since 1997 when they were originally a Video and DVD rental company, competing with the likes of – flashback moment – Blockbuster before they went on to introduce a digital streaming service in 2007. Setting the scene of 2009, when Netflix had just been made available to stream from the main electronic devices i.e. Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 we see the first documented use of the phrase ‘Netflix and Chill’ used in a tweet by a user ‘NoFaceNina’ that stated: “I’m about to log onto Netflix and chill for the rest of the night.” It’s a tweet that emulates a throwback-style social media post one that ensures the world is informed of your every movement, but also one that highlights a virtuous, wholesome society, free of innuendo where the teenage generation really did look forward to kicking back alone and watching TV.
The year 2015 was a main turning point for the phrase; in the April it was added to the notorious Urban Dictionary, the site where users can make their own additions in the formation of the modern day teen lexicon, defined as: “code for two people going to each other’s houses and having sexual intercourse or doing other sexual related acts.” Slowly but surely the phrase began to become subversive, picking up hints of sexual connotations until it had taken a complete social media-fuelled semantic drift, one which the company themselves weren’t afraid to be a part of. In the July 2015, Netflix embraced the meme culture that had given its company sexual undertones, by posting a GIF on their Tumblr from a comedic ‘seduction’ scene in Clueless, captioned ‘Netflix and chill? No, really.’
Although ‘Netflix and Chill’ is a newly coined phrase the concept of inviting someone over to ‘hook up’ in such a metaphorical way, is not, as English language has relied on the use of innuendo to elude to sexual intercourse for centuries, in attempts to be – debatably – polite. There were many predecessors of such an ironic invitation that have been lost to the digital age, the most infamous being “Would you like to come up and see my etchings?” which dates back as early as the 1890’s. There is no doubt that in the fast paced digital world of social media and technology that we will carry on forming new ways to be cleverly suggestive.
In less than ten years the phrase ‘Netflix and Chill’ went from being an introvert’s catchphrase, explicit in meaning and solo in activity to becoming one of the most used and understood Millennial euphemisms, outlaying the modern day opinion of casual sex and the overwhelming power digital media can have on language. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr have took the phrase on its own etymological journey before the eyes of millions of online followers, allowing them to participate and to form the phrases’ meaning themselves.
Let's make something great together.
Let's make something great together.
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About Us
Pilo & Co, the independent Geneva watchmaker, established since its founding in 2001 in the Saint-Gervais district of Geneva, one of the historical birthplaces of Swiss watchmaking.
First watchmaker in Geneva
It was not until 1554, in other words around forty years later than the rest of Europe, that the people of Geneva discovered the watch when the first watchmaker set up business in the city. Thomas Bayard was referred to in the register of inhabitants as goldsmith and ‘orologeur’, and described therein as a refugee who had fled his country for religious reasons, among the thousands of others like him.
Geneva, before the watch, was already acquainted with clocks due to their presence on public or religious buildings. One example still exists today on the bell turret opposite the original facade of Saint-Pierre Cathedral, and another on the ‘Pont d’Isle’ in Saint-Gervais, the legendary district where the watchmaking brand Pilo & Co decided to put down its roots.
Amarildo Pilo, the watchmaker of Saint-Gervais’, founder of the Pilo & Co Genève in 2001
On opening its first watchmaking store in the Saint-Gervais district, Pilo & Co took its place at the heart of Geneva’s watchmaking history. In response to its success, it opened a second watchmaking/jewellery store opposite the city’s Reformation Wall, and thereby resonated in tune with the industry’s primary values.
Before the watchmaker, there was the reputed goldsmith's trade
Although watchmaking was a relative latecomer to Geneva, the city was already well known internationally for its goldsmith’s trade, first documented back in 1293. Thanks to the trade shows organised by the city, the works of Geneva’s goldsmiths became highly sought after by European court dignitaries and powerful figures of the era. With the Calvinist Reform, which advocated a return to essential values, luxury and extravagance were no longer fashionable. Under this stranglehold, many goldsmiths converted to watchmaking, conferring their exceptional skills upon the making of timepieces. On 20 January 1601, for the first time, the political authorities recognised this corporation of skilled craftsmen and approved the 'Ordonnances et règlements sur l’estat des orlogiers’. The quality-focused charter laid down the training conditions for the watchmaker’s trade, for which apprenticeship lasted five years, and the rules governing the exercising of the profession.
The watchmaking collections produced by Pilo & Co Genève are dedicated largely to expertise and versions embellished with personalised settings. They are totally in tune with the history and ethos of Geneva. Before the watchmaker there was the goldsmith. After the watchmaker there was a concentrated pool of skills and talents, a professional corporation entirely devoted to flawless quality and absolute precision.
‘La fabrique‘, a concentrated pool of expertise
It was not, however, until the mid-17th century that Geneva watchmaking prevailed over the goldsmith’s trade. The watchmaker’s corporation was highly organised and divided the craftsman’s work into specialisations. It was the first to allow women to carry on certain watchmaking trades. In a stand against the large factories, also known as ‘machinofactories’ (the term was used pejoratively), the people of Geneva used the term ‘La Fabrique’ from the early 18th century onwards to refer to all the independent businesses linked to watchmaking. Gradually, the term was to refer to the entire Geneva watchmaking sector until the end of the 19th century.
‘La Fabrique’ employed up to 5,000 people in 1800, in other words a fifth of the population. It especially favoured the nurturing of talent: from the lone watchmaker making his own timepieces, the industry expanded to incorporate several bodies of ‘cabinotiers’, or watchmaking-related trades specialising in case assembly, guilloche work, engraving, case-fitting, gilding or enamelling… Craftswomen made small watch chains and took care of polishing the movement parts or cases. Enamel painters and talented miniaturists launched the tradition of luxury watches.
The ‘cabinotiers’ forged themselves a solid reputation for the quality of their work, their punctiliousness and precision. They were envied and not considered workmen like any other industry. Together they formed a kind of ‘aristocracy of craftsmen’, being treated more like artists than manual workers. They were cultivated and avid readers.
Many cabinotiers had settled in the Saint-Gervais district of Geneva, Pilo & Co Genève also therefore chose to occupy this location steeped in strong historical significance. It all began here. It saw the start of the making of timepieces in the ‘cabinotier’ style, pieces that upheld the original ethos of ‘La Fabrique’: independence in the face of the large factories, the virtues of quality, the artistic and jewellery dimension. This enviable status has allowed it to express its creativity since its founding in 2001.
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Shelter Stories:
A Mr.Frisky Blog
Keeping it Real - The Erosion of Compassion
in a 15 Minutes of Fame Facebook Culture
We are in the era of ultra polictical correctness. Ensuring no hurt feelings is more important than taking responsibility for immoral, unethical, irresponsible, compassionless, or illegal actions.
Knock over art worth $200,000 cause you just have to pose like Kim K in the ultimate selfie, and it's OK. After all, we wouldn't want to upset the selfie taker; who cares about the poor artist's hard work you've destroyed in the name of you own vanity. And we definitely don't want someone to feel bad for abandoning that dog or cat. Everyone should think every selfish, self absorbed act they take is wonderful; they're a great person regardless of who they hurt. In fact, let's give them a trophy after they neglect that animal so they don't feel bad.
Feelings, and the public image people so carefully craft on Facebook is far more important than the welfare of a dependent animal that needs medical care, food, water, shade, and comfort. I know, I'm on a rant.
Here's why:
This blog comes after being reached out to by yet another person who, rather than teach their child the meaning of commitment and compassion, chose to teach them that if you're bored with something, dump it - there's nothing at all wrong with that and you should only be concerned with your own happiness. I have to wonder if in the future, when that same parent is elderly and dependent and in a rest home (because the child would not take them in due to the commitment level required), wondering why their child is always too busy to come see them or help them, if they will put two and two together as to what they taught that child so long ago about responsibility, ethics, commitment and compassion.
Probably not. Ignorance and irresponsibility are not only failing to disappear, they are growing in presence.
I am finally realizing that Save Them All isn't just making all shelters no-kill; in fact those shelters would have to possess unlimited funds and unlimited space unless we first solve ignorance and irresponsibility. Save them All is also more than just adding Spay Neuter and Adopt Don't Shop to that equation. Its teaching compassion, and the fundamental ethics regarding commitment; a pet is a living thing, not an ipad.
This alarming but clear trend towards less compassionate and more self absorbed (in addition to total lack of taking responsibility for one's actions) is an inevitable result of a Facebook and "15 minutes of fame" culture. The vulgar "cash me" girl gets more money and support than an animal shelter who recently suffered a devastating fire. It's more important to spend an hour taking a perfect picture of your ass for Instagram, then spending that hour doing something for your pet, a shelter animal or shelter staff.
I am beginning to realize those of us helping, and those of us who do the right thing with their own pets, are too small in number against the legions who instead spend their hours and money following celebrity or wannabe celebrity twits on social media. When will we shift to a culture that teaches families, friends, and children that "do the right thing" is more than just a cool Nike slogan and something to hashtag on their snapchat? That it is actually is totally cool to spay neuter, volunteer, commit to that animal for life. Maybe we need to give them a trophy for doing those things, instead of just for breathing. When will we become a culture where we are obsessed with, and ardently follow, tireless shelter staff, volunteers, and those who do commit, who do help, versus honoring people for being able to contour?
I really don't know how to end this blog, except to ask: when will it change?
When we make it change.
When we take actions to change.
When we don't celebrate self-absorbtion with support in following and product purchase.
When we don't share that ridiculous viral video of a wannabe, and instead share a shelter in need.
No miracle is going to come along to shift this culture; each one of us has to make the change.
I suggest starting now. | <urn:uuid:701d28c0-7f26-43d0-942f-d0f9ea97ad86> | https://www.askmrfrisky.org/mrfriskys-blog--keeping-it-real---the-erosion-of-compassion--in-a-15-minutes-of-fame-facebook-culture.html | en | 0.952852 | 0.029801 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
• Market Cap: $262b
• Jan 29, 2020
Check out price of Emerald in USD, INR, GBP, EUR, CHF, AUD, THB, SGD, RUB, HKD, CAD, JPY, NZD, and various other different fiat currencies. The Emerald Value in different fiat currencies is aggregated (and averaged) value from top Emerald Exchanges world wide. The price of Emerald is highly volatile. The value of Emerald has change -4.3478260869565% in last 24 hours.
How is Emerald Value defined?
The value of Emerald depends on various factors like demand and supply. If the demand of Emerald is low its bound that the value will go low. But if its high then the EMD value is bound to increase. Also how much was it traded in 24 hours (Emerald trade volume of last 24 hours is 6.021762273091 USD) effects the value a lot.
Since cryptocurrencies are traded world wide, the EMD value is also effected by different Cryptocurrency News & Policy updates around the world. Some are positive and some are negative. Based on the same the Cryptocurrency Market goes up or down.
Factors affecting Value of Emerald
- Cryptocurrency Market
- Emerald Market Cap
- Emerald Price History
- Emerald News
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Middle East Near You
Iran’s deteriorating economy widens gap between ruling establishment and its people
The groundbreaking ceremony of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, held in Bushehr, Iran on November 10, 2019. Construction works continue at the site. [Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency]
As Iran further expands its nuclear enrichment program, the country’s economy is plummeting under the heavy weight of US imposed sanctions. Growing dissatisfaction and disappointment with the current establishment have caused even deeper divisions within Iran’s society. However, it is still unsure how Iran’s ruling elite will respond to growing economic and international pressure.
Iran’s approach to wait until the end of Trump’s presidency, while hoping to negotiate with a less hostile US administration, may not work. Many outside observers believe that the fall of Iran’s economy is going faster than expected, and predict that the country may not be able to wait out Trump, as Iran’s economy has lost nearly ten per cent of its output since the re-introduction of sanctions.
Although Iran’s economy appears to survive the initial storm, time is not on Iran’s side, as recent protests in the country have shown. Also, it is highly debatable whether Tehran’s decision to proceed with gradual resumption of uranium enrichment can deliver any significant results, and provide Iran with enough leverage to hold its positions and achieve its goals.
Speaking to MEMO, Hooshang Amirahmadi, a professor at New Jersey-based Rutgers University and the founder and president of Iranian American Council, as well as a candidate for Iranian presidential elections in 2005, 2013 and 2017, announced that the current Tehran approach is not likely to pay off. He believes that Americans, and others, know that this is more of a bluff, and “if Iran passes certain red lines they can simply destroy the facilities.” He also expresses some doubts regarding Iran’s seriousness about returning to full enrichment.
READ: Iran outlines budget to resist US sanctions as oil exports plunge
According to Sara Bazoobandi, a non-resident senior fellow at Atlantic Council think tank, Iran is ready to take enrichment to the level that will be a breaking point between the EU and the US. “If it gets to that point, the choice will be very difficult for the EU,” she explains. The European countries formally rejected Iran’s policy as soon as Tehran issued the announcement that it will start with uranium enrichment through a multi-phased approach last May, though Europeans reiterated their commitment to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. But, despite growing disagreements with the US on a number of issues, it is hard to imagine that Europe would openly challenge Trump for the sake of Iran. After all, three European powers last week accused Iran of testing ballistic missiles, signaling that they may be losing patience with Tehran. The UK, France and Germany warned the United Nations that Iran tested a Shahab-3 missile “equipped with a manoeuvrable re-entry vehicle” that could deliver a nuclear weapon.
Vahid Yucesoy, an expert on Iranian foreign policy at Université de Montréal in Canada, holds the belief that given the impact of the latest protests, which seem to have largely severed the very fragile social contract between Iran’s rulers and the residents of provincial Iran (the historic bastions of the regime), it is difficult for Iran to withstand the heavy pressure of the sanctions. He also deems that some form of dialogue for negotiations is not impossible.
Under current circumstances, a prospect for the future looks rather bleak. According to Amirahmadi, the Iranian economy is “near collapse”, but the main problem is largely associated with mismanagement, rather than sanctions. Amirahmadi esteems that the regime knows that returning to negotiations will not be their panacea, and thus it will “continue to resist and wait in vain for Trump to disappear.”
READ: Netanyahu seeks to obtain bunker-buster bombs to attack Iran
The economic indicators are alarming. In the World Economic Outlook report published in October, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that Iran’s economy would contract 9.5 per cent this year, leaving only Libya and Venezuela behind. The sharp fall is caused by “plummeting oil and gas exports,” as well as new sanctions on the country’s mining and metal industry exports.
Oil revenue is the key to its survival, as almost 80 per cent of Iran’s tax revenues come from the country’s oil exports.
In the wake of re-imposed sanctions, Iran tried to apply an alternative oil export strategy by offering oil to private entities, through energy bourse and using its smuggling networks to sell oil. However, selling oil every once in a while, has not saved Iran from the worst.
Bazoobandi mentions some rather pessimistic facts: the country’s oil export level dropped to less than 500,000 barrels per day. Sanctions have also triggered a high inflation rate, reaching 42.7 per cent and some items such as property prices, have increased up to 78 per cent. While the unemployment rate is more than ten per cent, the unemployment amongst university graduates, which stands around 44 per cent, is highly concerning.
Some authors, like Djavad Salehi- Isfahani for example, claims that there is an intense debate inside Iran about future development strategy, as well as regarding future foreign policy steps between those who advocate so-called “resistance economy”, and those who fear isolation and returning to the model which was apparent during the first decade of the revolution, when the state took over the economy.
As for Amirahmadi, no side has the answers to solve accumulated problems, as “there is a serious deadlock and the status quo will continue.” Yucesoy notes that the country has greatly changed since the first two decades of the revolution, and given that even in provincial towns there is widespread discontent with the regime, he claims that one cannot expect the good old concept of “resistance economy” to work so swimmingly, without the attendant domestic repercussions.
READ: Iran vows to continue missile work, dismisses EU powers’ UN letter
Worsening economic situations and foreign pressure could trigger even deeper divisions within the country, as recent protests suggest. Bazoobandi observes that cleavage between the state and the people, is at its deepest level. According to her, the recent protests prove two things: “that people have grievances which are not being addressed” and “that the government is ready to use maximum violence in response to any opposition.” Besides widespread dissatisfaction, there is “complete loss of trust for the establishment amongst the people,” she clarifies. As for Amirahmadi, President Rouhani’s government is on the verge of collapse, and it is even possible that ”a coalition of the army along with the people may overthrow the government.“
But for the time being, Yucesoy observes that Iran’s reformers and hardliners have been, more or less, united in their attempts to counter these protests, despite their opposing views on many issues. On the other hand, the protesters’ slogans actually targeted the entire establishment. While taking place in more than 100 cities including Tehran, these protests didn’t really favour any ruling camp and targeted the entire establishment, and interestingly, according to him, they were not aimed at the US. The Green Movement (or Persian Spring) leaders like Mir-Houssein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, have also sided with protesters, but Yucesoy notes that they still envision a system where Iran’s theocracy can be reformed. However, given the corruption scandals implicating the involvement of reformists have also made headlines in social media, the possibility of such reforms are fading.
So, although there are no significant signs of divisions within the ruling establishment, if the current atmosphere of uncertainty, economic mismanagement and popular angst amplifies, such divisions are not impossible.
ArticleAsia & AmericasEUInternational OrganisationsIranMiddle EastOpinionUS
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Sunday, November 28, 2010
Vietnam Veterans Against the War march, circa 1970
it's margaret said...
You nailed it.
I have been fighting to remember that we are to live 'beyond hope' --but I keep thinking that we are sinking in to a very dark age, indeed.
Unknown said...
I agree. There seems little opposition, and only that desperate hope keeps many going. What has stopped the war rebels is the lack of a draft, I think. But it is sad for those who keep going back because for them the emotional toll is HUGE.
JCF said...
I think the Nation-State system is absolutely poisonous to real (positive) Social Change.
Wage-earning people (please, don't call them "workers"!) are FAR too terrified of losing their jobs---looking over their shoulders at China, India, Vietnam, et al AND the "Mexicans coming over Our Border"---to possibly think about the ridiculously Unequal (getting less equal everyday) Division of Wealth in the country.
Saint Karl said "Workers of the World Unite": until we can build an international labor movement (And why hasn't anyone ever thought of THAT? ;-X), things are going to Stay Bad. :-(
[And, per always, the Earth NEVER gets a vote! >:-/]
Counterlight said...
Workers of the World Unite.
Capital has already united. The nation states are but inconvenient antiques, perhaps necessary concessions to the emotional ties of ordinary people as far as capital is concerned. I seriously doubt that any of those high rollers in the international finance markets really give a good goddam about the USA, Britain, Germany, or China, or anywhere. Those are just places to them.
The nation-state may be outmoded. But I don't see what will take their place. All of that international law and organization put together at the end of WWII appears to be coming undone (mostly at the initiative of the country that did the most to put the original agreements together, the USA). Treaties are flouted or broken with impunity these days. The always grim Middle East gets ever more lawless as frustration and fanaticism take over on all sides.
I always insist that we should never underestimate the power or the depth of tribal passions. International Capital seems to recognize this and allows the nation state model to continue as a concession (even though international corporations usually have a much more direct impact on people's lives than their own national governments). They recognize that people invest a lot of emotional attachment in their little piece of territory, and in the identity that a language or a common history gives to them. Nationalism may be irrational, but there it is, and I doubt it can be argued away, or will go away anytime before the Eschaton (I've always argued that perhaps Aristotle was right after all, that humans really are political animals, and not the economic animals described by the Classical Economists of capitalism and by Marx). Marx and Lenin hoped to replace national loyalties with class loyalties. Ironically, capital, which has no loyalties to anyone, was better able to adapt to an international economy. Stalin and Mao in the end became ultra-nationalists and xenophobes. The same could be said of the leaders of North Korea and Cuba who cling to Marxism-Leninism like a kind of state church that no one really believes in anymore. | <urn:uuid:fe04e98c-ec26-4ea3-b344-d787d218514f> | http://counterlightsrantsandblather1.blogspot.com/2010/11/revolution.html | en | 0.965695 | 0.068291 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Protein Shakes Pros And Cons
protein shakeProtein shakes are used to lose weight because they replace regular meals throughout the day. They are essentially a way to reduce caloric intake.
You’ve seen those ads on television that boast quick weight loss by just drinking a shake for breakfast and lunch.
It works because you are reducing the calories you eat throughout the day which in turn makes you lose weight.
The down side for protein shakes is that they only work for as long as you use them, many people gain the weight back once they stop drinking the protein shakes.
If you want to drop a few pounds fast then do use the protein shakes that help you lose weight. Use it as a tool to motivate you into continuing to care about your figure; however, do not rely on them for your entire diet because you will not learn how to control your food intake.
If you do not learn to control your eating, when you stop using protein shakes, you will go back to eating the same foods that made you want to lose weight in the first place.
Also, note that you should only substitute them for meals, and not take them throughout the day because you will increase your caloric intake, you won’t lose any weight and instead there are very good odds you may gain some more. | <urn:uuid:6dfe1c21-aba1-45ea-b996-9ec291927782> | http://weightlossdietwatch.com/healthy-eating/protein-shakes-pros-and-cons/ | en | 0.97087 | 0.125825 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
They say you are good at what you do when you are aware of the customers' needs before they themselves are aware of the same. Hence, it is why we've designed the modern tavern.
Imagine the following, it is the end of a stressful working week and on your way home, you've stumbled across a large door with a single logo. It is inviting. It dares you to cross its threshold.
Inside, you are greeted by the smooth lines of the bar, subtle inscriptions on the wall, and the cocktail card that's drawing you in. The atmosphere sets in, and before you know it, the dreadful week is behind you.
The proposed graphics solution is a combination of the simplified elements of a cocktail glass, the sun, and the letter M. Together these form the sign that communicates a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere with intertwined romance. | <urn:uuid:dc1d3416-e378-416a-95d3-2b834a36f5d9> | http://www.bild-studio.com/en/node/314 | en | 0.950885 | 0.352166 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
At OC Perio Specialist we offer several expertise which can be broken down into 3 main categories: To Preserve, To Restore, and To Enhance.
To Preserve: Keeping your mouth and teeth healthy
1. Laser Periodontal Treatment
2. Periodontal Maintenance
3. Oral Cancer Screening
To Restore: Replacing missing teeth with implants and regenerating atrophied jaw(s)
1. Bone Regeneration
2. Ridge and Sinus Augmentation
3. Dental Implants
To Enhance: Keeping your gums healthy and your smile youthful
1. Crown Lengthening Surgeries
2. Oral Plastic Surgeries
3. Lip Tack Procedures
Other Expertise:
• Digital Workflow
• Minimally Invasive Surgeries
• IV Sedation
We'd love to hear form you!
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The Importance Of Setting Social Media Standards With Students
In today’s day and age, technology is so very prevalent and while this can be seen as a downside to some, it can also be something that completely transforms the classroom in meaningful ways. However, as educators, it is of utmost importance to create boundaries between our social media profiles/personal lives and our role as teachers.
I stumbled across this amazing graphic by the Iowa Board Of Educational Examiners and I think these do’s and dont’s of social media usage are so very important.
There is an appropriate, and an inappropriate way to bridge connections between social media and the classroom. Here is an example of something that works well: having students create a ‘Fakebook’ profile. This is an amazing way to bridge between their social engagement and a research activity.
Something that won’t work, however, would be to share something from your personal Facebook page, or even have a student share something from his/her personal page. Though you may have innocent motives, there is a sense of privacy that must be upheld from a professional standpoint.
Another important thing to note is that even positive sharing can be negative; for example, sharing about students on your personal page. Even if you are sharing an accomplishment or something regarding student achievement, there are both privacy and school/district violation concerns at play here.
Instead of sharing from a personal site, see if you can create a forum specific to your school, or send a private email to that student’s parents.
Overall, social media can be a powerful classroom tool, but it has to be used correctly. Take heed of these awesome IBOEE recommendations, and feel free to comment your own.
What strategies do you use in your classroom?
How are you integrating social media/technology in a safe and healthy way?
What concerns you the most about trying to integrate these resources into your teaching?
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Sleep Apnea Treatments
Schedule your free consultation and discover
which sleep apnea treatment is best for you.
Treatment will vary based on
the severity of your sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that needs to be treated and taken very seriously. Dr. Olah can help you once we receive a physician’s diagnosis. Using the physician’s recommendations and your desire to have an oral appliance, Dr. Olah will be able to design an appliance unique to your special needs.
Different Sleep Apnea Treatments
What is a CPap? (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure)
The CPap is a machine that delivers continuous forced air to open your air way passages. It requires electricity. You wear a mask that covers your nose and/or your mouth connected to a hose that is connected to the delivery machine. The machine makes noise as it pumps air thru the tube and mask.. The tubes must be kept very clean. It is important to select the machine and mask best suited for you. Masks, amount of forced air and the noise can all be adjusted.
What is an Oral Appliance?
The sleep herbst is the most accepted oral appliance and is approved by Medicare. Keep in mind that there are many different styles and materials that
can be selected.
An oral appliance works because it provides more airspace to reduce the apneas. It also improves or illuminates snoring. It is convenient and comes with a case that you can carry in your pocket or purse. It is easy to keep clean, comfortable to wear and easy to get used to wearing.
There are several surgical procedures that can be done if you do not get relief from the CPap or the oral appliance. This would be up to you and your
physician to discuss.
Weight Management
In some cases weight loss can help improve or eliminate your sleep apnea symptoms if you are overweight or obese. Overweight people often have thick necks with extra tissue in the throat that may block the airway. There is no guarantee that losing weight will eliminate your sleep apnea, though it may help.
Positional Therapy
Some people snore only when they lay on their back. When they turn onto their side, the snoring ceases. Today there are several ways to discourage sleeping on one’s back. The Slumber Bump is the most popular and conservative solution for this situation.
Changes you can make that will improve your overall health
and improve your sleep
For those who are overweight, losing weight has so many obvious benefits. 60 to 70% of people who are obese have sleep apnea.
Drinking alcohol in the evening or before you go to sleep can be very dangerous. The soft tissues in your throat collapse onto your tongue sealing off your trachea. This is how the Supreme court Judge, Antonin Scalia, died.
It is recommended that you finish your evening meal or snacks 2 hours before bedtime to get the best night’s sleep.
Turn off all electronics and any appliances that have lights that shine brightly in the night. Adults and children should stop looking at their cell phones 2 to 3 hours before bedtime.
Sleeping pills affect your body’s ability to make and release the natural chemicals that help you to fall asleep. Regular use of sleeping pills is linked to a higher rate of cancer.
Best Appointment Time
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1. I've stopped actively playing on this server at the beginning of June because of a job I had to do for the summer. I could simply not commit to raiding due to inability to consistently play during the evenings (really shitty job). Now I come back having a druid which is attuned yet not having stepped foot in Kara and a mage which is still farming gold for tailoring epics. Question is, is there a point? Have I missed the train? Are there any guilds looking for new recruits at the very start of raiding progression on the Alliance side? How do I even catch up to raiders?
2. I like X-perl. It's an addon which offers everything I want, however it is bugged. I use mouseover macros to heal but these heals are often not registered when I put my cursor over a portrait. Obviously, this leads to huge wastes of mana and possible wipes. Is it because of my particular version of X-perl? Is there alternative to make mouseover macros work with this addon?
3. Let's try with feral. Can a feral win such a battle?
4. Huntards are dumbest class ever created. They have one button macro to dps in PvE, one big red button to win in PvP and they have annoying pet to farm for them while they AFK. I also dislike them greatly due to the fact that they are played by button mashers which like to gank a lot. What class can consistently beat huntards in duels and world PvP at max level?
5. The problem with x2 xp is simple and i'll describe it with one word: economy. A server with double xp will allow a lot of people to create farming alts and inflate the prices of many crafting materials. Additionally alts will be created simply for an extra profession to help their "mains". Alchemy transmutes anyone? Double xp will help population for a short time but will also change not only leveling, but "end game" as well. In a bad way.
6. What is the point asking the location when it shows above the mini map it is Wildhammer Stronghold?
7. Damn racists! Purge them with fire! Thankfully, everywhere you go you can find fine people such as yourself, always eager to point out what others have said and done to make sure (social) justice is served. Even in video games. Damn, you must be proud of yourself, sir! You just went out of your way to show your own virtue and progressive thinking by exposing these...these creatures to the world! Hopefully, these white supremacists will get fired from their jobs and shunned from society...I mean banned and we can all continue with our tolerant lives. You really deserve a cookie!
8. OP has a point. What goes around comes around.
9. Park your character in a tavern/capital city. Play something else if you feel like it. Come back to your mage after you have a few days rested bonus if you don't like the new class. Profit?
10. When it comes to talents the game is in 2.4.3. When it comes to itemization, the game is in earlier patch and this is where the difference comes from. | <urn:uuid:4efb56ea-d9e5-4770-bc4b-f38913b1a532> | https://forum.atlantiss.eu/netherwing/profile/4551-cookies123/ | en | 0.962476 | 0.041375 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
design sticker album
1. edison
I want to design a..
Hello!. I do not know if it's a good idea but I'm excited about it. I'm a Graphic Designer and I want to design a sticker album !. I would like to know... How do you like stickers on an album, the traditional with the photo of the player's face or with the player in action (Like the Album of... | <urn:uuid:11a8b5dc-1004-4ca6-a030-9af2b35a7ec8> | https://forums.cardzreview.com/tags/design-sticker-album/ | en | 0.972416 | 0.488498 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Posts Tagged With: poverty
Barriers to Joy & Peace
3. Loneliness. If so, befriend the lonely.
4. Sickness. If so, go to the Doctor.
Why do the poor experience more of the Kingdom than the rich?
A. The poor need God very evidently. The rich think they have all that they need.
B. The poor are oppressed by the world but blessed by God. The rich exploit to get rich, but hoard their wealth, taking their blessings for granted.
C. The poor cry out to God, and he listens. The rich boast of being self-made people.
D. The poor are generous because they know what it is to need, so they are eager to share with others.
E. The poor are always looking up for help. The rich are helping themselves.
F. The poor must be patient. The rich can afford instant service.
G. The poor see God provide for them and give thanks freely. The rich think their wealth is a shelter.
=> To give to the poor is to lend to the Lord. To give to the rich is foolish.
Give down and look up.
Invest in the Lord’s work among the poor, share your whole life with Him & His people wherever you go this week.
If you don’t find His people, make friends and help them become part of the Lord’s people.
Blog at | <urn:uuid:eccf7c4f-9329-4c95-b00f-d86f15f9114f> | https://if4es.org/tag/poverty/ | en | 0.919572 | 0.365047 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
What is Telemental Health Services?
Similar to the traditional in-office psychotherapy, we use HIPAA Compliant platforms such as Simple Practice and Doxy.me. This is a protected platform for informed consent paperwork, medical records, billing, and treatment plans for each session.
Telemental Health or Teletherapy is the use of technology to conduct therapy face to face. Licensed therapists are to practice in the state(s) in which they are licensed. We are currently certified in the states of Wisconsin and Illinois. As a Board Certified Telemental Health Specialist, all ethical state guidelines are in place to ensure your privacy and safety.
With Telemental Health, there may be times when technology has a glitch or WiFi is having an issue. If this occurs, we will always have a backup plan in place to ensure that your session occurs. During every session, I will ALWAYS be in a private location to protect your privacy at all times.
If at any time you are a harm to yourself or someone else, STOP and please call 911. This site is not intended, nor equipped to handle crisis situations.
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Is there a fix for allowing countries no postcode and paypal? Paypal seems to require a postcode.
The interface should disable PayPal instead of allowing this to occur.
ERR (3): exception 'Mage_Core_Exception' with message 'PayPal NVP gateway errors: The field Shipping Address Postal Code is required (#10730: Shipping Address Postal Code Empty). Correlation ID: d8d6bf1b1fb4f. Version: 94.0.' in app/code/core/Mage/Paypal/Model/Api/Nvp.php:1062
• 2
Wouldn´t it be enough to just send a '0' as the postcode to Paypal if there is no postcode entered. i know that Irish people do this as they don´t havea postcode – Klettseb Feb 23 '16 at 15:19
As PayPal representatives say, the service allows sending "00000" instead of the post code.
Right in the Observer, you can check whether this applies to the countries like Ireland and then opt it to change with the same "00000" value.
UPD Magento allows you to make the postcode field optional. However, PayPal sets this field as the Required one. Hence, some errors can occur.
• So do you confirm that this is a Magento bug ? As by default with PayPal Express enabled, if you try to checkout with a country with no postcode it will trigger the OP error. – Raphael at Digital Pianism Feb 24 '16 at 9:50
• 1
It is a Magento/Paypal bug yes as the postal code is needed by Paypal. So I would say its more a Paypal issue than Magento. You can also see that when you simply google for Paypal + Ireland, as Irish people cannot create a paypal account due to this. – Klettseb Feb 24 '16 at 9:52
• I've updated the answer. @DigitalPianism – MageWorx Feb 24 '16 at 11:13
Your Answer
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Creation: When Darwin was writing his groundbreaking work
By Kevin Martinez and Hiram Lee
31 March 2010
Directed by John Amiel, screenplay by John Collee, based on the book Annie’s Box: Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution by Randall Keynes
The 150th anniversary of British Naturalist Charles Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species inevitably sparked a renewed interest in the theory of natural selection, or evolution, as it is more commonly known. The public’s curiosity is genuine and entirely welcome.
Director Jon Amiel’s 2009 film Creation is set during the period when Darwin was conducting the research that would later form the basis of his monumental work and forever change how the human species viewed itself in relation to the rest of the natural world.
The theory of natural selection was a historic and scientific milestone in human culture and thought. Darwin’s expeditions to the Galapagos Islands in 1831 and his observation of finches and other birds drew him to the conclusion that certain traits in animals were the product of a complex relationship between animals and the ecosystems in which they lived. An animal or plant with a certain trait that helped it survive and reproduce in its environment would pass on that trait to the next generation more frequently than members of the same species without that trait. In this way, the species as a whole would change over time.
Over the course of millions of years, variations and mutations in organisms produced countless forms of life that could all be traced back to a common ancestor. Or as Darwin put it in a famous passage: “[W]hilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
Unfortunately, Amiel’s Creation too often places Darwin’s actual work in the background, concerning itself more with the “inner turmoil” and personal demons of its author. This is not to say that Creation is without value. It is a thought-provoking work that contains many fine performances and memorable sequences. It is a serious, if limited, attempt to dramatize and bring to a mass audience events surrounding one of the most significant scientific investigations in human history.
It is perhaps not surprising (although no less shameful), given the confusion over evolution whipped up and exploited by the religious right in the United States, that the film’s producers had a difficult time finding a distributor for their work in the US—this, despite the fact that Creation was chosen to open the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. Film distributors no doubt considered the work a risky investment.
The film was adapted from Annie’s Box by Randal Keynes, the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin. It follows Darwin, having returned from the Galapagos to his home and family in the British countryside, as he experiments with the selective breeding of pigeons and begins writing his monumental work. Darwin suffers bouts of ill health, and is tormented by the death of his daughter Annie from scarlet fever, for which he continues to feel a certain responsibility.
Darwin is played by British actor Paul Bettany in a fine performance. His Darwin is a sympathetic character, who is a loving father as well as a serious and committed scientist. He is, however, uneasy with the implications of his research. Bettany’s Darwin is not someone who falls away from religious orthodoxy because such questioning comes easily to him, but because his scientific investigations have radically altered his way of looking at the world, whether he likes it or not. Other life experiences, in particular the death of his daughter, have also forced him to undergo a real struggle with his beliefs.
A visit from renowned biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (Toby Jones), leaves Darwin even more troubled. “You’ve killed God,” Huxley tells him. “Science is at war with religion, and when we win we’ll finally be rid of those damned archbishops and their threats of eternal punishment.” It should be noted that while Huxley may have acted as “Darwin’s bulldog,” the filmmakers have exaggerated somewhat in making him a miltant atheist, as well as in casting him as an uncritical supporter of Darwin’s theory, at least given the historical moment in which the film takes place.
While Darwin has no doubts about the accuracy and implications of his findings, making them public worries him greatly. Civilization, he feels, is built around the church. What would it mean to rebuild it plank by plank on new foundations, he asks?
Regrettably, the bulk of Darwin’s struggle with this material is depicted as if it were nothing more than a personal battle. His sickness prevents him from dedicating himself wholeheartedly to publishing his work, and he is disturbed by visions of his late daughter and other impossible nightmares. His wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly) is religious-minded and opposes his work; their marriage threatens to fall apart.
Ultimately, this becomes less an account of the writing of the Origin of Species and more the story of the enormous personal guilt and severe illness weighing on Charles Darwin in the years before he published his book. One wonders, if the filmmakers had created a work about Karl Marx, would they have made the focus of their story the number of trips Marx made abroad to recover from illnesses, rather than his writing of Capital?
Why didn't the creators of the film find enough drama in the material itself, in Darwin’s research and his struggle to publish his ideas? Why did they shift the focus of their work to other matters? There is almost no sense of the world in which this struggle occurs; the bulk of the film takes place in cabins or during walks through the wilderness. Darwin has enemies as well as friends, we are told. Who are they? What is the intellectual climate of the times? What conflicting forces are sharpening this struggle and bringing it to a head?
Amiel’s treatment of the specific historical figure Charles Darwin dissolves into the (quasi-predictable) story of a genius—any genius—who must battle personal demons while trudging along to his or her ultimate goal.
What the film does accomplish, however, is to instill in the viewer a fascination with and appreciation for the natural world as it is, rid of all mysticism. Darwin is open and honest with his children about things; he never hides the truth. Many scenes involve family outings in nature where he and his family observe and contemplate the wonders of the natural world.
In one scene, Darwin takes his children for a walk in the forest, and they notice a rabbit about to be eaten by a fox. When the children start to cry, Annie (Martha West), Darwin’s eldest daughter, reassures her siblings that the fox is just providing food for its babies. Darwin looks on appreciatively—we can understand why he favors Annie so much.
Early in the work, the filmmakers juxtapose images of schools of fish with flocks of birds moving in similar patterns, suggesting a link between the two groups of creatures and a common ancestry. Scenes like these are high points. While one never gets to grasp (nor perhaps could one) the whole of Darwin’s thought in the film, his appreciation and understanding of the natural world and its laws come through.
As Darwin himself wrote in the Origin of the Species, “When I view all beings not as special creations, but as lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to become ennobled.”
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Characters (Great Expectations)
Quick revise
Below is a list of some of the major characters in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
Philip Pirrip (known as Pip)
Pip is the narrator and the protagonist of the novel. At the start of the novel he is a young orphaned by Boy who is being cared for by his older sister Georgiana Maria (known as Mrs Joe) and her husband Joe Gargery, in the marsh country in Kent. At heart Pip is passionate and romantic and he tends to expect much more of himself than is reasonable. Pip deeply wants to improve his lot in life.
Joe Gargery
Joe Gargery is Pip’s brother in law, and his father figure. He only stays with his hot tempered and abusive wife because of his love for Pip. Joe is always kind to Pip and is disappointed when Pip leaves the village to live in London and become a gentleman rather than be a blacksmith in business with him. He bears the shortcomings of those closest to him.
Mrs Joe
Mrs Joe is Pip’s older sister and Joe’s wife, she is only known as Mrs Joe throughout the novel. She is a stern overbearing person who menaces both Pip and Joe. She is petty and ambitious and wishes she was of a higher social status not the wife of the village blacksmith.
Estella is Miss Havisham’s adopted daughter. Throughout the novel she is pursued by Pip. As a girl she is beautiful and she gets even more beautiful after she returns from her schooling in France. Estella represents the life of culture and wealth for which Pip aspires. Estella warns Pip that she can’t return his love as Miss Havisham has ruined her ability to love. Pip does not believe her despite her warnings. During the novel Pip finds out that Estella is the daughter of Molly, Jagger’s housekeeper and the convict Magwitch, she was given up for adoption to Miss Havisham after her mother was arrested for murder (Estella does not know any of this). She rebels against Miss Havisham’s plan for her to break her husband Bentley Drummle’s heart, as he is not interested in Estella romantically; he is only interested in the Havisham fortune.
Miss Havisham
Miss Havisham is a very wealthy old spinster who is the adopted mother of Estella. She lives in a manor called Satis House which is near Pip’s village in Kent. She takes Pip on as a companion to herself and Estella. Miss Havisham is an eccentric woman who has worn her wedding dress and one shoe since the day (many years ago) when she was jilted at the alter by her fiancé. As a result of her being jilted she has become bitter and hates all men. She uses Estella, teaching her to use, torment and spurn men, including Pip who loves her. Later in the novel Miss Havisham sees the error of her ways and shows remorse for ruining both Estella and Pip’s chances of happiness. Not long after begging Pip’s forgiveness for her plotting, she is badly burned when her wedding dress catches fire. Later in the novel Pip learns from Joe that Miss Havisham has died.
Bentley Drummle
Bentley Drummle is a minor member of the nobility and as such has a sense of superiority over everyone else. He is an unpleasant young man who attends tutoring sessions with Pip, and eventually marries Estella, to Pip’s disgust. After Drummle die’s eleven years after the marriage, Pip and Estella are reunited.
Abel Magwitch
Abel Magwitch is a convict who has recently escaped from a prison ship at the start of the novel. He terrorises a young Pip in a cemetery when he is visiting his dead parent’s graves. Pip’s kindness towards Magwitch makes a deep impression on him and he devotes himself to making a fortune and using it to help provide an education for Pip and thus elevate him into a higher social class. He becomes Pip’s secret benefactor, funding not only Pip’s education but also an opulent lifestyle in London through his lawyer Jaggers.
Compeyson is the former criminal partner of Magwitch, he is educated and gentlemanly and as such is treated much less harshly by the courts than Magwitch. He is responsible for Magwitch’s final capture at the end of the novel. It was Compeyson who jilted Miss Havisham on her wedding day.
Mr Jaggers
Mr Jaggers is a lawyer hired by Magwitch to supervise Pip’s elevation to a gentleman. Jaggers is the link between many of the characters in the story as he has also worked for Miss Havisham helping her adopt Estella. He is a foreboding character who even scares some of the vicious criminals he works for, however he does show a caring side towards Pip.
Herbert Pocket
Herbert Pocket is the son of Miss Havisham’s Cousin, Matthew Pocket. He meets Pip at Satis House when they are both children and he is described as a pale young gentleman, at their first meeting Herbert challenges Pip to a fist fight. Years later they meet up again in London and he becomes Pip’s best friend after Pip’s elevation to the status of gentleman. Herbert hopes to become a merchant so that he can afford to marry Clara Barley.
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Joy. An Act of Defiance…
“I love you, and I want you to know that I think about you and I am so happy that you are my daughter.”
Words that would have been welcomed, but heard casually, just a few years ago are now words that strike a deep chord and make me pause. In the midst of the diminishing of my mother into dementia there are moments of clarity when I know she truly does know who I am and her statement of love is with knowledge. And there is joy in the midst of struggle as I hear in a way I could not hear before.
When she was always able to tell me she loved me I took it for granted and heard it without much thought. Now, when it comes so infrequently I hear it and I grasp and I listen for her voice and for the change that tells me she knows.
There are, honestly, not many moments of joy in walking through this decaying. Simply watching the graphic diminishing of a strong woman who could challenge you intellectually or cook up a masterpiece, who could play the piano or catch you with her wit…there is no joy in seeing her walk aimlessly, clinging to us for security with frightened eyes.
Joy in the midst of sorrow, in the midst of struggle, like this can only happen when there is hope. Without hope we will simply gird ourselves up for the struggle and wait for it to conclude. We will not allow ourselves vulnerability. When we have hope, we have the freedom to be vulnerable and in that vulnerability to find glimpses of joy.
The hope and the waiting for that Savior, for that transformation is so deepened in watching someone diminish before our eyes. Dementia is such a specific eroding and it steals the thing that makes us so ourselves…our memories. Our history. Our identity. The hope that our God is able to subject all things to Himself…even this loss…is what gives the foundation for joy.
Honestly, without the knowledge that God will do something through this and will restore all this brokenness…there would be no joy. With the knowledge though, we find ourselves laughing in the midst of sorrow and the laughter is all the sweeter. I find myself in discussions with my family that never could have occurred if Mom had not become who she is now. The struggle makes the moments of clarity she has and the intimacy we have as a family all the stronger and all the sweeter.
The joy is an act of defiance in the midst of the struggle. It sneaks up on us and strengthens us when things are bleak…because the joy is the seeping of the truth that we are held by One who has the power to subject all things to Himself. He sees and He knows and He hears and He will make even this new.
Whatever the struggle we face, we have to have the courage to face it well. Without hope we will just get through it, endure. With hope, we have the freedom to experience the struggle and we will find joy.
4 thoughts on “Joy. An Act of Defiance…
1. Nancy says:
Bless you Sarah. Here i am in a “chinese foot massage place”, waiting for my mom, with with tears streaming down my face! Your heart shines through all of your words, and you are not forgotten . The Lords Peace to you, and your dear mom. You are a huge blessing to so many. 🙂
2. sarahkwolfe says:
Aww…thank you so much, Nancy!
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blog photo 144 fog treeWHAT IT IS
The land of one hundred women culminates from the fertile imagination and the spiritual essence of the one hundred women who reside there.
In the land of one hundred women life is lived as it is, not as it should be because they put no cards on the table with no games to be played, no fights to win. The spirit is the religion, the religion one another. Their children are of the universe, they are the souls of the deeds within their hearts.
Their food is the feast of empathy, stomachs full with the generosity of sisterhood.
Their lust is the tears of the forgotten, these tears give purpose and product to bring them home again.
In the land of one hundred women they are intertwined with the sadness and sorrow, the joyous and wonderful and the apocalyptic shattering but they stand ready to quash these intruders, to build, to restore, to reaffirm their sisterhood.
Bill squinted as the morning fog rolled by the kitchen window, sometimes it was so thick the barn disappeared completely, other times he could see Emma leaning against a fence post gazing towards the field. They had moved to be closer to Cricket and Sapphire, but Emma’s creeping dementia was distancing her from Bill’s reality. She never talked much anymore, just wandered around aimlessly, spiralling downward into a smaller world.
Bill did what he could to keep Emma engaged but his own failing health meant his efforts were muted. As he watched Emma out the window a small horse and a blind man beckoned Emma from the field. Emma followed, as did Bill.
Author: whatitiswhatitisnot
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On the planet of the Aves, birds have evolved to dominate the Earth instead of mammals. Of the thousands of species in this world, both on the ground and in the water, the only one to develop sapience are a species of flying birds whose ancestors are the New Caledonian Crow.
As I design this species, I have wondered what their tools would look like, crows have been known to build tools such as hooks, but those are fairly basic. The premise of all human tools; axes, picks even hammers, is that the weight of them can be taken advantage of by momentum, but a crow, evolving for flight would not be able to use the human versions of these tools.
What could I expect a sapient crows equivalent to human tools to look like? What accommodations would a crows ax need to take into account? What about their picks or their hammers?
A list of all Planet of the Aves questions can be found here
Two Types
A sapient flying species would likely have need for two basic types of tools: those meant to be manipulated by beak/tongue/foot, and those meant to be dropped from a height with precision.
The business-end of a crow tool probably wouldn't differ much from the human equivalent; tools meant to cut will have a sharp edge, tools meant to pierce will be pointed, hammering tools will have a flat, blunt face, and so on. Where they will have to differ is in the nature of the grip. Held in the beak and pointing outward puts the crow at a disadvantage: the eyes aren't far from the beak and need to see the target, so the tool couldn't obscure their vision; the shape of the beak means to maximize surface contact the handle needs to be wide and flat, perhaps with an opening or depression for the bend at the tip of the beak to pass through or sit in. Tools may be specialized for up-down or left-right motions, oriented either parallel or perpendicular to the breadth of the handle.
Variants may include handles meant to be held at an angle, with part of the handle extending backwards along the side of the crow's head. The tool head may be angled to compensate:
Crow using twig to probe hole
This configuration would probably be limited to side-to-side raking tools and plunging/piercing tools.
Assuming a bit of mutation here. The tongue could serve a thumb-like role when it comes to gripping tools with the beak. In this case the tool will be designed much like those described above, but will have a divot or indent for the tongue to press into or curl around for added support and control.
I don't know off-hand if crows have been observed using their feet to manipulate tools, but bracing one end of the handle against the ground with the foot and using the head and beak to guide the working end along an arc seems like an obvious adaptation. A second handle, perpendicular to the bracing handle, could allow the crow to grip at a distance for better perspective on the target area. Akin to the handles of a scythe:
These tools would be designed to take advantage of terminal velocity and will be designed to be as aerodynamic as possible. They would be larger and therefore weightier than the beak-gripped tools, and held in the talons for a steadier and firmer grip. Most of the weight would be in the bladed edge or hammering surface, to prevent tumbling.
For increased precision I would anticipate a dive bomb approach, in which the crow gets as much altitude as needed and then plummets as vertically as possible to the target below, releasing the tool and pulling out of the dive.
This type of tool would be better suited to rough chopping and battering/hammering.
• 2
$\begingroup$ Crows have been observed to create wire tools by holding down the wire with their feet and manipulating the end into a hook with their beak. So using tools in the manner you described in the "Foot" section seems logical. $\endgroup$ – Kys Sep 15 '16 at 17:01
Your Answer
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Monday, August 8, 2011
My ball-les svp and cockless manager
One day, my rather new and ball-less svp ( let's call him B) called me to his office for a "chat". " I have been monitoring your work and you have shown to be a good and conscientious employee and it's a pity you have not been rewarded all these years"..he said with a serious look. He then told me he would, in the coming review reward me with a merit increment ( double salary increment for outstanding worker).
Months after the work review, I happened to bumped into B. I asked him what had happened to the merit increment he had promised me. He tried to avoid answering me by saying he was very busy with his work and would attend to me later on.
A month later, I went up and knocked at B's door. He had no choice but to let me into his office. He knew precisely why I wanted to see him. He explained to me that he wanted to reward me but my manager who was his subordinate refused to agree with him. Some crap reasons were given to B about my work performance and said I would be the last person to receive any reward.
Know what? That manager was a closet gay and I had probably passed some remarks about gays in general and that could have hurt him. To be honest, I do not dislike gays and some of my good friends were gays. My manager was just feeling guilty of being a gay. He couldn't obliged his mother's persistent nagging to get married and gave her grand children.
You see it was a personal grudge that gay manager had against me and so he unfairly blocked me from receiving the reward. Personally, I am not very much against that gay manager but my svp because he was a big boss without even 2 small balls. He could easily override that bapok manager's decision but he didn't.
The above was not the only ocassion where this ex svp showed his true colours. At one meeting with him, we requested for something that was definitely within his power to give. Instead of agreeing or disagreeing to our simple request, he told us he would first consult his immediate boss, an evp (executive vice president, a position liken to that of a deputy ceo). To me he was an indecisive svp and always looking up to his boss for direction.
I supposed in SIA and like anywhere else, if you are not a balls carrier you would be condemned and branded as a "renegade" or "useless". Many balls carriers are doing extremely well even to this day.
Anonymous said...
That SVP himself was a bola carrier from Personnel Dept.
Anonymous said...
That SEXY biggest balls carrier is recently promoted even though incapable and junior.
KNNB CCB said...
people with balls, big or small, will be sacked, demoted, retrenched.
people with no balls get promoted, keep their jobs and retire gracefully
which one are you?
Sex C said...
I am "people with no balls get promoted, keep their jobs and retire gracefully" and I also lick my bosses' balls or CBs
Sad C said...
That's my FORTE
Anonymous said...
Gloryfy your days while you can. | <urn:uuid:7ef0d834-1761-41d5-9976-793bf7d13c97> | https://www.bohtong.org/2011/08/my-ball-les-svp-and-cockless-manager.html | en | 0.991534 | 0.115876 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
> Docs Center > ENVI API > ENVITaskFromGSF
ENVITask uses the ENVITaskFromGSF routine if a valid Geospatial Services Framework (GSF) URL is used instead of a task name. This routine communicates with the GSF server to request the definition of the requested task. It also configures the task's properties and parameters, based on that information. It provides a uniform API for running tasks remotely the same way they can be run locally. It dehydrates all of the input parameters and constructs the REST payload required to execute the remote task on the GSF server when ENVITask::Execute is called. It polls the server until the GSF job is finished, then it uses the job results to set output parameter values.
ENVITaskFromGSF inherits from ENVITask. You can call ENVITask methods and properties to retrieve information on items such as task parameters.
This class serves as a default implementation for communicating with a GSF server and running jobs as an ENVITask. It provides immediate parameter validation and manages dehydrating input parameters and rehydrating output parameters with the server.
ENVITaskFromGSF has the same methods as ENVITask. The use of AddParameter and RemoveParameter is not recommended as adding and removing parameter definitions can result in task validation failures on the GSF server.
ENVITaskFromGSF inherits all properties from ENVITask.
Version History
ENVI 5.5
API Version
See Also
ENVITask, ENVITaskFromProcedure
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Tactical Fire Problem – House Fire
This week the Tactical Fire problem is a daytime fire, unknown status of occupants. This one might have some fire science applications.
1.) How would you describe the flow path at that porch front door?
2.) What might that indicate to you from an attack perspective?
3.) There is visible fire behind the glass in that front window, but the glass is intact. What will happen when that glass fails?
4.) What indicators do you have that there might be extension already to floor 2?
5.) What is your CAN report and what is your Incident Action Plan?
Tactical Fire Problem – Restaurant Kitchen Fire
This week you have been called to a fire in a restaurant kitchen. Alarms are sounding in the building, but many patrons have not evacuated.
1.) What items would you normally take in to investigate this alarm if you had nothing showing from the outside?
2.) How would you split your first 4 personnel to handle the fire and the evacuation issue?
3.) What is your radio report as you enter the kitchen and find this?
4.) What is the most logical “exposure” problem you face here?
5.) The suppression system has not activated, what will you do to extinguish this fire effectively? | <urn:uuid:6bd519a6-68f4-46d4-99b0-981f5bb02784> | http://petelamb.com/2015/06/ | en | 0.947133 | 0.075684 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Druva Blog > Product Deep-Dives
Organizing Strategy for Operational Teams
In this book excerpt from Thomas A. Limoncelli, Strata R. Chalup, and Christina J. Hogan, IT teams can learn how to organize their work for maximum effectiveness.
This excerpt is from the book, The Practice of Cloud System Administration: Designing and Operating Large Distributed Systems Volume 2 by Thomas A. Limoncelli, Strata R. Chalup, and Christina J. Hogan, published by Pearson/Addison-Wesley Professional in September 2014. The book, which focuses on distributed or cloud computing, brings a DevOps/SRE sensibility to the practice of system administration. Visit the authors’ website for more.
An operational team needs to get work done. Therefore teams need a strategy that assures that all incoming work is received, scheduled, and completed.
Broadly speaking, there are three sources of operational work and these work items fall into three categories. To understand how to best organize a team, first you must understand these sources and categories.
The three sources of work are life-cycle management, interacting with stakeholders, and process improvement and automation. Life-cycle management is the operational work involved in running the service. Interacting with stakeholders refers to both maintaining the relationship with people who use and depend on the service, and prioritizing and fulfilling their requests. Process improvement and automation is work inspired by the business desire for continuous improvement.
No matter the source, this work tends to fall into one of these three broad categories:
• Emergency Issues: Outages, and issues that indicate a pending outage that can be prevented, and emergency requests from other teams. Usually initiated by an alert sent by the monitoring system via SMS or pager. (Covered in Chapter 14.)
• Normal Requests: Process work (repeatable processes that have not yet been automated), non-urgent trouble reports, informational questions, and initial consulting that results in larger projects. Usually initiated by a request ticket system. (Covered in Section 14.1.3.)
• Project Work: Small and large projects that evolve the system. Managed with whatever project management style the team selects. (Covered in Section 12.4.2.)
To assure that all sources and categories of work receive attention, we recommend this simple organizing principle: people should always be working on projects, with exceptions made to assure that emergency issues receive immediate attention and non-project customer requests are triaged and worked in a timely manner.
More specifically, at any given moment, the highest priority for one person on the team should be responding to emergencies, the highest priority for one other person on the team should be responding to normal requests, and the rest of the team should be focused on project work.
This is counter to the way operations teams often work: everyone running from emergency to emergency with no time for project work. If there is no effort dedicated to improving the situation, the team will simply run from emergency to emergency until they are burned out.
Major improvements come from project work. Project work requires concentration and focus. If you are constantly being interrupted with emergency issues and requests, you will not be able to get projects done. If an entire team is focused on emergencies and requests, nobody is working on projects.
It can be tempting to organize an operations team into three subteams, each focusing on one source of work or one category of work. Either of these approaches will create silos of responsibility. Process improvement is best done by the people involved in the process, not by observers.
To implement our recommended strategy, all members of the team focus on project work as their main priority. However, team members take turns being responsible for emergency issues as they arise. This responsibility is called oncall. Likewise, team members take turns being responsible for normal requests from other teams. This responsibility is called ticket duty.
It is common that oncall duty and ticket duty are scheduled in a rotation. For example, a team of eight people may use an eight-week cycle. Each person is assigned a week where he or she is on call: expected to respond to alerts, spending any remaining time on projects. Each person is also assigned a different week where he or she is on ticket duty: expected to focus on triaging and responding to request tickets first, working on other projects only if there is remaining time. This gives team members six weeks out of the cycle that can be focused on project work.
Limiting each rotation to a specific person makes for smoother handoffs to the next shift. In such a case, there are two people doing the handoff rather than a large operations team meeting. If more than 25 percent of a team needs to be dedicated to ticket duty and oncall, there is a serious problem with firefighting and a lack of automation.
The team manager should be part of the operational rotation. This practice ensures the manager is aware of the operational load and firefighting that goes on. It also ensures that nontechnical managers don’t accidentally get hired into the operations organization.
Teams may combine oncall and ticket duty into one position if the amount of work in those categories is sufficiently small. Some teams may need to designate multiple people to fill each role.
Project work is best done in small teams. Solo projects can damage a team by making members feel disconnected or by permitting individuals to work without constructive feedback. Designs are better with at least some peer review. Without feedback, members may end up working on projects they feel are important but have marginal benefit. Conversely, large teams often get stalled by lack of consensus. In their case, focusing on shipping quickly overcomes many of these problems. It helps by making progress visible to the project members, the wider team, and management. Course corrections are easier to make when feedback is frequent.
The Agile methodology, discussed in Section 8.6, is an effective way to organize project work.
There is also meta-work: meetings, status reports, company functions. These generally eat into project time and should be minimized. For advice, see Chapter 11, “Eliminating Time Wasters,” in the book, Time Management for System Administrators by Limoncelli (2005).
7.3.1 Team Member Day Types
Now that we have established an organizing principle for the team’s work, each team member can organize his or her work based on what kind of day it is: a project-focused day, an oncall day, or a ticket duty day.
Project-Focused Days
Most days should be project days for operational staff. Specifically, most days should be spent developing software that automates or optimizes aspects of the team’s responsibilities. Non-software projects include shepherding a new launch or working with stakeholders on requirements for future releases.
Organizing the work of a team through a single bug tracking system has the benefit of reducing time spent checking different systems for status. Bug tracking systems provide an easy way for people to prioritize and track their work. On a typical project day the staff member starts by checking the bug tracking system to review the bugs assigned to him or her, or possibly to review unassigned issues of higher priority the team member might need to take on.
Software development in operations tends to mirror the Agile methodology: rather than making large, sudden changes, many small projects evolve the system over time. Chapter 12 will discuss automation and software engineering topics in more detail.
Projects that do not involve software development may involve technical work. Moving a service to a new datacenter is highly technical work that cannot be automated because it happens infrequently.
Operations staff tend not to physically touch hardware not just because of the heavy use of virtual machines, but also because even physical machines are located in datacenters that are located far away. Datacenter technicians act as remote hands, applying physical changes when needed.
Oncall Days
Oncall days are spent working on projects until an alert is received, usually by SMS, text message, or pager.
Once an alert is received, the issue is worked until it is resolved. Often there are multiple solutions to a problem, usually including one that will fix the problem quickly but temporarily and others that are long-term fixes. Generally the quick fix is employed because returning the service to normal operating parameters is paramount.
Once the alert is resolved, a number of other tasks should always be done. The alert should be categorized and annotated in some form of electronic alert journal so that trends may be discovered. If a quick fix was employed, a bug should be filed requesting a longer-term fix. The oncall person may take some time to update the playbook entry for this alert, thereby building organizational memory. If there was a user-visible outage or an SLA violation, a postmortem report should be written. An investigation should be conducted to ascertain the root cause of the problem. Writing a postmortem report, filing bugs, and root causes identification are all ways that we raise the visibility of issues so that they get attention. Otherwise, we will continually muddle through ad hoc workarounds and nothing will ever get better. Postmortem reports (possibly redacted for technical content) can be shared with the user community to build confidence in the service.
The benefit of having a specific person assigned to oncall duty at any given time is that it enables the rest of the team to remain focused on project work. Studies have found that the key to software developer productivity is to have long periods of uninterrupted time. That said, if a major crisis appears, the oncall person will pull people away from their projects to assist.
If oncall shifts are too long, the oncall person will be overloaded with follow- up work. If the shifts are too close together, there will not be time to complete the follow-up work. Many great ideas for new projects and improvements are first imagined while servicing alerts. Between oncall shifts people should have enough time to pursue such projects.
Chapter 14 will discuss oncall in greater detail.
Ticket Duty Days
Ticket duty days are spent working on requests from customers. Here the customers are the internal users of the service, such as other service teams that use your service’s API. These are not tickets from external users. Those items should be handled by customer support representatives.
While oncall is expected to have very fast reaction time, tickets generally have an expected response time measured in days.
Typical tickets may consist of questions about the service, which can lead to some consulting on how to use the service. They may also be requests for activation of a service, reports of problems or difficulties people are experiencing, and so forth. Sometimes tickets are created by automated systems. For example, a monitoring system may detect a situation that is not so urgent that it needs immediate response and may open a ticket instead.
Some long-running tickets left from the previous shift may need follow-up. Often there is a policy that if we are waiting for a reply from the customer, every three days the customer will be politely “poked” to make sure the issue is not forgotten. If the customer is waiting for follow-up from us, there may be a policy that urgent tickets will have a status update posted daily, with longer stretches of time for other priorities.
If a ticket will not be completed by the end of a shift, its status should be included in the shift report so that the next person can pick up where the previous person left off.
By dedicating a person to ticket duty, that individual can be more focused while responding to tickets. All tickets can be triaged and prioritized. There is more time to categorize tickets so that trends can be spotted. Efficiencies can be realized by batching up similar tickets to be done in a row. More importantly, by dedicating a person to tickets, that individual should have time to go deeper into each ticket: to update documentation and playbooks along the way, to deep-dive into bugs rather than find superficial workarounds, to fix complex broken processes. Ticket duty should not be a chore, but rather should be part of the strategy to reduce the overall work faced by the team.
Every operations team should have a goal of eliminating the need for people to open tickets with them, similar to how there should always be a goal to automate manual processes. A ticket requesting information is an indication that documentation should be improved. It is best to respond to the question by adding the requested information to the service’s FAQ or other user documentation and then directing the user to that document. Requests for service activation, allocations, or configuration changes indicate an opportunity to create a web-based portal or API to make such requests obsolete. Any ticket created by an automated system should have a corresponding playbook entry that explains how to process it, with a link to the bug ID requesting that the automation be improved to eliminate the need to open such tickets.
At the end of oncall and ticket duty shifts, it is common for the person to email out a shift report to the entire team. This report should mention any trends noticed and any advice or status information to be passed on to the next person. The oncall end-of-shift report should also include a log of which alerts were received and what was done in response.
When you are oncall or doing ticket duty, that is your main project. Other project work that is accomplished, if any, is a bonus. Management should not expect other projects to get done, nor should people be penalized for having the proper focus. When people end their oncall or ticket duty time, they should not complain that they weren’t able to get any project work done; their project, so to speak, was ticket duty.
7.3.2 Other Strategies
There are many other ways to organize the work of a team. The team can rotate though projects focused on a particular goal or subsystem, it can focus on reducing toil, or special days can be set aside for reducing technical debt.
Focus or Theme
One can pick a category of issues to focus on for a month or two, changing themes periodically or when the current theme is complete. For example, at the start of a theme, a number of security-related issues can be selected and everyone commit to focusing on them until they are complete. Once these items are complete, the next theme begins. Some common themes include monitoring, a particular service or subservice, or automating a particular task.
If the team cohesion was low, this can help everyone feel as if they are working as a team again. It can also enhance productivity: if everyone has familiarized themselves with the same part of the code base, everyone can do a better job of helping each other.
Introducing a theme can also provide a certain amount of motivation. If the team is looking forward to the next theme (because it is more interesting, novel, or fun), they will be motivated to meet the goals of the current theme so they can start the next one.
Toil Reduction
Toil is manual work that is particularly exhausting. If a team calculates the number of hours spent on toil versus normal project work, that ratio should be as low as possible. Management may set a threshold such that if it goes above 50 percent, the team pauses all new features and works to solve the big problems that are the source of so much toil. (See Section 12.4.2.)
Fix-It Days
A day (or series of days) can be set aside to reduce technical debt. Technical debt is the accumulation of small unfinished amounts of work. By themselves, these bits and pieces are not urgent, but the accumulation of them starts to become a problem. For example, a Documentation Fix-It Day would involve everyone stopping all other work to focus on bugs related to documentation that needs to be improved.
Alternatively, a Fix-It Week might be declared to focus on bringing all monitoring configurations up to a particular standard.
Often teams turn fix-its into a game. For example, at the start a list of tasks (or bugs) is published. Prizes are given out to the people who resolve the most bugs. If done company-wide, teams may receive T-shirts for participating and/or prizes for completing the most tasks.
Did you enjoy this book chapter? We like to think you’ll also like The CIO’s Dilemma: Designing Networks and Services in the Cloud. And how about a white paper about cloud management to brighten your day, such as: 5 Critical Considerations for Enterprise Cloud Backup.
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Fog Creek Software
Discussion Board
Another take on management
Reading another thread today about the role of managers kinda made me think that a lot of people have a conceptually different idea of a manager than I do.
__Here's Mine___
Managers exist to ensure that everyone is driving towards the same goal, and to clear obstacles in the paths of all involved.
<shareholder> We want to make money
<chairman> I think we can do this by making widgets
<CEO> To make money by making widgets we need X from sales, Y from manufacturing etc etc
<Manufacturing VP> to produce Y, I need x development teams each giving A, B and C
<B Manager> To produce B, we need to have Coder K, L, M producing this stuff by ....
Change the size of the heirachy if you want, but the role of the manager is to produce deliverables. Some do it by threatening you with layoff, others get their staff to buy into their vision.
Either way, call him what you will, even your manager has a manager. And as you move up the heirachy, the vision gets grander and grander!
__Take on JOS__
Managers exist solely to sweat coders. He does nothing else.
<JOS Manager> "move this pile of rubble from here to there"
<Coder> Why?
<JOS Manager> because I like it there
<Coder> but it is wasted effort
<JOS Manager> please pack your stuff and leave
Sounds more like a foreman than a manager.... and all the jobs I know that have foremen are pretty menial!
Is that what software development has been reduced to? The foremen do all the thinking, and all the code monkeys do is translate that into code?
Does any developer on this forum have a proper manager, (not the Program Manager ala MS) and not just a foreman.
Thursday, April 15, 2004
MyManager: I need this
Me: Why? What will it be used for?
MM: It will help make this decision
Me: How are is that decision being made now?
MM: Like so...
Me: I can do that. Are there other factors that you would like to account for but currently don't?
MM: Yes! I'd like X, Y, and Z
Me: Hmm. X is in conflict with the current method. How would you like to resolve that?
MM: Hmm. X is gone.
Me: Z depends on X, so if X goes, Z goes...
MM: Hmm. That's fine, I guess. For now. Let me think on it, but start work assuming Y but no X or Z.
Me: OK. <exit stage left to windowless dungeon>
Not always, but typical.
Ron Porter
Thursday, April 15, 2004
My old manager: We need to do X
Me: why?
My old manager: don't ask, I've already decided.
Mr. Analogy
Thursday, April 15, 2004
IMO, coders should have some ability as designers and some ability to do rudementary cost/benefit analysis. Unfortunately, it isn't always immediately obvious who has these skills. i.e. Joe and Mary are both Senior Engineers, with 12 years experience, making the same salary. Mary may be able to provide worthwhile design input while Joe may be technically competant, but not have a knack for making product decisions.
This discrepency doesn't translate well into the hierarchical model of Project Manager/Designer/Coder.
Where I work, there are staff that I consistently listen to, and others that I politely tune out because they "don't get it". I'm forced to do this, as there are lots of ideas and opinions floating around here and I can't take them all seriously.
In order to have a voice, a coders proposals needs to focus on how something will reduce costs, benefit the customer, and most importantly, make the department look good. Personally, I'm much more likely to entertain a suggestion that makes work easier and less complex than an idea which adds to project complexity.
Also aiding in having a voice:
- Listen to your boss, especially if he likes to talk. People like to be listened to.
- Dress nicely.
- Present ideas in writing. Give a "deadline" that you need a decision by.
- Don't fight losing battles. Use your "pull" in situations where you'll likely have an effect.
- Be on the winning side of any turf wars, even if it's not the side you'd pick. You'll have more influence that way.
- Analyse the personality of your manager and use this to tailor your persuasion techniques. You are doing sales, so books on sales might be helpful to study.
All this goes out the window if your organization has the dreaded incompetant/arrogant combination. If that's the case, either quit, or put in your 40 and just eat it.
Bill Carlson
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Manager: Has been given task by upper management. Her high salary ( three times that of the unwashed he manages) depends on achieving that task. Doesn't understand development and is always worried the developers might undermine her. Sacks any that seem on the verge of this.
Developer: Has years of experience achieving difficult tasks. Knows managers often issue directions that are wrong, and that sometimes conflict with apparent goals. Understands that to seriously question this results in bad rating and eventually dismissal. Smiles and pretends to be co-operative.
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Managers should be shit-umbrellas. When the shit comes down from above they keep it from hiting you so you can do your job.
Friday, April 16, 2004
I heard it sort of the same way, except the employees were the umbrella and the manager was the one under it. At least from a manager perspective.
Anon-y-mous Cow-ard
Friday, April 16, 2004
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Will it be chaos or controlled implosion as the Western bubble bursts?
June 15, 2015
The signs are undeniable that some sort of historic event is imminent. The latest economic news makes it certain that the Western financial system as we know it is about to end. The question is, will there be a controlled implosion followed by a phoenix like revival or, will there be revolution, chaos, anarchy, bloodshed and misery. The answer now lies in the hands of the military forces of the West because the political world, especially in the United States, is dysfunctional.
To understand how serious the situation is, please look at the following chart.
It shows there is about $80 trillion worth of financial products in the United States that has no basis in the real world. During the Japanese bubble I used a similar chart to show the bad debt in the banking system was worth 200 trillion yen at a time when the Japanese government was saying there was only 3 trillion yen worth of bad debt. Another way of putting it is that US asset prices will have to fall by about 80% before they hit the ground of reality. Japanese real estate prices fell 90% after the bubble burst there. The American bubble is 49 times larger than the Japanese bubble was. It is not a question of if it will burst but when. Denying reality does not make it go away.
There is also evidence coming from indexes based in real world transactions that cannot be manipulated by financial trickery. One is the Baltic Dry Index, the price of shipping goods, mostly raw materials like oil, metals, grains etc. It is at a record low now.
Another is the China Containerized Freight index, which measures the cost of shipping finished industrial goods out of China. It is also at a record low.
Perhaps you have noticed your e-mail spam filter is now featuring more Chinese enterprises desperately seeking customers than Viagra ads or Nigerian scams. Clearly something big is about to happen in the worlds’ markets.
There are a lot of people figuring this out now. The American Association of Individual Investors survey shows that in May of this year individual investors dropped the percentage of money they invest in shares to 57.8% from 67.9%. This is an astounding dumping of over 10% of their shares in exchange for cash in just one month. The Greeks are also bailing out of the Greek banking system at a rate of over 500 million Euros per day. This sort of thing is usually referred to as a bank run or as rats deserting a sinking ship.
Insiders say the most likely candidate to play role of Lehman Brothers in the upcoming crisis is
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A Lower Elementary student writes about the research she is doing.
In the Montessori Children’s House program, students learn letter sounds before the letter names. For example, they learn that the sound of “d” is “duh,” not “dee” and the sound of “b” is “buh,” not “bee.” (See our blog post about Language in the Children’s House for more information.) Spelling is not the focus during the Children’s House years because the focus is on children hearing and learning the letter sounds rather than recognizing the letter names.
A Children’s House student uses the Moveable Alphabet to craft a message.
By using the Moveable Alphabet, children are able to put different letter sounds together to form a word (long before they have the hand strength necessary to hold a pencil). When a young child is asked to form the word “photo” with the Moveable Alphabet, she sounds out how she hears the word, letter by letter.
“Fuh”, “oh”, “tuh”, “oh”.
She would likely place out Moveable Alphabet letters like so:
While the word is spelled incorrectly, it is phonetically correct. This “spelling” is age-appropriate for a student in the Children’s House.
Later, once students have a firm grasp of letter sounds and have associated the letter names with these sounds, we work to introduce phonograms, which are when you put two sounds together to make a new sound (think, ee, ea, y, e-e all make the sound “ee”). With this work, which often begins during the Children’s House and continues into Lower Elementary, students become aware that there are options in spelling and become conscious of how to spell words when writing.
Once the child begins to internalize the phonograms, we can begin to explore the complexities of the English language. (Unlike Dr. Montessori’s native language of Italian, English is not a phonetic language; there are so many exceptions to every rule!) We practice reading “sight words” and finding “rule breakers.” This feeds the interest of the Lower Elementary student, who naturally begins to show an interest in how to correctly spell words.
Spelling is reinforced through extensive reading. The more a child reads, the more they will be exposed to spelling patterns. As a result, children are able to edit their work to identify words that don’t “look” right in context and begin to self-correct. In addition, children use a variety of strategies to determine the correct spelling of a work. Things like “have a go,” where the child will write a word that is misspelled, then write it again to see if it is correctly spelled, and if not try again until they get it right. Another strategy children may use to spell longer words is to “chunk” the word into single syllable pieces. As they move to Upper Elementary, children are exposed to Latin roots, which helps them understand the spellings of many English words.
Lower Elementary students write in English and Spanish to their pen pals at a Montessori school in Spain.
Keep in mind that even with more emphasis on spelling in Elementary, guides will not correct students’ spelling while writing rough drafts of reports or stories. We allow the children to focus on developing their skills of self-expression. The expression of the idea and the flow of creativity is more important than the limiting, halting prospect of getting every word right. Corrections are made during the editing stage of the writing process – whether individually, with a peer, or with the assistance of a guide. As children begin to create more polished work to share with others, such as the letters to pen pals shown above, they are more internally motivated to edit and correct their spelling.
A Lower Elementary student reads through his spelling dictionary.
Lower Elementary students keep their own personal spelling dictionaries, in which they can write words they want to remember how to spell. It allows the children to help themselves! It also teaches the very basic and beginning steps of learning how to use a dictionary. But most importantly, the words the student put into their personal dictionaries have meaning to them.
Just as with all other areas of the curriculum, the Montessori approach to spelling is rich, interdisciplinary, and meaningful.
For more on what you can do at home to support this work, take a look at this blog from How We Montessori.
To learn more about the Elementary Curriculum, please email us at learn@greenspringmontessori.org or visit the Elementary page of our website. | <urn:uuid:851b12b7-c04c-4b85-b1e8-397101e8fb94> | https://greenspringmontessori.org/how-montessori-students-learn-spelling-in-elementary/ | en | 0.952932 | 0.021874 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
ISG Smartalks™ Podcast Episode 4: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is arguably one of the most disruptive technologies of our time. In this episode of ISG Smartalks™ Barry Matthews is joined by Mark Kelly of AI Ireland to discuss how AI is set to transform our lives, both as workers and consumers. Although not new on the scene, AI is currently driving a revolution in business due to its ability to leverage big data, improved algorithms and the Cloud. AI technologies are benefitting a vast range of industries with contextualization and personalization of consumer offerings being just two of many ways in which businesses are taking advantage of the technology. But AI projects do not always have the desired business impact for a variety of reasons, including access to data, availability of the right talent and the commitment of senior leaders.
Tune in to hear the discussion!
About the authors
Mark Kelly is the Chief Customer Officer of Alldus and founder of AI Ireland, a non-profit organization with a mission to bring together players in the field of AI in order to forge and strengthen ties and to celebrate the development of AI for the greater good. Mark is also an AI podcaster and TedX speaker. | <urn:uuid:1fc11b3e-4cde-4625-b0a1-ad6e930a5099> | https://isg-one.com/podcasts/articles/isg-smartalks-podcast-episode-4-the-rise-of-artificial-intelligence | en | 0.944323 | 0.619887 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
How Can I Feel More Spiritual?
3. Buy less stuff and declutter your surroundings.
7. Be present with others. Take an interest.
10. Practice gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, and love.
Is Nature Spiritual?
nature-sun_00390178Our connection with Nature is innately our connection with ourselves because we are inherently Nature.
Mountains, rivers, oceans, forests, dirt…
It gives us the space to remember who we are.
God and Nature are intertwined. Nature gives us the instructions for how to be happy.
Breathe in clean air, look out from a mountaintop over a vista, or on cliffs that jut out of the ocean, or stand beneath a waterfall, watch lightening rip through the sky, ride the waves and paddle with dolphins, or lie on your back and discover other worldly cloud formations, sunsets or magnificent constellations.
Walk barefoot, connecting soles with the pure earth or sand, feel the energy.
Watch the sunrise. Go out at dawn and watch the world go from dark to light, feel the energy being infused into body, mind and spirit.
Mimic the plants and reach for the sun. Get outside during daylight hours.
Take a conscious walk or hike among the trees in serenity and solitude. Listen, smell, breathe.
Swim in the ocean, lake pond, or outdoor pool.
Take a leisure bike ride or go out in a row boat, canoe or kayak.
Tend to a garden.
Snuggle or walk your pet.
Connect with nature anyway you can and remember you are part of it and it is part of you.
• Running with Nature by Mariel Hemingway and Bobby Williams
How Can I Communicate With God?
alone-in-a-crowd (1)
“One evening, out to dinner with friends, I felt profoundly depressed. At 38 years old I had stopped eating. As usual, I watched everyone eating with a hearty appetite while I sat before my plate of grated carrots pretending to savor every mouthful. In reality I was starving. I remember how utterly desperate I felt when I went to bed. I simply couldn’t go on any longer and wished I could die.
In the middle of the night, I woke up with a strange sensation, rather like a force or energy rippling like waves throughout my body. It grew ever stronger until my body was vibrating. I wasn’t frightened because the effects were warm and comforting and I no longer felt alone in my despair. It seemed someone was with me to share it. This sensation stayed with me all night, and I began to talk, expressing my innermost thoughts as if someone were listening to me. I whispered, “I don’t know who you are, but I know that you’re here and I can tell you everything.”
Shortly after, I began to breathe in a totally different way. I wasn’t frightened but, rather, curious to know what would happen next. I continued talking to the “Presence”, which had become a part of me, a faithful friend and companion ready to listen.
I talked to the Presence as a child might. When I woke up terrified by a nightmare, my friend would comfort me and I would feel the warm and gentle ripples within as if he were caressing me. The experience began my journey to discover truth.
Was it possible the presence with whom I spoke was God? I asked it.
“Are you God, our Heavenly Father?
I felt the answer was affirmative.
“Are you sure?”
Again the reply was affirmative. I was exuberant, for God was extremely loving, simple, accessible, willing to listen, full of joy. He was nothing like the strict, severe God who judged and punished about whom I had been taught.
I heaved a sigh of relief. I had finally found Him. Yes, this was the Father I had been seeking my entire life. I gave myself up to his warm embrace, no longer doubting the identity of the mysterious Presence I had felt.
After so many years, I realize, God, You have always been with me, You have never abandoned me. I am infinitely grateful for Your Love. ”
-Interview with Patricia Williams Scalisi, edited by David Paul Doyle in When God Spoke To Me
Can A Sermon Be Meant Just For Me?
Can You Know Things That Will Happen?
The frigid Michigan wind chilled me to the bone as I hugged my inadequate dress coat tighter and hurried through the darkness to my company’s annual Christmas party at a posh hotel.
I hadn’t looked forward to attending this occasion. It was just another obligation- a component of the treadmill life I led. Parties held for the sole purpose of prescribed merriment are particularly fearful occasions for me, and this one simply mirrored my loneliness as I entered the dimly lit ballroom full of chattering couples and shimmering lights.
The entryway table displayed an array of door prizes. I’d never won a door prize before. I’d never won anything in my life and didn’t expect to, but my eyes gravitated to a handmade teddy bear propped in one corner. Instead of the cute cuddly child’s toy one would expect, this bear was particularly ugly, and my attraction to it was unexplainable.
I didn’t want a teddy bear, and there was no room for such an unnecessary item in my cramped apartment, yet I reached out to pick it up. The moment I touched the bear , a stillness welled with me that seemed to dance apart from all the music and the chatter of the party.
As the party goers faded into the background, I was overcome with a feeling of absolute certainty that this teddy bear belonged to me. It can only be explained as an unshakeable knowingness that supported not a shred of doubt, not a molecule of uncertainty, as if the ugly little bear was already mine. Never before have I felt such certainty, such a powerful sense of knowing the outcome of an event before it had unfolded.
Throughout the evening I felt preoccupied by the awe of this experience. I was wondering when the drawing for the door prizes was going to occur so I could receive my teddy bear and leave.
At last the moment arrived as the music stopped and the lights brightened. The emcee began drawing names for the door prizes. As each recipient stepped up to claim his prize, everyone clapped and cheered. Still, the ugly teddy bear remained on the table.
Then I thought I heard my name called and I stood, but it was only after I stood that my name was actually called. And I walked forward to receive the bear that was indeed awarded to me at that moment.
Why had this happened? To have such a powerful knowingness about such an insignificant thing? My sense of awe about winning the bear and hearing my name held an aura of divinity about it.
But why such a waste of divine intervention? The magical encounter faded over time like a dream….I resumed my customary struggle with life that seemed drab, empty, and purposeless, but that experience led me to feel that I needed to pursue a new path to find meaning.
I was alone, lonely, unskilled, unfulfilled and broke. I had prayed to God for guidance before, but now I prayed in earnest, “Please God, I feel trapped here. I want to move to Arizona to be near my son, but I am scared. Should I take the chance without having any clear direction on how to support myself there?” Something inside me shifted, and my inner being began to flood with the identical sense of certainty I’d experienced when I first laid eyes on the teddy bear. I felt a lightness growing from within, and my consciousness became permeated with the secure knowledge that I was moving to Arizona. I knew it as surely as if the move had already been accomplished. It went beyond faith to a knowing.
Without the magic I’d experienced with the teddy bear I would have dismissed this divine guidance. I quit my job the next day, and two weeks later moved to Arizona. There my life bloomed in emotional and spiritual ways.
Today the teddy bear sits high on a shelf overlooking the life my new husband and I share. We have learned to join with God to communicate in a way that heals any challenges or difficulties that arise and to share that love and learning with others.
• When God Spoke to Me – a true story by Georgianne Giese, edited by David Paul Doyle.
Why Do The Righteous Suffer?
• The Story of Job/Old Testament
How Can I Recognize The Spirit?
rainbow2Miracles heal because they deny body-identification and affirm spirit-identification. By recognizing your spirit, your perception and perspective are corrected.
Spirit is at the center of life.
Miracles are God’s intercession through the Holy Spirit to your spirit or Christ within.
The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles. It separates the light from the darkness.
Miracles honor you because you are lovable. They dispel illusions about yourself and perceive the light in you. By releasing your mind from the imprisonment of your illusions, they restore your sanity.
Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God’s forgiveness by extending it to others. Miracles are expressions of love.
A miracle is a correction introduced into false thinking.
Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the Holy Spirit unite with Christ for the salvation or release of all of God’s creations.
Spirit is in a state of grace forever.
Your reality is only spirit.
Therefore you are in a state of grace forever.
You respond to what you perceive, and as you perceive, so shall you behave.
A Course in Miracles | <urn:uuid:b6cfc3a1-2ac9-4c89-bd79-320e5e137143> | https://questions4mormons.wordpress.com/category/gods-love/ | en | 0.972847 | 0.02106 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Why go Vegan?
As one of our members put it: “For every reason under the sun!” including:
What does Vegan mean?
The term vegan is used to describe a person who, as far as possible, does not eat or use any animal products. Vegans do not eat animal flesh (meat, poultry, fish, seafood), dairy (milk, butter, cheese), eggs, honey or animal by-products (such as gelatine, animal-derived colouring and flavouring, rennet).
Vegans avoid wearing animal products (such as leather, wool, silk and fur) and using household and cosmetic products that contain animal derivatives or have been subject to animal testing.
Vegans also avoids participating in entertainment and sporting activities which involve animal use (such as circuses, and horse and dog racing) and oppose animal experimentation in research.
Isn’t being vegetarian enough?
A vegetarian is a person who does not eat meat (including fish) but who may eat animal products such as dairy and eggs, and wear animal products such as leather and wool. Many people start out as vegetarian, before going vegan.
While vegetarianism is a positive step towards improved health and the alleviation of some animal suffering, there is immense cruelty and suffering involved in the dairy and egg industries, and in the production of leather and wool. You can learn more about that here.
The exclusion of all animal products and by-products from one’s diet and lifestyle is important to eliminating suffering and living a more compassionate lifestyle. That is why Vegan ACT actively encourages and supports people to adopt a wholly plant-based diet and vegan lifestyle.
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Business // Technology
Podcasts give voice to Houstonians' dreams, passions
The three men leaned into their microphones and began their favorite pastime: talking nerdy to fellow comic book, board game and movie lovers. This week's topic was the blockbuster "Logan" and the death of its claw-wielding main character.
"For me and you as avid comic book readers, we understood why Wolverine was dying," Joey Kay said to his co-hosts during an April episode of their year-old "Nerd Thug Radio" podcast. "They could have explained it, I guess, a little better for the average viewer."
Then they launched into a detailed explanation for their "Nerd Thug" listeners. The banter later veered to their favorite non-comic book movie characters and the game Cardfight Vanguard, wrapping up their 51st episode in as many weeks.
As podcasts become increasingly popular, local entrepreneurs like Kay, 33, and his cousins Cory De la Guardia, 33, and Nico De la Guardia, 18, are polishing their radio voices with hopes of turning passions into salaries.
But making full-time money isn't easy, especially compared with the early days, a decade or so ago, when people could build successful podcasts around virtually any topic, said Beau York, founder and CEO of Satchel, a location-based podcast discovery tool.
Tips for monetizing a podcast
Provide content that's very specific to your audience. What are their interests? Why did they seek out your podcast?
Know what companies are trying to reach that audience. They could become advertisers.
Know the competition. Find other podcasts reaching out to your audience, and then find ways to make your show different.
Be patient. It takes time to grow an audience and build your brand.
Pick a topic you're curious about. That curiosity will come through in the content you provide, research you do and the quality of the podcast.
Sources: Beau York, founder and CEO of Satchel, a location-based podcast discovery tool, and John Lee Dumas, creator and Host of the "Entrepreneurs On Fire" podcast
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Shows launching in 2017 will need a niche or local focus to succeed in the more crowded podcast world, he said.
"It's all dependent on whether or not you can connect with the audience," York said. "That is the trick."
Fortunately for the startups, that audience is growing. A recent Edison Research phone survey found that 24 percent of respondents had listened to a podcast within the last month and 60 percent were familiar with the term podcasting. That was up from 9 percent and 37 percent, respectively, in 2008.
This growing acceptance is creating more opportunities to monetize podcasts, said John Lee Dumas, who launched "Entrepreneurs On Fire" from his then-home in Maine in September 2012. Last year, his podcast and its related products posted a net profit of $1.7 million.
The "Nerd Thug Radio" trio is not at that stage yet, but the men hope to soon attract national advertisers and, eventually, make the show their full-time jobs.
Being featured on Conroe's FM 104.5 and 106.1 radio stations was key to attracting advertisers Space Cadets Gaming Gaming and Wild Thing Bar & Grill. Kay, who goes by "Joey Savage" on the podcast, and the De la Guardia brothers each pocket about $200 a month.
"It's very easy for people to be like, 'Oh, I'm going to podcast, and I'm going to make some money doing it,'" Kay said. "But then having to actually get out there and hustle yourself. So basically you're having to get someone to believe in you."
Monetizing the shows
It took Dumas seven months of daily episodes before "Entrepreneurs On Fire" began making money. His advertising revenues, however, zoomed to $12,000 in a single month. He calls it "an amazing time to start a podcast because things were just starting to come together."
Advertising has been key to the success of "Entrepreneurs On Fire," and this type of money is being increasingly allocated for podcasts.
U.S. podcast advertising revenues are expected to surpass $220 million in 2017, up 85 percent over 2016, the Interactive Advertising Bureau reports.
A separate report showed a more modest increase. Media agency Zenith projects U.S. advertising expenditures for podcasts to reach $101 million this year, up from $97 million last year, and grow to $110 million in 2019.
That's still small potatoes compared with the $68.4 billion expected this year in total U.S. TV advertising and the $17.6 billion this year in total U.S. radio advertising that Zenith reported.
Dumas realized that advertisers and affiliates - companies that pay him to recommend their products - could take his company only so far. So he used the podcast as a springboard for other business ventures, which include writing books and teaching the art of podcasts and webinars.
And like York, he said successful podcasters will create shows around topics that pique their passions and curiosity. Niche shows are the best way to bring in money right now, he said, though these shows can become broader once the podcast has a core audience.
Anita Joyce's niche is home decorating. The Heights resident is author of the "Cedar Hill Farmhouse" blog and "French Accents: Farmhouse French Style for Today's Home" book. Earlier this year, she launched the podcast "Decorating Tips and Tricks" with bloggers Yvonne Pratt and Kelly Wilkniss.
"It's hard to make an income, I think, with just a podcast or just a blog," she said. "You really have to add some other services."
She started the blog in 2011, and it became her full-time income about three years later. The blog makes money through sponsor companies that pay Joyce to promote their products as well as online advertisers. She also makes money from her book, speaking opportunities and consulting gigs. She declined to say how much she earns on the ventures.
Having this base of loyal followers was essential for launching "Decorating Tips and Tricks," Joyce said. The group released three podcast episodes on their first day that received a combined 9,000 downloads.
Sponsor companies began contacting Joyce and her co-hosts during the first week. They've had at least 10 sponsors since the podcast launched. With three episodes a week, "Decorating Tips and Tricks" gets about 100,000 downloads a month.
Joyce and her co-hosts will soon launch podcasts around gardening, cooking and reinventing oneself.
Joyce is no stranger to diversifying. As a blogger, she's pondered a popular industry question: Are blogs dead?
Page views are down, Joyce said, yet bloggers are reporting an uptick in income. She doesn't think blogs will disappear, but many people have transitioned to shorter forms of social media. Joyce has incorporated Instagram and the like into her sponsorships packages.
"I still do as well financially from the sponsorships," she said. "But now instead of people just paying for a blog post, they pay for a blog post plus social."
She's not worried about the future of podcasts. Joyce believes they're an even better avenue for promoting companies' products. Hearing her voice makes it more personal, she said, and it's harder to tune out advertisements. A 30-minute podcast episode also captures the audience for longer.
Plus, podcasts are great for multitasking.
"That's the beauty of it," she said. "It goes with you if you're exercising, gardening, driving."
Like Joyce, Dumas said podcasts are made for specific parts of listeners' day, such as commuting to work or going for a run. He doesn't believe they will ever be mainstream because people won't sit around and listen like they might watch television.
York, however, sees podcasts becoming mainstream. He said it's a more intimate experience because people choose to listen to podcasts that align with their interests and passions.
"It really does create such a unique connection," he said.
Brenda Valdivia, creator and owner of the Mocking Bird Network, wants to help Houstonians develop that connection. The Mocking Bird Network promotes a variety of local podcasts and provides them with studio space. In the coming weeks, it plans to offer classes on podcast basics.
Valdivia said Mocking Bird Network has helped some of its podcasts get sponsors and advertisers. She plans to launch a Patreon campaign, an online platform for artists to collect money from their fans, for Mocking Bird Network's expenses, including rent and equipment.
Most of the network's podcasts are comedic, but Valdivia is looking to add more community and cultural podcasts.
"At the end of the day, a podcast is just a person in front of a mic," Valdivia said. "And there's something so powerful and wonderful about that."
Stacey Daniels is part of the Mocking Bird Network. A hairstylist by day, she's been moonlighting as a sketch comedy performer for about 2½ years.
She began a comedic podcast about love, sex and friendship in the spring of 2016 with Hoja Lopez.
"I'm obsessed with people's lives," Daniels said. "The one thing that everyone has in common is love and sex - whether we're good at it or bad at it."
'It's a blast'
Daniels and Lopez have made some money by recording live episodes at the Rec Room downtown. Their first live recording in September 2016 featured Houston rapper Fat Tony. They hosted Kam Franklin, lead singer of The Suffers, in March.
Each show made about $200, and some of that went to pay Fat Tony and Kam Franklin. The rest was put back into the podcast. Daniels said the money helped buy microphones, a table to record on and beer for when guests record in their studio.
Daniels would love to grow the podcast and attract local sponsors. But she doesn't envision it replacing her day job. She'd like to continue the endeavors side by side.
"This could easily be a full-time gig one day," she said. "Do my dreams head toward that? Probably not. It would take work, for sure. I love doing hair. It's a blast. And so is my podcast." | <urn:uuid:38a2c7f3-8217-4879-98db-d3307272c480> | https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/technology/article/Podcasts-give-voice-to-Houstonians-dreams-11289074.php | en | 0.974323 | 0.020069 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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Cruiser Bikes
Sometimes it’s not about how fast you go, but how much life you can soak up in one given moment. That’s why adult cruiser bikes were built for comfort during long leisurely rides with sturdy frames for reliability on the open road. No matter how far you go, the journey is the real destination.
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Toll Wet Ball Milling
201981sand washer is a kind of water washing equipment to be matched with the sand making machine, and can reduce the dust and stone powder while they are mixing with the final sand in this machine, so it can improve the quality of the sand. sand washer is mainly used in building site, gravel plant, concrete dam building site of hydropower station, etc.
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Buddha was seated alone one day, and later, some men gathered around him. One among them who did not like his teachings and the effect it had on the people, got up and started a tirade in very vulger terms against him. Buddha sat smiling listening to all that calumny, without a single gesture of disapproval. The man got frothy in the mouth through rage, his vocabulary was getting exhausted fast, his tongue began to show signs of overwork, but, Buddha only asked him with a smile: "Brother, have you finished"?
The man said: "You have no sense of shame; you do not even react when I abuse you. You are thickskinned; you are a log of wood". Buddha asked him: "If a person does not accept a gift, what happens to it?" The man said: "It remains with the giver". Buddha replied: "Well, keep these gifts of abusive words with you, brother! I do not accept and react".
Act - Dont React
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- Sathya Sai Baba | <urn:uuid:4560fd74-d75b-43f2-b6cf-b974a64ed8eb> | https://www.saiaashraya.org/act-do-not-react | en | 0.980319 | 0.13654 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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(NSF’s Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory/Gemini Observatory/AURA)
Astronomers Have Tracked a Repeating Radio Signal Across Space to an Unexpected Origin
7 JAN 2020
A mysterious repeating radio signal from space revealed last year is now the fifth fast radio burst to be tracked back to its source galaxy.
It's a location unlike any of the others, and astronomers are having to rethink their previous assumptions about how these signals are generated.
The origin of this repeating signal is a spiral galaxy, located 500 million light-years from Earth, making it the closest known source of what we call fast radio bursts (FRBs) yet.
And the FRBs are emanating specifically from a region just seven light-years across - a region that's alive with star formation.
"This object's location is radically different from that of not only the previously located repeating FRB, but also all previously studied FRBs," said astronomer Kenzie Nimmo of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
"This blurs the differences between repeating and non-repeating fast radio bursts. It may be that FRBs are produced in a large zoo of locations across the Universe and just require some specific conditions to be visible."
Fast radio bursts are among the Universe's strangest mysteries. They are extremely brief spikes in electromagnetic radiation detected by radio telescopes, lasting no more than a few milliseconds at most. But in that time, they can discharge more energy than 500 million Suns.
Most of the fast radio bursts detected to date have only appeared once. These are impossible to predict, which makes them extremely difficult to trace - to date, only three have had their origin localised to a galaxy.
But in recent years, we've begun to find FRBs that repeat - popping off repeat signals with no discernible pattern - and in 2017, scientists managed to track down the origin of one of them.
Then last year, scientists announced that the CHIME experiment in Canada had detected a massive eight new repeating FRBs, bringing the number of known repeaters to a total of 10. It is one of these new repeaters - a signal called FRB 180916.J0158+65 (FRB 180916 for short) - that astronomers have now traced.
An international team of astronomers used eight telescopes participating in the European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network to conduct follow-up observations in the direction of FRB 180916. Over the course of five hours, they detected four more bursts - which allowed them to home in on the source of the signal.
And that led them to a normal spiral galaxy called SDSS J015800.28+654253.0.
The first repeating fast radio burst to be localised was FRB 121102. It was found to be emanating from a dwarf galaxy poor in metals over 3 billion light-years away, and the signal had been distorted by something called the Faraday effect, which occurs when electromagnetic radiation interacts with a magnetic field.
This suggested that FRB 121102 was produced in an extreme environment, like the region around a supermassive black hole at the galactic centre. Interestingly, it, too, seemed to be close to a star-forming region.
The three other non-repeating FRBs, on the other hand, were found in much more conventional galaxies - but only one of them was near a star-forming region.
FRB 180916 was not nearly as distorted by the Faraday effect as FRB 121102, which indicates that its location was not as magnetic; and it was found pretty far from the galactic centre.
"The multiple flashes that we witnessed in the first repeating FRB arose from very particular and extreme conditions inside a very tiny (dwarf) galaxy," said astronomer Benito Marcote of the Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC.
Possible explanations for FRBs put forward to date include neutron stars, black holes, pulsars with companion stars, imploding pulsars, a type of star called a blitzar, a connection with gamma-ray bursts (which we now know can be caused by colliding neutron stars), and magnetars emitting giant flares.
This research has not answered that burning question, but it could be starting to help rule out what it isn't.
"With the characterisation of this source, the argument against against pulsar-like emission as origin for repeating FRBs is gaining strength," said Ramesh Karuppusamy of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany.
The research has been published in Nature. | <urn:uuid:e9298506-4d43-40be-bdf5-193617871d88> | https://www.sciencealert.com/that-newly-discovered-repeating-frb-has-been-tracked-to-a-really-puzzling-origin?fbclid=IwAR0hpdPJKZLzxcbuqJlbGX3pWzDLyXOJHcO8tfJ9HQFz1E6kSEjoYpUCj9I | en | 0.957784 | 0.100582 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Lizzie Borden Took an Ax (2014, Nick Gomez)
A horrific crime. An infamous suspect. An unrelenting prospector and his search for the truth. Or not. I mean, technically most of the above statements could be used to describe Lizzie Borden Took an Ax, but none of them accurately captures the ninety-one minute TV movie.
There is some time spent on the crime. But Stephen Kay’s insipid teleplay already assumes Lizzie Borden’s guilt. It’s not about how or why Borden (Christina Ricci in a vacant performance) might have done the deed, but it’s also not much about how Ricci “got away with it.” There’s a trial sequence. It’s the worst part of the movie, which is saying a lot. Maybe because you finally get to see unrelenting prospector Gregg Henry come up against Kay’s bad writing. The writing lays waste to Henry, who ought to have some phenomenal part and instead doesn’t. According to the film, he doesn’t have much interest in truth. He’s justice-minded, sure, but without any convincing reasons for his passion. Once it’s clear Henry’s not getting any more character or any better scenes, he fades into the background.
Or it’s Steve Cosens’s lousy interior photography at the trial. Henry fades into that drab. But he could’ve had a good part. If the writing were better, if the direction weren’t weak. Director Gomez actually shows some interest at the beginning, when they’re recounting the murders. It’s not effect interest–the way he’ll frame a static shot to bring out the period details–but it’s an interest. It’s better than when he flubs a jump scare. Once he flubs the jump scare, it’s even more all over for Lizzie Borden. There’s just nothing to take seriously about it.
Ricci doesn’t have a character to play. Kay and Gomez have so little interest in Borden as a protagonist, they’re unwilling to commit to any characterization. At least Clea DuVall, as Ricci’s sister, gets to have emotional breakdowns. Ricci isn’t even allowed affect. No personality, no affect. Gomez’s direction is really bad. It’s goofy TV movie stuff a lot of the time, but it’s a goofy TV movie script so what else is he going to do with it, but Gomez doesn’t even help the actors. It’s so bad.
Also contributing to the endless depths of bad is the soundtrack. Lizzie Borden, set in 1892 New Jersey, has a hip, modern, country-twinged white man blues rock soundtrack. No women, however. The trappings of Ricci’s nineteenth century female are best exemplified through crappy songs. That anachronism is the only one in the movie. Unless you count Kay’s unbelievable court proceedings as anachronistic.
The guys have better parts. Shawn Doyle and Billy Campbell get through Lizzie Borden unscathed. They don’t try to hard, they phone it in, but they phone it in professionally. The parts are also better because they’re infinitely thin. Campbell’s the family lawyer who’s now defending Ricci. You’d think he might have some reaction to it. But no.
Oh. Right. The trial. The trial is terrible. The writing’s terrible, the direction is terrible. Gomez can’t get any intensity out of the proceedings, partially because Kay’s a bad writer, but also because there’s nothing to be intense about. The case hasn’t been made interesting. The characters haven’t been made interesting. It’s just awful stuff.
Stephen McHattie is the father. Historically, he seems like he was a bastard. Kay and Gomez make McHattie a bit of a grumbler, but he’s no bastard. Ricci might be a succubus though. It’s discomforting to what degree Gomez and Kay refuse to empathize with or even consider Ricci’s reality.
There are some terrible small supporting performances but it’s hard to blame the cast. It’s all Gomez and Kay.
Directed by Nick Gomez; written by Stephen Kay; director of photography, Steve Cosens; edited by Henk Van Eeghen; music by Tree Adams; production designer, James McAteer; produced by Michael Mahoney; aired by Lifetime.
Starring Christina Ricci (Lizzie Borden), Clea DuVall (Emma Borden), Gregg Henry (Hosea Knowlton), Stephen McHattie (Andrew Borden), Shawn Doyle (Marshall Hilliard), Sara Botsford (Abby Morse Borden), Hannah Emily Anderson (Bridget Sullivan), Andrea Runge (Alice Russell), and Billy Campbell (Andrew Jennings). | <urn:uuid:5f1e3cfb-35a6-4893-a5ab-aa89853b821a> | https://www.thestopbutton.com/tag/stephen-kay/ | en | 0.910695 | 0.04792 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Ministry of ‘Both’ - thrive UMC Official Blog
Ministry of ‘Both’
Luke 7: 18-35
Before we jump into our gospel reading for the morning, there are a few things we need to know about the political context of the day. Much like Christianity today, the religion of Jesus was far from uniform, and there were a number of identifiable sects that vied for power.
And today, we’re going to run into two of those groups in the gospel: there are the Pharisees on the one hand, contrasted by the ministry of John the Baptist on the other.
To put things as simply as possible, the Pharisees was the Jewish group for the masses. It was the most popular sect with the common people, and it drew its authority from the scripture. By Jesus’s time, the Pharisees had a well-established tradition that dated back several hundred years. And according to their perspective, the way to access God was through the right interpretation of God’s law, as it’s found in the scriptures. Once you knew what the law required, then you were expected to act accordingly. And the rabbis and scribes had rules for everything, and created an approach to life that was very structured, regimented, and predictable.
The ministry of John the Baptist, on the other hand, was much more radical and organic. In place of emphasizing rules, John’s ministry emphasized purity and right relationships. And to be pure, you must disconnect and distance yourself from corrupting influences –and that includes all things Roman. It is likely that in John’s mind the Pharisees were sell-outs because they still lived in a system that paid taxes to Rome. And those taxes corrupted the people, because they supported their pagan gods. In fact, to participate in the exchange of money at all was to corrupt yourself. To experience too much pleasure or comfort was to weaken your resolve. That is why they had to leave the cities and villages behind to enter into the wilderness: because –and here’s the other thing- they believed God’s judgment was coming into the world at any minute! And God was bringing along fire and an ax!
Do we see the tension that would exist between these two groups? They are both equally Jewish. But one is institutional and legalistic; the other is ascetic and pietistic. One is located in any and all urban centers big enough to support a synagogue; the other is located in smaller, isolated communes in the wilderness. One represents the status quo of the masses, the other represents a kind of religious extremism. One is traditionalist. The other is radically progressive. And I know there is absolutely nothing about this tension that we can relate to today. This is the scenario into which Jesus is living his ministry.
Our reading for today comes from Luke chapter 7. Since our last reading, Jesus has begun his ministry of healing, preaching and casting out demons. He has also called his disciples, and sent them out as apostles. In the passage immediately be We’re reading verses 18-35. It says this:
18 John’s disciples informed him about all these things. John called two of his disciples19 and sent them to the Lord. They were to ask him, “Are you the one who is coming, or should we look for someone else?”
So John the Baptist –who is in prison by the way- sends two of his followers to Jesus to ask him: “Are you the one who is coming, or should we look for someone else?”
He does this because John is expecting something. John is expecting God to do something, and he’s looking for a sign that it’s happening, or about to happen. And with all the crazy stuff he’s heard about Jesus, he’s wondering if now is the time. So his disciples go to Jesus and they ask him.
But of course Jesus never gives a yes or no answer, so the way Jesus responds to this question is Jesus starts healing people. He’s healing sick people, people with diseases and evil spirits, and he helps blind people see. And then, after all that, he turns to John’s disciples and goes: tell John about that. Tell John what you’ve seen and what you heard. And then he concludes by saying, “happy is anyone who doesn’t stumble along the way because of me.”
Which is a little weird, right? But hold on to that thought –we’ll come back to it later.
Anyway, after all of that, Jesus turns and starts talking to the crowds –presumably the crowds of all the people who were just healed. And then he asks them this question: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?”
Do we get what’s happening here? John wants to know if Jesus is ‘it’ and Jesus turns the question around on everyone and asks: ‘what are you looking for?’ And now he’s talking specifically about John –this crowd went out into the wilderness to see John because they were looking for something. So Jesus wants to know what it is.
In fact, after that, Jesus explicitly asks two more times: “What did you go to see?”
To the crowd, he lists some stuff: a reed blowing in the wind, somebody in fancy pants, or a prophet. In other words, hey guys, were you just headed out to the Jordan River for a nature walk? Or maybe you were looking for a celebrity or a prince out for a dip in a muddy, shallow river?
What did you go to see?
This is a question we might all ask ourselves this morning. When you left your beds and home this morning, what did you go to see? Did you come to church this morning to see if anyone changed the décor around the building while you were gone? Did you imagine that maybe the pews were swapped out for big, cushy recliners? Or did you come for the coffee, or to see old friends? Did you come to find consolation or to be held accountable? Are you seeking justice or grace? Were you expecting everything to stay the same, or for God to break in and start a revolution?
All of us –each and every person here- we have come to Jesus, expecting salvation and satisfaction. And many of us are like John, wondering if this is it –if this is as good as it gets, or if we’ll have to go on and keep looking and waiting. We’re wondering how long we’ll have to trudge on, carrying around the same old disappointments and baggage. Even as a secular culture, most of us sit around, on the edge of our seats, watching and waiting for the next new thing to be invented that could bring us our long-expected happiness. So from time to time, people will even swing by the church building, poke their heads inside and go, ‘is this it? Or do we need to keep looking?’
And in the next moment they’re gone.
John’s disciples journey all the way to Jesus just to ask such a question. And they come because they had already heard the rumors about the stuff that had been happening. They’d heard about the healings and the miracles and the little boy raised from the dead. They want to know if their search is over at last –just tell us Jesus, yes or no, are you it?
“Right then,” the scripture says, Jesus repeated the miracles before their eyes, and he instructs John’s disciples to return and report what they’ve seen and heard. ‘The blind can see,’ he says. ‘The lame walk. The diseased are cleansed. The deaf hear. The dead are raised. God news is preached to the poor. Happy is anyone who doesn’t stumble along the way because of me.’
After that, John’s disciples returned, and we can imagine one of them, after walking a few hundred yards quietly turning to his companion and going: ‘So uh Bob, do you suppose that was a yes or a no to John’s question?’
Here we as the readers are invited to decide for ourselves whether or not Jesus was ‘it’ for John. But here’s a clue: we never hear from John in the gospel of Luke again. Sometimes hearing and even seeing are not enough –because sometimes we’re looking for the wrong things. Our expectations can get in the way of our search. This is why Jesus says, ‘happy is anyone who doesn’t stumble along the way because of me!’ He couldn’t send to John a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ because –very likely- Jesus did not fit nicely into what John was looking for. This is also why he asks the crowd what they were looking for when they went into the wilderness to hear John the Baptist.
Finally, at the end of our reading, Jesus gives us a very short parable. He says “To what will I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace calling out to each other, ‘We played the flute for you and you didn’t dance. We sang a funeral song and you didn’t cry.’”
This is such a simple and beautiful illustration that it’s easy to miss, but picture this: there are two groups of kids sitting on opposite sides of a pathway, and the kids on one side all have flutes, and the kids on the other side have harps. They’re both playing songs at the same time: the flautists are piping out a rousing marching-band rendition of ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by the Bee Gees, and the kids with the harp are playing “Tears in Heaven,” by Eric Clapton. But they’re so close together, that the whole thing just sounds like an awful, noisy mess, and no one is dropping coins into either of their hats. So what happens is that the two groups of kids soon stop their music and they start yelling at each other across the path and fighting. The flautists are taunting the harpers because they’re being all mopey and emo and terrible dancers, and the kids with the harps are proving that the flautists are no musicians at all because the Bee Gees are trash.
That’s the image Jesus is giving to the crowd to represent the relationship between the Pharisees and those who follow John the Baptist: they’re like kid musicians who put down their instruments to yell at each other.
One side expects dancing; the other expects tears. And each side believes their own expression to be the only appropriate and true way to be in tune with God. So they gather themselves into little factions: dancers over here, and criers over there. These people sing new songs, those play only the old ones. Harps here, flutes there, acapella choruses over there, and maybe there’s a lonely guy standing in a corner somewhere with a banjo. Heck, there might even have been a spot back then in that big, ancient market for a group like our United Methodists of today: maybe there’s a group that doesn’t dance or cry or show any kind of emotional response to music all… but, by golly, if a tune really happens to move them, they will clap three or four times very politely and nod when the song is over to show their appreciation.
Can we see the picture Jesus is painting of that generation? Can we visualize the kids clustered around in a crowded market? Can we see that they’re all just children? Do we notice that they each have their own unique gift and an instrument to share? Maybe none of them really sound too good yet –because, really, who wants to sit and listen to just a bunch of flutes- but isn’t there some potential here, if they were to put in some practice time? These scattered, discordant little ones could be –could be- tomorrow’s grandest symphony yet… if they’d only bring their instruments together. If only they could see and realize that there are times for both dancing and for crying –there is a time for the new songs and the old- and if they could see that, then they could come together to be a part of something so much richer and deeper and more powerful than anything any of them could ever accomplish on their own.
But the greatest tragedy of this picture Jesus paints is that these little ones, with their flutes and harps wrapped in clenched fists, voices strained with yelling, in that crowded, chaotic market –the tragedy is that now there’s no one left to carry the tune. The only sound to be heard is the overwhelming and cacophonous roar of sellers pedaling their wares, and buyers bellowing to haggle down the price. There’s probably the sound of bickering too, because someone cut in line, and maybe a mother is shrieking, after losing track of her four-year-old. But there’s no music. There’s no sound anywhere to help people feeling anything at all together. No sound to birth beauty in the chaos.
John came fasting, and he was accused of having a demon. Jesus came feasting and was accused of being a glutton and a drunk and a friend to sinners.
The message here is that if you’re busy looking for evidence of sin, or off demon-hunting, you will be sure to find signs of what you seek. But the question is: is anyone listening for the music anymore? Are we, sitting here, out in active search for the rhythm and melody of God as it resounds throughout the entire earth to help us move and march and dance and cry together? Or are we too busy yelling at the other groups about what a song simply cannot be… so that we’ve effectually murdered the music since there’s now no longer anyone left to sing?
“But wisdom,” Jesus says, “is proved to be right by all her descendants.”
Wisdom and music have both birthed rich and varied traditions across the globe and throughout history. Together, they have given us theology and economics and science, and classic orchestras, reggae and rap-metal, and so, so much more! Is wisdom denigrated by either quantum mechanics or the vogue of literary critique? Is music denigrated by either jazz or new-wave styles? No, the child expressions all always justify their parent. So how much more is God glorified by all the varied ways that the people of earth praise their maker!
Therefore let us put away our accusations and let our focus lie with the voice of music, and the inspiration of wisdom. Let us pray. | <urn:uuid:0e2e0bc3-c619-469a-9dda-30764964e0d8> | https://www.thriveumc.org/ministry-of-both/ | en | 0.963694 | 0.026221 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Web based infrastructure for Bulgarian data processing
The Bulgarian Language Processing Chain includes the following types of text processing and linguistic annotation: Sentence segmentation; Tokenisation; POS tagging and grammatical annotation; Lemmatisation. The Bulgarian POS tagger marks up each word with the most probable Part of Speech and unambiguous morphosyntactic information among the set of tags associated with a given word. The tagger is based on SVM (Support Vector Machines) learning. The tagger predicts the POS tag of a word based on a set of features describing the word and its context. These features are words, word bigrams and trigrams within a window of words around the currently tagged word; POS tags, POS tags bigrams and trigrams in the current window, and information about suffixes, prefixes, capitalization, hyphenation etc. for the unknown words. The tagger is trained and tested on manually POS disambiguated corpus. The strategy chosen for training Bulgarian tagger is two passes in both directions; a window of five tokens, the currently tagged word being on the second position; two and three-grams of words or tags or ambiguity classes, lexical parameters as prefixes, suffixes, sentence borders, and capital letters. The trained model is applied to disambiguate texts. The precision of the tagger up to the moment is 96,58%.
The Bulgarian lemmatizer determines for a given word form its lemma and detailed morphosyntactic annotation. The lemmatization is based on an unambiguous association between the tagger output and information encoded in a large grammatical dictionary of Bulgarian language. At the tagging a reduced tagset is used (75 word classes compering to 1029 unique grammatical tags in the dictionary) compiled in a way that the minimum necessary information for unambiguous association with the respective lemma to be ensured. A small number of rules and preferences are also implemented to limit the ambiguity in lemmatization. Some additional tools for advanced processing and annotation are available, as well as for annotation and alignment of parallel texts at sentential and subsentential level.
A highly scalable web service based infrastructure was developed to provide easy access to the tools for text processing and annotation of Bulgarian. Three different types of access is provided to facilitate the user access to the system: online access; access via RESTful API; asynchronous access.
Online access is suitable for users who need processing of relatively small amount of data occasionally. RESTful API access is suitable for software developers who can integrate the processing tools in high level applications. Asynchronous access is aimed for processing large corpora – the user uploads the archived corpus, it is processed on the server, a notification email is sent upon completion of the task and the annotated corpus can be downloaded.
The system is highly scalable and can be distributed on different machines. The service infrastructure consist of three main components: Frontend, Backend and TaskDispatcher, each of these can be deployed on different machines.
The Frontend component is responsible for implementation of the access policies of the service apis, error handling, logging, support of different return formats (xml,json,plain text), communication with the Backend. Also the Fronted provides the Web UI to user to control the asynchronous tasks: start, stop or monitor a task and upload/download data. The Backend performs the actual processing and it combines the Bulgarian tokenizer, sentence splitter, tagger and lemmatiser in the form of
a server application which handles the requests of the Frontend over tcp/ip. Even though the Frontend is implemented efficiently and can handle many request simultaneously, whenever necessary several instances of the Frontend can be distributed on different machines.
The TaksDispatcher is responsible for managing the processes of the asynchronous tasks. It receives the start/stop commands by the Frontend and notifies the user by e-mail when the result is ready.
You don’t have the permission to edit this resource. | <urn:uuid:11d32059-c387-4563-a36e-d36402643425> | http://metashare.ilsp.gr:8080/repository/browse/web-based-infrastructure-for-bulgarian-data-processing/f17648f466ce11e281b65cf3fcb88b70ed358b478abe44ceb8994a97debb017e/ | en | 0.886734 | 0.104455 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Here are some common questions about our terms and billing practices. Is something missing? Let us know using the links at the bottom, or email your feedback to [email protected]
Is the free trial free? How long does it last for?
Yes, absolutely. Your free trial is 7 days, from when we first approve an Instagram account you add. This isn't the time you sign up! We try and approve accounts as quickly as possible, but it can take up to 12 hours sometimes.
What some customers do see is a $1 charge that is used by our billing provider to make sure that the card you use exists, but this is immediately refunded and will appear back on the card usually within a day (if you see it at all). More details on this here.
Will you extend my trial? / Can I have a trial longer than 7 days?
We are happy to extend customers' trial accounts when they haven't had a chance to try out the service, or have had difficulties using it.
However, Schedugram isn't free to operate, and so we don't offer a longer trial just because a customer thinks that they should have a 30 (or 60!) day trial rather than a 7 day trial. This would both be unfair to other customers who only had a 7 day trial, and also mean that our paying customers would be significantly funding free trials, which we don't think is fair either.
We appreciate this is different to some of the other apps you might use, but as we incur real and not-insignificant costs to even run a trial account, we made this decision so that paid customers can be confident that their costs fund delivering the service for them, not for other users 'kicking tires'.
How much does Schedugram cost?
Our pricing is on our homepage. Note that we are priced per account, so if you add two accounts each with less than 10,000 followers the total will be 2x$20 = $40.
Can I pay annually?
Yes, we offer annual accounts at the cost of ten months (that is, "12 months for the price of 10"). Simply contact support and ask to be moved onto an annual plan.
Do you bill my card automatically?
Yes, we automatically bill the card each month, on the same day. So for example if your trial ended on the 23rd of February, your next billing date will be the 23rd of March, and then the 23rd of April and so on.
Can I pay by ways other than credit card?
We only accept non-credit card payments for annual plans. We accept either Paypal or transfer into our Australian bank account (only for annual accounts over US$500 total – for smaller amounts we accept credit cards and Paypal). Please note, we don't have a US bank account so cannot accept payment by check/ACH.
To arrange to pay via these methods, please contact us at [email protected]
What happens if my account changes partway through a billing cycle?
We use pro-rated charges. This means that if you add an account halfway through the month, when it's activated we will make a charge for half that month's cost (for example, $10 if the account has less than 10,000 followers).
How do I get my invoices?
You receive each invoice via email when we raise it, and you can also access your invoices through Schedugram by going to the 'My account / billing' page in the menu where your name is in the top right.
Can I cancel anytime? Are there any contracts?
Schedugram is priced month-to-month. You pay at the start of the month for that month's service. As a result, you can cancel any time you like (here's how you do it) and we will cancel the account and stop your billing record.You will be able to use Schedugram up until the time you would have been billed next (or the end of your trial if you cancel during the trial), and then the service will cancel.
How do I know that my trial is ending?
Throughout your trial, you receive a number of emails from us, with some more information about the service and some best practice tips. Your final email will come on day 5/6 of the trial (remember, it finishes on day 7!), and will remind you that the trial is finishing. At this point you're welcome to request to extend the trial (see below) or cancel the account (see above).
Can I reactivate an account after cancelling it?
Yes, you just need to email us at [email protected] to request it to be reactivated, and we will start the account again.
Do you refund customers?
Generally we only refund customers where there has been a mistake on our part – such as having a duplicate billing record. We will, however, refund you if you obviously haven't used the platform and you email us within a few days (up to 7 days as a maximum) of the invoice
If it's been longer than 7 days, we generally won't process any refund unless there are exceptional circumstances (and "forgetting to cancel" isn't an exceptional circumstance unfortunately, however obviously a situation like a duplicate billing record or error on our end we would refund you for). This is to be fair to our customers who pay us every month, and to make sure that we can operate a sustainable business now and in the future.
As per our Terms & Conditions, we do not refund customers because they haven't cancelled their account but intended to (or thought that they had), or haven't used the service. You are responsible for cancelling the service yourself, and you will always receive an email confirming the cancellation. Similarly, we always send you an invoice every time we charge your card, so forgetting to cancel for several months isn't something we will process a large number of retrospective refunds for.
We sympathise with the rare situation where a customer has forgotten to cancel their account, but unfortunately Schedugram costs money to operate and run, and this means that we incur costs to ensure that we have capacity for all customers – and those costs aren't just web servers, they are non-refundable physical pieces of technology. It's very similar to a gym - to cover the cost of fitting out and operating a gym, you can't ask for a refund if you don't attend it that month.
Due to how we work, we need to actually purchase devices depending on our expected load and use of the service each month – and so if we expect that you will be using the service (i.e. you have paid for that month) we will be incurring costs to ensure that the service will work for you. We can't get partial refunds for these devices (or even full refunds unless they are defective), much like how you can't return underwear after buying it and opening the packaging – they are used goods the second we unwrap them.
If you were a paying user and we didn't have enough capacity to provide our service to you, you would rightfully complain. As a result, we have to assume users will use the service, and make sure we have the capacity to service them, or we wouldn't deliver on "our end of the bargain". We can't assume users won't use the service or provide pro-rated services depending on your probability to use the service – for example, in this space many people use Schedugram to manage campaigns which may launch (or re-launch) at any point, and we aren't aware of when that might be, and so we have to operate on the assumption that all users will be using Schedugram.
We don't think it's fair if other customers have to carry the charge of users who have forgotten to cancel an account or simply haven't used the system. We do our absolute best to ensure that you are aware of your trial ending and that the service is still active (by sending you monthly invoices via email).
We offer month-to-month contracts and you are welcome to continue using the service and choose to automatically cancel the account before your next billing date instead – you will see this option when you go to cancel the account. | <urn:uuid:1e73b2f5-ee85-4e57-ab3d-cf327a35430b> | http://support.schedugr.am/support/solutions/articles/1000165689-terms-and-billing-policy | en | 0.963843 | 0.088718 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Free LASIK ScreeningFree Cataract Screening
• 24 JAN 18
• 0
Cataract surgery and small pupils
Cataract surgery is one of the most frequently performed eye surgery. There have been many technological advances that have helped improve outcomes. A cataract is anatomically located behind the pupil. In order to access the cataract at the time of surgery the pupil must be fully dilated. There are conditions that prevent the full dilation of the pupil. Since the pupil is a neuromuscular structure health conditions affecting the nerves and muscles (diabetes, neuropathy, pseudoexfoliative syndrome and other neurological disorders) could prevent the pupil from dilating beyond a certain point. Other conditions that may prevent dilation happen after ocular inflammations. Scaring of the pupil to the lens (posterior adhesions/synechiae) can develop after injuries, uveitis, iritis or other inflammatory eye conditions. Small pupils may be encountered with the use of several medications (long-term use of miotics or alpha blockers like Flomax/Tamsulosin) and potentially cause challenges during cataract surgery. Alpha-blocker class include terazosin (Hytrin®), doxazosin (Cardura®) and alfuzosin (Uroxatral®). It is important patients provide a comprehensive list of medications used in the past in addition to the ones used presently.
If dilating drops cannot achieve dilation it may be necessary to use intraocular pupil expansion devices such as a Malyugin Ring (technique demonstrated by the inventor)
or expansion hooks.
Once the cataract procedure is complete these devices are removed usually without creating any significant additional postoperative issues
Leave a reply → | <urn:uuid:ff1adf64-ccae-4053-b768-a1e81d88f638> | http://www.westchester-eye-surgeons.com/cataract-surgery-and-small-pupils/ | en | 0.895788 | 0.083527 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Some 500 alumnae, the largest group ever to attend the New York Vassar Club’s annual luncheon, heard the views of the guest of honor, President Henry Noble MacCracken, on the relationship of students to a liberal arts college. “There must be,” he said, “consent of the student to her own education.” Courses of study must not be prescribed but must be chosen by the student, who “must have a sense of unity with the main purpose of the course…. If a woman is old enough to decide whom to marry she is old enough to decide what to study.”
The student, he told the alumnae, must also be “a citizen of the college, the community, the State, the nation and the world.” The New York Times | <urn:uuid:f59b07be-76eb-4038-95e6-cbc3e8fa657a> | https://chronology.vassar.edu/records/1946/1946-01-19-alumnae-luncheon.html | en | 0.95299 | 0.043427 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Leaving it for the developer to decide
Most junior and senior developers have one simple incentive; Investing in their own future. The way they tend to do this, is by acquiring more knowledge about potential things they imagine future employers will be interested in. This way the developer makes himself more valuable to any potential future organisation and employer, until he reaches the point that he has made himself indispensable. This creates a problem, which is that the developer’s incentives is in direct competition with his employers incentives. In fact, the incentives are arguably aligned in completely opposite directions.
At the same time, the employer is 100% dependent upon the developer’s opinion and advice, because he is the only one adequately equipped with the knowledge required to make choices of technical nature. This results in a “wag the dog” situation, where the most capable individual to be making a decision, is also the least likely individual to be making the correct decision.
For instance, if you ask an average developer how he feels about some component that solves some specific task, he might find the challenge of creating a similar component more intellectually challenging than simply reusing something existing. This might result in that the developer will be looking for flaws in the component his employer asks him to evaluate, in an effort to discredit the component, trying to convince his employer that he would be much better off letting the developer implement a similar component for himself. This would be in alignment with the developer’s incentives, which is to make himself more valuable.
The expression “wag the dog” implies that the tail wags the dog, instead of having the dog wag its tail. Similar expressions have been made that are of more explicit character, such as “the inmates are running the asylum”. Regardless of how you look at it, if you let the developer alone to mind his own business, he’ll probably do what’s in his own best interest, which is to accumulate more technical debt on behalf of his employer, happily coding away, one line of code at the time – Until the cognitive overload of the organisation as a whole, is so large the organisation can no longer sustain itself.
But why should the developer care? He already have 20 new job offers at LinkedIn, which he now is far more likely to be able to fill, due to that he’s learned all those new and shiny things, while breaking the back of his current employer.
Congratulations, you’ve now entered the “wag the dog” world, happily allowing your “inmates to run your asylum” – You’re no longer in charge of your own organisation, because you allowed your “most competent individual” to make your decisions
This will probably come as a surprise to you, but allowing your most intelligent resource to make the most important and hardest technical decisions, will only result in more intelligent objections against using the most intelligent solutions.
Cognitive overload
If I asked you what 7+5 was, you’d probably be able to give me an accurate answer within a couple of seconds. If I first asked you what the square root of the population of Uganda was, multiplied by the circumference of the Earth, and then waited until you were thoroughly engaged in solving this problem, for then to ask you what 7+5 is – You’d probably not even be able to give me an answer before a minute or two had passed. That’s because your mind would be preoccupied with problems to such an extent it doesn’t have room for more problems. This is called “cognitive overload”.
Cognitive overload happens in everything that computes, including computers and human minds. For instance, if you install a million apps on your computer, for then to start all of these apps at the same time, and then try to read the news with your browser – Chances are your computer won’t even be able to start your browser. However, also organisations can experience cognitive overload, and when they do, they become completely paralyzed, and no longer able to function – The same way your computer does when it has too many programs running simultaneously.
This is just one of the side effects of technical debt, as in too many tasks to do. Whatever you can purchase or obtain somehow as off the shelf components will reduce your organisation’s cognitive load, and hence makes it free to solve its more important tasks – As in the tasks that are of strategic importance to you and your organisation. All other tasks should simply not be solved, at least not by you or your organisation.
And, if you have to solve a problem, because it is at the core of your strategy, then please break it down into multiple smaller problems, since this allows for you to solve the smaller problems, without having to fill your mind with non-important stuff you know you can solve after you have solved the initial problem. Walking up a staircase is simple if you only move one step at the time. If you’re standing at the bottom of the staircase, trying to jump to the top in one step, it becomes literally impossible. In fact, this is an ancient Roman war strategy, but works just as well for solving problems in a software development department as it does when it comes to conquering Gaulle.
In one of my future articles, I will illustrate a use case describing how you can break down an actual problem into multiple smaller tasks, allowing you to more easily avoid cognitive overload, and such create a more healthy organisation and software development department. However, the idea can be summed up with a simple sentence.
The road to reach your dreams starts with one small step at the time
In fact, this is the most famous quote probably ever uttered, and it is as follows.
One small step for man, one gigantic leap for humanity
And that’s because it was just the final step on a staircase filled with trillions upon trillions of solutions to tiny small and easily understood problems. But trying to jump to the moon before having solved these problems, one at the time, becomes the very definition of insanity. Hence, do like Neil Armstrong please, and do it one step at the time … | <urn:uuid:c0fb1042-f9d7-42bc-85db-b87e77da0cb9> | https://gaiasoul.com/category/cognitive-overload/ | en | 0.962828 | 0.078381 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
How to make case-insensitive comparisons in SQLite?
As there is an obsession with questions with accents, here's mine:)
SQLite allows you to make direct comparisons or through like with any encoding / charset from byte to . It only allows comparisons to be made regardless of case sensitivity with ASCII characters.
I have some situations that I need to use SQLite with case insensitive and consequently accent insensitive also for Latin characters (ISO 8859-1 or Latin1). I do not need and do not use encoding UTF-8 or UTF-16, not least because there is a lack of implementation of these encodings in SQLite.
The default response from SQLite developers, which is english centric , is that if you need extra handling of ASCII, you should arrange for this. They claim that you already have this available in your application. Which is not true in my case.
I often use SQLite in languages that do not have the proper treatment to normalize the box of characters by taking into account Latin characters, at least not in a way that can be called by SQLite.
If you used UTF8 you would still not use ICU (en) for your weight in memory and processing. It cannon to kill bird and in some cases would bring me unwanted complications.
It would need to be in C to communicate directly with the SQLite API without overhead and to be portable to any language used in the application and also to the operating system, which is another requirement. >
The main requirements:
• normalize the case handling main characters (disregarding accents) of ISO-8859-1
• lightness (memory and processing)
• simplicity (allowing easy deployment and maintenance)
• Portability (language and operating system)
• avoid duplicate data in tables (create normalized column)
• No external dependency or license required to compile with my SQLite application.
It can be a simple library or a function to subscribe to the SQLite API. Preferably it also works with LIKE and FTS , UPPER and LOWER , etc.
I've already researched and it does not solve my problem:
• link ( only treats ASCII)
• link (requires ICU)
• link (requires language not available and I do not know if it solves any problem)
• link (depends on Python)
• / a> (promising but does not resolve or does not work as expected)
Reference: SQLite API
asked by anonymous 09.01.2014 / 14:01
3 answers
Sqlite has case insensitive only for ASCII natively, since one of the goals of the database is to be Lite :) and there is the understanding that any application that depends on specific language comparison will already have a function for this, since the database is just another one of the points where it will be used.
To have an order in the form you want, using your own criteria, simply implement a new collation, using the , which allows you to point to a function of your own in C, which compares strings in the way that you find most convenient.
Once this collation is implemented, simply include it in the desired query:
SELECT nome, endereco FROM cadastro ORDER BY nome COLLATE CollationExemploPtBr
Details of the function to be implemented go from the need of each, the important thing is to know that its function will receive the two strings to be compared, and should return 0 for strings considered equal (action and action, in Portuguese, should return 0), some positive for string1 greater than string2, and negative for string1 smaller than string2.
One of the advantages of having your own collation is that you can not limit yourself to comparing characters by just accenting, but also making & and E have the same "weight" when ordering a string, or anything else that is convenient for the desired result.
As long as you call the create_collation function before you start using the database functions themselves, you can use your collation (or several different ones at the same time as you like) typically as an index. This is especially important to maintain DB performance without losing the freedom to sort as you want. These functions work as efficiently or even better than native SQLite, depending only on the quality of the code implemented.
Remember that collation is only part of the process, because when you find a string with sqlite3_create_collation( ) , for example, you must also implement a compatible function, so you can use the LIKE (en) that uses the same principle, point to a function of your code that processes the as you wish.
Here is a simplified example, adapted from a function I use in some applications:
// Atencao: esta implementacao esta muito simplificada,
// e foi postada como mero exemplo. Por ter sido rapidamente
// adaptada e simplificada de um codigo de uso interno para
// ser postada no SO, pode conter erros de tipagem e alguma
// condicao nao tratada (como utf mal formado) ou bugs.
// Esta implementacao somente esta considerando os caracteres
// acentuados entre u+0000 e u+00ff, para fins de exemplo, e
// considerando as equivalencias basicas em pt_BR
// -- Bacco
sqlite3 *db;
if (SQLITE_OK==sqlite3_open( "databasename.db", &db)
sqlite3_create_collation( db,
SQLITE_UTF8, /* Nota [1] */
&example_table_ptbr, /* Nota [2] */
&example_collation );
// [1] A pergunta original menciona 8859-1. Notar que este codigo
// trata de UTF, mas basta ajustar os "ifs" pra ignorar UTF e
// usar a tabela com 256 caracteres "puros".
// [2] Notar que estou usando um cargo pra nao referenciar o
// example_table_ptbr direto no example_collation.
// O SQLite repassa esse pointer ao chamar a funcao indicada.
// Este e um otimo jeito de usar a mesma funcao com tabelas diferentes.
// Se sua funcao ja tiver a tabela embutida,
// basta usar null neste parametro.
// ... seu codigo aqui ...
static const char example_table_ptbr[] = {
/* u+0000 .. U+007F */
0x00,0x01,0x02,0x03,0x04,0x05,0x06,0x07, 0x08,0x09,0x0A,0x0B,0x0C,0x0D,0x0E,0x0F,
0x10,0x11,0x12,0x13,0x14,0x15,0x16,0x17, 0x18,0x19,0x1A,0x1B,0x1C,0x1D,0x1E,0x1F,
0x20,0x21,0x22,0x23,0x24,0x25,'E' ,0x27, 0x28,0x29,0x2A,0x2B,0x2C,0x2D,0x2E,0x2F,
0x30,0x31,0x32,0x33,0x34,0x35,0x36,0x37, 0x38,0x39,0x3A,0x3B,0x3C,0x3D,0x3E,0x3F,
0x40,0x41,0x42,0x43,0x44,0x45,0x46,0x47, 0x48,0x49,0x4A,0x4B,0x4C,0x4D,0x4E,0x4F,
0x50,0x51,0x52,0x53,0x54,0x55,0x56,0x57, 0x58,0x59,0x5A,0x5B,0x5C,0x5D,0x5E,0x5F,
'P' ,'Q' ,'R' ,'S' ,'T' ,'U' ,'V' ,'W' , 'X' ,'Y' ,'Z' ,0x7B,0x7C,0x7D,0x7E,0x7F,
/* u+0080 .. U+00FF */
0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20, 0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,
0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20, 0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,0x20,
0x20,'!' ,'C' ,'L' ,0x20,'Y' ,0x20,0x20, 0x20,'C' ,'A' ,'<' ,0x20,0x20,'R' ,0x20,
'O' ,0x20,'2' ,'3' ,0x20,'U' ,0x20,0x20, 0x20,'1' ,'O' ,'>' ,0x20,0x20,0x20,'?' ,
'A' ,'A' ,'A' ,'A' ,'A' ,'A' ,0x20,'C' , 'E' ,'E' ,'E' ,'E' ,'I' ,'I' ,'I' ,'I' ,
'D' ,'N' ,'O' ,'O' ,'O' ,'O' ,'O' ,'X' , 'O' ,'U' ,'U' ,'U' ,'U' ,'Y' ,0x20,'S' ,
'D' ,'N' ,'O' ,'O' ,'O' ,'O' ,'O' ,'/' , 'O' ,'U' ,'U' ,'U' ,'U' ,'Y' ,0x20,'Y' };
int example_collation(void* pArg,int n1,const void* s1,int n2,const void* s2)
int v = 0;
unsigned char b1;
unsigned char b2;
unsigned char *t = (unsigned char *)pArg;
unsigned char *p1 = (unsigned char *)s1;
unsigned char *p2 = (unsigned char *)s2;
unsigned char *c1 = p1 + n1;
unsigned char *c2 = p2 + n2;
while( ( p1 < c1 || p2 < c2 ) && v == 0) {
b1 = *(p1++);
b2 = *(p2++);
if ( p1 > c1 )
b1 = 0x20;
else if ( b1 < 0x80 )
b1 = t[ b1 ];
else if( ( b1 & 0xFE ) == 0xC2 )
b1 = t[ 0x80 | ( ( b1 << 6 ) & 0x40 ) | ( *(p1++) & 0x3F ) ];
if ( p2 > c2 )
b2 = 0x20;
else if ( b2 < 0x80 )
b2 = t[ b2 ];
else if( ( b2 & 0xFE ) == 0xC2 )
b2 = t[ 0x80 | ( ( b2 << 6 ) & 0x40 ) | ( *(p2++) & 0x3F ) ];
v = b1 - b2 ;
return v;
14.01.2014 / 17:31
To switch between comparisons case insensitive and case sensitive there is a configuration :
PRAGMA case_sensitive_like=OFF;
About removing accents, I found this reference with a function that looks promising:
SELECT spellfix1_translit('água'); -- agua
SELECT * FROM table WHERE spellfix1_tanslit(column) LIKE 'a%';
A implementation in question, part of a virtual table to find words "nearby ", uses a mega-table of translations to get the ASCII counterpart of accented characters (that is, does the replacement of Roman characters on the nail). For more details see the translit[] data structure and the transliterate function that I omitted for reasons of space and simplicity (the copyright message of the header is very interesting hehehe).
** spellfix1_translit(X)
** Convert a string that contains non-ASCII Roman characters into
** pure ASCII.
static void transliterateSqlFunc(
sqlite3_context *context,
int argc,
sqlite3_value **argv
const unsigned char *zIn = sqlite3_value_text(argv[0]);
int nIn = sqlite3_value_bytes(argv[0]);
unsigned char *zOut = transliterate(zIn, nIn);
if( zOut==0 ){
sqlite3_result_text(context, (char*)zOut, -1, sqlite3_free);
As for the implementation of the function, if you want something more "robust", since ICU is out of the question, there are other options like unac . Just use the above function as template and replace the call with transliterate with the normalization function you prefer.
09.01.2014 / 16:41
Although the question has already been answered and @Maniero have made it clear
Avoid duplicate data in tables
In some situations it is not possible to create a collate sqlite3_create_collation . And, using data replication can meet other requirements like:
lightness and simplicity
And if you are also interested in accent insensitive you can have the alternative with field doubling with the use of slug.
CREATE TABLE 'posts' (
'name' TEXT,
'name_slug' TEXT);
When entering, you will need to enter the information twice. The first one is raw and the second, slug . In the example it would be name and name_slug . Slugify in C ++
INSERT INTO items ( name, name_slug )
VALUES ( "O nome do POST é comprido", "o-nome-do-post-e-comprido" );
And when performing comparison or like , use the same search term slugify procedure.
# Post é
SELECT * FROM items WHERE status = 1 AND name_slug like "%post-e%"
31.05.2018 / 00:23 | <urn:uuid:dcb656cc-aa55-497e-aabd-d33bb9ac8bc9> | https://itqna.net/questions/26/how-make-case-insensitive-comparisons-sqlite | en | 0.744942 | 0.034707 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Who's buying the airport?
Yesterday the Chapel Hill News reported without questioning a study* saying that the economic benefit of a new airport in Orange County could be four times the impact of the current Horace Williams Airport. Would a new airport be four times as big and have four times the traffic? Who would want that? And for that matter, who the hell would use it?
I understand the benefit of the current airport to the University, the hospital, and the state. But I just don't see how having an alternative to Raleigh-Durham benefits the average Orange County resident. Most of us don't have private planes, and when we need to fly, we use the commercial airport. The tax benefit to local government is negligible compared to other possible uses of the land.
I'm just not buying this.
* This figure ($53,000,000) was based on a consultant's study. But they don't say whose consultant. UNC? Orange County? I have been disappointed to see that County staffers have been speaking out in support of a new airport. I doubt they are on the same page as the County Commissioners.
Total votes: 148
Here's a classic quote from Roger Perry responding to a letter from a landowner in the White Cross are who's land might be taken for the new airport. Perry first noted the direct connection between Carolina North and a new airport and then wrote the following:
"Carolina North is not only the future for the research and discovery at the University but may well be the largest key to ensuring economic prosperity in the State of North Carolina in a flat world"
The world is flat? (seriously, what does he mean?)
In other words nah-nah-neh NC State; our research campus has an airport and yours doesn't.
I am sure east-west partners will be swooping in with a meadowmont north in short order......
A friend looking for real estate in the country within commuting distance of CH told me she found a high-end development with its own runway, so there's got to people around here with private planes.
I understand one of those with a plane is Bob Epting and his law partner is ... Speaker Hackney. Interesting?
Old news
Yep, I saw that development too. CZEI. It' s near the Orange/Alamance line. Not sure what side of the line it's on.
It is on the Alamance county side of the line.
If the University buys the land the County will NOT receive one tax cent because that land will disappear from the tax rolls forever. Where is the benefit for the County taxpayers?
There is an old joke regarding the economics of aviation: "Question- Want to know how to make a million dollars in the aviation business? Answer- Begin with 10 million."
I recommend a cautious wait and see. Airports are expensive to build. In general, smaller airports serving smaller communities are closing. But the airports in Lee County (Sanford) and Burlington are thriving. Wake County is actively considering constructing a new airport on the east side of Raleigh. It would be interesting to see whether another airport in Orange County would compete economically with Sanford or Burlington. I suspect it would.
The majority of the start-up costs would be borne by the University system and the FAA. Thus the costs would be spread across a tax base that is much broader than the County. And the benefits would accrue primarily to the University and only secondarily to Orange citizens but these benefits could be significant.
Still, it is a very long process from forming a committee and airplanes on a runway. I recommend keeping an open mind and following the process before making an uninformed judgment pro or con at this point.
In the sprit of full disclosure, I should say that I am an active general aviation pilot with a generally favorable bias toward airports and airplanes.
Dan vdMeer
Then why does the University want to take land by eminent domain (force)? Why is the Airport Authority a "municipaility" out of thin air, able to bypass county permits and regs? and why does the university feel the need to stack the authority with a two-thirds majority of university and legislative appointees?
It just does not stand up to reason.
As the crow flies, I live exactly one mile from the HW Airport and I must say that the noise from the planes is very loud in my area. I would support the relocation of the airport to somewhere else or the scuttling of it altogether.
Interesting note from this recent blog entry by Mark Schultz of the CH News: the study ranked Raleigh-Durham airport as the top option with 68 out of 78 possible points. How does that fit into the deliberation of an Orange County airport authority?
Exactly. The 2005 Talbert & Bright study ranked RDU the highest and it is by far the least expensive alternative. The university knowing that their AHEC stalking horse can't get out of the stall, now floats a magic 2008 economic report citing the economic benefits of a "County Wide General Purpose Airport" *much* larger than the one proposed in the 2005 study.
Only problem is that it is economic fantasy. Really. Read the report, it is a joke.
Meanwhile Chancellor Thorp and Roper write a downright condescending response hinting at NIMBY, quoting pie-in-the-sky economic numbers and assuring us that mommy & daddy university knows what is best for us.
They tell us opposition is premature and they want "transparency" completely ignoring how S1925 was run through the legislature and what heavy handed provisions it contains.
BTW who appointed UNC-CH Inc the planning board for the county? I don't remember that being on the ballot.
I think we should call Tom Wolfe and suggest he write "Bonfire of the University". I'm telling you, you just can't make this stuff up :)
I'm a supporter of the UNC Innovation Center at CN and have said so publicly at advisory board meetings as well as the CH Town Council's public hearing on this application. I believe that the Innovation Center is important to the University and will be beneficial to the Town in a number of ways.
There is one thing about the University's application that bothers me though. In the late spring when the University was bringing this application forward and they were asked about the status of HWA they said that the airport would be closed by the time the Innovation Center opened. The last two times I have heard this question asked (at the public hearing and the Council meeting on Sept. 25th) Bruce Rundberg replied that when the Innovation Center opened the airport would be closed if required by the regulations. That is quite different than what was originally being stated.
I believe that this is a critical time for re-establishing trust between the Town and the University. Hiding behind semantics or wordsmithing is not going to build trust and the University should be quite explicit in their intent and the rationale behind their decisions.
It's hard to know which regulations Bruce Rundberg was referring to, with respect to the Innovation Center.
The guidelines most often applied to land use around airports are not regulations - a distinction either forgotten or remembered, depending on exigencies of the moment, by both pro- and anti-airport people. What needs to be remembered is that these guidelines (which refer to recommended purposes and densities of building in various zones near the airport) were devised based on accident statistics.
As such, even if they don't have the force of law, they do mark areas where landowners (e.g., university or municipalities) could be said to be putting people in harm's way if they locate residences, office buildings, dorms, etc. in such-and-such a zone. That raises questions of risk and liability re: the Innovation Center (as it did when original plans for CN called for keeping HWA open).
It seems that Roper/Thorp might like to distance themselves from the 2005 study, and it's worth watching for signs they're going to declare it OBE'd (overtaken by events) and no longer applicable. The 2008 study - which covers different issues and is aimed at slightly different goals, I gather - nonetheless seems to give them broader bases to work with. (Would love a link to it.)
Presumably, Thorp wasn't an intimate part of the backing-and-forthing on HWA, particularly since spring '01. Although he's been in the area for a while, I daresay some of the particulars of things like FAA regs.*, land-use guidelines, insurance concerns, etc. are relatively new to him. I may be wrong, but I'd guess much of his info is coming via Roper, which isn't good news for people questioning the whole premise of siting an airport in OC.
(*such as noise and pilot/plane safety -- e.g., bldg. and tree height, lighting, markings, etc.)
As a self-confessed NIMBY when it comes to my personal turf, I must reluctantly agree that RDU is the best airport for AHEC to re-locate its air operations. It's the safest from an aviation standpoint, if a tinch inconvenient for the medical faculty. Of course they'd rather drive into the county instead of east on I-40 -- more hectic but not much longer.
Here the university sacrifices a certain amount of Carolina North allure. Corporate VIPs and other big spenders, including wealthy alumni, will have to land their private planes either at RDU or some other outlying airport. Maybe instead of building another HWA, the university could establish a ground transportation shuttle and a special travel agency to grease those particular wheels.
How about if we spent $50,000,000 on a rail system that would link Triangle destinations instead of an airport for the elite alumni and corporate big dogs?
If you can get the Feds to fund 90% of it like they will the airport then go for it. UNC does not want to pay landing fees at RDU, that too is inconvenient. Which is why they will build an airport of their own. Since most of the elected representatives in the NC legislature are graduates of UNC-CH there will be no resistance to putting the airport wherever they want to put it.
Amen to that!
Interesting info obtained by CH News via public records request of emails. Duke wanted eminent domain out of airport bill
"We are adamantly opposed to the changes that Duke wants, which is to strip the right of eminent domain from the provision," then Chancellor James Moeser wrote in a June 20 e-mail to bill sponsor Richard Stevens. "Without that, we have nothing."
Duke University got what it wanted in the bill. It wasn't that it wanted eminent domain out of the legislation, it wanted to be exempt from it.
In NC General Statutes §116-274(b)(4):
The authority may acquire by purchase or gift any property for the purpose of establishing, extending, enlarging, or improving an airport. The authority does not possess the power of eminent domain over property held on July 1, 2008 by a tax exempt Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) organization organized for educational purposes. In all other cases, the authority possesses the power of eminent domain and may acquire property by eminent domain for the purpose of establishing, extending, enlarging, or improving an airport.
The full bill (Senate Bill 1925), as adopted is at:
What I find fascinating about this exchange, is that the university and legislature are negotiating this deal without involving the county or residents that might be affected. What is the universities responsibility to the community? Who are the legislators supposed to represent?
The most striking part of the article about Rep. Bill Faison justifying the airport was his unvarnished arrogance in blithely talking about going around the Orange County Commissioners so they could not get in the way.
Here's a guy who made a major campaign issue out of reforming how Orange County elects its commissioners in order to give voice to the under-represented rural citizenry who now cares less than nothing about these same people having any input on what happens to their communities.
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12 Months Warranty On All Products. Due to our stringent sourcing and QC processes, the fault rate on products shipped out is very low. However, sometimes faults develop which couldn't be detected before, and we will allow you to return the product for testing and a free repair. The warranty exactly lasts for 365 days from the day you have received the product.
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Three reasons why you should pick Express as your shipping method:
Shipping Costs:
For return back the defective products to us, we suggest customers:
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2. Use register air mail not DHL,UPS and other express shipping way to send back the product to us. We will be charged high customs fee and our local customs may hold on the products imported.
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5. Shipping back the products to us may take you a long time. We suggest you wait patiently. We will remind you as soon as we receive the parcel from you.
6. Buyer should pay for the shipping when he send back us the product.
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Recovering from an Emotional Trauma of Domestic Abuse
Forgive yourself
The hardest step to take, and the most important one. Things that happened weren’t your fault. No matter how many times you burned the dinner, or forgot to do a chore, or said something silly. No one has any right to abuse you, and there is no excuse for what has been done to you.
They told you that you aren’t worth it, that no one else will love you, that you’re stupid and wrong and useless, but they were talking about themselves. You are none of these things, and only impotent, mean, petty people could say something like that. You need to forgive yourself to move on, you need to learn how to love yourself and all that you are.
Every time you want to regress to that state of insecurity, remember that your life is back in your hands, they can’t hurt you anymore, and you are stronger than they could ever be.
You’ve made the right choice. You doubt that, but you’ve made the right choice. Life didn’t magically become easier, and it won’t for a while, but you’ve given yourself a chance to make it better. You are going to be okay.
Recovering from an Emotional Trauma of Domestic Abuse
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Published on June 13th, 2017 | by Tom Goodwin
Embracing the Power of Disruption and New Technology Today
Tom Goodwin
Tom Goodwin executive vice president of innovation, Zenith USA
There’s a well known joke about a tourist in who, while lost in the windy backlands of deepest rural Ireland is lucky to find a passerby herding sheep along the single track lane. Winding down the window, he gratefully asks the way to Dublin. The local takes a long deep breath, thinks long and hard before replying, ’Well sir, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here’.
It’s not the best joke, but it’s a reasonable metaphor for business today. Faced with the winds of change, a legacy of well meaning and reasoned decisions that in retrospect appear to have been poor, but never felt that way at the time. With no clear sign of a path ahead, I wonder how many businesses wish they could start from somewhere else.
The very biggest and the very best question we literally never dare to ask ourselves, is what would you business look like if it was created today? What would it do? How would it do it? How would it make money? What would you still have done and what would you never have created?
We know it’s not practical and it’s not fair, but it’s provocation that best leads the way to conversations and explorations about how business can best adapt to and in the modern age.
There are two new concepts to expand thinking, challenge conventions and pose interesting helpful questions to better shape business ahead.
Unleashing the power of the Paradigm Leap
The first notion to explore is the idea of evolutionary funnels, the design process and the notion of a paradigm leap in design and thinking.
Design needs constraints, so we fix criteria bases on business briefs, assumptions and knowledge from the past and design then follows an iterative process where we find the optimal design fro the brief.
Over time investment, time, consumer behavior and technology continually refine the process, and products improve. We find businesses all working against each other and competition refines designs that become smaller, cheaper, better, faster, lighter etc. We tend to find that improvements follow an S curve, at first slow while companies adapt to a new design, then fast as expertise gains momentum, then slower improvements as the limitations on design or physical properties of materials or some other form of physics follow. We hone in on an optimal solution at the end of an evolutionary design funnel.
Then occasionally we see a great leap, a paradigm shift to another way of seeing things, a shoe new design funnel that produces huge changes in what’s possible and needs entirely new thinking to explore.
So when the iPhone launched in 2007, it was both the best phone the world had ever seen, and Apple’s first phone. Tesla’s first ever car set the standard for the entire car industry. From Dyson’s first Vacuum, to Nest Labs’ first Thermometer to Uber’s first Taxi business, to Amazon’s first attempt at Retail, to Facebook becoming the largest media owner the world has ever seen, it seems that the real step changes in how things are done come from people on the first attempt and from the outside?
We need to consider a world where we take a fresh look at business and ideas, we need to challenge the viewpoints of entrenched experts, we need to look at what we should really fix and what should be challenged. We need in all aspects of business to find inspiration outside our comfort zone, learn from best in class experiences from anywhere, we need to reimagine what we expect is possible in a world where new technology makes new things happen at unrelenting speed.
Which brings me to the second idea.
The Power of Digital Disruption
Electricity didn’t change the world overnight, it took nearly four decades for industry and society to unleash it’s transformative power. Yet businesses and people for the entire time felt they’d understood the full potential of electricity.
When electricity was first discovered business owners were very happy. Previously all factories were arranged around a Line drive power system, a simple system where one large shaft would spin down the long side of the factory and belts fixed to it would drive all machines requiring power. This huge and heavy line drive would be driven by a massive, heavy, smelly and noises steam power plant typically attached to each and every factory.
When electricity first arrived, it was clear how to use it. The capital costs to build a new factory around it were vast, the benefits unclear, so factory owners simply swapped out the steam power plant with a huge electrical motor. The job was relatively fast, requiring minimal downtime, the replacement was relatively cheap and the benefits were clear. Within weeks factories needed fewer maintenance staff, saw lower running costs, more efficient power, and factories were less noisy, cleaner and could run for longer and with less downtime.
For nearly 40 years this is the only change factories made and nobody thought twice about it.
It was only when new factories were built in the electrical age did anything change. Here, armed with a blank sheet of paper, with designers and architects who’d grown up in the electrical age, did people first start to question what was possible. Now, “electrically native” designers would decide that electricity wasn’t something to add onto the edge of what was done or to treat like a marginal technology to bold onto the side, electricity was so transformative that it needed to be central to the entire design of business.
When factories were built around electricity everything changed. Each and every machine had a local motor, entire layouts could now be rethought about what worked best for the employee’s and what production line flows were most efficient. Now the hugely different use of space made for far more effective layouts. Now workers could control the power locally, they needed more training, but got more autonomy to make decisions, meaning they produced far higher quality products. Factories also could use very different fabrication techniques and used far smaller machines, but most of all factories now no longer needed to be close to the source of fuel for the production of steam but could be located need ports to ship products, and near cities to find cheaper employees.
It was only in retrospect it was clear they’d got it wrong, that while factory managers for years felt smugly that they’d understood the power of the new technology and that 5 or 10% improvements were just great, it was only when business was reimagined for the new age that a huge leap in performance was actually made.
We are at the exact same point in the digital age. We’re the the marginally improved factories of the past. The companies that have unleashed the fastest growth and generated the greatest value creation in the shortest possible time have done so by building for the new world and with technology at the core.
So given this, if you can’t rebuild your business for today from scratch, how at least can you employ new thinking and new technology at the core?
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10. Action
The pathways to an open knowledge society must navigate between two extremes of chaos or anarchy, order and control. But these dystopic extremes have different characteristic forms. In other words there is not just one dystopia; the two extremes are dystopic, each in its own way.
10. Action
Contributors (13)
& 8 more
Mar 08, 2019
10.1 Ways Forward: Technical, Political, or Both?
The pathways to an open knowledge society must navigate between two extremes of chaos or anarchy, order and control. But these dystopic extremes have different characteristic forms: the end of the spectrum that embodies chaos veers toward the phenomenon of the 'global techno-fix', which is the Silicon Valley model. The control end of the spectrum heads towards the political fix, embodied in the Brussels/Washington/Canberra model. In other words, there is not just one dystopia; the two extremes are dystopic, each in its own way.
One way to ensure open knowledge is the techno-fix, which is to leave it to Silicon Valley and its venture capitalist-driven entrepreneurial endeavours in protocol making, company start-ups, infrastructure building and app development enthusiasts. This method does work, and has populated and nourished the global commercial internet since the 1990s. The next generation of the internet will arrive when it moves from a primary distribution model (the internet of shopping) to a new driver, the distributed ledger or Blockchain, which promises to be fast, instantly global, and is free of central control at a structural level. Early indications are that this is indeed the direction in which we are heading.
There is certainly cause for optimism here, as the latter is also the model of Wikipedia and open source software (OSS), in both of which a globally distributed group of people has been able to organise and techno-fix production around a protocol for developing a common pool resource. But in many ways, Wikipedia and OSS, while mostly well-governed organisational forms, can also illustrate the deeper problems of anarchy and the lurking dystopia endemic to the techno-fix model.
The problem with the techno-fix to the open knowledge problem is that while conforming to the 'better-faster-cheaper' model of tech progress, on some of the margins the techno-fix tends toward the anarchy end of the spectrum, risking problems of loss of control. Without public oversight and control, therefore, issues of access injustice, privacy violations, and arbitrary and dangerous interventions become inevitable. Open knowledge constructed in institutions such as these risks disappearing into the 'dark web' beyond moderators and oversight and becoming uncensorable and uncontrollable.
The private provision of public infrastructure also comes with costs imposed on the disruption, as a result of these developments, to established business models. This potentially applies also to the accrued benefits of settled ways of doing things, for institutions such as for libraries, publishers, and funders that have thus far adapted to a settled regime of public funding of closed knowledge production.
Political Fix
The other way to solve the problem of open knowledge is through politics, which can tend towards dystopia in a different way. Proposed solutions tend to use political mechanisms to force collective action, adding oversight and enforcement to aspects of the business process such as funding shares, IP transfer agreements, access and censorship prospects. This is the control end of the spectrum. The dystopic aspects here include the use of political power and force (rather than voluntary action) to create an outcome. And, because this is a negotiated process whose outcome depends upon who is at the table, some will be left out, creating new divides and the potential exclusion of those who are not part of the political process. This tendency is already visible in various attempts made and measures taken by a variety of national governments in order to enforce national control and borders on the internet, resulting in reduced access by national research communities to open information.
The political process inevitably draws in the same actors and will tend towards replicating and reinforcing the patterns of past decisions, as it works through the same channels and mechanisms of power. Even with the best intentions and the brightest political agents, the process will be slow and conservative.
Towards an Inclusive Institutionalisation of Open Knowledge
Eutopia in the space of open knowledge institutions is not a negation of the techno-fix nor the political control agenda, but an attempt to find and embed the best aspects of both, and to shed the worst aspects of the existing systems.
We seek a good solution that will put structure into our technical undertakings, and which recognises the critical need for inclusive and participatory governance systems. So, we need negotiated protocols. The techno-fix is needed for the efficiencies and new affordances it brings. But political control is also needed to create a fair and representative system.
An open knowledge system, in the 'narrow range for eutopia' vision, has complex institutional characteristics and practical outcomes that mix the best aspects of the techno-fix and the negotiated political settlement. We will recognise it by its characteristics and properties.
An open knowledge system will bring more knowledge for more people than a closed knowledge system. That offers a powerful productive potential, as well as a highly desirable outcome in relation to diversity and inclusion that are baked into the open approach. An open knowledge system naturally produces different forms and sources of knowledge. These qualities of abundance and social justice need to be set against the other key aspect of an open knowledge system as a complex institutional space and a site for staged conflict.
To build such a knowledge institution with complex dynamic properties requires the mixing of technology and protocol-driven infrastructure with consensus-driven negotiations. The end result, ideally, will be poised in tension between the opposing poles of too much chaos and too much order.
Open knowledge institutions facilitate participation rather than adopting top-down, controlling and exclusive approaches. This coordination process seeks to establish productive and collaborative linkages with a variety of actors and stakeholders, and between the grassroots, and the initiatives and the realm of external regulators.
Inclusive coordination not only provides platforms for dialogue among participants but imagines permeability among types of knowledge participants. That is, an Open Knowledge Institution imagines the possibility that a knowledge consumer can become a user; that a beneficiary can become a maker. All roles must be valued and the possibilities for the simultaneous and sequential embodiment in various roles must be maintained. Furthermore, it must be recognised that the system of knowledge production has many competing value systems. For example, an institution may be subject to certain regulatory frameworks that a knowledge maker may not be subject to. In turn, the knowledge maker may be responding to disciplinary pressures that are external to the institution. Coordination requires being aware of and attending to these competing priority and value systems.
Sensitive coordination will always maintain a precarious balance between empowerment and control. As noted earlier, actors within the knowledge system are subject to differing pressures and regulation. To attend to these pressures, coordination must ensure maximum flexibility while meeting the needs of accountability bodies and regulatory agencies. Coordination of an open system, furthermore, requires certain sensitivities to potential counter-currents. Given that systems will evolve to a naturally closed state, effective mechanisms must be in place to incentivise and reward openness.
10.2 Ways to Proceed
Our goal is a university that engages deeply with the mission of an Open Knowledge Institution, by drawing upon the values, structures and activities of open knowledge, and including them into its organisational and community story. Such an open institution provides a platform for distributed innovation and maximal impact.
Within this broad framework, there is also the possibility of a university deciding how to assess its own progress. Although established frameworks for measuring the effectiveness of universities in traditional terms are a reality, OKIs have the courage and ability to contribute to change in the ways that universities are positioned and understood, internally and externally.
In turn, this suggests that OKIs will need to be supported by guidance and best practice. This support might take the form of possible models, best practice, and cautionary tales of common mistakes, alongside advice on how other organisations have decided to represent their own progress.
We intend this book to be a first step in the development of a framework to guide action and illustrate pathways forward.
10.3 Leading the Way
In a complex evolutionary pathway towards open knowledge institutions, leadership matters. Some must go first. Leaders can be individuals, groups and organisations. They can emerge in all kinds of contexts:
1. The Government, apart from being the regulator, can support the transition in many ways as a leader. Open access can be included systematically as a requirement for government-funded research. Public universities may pay special attention to increasing the inclusiveness of their staff and student body and can be rewarded accordingly. In the polarity between techno-fix and political fix, governments can take an active role in mediating and moderating negotiations between business and universities in creating common knowledge pools.
2. Professional associations play an essential role in leading the process of overhauling the dominant system of journal rankings, peer review procedures and performance evaluation of academics. They can actively support and honour cross-disciplinary research initiatives via the creation of new venues for publishing innovative research.
3. Scientific and scholarly publishers can create innovative ways to combine commercial interests with maximising open access, and may actively pursue cooperation with other concerned parties, such as professional associations.
4. Universities can overhaul their systems of selecting and evaluating faculty and staff, thereby changing the incentives for teachers and researchers. They can reward all kinds of common knowledge pools that transcend the boundaries of established approaches, such as community projects.
5. Researchers can take the lead as open knowledge entrepreneurs, taking the risk in exploring new common knowledge pools. Senior researchers may actively support new open access journals by redirecting their submissions away from the incumbents.
6. Teachers can develop new curricula in keeping with the more open nature of knowledge and the growing diversity of university populations.
7. Students can be presented with real options within and between universities, including those which model open knowledge initiatives; and students can organise activism for openness.
8. Funders can include open knowledge criteria in their project selection and evaluation procedures. They can identify emerging common knowledge pools, moving away from narrow criteria of excellence, for example, by widening the peer and expert review system to include other concerned parties.
9. Professions can actively cooperate with universities in creating programs that integrate knowledge users in their design and implementation. They can support research initiatives that bridge research and application.
10. Communities can actively support spatial integration between universities and localities. They can approach universities with cultural and other community projects, acting as local knowledge entrepreneurs.
11. International organisations can develop blueprints for open knowledge initiatives. They can lend active support to developing countries in building new open knowledge institutions and act as mediators across national policies.
12. Standards setters can actively support increasing openness of standards globally.
Amidst all this opportunity, there is a place for us all.
No comments here | <urn:uuid:7c06f074-a684-4d61-a317-6d57947bf857> | https://wip.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/oki-ch10 | en | 0.927081 | 0.025988 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
From Every Angle – Adelaide Oval
Adelaide Oval is a stadium in Adelaide, South Australia, located in the parklands between the city centre and North Adelaide.
The stadium is mostly used for cricket and football, but also plays host to rugby league, rugby union, soccer, and concerts. Its record crowd for cricket was 52,633 during the 2014–15 Big Bash League season semi final between the Adelaide Strikers and Sydney Sixers, and its overall record attendance was 62,543 at the 1965 SANFL Grand Final between the Port Adelaide and Sturt.
IMG_4135 DSC08259 DSC08260
This week, photograph a stationary subject from three different angles.
Source: From Every Angle | <urn:uuid:045e8bae-f2c1-43a8-9b44-abaf40118477> | https://worldwidesoulmate.wordpress.com/2015/08/29/from-every-angle-adelaide-oval/ | en | 0.968619 | 0.025152 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Baltimore, Md. -- Dr Donald Zack, co-director of Center for Stem Cells and Ocular Regenerative Medicine at Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute, is leading a study that is growing eye cells in the lab and one day could help develop therapies that could stop blindness. Zach shows a cell sorter in his lab at the Smith Building.
Drs. Donald Zack and Valentin Sluch spent 30 anxious days waiting for their experiment to yield results.
They were eager to see if the retinal ganglion cells growing in their lab would turn red, indicating that they'd successfully edited the cells' DNA. Turning the eye cells red would allow them to be sorted from other cells and potentially provide the key to research that one day could lead to a cure for blindness caused by glaucoma or multiple sclerosis.
"I was checking every day," Sluch said. "When I first saw red cells in the cultures, I was really excited and I ran to get a colleague to tell them that it worked."
The breakthrough of growing eye cells in a lab, developed by Johns Hopkins University researchers, will also allow them to better understand the diseases and develop better drug therapies. Hopkins is already testing drug therapies through a five-year partnership with German pharmaceutical company Bayer that began earlier this year. Existing drug therapies work by reducing the pressure in the eye, which slows the progression of blindness.
The Hopkins researchers cautioned that there are many hurdles to overcome before they could develop a cure for blindness with transplanted optic nerves but said this offered hope.
"If you talk to patients and they rate what they're most scared of, obviously it's cancer and dying, but vision always comes out as one of the things that people are afraid of losing and really value," said Zack, a professor of ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who lead the study growing eye cells. "It would really change their lives."
Zack, who is also co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Stem Cells and Ocular Regenerative Medicine, developed the cells with Sluch, a former Johns Hopkins biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology student who is now a postdoctoral scholar at Novartis, a pharmaceutical company. Their research was published in November in the journal Scientific Reports.
The retinal ganglion cells the researchers grew are a type of cell found in the retina that has a long tail called an axon that becomes the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain. In diseases such as glaucoma and multiple sclerosis, the optic nerve becomes damaged, making it difficult or impossible for the eye to communicate with the brain.
The ganglion cells were grown from induced pluripotent stem cells, a type of stem cell made from the cells of an adult. The other type of stem cells, which come from human embryos, sometimes draw ethical or religious objections, Zack said.
The researchers edited the DNA of the cells to make them turn red so that a machine could separate them from other types of retinal cells, leaving them with a dish of pure retinal ganglion cells.
The researchers used a genome editing laboratory tool called CRISPR-Cas9 that was only developed a couple of years ago.
Zack is working with a bioengineer who placed the newly grown retinal cells on a form made of fibers that helped it grow in the shape of the optic nerve. Researchers elsewhere are taking note of the discovery and are working toward developing a way to transplant a new optic nerve or develop new drug therapies, he said.
Despite these advances, the researchers don't want to raise hopes that a cure for blindness is just around the corner. Zack said he was reluctant to estimate when such a transplant would be a reality. Even if a transplant became possible, any vision restored would likely be blurry and dim, Sluch said.
"Right now for a person that's completely blind, just being able to know what time of day it might be or if the lights are on in a room might be a big improvement in their life," Sluch said. "But I want to be realistic and say it'll take a lot of work to even get to that point."
More than 3 million Americans have glaucoma, according to the BrightFocus Foundation, a nonprofit supporting research into glaucoma and other diseases. Up to half of the 2.3 million people worldwide with multiple sclerosis, or MS, develop optic neuritis, a condition that can lead to partial or total blindness. MS affects nerve fibers and disrupts communication between the brain and the rest of the body.
Although diabetes can lead to blindness, Zack said some features of that disease may make a potential transplant more difficult.
Glaucoma patients lose their peripheral vision first. It is more common in older people and can take many years before blindness occurs.
If researchers were able to develop a way to grow a new optic nerve and transplant it in a patient, the patient might develop glaucoma again, but "it would reset the clock even if the damage was ongoing," said David Glasser, president of the Maryland Society of Eye Physicians and a part-time professor at Johns Hopkins.
"If we could restore their vision, that might give them another 10, 20, 30 years," Glasser said.
But it's unclear how the cells would hook up to the brain even if they were transplanted into the eye. Such issues are why stem-cell-grown organs aren't commonly used in transplants. "That's why we still use a liver from a donor and not one grown in the lab," Glasser said.
But those who work with glaucoma patients said that even slowing the progression of blindness would be a major step forward in the field.
"Unfortunately, with glaucoma at the moment we don't have a lot of great ways to slow down the progression of the disease," said Andrew Iwach, chairman of the board of the Glaucoma Research Foundation and executive director of the Glaucoma Center of San Francisco. "We're not there yet but we're making progress. Twenty-five years ago I had hope but I didn't see a pathway [to a cure], and now I see the possibility, which is really exciting." | <urn:uuid:daa2ad9b-259d-4c91-b00e-0e65275fb762> | https://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-hs-reversing-blindness-20151220-story.html | en | 0.970056 | 0.109148 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Code Simplicity
There are three key factors to being or becoming a great programmer: awareness, understanding, and responsibility.
I’ve talked a lot about the subject of understanding. Heck, I even named my most recent book Understanding Software. In particular, I’ve pointed out many times that the better you understand something, the better you will do it.
However, there are two other factors that go along with understanding to make somebody into an excellent software developer. In brief, if you aren’t aware of a problem, there’s no understanding to be had. And if you don’t take action to solve the problem (which starts with taking responsibility for it) then you can’t do anything about it.
There’s a lot to know about each of these points, though, and they are key points when one looks at how to become a better software developer. So I want to go into each one in more depth with you, here.
In a way, this is a specialized form of understanding. “Awareness” means, essentially, that you can perceive something and know that it exists. There are a lot of ways that this applies to programming.
Let’s take one of the simplest: if you aren’t aware of a bug, you can’t possibly fix it.
Sometimes, people use this to get out of having to do something about a problem. If they aren’t aware of it, they think, then they don’t have to do anything about it. That may or may not be true, but what is true is that the problem exists whether or not you personally know about it. If your system has a bug that is affecting millions of users, then you should be aware of it. Otherwise your users are going to suffer. Their suffering is not justified by you being unaware of their suffering—that is, it doesn’t suddenly become okay in the universe just because you don’t know about it.
There are more subtle forms of awareness. For example, some people are not actually aware of code complexity. They don’t realize that the code that they just wrote is complex. Sometimes they aren’t aware that complexity is even an issue, or aware of what the viewpoint would be of another programmer who has to read the code they just wrote. They don’t see that the code is missing comments, that it’s hard to read, or that there is another way to solve the problem. All of these are aspects of awareness for a programmer.
The simplest way that you can improve your awareness as a programmer is to be willing to go out and read code that’s outside your normal realm of control. That is, maybe on a day to day basis you work on code that encodes video. But that video also comes from somewhere—users upload it into your system. If you encounter a problem with how the videos are coming into your encoder, then maybe you should choose to go look at how that code actually works.
This sounds simple but it can be quite emotionally difficult for many people, sometimes even including me. It’s easy to think, “they’re all idiots over there and this sucks and I just have to work around it.” But how do you even know that if you haven’t looked at their code? Maybe there’s something you would learn that would help you.
Awareness can also be about knowing the existence of libraries, frameworks, or tools that you can use in your code. Maybe you don’t know everything about the latest web development libraries, but if you’re a web developer, you should at least be aware that they exist. Then, when you need to make a decision about which framework to use, you know which ones to go look at.
In general, one can improve awareness simply by being willing to experience new programming languages, new design patterns, ideas about testing, new frameworks, etc. I personally want to know about new systems and methods of programming. When I hear about a new language that’s all the rage, I go and at least read the front page of its web site, and sometimes even delve into its documentation somewhat. That way I at least know the thing exists, and I could learn more about it if I needed to. If I’m not aware of different ways of solving problems, then I have far fewer tools at my disposal as a software engineer. Increasing my awareness in this way increases my options when I’m faced with a difficult situation.
This all may sound overly simple, but it is quite true:
You can improve your ability as a programmer by improving your awareness of programming and programs.
As I have mentioned elsewhere:
The better you understand something, the better you can do it.
Awareness is a first step—you know a thing exists. After that, you want to understand it in order to do well. Let me give you an example in a made-up psuedocode language:
function print_hello() {
What do you think this program does? It looks like it clears the terminal out and then prints the word “Hello.” But honestly, I’m just guessing. I haven’t looked at the documentation or code of clear_screen or write_hello. If I looked at the code, I would see that clear_screen actually turns the whole screen white, and write_hello prints the word “HELLO” in fifteen different languages and colors across the screen. But I never could have known that without actually looking at something in order to understand it.
That may seem like an oversimplified example, but this happens all the time in programming. Now that I know what clear_screen does, I can use it elsewhere without having to think about it or spend time re-writing it. I can write a program that does what I intend it to do, instead of a buggy program. I could write a test for it that makes sense. All of this adds up to simplicity, stability, and all the other qualities that we think of as being “good programming.” And all of that stemmed from understanding.
There are other forms of understanding, which I’ve gone over quite a bit in several articles, most particularly “Why Programmers Suck.” It really is the key point which makes or breaks a programmer. There are other skills that are useful—typing quickly, communicating well, managing your priorities appropriately, and many others. But the key point is understanding. Without that, you could be the fastest programmer in the world, but only write terrible, unmaintainable systems. You could be the most charming person on the team, but fail utterly to write a working line of code. I’m not saying it’s bad to be fast or charming—those are also useful skills—but that without understanding, they are not going to make you into a great developer.
I talked about this a bit in an article on the O’Reilly blog that I wrote shortly after the first book came out, but I’m not sure how many readers have read that post, even though it’s actually a very key point about being a great programmer.
Now, first off, I want to clarify something. By “responsibility” here, I do not mean, “taking the blame for something that went wrong.” That’s a common definition of responsibility, but not the one I’m using. What I mean in this case by “responsibility” is, “the willingness to be at cause over, or in control of, some thing.” For example, if I have responsibility for my room, I’m willing to clean it up. It doesn’t mean I have to clean it up, just that I’m completely willing to. And not just a big PR statement about “oh yes, I’m completely willing to clean my room” and then go off and lie down in the mess for three hours. No, I mean really, actually willing. Like, are you willing to eat your favorite dessert? That’s willing. I’m not saying you have to be as excited about everything as you might be about your favorite dessert, I’m just saying that there has to be actual willingness involved.
So how does this apply to programming? Well, all too often I run into this negative example:
“I don’t want to refactor that code because I don’t own it.”
That’s silly. Are you capable of editing it? Can you read the source code? Are you allowed to send changes to the owners? Then you’re theoretically capable of fixing it. Now, that doesn’t mean that you should go around fixing all the code in the whole world all the time, because sometimes that’s not the right time trade-off to be making in terms of your development goals. But even that sentence I’m loathe to have said, because all too often people use that as an excuse to not clean things up, also:
“I can’t spend any time cleaning up that team’s code because it will make my project take longer.” Or, “Well, cleaning up this code that I depend on isn’t part of my team’s goals.”
Okay, there are two flaws with those theories. (And believe me, they really are theories—not facts.)
The first is that usually, it takes longer to do something correctly when you’re depending on bad, crazy, or complex code. Often, it actually ends up taking less time to refactor and then write your feature than it does to try to write your feature on top of some messy or horrible library that doesn’t work at all the way you need it to. So you’re not usually adding a lot of extra time to your goals. The reason that it might seem like you are is that you’re not thinking about the difference between getting something “done” and getting something actually done.
What do I mean by “actually done?” Well, I mean that it works, it’s not full of bugs all the time, you can maintain it easily, it isn’t sucking your whole life up as a developer, and you can move on to doing other productive things.
Think of the problem this way. Let’s imagine that you’re building a wall, and you start off at the bottom with some shoddy bricks. Then you put a few more layers of bricks on top of those. But after you get to about the fourth layer of bricks, the shoddy bricks at the bottom start breaking. So then you go and you patch up the shoddy bricks by adding some shoddy wood over them. You add a few more layers of bricks, and now the wall starts to fall over. So you prop it up with some rusty iron bars and go on with your work. If you continue this way, you’re going to be spending your whole life simply maintaining the wall. It’s going to become an immense problem in your life. You’re probably going to eventually walk away from it and leave somebody else with this terrible disaster of a wall that they now have to maintain, but that they don’t even understand because it looks like a crazy amalgamation of shoddy building materials that nobody in their right mind would ever combine. That’s pretty cruel, honestly.
When you “hack” or “patch” around bad code in your underlying dependencies, you’re building your software in the same way that you would be building that wall. It’s less obvious, because programs don’t have a huge physical structure that can fall on your face. But nonetheless, the same principle of building applies—when you solve an underlying complexity by adding a complexity on top of it, you increase the complexity of the system. When you instead resolve the underlying complexity, you decrease the complexity of the system.
And I want to point out that it doesn’t matter who made the thing complex in the first place. The fact that “somebody else did it” doesn’t change any of the above rules. And it doesn’t matter who owns the complexity now. If you hack around it, you will make the system more complex. If you fix it, you will make the system less complex. You are making a choice—you have this power, you can be responsible. Yes, sometimes that involves getting somebody else to fix it. But in my experience, even more often it involves you being willing to make the change yourself.
And sure, maybe you know all that. But still, you might think, “Oh, well, I can just make this one tiny piece a little bit more complex this one time, because it’s just this one thing that I’m doing.” And you know, sometimes, you might be right, especially if you have some sort of legitimate emergency where you have to hack something out for just a short time. But more often, you’re actually contributing to a huge mess of a broken wall that will become a nightmare for you and everybody else to maintain. It’s these little complexities, these little choices to not be responsible, that eventually add up to the giant broken messes that nobody wants to deal with.
So when I say “responsibility” in this way, a big part of what I mean is, “be willing to change things outside your normal perimeter.” It doesn’t have to be an infinite perimeter. You can draw a line somewhere and say, “Beyond this point, it really is somebody else’s problem.” For example, on my projects I have often drawn a line that says, “Okay, I’m not going to do as much work on code that comes from outside the company entirely, because that’s not as productive of a use of my time.” But I have from time to time even gone as far as filing bugs against programming languages or sending patches to developer tools when I thought they were causing complexity or making my life more difficult. I mean heck, I actually became the primary architect of Bugzilla because I thought there were a lot of things about it that needed to be fixed. I’m not saying that everybody should go that far. But I am saying that you will become a much better programmer by accepting responsibility for some code beyond the scope of your project. And that the wider you spread this scope out, the better of a programmer you will become.
Oh by the way, I said there were two flaws with the theories above. The second one is that you actually belong to a group, even if that group is just humanity. You’re not the only person around. It’s okay to contribute to other people’s code. We’re actually all kind of on the same team.
If you’re working for a company, you’re helping the company as a whole by fixing these things when you come across them. And if you’re just an individual developer out in the world, you’re making the world a little bit of a better place for every other programmer when you fix some widely-used library, some popular tool, or some bad sample code on the web somewhere. And honestly, it makes you a better programmer. That’s the whole point of what I’m saying here. The best programmers that I’ve known are the ones who are the most willing to take broad responsibility for everything going right no matter what piece of code they have to touch or what team they have to talk to to get things done. I’m telling you this because it will help you.
And by the way, as a consumer of a library or API, often you are in the best place to refactor it, because you know better than the authors how that library or API should be consumed. At the very least, file a bug against the code saying what problem you had with it. Otherwise how will the authors ever know that there is some problem? You might just expect them to magically know, but believe me, very often they do not know. Your experience could be very valuable to them, who knows!
Overall, if you want to be a better programmer, the thing to ask yourself is whether you should improve awareness, understanding, or responsibility, and then focus on that for a little while. If you aren’t sure, start with awareness, then go on to understanding, and finally take more responsibility. It’s very difficult to do it in the other direction—you can’t easily take responsibility for something you don’t understand (it would just be very confusing and you’d not be very good at it), and it’s impossible to understand something you’re not aware of. So awareness, understanding, and then responsibility is the right sequence.
If it’s awareness that you should improve, just read some new code, find a new programming blog, look around for book titles, talk to some other programmers about the latest technology—anything that just helps you become more aware of problems, solutions, knowledge, patterns, people, organizations, principles, or anything else that would help you in your job.
If it’s understanding you’d like to focus on, then read some more documentation, spend more time understanding how each function works, ask more questions of your fellow programmers, look up some words in the dictionary, read some articles about the technology you’re using, or read a book—any method of coming to a complete and full understanding of some knowledge related to your job.
And finally, responsibility is achieved mostly by just deciding to take on more. When a problem comes your way, decide to solve it rather than put it off. When there’s a difficulty outside your team, decide to help resolve it rather than be part of the problem. And there is a special type of responsibility, too—when somebody else has a problem to solve, be willing to help them, or, be willing to let them solve it on their own if that’s what they should do. Responsibility doesn’t just mean that you have to do everything. It can also mean being willing to help other people get things done, too.
It’s not even hard to do the above—as long as you do it in simple, individual steps. You don’t have to become aware of the whole universe overnight. You don’t have to understand every word of every program ever written, tomorrow. And you don’t have to be willing to change every piece of software in existence just because you read this blog post. Start with something small. Then move on to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing, and in time, you’ll be just as good of a programmer as you want to be.
10 Responses to How to be a Great Programmer: Awareness, Understanding, and Responsibility
1. Ofrias says:
I agree with you, and in fact, I believe that programming is a sort of craft. The tool are given and normally (even studying in an engineering school) you develop you style (craft) with you guts; even if your guts tells you to forget the main principles of software engineering.
But as you said, you decide to be responsible of your stuff; and very often we forget that the code is kind of a live specimen that evolves and grows, and complexity over complexity could kill us (or just make the code unusable).
At this point I think that a craftsman has to evolve into an engineer, not only knowing how to write a piece of code that works, but developing tools or mental processes that help himself and others to make easy to develop software.
Which is also so difficult, you have to define your limits by avoiding to reinvent the wheel but being willing to learn and being brave enough to decide to reinvent the wheel.
Greetings! And happy new year!
2. For me, all about programming is to experiment on codes. And while doing that, a self-aware programmer-to-be ought to focus on each and every element of the process. I really like this awareness-understanding-responsibility division of yours – it exactly depicts how the stuff works during learning.
Cheers and thanks for an insightful content!
3. This is very good post. As a developer this post help me very much. This is right that a good programmer has three type of knowledge. If any one of this three item is missed,he/she is not a good programmer. According to my opinion there are so many tool available in the market for this reason a software engineer is forgetting his main aim. thank you.
4. I think you nailed it with the three main categories of a great programmer: awareness, understanding, and responsibility. Though I would challenge you to also add perseverance and patience. A lot of our time as Software Engineers is spent simply trying to understand the problem as you outlined in the introduction. This step in my opinion exemplifies the need for a great software engineer to have patience — we all know it can be difficult to work with those less tech savvy to determine requirements. Finally I wrap up with perseverance, much of our job as software engineers is to overcome adversity. To fix the bug in production or to push it live untested, these are real situations that happen to many of us daily. Great programmers must persevere! That’s all I’ve got but thanks for the read.
5. Roger says:
What a great article! Programming is indeed a good variation for most of people, some say it is mostly about learning and learning etc, while others say it is mostly about your code variety and overall flexibility of thinking. I did find some really good advices about this not so long ago, can be found here: You should definetely take a look.
6. Carolyn says:
In my opinion not everyone can become a great programmer. A good programmer yes. But to be great at programming takes something that cannot be learned. Great post
• Max Kanat-Alexander says:
Hey Carolyn. No, I disagree. I think anybody who has a genuine interest in becoming a great programmer could theoretically be a great programmer. There can certainly be barriers and there is some factor of aptitude, but it’s possible to adjust even that.
Glad you liked the post! 🙂
7. Julian Estrada says:
As an absolute novice in the world of programming, I found it helpful to read this blog, you really inspire me to improve and learn more about a subject that I love and sometimes frustrates me. I think it’s the learning curve at the end of everything. A hug and thanks for sharing some of your wisdom, greetings from Colombia.
8. I am also being a software developer for a while ago, it was really hard to absorb any code without any suitable logic’s. well i can say a logic word because all the code has some manner of execution level. for e.g. you have to design any suitable software system like Hospital management system, first of all you have to make a document of their primary UI panel.
As i said panel means the front dashboard which s easy to understand. i have seen many system software which have main knowing panel of blue dashboard but their back-end work is very complicated.
Back-end & Front end Development – first i am talking about the back-end development which is very very complicated and hard to absorb, all the main functional work from back-end development.
Nowadays Front End Development is no more the easiest platform for the development, you have knowledge of some sort of programming basics to intermediator workflow.
| <urn:uuid:cf11c875-e432-444a-a3c2-2b3ba6e71163> | https://www.codesimplicity.com/post/how-to-be-a-great-programmer-awareness-understanding-and-responsibility/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-be-a-great-programmer-awareness-understanding-and-responsibility&replytocom=786659 | en | 0.961761 | 0.028044 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Last year PUC toppers' answer scripts on DPUE website
Last year PUC toppers' answer scripts on DPUE website
Representative image
Now, students preparing for their second-year PUC examinations can refer answer scripts of the previous year examination's toppers through the official website of the Department of Pre University Education (DPUE).
Following the directions given by the Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Department S Suresh Kumar, the officials of department have uploaded the answer scripts of the toppers of March/April 2019 examinations.
In total, the department has uploaded the answer scripts for 36 subjects and selected one topper for each subject. This direction came after a suggestion during a review meeting conducted at Kalyana Karnataka region requesting to circulate photocopies of the toppers' answer scripts to help students appearing for the examination this year understand the best way to crack the exam.
However, instead of circulating the photocopies, the minister directed both Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (KSEEB) and department of PUE to upload soft copies of toppers answer scripts on their respective websites.
The department has already uploaded the answer scripts on its website. Speaking about it, M Kanagavalli, director of the department, said, "It has been two weeks that we have uploaded the toppers' answer scripts on the website and the students can refer the same."
The answer scripts of the last year SSLC toppers would be uploaded soon on the KSEEB website.
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The Mental Benefits of Yoga
There's legitimate science as to why it's the workout that could be the secret to discovering a calmer you.
Lise Gagne via Getty Images
Although yoga was once considered glorified stretching by workout diehards, this has changed drastically since the recent rise in heart rate-raising hybrid classes (like those that incorporate dance and bootcamp-like moves along with more typical yoga sequences) as well as hot versions. Yoga is not only yet again at the top of get-fit list, but its unparalleled mind and body benefits make it a workout must.
Most notably, yoga helps increase natural anti-anxiety neurochemicals. Science shows that unlike classic cardio which helps elevate endorphins, yoga increases GABA, essentially a get-calmer chemical that typical anti-anxiety prescription drugs also boost in the brain. One study published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine suggests that regular yoga can increase GABA significantly, most likely due to a combination of the breathing, meditative and stretching techniques used throughout. The 12-week long study showed that those who did regular yoga had significantly more GABA, and had increased mood and decreased anxiety, than those who didn't do the practice and walked instead.
What's also interesting is that GABA is also increased from alcohol, and why after a few cocktails, a feeling of relaxation can set it. (And why you may crave a glass of wine after a long day). Is it better to head to yoga instead of happy hour be the key to reducing stress regularly? Well, yes, science seems to say so.
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Games Like Alan Wake, Alan Wake game poster
Alan Wake is a psychological thriller game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Game Studios for PC and Xbox 360. The story follows famous novelist Alan Wake as he tries to uncover the mystery behind his wife Alice's disappearance at Cauldron Lake during a vacation in the small town of Bright Falls. If you are a fan of psychological thriller games like Alan Wake and looking for more games with similar gameplay then find the recommendations for it below and don't forget to mention if we miss any games as we keep on updating this list.
Games Similar to Alan Wake:
Deadly Premonition:
Deadly Premonition is an open-world psychological horror game where the player controls Francis York Morgan an FBI Agent investigating the Identity of a serial killer responsible for a brutal murder in the small town of Greenvale.
Silent Hill (Series):
Silent Hill is a series of survival-horror video games created by Keiichiro Toyama and published by Konami. Mostly the story of the games revolves around the fictitious American tourist town called Silent Hill.
Resident Evil (Series):
Resident Evil is a series of survival horror video games created by Shinji Mikami and developed by Capcom. Mostly the games revolve around player fighting against the zombies and hideous mutations created as a biological weapons by Umbrella Inc.
Dead Space (Series):
Dead Space is a series of third-person shooter survival horror video games created by Glen Schofield, developed by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts. Generally the story revolves around ship systems engineer Isaac Clarke's fight against Necromorph outbreak in outer space.
Max Payne:
Max Payne is a third-person shooter video game series developed by Remedy Entertainment and Rockstar Studios. The franchise is notable for its use of "bullet time" in action sequences which slows down everything around the player while he can still aim and fire weapons in real time. This gives the characters an edge over the enemies.
More games like Alan Wake:
Amnesia: The Dark Descent,
Heavy Rain,
Metro 2033,
Condemned: Criminal Origins,
F.E.A.R. 3,
Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder,
Metro: Last Light,
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth,
Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage,
Condemned 2: Bloodshot,
The Walking Dead,
Beyond: Two Souls,
Dying Light,
Siren: Blood Curse,
Half Life (Series),
L.A. Noire,
Alone in the Dark,
Murdered: Soul Suspect,....if you can think of more similar games then don't forget to mention them in comments. | <urn:uuid:32f0ae71-a53a-49c7-8503-d9ff834ef796> | https://www.findmesimilar.com/2014/08/games-like-alan-wake.html | en | 0.924919 | 0.025573 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Ex-Barclays Antony Jenkins predicts demise of traditional banking
Ex-Barclays Antony Jenkins predicts demise of traditional banking
Former Barclays chief executive believes its the end of the banking world as we know it...and he feels fine.
Antony Jenkins, who founded fintech firm 10x Future Technologies in 2016, has written for Quartz that financial services is in the middle of its "Uber moment".
He refers to the closure of at least a third of bank branches in the UK in the last five years, and says "we should rejoice that the practices of banking models of the past, which have lost the trust of so many, are coming to an end".
It's an oft-repated cry from Jenkins, who has become a passionate advocate of the need for radical tech-driven change in traditional banking practices.
Citing challengers in the UK like Monzo and Starling and the visually appealing, fun-to-use tech platforms they offer, he sees banking moving to a "golden age" with a customer-first approach and streamlined services.
Just as Uber has negated the need for the intermediary of a taxi company or licensed body, technology such as distributed ledgers spreads the risk of a financial transaction and expedites the processes weighed down by centralised risk.
He uses as an example the idea of mortgages that can be approved in minutes thanks to AI and funded by a pension that uses blockchain to exchange the relevant data and create a smart contract.
Jenkins was group CEO of Barclays from 2012 until mid-2015, when he was sacked over a dispute with the bank's board about restructuring and cost cutting.
Comments: (5)
Tingting Xu
Tingting Xu - Topic News - Shenzhen 02 December, 2019, 10:021 like 1 like
No, i don't agree. Before banking system exists, there was the private, personal banking. Traditional bank will soon finds ways to fit in, but the blockchain has not guarentee any safety.
Melvin Haskins
Melvin Haskins - Haston International Limited - 02 December, 2019, 10:472 likes 2 likes
I would be interested in a breakdown of the amount of business carried out with banks by individuals compared to companies, shops and corporations. It seems to me that Mr. Jenkins is only talking about private individuals. In other words, a breakdown by both volume and value would help to understand what he is getting at. Businesses provide banks significant funding through fees and charges - far more than individuals - and are unlikely to be interested in Open Banking.
Philip Andreae
Philip Andreae - PA&A - Sea Island, Ga 02 December, 2019, 13:312 likes 2 likes
" he sees banking moving to a "golden age" with a customer-first approach and streamlined services" Yes this move back to a stakehodler culture is what the capitalistic market requires. This means companies, in this case bankd, focus on what their customers need. If Branches are not necessary so be it. If sexy user itnerfaces are required build them. Blockchain while intriguing is all about removing the intermediary. THis idea that "Uber has negated the need for the intermediary of a taxi company or licensed body" makes no sense. Uber simply inserted themselves into the system as the new intermediary.
What is changing is not the nature of the function it is the actors who perform the functions. We still need regulation, central banks and other mechanisms society inserted to protect the citizen.
Russell Bell
Russell Bell - Fastbase Ltd - Wellington 03 December, 2019, 02:511 like 1 like
Regards removing intermediaries, if you picture the present-day Uber model as an only partial realisation of a more far-reaching idea, then the template is applicable.
Imagine an open-source ride sharing app, not controlled by any company, where your payment goes to the driver via a market-model escrow service, providing arms-length mediation of disputes. With the reputation score for drivers, passengers and mediators handled much as is done now, following a social-media model.
Thus no intermediary between passenger and driver, except for the escrow service. The escrow and dispute resolution being an application-level function, specific to the ride-sharing app. Using an underlying blockchain-based payment service that provides simple "irreversible" payments only, i.e. unlike the credit-card model.
The real Uber isn't like this of course, though nevertheless for the moment their price and service is pretty good, and will likely remain so while the company continues to focus on building market share, and while it remains nimble enough to stay a step ahead of local regulators.
Ketharaman Swaminathan
Ketharaman Swaminathan - GTM360 Marketing Solutions - Pune 03 December, 2019, 10:091 like 1 like
"Uber has negated the need for the intermediary of a taxi company" is one of the most surreal statements I've come across in a long term.
Take advanced markets. Uber has merely replaced the taxi company as a different intermediary.
Then take emerging markets like India. There was no taxi company before. Riders paid cash to Drivers. End of story. Uber came in saying it's a taxi booking platform, sale / purchase is between Driver Partner and Rider. But government found a good source of tax in rideshare, which it never got in the old taxi regime. It made Uber charge and collect 18% Goods & Services Tax and remit it to the government. Uber became an intermediary in an industry that never had one earlier.
Trending Stories | <urn:uuid:dab1033a-014f-4fce-beb7-1b7a1ca10a54> | https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/34872/ex-barclays-antony-jenkins-predicts-demise-of-traditional-banking/wholesale | en | 0.94014 | 0.117335 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Front View of Beautiful Oregon Home
Formosan Subterranean Termites Swarming
Formosan subterranean termites are especially damaging to wood, and they are spreading in the United States.
One of the ways these termites get started in an area is from boats and ships that pick up these hitchhikers when they are in infested areas, or take on infested cargo, and then dock on our shores. When the winged reproductive termites swarm from the boats, they take to the air and land in nearby shore areas, where they start new colonies. Winged termites eventually swarm from these colonies, spreading the infestation further every year.
It has not been known exactly how far these winged Formosan termites spread. One new study in New Orleans found that the majority of them landed within 273 yards of their parent colony. But one winged termite was caught a whopping 1422 yards away, or almost a mile. It was not windy during the study, but on windy days they would probably land even further away. | <urn:uuid:dc165775-f2d1-416d-b5f1-aa7d970445a6> | https://www.haltpestcontrol.com/blog/2015/july/formosan-subterranean-termites-swarming/ | en | 0.963057 | 0.080647 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
You may be surprised to learn that the American International Group Inc., better known as AIG (NYSE: AIG), is still alive and kicking, and is no longer considered a threat to the financial stability of the United States.
Almost a decade after it was handed a government bailout worth about $150 billion, the U.S. Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) voted to remove AIG from its list of institutions that are systemic risks or, in headline terms, "too big to fail." In 2013, the company repaid the last installment on its debt to taxpayers, and the U.S. government relinquished its stake in AIG.
Key Takeaways
AIG was one of the beneficiaries of the 2008 bailout of institutions that were deemed "too big to fail."
The insurance giant was among many that gambled on collateralized debt obligations and lost.
AIG survived the financial crisis and repaid its massive debt to U.S. taxpayers.
In quarterly earnings announced in August 2019, AIG posted a nearly 18% increase in revenue, and the company's turnaround was deemed to be well underway. But it had been forced to cut itself in half, including selling off a valuable Asia unit, in order to repay its massive debt to the U.S. taxpayer.
High-Flying AIG
For decades, AIG was a global powerhouse in the business of selling insurance. But in September 2008, the company was on the brink of collapse.
The epicenter of the crisis was at an office in London, where a division of the company called AIG Financial Products (AIGFP) nearly caused the downfall of a pillar of American capitalism.
The AIGFP division sold insurance against investment losses. A typical policy might insure an investor against interest rate changes or some other event that would have an adverse impact on the investment.
How the Housing Bubble's Burst Broke AIG
A new financial product known as a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) became the darling of investment banks and other large institutions. CDOs lump various types of debt from the very safe to the very risky into one bundle for sale to investors. The various types of debt are known as tranches. Many large institutions holding mortgage-backed securities created CDOs. These included tranches filled with subprime loans. That is, they were mortgages issued during the housing bubble to people who were ill-qualified to repay them.
The AIGFP decided to cash in on the trend. It would insure CDOs against default through a financial product known as a credit default swap. The chances of having to pay out on this insurance seemed highly unlikely.
The CDO insurance plan was a big success, for a while. In about five years, the division's revenues rose from $737 million to more than $3 billion, about 17.5% of the company's total.
A big chunk of the insured CDOs came in the form of bundled mortgages, with the lowest-rated tranches comprised of subprime loans. AIG believed that defaults on these loans would be insignificant.
A Rolling Disaster
And then foreclosures on home loans rose to high levels. AIG had to pay out on what it had promised to cover. The AIGFP division ended up incurring about $25 billion in losses. Accounting issues within the division worsened the losses. This, in turn, lowered AIG's credit rating, forcing the firm to post collateral for its bondholders. That made the company's financial situation even worse.
It was clear that AIG was in danger of insolvency. To prevent that, the federal government stepped in.
Too Big To Fail
Simply put, AIG was considered too big to fail. A huge number of mutual funds, pension funds, and hedge funds invested in AIG or were insured by it, or both.
In particular, investment banks that held CDOs insured by AIG were at risk of losing billions. For example, media reports indicated that Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) had $20 billion tied into various aspects of AIG's business, although the firm denied that figure.
Money market funds, generally seen as safe investments for the individual investor, were also at risk since many had invested in AIG bonds. If AIG went down, it would send shockwaves through the already shaky money markets as millions lost money in investments that were supposed to be safe.
Who Wasn't At Risk
However, customers of AIG's traditional business weren't at much risk. While the financial products section of the company was close to collapse, the much smaller retail insurance arm was still very much in business. In any case, each state has a regulatory agency that oversees insurance operations, and state governments have a guarantee clause that will reimburse policyholders in cases of insolvency.
While policyholders were not in harm's way, others were. And those investors, who ranged from individuals who had tucked their money away in a safe money market fund to giant hedge funds and pension funds with billions at stake, desperately needed someone to intervene.
The Government Steps In
While AIG hung on by a thread, negotiations were taking place among company executives and federal officials. Once it was determined that the company was too vital to the global economy to be allowed to collapse, a deal was struck to save the company.
$22.7 billion
The amount the U.S. government eventually made in interest payments for its AIG bailout.
The Federal Reserve issued a loan to AIG in exchange for 79.9% of the company's equity. The total amount was originally listed at $85 billion and was to be repaid with interest.
Later, the terms of the deal were reworked and the debt grew. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department poured even more money into AIG, bringing the total up to an estimated $150 billion.
The Aftermath
AIG's bailout has not come without controversy.
Some have questioned whether it is appropriate for the government to use taxpayer money to purchase a struggling insurance company. The use of public funds to pay out bonuses to AIG's officials in particular caused outrage.
However, others noted that the bailout actually benefited taxpayers in the end due to the interest paid on the loans. In fact, the government made a reported $22.7 billion in interest on the deal. | <urn:uuid:4d5350c8-9a63-4b7c-881e-fbbb6d4c9e44> | https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/american-investment-group-aig-bailout.asp | en | 0.98132 | 0.091277 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The stern warning note in the athletes' village that has the world talking.
When Great Britain’s men’s cycling team won gold in the 4000m on Saturday, there was great cause to celebrate.
It was the third Olympics in a row they’d be taking home gold for the most prestigious event in the track cycling program, and they managed to break a world record. Their stellar performance left our Aussies in second place, and they were clearly ecstatic with the result.
So, how does one celebrate such an achievement? While we’re not exactly sure, a note left by Great Britain’s women’s cycling team suggests that the men tend to be quite disruptive in the wake of their success.
Great Britain's men's cycling team. Composed with their medals, but not so much afterwards. Image via Getty.
You see, Great Britain's women's cycling team were competing in their final the day after the men. And like the serious athletes they are, they wanted to make sure their rest and focus wasn't interrupted by a bunch of drunk dudes.
In fact, they were so concerned that the antics of Bradley Wiggins, Steven Burke, Ed Clancy and Owain Doull would disturb them, they wrote a funny yet stern note asking them to be considerate of their fellow athletes.
The men's team presumably arrived at the women's room to find the following note stuck to the door.
“To the team pursuit men … CONGRATULATIONS!!” it read.
“As we’re guessing you’re probably gonna be drunk by the time you read this, and a few of you have already into our room accidentally — just a friendly reminder that *THIS IS NOT YOUR ROOM*.
Aww, how lovely. Sometimes intoxicated people really do just need a reminder of what is and is not their room.
And the women's team didn't stop there. They even included a handy hint to the men about the direction of their room, knowing they'd probably need it.
"P.S. If you’re really stuck, you’re room is <------ that way," they wrote.
I need these women in my life.
Owain Doull shared a photo of the note to Twitter, with the caption "Hats off to the girls they know us too well!" Post continues after gallery...
We just hope the men's team didn't bang on the door to tell the women how funny it was, and instead retreated back to their OWN room quietly.
It seems the cyclists' tactic worked, because Great Britain's women's cycling team won gold the following day.
00:00 / ??? | <urn:uuid:1c634c8b-8c86-4f63-81d7-8cf0046721da> | https://www.mamamia.com.au/olympians-stern-warning-note/ | en | 0.972008 | 0.215323 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The Metric System of Measurement for Pharmacy Technicians
This page discusses the Metric System.
Pharmacy Technicians need to be familiar with various systems of measurement to perform daily tasks.
Being able to understand the metric system and also convert between units of measurement is absolutely critical when working in a pharmacy.
We're going to go through a few of the most common metric conversions that you will need to know while working as a Pharmacy Technician.
The metric system is used all over the world.
Even though it's not used as commonly in day to day life in the United States, it's still used in pharmacies because it provides a standardized and easy to work with system of measurement. The first step when using the metric system is to understand what each unit of measurement is referring to.
Volume is measured in milliliters, cubic centimeters, and liters. These will be used to refer to an amount of liquid, such as a cough syrup or injectable solution.
1 milliliter = 1 cubic centimeter. These can be used interchangeably.
1 liter = 1000 milliliters.
Weight is measured in kilograms, grams, milligrams, and micrograms. The difference between each of these is easy to remember: simply multiply by 1000 for each step.
1 kilogram = 1000 grams
1 gram = 1000 milligrams
1 milligram = 1000 micrograms
Distance and surface area are measured by meters and millimeters. These won't be used very often in pharmacy applications. You might see them referring to a surface area of skin to measure the size of a rash or a burn.
1 meter = 1000 millimeters
It's also important to understand basic conversions between the metric system and the household system.
The household system is the most commonly used system of measurement in the United States. This means it's important as a Pharmacy Technician to be able to write instructions and dosage information in terms that your customers are familiar with.
Here are a few of the most commonly used conversions between household and metric.
1 teaspoon = 5 milliliters
1 tablespoon = 15 milliliters
1 cup (eight ounces) = 240 milliliters
1 pint (sixteen ounces) = 480 milliliters
Measuring, calculating and converting are all extremely important functions of working in a pharmacy.
Being able to take a written prescription for an amount of medicine, fill the prescription, and also provide easy to read instructions for the customer is required to help people stay healthy.
The prescription process doesn't end when they pick up the prescription, it ends when they able to take the right amount of medication to treat the specific medical problem that they're having.
Practice working with these different units of measurement so that you're comfortable not only that you understand them, but also that you can help other people understand them as well.
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Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. Yoga is based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
The eight limbs or the Ashtanga Yoga are:
• Yama: ethics, restraint and ahimsa
• Niyama: cleanliness, ascetism
• Asana: posture
• Pranayama: breath control
• Pratyahara: sense withdrawal
• Dharana: concentration
• Dhyana: meditation
• Samadhi: non dualistic state of consciousness in which the mind becomes still, one pointed or concentrated while the person remains conscious while becoming one with the object of their meditation
Hatha Yoga
Hatha yoga, also called hatha vidya is a system of yoga introduced by Yogi Swatmarama, a Hindu sage of 15th century India, and compiler of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.
“The word “hatha” may esoterically be said to derive from the Sanskrit terms “ha” meaning “sun” and “tha” meaning “moon”. Hatha Yoga is known as the branch of Yoga that unites pairs of opposites referring to the positive (sun) and negative (moon) currents in the system.
Kundalini Yoga
Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, is an ancient and one of the most powerful styles of yoga. It supports us to become physically, emotionally and mentally resilient by developing a strong nervous system, a healthy glandular and a resilient immune system so that we embrace a life a life full of confidence.
Kundalini Yoga is for everyone and is one of the most transformative yoga practices today. It is based on a set of exercises that is designed specifically to target certain areas of your body in order to strengthen them and help them release toxins.
Each lot of exercises are referred to as a ‘set’ or a ‘kriya”.
First we tune in using a centering technique to call upon our inner guidance. Then we warm up and stretch out our bodies using movement and strong breathing. Each Kundalini yoga class is unique, but each will contain a yoga ‘set’ of postures and exercises that work on specific areas of the body, mind, and spirit.
The word ‘kundalini’ refers to our potential. The practice of kundalini yoga is both a technology and a science for all aspects of human living based on the realisation that our true strength comes from within, Kundalini Yoga deepens and expands our awareness on all levels so that we may awaken our full potential and grace.
A class leaves you with an overwhelming sense that you have nurtured your whole being and experienced something special. You do not need to be in perfect physical condition or share any particular belief system. | <urn:uuid:59284586-8b03-4add-ae94-9a95395d18bb> | https://yogawithmaryanne.com/yoga/ | en | 0.929851 | 0.024432 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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The Comics Alternative
Nov 28, 2018
Time Codes:
This is a special episode of The Comics Alternative, in that Sterg and Derek focus only on recent comics about The Beatles. Both of the guys are huge Beatles fans, and you can tell how excited they are in discussing these texts. They begin with David Foenkinos, Corbeyran, and Horne's Lennon: The New York Years(IDW Publishing), adapted from Foenkinos prose work on John Lennon. What makes this book stand out is that it's primarily narrated in the first person through imagined therapy sessions that Lennon undergoes. In this way, the text becomes not only an insight into John Lennon's psyche, but also a broad historical overview of The Beatles as a musical phenomenon.
After that they jump into Bill Morrison's recent adaptation of Yellow Submarine(Titan Comics). This is a work that is as colorful and as elaborate as the 1968 animated film, and the guys are impressed by how faithful the book is to the film's plot. The only thing you don't get in Morrison's text is the various musical interludes that you have in the animated film (of course), but even then Morrison does an affective job of implying the music as sort of a silent soundtrack. But all of the surreal visuals, the song references, and the many puns are there.
Next, they look at a new book just released through NBM, The Beatles in Comics. This is a collection of short essays and comics written by Michel Mabel and Gaet’s, and with illustrations by a variety of artists. Much like Lennon, this book provides a broad overview of The Beatles, and the chapters cover such topics as their time in Hamburg, Brian Epstein, when they met the queen, their playing Shea Stadium, the Ed Sullivan Show, the genesis of "Yesterday," their decision to stop touring, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, their time in India, Yoko Ono, the Paul Is Dead phenomenon, and the breakup of the band.
Finally, they discuss a new book that really isn't about The Beatles, but uses the Fab Four as a significant backdrop. M. Dean's I Am Young(Fantagraphics) is a series of stories about relationships and music, and the main storyline is the one that uses The Beatles. It's the history of a relationship between Miriam and George, two young people who meet at a Beatles concert when the band first hit it big. M. Dean takes us through the course of this relationship, doing so with The Beatles as a nexus, with the two growing older and getting together, and growing apart, as The Beatles themselves mature and evolve.
One book that the Sterg and Derek do not discuss, but one they nonetheless highly recommend, is Carol Tyler's Fab4 Mania(Fantagraphics). This work was released earlier this year, and the reason the guys don't include it in their comics about The Beatles coverage is that Gene and Derek interviewed Carol back in July. As such, they spent a lot of time discussing that book, so the guys already focused on that text. Still, it's another recent graphic novel about The Beatles, and it should stand alongside the other works that Sterg and Derek discuss in this episode. | <urn:uuid:6ad20d37-ab25-420b-ab7f-1c5477eb1f61> | http://comicsalternative.libsyn.com/episode-299-reviews-of-recent-comics-about-the-beatles | en | 0.948181 | 0.0615 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Another try
All right, let’s try again. Here is another, shorter clip. This one is of Rep. Jim Harrison‘s opponent, Boyd Summers.
If it doesn’t work any better than the last one, I might set this experiment aside until I can find a way to work out the bugs…
49 thoughts on “Another try
1. Dave
Brad, keep these coming. they will be imperfect but offer some unusual insights.
Boyd Summers said that a cigarette tax is a “common sense solution”. OK, what Iwant to know is what would he do with this tax money? How about some common sense of putting money back into taxpayers pocketbooks?
2. Steve
Well, now we know where the cameraman from the Blair Witch Project ended up…
Was there even a hint of any substance in that video? Aside from Cindi’s “um” “um” “um” and the overwrought condescension for vouchers?
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Colombia, Cali, The Law of Attraction - The Best Resources Part 1
Ask, Believe, Receive.
Why would you listen to me?
Good question. I am only telling you what I have learnt. As somobody who is Travelling Around The World For 30 months I can share with you how to achieve anything big enough. This is a starting point. Here you will find couple of tips that I find essential to achieve anything you want.
I believe most of you are familiar with the basics of The Law of Attraction. As I have been studying this idea for the last 3 years I would like to share with you best resources I found on Internet as well quick insight into why The Law of Attraction is not working?
1. Why The Law of Attraction is not working?
1.1. Because your wish is not supporting The Universe.
If your wish supports greed and EGO you can wait forever and probably nothing will happen.
For example you are dreaming of Red Sports Car. Does that wish make any good in this world? Ask yourself a simple question. Is your dream/desire supports The Universe, makes you happy and other people? Is your desire help you to grow as a human-being? If so you are on the way to make it come true.
1.2. Because it takes amount of time based on The Law of Karma.
Most of your desires will come to you when the right moment comes. You cannot make it happen in your time. The concept of Karma is based on the idea of The Cause and Effect. All the good thoughts, emotions and actions produce good results. All the negative thoughts, emotions and actions produce negative results. Looking at the potential results it is easier to make good decisions in your life.
The Law of Karma is also connected with reincarnation. I imagine Karma as a Bag of positive and negative seeds that we are carrying through our lives. These seeds are waiting to be planted and then grow to become trees when the right moment comes. The Bag is a mixture of your thoughts, emotions and actions from this and previous lives. This law explains why good things happens to "bad" people and shit happens to so called "good" people. It explains luck and lack of it in terms of natural talents and skills, life conditions, health, beauty and so on. If you are reading this post you are in the small percentage of people in this world with the really good Karma. Think about this and use your potential before it is too late!
1.3. In order to produce good results we need to take actions to plant seeds of our desires.
We need to "show" The Universe that our desire is not only a temporary random wish but it is truly something we need achieve in order to grow. I reckon that it would be disaster if all our wishes realised quickly. We need to help them to manifest by taking actions.
1.4. Because you didn´t master your mind.
I found the only way to master my mind is through meditation. If you have never learnt how to meditate or how to observe your mind for a long period of time your mind is ruling you, not the opposite. It is like driving a car for the first time in your life or sit in front of computer without previous training.
Here is a simple test so you can check out if you are in control of your mind. For the next minute observe your breath (inhale exhale). You can close your eyes. If during this minute you catch yourself thinking about other things for more then 3 seconds then your mind controls you. You are out of the game called Conscious living. The only solution I know is to practice meditation.
If one lives without mind control cannot see synchronicity, cannot see manifestation. There are few bad habbits that don´t help you control your mind: taking drugs, drinking alcohol, living in a fear, worry, stress, insecurity, anger and so on... So... Learn how to meditate and drop mind control obstacles.
So...If you want to achieve anything you want here is a receipt.
1. Know what you want.
2. Ask yourself if your desire brings happiness to you and others if so...
3. Visualise your desire or create a Mind Movie to help you visualise.
4. Add emotions to your vision, imagine your desire as it happening now.
5. Take any action towards your desire.
6. Be patient and know when the right moment comes The Universe will provide you anything you want.
7. Repeat steps 1-6 everyday or as often as you can.
8. Practice meditation to master your concious and subconcious mind.
Good Luck!
In the next post I will share with you best resources I found on Internet.
1. Great post Big Fil. All interesting stuff. I look forward to the next one.
2. Filip!! where did you learn to meditate? Did you learn by yourself or during some courses?
3. I have learnt about Tibetan meditation in India, McLeod Ganj at the Tushita Center.
Because not everyone can go to India I recommend you to try Vipassana course - that I have taken in Colombia but is also available around the world. One of the best things I have done in my life. Highly recommended!
Good Luck
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The rain in Maine, explained —
How Google researchers used neural networks to make weather forecasts
Google says its forecasts are better than existing methods—but only for 6 hours.
Cheerful pretty girl holding umbrella while strolling outside.
A research team at Google has developed a deep neural network that can make fast, detailed rainfall forecasts.
The researchers say their results are a dramatic improvement over previous techniques in two key ways. One is speed. Google says that leading weather forecasting models today take one to three hours to run, making them useless if you want a weather forecast an hour in the future. By contrast, Google says its system can produce results in less than 10 minutes—including the time to collect data from sensors around the United States.
This fast turnaround time reflects one of the key advantages of neural networks. While such networks take a long time to train, it takes much less time and computing power to apply a neural network to new data.
A second advantage: higher spatial resolution. Google's system breaks the United States down into squares 1km on a side. Google notes that in conventional systems, by contrast, "computational demands limit the spatial resolution to about 5 kilometers."
Put these together and you could have a forecasting system that's much more useful for short-term decision-making. If you're thinking about going for a bike ride, for example, you'd be able to look up a minute-by-minute rainfall forecast for your specific route. Today's conventional weather forecast, by contrast, might just tell you that there's a 30-percent chance of precipitation in your town over the next couple of hours.
This animation compares a real-world weather pattern (center) to a conventional weather forecast (left) and Google's own forecast (right). Google's forecast has significantly more detail in both time and space.
Google says that its forecasts are more accurate than conventional weather forecasts, at least for time periods under six hours.
"At these short timescales, the evolution is dominated by two physical processes: advection for the cloud motion, and convection for cloud formation, both of which are significantly affected by local terrain and geography," Google writes.
Beyond that, however, things start to break down. For longer time periods, conventional physics-based modeling still produces more accurate forecasts, Google admits.
How Google’s neural network works
Interestingly, Google's model is "physics-free": it isn't based on any a priori knowledge of atmospheric physics. The software doesn't try to simulate atmospheric variables like pressure, temperature, or humidity. Instead, it treats precipitation maps as images and tries to predict the next few images in the series based on previous snapshots.
It does this using convolutional neural networks, the same technology that allows computers to correctly label images. You can read our deep dive on CNNs here.
Specifically, it uses a popular neural network architecture called a U-Net that was first developed for diagnosing medical images. The U-net has several layers that downsample an image from its initial 256-by-256 shape, producing a lower-resolution image where each "pixel" represents a larger region of the original image. Google doesn't explain the exact parameters, but a typical U-Net might convert a 256-by-256 grid to a 128-by-128 grid, then convert that to a 64-by-64 grid, and finally a 32-by-32 grid. While the number of pixels is declining, the number of "channels"—variables that capture data about each pixel—is growing.
Experience has shown that this downsampling process helps a neural network identify high-level features of an image. Values inside a neural network are never easy to interpret explicitly, but this 32-by-32 pixel grid might implicitly capture important variables like temperature or wind speed in each region of the image.
The second half of the U-Net then upsamples this compact representation—converting back to 64, 128, and finally 256-pixel representations. At each step, the network copies over the data from the corresponding downsampling step. The practical effect is that the final layer of the network has both the original full-resolution image and summary data reflecting high-level features inferred by the neural network.
To produce a weather forecast, the network takes an hour's worth of previous precipitation maps as inputs. Each map is a "channel" in the input image, just as a conventional image has red, blue, and green channels. The network then tries to output a series of precipitation maps reflecting the precipitation over the next hour.
Like any neural network, this one is trained with past real-world examples. Thousands of past real-world weather patterns are fed into the network, and the training software tweaks the network's many parameters to more closely approximate the correct results for each training example. After repeating this process millions of times, the network gets pretty good at approximating future precipitation patterns for data it hasn't seen before.
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Channel Ars Technica | <urn:uuid:9eca2443-e248-4658-ad01-592f88d900c7> | https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/01/google-used-deep-learning-to-improve-short-term-weather-forecasts/?via=indexdotco | en | 0.926961 | 0.689911 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Wat is dit voor site? Wij zoeken de goedkoopste boeken op internet. Preacher's Petvonden we het goedkoopst op Bol.com voor €0. We hebben gezocht in nieuwe en tweedehands boeken. Rechtsonderaan de pagina kan je het boek direct bestellen via Bol .com.
Preacher's Pet
Engels | Druk: 1 | E-book | 9781312355927
Becca Sinh - 9781312355927
Engels | Druk: 1 | E-book | 9781312355927
Preacher had been searching for his perfect ''Chosen One'' for years. One by one, he had rejected all the other girls in his secret commune, until only Eve was left. Would she be his special consort, the only one who was fully capable of serving all his intense sexual needs?
She didn't want Preacher to touch her. The look in his eyes made her feel jumpy inside, and a little scared...like she was a little mouse, and he was the cat just waiting to pounce on her and eat her up. She'd only once dared to say so to Sheba, one of the older girls who'd shared her sleeping room until her baby girl was born. Sheba had giggled, and said she was right, that Preacher would eat her all up. But then she'd promised that Eve would like it a lot.
It was all very strange.
He was watching her again. And Eve felt the fear churn in her stomach as he slowly stood up, and walked over to where she was kneeling on her pad. Maybe if she prayed really, really hard...
The light touch on her shoulder nearly made her scream with terror. But when she nervously peered up, Preacher was smiling down at her. And suddenly she didn't feel so scared anymore.
"It's your turn, Eve." No one else seemed to hear him speak, but she did, crystal clear in her mind. "Come with me now, there's a good girl. You're my Chosen today. It's a great honor."
Yes, it was a great honor. She knew that. Being Chosen made her special.
Obediently Eve stood up, and shook the wrinkles from her long gray skirt, and followed Preacher into his secret room behind the praying area. She was almost as tall as Preacher--when had that happened?
"You're a very good girl." He was still smiling as he closed the door and locked it. "I'm very pleased with you. I know you'll do just what I tell you. Won't you, Eve?"
A little trickle of fear began to intrude again, but Eve nodded. She'd do whatever Preacher wanted. That's what girls were for, to please him. She'd been taught that right from birth.
"I want you to take off your clothes."
Preacher's Pet Engels | Druk: 1 | E-book | 9781312355927
Ebook formaatAdobe ePub
Bestandsgrootte ebook0,2 MB
AuteurBecca Sinh
Extra groot lettertypeNee
Oorspronkelijke releasedatum2014-07-14
Thema Subject CodeFP
Bekijk alle opties Afrekenen Voeg toe aan lijst
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The NDF seeks to unite the people for the overthrow of the semicolonial and semifeudal system through people’s war and for the completion of the national democratic revolution. Only the power of a united people achieved through revolutionary armed struggle and the united front of revolutionary forces can isolate and destroy the dominance of the US and other foreign monopoly capitalists and the counterrevolutionary state of the comprador big bourgeoisie and landlord class.
The national democratic revolution that we seek to complete is of the new type. It is led by the working class and has a socialist perspective. Upon the seizure of political power, the new democratic revolution is basically completed and the socialist revolution can commence.National unity in the revolution can arise and develop only when there is a definite class leadership, responds to the basic demands of the broad masses of the people and builds a united front that harmonizes their national and democratic rights and interests.
The united front of various patriotic and progressive classes, sectors and forces is the way to build national unity. Its main force is the basic alliance of the working class and the peasantry (including the farm workers and fisherfolk), which are more than ninety percent of the people and are the most oppressed and exploited. In this regard, we make special reference to the broad masses of the Bangsa Moro, Cordillera and other minority and indigenous peoples as among the most oppressed and exploited in the country.
The urban petty bourgeoisie must be won over to the revolution. It is one of the basic forces of the revolution, together with the working class and peasantry. Further, the national bourgeoisie must be won over. It is one of the positive forces of the revolution, together with the aforementioned classes.
In carrying out the united front policy, it is necessary not only to build the unity of the revolutionary forces but also to take advantage of the contradictions within the reactionary classes. Thus, it becomes possible to develop the widest range of forces to isolate and destroy the power of the faction that is most reactionary and most servile to the imperialists at every given time.
In fighting any series of the most reactionary factions and their imperialist masters, the revolutionary forces strengthen their unity with the people and accummulate the strength to overthrow the entire ruling system.
The National Democratic Front is the instrument for building the national united front of all patriotic and progressive forces. At the present stage, however, it includes within its fold organizations of the basic forces of the revolution, i.e., the working class, peasantry and urban petty bourgeoisie.
It is the policy of the NDF to cooperate and coordinate with all the patriotic and progressive forces that are not within its fold as a formal alliance. It is also the hope of the NDF that upon the development of the organs of political power at levels higher than the village level these forces will decide to join the NDF and the people’s consultative conferences.
The NDF supports all forms of revolutionary struggle, legal and illegal, aboveground and underground. But the NDF is a distinctive united front organization in that it is clearly for revolutionary armed struggle.
As a matter of principle, the NDF is of the stand that the armed struggle is the main form of revolutionary struggle because it smashes the bureaucratic and military machinery of the reactionary state and makes possible the emergence and development of the revolutionary organs of democratic power. Without the seizure of political power, the national and social liberation of the people is impossible. The legal forms of struggle are important and indispensable. These can be skillfully used to expose and oppose the reactionary state and even spread the revolutionary message to millions upon millions of the people. But these are within the constraints of the reactionary state and these by themselves cannot dismantle or change the fundamental character of the reactionary state.
The NDF supports the strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside and accumulating armed strength until it becomes possible to seize political power in the cities and on a nationwide scale.
The people’s war is the way to forge the alliance of the working class and the peasantry. It integrates the armed struggle, land reform and mass base building. It realizes the main substance of the democratic revolution, which is land reform as a way for emancipating the peasantry politically and economically.
In conducting the revolutionary armed struggle in the countryside, the revolutionary party of the working class relies mainly on the poor peasants, together with the farm workers and poor fisherfolk, wins over the middle peasants, neutralizes the rich peasants and take advantage of contradictions among the landlords in the period of minimum land reform in order to isolate and destroy the power of the despotic landlord class. This anti-feudal line is within the larger framework of the national united front which is both anti-imperialist and anti- feudal.
The NDF is of the view that the revolutionary armed struggle cannot advance without the development of the legal democratic movement. These two forms of struggle must be coordinated, expanded and intensified by applying the united front policy in both forms of struggle.
Through the application of the united front policy, not only definite organized forces join the revolutionary movement but millions upon millions of people are reached and influenced to organize themselves and participate in the revolution. The NDF must be vigilant towards those agents provocateur who wish to combine parliamentarism with insurrectionism through actions that make the most advanced forces appear as isolated aggressors and expose them to enemy surveillance and retaliation. The character of the democratic movement based in the urban areas is legal and defensive. The NDF must also be vigilant towards those who likewise play into the hands of the enemy by adopting the purely military viewpoint, regarding the armed struggle as a competition of absolutely concentrated military formations and treating the masses as political only when they are spontaneous or unorganized.
The national democratic revolution must be won through the people’s war in stages. If this revolution is not to be betrayed again by the bourgeoisie through the petty bourgeoisie, the proletariat through its vanguard party must definitely lead the armed struggle and the united front.
The Twelve Points of the NDF Program
1. Unite the people for the overthrow of the semicolonial and semifeudal system through a people’s war and for the completion of the national democratic revolution.
2. Establish a People’s Democratic Republic and a democratic coalition government.
3. Build the people‘s army and a people’s defense system.
4. Uphold and promote the people’s democratic rights.
5. Terminate all unequal relations with the United States and other foreign entities.
6. Implement genuine agrarian reform, promote agricultural cooperation, raise rural production and employment through modernization of agriculture and rural industrialization and ensure agricultural sustainability.
7. Break the US – big comprador – landlord dominance over the economy, carry out national industrialization and build an independent and self-reliant economy.
8. Adopt a comprehensive and progressive social policy.
9. Promote a national and progressive people’s culture.
10. Uphold the rights of the Bangsa Moro and the Cordillera peoples and other indigenous peoples to self-determination and democracy.
11. Advance the revolutionary emancipation of women in all spheres.
12. Adopt an active, independent and peaceful foreign policy. | <urn:uuid:db3fecd7-6b3b-43e1-9199-2154d06c32c2> | https://liberation.ndfp.org/1-unite-the-people-for-the-overthrow-of-the-semicolonial-and-semifeudal-system-through-a-peoples-war-and-for-the-completion-of-the-national-democratic-revolution/ | en | 0.929655 | 0.039142 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Nicholas Quirke was enjoying his final full day in Sydney on 24th January. He was taking it slowly as the heat seemed to feel oppressive. He went into the city to try and find a a plain white linen shirt, but this proved to be an elusive quest and he eventually gave up. He made the mistake of ignoring Ollie’s directions and instead took the subway train to Central. Absolutely no air conditioning and by the time he got of the train he was dripping with sweat. He managed the walk to The White Rabbit in the arty area of Chippendale where he enjoyed, not only the art, but dumplings for lunch with a Chrysanthemum and Goji berry tea which apparently nourishes the eye. The gallery of contemporary Chinese art was fascinating and enjoyable and he was in good spirits when he left and headed to Queen street in Newtown, on a final pilgrimage. to see the house where the Thomson’s had lived and he had in fact died. It seemed a 20 minute walk from his location according to GPS so he decided, once again to ignore Ollie’s instructions and he set of on a walk. Imagine his surprise when he encountered ‘Grace Bros’ department store., he contemplated going in to Menswear but he was on a mission and ‘Finding Mrs Slocombe and her Pussy’ would have to wait for another lifetime. The walk seemed endless, the heat bore down on him, his feet were sore and he found himself, again, arguing with the GPS on his his phone. He was however amazed by some of the architecture which had a very run down feeling, though once he got into the back streets of Newtown he found the properties exquisite. He had prepared himself for disappointment and indeed Number 12 was not there but he took a photo of 22, 5 doors up and he also paced out the houses to the spot where 12 would have been, an ivy covered wall, and contemplated his ancestors life and death there. When he reached the top of the road he started filming the old Victorian properties, until he realised that they were dated 1889 , almost 2 decades after the mans death. The bus he needed to get home was the number 370 and was clearly the most infrequent service in Sydney so he started to walk home. He stopped for tea on his way to revive himself for the cinema but by the time he got back he had walked about 8 miles and was completely exhausted and drained. He lay down and remained there till Ollie came home with Alesandro who had been her roommate for a while. They sat outside with Libby and Jan and talked for while. The dogs, finally used to him, allowed themselves to be stroked by Nicholas. He deferred as he was too too weak and tired. He was going back to Melbourne tomorrow and it was time for to pack up and get ready to leave this idyllic spot of semi communal living.
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Tour of TSMC at Taiwan
Designing the Intelligent software using ARMv8(64bit-1st Generation) architecture. Next Generation(128bit-Huge Cache). The birth of intelligent devices with basic instruction sets, minimum 7″ display to display huge cache of data.
Released in late 2011, ARMv8 represents the first fundamental change to the ARM architecture. It adds a 64-bit architecture, dubbed ‘AArch64’, and a new ‘A64’ instruction set. Within the context of ARMv8, the 32-bit architecture and instruction set are referred to as ‘AArch32’ and ‘A32’, respectively. The Thumb instruction sets are referred to as ‘T32’ and have no 64-bit counterpart. ARMv8 allows 32-bit applications to be executed in a 64-bit OS, and for a 32-bit OS to be under the control of a 64-bit hypervisor.[1] As of March 2012, only the ARMv8-A (“application”) profile has been defined, and no implementations have been announced.
To both AArch32 and AArch64, ARMv8 makes VFP and advanced SIMD (NEON) standard. It also adds cryptography instructions supporting AES and SHA-1/SHA-256.
AArch64 features:
New instruction set, A64
31 general-purpose 64-bit registers
Instructions are still 32 bits long and mostly the same as A32
Most instructions can take 32-bit or 64-bit arguments
Addresses assumed to be 64-bit
A new exception system
Fewer banked registers and modes
Author: Gilbert Tan TS
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I understand that the accepted theory is that dark energy is scattered pretty much evenly between galaxies and pushes all galaxies outwards one from another another, with some exceptions of collisions such as the expected event in which Andromeda will collide in Milky Way in about 4.5 billion years.
Unorthodoxly, I wondered if the universe is expanding equally in a cosmos by dark energy that surrounds it from the outside and pulling everything towards it evenly while such pulling outwards might be finite if it's actually a giant mass sphere pulling everything towards it or infinite if it's infinitely expanding outwards along with galaxies.
Does either of the two unorthodox ideas supported, or dismissed, by evidence?
No, it is not possible. Actually, Dark Energy can neither be repulsion from inside, nor attraction from outside. (Outside attraction is ruled out by Anna V's comment anyway).
There is an observational evidence for the above. That evidence is in the expansion rate of universe which exceeds speed of light at large enough distances. Any attraction, or repulsion would be eventually a force (gravity included, see next para) and could not make the "universe expand" (objects move wrt one another), at FTL inside space, if we were to go by relativity. Therefore, it can neither be internal repulsion, nor be external attraction, it has to be just expansion of space itself.
I mentioned gravity in context of attraction and repulsion because - if gravity (given sufficient distance to accelerate) was capable of accelerating something to FTL, then we know that escape speed from a black hole is $c$. That would also be ~speed at which a free falling object would enter the event horizon. Therefore if we were to shoot an object towards event horizon with fast speed, then it may have been possible for that object to attain FTL speeds prior to reaching EH, which is prohibited by relativity. I have not done any calculations about it but it seems at least with the help of slingshots with multiple black holes, it could have been possible for an object to attain FTL. Which goes against relativity as far as I know.
One more point to note is that the expansion of universe has been accelerating only for last ~5 billion years. Before that it was a slowing expansion. As we know for sure that it started out as accelerated expansion at big bang. So we already know that the expansion has switched from accelerating, to slowing down and then again to accelerating. Therefore the expansion is fluctuating between accelerating, and slowing down. Given the age of universe as 14 billion years and already two switches taken place, 5*3 = 15. In a billion years or so, it may again switch to slowing down expansion.
This fluctuation between accelerating, and slowing down of expansion suggests that both - inside attraction, and outside repulsion can be ruled out.
No, does not make any sense.
I'll treat it a s a possible tentative hypothesis and explain why it makes little sense. See the wiki article on Dark Energy.
The inner layer would act on the outer layer, but Dark Energy is repulsive, not attractive. So inside or not does not matter.
Also, if you mean a spatial 3D spherical universe, what that means is that evert high is on the surface, there's nothing inside. If you mean a 3D spherical space which is expanding in the fourth dimension, time, to fill spacetime, that Dark Energy if it is that, it means it was there at one time and then disappeared. When it was there it was attracting or repelling (if normal matter attracting, if abnormal dark energy repelling), and then it stopped doing that. But we know that dark energy has been active at least the last 5-7 billion years, we think there before also but too weak to have affected us much [yes, dark energy affects us more as the universe expands].
Your theory does not match any observations already made.
| <urn:uuid:6f6dd9b3-b1fe-4e00-b84c-6dad0b8bac9e> | https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/331643/does-dark-energy-pulling-the-universe-evenly-from-outside-it/331659 | en | 0.961467 | 0.924322 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Rhesus disease : Symptoms
Rhesus disease only affects the baby, and the mother won't experience any symptoms.
The symptoms of rhesus disease depend on how severe it is. Around 50% of babies diagnosed with rhesus disease have mild symptoms that are easily treatable.
Signs in an unborn baby
If your baby develops rhesus disease while still in the womb, they may become anaemic because their red blood cells are being destroyed faster than usual by the antibodies.
If your baby is anaemic, their blood will be thinner and flow at a faster rate. This doesn't usually cause any noticeable symptoms, but it can be detected with an ultrasound scan known as a Doppler ultrasound.
If the anaemia is severe, complications of rhesus disease, such as internal swelling, may be detected during scans.
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Signs in a newborn baby
The two main problems caused by rhesus disease in a newborn baby are haemolytic anaemia and jaundice. In some cases, the baby may also have low muscle tone (hypotonia) and they may be lacking in energy.
If a baby has rhesus disease, they won't always have obvious symptoms when they're born. Symptoms can sometimes develop up to 3 months afterwards.
Haemolytic anaemia
Haemolytic anaemia occurs when red blood cells are destroyed. This happens when the antibodies from the mother's RhD negative blood cross the placenta into the baby's blood. The antibodies attack the baby's RhD positive blood, destroying the red blood cells.
In the newborn baby, this may cause pale skin, increased breathing rate, poor feeding or jaundice.
Jaundice in newborn babies turns their skin and the whites of their eyes yellow. In babies with dark skin, the yellowing will be most obvious in their eyes or on their palms and soles.
Jaundice is caused by a build-up of a chemical called bilirubin in the blood. Bilirubin is a yellow substance that's made naturally in the body when red blood cells are broken down. It's normally removed from the blood by the liver, so it can be passed out of the body in urine.
In babies with rhesus disease, the liver cannot process the high levels of bilirubin that build up as a result of the baby's red blood cells being destroyed.
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E-391: What Range Herbivores Eat -- and Why
herbivore diet booklet
210550, 15; 232550, 85;
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Product Code: E-391
Electronic download only. Different range animals have different diets. Some eat grass, some eat browse (leaves from woody plants) and forbs (wildflowers, weeds, etc.), and some eat all three. The differences in their diets allow many types of range animals to co-exist on the same range. Understanding the diets of range herbivores allows the landowner to use the rangeland resource more wisely. (12 pp., 4 figures, 1 table, 8 illustrations, resource list) By: Robert K. Lyons, T. D. A. Forbes, Richard V. Machen | <urn:uuid:bdbe4c66-0632-4eac-9d6c-567c9d8edee7> | https://www.agrilifebookstore.org/What-Range-Herbivores-Eat-and-Why-p/e-391.htm | en | 0.78662 | 0.072398 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Director: John Schlesinger
Stars: Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight
The only X rated movie to ever win for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, Midnight Cowboy kicks off with Harry Nilsson singing Everybody's Talkin', hardly the sort of extreme music you'd expect to hear on a cutting edge film today, but the lyrics are telling: 'Everybody's talkin' at me, I don't hear a word they're sayin', only the echoes of my mind.' This explains the mindset of the naive hero of the piece, but it could easily be a reference to the establishment and that may be why the film succeeded so well. This picture was something very new, a wake up call for the new decade with a story utterly unlike anything that mainstream cinema was used to. A story of naive optimism being met with harsh reality, it still carries a seedy punch and I really didn't want to go back to it. It's one of those films that sits in my memory as a set of moments that I was happier not revisiting, but doing so anyway highlights that the film is entertaining nonetheless.
The hero, or rather the anti-hero because there isn't a traditional hero anywhere to be found in this picture, is a naive small town boy called Joe Buck, about as American a name as could be conjured. He's from Texas so he thinks big but all he's managed to amount to thus far is a dead end job washing dishes at a greasy spoon. So he decides to make it big by catching a bus all the way to New York City to become a high class male hustler, the midnight cowboy of the title. He certainly looks the part, or at least what he thinks the part ought to look like, not just with his Stetson, tasselled jacket and ornate cowboy boots but with his cheeky grin too. He's so cowboy that he even has a cowhide suitcase. He's ready for his take on the American dream, because he's heard that the women back east are rich and the men are mostly tutti fruttis. This is the seventies so fancy embroidered shirts don't fit him into that category, at least not in Texas.
He's popular back home, believably given that he's played by Jon Voight. The bus even passes a water tower with 'Crazy Annie Loves Joe Buck' painted on it, the beginning of a whole host of flashbacks and nightmare remembrances that gradually fill in a picture that really doesn't fit the happy country song feel that water tower messages tend to suggest. In these Grandma calls him loverboy and leaves him money. His girlfriend got raped while he was forced to watch. If I didn't blink and miss something I think he got raped too. No wonder he ends up on 42nd St in New York hustling his body for change. If Texas was the dark world he leaves behind at the beginning of the film, New York is the dark world that he's heading to, where the dark is more obvious. A man lies on the ground outside Tiffany's. There are protestors in the streets. Even the TV in the hotel needs a quarter to kick it off. Nothing is as he expects and he's naive enough not to adjust.
In fact he's so naive that the fact we care about him even a little speaks volumes on its own. In lesser hands than those of Jon Voight, at this point a rising stage name off-Broadway, we'd say he's so stupid that he deserves all he gets and quit paying attention. This was Voight's first major role in film, after a bit part in Hour of the Gun and a lead role in a little seen movie called Fearless Frank, and he really makes it count. At heart he's a nice guy, a quality that carries over to us as well as the characters he meets, but he has precisely nothing else going for him except his looks. He makes all the wrong decisions. He trusts everybody he shouldn't. He never learns from his experiences. He can't ever seem to find a way to help himself. It's apparent from moment one in New York as he wanders the streets as if expecting women to fall into his arms but after one very minor and entirely misunderstood success everything goes rapidly downhill.
The success comes in his seduction of a rich woman, precisely what he feels he was put on this planet to do. However, outside the bed it goes utterly wrong. He hasn't realised that she's a kept woman, in her way doing precisely what he's doing. He hasn't realised that she feels that she seduced him rather than the other way around. He ends up giving her money instead of taking it, feeling sorry for her when she gets angry and weepy all at once, a performance that garnered Sylvia Miles an Oscar nomination for a mere four minutes of screen time. The experience should have taught Joe Buck plenty but it doesn't. 25 minutes into the movie he meets Ratso Rizzo, a streetwise dropout from society, to whom he gives twenty bucks to set him up with O'Daniel, who apparently runs a stable of hot young studs. By the time he discovers that he's just a crazy man with a flashing Jesus on the inside of his bathroom door, Rizzo is long gone, yet another mistake.
Enrico 'Ratso' Rizzo is played by Dustin Hoffman, an utterly different role to the one that made him a star a couple of years earlier in The Graduate, something that almost lost him this part until he auditioned on a street corner in Manhattan by surreptitiously arriving early dressed as a bum and spending his time hustling change from passers by before letting the poor studio exec in on the truth. Hoffman was an off-Broadway actor too and knew Voight well. One play, A View from the Bridge, was co-directed by Hoffman and starred Voight and Hoffman's roommate at the time, Robert Duvall. In fact Voight was the bigger name on the stage until The Graduate turned that around in no uncertain terms. The way their two characters connect is the point of this film and its greatest success. Director John Schlesinger, who was gay, didn't want it to become a gay film and saw it instead as what producer Jerome Hellman described as 'an oddball love story.'
'Love story' is misleading, because this is more like a symbiotic relationship but it's certainly all about the connection between these two male characters. The success of this connection relies almost entirely on the connection between the two actors and benefits from the fact that they weren't stars, merely stage actors who saw the art as more important than the stardom. 'We were like Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard,' explained Hoffman, 'two fighters going at it. We knew the movie depended on the bond between us. All through shooting, we'd say to each other, out of the side of our mouths, like a fighter in a clinch, 'Buddy, is that the best you can do?'' Both performances are deep and substantial pieces of work, but bizarrely the actors came from surprisingly inappropriate backgrounds. Voight, who plays the outsider lost in New York, is actually a native, while Hoffman, who plays the experienced local, is from plastic Los Angeles.
Neither are the sort of characters we expect to see in a mainstream movie. Joe Buck is an idiot stuck on a downward spiral. He starts out in Texas with a wad of money but it soon disappears in New York through attrition and stupidity. When he gets locked out of his room at the hotel, he can't even get his suitcase because the house keeps everything until he can settle up. Nothing turns out how he expects. Even ketchup bottles won't do what he wants. Without the expected bevy of rich beauties throwing themselves at his feet, he ends up so low that he lets a young male student who looks like Rick Moranis go down on him in a 42nd Street theatre. Even then he fails to learn from his experiences so doesn't get the money ahead of time. The student doesn't have any. It's hardly what you expect from a handsome young actor like Jon Voight but it's also hardly what you expect from anyone except an actor seeing a challenge to his artistic skills.
If Buck is an unexpected character, what of Rizzo? He's a small time hustler and thief, a bottom feeder who lives, if you can call it that, in a condemned building, dreaming of life in Miami Beach with its abundance of sunshine and coconut milk. His story arc is even lower than Buck's, given that he begins the film crippled from polio yet continually deteriorates, getting sicker and sicker until he dies of what might be a mix of malnutrition, tuberculosis and the cumulative effect of his seedy life thus far. Before long he becomes coated in sweat and stubble; the longer the film runs, the more sweat and the more stubble. He's prone to coughing fits, which Hoffman put so much effort into that on one occasion he ended up vomiting by accident. It's a powerful acting performance but it's a bizarre one for anyone we might consider a star. Could you imagine Clark Gable, John Wayne or Sean Connery wetting their pants on the bus to Florida? I didn't think so.
What we quickly find is that the pair of them are nothing without each other, their only potential coming through teaming up to form a symbiotic relationship. Initially Rizzo is the hustler and Buck the hustled, just another easy target to fleece of twenty bucks. When Buck rediscovers Rizzo, sitting in a diner with a mere 64c to his name, he pressures him into giving him twenty bucks worth of management instead and they start to discover how they can help each other and how, in not going it alone in an attempt to take something from the world, they can find their own kind of redemption. Rizzo brings the street smarts, Buck the physical ability, meaning that to a large degree they're brain and brawn, though that's far too simplistic a summary for these two jigsaw piece characters. We gradually discover their other compatibilities through the numerous flashbacks, nightmares and odd revealing comments that pepper the story.
You can see that a story of this seediness and depth really needed actors, real actor's actors rather than big names from Hollywood, and that's what the production got, but it could easily have been so different. The original choice for Joe Buck was Lee Majors, back when he was a TV star on The Big Valley, but he had to drop out when that show was renewed for another season. Schlesinger even received a studio memo suggesting that, 'If we could clean this up and add a few songs, it could be a great vehicle for Elvis Presley.' Needless to say, with Joe Buck played by either of those actors, the end result wouldn't have been Midnight Cowboy. Voight even lost out on the screen tests to Michael Sarrazin, but was luckily reconsidered when Sarrazin's agent held out for a higher salary and Schlesinger went back to the audition tapes. 'The more I see these tests,' he told Hellman, 'we may have been spared a terrible fate. I think Jon is our cowboy.'
While both Voight and Hoffman were Oscar nominated, it's the latter who has gone down in film history as most memorable, ranking as high as seventh on Premiere's list of the 100 Greatest Performances of All Time. He was the only actor already in mind while the script was being written, Hellman having seen him in an off-Broadway farce called Eh? in which he played a Liverpudlian, the accent formed from multiple viewings of A Hard Day's Night. However by the time the film was coming together, he'd found fame as a preppy and so didn't seem to be right for the part of Rizzo any more. 'The truth was, I saw The Graduate as a setback,' Hoffman said, 'because I was determined not to be a star.' He saw the role of Rizzo, so unconventional that it needed a new adjective to describe it ('scuzzy', a portmanteau of 'scummy' and 'fuzzy'), as his way out from the restrictions that such quick and huge success was bound to land him with.
It succeeded, of course, and so Hoffman didn't spend the rest of his career stuck playing more and more versions of Benjamin Braddock. Perhaps The Graduate ended up being a blessing after all, half of a pair of utterly opposite parts that set the stage for such an eclectic career. If it had never happened and he'd been introduced to the screen with this film, maybe he'd have been stuck in pessimistic roles instead, ones that wouldn't have lent him the same degree of success because this one is very much a product of its time. It was a timely highlight of just how much society had changed over the preceding decade. It's hard to realise just how tumultuous the sixties were and just how much they shook up, but this film was part of it. The only X rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar, it followed Oliver!, the only G rated film to win. Hollywood had gone socially aware in 1967, briefly relapsed and only here accepted the floodgates had opened.
No wonder so much of this film takes place in dreams. It could easily be interpreted as saying that the American Dream is a phony. When the lead characters are invited by chance to a drug fuelled Andy Warhol style happening, which wrenches both of them out of their element, a society girl called Shirley hires Buck's services for a night. 'Joe could be anyone,' she tells him, suggesting that it isn't just his naivete that led to his downfall, perhaps it was inevitability. In fact until the stark finale, where Joe keeps his promise to Ratso and in so doing finds a way out of the downward spiral he's been descending, the only promise that's ever kept is the one about the Duracell bunny going on and on and on because the batteries in Joe Buck's portable radio are the only things that never give out and never seem to need replacing. Of course they have to hock the radio anyway because they're powered by other things.
With characters in turns naive and pathetic, stupid and addicted, sordid and criminal, this could hardly be seen as a pleasant evening's viewing. Yet as I returned to it for this project, I found that it wasn't as depressing as I remembered. While it's utterly centred around Buck and Rizzo, at least one of which is on screen at almost any given moment, it does tell more than just their stories. The only other fascinating character to me is Shirley, played by Brenda Vaccaro, as in her way she represents the rest of the world. She isn't on screen for long but she's there for long enough to provide a window to everything that the lead characters don't know. It isn't just the happening itself, which they utterly don't get, Buck mistaking marijuana for nicotine and Rizzo stealing free food. It's that she's a professional woman utterly confident in herself, in charge of her life and fascinated by what's around her. She isn't looking for anything except what turns up.
Perhaps that's what led to this film. The character of Joe Buck was created by Hollywood. The film opens with him practicing a speech in front of his mirror that he plans to use on his boss at Miller's Restaurant, just like he's a movie star. He's dressed up like Hollywood tells him a cowboy stud should look like. He's following an imaginary vision of life in the big city that was fed to him by the movies. What he finds is something else: reality. Fed a steady diet of wholesome fare by an industry regulated by the Production Code, Americans saw it all crumble in the latter half of the sixties. Suddenly they didn't know what was out there because the fantasy of Hollywood had been exposed as a fake. Suddenly life wasn't all about apple pie, the Beatles and Andy Hardy. It was about Vietnam, Woodstock and Charles Manson. This film could easily be seen as Hollywood finally acknowledging, with a budget and a string of Oscars, that it had found reality.
Anonymous said...
I found the film sad and thought provoking. I honestly think my life changed just a little after I first saw it all those years back, whenever I hear the beautiful title song sung by Nielsson it always make me think of the film and brings a tear to my eye.
Anonymous said...
I agree with a number of the above themes in Midnight Cowboy. What a ground-breaking film it was. The theme of redemption stands out the most. Simply put, Joe Buck starts out as a very self-centered and vain person. He goes to New York, a modern-day Babylon, to pursue and feed that vanity. But New York turns out to be a gritty and ugly crucible, one which tears him down and strips away his vanity. Along the way he meets Ratso Rizzo and starts to befriend him, at first out of desperation. This turns gradually to genuine closeness and brotherly affection by the time they leave New York. By the time Ratso dies on the bus, Joe has become a real person. His demeanor has changed, he's cast off his old clothes and become "a new man". In essence, he needed to go through Hell to become truly saved.
A couple of things. The movie begins and ends with a bus ride, symbolizing Charon taking him over the river Styx. Ratso's death could symbolize the taking on of Joe's sin's, including the murder of the businessman, with him. And the change of clothes at the end was poignant. A new pair for Jow, representing baptismal garments, and for Ratso, representing a new suit for the corpse. If anyone has anything to add to this synopsis, I would be appreciative...
Anonymous said...
No one seems to have caught the symbolic "echo" between Ratso's famous line, spoken with gusto, "I'm walkin' 'ere!" and his pitiful admission to Joe Buck late in the film: "My legs aren't workin' -- I don't think I can walk no more!" And with that, Ratso bursts into tears.
This triggers Joe's decision to do whatever it takes to get the money for the bus ride to Florida (Ratso rejects getting a doctor because they'll send him "to Bellevue," he says). This decision is a major turning point: Joe was sexually exploited as a child and his mother was a hooker. As a teen, he had to watch helplessly as his girlfriend was raped and the same gang also raped him. He has been a victim his whole life. Ironically, his decision to New York to "take control" of his life, was a pathetic extension of the sexual role chosen for him by others.
The rage that comes boiling up when he assaults (kills?) the self-loathing homosexual in the hotel room is therefore understandable, though it is doubtful that Joe understands where it comes from. For Joe, it is a kind of purging of all the anger he's felt, and it releases him from the stud role forever.
The bus ride to freedom is the visual symbol of his liberation. Ratso, however, dies on the ride to his vision of freedom, and here again, I don't think anyone has pointed out the irony that he didn't want to die like his father, "coughing my lungs out," and yet that's exactly what he did, except, tragically, as a much, much younger man.
Also recall that Joe was just about to achieve his dream -- Brenda Vaccaro ("Shirley") was about to set him up with a string of her girlfriends -- when Ratso's crisis interrupted Joe's progress along his chosen path, and thereby SAVED his soul.
I think the reviewer who says that Ratso's death might represent a kind of absorption of Joe's sins is on to something, but Ratso's role as Joe's pimp can't be forgotten. Another irony. Ratso manifested the practical side of Joe's dream. In that sense I see Ratso as another side of Joe's character. This is what gives their friendship and codependency such pathos.
Ironically, the one who sets out to help Joe achieve his dream becomes his savior from it in the end. As Joe purges his anger and becomes conscious of himself as a human being, not a sex object, his pimp self must die away. That is the symbolic content of Ratso's death.
At the same time, Ratso arouses pity, but it is in much the same way that Joe's naive quest to become a stud arouses pity. Each of them is trying to survive by relying on a false self generated by circumstances beyond their control: Ratso the hustler and Joe the stud. Ratso's role consumes him, but he gives life to Joe by holding a mirror up to him, something that only an expert in human nature such as a hustler could do.
Incidentally, another tipoff to Joe's transformation is the female clothing store clerk in Florida who flirts with him: It is the first sign of a healthy relationship we've seen in Joe's life since the beginning of the film. It is a very understated moment, but it is a blazing contrast with what has gone before. The film is filled with subtle symbolism like this, and I only say subtle because it hasn't -- so far as I know -- been noted in other reviews.
I would qualify a film for greatness on its staying power, among other things, and by that I mean its ability to reveal new shades of meaning as you watch it over and over through the stages of your own life. "La Strada" is one such film. "Midnight Cowboy" is another. Neither are particularly happy prisms of life, but then what is life but loss?
It is some consolation to find that every once in a while a Fool (in the Tarot sense) such as Joe can somehow find the bus to Florida because he listens to his better self and sacrifices his dream to help another human being.
Unknown said...
I don't know how many times I have watched Midnight Cowboy. Each year I relive the magic of this picture. There's so much reality and insanity going on. Is there a better reflection of life's surprises . When you watch this movie you forget it's just acting and you are absorbed into that terrible and lonely world . Joe and Rico live in a world of do unto others before they do it to you. Society's message is take all you can , when ever you can . A message we can all relate to in our money driven lives. Joe and Rico escape from that cold and empty world but for Rico it's only a dream never to come true. | <urn:uuid:ee05eddd-0b22-480e-a6ae-7b651a82eb6b> | https://www.apocalypselaterfilm.com/2010/05/midnight-cowboy-1969.html | en | 0.983651 | 0.15511 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Boards, committees and panels
Boards, committees and panels
The Victorian Public Sector needs a wide mix of people to join its boards, committees and panels to reflect Victoria's diverse communities.
Boards and committees are groups of people who help lead and govern public entities, while panels are usually made up of experts from particular fields who help government make informed decisions.
Having diverse members in these groups ensures they are relevant and considering a broad range of community ideas.
Members may include women, young people, indigenous people, people from multicultural backgrounds, people with disability, and rural and regional Victorians.
You can join these groups to develop your career, lend your unique experience and insight, and have your voice heard. Positions may be either paid or unpaid.
Visit the Get on Board website to find your opportunity. | <urn:uuid:d69d287c-9224-4c2c-b872-b9ef02afb391> | https://www.careers.vic.gov.au/career-pathways/boards-and-committees-1911 | en | 0.952495 | 0.026023 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
I can think of very few films that have turned out as perfectly cast as this one as Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult take us on this sci-fi romance film where emotions are a foreign and frightening element to its characters. And this is not meant to be seen as a mock of their acting abilities (okay, maybe a little) but an indication of how well they fit the vision of the film and make the world all the more believable.
Equals is set in a future world where the powers that be (called the Collective) seem to have learnt that the most powerful way of ensuring a thriving and productive society is to remove their emotions. Which makes sense after all as it’s our emotions that lend us to desires of greed and want and whoch causes us to get angry and eventually leads toward revolt. They do this though by characterizing emotion as a sickness (titled S.O.S) which could potentially lead to death and prescribes medication to the general population to suppress their feelings. It’s a powerful political statement hidden in the subtext of the film and not one which the film does a huge job of exploring, but still creates a captivating backdrop on which our lead characters exist.
Stewart and Hoult play two co-workers, Nia and Silas who are both struggling with their hidden emotions who become drawn and attracted to each other. Silas has made his emotions apparent and is set as an outcast through wearing a different colour uniform to indicate his struggle with the illness, whereas Nia is in hiding about her condition. Together though they try to deal with these strange feelings they have towards each other, not always knowing how and whether they should react to them before giving into them entirely, while still trying to keep it a secret to the rest of society. It’s at this point that they realise that if they are ever going to be allowed to be together, they need to escape from the city to a place free of this societal suppression and so begin to hatch an escape plan together with a support group of individuals who have also been hiding their struggles with emotion from the rest of society.
The script by Nathan Parker is a strong one and although the film is light on dialogue at moments, it still offers a lot of opportunity for its characters to develop and for the harsh realities of their world and fate to be introduced to the audience. The script is also not completely predictable, which is fresh in romantic movies of this ilk. The lack of dialogue is also intentional in explaining a world where people do not easily express themselves and so a lot is left to the director Drake Doremus to make the story all come together.
And for the most part he does his job, though he makes a lot of strange directorial decisions which detract from the immersion of the film. For a start, there are many moments in the film where the camera is focused on either Sirus or Nia as they are talking to each other and the camera is shaking. Now for a film where you need to tell what a character is feeling rather than focusing on what they are saying this is completely off-putting and it really makes you wonder what the director was thinking, especially when some of the more action-packed moments show that they had a tri-pod on set after all and the camera can be perfectly still. The other is through some strange camera angles or blurred shots which don’t really say anything to the audience. Less of a distraction than the shaky camera work, but still something which I found difficult to get used to.
However, what Doremus does do well is build a believable world, especially with the help of cinematographer John Guleserian in making the world feel devoid of emotion. This is done through everything appearing in the same colours and a very muted, white feel to them, but largely in the way that everything appears calm and still – not just the actors, but the set. Large scenic shots that show little wind or movement and many quiet moments where the camera does the work when the actor are silent. They were trying to create a future world where emotions seem foreign and stylistically, they succeeded. The score by Sascha Ring and Dustin O’Halloran also plays its part, with atmospheric sounds occasionally breaking the silence to build some tension, but not over-power the film in any way.
However, it’s this part of the film that serves as its most artistic triumph and also its biggest drawback. The director has done such a good job at portraying a world without emotion, that even at moments when the film should be tense, you don’t really feel it. It’s a film that offer so much premise, but removes you from feeling drawn to its characters or cause because it has deliberately removed emotion from the world they’ve created. There are moments when you do feel for the protagonists, but not as much as you should and although it is all by design, I feel they may lose the audience as a result.
As earlier mentioned, the leads are well cast and Stewart and Hoult do a solid job in telling their forbidden love story and never get overly emotional, almost to the point where they have to force it. Again, you could argue that the actors are simply being themselves here, but its convincing enough nonetheless. The remainder of the cast which includes Guy Pearce, Jacki Weaver, Toby Huss and David Selby do a solid enough job without upstaging their leads.
In the end, it is a film that is stylistically done and well portrayed, but is a victim of its own success in becoming quite dull. It’s a film with a lot of layers and reward to it, but whether you will want to sit through it all to get there is entirely its problem… And can someone please get the director a tri-pod.
Last Updated: June 15, 2016
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October 27, 2010
Yoga for balancing Vata
Does Vata season have you feeling more like a tornado than a cool gently breeze?
You aren’t the only one. If we’re not careful, the season of windy, rapid change might leave us feeling restless, fatigued, or simply dried up. But calming excess vata is just a few simple adjustments away. And Yoga offers some practical solutions for releasing imbalances in the body.
Vata wind (or vayu) is held in the colon, the hips and the low back. Hip openers, twists, and forward folding asanas (postures).
Below is a Yoga sequence for balancing excess vata and keeping your digestive system moving through the dry spell. Please be gentle and mindful and only do what feels nurturing for you and your body.
Props you may want include: a mat, block and strap.
1. From Tadasana (Mountain pose), bring your arms overhead and bend your knees into Utkatasana (Chair pose).
Breathe deeply, remaining here for several breaths. As you inhale lengthen you spine. As you exhale, draw your navel toward your sacrum, and drop your tailbone toward the earth.
2. Inhale fold forward into Uttanasana (Forward folding pose). Breathe deeply, once again drawing your navel up and in, and release any tension in your neck and spine.
3. Inhaling, step your right foot back into
Parsvottanasana (Standing head to knee pose). Square your hips so that they are parallel, and lengthen your spine from your pelvis on an inhale. On the exhale, fold forward for a gentle hamstring stretch.
4. Keeping your right hand on the floor (or a block for modification),
Parivrtta Trikonasana
slowly and mindfully twist your spine to bring your left hand into the air. Keeping your hips parallel, inhale to lengthen your spine. Exhale to release into the twist. Breathe deeply and expand through your arms from fingertips to finger tips, opening into Parivrtta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangle pose).
Virabhadrasana III
5. Slowly unwind your twist and placing both hands firmly on the earth, bring your right leg up off the floor behind you. Integrate your muscles while you expand through your bones. Reach through your heels and toes until both legs are strong and straight. Be mindful to keep your hips parallel as you slowly bring your hands into Anjali mudra (palms together) in front of your sternum. This is a variation of Virabhadrasana III (Warrior III pose).
6. Reach back through that right foot and mindfully place it back on the earth into Anjaneyasana (or Crescent Pose). Inhale your arms into the air and allow your lungs to fill with prana (breath). Drawing your navel to your sacrum, lengthen your spine and enjoy an easy and nurturing back-bend. Add a twist to this pose, Parivrtta Anjaneyasana, by bringing your right elbow to your left knee, palms together in front of your sternum. Inhale to lengthen your spine. Exhale to deepen your twist.
Parivrtta Anjaneyasana
7. Exhale, fold forward to frame your left foot with your hands.This is Vanarasana (Monkey Pose). Square your hips, lengthen your spine and take a few deep breaths in this pose. Allow your hips to open and release.
8. Step your left foot back, now, to meet your right and arrive at Plank pose (sometimes called Kumbhakasana). Slowly lower towards the earth, keeping your spine straight and long, and your elbows close to your body. To do this, draw your navel up and in toward your spine. Integrate your muscles as you expand through your bones. Imagine your breath lifting your low back, just at the area of your kidneys. Use the power of your core strength to lift you back to Plank pose. Be mindful and powerful. This action strengthens the power of prana in your body.
Adho Mukha Svanasana
9. Spread your fingers wide and push your sitz bones towards the sky, allowing your sternum to reach for your toes. In Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward facing dog pose) your feet are hip width apart and your shoulder blades draw gently in toward your spine. Release any tension in your neck.
10. From Adho Mukha Svanasana, step your right foot forward into Vanarasana, then your left foot to Uttananasana. Place both hands on your hips, and slowly rise up to standing leading with your sternum. Repeat steps 2-8, stepping back with your left foot and moving through the second side.
11. From Plank pose in step 8 (second side), turn towards your left, bringing your left arm to the sky. Reach through both your heels and all ten toes, until both legs are strong and straight in Vasisthasana (Side Plank pose). Lengthen your spine and continue to breathe, lifting your hips in line with your spine. Exhale, release to Plank position, and switch to the right side.
12. Come into Balasana (Child’s pose) for several deep breaths. Imagine filling the back of your body with breath. Release any tension in the spine and low back muscles.
13. Inhaling rise up, keeping your hands on the earth. Widen your knees so that the inner edges of your legs, ankles and feet are on the earth. Create a 90 degree angle with your knees and ankles. Work your way into this pose slowly. Breathe.
This is Mandukasana (Frog pose). Stay for several breaths here, bringing prana to the hip joints and adductor (inner thigh) muscles.
Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana
14. Slowly bring your legs back together. Again, push your sitz bones towards the sky, allowing your sternum to reach for your toes, in Adho Mukha Svanasana. Bend your right knee, bring it forward and set it down between your hands. Reach through your right heel and all your right toes to protect your knee. Be sure that your hips are parallel as you inhale deeply and lengthen your spine. Exhaling, fold forward over your right knee. Breathe deeply here, in this variation of Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana (One legged king pigeon pose) for several breaths. When you are ready to switch sides, use the power of your core, to push back to Adho Mukha Svanasana. Then, bring your left knee forward between your hands.
15. After breathing deeply for several breaths on the second side of Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana, gently swing your right knee around to the front of your body and cross it over your left knee for Gomukasana
(Cow-faced pose). Now you are sitting with a tall, straight spine and your right knee stacked on top of your left. Inhale your left arm up and trace your fingertips down your spine. Reach your right hand up your spine towards your left hand. Perhaps you can touch your fingertips, or even clasp your hands together behind your back. If you are not there yet, simply use a strap. Draw your shoulders onto your back and breathe, filling your lungs. Allow prana to flow freely for several breaths. Allow tension to slowly release from this posture. When you are ready, switch the positions of your arms and legs.
16. Stretch your legs long in the shape of a “V”. Reach through your heels and all ten toes. Integrate your leg muscles as you expand through your bones. Reach up through the top of your head. Lengthen your spine on inhalation. On exhalation, fold forward, keeping your sitz bones grounded. Find a position in
Upavistha Konasana
Upavistha Konasana (Wide angle seated forward bend) where you can relax for several deep breaths.
17. For Janu Sirsasana
Janu Sirsasana
(Head to knee pose), bend your right knee, bringing your foot to your left thigh. Inhale both arms to the sky, and as you lengthen, twist your sternum toward your left foot. Draw your navel to your sacrum and exhale folding forward over your left leg. Your hands can reach towards that left foot, as you release tension in your neck and let your gaze fall to your knee. Switch sides.
18. Bring both legs together in front of you. Inhale, lengthen your spine. Exhale, fold forward over your legs for
Paschimottanasana (West side stretch pose or Forward fold). Inhale rise up, place your palms on the earth behind your sitz bones. With your arms straight, raise your hips off the ground to
Purvotanasana (East side stretch) . Allow your head to drop back gently and fill your lungs with prana/breath. Exhale and slowly fold forward again into Paschimottanasana. Using your breath, alternate between these two asanas. Inhale deeply into Purvotanasana and exhale, folding forward into Paschimottanasana.
19. Lie back on the floor to take Sarvangasana (Shoulder Stand). Come into the pose gently, taking your time. Use your hands to support your sacrum if this feels more stable. You may also use a blanket to prop your shoulders, allowing your neck to retain its natural curve.
Be sure that your chin is lifted slightly, away from your chest. Stay in this posture for several minutes, until you can breathe freely through both nostrils.
20. Dropping your legs over your head, bring your feet to the floor for Halasana (Plow Pose). Breathe deeply for several breaths.
21. Slowly bring your legs to the floor. Slide your palms under your hips and use your elbows to lift your sternum to the sky. Gently allow your head to drop back, resting your crown onto the floor for Matsyasana (Fish Pose).
Supta Matsyendrasana
22. Release your body to lie on the floor, bringing your knees to your chest. Breathe and release any tension in your low back. Stretch your right leg straight on the floor, reaching through your heel and toes. Use your right hand to guide your knee across your body and over to your right side. Keep your left shoulder grounded, and turn your head to face left. Breathing deeply, let go of any excess tension in your neck and spine. Enjoy this twist on both sides.
23. Complete your asana practice with Savasana (Corpse Pose). Allow your legs and arms to relax at your sides. With your eyes closed, bring your awareness to your breath.
Follow your asana practice, with seated meditation.
Shambhala Meditation
~ Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
These are the simple sitting meditation instructions from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche:
(from Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior)
1. Sit crossed legged on the floor, or a cushion, with an upright posture.
2. Place your hands lightly, palms face down, on your thighs.
3. Focus on ‘going out’ (dissolving) with your out breath.
4. Allow your in breath to happen naturally as you come back to awareness of your posture.
5. When a thought inevitably occurs, label it thinking and arrive back at the breath.
6. Label each thought without judgement.
For more Ayurvedic lifestyle reccomendations for balancing Vata, see: Vata Love from Mother Earth.
(Asana Models: Luke Aiken, Kevin Lin, Kali Perry, Liza Brand and Sarah J. Miller)
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Before 'The Clock': Christian Marclay's Other Movies
As we touched upon in our roundup of Venice Biennale artists you should know, Christian Marclay achieved art world stardom over the past year for The Clock. The 24-hour film montages clips from movies, each featuring a timepiece, to clock the cycle of an entire day, minute by minute. Described by critics as “utterly transfixing,” “magnificent,” “relentless and compelling,” and perhaps most intensely, “the most staggering, complex thing made by any artist so far this century” (emphasis mine), The Clock explores how representations of time in movies shape our own conception of it: What is seven o’clock supposed to look like (Marclay shows cocktails, the end of the workday, getting dressed for dinner, stricken commanders preparing for an alien invasion)? What happens — or as Marclay’s film insinuates — is supposed to happen at 3am? 7am? 1pm? How do representations of time in movies influence the activities we perform, ways we present ourselves, conventions we abide by? Surveying nearly a century of movies, The Clock seems to suggest that films inform the routines and customs of our own lives as much, if not more than, we inform the narrative of time in film. How meta we have become.
Exploring the influence of a certain object through movies is a central trope in Marclay’s work. The Clock sits aloft a long line of films that each explore the socio-cultural identity of a much represented but rather banal device. What Marclay has done to hourglasses, alarm clocks, and watches, he has also done to guns, guitars, and telephones, among many others. In the wake of Marclay’s über-prestigious win at the 54th Venice Biennale last week (he received a Golden Lion for Best Artist), it’s worth ticking through some of his earlier works.
Telephones, 1995
The work that started it all. Marclay made Telephones in 1995. Like The Clock, Telephones is a montage of movies, each depicting a central object, here the telephone. Phone conversations in films are sliced and diced and restrung together to create an absurd conversation that throws the conventions and social perceptions of the phone into high relief.
Guitar Drag, 2000
Unlike The Clock, Marclay’s Guitar Drag is not a montage but does zone in on a central object. The video shows an amplified Fender Stratocaster guitar attached to a rope being dragged behind a pickup truck in a Texas desert. The short film meditates on the guitar in more ways the one — the convention of smashing guitars at concerts, the penchant in the Fluxus movement for destroying objects, the role of the guitar in Wild West films — but most famously refers to the lynching of James Byrd Jr. who was dragged to his death behind a pickup truck.
Video Quartet, 2002
Video Quartet is one of Marclay’s most celebrated early works. The three-screen projection strings together 700 musical film clips, each depicting people playing music, to create a symphony of its own. The movie was the centerpiece of Marclay’s 2005 exhibit at London’s Barbican Curve Gallery and was later acquired into the Tate’s permanent collection.
Crossfire, 2007
This is a fearsome, terrifying work (I literally trembled the first time I watched it). Marclay features a close-up of a gun slowly being loaded and pointed directly at the camera. The frame is so tight (you cannot see anything but the barrel) that we feel the bullet will explode in our face. This scene is followed by a montage of images of guns, strung together so that rifles and pistols are shooting from one film into another. Marclay culls the visual history of firearms and creates a work that is, quite literally, disarming.
The Sounds of Christmas, 2004
The Sounds of Christmas is a pithy, ironic work that flips through the covers of holiday vinyls. Marclay has taken his collection of 1,200 Christmas LPs and created a video installation that features slow, sugar-sweet jazz — a woman mulling over mistletoe, her long-lost lover (will he make it home for Christmas?!), and general bitter-sweetness of the holiday season. Coupled with brightly patterned albums featuring sleigh bells and Santas, Marclay’s video visually plays out the kitschy music that takes over radio stations everywhere as soon as the turkey is carved. Fittingly, The Sounds of Christmas is exhibited each Christmas. | <urn:uuid:87f09b67-bc02-45ce-b48c-237c98aae169> | https://www.flavorwire.com/185423/185423 | en | 0.947871 | 0.025524 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
UNIVERSITY PLACE, WASH. >> Unbeaten as Ryder Cup teammates, Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth now chase a U.S. Open title this weekend at Chambers Bay.
Spieth overcame a double bogey on an 18th hole that he called "the dumbest he has ever played" for a 3-under 67. Reed made only two pars over his final 12 holes, a wild ride that resembled putts on these heavily sloped greens, and had to settle for a 69.
They were tied for the lead on a day that included Jason Day collapsing to the ground because of vertigo, Tiger Woods posting the highest 36-hole score of his pro career and Rory McIlroy making everything from eagle to double bogey on a course that gave him nothing more than two more days to figure it out.
Dustin Johnson was in the mix for the longest time until making three bogeys over his last five holes for a 71. Johnson was one shot behind, along with Branden Grace of South Africa, who matched Spieth with a 67.
Sixteen players remained under par. Spieth is the only one with experience winning a major.
And it's clear he's not just satisfied with one.
The 21-year-old Texan surged into the lead with birdies, calmed himself after a double bogey at the turn, and then tended to Day on the par-3 ninth hole when the Australian crashed to the ground in a frightening moment. Day later was diagnosed with vertigo. Helped to his feet, he managed to finish the hole and shot 70 to wind up three shots behind. He was hopeful of playing Saturday.
Spieth also gathered himself and closed with a birdie to be the first one to reach 5-under 135.
Not since Woods in 2002 has anyone won the Masters and U.S. Open in the same year. Spieth still has a long way to go, and he realizes it will only get harder on a course that already is perplexing.
Reed has heard about the adage that par is always a good score at the U.S. Open. He opted for three birdies, an eagle and five bogeys over the final three hours, at times going from the lead to trailing but always in the mix.
Reed and Spieth were rookie teammates at Gleneagles last September, going 2-0-1 in their partnership, a rare bright spot in another American loss. That's history. Now they're chasing it individually, with loads of company.
Tony Finau, the powerful PGA Tour rookie making his major championship debut, let it rip on his way to a 68. He was in the group at 3-under 137 that included Joost Luiten of The Netherlands (69), Daniel Summerhays (67) and Ben Martin (70).
Woods, again, was never in the picture — not the tournament, not on television. Fox rarely showed him, except for a few shots, including the opening hole when Woods was so far left up a dune that he slipped and fell while trying to size up the shot. He had a 76 and missed the cut for the second time in the last three majors.
His 36-hole total was 156, one worse than the 155 he had at the Phoenix Open. He has one more tournament, The Greenbrier Classic in two weeks, before going to St. Andrews for the British Open.
"Obviously, I need to get a little better for the British Open, and I'll keep working at it," Woods said.
Spieth can lean on his experience as a Masters champion, but this major is nothing like Augusta National. For starters, he had a five-shot lead going into the weekend at the Masters. And he is on a golf course where the greens are getting plenty of attention for being bumpy and difficult to make putts.
"It's playing different," Spieth said. "And I'm in a very different position. I'm not going to have a five-shot lead. So given it's a U.S. Open, I imagine they're going to try to bring us back to par. ... So I'll draw some on Augusta, but at the same time, my patience level has to be even that much higher."
His patience was tested, especially on the 18th. The tees were moved forward, making it play 514 yards. Some players who had been at Chambers Bay for the U.S. Amateur were concerned about the USGA using a forward tee and changing it to a par 4 in the middle of the U.S. Open because of an awkward landing area.
Spieth tried to go left and found a bunker. Then he tried to take enough club to get past the 10-foot deep bunker that was added only recently, caught the top of the lip and stayed in the rough.
"This is the dumbest hole I've ever played in my life," he said before hitting a 4-iron toward the green. That found a bunker and he made double bogey. And then he pulled his tee shot to the left on the par-5 first hole (which was a par 4 on Thursday). His caddie, Michael Greller, helped calm him down.
"I was really frustrated walking off the tee box, and Michael did a great job coming in and telling me, 'Sit back, you're still very much in this tournament, don't let this get to you,"' Spieth said.
He made birdie to steady himself and finished with a birdie.
But the real test awaits.
"At Augusta, I was finding fairways, hitting it on the green and I was making everything," he said. "That would be nice here if I could do that, but it's a harder golf course than the Masters played this year."
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Venture Capital Investment Evaluation
The Role of Data in Venture Capital and Revenue-Based Financing
Data matters at Lighter Capital. It’s the primary tool we use to make financing decisions. Data matters to venture capitalists (VCs) as well. But is it the primary tool that VCs use to make investment decisions?
Diversification Strategy
What is Diversification Strategy? (Definition and Examples)
If your company has reached a point where it needs more reach and growth, a diversification strategy could be just what you need to increase your revenue.
Logo Churn
How to Track and Analyze SaaS Logo Churn
Is your SaaS product satisfying your customers? Logo churn looks at how many customers cancel their subscriptions during a set period. We explain how to measure this metric and offer some methods to improve it
Personal Guarantee
What Is a Personal Guarantee on a Business Loan and Why We Don’t Require One
As a business owner, it’s important to know what a personal guarantee on a business loan is - and, most importantly, that there are alternative funding options that don’t require one.
Elevator Pitch
Knowing how to write an elevator pitch that works can mean the difference between closing a lead or securing an investment for your business. Here's everything you need to know to master your elevator pitch.
Debt Covenants
What Are Debt Covenants and Why Lighter Capital Rarely Uses Them on Loans
Debt covenants are promises borrowers make to engage or refrain from a specific action in return for a loan. Here's a rundown of everything founders should know about covenants - and why we don't use them on most loans.
Potential Customers
Why Disqualifying Potential Customers is an Effective Business Growth Strategy
When it comes to acquisition, is your company attracting all its potential customers or are you disqualifying some prospects to grow your startup faster?
Average Revenue Per User ARPU
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Black-throated diver Gavia arctica, adult in breeding plumage taking off from water, Forsinard Flows RSPB reserve, Sutherland, Scotland
This is a small family of large water birds, with three species regularly seen in the UK (two of which breed) plus one rare vagrant from northern Asia (the white-billed diver). There is another similar species (the Pacific loon) in North America.
Divers all have long, slender bodies, moderately long necks and dagger-shaped bills, quite long but narrow wings and small legs (with long, lobed toes) set far back on the body. They are expert swimmers and divers but unable to stand or walk on land. All are migratory, breeding on freshwater lakes and pools but moving to the sea coast in winter. | <urn:uuid:8a6bc21e-aec9-4db5-9c3f-76124bf1a9eb> | https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/diver-family/ | en | 0.939449 | 0.029424 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Talk all you want about the theoretical spooks haunting the Bay Area's grand hotels and movie palaces; longtime residents understand that the area overflows with the real, unsettling deal - capable of sending big-time shivers down your 415.
1. The median price of real estate
Fuggetabout REOs in the Sunset: When half a million buys you a crack-house look-alike in the heart of Berkeley, you know things are scarily out of whack.
2. Downtown S.F. shopping
The combustible mixture of gaping Euro-tourists, hoodies who tell you your butt is too big and the "No Sex" man is enough to make you swear off Forever 21 for the next 21.
3. Foodie takeover
Are you as scared as I am to find high-end gourmet edibles like fig paste in your corner bodega? Gimme back my Colt 45.
4. The vanishing bookstore
Replacing the Cody's in downtown San Francisco with a Ferrari store was the last straw.
5. Dilapidated BART
Once the pride of Bay Area public transit, the system's carpeting can be icky to behold.
6. Parking nightmares
No neighborhood is immune to curbs carved up by too many driveways, residential parking permit shutouts, PG&E banishments - no wonder city-bred kids bow down to anyplace that offers free spots for their souped-up Civics.
7. Breasts on parade
S.F. denizens are a modish if modest-and-organic-outdoorsy lot, but I gotta feeling that certain performers (Black Eyed Peas, Red Hot Chili Peppers) bring the boobies out to boom, boom, pow.
8. Pollution
Can the high incidence of asthma among West Oakland children and adults be attributed to diesel truck emissions and cargo ship toxins?
9. Golden Gate Bridge's coned-off dividing lane
White-knuckle terror ensues at the sight of all those 4Runners and Pathfinders heading straight toward you, inches away.
10. Heedless jaywalking in the Tenderloin
Make it a hair-raisingly nihilistic bird-flip by sauntering slowly and not even glancing at oncoming traffic.
11. The death of Castro Halloween
Gawkers and thugs aside, why'd the city drop the bomb on this irreverent tradition? You'll have to get your kicks looking for corpse-painted Farrahs and Jackos in the Mission - or revel in the horrors of local Halloweens past at the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco's presentation of Jack Curtis Dubowsky's new horror opera, "Halloween in the Castro." (; show runs 8 p.m. Thurs.- Sat. $20-$40. Metropolitan Community Church, 150 Eureka St., S.F. | <urn:uuid:2bfc765c-b734-4bb1-9a2a-97794cc63299> | https://www.sfgate.com/thingstodo/article/11-Things-The-real-scary-Bay-Area-3282761.php | en | 0.882901 | 0.023376 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Why does a loan application take weeks, sometimes months to get approval? In today’s digital world, customers are using their mobile phones to book a ride, order for food, make money transfer anywhere in the world and are expecting the same speed when applying for a loan. Hence, lending agencies have to harness Artificial Intelligence (AI) to speed up response, reduce the time for a loan application, and keep a watch on fraud to guard both lender and borrower.
AI Will Expedite the Lending Process
In the past, the borrowers were only concerned about the best product at the best price from a lending company. For example, someone looking to get CCJ loans with no guarantor from a direct lender used to be concerned about the best terms and condition only. The speed was not much important for them. Today, due to advancement in technology, millennial’s are expecting a fast lending process.
Banks and other lending agencies must address the concern of today’s generation by including AI-powered RPA to accelerate all lending activities to meet the customer’s need. Due to the complex nature of the lending process, getting a loan can take some time. Many lending agencies rely on manual processing of multiple documents. Lending companies must take information from these documents manually and feed them into a database to be processed further.
Can Technology Make the Loan Process Quicker?
Implementing an AI and RPA system doesn’t mean creating mayhem. In fact, a system that is well designed sees well-defined rules and ensures safety for an organization. With AI and automation, lending agencies can solve specific processing issues and increase productivity which will, in turn, free up employees to make good relationship with customers.
Artificial Intelligence is Transforming The Landscape of Lending
To process a loan application, lending companies today use complex and old systems, different databases, and spreadsheets which include lots of physical documents. This is where AI combined with RPA comes handy in making banking more efficient in offering loans for eligible customers. Using RPA loan application verification can speed up based on pre-defined criteria.
Can Banks Avoid the Potential Risk?
We live in a world which is full of risks and should be monitored very wisely. Lending needs a regular risk assessment and compliance lapse. Automation will make the process smooth and ensure the security measures are in place to monitor and report any error. Automation will reduce all manual errors. Risk monitoring and reporting also become easier with automation. The advantage of Robotic Process Automation is as follows:
• Streamlining Operations: Cost of servicing is at an all-time high these days. With the help of AI technologies, lenders can reduce the loan defect, which is responsible for increasing the cost. Artificial Intelligence can also speed up the loan application to enhance the customer’s experience. AI has an ability to scan and move data at a much faster rate for processing.
• Will Reduce Fraud and Defaults: Frauds are on the rise in the lending industry. According to a recent report, one in every 100 loan applications is assumed to have fraudulent claims. Due to a huge number of applications, it becomes really difficult to detect any potential fraud. Hence, in this situation, if human works in tandem with AI then it will be easier to detect any fraud.
We can use RPA with AI in this area to reduce the number of incidents of fraud. Lending companies can use old data to create a model which can predict the chance of fraud or can warn if a particular loan application has a probability of becoming a fraud.
AI and deep learning are very helpful in performing real-time data analysis to throw out a high-risk application based on the created model.
• Delighting Your Customer with an Excellent Service: The full process of lending is very intricate. It consists of accumulating application details, credit verification, sanctioning and finally collecting monthly repayments. Building a hassle-free experience for the customer requires you to approach your process from the customer’s point of view and meet their need for speed and service.
Hence, the increases in the number of digital consumers are getting lenders to implement a completely robust system, from loan qualification to closing. Leaders in the lending industry, who are making use of AI and RPA, are making their customer’s experience delightful, faster, and more accurate. It helps in building brand value and loyalty for retaining their trusted customers for a lifetime. Automating manual processes is helping human workforce in many ways.
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The Bill of Rights-the first 10 Amendments
Constitutional amendments 1-27 summary. Constitutional Amendments Summary
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Constitutional Amendments History The first 10 amendments to the Constitution were parceled together and passed by the first session of Congress in In the second half of the preamble, Jefferson suggests that the people have the right to alter or abolish any form of government if it becomes destructive and to develop a new form of government that will likely secure their happiness and security. Constitution details the procedure for amending it. Alternative procedures are also provided, but these are rarely used.
List of 27 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution
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❮EPUB❯ ✿ Princess Nevermore ✺ Author Dian Curtis Regan – Horse-zine.co.uk
10 thoughts on “Princess Nevermore
1. says:
This started out so promising, but then turned a bit crap Gender roles were infuriatingly upheld, underage drinking was brushed off, finding self worth in a boyfriend was encouraged and instalove abounded Super frustrating.
2. says:
If you read this book at the right age elementary school to middle school , you will absolutely never forget it To this day it occupies, like, a holy grail spot in my mind definitely on a pedestal Reread it last summer and no, it doesn t hold up Definitely have to catch it at the right time, and it will honestly GLOW in your memory Note there are differences between this version the older paperback and the newer, hardcover one, which I discovered reading them in parallel First of all, this one is prettier But also, they do change some phrasing and things for the worse, in my opinion so I would recommend this older version.
3. says:
This is a solid book that would be very enjoyable to the middle school and perhaps freshman aged girl There is nothing offensive or objectionable, from a parents stand point I actually, from my jaded world view I suppose kept expecting the bad guy to do something truly heinous, and while he was still a bad guy, his monstrosity never left the middle school spectrum.I would have devoured this as a young girl, and even as an adult I enjoyed this sweet tale.The story is of a young girl who lives in a magical kingdom under the ground She longs to experience and discover the world under the sky our world She knows nothing about it except for the small glimpses she sees when people from our world drop coins in the wishing well She can see them through the bottom of the pool, and they fill her with curiosity.Impetuously and dangerously, she plans to travel to our world some day with her friend Cam, but she has not discussed it with her parents, nor does she know all of the consequences of such a trip When the opportunity finally presents itself, she and Cam take it, but due to their ignorance, Cam is left behind underground and she travels above ground by herself with no idea how to return.To top things off, she is the princess and sole heir of the below ground, magical world, so it is kind of a big deal whether she makes it back or not As in, it affects the whole kingdom, not just her family and friends.Her world is somewhat medieval They have magic, but they don t have electricity They have pet dragons, but she is required to choose a spouse at age sixteen or have it chosen for her and she really has no choices in life.Entering our world introduces her to the novelty of choosing your own profession, having a say in your future, and being independent, possibly not even marrying or actually getting to marry for love She s only fifteen almost sixteen , but she does manage to fall in love.But will she ever figure out how to return to her kingdom Does she even want to return So, it s a fun novel It isn t necessarily thought provoking or deep, but a young girl looking for a bit of magic and a way to look at her own world from the eyes of an outsider would enjoy it.And a random note, so many people from our world commented on her gorgeous her knee length hair was Personally, I think that knee length hair would be really annoying and inconvenient And possibly raggedy looking Ha, that s just me though Oh, and there is a good message about how girls should date guys who are nice to them as opposed to guys who are good at sports and are attractive but not nice to them.This excerpt made me laugh Revulsion rolled over Quinn, making her ill.Beside her, Sarah slumped in her seat, grinning and nudging Quinn I think he s so hot, don t you The princess did not have an answer to why the bothersome knave might be overheated And, certainly, she did not care.
4. says:
I have A LOT of opinions about this book First of all, Princess Quinella is essentially a manic pixie dream girl She is generally clueless and unintelligent throughout the whole book I was waiting for her to be redeemed, but she never really is other than making the smart but quick decision to return to Mandria When two boys want to fight over her, she lets them instead of just being independent and making her own decision of who she wants to be with Also, she is fifteen and these nearly 18 year old boys are putting their hands on her after only knowing her for less than 24 hours, and she lets them When the boys fight, the mean boy Zack wins and instead of choosing the nice respectful boy Adam , she honors the outcome and goes with this dude who is crazy disrespectful and apparently always drunk And on top of that, Adam just lets her go with this handy rude drunk dude to a dance after they decide to be a couple The only other female main character is just boy crazy and jealous and has no other characteristics Also, Quinns decisions are basically all made by men, whether it be Melikar the wizard, Cam, Mondo, Adam, or Zack It s problematic for many reasons, and to be fair it was written in 1995 and is aimed for 4th or 5th graders, but still There are so many better books that have strong female characters in them for children to read.
5. says:
I got this book for Christmas when I was about 9 because my mom thought I would like the cover I did, and I was fascinated with it for several years, yet I never got around to reading it until now Frankly, I wish I d tossed it with some of my other old books when I was in high school Honestly It s so bad I wouldn t even recommend it for the middle grade readers other reviewers seem to insist will like it, because of how problematic it is on top of being boring and cliche The protagonist is insufferable and constantly confused, there s girl hate for the larger part of it, the insta love is, I think, literally the most contrived romance I have ever encountered, and the villain is simultaneously disgusting and pointless For a moment, I thought that the author had actually had the guts to make it sophisticated than the usual fare with a bittersweet ending, before realizing that there is a second book in the series which, I should note, I am absolutely not going to waste my time on ReadDownYourBookshelf verdict It s going in the trash where it should have been years ago.
6. says:
Very Mary Sue ish, for those who speak that vernacular The writing had a certain stilted tone that connects with fanfic in my brain, and for the most part things happen TO the heroine as she bumbles along not taking responsibility for anything The ending is particularly Mary Sue ish, because I think the reader is supposed to feel sad at the romance of it all, while I m just annoyed with the heroine s selfishness.OTOH, it s a quick read and held my attention than I expected it to, and had a couple clever moments, so while it s not something I particularly like or recommend, I can see why a lot of people mostly young ladies, I should think would quite enjoy it I think I would have enjoyed it, had I read it when I was young enough, but it d be a disappointment if I tracked it down again a few years later.
7. says:
5 stars This is about a girl, a princess in fact, and is lonely and longs for an adventure Her best friend is a wizard s apprentice and he secretly loves her A bit slumsy with magic though, he accidentally sends her to the outside world They live underground She soon meets a cute blonde guy and so the drama begins Read this and be blown away And be ready for tears
8. says:
I remember reading this in middle school and absolutely loving it I look forward to re reading it now that I have re discovered it s name and bought a copy.
9. says:
I m not sure how I d feel about this NOW but I know I really did like this when I first read it.
10. says:
This book had a great premise, honestly It s been done before, but the whole someone from another world comes to the real world thing can be fun no matter how many times it s been done, as long as the story is good.Yeah, this book dropped the ball, big time.Quinn, the princess of an underground world, ends up on Earth in present day The story is pretty decent as she first gets there, but when she meets the family she ends up staying with, it all goes downhill In the family are a brother Adam and a sister Sarah , who both suck for different reasons.Sarah is annoying almost the entire book, because she s constantly jealous of Quinn, who has drawn the attention of a guy at school, Zack Oh boy, about him later Sarah likes Zack, for whatever reason, and he wants Quinn Anyway, so Sarah s entire personality is to be jealous and rude until like, right before the end when she tries to redeem herself, but does a terrible job because she told Zack Quinn s secret that she promised not to tell Whatever.Adam is painted as the nice, respectful guy but there are serious problems with him, too So basically he says that he loves Quinn after knowing her for less than a day, just because she s pretty Wow, we love meaningful relationships Also, he is super possessive of her, which is weird In addition, there s a part where he gets in a fight with Zack over who gets to take Quinn to the dance Like, I guess she can t decide for her own self Anyway, during this stupid fight which is a weird fake joust for whatever reason , Quinn tells Adam not to do it because Zack is bigger and will obviously not stick to the rules This is probably the only smart thing she says the entire book But, Adam gets mad at her, I guess because his masculinity was threatened Who knows And then he loses the fight because Zack doesn t stick to the rules Wow Who could have seen that one coming Oh, and this line is literally in the book during this scene The humiliation of being saved by a maiden would be too much to bear I almost gave up right then and there but I knew that I had to suffer through the rest so that I could fully warn you guys about this book I made sacrifices for you all, I hope you appreciate it.Quinn, as a main character, is kinda pathetic Like I said with Adam, she decides that oh, I m in love with you after not even A DAY I totally understand her hesitation to go back home, considering that she has no real freedom to choose things in her life But then she never actually makes her own choices when she s in our world Zack wins the fight, so she is compelled to go with him to the dance What happened to choosing your own life The book continues in this vein, where Quinn does nothing for herself, and it s frustrating She only really makes one choice, and that s to go back home Also, she tells Melikar to not make Adam forget about her Why That s honestly horrible because now the guy is going to be thinking about her, when pretty much everyone else in his life DOESN T REMEMBER HER What a great time.Zack is disgusting Like, straight up the worst He drives while drunk, harasses people, and sexually assaults Quinn by kissing her when she never 1 gave him permission 2 even HINTED that she liked him or that she wanted to kiss him He also believes girls to be his objects Creepy, nasty dude Normally, this would just make him a great antagonist and it does Like, there are terrible people and this is one of them But the worst part is that girls in the book like him What He never shows any traits that make him even mildly okay as a person, but a bunch of girls want to go to the dance with him or whatever What total BS.Basically, what I m trying to say is that the book sucks None of the characters are likable or even relatable, and the plot, which could have been interesting if it went the route of LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE, is a bunch of nonsense about TEEN DRAMA I mean, even a story about Quinn accidentally getting far from the wishing pool and trying to find her way back would have been better It was tedious to get through this book and it s just not interesting If you re looking for a fantasy adventure book about a princess, read Dealing with Dragons It s so much better, trust.Oh, and if I ever see the word lad again, I m going to scream.
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Princess Nevermore download Princess Nevermore, read online Princess Nevermore, kindle ebook Princess Nevermore, Princess Nevermore 3b65065db07e Princess Quinnella Is Quite Familiar With Mandrian Truths At , She S Still Allowed To Come And Go As She Wishes In The Kingdom Of Mandria, Visiting Melikar The Wizard And Playing At Magic But She Knows That As Soon As She Turns , She Will Become A Woman A Parade Of Suitors Will Court Her Until She Chooses One Or The King Chooses One For Her Then Comes Marriage, Childbearing, And Royal Protocol But Quinn Isn T Ready For This Life Of Predictability More Than Anything, She Wants To Travel To Outer Earth, The World Above The Wishing Pool When A Magical Mishap Sends Her To Earth, Quinn Gets Far Than She Bargained For As She Is Drawn Deeper Into This Strange New World Of Skateboards, Halloween Dances, And Pizza, Danger And Adolescent Intrigue Surround Her There S Only One Problem She Doesn T Know How To Return To Mandria, And She S Not Even Sure She Wants To | <urn:uuid:1c3deeb0-b37d-4a90-a7fa-b6996fc8f559> | http://www.horse-zine.co.uk/fcb8b8gdrx1136569fcb8b8-princess-nevermore/ | en | 0.974474 | 0.018805 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Not Your Mother's Dentistry Part 5
By contactus
March 24, 2011
Category: Uncategorized
Tags: Untagged
This is the last blog in this series. Xeriostomia also known as dry mouth is a common condition that severely affects your teeth. This lack of saliva or hyposalivation decreases the protective effect of saliva's ability to remineralize the teeth. Periodontal tissue is also more prone to infection. As your mouth dries out, the pH of your saliva decreases. This decrease causes an increase in your cavity rate and the types of bacteria found in your mouth.
There are many causes of xeriostomia; they include aging, alcohol, dehydration, Sjogren's syndrome, poorly controlled diabetes, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and medications. Medically Induced Xeriostomia or MIX is the most common cause. There are hundreds of medications that cause MIX. Some are antidepressants, antianxiety pills, high blood pressure meds, antiinflammatory pain pills, bronchodilators, water pills, and migraine medications. Interesting,the increase in medical marijuana usage also causes xeriostomia.
What is sad is that many geriatric patients are on multiple medications that cause xeriostomia. They tend to drink very little because they then have to use the restroom frequently. When they do drink something it is coffee or a sugar containing drink that causes demineralization which leads to excessive decay. They have invested large amounts of time and expense to keep their teeth but now they face the loss of their teeth due to decay. They have to learn to chew food differently, which is difficult because their ability to adapt decreases as they age. Or they are forced into a complete denture because of the expense to fix their mouth on a limited budget is impossible. Infections increase which affects their already limited immune system or medical condition. So ask an elderly friend or family member if they have a dry mouth,you may save them from dealing with multiple dental problems in their golden years.
Treatment consists of rehydration with water, avoidance of alcohol containing mouth rinses, the use of xylitol gum and mints, use SLS free toothpaste, fluoride varnish,diet modification and an evaluation from their dentist. A discussion with a physician to see if medications can be changed may also help.
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