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__label__cc	0.541933	0.458067	JASK Expands Leadership Team with Appointment of Mark Boullie as Chief Revenue Officer December 13, 2018 \| by JASK Former ArcSight Sales Leader Joins JASK Along with New Sales Executives to Support JASK‘s Accelerated Cybersecurity SIEM Business SAN FRANCISCO & AUSTIN, Texas – December 13, 2018 – JASK, the provider of the industry’s first Autonomous Security Operations Center (ASOC) platform, today announced the appointment of Mark Boullie as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Boullie will be responsible for leading the company’s global enterprise and channel sales teams and other customer-facing aspects of the company, such as business development, customer success and overall revenue operations. “Mark steps into his position with incredible insight and a proven track record of generating exceptional top-line results for market leaders, which will help grow out demand and fuel our expansion across the globe,” said Greg Martin, co-founder and CEO of JASK. “He is a valuable addition to our leadership team as we continue to drive market awareness and transform how businesses solve today’s toughest security challenge — driving more efficiency across their security operations teams.” Mark has 30 years of experience fueling growth profitability and instilling predictability for pre-IPO enterprise technology companies. Boullie spent 8 years at ArcSight, where he was part of the sales leadership team and a key contributor to the company’s successful IPO in 2008 and $1.5 billion acquisition by HP in 2010. “JASK’s innovative approach of taking enterprises beyond the capabilities of SIEM products has already landed them several large-scale customers and an impressive portfolio of channel and technology alliance partners,” said Boullie. “This is the perfect time to join, and I look forward to helping the company further accelerate its global growth to broaden the adoption of the ASOC platform across enterprises worldwide.” JASK also announced the appointment of several individuals to key sales positions to help meet the increasing demand for the ASOC platform, including: Monte Sjobakken, Vice President of Business Development: A sales professional with a 20-year track record of delivering top-line results for leading security companies, Sjobakken will be responsible for driving JASK’s global MSSP, system integration and technical alliance partnership strategies. Before joining JASK, Sjobakken was the Senior Director of Client Development at Carbon Black. Previously, he held sales leadership positions at Global Technology Resources, Inc., Citadel Security (acquired by McAfee) and Juniper Networks. Tom Mitchell, Vice President of Sales, West: With nearly 20 years of enterprise software sales experience, Mitchell will support the company’s sales efforts in the Western Region. He joins JASK from Tanium, where he was the Regional Vice President of Sales for the South Central region. Previously, Mitchell held sales roles at FireEye, Bromium, McAfee and ArcSight. Founded in 2015, JASK has dual headquarters in San Francisco and Austin, Texas. For more information visit www.jask.com or follow JASK on Twitter (@jasklabs) and LinkedIn. JASK is modernizing security operations to reduce organizational risk and improve human efficiency. Through technology consolidation, enhanced AI and machine learning, the JASK Autonomous Security Operations Center (ASOC) platform automates the correlation and analysis of threat alerts, helping SOC analysts focus on the highest-priority threats, streamlining investigations and delivering faster response times. www.jask.com Justin McCann	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1298
__label__cc	0.631683	0.368317	Python.org Revolution is a bit shit Posted on 2013-04-22 in rant The scarcity of any kind of science fiction on TV means that fans of the genre tend to be a bit more forgiving. Annoyingly, fans of science fiction also tend to be a bit more thoughtful than, say, fans of crufty and fluffy shows (think Greys Anatomy, or anything sold as reality TV). Consequently we're a hard-done by lot – offered relatively poor quality plots and writing. All the more frustrating as science fiction in the written form is often impressively high quality by comparison. The net result is that TV science fiction appears to be getting progressively worse, as we're effectively encouraging studios to continue lowering the quality just by putting up with the stuff they deign to flog. In very recent times we've seen some stinkers coming out of the USA – Continuum, Revolution, Defiance (early days on that one, but it's not looking encouraging). This is a post-apocalyptic story. The apocalypse in this case was electricity 'going out'. And the post is fifteen or so years. Within the first dozen episodes we have been (painfully) slowly advised that: fifteen years earlier the power went out some of the characters were involved and/or responsible for this this affects almost all sources of power, evidently globally there's two bad people, one of whom has many followers despite clearly being a fucking lunatic some pendants exist that let localised power return Plot-hole overview There's myriad problems with what we've been told and what we're shown. We never see anything outside of the immediate vicinity of Philadelphia, where the show is based. Obviously there are lots of people – upwards of two billion I guess – who would be bimbling along just nicely without power, thank you very much. Just as they were bimbling along quite happily 15 years earlier without power. That's kind of expected. This is a story about a specific group of (mostly incompetent) people in a specific place. Cultures tend to not make TV shows about other cultures, especially if they're a fairly insular culture that thinks they're the best culture on the planet. The opening voice-over is quite indulgent to the stereotypical insulated USA citizen on this front, though: 'We lived in an electric world. We relied on it for everything. And then the power went out. Everything stopped working. We weren't prepared.' Anyway, some of the confusion about what we get told in the show is simple old-fashioned story-telling hand-wavey magic – such as how power was disabled worldwide in one fell swoop, and what in turn powers the device or mechanism that has been selectively suppressing most other power sources for the past fifteen years. A real turn on ... On the power front, there's a battery of related questions and problems. Where does the power come from? Where does it go to? When power comes back on locally it's not clear what supplies that power, given the problem is generally asserted to be one of power suppression. Obviously the power stations are all dead, batteries charged 15 years ago simply won't have any juice left in them now. A small pendant can't remotely power devices that were never designed to be powered remotely by pendants – mobile phones, cars, computers, helicopters, etc. We see this happen one time with a mobile phone that the somewhat pathetic owner has managed to retain for 15 years, explaining that it contains the only photo of her two (long since dead) children. After some magic pendant power happens nearby she sees the photo come back. This happens on a device whose battery has long since lost any charge. Most of these people can't manage to stay alive more than a few days, don't seem to carry any food, bedding, maps, or other equipment with them – so the idea they have avoided a cracked screen, water damage, any kind of corrosion, or just managed to accidentally purchase a phone 16 years earlier that would still work fifteen years later, is quite the stretch. Why does this thing work, but that does not? There's an amount of ghost in the machine stuff with any science fiction, almost by definition, but there is also a strong correlation between poor science fiction and excessive reliance on this mechanism. Combustion is shown to work – we see conventional projectile weapons working fine, and burning fires, and a steam train is shown in one episode. However internal combustion engines don't work. Conceivably the distinction is that 4-stroke and diesel engines require a wet cell battery to function, however 2-stroke engines do not. They use the same kind of spark that is used to light a fire or shoot a bullet. This disparity is never pondered upon by any of the characters. As you watch the show you notice this kind of internal inconsistency popping up all over the place. It starts with poor writing, but ultimately reflects poorly upon the perceived intelligence of the viewer. She may not look like much The mid-season cliff-hanger had our bad guy cranking up a helicopter that hadn't been flown in fifteen years. This was facilitated by an untested amplifier that a few minutes earlier had been sitting in the lab, but in the time it took for our good guy gang to break out of the building, it had been relocated to the helicopter, powered up, and the helicopter launched. It wasn't clear exactly how this could happen. The thing had been sitting out in the weather for fifteen years. I have a tractor that I need to replace the fuel lines on from normal use and weathering at least every 5-10 years, and I've never left it fifteen years but I fully expect the fuel would evaporate, leak, go off, or simply become contaminated with water or fungus in that time. Evidently it started first time, and was easily flown by someone who hadn't flown in 15 years. If you're not going to eat that ... There's no indication at all of what people are eating. Most TV shows don't deign to advise the viewer when the characters are performing their ablutions (though those that do, and manage to make a hilarious joke in the process are perhaps coincidentally some of the best science fiction), and it's only slightly less rare that food is ever shown let alone consumed, but in a post-apocalyptic world like this some nod towards the practicalities would be in order. It's estimated that without industrial food production – ie. absent petroleum to make fertilisers, sow, harvest, and transport food – it takes about 15-20 hours of each person's time per week to obtain their food. There's a metric shedload of people wandering around and not actually producing anything in the various mini-societies we are shown. We never actually see the people who grow or produce stuff. It certainly aligns with the current US, and indeed the western, attitudes towards food production – something that is neither seen nor heard, it just magically happens – but it's a glaring omission here. People are able to 'walk a thousand miles to get here' without carrying anything to eat. Even more surprising how this guy can still be a boombah after dropping his pizza and coke diet fifteen years earlier. Dennis Nedry II - Boombah Poor jokes aside – albeit briefly – food consumption in a post-industrial world with a substantially smaller population would primarily be protein (they do hint at catching the occasional animal on their travels), supplemented by vegetables (where they can be grown locally), dried beans and maize (which can be stored and transported relatively easily). The last two can conceivably put weight onto you, but that would assume a lot of food combined with an especially sedentary lifestyle. There's no explanation how this character, who claims that all his previous skills are worthless since the power went off, could be maintaining a sufficiently sedentary lifestyle, or eating a surplus of generally much healthier food than his implied pre-apocalyptic diet. I think he's just an archetypal fat hacker – which is cause for regret and sadness in itself. Heck, he's even proud of wearing a retro geeky t-shirt – CD's were replaced by DVD's a decade ago, dude. Anyway, it's a non-trivial omission. Where they do show the occasional shot of something that may be considered an area that produces food (what we might call a farm) it's somewhat stylised and impractical given the conditions the society is allegedly living under. So who's mowing this lawn? This shot is from the third episode. (We actually see someone poring over a paper map in this episode, which was nice. The fact it was still in good condition after fifteen years of regular use .. less so. But it's the thought that counts.) But this scene just makes you ask – who the fuck has been mowing this driveway? And how? And why? Maize would certainly be a popular crop, as mentioned, given it's easy to grow, relatively easy to harvest, and stores supremely well, but without pesticides, fertilisers, and tractors, people would grow it the same way they did before 1900 – interspersed with pumpkin (squash) and climbing beans. They wouldn't plant all their seed in one go at the same time, as is shown here, either. It'd be impractical and unsafe to do so. Instead it'd be staggered, partly just because it'd take you a few weeks to prepare and plant out fields this size by hand, partly to minimise risk from freak weather and pest events, and partly to make it more convenient to harvest over a longer period at the other end of the process. Yeah, sure, I'm picking on one scene from one episode, but only because there's almost no other nods in the show to the otherwise intractable problem of what the hell are all these people eating. Just trust me On the practicality front, there's a few other things that we're left to bewilder ourselves with. They sure are some nice clothes you've got Mister! Everyone – well, in particular the bad guys – seem to be tremendously well clothed. Nice boots, nicely polished, clean uniforms. In the same way that there's some invisible throng growing everyone's food, there may be another throng that grows the various textile crops, and then makes and launders clothes without electricity. They are presumably flat out given the rate at which people are dying from swords being stuck through them. Apparently blood is a bastard to get out of cotton. Plus, you know, finding stitching thread that perfectly matches the fabric's colour is tricky, even in the old E-Bay days. Why walk when you can walk? As mentioned, it's a shame no one has yet thought to crank up a 2-stroke engine motorbike. But a few lucky people have horses. These horses look tremendously well groomed, which might be feasible (though it's not clear who's training these horses, and where). Less feasible is the shiny and remarkably new-looking saddles that they seem to have kept a stash of (or worked out how to make more of without power). But on the transport front, apart from the one functional steam train (that everyone seemed to be very keen on blowing up - the fuckers) everyone else seems resolved to walk everywhere. This, despite the presence of lots of bike-friendly road infrastructure everywhere. And the relative ease of maintaining a bike compared to, say, a steam train, a range of weaponry, horses, harnesses and saddles, carriages, and so on. But no. Bikes aren't to be seen anywhere, despite everyone knowing they exist, and most people knowing how to ride one, and them having been with us for at least 150 years. We're instead assured that without energy humans have no option but to walk. Perhaps the show is sponsored by Exxon. Miscellaneous annoyances I've noticed that there's a direct correlation between how bad a TV show or movie is, and how often characters utter the phrase Listen to me before saying something. In the most dreadful shows they'll pause, then very slowly and (in their minds, meaningfully, I'm sure) say Listen to me, and then even more slowly try to explain why something is important, often leaving out actually important information that the person they're trying to persuade has directly asked for. This results in the second party getting understandably frustrated, but then overreacting in an inappropriate way, then doing something silly that results in someone getting captured or killed – ultimately because the first person is just shite at communicating and thinks that in an emergency the best thing they can do is to delay the transfer of knowledge while prefixing everything with the assertion that they should be listened to. This show has that shit going on in spades. There's also a direct correlation between how bad a TV show or movie is, and how often random characters that are introduced turn out to be fundamentally bad or evil. A corollary – any random person that's introduced is likely to appear kind, thoughtful, sane, friendly, especially if they have a long history with one of the good guys. But .. no .. this won't end well. There are no ambiguous characters, there are in fact no friendly characters. Our gang of goodies are the lone voices of sanity and goodness in the entire North American continent. And one of them is a mewling quim. This show has that shit going on in spades also. (Actually, there was a half-way decent character that popped up in episode 6 – Sex and Drugs . He was described by an obvious psychopath as being a bad guy, but if that wasn't enough of a recommendation it quickly became apparent he actually was a force for good. The incompetent Charlie then kills him. The twat.) As far as I can tell our primary female lead is this Charlie character, and she seems to spend 90% of each episode being a bit of a mewling quim, and 10% apologising for being a mewling quim. She alternates between trying to make other people around her feel guilty, and expressing feelings of guilt of her own. I'm sure that without power there's lots of free evenings that could be spent working through this kind of deep emotional crap in front of the campfire with someone that cares – but this particular viewer simply doesn't care. The other characters only appear slightly less annoying by virtue of hanging around with Charlie. Most of them appear to be massively bewildered and eager to behave in inconsistent ways. While they are clearly reliant on each other for safety and company, they all seem to insist on keeping secrets from each other despite it being clear when each secret is later revealed that it was in fact a very bad policy to adopt. But do they learn from this? The fuck they do! Nor have they apparently learned from the previous fifteen years of surviving in what apparently is a very brutal world. Each time the same mistake is repeated in much the same way. There is a tiring predictability to this recurrent frustration. Somewhere there is a very big warehouse. That's the only explanation for where the hell this seemingly endless supply of ammunition is coming from. And the similarly endless supplies of safety razors, shoe laces, toilet paper, water bottles, makeup, and so on. Either that or people are really polite after fifteen years of living without deodorant. Why has the bad guy taken 15 years to show his hand? Where are all the hairdressers hiding? Everyone seems surprisingly well coiffured. Except our archetypal fat hacker, natch. And how has that stumbling idiot managed to not lose or break his glasses in fifteen years. Or even just since breakfast. rant tv	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1300
__label__cc	0.703372	0.296628	2/3: Markus Edwards, Docem When the Segar Ta Cardor came to give us restitution and forbearance, I dissolved in gratitude and simply lay within myself, undone and helpless, and entirely at his mercy. An angel he was, and as angel he did manifest; at first, I thought he was an angel of vengeance come to destroy us, delete us, wash away our sins and then, wash us away so that all of that had never been and no-one, no-one at all would so much as remember a whisper of our names. It was excruciating pain, but I welcomed it, for I deserved that and so much more besides for my terrifying failure and the even more terrifying mistakes I had made. I welcomed his judgement hungrily and with desperation, for I could not be what I was and could find no way to absolve myself, dissolve myself, and not be there, responsible for it all. But it was only for a moment that I thought that, that I had that hope of being alleviated in every way, of everything; the shining other stilled all to silence, and then I knew it would all go on, and there would be more, more unfoldments, more pain. Possibly eternally. But there was nothing I could do. I was undone, and I was helpless, and I all I could do was watch as the Segar extended himself to reach and touch Burrows, my potential, my nemesis, the corner stone and catalyst of all this suffering and dissolution. I wanted to cry out to the Segar, beg him not to hurt my potential, beg him to leave him be, to let him go and take me instead; I wanted to plead with him that the potential was in essence still an innocent, and no matter what he had done; that it wasn’t his fault that he was left alone, without direction, without supervision and that he could not have known how to control a union, never even having had experience of one himself, not once. I tried to rouse myself to intervene, but I was too weak and too dissolved, in far too many places all at once and I had no strength left, there was nothing I could do and I could not even turn away, not even phase away so I would not be here and have to know it all, and have to live these things. I wish that I had still some eyes which could be closed; lids that would fall so gently over my burning eyeballs and bring with them, moisture and friendly dark, taking me away from this here and now; I wish I wasn’t here alone, and even though I know it will not help me, I call for my Lady, call for Adela, and of course, she isn’t there. And then, there is nothing left for me to do but to submit. Submit myself to here and now, and to accept what is to happen here in every way and let it be my punishment if it must be. I actively then tune towards the Segar and the one I made and never even knew I did. But what I see astonishes me. The Segar takes a time to make exquisite fine adjustments and he phases into an existence that does resonate the states of being, alien and frightening as well they are, of my potential to a most profound degree. I see him making a most subtle and most complex interlacement with Steve Burrows, that’s his name, his designation is unknown; the Segar shows a range of deep vibrations I have never seen or yet experienced but they do resonate with Burrows, and it is done in deepest care and with a loving hand, and I fall away from that because I realise the Segar is acting in keeping with the Covenant. He is treating Burrows with the same exquisite care of preciousness as would be given to the most beloved of Arada; the Segar is surrounding him, stabilising him, and communicating with him, and all without the slightest hint of union, either way. I feel a further shame descend then upon me and make me even weaker still; how could I have lost trust in our Covenant? Here it is, here it is, alive and in action. The Segar is loving my potential, and in so doing, he is healing him, forgiving him, and saving him and his unfoldments absolutely. When I become conscious again, and manifest again to know and think and to remember, the world is a different place. Time has not shifted significantly; all the material components are still in place very much the way they were after I had first awoken to the screams of the Arada as a one of their gentle circle fell away, and failed to be, and altogether left the realms of our existence. When I had rushed into the Underworld and found my own potential lying face down in a pile of glittering ashes that once had been Xiao Hong, and I failed to recognise him for he was so thoroughly changed by having taken a late stage Arada and made her his own in one fell rushing and without returning the exchange. When all the wailing all around me had begun to crest and crest, higher and higher, further and wider as the community cried out in pain across the times and spaces of unfoldment, and when my Cestra clung to me and screeched into my ears and tore me, ripped me into pieces and all I knew that it had all been of my doing, everything was my fault. When I took Burrows away from what I could not be in the presence of and all of us had hidden in my room and tried to shield ourselves from the accusations and the horror of the situation. I remember it all, and none of it destabilises me now to any great extend. The Segar has healed me, and his work has been exquisite. I am calm, and perfectly aware of everyone, and everything. I kneeling on the floor in my rooms in what had been my Lady Adela’s house. On my left side is Alexandra, and she too is still and receptive. Beside her kneels Satari, open and ready, and on my right, I feel and see Burrows, my potential, ah … He is kneeling just the same as we are, directed forward and to the Segar, who stands before us and now appears as a great man of middle age, strong built, with iron grey hair and bright eyes, wearing a dark blue suit of exquisite cut and material. I understand that the Segar’s appearance is a fine creation that has strands of truth most elegantly interlaced with subtle small adjustments, specially created for Steve Burrows, so that he sees and feels a something here that will make sense and speak to him correctly, and directly, in a way that he can understand. Burrows is a bright flame of many colours. I have never seen anything like that. There is rushing inside of him, a powerful upward draft that is connected not in a communal way but to the very Earth itself? Or to another source of energy? It is confusing, new, different, but then there is also a resonance there – I think, yes, I believe that I saw that in him when first we met. It was deep underground, but the shadow of it … This is the same structure, only the form is more evolved. Whatever Burrows is, he is evolving. He is unfolding. It is fascinating and I am beginning to wonder if … The Segar addresses us all, calmly, and at the multi-level, so that all four of us experience a sense that he is speaking exactly to each one, and them alone, so perfect is his alignment in four very different dimensions, all at the same time. He speaks of times and unfoldments, of certain points where the old folds into the new; where there seems to be uncontrolled chaos but it is only thus because we don’t know or recognise these unfoldments. I nod as he speaks and transmits these knowings, and these truths. The others do the same. The Segar tells us that he is not here to be our Docem; that he cannot guide our various unfoldments, but that he is offering his assistance, what wisdom and strength he has to aid us at this time where all is new and no-one knows what happens next. We instinctively and as one, breathe a sigh of gratitude and of devotion; this makes me aware that the Segar is bonding us, weaving us together, restoring the bonds that must have been damaged or broken completely when all these things had come to pass, and every one of us changed rapidly, in many different directions, like frightened birds will scatter when a hawk appears within their midst. I admire the Segar’s work; I can’t conceive of what it takes to do what he is doing here and now, with such precision and exactitude; so gently and unnoticeably; and though I try and track exactly what it is he is doing, so I might learn from this, I soon become aware that what I notice is less than the smallest tip of an island that reaches far under the sea, far, further than the highest mountain. I breathe out a mist and let it go then; I am no longer sure of my unfoldments but should the Universe decree that it should happen, the day will come and I will be a Segar, I will know what this is from the other side, and from my deepest wells there rises then the pledge and the desire that I should be as pure and radiant and have the Covenant around my shoulders like a royal cloak in that most intimate way this Segar has it with him, a part of him, and this is what is making him so much, and so much more than any of us are or dream that we could be. The Segar looks to me and he smiles; it is a touch of resonance that has the scent of morning mists and first and gentle rays of sunlight over forests, old and deep and it gladdens me, it honours me. A fleeting whisper, intimate and heard by me alone, informs me that I should be steady as my time would come; he will address now one by one, each one of us and help us lay a pathway that will take us out of this and straight into the new, whatever it may be. I bow my head to him, I bow my own self to him in deep respect and deference, and thus he turns and asks Satari to come forward, and to join him in a private consultation to determine what her path should be. Satari looks to me, and I am surprised, amused and a little pleased that even after all that we’d been through, she would still honour me, her Docem. Her small act of respect touches me, and it heals a place that had been left by the Segar’s intervention; it might be that it was a something he had not within his power to bestow, and that it was Satari’s own to give to me. I love her with all my heart, and bless her; she rises, and goes to the Segar without hesitation. He enfolds her in a gentle sphere of safety and intimacy and both phase from this time and place. Ghosts & Galaxies The room, the house and all beyond is quiet. I am clear and lightly balanced; the absence of the Segar has released me in a way and so I rise and flex myself. Steve looks up at me, and his bearing is such that I stop. For all the Segar’s interventions, he is still intensely aware of his great crime and carries it as a burden; for all the Segar’s interventions, he is still intensely uncomfortable in this new that has befallen him. I understand that I alone is now what makes the bridge for him between the then, and now, and that it is me he needs, no matter that I lack the knowledge, power and accomplishments. I nod for I understand this. When Satari acknowledged me, and in so doing, gave me back my rank of Docem in that instance, it was her action that was needed to make the change for me; no Segar, nor an Essem could have done this for me – but my Cestra sister could. So I accept this as a fact and hold out my hand to Burrows, fully manifest and physical in every way. He takes it hesitantly, and I grasp his hand strongly and pull him to his feet. For an instant, he is surprised at my strength, then a tired shadow of smile washes over him and he nods his thanks. He takes a moment to balance himself as well, then he runs his hand through his hair and asks me, “And what now? What’s going to happen to me? To you?” I find it difficult to keep my focus on him as a man, for I can see and feel the fire inside of him, and it is drawing my fascination. With a will, I tune away from that and answer him at his own level, “The Segar told me he will speak with each of us in turn, to help us come to a decision as regards our respective futures.” “Does that include me?” asks Burrows. I nod re-assurance. “Yes, of course it does,” and when that isn’t still quite getting through, I add carefully, “After all, you are still my potential.” Burrows shakes his head and against his will, starts to laugh, a racking, sore laugh that seeks to turn itself into something else, into an outburst of sorrow, but he battles it, forces himself to cough instead. Alexandra moves to him and steps close, then places an arm around his waist; he hesitates, turns to her and she embraces him fully. “It’s alright,” she whispers and her whisper echoes down into the other levels, soothing his disturbances, “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine.” It takes me a moment to realise that she isn’t just saying that in order to stabilise Steve Burrows, but that there is the weight of burden behind that statement that tells me that she believes this to be true. Burrows straightens from the embrace, tries to step back but Alexandra won’t let him go. He is shaking his head. “No,” he says, “It isn’t your fault! How can you say that! It was me who …” I step forward swiftly and with force. “Both of you, be silent,” I command them and that is the first time I have used the power of the Docem to be heard and there be no denying my voice. Burrows and my Cestra freeze in position, then turn to me as one. “I am your Docem. Are you willing to challenge me for the responsibility over these events?” I ask them clearly and with force. Alexandra immediately drops her eyes, lets go of Burrows and bows to me deeply. “No, my Lord Markus,” she whispers. Burrows struggles but he holds my eyes and we do battle in the strangest way, on the strangest level – it is a most peculiar form of union, one of rejection rather than infusion, but a form of union it is, and it is quite enjoyable. We to and fro quite playfully for a time, and finally, Burrows smiles and bows his head and says, “No, my Lord Markus,” but there is no submission whatsoever in that statement, and he has reserved his right to retain his own guilt and responsibility for the events. Still, I am satisfied. I see no problem with him doing that; just as long as he doesn’t take on more than belongs to him by rights, all should be well and the burdens balanced as they should, and easier to bear. I feel the need to get it all out now, to get a movement and I breach the subject and say, “Xiao Hong has gone. This is the reality. We all feel her loss most keenly, and the empty place she leaves in our futures. Each one of us has, in their own way, contributed to these events and that cannot be denied. But I am Docem, and it was in me she placed her trust when she became Arada – not in me as who I am, please understand, but in the institution. I am Docem, and it was my first commandment above all else to protect the Arada, for they cannot protect themselves and place their lives into my hands. Whatever either of you did, or did not do, and yes, that includes you, Steve, it does not compare with my failure to protect Xiao Hong. I would have that be understood by both of you.” Alexandra is open and full of sadness at the remembrance of the beautiful Arada she had tended for all her Cestra life, and who was so much a part of her, and even more so for the smallness and the intimacy of our house as was. She bows in response to my words and says, “I will always carry her with me.” Steve Burrows swallows hard and then he says, “I do carry her with me. I really do …” and then he puts his hands before his face, steps back and lets himself slide to the ground, dissolved in sadness and guilt and something else that I can’t track or trace. I stare at him and I begin to wonder what it might be like, what it would feel like, to take another’s life in all totality and until there was absolutely nothing left of them. I can’t begin to imagine. I am afraid to begin to imagine. I ask him, “What was it like? How did it feel when you … took her?” Burrows shakes his head, still in his hands, and then he looks up at me. He looks exhausted, his body is exhausted even though the fire within is burning as bright as ever, possibly even brighter still. “Do you not know?” he asks hoarsely. Alexandra goes and sits beside him on the floor. Gently, she tells him, “When we do this – we call it the union – we take very carefully, and we give back from within ourselves in exchange, so that a balance is kept. It takes a long time to learn how to do that.” I recognise her words and her demeanour. She is speaking as she would, and she has, to any new potential, to any one who didn’t know about our lives, the Covenant and how we move through our unfoldments with exquisite elegance and grace. It strikes me strangely that I should have never told Steve Burrows all these things, these basic things, nor that I felt he needed to hear them. I might have been confused or mistaken, for Steve turns to Alexandra with attention and with gratitude for the information. He says, “That makes sense. And I guess it explains why it takes so long to make the transformation. Centuries, he told me.” Alexandra nods. “Sometimes, it really does take that long. Not always though. Half a century is about average, but it depends on the circumstances and everyone involved.” Burrows sighs. “And I took all of her in – a moment, in one night?” Alexandra and I are both too stunned by the actuality of this, the reality of this, and the fact that we had never even thought to do a thing like he had done, nor heard of it, in all our times, in all of our instructions and so we don’t respond. Burrows asks uncertainly, “So does that make me one of you now?” I and my Cestra exchange a brief contact and I respond with care, “Not quite yet. There is still the choosing, and the festival.” This isn’t strictly true, however. Steve Burrows will never be one of us. Not ever. To be one of us as he has termed it, the transformation would have needed to proceed in care and gentle, fine unfoldments. I have no idea what he is now, but he isn’t one of us. He is something else and he will never find an entrance as Arada in a house, nor spend his time of dreaming gently, and of learning our ways. And thus, he can’t be Cestra, and he can’t be Docem after that, and then Ferata, Segar, Cardor, Essem … all of these futures do not exist for him, not in the way we know them. This troubles me deeply until I remember what the Segar had told me – he would give his insights and his wisdom to the situation, and he would help me come to a decision, the same as he would help Steve Burrows and my Cestra Alexandra too. “When is the festival?” asks Burrows, “How much time has passed? What is the day? What is the time?” I can tell him at least this much with certainty. “Today is Saturday. It is around midnight and we’ll be entering Sunday soon, so there are three days left to the festival.” “I haven’t eaten anything since this afternoon,” says Burrows and for a moment I am appalled and think he means what happened in the underworld, then I remember that he is still entirely corporeal and that his body has a variety of needs that cannot yet be stilled with the Water Of Life alone. Alexandra and I step into a rapid exchange that is out of his range as yet, at least the details of the communication pass him by even if he knows it is occurring for he can sense this. He is very aware, very aware indeed. Alexandra touches him on the arm and smiles at him. “I will get you something to eat,” she says, “Is there anything special you would like?” Burrows half smiles, half grimaces, shakes his head, then tells her, “I don’t care, as long as it comes with black coffee and sugar. And whiskey. Yeah, I need a drink.” She smiles and nods, then she gets up and is halfway to the door when she turns back, suddenly uncertain again. “May I leave?” she asks outright, and I know she is worried about the Segar. I send her re-assurance and ask her for good speed, and she rushes off so fast, she goes straight through the door without stopping to open it first. “Whoa,” says Burrows, “Man! I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that …” and then, silence descends on the room. I go to my bed and sit down on it, then lie down. Then I release the burden of this tight manifestation to physicality and phase into a more comfortable state, which involves becoming see-through and floating a little way above the physical surface of the bed. I emanate a sense of relief at this state, and Burrows picks it up. From where he is on the other side of the room, he says, “You look like a ghost. Does it feel – nice? To be like that?” Not having a body and being unwilling to go through the trouble of shaping and creating resonances that would produce physical sound, I reach out to him, mesh with him lightly and transmit the experience of my state directly instead. He enjoys this, but the meshing counter-transference gives me a better indication of just how tired he is, how hungry he is, how stressed and how his body is in pain of tension all over. These sensations make me shudder. It has been a long time since I remember feeling likewise, all the time, and now I am no longer used to such extreme levels of discomfort, everywhere, and all the time. I have quite forgotten how hard it used to be … Burrows speaks into my thoughts. “I snuck into your room when you were sleeping,” he says slowly and quietly. “I saw you. You were a galaxy …” and through his eyes, I see myself, the way a human would perceive, and feel his wonder, and his longing. I have never seen myself that way. “Come here,” I send him and he rises, walks across to the bed, hesitates briefly, then lies down carefully without touching my misty shape. That is what he sees, but of course, what I am is spread out far and wide; even on the other side of the room, he is already inside of me, if only he knew that. Perhaps he did. I extinguish the light in the room, then shift across further, and further still, until I rise cleanly and find the threshold of the state of dreaming, but I don’t enter all the way. Burrows looks up at me, and all his tiredness and pain is now forgotten; entirely fascinated, he is watching me, and tracing my unfoldments, minute sparks of everlasting evolution, and at last, he is at peace. From my half dream position on the ceiling, perceiving down of course I sense and now experience the strange conversion, half man and half unknowable existence in a new way and from a different vantage point. He had described me as a galaxy, and there are aspects of that in his system too; there are swirls and interlacements, sparkling river streams that might evoke such an idea, such a description. But that is strictly peripheral to the symphony of fire in his center; what I had perceived to be a column is a disk that spins and that extends in all directions, creating an updraft in its center where it spins fast, very fast indeed; that is the rushing that I felt inside of him. The colours are intense; there are so many strands, so many interlacements but themselves, the colour streams are pure as pure can be, and they are dense, much denser than I’ve ever seen or known, much denser than any kind of colour stream or incidence I can remember even from Adela – the only time I’ve felt something remotely like this was inside the Segar, but even there, it was not nearly as profound and powerful as this. I am drawn to the spiralling fire colours and as I begin to feel a fascination coming to me, and a wish to taste them, touch them so I could learn of their existence, make them a part of me I become aware that these colours in turn are seeking me, that they are under pressure, and that their flow will be a charge, a furious, roaring inferno should I make just the smallest breach or even an attempt at a connection. I hold back then and fight my fascination, fight my hunger for these colours, try to reverse my forward movement but it is already way too late – the colours have existence of their own, they have awareness that I’m here and I cannot now escape – they rise up, all at once, a rainbow curtain of such density and splendour that I lose all sense of this or that and swoop into a forward dive, into acceptance, into union – here I come, here it is, so let it be.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1301
__label__cc	0.728817	0.271183	Sales: 877.304.2278 Client Help Desk Free Assessment The ONE Plan – Unlimited Managed IT Services IntegriTALK – Video, Voice Messaging Austin, TX – Headquarters Boulder / Denver, CO Partners in Performance Is Business Headed for a Cognitive-First Future? March 16, 2018 \| By Seth Mayland As the world generates more and more data — at a clip of 2.5 quintillion bytes each day — it simultaneously struggles to manage it. With humans unable to manually process such large amounts of data and analyze its implications, the business world has to turn to machines to take on some of the load. Smart machines can transform data points into patterns and insights; imbuing these machines with human knowledge and allowing them to “learn” from the additional information they gather can speed up the computations needed by businesses. Cognitive machines aren’t just reactive, however. With enough data, they can anticipate problems, suggest solutions, and carry them out without human intervention. Cognitive predictive maintenance for the Industrial Internet of Things, an arena in which machines detect failures in other machines, is poised to influence whole industries. Empowering machines to perform unsupervised (or partially supervised) techniques to identify equipment failures quickly and accurately will save money for businesses. From preventing downtime to freeing up employee time for higher-level issues, cognitive predictive maintenance will revolutionize how enterprises handle asset management. Thy Machine’s Will Be Done Cognitive predictive maintenance uses sensors and artificial intelligence to monitor operations of complex systems, giving early warning in the form of anomaly detection. This early detection can help address minor issues before they turn into more serious problems. Deep reinforcement learning, a component of many cognitive predictive maintenance systems, uses algorithms to determine which pieces of information — gathered from resources such as manuals and operator notes or through real-time happenings — are relevant. Combining these with feedback received from a company’s techs, these autonomous solutions will create a library of knowledge without human input — beyond the manual feedback, of course. “The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is unlocking new possibilities for asset-intensive industries. … Sadly, almost 85 percent of these industries let this data sourced from trillions of data points go unused,” explain the experts at DataRPM, a Progress company, considered a cognitive disruptor in the IIoT maintenance space. “Only the remaining 15 percent possess the capabilities to derive insights from the limited data sourced from a select few sensors. This leads to building generalized models that encompass only a few assets, which are then extrapolated to the entire asset population.” And that’s a big deal: DataRPM has calculated that a 1 percent improvement in productivity across the manufacturing industry can result in $500 million in annual savings. Predicting anomalies can result in a 70 percent elimination of breakdowns, the firm says. With McKinsey predicting the IoT industry will have an economic impact of approximately $11 trillion by 2025, that’s a lot of potential money left on the table without cognitive-first processes. Which Industries Will Benefit? The saying that “data is the new oil” has gained momentum in recent years, and even the oil industry should feel that way. It’s one of a handful of industries that stand to quickly benefit from cognitive predictive maintenance. Oil and gas. With decades-old pipelines, old technology, and dangerous terrain, the oil and gas industry is ripe for machine intervention. Its outsized impact on the environment underscores the importance of predicting failures before they happen. Updated sensors and data analysis can result in not only avoided tragedies, but also 10 percent cost savings through enhanced performance. Manufacturing. Factories are constantly on the lookout for ways to improve their analytics and equipment effectiveness. Cognitive predictive maintenance can help with both these areas, as well as with conducting cognitive visual inspections. Deloitte’s findings suggest that cognitive predictive maintenance helps manufacturing equipment achieve more than 90 percent effectiveness. Automotive. Just like other manufacturing arenas, automotive companies are searching for ways to increase the uptime of their assembly lines and decrease malfunctions and subsequent recalls. Although only 8 percent of automotive manufacturers currently use cognitive predictive maintenance, these companies could save more than $1 million per day by issuing recalls sooner. Aviation. Unsurprisingly, nearly every transportation and logistics industry can benefit from cognitive-first solutions, and aviation’s tight regulations, safety concerns, and replacement schedules make cognitive predictive maintenance a perfect fit. With an aircraft like the A350-900 costing nearly $305 million, it’s clear that downtime for any part of an airline’s fleet can be devastating. Cognitive predictive maintenance can help airlines take care of problems before they need to ground flights. Energy and utilities. With the environment and climate changing rapidly, extreme weather power outages doubled between 2003 and 2012; extreme weather is considered the culprit behind 80 percent of outages. In a society becoming further chained to the internet and machines on a daily basis, energy and utility companies would do well to adopt cognitive predictive maintenance, which can help them predict and manage blackouts and brownouts before they happen. Producing enormous amounts of data means we also need to build systems that can absorb and use that data. Industries that need to process such data before major problems occur likely have a cognitive-first future ahead of them, led by machines smart enough to fix what isn’t yet broken. The post Is Business Headed for a Cognitive-First Future? appeared first on ReadWrite. As the world generates more and more data — at a clip of 2.5 quintillion bytes each day — it simultaneously struggles to manage it. With humans unable to manually process such large amounts of data and analyze its implications, the business world has to turn to machines to take on some of the load. Smart… Read more » Why Atlanta Companies Need Managed IT Services Are Your Employees Putting Your Company’s Cyber Security At Risk? Why Colorado Businesses Need Multi-Factor Authentication VoIP for California Business: Why Businesses Are Adopting VoIP How To Choose the Right IT Company for Your Manufacturing Business Tell us about your business and we’ll put our solutions to work for you. Integritek © 2020. All Rights Reserved.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1306
__label__wiki	0.683582	0.683582	Fulfilment & Logistics TOP 50 PEOPLE IN E-COMMERCE 2019 9 mistakes in ecommerce platform selection Black Friday shifts spending during Michael Hill’s Q2 Jeanswest enters voluntary administration due to online pressure Subscribe / Log in You are currently not logged in Myer turns up the tech this Christmas Heather McIlvaine #Myer Myer once again has launched a technology-fuelled Christmas campaign, with this year’s campaign including a bluetooth-enabled stocking and online hub where Aussie kids can write a letter to Santa, create a wish list (which parents can share with friends and family) and track the whereabouts of Santa on Christmas Eve. The “Christmas is where we are” campaign launched on Sunday with a TV spot featuring “Sally”, a girl who is worried how Santa will find her, since her family has decided to go camping over Christmas. Myer, together with creative agency Clemenger BBDO, answered that question with its Myer Global Positioning Stocking, a $34.95 bluetooth-enabled stocking that can be paired with a mobile device via the Myer Connect app. Once connected, users can access an interactive map where they can create a wish list, which can be shared with friends and family, write a letter to Santa and track Santa’s whereabouts on Christmas Eve. The campaign follows Myer’s first foray into tech-fuelled Christmas ads, with its “Naughty or Nice” baubles last year. Customers could connect the $20 baubles via the Myer app and see if they glowed red or green, depending whether they were on Santa’s naughty or nice list. The baubles reportedly sold out in 11 days, according to Ad News, and Clemenger BBDO said it would look to use the data gathered through the campaign for re-marketing. The launch of 2019 campaign is just the beginning of Myer’s Christmas push, according to chief customer officer Geoff Ikin. “You will see over the coming weeks our Christmas campaign come to life – with the launch of our Giftoriums, Santalands and iconic Christmas windows – which positions Myer as the one-stop-shop for Christmas this year,” he said in a statement. Myer launches six second sale on YouTube Myer looks to the past in new marketing campaign Logistics & Fulfilment Courier business turns to crowdsourcing to handle Christmas demand © Internet Retailing 2019 Designed by Emote Digital	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1308
__label__wiki	0.835491	0.835491	Joe’s Desk Kathleen’s Korner About Joe Miller Walmart Announces That It Will No Longer Sell Ammunition for ‘Military-Style’ Rifles or Allow Open Carry in Its Stores September 3, 2019 /0 Comments/in Alaska News, Featured /by Nate Madden One of the nation’s largest retailers is making some drastic changes to its policies on guns and ammunition following high-profile shootings over the summer, one of which occurred at its stores. In a memo circulated to employees on Tuesday, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon announced that the company would no longer sell handgun ammunition or “short-barrel rifle ammunition” like .223 and 5.56 NATO caliber “that, while commonly used in some hunting rifles, can also be used in large capacity clips on military-style weapons.” Now the Arkansas-based company will focus on long-barrel hunting rifles and their corresponding ammunition, its CEO added. “We have a long heritage as a company of serving responsible hunters and sportsmen and women, and we’re going to continue doing so,” McMillon said. “We’ve also been listening to a lot of people inside and outside our company as we think about the role we can play in helping to make the country safer,” McMillon added. “It’s clear to us that the status quo is unacceptable.” In addition to the inventory changes, the company will also ask that customers no longer openly carry their guns in its stores unless they are members of law enforcement. “We believe the opportunity for someone to misinterpret a situation, even in open carry states, could lead to tragic results,” CEO Doug McMillon said in a memo distributed to employees on Tuesday. “We hope that everyone will understand the circumstances that led to this new policy and will respect the concerns of their fellow shoppers and our associates.” However, the executive explained, “As it relates to concealed carry by customers with permits, there is no change to our policy or approach.” The company will also stop selling handguns in Alaska, the only state where it still does so, “marking our complete exit from handguns.” Walmart has previously said that its share of the national ammunition sales market was around 20 percent. Tuesday’s memo estimated that the change will bring the company’s share to somewhere between 6 and 9 percent. As the reason for the changes, the memo cites the early August shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, as well as another incident at a Walmart store in Southaven, Mississippi, where authorities say one employee fatally shot two coworkers. It also mentions shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and this past weekend’s attack in Midland and Odessa, Texas. “We know these decisions will inconvenience some of our customers, and we hope they will understand,” McMillon wrote. “As a company, we experienced two horrific events in one week, and we will never be the same.” Walmart has made decisions to scale back its gun and ammunition offerings before. The company began its exit from the handgun business in 1993 and stopped selling AR-style modern sporting rifles in 2015. (For more from the author of “Walmart Announces That It Will No Longer Sell Ammunition for ‘Military-Style’ Rifles or Allow Open Carry in Its Stores” please click HERE) Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE Tags: gun control, WalMart https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/weapons-rifles-rifle-ammo-30447.jpg 533 800 Joe Miller https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png Joe Miller2019-09-03 17:29:502019-09-03 17:25:12Walmart Announces That It Will No Longer Sell Ammunition for ‘Military-Style’ Rifles or Allow Open Carry in Its Stores Video: Obama is going to impose gun control by treaty . . . on July 27? Video: Larry Pratt hammers Obama for trying to violate Constitution with UN Gun Control Treaty Video: NYC Mayor encourages police to not protect public until gun control is enacted Must watch video: What happens when a nation bans guns CNN's Fareed Zakaria’s show suspended after being exposed for plagiarism Obama: The Best Thing That Ever Happened to the US Gun Industry Click, Shop & Support RL Here: Click, Sign-up & Support RL Here: Copyright © 2004 - 2019 Joe Miller. All rights reserved. Developed by The Liberty Lab Millionaire Thought to Have Key Info on Epstein Vanishes ‘Without a Trace’:... Trump Immigration Chief Calls out Maryland Sanctuary County as Illegal Alien... Stay informed about news that affects your liberty!	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1315
__label__wiki	0.82616	0.82616	Buffy The Vampire Slayer Reviews: Dead Man's Party Dead Man's Party continues to sort out the mess left behind by Buffy at the end of Season Two. It's by no means an easy process, neither for Buffy, or to be honest, this reviewer. Maybe Anne wasn't the opening season hullapalooza that it could have been, but in comparison to Dead Man's Party, it's an almighty classic. At its simplest, Dead Man's Party is a bog-standard zombie takeover movie. It's the sort of thing you may catch on Channel 5 at about 1am in the morning, a real straight-to-video sort of deal. The crux of the plot involves an ugly mask that somehow has the power of a demon called Mobani to animate corpses and then summon the walking dead to put the mask on and become the demon incarnate. Even a dead, mangy cat found in the cellar comes back to life of its own accord and proves that in Sunnydale, kids won't be crying for too long over their late, lamented pets. There's nothing especially wrong with the plot. By Buffy The Vampire Slayer's standards, it's routine fare, but in theory, this episode could have been a passable 45 minute popcorn fest that wouldn't have been particularly offensive. Regrettably, the zombie stuff takes a back seat to lots of hand-wringing, tedious domestic dramas between Buffy and her friends and mother. The worst part of all of this is that hardly any of them seem to be in character. Joyce, Xander and even Willow seem hell-bent on ganging up on Buffy and humiliating her in front of a pack of strangers. Nothing says welcome home like a bit of verbal public abuse – the biggest issue I have is that the characterisation is completely off beam. It's poorly written and contrived to make Buffy feel as little as possible. The writer responsible for this nonsense is Marti Noxon, who had proven to be one of the real writing finds of the previous season, turning in greats such as Surprise and I Only Have Eyes For You. On occasion, however, Noxon falls into the trap of forcing the characterisation to meet the requirements of the plot – a bit like wedging a square peg into a round hole with a pair of rusty pliers. It's the sort of problem that blights stories such as Wild At Heart and Wrecked, in which series regulars act wildly out of character in order to fit in with the direction of the story. Dead Man's Party is arguably the worst example of this – the normally likeable regulars have evidently been spirited away temporarily to be replaced by a clutch of judgemental, holier-than-thou bullies. Maybe the Mobani demon's been working its mojo in secret. It doesn't help that the gang choose to welcome Buffy back with a great big party – or hootenanny as Oz calls it. Instead of working through problems over a quiet dinner, the Scoobies, for no good reason, decide to invite an army of nobodies that wouldn't know Buffy from Adam. Some random stoner guy takes a puff on a joint and grunts “This party? Heard it was for some chick that just got out of rehab” when asked by his friend who the shindig's for. Buffy can't even communicate with her friends, since she's battling against the ungodly din of the ubiquitous Dingoes Ate My Baby, Sunnydale's very own bargain basement version of Third Eye Blind. All in all, Giles' suggestion of a smelly cheese gathering would make for a far more enjoyable time, despite the putrid whiff of unwashed socks. What rankles about this episode is two things. One is the fact that no one behaves in character. Fair enough, Xander's sometimes prone to immature outbursts, but here he's pompously throwing insults and judgements around like Frisbees. “You stop acting like an idiot, I'll stop annoying you!” he bellows before Oz steps in like the referee at a boxing match. Joyce, meanwhile, elects to get drunk and chooses the worst possible moment to confront her daughter. While Joyce has a point (“Buffy, you didn't give me time. You just dumped this thing on me and you expected me to get it. Well, guess what? Mom's not perfect, OK? I handled it badly.”), the way in which she verbally browbeats Buffy in front of a big audience isn't the way in which she'd normally go about things – surely her dignified talk in Passion would have been a better template? And then there's Willow. Or not, as the case may be. Conveniently missing an appointment for a bit of shopping or mishearing at the party, it's impossible to reconcile the usually sympathetic Willow with the whiny, self-absorbed imposter that we get in Dead Man's Party. “I'm having all sorts of...,” she bleats. “I'm dating, I'm having serious dating with a werewolf, a-and I'm studying witchcraft and killing vampires, and I didn't have anyone to talk to about all this scary life stuff. And you were my best friend.” Instead of sitting down with her best friend, Willow spends the whole party in denial and then accuses Buffy of being a bad friend. While Buffy isn't the innocent party by any means, it's out of character for Willow to not even give her the opportunity to explain herself. The other thing that rankles is the sudden swing in mood. One minute, her friends are all “It's great to have the Buffster back”, the next minute they're ripping Buffy to shreds. And then all of a sudden, they're working in perfect harmony as soon as a group of grunting zombies gatecrash the party. The tone of the piece jars wildly every few minutes – by the end of the story, the Scoobies are all hugging and kissing and making up just like that. I guess it's amazing what a masked demon can do for fragile friendships. On that note, the Demon Of The Week isn't the most memorable. On the up side, it takes on the form of Joyce's annoying friend Pat, a woman who has a neat line in patronising put-downs and clothes that look like they should belong in a curtain shop from 1972. It's a good thing Pat was never made a regular – she would have sorely tried the patience of even the toughest Buffy viewer, turning up every alternate week with a box full of half-cooked empadas and a voice box full of belittling baby talk. Pat the Mobani demon is reasonably well achieved, with a good, creepy mask face and a deep horror movie announcer voice. Her death is appropriately grim as Buffy plunges a great big spade through her eyes and into her skull. What is it with eyes on Buffy? The opticians would have a field day in Sunnydale. Plus, as a neat prelude to Xander's grisly fate in Dirty Girls, Buffy even comments: “Didn't anyone ever warn you about playing with pointy sticks? It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye.” Maybe it's belated payback for the way in which Xander treats Buffy this episode. It's a shame, since normally the regulars are some of the most likeable, witty and entertaining characters you'll ever find on TV. About the only one to emerge with some small scrap of dignity this time around is Giles. His reaction to Buffy's return is wonderfully handled – while Buffy's friends talk with her in his lounge, Giles quietly slips into the kitchen and momentarily breaks into what looks like a teary smile of pure relief before composing himself and heading back to join the others. See? That's the way to treat your characters, and also his wonderful quip of “'Do you like my mask? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead(!) Americans!” earns the Line Of The Episode Award. Giles also gets to play the hero at the end by taking on a smug Snyder who's still insisting that he has grounds for expelling Buffy. “You're powerful in local circles, but I believe I can make life very difficult for you, professionally speaking,” he says with a touch of Ripper in his manner. “And Buffy will be allowed back in.” Again, Giles is taking on more of a parental role, something that will be seen again more than once this season in stories like Faith Hope And Trick and Helpless. To their credit, all the regular cast manage gamely with some of the off-kilter dialogue thrown their way. The direction isn't too bad, especially for the zombies coming back to life outside police cars or on operating tables. Christophe Beck's score is quite atmospheric too, although the melodramatic choral gurning doesn't work at all. One of the weaker Buffy episodes, Dead Man's Party proves that without good characterisation, all you're left with is bog-standard melodrama and a sour aftertaste. Marti Noxon's script contains flashes of inspiration (“In fact, I noticed as I came in this morning that Hot Dog on a Stick is hiring. You will look so cute in that hat!”), but overall, it's one of her weaker efforts. The regular characters are made to become unlikeable just for the sake of driving forward the plot of Buffy's return – and with little consistency, come to that. The zombie plot isn't interesting or original enough to compensate for this, and while it's well made and acted, Dead Man's Party only contains fleeting glimpses of the freewheeling inspiration that most Buffy episodes possess in spades. Fortunately, better things lurk around the corner.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1316
__label__wiki	0.646598	0.646598	Dysregulated Nephrin in Diabetic Nephropathy of Type 2 Diabetes: A Cross Sectional Study Belinda Jim , * E-mail: bun.jim@nbhn.net Affiliation Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Jacobi Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, United States of America Mythili Ghanta, Andi Qipo, Ying Fan, Affiliation Department of Nephrology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai, China Peter Y. Chuang, Affiliation Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America Hillel W. Cohen, Affiliation Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, United States of America Maria Abadi, Affiliation Department of Pathology, Jacobi Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, United States of America David B. Thomas, Affiliation Nephrocor, Uniondale, New York, United States of America John Cijiang He Affiliations Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America, Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine Bronx, James J. Peters VA Medical Center, New York, United States of America Belinda Jim, Belinda Jim Mythili Ghanta ... John Cijiang He Podocyte specific proteins are dysregulated in diabetic nephropathy, though the extent of their expression loss is not identical and may be subject to different regulatory factors. Quantifying the degree of loss may help identify the most useful protein to use as an early biomarker of diabetic nephropathy. Methodology/Principal Findings Protein expression of synaptopodin, podocin and nephrin were quantified in 15 Type 2 diabetic renal biopsies and 12 control patients. We found statistically significant downregulation of synaptopodin (P<0.0001), podocin (P = 0.0002), and nephrin (P<0.0001) in kidney biopsies of diabetic nephropathy as compared with controls. Urinary nephrin levels (nephrinuria) were then measured in 66 patients with Type 2 diabetes and 10 healthy controls by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Exocell, Philadelphia, PA). When divided into groups according to normo-, micro-, and macroalbuminuria, nephrinuria was found to be present in 100% of diabetic patients with micro- and macroalbuminuria, as well as 54% of patients with normoalbuminuria. Nephrinuria also correlated significantly with albuminuria (rho = 0.89, p<0.001), systolic blood pressure (rho = 0.32, p = 0.007), and correlated negatively with serum albumin (rho = −0.48, p<0.0001) and eGFR (rho = −0.33, p = 0.005). Conclusions/Significance These data suggest that key podocyte-specific protein expressions are significantly and differentially downregulated in diabetic nephropathy. The finding that nephrinuria is observed in a majority of these normoalbuminuric patients demonstrates that it may precede microalbuminuria. If further research confirms nephrinuria to be a biomarker of pre-clinical diabetic nephropathy, it would shed light on podocyte metabolism in disease, and raise the possibility of new and earlier therapeutic targets. Citation: Jim B, Ghanta M, Qipo A, Fan Y, Chuang PY, Cohen HW, et al. (2012) Dysregulated Nephrin in Diabetic Nephropathy of Type 2 Diabetes: A Cross Sectional Study. PLoS ONE 7(5): e36041. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036041 Editor: Michael E. Boulton, University of Florida, United States of America Received: November 15, 2011; Accepted: March 28, 2012; Published: May 17, 2012 Copyright: © 2012 Jim et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: Dr. JC He is funded by the VA Merit Award and NIH 1R01 DK078897. This publication was supported in part by the Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) Grant UL1 RR025750, KL2 RR025749 and TL1 RR025748 from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and NIH roadmap for Medical Research. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessary represent the official view of the NCRR or NIH. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: DBT is employed by Nephrocor. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. Diabetes affecting the kidney, or diabetic nephropathy (DN), affects approximately one third of patients with either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes mellitus [1]. Given the epidemic of new patients projected to have diabetes by year 2050, the prevalence of DN will rise just as dramatically [1]. Thus, the only feasible way to tackle this health care crisis is by prevention of disease with early detection. Small amounts of albumin in the urine, or microalbuminuria is the current early biomarker. However, its association with progression to renal failure is unclear, as microalbuminuria does not always lead to progressive renal failure [2]. Furthermore, it is found in other disease states such as urinary tract infection [3] and hemodynamic stress (exercise, fever, congestive heart failure) [4], [5]. We now know that much of the early inciting events stem from podocyte pathology. The podocyte is a specialized visceral epithelial cell that helps to establish the glomerular filtration barrier and prevents protein loss, along with the glomerular basement membrane and the endothelial cell layer. Occurrence of podocytopenia (decreased number) and podocyturia (podocytes in urine) in DN are well established [6]–[8]. Podocyte loss initiates the process of glomerulosclerosis by accelerating synechiae between podocytes and the glomerular basement membrane. Both the highly specialized cytoskeleton and its complex slit diaphragm contribute to the glomerular filtration barrier. Derangement of either aspect leads to proteinuria [9]–[11]. In DN, altered expression of podocyte specific proteins such as synaptopodin [12], podocin [13]–[15] and nephrin have been described [16]–[18]. Synaptopodin, a proline rich protein, directly interacts with the α-actinin-induced actin filaments. Downregulation of synaptopodin expression leads to structural and functional changes such as loss of stress fibers, aberrant formation of filopodia, and impaired cell migration [19], [20]. Nephrin and podocin, on the other hand, are slit-diaphragm associated proteins. Nephrin, being a transmembrane protein with an extracellular and intracellular domain, forms the scaffolding of the podocyte slit diaphragm. It is linked to the actin cytoskeleton via podocin and CD2AP. These proteins not only characterize the differentiated phenotype of the podocyte but have also been identified to have functional characteristics as they interact with the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway to maintain functional integrity [21]. Mutation of either protein can result in foot process effacement and massive proteinuria [22], [23]. Given their dysregulation in DN, podocytes and their specific proteins pose as attractive candidates as either diagnostic or predictor biomarkers of disease. Patari et al. has described presence of nephrin in the urines of Type I diabetic patients even in the absence of microalbuminuria [24], while Nakamura et al. discovered urinary podocytes only in patients with micro- and macroalbuminuria, not normoalbuminuria [8]. However, there is little information in Type 2 diabetic patients, which make up the majority of patients who progress to end-stage renal disease. In the current study, we investigated the morphologic alterations of podocyte-specific proteins in DN biopsies from patients with Type 2 diabetes and found significant downregulation of synaptopodin, podocin and nephrin expression in the diabetic group as compared to controls. Given the availability of a reliable method of quantifying nephrin in the urine (nephrinuria), we measured its levels in diabetic patients and found that it was detected in 54% of normoalbuminuric patients, suggesting its potential role as an early biomarker. Our goal is to study the expression of podocyte specific proteins in renal biopsies of Type 2 diabetic patients, and then to select the most downregulated protein as a marker for early detection of renal disease. Biopsy samples. Study samples consisted of kidney biopsies of 15 DN patients that were obtained at Jacobi Medical Center in Bronx, New York, USA and archived at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York, New York, USA. Indications for biopsy included: presence of nephrotic syndrome without retinopathy, unexplained acute kidney injury, or presence of hematuria. All clinical data at time of biopsy were retrieved from electronic medical records at Jacobi Medical Center. Twelve control biopsies consisted of normal kidney tissue from tumor nephrectomies. This study has been approved by the Internal Review Board of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Urine collection. Patients were selected from the outpatient nephrology clinic at Jacobi Medical Center. A one-time random urine sample was collected by the clean catch method on all study and control subjects. Inclusion criteria for study patients were: history of type 2 diabetes, absence of another renal or urinary tract disease, and absence of pregnancy. There were no exclusion criteria based on race, age, or gender. Diabetic patients were categorized as having normoalbuminuria when urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR) <30 mg/g, microalbuminuria when UACR was between 30 and 300 mg/g, and macroalbuminuria when UACR was >300 mg/g. All control subjects were healthy volunteers from the medical staff with no history of diabetes, hypertension, or renal disease. Demographic and clinical data were recorded, including age, sex, weight, height, medications, blood pressure, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), serum creatinine, HbA1C, random urine albumin, urine creatinine, and urine protein. All clinical laboratories values were measured at the Department of Clinical Laboratories at Jacobi Medical Center. Estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was calculated by the 4-variable Modification of Diet in Renal Disease study equation [25]. This study has been approved by the Internal Review Board of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Description of Procedures or Investigations undertaken Immunohistochemistry. Paraffin-embedded tissues sections were deparaffinized in microwave oven for 3 minutes. The sections were rehydrated in graded series of xylene and alcohols. Endogenous peroxidase activity was blocked by 3% hydrogen peroxide in distilled water for 15 minutes. Antigen retrieval was achieved by steam heating in a solution of citrate buffer, pH 6.0 for 30 minutes. Sections were blocked with 10% normal horse serum for monoclonal antibodies and 10% normal goat serum for polyclonal antibodies. Sections were then incubated overnight with primary antibodies monoclonal mouse anti-human synaptopodin antibody (1∶20) (gift of Dr. Peter Mundel), polyclonal rabbit anti-human podocin antibody (1∶1000) (gift of Dr. Peter Mundel), monoclonal mouse anti-human nephrin antibody (1∶50) (gift of Dr. Karl Tryggvason), and polyclonal rabbit anti-human nephrin antibody (1∶200) (Enzo Life Sciences Inc., Farmingdale, NY) at 4°C. Horse anti-mouse IgG and goat anti-rabbit IgG (Dako Inc. Carpinteria, CA) were used as secondary antibodies (1∶1000) for 30 minutes. The sections were then incubated in avidin-biotin complex at 1∶25 dilution (Vector Labs, Burlingame, CA) and developed using diaminobenzidine (DAB) as chromogen. After washing, the sections were counter-stained with hematoxylin and coverslipped. Negative controls were carried out by incubation in the absence of the primary antibody. Morphometry. Areas of positive DAB staining as a percentage of the entire glomerulus were calculated using the ImageJ software (US National Institutes of Health) for each glomerulus in the biopsy sample. Subsequently, a mean value of positive DAB staining was calculated based on the number of glomeruli for each biopsy sample. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Urinary nephrin was determined by a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, using polyclonal antibodies against the extracellular domain (amino acids 23–322) of human nephrin (Exocell Inc., Philadelphia, PA). The assay was performed by Exocell Inc. according to manufacturer's instructions. Briefly, urine samples were diluted in the range of 1∶10 to 1∶500 (depending on degree of proteinuria in urines sample). A 50-µl diluted sample was added to each well already coated with rat nephrin followed by the addition of a 50-µl of rabbit anti-nephrin antibody for an incubation of 60 minutes at room temperature. Plates were washed followed by the incubation with 100-µl of anti-rabbit HRP conjugate to each well for 60 minutes. After plates were washed and color developed, absorbance was read at 450 nm. Elevated levels of urinary nephrin or nephrinuria was defined as urine nephrin-creatinine ratio (UNCR) (mg/g) ≥0.1 mg/g. This value was based on 10 healthy controls who consistently exhibited UNCR <0.1 mg/g. Archival human kidney biopsies and random urine samples were collected at Jacobi Medical Center, Bronx, New York as part of exempted protocols “Differential Protein Expression in Nephrotic Diseases” and “Analysis of Urinary Proteins in Nephrotic Syndrome”, both of which were approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Since all clinical data were de-identified, no consent was required. Statistical methods (if applicable) Analyses were performed comparing study and control biopsies and also between 4 groups defined as normal controls (no diabetes), normo-, micro-, and macroalbuminuria. Categorical variables were presented as percentage while continuous variables were presented as median (interquartile range) or mean ± standard deviation (SD) if normality assumptions were not substantially violated. Differences between mean rank expression of proteins between study and control biopsies were calculated using Mann-Whitney test. Difference in UNCR between groups was determined Kruskal-Wallis. Spearman correlations were calculated to assess trend for continuous variables and Chi-square was used to assess associations of categorical variables. Both UACR and UNCR were log transformed for graphical depiction. Analyses were performed with STATA Version 8.2 and GraphPad Prism Version 5.0 for Windows software and results were considered statistically significant if P<0.05. Synaptopodin, podocin, and nephrin expression are significantly decreased in DN as compared to controls Clinical characteristics of diabetic and control patients are summarized in Table 1. Of the 15 biopsies, 14 had pathologic findings of moderate to severe nodular diabetic glomerulosclerosis, the remaining included 1 with diffuse diabetic glomerulosclerosis with extensive global glomerulosclerosis. All biopsies showed evidence of both arteriosclerosis and arteriolosclerosis, and 12 biopsies had tubular atrophy and interstitial fibrosis. All but 2 of the diabetic biopsy patients had nephrotic range proteinuria. Control biopsies revealed intense linear staining of synaptopodin, podocin and nephrin in podocytes along the capillary walls (Fig. 1A, E, I). Diabetic biopsies, on the other hand, demonstrated granular, discontinuous staining with areas of absent expression of synaptopodin, podocin, and nephrin (using antibody from Enzo LifeSciences, Inc.) (Fig. 1B, F, J). Consistent results were found when nephrin antibody from Dr. Karl Tryggvason was used (data not shown). When quantified, synaptopodin, podocin, and nephrin expression were significantly decreased in DN, despite exhibiting glomerulomegaly, as compared with control biopsies (Fig. 1D, H, L). Negative controls without administration of primary antibody is represented for each antibody (1, C, G, K). Figure 1. Synaptopodin, podocin, and nephrin are significantly downregulated in diabetic nephropathy (DN) as compared to controls (Con). Representative staining of synaptopodin in Con (A), DN (B), podocin in Con (E) and DN (F), and nephrin in Con (I) and DN (J). Negative controls without administration of primary antibody are represented for synaptopodin (C), podocin (G), and nephrin (K). Quantification of synaptopodin (D), podocin (H), and nephrin (L) positive area per glomerular tuft in Con (12 patients) and DN (15 patients). Horizontal lines represent the median value. *Number of DN biopsies for nephrin was 11 due to lack of remaining tissue. Table 1. Clinical characteristics of control and Type 2 diabetic nephropathy patients. Nephrinuria detected in patients with normoalbuminuria We subsequently measured urinary nephrin in 66 diabetic patients of all chronic kidney disease (CKD) stages and levels of albuminuria and compared them to 10 healthy control subjects. Clinical characteristics are summarized in Table 2. There were 26 patients with normoalbuminuria, 11 patients with microalbuminuria, and 29 patients with macroalbuminuria. A significant difference in median urine nephrin-to-creatinine ratio (UNCR) was observed between control subjects and all diabetic categories (p<0.0001) (Table 2). In addition, nephrinuria was detected in 54% of normoalbuminuric patients. UNCR also did not differ significantly from those treated and those not treated with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers amongst subgroups of normo-, micro-, and macroalbuminuria (p = 0.68, 0.62, and 0.32 respectively). We found the highest correlation between UNCR levels with albuminuria (rho = 0.89, p<0.001), serum creatinine (rho = 0.43, p = 0.0002), BUN (rho = 0.37, p = 0.001) and systolic blood pressure (rho = 0.32, p = 0.007) (Table 3). UNCR showed negative correlations with serum albumin (rho = −0.48, p<0.0001) and eGFR (rho = −0.33, p = 0.005) (Table 3). UNCR also correlated in subgroups of microalbuminuric (rho = 0.66, p = 0.02) and macroalbuminuric (rho = 0.82, p<0.001) patients (Figure 2). The correlation in normoalbuminuic patients (rho = 0.34, p = 0.09) was not significant despite a trend in that direction. Figure 2. Correlations between urine nephrin-to-creatinine ratio (UNCR) and clinical markers of renal disease. A) Log transformed UNCR correlates significantly with macroalbuminuria (rho = 0.82, p<0.0001) and microalbuminuria (rho = 0.66, p = 0,02), and not significantly with normoalbuminuria (rho = 0.34, p = 0.09) when divided into groups according to level of albuminuria. Table 2. Clinical parameters of control and type 2 diabetic patients. Table 3. Correlations of urine nephrin-creatinine ratio (UNCR) with clinical parameters. Our results substantiated the dysregulated podocyte phenotype in human DN and quantified expressions of synaptopodin, podocin and nephrin in all Type 2 diabetic biopsies. Decreased expression of protein and mRNA levels has been described in podocyte-associated molecules in both animal models [26]–[29] and human subjects of DN [12], [13], [16]–[18], [30], [31]. Though significant decreased expression of these podocyte-specific proteins may have been anticipated, we found that the extent of loss is not identical, i.e. these three biomarkers are not interchangeable, suggesting that they have different regulatory factors. For instance, synaptopodin is susceptible to cleavage by cathepsin L, a lysosomal enzyme that is induced in DN [19], [32]. Cathepsin L also cleaves the GTPase dynamin, which has been shown to be essential for podocyte function [32]. Whether podocin or nephrin are as vulnerable is unknown at this time. Furthermore, nephrin may be unique in that it modulates the podocyte's response to insulin. Coward et al. has shown that podocytes that are nephrin deficient results in at state of insulin resistance [33]. Interrupting the fusion of glucose transporters GLUT4 and GLUT1 to the plasma cell membrane when nephrin is absent appears to be the mechanism [33]. There also exists evidence that when podocytes in cell cultures are treated with angiotensin and glycated albumin (insults relevant to diabetes), there is shedding of extracellular domain of the nephrin molecule from podocyte cell surface into the urinary space [17]. Interestingly, insulin resistance in the podocyte alone is adequate to achieve signs of DN, as demonstrated in a knock out mouse model of insulin receptor deficiency under normoglycemia [34]. Therefore, the diabetic milieu may represent a vicious cycle of hyperglycemia, nephrin loss, podocyte insulin resistance, exacerbated hyperglycemia resulting in a severe DN phenotype. That nephrinuria is seen in early disease (in 54% of patients with normoalbuminuria) and increases in overt disease (macroalbuminuria) supports a previous finding by Patari et al. who had described nephrinuria in one-third of diabetic patients with normoalbuminuria [24]. In contrast to Patari et al., however, is our report of a significant correlation between nephrinuria and albuminuria. Patari et al. has described the presence of similar levels of nephrinuria in all stages of albuminuria, i.e. normo-, micro-, newly discovered micro-, and macroalbuminuria. However, their method of detection for nephrinuria was via Western blotting, which showed either the presence or absence of nephrin fragments. They used an antibody that detected parts of the intra- and extracellular domains of nephrin (amino acids 1031–1055 and 1096–1215). Since the level of nephrinuria was not quantified, it is not immediately obvious whether there would have been an association with albuminuria. We, on the other hand, employed the ELISA method which used an antibody that detected the extracellular domain of nephrin (amino acids 23–322) which allowed for quantification of nephrinuria. Thus it is difficult to compare our results from those of Patari et al. as methodologies of nephrin measurement were different. Nephrinuria has also shown a significant association with lower eGFR among normoalbuminuric patients in a Chinese population, suggesting that these patients are at risk of developing renal insufficiency [35]. Interestingly, a recent study by Zheng et al demonstrated that urinary mRNA of synaptopodin, podocin, and other podocyte-specific molecules increased with progression of DN [36]. Though our study is protein based, our results complement those findings by demonstrating that urinary nephrin also correlates well with disease progression and harbors the potential to be an early biomarker. There are a few limitations to this study. As renal biopsies are not routinely performed to diagnose DN, these patients may represent a separate category of patients which may skew podocyte expression. For example, they may demonstrate a more severe subset with rapidly progressive renal failure or exhibit concomitant diagnoses with the presence of hematuria. Our biopsies indicate a more advanced group of patients, given that the mean eGFR was 27.2 ml/min/1.73 m2. Unfortunately, it is difficult to avoid this limitation as it may be unethical to biopsy all classic presentations of DN, though we used only biopsies that had pathognomonic findings. Also, since the comparison of nephrinuria with clinical data was a cross-sectional study, we do not know if nephrinuria is part of a causal mechanism, or if early nephrinuria will consistently predict subsequent DN. Measuring nephrinuria prospectively in diabetic patients with normoalbuminuria will help to answer these questions, though this type of study will require a prospective study for at least 10–20 years after onset of diabetes. In conclusion, we have shown significantly reduced expressions of synaptopodin and podocin, and nephrin in DN. As a corollary, we have shown that a high percentage of these patients exhibit nephrinuria without albuminuria, suggesting its potential utility as an early biomarker. If further research confirms nephrinuria to be a biomarker of pre-clinical DN, it would shed light on podocyte metabolism in disease, and raise the possibility of new and earlier therapeutic targets. We thank Ms. Ann-Sofie Nilsson of the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, for sharing the nephrin antibody from Dr. Karl Tryggvason. Conceived and designed the experiments: BJ MG JCH. Performed the experiments: BJ MG AQ YF PC. Analyzed the data: BJ MG AQ HWC JCH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HWC DBT MA. Wrote the paper: BJ MG AQ HWC JCH. 1. Reutens AT, Atkins RC (2011) Epidemiology of diabetic nephropathy. Contrib Nephrol 170: 1–7. 2. 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Sever S, Altintas MM, Nankoe SR, Moller CC, Ko D, et al. (2007) Proteolytic processing of dynamin by cytoplasmic cathepsin L is a mechanism for proteinuric kidney disease. J Clin Invest 117: 2095–2104. 33. Coward RJ, Welsh GI, Koziell A, Hussain S, Lennon R, et al. (2007) Nephrin is critical for the action of insulin on human glomerular podocytes. Diabetes 56: 1127–1135. 34. Welsh GI, Hale LJ, Eremina V, Jeansson M, Maezawa Y, et al. (2010) Insulin signaling to the glomerular podocyte is critical for normal kidney function. Cell Metab 12: 329–340. 35. Ng DP, Tai BC, Tan E, Leong H, Nurbaya S, et al. (2011) Nephrinuria associates with multiple renal traits in type 2 diabetes. Nephrol Dial Transplant 26: 2508–2514. 36. Zheng M, Lv LL, Ni J, Ni HF, Li Q, et al. (2011) Urinary podocyte-associated mRNA profile in various stages of diabetic nephropathy. PLoS One 6: e20431. Is the Subject Area "Biopsy" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Diabetes mellitus" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Urine" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Type 2 diabetes" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Biomarkers" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Blood pressure" applicable to this article? Immunohistochemistry techniques Is the Subject Area "Immunohistochemistry techniques" applicable to this article? Microalbuminuria Is the Subject Area "Microalbuminuria" applicable to this article?	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1317
__label__wiki	0.641848	0.641848	Language Individuation and Marker Words: Shakespeare and His Maxwell's Demon John Marsden, Affiliation Centre for Bioinformatics, Biomarker Discovery & Information-Based Medicine, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia David Budden, Hugh Craig, Affiliation Centre for Literary and Linguistic Computing, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia Pablo Moscato * E-mail: Pablo.Moscato@newcastle.edu.au John Marsden David Budden Hugh Craig Pablo Moscato Within the structural and grammatical bounds of a common language, all authors develop their own distinctive writing styles. Whether the relative occurrence of common words can be measured to produce accurate models of authorship is of particular interest. This work introduces a new score that helps to highlight such variations in word occurrence, and is applied to produce models of authorship of a large group of plays from the Shakespearean era. A text corpus containing 55,055 unique words was generated from 168 plays from the Shakespearean era (16th and 17th centuries) of undisputed authorship. A new score, CM1, is introduced to measure variation patterns based on the frequency of occurrence of each word for the authors John Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton and William Shakespeare, compared to the rest of the authors in the study (which provides a reference of relative word usage at that time). A total of 50 WEKA methods were applied for Fletcher, Jonson and Middleton, to identify those which were able to produce models yielding over 90% classification accuracy. This ensemble of WEKA methods was then applied to model Shakespearean authorship across all 168 plays, yielding a Matthews' correlation coefficient (MCC) performance of over 90%. Furthermore, the best model yielded an MCC of 99%. Our results suggest that different authors, while adhering to the structural and grammatical bounds of a common language, develop measurably distinct styles by the tendency to over-utilise or avoid particular common words and phrasings. Considering language and the potential of words as an abstract chaotic system with a high entropy, similarities can be drawn to the Maxwell's Demon thought experiment; authors subconsciously favour or filter certain words, modifying the probability profile in ways that could reflect their individuality and style. Citation: Marsden J, Budden D, Craig H, Moscato P (2013) Language Individuation and Marker Words: Shakespeare and His Maxwell's Demon. PLoS ONE 8(6): e66813. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066813 Editor: Eduardo G. Altmann, Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Germany Received: January 7, 2013; Accepted: May 13, 2013; Published: June 27, 2013 Copyright: © 2013 Marsden et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work has been supported by The University of Newcastle thanks to a funding contribution to the Priority Research Centre for Bioinformatics, Biomarker Discovery and Information-based Medicine (2006–2012). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Although authors are required to adhere to the grammatical and structural rules dictated by a written language, each author is able to develop a highly individual style within this framework [1], [2]. One form this language individuation takes is systematic variation in the relative frequencies of particular words and phrases. This variation in turn provides a basis for the accurate classification of authorship. The idea that this sort of variation occurs even in the use of the most common words, and that frequencies of these words could serve for authorship attribution, goes back to the 1960s (specifically, the statistical work of Ellegard on a set of anonymous eighteenth-century published letters [3] and of Mosteller and Wallace on the jointly authored Federalist papers [4]), but was developed to a regular technique by Burrows in the 1980s. Burrows pioneered the use of multivariate techniques like Principal Components Analysis on sets of frequencies of very common words to attribute disputed texts [5], [6], and similar methodologies have since been widely used [7]–[9]. Researchers have also explored the usefulness for attribution of slightly less common words, which tend to be lexical words rather than function words, and of very rare words [10]–[12]. In general, authorship study using quantitative methods (most often relying on word frequencies, but also exploiting letter and word -grams, and the frequency of punctuation) is now well established and has been the subject of several reviews [13]–[15]. This field is variously referred to as stylometry and computational stylistics. The tendency recently has been to use longer and longer lists of marker words [16], as well as word sequences and collocations[14], [17], [18], and it may be useful to focus on the degree of distinctiveness in the frequencies of a subset of the very common words between authors, and their resulting power to provide efficient classification by author. It is also worth noting that while in many operations with natural language (such as topic detection and text searching), the usual practice is to discard the most common words (so-called ‘stopwords’ [19], [20]). In contrast, these stopwords are the focus of the present analysis, and the constant added to the CM1 function, described below, provides a bias toward these very common words. They prove to be highly discriminating for the authors tested. The use of the word ‘ ’ by seventeenth-century playwrite John Fletcher provides a striking example of idiosyncratic word usage, as previously demonstrated by Hoy [21]. This contribution focuses on the identification of such marker words and introduces a new score, CM–1, that allows for the identification of patterns of variation based on the relative frequency of word usage present in a text corpus dataset of 168 plays from the Shakespearean era. As an example, the CM–1 score confirms Fletcher's tendency to use ‘ ’; Figure 1 demonstrates the observed frequencies for ‘ ’ in his 15 plays, plotted against 153 plays by other authors. Despite the wide range of frequencies, the spectacularly high median demonstrates ‘ ’ to be an ideal marker for modeling Fletcher's authorship if restricted to a single word. More stylistic characteristics could be revealed by extending from one word to many, providing more robust authorship characterisation. Figure 1. Observed frequency of Fletcher's usage of the word ‘ ’ in his 15 plays, compared to that of the 153 plays by other authors in the text corpus dataset. A significantly higher frequency of ‘ ’ usage by Fletcher is demonstrated, indicating ‘ ’ as an appropriate choice of marker to assist in the classification of his plays. Fletcher's predilection for the word ‘ ’ has been previously shown by Hoy [21]. For some authors, such as Shakespeare, negative markers seem to yield more accurate language individuation. An interesting consequence of this observation is the notion that some writers are better defined by words they under-utilise, rather than those which they prefer. This has been discussed but not widely supported by in-depth analysis [12], [22], and is one of the motivations of the present work. This variation in frequency may result from the conscious or subconscious censoring of particular words when authors choose formulations for their writing, or rather may be an implicit indicator of a preference for constructions or stances which reduce the need for these words. Figure 2 demonstrates the observed frequencies for Shakespeare's usage of ‘ ’ in his 28 considered plays, plotted against 140 plays by other authors. Figure 2. Observed frequency of Shakespeare's usage of the word ‘ ’ in his 28 plays, compared to that of the 140 plays by other authors in the text corpus dataset. A significantly lower frequency of ‘ ’ usage by Shakespeare is demonstrated, indicating ‘ ’ as an appropriate choice of marker to assist in the classification of his plays. In this work, the CM–1 score (introduced in the Materials and Methods section) was applied to identify the 20 highest and 20 lowest scoring marker words for John Fletcher, Ben Jonson and Thomas Middleton. 50 methods from the popular open source data mining and machine learning package WEKA [23] were utilised to produce models of authorship based on these markers, with performance evaluated in terms of Matthews' correlation coefficient. An ensemble of the best performing WEKA methods were finally applied to the classification of Shakespearean plays, considering only the 20 highest and 20 lowest CM1 scoring marker words generated from these 28 works (and the 140 plays by other authors). Text Corpus Dataset A text corpus containing 168 plays from the Shakespearean era was utilised for this work, containing texts of unambiguous authorship from the and centuries. From this corpus, the Intelligent Archive by Craig and Whipp [24] was applied to generate a set of approximately 55,055 unique words, composed of every word from across all 168 plays. The Intelligent Archive is a software tool which can be utilised to create sub-corpora and generate counts of word-forms according to a parameterised user input, taking into account the variations in spelling commonly found in and century plays, in addition to facilitating disambiguation of words by both context and frequency. For each play, the frequency of each of the aforementioned 55,055 words was calculated and stored in the form of a matrix; a total of in excess of nine million word usage statistics. Given the dataset generated by the Intelligent Archive, a method of filtering the full set of 55,055 unique words to determine a set of marker words (those which distinguish one author's work from that of the others) is required. Four authors (John Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton and William Shakespeare) were chosen, as they account for the largest number of plays in the corpus dataset. One commonly accepted method of filtering such a dataset is Welch's -test, This adaptation of Student's -test allows for samples of unequal variance, but otherwise treats the two sample partitions and of observations as homogeneous overall, with the moderator chosen as the standard deviation of the combined set [25]. This assumption does not apply in the case of identifying marker words; one set contains the works of a single author, whereas the other contains the combined works of a large number of authors. Instead, a new method (the CM1 score) was devised, with a moderator that considers the range of values rather than the combined standard deviation. Let and be a partition of the set of all plays in the dataset, meaning that and . Let be one of the words used and let be the frequency of occurrence of the word in play of a given target author. Let be the set of all other plays not written by this author and, analogously, let be the frequency of occurrence of the word in play . The CM1 score is then defined as (1) The CM–1 scores of all words were investigated in four partitions of the text corpus dataset, in which the target author plays were known to be the work of Fletcher, Jonson, Middleton or Shakespeare. From the original set of approximately 55,055 words, the 20 highest and 20 lowest CM–1-scoring marker words were selected and sorted according to their CM–1 scores. Like the -test, the CM–1 score calculates the difference between means; however, the score is moderated by the range of values for the non-authorial reference set , rather than the combined standard deviation of and . The constant unity is added to the moderator so that variables of higher frequency will tend to result in higher scores, arising from the a priori view that more frequent variables will result in more reliable markers. Having calculated the 20 lowest and 20 highest marker words for Fletcher, Jonson and Middleton, 50 machine learning methods from the open source data mining and machine learning package WEKA [23] were utilised to produce mathematical models of authorship. Table 1 lists all of the methods considered, along with their respective types, as categorised in WEKA version 3.6.4. In each case, a 10-by-10 fold cross validation of each author's marker words was performed, with the Matthews' correlation coefficient of the classification calculated. In data mining and machine learning, a 10-by-10 fold cross validation involves randomly partitioning the original dataset into 10 equal sized subsets; 9 used for training data, and the remaining subset reserved for evaluation. Evaluation is repeated 10 times, such that each subset is utilised exactly once for this purpose [26]. Table 1. List of methods and their types. A subset of the original 50 WEKA methods (those generating models that yielded a Matthews' correlation coefficient of over 90% for Fletcher, Jonson and Middleton) were selected for application to Shakespeare. This ensemble of WEKA methods was used to generate mathematical models of Shakespeare's writing style, considering only the 20 highest and 20 lowest CM–1 scoring marker words. The sensitivity (probability of determining the text to be written by the considered author, given that it was) and specificity (probability of determining the text to have not been written by the considered author, given that it was written by another) were calculated for a 10-by-10 fold cross validation of these models, and finally combined into the Matthews' correlation coefficient [27], [28] (which is the preferred approach for preserving classification performance for binary classification in an unbiased way). The Matthews' correlation coefficient, , is defined as where and are the number of true positives and true negatives respectively (correct classification of an author having written ( ) or not written ( ) a given play), and and are the number of false positives and false negatives respectively (incorrectly determining a play as having been written by some author ( ), or failing to recognise that it has ( )). Selection of Marker Words using CM–1 Score The CM–1 score was calculated for all 55,055 unique words present in the text corpus dataset, for Fletcher, Jonson, Middleton and Shakespeare. The 50 highest and 50 lowest scoring words were ranked for each author, with the 20 highest and 20 lowest presented in Tables 2 and 3. Table 2. 20 highest ranking words by CM1 score (presented in descending order of score), for Fletcher, Jonson, Middleton and Shakespeare. Table 3. 20 lowest ranking words by CM–1 score (presented in descending order of score), for Fletcher, Jonson, Middleton and Shakespeare. Figure 3 demonstrates the CM–1 score for the 50 highest and 50 lowest scoring marker words for John Fletcher, with the 20 highest and 20 lowest ranked words shown in red and green respectively. Fletcher's plays account for 15 of the 168 present in the text corpus dataset. ‘ ’ is shown to dominate as a positive marker, with the lowest scoring negative markers included ‘ ’, ‘ ’ and the prepositional form of ‘ ’. Figure 3. CM–1 scores for the 50 highest and 50 lowest ranked words for Fletcher, based on the 168 plays in the text corpus dataset. The 20 highest and 20 lowest ranked words are shown in red and green respectively, and are presented in Tables 2 and 3. As expected, the CM–1 score for ‘ ’ is significantly higher than that of any other marker word. The difference between the probabilities of Fletcher's 20 highest and 20 lowest scoring marker words was calculated across all 168 plays from the text corpus dataset, with the results presented in Figure 4. All of Fletcher's plays score strong positive results against these markers, with the exception of The Faithful Shepherdess. Figure 4. Difference between the cumulative CM–1 scores for Fletcher's 20 highest and 20 lowest scoring marker words, as presented in Tables 2 and 3. Fletcher's plays are highlighted in green. It is observed that the majority of his plays score considerably higher than the majority of plays by the other authors. One notable exception, The Faithful Shepherdess, is considered to be of a significantly different genre to the remainder of Fletcher's plays, and has been omitted in two previous studies attempting to identify his stylistic signature [21], [36]. Figure 5 demonstrates the CM1 score for the 50 highest and 50 lowest scoring marker words for Ben Jonson, whose plays account for 17 of the 168 considered. Jonson's positive markers include ‘ ’ and ‘ ’, with ‘ ’ and ‘ ’ dominating the negative markers. The difference between Jonson's 20 highest and 20 lowest scoring marker words is presented in Figure 6. Figure 5. CM–1 scores for the 50 highest and 50 lowest ranked words for Jonson, based on the 168 plays in the text corpus dataset. The 20 highest and 20 lowest ranked words are shown in red and green respectively, and are presented in Tables 2 and 3. CM–1 ranks ‘ ’ and ‘ ’ as words that Jonson distinctively overuses, in contrast to ‘ ’ and ‘ ’, which are distinctively underused. Figure 6. Difference between the cumulative CM–1 scores for Jonson's 20 highest and 20 lowest scoring marker words, as presented in Tables 2 and 3. Jonson's plays are highlighted in green. Although not as evident as with Fletcher, Jonson's plays demonstrate an overall higher score than the majority of plays by the other authors. The worst scoring of Jonson's plays, The Case is Altered, is generally regarded as a stylistic anomaly among his works [35]. Figure 7 demonstrates the CM–1 score for the 50 highest and 50 lowest scoring marker words for Thomas Middleton, whose plays account for 18 of the 168 considered. Middleton's positive markers include ‘ ’, ‘ ’, ‘ ’ and ‘ ’, with his negative markers including ‘ ’ and ‘ ’. The difference between Middleton's 20 highest and 20 lowest scoring marker words is presented in Figure 8. Figure 7. CM–1 scores for the 50 highest and 50 lowest ranked words for Middleton, based on the 168 plays in the text corpus dataset. The 20 highest and 20 lowest ranked words are shown in red and green respectively, and are presented in Tables 2 and 3. CM–1 ranks ‘ ’, ‘ ’, ‘ ’ and the demonstrative form of ‘ ’ among the words that Middleton distinctively overuses; ‘ ’ is ranked amongst the words that Middleton underuses, as opposed to plays by Jonson, for which ‘ ’ is a strong positive marker. Figure 8. Difference between the cumulative CM–1 scores for Middleton's 20 highest and 20 lowest scoring marker words, as presented in Tables 2 and 3. Eight of these marker words appeared among the ten word-variables determined earlier by Craig [34] (by discriminant analysis). Middleton's plays are highlighted in green. It is observed that the majority of his plays score higher than the majority of plays by the other authors. The worst scoring of Middleton's plays, A Game at Chess, is unusual stylistically among his works, being a satire on contemporary international politics [32], [33]. The final author considered was William Shakespeare, with Figure 9 demonstrating the CM1 score for his 50 highest and 50 lowest scoring words. Shakespeare's plays are the most well represented in the dataset, accounting for 28 of the total 168 contained in the text corpus dataset. Shakespeare's highest scoring marker word is ‘ ’, with his lowest ranking words including ‘ ’ (matching a previous discussion by Craig [29]) and the infinitive version of ‘ ’. Figure 9. CM–1 scores for the 50 highest and 50 lowest ranked words for Shakespeare, based on the 168 plays in the text corpus dataset. The 20 highest and 20 lowest ranked words are shown in red and green respectively, and are presented in Tables 2 and 3. CM–1 ranks ‘ ’, ‘ ’ and ‘ ’ as words that Shakespeare distinctively overuses, in contrast to ‘ ’ (as discussed by Craig [29]), ‘ ’ and the infinitive form of ‘ ’, which are distinctively underused. Finally, the difference between Shakespeare's 20 highest and 20 lowest scoring marker words was calculated across all 168 plays from the text corpus dataset, with the results presented in Figure 10. Overall, Shakespeare's plays are demonstrated to rank considerably higher than those by other authors. Figure 10. Difference between the cumulative CM–1 scores for Shakespeare's 20 highest and 20 lowest scoring marker words, as presented in Tables 2 and 3. Shakespeare's plays are highlighted in green. It is observed that the majority of his plays score higher than by other authors, although the overall range of values is lower than for Fletcher, Jonson and Middleton. This supports previous research suggesting that Shakespeare generally adheres to the norms of the work of his peer group [30]. Selection of Modelling Methods from CM–1 Features Considering only the 20 highest and 20 lowest CM–1 marker words for Fletcher, Jonson and Middleton, and applying 50 methods from the popular open source data mining and machine learning package WEKA [23], a 10-by-10 fold cross-validation was performed. For each method, the performance of each fold was evaluated in terms of the Matthews' correlation coefficient to identify those that perform well with the pre-selection of markers based on the CM–1 score. These results, along with the mean performance for each method, are presented in Figures 11, 12 and 13, for Fletcher, Jonson and Middleton respectively. Figure 11. Authorship classification performance of 50 methods evaluated in terms of Matthews' correlation coefficient for Fletcher, resulting from a 10-by-10 fold cross validation of his 20 highest and 20 lowest CM–1 scoring marker words. The results of individual folds are presented in blue/green, with the average performance for each method in red. Figure 12. Authorship classification performance of 50 methods evaluated in terms of Matthews' correlation coefficient for Jonson, resulting from a 10-by-10 fold cross validation of his 20 highest and 20 lowest CM–1 scoring marker words. Figure 13. Authorship classification performance of 50 methods evaluated in terms of Matthews' correlation coefficient for Middleton, resulting from a 10-by-10 fold cross validation of his 20 highest and 20 lowest CM–1 scoring marker words. Of these 50 methods, the 8 best performing (i.e. those that yielded an average Matthews' correlation coefficient of over 90%) were selected for application to Shakespeare. These included: MultilayerPerceptron; SMO; IB1; IBk; LMT; FT; Logistic; and SimpleLogistic. Utilising only these methods and considering only the 20 highest and 20 lowest CM–1 marker words for Shakespeare, a further 10-by-10 fold cross-validation was performed to model his authorship. These results, along with the mean performance for each method, are presented in Figure 14. Of the 168 plays in the text corpus dataset, the 28 authored by Shakespeare were classified with an average Matthew's correlation coefficient of over 90%, with the best performing method (SMO) yielding a coefficient of 99%. Figure 14. Authorship classification performance of 8 methods evaluated in terms of Matthews' correlation coefficient for Shakespeare, resulting from a 10-by-10 fold cross validation of his 20 highest and 20 lowest CM–1 scoring marker words. These 8 methods were selected as those which yielded the best classification performance for Fletcher, Jonson and Middleton. The results of individual folds are presented in blue/green, with the average performance for each method in red. The performance across all 8 methods is demonstrated to be above 80%, with the best performing method ( ) yielding classification performance of 99%. Performance Comparison of CM–1 and Welch's -test By following the same procedure described in the Materials and Methods section for the CM–1 score, a list of 20 high and 20 low scoring marker words may be generated for each author using the -test. Table 4 presents these marker words for Shakespeare. Table 4. 20 highest (left) and lowest (right) ranking words by Welch's -test score for Shakespeare, presented in descending and ascending order of score respectively. By considering the 5 best performing WEKA ensemble methods (SMO, IB1, IBk, MultilayerPerceptron and Logistic), the performance of models generated using CM1 score marker words can be compared directly to those generated using the equivalent -test marker words. These results are presented in Table 5, with performance evaluated in terms of Matthews' correlation coefficient (MCC), specificity (precision) and sensitivity (recall). It is evident that CM–1 yields a higher MCC in all examples. Table 5. Performance results for the top 5 WEKA models, from the ensemble selected for Shakespeare authorship attribution based on performance against Fletcher, Jonson and Middleton (see Materials and Methods section). As the ensemble of best performing WEKA models may differ when repeating the experimental procedure with the -test as a method of marker selection, Table 6 provides a direct performance comparison between the overall 5 best performing models from the full set of 50 WEKA methods available. It is evident that the 3 best performing CM–1 models yield a higher MCC than any generated from -test marker words. Table 6. Performance results for the top 5 WEKA models for both CM1 and Welch's -test scores, evaluated in terms of Matthews' correlation coefficient, specificity (precision) and sensitivity (recall). Given a large dataset, such as the text corpus of 168 plays from the Shakespearean era, a commonly accepted method of filtering the data to facilitate classification is Welch's -test. This score treats the two sets of observations as homogenous overall; an assumption that does not apply when attempting to identify play authorship, where one set contains the work of a single author, and the other contains the combined works of many. Instead of moderating by the standard deviation of the combined set, a new score (the CM–1 score) is introduced, with a moderator that considers the overall range of values of the larger set. The CM–1 score, in addition to facilitating the selection of marker words that yield authorship classification performance of over 90% (in terms of Matthews' correlation coefficient), has demonstrated a remarkable agreement with previously published observations. The magnitude of CM–1 scores for Shakespeare's dominant negative markers is greater than that of his positive. Furthermore, the overall range of values for Shakespeare is comparatively small. This supports previous research suggesting that Shakespeare generally adheres to the norms of the work of his peer group [30]. Similarly, ‘ ’ is shown to dominate as a positive marker for Fletcher, supporting Hoy's earlier observation that this word is characteristically overused in his plays [21]. Although the presented classification results demonstrate the CM–1 score as a powerful new method in the identification of individualising markers, the experimental method includes one simplification of the problem. The 20 highest and 20 lowest scoring marker words used for classification have been determined by considering the entire text corpus dataset, inclusive of each play as it is classified. To ensure that this method is able to generalise effectively to unencountered plays, a 10-by-10 fold cross validation was performed, with the frequency of each of the 55,055 individual words occurring as a high or low marker calculated across combinations of plays. This corresponds with the removal of every combination of 10% of plays by Shakespeare (3 plays), and for each, the removal of a random selection of 10% of plays by other authors (14 plays). Considering every possible selection of 14 plays by other authors would result in total combinations, which is infeasible to calculate. Figure 15 demonstrates the frequency of each of the 55,055 individual words occurring as one of the 20 highest (left) and lowest (right) scoring markers, for all words with nonzero occurrence. The marker words determined across the full text corpus are highlighted in green. This demonstrates the robustness of this selection of marker words against the removal and addition of plays (with the exception of ‘you’, which was 0.4% less likely to occur as a positive marker than ‘thee’). Figure 15. Frequency of occurrence of words appearing among the 20 highest scoring marker words for Shakespeare, resulting from a 10 fold cross validation. This process involved the removal of 10% of plays by Shakespeare (3), and 10% of plays by other authors (14). The 20 highest (left) and lowest (right) scoring marker words were calculated for every possible triplet of removed plays by Shakespeare ( combinations), and for each, a random selection of 14 plays by other authors. The marker words determined across the full text corpus are highlighted in green. This demonstrates this selection of words as valid for classification, and that the CM–1 score is robust against the removal and addition of plays. The authorship results presented suggest that authors' individual styles are distinctive to a quantifiable degree. The rates at which they use some of the most common words in the language are consistently different from each other, and when used together serve to model characteristic styles in authorship. This finding supports arguments regarding the importance of the idiolects of individual language users [31]. Weakly Attributed Plays Considering the 20 highest and 20 lowest CM–1 scoring marker words for Middleton (see Tables 2 and 3), Figure 8 demonstrates the ability of this score to identify plays of his authorship. The observed dip in performance corresponds with the play A Game at Chess, as indicated in Figure 16. (The version of A Game at Chess considered is the manuscript belonging to Trinity College, Cambridge, in Middleton's hand (MS. 0.2.66).)Although there is no doubt Middleton wrote this play, it is unusual stylistically among his works, being a satire on contemporary international politics, allegorised in the form of a chess game [32], [33]. Furthermore, eight of the marker words appearing in Tables 2 and 3 (‘ ’, ‘ ’, ‘ ’, ‘ ’, ‘ ’, ‘ ’, ‘ ’ and ‘ ’) appear among the ten word-variables listed by Craig as the result of a discriminant analysis of Middleton's plays [34]. Figure 16. Difference between the cumulative CM–1 scores for the 20 highest and 20 lowest scoring marker words for Fletcher, Jonson, Middleton and Shakespeare. For each author, the left box represents the distribution of scores for their plays, and the right box the distribution of scores for plays by all other considered authors. The worst scoring play belonging to each author is indicated by a green cross. These are: a) The Faithful Shepherdess (Fletcher); b) The Case is Altered (Jonson); c) A Game at Chess (Middleton); and d) Love's Labour's Lost (Shakespeare). Although performance outliers may be explained by a work being of a different genre, chronology may also be a contributing factor. As highlighted by one reviewer, A Game at Chess is Middleton's last play; it was completed just three years before his death at age 44. Future applications of the CM–1 score may include investigating the feasibility of temporal models of an author's unique style, rather than treating it as homogenous over time. Among Jonson's plays, the poorest attribution by a significant margin is that of The Case is Altered, as indicated in Figure 16. This play is generally regarded as an anomaly stylistically among Jonson's works. It is a romantic comedy, while Jonson's comedies are generally satirical. Jonson did not include it in his volume of collected works, and scholars have sometimes suggested that it is a collaboration [35]. Something similar holds for Fletcher's The Faithful Shepherdess, which is the only one of his plays to score negatively in Figure 4. This play is generally considered to be of a significantly different genre to the remainder of Fletcher's plays, and has been omitted in two previous studies attempting to identify his stylistic signature [21], [36]. Maxwell's Demon If language and the potential of words are considered as an abstract chaotic system with a high entropy, then the art and process of authorship within the structural and grammatical bounds of language results in a reduction of the original system's entropy. The presented results demonstrate that different authors, while adhering to the bounds of language, reduce the entropy of the system in characteristically different and measurable ways. Perhaps a good model to describe this individual behaviour of authorship is Maxwell's Demon, introduced by James Clerk Maxwell in a letter he wrote to Peter Guthrie Tait in 1867 [37]. The Second Law of Thermodynamics suggests that any process in a system will tend to increase the entropy of the universe. Two gases, one warmer than the other, brought into contact with each other, will always move towards equilibrium in temperature. In a letter of 1867 [37], James Clerk Maxwell formulated a thought experiment to illustrate how an exception to this law could be conceived. He pictured a ‘demon’ with superhuman powers, operating at a passage between two chambers. Its speed and facility allows it to follow the motion of molecules, and act quickly enough to let only faster molecules into one chamber, and only the slower moving molecules into the other. Without any apparent expenditure of effort, the two temperatures move further apart, in contradiction to the Second Law. Whatever the cogency of the perceived contradiction, this celebrated and much debated scientific fable provides an analogy for the processes of language production as they emerge from a computational analysis of writing style. All authors draw on the common elements of a given language, sharing with their audience a set of vocabulary items and an established set of implicit but firm rules for combining these items. Yet each author makes an individual selection from common vocabulary and, while remaining with the rules of grammar, follows characteristic, finely differentiated patterns in phrase and sentence structure. Each author, in other words, starts from a vast, inchoate set of potential utterances and brings to it the order of an individual style. Without apparent effort, in a largely automatic process, entropy is reduced. The described process must be faster than conscious thought, given the complexity of the task and the constraints of spontaneous production. Computational stylistics demonstrates this process in motion. Language individuation is multi-layered and subtle, but it leaves traces in simple frequencies, which can be monitored. As the user turns the common resources of a language into a personal discourse, some words in the language stream emerge at rates above the norm of similar language samples, and some are avoided entirely or otherwise substantially filtered. Maxwell's Demon is ‘finite’, yet unthinkably ‘sharpened’ in its ‘faculties’, recognising and dividing a swarm of individual, rapidly moving molecules with uncanny skill. Computational stylistics allow the observation of something similar is language; patterns of enhancement and suppression of the flows of very common words. Maxwell's Demon effortlessly reduces entropy by identifying and sorting atoms at superhuman speeds, thus apparently defying the second law of thermodynamics. This proves to be a good analogy for the process by which individual language users make a consistent and distinctive idiolect from the language available to them, a process which occurs at the level of the very common function words as well as in the more noticeable lexical words. Experiments with word-variables chosen with the aid of a new score, designed to identify marker variables by comparing means of two heterogeneous groups of specimens (where one group is much more mixed than the other) demonstrate that a small set of very common words provides markers which can help separate plays into authorial groups at a high level of reliability. The results show that words used at a lower rate than the aggregate of other authors are just as useful as words used at a higher rate. The new score, CM–1, is adapted to the situation common in authorship problems where specimens need to be compared to a single authorial group on the one hand, and a mixed group of other authors on the other. The denominator for the difference in means is the range for the more mixed group rather than the standard deviation of the combined set, as with the -test. In the tests, markers identified by CM–1 out-perform those provided by Welch's -test. These results have implications for the understanding of individual differences in language, while the new score, the focus on the commonest variables, and the equal attention paid to under-utilised words all have implications for future authorship work. Future applications may also be found in other areas where there are very large numbers of possible marker variables available, such as the areas of transcriptomics, proteomics and other -omics, which are characterised by the use of high-throughput technologies. Complete text corpus dataset (i.e. the frequencies of 55,055 unique words for 168 Shakespearean-era plays). (ZIP) Reference figure combing Figures 3–10 for side-by-side comparison. Conceived and designed the experiments: JM DB HC PM. 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Elliott WE, Valenza RJ (1996) And then there were none: Winnowing the Shakespeare claimants. Computers and the Humanities 30: 191–245. 23. Witten I, Frank E, Hall M (2011) Data mining: Practical machine learning tools and techniques. Morgan Kaufmann. 24. Craig H, Whipp R (2010) Old spellings, new methods: Automated procedures for indeterminate linguistic data. Literary and Linguistic Computing 25: 37–52. 25. Welch BL (1947) The generalization of Student's problem when several different population variances are involved. Biometrika 34: 28–35. 26. Geisser S (1993) Predictive inference, volume 55. Chapman & Hall/CRC. 27. Baldi P, Brunak S, Chauvin Y, Andersen C, Nielsen H (2000) Assessing the accuracy of prediction algorithms for classification: An overview. Bioinformatics 16: 412–424. 28. Johnstone D, Milward E, Berretta R, Moscato P (2012) Multivariate protein signatures of preclinical Alzheimer's Disease in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) plasma proteome dataset. PloS One 7: e34341. 29. Craig H (2012) Shakespeare, John Davies of Hereford, and ‘A Lover's Complaint’. Shakespeare Quarterly 63: 147–174. 30. Rosso O, Craig H, Moscato P (2009) Shakespeare and other English Renaissance authors as characterized by information theory complexity quantifiers. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 388: 916–926. 31. Johnstone B (1996) The linguistic individual: Self-expression in language and linguistics. Oxford University Press. 32. Taylor G, Lavagnino J (2007) A Game at Chesse: An early form. Thomas Middleton: The collected works. Oxford University Press. 33. Taylor G, Lavagnino J (2007) A Game at Chess: A later form. Thomas Middleton: The collected works. Oxford University Press. 34. Craig H (1999) Authorial attribution and computational stylistics: If you can tell authors apart, have you learned anything about them? Literary and Linguistic Computing 14: 103–113. 35. Mack R (1997) Ben Jonson's own ‘Comedy of Errors’: ‘That witty play,’ The Case is Altered. The Ben Jonson Journal 4: 47–63. 36. Hope J (1994) The authorship of Shakespeare's plays: A socio-linguistic study. Cambridge University Press. 37. Knott C (1911) Life and scientific work of Peter Guthrie Tait, volume 1. Cambridge University Press. Is the Subject Area "Semantics" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Language" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Data mining" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Games" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Machine learning" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Entropy" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Archives" applicable to this article? Is the Subject Area "Artificial intelligence" applicable to this article?	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1318
__label__cc	0.726976	0.273024	Leena Nair Chief Human Resources Officer, Unilever Chief HR Officer, with a Life Purpose: “To ignite the human spark – to build a better business, and a better world” She is the first female, first Asian, youngest ever CHRO of Unilever and member of the Unilever Leadership Executive (ULE), which is responsible for delivering Unilever’s business & financial performance. Leena bears overall responsibility for the human capital of Unilever, which operates across multiple regulatory and labour environments spread over 190 countries. She ensures the company has the right people, in the right roles, with the right capabilities and mindset to deliver high business performance that enables Unilever to meet its ambitious business growth with environmental and positive social impact. She also heads the Diversity and Inclusion agenda for the organisation ensuring that its workforce is truly diverse and inclusive. In 2007, Leena became the first woman in the Management Committee of Hindustan Unilever in 90 years heading HR. She was also appointed the first woman on Unilever South Asia Leadership Team a year later, team responsible for Unilever's growth in each of the following markets: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, currently around Euros 6 billion. She was Senior Vice President – Leadership & Organisation Development and Global Head of Diversity in 2013, before being appointed as CHRO in March 2016. From stamping out stereotypes to finding your 'spark', here's how to close the global gender gap From my childhood in India, one particular memory stands out. Aged 14, to the horror of my family, I emerged from my bedroom in jeans. Jeans! A girl wearing jeans - far less one that want... In the future of work it's jobs, not people, that will become redundant I am likely stating the obvious but it needs to be stated as often as possible – the world is changing and it is changing fast. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is blurring the lines betw... 在机器人时代，你确定你还是人类吗？在奥林匹克山的山顶，希腊神话中的火神、铁匠之神赫菲斯托斯为为众神建造了一个宫殿。在宫殿里，他创造了许多黄金机器人，用于服务众神。由此我们知道，人类迷恋机器人的历史可以追溯到西方文明之初。 In the robot age, are you sure you're a human? At the top of Mount Olympus, Hephaestus – the Greek god of fire and a blacksmith – built a palace for his fellow deities. Inside, he crafted robotic golden statues to serve them.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1320
__label__wiki	0.664713	0.664713	Those Dark Days By Kashmir Life on November 7, 2018 Cover Story, History Barely married he was and the partition took place. After surviving the massacres at his Reasi home, Karimuddin and his family fled deep into the jungles where they had to manage their survival as the tribals ruled the roost. Finally, they escaped to Jhelum through Rajouri and Mirpur and returned home in Bakhshi era, retrieved his father’s skeleton and raised the family again. Masood Hussain meets the nonagenarian couple to tell their first-hand story Haji Karimuddin My name is Haji Karimuddin. I live in Reasi. I was a contractor. Now, my kids are employed, so I don’t do anything. I have never gone to school. I speak well and make signatures, but I am totally illiterate. I do not remember exactly when I was born. But I would have been 20 or 25 in 1947 when the commotion started. Barely seven months before the commotion, I had married to Sakina Bibi, also a resident of Reasi. The rulers, then, were treating us as well as our leaders very badly. Before 1947, it was calm. But once India and Pakistan were established, massacres took place. Here, in Reasi, almost eight thousand Muslims were killed. Some people came from outside the state and were joined by a few residents and they resorted to bloodshed. The ex-servicemen of Hari Singh’s army were given rifles and they also killed people. I do not remember if it was October or November, but I am sure it was after Eid-ul-Adha. The rioters had come from Jammu and the areas around Punjab. Around eight thousand people had gathered in Reasi. When they saw that people have gathered, they called Maharaja’s army here. They mounted big guns near the Dera and started firing. We were in a big house – women, men and children. We had shut all curtains, latched the doors with big logs of wood and blocked the gates with stones. The walls of that house were so strong that even canons would not break it. When they fired, people who were outside were killed. Then the house was cordoned off, and those who were inside were offered a peace offer. They were told to come out and promised they won’t be harmed. There were a lot of females and they were taken out – men were killed and young women were looted by intruders. After killing, their bodies were dropped in a Khu. Some kind residents did save many people, mostly children. Young women were looted by the intruders from outside states who were armed with swords and guns. The old women took a road to Jammu, but most of them jumped into the river and committed suicide. Some of them, who survived, were taken to camps in Jammu and later sent to Pakistan. Haji Karimuddin. and his wife Sakina bibi. Those days, the governments of India and Pakistan accepted such stranded people. Hindus came here and Muslims went there to Pakistan. A lot of bloodsheds happened there too. Pandits, Hindus living in Sialkote and Lahore were also slaughtered. That period was volatile. We lived in Bhida village. We had come to the town three days before. I was accompanied by my two brothers and sisters-in-law. My father stayed back and asked us to go to Reasi. He said he was an old man and would not be killed. A boy went to a mill to get his grains grinded. While he was returning, a Sadhu applied Sindoor to him and gave him a blow with his sword. Injured, he ran away and told the Muslims about the incident. So Muslims assembled to avenge the attack. The other Mohalla is a Hindu majority locality. So when the Muslims went for the revenge, two Muslims, Kalla Shah and Sandhu Shah, came in front of the mob and shouted – ‘kill us first and then the Hindus’. So the mob returned. They subsided the situation, but when the military came, they were the first to be killed. There is a ground near the Deputy Commissioner’s office called Sheren Wala Bagh, where they were killed. We left before the mayhem. I told my brother that the chances of survival were bleak as most of the people had been killed so we must leave. Then, a bridge existed here at Sawal. The government had deployed retired army officers to manage it. Among them was a Subedar from our area. His name was Kripa Ram. All people weren’t cruel, some were good-hearted too. Kripa Ram sent a message to my father inviting him to cross to the other side along with his kids. So we left with all our baggage in the night, and during wee hours, we reached that bridge where that Subedar was deputed. He made us cross the river which otherwise was not permissible. We made an uphill trek where we saw the army from Azad Kashmir carrying out attacks. They too comprised of retired soldiers. They were carrying out ambushes. We were perplexed about what was happening. Heavy fire was exchanged and people on both sides of Sawal were killed. Those who survived gathered at a site behind the bridge but they were tracked down and killed. They were some two thousand people; most of them were Bakerwal shepherds. Their possessions, including herds and money, were looted by the attackers. I am not saying that we only were affected, the fact is that people on both sides were affected. Then we took shelter in the mountains. We lived there for three months till it snowed. Then we proceeded towards Srinagar. We are basically residents of Kashmir. My grandfather hails from Danew Kandimarg (Damhal Hanjipora in Kulgam). We had our lands there. That region was relatively peaceful. Sheikh Sahab didn’t let those mishaps happen there in Kashmir. So we had decided to go there, but could not, because a heavy snowfall closed the tracks. So we went to Rajouri, and from there to Mirpur and finally to Pakistan. We were about 150 people along with our kids and daughters. While we were on our way we also faced Ikhwanis who pointed their guns at us. We got frightened. To be brutally honest, we made our mind to kill our girls ourselves in order to protect their chastity. They were animals devoid of humanity who plundered as well as lynched people. They butchered people irrespective of what religion they belonged to. They just slaughtered. Their General, however, saved us. He knew his men were unruly so he protected us. We didn’t even stopped at night and reached Pakistan. We stayed in Pakistan for five years. My children were born there. I was married but issueless when the mayhem took place. However, we didn’t feel at home there. I told my brother about a return. By then, Sheikh Sahab and Beigh Sahab had restored peace in Jammu. The border was not that rigid. People easily moved across and they said the atmosphere was peaceful, riots had stopped. Reasi fort. We lived at Jhelum in a Gurudwara that lacked its worshippers. We lived there and were provided with two kilos of the ration. At that time, it was Bakshi’s rule. Bakshi had declared that whoever would come should not be bothered and should be given their rightful place. My brother settled in the village and I settled in Reasi. Some of the families, however, did not return. My nephews live in Jhelum. Our family survived scattered and bruised. All those relatives who could not leave Reasi were killed. These included my father. Later, we came to know that he was actually killed in his own home. After we came to know about the spot from where his body was dropped down, we decided to attempt tracing the remains. We succeeded in unearthing his bones. We put them in a sack and offered his funeral prayers and then buried it seven years after his murder. He was seventy years old when he asked us to leave the area. His name was Misrti Azizuddin. Mohammad Din, Maghrab Jan and Fakir Sayi were my brothers. They are no more but their kids are alive. The canons that were mounted in the area were used to kill us. They used the canons on the big house in which we had taken refuge. A Kashmiri who lived here was killed here. He had married a Hindu girl and settled here and that was the reason why he was killed. Another Kashmir, who was known as Malik Sahab was also killed. Not everybody who left Reasi returned later. Most of the people who had gone to Pakistan did not return. But most of the people who had fled to Kashmir or taken refuge in the Chenab valley did return. Chenab valley was saved in 1947. We did not know much about the women who were looted except one. She belonged to the family of a woodcutter and lived here. She was living in a Rajput family in Akhnoor and had begotten children too. So when her brother traced and came, he did not disturb her rather let her live in that family. This was despite the fact that the government had set up a rehabilitation system. Her children are still alive and live as Rajput Sikhs in Akhnoor. I think her brother made the right decision. It was her fate. Her children knew about their mother’s roots. They knew and met their maternal uncle. Those days, life was not good anywhere. We saw the situations on the other side and came back. By the grace of Almighty, we are happy; we live happily with our Hindu brethren and have put a curtain on the past. In Jhelum, I lost my brothers and my uncle. My two sons who were born there died there. We were blessed with five sons and three daughters. The eldest of the sons retired and is living in Jammu. My one daughter lives in Mumbai and another in Bengal. One of my sons works for Srinagar Municipality and lives in Srinagar. Another of my sons works for the police. (Irtiza Rafiq processed this interview) 1947 Jammu Massacre Previous ArticleKupwara’s Muqam-e-Shahwali without potable water since months Next Article Knitting Dreams Sangh Parivaar Had Infiltrated Tribal Raiders In 1947, A New Book Claims Famous Faiz Poem Bol Ki Lab Azad Hein Teray Was For Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Jammu Massacre: Yasin Malik terms November 6, a black day in human history Chacha Jee on November 15, 2018 11:53 pm And what will happen if few southern districts of Kashmir get si called Azadi or Join Pakistan. Forget Kashmi, 200 Million Muslims living in India will not be distributing sweets but joing you in Azadi. Have Muslims in Myanmar got Azadi? By the time Kashmir gets Azadi, India would by then created 3 Muslims countries for Muslims living in India. Even world will laugh at India or on Hindus if 200 Muslims in India keep living in India. Do not be delusional…read this story and watchhundreds of YouTube videos of Pakistanis who had to migrate to Pakistan in 1947. This time, there is no Gandhi, Nehru, British Army, Nawabs with Muslim police or Armies or Razakars	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1323
__label__wiki	0.911801	0.911801	CA (Crim Div) (Fulford LJ, Spencer J, William Davis J) It was for the defence at trial to take decisions as to whether to use or act on disclosed unused material, and a failure to inspect such material was unlikely to justify a later application, following conviction, for it to be introduced as fresh evidence. The court emphasised that only in exceptional circumstances would evidence be admitted that could have been adduced at trial. CA (Crim Div) (Dingemans LJ, Lambert J, Judge Mark Brown) Convictions for assault by penetration and sexual assault were safe, despite inadmissible opinion evidence from prosecution witnesses having been adduced before the jury. The total sentence was, however, reduced from eight years’ imprisonment to five years to reflect the overall criminality involved. CA (Crim Div) (Simon LJ, Jacobs J, Judge Munro QC) When dismissing an appeal against a conviction for conspiracy to corrupt, the Court of Appeal made general observations on the purpose and nature of the summing-up of facts and the scope of a trial judge’s task in that respect. CA (Crim Div) (Lord Burnett LCJ, Sweeney J, Sir Roderick Evans) In an indecent assault trial which turned on the comparative credibility of the complainant and the defendant, the judge should have given a full good-character direction in respect of the defendant. His failure to do so, coupled with his direction that the jury should treat the unchallenged evidence of the defendant’s character witnesses with caution, simply because they knew him well, rendered the defendant’s conviction unsafe. CA (Crim Div) (Hamblen LJ, Andrew Baker J, Sir Roderick Evans) A conviction under the Child Abduction Act 1984 s.2(1)(b) was overturned where the defendant with communication difficulties had not had the benefit of an intermediary to assist him in giving evidence and in understanding the questions put to him in cross-examination. His co-accused, who had comparable communication difficulties, had had an intermediary throughout his trial; therefore, there was no parity of approach and there had been real unfairness to the defendant in relation to both the giving of his evidence and the jury’s ability to assess it. CA (Crim Div) (Flaux LJ, Goose J, Julian Knowles J) Permission to appeal against sentence and convictions for manslaughter and child cruelty by the victim’s father were refused where there had been no error in the admission of bad character evidence at trial and the 10-year sentence of imprisonment was not manifestly excessive. CA (Crim Div) (Haddon-Cave LJ, Cockerill J, Judge Bate) Applying the rule of speciality, an extradition defendant should only be dealt with for the offences detailed in the European Arrest Warrant. Furthermore, under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 s.240ZA and s.243, time spent in custody awaiting extradition counted towards a subsequent sentence of imprisonment. CA (Crim Div) (Singh LJ, Julian Knowles J, Sir John Royce) Evidence of a blood sample taken after a road traffic accident remained admissible even though it was unlawfully obtained. The defendant had lied about his drug use at the time the sample was taken, and it was likely that the healthcare professional who took the sample would have altered her opinion as to whether his condition might have been due to drugs had she known the truth. The manner in which evidence was obtained was relevant to the exercise required by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 s.78, but did not automatically lead to its exclusion if its admission would not render the trial unfair. QBD (Admin) (Nicola Davies LJ, Goss J) Offences relating to the control or management of a house in multiple occupation were continuing offences; the six-month time limit for laying of informations in respect of such offences therefore ran from the last date the local authority had knowledge of the offending. CA (Crim Div) (Leggatt LJ, Popplewell J, Judge Marson QC) Convictions for rape and indecent assault were deemed unsafe where a judge had failed to give a jury clear directions as to whether, and if so how, they could rely on the evidence of each victim when considering the allegations made by the other.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1327
__label__cc	0.690613	0.309387	BET inhibitor JQ1 decreases pro-inflammatory and increases anti-inflammatory cytokine protein expression after SCI. The protein levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-6 (a) and the anti-inflammatory cytokines IL-10 and IL-13 (b) were quantified via Luminex analysis at 4 and 72 h after operation. N = 3–4 mice per group and time point. p < 0.05, *p < 0.01, unpaired t test	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1331
__label__cc	0.587708	0.412292	Marketing Manager - Boston About Northeastern: Founded in 1898, Northeastern is a global research university and a world leader in experiential learning. The same commitment to connecting with the world drives our use-inspired research enterprise. The university offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate and graduate programs leading to degrees through the doctorate in nine colleges and schools. Our campuses in Charlotte, N.C., San Francisco, Seattle, and Toronto are regional platforms for undergraduate and graduate learning and collaborative research. Northeastern pursues advanced research in security and materials at the Innovation Campus in Burlington, Massachusetts, and in coastal sustainability at the Marine Science Center in Nahant, Massachusetts. About the Opportunity: The Marketing Manager is responsible for creating, deploying, tracking and measuring marketing strategies for degree programs, disciplines and initiatives across multiples colleges within Northeastern University Global Network. Strategies must drive and support annual enrollment goals, increase awareness and contribute to the overall success of Northeastern University and its programs. The Marketing Manager works in collaboration with the Director of Marketing, the Enrollment Marketing and Communications, Admissions and the academic teams to meet goals for assigned projects and portfolios. Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to: Define the overall marketingstrategy, messaging and positioning for degree programs, sectors, audiences and initiatives within Northeastern University Global Network Develop and manage execution of marketing plans through effective project management skills Effectively track and measure campaign success and ROI through regular monitoring and reporting of data through the entire enrollment funnel; from lead generation and nurturing through enrollment Work collaboratively with Enrollment Marketing team to ensure that all marketing reflects consistent and timely on-brand messages Buildand maintain relationships with internal and external university partners and manage marketingvendors (creative teams, agencies, print production etc.) Utilize marketing automation tool (Marketo) and CRM (Salesforce) to attract and nurture prospective students through the enrollment process Collaborate with marketing team to effectively manage the budget for assigned degree programs, disciplines and initiatives Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing or related field with minimum of 4 years experience in marketing and communications. Higher education experience preferred. Demonstrated success in the development and implementation of marketing strategies. Flexible, creative thinker open to new ideas and changing priorities within a fast-paced organization. Strong project management skills and ability to manage stakeholder expectations. Strong written and verbal communication skills. Ability to think and act both analytically and strategically. Experience working with a marketing automation tool and customer relationship management system (CRM) a plus. Salary Grade: Northeastern University is an equal opportunity employer, seeking to recruit and support a broadly diverse community of faculty and staff. Northeastern values and celebrates diversity in all its forms and strives to foster an inclusive culture built on respect that affirms inter-group relations and builds cohesion. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. To learn more about Northeastern University's commitment and support of diversity and inclusion, please see www.northeastern.edu/diversity. To apply, visit https://careers.pageuppeople.com/879/cw/en-us/job/502224 jeid-c3b0a51189118f4c9a65aaf89bbb6bb3 About Northeastern University Founded in 1898, Northeastern University is a private research university located in the heart of Boston. Northeastern is a leader in worldwide experiential learning, urban engagement, and interdisciplinary research that meets global and societal needs. Our broad mix of experience-based education programs?our signature cooperative education program, as well as student research, service learning, and global learning?build the connections that enable students to transform their lives. The University offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate and graduate programs leading to degrees through the doctorate in nine colleges and schools. Assistant Director for Communications and Marketing Oxford, Ohio Miami University 4 Days Ago Manager, Marketing Bethesda, Maryland National Association of School Psychologists 5 Days Ago Marketing Communications Manager Alexandria, VA The Vision Council 1 Week Ago	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1336
__label__wiki	0.652652	0.652652	About KXLU Alma Del Barrio DJ Directory Listen to our Livestream External Streams Nordic artist got name from a dream, and other things you need to know about FARAO by Jenny Lee • Oct 8, 2019 Blog 3144 portraits by Oscar-nominated filmmakers Karl Erik Brøndbo and Hallvar Witzø make up the music video for Farao’s “The Hours”. Layering crunchy, silky and metallic textures under her falsetto vocal stylings, the Russian disco inspired artist leads us in a journey across the picturesque landscapes of England, Iceland and Norway as each photo almost exactly replicates the last. In the distance traveled and the stagnation endured, she offers the viewers a look into the hours wasted, as her lyrics denote. Amongst other things, this is what drew me to her. She is just as advertised: a woman with a witty sense of humor and a potent sense of individuality. She plays with depth and absurdity in a nuanced sense that is almost, and rightly so, selfish in its eccentricity. Please enjoy this interview. 1. What made you fall in love with music when you were young? Farao: It was a way to escape – I grew up in a tiny village in the mountains in Norway with not much going on, so I needed something to make me feel like I was a part of something bigger. 2. Who were some of the musicians and artists that you looked up to while you were growing up that influence your sound today? Farao: I listened to a lot of 90s R&B, specifically TLC, Janet Jackson, Destiny’s Child, who all influenced my singing style and made me feel like an independent woman. 3. You grew up in Norway, where the primary language spoken in Norwegian. So I am curious as to why do you choose to write lyrics in English? And how has that affected your listenership? Farao: It’s a way to distance myself from my lyrics. I find it awkward singing lyrics that are too personal in Norwegian so I hide behind the English language. Plus, as a singer, the English language has a way nicer flow. 4. I watched your music video for “Marry Me.” So I was wondering what the creative process is like for making a music video? Did you come up with the concept, the choreography? Or was it pitched to you by the director? Farao: I realized weirdo ballet aerobics was the ultimate way to visually represent the song.I came up with the concept based on these old Soviet aerobic videos I was watching on YouTube and the director Irrum loved the idea immediately. We took the choreography from those videos and put it together with the help of a choreographer here in Berlin – it was the most fun and most exhausting music video I’ve ever made. 5. What advice would you give to up-and-coming artists who want to make a music video, but don’t know where to start? Farao: Stop thinking that it has to look fancy or expensive for it to be interesting. Make it yourself at home with your phone or a cheap camera, spend a few days learning Premiere or Final Cut with some Youtube-tutorials and just go for it. It’ll probably be more charming that way and a better representation of who you are as an artist. 6. Where does the name Farao come from? Farao: From a sex dream I had about Pharoah Sanders. It’s also the Norwegian spelling of the English word for an Egyptian pharaoh. 7. Why did you choose to create music in the club, disco-pop genre, as opposed to other genres? Farao: Because it’s obviously the coolest genre. 8. What are the first albums you bought? Farao: My parents bought me Robyn is here by Robyn at a gas station in Sweden when I was 8 and I listened to it on my Discman until the CD had so many scratches it stopped working. I still listen to that album all the time. Any Robyn fans out there should check out the track “The Last Time” from that album, it’s so smooth 9. What is your source of inspiration as an artist, in other words, what keeps you making music every day? Farao: I make the kind of music I feel like the world is lacking. There is a lot of great stuff out there, but most music being released today is uninteresting to me. Until people start making the kind of music I wanna hear, I have to make it myself. 10. How do you get into the creative mindset? Farao: I just spark a huff dart and go wild. [presumably Norwegian slang for cigarette] 11. You have an EP, two albums and 11 singles out. Congratulations on that!! The big question is: How do you know when a track is DONE? Farao: Thank you! Well, the thing is, you don’t know. At some point you just have to stop working on it and let it go. I still hear stuff I wanna change in the music I’ve already released, but things got a lot easier for me once I started forgiving myself for the creative choices I’ve made in the past. If you’re in the European way, you can find tickets for Farao’s upcoming shows here, otherwise I encourage you to stream her Pure-O and Till It’s All Forgotten. Article and Interview by Jenny Lee. L.A. WITCH’s Sade on their origins, genre choices & inextinguishable love for LA NRVS LVRS: the married dark wave duo inspired by Kate Bush and The Fall UCRN Conference Fall 2019: RECAP by Alexa Terry • Jan 8, 2020 The Power of Plantasia: How the Internet Grew To Love This Musical Oddity by Alexa Terry • Dec 5, 2019 Mercado Sagrado 2019 Recap by advant • Nov 26, 2019 Show Review: Growlers Beach Goth At the Hollywood Palladium About Alma Del Barrio 2020 KXLU 88.9 FM • All Rights Reserved	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1344
__label__wiki	0.645039	0.645039	Home / ISSUES / DIGITAL ISSUES / Kyoto Journal Digital Issue 83 Kyoto Journal Digital Issue 83 (US$4.50) Food pervades every area of our existence. It sustains us. It inspires us. It enslaves us. It educates us. It may kill us. It allows us to communicate with the Gods. Kyoto Journal Digital Issue 83 quantity Category: DIGITAL ISSUES …Your food is not mine, nor mine yours, but we may share it, and in so doing, what joy. Few remain silent on Food. And why would one? What a natural topic for discussion, discourse, eulogy, outrage, comedy, reflection, prayer, ire, poetry, love. Food is simultaneously universal and particular, literal and metaphoric. It is edible, incredible fun, a celebration of life itself. And so many of its greatest exponents and proponents live here in Asia. On the FOOD! menu: • An exclusive preview of the first volume in a series of books that will be the most significant work on Japanese Cuisine ever to be published, the Japanese Culinary Academy’s Complete Japanese Cuisine. Volume one, the “Introduction to Japanese Cuisine: Nature, History and Culture”, to be published worldwide in English in August 2015, is in itself a seminal tome, with essays on the culture and science of Food, featuring beautifully illustrated recipes from Kyoto-based highly regarded culinary establishments. • John Ashburne interviews world-class chefs Rene Redzepi(owner/chef of restaurant Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark, voted “the best restaurant in the world” four times in the San Pellegrino Awards); Murata Yoshihiro,the Doyen of Japanese Cuisine, founder of the Japan Culinary Association and owner/chef at Kyoto’s famed Kikunoikaiseki ryori restaurant; and Michelin award-winning chefs Kenichi Hashimoto and Hajime Yoneda. • First English translation of Days of Eating Earth 『土を喰う日々―わが精進十二ヵ月』, by Minakami Tsutomu, is a firsthand description of a priest’s long and rigorous dedication to eking out shojin ryori, Buddhist cuisine, from minimal ingredients. “At the temple, a meal’s menu was determined by consulting with the vegetable field. This was why I realized the essence of Shojin Ryori was eating earth. Eating seasonal food is similar to eating earth. Shojin comes to life when dishes are prepared and served using the very vegetables that transformed soil into nutrition and have become ripe to eat.” • In “Tibetan Butter Tea and Pink Gin: Life in Old Darjeeling,” author Ann Tashi Slater (The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Huffington Post) weaves a fascinating tale of her Tibetan grandmother, in Raj-era India. “Food had meant so much to my grandmother. Her story and the story of the era in which she lived can be understood through the food that she desired, prepared, and consumed; that even surfaced in dreams… In many of the tales she told, it made an appearance in one way or another, from Tibetan butter tea and tsampa roasted barley to British scones and finger sandwiches to Anglo-Indian mulligatawny soup and masala chicken curry. This eclecticism reflected her world, a sphere that included East and West, old Tibet and British India; where she could take tea with the 13th Dalai Lama at his summer palace in Lhasa as well as enjoy a pink gin before gliding out onto the dance floor at Firpo’s, a Calcutta Raj-era hotspot.” • “The Great Wave Has Broken,” by sculptor/printmaker Bill Clements, investigates the astonishing worldwide downturn in the numbers of farmers — the people actually producing the world’s essential staple food stocks. For example, in the USA, there are more prison inmates than full-time farmers… “Just as the world was waking up to the reality of climate change and its as yet unquantifiable effects on agriculture and food scarcity, writers were turning their attention and ours to the twentieth century, during which 70 million people died from man-made famines. That last famine of 1958-62, in which between 36 and 45 million men, women and children died, is treated by the Chinese government as a natural disaster.” • “Food from Beyond the Bridge of Dreams” is anthropologist Kaori O’Connor’s deconstruction of Japan’s national cuisine, tracing its historical and cultural roots back into Herian era, and even Japan’s complex mythology. “Food is both symbol and sustenance, linking body and spirit, self and society, past and present, myth and magic. Cuisines are not just cookery techniques, menus, recipes and ingredients —they are culture, history and memory in edible form. All societies make different choices about food—how it is cooked, eaten and served; which foods are appropriate for which meals, which foods are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and much more. Different foods and ways of eating mark the boundaries between social classes, genders, ethnicities, religions, regions and nations. National cuisines and dishes inspire strong passions, embody national values and identity and are believed to be linked to the nation’s character, health and fortunes.” • “The Milk of Paradise: Mother, Mantra, and Our First Food,” by James N. Powell, explores our deepest and earliest connections with “nature”—and the divine—through mother’s milk. “The coherent brain wave patterns of the babbling infant breast-feeding while tenderly cradled by and in full-body skin-to-skin contact with the mother are the same as those of yogis and yoginis in the state of Samadhi while meditating deeply on a mantra. In fact infants spend much of their first few months of life not only in full-body union with mommy, but babbling such sounds as Aaaaaaaaaaaah, while closing and opening their mouths. If you experiment with this yourself, you will discover that doing so produces the sound of Aum, spontaneously.” • “In Food and the Jain Tradition,”pilgrim, writer and educator Satish Kumar expounds on food in relation to non-violence, mindfulness, restraint, gratitude and fasting. “There are three words in food: sattvik, rajasik and tamasik. Sattvik food is simple, elegant, authentic, natural, local; for nourishment. Vegetables, salad, simply-prepared food. That’s all good. But rajasik food would be more kind of sweet and spicy and exuberant. Tamasik food would be heavy, and difficult to digest, like meat, or alcohol, so Jains completely forbid tamasik food. Tamasik food, like meat, involves violence to others, and minimizing violence is one of the most important aspects of Jain, or any spiritual tradition. If your food is not grown locally, and food becomes a commodity, and it is traded, it is no longer local, no longer fresh, no longer sattvik, it becomes even tamasik. So genetically engineered food would be tamasik, and commodified food like McDonalds would be tamasik.” Guest Editor John F. Ashburne, long-time Kyoto resident, has written for the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Japan Times, Louis Vuitton City Guide Kyoto Nara 2011 and Wall Street Journal Asia, and authored the Lonely Planet Food Guide Japan. He is an ‘undercover judge’ for a famed global culinary award that must remain unnamed. Cover Image by Yamaguchi Hiroshi published July 2015 ¥500 Add to cart	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1345
__label__wiki	0.999102	0.999102	Transport of acidic amino acids by the bovine pigment epithelium Exp. Eye lies. (1986) 43, 207-214 Transport of Acidic Amino Acids by the Bovine Pigment Epithelium E. L. PAUTLER A N D C. T E N G E R D Y Departme... Lipids of bovine retinal pigment epithelium Distribution of acid lipase in the bovine retinal pigment epithelium Glucose transport in isolated mammalian pigment epithelium Cl− transport in frog retinal pigment epithelium Microbial oxidases of acidic d -amino acids The Retinal Pigment Epithelium Enantioselective transport of amino acids Heat inactivation of threonine, glycine, and the acidic amino acids Rubidium transport in cultured monkey retinal pigment epithelium Transport of amino acids by slices of rat-kidney cortex Exp. Eye lies. (1986) 43, 207-214 Transport of Acidic Amino Acids by the Bovine Pigment Epithelium E. L. PAUTLER A N D C. T E N G E R D Y Department of Physioloyy and Biophysics: College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, U.S.A. (Received 30 September 1985 and in revised form 6 February 1986) The regulation of acidic amino-acid transport across the retinal pigment epithelium is of particular interest since glutamate and possibly aspartate have been identified as putative neurotransmitters in the retina, at the level of the photoreceptor ceil. The present study, designed to measure the rate of acidic amino-acid transport across the mammalian pigment epithelium (PE), shows that there is a net transi~rt of both glutamate and aspartate in the retina to choroid direction (R-C), with tile R-C unidirectional flux of glutamate being substantially larger than the corresponding aspartate flux. The ~ and C-R fluxes of glutamate were found to be inhibited by ouabain. Further investigations utilizing aspartate revealed t h a t the fluxes in both directions were inhibited when ouab,~in was present.on the retinal side of the tissue preparation. The R-C flux of glutamate was significantly reduced by lowered concentrations of l~a+, K + and Ca 2+, whereas the C~R flux was diminished only by the reduced concentration of Ca2+. The changes in K + concentration which markedly altered the ~ flux of glutamate were within the range of light-induced changes of K + which has been observed in the extracellular space of the photoreceptor cells. The transporting system appears to be. relatively specific for the acidic amino acids; tbr aspartate was an effective competitive inhibitor of glutamate transport whereas basic (lysine) and neutral (leucine) amino acids were not. The directionality, ouabain sensitivity, ionic dependence and sub.~trate specificity of the transmembrane fluxes tend to support the concept of active transport as a mechanism of acidic amino-acid removal from the neural retina. hey words: amino acids ; transport; a.upartate; glutamate; pigment epithelium. 1. I n t r o d u c t i o n We have chosen to study the transport of the acidic amino acids (glutamate and aspartate) across the mammalian pigment epithelium (PE) since glutamate and p o s s i b l y a s p a r t a t e m a y b e i n v o l v e d in s y n a p t i c t r a n s m i s s i o n a t t h e l e v e l o f t h e p h o t o r e c e p t o r cell ( I s h i d a a n d F a i n , 1981 ; L a s a t e r a n d D o w l i n g , 1 9 8 2 ; B r a n d o n a n d L a i n , 1983), a n d m e c h a n i s m s w h i c h m a y c o n t r i b u t e t o t h e r e g u l a t i o n o f t h e e x t r a c e l l u l a r c o n c e n t r a t i o n s in t h e r e t i n a a r e o f c o n s i d e r a b l e i n t e r e s t . The transport of amino acid5 across pigment epithelial tissues has not been e x t e n s i v e l y s t u d i e d . E d w a r d s (1977) has d e m o n s t r a t e d t h e a c t i v e a c c u m u l a t i o n o f t a u r i n e b y c u l t u r e d r e t i n a l p i g m e n t e p i t h e l i a l cells. M i l l e r a n d S t e i n b e r g ( 1 9 7 6 ) h a v e s t u d i e d t h e t r a n s p o r t o f t a u r i n c a n d L - m e t h i o n i n e in t h e f r o g P E a n d h a v e s h o w n t h a t t h e n e t f l u x o f t a u r i n e in t h e r e t i n a t o c h o r o i d d i r e c t i o n ( t L - C ) is g r e a t e r t h a n t h a t of L-methionine. The taurine flux was also modulated by the extracellular concentrat i o n o f p o t a s s i u m [K+]o, i n r a n g e s w h i c h c o ~ e s p o n d t o t h e l i g h t - i n d u c e d a l t e r a t i o n s o f K + l e v e l s s u r r o u n d i n g t h e p h o t o r e c e p t o r culls (Miller a n d S t e i n b e r g , 1 9 7 9 ) . I n a b s t r a c t f o r m , S e l l n a r a n d M a s l a n d (1.983) h a v e r e p o r t e d ' a n e t f l u x o f m s p a r t i c a c i d , l e u c i n e , l y s i n e , s e r i n e a n d t y r o s i n e in t h e r e t i n a - t o - c h o r o i d d i r e c t i o n o f t h e f r o g PE, but few details were provided on the ionic and metabolic dependence of the 0014-4835/86/080207 +08 $O3.OO/0 8 ~)1986 Academic Press Inc. (London) Limited E~R 43 E.L. P A U T L E R C. T E N G ' E R D Y transport systems. W e n o w report on the effect of ionic changes as well as competitive substrates and a metabolic inhibitor on the transport of acidic amino acids'across the" isolated bovine PE. 2. M a t e r i a l s a n d M e t h o d s B o v i n e eyes w e r e o b t a i n e d a t a local a b a t t o i r a n d t r a n s p o r t e d t o t h e l a b o r a t o r y in .~, ice-cold saline. T h e s c l e r a w a s r e m o v e d f r o m t h e p o s t e r i o r p o r t i o n o f t h e eye, a n d a 3- t o 4 c m 2 piece o f r e t i n a was excised. T h e n e u r a l r e t i n a w a s t h e n g e n t l y p e e l e d a w a y , a n d t h e r e m a i n i n g t i s s u e vonsisting o f R P E a n d c h o r o i d a l r e m n a n t s - - w a s m o u n t e d between two lucite plates. The mounting chip was coated with a thin covering of silicone g r e a s e a n d p l a c e d in a U s s i n g c h a m b e r . T h e c h a m b e r a n d c h i p d e s i g n w e r e s i m i l a r to t h o s e d e v e l o p e d b y Miller a n d S t e i n b e r g (1976), w~th t h e e x c e p t i o h o f a n i n c r e a s e in a p e r t u r e size f r o m 0"07- t o 2 c m ~. T h e c h a m b e r p e r f u s i o n s y s t e m c o n s i s t e d .of a p p r o x i m a t e l y 20 m l o f s a l i n e o n e a c h side o f t h e tissue. T h e t e m p e r a t u r e w a s m a i n t a i n e d a t 31°C b y m e a n s o f t h e r m o s t a t i c ally c o n t r o l l e d h e a t i n g e l e m e n t s in e a c h side o f t h e c h a m b e r . T h e t i s s u e is v i a b l e in r a n g e o f 3 0 - 3 4 ° C . T h e electrical p a r a m e t e r s d e t e r i o r a t e a t t e m p e r a t u r e s a b o v e 34°C. T h e ionic c o m p o s i t i o n o f t h e saline c o n s i s t e d o f 92 mM NaC1, 18 mM N a H C O a, 2"0 mM KCI, 1"8 mM CaCI2, I'0 mM MgSO4, 0.4 mM N a 2 H P O 4, 0"8 mM N a H 2 P O 4 , a n d 0'01 mM o f t h e c a r r i e r a m i n o acid. I n t h e ionic d e p e n d e n c y studies, K + . a n d Ca 2+ w e r e r e d u c e d b y 90 ~/o f r o m t h e s t a n d a r d c o m p o s i t i o n in b o t h sides o f t h e c h a m b e r . NaCI w a s r e p l a c e d t h r o u g h o u t t h e c h a m b e r w i t h LiCl r e s u l t i n g in a n 83 ~/o r e d u c t i o n . A f u r t h e r r e d u c t i o n w o u l d h a v e r e q u i r e d m a n i p u l a t i o n o f t h e b i c a r b o n a t e b u f f e r s y s t e m w h i c h we d i d n o t wish to p u r s u e a t t h e p r e s e n t t i m e . S o l u t i o n s on e a c h s i d e were a e r a t e d w i t h 95 ~ O~ a n d 5 ~/o C02, w h i c h m a i n t a i n e d t h e p H a t 7"4 a n d f a c i l i t a t e d fluid m i x i n g . T h e t r a n s e p i t h e l i a l electrical p o t e n t i a l ( T E P ) a n d s h o r t c i r c u i t c u r r e n t (SCC) were m o n i t o r e d b y a ~Vorld P r e c i s i o n I n s t r u m e n t s DVC-10O0 v o l t a g e - c u r r e n t c l a m p w h i c h also p e r m i t t e d c o m p e n s a t i o n f o r fluid resistance. T h e specific r e s i s t a n c e o f t h e tissue in w h i c h t h e P E cells h a d b e e n r e m o v e d b y b r u s h i n g w a s a p p r o x i m a t e l y 20 ~2 c m ~. All e x p e r i m e n t s w e r e p e r f o r m e d w i t h t h e T E P c l a m p e d t o zero in o r d e r t o e l i m i n a t e t h e T E P as a d r i v i n g force in t h e e v e n t ionic c o t r a n s p o r t w a s i n v o l v e d . T h e t r a n s e p i t h e l i a l flux e x p e r i m e n t s w e r e c o n d u c t e d b y a d d i n g 10/zCi o f 3[H]-labeled h i g h specific a c t i v i t y c a r r i e r a m i n o a c i d t o o n e side o f t h e c h a m b e r . T h e t o t a l c o n c e n t r a t i o n o f t h e c a r r i e r a m i n o a c i d o n b o t h sides o f t h e c h a m b e r w a s a d j u s t e d to 0-01 raM. T h e a m i n o acid carriers w e r e L - g l u t a m i c a c i d a n d L~-aspartic acid. T h e c o n c e n t r a t i o n o f t h e a m i n o a c i d s e m p l o y e d as c o m p e t i t i v e i n h i b i t o r s w a s 0"1 raM, w h i c h is I 0 t i m e s t h e carrier c o n c e n t r a t i o n , a n d w a s t h e s a m e o n b o t h sides o f t h e U s s i n g c h a m b e r . T h e a m i n o acids u s e d as c o m p e t i t i v e i n h i b i t o r s for g l u t a m a t e w e r e L - a s p a r t i c acid, L-lysine a n d L-leucine. T h e ~ o n c e n t r a t i o n o f o u a b a i n w a s 0"1 raM. O u a b a i n w a s a d d e d t o b o t h sides o f ~he U s s i n g c h a m b e r in t h e g l u t a m a t e e x p e r i m e n t s , w h e r e a s o u a b a i n w a s a d d e d t o e i t h e r t h e r e t i n a l side o r c h o r o i d a l side in t h e a s p a r t a t e studies. T h e effects o f t h e i n h i b i t o r s o n t h e u n i d i r e c t i o n a l fluxes w e r e m e a s u r e d in t h e r e t i n a ' t o - c h o r o i d ( R - C ) a n d c h o r o i d - t o - r e t i n a ( C - R ) d i r e c t i o n s . A m i n i m u m o f five o b s e r v a t i o n s o n d i f f e r e n t tissues w e r e m a d e u n d e r e a c h e x p e r i m e n t a l c o n d i t i o n . S a m p l e s o f 0-1 m l w e r e s i m u l t a n e o u s l y t a k e n f r o m e a c h side a t 5-, 10-, 15-, 20-, 30-, 40-, 50-, a n d 60 rain. T h e s a m p l e s were t h e n p r e p a r e d for q u a n t i f i c a t i o n in a B e c k m a n L S 9000 l i q u i d s c i n t i l l a t i o n c o u n t e r . U n i d i r e c t i o n a l fluxes w e r e d e t e r m i n e d f r o m t h v s l o p e AMINO ACID TRANSPORT of t he linear p o r t i o n of t he appearance curve, which occurred between 30 a n d 60 min, and were corrected for volum~ changes d u e to removal of samples d u r i n g the e xpe ri me nt . I n general, tissues were s t u d i e d i n pairs (two chambers) in which t h e TABLE I Transport. of a~partate across the P E TEP Condition Control Control Ouabain on retina side Ouabain on retina side Ouabain on choroid side Ouabain on choroid side Specific resistance Klux (f/cm I} (pmol cm -I hr) (mV) (pA cm-s) 10-6-b 1.9 8"8q-3"5 33.4-b 8"7 31"6-b'11-7 327=1=75"6 282q- 66~) 10"5 q- 2"0 37-4 -b 12"8 294 -{-48~) 0.60 ± 0.26 8"82-b I-4 30"0-b 7-3 302-1-34"2 ~ 2 7 ±0'05" 10"3-1-2"6 37"8~ 7-9 272-b25"9 1-04~0.18 8"6=[=2"9 31'2=[: 7"3 0"31+0"09 1.12±0"22 0-39±0"06 R, r e t i n a ; C, ehoroid; T E P , transepithelial p o t e n t i a l ; scc, short circuit current. P < 0 . 0 0 1 ; t P < : 0.02. T h e values are p r e s e n t e d as m e a n s ± s t a n d a r d deviations. T h e level of mgmficance was d e t e r m i n e d b y S t u d e n t ' s (two-tailed) t t e s t for d a t a with unequal v a r i a n c e s a n d t h e accepted level o f confidence was 0"02. direction of t r a n s p o r t was opposite in each chamber. Occasionally, one tissue would be u n a c c e p t a b l e for s t u d y thereby d i s r u p t i n g the usual pairing of experiments. A n y tissue ha d to m a i n t a i n a specific resistance of a t least 200 ~ cm 2 t h r o u g h o u t t h e e x p e r i m e n t a l p r o c e d u r e in order to be utilized in d a t a analysis. 3. R e s u l t s Electrical parameters As s h o w n in Tables I a n d I I , the initial transepithelial potentials (TEP), short circuit c u r r e n t s (SCC) a n d specific resistances (SR) of t~e control tissues were similar for t he e x p e r i / n e n t s in which t r a n s p o r t was m e a s u r e d in opposing directions. Thus, there is no c o n f o u n d i n g of t r a n s p o r t rates w i t h differences in electrical p a r a m e t e r s . The values of tl~e T E P and S R are higher than previously reported (Crosson and Pautler, 1982), resulting from a modification of the ionic composition of the incubating solution to concentrations similar to those employed by Miller and Steinberg (1976) on the frog PE. However, the S C C was not substantially changed by this alteration of the incubating solution. The T E P s and SCCs were significalitlyreduced w h e n incubated in low K + or Ca s+ solutions, whereas a reduction in N a + resulted in a decreased S C C and an increased S R without a detectable change in the T E P . However, without specificionic tracer studies, no definitive statements can be m a d e as to the actual ior~ietransport systems which account for the observed S C C in the m a m m a l i a n PE. The e m p l o y m e n t of ouabain after the initial measurements of T E P and SCC, 8-2 R C R 0 R C R C R C R C R C R C C R C R C R C R C R C R C R C R Direction 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 N '8.0+2'2 8"7±3"6 7'6± 1"8 8"5+4"3 4"7+_1"7 4.8+ 1'9 '1.8+0-6 '1.9+1.0 7'6+-1'6 8"7+-3"3 8.6±2.1 7-0±0.4 8.8+2.5 7"7± 1'9 8'7_+2.1 8"3±2'2 TEP (mV) 31.0± 8"3 31"8+10'5 27"4+ 7"2 26"8± 9'4 '16"5+ 6"5 '17'4± 6"7 5.8± 1.1 6.5+ 3"3' t19'2± 4"8 t24'7-+ 8'0 27.8_+ 6.1 24.8± 3'6 27.4_+ 5.5 24'8+ 6"4 26'6_+ 6-0 28"4+_. 7-2 SCCo (pA cm-~} 20-2± 5'6 23'2+13'6 3"3_+ 2'5 2'8± 3"5 16"8+_18.0 15.3_+17.7 '1.2± 0.4 7"7+_ 1.0 19-2+ 7'8 25.5+ 5"8 17.6_+ 5.8 20.6± 7'2 20.0± 4-6 15.0+_ 3'9 18"0_+ 8"4 22"8+ 8"3 SCCeo (pA cm-z) 266+37"4 274+52"6 289+48.0 306±55"8 294+80.8 280+80.5 297±46.0 307+95.0 '401+56'9 '345_+17.8 311_+33.2 278_+55-0 319_+4ff2 313±50-5 332+_29"7 292+22"5 Specific resistance (~ cmffi) 2"15+0"22 0"49+0-10 '0-72±0.14 0.24±0-04 "1"10±0.30 ~28_+0.06 '1-00±0.25 0.39+0.14 t1"42+0"31 0.44_+0-10 ~99_+0-16 0-24±0.04 1.86+-0.39 0.41_+0"13 1.76+_0.24 0.43+0.10 Flux (pmol em"ffihr) TEP, transepithelial potential; SCCo, short-circuit current at beginningof experiment; SCCa0,short-circuit current at end of experiment. * P < 0.001; t P < 0.01. The values are presented ~ means+standard deviation. The levelof significancewas determined by Student's Itwo-tailed) t test for data with unequal variances and the accepted level of confidencewas 0.02. Data from the R-C and C-R directions were combined in analyzing the effects of reduced ion concentrations on the SCC and SR. Control Control Ouabain on both sides Ouabain on both sides Ca2+reduction Ca2+reduction K+ reduction K + reduction Na+reduction Na+reduction Aspartate a8 inhibitor Aspartate as inhibitor Leucine as inhibitor Leucine as inhibitor Lysine as inhibitor Lysine as inhibitor Transport of glutamate across the PE TABL~II AMINO ACID T R A N S P O R T c o n s i s t e n t l y r e s u l t e d in a s i g n i f i c a n t r e d u c t i o n in t h e SCC ( o b s e r v e d a t t h e e n d o f t h e e x p e r i m e n t a l o b s e r v a t i o n p e r i o d ) as c o m p a r e d w i t h c o n t r o l values. T h i s c o n f i r m e d t h a t t h e c o n c e n t r a t i o n e m p l o y e d was w i t h i n an e f f e c t i v e range. T h e a d d i t i o n o f o t h e r a m i n o acids as c o m p e t i t i v e i n h i b i t o r s h a d n o s i g n i f i c a n t effect on a n y o f t h e electrical parameters. e 2400 L~O0 ~O00 I000 te e0o / sI 4oo /f -/ 0s 200 o/ o ,~ ~) ,o,~2o ,,~ TIME (rain) Flo. 1. Typical appearance curves for glutamate are shown to demonstrate the lag time and linear phase of transport across the bovine pigment epithelium. In IA, the transport is in the R-C direction whereas I B is a paired experiment in the opposite direction. Note the lag time is consistently about 10 rain in both cases and the linear phase occurs between 30 and 60 rain. F l u x meazuremen~s T y p i c a l a p p e a r a n c e c u r v e s a r e s h o w n in Fig. 1 for p a i r e d tissues in w h i c h t h e g l u t a m a t e t r a n s p o r t w a s d e t e r m i n e d in o p p o s i t e d i r e c t i o n s . T h e linear- o r s t e a d y - s t a t e p h a s e o c c u r r e d b e t w e e n 30 a n d 60 rain. N o t e t h e lag t i m e was c o n s i s t e n t l y a b o u t 10 m i n . This p a r a m e t e r c a n b e r e l a t e d t o t h e r a t e c o n s t a n t s o f t r a n s p o r t across t h e d i f f e r e n t m e m b r a n e s a n d p a r a c e l l u l a r r o u t e s in e p i t h e l i a . T h e precise m a t h e m a t i c a l form d e p e n d s upon the model of transport selecled for study. The model which i n c l u d e s p a r a c e l l u l a r t r a n s p o r t a n d u n s t i r r e d l a y e r s c a n n o t b e e m p l o y e d for t h e a n a l y s i s o f t h e usual e x p e r i m e n t a l d a t a ( B a r n e t t a n d L i v k o , 1977). T h e R - C flux w a s s i g n i f i c a n t l y g r e a t e r for b o t h a s p a r t a t e a n d g l u t a m a t e t h a n t h e C - R flux, r e s u l t i n g in a s u b s t a n t i a l n e t flux in t h e R - C d i r e c t i o n . H o w e v e r , t h e R - C g l u t a m a t e flux w a s a p p r o x i m a t e l y t w i c e as g r e a t as t h e a s p a r t a t e flux, s u g g e s t i n g t h a t E.L. PAUTLER AND C. TENGERDY g l u t a m a t e is preferred by this particular t r a n s p o r t system. There was no significant difference between the fluxes of aspartate a n d g l u t a m a t e in the C - R direction. An approximation of the a m o u n t of carrier being moved by simple diffusion can be m a d e by employing t h e diffusion coefficient we have established for L-glucose in over 75 separate tissue preparations. From this data, t h e simple diffusion of the amino acids should be in the range o f 0-08-0.10 n ~ hr -l cm ~. This would account for a b o u t 23 ~o o f the transport o f a s p a r t a t e in the R - C direction and 8 % in the F ~ 3 direction. The calculated percentages would be less for the glutamat~ transport. The addition of ouabain to both sides of t h e c h a m b e r significant\|y reduce the Yi:-C flux a n d C - R flux for g l u t a m a t e . When ouabain was present on only the retinal side of the preparation, b o t h fluxes were similarly reduced for aspartate. Considering these observations, it appears t h a t both R - C and C-I~ retinal fluxes of t h e acidic amino acids are subject to regulation by an ATPase system, probably located in the apical m e m b r a n e of the PE. T h e transport of g l u t a m a t e in the R - C direction was significantly retarded by reducing the concentrations o f Na +, K + or Ca 2+, indicating a complex d e p e n d e n c e on specific ion species. The g l u t a m a t e flux in the C - R direction, however, did u o t reveal any dependence on Na + or K +, but was significantly reduced at t h e lower Ca ~+ concentration. A m i n o acids were tested as possible competitive inhibitors of g l u t a m a t e transport at concentrations I0 times thtJ.t of glutamate. Aspartic acid reduced both the R-C and C - R g l u t a m a t e fluxes b y approximately 50$/o, whereas lysine (basic) and leucine (neutral) amino acids did not significantly effect the g l u t a m a t e transport in either direction. This strongly suggests t h a t g l u t a m a t e and aspartate share c o m m o n transport systems in both t h e R-C and C - R directions which do not have a similar affinity for either lysine or leucine. 4. D i s c u s s i o n A t least six f u n d a m e n t a l amino acid transport systems have been identified in epithelial and non-epithelial cells (Christensen, 1975). One such system is primarily concerned with the transport of amino acids which are anionic at physiological p H such as g l u t a m a t e a n d aspartate. A s o d i u m - d e p e n d e n t system which handles Lg l u t a m a t e and L-aspartate at nearly equal affinities has been identified in hepatocytes (Christensen and Makowskie, 1983), lieurons (Drejer, Larrson and Schousboe, 1983) and in intestinal brush-border vesicles (Corcelli, Prezioso, Palmeri and Store\|\|i, 1982; Corcelli and Storelli, 1983}. To our knowledge, the transpor~ properties o f the basolateral m e m b r a n e s o f the enterocytes have n o t as y e t been studied in regard to aspartate or glutamate. The characteristics ofacidlc amino-acid t r a n s p o r t t h a t we have observed across t h e retinal P]~ are quite similar to those reported in o t h e r cell systems. First of all, the competition studies indicate t h a t both asp~rtate a n d g l u t a m a t e are t r a n s p o r t e d by a c~)mmon carrier which has a low affinity for basic (lysine) and neutral (leucine) amino acids. This also indicates the preferences of t h e transport system for the acidic a m i n o acids. Secondly, we have shown a net t r a n s p o r t of both a s p a r t a t e and g l u t a m a t e in t h e R - C direction which is N a + - d e p e n d e n t and subject to inhibition by ouabain. These features are suggestive of an active transport system which is again similar to the acidic a m i n o acid transport m e c h a n i s m s of other celZs. F u r t h e r m o r e , the d e p e n d e n c e of t h e R - C transport o f g l u t a m a t e on K + in our experiments is consistent with the observation on intestinal brush-border m e m b r a n e vesicles t h a t the Na+-L-glutamate (L-aspartate) cotransport system is specifically activated by K + and CI- ions (Corcelli and Storelli, 1983). I t is of special interest t h a t potassium exerted a m o d u l a t i n g effect on the R - C flux of g l u t a m a t e which was similar to t h a t noted by Miller and Steinberg (1979) in their studies o f t a u r i n e transport across the frog PE. Specifically, the g l u t a m a t e R - C fiux was e x t r e m e l y sensitive to K + changes in the range of 0.2-2 m~, which corresponds to physiological changes in K + levels within ~he neural retina induced by photic stimulation (Oakley, 1977). I f g l u t a m a t e a n d / o r aspartate are indeed functioning as n e u r o t r a n s m i t t e r s for photoreeeptors (Brandon and Lain, 1983; I s h i d a and Fain, 19gl; Lasater a n d Dowling, 1982), and the photoreceptor cells are synapticaliy active in t h e d a r k (see Sillrnan, 1985, for discussion), then t h e level o f extracellular K + would function to facilitate the transport out o f the retinal spaces across the PE. Conversely, during light exposure when the cells are presumably less active, the transport function would be diminished. The sensitivity of the g l u t a m a t e transport system to K + in the R - C direction provides a regulatory mechanism which conceivably helps control the levels of g l u t a m a t e in t h e extracellular spaces. However, the sensitivity o£ the g l u t a m a t e transport in both directions t o Ca z+ m a y also implicate this ion as an i m p o r t a n t regulator of acidic amino-acid transport across the P E . The behavior o f g l u t a m a t e and a s p a r t a t e t r a n s p o r t in t h e C - R direction presents some difficulties in interpretation. The competition studies did reveal t h a t the transport system preferred t h e acidic amino acid as compared with the basic (lysine) and neutral (leueine) ones. However, no d e p e n d e n c e on Na + or K + was observed in the g l u t a m a t e flux in t h e C - R direction even though it w~s inhibited by ouabain. Instead, a lowered concentration of Ca ~+ significantly reduced this flux by a b o u t 40 %. Miller and Steinberg (1977) have reported t h a t t h e active transport o f Ca ~+ across the frog P E is sensitive to ouabain, b u t the effect is to increase the Ca ~+ flux in the C - R direction. W h e t h e r or n o t the active t r a n s p o r t of Ca z+ is a t all related to the transport of g l u t a m a t e in t h e R - C direction is an open question. I t should be recalled t h a t in these investigations we are measuring t h e flux across two functionally and structurally different m e m b r a n e s , apical and basal. The experim e n t a l d e t e r m i n a t i o n of valid kinetic p a r a m e t e r s for each individual m e m b r a n e will probably require the utilization o f vesicles m a d e up of separate apical a n d basal membranes, similar to those which have been successfully employed in t h e studies of intestinal epithelium (Stevens, K a u n i t z a n d Wright, I984). The m e t h o d of tissue preparation used in these studies does h a v e the a d v a n t a g e o f simulating the blood-retinal barrier p r o v i d e d by t h e P E in vlvo, a n d permits characterization of the transport properties of t h e system as well as being amenable to the s t u d y o f t h e metabolic a n d ionic r e q u i r e m e n t s necessary to sustain or regulate t h e transport. I n s u m m a r y , we have shown t h a t there is a n e t flux of aspartat~ and g l u t a m a t e in the R - ~ direction with t h e g l u t a m a t e flux being substantially greater t h a n t h a t of~spartate. The unidirectional flux of g l u t a m a t e is d e p e n d e n t on N a +, K ÷ a n d Ca ~+ and is ~ubject to inhibition by ouabain. The inhibition by ouabain was further localized to t h e retinal side. These findings suggest the existence of a t r a n s p o r t ATPase system located, probably, in the apical m e m b r a n e system. The exquisite sensitivity to K ÷ and Ca ~+, t a k e n along with the sensitivity to ouabain, the substrate specificity, a n d the direction of the n e t flux, implies a mechanism which m a y serve to help regulate t h e extracellular concentrations o f acidic amino-acid t r a n s m i t t e r s a n d other n e u r o t r a n s m i t t e r s within the neural retina. A N D C. TEN('~ERI)Y ACKNOWLEDGMENT This research was supported in part by NIH grant EY 04750. REFERENCES Barnett, G. and Livko, V. (1977). Transport across epithelia: a kinetic evaluation. Biochim. Biophy.~. Acts 464, 276-86. Brandon, C. and Lain, D. M. K. (1983). L-glutamic acid: a neurotransmitter candidate for cone photoreceptors in human and rat retinas. Proc. Nat. Acad, ~.WcL U.8.A. 80, 5117-2I. Christensen, N. H. (1975). BZOLOOlCAI,TaASSPORT (2nd edn). W. A. Benjamin: Reading, Massachusetts. Christensen, H. N. and Makowskie, M. (1983). Recognition chemistry of anionic amino acids for hepatocyte transport and for neurotransmittoff action compared. Life 8ci. 33, 2255-67. Corceili, A., Prezioso, G., Palmeri, F. and Storelli, C. (1982). Eteetroneutral Na + dicarb~xylie amino acid cotransport in rat intestinal brush border membrane vesicles. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 689, 97-105. Coreelli, A. and Storelli, C. (1983). The role of potassium and chloride ions on the Na+/acidic amino acid cotransport system in rat intestinal brush border membrane vesicles. Biochim. Biophys. Acts 732, 24-31. Crosson, C.E. and Pautler, E.L. (1982). Glucose transport across the isolated bovine pigment epithelium. Exp. Eye Res. 35, 371-7. Drejer, J., Larrson, O. M. and Schousboe, A. (1983}. Characterization of uptake and release processes for I)- and L-aspartate in primary cultures of astrocytes and eerebellar granule cells~ Neurochem. Res. 8, 231-44. Edwards, 1%,B. (i977). Accumulation of routine by cultured retinal pigment epithelium of the rat. lnvezt. Ophthalmol. 16, 201-8. Ishida, A. T. and Fain, G. L. (1981). D-aspartate potentiates the efli~et of L-glutamate on horizontal cells in goldfish retina. Proe. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 781, 5890-4. Lasater, E. M. and Dowling, J. E. (1982). Carp horizontal cells in culture selectively respond to L-glutamate and its agonists. Proc. Nat. Acad. 8ci. U.8.A. 79, 936--40. Miller, S.S. and Steinberg, R.H. (1976). Transport of taurine, ~.-methionine and 3-0methyl-o-glucose across the frog retinal pigment epithelium. Exp. Eye Ree. 23, 177-89. Miller, S. S. and Steinberg, R. H. (1977). Active transport of ions across frog retinal pigment epithelium. Exp. Eye Res. 25, 235-48. Miller, S. S. and Steinberg, R. H. (1979). Potassium modulation of taurine transport across the frog retinal pigment epithelium. J. Gen. Physiol. 74, 237-59. Oakley, B., II. (1977). Potassium and the photoreceptor-dependent pigment epithelial hyperpolarization. Ji Oen. Physiol. 70, 405--25. Sellner, P. A. and l~lasland, R. H. (1983). Movement of membrane precursors across the frog retinal pigment epithelium, lnvest. Ophthalmol. Vis. ,Sci. 24 (Suppl.), 69. Sillman, A.J. (I985). Current concepts in photoreceptor physiology. The Physioloyist 28, 122-8. Stevens, B. R., Kaunitz, J. D. and Wright, E. M. (1984). Intestinal transport of amino acids and sugars: advances umng membrane vesmles. Ann. Rev. Physiol. 46, 417-33. [ Report "Transport of acidic amino acids by the bovine pigment epithelium"	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1346
__label__cc	0.742195	0.257805	Lamppostings Finding and creating adventures in everyday life. by Melissa 2 Comments London – Day 8 – Goodbyes and Hellos London – Day 8 – July 17, 2019 G&B treated us to the hotel’s breakfast buffet which meant we got to have a proper English Fry Up Breakfast and lots of great coffee. It was so good! Full English Breakfast! We headed to the Olympic Park which is right next to where we were staying. We walked around, went up to the Olympic Rings, the kids played on a playground. It’s an amazing park and I love that it is not going to waste after the Olympics finished. All the facilities are still being used, new businesses and education facilities are being built. It feels vibrant and full of life. London Aquatics Centre at the Olympic Park Olympic Park Mounted Police. Zane liked these pillars because they look like pencils. Heading up to the rings. The Olympic Rings. Playground in the Olympic Park. Back to the hotel. G&B headed back to Birmingham. There were tears. It’s hard to say goodbye, but friends are worth the pain of separation. Stairs. Graeme and Becky truly are lifelong friends. We are so thankful for them. They are kind and generous, fun and adventurous, faithful and patient. They were simply the best adventure companions. Laid back and easy going and up for anything. Graeme was our fearless navigator and got us everywhere we needed to be. We did so much in a short amount of time and it was the best. So much laughter, so many conversations, inspiration and plans for the future. Yep, there were tears. We took a bus to the Dr Who Museum and Shop. It was fun to be there. An incredible amount of Dr Who merchandise and memorabilia. We did go into the Museum which there’s a charge for. Sadly, they don’t allow photography in the shop or museum which I think isn’t the best strategy. They take a photo of you going into the Tardis and if you ask for permission they will let you take a photo or two in the shop. The museum was interesting and had a couple of pieces from favourite Dr Who episodes such as Van Gogh’s clothes, the Are You My Mummy mask, and others, but since I couldn’t take photos, I can’t remember them all. The Who Shop and Museum. Heading into the Dr Who Museum. Bus back to Stratford. The boys and I wandered around the cheap side of Stratford which is in sharp contrast to the newer fancier parts and the mall. It’s where I used to do a lot of my grocery shopping on my way home to our flat after we got married and lived on Leytsonstone High Road. Colin graciously took our laundry to a local laundromat. Sadly, I forgot to add Zane’s underpants and socks, so we made a plan to visit Primark to get him some new ones for the rest of the trip. We hung out at the hotel for a while which was a nice rest. The NZ Blacketts (Colin’s brother Shane, his wife Carolyn, and their kids Kate, Anna, and Ethan) had arrived and we met up with them at Liverpool Street Station and walked to Brick Lane. We ate at the Jasmine Curry House which is where the Princess Diana painting is. Because it was dinner and not the lunch special, we ordered what we used to get – special biryani and a mango curry among other things. Definitely not £5 for a curry anymore, but so worth it! It was fun to see the kids interacting and having a good time together. We saw lots of Jude’s Ice Cream around London. I added my thoughts to this outdoor art installation. Courage, Dear Heart. Cousins. Cousins and Pokemon Go One of the best One Pounds we spent. Endless entertainment from a folding ruler. Curry time. Jasmine Curry House. We walked them back to their AirBnB which was on Brink Lane. Zane was not impressed that it was over a shop called Kill the Cat. We did a Pokemon Go Gym Battle before heading back to Stratford. Brick Laneing. The NZ Blacketts in their Air BnB. Not happy with Kill the Cat. On a side not, I walked in my sandals most of the day, for some reason I thought it would be a light walking day, I was wrong. It’s worth it and completely necessary to have excellent walking shoes. You might have to sacrifice a bit of street cred style, but you will be so sad if you do not. Categories: London, Travel \| Permalink. by Melissa Leave a comment London – Day 7 – A Narrow Boat, A Picnic, and a Friend from Bend Off to Little Venice to catch the London Waterbus narrow boat to Camden. Definitely a wealthier part of town! None of us had done this before and it was fun to try it out and have yet another perspective on the city. Ready for the narrow boat. The ride was about an hour and we went through Regent’s Park and a bit of the London Zoo. Lots of history, cool tunnels, lots of duck weed, and crazy huge homes and gardens, one of which is owned by a sheikh though he is hardly ever there which made me a bit sad. Fancy House Duck, Duckling, Duck Weed Me and My Jude On the narrow boat. We finished at Camden Lock and were thrust into the craziness that is Camden Market – it was quite cool though. Took the Tube to Archway where we found an Aldi and together we created the most amazing picnic. Pork pies, scotch eggs, ham, rolls, crisps, biscuits, fruit and the pièce de résistance, clotted cream, provided by Graeme. Made it to Camden. Camden Lock Escalating. We walked up the hill to Waterlow Park and had such a lovely, English picnic. We relaxed, Jude climbed a tree, and we enjoyed the food and each other’s company. Colin may have eaten a lot of clotted cream in an effort to not let it go to waste! A picnic fit for royalty. A proper English picnic. He’s a climber! Waterlow Park We walked to Highgate Cemetary, but didn’t go in. A bit strange that they charge you to go into a cemetary. It’s a beautiful place though. Highgate Gate We walked from Highgate to Parliament Hill and had a lovely view of the city. I’d never been before and it was great to be in the park and get lots of fresh air. London Town from Parliament Hill Relaxing on Parliament Hill. We took some trains, played a prank of Becky (we all got up and moved to another carriage when she went to the toilet) and went to Blackfriars and met Angelina at the Founder’s Arms for a drink. Angelina has been a friend for many years and has taught piano to both of my boys. So fun to see her in London. Meeting up with Angelina! Drinks with Angelina at the Founder’s Arms. Back to Stratford and the playground/pub combo. That’s Zane in the green shirt, squished into the corner. The boys were Underground Pros. Forgot to note steps and miles, but it would have been a doozy! London – Day 6 – Water, Art, Music, and Kebabs We took the Thames River Clipper from North Greenwich to Embankment. It was a great way to see the city, and it’s way cheaper than the tour boats. It felt like we kept circling around Canary Wharf, but we were just following the dip in the Thames. It was our first really cool day and it was quite refreshing. Jackets all around, and a cup of tea for the journey. Thames River Clipper My boys, my bridge. We went underneath Tower Bridge. We wandered down Embankment and recreated our Cleopatra’s Needle/Sphinx photo from when we were going out. G&B are so patient with our shenanigans. The Original Embankment Photo Our recreation. Checking out Cleopatra’s Needle. The boys at the Sphinx. We went back along the river and made our way through some of the amazing parks and gardens that are on the other side of the road. There are statues and art everywhere. We found one of William Tyndale which was cool. We walked past the Ministry of Defense building and New Scotland Yard. Beautiful Gardens in front of some fancy hotels! William Tyndale. Some amazing memorials in front of the Ministry of Defense. As a British crime show fan, it was fun to see this. We made it to Big Ben which was sadly swathed in scaffolding which we knew about, but it was a bit disappointing not to see and hear it. Glad it is getting some TLC though. Wandered through the park filled with statues of famous people near the Houses of Parliament. Looking forward to seeing and hearing Big Ben (The Elizabeth Tower) again when it’s not shrouded in scaffolding. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill The Boys and Nelson Mandela The boys and Abraham Lincoln. We saw quite a lot of mounted police in London. We carried on and walked past Horse Guards and Number 10 Downing Street and on to Trafalgar Square. Had a look is St Martin’s in the Field Crypt which was one of my favourite places to go when I was out and about in the city for a quiet cup of tea. It’s been upgraded and expanded and it’s lovely, but the tea is much more expensive now! Horse Guards. The entrance to the Crypt. The Crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields The gang. Had a sandwich lunch (Tesco Express and Sainsbury’s Local have great lunch meal deals that we availed ourselves of, several times throughout the trip. I also love the sandwich varieties that the UK has) on the steps of St Martin’s. Then we went in for a free lunch time concert and enjoyed hearing the Southend Girl’s Choir perform. Enjoying a free lunch time concert at St Martin-in-the-Fields. The amazing window in St Martin-in-the-Fields. Then it was on to one of my most cherished places in London, the National Gallery. We had such a great time. The boys continued their education – lots of nudity and violence. You don’t think about it until you go with kids! There was lots of laughter and fun as well as being in awe at the amazing works of art. Love this gallery so much. There is so much to see, even in the buildings. This is the floor of the National Gallery. Having fun with art at the National Gallery. Reading about the art and artist. National Gallery. Taking it all in. I got a bit emotional (shocking, I know) as I sat in front of The Execution of Lady Jane. I just felt overwhelmed with the beauty and emotion of the painting and with the fact that I was there with my family and friends, and a little bit sad thinking about not having a life in London. We talked about the art we saw. Graeme told me what he loves about his favourite painting. We discovered some pieces that we hadn’t noticed before. Van Gogh, Monet, Klimt, Turner. Colin discovered his favourite painting. I am so thankful that these world class galleries are free, there’s no barrier for anyone to experience the art and be moved by it. There are hundreds of free galleries and museums in London. Sitting in front of my favourite painting in the National Gallery. Seeing my boys in front of this art, learning, appreciating, sharing. Nothing like it. Graeme in front of his favourite painting. Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian In the National Gallery making our own art. Looking out at Trafalgar Square from the National Gallery. On the National Gallery Balcony Looking out at Trafalgar Square. See if you can spot Graeme and Becky. On the balcony of the National Gallery The Blacketts at the National Gallery After that, we went to St Bartholomew the Great Church, it was very cool outside, but we didn’t go in. William Wallace was put to death near the church and later his funeral was held here. The entrance to St Bartholomew the Great Churchyard. St Bartholomew the Great. (And Colin) Feeling thirsty? This is an old water fountain with shared cups. Then we went to Postman’s Park, another Pinterest find and it was incredibly beautiful as a park and moving as a memorial to people who had given their lives to save the lives of others. There are plaques along a wall telling the stories of people who died saving others. The boys reading the plaques at Postman’s Park. The Plaques at Postman’s Park After this we took a couple of buses through the city to Limehouse to a fish/burger/kebab/chicken shop and got kebabs and chips and ate them at Limehouse Basin. The chip shop was across the street from our old YWAM base. On the bus. With my Zane. Making our way through London. Getting our kebab! Our dinner view at Limehouse Basin. Back to Stratford, the boys played on the playground for a while. My DSLR camera was in my backpack and got dropped on the concrete. I thought for sure it was a goner, it was absolutely fine and I am very thankful. Playground workout. This playground was such a special place. Conquering the playground. “Working Out” on the playground. Becky and I had a bit of shopping time in the Mall. Sadly, throughout our time together, there just wasn’t enough time for much shopping or charity shops. London – Day 5 – Sunday in the City Headed off to Tower Hamlets Community Church. This is the church that Colin and I attended when we were dating and after we were married. Our friend, Tony Udin, from YWAM and his wife Anni are the pastors. It’s a great, multi-cultural, community-focused church and it was a joy to be there. Both the boys attended classes and had a great time. Tony at THCC There were still people attending from when we used to attend and it was good to see them as well as meet new people over tea and coffee afterwards. Zane was impressed with the treats on offer afterwards. A bunch of the old crew headed off to Spitalfields Market after church – G&B, Tony & Annie, Claire and her son, Micah. We met up with our other Clare and everyone dispersed to get some lunch. There are heaps of food trucks as well as more permanent places in the market. When we used to go to the market after church on Sundays, the market had a few food places and a rustic market where people sold handmade goods. It was actually at this market that Colin and I decided on a design for my engagement ring and local jewelry maker made it for us. It wasn’t ever super crowded. These days, it’s crazy on a Sunday afternoon – there are heaps of built in shops and restaurants, tons of vendors, and thousands of people! I really wanted to get falafel as that was one of my favourite things to get in the past. We found a falafel place and they made us an amazing falafel pita. It just so happened that right next door was a Jamaican place so we got a patty, a Ting, and a grape soda. Now to find a place where we could all hang out and catch up. Amazing Falafel! Jamaican Tastes – Patty Jamaican Tastes One of my favourite things about London is that you are never very far from a green space. Parks, church yards, and gardens. Right next to the bustling market were some gardens that belonged to local residents, but they were open to the public at certain times. Clare let us in on this secret and we found ourselves in a lovely green and quiet space and were able to spend time enjoying our lunch, chatting, laughing, and catching up while the boys ran around and played with their new friend, Micah. Sunday afternoon lunch and chat. Longtime friends. Friend selfie. (It was quite bright.) After saying goodbye to some of our friends, another friend, Karen, and her family joined us and we sat and chatted for a while. It really is amazing to reconnect in real life with all these quality people. Catching up with friends. On a side note, when we were preparing to go to London, we had a serious chat with the boys that they would be near us the whole time we were there – never far away, always in eye sight. They were getting a bit restless by now as we chatted and told stories. We had seen a koi pond earlier on the other side of the market. They asked repeatedly if they could go back to it. I took a deep breath and gave stern instructions to stay together, and just sent them off by themselves into the wilds of London! They were fine. After we said goodbye to our friends, we still had a few things on the list for the day and they were all pretty close. We had a look at the Gherkin, which used to stand out so much, but is more understated now that there are more buildings around it, it’s still a great building though. We went to Leadenhall Market and found some cool art. Graeme was following the cricket and keeping us updated on the results. At the base of the Gherkin. Us and the Gherkin Then we wandered through The City towards St Dunstan-in-the-East. The City on a Sunday evening is perfect to see the sights, and enjoy the architecture and art as there are no crowds. St Dunstan was one of my Pinterest finds and it did not disappoint. It’s a garden inside the ruins of an old church. We had it to ourselves for most of the time we were there and it closed right after we left. It was a bit magical. Foliage wall and wrestling brothers. Strolling through The City on a Sunday evening. Colin’s favourite building. St Dunstan-in-the-East Photobomb By this time, everyone was feeling a bit hangry and we headed off to find dinner. We happened upon Savage Gardens which was quite cool as Truly, Madly, Deeply by Savage Garden was one of the songs at our wedding that my sister and brother-in-law sang. Colin sang a lovely rendition for us. Savage Gardens We had a lovely pub meal and everyone revived a bit. Had a great pint of Black Dragon cider which had such a different taste – very honey-like, but not too sweet. The Tower at Twilight We went over our plans for the next couple of days and headed back to the hotel. It was nearly 11 pm and time for bed! Categories: Life & Times, London, Travel \| Permalink. London – Day 4 – Old Stomping Grounds We all slept through the night. It was amazing! Didn’t start the day until 10 am – breakfast at Gregg’s – no more of this neglecting breakfast business! We headed off to Whitechapel. This was a big nostalgia day! We wandered through the market and I bought some earrings. I love to see all the different fruits, vegetables, and products from other cultures. Back in our old stomping grounds. Whitechapel Market. Amazing variety of produce. The Kray’s Pub and where Ronnie Kray was shot and killed. Proper East End. Jude and me on Whitechapel Road. We took a bus back the way we had walked and went to the Whitechapel Gallery. I was a frequent visitor here when I lived in London and particularly when I was at art school. It’s one of my favourite galleries and they have expanded it significantly. There were some cool exhibits with pieces about rural life in other countries. There was also some art that we didn’t quite “get”, but it was fun. At Whitechapel Gallery We wandered down Brick Lane and saw heaps of street art. The boys sure were getting an education! We stopped at a park by Code Street and the boys played on the zip line and the cool obstacle course-like playground. I had a look at more of the graffiti and actually got to see people working on some of it. Checking out the Street Art Zip Line! Kid Time Street Art in Shoreditch. The Brick Lane area was pretty rough and undeveloped when I lived there, but it is now a super trendy area with lots of restaurants, shops and galleries. One of the strangest things was walking down Hanbury Street and seeing all the shops – it was so odd. The only thing that used to be of much consequence there were the Hanbury Community Project where Becky and I worked and where we had The Cavern, and the Jack the Ripper tours that stopped across the street at one of the spots where he killed one of his victims. Me outside Hanbury Hall. We went into what was the Hanbury Community Project and is now a cafe. It’s a really beautiful space inside and if I lived in London, it would definitely be a place that I would hang out. The building has an amazing history and is a listed building. Here’s what it says on the Blue Plaque outside the building: Hanbury Hall: Built 1719 as a French Huguenot Church. Used by La Patente Church 1740 onwards. John Wesley preached here. 1787 it became a German Lutheran Church. Used by the Baptists then the United Free Methodists. Charles Dickens gave public readings here. 1887 Christ Church bought the building as its Church Hall. 1888 Annie Besant and Eleanor Marx-Aveling held the matchstick girls strike meetings here which helped to establish the British Trade Unions. Throughout its life this hall has served Church, community and nation. Becky and I weren’t sure why they forgot to include our time there! It’s quite cool to think that in this amazing building we taught classes, had the Cavern, and it’s also where Colin and I had our engagement party. With my boys at Hanbury Hall At our engagement party at Hanbury. Hanbury Hall has changed a lot! Hanbury Hall We decided to have a curry for lunch and were sad that Cafe Bangla didn’t exist anymore, but were thrilled when we went to the place where it was, to discover that the Princess Diana painting as well as the other creative art pieces were still on the walls. Sadly, they weren’t serving lunch, but the owner let us go in and take photos. Then we went to his other restaurant which also had cool art on the wall. It was so good! Poppadoms, amazing curry, peshwari naan. The owner kept checking in with us and we had some great conversations. When it was time to go, he called us family, gave us all hugs and wanted to take a selfie with us. It was a fabulous experience. Back under the watchful eye of the lovely Princess Diana! Favourite foods, favourite places, favourite people. London Mural at Aladin Poppadoms and chutneys. Garlic naan for the win! Family Curry! Curry at Aladin Curry House. With our new friend at Aladin Curry House. We carried on down Brick Lane and headed to Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium on Bethnal Green Road. Zane was so excited and then so brokenhearted when we discovered you have to be 12 to go in. He coped well though and we carried on down Bethnal Green Road and memory lane. We passed a shop where a friend used to work and it turns out she still does and was there so we got to catch up a bit with Marlene. Once again, we ended up at a McDonald’s for a cold drink and a 99 Cent Flake Ice Cream cone – they’re still 99p at McDonald’s while being more expensive at Mr Whippy. 99 Flake I wanted to get some photos of St John at Bethnal Green which is where I used to help and teach art classes with the homeless and also got to put some of my art in an exhibit. When we got there, the doors were open and there was an art exhibit happening. It is such a cool space for art and the art was amazing. The exhibit was in the sanctuary, up in the balcony and down in the Crypt which was where the classes that I taught were. It was great to see the space being used so much for the community. There are all sorts of classes being held throughout the week down in the Crypt and we saw some people making sparkly costumes for the Notting Hill Festival. St John on Bethnal Green – hidden by the lovely trees. St John on Bethnal Green The balcony of St John on Bethnal Green Art at St John on Bethnal Green One of my angels in an exhibition at St John’s Bethnal Green years ago. One of my pieces that was in an exhibition at St John’s Bethnal Green many years ago. In the Crypt of St John on Bethnal Green where I used to teach art classes. It’s hard for me to explain how meaningful it was for me to share these spaces with the boys. It’s probably not as meaningful to them, but it is amazing to see them in these places that were so important to me and such a big part of my life. We walked back to Weaver’s Field Park and the boys played on the playground while the adults sat and chatted. Again, there was the variety of cultures in the space and I loved that the boys just jumped into and were nonplussed by it all. Bethnal Green Station. My heart! Heading down Bethnal Green Road. Heading into Weaver’s Fields. Part of the sculpture is a security camera. Relaxing at Weaver’s Fields We carried on to see our Cheshire Street flat. So many good times in that place. Also the cold and the rats in the garden and the endless pasta bakes. Becky and me at our Cheshire Street Flat. Back to Brick Lane to the bagel shop and then toward Liverpool Street. We found a place hear Spitalfields Market to sit and eat our bagels. There was a big screen tv showing Wimbledon and lots of people watching. Bagel Shop! Meeting all your bagel needs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Ordering our bagels. I loved seeing my boys in so many places that are meaningful to me. Brick Lane. Enjoying our Brick Lane Bagels. We took the train back to Stratford. Back to the pub for drinks and talks while the boys played on the playground. Lovely day on Memory Lane. London – Day 3 – Day Trip to Oxford Waking up was a bit rough after my lack of sleep, but I was excited for this day! We were heading to Oxford which was a bit of a pilgrimage for me. Visiting CS Lewis’ home was something of a dream. CS Lewis has played a big part in how I view the world. The Chronicles of Narnia have particularly shaped my view of God and faith and some of my greatest heroes happen to be a Talking Mouse and a Marshwiggle because of his stories. I also love the Cosmic Trilogy and many of the books he wrote about faith as well as his poetry and letters that he exchanged with various people. Jude’s middle name is Lewis for a reason and I have two Narnia-themed tattoos. It’s kind of a big deal to me. We headed off to Paddington Station. As we were getting closer, it looked like time was running out to catch our train. At one station, the doors were closing on the carriage and I physically held the doors open while the boys got on. A definite no-no, but I was impressed with my strength! I have Ally at BodyRock to thank for that! We made it to Paddington with a couple of minutes to spare so decided to get some breakfast at McDonalds, waiting for the hashbrowns to cook almost made us miss the train! Should have gotten up earlier and eaten at Gregg’s! We had a lovely train ride to Oxford. I love trains. You have freedom to move around and do stuff and I don’t get sick! When we got to Oxford, we walked into the city center. We went through the covered market, past the Bodleian, and under the Bridge of Sighs. I kept expecting Inspectors Morse or Lewis to appear, though that would mean that someone had been murdered! It was quite crowded, but Oxford is beautiful. Friends in Oxford The Spires of Oxford The Bridge of Sighs. In front of the Bodleian. The back streets of Oxford are lovely. Oxford arch. Super strong Zane. A proper lamppost. A wee passage. Lovely day. The Bodleian Zane in front of the Bodleian. I let the boys be photographers sometimes and they got some cool shots. We walked past several of the colleges and found Magdalen College where CS Lewis taught. We grabbed some sandwiches and jumped on the bus to CS Lewis’ house. We got off in a very suburban area with detached and semi-detached houses from the 70s and 80s. Not at all what we were expecting and we were getting a bit worried. I love all the different lampposts in London and Oxford, but we found the least Narnian lamppost of all time on CS Lewis’ street. We came to the Kilns and need not have worried at all. It is a lovely old cottage with an amazing garden and attached nature preserve. Bus time with Friends Lewis Close. The least Narnian lamppost in all the world is on Lewis Close. In the Kiln’s Garden CS Lewis’ Blue Plaque We had a great tour guide. It was wonderful to hear the history of the house and learn more about Jack, his brother, his wife and the other members of the household. It seems he was a jovial and lovely man with foibles and quirks and they had a very interesting domestic life. He was also incredibly frugal which impressed Colin! I really liked that they didn’t deify CS Lewis or sugar coat his humanity. We saw a photo and learned about The Kilns gardener, Fred Paxford, who Lewis said was the inspiration for Puddleglum and my heart nearly burst! I thought I knew a lot about CS Lewis, but there is still so much to learn. So thankful to share the experience with Colin, the boys and G&B. The Kilns Jude and Zane, much like Jack and Warnie. Just hanging out in CS Lewis’ Room, no biggie. After the tour, we wandered through the Nature Reserve. It’s a beautiful wooded area that was very important to the the Lewis brothers. CS Lewis Nature Reserve Then we walked to the church Jack attended – Holy Trinity. We visited his and Warnie’s graves in the churchyard. I got to sit where he sat every week. There’s a beautiful, etched glass window about Narnia there. For some reason as we wandered through the graveyard, this inspired the boys to design their own graves and grave stones. There will be lights, electricity, moving parts. Kiln Lane Jack and Warnie’s Grave Sitting in Jack’s seat at Holy Trinity. Etched Narnia Window We caught a bus back to Oxford (we are not as tough as CS Lewis who walked the 3 miles from The Kilns to Magdalen College and back home everyday!). We went to the Eagle and Child and had a drink. This is the most famous pub where CS Lewis, Warnie, Tolkien, Charles Williams and many other members of The Inklings, met to discuss their writings. I ordered Colin the drink that he used to get when the rest of us had beers and ciders – half orange juice, half diet coke. It’s not bad tasting, but it sure is ugly! We raised a glass to CS Lewis. The Eagle and Child At the Bird and Babe Raising a glass to friends, family and heroes. We went in search of dinner and found a Wetherspoon pub called The Four Candles. Had a lovely dinner. Everyone was feeling a bit tired and cranky, but food helped to revive us. There were several things in Oxford that we would have liked to do, but simply ran out of time. Back on the train to London. Wonderful conversations with G&B about a wide-range of topics. I love these friends so much and am so thankful for what quality people they are. Trains are the best. At Paddington Station, we found Paddington Bear and also saw a brass band playing in the station. Then we began the journey back to Stratford. Everything takes longer than you think it will and it was nearly 10 pm when we got back to the hotel. The Boys and Paddington Bear Zane and Paddington Bear by Melissa 1 Comment London – Day 2 Colin had a rough night with not a lot of sleep. Jet lag is tough! We headed down to the mall, met up with G&B who were staying at the same hotel as us, had some Gregg’s and took care of some money stuff. We loved the location we picked to stay at. Stratford is well-connected transportation-wise and having the mall and shops close is so helpful. Greggs for the Win! Our first stop was the Emirates Air Cable Car. Only a few pounds and we got to go on a cable car over the Thames. We had great views and it was a fun ride. High Up! View from the Cable Car Emirate’s Cable Car After that we walked to Canning Town station and took the DLR to Island Gardens. We walked under the Thames through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. So many memories! I think it’s a fun way to cross the river. Cuppa Tea? Heading down into the Tunnel to walk underneath the Thames to the other side. Greenwich Foot Tunnel. Don’t mind the leaks. Greenwich Foot Tunnel When we got to Greenwich, we went to the Noodle House we used to go to and had a great lunch. Noodles, of course, and Jude got a big bowl of ramen. It was all super tasty and everyone was very satisfied. Noodles! The noodles were as good as we remember! We wandered through the market after refilling our water bottles at a local store that refills them. This was an interesting thing for us – finding places to refill water throughout the day and finding toilets! Also, the boys did not like London water! We are a bit spoiled here in Bend with our lovely mountain river water. London water doesn’t taste super good. The boys almost wouldn’t drink it at all, but within a day or so they had adjusted and were drinking plenty. I love the Greenwich Market – lots of vintage stalls and interesting homemade items. It was here that we had our first experience of losing one of the boys while in London. It wouldn’t be the last. Eeeek! Becky bought some lemon drops and lemon sherbet candies at an old fashions candy store – these sustained us at many times throughout the next week! Greenwich Market We headed to Greenwich Park – it’s a lovely park with lots of space and trees and hills and, it turns out, art. We found a Henry Moore sculpture while taking the scenic route to the Observatory. The Observatory was crowded and the actual Prime Meridian Line was not accessible due to work being done, but I love that hill and the view of London and the buildings at the base of the hill. The Union Jack atop the Greenwich Observatory. Greenwich Meantime. Overlooking the City Henry Moore’s Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge We wandered down the hill to the collonades between the Maritime Museum and Queen’s House. It was a hot and sunny day so it was lovely to take some time to sit on the benches in the shade and rest and chat. Zane wanted to do a bunch of running – go figure. Colin, on the other hand, was struggling from his lack of sleep the night before. The Blacketts in the Colonnade Colonnade Companions Resting in the breezy colonnade. Greenwich Grins Where does he get his energy? We carried on and decided to check out the National Maritime Museum. It wasn’t on the plan, but we went in on a whim and it turned out to be a great museum. There was all sorts of ship stuff. The figureheads and ship badges were especially fun. That’s a big propeller. Representing New Zealand Mastheads – Note the Sylvester Stallone masthead in the top right corner. Most of the female mastheads seem to be having wardrobe malfunctions. Ship Badges, the Boys got create their own, there were cats involved. Amazing Stained Glass Room British Bulldog We left in search of a fast food joint to have a cold drink and a rest for Colin. We walked past the Naval College on the way – amazing buildings. Naval College Colin revived enough for us to go to Canary Wharf in search of the Traffic Light Tree. After a bit of a walk, we found it. Sadly, the lights weren’t working, but it was fun to see it. I love going through different areas of London – Canary Wharf is very business and posh. Testing his balance skills on the DLR Canary Wharf Wall Walker The Traffic Light Tree On the DLR We got a bus to take us back to Stratford, it was the boys first double decker bus. It was great to see some of the Isle of Dogs – I lived there for over a year. The bus took us through more of the true East End neighborhoods. It was good to see more of what we were used to. Bus Riding Buddies When we got to Stratford, Colin took the boys back to the hotel and G&B introduced me to Lidl which is an amazing supermarket – super cheap! I got stuff for us to have a little picnic in our room. Colin headed to bed and I took the boys down to the playground outside the hotel which conveniently has a pub right next to it with outdoor seating. I sat with a drink, writing in our journal while the boys played. I have to say, that little playground (and the pub next to it) were a regular fixture in our lives and so good for the boys. They created a workout course that they did repeatedly (they were not playing, they were working out). They interacted with kids from all over the world and it made me so happy. Playground/Pub Combo is a great idea! Middle of the night thoughts (it’s my turn to have a rough night): I still love London. I was worried that I wouldn’t feel the same about it anymore. I love it though. I love the crowds on the streets, the diversity of people – colors, religions, socio-economics, languages. I love that there are pockets of quiet and peace to be found in parks and pubs and museums and galleries. I love that more people take more care with their clothes and that there is a lot of diversity in fashion. I love that there is real style going on. I love that there is the unexpected all around. I don’t “love” the smell and the grime, but at the same time, it wouldn’t be London without it. I love the West End with its poshness and variety. I love the East End with the people and shops and grit. I love the business districts with the people in business suits and fancier clothes. I love the ancient and ornate buildings and the modern, innovative architecture and the random 60s and 70s ugliness thrown in. I love the public transportation system in London. I think it’s the best in the world. The Underground, the buses, the Docklands Light Rail, the trains – connectedness and ease of use. I love that each line on the Tube has its own personality and quirks. I love that I still know it. 20 years later and I would still feel confident wandering around town on my own. I love that I can be walking with the crowds towards Trafalgar Square and know that if I wanted, I could turn right and walk up stairs into the National Gallery and be in front of The Execution of Lady Jane or a Van Gogh in a few minutes. I love that this city continues to change and evolve and grow and yet there are things that are unchanging and constant. I love that the Evening Standard is still free. I love that people leave newspapers on the Underground for other people to read. I love the escalators and poems on the underground and the advertisements on trains and in stations. I love the breeze in an underground platform when a train is approaching. I love that they still say “Mind the Gap”. I love that we saw a rat by the spot we got engaged. I love the Thames and walking over, under and beside it. I love the cheap and the posh. I love the ache in my feet and legs from all the walking that is a part of life in London. I love the overwhelming amount of choices when it comes to food. The smells and flavours, the old favourites and new options, all the international possibilities. I love the choices on the supermarket shelves. The mix of British and foreign. I imagined, though I didn’t know for sure, that at the end of two weeks I’ll be ready for home, but that might be more to do with comfort and convenience. There were certainly things that I already missed and appreciated about Bend. Clean, fresh tasting water from the tap, availability of water and toilets. The fresh air and mountains and forests. Getting around quickly. But I needed not have feared that my love of London had died. It was strong and sure. The boys were doing so well. Good attitudes in the face of a physically demanding schedule, constant change and new things. Categories: London, Travel, Uncategorized \| Permalink. London – Day 15 – Leaving Home, Coming Home London – Day 14 – Antiquities, Farewells and Friends London – Day 13 – The Guard Changes and Five Floors of Toys London – Day 12 – The Church Where We Were Married London – Day 11 – Zane’s 10th Birthday Fashion on Friday Feats of Physical Prowess photo a week Secondhand Sunday Words on Wednesday It's National Spaghetti Day! You know what that means. Yum! The boys are becoming real pasta-making pros. #nationalspaghettiday #homemadepasta #heyjude #zanyzane Annual visit to all the secret rooms at McMenamins with my boys. Shenanigans always ensue. Can we have one more week of Winter Break? #heyjude #zanyzane #secretrooms Cheers! Feeling thankful, tired, and hopeful. #2020vision #2020 #happynewyear #heyjude #zanyzane #melncoly @colin64831	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1348
__label__wiki	0.757746	0.757746	oneHOWTO Earth and Space Science Finding Stars How To Find Ursa Major In The Sky Rating: 5 (5 votes) 1 comment By Max. D Gray. Updated: January 16, 2017 Ursa Major, also known as the Great Bear, is a constellation that can be seen during the whole the year in most places in the Northern Hemisphere. The constellation contains the asterism which is commonly known as the Big Dipper or the Plough. Ursa Major is located in the northern celestial hemisphere, extremely close to the North Pole. This constellation has seven stars positioned in such a way that they resemble a wagon or plough (hence the name). This OneHowTo article will explain how to find Ursa Major in the sky so that you can locate it on clear nights. You may also be interested in: How and why is a rainbow formed in the sky The first thing you need to take into account to find Ursa Major in the sky is that that Ursa Major is located in the northern celestial hemisphere. This constellation is one of those that you can see revolving around the Northern Star as a result of planetary rotation on clear nights. This is why it is also known as a circumpolar constellation. Therefore you will need to take the Northern Star as a reference, which is the brightest star in the sky. The easiest way to find Ursa Major in the sky is to look for the so-called Plough (alternatively Big Dipper or Wagon), the set of stars with a distinctive plough shape, which are easy to recognize. You should also note that its position in the sky will vary according to the season. In Summer you will be able to see this constellation in an L shape. In the Autumn, its position will be horizontal, with the shorter part facing upwards to the right. In Winter, you'll see it in the position on an inverted L, or rather a 7. In Spring, it will invert its position to that of Autumn, with the shorter part facing downwards to the left. Once you have located the Dipper, you will be able to create the shape of the Ursa Major as the rest of the stars forming the constellation will sprout out of the stars forming a square, forming the legs of the Great Bear. Image: Google Images From there, you can also locate Ursa Minor and the North Star, because if you multiply by 5 the distance between the stars Dubhe and Merak, you can find the tail of Ursa Minor, or Little Bear, which is where the North Star can be found. If you want to read similar articles to How To Find Ursa Major In The Sky, we recommend you visit our Hobbies & Science category. You will be able to see the Ursa Major on a clear night sky, preferably away from any artificial urban lighting and thus away from the city. You can also use a star chart to know where to find the constellation in different times of the year and at different times of night. What are the colours of the rainbow What is bigger, the Earth or the Moon? How To Tell If It's Going To Rain How does a lunar eclipse occur Scientific experimentsWriting as a hobbyMetal & leatherGardeningPastimes How to Change a Name in Spicejet Booking What are the Names of the Disney Princesses? How to Write a Formal Letter in English How to Keep Safe if you Go Walking in the Mountains How to Clean Nickel Silver How to Make a Periscope out of Cardboard How to Cancel a Spicejet Ticket Online Scary Games to Play with Friends at a Slumber Party What Is the Largest Planet Discovered? What to Do when a Volcano Erupts How to create a whirlpool in a bottle How to Plant Succulents in Containers The candle and water science experiment How To Write The Address On A Letter Or Envelope How to Test your Body's pH Level at Home Write a comment about How To Find Ursa Major In The Sky Your rating: What did you think of this article? I have read and accept the privacy policy Red Link to Media collects personal data for internal use only. Under no circumstances will your data be transferred to third parties without your permission. In accordance with the law of 8th December 1992, you can access the database containing your personal data and modify this information at any time by contacting Link to Media (info@linktomedia.net) Chloe_3545 Thank you! Very useful I want to read similar articles! © onehowto.com 2020 About us Contact us Terms and Conditions Privacy policy Cookies policy	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1356
__label__cc	0.689926	0.310074	Lenox History Art/Antiques Fabulous in the Berkshires By November 8th, 2012 No Comments Fabulous Magazine likes the Berkshires and highlights the Apple Tree Inn – how great is that! Mass. Appeal by Kate Wills October 22, 2012in LifestyleTags: Boston,Massachusetts,travel Massachusetts might just be the artiest US state you’ve never heard of. From Boston to The Berkshires, it’s a Mecca for culture and cracking seafood…. For red-brick buildings, cobbled streets and more world-class museums than you can shake a “Cheers”-branded mug at, Boston just oozes East Coast cool. The Gardner museum The must-sees: For old-school splendour, don’t miss The Gardner Museum (gardnermuseum.org). Isabella Stewart Gardner was a 19th century socialite who amassed an amazing collection of paintings in her lifetime, all housed in a beautiful Italian-style courtyard and gardens. But if you prefer your art on the cutting edge side, get down to the ICA (icaboston.org). Video installations, graffiti murals and panoramic views of the harbour make this the cool kids’ hangout. The hip hotel: The Langham is where the celebs stay when they’re in town because loads of films, from Good Will Hunting to The Proposal have been made in Boston. And in a former life the hotel was the Federal Reserve Bank so it’s a pretty ‘safe’ bet! We loved the pink and gold decor and luxe touches like fresh popcorn in your room. And did we mention the Chocolate Bar buffet held every Saturday? (boston.langhamhotels.com, rooms from £176). The arty eatery: Area Four in Kendall Square is right by MIT (so it’s full of trendy nerds) and does a mean clam and bacon pizza – a new take on the East Coast classic clam chowder (areafour.com). Or if you’re more of a Harvard-fan, ask a local to point out the dorms of Matt Damon and Mark Zuckerberg and then eat at Upstairs on the Square (upstairsonthesquare.com) The interior is out of this world (all zebra-print carpets and chandeliers) but the food (almond gazpacho and lobster) is even better. Whether you’re into art, theatre, dance, music (or even just shopping) upscale area The Berkshires has a bit of everything – and some stunning scenery to boot. The must-sees: Catch a dance performance at nearby Jacob’s Pillow, one of the most prestigious academies in the world (jacobspillow.org), or spend the day at Tanglewood – home to the famous summer jazz festival. Then head to former mill town North Adams, a city that’s been revitalised by the arts thanks to the huge Mass MOCA (massmoca.org), pop-up galleries and artist lofts. A short skip away is Williamstown, home to the Clark Art Institute, which currently has some of its impressive Impressionists collection at The Royal Academy, London until September 23rd (clarkart.edu). The hip hotel: For a homely New England classic, The Apple Tree Inn has rocking chairs, wood-burning fires and cocktails on the porch (appletree-inn.com, rooms from £85). It’s also within spitting distance of Tanglewood – so bring earplugs if you come within festival time. But if you like a dose of kitsch with your arty party, you can’t beat The Porches Inn in North Adams. Once a row of mill-workers’ cottages, this boutique hotel is now just the right side of chintz-tastic (porches.com, rooms from £80). The arty eatery: Public in North Adam is the spot to refuel with a classic American burger, locally-brewed ale and a blueberry lemonade. Not as innocent as it sounds! Looking at art is thirsty work after all (Publiceatanddrink.com). Flights to Boston with Delta.com cost from £419. For more info go to the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourist (massvacation.com) Explore Lenox Explore Lenox Select Category Art Galleries & Antiques Banking & Insurance Business and Professional Services Camps & Education Churches & Synagogues Communications, Publishing & Marketing Design & Landscaping Food Health and Wellness Lodging Outdoors Photos Press Real Estate Restaurants Retirement & Nursing Home Care Shopping Specialty Foods and Beverages Things To Do Trades, Manufacturing & Services Travel & Transportation Uncategorized Weddings and Conferences Whats Happening © 2020 Lenox MA Chamber of Commerce. 4 Housatonic Street, Lenox MA	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1357
__label__wiki	0.748519	0.748519	RECOMISSION: Cr Tony Williams and FRFSA's Andrew McClelland and Kim Martin inspect a soon to be decommissioned water treatment plant and potential barra hatchery. Allan Reinikka ROK130519abarra1 Barra stocking case strengthens as politicians weigh in by Jack Evans 14th May 2019 1:00 AM IT WAS not the response the Fitzroy River Fish Stocking Association members were hoping for when they heard back from Capricornia election candidates about their barramundi offset proposal. The association put out a call early last week to the two major parties, asking them to commit to offsetting the Rookwood Weir, as they were certain the project would jeopardise the natural recruitment of barramundi in the Fitzroy system. A barramundi hatchery in Rockhampton was part of the offset proposal put to member for Capricornia Michelle Landry and Labor candidate Russell Robertson. This would allow a steady supply of suitable barramundi fingerlings to join the system, which the association believes is desperately needed. The association, working with Rockhampton Regional Council, has earmarked a water treatment plant on the banks of the Fitzroy to be decommissioned later this year. A supporter of the proposal, Councillor Tony Williams, said "using this infrastructure that is going to become redundant anyway just makes sense” while inspecting the facility with association member Kim Martin and president Andrew McClelland. Ms Landry was the first to respond to the association's proposal. She said she would like to meet with the group but was confident the weir's design had factored in fish passage. "Rookwood Weir is a great project that will turn water into jobs and while final design work is under way, I'm confident it will be the most modern piece of water infrastructure in the country,” she said. "Weirs and dams are far better designed these days to allow fish passage. "I'm sure more fingerlings of a range of species would be beneficial to the fishing scene in the Fitzroy and I am more than happy to discuss the project with FRFSA.” Ms Landry's response was met with measured optimism from Mr McClelland, who said it was "encouraging”. Mr Robertson provided a one-line response that read: "If elected, I would be a strong local voice for my community and engaging with all stakeholders including those at the Fitzroy River Fish Stocking Association.” Fitzroy River Fish Stocking Association president Lyle McClelland releasing the fingerlings in 2017 Kim Martin Mr McClelland's response to Mr Robertson's words was not so warm. "Mr Robertson's response failed to show an understanding of how community offsets work and didn't deal with the idea of a local hatchery at all,” Mr McClelland said. According to the association, scientific monitoring of the Fitzroy River has shown no significant natural recruitment of barramundi in the system over a number of years. This was skewing the balance of the fish population in the river towards larger, older fish, presenting a risk of lean years ahead as fewer smaller fish inhabit the system. The association believes the project could get off the ground with a $1.5 million funding injection and about $150,000 a year in ongoing costs. Over Easter, the association released 5000 tiny barra into the Fitzroy with the help of funding from council and the Rocky Barra Bounty, but the association's access to fingerlings has been strained over the last few years. This year's release saw the group source their fish from Childers and concerns were raised within the group whether the strain of fish from so far south would be suitable for the Fitzroy. The year before, the association was not able to stock the system at all. "Last year, 2018, we couldn't buy any suitable fingerlings for restocking and this year we had to accept a last-minute load of smaller fish right at the end of the release window if we wanted to at least put some in without waiting another year,” Mr McClelland said. cr tony williams fishing australia fishing queensland fitzroy river	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1358
__label__wiki	0.557629	0.557629	Gregory Brian Pearce. Picture: Jerad Williams Surprise reason behind Bikie’s GoFundMe page by Chris McMahon THE Gold Coast boss of the Hells Angels is pleading with friends and fellow bikies to help fund the growing cost of his legal battles. Gregory Pearce, 45, has gone hat in hand on Facebook, asking for money in a fundraiser titled "Court costs past present future". Over the past three days Pearce has managed to raise $1700 of what he hopes will amount to $10,000 to fund the cost of his latest court case, defending charges over the bashing of a 42-year-old man on a disability pension out the front of a Palm Beach hotel on January 19. Police allege Pearce king-hit the man before kicking and punching him while he was on the ground. Officers from the bikie-busting Taskforce Maxima arrested Pearce, the president of the Gold Coast chapter of the Hells Angels, on January 22. On the Facebook fundraiser, Pearce writes: "As many of you know, I have been smashed by the police and the media recently for being a Hells Angel. A still from CCTV footage showing an assault outside the Palm Beach Hotel on the Gold Coast. "In past 4 years have been arrested and held in custody on charges which have been false or dropped at the last minute. "These actions have affected my livelihood and my ability to earn a living as a plumber and a builder." He said he joined the Hells Angels for the friendship, but the constant "harassment" by the legal system was costing him financially. "I joined my club for the friendship and the comradery, not to the criminal the media and police have made me out to be (sic). "The constant scrutiny and harassment has come at a significant cost not only financially but to my family life. "Those of you who know me know this is a hard thing for me to do but I have spent over $100,000 over the last 3 years to fight for the same rights many of you believe in." He goes on to ask friends and fellow bikies to get behind him and fund the costs. "So I am asking all my FB friends and supporters to help support me to assist with my ongoing legal battle. "If you're an 81 Supporter (Hells Angel supporter), a dear friend or someone who believes in everyday working Australians having the right to support their family by working legitimately I ask for your help. "It's tough out there for many working in today's climate so I ask you please do not contribute if you can't. But for the ones who can I sincerely appreciate your support." Pearce also posted that he would show receipts for the cost of his solicitor and would use any leftover money "to fight for freedom of others who need it". Pearce was charged with affray and will appear at Southport Magistrates Court again tomorrow. premium_icon Girl, 10, dies after horror quad bike accident premium_icon ‘He’s free to roam but I am in fear of my life’ premium_icon Bikie: ‘$100k from puppies, not crime’ premium_icon Fears bikie war about to erupt bikies editors picks gofundme hells angels outlaw motorcycle gangs	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1363
__label__wiki	0.530185	0.530185	Nicole Kidman, 52, Shows Off Toned Physique in Frilly Bikini on Beach with Keith Urban lizzy-buczak Trading in red carpet dresses for a bikini! Nicole Kidman had her very own bombshell moment as she took a break from acting and enjoyed a beach day with her husband, Keith Urban. The actress had a little fun in the sun and showed off her impressively toned bod on December 26. The Nashville-based couple traveled back home to Australia for the holidays. Photos show the “Bombshell” actress looking carefree as she emerges from the water in a frilly, blue bikini top and matching high-waisted bottoms. The Oscar winner and her country star husband blended in with the crowd as they rode the waves, let their hair down, and strolled through knee-deep water together. However, Kidman wasn’t the only one showing off her bikini bod. Urban’s abs and collection of tattoos on his chest and shoulders were on display as he went shirtless for the beach day wearing black and lime-green swim trunks. While the crooner accessorized with a silver cufflink, Kidman wore a gold bracelet and her wedding ring. After taking a dip, the couple returned to shore and grabbed their belongings. Kidman covered up with a white sarong, a jacket, a woven hat, and sunglasses, while Urban threw on a white T-shirt, a baseball cap, and sunnies. Kidman and Urban have been married since 2006 and share two children, 10-year-old Sunday and 8-year-old Faith Margaret, together. Kidman also has two former children with ex-husband Tom Cruise, 26-year-old Isabella and 24-year-old Connor. The Oscar nominations were revealed today and while Margot Robbie was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in “Bombshell,” Kidman’s portrayal of Gretchen Carlson did not score her a nomination. "Bombshell" actress Nicole Kidman had her very own bombshell moment as she took a break from acting and enjoyed a beach day with her husband, Keith Urban. According to The Daily Mail, the actress had a little fun in the sun and showed off her impressively toned bod on December 26. Nicole Kidman, 52, shows off her INCREDIBLE physique in frilly blue bikini https://t.co/gSroXwne7z — Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) January 12, 2020 Photos show the "Big Little Lies" star looking carefree as she emerges from the water in a frilly, blue bikini top and matching high-waisted bottoms. Urban’s abs and collection of chest and shoulder tattoos were on display as he went shirtless for the beach day. He rocked black and lime-green swim trunks and accessorized with a silver cufflink bracelet. Meanwhile, Kidman was bold and wore her wedding ring alongside a gold bracelet. The Hollywood couple has been married since 2006 and shares two children, 10-year-old Sunday and 8-year-old Faith Margaret, together. The Oscar nominations were announced today and while Margot Robbie was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in “Bombshell,” Kidman’s portrayal of Gretchen Carlson did not score her a nomination. nicole-kidman keith-urban	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1365
__label__cc	0.642489	0.357511	Never Alone Written Review It is that time of the week when LittleRocket reviews a game it has been playing. Today we offer the opportunity to hear our thoughts and opinions on the UpperOne Games developed game Never Alone. A 3 dimensional side scrolling game released in 2014. Enjoy Never Alone gives the player control of a young Inupiaq girl who is trying to find out the cause of a severe blizzard. This blizzard has stopped her village from doing things like hunting and she takes it upon herself with her fox companion to find out what is going on. The Inupiaq people and their culture are the main focus in this game. There are even extra videos that explain cultural information in order to add extra value to the player’s experience. The girl traverses the land fending off a Manslayer, a persistent polar bear and even gets eaten by a whale. The spirits help the player but also at a certain point also bring harm to the player. The story all in all is rich in content and would excite anyone interested in the Inupiaq culture or its people. The game has a great sound track ranging from piano pieces that tug at the heart strings to more dramatic music that fits the game’s more urgent situations. One of the other real draws to this game is the art style. It does sport a simple design which at some points works against it however the spirit designs for example or the northern light backgrounds are very nice to look at. The game does suffer from a few visual glitches. Many a time the characters would disappear off screen or get stuck on an object in their way. This broke the emersion of some scenes. There is also a narrator who talks over some of the scenes who we thought sounded great and really made it feel like our story was worth telling. This is where Never Alone sadly falls short. The controls are a little sticky and take some time to get used to. Sometimes you find yourself having to repeat sections because the character moved too much in a specific direction. Playing as the fox also can become quite boring. We know that the fox is just supposed to be a supporting character but most of the time all you are doing is moving spirits around for the other player. The detection areas for some places were off at times which would sometimes cause the character to plummet to their death. Never alone has a great story to tell. The developers packed in a lot of extra content that the player can delve into to better their experience and understanding of the story. Its gameplay unfortunately holds the game back from being a truly amazing experience. Strory : 6.5 Presentation : 7 Gameplay : 6 Total : 6.5\10 February 21, 2015 littlerocketinmypocket fox, game, games, giant, girl, man, never alone, pc, playstation, playthrough, polar bear, review, series, upperone games, video game, video games, xbox, xbox one Leave a comment	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1367
__label__cc	0.540858	0.459142	4 Color Cinema In today's market, where the superhero has been thoroughly accepted by the masses as a great form of popcorn-munching entertainment, it's become not uncommon -- heck, almost commonplace -- for comic book fans to routinely be able to see the big screen adventures of their favorite 4 Color heroes. Even relatively minor characters like Blade (whose first film, I think, started this whole trend in the first place), Ghost Rider and Elektra have gotten in on the act, albeit not always with glowing success. But, in general, the output of the last decade or so of superhero films has been enjoyable, ranging from diverting entertainment to top-shelf blockbuster. So, when Marvel officially announced production of Iron Man, with an honest-to-God director and script, I was very happy. After all, it was my turn to see my favorite hero on the big screen. After seeing the result, all I can say is that I should have been even more excited. By all that's holy in the realm of comics, this movie is excellent. Now, admittedly, I am a little biased, being a dyed-in-the-wool Iron Fan. And admittedly, I was giddy just at the notion of seeing the film last night. But now, a little bit removed, I can sit down and objectively state that Iron Man is one of the best superhero films ever made, right up there with Superman: The Movie, Batman (1989), and X-Men 2 as shining examples of the superhero genre. Before I go further, I should note that this review will contain minor SPOILERS. Nothing huge, but some general stuff, so you have been forewarned. The film opens with Tony Stark in Afghanistan for a weapons demonstration, showing off his massively powerful Jericho missile system. Afterwards, his caravan is ambushed, and Tony finds himself a prisoner of an armed insurgent group, trapped in a cave with fellow prisoner Yinsen, who has saved Tony's life jury-rigging a magnet to keep pieces of shrapnel away from his heart. After the warlord demands that Stark build him a Jericho missile, Stark and Yinsen instead build a massive suit of armor, powerful enough to overcome their captors. Tony eventually makes it back to the States, where having seen the results of his company's weapons, immediately announces that Stark Industries will no longer be in the munitions business. This seriously wrinkles his confidant, Obadiah Stane, a partner of Stark's late father, who manages the day-to-day operations of the company. Meanwhile, Stark, on a forced leave, tinkers in his garage with the armor, improving and expanding it, until he has a fully functional suit, making him capable of going into the world and doing some good for the benefit of all mankind. But such lofty goals never come easily. One thing which strikes me about the film is it's maturity. The issues that are addressed -- mainly the socio-economic war machine (not War Machine) which profits from the continued existance of violence -- is a step of complexity above "Crime is bad" or "I'm Jesus from space." It's tackled in a pretty fair way, at that; Tony admonishes a reporter by asking her if she ever thought about the major advances in medical and agricultural technology brought about by military funding, but acknowledges that making the world safe is not the same as necessarily producing bigger and better guns. It's a central theme to the character of Iron Man, going back to the early 70s, and one which is brilliantly presented herein. Helping that presentation is the delivery, and Robert Downey, Jr. owns the role of Tony Stark, billionaire industrialist playboy. He cracks wise, seems to always have a drink in his hand, and seduces women without even really trying (there's a scene on his private jet with Rhodey and some stewardesses which draws equal parts comedy and envy from the male audience). But beneath this grinning, unbuttoned-Armani skin is a conflicted man, one who has had his eyes opened to a painful reality in no small part of his own creation. There is a layered subtlety to Tony Stark which befits the complex nature of his character over the decades of his existance, and Downey delivers the goods. The rest of the cast acquits themselves nicely as well. As Pepper Potts, I went in with doubts regarding Gweneth Paltrow: too tall, too pretty, too willowy to play the red-haired spitfire. But here I was proved dead wrong, as she brings a "gal Friday" attitude I have never seen from her before the role, really making Tony and Pepper's relationship seem believable. Similarly, Terence Howard's soft spoken Col. James Rhodes is equal parts Tony's conscience and best friend, and instantly credible. There's a scene with the two of them after Tony escapes the cave which nearly had me in tears, such was the strength of the fraternal bond between these men. And in a total throwaway role, director Jon Favreau plays a great Happy Hogan, scowling constantly, but with a familiar banter with Tony that rings true. Jeff Bridges, nearly unrecognizable at first with his bald head and thick beard, is a different type of baddie than we typically get in such fare: smiling, charming, and slippery, he is not a cackling megalomaniac, but a calculating board room snake, lying right to Tony's face as he smiles at him and offers him a slice of pizza pie from New York. Bubbling beneath the surface is a boiling rage, but it is tempered by his intelligence and patience. And when he puts on his "power suit," he becomes a vision of pure mechanical terror, being equally CGI but utterly more realistic than the Decepticons in last year's Transformers. There's also a couple of little gags involving Stane's love of games and puzzles, a nice nod to the fanboys. The effects which bring Shellhead and his world to life are breathtaking in their clarity. The armor, a mix of CGI and practical effects, has presence and mass, dominating the screen. But beyond the obvious, even the smaller touches like Stark's operating system and HOMER-esque rapid prototyping program are wonderfully designed, functional without sacrificing the needed sci-fi edge. And I am so happy to see, for once, a technical minded person in a Hollywood movie not using a Mac! From top to bottom, Iron Man succeeds on all levels. It's exciting, it's funny, it's heart-rending, and even a little heart-warming. The star is magnetic, the action is compelling, and the effects are eye popping. What more could one ask from a superhero movie? Do yourself a favor and see this one. Even if you don't like Iron Man, you'll be glad you did. Posted by Luke at 6:16 PM No comments: Links to this post Labels: 4 color cinema, Marvel What Looks Good? Just because there are free comics coming out this weekend doesn't mean you can't spend actual money on new comics today! DC Universe #0 -- DC has not really steered me wrong with their cheap, blanket-marketting comics yet, and this one sounds really good anyway. Avengers: The Initiative #12 -- I'll admit, I'm a sucker for seeing Tony and Rhodey together. Caliber #1 -- It's Arthurian Legend in the Old West! That's genius! Also, only a buck! Glamourpuss #1 -- I'm usually willing to give Dave Sim a chance, and this weird mix of comics and fashion sounds too weird to overlook. So what looks good to YOU? Posted by Luke at 6:16 PM 1 comment: Links to this post Labels: what looks good What I Got This Week, Continued As you recall, yesterday I was talking about the swag my father picked up for me at NYCC, and I mentioned an ultimate prize. Well, imagine my surprise when what should appear on my doorstep last night but a box from my father, containing even more swag from the con! Nothing too crazy here, but fun stuff nonetheless: A Skrull mask (which unfortunately I don't think I can wear to work), a Zuda minicomic sampler, catalogs from Amok Time and Gentle Giant, lots of free comics (including a few early FCBD samples), and the very cool NYCC Show Guide Book. ALl in a ll, some really nice souviners of a show I did not attend. But now we have reached the ultimate score. Now, I am not one known for having lots of strings to pull, or networking connections, or the like. But on Friday afternoon, while I was in Fort Lauderdale, I got a call on my cell phone. From my comic book shop, Borderlands. Confused, I answered the phone to find Stan, the very cool owner of the very cool shop. He apologized for bothering me and said that he was only calling because he wouldn't see me until Wednesday, and that he had something for me which was time-sensitive. Seems the shop had scored some passes to an exclusive advance screening of Iron Man, and since I am the biggest Iron Fan in his clientele, wanted to know if I was interested. Was I interested?! Holy crap! Needless to say I told him I was, and I popped into the sotre yesterday to pick up the pass. And the reason why this post is so late is because my wife and I just got back not too long ago from the screening. That's right, your humble host scored tix to see the 4 Color Cinema event he has been waiting on for most of his life before it was released. The film is, in a word, awesome. I'll have more on that later. But this has been a perfect storm week of Iron Fandom. And between the swag and the score, everything's come up roses right now in the Bunker. You'll have to excuse me if I am a little too excited at the moment, so let me sign off. Posted by Luke at 10:27 PM 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: swag What I Got This Week! True to my word, I did not end up buying any comics last week. But the fact that my pullbox was empty, coupled with being several hundred miles away from home, did NOT stop me from the natural inclination of man: to obtain stuff! In this case, I managed to snag the swag my father and brother had picked up for my at NYCC. The pair was helping out over at the Blindwolf Studios table, and thus got access to all sorts of goodies. So when I met up with my father in Fort Lauderdale this weekend, he had dutifully transported the bag (of swag) for me. Up first is this awesome mini one sheet for Iron Man. This is definitely going on the wall somewhere in my house. That is, once my wife decides where it "matches the decor," which I am betting may be the room which contains a bookshelf full of Iron Man toys. Just a hunch. Second, this insanely cool Shellhead bust! I remain a big fan of the Bowen mini-busts, so adding this NYCC Exclusive is a major pick-up for me. The "horned" armor so rarely gets any love, so to see it in all this cold-cast glory was really sweet. And that's not all! I also got a shirt from FearNet, as my father managed to win one of their contests and get a pile of merch. Anything featuring an evil clown is probably scary enough to wear to a comic con, so this works out nicely. But wait... there's more! Tune in tomorrow for what may be the ultimate piece of swag I have ever scored. All I can say is that deals with a certain piece of 4 Color Cinema I have waited my whole life to see, and that I may have to wait... somewhat less than expected? Stay tuned, True Believers! Posted by Luke at 6:38 PM 2 comments: Links to this post As inevitable as the changing tides, Wednesdays always bring delight and joy to the unwashed masses of nerd-dom. X-O Manowar: Birth HC -- You couldn't make a series like this nowadays. Time travelling barbarians wearing high-tech suits of alien armor are so passe. Wow... I can't recall a week where there wasn't a single comic coming out that I intended to purchase. But, I guess it works out well, since I am leaving town tomorrow! I am travelling to sunny Florida for my cousin's wedding. I'd say that I'd be back on Monday with a recap of what I read, but looks like I won't be reading any weeklies! So I hope everyone has a good weekend and I'll see you back here next week! And of course... what looks good to YOU? Iron Man #28 -- The finale to the ongoing Mandarin story which has been brewing pretty much since Tony took over SHIELD, the Knaufs De La Torre deliver the goods in all the double-sized goodness the story demands. We see Tony on trial at the UN, the return of a beloved old armor, and the (final?) showdown between Western Technology and Eastern Mythology. If you haven't caught on by now, let me repeat: this title is simply amazing. Batman And The Outsiders #6 -- Dixon keeps the pedal to the metal as the Outsiders move directly from their failed mission last time to trying to hijack a rocket of their own! The only problem? That would be the fact that the rocket in question is deep in Mongolia. One thing which I am really enjoying about this series is how Dixon is portraying each character -- everyone's voice is distinct and viable, from Geo-Force's slightly dim arrogance to Green Arrow's overconfidence to Grace's cynicism. It also helps that Batman's role in this series is not entirely different from his role in the old title: the taskmaster and general, directing his troops like a chessmaster. Rodriguez's art is a great fit for the action heavy crew, a mix of frentic dynamism and solid storytelling. This is not the most high profile title DC publishes, but I do very much look forward to it each month. Iron Man: Legacy Of Doom #1 -- The dream-team working on this miniseries alone would be enough for most fans to pick it up, but the set-up is priceless as well: Doctor Doom summons Iron Man to help him storm Hell itself! Only things don't go so well for our hero, as the inevitable double-cross leaves him between a rock and a hot place. Way-cool retro action from Bob&Dave, with Ron Lim ably handling the pencils. As a final chapter to the Iron Man-Doctor. Doom trilogy, so far this is shaping up quite nicely. Bonus for Iron Fans: A variant version of the classic Space Armor, this time sporting a solid fuel rocket! Flash #239 -- Flash must fight a public relations battle as Spin steps up his efforts to turn the good people of Central City against their hero. I like where Peyer is mining here; taking shots at fear-mongering "news entertainment," while addressing some questions we'd all probably be asking if we lived in Central City ourselves. I do have to wonder, though, is Wally simply in denial, or did some things not happen the way I remember them? Still, another good issue with a twist on the classic Flash-motif. I liked the cameo from Red Arrow, but I feel bad for him at the same time. Annihilation Conquest #6 -- Or, the spit really hits the fan. As Ronan the Accuser prepares to rain death upon his homeworld up in the orbit around Hala, down on the planet, it's a desperate fight with Star Lord, Bug, Rocket Racoon, Adam Warlock, and Quasar (plus a few surprises) against the unending legions of Ultron. Everything just gels here, from the return of a few heroes who have been absent to the final showdown and quiet epilogue; this is grand space opera in the best sense. It's been a heck of a ride once again, and with Guardians of the Galaxy continuing it, it looks like the trend will continue for the time being. Superman #675 -- Kurt Busiek's final outing on the title isn't exactly subtle, as Big Blue and power-siphoning baddie Paragon have to fight a trio of fanatical Daxamites clerics who want to capture the heretic Lar Gand. It's big and bombastic, as I imagine you pretty much have to be when you have a golem made of outer space show up. A bit too long, but otherwise a fine and fun story, which also acts as a nice capstone for Busiek's run, as he ties it back to the "growing darkness" predicted by Arion all those months ago. Super-Fans could do a lot worse than this one, and Robinson's upcoming run (coinciding with Johns' work on Action) looks like it's going to be quite cool as well, even if budgetary reasons are forcing me to drop the series. Captain Action #0 -- When your world is being invaded from within by microscopic, mind-controlling alien parasites, who do you call? Captain Action! But with the invasion defeated, and the world grown complacent thanks to the emergence of the superheroes, what good is an anacrhonism like the Captain? That's the philosophical question Fabian Nicieza and Mark Sparacio ask here; at least, before the midway point when everything comes off the rails. The world, I mean, not the narrative! With the old ACTION Directorate destroyed, and Captain Action dead, everything now hinges on his son, heir to the title. As a setup, this is pretty standard, but it's done in a good way. The Captain seems to be played as a mix of 60s super-spy with a Nemesis-esque master of disguise, which works for me. I really like Sparacio's clean, smooth lines for this property. This preview was good enough to convince me to check out the upcoming "novella" First Mission, Last Day, and we'll go from there. The Pick Of The Pile goes to Annihilation Conquest, just edging out Iron Man. Both are insane, double-sized, action-packed blowoffs to major stories, but AC eeks out a victory this time. So what did YOU read this week? Labels: dc, Marvel, moonstone, What I read Everybody's Linking For The Weekend Adama shines the spotlight on Green Arrow's sidekick, err, I mean partner. Something I always wondered about Speedy/Arsenal: how does being a really good shot with a bow and arrow translate to being a good shot with a gun? Shouldn't he have split the difference and used a crossbow? Or would Huntress not allow it? I'd like to see more fun stories like this one Rick has posted. Of course, the fact that both Aquaman and Hawkman seem unable to carry a title means it won't happen any time soon. G Kendall talks about the time that Emma Frost starting going good, and I can recall being thoroughly annoyed at this development as a kid. And, sadly, I have yet to get over it. Scipio makes me wish I played Heroclix everytime he posts one of his maps, like this LOSH HQ setting. Although, you know, there is that LOSH starter box... Comics Blogger Extraordinaire rob! knows that with Aquaman, it's all about time. Seems to me that Aquaman's biggest problem in the "modern" era is the death of anthologies and backups. BONUS GAME! Life At A Con. My brother is working a booth at NYCC, so I am sure this will be useful for him. I totally missed out on the JL/JLI/JLE era, but Frank is nice enough to offer some thoughts. I've always wanted to check out this era because I like Beetle, Booster, and the Manhunter. Maybe I'll pick some up at some point. Finally, check out the awesome Duck Family Tree! Posted by Luke at 11:19 AM 1 comment: Links to this post Weekly Dose Of Weird! The Vault Of Horror #2 (Russ Cochran 1993, reprinting VOH #13) -- How did they not see her when they were walking in? I mean, it's not that big of a tomb, is it? I. "The Dead Will Return!" -- A woman and her lover kill her husband and dump the body at sea, so it will wash ashore and his death be thought accidental. While they search his lighthouse for the man's stashed loot, his body washes ashore right below them. The dump the rotting corpse again, and again it returns. As her lover drives the corpse far away, the wife continues to look for the cash, until she is cornered in the top of the lighthouse by some unseen spook. Her lover returns, discovers her, and then shares her fate. The police come by the next morning, find the two dead lovers, and a almost unrecognizable corpse on the shore. The Vaultkeeper informs us that the man's money was on his person the whole time, and now waterlogged and useless. II. "The Curse of Harkley Heath" -- Three cousins are the last heirs of the Harkley estate (namely by killing their uncle with morphene), which has been cursed for generations. When the dominant one plans to kill off his two cousins to collect it all, things seem to be going well: he poisons his pretty cousin with morphene, and then threatens the wormy one. Well turns out that his cousin has a tolerance to morphene, and she ends up shooting him, which causes the wormy guy to accidentally start a fire and burn them all to death. III. "The Diamond of Death!" -- Text story. A gem collector and exotic plant enthusiast dies, and his manservant finds a giant diamond, which supposedly curses whomever posseses it. Next thing you knw the guy is doing his best Little Shop of Horrors impression as he becomes plantfood. IV. "Doctor of Horror" -- A 19th century surgery professor needs to provide bodies for his students, and thus gets into the graverobbing business. Spinning this acumen into success, he becomes the Chair of the Surgery department by murdering his rival and letting his students dissect him. Now aiming for the Deanship, the doctor hires hoodlums to murder riffraff and deliver the bodies to him, so he can impress the current Dean. Not one to trust his hirelings, he goes to check on their progress, and ends up laid out on the slab in his own classroom. V. "Island of Death" -- A plane crash strands two men on a tropical island. Getting seperated, one man finds a giant castle, home to a mysterious Count, a big game hunter. Now interested in hunting the most dangerous game, the Count sends his guest into the jungle. The castaway is not helpless, though, as he manages to garrote the Count's manservant with a tripwire, and kill his hunting dogs in a pit trap. But before the Count can finish him off, the man's copilot finds him and plugs the Count in the back. Yeah, I WISH I could afford the original one. This reprint is every bit as weird as the original, though, since it's a complete reprint, from the Johnny Craig cover right down the line (albeit with different letters to the Vaultkeeper, but the same letterhead -- which I intend to scan for Rick at some point). EC set the standard for weird comics with their line of "new look" horror mags from the 50s, and this early example is a fine one. Each artist brings a different quality to the table, from Harrison's gothic ghost story in "Curse" to Graham Ingels harsh lines on "Doctor." The tales themselves are just creepy and spooky, with the exception of the last one, although it has some gruesome elements which make up for it. Even the text piece is not bad, for this type. Either hunt down the reprints, or check out the handsome hardcovers, but if you like horror comics at all you MUST read EC. Posted by Luke at 6:41 AM No comments: Links to this post Labels: ec, Weird Not Blog Ex? Wondering just what the heck this is? Head on over to Not Blog X and G Kendall will explain all. At least "all" in the context of 90s X-Men comics. Enter... The Panther Credits: Scott Lobdell (Script), Scott Kolins (Pencils), Jon Holdredge; Ray Kryssing (Inks), Mike Thomas; Dana Moreshead (Colors), Ul Higgins (Letters). Kitty Pryde, along with Lockheed, is busy soaking up the sun in Wakanda, having stowed away on Brian's private jet. Brian, along with his "administrative assistant" Meggan, are representing Braddock Industries (formerly run by Jamie Braddock before he went nutzoid) in an internation coalition, which is meeting in Wakanda. Meggan is introduced to T'Challa, the Black Panther, and the technologically advanced people of Wakanda. Going deep inside the strange geological oddity known as the "cold mountain", the Panther introduces the other members of the group: Iron Man, representing Stark International, and Captain America, representing the United States government. As they sit down to a feast (pizza, bizarrely enough), the group is suddenly surrounded by bizarre full sized wooden creatures, with large heads resembling an African tribal carving. The leader of this group is Icon, who has transformed T'Challa's staff into his soldiers. Icon claims to represent the true nature of Wakanda, and the wishes of the Wakandan people to cast off technology and the West. Panther, Iron Man, and Cap spring to action, sealing Brian and Meggan inside a vibranium protection cylinder. Kitty, who had found one of Icon's victims earlier, phases in to get her teammates out. Facing down this "new" Excalibur, Icon bemoans that normally Africa has one superhero, but the day he makes his move, there's whole gaggle of them. Meanwhile, Nightcrawler and Cerise are planning an evening at the opera, although Cerise still thinks lipstick tastes terrible. Their night out is interrupted when the Knight Errant, who rides on a mechanical flying steed, invades the opera house and shoots an energy blast at a known arms smuggler, and Nightcrawler has to save the man's date before the two heroes give chase. A footnote tells us that Cerise arrived from "somewhere else" in issue #47. Iron Man is James Rhodes, and is wearing the black and white "War Machine" style armor. Meggan greets him, thinking he is the Iron Man that they previously had adventured with; she takes his ignorance for playing "secret identity." Similarly, Cap notices him drinking a toast, and immediately knows it's not Tony Stark. "Huh?” Moment The last page has Black Panther, Captain America, Iron Man, Kitty, and some random, muscular Black woman in a white outfit. I guess it's Meggan or a disguised Brian, maybe? But as it stands the page makes no sense in the context of the issue. Another Lobdell story, this continues into the next issue as well. It's not bad -- the subplot with Nightcrawler and Cerise is great fun, but I am biased -- and there is some funny bits here and there, but overall, this is a lesser issue. I'm not a real big fan of the Black Panther, so that hurts it, but even beyond that this is not really an Excalibur story. This really is something which would have been better played in Marvel Comics Presents or a Black Panther one-shot. Brian and Meggan are basically there to be reader identification (Lobdell makes a point about how even though they are Europe's premier superheroes, the sight of Cap and Iron Man fill them with awe), which is not really something I am looking for in an Excalibur book. Kollins' art is all over the place; his style has cleaned up significantly since this period. A significant step-down from the previous two parter with the Trolls. As an aside, I remember seeing this cover for the first time and thinking that Marvel was actually changing the team to this roster, and being insanely angry about it (even as an Iron Fan). Looking back, I have to say: man, I was stupid. Labels: Marvel, Not Blog Ex? There comes a time, in every young person's life, where they say to themselves, "I am going to go out and do something for ME for a change." Typically, this happens every Wednesday (except sometimes around holidays). Batman And The Outsiders #6 -- You know, I imagine that soon the main difference between this title and James Robinson's upcoming Justice League will be that one book has the ghosts of Ralph and Sue Dibney in it, and the other has Congorilla. Flash #239 -- Continuing Tom Peyer's first arc for the Fastest Man Alive. It'll be interesting to see if the Internet turns on him, as well. Superman #675 -- Busiek's swan song on Big Blue's junior title. I'm very annoyed that I cannot afford Trinity (though my bank account is breathing a sigh of relief). Annihilation Conquest #6 -- You just know that everything is going to hit the fan in this one. I wonder, will we get the third chapter in the saga next year, or will Marvel time it out a bit? Iron Man #28 -- This double-sized issue features the blowoff of the current (and insanely awesome) Mandarin storyline. Conspiracy theories abound: is this the Knauf's last issue for Shellhead? Is this title changing to Nick Fury: Director of SHIELD? I sincerely hope not, on both accounts. Iron Man: Legacy Of Doom #1 -- Dave Michelinie! Bob Layton! Ron Lim! Doctor Doom! Camelot! What more could you want? So, what looks good to YOU? Discount Bin Finds -- Batman And The Outsiders #21 This is another find from the Borderlands sale, one of only a handful of Outsiders comics I have ever found in the shop. It would seem that I am the main Outsiders fan for their clientele, and considering I only became an fan last year, well... let's just say I have first crack at all the slim pickings. As far as a single issue to find in a discount bin, though, this is an excellent candidate. Not only is it entirely self-contained, but as promised on the cover, it's a trio of short tales, each with a different artist and focusing on a different member of the team -- Katana, Geo-Force, and Black Lightning. Amusingly, on the first page, Halo and Metamorpho complain that they don't get features, but remind the reader to come back next month for the third part of "The Truth About Halo." It's worth nothing that while Trevor von Eeden had done some work on this title, Outsiders co-creator Jim Aparo is not found here, nor would he work on this title any more in the future, replaced with Alan Davis (who draws the intro). I know he came back for the Baxter paper series, but that was a while away still, so I am not sure why he's not on board here. Still, the three artists here (Jerome Moore, von Eeden, and Ron Randall, respectively) all turn in some nice pages, each one different enough from the others to really stand out. The first tale, "Silent Treatment," stars Katana, who is charged with transporting a rare vase to a museum and keep it from harm. The gimmick is that there is no spoken dialogue; instead, the "narration" is the radio play-by-play of Gotham's footbal team, which just so happens to match up with the action. Barr always seemed to like Katana, and this story shows off her strengths very well, as she is not only able to elude capture through her fighting skill, but her intelligence and guile as well. It's a fun short, and the football angle makes for some great puns, but if you don't like gridiron than this may not make a whole lot of sense. Up next is a story with everyone's favorite Markovian prince, Geo-Force, called "Jaws, 4--Gotham, 0." Clearly inspired by Jaws 3-D, released about a year and a half earlier, we find Brion visiting a Sea World knock-off and meeting up with a pretty reporter who is unhappy to have "minor celeb" duty. Things take a turn, though, when the developer of a mechanical shark turns his creation on the park, and Geo-Force flies into action to save the day... and get a date. von Eeden's roughish pencils give this short a lot of energy, and Barr's satire is biting without sounding over-the-top or too silly. Stories like this, which show Geo-Force as a likeable sort of goof, really show off the character's strength. He's like Wonder Man in that respect, which is probably why I have grown to like him. Finally, Black Lightning stars in the the last story, entitled "The Roar Of The Ghetto-Blaster." Barr and Randall slip a little "Created By" credit in for Isabella and von Eeden, though why von Eeden didn't just draw this one I don't know. Anyway, Jefferson Pierce is not having a good week. When trying to track down on of his dilenquient students, he runs into a violent, costumed anti-slum protestor named the Ghetto-Blaster, who is destroying the run down tenements in Gotham City by force. Black Lightning is less than impressed with his disregard for the safety of those arounf him, and stops him -- earning him the ire of the frustrated and angry crowd. Beating a retreat, it seems that Jefferson's more moderated views are rejected, even by his straying students. Lightning is able to win the day, though, when he finds out that the Ghetto-Blaster is not destroying the slums to help the neighborhood, but trying to find the money he stashed after a bank-job a decade earlier. It's worth nothing that this story reads like something which would not have been out of place in Black Lightning's mag in the 70s, and that BL figures out that Blaster is a criminal through his use of prison slang, not entirely unlike that one issue of World's Finest starring Green Arrow! Overall, I really enjoyed this comic. Three short stories make it almost like a superhero anthology, especially with the three different artists and the vastly different tones in each feature. Barr still seems to really enjoy writing his characters, and gives each one a definite and distinctive voice (well, not Katana this time out, but you know what I mean!). This also serves as a good introduction to the Outsiders for someone who is not already familiar with them (similar to The Brave And The Bold #200, but in solo environments instead of as a team). If you happen across this issue for a good price, buy it. Posted by Luke at 9:21 AM 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: dc, discount bin finds Justice Society of America #14 -- I find it hard to complain too loudly about a series as good as this one, and now I can add the fact that my main complaint -- far, far too many characters -- is an ongoing plot point, so really, in the words of Skeets, "I got nothing." Johns and Eaglesham pump it up here, with an extended cameo by Infinity Man of all people! Steel Watch: Nathan gets a great scene here, as he saves two of his teammates from getting run over by a semi by shoulder blocking it, reminiscent of Ben Grimm's move from the first Fantastic Four. Tiny Titans #3 -- The immortal question is asked: are the Titans heroes or sidekicks? Plus, witness the unending anguish of Dr. Light, Sidekick Elementary's long-suffering Science Teacher, Rose's turn at Show And Tell featuring her kid brother Jericho, and a visit to the Batcave, filled with rocket-powered penguins from "that movie." The activity page is a great pin-up of Aqualad in a "find the object" game. Luckily for us, rob! from The Aquaman Shrine was kind enough to scan this great piece for us. Great fun from Art and Franco, with the Jericho short being the funniest thing I have read in months. The Pick Of The Pile is a tough call. Tiny Titans is just so much fun, I find myself actively pining for each new issue to come out. And by the same token, JSoA is just a phenomenal superhero comic, delivering the goods month in and mouth out. So, as the grand high poo-bah of the Bunker, I am calling this week a DRAW! The Titans and the Society are just going to have to share the honors this week. Posted by Luke at 10:54 AM No comments: Links to this post Labels: dc, What I read Frank brings the ole Red State/Blue State argument to the World's Mightiest. Rick shows off the letterhead of Marvel Two-In-One. Whatta revoltin' development! BONUS GAME! Have some fun of the Worlds Finest variety! DOUBLE BONUS GAME! Plas gets in on the action as well! Scipio brings the culture with a Detroit League-era haiku. And finally, rob! shows off both the awesome first issue of Time And Tide, but also the amazing pinup of Aqualad from this week's Tiny Titans! The Witching Hour #32 -- Look behind you lady! Jeez, they never listen! I. Host Segment -- The Witches Three find that men are always just hanging around. II. "What Evil Taunts This House?" -- An insurance agent who just sold a million dollar policy (double in case of "supernatural" causes) checks out the strange goins-on at his policy-holder's house. Things understandably take a turn for the worse when the guy turns out to be a vampire, and then the agent has to pay the double indemnity after killing him with a silver letter opener. III. "Too Young To Die!" -- An eldery Japanese man finds the secret to restore his youth after killing the scientist who discovered it. He enjoys his newfound energy and vitality -- until the Japanese army drafts him, and he gets killed in an American ambush. IV. "Witch-Ful Thinking" -- A collection of letters and weird news, including that crazy cat Sammy Davis Jr's run-in with Satanism. V. "Name Your Poison" -- An aged farmer takes in a drifter to work his land; the farmer doesn't have long to live and has no money, so he offers the drifter heirship of the farm. The drifter, catching wind of the Interstate coming through, tries to kill the old man, first with rat poison, then with dynamite, then with dropping a pump on him, all to no avail. Lashing out, the drifter kills himself, only to realize that he suceeded the first time, and the old man was a ghost luring him to his own death. Overall Weird Factor: 1 (out of 5). Pretty mediocre all-around. The Witches don't offer much in the way of hosting duties -- they're not just a poor substitute for a GhouLunatic, but even for Cain or Abel. Nothing groundbreaking here, and the lack of anything truly unusual hurts the Weird Factor. At least all of the main features do stick to theme and use midnight, "the witching hour," as a plot point. Posted by Luke at 11:45 AM 2 comments: Links to this post Labels: dc, Weird Special "No Content" Edition! Sorry folks, my wife and I are going to see Spamalot! tonight, so no post for you. Hopefully, this awesome little bit of classic Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder, will suffice. Enjoy! Labels: no content As we move closer to spring, it's time for planting in our gardens, mowing and seeding our lawns, and gearing up for the lazy days of summer by buying lots of comic books. What? Justice Society of America #14 -- Consistantly one of my favorite comics every month. Also consistantly the one that gives me a headache as I try to keep track of every character. Showcase Presents: Superman Family v.2 -- I don't think I will be buying this at the moment (too many trades piled up as it is, plus normal back issues to boot!), but there is too much concentrated insanity in these pages not to mention it. Tiny Titans #3 -- What have we learned? That's right, don't play Freeze Tag with Kid Flash. (Hopefully Borderlands will get it in!) Retro Review: Iron Man v.1:no.63-65 These comics are part of my haul back at Atlanta Comics Expo, which I have been slowly working my way through. They harken back to a simpler time, sort of, when Iron Man fought villians and didn't have to deal with socio-political malarkey all the time. Kinda. Our story opens in Detroit, where Tony Stark has recently relocated (look out, Vibe!). Tony can't help but let his mind wander to the lovely Roxie Gilbert -- Firebrand's pacifist sister whom he has had more than one meeting with of late. But his thoughts have to wait as who should show up but Dr. Spectrum and his Power Prism! The bad doc knocks Tony from pillar to post, and it's only because he thinks Shellhead has kicked the bucket that the fight ends. Tony limps back to SE, where he tries to recover while comforting Pepper Hogan -- recently seperated from her sour-pussed hubby Happy. One thing leads to another, as it always does, and Hap walks in on Pepper and Tony locked in a kiss! Trying to distract himself from the Pepper-Happy issue, Shellhead busies himself demolishing a condemned tenement in order to demonstrate a new modular construction system which Stark Enterprises has developed to ease urban renewal. But even that gets interrupted once again by Spectrum -- only this time, Tony is ready for his opponent, disabling him with a blast of UV light, the Power Prism's only weakness! Back at SE, Tony still has to deal with Happy. But that fight -- along with a visit by the mysterious African official Dr. Obatu and on-time Happy Hogan rival Eddie March -- are put on hold as the behemoth known as Rokk arrives to kill Obatu! Tony manages to drive him away when Rokk uses his powers to scan Tony's mind for the one he cares most about... Roxie Gilbert! Iron Man gives chase as the monster tracks Roxie to a grocery store, then nearly drains all of his power fighting him off. With Rokk defeated, and Shellhead on his last legs, we find out that Rokk was nothing more than a creation of the Power Prism, meant to soften Shellhead up for the killing blow! Like a good bad guy, Spectrum and the Prism -- now actively arguing with one another -- reveal how they came to be. Namely, the Power Prism was an ambitious Skrull named Krimonn who was transformed into the gem as a punishment, but ended up on Earth thanks to the machinations of the Gamesmaster. There, he eventually bonded with the ruthless Obatu, needing a mind through which to channel his tremendous power! But now Krimonn has grown weary of Obatu, and seeks a new host -- namely, the Invincible Iron Man. Tricking Spectrum into doing his will, Krimonn transfers his consciousness into Iron Man -- who starts to wreak havoc. Luckily, someone makes a call to the Avengers, and who should show up to quell the possessed man-machine but Thor, god of thunder! To Be Continued! WHAT?! Always a problem with stories like this, missing that one crucial issue. Be that as it may, these three comics tell a really fun early Bronze Age Shellhead adventure, with a lot of representative characteristics of the era. Written by Mike Freidrich and drawn by George Tuska, these issues are better than one might expect given the way which this series is usually regarding. For whatever reason, Iron Man is one of those titles which is generally saddled with the "It sucked until -blank- came on board," in this case referring to Dave Michelinie and Bob Layton. And yeah, the title went through a lot of unremarkable phases in it's run. But that attitude is a disservice to these stories from the early-mid 70s, which are demonstrative of a lot of trends going on at Marvel and hold up nicely. Case in point: Tony's ongoing struggle to move away from the Stark Enterprises munitions business (at one point telling Roxie that he won't make another dime off munitions) and into more socially-aware interests, such as space exploration and energy. Here we are, not a decade removed from his creation, and Tony is already changing in a fundamental way. This arc would continue for years, with Tony's "redemption" by pushing into more benign fields playing a major role into the 90s, and even as far as the Busiek relaunch. Friedrich has a punchy writing style which easily evokes the era without being too dated. His Tony doesn't read all that much different from the later, more popular runs on the title, and he handles the narratives well, providing the necessary exposition and recap without making it painful or intrusive. Also impressive is his handling of the clearly-not-all-there Dr. Spectrum, who is constantly arguing with the Prism, and makes for a strong threat to our hero. Pepper and Happy's marital strife, the internal troubles of Roxie Gilbert, Eddie March's sudden re-appearance, and Dr. Obatu's shadowy motives are all handled well -- there's even a cameo appearance by none other than Luke Cage, hyping an upcoming Shellhead appearance in Power Man. Tuska is right in his element here as well, with a lot of action-shots of Iron Man and plenty of brawling to go around. The fashions on display are well-rendered, if bizarre -- not helped by a small handful of coloring mistakes that make things look even weirder. But those are minor touches, as overall these comics look amazing and dynamic -- the fact that some letter-writers were complaining about Tuska boggles my feeble mind. I really enjoyed these issues. They're from an era which I just recently have gotten any significant amount of the title, and I think that they are much better than the reputation they currently hold. I think any Marvel fan who enjoys this period, when the Silver Age had given way to what I like to call "Social Surrealism," then this period of Iron Man, and these issues in specific (along with the next, which evidently turns this somewhat straightforward action-adventure tale on it's ear with a goofy plot twist), are worthy and worthwhile pick-ups. Labels: Marvel, Retro Review Tiny Titans #2 -- Finally got this one, which is good, since the third issue comes out pretty soon. Like, this week. Anyway, it's more adorable adventures from the Tiny Titans, including meeting up with those bullies the Fearsome Five, "mean girl" Terra, and the hot-headed (literally speaking, of course) Kid Devil. Too cute for words, this is more good clean fun that is fun for kids and fanboys alike. Freddy vs Jason vs Ash #6 -- Got this one as well, apparently it was delayed by a week locally. Much like the film that this is a sequel to, the final setpieces are gruesome and over the top, with a crazy back and forth bloodbath of a fight between our three principles. Craig's art is good, but you can see the toll his health problems have had on his work. It's disappointing, but you can't do anything about it, and frankly it still looks good. As a follow-up to Freddy vs Jason, I think this satisfied everything I was looking for, so I am calling it a success. Project Superpowers #3 -- Krueger and Paul's rendition of the return of the Golden Age takes a bit of a turn here, with a little action up front but then a more staid approach for the balance of the issue, which works pretty well. Black Terror's bloodlust is tempered a little bit, and then we get a peek inside, and things make a little more sense. We also get the return of the Death-Defying 'Devil, The Flame, and Samson, and nifty concepts such as the F-Troop and the modern hero the Scarab. There's a lot of interesting ideas kicking around in here, and things gel somewhat better this time out, but I am still waiting for this series to fire on all cylinders. Trials of Shazam #12 -- The finale and blowoff to the long quest for knowledge and power plays out here, with Freddy Freeman facing down his rival Sabina for the power of Zeus. Cascioli's psuedo-painted style is put to good use here, as we get a large brawl between the Justice League and the Shadowpact and a legion of demons. And Winnick delivers the goods and ties up Freddy's new status quo nicely enough, leaving it open for whomever wants to take the reins from there. All in all I enjoyed this series, depite it's flaws. It's a different kind of Captain Marvel story, admittedly, but the vitriol directed at it is excessive. The DCU has a new magical protector, and his name is Shazam. Whether we see much more of him or not, however, remains to be seen. The Pick Of The Pile is Tiny Titans, because it made me smile and laugh, and I really needed that. The other comics were good, but nothing was great. Labels: dc, dynamite, What I read, wildstorm Frank doesn't hate Iron Man. He has seen the light! Rick shows us how only in America one can go from yap to rap in one year. Be sure to go check out Comic Book Letterheads, Rick's newest contribution to awesomeness! Adama takes a break from Green Arrow to look at ... Who? Scipio is at it again with the maps, this time showing off Apex City and Crime Alley. And finally, we finally have the final installemnt of creator's commentary for the final issue of Freddy vs Jason vs Ash. Finally. House of Secrets #93 -- Oh no! Someone's murdered Brother Power! Still, Wrightson is Wrightson... I. "Lonely In Death!" -- A young woman living in the house her mother left to her is convinced that her mom's ghost is trying to kill her, since she is lonely in the afterlife. Her brother at first tries to soothe her, then is sure she's gone loco. Imagine her surprise when her brother turns out to be the cause of her near-death experiences, until her spectral mom makes the save. Right? Or was she just so nuts that she made her brother lose it as well? Abel's not telling. II. "Abel's Fables From The House of Secrets" -- Abel has some interesting pests in the House, and an interesting taste in decor. III. "The Curse Of The Cat's Cradle" -- The new jefe on a banana plantation in Gutamala finds a giant stuck in a quicksand bog, and the man he is replacing trying to steal the giant's horde of treasure. A convenient cave-in causes the treasure, quicksand, and giant all to vanish, but there's no time for that now; people are waiting for their bananas. IV. "Nightmare" -- Dirk falls into darkness, unable to pierce the inky shroud with his flashlight. Sadly, that doesn't stop the beasties from finding him... until he wakes up, all a dream. Needless to say, when he goes to work, faking accidents to delay the construction of a building, one wrong step leaves him falling back into a familiar darkness all over again. V. "The House of Secrets Speaks!" -- Letters from readers wherein Abel claims such correspondence is a fire hazard, and then asks "What's an 'EC'?" VI. "The Beast From The Box" -- A botanist finds a strange box, and opens it, then is turned to stone by the green creature inside. The creature escapes, builds a new box for itself, then grows bigger. Repeating this process a couple of times, destroying whatever gets in its way each time, the botanist and his lovely assistant figure out that it's like an alien caterpillar, making coccons for it's metamorphasis. So like any good American, they blow the thing up when it's vulnerable and defensless. VII. "Abel's Fables" -- More hijinks ensue, including a poor guy who's lost his head. VIII. "Never Kill A Witch's Son!" -- Randy and Andria, married amateur murders, shove Andria's Uncle Ken out of a window to collect the insurance money. Ken's mother, who knows they did it, is played off as a senile old coot, and locked in her room where she chants strangely. But when strange things start to occur -- like Andria seeing Ken outside her window leaving a trail of blood, or his pipe being still lit, or hearing from a friend that she ate breakfast with him -- it's too much, and the woman has a breakdown. Which works out for Randy, who is planning on faking her suicide to collect her half of the money. In the latest of a series of badly planned steps, though, he ends up getting shoved out the same window; Andria is carted away to the nuthatch, and Ken's mom can't help but be amused how her "black magic" brought these morons the justice they deserved. Overall Weird Factor: 4.5 (out of 5). I'll try to explain this one rationally. Okay, I can't do that. One issue after the introduction of Swamp Thing, we've got a banana farmer in Guatamala caught in a giant's cat's cradle over a pit of quicksand and from there figuring out that the cat's cradle is actually a trail map. How can I rationalize that? Plus, the presence of Abel is always a nice touch, a callback to the old GhouLunatics. There's no denying it: this is one weird comic book. You have to like any comic book movie which starts with a disembodied hand actually flipping through the comic book. I think if something like Iron Man started that way today, we'd have a nerd-riot on our hands. Anyway, we're treated to a nice prologue about the fall of traditional society and the rise of the Mega-Cities, the first and greatest of all of course being Mega-City One. Dumped into this spiraling urban sprawl is Fergie, a petty criminal who has served his sentence in the Aspen Penal Colony and earned his release. Things don't go so well for the wormy little guy, though, as he is assigned to the Heavenly Haven neighborhood, which just happens to be in the middle of a block war. And when you've got punks shooting each other in the streets, well, you know who comes rolling in: the Judges. Flanked by Judge Hersey and a rookie (who doesn't seem to have what it takes), the legendary lawman Judge Dredd "sentences" all involved (including Fergie, sent back to prison) and quells the riot. But not all is well in Mega-City One. There's rumblings of corruption amongst the Justice Department, and reporters dog every step the street Judges take. The Department itslef, charged with maintaining both law and order in the city, is being stretched to the limit, as more and more criminals are arming themselves, and they cannot train Judges fast enough -- and those that do have a pretty high mortality rate. The solution seems to present itself with the long lost Janus Project, an experimental attempt to clone Judges from the best cloning stock, which would solve their problems. The High Council is split, but a series of events -- namely, the escape of the murderous ex-Judge Rico, and the murder of a prominent TV news reporter -- forces Dredd to not only clear his own name, but save the city and the Rule of Law. As a film experience, Judge Dredd is a mixed bag. There's some really well-done aspects, and then some really poor ones. So it's hard to get a good feeling on it. Overall, though, after viewing I was more disappointed than anything else. Stallone is not bad as Dredd, although we see way too much of his face. That's unavoidable, of course, but it's still pretty overt, at least to anyone who's ever read 2000 AD. Then again, I doubt most of the audience had read the magazine, so I guess that's fair. The cast in general is good, even whiny little Rob Schneider as Fergie -- he's annoying, yes, but that's the point. Max von Sydow is standout as Chief Justice Fargo, and though it's not exactly a role which requires him to really flex his muscles, it's a good performance. Same goes for Diane Lane as Hershey and Armand Asante (!) as Rico. The production design is also pretty well executed. There's a couple of scenes where Mega-City One looks more like San Angeles from Demolition Man, but that is made up for by the care given elsewhere. The Judges' uniforms look excellent, the best way I can imagine adapting their over-the-top look. Same goes for the Lawgiver sidearms and the Lawmaster bikes, which are gloriously realized. Even little things like the set dressing for the Grand Hall of Justice or the Academy or Aspen Penal Colony is handled with care. And I'd be remiss not to mention the ABC Warrior (obviously meant to be Hammerstein), which lumbers it's way through the film with a ton of presence and menace. I even have a model kit of him (Thanks, Jon!). But beyond that, the film falls flat. The script plods along, with a lot of setpieces but not a lot of drama or drive. There's tons of cliches, both from the sci-fi and action genres. And eventually the whole thing just comes off the rails and the result is just one big jumble. Fans, such as myself, wanted more Judge action, more of Dredd on the street doing his thing. Nonfans no doubt thought it was a lesser version of Demolition Man, which is funnier and more exciting, despite the smaller budget and lacking this movie's design sense. (The fact that it had Sandra Bullock back when she was hot doesn't hurt either.) I really wanted to like Judge Dredd, and have a good time watching it, but after about the first 25 minutes or so, I'm afraid I just couldn't do either. Labels: 2000AD, 4 color cinema You know, it seems that some comic book bloggers take the new releases each Wednesday as a sort of "What's Weak This Week" list, picking out everything that they just know is going to be "terrible." Me, I like to take a less cynical approach. What do you think? Trials of Shazam #12 -- The Trials come to a close as Freddie Freeman must face his destiny! It's popular to bash this series, but hey, if you don't like it, don't read it! Essential Iron Man v.3 -- Featuring Shellhead's early adventures in his own title, travel back to a time when Tony Stark truly was a cool exec with a heart of steel... and Millar, Bendis, JMS, and Slott were not around to vent their liberal nerd-rage. Well, I managed to get the Weekly Dose and Links posted (early, even!) but a mix-up at work left this post unfufilled until today. What a revoltin' development. Tiny Titans #2 -- Started to get annoyed now, as Borderlands still has not received copy one of this title. Freddy vs Jason vs Ash #6 -- This one was not on the Diamond list for last week, nor did I see it, but evidently it was released. Hopefully I can find it this week. Batman And The Outsiders #5 -- Moving on to comics I actually did manage to purchase, we catch up with Batman's covert crew in the South American jungle, trying to prevent the mysterious Mr. Jardine from making his space shot. A lot of action this time out, as the Outsiders have to deal with Jardine's mercenaries, including the heavy hitter, Militia, and the trigger happy Gunhawk and Gunbunny -- luckily they get a timely assist from an unlikely duo. Dixon is working on his own pace here, and it's a pretty enjoyable read for it. Lopez's pencils remain eye-pleasing and solidly rendered for the action sequences, although Katana's torn costume -- revealing juuust a bit of cleavage -- was a little gratuitous. I do have to wonder how the team is going to get out of this cliffhanger, and that's a sign of a good team book, I think. The Flash #238 -- New series writer Tom Peyer joins Freddie Williams II to introduce the newest member of Flash's Rogues Gallery -- Spin, who is able to amplify the public's fears into a mind-numbing paranoia and terror. And a slip of the tongue by Wally West is poised to make him Public Fear No. 1. Peyer impresses in his debut, both in his ability to pick up the strings of Waid's arc (Keystone City's infastructure is in danger due to the removal of water content thanks to the alien invaders, the kids' aging dilemma) and even Keith Champagne's fill-in (Wally is unemployed) as well as writing a true Flash story. I mean, there's a guy with a costume and a super-power stealing something! And then using his power to put the Flash in a bizarre bind! That's Flash comics, people! Williams' art shines; he's a really good fit on this title. And Spin himself is a very interesting villian, from his visual to his powers to his voice, he has the potential to cross over into the DCU at large in addition to giving the Scarlet Speedster headaches. If you were not thrilled with either The Fastest Man Alive or the Waid relaunch, then you should definitely pick up this series again. And if you liked them, well, then you are already reading. Futurama Comics #36 -- The Planet Express crew travels to the planet of New England, populated entirely by robots (no, it doesn't have oceans of clam chowder, that's New New England!) and gets embroiled in the mystery of the notorious Jak The Deleter! Meanwhile, Amy, Hermes, and Dr. Zoidberg try to have an adventure of their own, without much luck, sadly. Silly and enjoyable Futurama-y goodness, although the art is a little iffy in places. The wide range of British jokes alone makes this worthy of pick-up. The Phantom #22 -- Without time to mourn from the events last issue, the Ghost-Who-Walks throws himself headlong into the investigation of the terrorist attack on Bangalan soil. As the Phantom works on one end, we see the machinations on the other, as all sorts of bad people are involved in a scheme which threatens far more than the Deep Woods, or even the African continent. The pace slows down here as Mike Bullock sets up the big conflict, which draws on a lot of the last few years of Moonstone Phantom stories. It's a different place for this title, which normally goes pretty all-out -- due, in no small part, to the fact that this is the first 5-issue story for the title. As such, it's a bit of a letdown from the normal jaw-smashing action. There's just not that much for Szilagyi to draw. Still, it's a good read, and there is the always popular sense of impending doom hanging over the entire affair, which is good, and the cliffhanger promises more chin-checking next time out. The Pick Of The Pile is a title which hasn't gotten that honor in some time, and that is The Flash. Peyer's debut is a fresh read, with script that manages to be clever without being cute (a rare trick indeed). Combined with Williams' continuing on pencils, the title has been given a shot in the arm, and, retroactively, "The Wild Wests" now looks more draggy than it was. Labels: bongo, dc, moonstone, phantom, What I read, wildstorm After earning two degrees and working in industry, Luke decided to start blogging. He now devotes his time to his hobbies: peeling things off of other things, and watching the radio. Quote Of The Now "Do you fear death more than you fear ME?!" -- Metlar. This Blog Rated: Indestructible. Thanks, Rick! Follow Luke on Twitter! My Podcast - Earth Destruction Directive Earth Destruction Directive! Cool Comic Book Links! ...nurgh... Atom: Home Of The Tiny Titan Being Carter Hall (My Hawkman Blog) Comic Book Letterheads Diana Prince: The All-New Wonder Woman Dispatches From the Arrowcave Grand Comic Book Database JLA Satellite Justice League Detroit: The Blog Mail It To Team-Up Not Blog X On My Mind (Not a Comics Blog, but a good guy anyway!) Plastic Man Platitudes Tales From The Batcave The Absorbascon The Aquaman Shrine The Defenders Fansite Two True Freaks! Podcast Discount Bin Finds -- Batman And The Outsiders #21...	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1368
__label__cc	0.530105	0.469895	First Look: Javascript Microcontrollers for Web Developers Alasdair Allan Alasdair Allan is a scientist, author, hacker and tinkerer, who is spending a lot of his time thinking about the Internet of Things. In the past he has mesh networked the Moscone Center, caused a U.S. Senate hearing, and contributed to the detection of what was—at the time—the most distant object yet discovered. View more articles by Alasdair Allan By Alasdair Allan @aallan February 4, 2013, 8:56 am PST The Tessel board (left) and the Espruino board (right) The Espruino has shipped to its Kickstarter backers, and Tessel is on schedule to ship by May, and we’re about to get our hands on pre-production Tessel hardware and you can expect an in-depth review soon. Despite the explosion of new boards coming to the market—and because of the community that’s grown up around them—I’d without hesitation recommend the Arduino, if you need an 8-bit micro-controller board, or the Raspberry Pi if you need a single-board computer running Linux. It’s those communities that make the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi so useful, any problem you might come across it’s likely that someone else has come across it already and the solution, or at least the key to the solution, is already waiting for you and is just a Google search away. Logically then, the only way for a new board to succeed is to either take over one of those existing communities, create its own community, or co-op a community that already exists but isn’t tied to an existing micro controller. Right now there are two new micro-controller boards seeking funding—one on Kickstarter, and the other on Dragon Innovation’s new crowdfunding platform—that are slightly different. These boards aren’t just yet another Arduino clone, or yet another possible “Raspberry Pi killer.” These two boards, the Tessel from technical.io and the Espruino from Pur3, intend to take the path least travelled and co-op an existing community not traditionally associated with the maker community. Aimed squarely in the gap between the Arduino at the low end, and the Raspberry Pi at the high end, both these boards use Javascript as their programming language, and both use it as close to the metal as possible. This is hardware hacking for web programmers, and it’ll be interesting to see if their arrival will bring the Javascript community with them when they arrive. It’ll be the end of the month before the crowdfunding efforts for these boards close out, although both have already doubled their funding targets, and the start of next year before the maker-in-the-street will see final production hardware. However one of the advantages of working for Make is that sometimes you get to try hardware before other people, and I have pre-production prototypes of both the Tessel and the Espruino boards sitting on my desk right now—one of twelve in the case of the Tessel, and one of just two in the case of the Espruino. The Tessel The Tessel microcontroller board, with its ARM Cortex M3 CPU (bottom) and TI CC3000 WiFi radio (top) Class A modules (top) and the more expensive Class B modules (bottom). The Tessel from technical.io was one of the eight products which launched the new Dragon Innovation crowdfunding platform last week, and the first to reach its funding goal. The Tessel is aimed on high end of the gap between the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi, squarely at Internet-connected applications targeting physical devices, and has WiFi built-in. That means not only that the board is always online, allowing it to be used as both as a server and a client, but you have the ability to remotely deploy your code onto the board via the network. As well as standard GPIO bank at one end—which includes SPI, I2C, and UART capability as well as 6 General Purpose Input/Output pins, 6 Analog to Digital Converters, a 5V pin, a 3.3V pin, and a ground pin—the board supports a module system, making it easier to add capabilities to a project without soldering. There are two types of module, both have the same connector. Class A modules—a Relay, Temp/Humidity, Servo, Accelerometer and micro-SD Card board—and slightly more expensive Class B modules—RFID, Bluetooth LE, GPS and Audio boards. My pre-production Tessel came with a Servo Module, which requires a second power supply dedicated to the servos. The Tessel board with a Servo Module driving a standard servo. The code to drive the servo module is pretty simple, var servo = require('servo-pca9685'); // Initialize the servo. console.log("initalizing"); // Port A, servo 1, calibrate min/max PWM of 4-15 var cs61 = servo.port('A').connect(1, 4, 15); cs61.on('connected', function () { var pos = 0; console.log("Deg rotation:", pos); cs61.move(pos); // Increment by 45 deg pos += 45; if (pos > 180) { pos = 0; The board leverages npm and the sprawling node.js community—just install the servo module using npm into your node.js installation and then push your code to the Tessel board using the Tessel npm package. But it’s not just their own infrastructure that makes use of npm, the board is going to be compatible with thousands of existing node.js modules available via npm. The fact that it’s node.js compatible may be a big factor in the success of the Tessel board, the node community is large, enthusiastic and—as can be seen from efforts such as nodecopter and Johnny Five—already open to working with hardware. That’s a big win for the Tessel, they have an instant community behind them. That counts for a lot. Talking with Tim Ryan I talked with Tim Ryan, one of the co-founders of Technical Machine, What’s the goal for the Tessel project? Our goal is to make hardware development a natural proposition for software developers. A huge part is enabling web and mobile developers to be able to use their existing skillsets to control the physical world. What’s the underlying architecture of the Tessel board? In-house we’ve developed a JavaScript interpreter built around the Lua runtime that is compatible with the Node.js API. No native C++ modules, but control flow and HTTP modules easily. Our OS is effectively an event loop on the bare metal. High-speed signal control and response are controlled asynchronously. We have experiments controlling high-speed refresh LED matrices and SPI peripherals showing that it’s an affordable alternative to realtime code, while being much more intuitive to write. For example, the majority of our peripheral (mostly SPI and I2C) code clocks in at about 50 or 100 lines of commented code. Our runtime even gives us the proposition of doing simulation right on your command line before you deploy code, giving web developers another familiar tool, automated testing. To get started with any module we manufacture is as simple as “npm install accelerometer-mma8542q” and requiring it in code. Our development and deployment expeirence is being designed to be just a few steps out of the box to having a working example—plug in library, download command line tool, deploy. Why Javascript? For Tessel, we’re completely focused on making the same tools for web/mobile development work on embedded boards. Between Node’s package manager and APIs and your choice of IDE, the idea should be that those same skills and workflow of pushing to a server are those you use here. There’s a lot of collaboration involved in making new APIs “JavaScript-like”, so hopefully the next generation of Javascript boards can all use the same SPI libraries, for example. You rolled your own Javascript stack, why was that? Tessel definitely loses out on speed by not going with a contemporary JavaScript engine. But compared to Linux+V8—which needs 8-10mb startup memory—our memory overhead thanks to Lua is minimal, less than 70kb. We’re not intending to compete with microprocessors like the Raspberry Pi,we’re more interested in development that scales down—not up—to less powerful boards and SoCs. There is room in the future for a $3 Cortex-M3 microprocessor that runs JavaScript because it’s a natural solution for Internet-connected or IO-heavy code, and that’s the story we want to get across to developers, that you’re enabling so much more than just an alternative to C. What’s are your future plans? Our roadmap is to start with Tessel—a “high-powered” device—and work toward less-powerful devices. We have the potential to target boards as small as Espruino with a much faster runtime, and we’re investing a lot of effort into making sure Tessel’s runtime is a option for any internet-conencted device. And long-term, “Tessel” will probably not remain a platform just for JavaScript, but an easy platform to push firmware from other languages—C/C++, Lua, Rust, Go, and logically even Python and Ruby. Our value is in easy workflow and libraries, not just JavaScript itself. So we’re betting on JavaScript-enabled development boards just being the first step. In a year from now, the trend will be toward accessible embedded electronics that let you program in whatever language you want—so long as your answer is not “C”! Tessel is going to stay right on top of that trend. The Espruino The top of the Espruino board showing the ARM Cortex M3 CPU, the JST 2 pin battery connector and the two on-board buttons. The bottom of the Espruino board showing the micro-SD card and mini-USB connectors. Launched a few days ahead of the Tessel on Kickstarter, just at the end of August, the Espruino board from Pur3 is significantly cheaper than the Tessel. At £19—that’s around $30—it’s actually less than half the price of the Tessel board. Of course the specification of the Espruino is much lower. Although they both have ARM Cortex-M3 processors, the Espruino has just 48KB of SRAM compared to the Tessel’s 32MB of SRAM. While the Tessel is aimed at the high end of the gap between the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi, the Espruino is aimed at the lower end, but it’s priced to match. The Espruino board with an SMD H Bridge chip and connectors to drive a motor. The Espruino board with a HC-05 Bluetooth module in the prototyping area. The Espruino board with extra header blocks soldered into the prototyping area setup for driving multiple servos. The Espruino is an interesting departure from most modern boards. Unlike the Tessel—or the Arduino—you don’t upload your code to the board. Instead you have an interactive interpreter. Plug the board into your Mac or PC, and connect to the board over the USB serial port, and you’ll be presented with an interactive console. It let’s you iterate really quickly, and enjoying tinkering with the things you make. – Gordon Williams You can use the interactive console in exactly the way you’d expect—and in a way that will be really familiar for those of us that grew up with computers running BASIC—just type your code at the prompt. Since the Espruino is entirely event-based that means that you can write functions that you can modify and add to while they are running. With the Espruino you don’t upload code to the board, instead you interact with it. For instance we can set up a simple function that will watch for the on-board button to be pressed, setWatch(function() { if (!digitalRead(BTN)) return; var led=10; var flasher = setInterval(function() { led--; digitalWrite(LED1,led&1); if (led<=0) clearInterval(flasher); }, 200); }, BTN, true); Once set up this function will watch for the button press event in the background, and you’ll be returned to interactive prompt. Exactly as you’d expect. The Espruino board flashing an LED after pushing a button In the same way the Apple ][+, and to a lesser extent the TRS-80, ware familiar sights in US schools, in the UK during the 80’s and 90’s schools had the BBC Micro. It left a lasting legacy, and despite not being explicitly marketed towards education I think this board is a must have for schools, and to teach people programming. The Espruino, perhaps even more so than the Raspberry Pi—another UK-based project aimed at schools and teaching children to program—is a worthy successor to the BBC Micro. Talking with Gordon Williams I talked with Gordon Williams, the creator of the Espruino, about the board and his Kickstarter campaign, The Espurino has an interactive interpreter, why did you do things that way? I really like C, but when you’re writing compiled code for microcontrollers there’s a real disconnect between you and the microcontroller – it’s running in a black box, and the only way you can interact with your software as it’s running is by adding yet more software (or maybe by using a debugger). As an example, I made a box to control the variable valve timing on my car’s engine, but 90 percent of the effort involved in that was actually in adding code so that I could check what it was doing and adjust values while the engine was running. If you have an interactive interpreter then that’s all done for you. So I wanted a language that could be interpreted, inspected and modified on the fly, but that looked a lot like C – and I wanted to use something that already existed rather than just creating my own, like the Electric Imp guys have done with Squirrel. I’d implemented a small version of JavaScript, called TinyJS, for a previous project so it made a lot of sense to base Espruino on that. The decision to use an event-based model actually came because of JavaScript – and it just seemed to be a great fit. Why is an event-based model better than the loop-based model that the Arduino and other controllers use? Using an event-based model has several great advantages.t means different bits of code doing different jobs can run together without interfering, and you can edit code in-between processing of events, rather than having to break out of the main loop. It’s more intuitive because it mimics the way people naturally describe tasks in the real world, for instance “When it is dark, turn on the light” rather than, “Is it dark? Is it dark? Is it dark? Yes. Turn on the light!” and it’s a good fit for the graphical programming environment because it’s more modular. Finally it cuts power consumption drastically, so it’s great for battery life. Writing my own interpreter was really necessity rather than choice. If you look at the memory requirements of the main interpreters like V8—used by node.js—and SpiderMonkey, they’re pretty huge – in the region of megabytes. They also have hooks into the underlying operating systems, so trying to run them on a small devices such a micro-controller—with around ×1000 less RAM—without an operating system is nearly impossible. The Espruino uses ARC rather than garbage collection, it just fits nicely with the way the interpreter works, and it makes almost every memory allocation/deallocation very fast—especially as all blocks are equal size. It leads to an interesting point about these ARM microcontrollers. Espruino runs at 72Mhz with 48KB of RAM, so at a very rough estimate it can read every single byte of its memory in around 1ms. Compare this to a Raspberry Pi with 800Mhz and 512MB of RAM with a read time nearer 1 second—this means you have to think about how you handle data completely differently, and it’s one of the reasons that I couldn’t easily use an existing interpreter. A lot of Kickstarter projects have problems scaling. If your project is a runaway success, are you ready? Yes. I’ve got a production ready board that I can send to Seeed Studio, it’s ready to go. Over the last two months we have worked with Seeed to improve our design and, sourcing components from Seeed’s Open Parts Library, to ensure we are not compromising on quality. This has enabled us to produce the design for the current version of the Espruino Board. However if the project got significantly more funding than expected, it would be great to bring someone in to help with the tutorials and documentation side of the Kickstarter. I think it’s all about giving people places to start, like the electronic dice project on our Kickstarter page. What are your future plans? If we reach £50,000 on our current campaign we will be adding support for the CC3000 WiFi module into the Espruino board. We won’t be producing a WiFi shield—we’ve got to focus on Espruino itself—but we will be adding support for the CC3000 into the Espruino board’s software before it’s shipped out to you. This means you’ll be able to buy a pre-made module, plug it in, and have instant internet access. But I’m also tempted to build a “shield-shield” which would slip underneath the Espruino board to give it an Arduino-compatible pin out. Going forward I’m also interested in building a much smaller version of the Espruino board. Do two boards make a trend? The Javascript community already has an interest in hardware—you only have to look at nodecopter to see that—and the arrival of not one, but two boards, that are both Javascript native and event-based will be met with a lot of interest. The fortunate fact that the boards don’t really compete with each other, the Tessel targeting the high-end and the Espruino the lower end, probably means that both are going to find a niche—and that niche is going to be fairly extensive. Two boards might not make a trend, but I won’t be surprised to see these two boards inspiring a new generation event-driven micro-controllers—so these two boards just might. Brain Boards Espruino Gordon Williams	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1370
__label__wiki	0.530255	0.530255	Hacked Machine Knits Custom Mathematical Scarves Fabien Royer Software developer, autodidact hardware hacker. Founder of two startups and Microsoft alumni. Making and hacking things has been my passion ever since I was a kid. I love discovering the work of other Makers and writing about their achievements. You can find out more about me here. View more articles by Fabien Royer By Fabien Royer July 13, 2015, 6:00 am PST KnitYak Scarf Pattern Using Cellular Automata Rule 110 Fabienne “fbz” Serriere, a Seattle-based hardware hacker and an avid hand knitter, has been artfully transforming algorithmically-generated patterns into unique scarves and wraps made from high-quality Merino wool with her knitting machine, the KnitYak. Fabienne’s journey started in 2011 when she acquired her first knitting machine, a Brother KH930, and hacked it so that she could upload knitting patterns as bitmaps from a computer instead of doing so manually. The hack works by simulating the presence of a floppy disk drive from which the machine loads bitmap files representing the knitting patterns. To further automate the programming process, the machine’s keypad was also hacked so that the key presses required to load a new pattern can be driven from a Python script, like the one in the video below. It took Fabienne six months to fully grasp the capabilities of her knitting machine. Her studies culminated in the production of an experimental batch of double bed jacquard Mate Cosies, which pushed the limits of what could be achieved on a 30-year old consumer-grade machine. Indeed, unlike industrial knitting machines, hers was unable to bind off the last row of a design, making that last step a time-consuming manual process. Double Bed Jacquard Mate Cosies Being able to quickly upload knitting patterns to the machine, Fabienne started exploring the mesmerizing beauty that sometime emerges from the chaos generated by elementary cellular automata algorithms. By focusing mostly on cellular automaton rule 110 and 73, Fabienne wrote Processing scripts that allowed her to experiment with patterns and dimensions until she found the visually pleasing variations that she wanted. Rule 73 Pattern Thanks to her randomly seeded algorithms, Fabienne ensured that each knitted creation would be unique, yet repeatable on demand. To this end, if KnitYak gets funded, Fabienne intends to ship the code and the seeds used to knit her patterns, offering a level of personalization to her customers that is unparalleled in the textile industry. Fabienne is now crowdfunding KnitYak, pursuing her dream of launching a local, on-demand, textile manufacturing business.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1371
__label__cc	0.62601	0.37399	London Unlimited The El Duce Tapes: feeling bad for a bad person When you take your seat, stumbling in the dark, and begin staring at the silver screen, there is always that… Alejandro Landes on Monos: “I got carried out of there on a stretcher” It’s the last interview slot for the day, and Alejandro Landes is probably tired. The director of Monos – the… The Irishman at LFF: Scorsese’s epic gangster chronicle Cinema’s greatest heroes have finally assembled, but if you’re thinking about the latest Marvel flick, I’m afraid this review is… The Irishman at LFF: disappointing, if competent, straight-to-DVD mediocrity Given the comments Martin Scorsese has recently made about a certain cinematic universe, it’s rather ironic that his latest film… Le Mans ’66 at LFF: a lesson in artistic vision and integrity James Mangold’s Le Mans ’66 is not a ‘car film’, but the story of two men who loved driving and… The Two Popes at LFF: full of energy, care and love I remember quite vividly when Pope Benedict XVI resigned from his post and Pope Francis was elected. At the time,… Help us produce quality journalism London Student is not supported by any university or students' union. All our activity is funded by donations. London Student Media Limited is a registered co-operative with no affiliation to the University of London, its Student Central department, the federal colleges and/or their respective students’ unions. London Student is a proud member of the Student Publication Association. Want to join London Student? © London Student 2020. Created by Small Wins.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1377
__label__wiki	0.946501	0.946501	Long-form stories that illuminate Angelenos’ daily lives and culture. MLK Through the Eyes of Those Living and Working on MLK Blvd. FeaturesPeople Where Does the Eastside of L.A. Start? From Memorable Meals to Unforgettable Films, Our Favorites of 2019 The Unlikely L.A. Story of the ‘New’ Bob Marley Inside the Hidden Bartering at L.A. Farmers Markets 6 Essential L.A. Items for 2020 The Former Tangerine Dream Members Creating A Sensory Music Experience Fascinating locals and their narratives. Our Sex Workers and Firefighters are Lending Their Talents to Help Australia How To Get On Your Bartender’s Good Side Making the sprawl of Los Angeles a little smaller. 9 L.A. Chefs Share Their Tips for Healthy Living Things to Do in L.A. This Week: January 13-19 Inside Leimert Park’s Little-Known Jazz and Blues Museum Things to Do in L.A. This Week: January 6-12 Things to Do in L.A. This Week: December 30-January 5 The Best L.A. New Year’s Eve Parties Things to Do in L.A. This Week: December 23-29 Embracing the weird and wild. Walking Alone at Night: A Love Letter Predictions for 2020 from L.A.’s most Popular Psychics and Healers Turns Out Holiday Songs ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’ Are About Los Angeles \|1 min read December 8, 2019 \|\|3 8:00pm – 12:00am YOUR NAME* YOUR EMAIL* YOUR PHONE Food Choice 1 2 3 4 Fruit Bats-2019-12-11 https://losangeleno.com/event/december-11-2019/edate/2019-12-11 Venue Location Save to Yahoo calendar Eric D. Johnson may call Los Angeles home nowadays, but in reflecting on the past, the indie singer-songwriter didn’t always feel like he had a sense of place and belonging. That’s one of the subjects informing “Gold Past Life,” his latest and seventh album as Fruit Bats, which came out this summer via Merge Records. Johnson calls it “existential make-out music,” songs for worrying about life’s frustrations and the state of the world while cuddling someone you love. Kacey Johansing opens the show with some nourishing heartbreak songs. Tickets: $22-$25 / More Information Daiana Feuer Daiana Feuer has covered music in Los Angeles for over a decade and held editorial positions at L.A. Record, Buzzbands.LA, URB Magazine and The A.V. Club’s Decider. Harold M. Williams Auditorium Sounds of L.A.: 3MA The Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever …And You Know Us by the Trail of Dead The Voice of L.A.’s Culture, People and Underbelly © 2020 Los Angeleno. All Rights Reserved. Los Angeleno Food Events South L.A. music dodgers All things LA in your inbox, every week. featured stories, events and announcements We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our website, to show you personalized content and targeted ads, to analyze our website traffic, and to understand where our visitors are coming from. By browsing our website, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. More Info	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1378
__label__cc	0.748467	0.251533	Pro-gun Rights and Fear \| P J Klosinski Gun Groups J Klosinski By P J Klosinski My passion has always been how the law looks at inalienable rights and I have directed my efforts primarily toward reviewing proposed bills and laws. For years Indiana has had in various forms proposals for what is now commonly referred to as Constitutional Carry. Most recently HB 1159 “Regulation of firearms” was proposed. While one side supported this bill the other side strongly lobbied by Law Enforcement Agencies was almost unanimous in opposition. What is the seen by the ordinary person when information is provided? Law Enforcement holds to their position that everyone having guns without a license is a danger to them and everybody else. Individuals who believe law enforcement is their protection against crime tend to support the law enforcement position. Individuals who desire being able to carry a handgun are often called “gun nuts”. Taking sides. Many are no doubt aware there has been a major dust-up over Constitutional Carry HB 1159 https://lpin.org/the-right-of-the-proper-person-to-constitutional-carry-hb-1159-p-j-klosinski/ and being drawn into the battle HB 1071 which was proposed as means to help victims who received a restraining order obtain handgun carry protection under certain conditions. HB 1071 https://lpin.org/the-right-to-self-defense-or-how-to-enforce-a-restraining-order-hb-1071-p-j-klosinski/ Now as fate would have it insults are flying. Elected members are criticized for doing their job, not doing their job and lying to the end that the public is seeing polarization doing its malicious work. Enter Gun Groups supporting pro-gun rights. A notice I received today in favor of pro-gun legislation from a pro-gun group can help explain why people who desire gun control removed are seen by so many as gun nuts. The communication requested I contact the named legislators and complain about the lack of passage of gun legislation because of specified legislators betraying, deceiving, lying and being “hostile to any pro-gun reforms”. It is not a pro-gun right it is a right to Life. What did the average person just read? What did someone who saw this pro-gun group notice in a Facebook news feed or perhaps in an e-mail update read? Based upon the number of negative remarks about these two bills people see nothing except pro-gun rights. If you read any of my reviews of legislation you will never find any mention of anything other than individual rights. The vast majority of people fear guns because they perceive those who want guns are pro-gun nuts. Such a fear would logically be justified after all we are talking about a lethal weapon and people being unable to behave in a civilized manner. This would mean everybody would have guns criminals would be fortified. Have you read the Indiana law on gun control? Does the public understand that only a “proper person” can carry without facing charges? Do you really think a criminal is going to ask for a piece of paper giving permission to own and carry? Do you understand that a criminal cannot be authorized to purchase or carry? Does a criminal care? Yet law enforcement tells you that without this license they cannot do their job as well. Why do you think of this issue as a pro-gun right? Black’s Law Dictionary 6th ed defines a constitutional right as “A right guaranteed to the citizens by the United States Constitution and state constitutions and so guaranteed as to prevent legislative interference therewith.” What does the Bill of Rights in the Indiana Constitution dictate? “ The people shall have a right to bear arms, for the defense of themselves and the State.” How could anyone believe the meaning of having the right to bear arms for the defense of themselves is a pro-gun right? The right is not pro-gun it is the right to defend one’s self. Life is an absolute individual right to self- defense nothing less. Indiana is prohibited from passing any law which depends upon any authority except as specifically provided in the Indiana Constitution. Life a Right defined and protected by the Indiana Constitution cannot be subject to legislation in order to be exercised. When people discuss the right to possess and carry a gun it must be acknowledged that that purpose is not the possession of a deadly weapon the purpose which is guaranteed is to have the ability to defend life. Requiring permission from the government or other individuals makes protecting Life a privilege controlled by the government and others rather than an Individual Right of our existence. Do you believe another individual has the authority to determine your ability to defend your life or that of a loved one? We are all created equal as individuals how can we debate the ability to protect the minority of one to be able to provide for self-protection? Without each Life being equal and each right to defense being equal we are responsible for who has the right to Live and who can die because they were not allowed to fight. “WE DECLARE, That all people are created equal; that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that all power is inherent in the people; and that all free governments are, and of right ought to be, founded on their authority, and instituted for their peace, safety, and well-being.” https://nagr.org/2017/bloomberg_puppetshow_p.aspx?pid=fb1a http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/inconst.html https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2017/bills/house/1071 LPIN Testimony to the Indiana Advisory Committee HB 1056 “Innkeeper’s Taxes” \| P J Klosinski LPIN Policy Position: Opioid Epidemic in Indiana	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1383
__label__wiki	0.737442	0.737442	Obama Praises Off-Duty Officer in St. Cloud Mall Attack Lakeland News — Sep. 19 2016 In Chicago U.S. President Barak Obama praised the off-duty officer who acted during a stabbing at the Crosswoods Center Mall in St. Cloud and shot dead the attacker. During the weekend a man, for which the radical group Islamic State has now claimed responsible, attacked and stabbed eight people before being shot and killed by the officer. “Thanks to the quick action of a brave off-duty police officer, the suspect was killed and we avoided more people being hurt,” Obama said of the officer, who works for the police department in nearby Avon, Minnesota. According to the Brainerd Dispatch, “…Obama, in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, told reporters that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was treating the mall attack as a “potential act of terrorism.” The mall has reopened today with extreme security measures. Lakeland News is member supported content. Please consider supporting Lakeland News today. By — Lakeland News BSU Men's Hockey Gets Win Against Michigan Tech BSU Women's Hockey Takes Loss Against Minnesota Duluth BSU Men's Basketball Falls to Upper Iowa in Double OT BSU Women's Basketball Hangs On For OT Win Over Upper Iowa Early Voting For Presidential Primary Starts In Crow Wing County	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1384
__label__cc	0.656624	0.343376	2019 Media Access Awards The Disability List Award ShowCelebrityEntertainment Recapping The 2019 Media Access Awards Catch up on all the highlights of this year's ceremony. Announcing The 2019 Media Access Awards – November 14, 2019 This year's preeminent celebration of disability representation in media will take place November 14th, 2019 at The Beverly Hilton Hotel. EntertainmentInterview Allen Rucker and David Shore Discuss Hiring and Disability "This is obviously the right thing to do. I trust myself to be able to judge someone better than that, at least in a meeting, and certainly someone in a wheelchair is not unique in that regard." CelebrityEntertainmentInterview Author Keah Brown Brilliantly Champions Intersectional Disability Representation "Disability is the lens through which I see the world, even though it's not always the subject of my world." Haben Girma Shares Her New Memoir and Message of Empowerment on “Today” "Over time, I started to realize I need to advocate. Otherwise, these barriers are not going to change." How To Be A Disability Ally Want to know how to be a better ally to people with disabilities? Here's how. “Special” Is Now Emmy-Nominated For Outstanding Short Form Series The Netflix comedy received its first Emmy nomination on Tuesday. EntertainmentResources In Landmark Move, CBS Pledges To Audition Actors With Disabilities "We recognize that disability is central to diversity, that the disability community comprises the largest minority in our nation." Marlee Matlin Undertakes Her Next Starring Role, In Front of and Behind the Camera "I've always said that I wanted to see more deaf and hard-of-hearing people get jobs in the entertainment industry as writers, actors and producers." 2020 Campaign Websites Need Accessibility "None of the 2020 presidential candidates' websites are fully accessible to disabled voters."	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1386
__label__wiki	0.582174	0.582174	I still want to have sex but my body doesn't respond In this article about female sexual dysfunction Maureen Matthews has spoken with: Dr Sonia Davison, endocrinologist at Jean Hailes for Women's Health and an AMS Director: "There is no one correct answer or approach to female sexual dysfunction and it is useful to consult with an expert in this area, who may be a sexual counsellor or a dedicated women's health practitioner. Further information can be found at jeanhailes.org.au/health-a-z/sex-sexual-health or at the Australasian Menopause Society webpage, "Sexual difficulties in the Menopause". Dr Anita Elias is the head of Monash Health's Sexual Medicine and Therapy Clinic, and Sexual Counselling Clinic at the Royal Women's Hospital's Malvern Psychotherapy Centre: "As we get older, both women and men need more or different stimulation (physical, mental and emotional) to achieve the same level of pleasure and arousal". Allow more time for lovemaking. Spend more time on foreplay and flirting. Try not to be goal oriented. Rather, try to enjoy all of the sensual pleasures, moment by moment. For a decade, respected author Maureen Matthews has written for Melbourne's Sunday Age. In her popular column, About Last Night, Maureen responds to a wide range of questions about sex and relationships. Everything you need to know about menopause Because it's whole lot more than hot flushes. In this Australian online Huffintong Post witer Jenny Harward briefly covers: What Exactly Is Menopause? At What Age Does Menopause Happen? So, What Is Peri-Menopause? Symptoms During Peri-Menopause Treatments for Peri-Menopausal Symptoms What Happens Post-Menopause? Treatments For Post Menopause Symptoms For the article the AMS President Professor Bronwyn Stuckey, Endocrinologist and medical director of WA's Keogh Institute for Medical Research; Sydney-based GP Dr Ginni Mansberg; and Professor John Eden, Director of the Women's Health and Research Institute of Australia were interviewed. All three doctors said that women: should consider Hormone Replacement Therapy to treat post-menopause symptoms, despite beliefs that HRT is linked to breast cancer, thanks to a 2002 study by the Women's Health Institute. From Professor Stuckey: "Firstly, there is an incorrect perception for a woman at menopause, about what her risks and benefits are. Right at the top of women's minds is that their biggest is breast cancer, but that's not at all true. Their biggest risk is cardiovascular disease." pointed to a recent study from Finland (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26414962) - the result of which showed that women who stop HRT faced a higher cardiovascular mortality risk. Put simply, they run a higher risk of death from a cardiovascular disease. Menopause is surrounded by unhealthy information In this article in Sydney Morning Herald Jen Vuk discusses why so many women are dismissive of menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) [also known as hormone replacement therapy HRT]. The article briefly reviews the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study initially released in 2002 which greatly impacted use of MHT. The auther cites Professor R D Langer's article The evidence base for HRT: what can we believe? "The incendiary reports … indicated that the study was stopped because HRT caused breast cancer and heart attacks, when in reality … there was no statistically significant harm for either breast cancer or heart attacks." Also interviewed for the article was Professor Bronwyn Stuckey, AMS President, Endocrinologist and medical director of WA's Keogh Institute for Medical Research: that another problem with the 2002 report was that the results were said to apply to women of all ages, a finding rectified by a subsequent WHI 2007 report which acknowledged "that there was an age at which it's safe to start [HRT] and an age at which you probably should have second thoughts about starting". Jen Vuk concludes with: This to me seemed the bigger scandal here. The fact that we weren't being given the proper information went beyond sheer negligence and moved into a far less grey area of potentially failing to save lives. With the current consensus being that the earlier a menopausal woman starts on HRT the better, I know which road I'll be taking. Basically, like any working mother I've got enough worries to lose sleep over, but I'll not allow menopause to be one of them. Everything you have ever wanted to know about menopause... February 2017: 2UE Breakfast Show with John & Garry John and Garry talk to Professor Rod Baber, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and former President of the Australasian Menopause Society. Menopause - AWW April 2016 Why just 8 % on hrt The Australian Women’s Weekly April 2016 edition features four page article: Is HRT safe? Over the past 14 years, the number of Australian women using hormone replacement therapy has plummeted amid fears of a heightened risk of breast cancer. Is HRT really a poison or is it a panacea for menopause? We investigate. AMS President Prof Bronwyn Stuckey features in the article on page 86. Menopause on the ABC HealthOnline Menopause has had a resurgence of interest in the media lately with a series of articles posted on the ABC HealthOnline: Riding the menopause rollercoaster Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT): understanding its benefits and risks Dr Barry Wren, our founding AMS President was mentioned in the first article. The AMS website was listed with links to our Information sheets, along with the Jean Hailes website. Dr Jane Elliott, Adelaide GP and president of the Australasian Menopause Society reviewed the second article. A woman's rite in Active Retirees The June - July 2013 edition of the Probus magazine Active Retirees featured menopause as the health article. Author Simone McClenaughan extensively interviewed AMS President Dr Jane Elliott and Dr Barry Wren for the four page spread entitled "A woman's rite".	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1394
__label__wiki	0.828411	0.828411	Micronations.wiki costs £160 per year to keep online. Since we are unable to run advertisements, we ask that any users who are able to do so make a contribution so that Microwiki may continue to survive and thrive. Thank you! Communist Party of the USMR From MicroWiki, the micronational encyclopædia (Redirected from CPUSMR) This article contains information pertaining to a fictional micronation, micronationalist or other fictional element of micronational society or culture. This article refers to a political party which is defunct and no longer exists. You can help make the article reflect that or ask on the talk page for further information. Communist Party of the Union of Socialist Micronational Republics Micronation USMR (including Erusia, Licentia, Bzan) P. J. Gaffney (General Secretary) Rennie-Gaffenyism, Marxism, Marxism-Leninism Political position Extreme Left Red, Crimson, Gold, White, Yellow Anthem of the CPUSMR The Communist Party of the Union of Socialist Micronational Republics, known within the USMR as the Communist Party or simply as the CPUSMR, was the only national and ruling poliitcal party of the Union of Socialist Micronational Republics since its founding on February 7 2009. Perhaps the single largest micronational Communist organisation at the time, the CPUSMR was a union of all the Communist and Socialist parties of the USMR's constituent Socialist Republics and represented their interests in national government. With no opposition in national government, all power of the State was effectively vested entirely in the members and institutions of the Party, a role recognised by the National Constitution. As of February 2009 the CPUSMR was made up of the Erusian National Communist Party, the Licentian Socialist Workers' Party and the Bzanite National Democratic Communist Party. Flag of the CPUSMR from Feb 7th - March 30th 2009. 1.1 Founding 2.1 Structure 2.1.1 Central Party Congress 2.1.2 Central Committee of the CPS 2.1.3 Politburo of the Central Committee 2.1.3.1 Last Politburo 2.2 Membership When the Union of Socialist Micronational Republics was established on February 7 2009, it became immediately clear that having three Communist Parties operating in the Union-level government would spark rivalries and pose a serious threat to the security of the Union. It was decided that, in the style of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a single Union-level Communist Party would be established with supremacy over the individual political parties of the individual Republics. Thus, shortly after the Union itself was founded, the CPUSMR was established to rule the Union and unite the different Communist factions. A leadership election resulted in a landslide victory for P. J. Gaffney as 1st General Secretary of the CPUSMR. Shortly thereafter the Party adopted it's three core ideologies. Central Party Congress The CPUSMR was organised in a manner similar to the CPSU. Officially, the highest national organ of the CPUSMR was the Central Party Congress of the Union, an organisation distinctly similar to the National Congress of the Erusian National Communist Party. The Central Party Congress was an institution comprised of a number of invited delegates from various subordinate Party institutions (in practice, delegates are usually all the active members of the Party) that met whenever required to vote on matters of national Party policy, constitutional reform or major national legislature change that the Party wished to consult the majority on. Decisions by the Congress were made through a private, majority vote of attending delegates. If a Congress was not feasible then individual delegates were consulted independently for their vote on an urgent matter, though this was frowned upon by the Party. Additionally, the Central Party Congress elected a Central Committee. Central Committee of the CPS The Central Committee of the Central Party Congress of the CPUSMR was the central executive unit of the Communist Party, elected by the Central Party Congress meetings. The Central Committee served a minimum term of 3 months and a term no longer than 12 months, although the Party typically elected a Central Committee every 4–6 months. The role of the Central Committee was to effectively fulfil the role of the Central Party Congress when it was not in session - it developed and implemented new Party policies within a framework established by the CPS. Each Central Committee was expected to meet target goals established by the Central Party Congress it was elected at. In the tradition of Democratic Centralism, the Committee elected a Politburo. Politburo of the Central Committee The 'Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Central Party Congress of the CPUSMR', commonly known as the Politburo, was made up of the top members of the Central Committee who held the most important Party and State political offices. Like all institutions of the Party, it was subordinate to the authority of the Central Party Congress and, although appointment to the Politburo is prestigious, it by no means guaranteed unchecked control over national affairs. All Politburo members were required to swear an oath to serve the People and the Party. The general role of the Politburo was to establish major Party policies and State legislative items in the same way the Central Committee of the ENCP did. It is also recognised as the senior direction of the revolution. The current Politburo has five standing members, two of which are women, two Erusian, one Licentian and two Bzanites. If a new Republic joined the Union, the General Secretary of the Republic's ruling or largest Communist/Socialist Party was automatically appointed to the Politburo as an 'Alternate Member', subject to re-election or full election by the next Central Party Congress. Last Politburo I (1st) P. J. Gaffney General Secretary (CPUSMR), General Secretary (CPB) USMR President, Bzan President II (2nd) Robert Lethler Executive Secretary of the Central Committee, General Secretary (ENCP) Erusian SPC III (3rd) Colum McKenna General Secretary (LSWP) Licentian Premier IV (4th) Carwyn Jenkins Executive Secretary of the Discipline Committee NPEC-IA (Erusia), Union Minister V (5th) Michelle Yui Executive Secretary of the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee Speaker of the Supreme General Assembly VI (6th) Kai Roosevelt Executive Secretary for Revolutionary Affairs Foreign Minister, Erusian Premier Unlike the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and other macronational ruling Communist Parties, membership in the Communist Party of the USMR was open to any and all citizens of a Republic. Anyone who wished to join the Communist Party must have done so through their Republic's member Party, which in turn made them a full member of the CPUSMR. Party members could also criticise citizens of a non-Union member state, provided they hedld State authorised dual citizenship and understand that the Party expected Union affairs to be their priority. The only individuals denied membership to the Party are those who were: Dual citizens who are Nobles or hold a title of nobility in a foreign micronation. Anyone sentenced by the Tribune of the Proletarian Revolution during the Licentian June Revolution and was not subsequently pardoned. Anyone regarded as an Enemy of the People, Enemy of the Proletariat or Enemy of the State. Anyone guilty of a major crime under Union laws. Former official chat venue of the CPUSMR (password locked) Retrieved from "https://micronations.wiki/index.php?title=Communist_Party_of_the_USMR&oldid=405883" Defunct political parties USMR MicroWiki Forum MicroWiki Discord MicroWiki MicroWiki Commons MicroWiki staff Nation page guide List of micronations About MicroWiki	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1398
__label__cc	0.543415	0.456585	The history of the University The Student Council QC. SCIENTIFIC COMPANY For local students (Bachelor degree) For foreign students (Bachelor degree) For Magistrate degree Credit system IHE flow diagram Center for Quality Assurance Career Center for Alumni Report of rector Reports of Board of Management Reports of Academic Council Ph.D., Associate Professor Artur Suren Aghababyan Born on 15 May in 1961 In 1978 graduated Yerevan N1 boarding school of physics and mathematics In 1978-1983 studied at the faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics at Yerevan State University In 1983-1986 studied at YSU Post-Graduate School at the chair of Differential Equations and Functional Analysis In 1989 defended his thesis and got Ph.D. on Physics and Mathematics Since 1987 he has worked at YSU as a mathematician-programmer, assistant, and since 1991 as an Associate Professor In 1996 founded University after M. Khorenatsi and has worked as the Rector of the University since then In 2011 he was awarded by “Admiral H. S. Isakov” medal by 581 order of RA Minister of Defense Artur Aghababyan is an author of 12 scientific articles and works. He is a vice-president in a rector council of RA accredited Universities	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1400
__label__wiki	0.985065	0.985065	Pakistan says 80 militants killed in heavy clashes in country's lawless north-west Sun 22 Mar 2015, 7:29 PM AEDT Pakistani troops have killed 80 militants in heavy clashes in the country's lawless north-west, near the mountainous border with Afghanistan, a spokesman says. The Pakistani Taliban said at least six soldiers had also been killed. Fighter jets have pounded positions in the Tirah Valley in the Khyber region, west of the city of Peshawar, over the last few days. A security official said those killed last week belonged to the outlawed militant group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and an allied group, Lashkar-e-Islam. "In Khyber, terrorists being dislodged from bases, fleeing to border. So far 80 terrorists killed, approximately 100 injured in this phase," the head of army's media wing, General Asim Bajwa, said on his Twitter account. "Operations will continue with full force till total terrorist elimination from these areas." Taliban spokesman Muhammed Khurassani said on Saturday there had been heavy fighting in the Tirah Valley. A mine "targeted" 12 soldiers and six were killed in a separate attack, he said. Two intelligence sources said an army major was also killed and air strikes were also targeting the South Waziristan region, causing dozens to flee. Security officials said last week there were strong indications the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Maulana Fazlullah, was in the area at the time of the air strikes and there has been constant speculation about his fate on social media. There was no way to confirm the casualties independently as the area was sealed to journalists. The Pakistani Taliban are allied with the Afghan militants of the same name and share a similar jihadist ideology. But they operate as a separate entity, focused on toppling the Pakistani state and establishing strict Islamic rule in the nuclear-armed nation. Military offensives in Khyber and South Waziristan began in 2009. Pakistan schools reopen after Taliban massacre At least 20 dead as militants storm Pakistan mosque	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1404
__label__wiki	0.8067	0.8067	BraunAbility’s Nick Gutwein: “Exciting Time for Us” By Laurie Watanabe Even in an industry that’s become well accustomed to acquisition news, this particular announcement was very intriguing: In late September, Investor AB acquired BraunAbility, one of the best-known names in the adaptive automotive world. Investor AB, of course, already owns Permobil thanks to a 2013 purchase. And that raised interesting questions about possible collaborations across two different mobility industries that serve the same end user, as well as what to expect from BraunAbility moving forward. A Time of Transition The past few years had been a time of change for BraunAbility, even before Investor AB came calling. Ralph Braun had built his first power wheelchair as a teen and later progressed to inventing wheelchair vehicle lifts to stay independently mobile as his spinal muscular atrophy progressed. He founded Braun Corp. in 1972, and his company grew to become one of the leaders in the wheelchair-accessible vehicle market. The Braun Corp. became known as BraunAbility in 2008. Ralph Braun remained at the heart of the company until he died in 2013. “Obviously, we’ve had a very rich history with Ralph Braun, what he built in the company, and then we had a very challenging change to us when Ralph passed away,” BraunAbility CEO/President Nick Gutwein said, speaking with Mobility Management a few days after the official acquisition announcement. “But prior to that, he had the vision to set up an ownership structure, and it’s worked well for us for three and a half years. He knew that he was going to be dealing with this terminal cancer, and it motivated him to recapitalize back then. So we were very happy, and things have been going quite well with our current ownership structure, and really we had no intention to sell. We were not actively out trying to sell our company at all.” So when Investor AB — and their New York-based Patricia Industries division — contacted BraunAbility this spring, Gutwein admits being “kind of cautious” and wondering what Patricia Industries had in mind. Imagining the Possibilities But by the time Patricia Industries representatives officially reached out, they knew BraunAbility quite well. “They had done a lot of homework on BraunAbility,” Gutwein says. “They had a pretty good two-and-a-half-year run and were very happy with their Permobil acquisition, and so they knew us well and knew our brand well, and felt that they could help us to grow, could help us outside of North America, and within our operation. And they also were very clear that their strategy or their investment approach is ‘long-term hold.’ So they’re not your traditional private-equity buyer that will buy and then lever up the company and then recapitalize in five to seven years. We did not want to do that. We were totally against that kind of approach.” Instead, the involvement of Investor AB has BraunAbility looking down the road and wondering at the possibilities. Asked what his hopes are for future, Gutwein says, “Really to help to accelerate the plans to grow the company, entering new markets and new product lines, and then also we have some ideas to invest in our operation in Winamac, Ind.” And then of course, there could be possible collaborations with another member of the Investor AB family. The possibilities would have been interesting enough had Investor AB’s mobility portfolio only included Permobil. But in 2014, Permobil acquired ultralightweight wheelchair manufacturer TiLite. This year, Permobil added seating manufacturer ROHO Inc. Asked if he’s contemplated future collaborations, Gutwein said, “We sure have. We were not at all pursuing a sale of the company. But the Permobil connection was one that really kind of solidified our interest once [Investor AB] showed how strongly they were interested in us, and we started doing a little bit of study on Investor AB. We have a tremendous admiration for Permobil and its brand, and yes, we have thought about that. Nothing concrete, but you can imagine a company that knows power wheelchairs — and now manual wheelchairs with TiLite — and has an understanding of needs from a chair perspective, and if you marry that with our leadership in the area of transportation for people with disabilities, you can see maybe some design collaborations, some marketing work together. It seems very interesting, but nothing concrete yet.” Management Will Stay in Place As for day-to-day operations, Gutwein indicated it will largely be business as usual — in part because he and other BraunAbility executives are partial owners of the company themselves. “Investor AB, Patricia Industries, will be the majority owner for sure,” he explained. “But myself and our other senior executives will not only be there to stay in our current jobs — so I’ll stay as CEO, Tom Eastman will stay our CFO, everyone will be in place — but we also have ownership. We have a sizable investment ourselves in the company, so we’re excited by that, too.” Though Investor AB is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Patricia Industries is headquartered in the United States, and “We are their first foray into buying a U.S. company,” Gutwein noted. Mobility dealers working with BraunAbility won’t notice anything different, Gutwein added. “I think that they’re going to see things pretty much the same as we’ve been operating. We have a great relationship with our dealer network, and nothing will change. Our name won’t change, the ordering process won’t change. Investor AB is buying us because we are a strong brand and a healthy company, so fundamentally, they won’t be changing our operational approach to the business. It’s more so just helping to drive growth and add product lines and expand our portfolio.” He said expansion and acquisition are very likely, “but it’s kind of multi-dimensional. For example, I think part of that is looking at the global market for our products and opportunities, so there could be some there. Acquisitions would likely be a part of our thinking going forward, but it’s very early to tell where and what direction we’re going to go with that. But clearly, you’ve seen that in Permobil, and you will see that with us if we feel like there are complementary products or markets we can extend into through acquisition. We’ll certainly consider those.” An Exciting Time Gutwein said the things he’s excited about include the belief that Ralph Braun’s inspirational history is in good hands with Patricia Industries and Investor AB. “[For] about 45 years the company will have had its track record largely built on the legacy of Ralph Braun,” he said. “So what I’m most excited about is our people in Winamac, Ind., who I believe now will have an investor and a partner that will be a decades-long company, a long-term owner — [one] that is interested in continuing that legacy of Ralph Braun and also in extending that to the industry, to our dealer network. I see this as a way to solidify that for the long term. That’s what excites me the most. “I think it’s wonderful for our industry, and I think it’s a wonderful industry to be in.” Laurie Watanabe is the editor of Mobility Management. She can be reached at lwatanabe@1105media.com. A Key to Better Outcomes? BOC Congratulates New Executive Committee & Directors New Broda Grant Supports Seating Research Turny Evo Seat QLK-150 for WHILL eFutureSafe Anchorage System All-Access Comparo: Our Pictorial Comparison of Accessibility Technology	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1405
__label__wiki	0.937715	0.937715	Kannadigas in Hindustani Music Many of the reigning maestros of Hindustani music are Kannadigas. The Illustrated Weekly of India, September 21, 1980 Gangubai Hangal was one of Karnataka’s foremost vocalists. INDIA is perhaps the only country in the world to have two systems of classical music – Hindustani and Carnatic. Both have evolved and flourished independently in a spirit of peaceful, fruitful co-existence over the centuries. Each paddhati has produced many stalwarts of national stature. Karnataka is the only State in India to have contributed significantly to the preservation and enrichment of both these systems. If, as the late Prof. P. Sambamoorthy rightly points out, the emergence of Hindustani music in North India is a historical accident, then Karnataka’s distinguish can be fairly summed up as a coincidence of a socio-cultural and political character – political in the present context. Migration of Musicians All this began over a hundred years ago, with the homecoming of Balkrishna Buwa Ichalkaranjikar after his arduous but rewarding shagirdi (studentship) with the pioneering masters of the khayal gharana of Gwalior. Soon after began the gradual migration of many noted khayal maestros from Central and North India to the south-west and southern regions of the former Bombay Presidency. While these maestros wre welcomed by music lovers, they also received patronage from the ruling princes of several States in the region – like Kolhapur, Sangli, Miraj, Kurundwad, Ichalkaranji, Aundh and Bhor. The States were gographyically contiguous to the then princely State of Mysore, and it was in this region that various khayal gharanas sprang up and crystallized and came to be recognized as distinctive singing styles. Besides Balkrishna Buwa, who firmly established the Gwalior gayaki in this part of India, there were other doyens like Abdul Karim Khan (Kirana gharana), Alladiya Khan (Atrauli-Jaipur gharana), Natthan Khan (Agra gharana) and Bhaskar Buwa Bakhale (exponent of three gharana), who earned acclaim as performers par excellence and, in the process, attracted several budding youngsters to their ideologies. The entire region (then known as Bombay Karnataka till its political merger with the erstwhile Mysore State in August 1956) bustled with intense musical activity. The phenomenon could even be called a musical renaissance and its impact could not but be felt by Mysore’s Wodeyar princes. Traditionally known as enlightened connoisseurs and patrons of the performing arts, they soon extended their patronage to North Indian stalwarts with typical munificence. That is how Natthan Khan and his son, Vilayat Hussain Khan, Abdul Karim Khan, Faiyaz Khan of Baroda and Hafiz Ali Khan, the sarod maestro of Gwalior, were among the celebrities who came to grace the Wodeyar darbar either as asthana vidvans or visting vidvans for many years. Impressive Line-up In the impressive line-up of Karnataki disciples of some of these maestros, mention must first be made of Nilkanth Buwa Alurmath, who was groomed by Balkrishna Buwa himself. It is of interest to know that Nilkanth Buwa taught the radiments of Hindustani music to the present-day Dharwar maestro, Mallikarjun Mansur, who later learnt from Manji Khan and Bhurji Khan, both sons of Alladiya Khan. The celebrated Sawai Gandharva (Ramrao Kundgolkar), who has given us masters of the eminence of Gangubai Hangal (Hubli), and Bhimsen Joshi (Gadag) and Basavaraj Rajguru (Hubli), was a Kannadiga who achieved fame as the most outstanding disciple of Abdul Karim Khan. Popularising Hindustani Music Bhaskar Buwa Bakhale, who taught music at the training college at Dharwar for some time, taught many disciples, one of whom was the noted Hubli vocalist, Shankar Dikshit Jantali. Vocalists Panchakshari Buwa (Gadag) and Ramrao Naik and Govind Vithal Bhave (both of Bangalore) as also Swami Parwatikar, a science graduate turned sanyasi and a veteran rudra-veena player, and Mohammed Khan and Rahimat Khan, veena and sitar masters, all of Dharwar, have also played a significant part in popularizing Hindustani music as much in Karnataka as in the rest of the country. Besides Mansur, Gangubai, Bhimsen and Basavaraj, the names of Kannadigas that come to mind in the contemporary context are those of Kumar Gandharva (Shivaputra Komkali), a pioneer of the avant garde generaton of vocalists, Sangameshwar Gurav, popular as the sweet-voiced exponent of the Kirana gayaki, and Shyamala Bhave, the young researcher and vocalist. In the younger set who hold promise are Panchakshari Swami Mattigatti, a disciple of Masur, Narayan Deshpande and Madhav Gudi, taught by Bhimsen Joshi, Krishna Hangal (Gangubai’s daughter) and Somanath Mardoor, who has learnt from Basawaraj Rajguru. The Gurjari Touch in Hindustani Sangeet The Guru: Pandit Sawai Gandharva Hindustani Music in Rajasthan The Men and Their Music: Two Book Reviews End of an era: Krishnarao Shankar Pandit Awards for city stalwarts	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1408
__label__wiki	0.890816	0.890816	Mauna A Wākea Ku Kiaʻi Mauna Kea 8 Criteria April 17, 2015 cease and desist letter to Douglas Ing from the law firm Watanabe and Ing who is the legal counsel for TMT International Observatory, LLC old-bibliography-content-in-in-main-document-page TMT Cease and Desist Letter, from E. Kalani Flores Contact all TMT affiliates Lā 290: Telescope protester found not guilty after trial in Hawaiian Posted on Jan 09 By kea \| Filed in Media West Hawaiʻi Today By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER Associated Press This July 10, file photo shows protest leader Kahookahi Kanuha, foreground, testifying before a Board of Land and Natural Resources meeting in Honolulu against a state proposal to limit the ability of protesters to access Mauna Kea. Jennifer Sinco Kelleher/File/The Associated Press HONOLULU — A man arrested while blocking telescope construction crews on a Hawaii mountain was acquitted Friday after a trial that was conducted in Hawaiian. Kahookahi Kanuha was among dozens of protesters arrested during attempts to resume construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea. One of the reasons protesters oppose the $1.4 billion project is that many Native Hawaiians consider the mountain sacred. Kanuha’s case had been postponed because he insisted on defending himself in the language he’s most comfortable speaking. The trial went forward Friday with a Hawaiian interpreter. Judge Barbara Takase found him not guilty of obstructing. County prosecutors didn’t immediately return phone calls seeking comment on the verdict. The prosecution called two witnesses, a state Department of Land and Natural Resources official and the officer who arrested Kanuha. Because Kanuha didn’t have an attorney for the case, he cross-examined the witnesses in Hawaiian. The interpreter translated the questions and the witnesses answered in English. Even though Hawaiian is one of the state’s official languages, court cases are primarily conducted in English, with interpreters provided for those who speak other languages. According to the most recent Census data available for 2009-2013, 5.7 percent of the state’s residents spoke Hawaiian at home. Kanuha didn’t present any witnesses or evidence in his defense. Instead he gave a speech in Hawaiian describing his reasons for being on the mountain that day in June when construction crews retreated from the mountain after encountering hundreds of protesters and large boulders blocking the road. “I was there to prevent desecration and it’s a traditional and customary practice,” he said, describing his testimony. “I recited my genealogy … showing that I do have a genealogical connection to these people and that place. My ancestors recognized and revered this place as someplace sacred.” Telescope construction has been on hold since April, when protesters — including Kanuha — were arrested. The state Supreme Court invalidated the project’s permit to build on conservation land, ruling in December that the state Board of Land and Natural Resources should not have issued the permit before a hearings officer reviewed a petition by a group challenging the project’s approval. The court sent the matter back for a new contested case hearing. Telescope officials haven’t indicated whether they will pursue a new hearing. Kanuha has a court hearing later this month for his April arrest. He has an attorney for that case. He said he’ll ask his lawyer to have the charge dismissed in light of Friday’s verdict. Two other defendants also requested trials in Hawaiian. Kanuha, who attended Hawaiian-immersion schools, said another reason he pushed for the trial to be conducted in Hawaiian, even though he speaks English, is to highlight that the movement to revitalize the Hawaiian language is connected to the fight to protect Mauna Kea from desecration. Most of Kanuha’s words during his trial were in Hawaiian, he said. “I may have spoken two sentences in English,” once when he wanted to clarify how the interpreter phrased one of his questions and another time inadvertently in response to a question in English. Mauna Kea (50) Mauna Kea #tmtshutdown press TMT Mahalo for providing video content Kū Kiaʻi Mauna Kea Copyright © 2020 Mauna Kea ʻOhana	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1410
__label__wiki	0.58906	0.58906	African Award winners> MISS AFRICA USA PAGEANT: Promotes Individual Talent and Self Expression fiangotech African Award winners / african beauty / African Beauty Queens / African Model / African women / beauty queen / Mandingo Men / miss africa contestants / Miss Africa most talented / Miss Africa USA / Miss Africa USA Audience / Miss Africa USA Awards Ceremony / Pageant Event / Pageant Judges / Positive images of Africa Over the years of its existence, the talent segment of the Miss Africa USA competition has been a permanent feature of the pageant which generates a lot of excitement from the audience but most importantly offers the pageant delegates an opportunity to explore their own inborn talent as well. A lot of people have talents that they don’t know about and if given the opportunity they would excel. The pageant aims to bring out the best in every participant and the talent competition is one of those areas that requires a lot of creativity and originality. Pictured above is Miss Ghana representative Priscilla Boateng who finished the pageant in 3rd Place as 2nd Princess to the Queen. Her entrance on stage for the talent segment was certainly very mind blowing. She presented as an African Queen, carried on a bench by two Mandingo men as you can see from the pictures. She engaged in spoken word about the beauty of Africa. This special presentation never left the minds of many who witness her act, how original and thoughtful it was. Her performance certainly won the hearts of the Judges. Pictured above is the reigning Queen, Fifi Soumah on stage with a Poem titled ‘The Girl in Me’. Elegantly dressed and gracing the stage in confidence she told told the story of ‘The Girl In Me’ a poem she wrote herself about the challenges of growing up as a little girl in a troubled world. You had to be there to feel the impact of this act, she received great applause for her act finished off with a call for women to never give up the fight and never give up hope. Spoken word was certainly very popular with the Judges this year, as most of the top 5 winners actually performed spoken word for their talent. Singing was also popular with some of the delegates. Pictured above is Mameisia Kabia representing Sierra Leone, who placed in the top 15 of the competition. Dressed in the most gorgeous while evening gown, she stunned the audience with her beautiful voice. Meet Natasha Beckley, the first runner up, also known as the Deputy Miss Africa USA performing Spoken word, a poem she had also written capturing the past of the Black powerful Black woman in America today. She is an acclaimed poet and has a great collection of poems in her portfolio. This young lady is certainly very gifted in this field of poetry and will certainly go places. And to conclude this post on the Miss Africa USA Talent competition, we end with the winner of the Spokes Model Award, Miss Gnima Diop representing the beautiful country of Senegal. Gnima clearly stood out in her ability to master her spoken word, speaking with conviction, passion and confidence, a performance which earned her the title of Miss Africa USA Spokes Model, a title she is now using to advance her career as a motivational speaker. I believe she will do very well indeed as a public speaker. Generally this year Spoken Word certainly did it for the Judges as well as thrilled the audience. Bear in mind that there were other beautiful acts such as singing and dancing and more. The Delegates did their very best to stick to African themes and cultures while being very entertaining as well. If you missed the show this year, you can order the video and watch it in the comfort of your own home at $10 each. Simply send an email to info@missafricaunitedstates.com to place your order. Tags: african dance, fifi soumah, miss africa talent, Miss Africa USA, Pageants, spoken word Previous PostMISS AFRICA USA PARADE OF NATIONS: Showcasing the Colors of Africa Next PostMISS AFRICA USA 2010: AT Women Inspiration and Enterprise Symposium: A Modern and Dynamic New Women’s Conference, drawing on the Legendary Drive and Energy of New York City. ESTABLISHING THE ARETHA MAKIA SCHOLARSHIP FUND FOR MISS AFRICA USA FORMER CAMEROONIAN BEAUTY QUEEN DR ARETHA MAKIA TO HOST THE 2010 MISS AFRICA USA SCHOLARSHIP PAGEANT BLING QUEENS FASHIONS OF LAS VEGAS SPONSORS MISS AFRICA USA PAGEANT	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1421
__label__cc	0.63013	0.36987	Call nowInfo Pack APPROVED CONTRACTORS RAPID ROOF RAPIDROOF KIT BOX FAST COAT KARNAK 19 ULTRA KARNAK ELASTO KOTE LIQUITANK Terminally ill man awarded $3m for asbestos exposure while renovating What is asbestos and what are the risks? Is an Elusive U.S. Total Ban on Asbestos Finally in Sight? Opening date set for refurbished Rothesay Pavilion Retired resident troubled by asbestos in ‘leaking’ roof How much can painting a roof white reduce its temperature? Just 7 days to success for BMI roofing apprentices of the Year European roofing giant is latest firm to move to Reading’s Thames Tower IRE: Resilient Roofing, Tech and Future Trends WHY GREEN ROOFING CAN BE KEY TO SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS Drones Can Cut Property Inspection Costs—but Are They Safe? Up to 50 design decisions to consider in a high-performance roof ON THE ROOF WITH…A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE OF ROOFING A ROOFING BUYER’S GUIDE – THE OPTIONS AVAILABLE Roofing scams target victims living in Security-Widefield Metal Roofing Market to See Strong Growth, Comprehensive Analysis to 2025 Can Reflective Roofing Save Energy and Help the Environment? Global Roofing Chemicals Market – Increasing Need for Thermal Management in Buildings to Drive Growth\| Technavio Roofing’s finest celebrate at NFRC’s UK Roofing Awards 2018 Recycled roofing tiles get a second life as stunning wall tiles with the Parkway collection Northampton mum-to-be ‘scared’ after being moved to hotel following asbestos fear in flat roof How to choose a quality roofing contractor Elastomeric Membrane Market Dynamics, Forecast, Analysis and Supply Demand -2025 Liquid Roofing Systems LtdLatest blogConstruction March 12, 2019 March 12, 2019 By Dane Rainford Blog • Construction 0 Comments A giant in the world of roofing has set up a new office in Reading’s Thames Tower. BMI, the largest manufacturer of flat and pitched roofing and waterproofing solutions throughout Europe, has taken the whole of the 13th floor of the 14-storey office building beside Reading Station. The company’s office space totals 14,000 square feet. The move means just two floors remain vacant at the building in Station Road. James Silver, managing director of Landid, which manages the building, said: “This again proves Reading’s new office offer is increasingly attracting the big players. “Thames Tower is a prime example of how offices, in transport hubs, like Reading , are proving to be a new and refreshing offer for UK and global business. “We look forward to welcoming BMI to Thames Tower, a thriving building which is having a positive effect on the town and the local economy.” BMI is expanding its business from London to Reading, in the hope of attracting new talent and business. The company joins the likes of Ericsson, which has the eight, ninth and 14th floors. Other occupiers include HSBC, the Make-a-Wish Foundation and MNBL (Mobile Broadband Network Limited), international recruitment firm Austen Fraser and professional services firm BDO. The building was recently bought by Spelthorne Borough Council in Surrey in a £285 million deal. MichaelGaida / Pixabay November 6, 2018 November 6, 2018 By Dane Rainford Blog • Construction • Management • Renavation 0 Comments Sustainability is becoming a key mission for organizations as environmental awareness grows. Exploring sustainable options allows organizations to drastically reduce carbon emissions while developing new technologies. Green roofing is one solution that is becoming popular. Here is a detailed guide to its advantages beyond simple sustainability improvements. jackmac34 / Pixabay Green Roofing & Its Benefits Green roofs are covered with vegetation and plants, either partially or entirely. Vegetation is planted over a growing medium placed atop a waterproof roofing membrane. Additional features may include root barrier systems and drainage or irrigation systems. Green roofs can be installed with new construction or retrofit for existing facilities. They are increasingly utilized as roofing for commercial, industrial, and municipal buildings. While this technology is well-established across Europe because of legislation and financial support provided by governments, green roofs are still growing in understanding, acceptance, and implementation across the United States. Intensive green roofs consist of a thicker roofing material that can support a wider plant assortment—they are heavier, require a minimum depth of 12.8 cm, and need more maintenance to upkeep. Extensive green roofs are shallower, weigh less, and require less maintenance. Green roofs can also support other green technology, such as photovoltaic solar panels or solar thermal collectors. Some environmental, economic, and social advantages of green roofing include: Aesthetic improvement of facilities Improved rainwater management Increased marketability Longer roof lifespan Improved thermal performance Wildlife habitat support Reduced noise How Green Roofs Contribute to Sustainability Efforts Green roofs contribute to the sustainability efforts of an organization through: Conserving energy by insulating the building and mitigating thermal heat gain, which reduces the need for heating and cooling. This also improves the service life of HVAC systems due to decreased usage. Extending the lifespan of the roof by shielding it from the elements. Green roofs offer protection that can double or triple the useful life of the structure. This keeps more roofing materials out of landfills, reducing waste. Decreasing stormwater runoff on average of 40 to 60%, keeping runoff out of local sewer systems, and reducing wear and tear along with potential damage that can lead to contamination. Improving air quality by trapping airborne particulates and gases and performing photosynthesis to reduce pollution while decreasing urban heat island effects that produce ozone and diminished water quality. Providing habitat for local wildlife, decreasing the impacts of urbanization to local populations. Absorbing radiation to better the microclimate of the immediate area. While green roofs aren’t as widespread in the United States as they are in Europe, they can make a major impact on local organizations and communities. With a variety of installation options for new and existing buildings and the ability to incorporate further sustainable technologies, green roofs have the power to greatly bolster an organization’s sustainability efforts. October 8, 2018 October 8, 2018 By Dane Rainford Blog • Construction • Do It Yourself • General Information • Renavation • Tips and Tricks 0 Comments The design and construction of a roofing system is a complex undertaking that can involve up to 50 considerations. To ensure that state-of-the-art roofing practice is incorporated into the finished product, the licensed design professional, architect, engineer, building owner, facility manager or roofing contractor should have the latitude to select the most suitable product, system and assembly available on the market. Capri23auto / Pixabay The factors that will impact roofing system design include: Type of structure that needs to be protected. Interior usage of the structure. Geography and climate where the building is l ocated. Extreme weather conditions the roof will need to withstand (hail, high winds, etc.). Orientation of the building. Climatic impacts of the building. Planned longevity of the roofing system and structure, as well as the recyclability of the roofing membrane. Environmental impact of the materials to be used in the construction process. Given these factors, the roofing professional can then determine the specifics of the roofing system design. This will include basic considerations such as how will the roofing membrane be attached to the roof deck. Options such as fully adhered, mechanically attached, and ballasted systems each offer unique benefits: a fully adhered system, for instance, which is attached to the substrate with adhesives, is essential to protect a roofing system in an area that frequently experiences high winds. New for 2019: The Denver area’s top 25 public high schools The top Denver-area public high schools for 2019, according to Niche.com. Public Paychecks: The highest-paid City of Denver employees Search our database for City of Denver salaries. HIRING IN EXECUTIVE Program Manager, Global Business Services World Trade Center Denver Lockheed Space, NASA eye commercial opportunities for Orion capsule An artist’s rendering for NASA shows an Orion spacecraft orbiting the moon with earth in the background. What’s up with that blue ‘404 Store Not Found’ building in Denver? A biker cruises past the initial marketing campaign of Denver-based Visible, a startup backed by Verizon that’s looking to disrupt the wireless phone service industry. Colorado construction firm expects to double in size after acquisition Katerra, a California construction startup, has acquired Littleton-based Bristlecone Construction. Denver company raises $846M to buy Texas and Oklahoma oil rights Will Cullen, vice president LongPoint Minerals II, a Denver-based oil and gas mineral rights fund. The roofing professional must also accommodate any special requirements presented by the overall design of the building (such as the presence of solar panels, plant equipment, generators, or other equipment adhered to the roofing surface). Will the roof be used for materials storage? How much insulation is needed, and how might that impact the choice of a roofing membrane? How will future access to the roof be managed safely to facilitate ease of maintenance? And finally, how will the construction of the roof be sequenced properly to ensure that a durable finished product is delivered on time, on budget and adhering to local building codes? This complex orchestration of interdependent design and construction decisions requires a steady hand, a wealth of experience and access to a broad range of design solutions, not prescriptive requirements that limit creative choice. August 9, 2018 August 9, 2018 By Dane Rainford Blog • Construction • General Information • Renavation • SYSTEM 0 Comments SECURITY-WIDEFIELD, Colo. – Roofing scams are already targeting people living in Security-Widefield after Monday’s severe hail storm swept through southern Colorado. “They’re taking our money, our hard earned money,” said Torri Roll, who lives in Security. In just a matter of hours since the storm, contractors knocked on her door offering discounted deals. The scam typically works when a deal is offered, a deposit is taken, but no work is done. “It’s just awful, I wish people were more real and true,” Roll said. People all across the neighborhood noticed some unusual activity the past two days. “It’s very annoying when you get two or three people a day,” said Steve Savage, a neighbor living nearby. Savage said since the June storm hit, he’s been offered 25 questionable deals from contractors. “It makes you extremely angry,” he said. Neighbors said on average nine out of the 10 door knockers traveled in cars with license plates out of state. Michael Moore, owner of Divine Roofing explains it happens more than you think. “I would say as much as 50 percent of the work is going to out of state contractors,” he said. Bottom line, avoid taking offers with unusually low discounts and make sure you have a valid contract and warranty in writing before making a purchase. This post was taken from https://www.krdo.com/news/top-stories/roofing-scammers-start-to-crawl-through-security-widefield/779219384 July 5, 2018 July 5, 2018 By Dane Rainford Blog • Construction • Management • Renavation • SYSTEM 0 Comments By Bob Schildgen Hey Mr. Green, I liked your article about the amount of space needed to provide solar power in the United States. I have wondered how many roofs would have to be painted white to replace the albedo of the melting ice caps. We live in Houston, Texas, and I’ve often thought of painting ours white to reduce our AC bill. — Dianne, in Houston Painting rooftops white may have some promise, although there remains considerable debate about its benefits, especially given that the soot in our air has the potential to trap their reflected heat. There are several other factors to also consider. The cooling effects of the white roof could, for example, force folks to turn the furnace up in winter, thereby offsetting at least some of its benefit. As the EPA politely and rather cautiously reminds us: “Please remember the energy savings that can be achieved with reflective roofing is highly dependent on facility design, insulation used, climatic conditions, building location, and building envelope efficiency.” If you’d like to dig deeper into the issue and come up with a specific calculation for your location and type of dwelling, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory offers a Cool Roof Calculator. Based on evidence I’ve seen, the benefits of the white roof would probably be greater in your area than in cities farther north. Good luck with your research! June 7, 2018 June 7, 2018 By Dane Rainford Blog • Construction • Do It Yourself • Tips and Tricks 0 Comments Three tips for a great new roof Most houses in Canada have asphalt shingle roofs, and June is an excellent month to have new shingles installed. With hot weather on the way, shingles will seal down reliably later on in the summer sun. But June itself is also not usually so hot that the shingles will be soft and easily damaged underfoot during installation. TaniaVdB / Pixabay If you’re interested in getting the best possible asphalt shingle roofing job, there are details you need to discuss with your roofer. As with any other professional in life, don’t assume all roofers necessarily use the best possible techniques. Be your own watchdog by asking about the re-roofing details here and you’ll get the best possible results. There are three parts to any great asphalt shingling job — the shingles themselves, the underlay system and the roof vents that round out any good installation. Improved tar, gravel and substrates have boosted potential shingle lifespan enough that 40- and 50-year shingle warranties are now common. Thirty years ago shingles were sold with 10-, 15- and sometimes 20-year warranties at the top end. These days all manufacturers have doubled these numbers, and the difference is about more than just marketing. The “10-year” shingles on the left lasted for 30 years before needing to be replaced. Thefibreglass shingles, right, have a rated lifespan of 40 years. (STEVE MAXWELL) Most of the gain in shingle life comes from the use of fibreglass as a shingle substrate instead of the more traditional organic felt. Fibreglass shingles look the same as organic ones on your roof because they’re impregnated with the same kind of tar and gravel used as part of all asphalt shingles. That said, fibreglass is much more resistant to heat than felt, and this makes all the difference. Even on very hot, unventilated roof surfaces, fibreglass shingles consistently deliver their expected lifespan without curling. You also get a higher fire rating with fibreglass. In addition, fibreglass shingles are about 30 per cent thinner than organics for a given quality of shingle, making them easier to install on ridges, as part of woven valleys or any other application where bending of some shingles is required. Ventilation is another critical roof issue. Most roofs need more of it than they have for two reasons — first, more ventilation reduces attic temperatures during summer, making it easier to keep upper floors cool, and second, attic ventilation allows internal moisture from domestic activities like washing, showering and breathing to vent away freely in winter, in case this moisture happens to enter the attic incidentally. You can’t have too much attic ventilation, and there’s no better time to install more vents than during a reroofing job. Ridge vents deliver the most ventilation for the least amount of visual distraction. The best roof installations are waterproof before shingles go on, and this means more than just a layer of that old-fashioned, 15-pound tarpaper nailed to roof sheathing. There are two philosophies behind creating a reliable secondary layer of protection underneath your shingles, and they’re completely different. The black fabric being installed here keeps water out if the shingles fail, but also allows watervapour to escape if necessary. (STEVE MAXWELL) When self-sticking ice and water shield arrived on the scene about 25 years ago, it didn’t take long for it to replace tarpaper as a complete roof underlay on high-end installations. And this approach still makes a lot of sense, except for one universal Canadian issue. Cold climates create a moisture threat that can attack roof structures from both top and bottom. In addition to the usual hazard of water leaking from above, there’s also the possibility of moisture condensing in parts of the roof structure from below during winter. This is why the best roof underlay these days is breathable. It combines the ability to shed water along with the ability to dry out from the inside. Ask any prospective roofers for homeowner references, check them out, then go with a contractor who has a track record of good work and is willing to use today’s best shingling methods. May 1, 2018 May 1, 2018 By Dane Rainford Blog • Construction • General Information • SYSTEM 0 Comments MINNEAPOLIS, April 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Parkway collection, made of recycled roofing tiles, joins hundreds of other new and unique tiles being introduced this season at The Tile Shop (NASDAQ:TTS), a specialty retailer of natural stone and man-made tiles. annca / Pixabay The two tiles in the Parkway collection, a chevron mosaic tile and a subway tile, are made of authentic recycled clay roofing tiles. The steel-grey, blue and sandy-brown tones visible in these tiles create an entirely original look that is a blend of cool and warm colors on the walls of the home. As more and more tiles function as works of art, the Parkway series, from The Tile Shop’s proprietary brand Fired Earth Ceramics, is one of the most interesting and stunning tiles to serve this purpose. The Parkway collection is another addition to the assortment of unique tiles that satisfy consumer demand for original and hard-to-find tiles. “A lot of people these days say they want products that are different and have a unique story,” said Kevin McDaniel, vice president of merchandising at The Tile Shop. “With the Parkway collection, each tile is original and one of a kind.” This collection is one of dozens of new and unique products being released this month and represent part of a commitment by The Tile Shop to offer the leading assortment in the industry. For more information, please visit www.tileshop.com. About The Tile Shop The Tile Shop (NASDAQ:TTS) is a leading specialty retailer of natural stone and man-made tiles, setting and maintenance materials and related accessories in the United States. The Company offers a wide selection of high-quality products, exclusive designs, knowledgeable staff and exceptional customer service in an extensive showroom environment with up to 50 full-room tiled displays which are enhanced by the complimentary Design Studio, a collaborative platform to create customized 3-D design renderings to scale, allowing customers to bring their design ideas to life. The Tile Shop currently operates 140 stores in 31 states and the District of Columbia, with an average size of 20,200 square feet and sells products online at www.tileshop.com. The Tile Shop is a proud member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB), National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) and the National Tile Contractors Association (NTCA). Visit www.tileshop.com. Join The Tile Shop (#thetileshop) on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. This post was taken from https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/04/30/1490206/0/en/Recycled-roofing-tiles-get-a-second-life-as-stunning-wall-tiles-with-the-Parkway-collection.html April 26, 2018 April 26, 2018 By Dane Rainford Asbestos Coating • Blog • Construction 0 Comments An expectant mum from Northampton is saying enough is enough to her housing association after, she claims, asbestos has been found in her roof. QuinceMedia / Pixabay Jade Fuller, 25, of Billing Road has been living in her property for nine years. But on Friday, after builders arrived to fix a leaky bedroom light, which has been dripping since April 1, she says she discovered her property had been insulated with asbestos. But upon voicing her concerns about the potentially deadly substance, Jade says no-one has been out to see her since. She said: “I rang them Friday – I said ‘what’s going on about the roof?’ And they said ‘we believe there’s asbestos in the roof, we can’t send anyone out until we’ve had it checked. “They put me in a hotel from Friday until Tuesday, just gone, and they’ve still not made it safe.” While she was away – the mum-to-be was at least expecting her leaky bedroom light to be fixed and for the asbestos to be cleared – but she says nothing has changed. “They’ve done nothing and I’m just made to come back here,” she added. Jade, who is six weeks pregnant, is calling on Orbit to move her to a safer property for her and her soon-to-be infant. “It’s scary because I’m pregnant as well now, it’s not great. I don’t want to be here – I don’t want to live here at all – it’s not a nice place to live. “I want to move really. I’ve asked them for an urgent transfer, or anything, and they’re saying ‘I don’t think we can do that’. “But I’m just supposed to be left in a property that’s unsafe?” Jade’s living room also has mould on the ceiling and around the windows. “I suffer with depression and anxiety, mainly since I’ve been living here.” Neil Yeomans, head of property compliance at Orbit said: “We want all of our customers to live in homes that are secure and comfortable, and we apologise to Miss Fuller for the inconvenience this has caused. “However, we wanted to make absolutely sure that her home is safe and can confirm that at no time were Miss Fuller and her partner in any danger of breathing in asbestos fibres. “We temporarily relocated her and her partner as a precautionary measure. A surveyor attended her home again yesterday (Wednesday) to confirm exactly what was needed to complete the roof repair, which Orbit say they plan to carry out as soon as possible. April 9, 2018 April 9, 2018 By Dane Rainford Blog • Construction • Tips and Tricks 0 Comments nstalling a new roof is one of the most important — and expensive — home improvement projects you’ll run into as a homeowner. Considering this, and the fact that your roof is your first line of defense against the elements, it’s important you hire a qualified, licensed professional for your roofing repair and installation projects. There are a number of roofing companies to choose from, so it helps to follow a few basic rules to ensure that you find, choose and hire the best professional for the job. TALK TO SEVERAL CONTRACTORS Talking to several roofing companies will help you identify an honest and reasonable price range. You probably don’t want to hinge your final hiring decision on the difference of a few hundred dollars for a project that costs several thousand dollars, but you should be wary of any remarkably low or excessively high bids. Of course, this will also provide you the opportunity to gauge your level of rapport with each contractor as you work your way through the rest of the rules for hiring a qualified roofing professional. RESEARCH CREDENTIALS It’s also important to perform research on the different companies you’re speaking with — particularly those who stand out after your initial conversations. Reputable contractors should be licensed and willing to provide you with at least three references verifying the quality of their work. Confirming that a contractor is licensed — and speaking with past customers who can verify their credibility and qualifications — will give you added peace of mind. REVIEW THE CONTRACT AND WARRANTIES CLOSELY Never sign a contract without reading it over carefully. Professional contractors won’t be annoyed with your taking the time to understand the terms of your agreement — and most will be happy to sit down with you and explain parts you don’t understand. Also, make sure you understand the warranty that comes with your new roof. All materials and workmanship should be guaranteed for at least five years, and the roofing itself ought to come with a 20- to 40-year warranty. COVER YOUR BASES Before work begins, be sure to cover your bases. Check with your contractor about whether you need to acquire a permit (most roofing companies will take care of this as part of their service), and confirm that their employees are covered by workers comp as well. Finally, if you’re submitting an insurance claim on your roof, make certain you’ve followed all the necessary procedures — and undergone all the necessary approvals — before work on your new roof begins. NEVER PAY THE ENTIRE BALANCE UPFRONT Never pay the entire balance of your new roof up front. This goes for all large projects. If your contractor asks this of you, terminate your relationship and be sure not to sign a contract. Asking for a reasonable deposit and a payment schedule that parallels the work is common practice. In no case should you ever pay with cash. Using a credit card increases the likelihood that, in a worst-case scenario, you’ll be able to recover your money without expensive litigation. This post was taken from http://www.heraldcourier.com/community/how-to-choose-a-quality-roofing-contractor/article_9d44db7c-bf1b-53d5-a85e-29b438581692.html March 22, 2018 March 22, 2018 By Dane Rainford Blog • Construction • Do It Yourself • Management • Tips and Tricks 0 Comments A residential property could have triple-reinforced titanium steel walls, and it still wouldn’t be worth a darn without a sturdy roof. It’s through the roof and rooftop features that many problematic elements can enter a building jarmoluk / Pixabay , from wind to rain to ice to debris. And because of that, the roof must be adequately fortified and properly maintained. Otherwise, the integrity of the building – along with resident safety and property value – are bound to suffer. Basics for Beginners Roofs are not just complicated, relatively delicate structures—they’re also harder to keep tabs on than a facade, or windows that people look at all day. Fortunately, there are myriad experts – from property managers to A/E/C professionals to trades persons who work solely on roofs – who can do the job for your building and keep your roof in good repair. “A roof should be inspected every few years,” says Frank Sausa, Vice President of Altura Construction Company, Inc., in Garfield, New Jersey. “If a leak gets severe enough, a homeowner’s ceiling can literally collapse. The most common cause of leaks that we see is when the rubber boot around plumbing vents deteriorates. Additionally, we often conduct repairs around chimneys, skylights and valleys, utilizing shingles, leak barrier ice and water shield, synthetic paper, step flashing, counter flashing, and, most importantly, kick-out flashings.” Between formal inspections by a roofing professional, associations should be doing routine maintenance on their own. “Inspection of roofs should be part of the basic building maintenance, and reviewed at a minimum of a few times per month, especially during and after heavy rains or snow,” says Dennis DePaola, Executive Vice President of Orsid Realty Corp., in New York City. “Not only should the roofing surface, pitch pockets, and flashings be checked, but the floor below should be looked at as well, in order to catch even the smallest amount of water infiltration as early as possible, before any major damage occurs.” Of course, roofs are not ‘one size fits all,’ and a maintenance schedule therefore depends on the make and age of one’s model, as well as the weather to which it’s subjected. “Appropriate frequency of inspections of a roof may depend on its age, but annually is probably a general minimum,” recommends Christopher R. Berg, President of Independent Association Managers, Inc., in Naperville, Illinois. “Severe weather conditions may necessitate specific inspections, particularly for shingled roofs. If you can see the roof from the ground, loose or missing shingles can be spotted by the board or management on a simple walk. However, many problems would only be identified via closer inspection. For example, an examination of the attic may identify leaks and problems that wouldn’t be apparent elsewhere, such as insufficiently ventilated bathroom moisture or dryer lint.” In areas like New England, where the weather in a given year can reach sweltering highs and frigid lows, roofs can wear much faster than in more temperate regions. To be proactive, an association should perform a visual inspection of its roof on an annual basis,” suggests Tim Arel, Owner and Principal at North Point Management, which has offices in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire. “This inspection should look for missing or damaged shingles, as well as wear and warping. That will allow an association to perform the small and relatively easy repairs before they develop into serious issues that result in the need for full roof replacement, or damage to the buildings. Proactive annual inspections work to extend the life span of the roof, but they also provide information needed to plan for a roof’s eventual replacement. And they can initially be performed by qualified members of the management team, or by association volunteers. The key is to have individuals who know what they’re looking for perform these inspections. Then, when issues are identified, management and the board should contact a qualified roofing contractor to perform the needed repairs, or to provide a professional assessment with recommendations.” Certain roof-based dilemmas are more common than others, so it pays for a board or management to be aware of the likely suspects. “We’ve taken over buildings from other firms wherein we have found severe structural steel damage due to neglect, and the failure to stop water infiltration for prolonged periods of time,” notes DePaola. “In such instances, we’ve had to install shoring within apartments to offset the load from the damaged steel. That may require a relocation of the residents, depending on the severity of the situation. “We’ve also been successful in spotting smaller repairs of roofing systems that are still under warranty, at little-to-no expense to the building owner,” he continues. “By regularly checking for these smaller repairs and addressing them in a timely manner, owners can greatly extend the useful life of the roofing system, sometimes well beyond their 20-to-25-year warranty.” As one may intuit, ice is a major enemy in regions with particularly cold winters. “The improper removal of ice dams has been a significant contributor to roof damage over the past several years,” says Arel. “When faced with an emergency situation caused by interior water intrusion from ice dams, some vendors believe that the solution lies in removing the ice via the use of hammers and pickaxes. While this may temporarily alleviate the problem, the net result is often significant damage to shingles and roofs. This makes for a great example as to how proper planning and hiring vendors with the correct equipment will benefit an association in the long-term.” And the type of roof – shingled or flat – also affects its aging process. “Shingled roofs often age prematurely, as a result of insufficient ventilation and/or insulation, and may need to be inspected more frequently,” warns Berg. “When attics can’t vent the summer heat, cooked shingles will curl and break the adhesive that holds them down, leaving an edge up to become a sail in the wind. Sometimes you can be alerted by shingles on the ground or in the gutters, but other times they seem to have vanished from the earth. When attics can’t stay cold under snow-covered roofs, they cause ice dams that can lift shingles, split wood and bend metal, whether or not it causes visible interior damage. Rubber parts and applied sealants need to be inspected for cracking, so they can be replaced before they leak. However, gutters often have to be cleaned of leaves and other tree debris in both spring and fall, which makes for two great opportunities to just inspect all of the roofing. “And then flat roofs have both masonry and metallic elements, in addition to drains, pipes, and other membrane penetrations, so they may need regular engineering inspections as well,” Berg adds. “Minor cracking in masonry joints and membrane transitions can lead to serious problems, whose resolution come with serious price tags. So the more complicated your roofing system is, the more regular inspections you may need, and by more technical professionals.” Balance in Budget The more on top (pun intended) of roof-related affairs an association is, the less likely they’ll have to spend exorbitant amounts of money to fix a disaster. With that said, unpredictable calamities, however, can happen, and an association is best served tucking away some extra funds in the event of a rainy day. “Every association should have both short- and long-term capital plans for the essential building components,” says DePaola. “We know that roofing systems have a useful life between 10 and 30 years, depending on the system and the warranties received. Therefore, the association should be funding or implementing a plan to fund – via either borrowing or assessment – for the roof replacement during the entire life cycle of the capital component. The most costly roofing projects to which we’ve been privy are those that have not been planned for and those that have been deferred for too long.” “Having a reserve study and financial plan in place to ensure that the funds needed for capital projects exist in the association’s reserve account is the best method to avoid the significant impact of special assessments,” Arel agrees. “Proper funding is always based on proactive planning. Unfortunately, a great number of associations are under-funded, and thus do not have sufficient reserve funds required for a significant capital project. In these occasions, associations need to evaluate their options to determine what plan best suits its owners. Due to the current financial environment, a great number of associations are looking to loans to make up for their lack of reserves. This option allows an association to borrow the necessary funding, typically through a fixed interest rate loan that may cost less per month than delaying work and facing the increased costs of labor and materials. When roofs need to be replaced within a several-year period due to leaks or other severe issues, financing the project allows an association to spread out the payment over a greater span, thus resulting in a lower monthly increase. “However,” he continues, “it’s important to note that one option is not right for all association. A board should weigh all options and the financial impacts thereof and present that to the owners. It’s important to involve the owners when making any decision that will result in a significant fee increase, such that the owners can understand the process that the board has undergone and the options available, then provide input as to what they believe is the best option to meet the association’s needs.” Britain’s death toll from asbestos at crisis level, figures reveal Global Roofing Materials Market 2019-2027 asbestos roof repair tips asbestos roof waterproofing roofing asbestos encapsulation Very pleased with the price and specifications, turned out cheaper than the single-ply option in the end Anthony West Very pleased with the samples, and the approved contractor pricing, can you send me details on training courses please Markus Pradish Roofing Cladding & Insulation Magazine (RCI) © 2019 LRS-SYSTEMS. All rights reserved. Rapidroof < 1000 SQ/MS Liquidrubber >1000 SQ/MS LRS (UK Trading Brand) Icon Credits Copyright © 2019 Created by Rainford IT Do you accept these cookies and the processing of your personal data involved? Your consent to our use of cookies will remain valid unless you tell us you want to amend your preferences. Read our Cookie Policy/ GDPR Policy.Accept GDPR Policy	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1431
__label__wiki	0.895227	0.895227	Toggle visit menu Bankfield Museum Heptonstall Museum Smith Art Gallery Duke of Wellington's Regiment Museum Toggle what's on menu Bankfield Buddies School linking programme Enquiries & donations Representing over 300 years of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, since its raising in 1702, this museum tells the stories of the soldiers who served using their own words. The ‘Iron Duke’, Arthur Wellesley, was the Colonel of the 33rd which became, after his death, the only Regiment to be named after a person not of the Royal Blood. Displays include items relating to the Duke himself and to the rich and varied history of the regiment, including the campaigns of 33rd and 76th foot. The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment has a long association with the town of Halifax and its location within Bankfield Museum complements the wider history on display here. For more information on the Regiment or if you have any enquiries about the Regimental Archives please contact the Duke of Wellington's Regimental Association. The Duke of Wellington’s Regimental Museum Boothtown Road HX3 6HG museums@calderdale.gov.uk The DWR Museum is on the Ground Floor of Bankfield Museum and is fully accessible. Disabled parking is to the rear of building with access via a ramp. All of the Ground Floor is wheelchair accessible (main areas and galleries of museum). Toilets, disabled toilet and baby change are all on ground floor. Handling boxes available for visually impaired visitors. Please contact us to discuss any requirements, staff will be glad to help. Variations to opening times: Also open on Bank Holiday Mondays: 10:00-16:00 The car park is located close to the entrance of the main Museum site and behind the Museum is additional parking with a disabled access ramp and a bell to ring for entrance. Separate male, female and accessible toilets. Baby changing facilities within the disabled toilet. A selection of snacks and hot and cold drinks are available to purchase within Bankfield Museum on the Ground Floor. There are a selection of books and items relating to the Duke of Wellington's Regiment for sale in Bankfield Museum's shop on the Ground Floor. Bankfield Museum has a selection or rooms available for private hire - please contact us for details. Sign up to get the latest news and events from the Calderdale Museums service! Email: museums@calderdale.gov.uk Duke of Wellington's Regimental © Copyright 2020 \| Privacy Policy \| Accessibility	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1435
__label__wiki	0.585863	0.585863	Music Interview Magazine® Empowering Musicians And Their Fans – January 2020 About Music Interview Magazine Professional Services and FAQ’s Welcome/Contact Us Award Winning Composer and Pianist Michael Whalen’s ‘Cupid Blindfolded’ By Paul J Wolfle August 9, 2019 #album #articles #composer #musician #musicvideos #newmusicalert #recordingartist A true show of proficiency and musicianship, the new album Cupid Blindfolded was recorded in single, full takes, minus any editing. The special ten-song collection from Michael Whalen marks the artist’s first solo piano project in 20 years. An Emmy® Award winner two times over, Whalen is credited with millions of streams. The New York Times once mentioned how “Michael Whalen’s music echoes in your soul…” But this time, Whalen goes for the heart. After listening to the 4:05 title track and lead single to Cupid Blindfolded, there is more here than just left and right hands travelling across the piano keys. The melody is calm and thoughtful and moves at a comfortable pace. But accessibility is just the beginning of the “Cupid Blindfolded” listening experience. While falling under the spell of gentle keystrokes and the accompanying notes, looking inward with heartfelt warmth comes naturally. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Tom Eaton at Will Ackerman’s Imaginary Road Studios, the music provides a somewhat movielike backdrop while considering fond thoughts, occasionally of times gone by. The movie reference is quite fitting for Whalen, an international recording artist and film composer. Speaking of visuals, “Cupid Blindfolded” is a magnificent multi-faceted 4:14 video of the musician’s performance, available on YouTube. Split screens offer different camera views, enhancing the overall experience and admiration for Whalen as an artist. As a note of interest, Whalen wrote the theme for ABC News’ “Good Morning America.” Meanwhile, away from the recording studio, the composer and pianist is an expert on music patents and frequently appears as a panelist speaking about the future of the music business. As an educator, Whalen was adjunct professor at the Berklee College of Music, The City College of New York, New York University, The New School and currently teaches at The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Released Jul. 12, 2019 on the Solace label, a sub-label under Real Music, a division of Cutting Edge Group, another favorite from Cupid Blindfolded is “Standing In The Rain.” But you will have to decide for yourself which songs stand out. Find Cupid Blindfolded in both physical and digital formats at a variety of sources including: For more about Michael Whalen please visit: Beth Hilton The B Company Paul Wolfle, the publisher of musicinterviewmagazine.com, is a web-based journalist and guitar player who has written for several popular sites. Paul has a passion for connecting with a diversity of musicians who are looking to grow a positive presence by way of the World Wide Web. Posted in articles, jazz artist, music artists, music reviews, musicians, New Albums	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1437
__label__cc	0.660265	0.339735	Land Use Boards 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month Municipal Building- Committee Chambers Gary Lewis, Chairman Arthur Maggio, Vice-Chairman Adam Adrignolo Tim Braden Lawrence Kornreich, Ph.D., Environmental Commission Liaison John Visco Richard Conklin, Mayor Russell Lipari James Sandham, Jr, Alternate #2 Nicholas Agnoli, Alternate # 1 Michael Carroll, Esq. Planning Consultant Joseph Burgis, AICP, PP Westwood, NJ Stan Omland, PE Omland Associates Bay Head, NJ Planning Boards are responsible for generating and updating a community's master plan, a comprehensive, long-range plan intended to guide the growth and development of a community. This document contains elements that provide for future economic development, housing, recreation, open space, transportation, community facilities and land use. The Master Plan is then used to develop and implement broad land use policies for guiding the growth of a municipality. Master Plan Element A primary element of the Master Plan is the Land Use Plan. This element serves as the basis for development of the Township's zoning ordinances, a set of local regulations that provides for controls on how the land in Montville is used, occupied or utilized. The Land Use Plan is also implemented through a zoning map of zone types recommended in the Land Use Plan. Subdivisions & Site Plan Review Other functions of the Planning Board involve subdivision and site plan review, creating the official map and associated zoning ordinances and reviewing the capital improvements program for the Township. The Board is also empowered with the ability to approve "C" variances (departures from zoning ordinances) in conjunction with development applications and also establishes procedures for review of these applications. The Planning Board is involved in review of other state or federal programs or plans. The Board also assembles data for planning purposes and performs other advisory duties as requested by the Township Committee to aid them in the planning process. The Board is heavily involved in reviewing major subdivisions and site plans and finalizing the Land Use Regulations that will support the zoning ordinances of the Community. Subdivision review is required whenever any lot, tract or parcel of land is divided into two or more lots, tracts and parcels. Site plan reviews are required when someone proposes development for anything other than an individual lot application for detached one or two dwelling units. Plans for development are available for public inspection in the Land Use Department located at the Municipal Building. The Planning Board meets regularly. Public participation is always encouraged and welcomed at these meetings. Municipal Code Online Land Development & Soil Movement Application Waiver of Site Plan Waiver of Site Plan for Accessory Buildings under 500 sq ft 2011 Montville Township Zoning Map (PDF) Master Plan Reexamination Public Hearing Process Historic Preservation Review Commission	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1444
__label__cc	0.651195	0.348805	Mount Evelyn Mail Home In Business Shave the day Shave the day Belgrave South Veterinarian Dr. Peter Van Orsouw will be raising money for Vets Beyond Borders and cutting his hair to donate to people who have lost theirs through cancer or Alopecia. Dr. Peter Van Orsouw is getting the snip but, it’s not what you think. The Belgrave South Veterinary Clinic veterinarian is getting luscious long locks lopped off at the Australian Veterinary Association National Conference in Perth next month, to raise funds for Vets Beyond Borders (VBB). His hair will then also be donated to people […] Please Subscribe to see the rest of the story. Dr. Peter Van Orsouw is getting the snip but, it’s not what you think. The Belgrave South Veterinary Clinic veterinarian is getting luscious long locks lopped off at the Australian Veterinary Association National Conference in Perth next month, to raise funds for Vets Beyond Borders (VBB). His hair will then also be donated to people who have lost theirs through cancer or Alopecia. Mr Van Orsouw said that for the past four years he has been growing a luxurious mane of hair with the primary view of raising funds for VBB. His fundraising goal is $5,000 and he kicked it off with a personal donation of $500. If he reaches that goal, he said he’ll go for the clean ‘No. 1 romper stomper look’, much to his wife’s chagrin. “As a vet you’re often very busy, and in September 2014 I was just struggling to get to the hair dresser and I thought ‘I’ve been having the same haircut for 40 years so perhaps it’s time for a change,’” he said. “So I let it grow a little bit. “It’s long enough now to donate for wig making, and as someone lucky enough to be over 50 and still able to grow hair I figured why not give it to someone else who needs it.” All of the funds raised will go towards Vets Beyond Borders, an international charity based in Australia that deploys volunteer veterinarians, veterinary nurses and other animal welfare workers across the globe to deliver animal health and community awareness programs where they are desperately needed. Dr Van Orsouw is a new member of VBB and eager to volunteer somewhere around the world. But first, he needs a haircut. “I’ve always wanted to volunteer at Vets Beyond Borders, but it’s been a matter of never having enough time to give so if I can raise money for them that the next best thing because by improving the health of animals in other countries you can also improve people’s health.” To donate go to https://give.everydayhero.com/au/dr-pete-is-getting-the-snip-no-it-s-not-what-you-think Previous articleWe will remember Next articleTrain race is on track Jin Hui The beauty of Olinda on display Open Gardens Victoria will open the gates to two picturesque Olinda gardens next month. The Gaythorpe garden and Eungella garden will open to the public... Kangaroo shot with arrow in Lysterfield Park Survival Day to honour First Nations People Victoria Police investigated after man dies in custody Rally for recycling Real Estate View © 2020 Mail News Group Pty Ltd. All rights reserved	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1457
__label__cc	0.545077	0.454923	Cover Reveal: MAYBE IN ANOTHER LIFE by Taylor Jenkins Reid! We’re dreaming of summer—feet in the sand, soaking up the sun, taking a dip in the pool—but what we’re most excited about this summer is the release of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s third novel, MAYBE IN ANOTHER LIFE (on sale July 7, 2015). While we (impatiently!) wait for the book, today we’re giving you a first look at the gorgeous cover! Plenty more information below… ABOUT MAYBE IN ANOTHER LIFE: At the age of twenty-nine, Hannah Martin still has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She has lived in six different cities and held countless meaningless jobs since graduating college, but on the heels of a disastrous breakup, she has finally returned to her hometown of Los Angeles. To celebrate her first night back, her best friend, Gabby, takes Hannah out to a bar—where she meets up with her high school boyfriend, Ethan. It’s just past midnight when Gabby asks Hannah if she’s ready to go. Ethan quickly offers to give her a ride later if she wants to stay. Hannah hesitates. What happens if she leaves with Gabby? What happens if she leaves with Ethan? In concurrent storylines, Hannah lives out the effects of each decision. Quickly, these parallel universes develop into surprisingly different stories with far-reaching consequences for Hannah and the people around her, raising questions like: Is anything meant to be? How much in our life is determined by chance? And perhaps most compellingly: Is there such a thing as a soul mate? Hannah believes there is. And, in both worlds, she believes she’s found him. Taylor Jenkins Reid is an author and essayist from Acton, Massachusetts. She is the author of Forever, Interruptedand After I Do. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Alex, and her dog, Rabbit. You can follow her on Twitter @TJenkinsReid. MAYBE IN ANOTHER LIFE by Taylor Jenkins Reid Atria Books/Washington Square Press Paperback \| 352 pages \| ISBN: 9781476776880 \| July 7, 2015 \| $16.00 eBook: Atria Books/Washington Square Press \| 352 pages \| ISBN: 9781476776897 \| July 7, 2015 \| $11.99 FIND TAYLOR ONLINE: http://www.taylorjenkinsreid.com/ PRE ORDER: Blio Review Round-Up Cover Reveal: MAYBE IN ANOTHER LIFE by Taylor Jenk... So excited for #ZodiacLegacy #Giveaway and Review: The Marrying Type by Laura ... Books in the Classroom with Yvonne #GIVEAWAY and Blog Tour stop for: A MEMORY OF VIOL... Books in the classroom with Yvonne: Maya and Fili... Review: The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spir... Review: Walk on the Wild Side by Nicholas Oldland... SheReads Blog Network: BOOKS OF WINTER Review: Th... Book Club Girl: The Other Woman by Rona Jaffe Blog Tour: Review: Love Bites by Rachel K. Burke... Q&A and Review: Did You Know That I Love You? by C... Highlight: The Lae Lae Collection Review: Cinderella's Secret Slipper by Alinka Rut... Blog Tour: Love Bites by Rachel K. Burke: Review Pumpkinheads Series Blog Tour Books in the Classroom with Yvonne: The Magic of M... Mimi's Adventures in Baking Blog Tour!	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1463
__label__cc	0.573315	0.426685	New Jersey Legal Pulse New Jersey Supreme Court Holds That Daubert Factors Apply to Evaluating Expert Testimony in Civil Cases Lauren E. O’Donnell On August 1, 2018, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that civil trial courts should look to the factors set forth in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993), in assessing the reliability of expert testimony. The opinion—In re: Accutane Litigation—adopted the Daubert factors, but specifically stopped short of declaring New Jersey a “Daubert jurisdiction.” In the early 1990s, the New Jersey Supreme Court shifted away from the “general acceptance” standard for testing the reliability of scientific expert testimony in civil cases enunciated in Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923). It instead endorsed a methodology-based approach. See Landrigan v. Celotex Corp., 127 N.J. 404, 414 (1992); Rubanick v. Witco Chem. Corp., 125 N.J. 421, 447 (1991). The Court reasoned that parties should be permitted to present novel scientific evidence of causation if the trial court acts as a rigorous gatekeeper when reviewing an expert’s reliability and ultimately finds that the expert’s reasoning and methodology are sound. Two years later, in Daubert, the United States Supreme Court also abandoned the “general acceptance” test in favor of a methodology-based approach that entrusted trial courts with the role of gatekeeper. Thus, beginning in the early 1990s, New Jersey state courts considered similar factors to those in Daubert when evaluating expert testimony. Despite these similarities, the New Jersey Supreme Court never formally adopted Daubert or endorsed the factors identified in Daubert for state trial courts to use when performing the gatekeeper role. In re: Accutane Litigation is a civil mass tort action in which the plaintiffs claim that Accutane, a prescription drug used to treat acne, caused Crohn’s disease, a gastrointestinal illness. A number of epidemiological studies have concluded that there is no causal relationship between Accutane and Crohn’s disease. The plaintiffs’ experts disputed the conclusions of those studies and claimed that Accutane can in fact cause Crohn’s disease. In seeking to exclude the plaintiffs’ expert testimony, the defendants challenged the methodology of plaintiffs’ experts as unreliable. The trial court ruled in favor of the defendants, excluding the plaintiffs’ expert testimony after finding that their methodology was unsound. The Appellate Division reversed, concluding that the plaintiffs’ experts employed a sound methodology and simply interpreted the data differently than the defendants’ experts. The Supreme Court held that the Appellate Division erred in reversing the trial court’s exclusion of the plaintiffs’ expert testimony. The Court reaffirmed that appellate courts must apply an abuse of discretion standard when assessing whether a trial court has properly admitted or excluded expert scientific testimony in a civil case. The Court ultimately concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the expert testimony because the trial court determined that the experts’ methodology was unsound after properly performing a robust analysis of the methodology used. The Court went on to clarify that in performing the gatekeeping role, trial courts should assess both the methodology that an expert uses to arrive at an opinion and the underlying data the expert uses in forming the opinion. Most notably, the Supreme Court declared that the following non-exhaustive and non-dispositive list of Daubert factors should be incorporated for use by New Jersey courts: whether the scientific theory can be, or at any time has been, tested; whether the scientific theory has been subjected to peer review and publication; whether there is any known or potential rate of error and whether there exist any standards for maintaining or controlling the technique’s operation; and whether the scientific theory is generally accepted in the scientific community. New Jersey’s formal adoption of the Daubert factors in civil matters will aid trial court judges in their role as the gatekeepers of scientific expert testimony. It will also provide counsel with issues to consider in retaining and working with experts. Counsel should evaluate their own experts’ methodology against the Daubert factors to protect against the risk that their experts’ opinions will be excluded. Similarly, counsel should refer to the Daubert factors as a roadmap in preparing to take and defend expert depositions, as well as preparing arguments for Rule 104 hearings which evaluate the admissibility of expert testimony. Author Blank Rome LLPPosted on August 6, 2018 August 6, 2018 Categories New Jersey Supreme Court DecisionsTags Accutane, admissibility of expert testimony, Daubert, expert testimony, gatekeeper Previous Previous post: How Video Game Mods Are Changing the Intellectual Property Game Next Next post: Meet Blank Rome’s 2018 Law360 Rising Stars A Paralegal Is Guilty of the Unauthorized Practice of Law by Preparing Documents for Litigation and Providing Legal Advice without Supervision by a Licensed New Jersey Attorney December 5, 2019 Personal Jurisdiction and Internet Transactions November 25, 2019 Hiring in New Jersey? Salary History Ban Sprouts in Garden State August 12, 2019 Class Decertified Where Vast Majority of Members Sustained No Ascertainable Loss April 29, 2019 “Obesity Alone” Is Not a Disability under the New Jersey Law against Discrimination April 18, 2019 Our New Jersey Practice Blank Rome’s Princeton office serves business clients across the State of New Jersey in a highly efficient, cost-effective manner. As trusted advisors, we are well-versed in solving the myriad legal matters and concerns that support the business objectives of our clients. Jonathan M. Korn Stephen M. Orlofsky Class Action Developments Commercial Litigation Developments Consumer Fraud Litigation District of New Jersey Decisions Employment Law Developments Intellectual Property Developments New Jersey Supreme Court Decisions Third Circuit Decisions U.S. Supreme Court Decisions White Collar Law Developments A Paralegal Is Guilty of the Unauthorized Practice of Law by Preparing Documents for Litigation and Providing Legal Advice without Supervision by a Licensed New Jersey Attorney Personal Jurisdiction and Internet Transactions Hiring in New Jersey? Salary History Ban Sprouts in Garden State Class Decertified Where Vast Majority of Members Sustained No Ascertainable Loss “Obesity Alone” Is Not a Disability under the New Jersey Law against Discrimination Stay Connected with Blank Rome View blankromellp’s profile on Twitter View ../company/blank-rome-llp’s profile on LinkedIn New Jersey Legal Pulse Create a website or blog at WordPress.com	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1466
__label__cc	0.655281	0.344719	Archdiocese of Newark Diocese of Metuchen Diocese of Trenton Raymond L. Cole Ordained: 1972 Pastor of St. Joseph Church in Hillsborough, NJ. Removal from active ministry announced 10/25/13 after allegation of abuse of a minor in late 1970s when he was associate pastor at St. Mary Parish in South Amboy. County prosecutor informed the diocese but will not file criminal charges due to Statute of Limitations. Review Board and retired investigator found allegation “not frivolous.” Cole denied the allegation. Matter referred to Vatican. Cole found not guilty by a church tribunal, composed of three priests from outside the diocese, in 11/15. Cole was planning to go to Guatemala to study Spanish, then return to the diocese to do Hispanic ministry. The information in this Attorney Advertising is provided by Jay Mascolo of the New Jersey-based law firm of Rebenack, Aronow & Mascolo, LLP, 111 Livingston Avenue New Brunswick, NJ 08901, (732) 247-3600, and Tom Vertetis of the Seattle, Washington law firm of Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC, 403 Columbia St., Suite 500, Seattle, Washington 98104, (206) 462-4334. The lawyers of Rebenack, Aronow & Mascolo, LLP and Tom Vertetis are licensed to practice law in New Jersey, but the other lawyers of Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC are not licensed to practice law in New Jersey. The two law firms have not formed a partnership, but are working together in accordance with applicable New Jersey law, court rules, and ethics requirements to represent abuse survivors given the likely change to New Jersey law for abuse survivors. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome, and no aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the Supreme Court of New Jersey. Please contact us if you have any questions. Copyright Rebenack, Aronow & Mascolo, LLP and Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC All Rights Reserved © 2019 Joseph J. Brennan Absalom Coutinho (Continuho)	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1467
__label__wiki	0.68908	0.68908	Fed cracks down on gift card fees The Federal Reserve announced final rules for gift cards Tuesday that the central bank says will help protect consumers from unexpected costs. The rules, which go into effect in August, limit the fees that issuers are allowed to charge on gift cards, including inactivity, dormancy and other service fees. Issuers will also be required to clearly state the terms and conditions associated with gift cards. Under the new rules, issuers will only be able to charge fees after a gift card or certificate has not been used for a year, and fees will be limited to one per month after that. In addition, the Fed said issuers cannot charge fees unless the consumer has been given "clear and conspicuous disclosure" about them. The rules will also extend expiration dates for gift cards to at least five years after the date of issuance, or five years after the date when funds were last loaded. Read the CNNMoney.com story Post by: CNNMoney.com staff reporter Ben Rooney soundoff (No Responses)	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1469
__label__wiki	0.631087	0.631087	Microsoft News Center India India Stories Global News Center Microsoft Hyderabad Campus Virtual Tour India Development Center Blog Why Microsoft Find photos and biographies of Microsoft India Leadership Team. Microsoft India Media Relations IndiaPR@microsoft.com Senior Leaders Anant Maheshwari Anant Maheshwari is President, Microsoft India. Anant leads Microsoft’s engagement with policy makers, customers, and business partners and is responsible for all product, solution, service and support offerings in India. At Microsoft, Anant works to make the company’s mission of empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, align with India’s inclusive growth agenda. He is committed to supporting government entities and organizations in India progress on their journey of digital transformation. Prior to Microsoft, Anant was the President of Honeywell, India, and led the growth of the company’s operations across all strategic business groups. At Honeywell, he progressed through multiple leadership roles across different business units in India and Asia. Prior to Honeywell, he was also associated with McKinsey & Company, where he worked with clients across multiple industries including telecom, IT and e-commerce, private equity, engineering equipment, automotive, steel and pharmaceuticals. Download photos of Anant Maheshwari. web.jpg \| print.jpg Solve math problems in a snap with Microsoft Math Solver New year, new browser – The new Microsoft Edge is out of preview and now available for download Microsoft’s commitment to sustainability Statement from Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1471
__label__cc	0.603516	0.396484	Rainforest Agriculture News In the rice-rich Mekong region, will husk briquettes take hold? by Lauren Crothers 28 August 2019 Sanu Kaji Shrestha was wandering along a Cypriot coastline 10 years ago, enjoying some downtime from a workshop he was leading on green energy technology, when he decided to collect… Logging road construction has surged in the Congo Basin since 2003 by John C. Cannon 24 June 2019 The length of roads in Congo Basin logging concessions has doubled since 2003, according to new research, raising concerns about the impacts of these incursions into the world’s second-largest bank… ’Livestock revolution’ triggered decline in global pasture: Report Globally, the land we use for pasture is contracting, according to a new report from the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank based in Oakland, California. The technical know-how also… Out on a limb: Unlikely collaboration boosts orangutans in Borneo by Nina Finley 12 June 2019 BUKIT BAKA BUKIT RAYA NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia -- In the heart of Indonesian Borneo, a dwindling population of orangutans is getting a new lease on life thanks to a group of… Chinese banks risk supporting soy-related deforestation, report finds by John C. Cannon 30 May 2019 The homegrown banks that back the flood of soy into China have with little knowledge of the deforestation their funding is potentially supporting, according to the nonprofit CDP, an international… Altered forests threaten sustainability of subsistence hunting by Mongabay.com 29 May 2019 The way humans have changed the forests of Central and South America may be making it impossible for subsistence hunters to continue their way of life, according to two conservation… ’Green’ bonds finance industrial tree plantations in Brazil Investments known as green bonds that are intended to slow climate change can finance the operation of tree plantations in ways that have few, if any, environmental benefits, according to… EU holds the key to stop the ‘Notre Dame of forests’ from burning (commentary) by Claire Wordley 30 April 2019 Last week, a tearful Greta Thunberg begged the EU to act on the climate and ecological crises we are facing. “It’s OK if you refuse to listen to me,” she… Scientists urge overhaul of the world’s parks to protect biodiversity by John C. Cannon 11 April 2019 Countries should concentrate on outcomes instead of actions when they set aside areas for parks and reserves to shore up the loss of biodiversity, according to a group of scientists.… Tapirs could be key in helping degraded rainforests bounce back by Mongabay.com 20 March 2019 Tapirs may help rainforests recover after destructive human use and increase the amount of carbon they hold, new research has found. The study, based in the Brazilian Amazon, found that… Investors warn soy giants of backlash over deforestation in South America by James Fair 18 March 2019 The world’s leading companies involved in the soy trade are being challenged to come clean about their impact on the environment and to completely eliminate deforestation from their operations. The… Europe, in bid to phase out palm biofuel, leaves fans and foes dismayed by Hans Nicholas Jong 15 March 2019 JAKARTA — The European Commission has officially approved a measure to phase out palm oil-based biofuel by 2030. But while the move has angered major palm oil producers, it hasn’t… New maps show where humans are pushing species closer to extinction by John C. Cannon 15 March 2019 Animals around the globe are losing ground to farming and ranching, and their numbers are dwindling at the hands of human hunters. But the question of where to direct precious… European Parliament to vote on timber legality agreement with Vietnam UPDATE (19 March 2019): The European Parliament voted March 12 to consent to the VPA with Vietnam by a vote of 632-14 with 23 abstentions. The resolution, including the explanatory… EU action plan on tropical deforestation must be beefed up, or it will fail (commentary) by Sam Lawson 8 February 2019 Through its insatiable consumption of agro-commodities like soy, palm oil, and beef, the EU is contributing to a global deforestation crisis. After stalling for years while it carried out study… House of the Royal Lady Bee: Maya revive native bees and ancient beekeeping by Jennifer Kennedy, Richard Arghiris 31 January 2019 Engineered by insect intelligence, the hive was a convoluted mesh of waxy secretions and labyrinthine cavities. Worker bees streamed through its recesses. Bulbous pods brimmed with fresh honey. It was… Saving the forests of the Congo Basin: Q&A with author Meindert Brouwer by Mongabay.com 23 January 2019 It was an ambitious project from the start: to capture the Congo Basin rainforest in the pages of a book. Stretching across an area larger than Saudi Arabia, the world’s… Peccary’s disappearance foreboding for other Mesoamerican wildlife by Mongabay 20 December 2018 The white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), a hairy, pig-like mammal that once lived throughout the forests of Central and South America, now only skitters around in 13 percent of its former… Stop importing illegal timber, PNG activists tell China at APEC Summit by John C. Cannon 22 November 2018 China’s imports of timber from Papua New Guinea (PNG) are winnowing away the country’s forests, according to a group of NGOs, researchers and landowners. Without action by Chinese leaders, they… Deforested, degraded land restoration a top priority for African leaders by Mongabay.com 19 November 2018 African leaders came together on Nov. 13 to back the restoration of hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of degraded ecosystems ahead of the start of the U.N. Biodiversity Conference.…	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1472
__label__cc	0.580037	0.419963	A Spartan welcome UNCG students enjoy 2015 Rawkin’ Welcome Week festivities at "The Rawk," UNCG's campus message board located near Jackson Library. This year's Rawkin' Welcome Week kicks off on Aug. 17 and runs through Aug. 30. UNCG kicks off its annual Rawkin’ Welcome Week on Wednesday, and this year’s festivities are packed with a variety of campus events, Spartan spirit and a whole lot of fun. From a massive dance party – known as Party Like a Rawkstar – in the Elliott University Center to UNCG’s annual Spartan Service Day, Rawkin’ Welcome Week is an opportunity for all students, especially freshmen, to meet new people, have fun and get connected on campus and in the community. The 14-day event series runs through Tuesday, Aug. 30. UNCG students form a dance circle at the 2015 Party Like a Rawkstar event. “It’s an event that everyone should look forward to,” said Joseph Graham, a senior English major and president of UNCG’s Student Government Association. “It’s a celebration, and it’s also a reminder to make this year better than our last and to strive for academic excellence.” For the first time in Rawkin’ Welcome Week history, UNCG will host a campus-wide scavenger hunt for students using the Scavify app. From Aug. 19 through Aug. 27, students are invited to participate in a variety of activities, such as taking selfies with Spiro or checking in at different campus events. Prizes will be awarded to the top four winners. Other key Rawkin’ Welcome Week events include: The Chancellor’s New Student Convocation, a requirement for all incoming students, at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 21, at UNCG Auditorium Fall Kick-Off, a student organization expo, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 23, on College Avenue Opening Carnival, from 5 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 27, on the Quad lawn “There’s something for everyone to do,” said Austin McKim, interim assistant director of New Student Transitions & First Year Experience. “Rawkin’ Welcome Week is a way to immediately feel at home at UNCG.” On Saturday, Aug. 20, an out-of-state student reception will be held at 4 p.m. at Jackson Library to help students from across the country get accustomed to life at UNCG. Additionally, walk-in advising sessions and other workshops will be held throughout the two weeks to help students prepare academically for the start of the semester. “The start of a new academic year is a chance to hit the refresh button on your goals and to set expectations for yourself,” Graham said. “There’s no better time to celebrate our college experience and what is to come.” Want to learn more? Access the full calendar of events online at newstudents.uncg.edu/yfy/rww/ or via the free UNCG Guides app, and share your Rawkin’ Welcome Week photos on social media using the hashtags #uncgrww and #back2uncg. Story by Alyssa Bedrosian, University Communications TAGS: Campus & Community, Current Students, News & Events,	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1474
__label__wiki	0.658016	0.658016	Nigeria’s Atomic Energy Commission Chairman dies in Gas explosion Editorial Staff 2 weeks ago 1 min read Reports sighted by NewsGhana24 indicates Nigeria’s Atomic Energy Commission Chairman has died in gas explosion. The shocking news of the death of Simon Mallam Kaduna on Saturday afternoon has broken the hearts of many Nigerians and the government. Until his demise, Simon Mallam was the Chairman of the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC). BREAKING: Hotel cleaner who stole millionaire’s sperm from a used condom won child support battle Reports show a gas shop in front of Sabon Tasha Total Tank station in Kaduna caught fire claiming an unknown number of lives. Eyewitness at the scene of the gory gas explosion said that Mallam, 64, was one of the trapped persons in the calamity. Throughout the years he has specialized in nuclear physics, health physics, instruments, and dosimetry. Other specializations he had were in the area of solid-state physics, life sciences and radiation application, as well as in the safety and management of radioactive waste. He was acting director of the Center for Energy Research and Training (CERT), Zari, on several occasions, from the year 1999 to 2006. READ: Pornhub denies offering Deyjah Harris $1 million to lose her virginity He specializes in biophysics, medical physics, the environment radiation, as nuclear safety and waste management among others. He was the national coordinator of efforts aimed at improving Nigeria’s radioactive waste management system. Nigeria’s Atomic Energy Commission Chairman’s death is seen as a big blow to the Nigerian people. Previous: Trump’s huge Iran gamble will have lasting impact Next: Iran Flies Red Flag “Harsh Revenge” on Jamkaran Mosque Weinstein charged with sexual assault in Los Angeles 2 min read Editorial Staff 2 weeks ago Iran Flies Red Flag “Harsh Revenge” on Jamkaran Mosque 2 min read Trump’s huge Iran gamble will have lasting impact 2 min read BREAKING: Iraqi president resigns after rejecting prime minister nominee 2 min read	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1475
__label__wiki	0.556893	0.556893	Telecommunications/Technology HP challenges Cisco in business networking systems arena May 13, 20110380 Marius Haas, senior vice president for HP’s Networking division Las Vegas, NV. — Hewlett Packard took direct aim at rival Cisco with the unveiling in this city of its new unified HP FlexNetwork product, designed to enable large client companies to physically and virtually manage their networks through what the Palo Alto-based firm dubs “a single pane of glass” access point. HP used this year’s Interop 2011 conference as the backdrop for its announcement before a large press contingent — including 22 reporters from Latin America, where cloud computing and next-generation systems are gaining ground. “Customers are looking for vendors driving a systemic change in networking to eliminate complexity, improve agility and increase performance,” said Marius Haas, senior vice president for HP’s Networking division. “HP’s new modular campus switches outperform Cisco’s in-class products head-to-head in each category, while HP’s single-pane-of-glass management tool alone does what it takes Cisco 30 different tools to do.” HP first introduced its unified networking products about 18 months ago with software and switches that enabled client companies to start small and move up as they needed larger infrastructure, said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president for HP’s enterprise servers, storage and networking division. “Because of a lack of competition, innovation has been slow and customers have paid the price for that,” Donatelli said during a news conference Monday. “Innovation is critical, especially because businesses are changing at a rate we’ve never seen before.” One of the key features of HP’s FlexNetwork suite of products is that it open-based, thus allowing client companies the ability to integrate different software platforms for video and mobile computing– an element that is both convenient and cost-efficient, Haas said. Coupled with the FlexNetwork launch, HP also unveiled the latest version of its IMC software solution designed to manage the entire HP Networking portfolio as well as more than 2,600 network devices from more than 35 vendors, of which more than 1,000 are from Cisco. Benefit to Puerto Rico HP’s newly unveiled FlexNetwork service caters to public and private sector organizations looking to grow, but that cannot afford to start from scratch. Carlos Meza, Americas product manager for HP Networking and Dave Donatelli, executive vice president for HP's enterprise servers In the case of Puerto Rico, where central and municipal governments are looking to digitalize their services, such a system would be the right fit, Carlos Meza, Americas product manager for HP Networking, told News is my Business, the only media organization from Puerto Rico invited to the event. “FlexNetwork is designed precisely to change the rules of the game when it comes to networking. In the case of Puerto Rico, HP is contributing by talking to municipalities traditionally tied to legacy systems about the abilities that they could have through the integration of wireless switching, routers and other equipment that will help them grow and reach more clients without it representing a prohibitive expense.” That’s not to say, however, that HP’s new tools are inexpensive. Depending on the size of the business and the transactions it must oversee on a daily basis, a FlexNetwork system can start at $38,000 when it becomes available during the second half of the year. The information and documents contained in “News is my Business” are property of this site. You may not copy, distribute or use this information without the express written permission of this site’s creator, unless it is for personal or educational purposes. Fees for commercial or for-profit use apply. ProMed Molded invests $5.4M to expand Dorado operation Local telecom provider Optivon deploys large-scale Ethernet network Hey Buddy!, I found this information for you: "HP challenges Cisco in business networking systems arena". Here is the website link: https://newsismybusiness.com/hp-challenges-cisco-in-business-networking-systems-arena/. Thank you.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1476
__label__wiki	0.501752	0.501752	Illinois Central College NCES College Navigator search plug-in The NCES College Navigator search plug-in provides the ability to directly execute basic College Navigator searches from a web browser. The plug-in uses OpenSearch technologies, which are supported by Mozilla Firefox 2+, Internet Explorer 7+ and Google Chrome web browsers. Install NCES College Navigator search plug-in ( Español ) When using the browser search plug-in, in addition to the existing Name of School search function you can also enter state and jurisdiction abbreviations, for example: – "dc" returns all schools in the District of Columbia, "institute pr" returns all schools with "institute" in their name in Puerto Rico, "community md" returns all schools with "community" in their name in Maryland, "community dc md va" returns all schools with "community" in their name in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. You can also combine a search with a ZIP code, which defaults to the 5-mile search distance: – "64101" (a Kansas City ZIP code) returns all schools within 5 miles of ZIP code 64101, including schools in Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KS, "mo 64101" returns schools within 5 miles of ZIP 64101 in the state of Missouri. "tech mo 64101" returns schools within 5 miles of ZIP 64101 in the state of Missouri with "tech" in their name. If you know the exact IPEDS ID of a school, you can also search by the ID. Note: The order of the search terms does not matter, although if you enter multiple ZIP codes only the last ZIP code you enter will be used.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1478
__label__cc	0.569256	0.430744	Yes! Films About Black Writers Do Exist (Part Two) Posted on November 9, 2014 July 9, 2018 by Kalisha at negression.com Where would I be if these films had not come along from the time I was 20 until I was 25…? Watch Love Jones (1997) When I was about 20, Love Jones took America by storm. Nia Long and Larenz Tate were the unofficial, classy Negro Princess and Prince many of us had grown up watching. However, their collaboration on this film was something else. She is an old-school 30mm camera photographer and he is a writer: of journalism, spoken word poetry and the novel he just can not seem to get right. The story was not about being Black, being a man, or being a woman, or even being in love. Love Jones is a movie about being an artist, about being a natural creative organism who is compelled to deliver fantasy and altered perspectives to a frustrated world, and how the disappointments and shocks and lifelong insecurity of that choice seeps out into every area of your life until you surrender to that choice. Next, as far as modern romances go, Love Jones is in a class all by itself. By its finale, with two beautiful stars kissing in the rain, any jaded filmgoer can fall in love with Hollywood all over again. Much of the film was shot in the Hyde Park neighborhood where I went to school at University of Chicago; buying a record at Dr. Wax on 53rd Street was never the same after I saw Darius Lovehall chase Nina Mosley through it. Real-life poets Reginald Gibson and Sonia Sanchez wrote the poetry its stars performed in Love Jones, shot in real spoken word poetry venue and Black bohemian spots throughout Chicago–adding to the near-haunting authenticity which keeps this film a constant favorite today. Watch Slam! (1998) Starring real-life poets Sonja Sohn and Saul Williams, Slam! is the story of a Black female activist and her brief but passionate love affair with her former imprisoned student who has a gift for poetry. Considered a grittier, if not “hood,” version of Love Jones, it is possible the film never took off as popularly because the two leads really are writers most known for helming the spoken word/performance poetry revivals. They actually perform in the film, as their characters meet in prison but bond most strongly on the D.C. poetry scene. Playing Ray Joshua and Lauren Bell, Williams and Sohn display fiery chemistry onscreen as Lauren plays the Black Everywoman role: she is a teacher in the detention center where Ray goes after a drug deal gone bad, and she is not about to let him dismiss his linguistic talents even as he faces several years in prison. When he is released on bail, he really should be working on his case and defense…but hey, there is always time to pull out the notebook in order to write a poem. The film’s most touching moments occur outside of the prison where they meet, and on the streets of D.C. where their first date is a street festival. Later they share the stage with other well-known poets in real-life at a coffee house event truly authentic to the craft of spoken word. These are grown and sexy people, flawed but optimistic and hopeful. Slam! is a perfect display of Black writers who do not wish to write or want to write, but absolutely need to write. The Best Man Watch The Best Man (1999) The Best Man shows the background and behind-the-scenes genesis of all those wildly popular Black romance novels and movies sprung forth from Waiting to Exhale‘s mid-1990’s success. In them, dramatic Black folks are educated and rocking-and-rolling and fancy and bling-bling and all-that-and-a-bag-of chips and falling all over themselves in love or war. Basically, the same melodrama Alice Walker and Toni Morrison write about- only now it gets its hair done every week, makes six figures, belongs to a fraternity or sorority and drives a Benz. In this one, Harper Stewart (Taye Diggs) is a writer living in Chicago. He is celebrating his book’s selection for Oprah’s Book Club. But first things first: he and his beautiful girlfriend (Sanaa Lathan) have to travel to D.C. for his best friend’s wedding. He is the best man. And his best friend just happens to be the pro-football player Lance Sullivan (Morris Chestnut), whose fiancé Stewart once slept with. Oh! The best-selling book is pretty much all about this secret. The hijinks go on from there. Beyond the utterly beautiful fantasy wedding filmmaker Malcolm D. Lee creates and the genius comedic timing of all the players, the all-Black cast is a who’s who of Hollywood: Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, Terrance Howard, Monica Calhoun and more. Of course, the movie confronts that question any writer must face from all he or she knows: “Is the book about me?” And, it tackles the mental breakdowns, broken relationships and flared tempers which can come when and if the answer to that question is “Yes.” Most writers will say the premier of any book, based on fact or fiction, is a stressful event where words on a page become real life in the world now–and you can not turn back. Even if the story is wholly made up its details will bear some resemblance to places and moments and experiences the writer knows in life as well as situations anyone who knows the writer may have experienced, hence that “the persons, situations, blah blah blah in this book are fictional and any resemblance is coincidental” disclaimer. This movie was so brilliant at capturing what that means for not only the writer, but the people who love him or her, that its 2013 sequel was even more commercially successful than its original. Watch Finding Forrester (2000) If you can look past the obvious “privileged White soul saved by humble and Christ-figured Black Negro” thematic, Finding Forrester is actually a brilliant movie about the non-glamorous craft of writing. Despite having a mostly-white cast, a friend pointed out to me that not even this film was included on Flavorwire’s recent list of the 50 Best Films About Writers. And that is a shame, because the movie features a balanced and even portrait of a young writer emerging in youth and an elderly writer honing the craft unto death. And, any movie about a black boy named Jamal is one I want to see. Sean Connery plays a reclusive misanthrope struggling to write his final great novel from his Bronx apartment. The author, William Forrester, randomly meets Jamal Wallace, who is gifted in basketball but involved with the wrong crowd. Under peer pressure to taunt Forrester, Jamal sneaks into his home and is snatched into a bond with the older man. Forrester’s own frustration with writing and regrets from his life force him to push Jamal into not only writing but emotionally affirming him. From private school acceptance to a writing contest to a heart-wrenching ending, Finding Forrester always makes me want to go give some kids a notebook and a pencil. And, like Forrester did to start the bond with Jamal, that is exactly what I do when I am teaching and they act up. That simple. Watch Brown Sugar (2002) Here, Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan reunite as lovers the way everyone wishes Nia Long and Larenze Tate would break down to do. This time, she is the one in the couple who is the writer–and he is the one who must cope with the chronic neurosis and overwhelmed work life and constant deadline and “I’m crazy!” of that. Sidney is the new editor-in-chief of hip-hop magazine XXL, and Dre is her best friend…supposedly. But then Dre is about to marry a tough-as-nails entertainment lawyer, and Sidney can marry her longtime boyfriend who wants to take their relationship to the next step. Real-life married couple Nicole Ari Parker and Boris Kodjoe play these two foils who force Sidney and Dre to re-examine intentions to each other. We see Sidney at work where, as any journalist will tell you, the words on the page seem to be the last things she has to worry about. She is chasing freelance writers for story revisions, dealing with cantankerous and fussy celebrities, and trying to sell her chosen content to not only her bosses but the public. And, she is also trying to have a real life. Any writer can tell you the role is not a 9 to 5, or even an 8 to 6, or even a Monday through Friday, or even a work-from-home, or even an every other weekend off. It is all day, every day, on your mind even when you are not paying it any mind. And for this reason, Sidney operates as the Black woman’s Carrie Bradshaw: trying to meet that deadline, but get it out of her mind just long enough to fall in love and maybe even enjoy some lovemaking, with her boyfriend or her best friend or anybody. If only she can close the laptop. Have negression waiting in your inbox: Subscribe Today. Twitter \| Pinterest \| Kalisha.com Spark conversation... Posted in Black Writers, Film, Writers, WritingTagged #NegressionSuggestsFilm, Brown Sugar, Finding Forrester, Love Jones, Slam!, The Best Man Yes! Films About Black Writers Do Exist (Part One) My new novel SOLEMN debuts in Hermeneutic Chaos Journal… 4 thoughts on “Yes! Films About Black Writers Do Exist (Part Two)” Candace Habte says: I loved all of these movies, but I could watch Love Jones again and again (and have lol) Kalisha says: Thanks Candace! Yeah, we want to love all things equally but I think Love Jones is hands-down favorite for most of us all the time! Peace and Blessings, Kalisha First – you truly deserve the highest compliments – My music director was touched by your presentation. Yes, you are with great respect Black Writers do Exist – It is deep history – Keep up with your extraordinary work! I look forward to seeing you on my post / blogs, it means a lot to me. May God Bless you! Thank you! I appreciate you reading and appreciating these others’ works, so there are footsteps to follow in. I admire your blog as well and the great work you are doing with your websites, as we all can learn from it! Peace and Blessings, Kalisha Your thoughts are valued and appreciated. Cancel reply	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1481
__label__cc	0.71268	0.28732	January 24, 2017 January 24, 2017 / rachelhinda / Leave a comment Like many others, I’m inspired but skeptical of the extraordinary, million-person turn out for the Women’s March on Washington and sister marches throughout the world. As we approached the massive Washington, DC demonstration, a friend asked me, ‘what does marching like this really do? Isn’t it just letting off steam?’ I guess that’s one way of looking at it. But a big march shows the world how much steam there is. Considering we just elected an unqualified, insensitive buffoon to lead our country, showing the world how many people oppose his agenda means a lot. That being said, I hear the critiques. I’m concerned that symbols of the march, like the pink pussy hats felt marginalizing to some trans-folk and people of color. I’m concerned that the march’s platform doesn’t mention war. I’m concerned that like the occupy movement, this movement may fizzle and folks will go home, never to find opportunities for engagement. So before our opportunity for creating the society we want winds up lost in a pile of pink dryer lint, I’ve put together the following list to help those of us who are fired up and ready to go to put all that energy somewhere. Here’s stuff you can do, right this moment to make change, wherever you are, whatever your capacity! Decolonize your mind. Get yourself a real education that helps you live as a truly free human being. Reject the education that we are offered that bogs us down in standardized tests and lectures about preparing to be good worker bees with marketable skills. While all of us would probably say that we are against oppressions such as misogyny and racism, what no one ever tells you is how deeply we internalize these negative, divisive ideas from society. Every aspect of our lives, from our relationships in love and the workplace to our beliefs about what we can accomplish in life, are informed by racism, misogyny, heterosexism, Islamophobia and orientalism. Even those of us with the best of intentions can be racist and sexist. We can hurt others and ourselves without even meaning to. It does not matter if you come from a very liberal place like Brattleboro or Whidbey Island and grew up basket weaving while singing liberation songs of the civil rights movement. You too can perpetuate racism. I have been the white person who responds with defensiveness when called out on racism and I’ve learned that this does not help anything. Instead, try and sit with the criticism for a moment before responding, even though it is hard to hear, even if you think it is unfair. Educate yourself by reading writers of color like Baldwin, Lorde, Assata Shakur, Richard Wright, bell hooks, Alice Walker, Frantz Fanon, Angela Davis and many, many others. Listen to critiques of capitalism by Naomi Klein and Arundhati Roy. Read critical race theory and queer theory. If you don’t like reading on your own, invite some friends to a book club once a month or once a quarter. Know your elected officials up and down ballot and contact them. If you think you are going to bring about a progressive revolution by voting for Jill Stein every four years, think again. One Capitol Hill staffer recommends (and I agree) that you follow your state and local elected officials on social media. Make sure you know their names. Make sure you write them letters, schedule meetings with them about local issues you care about, campaign for them (or for their opponent). Pay attention and hold them accountable. People who run for office locally tend to be among those who run for higher office later on, so knowing them now can mean you have access to them later, when they are serving on Capitol Hill or at higher levels in state government. Also, run for something yourself. Because the past forty years in U.S. politics have been mired in the personal scandals of elected officials instead of their policy commitments, good people are discouraged from running for office. Do it anyway if you feel called to. If you are a solid, progressive candidate, we will have your back. Check out https://www.runforsomething.net/ , an initiative to get millenials to run in down ballot races. Green your life. Have you thought about how much waste you create? How much meat you eat? Where your vegetables come from? How much plastic you throw away? Whether you could bike or walk instead of driving? What kind of soap you use to clean your home? By making minor changes around your home, you can help to slow the impact of climate change. And remember, something is better than nothing. Here are some tips to get you started. Engage Locally. My amazing cousin Sarah Kane cares passionately about the environment. So, in her hometown of Tacoma, WA, she and a group of committed folk worked to pass a plastic bag ordinance. Now, retail establishments in Tacoma don’t give out plastic bags for free anymore which cuts down on litter and reduces the waste caused by single use shopping bags. An org that does local work in DC and Maryland that I really love is Jews United For Justice (JUFJ), where I served as a Jeremiah Fellow. If you are in DC or Maryland, you have access to paid sick leave and paid family leave at your job because of the work of this organization. JUFJ is currently working on several fair housing initiatives and fighting for a $15 minimum wage, among other things. Get involved in these campaigns, make friends with your neighbors, and make the community you live in now the community you want. Engage globally. The United States is a large country flanked by two oceans. For this reason, many of us don’t travel to other countries and don’t speak another language. This results in U.S. citizens not fully understanding the impact our decisions have on the rest of the world. Go to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, or Latin America and learn about the history of U.S. involvement in those regions. Learn about the disastrous human cost of our foreign policy and corporate greed. Remember that who you vote for in the U.S. and whether you choose to engage your representatives, senators, and president has an enormous impact on the lives of people around the globe. Did you zone out watching CNN’s coverage of that trade bill last year? Does Syria confuse you? Do the names Allende and Mosaddegh mean nothing to you? Are you irritated when people start yelling about Israel-Palestine? Familiarize yourself with the world, learn some basic geography even, and you could wind up changing it. This could be the start of something important. The election of Donald Trump was a jolt, certainly, but now we have an opportunity to move further than we ever have. Let’s make the most of what we’ve got right here and right now. And let’s keep getting into the streets! December 8, 2016 / rachelhinda / Leave a comment Friends, please check out my latest piece in the Jewish Daily Forward: The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act is the Opposite of What Jews and Muslims Need Now November 28, 2016 November 29, 2016 / rachelhinda / Leave a comment Since the election, my thoughts have been coming in a jumble. So I’ve started a little column on my website that I call my soapbox. It is a weekly mix of the personal and the political in this frenetic and frightening but exhilarating moment. 1. I am pleased to see ADL take a stand against Islamophobia and pleased with their new CEO committing to ‘register’ Muslim if a registry were created. But I’ve watched for fifteen years as ADL has tacitly nudged on Islamophobia in America in the name of protecting Jews and Israel, which makes their recent decisions seem sort of shallow and politically expedient. Abe Foxman’s deeply hurtful statements about the Islamic center in lower Manhattan were not lost on the American Muslim community six years ago. (Mr. Foxman said that no Islamic center should be built near ground zero for the sake of “sensitivity to the victims”, as though there were no Muslim victims and no daylight between the perpetrators of the attacks and Islam. As far as I can tell, no apology has been issued to the American Muslim community.) Nor were their ‘Top Ten Anti-Israel Organizations’ blacklists, which repeated unfounded allegations and outright falsehoods about American Muslim organizations and which still appears on their website. Their constant interventions into the material support cases of the early 2000s resulted in the criminalization of Islamic charities and cast an unfair pall of suspicion over every Muslim in the country who supported charitable works in Palestine. I know Mr. Greenblatt is not Mr. Foxman and that the organization has new leadership and I’ll be fair to them. But they will have to do significant tshuva to get on the side of right and shake off their past ugliness. They should start by ending their facilitation of partnerships between American police departments and the Israeli military, in the first instance. 2. Islamophobic Jews like David Horowitz, Rabbi David Eliezrie, and Mort Klein rarely see their place within the Jewish communal tent questioned. A recent piece in The Forward asked sincerely whether pro-Trump Jews would be able to take their rightful place in synagogues across the country now that liberal Jews are out in force against their candidate. Meanwhile, millions of dollars are spent to paint Jews like me as outsiders, self-haters, and fringe lunatics. They do everything they can to deracinate me and other Jews because of our support for Palestinian human rights. At this moment, the mainstream Jewish community needs to reckon with this. The community is fine with Islamphobes who sidle up to alt-right antisemites but refuses to rent space to JVP. What will it say about us if we allow this dynamic to continue? 3. We need to undo the redlines in the Jewish community. We need to talk about the issues that divide us, not shun those with dissenting views. The fact is that we can’t have a productive and meaningful debate about Israel-Palestine in the Jewish community and this imperils us more than we realize. We avoid the subject, we avoid points of view we find too challenging, and we lob personal attacks at those who don’t share our views. I believe this is because we are too deeply enmeshed in our inherited trauma to listen to the viewpoints of Palestinians and their allies. Making healthy progress in this area means confronting the places that scare us and making space for the stuff we’re sweeping under the rug. 4. Antisemitism should be taken as seriously as any other form of oppression. It functions less acutely than oppression based on race, gender and sexuality in the contemporary American moment, but pretending it just vanished after the conclusion of WWII is ridiculous. The rise of the alt-right shows that antisemitism is still a tool of the powerful and that its antidote is aligning with other struggles for justice. Standing up for others in this moment, specifically Arabs and Muslims, Latinx, LGBTQ, and Native communities, means there will be others to stand up for us. 5. Of course there is antisemitism on the left, but the left I am part of is more committed to eradicating bigotry than the center or the right, certainly. And while the left is not infallible—we internalize racism, misogyny, antisemitism, and the rest of it as much as anyone else in this society does—the richest discussions I’ve had about antisemitism have taken place in these spaces. I’m hearing a lot of discussion in broad strokes about antisemitism on the left and antisemitism in the BDS movement. Speaking as someone who has spent considerable time in both left and pro-Palestinian spaces over the course of thirteen years, I can say I have NEVER been asked to check my Jewish identity at the door. I have never lied about being Jewish in social movement spaces and everyone who worked with me in Palestine knew I was Jewish. Organizers in the BDS movement are some of the most deeply principled people I know. The Palestinians I’ve worked with are extraordinarily resilient in the face of obstacles I will never have to face. They are people who live their values, who sacrifice time and personal ambition to do the work necessary to keep Palestinians on their land, to elevate their voices, and to refute the utterly baseless lies told about them in the media. They are the people who have held me when I felt weak, angry, frustrated, and isolated. Please don’t give into baseless suspicion about them and their motives. 6. Our Jewish community is dealing with some serious unhealed trauma because of the European pogroms of the early 20th century, which led to many of our ancestors coming here and culminated in the Nazi Holocaust. It also led to Zionism and Israel’s creation. These events have left us with open wounds and there are those in our community who make a living off of rubbing salt into them. The pro-Israel advocacy community uses any and all opportunities to paint those who disagree with it as antisemites. They are manipulating our emotions and commitment to our community and heritage. They are guilting us into staying silent about the oppression of Palestinians. And we respond like scared rabbits, like white people who clutch their bags when a black person enters the subway car. The red lines they have created result in us making decisions every day not to stand with Palestinians and other people of color in meaningful ways. Let’s commit to stop guilting and shaming, only honoring our diverse experiences and facing the things that make us uneasy. This is a frightening time, but one with tremendous opportunity. It’s time to rise to the occasion. March 5, 2015 March 5, 2015 / rachelhinda / Leave a comment Apricot Custard Hamantaschen with Yeast Dough Folks, I know I’m a bit late posting, but in the event that a few of you are still home baking your mishloach manot, or if you are hosting seudah tomorrow and you are just not that into serving coconut cheesecake hamantashen or savory goat cheese hamantaschen or goji berry with superfood powder hamantaschen, this blog post is for you. This time of year comes around and I crave old fashioned, traditional hamantaschen with filling of poppy, apricot, prune or fig. Anything else feels like guitars in the synagogue on Friday night; forced and doesn’t help me connect to tradition. However, I have tasted a few ‘traditional’ hamantaschen in my time that were not fit to tile the bathroom floor. The filling was too acidic or too sickly sweet. The dough was too thick, too crumbly, and just not delicious. So, perhaps my favorite early springtime cookie needs a bit of a progressive touch. Like Judaism, the humble hamantasch needs careful updating so as to meet the needs of our modern life and connect to the tradition of our ancestors. Here is the best I can muster. A batch consists of 18 cookies, for life, of course!! Yeast Dough 2 1/4 tsps of active dry yeast 1/4 cup of steamy hot water 1/4 cup of cream or half and half 2 tbsps of sugar half a stick (1/4 cup) of butter 1/4 package of philly cream cheese 2 1/2 cups of flour splash of vanilla Apricot preserves (store bought) Custard (you can buy Kozy shack flan or something similar or do the home made version) 2 cups of heavy cream Directions for baking the custard: put cream into a saucepan and begin to heat. Open the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into cream, add bean to mixture and bring the whole thing to a boil. Turn off the heat and cover for ten minutes. combine egg yolks and sugar with a whisk until the yolks turn lemony yellow. Then, temper the cream mixture into the egg mixture, a little at a time so as not to scramble. Bake for forty minutes at 325 and then chill for at least an hour. Directions for dough: using a stand mixer, combine yeast and steamy water. Let proof for five minutes. Add milk and the first third of the flour (like 3/4 of a cup). mix together until well combined. Add butter, sugar, and cream cheese and mix for one minute, then add another 3/4 cup of flour. Add the egg so the mixture is too liquidy again, add vanilla, mix for a minute and then add 3/4 of a cup of flour. Add the last 1/4 cup of flour and knead with the paddle for five minutes (you may have to pull it off the paddle a few times to get it just right. Stick the dough in a dark cabinet for an hour until it doubles. Take it out and punch it down. Directions for constructing the cookies: Roll the dough nice and thin, to 1/8 of an inch. Remember that it is still going to puff in the oven. Take your favorite coffee mug and make three or four inch rounds. Fill with 1/2 tsp of custard and some preserves on top. Pinch the ends tightly into a triangle and make the center hole smaller than you think it should be. Ice water on your finger tips will secure the seam. Refrigerate your cookies for at least five minutes, then bake at 375 for twelve minutes. Turn the oven off and open it a crack. Let the cookies sit in the warm oven for another minute or so, then put on the counter to cool. Chag sameach!! January 30, 2015 July 12, 2016 / rachelhinda / Leave a comment This week we read of how the recently freed Israelites come upon a stream but they could not drink from it. Why? The text vaguely states ‘because they are bitter.’ Here is the verse: וַיָּבֹאוּ מָרָתָה–וְלֹא יָכְלוּ לִשְׁתֹּת מַיִם מִמָּרָה כִּי מָרִים הֵם (Ex 15:23). The Hebrew here could potentially yield two meanings as there is a dangling participle. JPS translates the Hebrew to mean that the people could not drink from the waters because they (the waters) are bitter. However, the Hebrew could easily be translated in a far more interesting way. The Baal Shem Tov reads this verse to state that the Israelites could not drink the water because they (the Israelites) are bitter. The Israelites were unable to shake off the suffering of slavery so easily, even as they knew their terrible experience of oppression had ended, because they saw that God had parted the sea. They, like so many victims of abuse and trauma, were unable to trust, to enjoy life giving water that they needed to sustain themselves. This reading makes sense, because the text makes it clear that these ancient people really were committed to living comfortable lives as slaves and had serious trouble seeing the miracle of their liberation. Check this verse out: כִּי טוֹב לָנוּ עֲבֹד אֶת-מִצְרַיִם מִמֻּתֵנוּ בַּמִּדְבָּר (Ex 14:12); or this one, after God parts the sea! מִי-יִתֵּן מוּתֵנוּ בְיַד-יְהוָה בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם בְּשִׁבְתֵּנוּ עַל-סִיר הַבָּשָׂר בְּאָכְלֵנוּ לֶחֶם לָשֹׂבַע: כִּי-הוֹצֵאתֶם אֹתָנוּ אֶל-הַמִּדְבָּר הַזֶּה לְהָמִית אֶת-כָּל-הַקָּהָל הַזֶּה בָּרָעָב (Ex 16:3). This small verse give us tremendous insight into the way human beings experience powerlessness and the damage done to human beings because of unequal systems. As life beats us down, we ignore the very things we need to give us sustenance for our journey. We become literally unable to take it in. This is why sufferers of depression neglect their homes and their health. We develop rough edges in response to our powerlessness and become cynical about what we can change, even when the world is changing all around us. We also forget how to treat people as we forget how to treat ourselves. How many activists do you know who bulldoze over others in order to reach for the spotlight? Whose anger overshadows their vision of a better world? I once wrote a poem prayer about this very issue, thanks to a workshop led by the Jewish progressive poet Elaina Ellis. This is what I wrote back then (knowing nothing of the Baal Shem Tov’s reading of this verse): “I release my rough edges to live a life of love and to allow love into my heart without the veil of humor and sarcasm shielding me from attack and disapproval. I release old grief, like sand to flowing silt. I allow a sweet water to run through me, a sweet water of kindness, chesed, eroding the edges of a dry riverbed, making old scars smooth and soft, wiping out old grooves that seemed permanent. I do not always need to yell back. And sometimes knowing when to fight, when to refuse to fight, and when to admit fault can distinguish the wise from the foolish.” This week, we should all read beshallah with the intention of letting water into our dry riverbeds and softening the grooves of our familiar anger patterns. Change is always possible, both in the world and in you! Gut Shabbos! Shmuely Boteach Insults Russell Brand in the Name of Defending Israel August 19, 2014 July 12, 2016 / rachelhinda / Leave a comment I did not plan to post about this, because I have other stuff to write about today and because fights about Israel/Palestine among celebrities are simply not the most important thing to write about when 2,000 lives, of mostly innocent civilians, have been snuffed out in Gaza. So, please forgive this brief digression. I was so disgusted with this column by “Rabbi” Shmuley Boteach that I decided to say something. For those who don’t know the back story, renowned Palestinian American Yousef Munayyer appeared on Sean Hannity’s show a few weeks back. Hannity used his forum to yell at and insult Munayyer, needling Munayyer to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization. The clip was such an obvious example of bullying, of the intellectual dishonesty and overheated self-righteousness that characterizes the American pro-Israel right wing, that comedian Russell Brand used his internet forum to take Hannity down a peg. Unsurprisingly, Hannity responded with a thin-skinned, babyish takedown of Brand, who as I mentioned is a comedian (way to take a joke, Hannity). Now, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has joined the fray. But instead of plainly arguing the case for Israel, Boteach chooses instead to bring up, in the most passive aggressive and craven way, Brand’s problems with addiction, his marriage, and his personal life to discredit Brand’s viewpoints. Why do I care? Because Boteach’s method of argument typifies the dangerous denial that ails the Jewish community on account of Israel and Zionism. When you hold the title of Rav, it comes, in my view, with certain responsibilities. To stoop so low in public reflects negatively on the whole community and on Judaism, because when you use your title to sell books and merchandise you hold yourself out as an expert in our sacred texts and in our values. Russell Brand may be a public figure who should expect below the belt criticism, but he is a human being and like all of us, he has his demons to face. What should other people assume about Judaism when a Rabbi, steeped in our wisdom and tradition, behaves in such a judgmental way towards another human being simply to score cheap points for Israel? After all that study of Talmud and Torah, this “Rabbi” chooses to point out the flaws of his interlocutor with spite and condescension, when he should be making his case? Also, do Russell Brand’s personal, human struggles somehow justify Israel’s conduct in Gaza? Of course not. Boteach is merely lashing out at another human being instead of searching for the truth. The former is a lot easier and more satisfying to the yetzer hara than the latter. I’m sure the Chofetz Chaim would be proud (I am also entitled to some sarcasm). I don’t write this simply to chastise Shmuley Boteach, but to point out the tactics of intimidation, personal insult, and emotionalism that have come to characterize argument for Israel. Ultimately, objective observers the world over can see that Israel’s conduct in Gaza will not bring peace any closer. Those speaking out for Palestinian rights and for the merits of the Palestinian cause include great leaders of human rights struggles, nobel prize winners, authors, artists, not to mention bereaved Israelis themselves. But Israel’s self-appointed defenders, in their attempt to tune out any uncomfortable truth dismiss their critics with ad hominem attack. This one is a closet antisemite. This one is a self-hating Jew. This one is on drugs. This one failed a math test in middle school. When that doesn’t work, they pitch a fit. If Job appeared this morning on CNN to criticize Israel, totally all tam ve yashar ve yarei elohim vesar mera, Shmuley Boteach would find something negative to say about him and then shame everyone listening into staying silent by crying antisemitism. (It doesn’t matter whether Job is an Israelite or not, by the way!) Why? Because attacking others is a deeply powerful and human way of denying difficult truths. It even has its own cliche: ‘killing the messenger.’ Israel’s defenders kill the messenger more than they make their own arguments and it does nothing to advance the interests of Jews. Ultimately, critique, even strident withering uncomfortable critique, gives us the opportunity to make our case stronger. It gives us the chance to clarify our beliefs. And most importantly, it gives us the opportunity to fix what is broken. Let’s finally commit to fixing what is broken instead of attacking our critics about their personal struggles. Let it be messy and uncomfortable but let it be honest! No more of the nonsense. We have real work to do. Pursue Justice: For Young American Jews Searching For Answers In Trying Times July 14, 2014 July 15, 2014 / rachelhinda / 2 Comments I write this as an American Jew, now a thirtysomething, who once thought I understood everything I needed to know about Israel. At synagogue growing up, the Rabbi’s sermon would often explain our collective support for Israel and the importance of Israel to Jews around the world. At family gatherings, older relatives, my grandfather, my great uncle, my mother, my cousins, would talk politics and I would absorb information from the opinions they gave. I thought I knew what I needed to know because I had traveled to Israel and my madrich (guide), a student at the prestigious Hebrew University, explained why Israel took the actions it took. These influences definitely strengthened my Jewish identity, but as a twenty-something making my way in the world, I was confronted with angry protests over Israel’s actions during the Second Intifada. I did not understand why young progressives would identify with Palestinians when I, a young progressive myself, was taught that they were an invented people intent on doing violence to Jews who only wanted a place of our own on earth. But the problem with teaching young Jews to love Israel is that the more emotionally involved we get, the more we want to solve Israel’s problems. And it would be difficult to solve any problem without first understanding why anyone would ever support the other side, right? So, that is when I began to read and listen. I began to understand that there was a whole lot that I did not know. I felt like a traitor, but I felt compelled to listen to the voices that told me I did not know anything close to the whole story. Palestinians do exist and there are at least four million of them living under Israeli control. They are also not interchangeable with other Arabs, but are rather connected to their homes, communities and identities. These past several weeks have brought staggering violence in the Middle East, first with the revelation that three teenage Israeli boys had been kidnapped and murdered and then with the horrifying murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir of Jerusalem. Almost immediately afterward, the Israeli government began bombarding Gaza from the air as rockets fired in from Gaza on Israeli cities and towns. The official reason Israel gives for this latest round of strikes is to defeat Hamas, but we know that even if the Israelis succeed in delivering a crushing blow Hamas, this will probably not end Palestinian resistance or bring peace anytime soon. So, the time to learn is now. The following is the best advice I have, as someone who has been a young Jew and who has felt the pain and cognitive dissonance that comes from the hot rhetoric and polarizing emotions Israel brings up. So, here goes: 1) Listen To Palestinians In Their Own Words First, we must learn from many perspectives and sources if we want to understand. We must read, surf the net, travel, and ask others. Do not allow anyone to tell you that ANY perspective is out of bounds. I encourage you to read from the right and the left and beyond. Most importantly, read the words of Palestinians themselves; don’t simply be content with reading pro-Israel characterizations of their views, or decontextualized quotes in the media. Read the Electronic Intifada, or Permission to Narrate, or Jadaliyya. Read novels, like Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin. Watch films, like Five Broken Cameras or pretty much anything by Hany Abu-Assad. 2) Don’t Be Afraid to Challenge Your Beliefs On Facebook the other day, an Israeli friend of a friend wrote the following comment in response to the death of a Palestinian in Gaza: “ I can assure you that I don’t know of a single Israeli who is happy about them; nobody here passes around sweets when an innocent Palestinian is killed.” Like her, I once believed certain axioms about Israel and the Palestinians that I now realize were rooted in prejudice. I believed that Israelis don’t celebrate when Palestinians are killed. Well, stories such as this one, and this one, and this one, seem to refute that idea. Some Israelis do rejoice when innocent Palestinians are killed. And it’s not because Israelis are so awful, but rather because they are human beings, capable of the full range of human behavior, some of it laudable, some of it not so laudable. So are the Palestinians, who have among them both secular and religious people, progressives, conservatives, capitalists, feminists, and everything in between. Contrary to disparaging opinion pieces like this one, they love their children as much as we love ours. So, if you care about getting to peace and about being part of the solution, don’t be afraid to go deep and discard old prejudices. As a rule of thumb, if you would feel insulted were someone to characterize Jewish culture the way some article or statement characterizes Palestinian culture, look deeper. 3) You Cannot Get It All From One Source When I was in college, Jewish community leaders would consistently tell us to stay away from “biased” sources and media. Worse advice has never been given to young people. First of all, there are plenty of sources they characterized as unbiased which in fact had an agenda, but which were written persuasively, so that they seemed like absolute, irrefutable truth. Take with a grain of salt any material you are offered which claims to be “unbiased facts.” Trust me, there are a lot of facts. Second, when it comes to Israel/Palestine, there are many voices you should read. If you want to be informed, you cannot get all of your information from any one source or one perspective. So, my advice to you is get them all! Read Zionists and anti-Zionists, women and men, Mizrahim and Ashkenazim, right and left! Read them all! 4) Reach Out When I first started feeling misgivings about the community’s positions on Israel, I thought I was the only Jewish person in the world who felt this way. After being derided by some Jewish classmates for choosing to attend a New York City antiwar demonstration, I found a rag tag group of young (and a few old enough to be my grandparents) Jewish radicals calling themselves Jews Against the Occupation. That group of people changed my life forever and helped me connect my love for Jewish identity with my changing understanding of Israel. Now, there are so many Jews who feel the way we did back then, you should have no trouble finding your folk. If you need to connect, the rabbinical council of Jewish Voice for Peace is offering spiritual support during the Gaza crisis. 5) Always Be A Self-Loving Jew Despite assertions to the contrary, I live my life with deep reverence for my Jewish heritage. If anything, being on this journey has introduced me to new expressions of being Jewish that were not emphasized by my suburban Zionist upbringing. I knew very little, for instance, about Jewish workers and the social movements they created at the turn of the 20th century or the Mizrahi Jewish experience in Israel. I still go to synagogue, observe Jewish holidays, and participate in Jewish community where I am able to and welcome to. There is no contradiction between supporting Palestinians rights and being a good Jew, in fact, many would argue that this is what the Torah means when it instructs us ‘V’Ahavta L’Reacha Kamocha’ or ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’ All the rest is commentary. We owe it to ourselves, to our future children, to our ancestors who struggled so we could live freely as Jews in this moment to challenge ourselves, to reach out, and to add our voices to the discussion. Use this time of terrible sadness, of violence and anger, to transform your own voice into one that speaks peace.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1485
__label__cc	0.743474	0.256526	Not One-Off Britishisms 'Ginger,' 'Bits,' 'Whinge,' and other U.K. expressions that have got popular in the U.S. About NOOBS Index of Entries OED=Oxford English Dictionary AmE=American English BrE=British English ← “From strength to strength” “Turn up” keeps turning up → Th-fronting Posted on December 27, 2012 \| 29 Comments Rapper Chief Keef I have remarked on the fondness of young Americans–especially African-American rappers and/or people from the New York metropolitan area–for the glottal stop. Now it appears that another of Cockney characteristic, th-fronting, is ready for its U.S. closeup. Th-fronting is a feature of Cockney–and now, apparently, of Estuary English–in which a th sound is pronounced like an f (as in I fink instead of I think) or v (as in the way the TV show “Big Brother” is commonly referred to in U.K. red-top tabloid headlines: “Big Bruvva”). Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G is a heavy user, and it’s been prominent recently in hip U.S. references to the Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards as “Keef.” That same word actually represents the only indigenous U.S. use I’m aware of. It’s in the name of a teenage rapper from Chicago: Chief Keef. His website reports that he was born Keith Cozart but is silent on how Keith became Keef. NOOB readers are a clever lot, and among them are probably one or two hip-hop fans. If so, I would be grateful for any enlightenment on the phenomenon of th-fronting among the rappers. This entry was posted in On the radar, Pronunciation. Bookmark the permalink. 29 responses to “Th-fronting” Dw \| December 27, 2012 at 11:00 am \| Reply TH-fronting has been attested in African American dialects for decades. Hal Hall \| December 27, 2012 at 11:06 am \| Reply Agree w/ Dw; just can’t say when it started. Ben \| December 27, 2012 at 1:33 pm \| Reply On reflection that rings true–thinking of expressions like “down to erff.” I believe (unlike Cockney) it’s only at the end of words, not the beginning. wulfw \| December 27, 2012 at 4:47 pm \| Reply How is the term “th-fronting” itself pronounced? thuh-FRUHN-tihng? Is the “th” pronounced as the two individual letters’ names: TEE, AYCH, FRUHN-tihng? By the way, is it proper British/Standard English to pronounce the name of the letter “h” as AYCH (as Americans say it) or HAYCH (as Irish-born friends of mine in N.Y.C. say it)? David \| December 31, 2012 at 6:08 pm \| Reply We would normally go with “Aitch”; the “Haitch” is traditionally Irish English. However that’s been changing over the years, like most things. Bren \| December 15, 2013 at 9:48 pm \| In Canada, areas settled by the Irish seem to say “Haych” instead of “aych”. But in General, especially in Central Canada, it’s “aych”. I say “aych” but my best friend says “haych” XD m.m. \| February 15, 2013 at 11:21 am \| Reply . whether you voice the in “eth” is a matter itself aswell haha Michael Young \| December 27, 2012 at 5:16 pm \| Reply ‘Keef’ Hartley. British blues band / Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation. 1960s. Jan \| December 27, 2012 at 6:40 pm \| Reply I spent 20 years as a Speech Pathologist correcting f/th which American parents don’t usually accept after about age 7 or so as anything but infantile. Not an American thing at all…certainly in white America. I’m hearing glottal stops more often in my kids (early 20’s) in the last few years. And /e/-insertion in final syllabic /n/ (student, didn’t, garden, wooden, etc., etc.) in nearly anyone under 40. Haven’t seen anyone comment on that last in the literature. dw \| December 27, 2012 at 6:51 pm \| Reply @Jan What do you mean by ” /e/-insertion in final syllabic /n/”? Does that refer to e.g. [wʊdən] instead of [wʊdn̩] ? Bren \| December 15, 2013 at 9:58 pm \| Reply Ugh, I hate that! This hasn’t really hit Canada yet, thank goodness. I’m 21 and my friends and I all say didn’t “didnt”, whereas on American TV shows it always seems to be “didint”. It sounds babyish to me. It’s mostly a female thing as well, fewer men say it. Another American things that I’ve noticed more and more is pronouncing “ing” words like “een”. Like ringeen for ringing and peenk instead of pingk for pink. Also, more of a girl thing. Something American that HAS started happening in Canada is the dropping of the middle “t” in words like internet, which sounds like innerne’. I still say internet. Winner is not a season, WINTER is. LOL Light “r” is also starting to replace the traditional Canadian dark “r”… Exactly. Hearing more and more of it. Esp. from folks under abt. 40. JamesBrett \| December 28, 2012 at 12:43 am \| Reply For as long as I can remember, many African Americans in the southeast U.S. have replaced the ending ‘th’ with ‘f’ — anytime those letters directly follow a vowel or sometimes an ‘r’ (so not at the beginning of words). Sometimes it happens in the middle of a word, as well. Common examples: truth > truf, math > maf, with > wif, without > wif-out, SmallHouseBigGarden \| December 28, 2012 at 4:35 am \| Reply for a good explanation of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and a reference to the “th to f ” sounds you’ve mentioned, check out this URL: http://bryan.myweb.uga.edu/AAVE/ As other commenters said, this linquistic feature has been common in the US (in the Black community) for years and is thought to go back to Creole roots Johnny \| December 28, 2012 at 10:07 am \| Reply While AAVE does often replace -th with -f (‘earf’ for ‘earth’), I think that this name should be seen in light of other hip-hop monikers that have a marijuana cultural influence. “Kief” is a very desirable by-product of the preparation of marijuana for smoking. Dido \| December 30, 2012 at 1:13 pm \| Reply Th-fronting in adults who have reached tertiary education is as irritating as the reversal of last two consonants of ‘ask’. commonparlance \| May 11, 2013 at 5:21 pm \| Reply Actually, these are both very common in black English or AAVE (African American Vernacular English). It’s pretty much accepted universally among linguists that AAVE is a bona fide dialect with its own grammar rules, lexicon, phonology, etc. Dismissing it as simply “bad English” went out of favor with experts and academics 20-30 years ago. Bren \| December 15, 2013 at 10:00 pm \| Reply LOL that “axe” me a question thing is so irritating.. Johnny \| January 15, 2013 at 10:55 am \| Reply Method Man (in “Shame on a nigga”) : Let’s get togever”(end of verse) ODB (same song) : “young youf” Catherine Rose \| January 19, 2013 at 11:06 am \| Reply I also note with amusement that some foreigner speaking English have taken up ‘ve’ and ‘vis’ for ‘the’ and ‘this’ – French and Spanish people, for example. I always want to say to them that it actually means they come across as less well-education. We would much rather hear a French person say ‘ze’ and ‘zis’! Rick \| January 19, 2013 at 12:26 pm \| Reply I’m a non-black American who did not grow up around black people and who despises rap “music.” But I say “bofus” for “both of us” and “wifus” for “with us” – just easier to pronounce. Curious as to what state you’re from… I know a guy who says “wif” for “with” as well, and also pronounces “supposed to” as “posta”… I thought it was just a “him” thing. Does anyone reading this voice the “th” in with? I hear that in older people here in Canada. I use the “th” of “thing” for with, whereas they’d use the “th” from “that” in with. mollymooly \| March 8, 2013 at 8:07 am \| Reply “Youth television [programming aimed at young people and aspiring to “speak their language”] was famously pioneered in the 1980s by the Cockney television producer Janet Street Porter and sometimes satirically referred to as ‘Yoof television”‘ Shazza \| April 2, 2013 at 12:59 pm \| Reply On a TV program “Justified” that is supposed to take place in the hollers and hills of eastern Kentucky (I hear fairly authentic with accents), I spotted th-fronting and in one episode, perhaps th-dropping with the name Keith. One character stated the name and another character humorously translated, using a linguistic term to describe the pronunciation, in order to make it clear to other characters and/or audience. I’m happy to spot what appear to be attempts at authenticity in mainstream media when I see them. lisa \| March 5, 2014 at 8:27 pm \| Reply just a heads up, keef is also a marijuana reference. Could be a double entendre more or as well as the affectation. As a Kentuckian, I can attest to hill people having a heap of Britishisms. They’re generally descendant from the Scots-Irish folks who moved a similar clime after being pushed from the cities. It’s also why we’re awesome. But it has been shown that for most of the folks who were cut off from the outside world in Appalachia, the language ceased to evolve. Then those folks moved into the valleys and cities. I would hear things like reckon constantly. I thought it was a hillbilly thing until I moved to London. Pingback: “Cheeky Nando’s” \| Not One-Off Britishisms KnowYourHealth \| November 25, 2016 at 9:26 am \| Reply Both th-fronting and th-stopping are traditional in African American Vernacular English as well as Caribbean English. Its possible that it was already around in colonial times and only now gaines traction in the UK Carlos Mario CNX \| January 28, 2017 at 4:20 pm \| Reply The th-fronting is also traditional in my english, because you know, I’m too lazy to move my tongue between my teeth and I just go for the “f” sound… Will James \| February 23, 2018 at 8:10 pm \| Reply Just found this article while searching for Th-Fronting – I know it’s 5 years old and I think you probably already know this, but you may want to see this article “https://www.myhydrolife.com/definition/1452/chiefing” for chief and this article “https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/what-is-kief” for keef (spelled kief). Leave a Reply to Johnny Cancel reply Ben Yagoda’s Books About Town: The New Yorker … How to Not Write Bad: The … Memoir: A History Paperback … The Art of Fact A Historical … MORE YAGODA BOOKS What I’m Reading, What I’ve Read Dreyer’s English … Dictionary of English Usage The Prodigal Tongue YAGODA BOOK REVIEWS Relevant Sites Maria Yagoda Visual Thesaurus Wordability Yagodiana Ben Yagoda's website BY on Facebook BY's "Lingua Franca" posts BY's New York Times "Draft" columns Elizabeth Yagoda on Twitter Australianisms Business Canadianisms Cockup Commerce Doobious NOOBs Faux NOOBs Food and drinks Grammar Historical NOOBs Insults Journalese One-off Britishisms On the radar Outliers Politics Polls Pronunciation Self-promotion Shape-shifters Spelling Sport The New Yorker Uncategorized Ventriloquism Who, or whom, was this named after? Surely not @DrGrammar https://t.co/oTtb8kqTWT 7 hours ago Email of the day https://t.co/FCA8BU08HU 3 days ago RT @lynneguist: In case you missed it (and you surely did, as I'm terrible at timing these things), the Separated by a Common Language Word… 2 weeks ago RT @lynneguist: Because I like to post blogs when everyone else is doing something else (Happy New Year!), here is the first of the Separat… 2 weeks ago Follow @byagoda	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1486
__label__cc	0.513406	0.486594	But I’m a Cheerleader Directed by Jamie Babbit United States • 1999 • 85 mins. When all signs point to Megan (Natasha Lyonne) being a lesbian, her friends and family insist she be carted off to True Directions, a gay conversion therapy camp. In her directorial debut, Babbit crafts a sly comedy worthy of the campy sensibilities of John Waters’ most popular work. “But I’m a Cheerleader is a sharp, intelligent outing bolstered by both Natasha Lyonne and Clea DuVall who communicate their conflicts and turmoil (and eventual joy) with low-key power, and through whom a credible love story begins to build.”—Michael Thomson, BBC Arrive early for food, drinks and music from xray.fm DJ Sundae Shoes of PDX Pop Now! Appears in: 2018 Top Down Rooftop Cinema PSU Parking Structure 2 Screened with: Glenda’s Last Tattoo Advance tickets will be available until 5pm. Tickets will be available at the door beginning at 7pm. Get directions to Top Down.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1493
__label__wiki	0.71595	0.71595	« Election Day in BOS-3: $1.2 Million+ in Spending Ends Today Democrats Overtake Republicans in OC Voter Registration for First Time Since Watergate’s Aftermath » 3 Weeks, 3 More Vacant Seats: Irvine, Santa Ana, and Stanton Posted by Chris Nguyen on March 14, 2019 In January, I wrote about OC’s Five Vacant Seats: OC Supervisor for the Third District, Fullerton City Council, Orange City Council, Seal Beach City Council District 1, and Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Education. Well, in the last three weeks, three more vacancies have developed in Orange County. The most well known vacancy is the one in Irvine that will result when Supervisor-Elect Don Wagner (R) vacates the Mayor’s seat. However, there are numerous misconceptions about which vacancy in Irvine will result. Some candidates claimed during the Supervisorial election that if Wagner won, there would be a special election for Mayor. That is false. Some press accounts claimed that the Council would appoint the new Mayor. That is based on out-of-date information. Under current Irvine ordinances as authorized by the Irvine City Charter, Mayor Pro Tem Christina Shea (R) will automatically succeed Wagner as Mayor once he vacates the Mayor’s seat. The vacancy in Irvine is for Christina Shea’s Council seat. Under the Irvine City Charter, the City Council has 60 days to appoint a new Councilmember after Shea vacates her Council seat (i.e. after she becomes Mayor after Wagner resigns). If the Council fails to appoint a person to fill the vacancy, then there will be a special election. Whether appointed or elected, Shea’s successor will serve through the November 2020 election. Santa Ana Ward 4 The next most well known vacancy is in Santa Ana. Ward 4 Councilman Roman Reyna (D), who was just elected in November, resigned effective March 1 as part of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit that challenged his eligibility to run for the Council seat in the first place. Under the Santa Ana City Charter, the City Council has 30 days to appoint a new Councilmember to serve through the November 2022 election. If the Council fails to appoint a person by March 31, then there will be a special election on November 5, which will be consolidated with the Santa Ana Unified School District special election. Six people met Tuesday’s deadline for applications. The Council is scheduled to interview the applicants next Tuesday, March 19. The applicants are: Phil Bacerra (D), a former Santa Ana Planning Commissioner who lost the Council election to Reyna and was the plaintiff in the lawsuit that led to Reyna’s resignation Kenneth Khanh Nguyen (NPP), a Santa Ana Planning Commissioner Jennifer Oliva (D), a Santa Ana Arts and Culture Commissioner Gale Oliver, Jr. (NPP), a Baptist bishop Phillip Ortiz, Jr. (NPP), an Internet installer Maricela Vallejo (NPP), a Santa Ana Personnel Board Member The least publicized vacancy is the one in Stanton. Mayor Pro Tem Al Ethans (R) resigned effective February 28 after more than 22 years on the Stanton City Council. As Stanton is a general law city, the City Council has 60 days to appoint a new Councilmember to serve through the November 2020 election. If the Council fails to appoint a person by April 29, then there will be a special election on November 5. Applications for the seat are due at 5:00 PM today. A City Council subcommittee is scheduled to meet with the applicants the last week of March, and the Council is slated to meet on April 23 to vote on a potential appointee. Status of OC’s Eight Vacancies Here’s a quick run-down on every vacancy in Orange County since the November 2018 general election. There are 2 completed elections (Supervisor and Seal Beach), 1 appointment completed (Fullerton), 2 pending special elections (Orange and Santa Ana School Board), 2 pending appointments (Santa Ana and Stanton), and 1 pending vacancy (Irvine). All of these seats are up for election again in 2020, except for Santa Ana and Seal Beach which will be up for election again in 2022: Orange County Supervisor, Third District: Don Wagner (R) elected March 12 to succeed Todd Spitzer (R), who was elected District Attorney Fullerton City Council: Jan Flory (D) appointed January 29 to succeed Jesus Silva (D), who was elected to a Council district seat Irvine City Council: Vacancy pending for the seat of held by Christina Shea (R), who will become Mayor Orange City Council: Special election scheduled for November 5 to succeed Mark Murphy (R), who was elected Mayor Santa Ana City Council Ward 4: Appointment pending for the seat previously held by Roman Reyna (D), who resigned as part of a lawsuit settlement Seal Beach City Council District 1: Joe Kalmick (D) elected in a January 29 run-off to succeed Ellery Deaton (R), who termed out Stanton City Council: Appointment pending for the seat previously held by Al Ethans (R), who resigned Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Education: Special election scheduled for November 5 to succeed Ceci Iglesias (R), who was elected to the City Council This entry was posted on March 14, 2019 at 7:28 AM and is filed under 3rd Supervisorial District, Irvine, Santa Ana, Stanton. Tagged: Al Ethans, Ceci Iglesias, Cecilia "Ceci" Iglesias, Cecilia Iglesias, Christina Shea, Don Wagner, Ellery Deaton, Gale Oliver, Jan Flory, Jennifer Oliva, Jesus Silva, Joe Kalmick, Ken Nguyen, Khanh Nguyen, Maricela Vallejo, Mark A. Murphy, Phil Bacerra, Phillip Ortiz, Roman Reyna, Todd Spitzer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. One Response to “3 Weeks, 3 More Vacant Seats: Irvine, Santa Ana, and Stanton” Ryan Cantor said	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1499
__label__cc	0.620241	0.379759	10-minute train schedule extended to 7 days a week from December By Janene Pieters on October 27, 2017 - 16:10 An NS train waiting on the tracks (Photo: TahR78/Wikipedia)An NS train waiting on the tracks (Photo: TahR78/Wikipedia) NS and ProRail are expanding their experiment with running a train every 10 minutes between Amsterdam, Utrecht, Den Bosch and Eindhoven to seven days a week from December. The rail companies started out by testing this 10 minute train schedule only on Wednesdays, and the first results were very positive, ANP reports. The expansion of this experiment coincides with the introduction of the new NS timetable. The most changes are around Den Bosch, to accommodate the 10 minute schedule and to shorten the travel time per sprinter, according to the news wire. For example, the new timetable includes more direct sprinter connections between Dordrecht and Arnhem, and between Oss and Deurne during rush hour. NS already warned that the new timetable will not be beneficial to everyone, due to limited space on the track. For example, the waiting times in Tiel when changing trains will be about 18 minutes longer. ProRail NS timetable	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1504
__label__wiki	0.990525	0.990525	Going Independent © 2020 SourceMedia. All rights reserved. Wells Fargo CEO steps down as general counsel takes over March 28, 2019, 4:48 p.m. EDT Wells Fargo Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan stepped down effective immediately amid mounting pressure over the lender’s scandals, and will be replaced on an interim basis by the bank’s general counsel, C. Allen Parker. The bank is launching an external search for its next CEO and president, the company said in a statement Thursday. Sloan, 58, spent more than 31 years at the San Francisco-based lender, rising to CEO after scandals began erupting in 2016. He now plans to retire at the end of June. The stock climbed in after-hours trading. Sloan has long faced calls for his ouster from critics including Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic candidate for president. They’ve said a longtime insider couldn’t be counted on to clean up scandals across its branch network and other divisions. The board had reiterated its support for Sloan as recently as last week. “Tim Sloan has served this company with pride and dedication for more than 31 years,” the board’s chair, Betsy Duke, said in the statement. “He has worked tirelessly over this period for all of our stakeholders in the best long-term interest of Wells Fargo. His decision, and today’s announcement, reflect that commitment and his belief that a new CEO at this time will best position the company for success.” Voices: Tim Sloan is not turning around Wells Fargo While he inherited a tough job, two years in it’s hard to find a single business metric that has improved, Wells Fargo denies new talks to replace CEO The bank said Tim Sloan has the full support of its board following a report that directors had reached out to Goldman Sachs’ former CFO. Regional BDs Exodus of Wells Fargo talent fuels hiring spurt at regional BDs Industry changes and ongoing bank scandals have tilted the playing field in favor of smaller brokerages. By Andrew Welsch Federal watchdog says DoL likely blocked protections for Wells Fargo fraudulent accounts whistleblowers Collusion and corruption allegedly prevented Wells Fargo whistleblowers, and a former JPMorgan advisor, from obtaining justice. By Ann Marsh Parker, 64, will be an unusual bank boss. He was a longtime lawyer for Cravath, Swaine & Moore, one of Wall Street’s preeminent law firms, where he started in 1984 and was presiding partner before joining the bank in 2017. He was among more than 10 senior hires from outside the company as it sought to clean up its image with regulators, investors and the public. Sloan was promoted to the top job in October 2016 when John Stumpf stepped down amid intense blowback over the revelation that employees had opened millions of fake accounts to meet sales goals. Yet Sloan struggled to make headway in cleaning the company’s image as additional problems emerged in other divisions, and as politicians, regulators and investors intensified their critiques. Last year, Wells Fargo was dealt an unprecedented blow from the Federal Reserve as then-Chair Janet Yellen’s final act: The bank can’t grow assets beyond their level at the end of 2017 until it addresses missteps to the regulator’s satisfaction. That’s in addition to billions in fines and settlement costs. Throughout his tenure and during grueling hearings on Capitol Hill, Sloan faced questions about how a three-decade veteran could possibly turn the bank around. At one point Warren said “his hands are too dirty from overseeing years of scams and scandals.” Such attacks, compounded by criticism from regulators, landed him back in front of the House Financial Services Committee in March. Sloan joined Wells Fargo in 1987 and began rising rapidly through the executive ranks after Stumpf became CEO in 2007. He was named chief administrative officer in 2010 and chief financial officer just five months later. By 2015, he was president and chief operating officer. C-suiteWirehousesTim SloanWells FargoWells Fargo Advisors MORE FROM ON WALL STREET Retirement scan A huge retirement risk clients probably don't realize they’re facing By Paola Peralta Lawmakers call for FTC investigation of Envestnet \| Yodlee By Sean Allocca J.P. Morgan Securities loses $3.9B team to First Republic $11B Merrill Lynch team bolts for UBS A widening wealth gap could be putting your clients at risk Lemkau makes mark on JPMorgan with new wealth leadership team Like what you see? Make sure you're getting it all Get news and analysis for wirehouse and regional broker-dealer advisors Subscription Agreement Content Licensing/Reprints Advertising/Marketing Services	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1512
__label__cc	0.575159	0.424841	Adobe Think Tank: The Importance of Diversity & Inclusion in Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Welcome to Adobe Think Tank again. Follow along and join the conversation using #AdobeTT. And with me is Olga Russakovsky, assistant professor at Princeton. Thank you so much. – Thank you for having me. – And, you’ve got the swag on right now. – [Olga] Absolutely! – (laughs) Talk to me a little bit about why you founded AI4ALL and, more importantly, diversity inclusion, you know, at the K through 12 level too. Because I think that’s incredibly important. – Yeah, absolutely. So, AI4ALL, we started it together with Fei-Fei Li and Rick Sommer in 2016, actually. 2016? 2017, last year, last year. It’s only a year old. – Time’s flying. – Yeah, time’s flying, we’re already 2018. So it’s a foundation to increase diversity inclusion in artificial intelligence, in AI. And we started because there is really, really a problem in AI right now, and I would argue, actually, the biggest problem that is in AI right now is the fact that it’s being built by a very homogeneous group of people. So there’s statistics like at NIPS, which is the leading AI conference. Last year, about 10% of the authors were women. And that’s really a problem, because we’re building this technology that’s, in theory, supposed to benefit everybody. It’s supposed to reflect everybody and that just can’t happen if we are excluding large groups of a population systemically. – That voice is getting lost in that conversation and then the creation and the implementation and it just kind of gets, it’s a chain effect, right? – Exactly, absolutely, absolutely. And so, AI4ALL really tries to remedy that. And there’s several things we do. One of the big activities is we start summer camps in partnership with universities. And every summer camp actually targets a particular underrepresented group. So we started with a camp at Stanford for high school girls. Then we started a camp at Berkeley last year for local low-income students. We’re starting four more this year, including one at Princeton for racial minorities. And so, each of these camps brings together a group of students to come to campus for the summer for between one and three weeks, learn from AI professors, from PhD students, and also get to know each other and build a support community amongst themselves. And then AI4ALL brings all of these students into its alumni network, provides continuous education, provides continuous support to make sure that it’s not just a three-week program, that it’s really has impact beyond that. – What age do you think is the best to kind of start introducing students to AI? – Yeah, so we’ve talked about this a lot. So the Stanford camp, we get girls after ninth grade. Talked about this a lot, it’s sort of that time when they have enough mathematical foundation to actually appreciate some of the AI technology, but are sort of starting to think about electives and starting to kind of shape their career path. At Princeton, we’re doing camp for students who just finished 10th grade. And the reason for that is we’re looking at AI technology and policy, and we want students to have taken US Government, and that’s usually taught in 10th grade, so we want another year of history under their belt before we bring them to camp. So, it kind of varies, but these camps are largely sort of after ninth or 10th grade. – I mean, this is a potential pitfall, obviously, in the, you know, the ecosphere of AI, but are there any other big, potential pitfalls for, you know, the whole of AI as a field? – I think this is the biggest. I think this is, by far, the biggest. I think this causes bias in algorithms, bias in systems. – This is humans programming machines, so that bias is always there. – Absolutely, and this is humans, more importantly, who are deciding what problems to work on. So, largely, the problems we choose to tackle as researchers are the ones we’re passionate about. That is influenced by our experiences as humans. How we choose to find solutions to these problems, that depends on, kind of, what our experiences are, what we think are the right solutions. Where we look for data, that’s influenced by, again, our experiences. It’s influenced by our location. Like if we send a robot out in the world to collect data, a lot of the time, what’s the easiest thing to do? They will run around our office and the initial data collection will be in our, like– – Yeah. Yeah, it’s what’s seen, what’s apparent. You know, talk to me a little bit about developing things in AI, right. So, what can you do to kind of be a leader in this space and kind of create that from the inside out? And create more leaders, right? – So that’s a really, really good question. I mean, there’s many things you can do. Well, first of all you can support AI4ALL. That’s a big thing you can do. – That’s incredibly easy, alright. – Exactly. I think it’s very important to educate the next generation of students and I think that’s really where the impact comes from is in how we do education, how we do mentorship. So, making sure when you’re educating students, so, certainly don’t paint AI as a field that only geniuses can be a part of. So AI research is really a skill, just like any other skill. It can be– – It’s a spectrum, right? – There’s a ton of things you can do inside of that spectrum. – Absolutely, but any of the things we want to do, really, it’s all a skill. So you, you know, learn about different technology, learn about different algorithms, you learn about different coding frameworks, and you can build up that skillset and become an expert, become a leader in this field just by, you know, it’s a step-by-step learning process. And I think it’s very important to emphasize to students that it’s not that we’re born doing AI, or we’re, you know, born being AI researchers, or there’s something special about us that makes us uniquely qualified for this field. No, it’s just that, you know, we studied it for many years and now here we are. – Right. – That’s one of the big things that I think, unfortunately right now, part of the AI conversation is about, is particularly with deep learning. Sort of, there’s an emphasis on, wow, this is a really special, unique field and there’s a little bit of a feel of it’s only accessible to the select few, and I think that that’s a problem. – Yeah, so it’s more about making it accessible, obviously giving people opportunity, and then giving them ability, over time, to become leaders, right? But you have to start at a, you know, a beginning point, an introduction, right? And that introduction is incredibly important. – Absolutely, and you have to continue supporting these students. You have to continue making them feel like they’re a part of the community. – Because if it’s just a one week thing, and then you drop off, now you’ve lost them, so– – Exactly, exactly. – And so how can people get involved? – Well, there’s several ways. So one of the things we’re doing, well, of course, if you’re a high school student, you can attend one of the camps. We are also working on releasing some online educational content, because really the other problem is that AI is actually not accessible to many people right now, and there’s a lack of knowledge, awareness, understanding of how to use this technology, and if we’re trying to build something that will change the lives of everybody for the better, how can we do that if a lot of people are afraid of this technology or don’t understand how to use it? And so we’re developing some online content with the hope of actually reaching millions of people with this and this is both kind of introductory modules to some of the technology, teachers’ support materials, things like that. And we’re hoping to launch that later this year. – That’s awesome. Thanks so much, Olga. – Thank you very much for having me. – And to learn more, again, go to adobethinktank.com. How to Grow your Food Business \| Digital Marketing Tips For Increasing Sales And Customers \| llll➤Marketing jobs llll➤Marketing mix example llll➤Marketing mix strategy Try Not To Twitch Challenge Customer Success: Element Productions \| Constant Contact 1 thought on “Adobe Think Tank: The Importance of Diversity & Inclusion in Artificial Intelligence (AI)” Krunoslav Stifter says: Someday a computer will give a wrong answer to spare someone's feelings, and man will have invented artificial intelligence.” ―Robert Brault Deep hug on Try Not To Twitch Challenge Trovous on Try Not To Twitch Challenge EghosaB13 _ on Try Not To Twitch Challenge Spicy Sparkles on Try Not To Twitch Challenge Larissa on Try Not To Twitch Challenge	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1514
__label__cc	0.70533	0.29467	How to manage your passwords with Bitwarden, a LastPass alternative Learn how to set up and use open source password manager Bitwarden. 15 Mar 2018 Scott Nesbitt (Correspondent) Feed Image credits : geralt, via Pixabay. CC0. Do you ever feel you have more passwords than you can keep track of? It's probably more than just a feeling. Like most of us, you probably have a hard time remembering all those passwords, no matter how simple or complex they are. Many people turn to popular services like LastPass and 1Password to help them wrangle their passwords. While solid, those services are also proprietary and closed source. So where can an open source enthusiast turn to find an alternative? Enter Bitwarden, an application that's aiming to become the go-to open source password manager on the web. Let's take a quick look at how to use it. Note: I'm not going to cover all Bitwarden's features in this article, just its core password management ones. You've been warned. Sign up for an account. It's free (although there are also paid plans). Your account gives you access to a secure space (called a vault) to store your passwords. When you're signing up, you'll be asked to create a master password. That's the one that will keep your other passwords safe. It's in your best interest to make your master password as strong and complex as you can—and as you can remember. If you want a little more control and to embrace your inner geek, you can grab the source code on GitHub and install Bitwarden on your server. There's even a Docker image. Me? I went with the hosted edition. I know ... Once you've set up your account, grab the Bitwarden extension for one of the supported browsers (you probably use at least one of them): Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge, Safari, Vivaldi, Brave (you can install the extension from within the browser), or Tor Browser. Now you're ready to go. Using Bitwarden You've got your Bitwarden account set up and the browser extension installed. Now what? Head over to a website that you want to sign up for or where you already have an account. When you enter your username and password, Bitwarden will ask you if you want to save your login information. Click Yes, Save Now. bitwarden-save.png Congratulations! That login is now in your vault. That was easy, wasn't it? bitwarden-web-vault.png The next time you want access to that site, head on over to the site's login page. Click the Bitwarden icon on your browser's toolbar, then click on the login to fill in your information. bitwarden-extension.png The browser extension has a setting that automatically fills in your username and password. You can enable that by clicking the Bitwarden icon, selecting Settings, and clicking Options. From there, click Enable Auto-fill On Page Load. I don't use that feature—I've run into sites where it didn't work. Anyway, an extra click isn't going to do me any harm. Importing your passwords from another service What if you're using another password manager and want to move to Bitwarden? You definitely don't want to type in all those logins again, do you? Bitwarden has an import function that you can use to import passwords from a couple dozen other tools, including LastPass, 1Password, KeePass, and several web browsers. To get started, you'll need to export your passwords as a CSV, HTML, XML, or JSON file (depending on which password manager you're using). Then, log into your Bitwarden vault. Click Tools and Import Data. Select the application you're importing passwords from, then upload the file containing the passwords. Click Import. bitwarden-import.png The import is surprisingly quick, even with a large number of passwords. Just remember to securely delete the import file after you've done the deed. You don't want to leave the keys to your various kingdoms lying around, especially if they're not encrypted. How safe is anything, really? The folks behind Bitwarden try to make it as secure as possible. Things can happen, though, and someone could breach your account. It always helps, as I mentioned earlier in this article, to have a strong, complex master password. You can also set up two-factor authentication to further harden your account. If you decide to use Bitwarden, the only advice I can give you is to not store logins to financial institutions or other sites that contain sensitive information. In the end, it's up to you to decide how and with what you use Bitwarden. Until about a year ago, I was a dedicated user of LastPass. But Bitwarden won me over. While it might not have all the bells and whistles of its competitors, Bitwarden does what I need it to do, and it does it securely. If you'd like to learn more about Bitwarden, read for my interview with Kyle Spearrin, Bitwarden's developer. Scott Nesbitt - I'm a long-time user of free/open source software, and write various things for both fun and profit. I don't take myself all that seriously and I do all of my own stunts. You can find me at these fine establishments on the web: The Plain Text Project, Open Source Musings, The... 3 open source tools to manage your contacts Organize and sync your calendar with khal and vdirsyncer Organize your email with Notmuch Keep your email in sync with OfflineIMAP Al on 27 Mar 2018 Permalink Hey Scott, Thanks for the overview! I have one question regarding your comment on "not stor[ing] logins to financial institutions or other sites that contain sensitive information". From my understanding one of the main reasons to use a password manager is to let them create long, random passwords, which make it harder to get hacked. If I don't use it for my sensitive stuff, I will fall back to strings I can remember and which are therefore (often) easier to hack. Wouldn't you want a password manager especially for the sensitive stuff? Or would you then use something like this offline: https://gist.github.com/NonlinearFruit/7b6f72f97f0d70086f3f229fbf23850f ? Scott Nesbitt on 28 Mar 2018 Permalink For really sensitive stuff, I'd use a desktop password manager like KeePassX or Pass along with longer, more complex, and hard-to-remember passwords. That way, I have a bit more control over the password store. But for a majority of my web logins, Bitwarden is my tool of choice. jrr on 11 Apr 2018 Permalink Written in asp.not, no thanks, I'm not going to trust my passwords to anything that has been touched by Microsoft	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1516
__label__cc	0.628276	0.371724	Home − Products − Diagnostics & Clinical Research − Sexual & Reproductive Health − STI Testing − QIAscreen HPV PCR Test Cervical Cancer Screening 5 Maternal/Fetal Testing 2 STI Testing 1 QIAscreen HPV PCR Test For detection of human papillomavirus infections using PCR technology Detects 15 (likely) high-risk HPV genotypes Targets unique E7 viral oncogene Validated for physician-taken as well as self-collected samples Validated on the Rotor-Gene Q MDx system The QIAscreen HPV PCR Test is an in vitro real-time PCR-based assay for the qualitative detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA of the following 15 (likely) high-risk HPV genotypes, i.e., 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 66, 67, and 68. The assay is intended to be used for the screening of women for the risk of cervical (pre)cancer. Want to try this solution for the first time? Request a quote for a trial kit. Self-screen B.V. is the legal manufacturer of the QIAscreen HPV PCR Test. For 72 reactions: 1 tube of Master Mix, 1 tube of Positive Control, 1 tube of Negative Control. The QIAscreen HPV PCR Test is intended for in vitro diagnostic use in Europe. Clinical performance on cervical specimens (scrapes) The clinical sensitivity and specificity of the test for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or higher (CIN 2+) in cervical specimens (scrapes) were validated by a non-inferiority analysis relative to high-risk HPV GP5+/6+ PCR following international guidelines for HPV test requirements for cervical cancer screening (1). The clinical sensitivity for CIN 2+ was 97.1% (67/69) and the clinical specificity for CIN 2+ was 94.3% (777/824). The clinical sensitivity and specificity were non-inferior to that of the reference assay GP5+/6+ PCR (2), indicating a very good clinical performance. Performance on self-collected (cervico-)vaginal specimens The performance of the test in self-collected (cervico-)vaginal specimens has been validated for two different sampling methods: 1) self-collected lavage specimens, and 2) self-collected brush specimens. For self-collected lavage specimens, the agreement with the reference assay GP5+/6+ PCR was 97% (59/61) with a CIN 2+ sensitivity of 91.4% (21/23) (2). For self-collected brush specimens, the agreement with GP5+/6+ PCR was 93% (104/112) with a CIN 2+ sensitivity of 93.9% (31/34) (2). The QIAscreen HPV PCR Test is a multiplex, real-time PCR-based assay directed against the E7 gene of 15 (probably) hrHPV types that uses fluorescent probes for the detection of one or more accumulating PCR products. During each PCR cycle the fluorescent signal increases in a logarithmic manner resulting in an amplification curve. As soon as the amplification curve of the target comes above its threshold, the sample is considered positive for that target. The multiplex format allows the simultaneous detection of four different fluorescent dyes per reaction, with each fluorescent dye representing different targets. The four different targets are: 1. HPV 16, 2. HPV 18, 3. the 13 other hrHPV types as a pool and 4. the human β-globin gene. The QIAscreen HPV PCR Test separately detects HPV 16, HPV 18 and the pool of 13 other hrHPV genotypes. The human β-globin gene is used as the sample control determining both the quality of the sample DNA and the presence of potential inhibitory substances. The QIAscreen HPV PCR Test is an in vitro real-time PCR-based assay for the qualitative detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA of the following 15 (likely) high-risk HPV genotypes, i.e., 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 66, 67, and 68. The assay is intended to be used for the screening of women for the risk of cervical (pre)cancer. The QIAscreen HPV PCR Test runs on the Rotor-Gene Q MDx instrument. This product is intended to be used by professional users, such as technicians and laboratorians who are trained in in vitro diagnostics procedures, molecular biological techniques, and the Rotor-Gene Q MDx system. 1. Meijer, C.J., et al. (2009) Guidelines for human papillomavirus DNA test requirements for primary cervical cancer screening in women 30 years and older. Int. J. Cancer 124 (3), 516. 2. Hesselink, A. et al. (2014) Clinical validation of the HPV-Risk assay: a novel, real-time PCR assay for the detection of high-risk human papillomavirus DNA by targeting the E7 region. J. Clin. Microbiol. 52, 890. QIAscreen HPV PCR Test - [EN] For in vitro diagnostic use Protocol Files (1) QIAsymphony HPV PCR Test Assay Profile MSDS QIAscreen HPV PCR Test	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1521
__label__cc	0.701638	0.298362	The Genie Game posted July 4, 2009 at 5:38:08 AM UTC Coro April 9, 2014 at 2:09:35 PM UTC Granted! No one wants your old one, though, and there's no more space in the house, so you have nowhere to put it. I wish for a hug. Ao no Senritsu Taiko Maps \| Taiko ModADay Queue Frostei Frostei April 9, 2014 at 2:13:49 PM UTC //I'll put it outside though Granted but you die of suffocation. You got hugged too tightly I wish to be the very best like no one ever was -Faded- -Faded- April 9, 2014 at 3:47:17 PM UTC Granted, you now have carpal tunnel. I wish I could give myself kudosu! Granted but you lose your Osu supporter B1rd April 11, 2014 at 1:37:59 AM UTC I wish to be known as the god of mouse only~ Kyno Kyno April 11, 2014 at 4:16:53 AM UTC granted, but you lost any connection you had with the outside people. (oh wait, that happens to everyone) I wish.... I wish.... to be B1rd. OsuMe65 OsuMe65 April 11, 2014 at 7:47:11 AM UTC granted for a second I wish to have a bead Frostei April 11, 2014 at 12:58:31 PM UTC Granted but it grows out of control I wish I could sing (LOL I JUST REALIZED I FORGOT TO WISH FOR SOMETHING IN MY LAST POST) Trash Boat Trash Boat April 11, 2014 at 3:01:15 PM UTC granted but you only sing JB songs i wish for nuts-senpai to notice me Frostei April 11, 2014 at 3:29:26 PM UTC Granted but he follows you everywhere to notice you, including the bathroom. I wish for a lifetime supply of the finest DMMD games B1rd April 12, 2014 at 10:46:29 AM UTC Granted but you become so addicted you become a hiki and stop playing Osu! and socialising. I wish to have a massive array of forum smileys unique to my account only. Abominableve Abominableve April 12, 2014 at 10:50:26 AM UTC Granted but they're all Steve Buscemi looking seductive. I wish I had a Spinx cat Named Princess Monstertruck sometimes i draw a lot and sometimes i sit in bed and cry when i can't jomarixa808 jomarixa808 April 12, 2014 at 10:57:00 AM UTC Granted, but Princess Monstertruck apparently owns a monstertruck and accidentally runs you over. I wish that this wish be granted the way I wanted it to. Coro April 12, 2014 at 11:33:39 AM UTC Granted, but what you wanted ended up killing you. I wish senpai would notice me. Ceph23 Ceph23 April 12, 2014 at 3:28:09 PM UTC Granted. Senpai noticed you and will stay by your side all the time..... forever.... always.... even if you die... I wish I could the ability to control my core temperature Steamerino \| I'm trying to map again Granted, but it stops being automatic and you have to be constantly adjusting it depending on the outside temperature. I wish for a cat. Kyno April 14, 2014 at 1:53:46 PM UTC granted but.... thinks of a way to make this horrible.... Uh... you are attacked because your cat mistaken you for a bird. (hurhurhur) I wish for a fish. Coro April 14, 2014 at 1:57:53 PM UTC Granted~ A large fish swims up and eats you. I wish to be kawaii. ALTKID ALTKID April 14, 2014 at 2:20:11 PM UTC granted. But you have no friend. I wish to kill you c: Kitsunemimi Kitsunemimi April 14, 2014 at 6:52:22 PM UTC Granted, but I get to kill you first. I wish for sleep. 2578 / 2,796	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1523
__label__wiki	0.946971	0.946971	Around Town: Metro, Mulroney host dreamy dinner for Ottawa influencers Caroline Phillips Nobody knew quite what to expect when they first arrived to the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday for an intimate dinner with Jessica Mulroney, an ambassador for Montreal-based food retailer Metro. From left, Mary Ng, director of appointments to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with Metro ambassador Jessica Mulroney and Katie Telford, chief of staff to Trudeau, at an intimate Winterlude dinner hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. The evening, which had an air of mystery around it, started with a cocktail reception in a gallery full of lifelike model dinosaurs (the T-Rex had nothing interesting to say, really). There was no shortage of fashionable beauties present, from Meghan Markle, star of the American TV series Suits, to Mulroney. She’s a style expert and the wife of eTalk host Ben Mulroney, eldest son of former prime minister Brian Mulroney. From left, Meghan Markle, star of the American TV series Suits, with Janet Wilson, editor of the Ottawa Citizen’s Style Magazine, at an intimate Winterlude dinner hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Communications expert Catherine Clark and her husband Chad Schella, director of government affairs at Canada Post, at a private dinner hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Next, everyone ascended one flight of stairs to find themselves in a dreamy and almost magical setting. Awaiting them was an impossibly long and elegantly decorated table with enough room to seat 40-plus guests. The area was lit with hundreds of candles and surrounded by stained-glass windows. Kenton Leier, executive chef of The Westin Ottawa, shared a description of the gourmet meal prepared by him and his team. Ann Rickenbacker, director of catering for The Westin Ottawa, and its executive chef, Kenton Leier, at an intimate dinner catered by the hotel and hosted by food retailer Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Metro, which is one of the sponsors of Winterlude, hosted the cozy celebration as a way of introducing itself to some of the civic, cultural and business leaders of Ottawa as it looks to invest in community events leading up to Canada’s 150th birthday bash in 2017. In town for the event was the head of Metro’s Ontario division, executive vice president Carmen Fortino. Metro Ontario division head and executive vice president Carmen Fortino welcomes guests to an intimate Winterlude dinner hosted by the food retailer at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016, as part of the lead-up to Canada’s 150th birthday celebrations. From Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office were chief of staff Katie Telford and director of appointments Mary Ng. Also seen were Guy Laflamme, head of the Ottawa 2017 Bureau, Shopify executive Brittany Forsyth and mover and shaker Jayne Watson, CEO of the NAC Foundation. From left, Jayne Watson, CEO of the National Arts Centre Foundation, with Guy Laflamme, executive director of the Ottawa 2017 Bureau, and Sheila O’Gorman were guests of an intimate Winterlude-related dinner held at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016, and hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro as a way of introducing itself to the community in the lead-up to Canada’s 150th birthday celebrations. Mary Taggart, publisher of Ottawa At Home magazine, with her husband, Chris Taggart, president of Tamarack Developments, at an intimate Winterlude-related dinner hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro for Ottawa’s civic, cultural, and business leaderships at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Photos: Around Town at Metro Winterlude dinner Food retailer Metro, joined by its ambassador, Jessica Mulroney, hosted an intimate Winterlude-related dinner at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016, as part of a lead up to Canada's 150th birthday celebrations. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen From left, Mary Ng, director of appointments to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with Metro ambassador Jessica Mulroney and Katie Telford, chief of staff to Trudeau, at an intimate Winterlude dinner hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen From left, fashion expert Erica Wark with blogger Carolynn Lacasse and Laurence de Montigny at a Winterlude-related dinner hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen From left, Jayne Watson, CEO of the National Arts Centre Foundation, with Guy Laflamme, executive director of the Ottawa 2017 Bureau, and Sheila O'Gorman were guests of an intimate Winterlude-related dinner held at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016, and hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro as a way of introducing itself to the community in the lead-up to Canada's 150th birthday celebrations. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen From left, Meghan Markle, star of the American TV series Suits, with Janet Wilson, editor of the Ottawa Citizen's Style Magazine, at an intimate Winterlude dinner hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen From left, Toronto publicist Deborah Belcourt, managing director of A&C Inc. with Tara Shields at a Winterlude-related dinner hosted by food retailer Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen Guy Laflamme, head of the Ottawa 2017 Bureau, and Ottawa Festival executive director Carole Anne Piccinin were among some 45 guests of an intimate dinner catered by The Westin Ottawa and hosted by food retailer Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen Brittany Forsyth, senior vice president of human relations at Shopify, was among some 45 guests of an intimate Winterlude-related dinner hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro for Ottawa's civic, cultural, and business leaders, held at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen Executive vice president Carmen Fortino, head of Metro's Ontario division, with Jessica Mulroney, an ambassador for the food retailer, at a dinner hosted by Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016 as part of the lead-up to Canada's 150th birthday celebrations. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen Metro Ontario division head and executive vice president Carmen Fortino welcomes guests to an intimate Winterlude dinner hosted by the food retailer at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016, as part of the lead-up to Canada's 150th birthday celebrations. (Caroline Phillips / Ottawa Citizen) Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen From left, blogger Chantal Sarkisian with Allison Dingle at an intimate dinner hosted by food retailer Metro Ontario at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen Communications expert Catherine Clark and her husband Chad Schella, director of government affairs at Canada Post, at a private dinner hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. (Caroline Phillips / Ottawa Citizen) Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen Mary Taggart, publisher of Ottawa At Home magazine, with her husband, Chris Taggart, president of Tamarack Developments, at an intimate Winterlude-related dinner hosted by Canadian food retailer Metro for Ottawa's civic, cultural, and business leaderships at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen Food retailer Metro hosted an intimate Winterlude-related dinner, beginning with cocktails in the fossil gallery, at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen Ann Rickenbacker, director of catering for The Westin Ottawa, and its executive chef, Kenton Leier, at an intimate dinner catered by the hotel and hosted by food retailer Metro at the Canadian Museum of Nature on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Caroline Phillips /Ottawa Citizen carolyn001@sympatico.ca Around Town: Ottawa Arts Council celebrates the arts at Sweetheart Cocktail...  Around Town: Doctors to dance-off at annual benefit gala Business of Health This section was created by Content Works, Postmedia’s commercial content division, on behalf of an Innovative Medicines Canada company. Sponsored byan Innovative Medicines Canada company Sponsored: How innovative therapies offer hope for cancer sufferers Sponsored: a preventative lifeline throughout history Sponsored: Protecting Canadians’ access to medicine Sponsored: She was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer on Mother’s Day Presented byTelus Café restores charm and variety to GTA coffee culture The Nite Owl Barber Shop steeped in the past, embracing the present Nova Scotia blacksmith transforms everyday items into artwork Casting a spell in salmon country Top Health News What you need to know: the mysterious coronavirus which has led to worries of another ... Heart disease contagious?: Study suggests 'non-communicable' diseases might be spread through gut bacteria Top Life Stories If Harry and Meghan become residents of Canada, they’ll have to deal with this dreaded ... Most Canadians think the royals aren't relevant anymore, some willing to leave monarchy, poll finds Paris Hilton wears sunglasses while chopping onions and fingerless gloves while making lasagna in new ... What's On Tonight for Find your full TV Listings here!	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1524
__label__wiki	0.911007	0.911007	Ottawa won't follow Montreal's lead in impounding Uber cars Vito Pilieci Uber Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images / Ottawa Citizen The City of Ottawa will not impound the vehicles of drivers caught working for Uber’s popular ride-sharing service, officials said Tuesday. Montreal police have seized and impounded the vehicles of at least 40 Uber drivers in that city, sparking threats of legal action from the Uber parent company. Ottawa said it does not have the authority to impound vehicles that are used as illegal taxis, where drivers charge for a ride without having the appropriate licences. Dozens of Uber drivers in Ottawa have been caught and fined thousands of dollars for offering rides through the company’s services. The Uber car-sharing smartphone app links clients to drivers in privately owned vehicles, without a taxi licence, to provide rides at prices generally lower than typical cab fares. The city and the province consider Uber a form of illegal transport and they aren’t alone: The service has faced questions regarding its legality everywhere it has started offering its services. Montreal’s taxi bureau has been hitting back particularly hard against the upstart — which refers to itself as a technology company and not a taxi company — since early March. “We consider this a form of illegal transport because these people don’t have a permit that allows them to transport people,” Alain Rochon, director of the bureau, said in an interview Monday. “These people are contravening the law.” Rochon said a first seizure includes a $350 fine as well as costs associated with the impounding that bring the total to about $1,000. Uber has said it will pay for all of the fines and any costs that its drivers incur. In Ottawa, the city’s blitz against drivers of the ride-sharing app has so far resulted in more than $16,000 in fines. Twenty-four drivers have pleaded guilty to 42 violations under the city’s taxi bylaw following undercover sting operations by bylaw officers. With files from Citizen news services. Around Town: Chefs' dinner cooks up support for cancer survivors Here's the controversial new symbol of Canada's 150th birthday	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1525
__label__wiki	0.567663	0.567663	Strike efforts ramp up: Most Ottawa schools closed on Wednesday, more closures to come "It's not about unions telling us what to do. It's not about our pay." Jacquie Miller Even as English and drama teacher Erica Potter picketed in front of Longfields-Davidson Heights Secondary School in Barrhaven on Wednesday morning, news broke of yet another strike that will hit some schools in Ottawa next week. Potter said she hoped that parents scrambling to find care for their children will understand why education workers are intensifying their fight against the provincial Conservative government. “We are out here for the students,” said Potter. “It’s not about unions telling us what to do. It’s not about our pay.” Larger classes and mandatory online courses in high schools are the big issues, explained Potter as her fellow strikers paraded on the sidewalk with placards reading “on strike for public education.” “Everybody is here because we believe this is a fight that needs to be fought.” Education workers walk along Longfields Dr. in Barrhaven as the OSSTF in Ottawa stages a one-day strike. Wayne Cuddington / jpg Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce was also in a fighting mood. Around the same time, he was holding a press conference to blast education unions for imposing hardship on “hard-working families” by striking. The government will pay parents $25 to $60 a day to help compensate them for childcare costs when schools and the childcare centres within them are closed due to strikes, he said. “We would not be here today if the teacher unions and their leadership did not decide to walk out on students on a weekly basis,” said Lecce. While teacher unions escalate and hurt students, our government is providing child care relief & #SupportForParents. 🍎 $60: 0-6 years old 🍎 $40: JK & SK 🍎 $25: Gr 1 – 7 🍎 $40: JK to Gr 12 w/ special needs SIGN UP NOW: https://t.co/3nxBNlcWfY#onpoli pic.twitter.com/xAwN8ngEZ2 — Stephen Lecce (@Sflecce) January 15, 2020 Wednesday’s strike by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation closed all schools in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and in Ottawa-area schools at the two French-language boards. By Thursday, all four education unions now bargaining with the province, representing about 200,000 workers, will be staging job actions that range from work slowdowns to one-day strikes. Unless there is a breakthrough in negotiations, there will be at least two one-day strikes at various Ottawa schools next week. The city is running strike day camps at a dozen community centres, but they filled up fast for Wednesday’s walkout. Laura Barrow, who took her two young children to a camp at Walter Baker Sports Centre in Barrhaven, said it was a lifesaver. “It’s perfect. Otherwise I would have to take the day off. I know the kids are going to have fun and be plenty tired by the end of the day.” Despite the inconvenience and expense of the school closures, Barrow said she supports the teachers “100 per cent.” “They are fighting for my kids.” Her children’s teachers are fantastic, she said. “They are available seven days a week, basically, they just go above and beyond. If I send them an email at nine o’clock at night, I get a reply. They are available to talk to me at any time.” If the provincial government wants to reduce the deficit, cuts should not be made to education, said Barrow. “If we don’t have a well-educated youth it will be a severe detriment to Ontario in the future.” Here is what to expect in Ottawa schools over the next few days: Thursday: Teachers at the two French-language school boards start a work slowdown that includes not administering the province’s standardized EQAO tests and only meeting or communicating with parents during the school day. At the French public board, extracurricular activities held before or after school will be cancelled. Elementary teachers at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board continue a work slowdown that includes not participating in field trips or extracurricular activities held outside school hours, which has led to the cancellation of some activities such as sports tournaments. Monday Jan. 20: Elementary teachers at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board will stage a one-day strike if no progress is made in negotiations. All elementary schools would close, as well as Grade 7 and 8 classes in high schools that contain those grades. Tuesday Jan. 21: Teachers in Ontario’s Catholic schools will stage a one-day strike if no progress is made in negotiations. All schools in the Ottawa Catholic School Board would close for the day. The union representing English public high school teachers and education workers at some other boards plans a targeted one-day strike the same day but schools in Ottawa would not be affected. That union has pledged to halt the one-day strikes until after high school students finish their first-semester exams, which begin as early as next week at some boards. Final exams are Jan. 27 to 31 at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. jmiller@postmedia.com twitter.com/JacquieAMiller Ontario education minister announces funding for child care amid strikes Nussbaum leads throw-down on Rideau Canal Skateway in NCC video Safety conscious Ottawa police take two tries to nab suspected car thieves Ottawa's vacancy rate went up, but so did average rents in... Nussbaum leads throw-down on Rideau Canal Skateway in NCC video Two teen men on trial over beating of senior in Vanier \| Ottawa Citizen	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1526
__label__wiki	0.660148	0.660148	The Gala Dinner 2019 Awardees 2008 Outstanding 50 Asian American in Business Award Gala Feature Speaker Every year the award committee selects a well-known person as the Outstanding 50 event featured speaker. Please scroll down for information about our previous featured speakers. Anthony D. Weiner Son of a public school teacher, born and raised in Brooklyn, and now a Queens resident, Anthony Weiner knows the challenges most families face, and has worked hard to make sure that all New Yonkers get their chance at a better life. In his years in the City Council, Weiner has gained a reputation as a thoughtful fighter for New York’s neighborhoods. He initiated programs to tackle quality of life concerns, and spearheaded development plans for historic Sheepshead Bay that led to a revival of the area. And when supermarkets began leaving the neighborhood, Weiner worked night and day to reverse the trend. He also won much recognition for his efforts as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Housing, where on behalf of New York’s most undeserved and underrepresented citizens, he fought to increase federal funding for Public Housing, and on numerous occasions succeeded on a city-wide level in making public housing safer. Elected to congress in 1998, Weiner became a congressman for the district that includes Brooklyn and Queens. He currently sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has the largest jurisdiction in the U.S. House; overseeing telecommunications, public health, air quality and environmental protection, the nation’s energy policy, and interstate and foreign commerce. He also serves on the Judiciary Committee and as a part of the Democratic leadership team. Weiner’s efforts have brought millions of dollars home to New York City to restore our city’s parks and beaches, to improve the collection of DNA to solve crimes against women, to fund programs for the developmentally disabled, to fund for additional police officers, to improve pedestrian safety, to bring ferry transportation to more New Yorkers, and to even clean graffiti. Outstanding 50 Award Recipients 2008 Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business Award Recipients are listed below. 2008 Outstanding 50 Award Brochure New Faces of AMERICAN ENTREPRENEURS Excellence in The Spotlight: The Seventh Annual Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business Award Calls For 2008 Entries Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business – Kamalpreet Virdi Ajay Waghray CIO Verizon Wireless Proud to be an Alumnus of BITS Pilani Rajasthan Pinoy CEO among Americas business elite Michael Chen, CEO of GEs Media, Communications &amp;amp; Entertainment Financing Business, Receives Pinnacle Award from the Asian American Business Development Center (AABDC) for Leadership in Business Dr. Shan Nair Receives Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business Award : Asian American Business Development Center Recognizes Asian American Profe Winning Awards is a way of life for Proud to be a BITSian Ajay Waghray CIO Verizon Wireless CIO Verizon Wireless Ajay Waghray is Proud to be a BITSian Asian American Business Group Names Verizon Wireless CIO One of 50 Outstanding Asian Americans in Business Asian American Business Development Center, Inc. 132 Nassau Street, Suite 719, New York, NY 10038 \| 212-966-0100 \| www.aabdc.com © 2015 Asian American Business Development Center All rights are reserved.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1529
__label__cc	0.615433	0.384567	D. F. Lazar et al. 2012 D. F. Lazar, I. I. Bucur, I. Cociuba and E. Sasaran. 2012. Sedimentary succession of the Lower Cretaceous deposits from the north-western part of Pădurea Craiului (Apuseni Mountains, Romania). Studia UBB Geologia 57(1):33-51 [W. Kiessling/M. Krause/M. Uhen] Bacinella irregularis, Carpathocancer, Marguetta, Megasella, Tetraclitella, Tetraclitidae 'Bacinella irregularis belongs to Bacinella' according to Radoicic 1959 'Marguetta belongs to Bryocryptellidae' according to D. F. Lazar et al. 2012 'Megasella belongs to Phoridae' according to D. F. Lazar et al. 2012 'Nezzazatinella belongs to Nezzazatidae' according to D. F. Lazar et al. 2012 'Tetraclitella belongs to Tetraclitidae' according to D. F. Lazar et al. 2012 'Tetraclitidae belongs to Balanomorpha' according to D. F. Lazar et al. 2012 146232, 146234, 146235, 146239, 146241, 146242, 146251, 146335	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1531
__label__cc	0.50334	0.49666	Equality of Google Scholar with Web of Science Citations: Case of Malaysian Engineering Highly Cited Papers Modern Applied Science, Vol. 8, No. 5, pp. 63-69, 2014 7 Pages Posted: 9 Aug 2014 Last revised: 10 Aug 2014 See all articles by Nader Ale Ebrahim Mahmoud Danaee University Malaya Date Written: August 6, 2014 This study uses citation analysis from two citation tracking databases, Google Scholar (GS) and ISI Web of Science, in order to test the correlation between them and examine the effect of the number of paper versions on citations. The data were retrieved from the Essential Science Indicators and Google Scholar for 101 highly cited papers from Malaysia in the field of engineering. An equation for estimating the citation in ISI based on Google scholar is offered. The results show a significant and positive relationship between both citation in Google Scholar and ISI Web of Science with the number of versions. This relationship is higher between versions and ISI citations (r = 0.395, p<0.01) than between versions and Google Scholar citations (r = 0.315, p<0.01). Free access to data provided by Google Scholar and the correlation to get ISI citation which is costly, allow more transparency in tenure reviews, funding agency and other science policy, to count citations and analyze scholars’ performance more precisely. Keywords: Bibliometrics, Citation analysis, Evaluations, Equivalence, Google Scholar, High cited, ISI Web of Science, Research tools, H-index Ale Ebrahim, Nader and Salehi, Hadi and Embi, Mohamed Amin and Danaee, Mahmoud and Mohammadjafari, Marjan and Zavvari, Azam and Shakiba, Masoud and Shahbazi-Moghadam, Masoomeh, Equality of Google Scholar with Web of Science Citations: Case of Malaysian Engineering Highly Cited Papers (August 6, 2014). Modern Applied Science, Vol. 8, No. 5, pp. 63-69, 2014. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2477611 University Malaya ( email ) Level 14, Wisma R&D, University of Malaya Jalan Pa KL, RI KL 59990 0060173601650 (Phone)	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1534
__label__cc	0.705133	0.294867	Compensation Schemes for Damage Caused by Healthcare and Alternatives to Court Proceedings in the Netherlands - The Netherlands National Report to the 20th General Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, Fukuoka, Japan, 22-28 July 2018 Netherlands Reports to the Twentieth International Congress of Comparative Law, 2018 18 Pages Posted: 22 Mar 2018 See all articles by Berber Laarman Berber Laarman VU University Amsterdam - Amsterdam Centre for Comprehensive Law Arno J. Akkermans Amsterdam Centre for Comprehensive Law; Amsterdam Law and Behavior Insitute (A-LAB); VU University Amsterdam - Faculty of Law Date Written: March 19, 2018 In the Netherlands, concerns about the negative experiences of patients with legal procedures following adverse medical events have led to potentially profound changes in the field of procedural complaint- and compensation law. This report offers insight into the Dutch legal framework of compensation for damage caused by healthcare. We start by presenting the traditional framework in part A: The Dutch landscape of medical liability. Having laid the groundwork, we try to explain the innovations that have recently been introduced, in part B: Efforts for reform. We elaborate on the problems patients experience when they claim for compensation, the impact legal procedures can have on both patients and healthcare professionals, the recent changes in legislation trying to address these problems, and how these changes force both healthcare and legal professionals to adapt to a new reality. Keywords: adverse medical events, compensation, open disclosure, apology, health law, public health, medical malpractice, patient safety, just culture, peer support, second victim, complaints, alternative dispute resolution, conflict management, restorative justice, therapeutic jurisprudence Laarman, Berber and Akkermans, Arno J., Compensation Schemes for Damage Caused by Healthcare and Alternatives to Court Proceedings in the Netherlands - The Netherlands National Report to the 20th General Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law, Fukuoka, Japan, 22-28 July 2018 (March 19, 2018). Netherlands Reports to the Twentieth International Congress of Comparative Law, 2018. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3143320 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3143320 VU University Amsterdam - Amsterdam Centre for Comprehensive Law ( email ) Faculty of Law, Initium Building Amsterdam, 1081HV Arno J. Akkermans (Contact Author) Amsterdam Centre for Comprehensive Law ( email ) HOME PAGE: http://www.rechten.vu.nl/en/research/organization/research-programmes/accl/index.asp Amsterdam Law and Behavior Insitute (A-LAB) ( email ) VU University Amsterdam - Faculty of Law ( email ) Amsterdam, 1081 HV +31205986286 (Phone) +31205986280 (Fax) HOME PAGE: http://www.rechten.vu.nl/en/about-the-faculty/faculty/faculty/dutch-private-law/akkermans-a-j.asp	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1535
__label__wiki	0.589636	0.589636	+ free ad Whole Category Boats and Aircrafts Phones and Smartphones Photo and Accessories Patching and Construction Interior and Décor Batteries and Generators Hobby, Arts and Sports Arts and Collectibles Sports and Relaxation Agriculture and Industry Animals for Farming Equipment and Machinery Seeds and Food Aguata Boats and Aircrafts in Aguata Class Aircrafts Water Transport Year 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978 1977 1976 1975 1974 1973 1972 1971 1970 <1970 Mileage (km) New 0 - 10 000 10 000 - 50 000 50 000 - 100 000 100 000 - 150 000 > 150 000 Buy Boats, motorboats, yachts, catamarans and other kinds of water vehicles in Myanmar at the lowest prices on ipivi. In this section, you can buy, sell, trade or give away for free any equipment and accessories for river and sea vehicles. Easy app — easy shopping Download it from GOOGLE PLAY Download it from App store Products and services prohibited for publishing Ad Submission Rules Offer for Paid Services ipivi.com official@ng.swapix.com © 2017-2020 Swapix By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read our Privacy Policy and you agree to our use of cookies. Welcome to Swapix! An unexpected error has occurred, please try again later!	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1538
__label__cc	0.602506	0.397494	Competing Species Plays The Major Role In Ecology Social networking between competing species plays a lot bigger position in ecology than anybody beforehand thought, in response to three biologists on the College of California, Davis. There’s mounting proof that entirely different species concentrate on one another within the wild, particularly if they share predaSpeciestors,” stated Mike Gil, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis. “The idea of ecology has lagged.” Gil and co-authors Marissa Basket, affiliate professor of environmental science and coverage, and Sebastian Schreiber, professor of evolution and ecology, define their new principle in a paper revealed within the November situation of the journal Ecology. Gil desires to grasp how populations work together with one another and alter over time. Historically, ecologists have targeted competitors between species for meals and different assets. “However, we sometimes pass over the specifics of animal determination making and social behavior,” Gil mentioned. For instance, gazelle, wildebeest, or zebra might cue into the presence of a predator reminiscent of a lion by seeing different species react, utilizing the “community” to maintain themselves protected. The brand new mannequin by Gil, Basket, and Schreiber is the primary to take this type of brief-time period info sharing into consideration on the population level. “It fully adjustments the lengthy-time period dynamics of the system,” Gil stated. The results are particularly robust at low inhabitants densities, he mentioned. When inhabitants density is excessive, the fashions present, competitors between species is a stronger effect. Sheer numbers may additionally crowd out social cues. Advances in know-how—together with cheaper cameras and sensors, and the computing power to handle giant quantities of information—have made it simpler than ever to review brief-lived interactions between species within the wild, Gil stated. “We can accumulate knowledge now that we may only dream a couple of decades in the past,” he mentioned. “It is a thrilling time to be a biologist.” Published in Ecology and News Competing Species Dennis Norwood Dennis is the chief contributing author and editor for the energy column. He has expert knowledge about environmental science has acquired quite a lot of on-field experience about energy resources. He was engaged with many groups to educate people about the diminishing non-renewable energies and usage of renewable energies. He has written many papers based on the implications of renewable energy sources. His articles are very much inspiring and portray the positive aspects of using renewable energies. More from EcologyMore posts in Ecology » Scientists Assessing The Conservation Status Of Vertebrate Species Scientists Have Recognised An Immunological Adjustments In People To Develop An Allergic Reaction For The Mammalian Meat	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1545
__label__wiki	0.928368	0.928368	Anti-graft court junks PHP200B civil suit against Marcoses Well, here’s yet another win for the Marcos family. The Philippines’ anti-graft court today dismissed a civil forfeiture case filed against late former President Ferdinand Marcos and his surviving family members due to lack of evidence, allowing the Marcoses to dodge paying back the government for a hefty PHP200 billion (US$ 39.4 million) in allegedly ill-gotten wealth pilfered from the national coffers during martial law rule. Read: Philippine graft court hands family of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos another win Sandiganbayan’s fourth division said that Civil Suit No. 0002 — filed against the late president, his wife Imelda, his associate Constante Rubio, and his children, Senator Imee Marcos, Irene Marcos-Araneta, and Senator Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos, Jr. — was dismissed “for failure of the plaintiff to prove its allegations by preponderance of evidence.” The 58-page decision, penned by Division Chairperson Alex Quiroz, reads: “The bulk of the documentary evidence offered by the plaintiff are mere photocopies, most of which are barely readable.” “The court acknowledges the atrocities committed during Martial Law under the Marcos regime and the ‘plunder’ committed on the country’s resources,” it adds. “However, absent sufficient evidence that may lead to the conclusion that the subject properties were indeed ill-gotten by the Marcoses, the court cannot simply order the return of the same to the national treasury.” Associate Justices Maria Theresa Mendoza-Arcega and Maryann Corpus-Manalac concurred with the ruling. The case stemmed from a 1987 complaint by the the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), an agency created by then-President Corazon Aquino to recover the ill-gotten wealth allegedly amassed by the Marcoses during their 20-year martial law rule. The suit was filed by the Office of the Solicitor General that same year. This is the fifth time in 2019 that the Marcoses and their cronies have won a decades-old, ill-gotten wealth case lodged by the government against them, with the Sandiganbayan dismissing a PHP102 billion (US$2 billion) case against them in August, another case being dismissed against the heirs of Marcos crony Luis Yulo in September, and the failed bid to recover millions of dollars from the Marcoses in two cases in October. To this day, the Marcos family maintains that they have not stolen from the national coffers, with Imee Marcos drawing ire from netizens last year when she said people should “move on” from martial law. Correction: a previous version of this story identified Imee Marcos as Aimee, it’s been corrected and updated. This article, Anti-graft court junks PHP200B civil suit against Marcoses, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters! No, you can’t use bras as makeshift face masks, health secretary clarifies ‘Like a Scene From a Movie.’ What I Saw Photographing the Taal Volcano Eruption in the Philippines Philippine residents retrieve animals, belongings amid threat of volcano eruption 'You have not seen anything yet,' climate activist Greta says ahead of Davos	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1549
__label__cc	0.590516	0.409484	Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics SURF Summer 2020 Deadline: Feb. 13 Show submenu for About Show submenu for People Primary Faculty Post Doctoral Associates Graduate Faculty Mentors Instructional Faculty Adjunct, Affiliated and Courtesy Faculty Department Alumni Show submenu for Research The Guryanova Lab The Kopinke Lab The Martens Lab The Munger Lab The Papke Lab The Wesson Lab Show submenu for Education & Training Education & Training Overview BMS Program - Concentration in Pharmacology and Therapeutics Example Schedule – Pharmacology and Therapeutics Concentration Masters in Medical Sciences - Pharmacology Concentration Applying to the Program Example Schedule – Masters in Pharmacology Concentration Medical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Online Graduate Certificate Program Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program 2020 SURF Application SURF Program Alumni Life at UF Show submenu for Life at UF Life at UF Overview 2018 Department Retreat Fall 2019 Department Defenses UF Ranked No. 7 in Public Universities This September, the University of Florida moved up to No. 7 in public universities, according to the U.S. News & World Report in their 2020 Best Colleges rankings. The university improved on its No. 8 spot on the list last year. It is now tied with the University of California – Santa Barbara right behind the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. UF administrators want to climb further up the list to secure a top-5 position, the Gainesville Sun reports. No. 7 University of Florida’s ranking for public universities, according to the U.S. News & World Report No. 34 University of Florida’s ranking for national universities, according to the U.S. News & World Report Additional News Coverage: The Gainesville Sun UF reaches No. 7 among top public schools “The University of Florida has risen again as the seventh top public school in the 2020 U.S. News and World Report Best Schools rankings. This is UF’s third consecutive year on the list as a top-10 public school.” The Independent Florida Alligator Gov. Ron DeSantis announces UF’s rise to No. 7 public university in U.S. “Gov. Ron DeSantis entered a small room packed with faculty and media this morning in UF’s Emerson Alumni Hall to give a ‘major announcement’: UF is now the seventh best public university in the U.S.” University of Florida News UF rises again in U.S. News & World Report rankings, this year to No. 7 among public universities “For the third year in a row, the University of Florida has risen in the U.S. News & World Report Top Public Schools rankings, climbing to No. 7.” News & Awards, Uncategorized Research Seminar: Laura M. Bohn, Ph.D. January 9, 2020 Research Seminar: Yan Liu, Ph.D. January 9, 2020 Publication from the Kopinke Lab November 21, 2019 Most Recent Select January 2020 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 January 2019 October 2018 September 2018 July 2018 April 2018 January 2018 December 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 November 2016 October 2016 August 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 October 2015 September 2015 July 2015 June 2015 April 2015 December 2014 October 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 October 2012 Education & Training 1200 Newell Drive, ARB R5-234 Gainesville, FL 32610-0267	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1550
__label__wiki	0.692724	0.692724	PHASE - IV Scientific Health and Performance Center Contact PHASE IV Contact Forster Physical Therapy PHASE IV Elite Athletes Pick Your Programs at PHASE IV Santa Monica PHASE IV Online Programs Forster Training Systems Nutrition and Robert Forster, P.T., has served the Santa Monica area for over 35 years. He is the founder and CEO of both Forster Physical Therapy™ and the PHASE IV Scientific Health and Performance Center™. Los Angeles Magazine featured Forster Physical Therapy as “The Best In LA, “ and Competitor Magazine ranked his center as the “Best Place to go for a Sport’s Injury.” Robert began his sports medicine and physical therapy career in Santa Monica California in 1980 after graduating from the University of New York at Stony Brook. Robert’s professional career spans 9 Olympic games as the exclusive Physical Therapist to team USA Track and Field and Wrestling. Robert’s clinics are the exclusive therapy providers to the Los Angeles Marathon. Under his care athletes have earned 54 US Olympic Medals, Wimbledon, Grand Slam, Wrestling and MMA World Champion titles. USA Olympians including Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Florence “Flo-Jo” Joyner, Alyson Felix, and their teammates credit Forster with peaking their fitness injury free. This same evidenced based science, is intricately woven into thousands of Forster’s PHASE IV training, weight management, and fitness programs for clients of every age and ability. This science is also the subject of his two books: The Complete Waterpower Workout, Random House 1993, a best seller in its genre, and Healthy Running Step by Step, 2014. Robert has published several articles in the Scientific Press and has written a regular column for Triathlete Magazine. He has appeared in several episodes of the popular Fit to Hit series on the Tennis Channel, and he is a regular guest on NBC with Bruce Hensel, M.D., covering topics ranging from Olympic training to concussion rehabilitation. In 2014 Robert partnered with ADDADAY® to design and endorse recovery massage products to an international audience. Forster lectures throughout North America and Europe on the science of injury prevention and performance, in life and sport. He is a regular speaker to SONY executives and the FBI, and continues to advance healthy exercise, nutrition, and training principles every week in his popular PHASE IV NEWSLETTER, circulated to over 25,000 subscribers. In 2002 Forster founded Phase IV Scientific Health and Performance Center staffed by Exercise Physiologists and Physical Therapists who embrace a diverse population of clients spanning student athletes to grandparents, and elite athletes to those who suffer from metabolic syndrome and other systemic diseases. With exact science, Forster’s clients manage their health and performance following individualized and guided exercise and nutrition programs. Forster said, ” A fitness plan based on an individual’s unique metabolism and structural physiology is the best prescription for health. Exercise is medicine for life, but it must be delivered in the proper dose.” Forster leads the industry in safe, injury free, effective, and sustainable prescription exercise and weight management. Robert created and hosted Herbalife’s® 24 FIT program, Addaday® features the Forster Training Systems Edition recovery for runners massage products, and Robert’s FTS fitness and recovery products are featured in Brookstone®. Robert’s active philanthropic interests promote safety in sports as well. He sponsors the Velo Club, La Grange Bicycle Club, Los Angeles Triathlon Club, Santa Monica High School athletics, and local AYSO programs and their coaching staffs. Forster founded the Santa Monica Kids Wrestling Program, and has recently teamed up with the local chapter of Wounded Warriors: Ride to Recovery Group. Robert has served on both the California Governor’s Council of Physical Fitness Advisory Board, and the California State and TEAM USA Wrestling Championship medical staff as well. Fitness is a priority to Robert. He is an avid cyclist and continues to train for endurance cycling events. He has completed in six of the world’s most challenging races including La Ruta de Conquistadors in Costa Rica, the Trans Alp Challenge, the B.C. Bike Race and the Brian Head 100. Robert Forster’s career is devoted to the advancement of rehabilitative health and performance science. He is a Team USA Performance Specialist training and rehabbing Olympians and World Champions across the globe. When asked by students what inspires him most he answered, “Science, the miraculous human body, and the advancement of safe and healthy fitness programs for everyone.” Test MenuTest Description Swimming AT PHASE IV THE PHASE IV STORY © 2016 Phase IV - All Rights Reserved Get on the list to receive all the latest fitness and nutrition tips!	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1551
__label__wiki	0.52889	0.52889	Home » The ADR Blog » Court Rule Amendments – It Isn’t Your Traditional Litigation Plan Anymore Court Rule Amendments – It Isn’t Your Traditional Litigation Plan Anymore With the promulgation of the Michigan Supreme Court’s Order 2018-19, many significant and important amendments to the Michigan Court Rules will become effective January 1, 2020. See https://courts.michigan.gov/Courts/MichiganSupremeCourt/rules/court-rules-admin-matters/Adopted/2018-19_2019-06-19_FormattedOrder_AmendtOfDiscoveryRules.pdf. This article provides a brief overview of only a few of these amendments and identifies a number of potential suggested strategies that may give rise to a reconsideration of your current litigation practices. A. Initial Disclosures In the vast majority of cases filed in the circuit courts, counsel for the plaintiff must file initial disclosures within 14 days after a response to the complaint. MCR 2.302(A)(5)(b)(i). The defendant “must serve its initial disclosures within the later of 14 days after the opposing party’s disclosures are due or 28 days after the party files its answer.” MCR 2.302(A)(5)(ii). “In a case where initial disclosures are required, a party may seek discovery only after the party serves its initial disclosures…” MCR 2.301(A)(1). The cases exempted from the initial disclosures are quite limited. See MCR 2.301(A)(4). The initial disclosures required by Rule 2.302(A) are more extensive than the disclosures called for in Fed. Rule Civ. Pro. 26(a)(1)(A). In addition to witness information, document descriptions, damage calculations, and applicable insurance agreements, the disclosures in the amended Michigan Court Rules call for: the factual basis of the party’s claims and defenses; documents and electronically stored information (ESI) in and not in the disclosing party’s possession; and, the anticipated subject area of expert testimony. MCR 2.302 (A)(1)(a-h). In No Fault and Personal Injury cases additional initial disclosures are required. See MCR 2.301(A)(2) and (3). MCR (A)(6) identifies the parties’ initial disclosure obligations: A party must serve initial disclosures on the information reasonably available to the party. However, a party is not excused from making disclosure because the party has not fully investigated the case or because the party challenges the sufficiency of another party’s disclosures or because another party has not made its disclosures. The parties also have a duty to supplement their disclosures (as well as other discovery) in a timely manner. MCR 2.302(E). It appears the new disclosure requirements are intended to accomplish at least two purposes: to jump start the litigation (particularly in no fault and personal injury cases) and to reduce the number of discovery disputes. Practice Thoughts: Any party engaging in gamesmanship or holding back trial “surprises” risks various sanctions if a trial court determines the initial disclosure or supplemental disclosure was incomplete or not timely made. MCR 2.313(A)(5-6). When there is the need to supplement it may be prudent for the supplementing party to document the file to establish that any initial disclosure or supplementation was, in fact, timely and reasonably made. It is not difficult to predict disputes will arise as to whether an initial disclosure was reasonable or supplementation was timely made. The practice of serving discovery with the complaint or the answer to the complaint will need to change; a party may not request discovery until its initial disclosure has been made. The amended rules may provide greater incentives to engage in pre-complaint mediation. The degree of diligence of the initial pre-complaint investigation will dictate the scope of that party’s initial disclosure. Prior to the filing of a complaint, and after evaluating the scope of the mandatory initial disclosures required, it may be deemed preferable to consider the wisdom of a pre-complaint mediation, which will offer greater control over the timing certain information is disclosed. When the parties voluntarily choose to pursue a pre-complaint mediation, the parties can always stipulate to make the mutual initial disclosures required by MCR 2.302 (A)(1)(a-h), or otherwise voluntarily agree to exchange other information and documents as a condition precedent for the mediation. When necessary the parties can protect any disclosed information with a protective agreement that can later become a protective order entered by the court if the mediation is unsuccessful. B. Proportionality, ESI and ADR A major change in MCR 2.302(B) explicitly provides for “proportional” discovery: Parties may obtain discovery regarding any non-privileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claims or defenses and proportional to the needs of the case, taking into account all pertinent factors, including whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit, the complexity of the case, the importance of the issues at stake, the amount in controversy, and the parties’ resources and access to relevant information. The amended Court Rules make clear proportionality also applies to ESI discovery. MCR 2.302(B)(5). When faced with an objection the requested ESI will impose an undue burden or expense “the court may specify conditions for the discovery, including allocation of the expense and may limit the frequency or extent of discovery of ESI (whether or not the ESI is from a source that is reasonably accessible).” MCR 2.302.5. Because of the proliferation of ESI discovery disputes, the new Court Rules also provide for an optional initial ESI conference to address those ESI issues that will likely occur during the case and provides a mechanism for the development of a detailed written ESI plan and order. MCR 2.314(J). The parties and the courts should seriously consider convening such a conference where appropriate and the parties will be well served to agreeing to a written ESI plan prior to such a conference. A model ESI plan, utilized by the district courts of the Eastern District of Michigan, has been endorsed by the Oakland County business court for your consideration. See https://www.mied.uscourts.gov/pdffiles/ParkerEsiOrderChecklist.pdf. MCR 2.411(H) provides for the mediation of discovery disputes and “in cases involving complex issues of ESI, the court may appoint an expert under MRE 706. By stipulation of the parties, the court may also designate the expert as a discovery mediator of ESI issues…” MCR 2.411(H)(4). In recognition of a whole panoply of ADR processes other than just mediation and case evaluation, MCR 2.401(C)(1)(h) continues to urge the Court consider: whether mediation, case evaluation, or some other form of alternative dispute resolution would be appropriate for the case, and what mechanisms are available to provide such services… In 2015 the Supreme Court Administrative Office provided a bench book to all trial courts that outlined 14 different ADR processes and the indications and contraindications for the use of these processes. See Michigan Judges Guide to ADR Practice and Procedure, When exploring an appropriate ADR process with the trial court, litigators should always seriously consider which of any of these processes could be beneficially incorporated into their litigation plan. Practice Thoughts Federal case law dealing with “proportionality” might be utilized by the parties in the briefing of proportionality disputes. Fed. Rule of Civ. Pro 26 was amended in 2015 to include a proportionality requirement and there is a well-developed body of federal law dealing with the concept. As the Oakland County business court’s standard case management protocol has long called for proportionality in business case discovery (https://www.oakgov.com/courts/businesscourt/Documents/ocbc-pro-case-management.pdf), the Oakland County Business Court judges have published a number of written opinions on proportionality. In the not too distant future, there will likely be a proliferation of published Michigan business court cases dealing with the topic. Under the Business Court Statute all decisions and opinions of the Michigan business courts, including discovery disputes, must be published on line. See https://courts.michigan.gov/opinions_orders/businesscourtssearch/pages/default.aspx. These business court opinions will undoubtedly provide significant guidance to other Michigan circuit courts and the parties in resolving proportionality disputes. Parties should consider mutually agreeing on a discovery mediator at the outset of a case. Trial courts are typically loath to entertain discovery disputes and the parties may find it quicker and less expensive to agree to a mediator who can assist in the resolution of discovery disputes either in whole or significant part. Typically the briefing will be minimal and can be dealt with expeditiously during a conference call with the discovery mediator and counsel. Remember, the discovery mediator (if acting as a mediator and not an expert under MRE 706) does not order a resolution or otherwise make recommendations to the trial court. If the parties cannot mutually agree to a resolution in whole or in part during the mediation, the parties may file a Motion and proceed to Court on the unresolved issues. Under these circumstances there will be absolutely no issue on whether or not concurrence was sought. When parties attempt, but are unable to resolve discovery disputes through mediation, the imposition of sanctions will likely be minimized. If the parties anticipate significant ESI discovery and having difficulties developing a mutually acceptable ESI plan, a mediator who is experienced with ESI issues can assist the parties in developing an ESI discovery plan for presentation to the Court. This mediator will be very familiar with the ESI discovery plan and can be called upon to mediate ESI disputes if needed. If there is an ESI discovery dispute, and the parties decide to mediate the dispute, it is highly recommended the mediator have ESI subject matter expertise. The discovery mediator selected by the parties may, but need not be, the same mediator who will meet with the parties to explore a global resolution of the dispute. When selecting a mediator to assist in the resolution of discovery disputes, consider whether this same mediator will be appropriate to ultimately mediate a global settlement. When developing a dispute resolution plan, consider discussing with the agreed upon neutral the staging and timing of potentially beneficial ADR processes other than mediation or case evaluation. Parties should seriously question the wisdom of scheduling an MCR 2.403 case evaluation prior to a mediation. Courts are increasingly receptive to allowing the parties to opt out of MCR 2.403 case evaluation, which has proven to be far less successful than mediation in the resolution of disputes and, in fact, studies show case evaluation actually increases case age and the life of the dispute. Case Evaluation and Mediation in Michigan Circuit Courts: A Follow-up Study, C. Staging Discovery Although not specifically addressed in the amended Michigan Court Rules, a party and the court should always consider the benefits of “staging” discovery in the development of a litigation plan. Proportional and staged discovery are two independent concepts. Proportional discovery has been discussed as a reasoned methodology for limiting certain burdensome or certain wasteful discovery. Staged discovery merely involves delaying more costly and burdensome discovery until after the initially staged discovery focuses on, for example, the issue of liability or other threshold legal and factual issues. Greater use of staged litigation— for example, litigating and resolving some potentially case-dispositive issues before discovery on other more discovery-intensive issues—is a potent and effective practice for the trial courts and counsel to consider and recommended as a best practice by the Supreme Court Administrative Office. See Caseflow Management Guide, SCAO (2013), https://courts.michigan.gov/Administration/SCAO/Resources/Documents/Publications/Manuals/cfmg.pdf. The Caseflow Management Guide identifies another beneficial context for the use of staged discovery: The court should limit the nature and scope of discovery according to the management needs of the case. Each of the following approaches is aimed at minimizing the time and expense devoted to discovery while promoting non-trial dispositions at the earliest point in the process…. Developing a process where initial discovery focuses on the information needed for settlement with discovery for trial provided only in cases that are likely to be tried. Id. at p. 22 In light of the amendment to MCR 1.105, the Michigan Trial Courts will continue to be receptive to appropriate discovery staging practices: These rules are to be construed, administered, and employed by the parties and the court to secure the just, speedy, and economical determination of every action…. Staging discovery in appropriate cases is a tool for counsel in reducing a client’s case costs. If unresolved or disputed legal or factual issues will pose a significant impediment to a successful mediation, consider the use of staged discovery to address those issues before engaging in the mediation. If the mediation is unsuccessful, the parties can always pursue the additional discovery necessary to prepare for a trial. A premature mediation will all too often be a fruitless exercise and a waste of your client’s time and money. If you believe you have been ordered to mediation prematurely, this should be raised with the mediator before scheduling the mediation. The mediator can effectively work with the parties and the court to ensure the parties are adequately prepared to engage in a meaningful mediation. Always discuss with the your mutually selected neutral the design of any mediation process and whether other ADR techniques might be beneficially staged, modified or incorporated into the mediation process. D. Conclusion This article does not address all of the significant changes to the Michigan Court Rules that have the potential to profoundly impact your litigation practices. Suffice it to state this article only focuses on a few of the amendment likely to impact the interplay between your litigation and ADR practices. To the extent all participants in the litigation process are charged with the responsibility “to secure the just, speedy, and economical determination of every action” all of the amended Michigan Court Rules are an indispensable tool to achieve those laudable objectives.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1555
__label__cc	0.584756	0.415244	alyxyo 29. they/them. library clerk in Alabama, USA. (image credit: Ryan Meinerding's concept art for Avengers: Infinity War) A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn A People's History of the United States \| Howard Zinn The military conflict itself, by dominating everything in its time, diminished other issues, made people choose sides in the one contests that was publicly important, forced people onto the side of the Revolution whose interest in Independence was not at all obvious. Ruling elites seem to have learned through the generations -- consciously or not -- that war makes them more secure against internal trouble. There is no country in world history in which racism has been more important, for so long a time, as the United States. If there are necessary sacrifices to be made for human progress, is it not a central to hold to the principle that those to be sacrificed must make the decision themselves? We can all decide to give up something of ours, but do we have the right to throw into the pyre the children of others, or even our own children, for a progress which is not nearly as cleaner or present as sickness or health, life or death? The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks) -- the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress -- is only one aspect of a certain approach to history in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders. alyxyo It is as if they, like Columbus, deserve universal acceptance, as if they -- the Founding Fathers, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, the leading members of Congress, the famous justices of the Supreme Court -- represent the nation as a whole. The pretense is that there really is such thing as "the United States," subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of people with common interests. 1mo alyxyo It is as if there really is a "national interest" represented and the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decisions of the courts, the development of capitalism, the culture of education and the mass media. 1mo 1 like2 comments My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been. alyxyo The history of any country presented at the history of a family conceals fierce conflicts of interests (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated, in race and sex. 1mo alyxyo And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus once said, not to be in the side of the executioners. 1mo I'm Not Dying with You Tonight \| Kimberly Jones Just finished this up for this year's #BigLibraryRead. It felt a little thin in world-building and resolution, and the writing itself was underwhelming (especially coming straight out of The Hate U Give), but I think it could be a very useful text for middle grade and high school conversations about contemporary Black-white relations in the US. CrowCAH Join the discussion, I‘m posting questions related to the book. 2mo The Hate U Give \| Angela Thomas I have mixed feelings about some elements of the ending, but that's probably to be expected. Deffo got goosebumps during the epilogue. A couple of my coworkers recommended the movie to me after I told them I was listening to the book, so it looks like that's on the to-do list now. Venturing away from my nonfiction and superheroes to listen to the only YA fiction book I've had on my to-read list in ages. Bahni Turpin is an audiobook role model, and her performance is turning a narrative I already anticipated would be emotional into a truly heartrending performance. Between the World and Me \| Ta-Nehisi Coates My only regret was listening in the car rather than at home where I could jot down quotes. It's an easy read insofar as it's relatively short and deliberately avoids sociological jargon, but the tradeoff is that it is an account of a man's life and the lessons he has to impart on his son that includes preserving a body and a soul that has been commodified by the US for generations. We, "people who believe we are white," have to do better. "Here is what I would like for you to know: in America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage.” (I started listening to the audiobook a few days before Dana Fletcher was shot and killed my police in Madison, AL. I am shaken and angry. I cannot imagine how Black people continue to move through the world, but I must continue to listen. My privilege as a white person is only as good as the voices it elevates.) Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy \| Anthony Harkins, Meredith McCarroll "[...] the public often finds it difficult to elevate the expertise of more than one member of an underrepresented group at a time. The American Conservative, for example, praised Hillbilly Elegy for doing 'for poor white people what Ta-Nehisi Coates's book did for poor black people [...],' a warm comparison from a publication critical of Coates but one that nonetheless demonstrates that, to some, marginalized individuals need but one champion." Stella's favorite part of reading time is getting to chew on my favorite bookmark 😸 "Also, don't blame poor people [for Trump's election]; many of them didn't vote, and besides that, data from the primaries show that Trump supporters' yearly income averaged $72,000, well above the national average and above those of Clinton and Sanders supporters. The typical Trump voter was not a poor hillbilly. And please, don't blame Trumpalachia." I read Hillbilly Elegy when it first came out 3 years ago, and I remember feeling ambivalent toward it: on the one hand, I value memoir as a medium in which a person finds shareable truths in their own lived experience, but on the other, it was definitely an overly simplistic review of Appalachia as a whole. Three years later, here's a book in which people much smarter (and significantly more Appalchian) than me put those feelings into words. Marvel Comics: The Untold Story \| Sean Howe I was worried this would be either a dry slog of a read or graceless propaganda, but it turns out to be a frank and well-balanced account of the Marvel entertainment empire. I'd happily buy a (reasonably-priced secondhand) copy to reread. How to Be an Antiracist \| Ibram X. Kendi Hard-hitting in its sociopolitical calls for action, cathartic in the frankness and transparency of the author's ongoing antiracist development, and compellingly written throughout -- I have to buy a copy of this to reread and share and meditate on soon. "The problem of race has always been at its core the problem of power, not the problem of immorality or ignorance." I've noted more quotes from this book than I'll ever be able to share with Litsy's character limit, but this is a hard truth I'm still internalizing and the key to working toward antiracism: first, we must understand what racism is and is not. Taking a break from Marvel Comics for this gem just as it debuts on the #nytbestseller list. "We know how to be racist. We know how to pretend to be not racist. Now let's know how to be antiracist." "In the beginning Marvel created the Bullpen and the Style. "And the Bullpen was without form, and was void; and darkness was upon the face of the Artists. And the Spirit of Marvel moved upon the face of the Writers. "And Marvel said, Let there be the Fantastic Four. And there was The Fantastic Four. "And Marvel saw The Fantastic Four. And it was good." - Stan Lee They Called Us Enemy \| George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott A timely extension of George Takei's 2014 "Why I love a country that once betrayed me" TED Talk, with STUNNING art by Harmony Becker, this graphic memoir is easily now one of my favorite books. I think it could have benefited from being broken down into chapters, but the narrative flow is almost seamless from beginning to end, so I'll forgive it. This post contains spoilers I was starting to wonder if the book was going to end on talk of "participatory democracy" and how the US government is the "best in the world," but I should have known better. "Though they responded in difference way -- caring for their families, fighting on the battlefield, or serving time for their principle -- all these Japanese Americans should incredible courage and heroism. They proved that being American is not just for some people. They all made difficult choices to demonstrate their patriotism to this country, even when it rejected them." "Whenever we would approach a town, we were forced to draw the shade. We not to be seen by the townspeople." "[Executive order 9066] never used the word 'Japanese' or 'camps' -- it authorized the military to declare areas 'from which any and all person may be excluded,' and to provide 'transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations' to persons excluded from those areas. Ten days later, the entire West Coast [...] was declared a 'military area.' As for what kind of 'persons' would be 'excluded'...that quickly became obvious." Stellaluna \| Janell Cannon This is also quality snuggle time with Stellaluna! #catsoflitsy SW-T Stellaluna‘s a cutie 💕 5mo alyxyo @SW-T Thank you! I can't believe she's turning 6 next month! 😊 5mo I've been having trouble sleeping through the night for the past several weeks, so I've decided to turn these late-night wake-ups into reading time. Educated: A Memoir \| Tara Westover I work at a library, and every week we get a list of the top 20 NYT Bestsellers in fiction and nonfiction. I had no idea what this book was about beyond the one-line blurb on that list except that it was a memoir of a woman seeking formal education. I'm grateful for my ignorance and that I could experience Tara Westover's story without preconceptions and excessive hype. Beautifully written, weighty, and HONEST. An exemplar of why I love memoir. "She was not angry with me for leaving, because leaving was a part of her cycle. Her role was not to control the buffalo, not to gather and confine them by force. It was to celebrate their return." "He gave me a stiff hug and said, 'I love you, you know that?' "'I do,' I said. 'That has never been the issue.'" "This was the price I was being asked to pay, I understood that now. What my father wanted to cast from me wasn't a demon: it was me." "In retrospect, I see that this was my education, the one that would matter: the hours I spent sitting at a borrowed desk, struggling to parse narrow strands of Mormon doctrine in mimicry of the brother who'd abandoned me. The skill I was learning was a crucial one, the patience to read things I could not yet understand." "If Dad happened by he'd turn the light off, muttering about wasted electricity. Then I'd find some excuse to go downstairs so I could turn it back on. [...] If I couldn't get back down to turn on the light, Richard would pull the book to his nose and read in the dark; he wanted to read that badly. He wanted to read the encyclopedia that badly." "Dad lived in fear of time. He felt it stalking him. I could see it in the worried glances he gave the sun as it moved across the sky, the anxious way he appraised every length of pipe or cut of steel." "The gales are strong this close to the mountain, as if the peak itself is exhaling. [...] Behind me a gentle hill slopes upward and stitches itself to the mountain base. [...] The hill is paved with wild wheat. If the conifers and sagebrush are soloists, the wheat field is a corps de ballet...as great gales dent their golden heads. The shape of the dent lasts only a moment, and is as close as anyone gets to seeing wind." Suet624 💕💕 6mo alyxyo @Suet624 I'm only through chapter 5, but I was immediately enraptured by that imagery on the very first page 😍😍 6mo SW-T Welcome to Litsy 😊 @LitsyWelcomeWagon #LitsyWelcomeWagon 6mo alyxyo @SW-T Thank you! 😄 This is already so much more fun than Goodreads! 6mo Eggs Welcome 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 5mo alyxyo @Eggs thank you! 5mo RaimeyGallant Welcome! 5mo alyxyo @RaimeyGallant thank you 😊 5mo Captain America Corps \| Roger Stern I'm generally not a fan of time-travel shenanigans, but they've become a staple of Caprain America comics, and this one was at least a fun read. There are some surprising and satisfying appearances from other Avengers characters throughout, though, and the climax is pretty satisfying as long as I don't think about it too hard. I could have lived without the weird white savior-ish epilogue, though. All in all, I'll buy it secondhand if I find it. Sounds fake, but okay. My GOD. As if the US becoming a fascist-nationalist police state wasn't dark enough. I want to laugh, but this is already a little more relevant than Roger Stern probably anticipated back in 2011. Americommand, Americops, Ameridroid.... This HAS to be the cutest rendering of 1940s-Steve in existence. John: You expect me to believe that two "future Caps" are a girl and some -- what? Asian-Hispanic? Kiyoshi: I'm also a quarter Nez Percé, Walker. When your ancestors finally made it to America, mine were waiting for them. [[So John Walker is a dick and Kiyoshi Morales needs to be canon, plz&thx]] I didn't even know this existed!	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1560
__label__wiki	0.828776	0.828776	OLYMPIA: Piercing bill aims to halt hole-punching Matt Heinz — Jan 30th, 1998 The legislation would expand the state's tattooing laws. By Matt Heinz and Heidi G. Evans Two purple balls fasten a metal pin through the tongue of Hannah Ridge, 17, of Port Orchard. Under a new bill before the Senate, Ridge's tongue piercing would break the law, even though she had her mother's permission. The bill, SB6611, would make it illegal for those under 18 to have any parts of their body pierced besides their ears, regardless of parental consent. "With this bill, we're doing the same thing for body piercing that we did for tattooing," said Sen. Pam Roach, R-Seattle, the bill's prime sponsor. Three years ago, Roach sponsored a bill that made it illegal for minors to get permanent tattoos. Roach sees this new bill as merely an extension of the law for a similar course of action. "We want to curb the frivolous actions of youth," she said. "When you are 22 or 23, you may decide that maybe this wasn't a good idea. These decisions should be made by someone over 18." Local young people say the bill is intrusive. "That's the law getting into a family issue," said Jake Brustoski, 19, of Port Orchard, who has both a tattoo and a pierced ear. Brustoski and Ridge said body piercing, unlike tattooing, is temporary. "If you go home with a piercing your parents can say, 'Take it out,' " Brustoski said. Kids under 18 can pierce just about anything at Angelique Haire's body piercing parlor in Port Orchard. Anything, that is, as long as the child has parental permission. Haire, who runs the Imagination INK-Ed tattoo and body piercing parlor with her husband, says she'll continue to pierce the body parts of teens. "If the law is passed, we'll still do piercing under 18 if we have parental consent," Haire said. "If the parents are consenting, then who's gonna press charges?" If body piercing becomes illegal, Ridge says teens would just pierce themselves at home, increasing the risk of infection. As a piercing professional Haire stresses that people, young and old, should carefully consider doing the deed. "Make sure you're going somewhere that's clean," she said. "Be fully informed as to what you're getting and make sure that the equipment and standards are up to date. "If you're not comfortable, go somewhere else," she said. Addressing this issue, Roach indicated she intended to introduce another bill, perhaps this week, that would attempt to regulate the piercing industry, SB6683. "It's an industry request to watchdog the practice," Roach said. "We want sanitary conditions for those who body pierce." Sen. Bob Oke, R-Port Orchard, is a co-sponsor of the bill. Tattoos and piercings by licensed physicians for medical purposes would remain legal, according to the measure. The bill has been referred to the Senate Law and Justice Committee which Roach chairs. Staff photo by Steve Zugschwerdt FASHION STATEMENT OR SPEECH IMPEDIMENT? Hannah Ridge, 17, left, and Jannelle Dupuis, 16, show off their pierced tongues at the Ciao Baby coffee shop in Port Orchard after school Tuesday. The legislation would expand the state's tattooing laws. By Matt Heinz and Heidi G. Evans Sun Staff Two purple balls fasten a metal pin through the tongue of Hannah Ridge, 17, of Port Orchard. Under a new bill before the Senate, Ridge's tongue piercing ... [Read More...] A tongue stud? What's Mom say? Heidi Collins, 18, and Chris Mierzwak, 21, are not opposed to proposed legislation that would require parental permission for the piercing of minors in the state. AP photo by Ted S. Warren Randolph Slaughter, a body piercer at Metro Body Piercing and Tattoo in Olympia, ... [Read More...] attitudes Body piercing Going beyond a hole in the ear By Lynn Sherk And Sun news services = At some point, everyone's mother or father has probably said, "You need that like you need another hole in your head." Lately many people seem to be taking this ... [Read More...] MY VIEW: First-person account of body piercing By Marci Gadberry Special to The Sun It all started with runway models wearing low-waisted skirts and pants. Now it's happening right here in our cities. I'm talking about body piercing. This summer my friends and ... [Read More...] Question: Outlaw body piercing? By Sam Kina For The Sun Recently, some state legislators tried to pass a law making it illegal for anyone under age 18 to receive any sort of body piercing except of their ears. This would make it illegal to get one's nose, eyebrow, ... [Read More...]	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1561
__label__cc	0.638338	0.361662	Sol Spiegelman - Profiles in Science Sol Spiegelman The Sol Spiegelman Papers Enzymes and Genetics, 1940-1955 RNA-DNA Hybridization in Viruses, 1955-1965 RNA Replicase and Spiegelman's "Little Monster," 1961-1969 RNA Viruses and Cancer--Institute of Cancer Research at Columbia, 1969-1983 Spiegelman, Sol, 1914-198326 Haruna, I. (I. Haruna)4 Hayashi, M. (M. Hayashi)3 Kufe, D. W. (D. W. Kufe)3 Yankofsky, S. A. (S. A. Yankofsky)3 Axel, R. (R. Axel)2 Baxt, W. G. (W. G. Baxt)2 Hall, Benjamin D. (Benjamin D. Hall)2 Hayashi, M. N. (M. N. Hayashi)2 Hehlmann, R. (R. Hehlmann)2 DNA16 RNA, Ribosomal4 Leukemia3 Enzymes2 Leukemia Virus, Murine2 Leukocytes2 Lymphoma2 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America[remove]26 You searched for: Periodical Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Remove constraint Periodical: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 1. Mechanism of Enzymatic Adaptation in Genetically Controlled Yeast Populations Spiegelman, Sol, 1914-1983, Lindegren, Carl C. (Carl C. Lindegren), and Hedgecock, L. (L. Hedgecock) 2. RNA in Human Leukemic Cells Related to the RNA of a Mouse Leukemia Virus Hehlmann, R. (R. Hehlmann), Kufe, D. W. (D. W. Kufe), and Spiegelman, Sol, 1914-1983 3. Further Extracellular Darwinian Experiments with Replicating RNA Molecules: Diverse Variants Isolated under Different Selective Conditions Levisohn, Reuben (Reuben Levisohn) and Spiegelman, Sol, 1914-1983 4. Evidence for Translation of Viral-Specific RNA in Cells of a Mouse Mammary Carcinoma Axel, R. (R. Axel), Schlom, J. (J. Schlom), and Spiegelman, Sol, 1914-1983 5. Separation of the RNA Message Transcribed in Response to a Specific Inducer Hayashi, M. (M. Hayashi), Spiegelman, Sol, 1914-1983, Franklin, N. C. (N. C. Franklin), and Luria, S. E. (Salvador Edward), 1912-1991 6. DNA Circularity and the Mechanism of Strand Selection in the Generation of Genetic Messages Hayashi, M. (M. Hayashi), Hayashi, M. N. (M. N. Hayashi), and Spiegelman, Sol, 1914-1983 7. Distinct Cistrons for the Two Ribosomal RNA Components Yankofsky, S. A. (S. A. Yankofsky) and Spiegelman, Sol, 1914-1983 8. The Identification of the Ribosomal RNA Cistron by Sequence Complementarity, II. Saturation of and Competitive Interaction at the RNA Cistron 9. The Identification of the Ribosomal RNA Cistron by Sequence Complementarity, I. Specificity of Complex Formation 10. Sequence Complementarity of T2-DNA and T2-Specific RNA Hall, Benjamin D. (Benjamin D. Hall) and Spiegelman, Sol, 1914-1983	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1562
__label__wiki	0.653858	0.653858	Anurag Thakur calls the shots; N Srinivasan has his way; Sourav Ganguly enters fray By Vijay TagoreVijay Tagore, Mumbai Mirror \| Updated: Oct 13, 2019, 09:30 IST As they say in chess, N Srinivasan may have won an exchange in the formation of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). With uncertainty over the eligibility of Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) in the BCCI election, Srinivasan has still managed to put across his point before the Anurag Thakur-led BJP camp in the BCCI. In the end, he walked away with two key positions that would satiate him going forward. At a meeting presided over by Thakur in Delhi yesterday, Srinivasan has convinced the BJP camp to have one of president or secretary's posts for his candidate and a role in the International Cricket Council (ICC) for himself. As is well known, he has some unfinished agenda in Dubai, particularly with ICC chairman Shashank Manohar, who got him removed from the position in 2016. It is likely that Brijesh Patel, a Srinivasan acolyte, will get one of the top two positions and Srinivasan or his candidate will represent the BCCI at the ICC. As per the Supreme Court order, a person above 70 cannot be nominated to the ICC but the BCCI may challenge that decision in the Supreme Court. Failing that, he may send a candidate of his choice to Dubai. Meanwhile, Thakur continues to hold sway in the BCCI. He will open his cards before the newly-elected members of the state units in Mumbai today. It is, however, apparent that Jay Shah of Gujarat is in for coronation with Thakur's younger brother Arun Singh Dhumal getting the joint-secretary position. The overall plan is to make sure that the members put up a united front with no contests. 'Mischievous' reading Meanwhile, the Committee of Administrators (CoA) sent a two-page directive to state associations to prevent 'mischievous interpretations' of the Supreme Court order. Without naming, it has said that some associations have appointed disqualified members. It may have hinted at a role beyond October 23 by stating that it would not allow some unqualified candidates to hold positions at the BCCI. "The Committee of Administrators is in receipt of several representations and complaints which have brought to light that individuals disqualified from holding the post of Office Bearer, Councillor, member of the Governing Council and Committee members and persons who are required to undergo a cooling off period have been elected/nominated/appointed to the said posts in several Member Associations," the note said. The key point, however is a warning that is curiously intriguing. It says, "please take note that individuals who have come to occupy the post of Office Bearer, Councillor, members of any Committee including the Governing Council despite being subject any disqualification set out in Rule 6(5) of the BCCI Constitution and/or are subject to undergo "cooling off" cannot hold the said positions as per law and are liable to demit their office forthwith. "The BCCI shall not recognise such appointments/elections/nominations which falls foul of the aforesaid disqualification and eligibility criteria." AGM proposes changes which will benefit Sourav Ganguly, N Srinivasan,... "We’re back," N Srinivasan taunts Vinod Rai; attacks ICC from BCCI of... Andhra CM Jaganmohan Reddy wishes N Srinivasan to get Dubai position ... From Sports Tim Paine on wife's 'babysitter' post f... Tim Paine on wife's 'babysitter' post for Rishabh Pant: She had a million new Indian followers the next day India Vs Australia 1st ODI preview: KL ... India Vs Australia 1st ODI preview: KL Rahul or Shikhar Dhawan, who will open India's batting at Wankhede? India decimate Sri Lanka to clinch T20I... India decimate Sri Lanka to clinch T20I series MS Dhoni dropped from BCCI's central co... MS Dhoni dropped from BCCI's central contracts list; Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah in top grade India's ODI instability seen during the... India's ODI instability seen during the World Cup continues Harshvardhan Sadgir crowned 63rd Mahara... Harshvardhan Sadgir crowned 63rd Maharashtra Kesari 'Don't think Mahendra Singh Dhoni will ... 'Don't think Mahendra Singh Dhoni will play for India again' KS Bharat added to India squad as back-... KS Bharat added to India squad as back-up	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1567
__label__wiki	0.916005	0.916005	Canada's Media Magazine Editor: Robert J. Ballantyne What’s behind TV bingeing’s bad rap? Content By Indulging in too much Netflix? It can be good for you... as long as you feel good about doing it Robert Ballantyne Call it Netflix’s spring binge. At the end of March, Netflix released the critically acclaimed 13 Reasons Why. April features new shows Girl Boss and Bill Nye Saves the World, while May’s lineup includes the second season of Aziz Ansari’s Master of None, along with the return of binge favorite House of Cards, back for its fifth season. Many will relish getting lost for hours on end in these shows. But others might feel guilty about their extended screen time, seeing it as sign of laziness. Or maybe they’ve seen an article about one of those studies linking binge watching to depression. As a professor of communication studies, I’m interested in understanding the ways people use TV, video games and social media to improve their well-being. And I’ve learned that even though watching TV gets a bad rap as the “junk food” of media diets, it can be good for you — as long as you give yourself permission to indulge. Why TV gets the shaft My colleagues and I collected some data suggesting that there is, in fact, a double standard for how we think about different media bingeing experiences. We administered a survey that recorded participants’ thoughts about reading or watching TV for the certain amounts of time. Respondents associated more attributes like laziness and impulsivity with people who consume several hours of a television show in one sitting, compared to those who do the same with novels. This finding probably comes as no surprise. Although reading a novel for several hours at a time for entertainment can arguably be just as sedentary and addictive as watching TV, no derogatory term like “bingeing” exists for the act of devouring an entire Harry Potter novel in one night. We simply call it “reading.” Just think about the pejorative term “binge,” which conjures images of excess and abuse (as with binge eating or binge drinking). Contrast this with “marathon viewing,” which connotes accomplishment, and has traditionally been used to describe the experience of consuming multiple installments of film — not TV series — in rapid succession. Why is it that we “binge” when we watch a lot of TV, but it’s a “marathon” when we’re watching a bunch of movies? Perhaps this double standard is rooted in television’s lower status as a source of entertainment. Historically, TV viewing has been considered a mindless activity, capable of dulling the intellect with “a vast wasteland” of shallow, lowbrow content. Watching TV has also been regarded as a lazy activity that displaces time spent on more active, productive pursuits. Avid viewers of the “boob tube” or “idiot box” will get stereotyped as “lazy couch potatoes.” Meanwhile, headline-grabbing research linking TV viewing to depression and loneliness hasn’t helped binge viewing’s reputation. These correlational studies may give the misleading impression that only depressed or lonely people engage in binge watching – or worse, that binge viewing can make people depressed and lonely. In truth, it’s just as likely that people who are depressed or lonely due to unrelated life circumstances (say, unemployment or a break-up) simply choose to spend their time binge watching. There’s no evidence to suggest that binge watching actually makes people depressed or lonely. The good news about binge watching But binge viewing TV has become popular for a good reason: Despite its negative reputation, television has never been better. We are in the midst of a golden age of television, with a variety of shows that provide a steady diet of novel premises, long-running, elaborate plots and morally complicated characters. Far from dulling the intellect, these shows create more suspense, interest and opportunities for critical engagement. According to journalist and media theorist Steven Johnson, watching these shows may even make you smarter. He argues that because television narratives have become increasingly complex, they require viewers to follow more storyline threads and juggle more characters and their relationships. All of this makes the audience more cognitively sophisticated. Gorging on stories is pleasurable, too. When individuals binge watch, they are thought to have what’s called a “flow experience.” Flow is an intrinsically pleasurable feeling of being completely immersed in a show’s storyline. In a flow state of mind, viewers intently focus on following the story and it’s easier for them to lose awareness of other things, including time, while they’re wrapped up in viewing. One study found that viewers will continue viewing additional episodes in order to maintain this positive flow state, so there is an addictive quality to binge viewing. Interruptions like advertising can break the continuous viewing cycle by disrupting the flow state and drawing viewers out of the story. Luckily, for TV bingers, Netflix and Hulu are ad-free. Perhaps one of the greatest benefits binge watching can offer is psychological escape from daily stresses. What better way to decompress than watching four (or seven) straight episodes of House of Cards? A 2014 study found that people who were particularly drained after stressful work or school experiences watched TV to recharge and recuperate. Unfortunately, this study also found that TV watching didn’t help everybody. Individuals who bought into the “lazy couch potato” stereotype enjoyed fewer benefits from watching TV. Instead of feeling revitalized after watching TV, they felt guilty. The researchers believe that the shame associated with TV watching can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, making it hard for viewers to reap psychological benefits. For this reason, we need to shake the notion that bingeing on stories we engage with on TV is somehow less worthy leisure pursuit than bingeing on stories that we consume other ways, like novels. Immersing ourselves in narratives on TV can be good for us, even in heavy doses, but only if we truly appreciate it for what it is: a pleasure. Not a guilty pleasure, simply a pleasure. Elizabeth Cohen is Assistant Professor of Communication at West Virginia University The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) alone and not Popjournalism. This content was originally published on The Conversation. Published with permission. Brent Butt shares his top Vancouver cultural spots The 'Corner Gas Animated' star shares his favourite Italian restaurant and explains why local talent can have a hard time breaking through in Vancouver Scientists from new documentary ‘The Kingdom’ talk fungi and the fate of humanity Full transcripts of conversations with Rob Dunn, Anne Madden, Gerry Wright and Karen Bartlett Brent Butt interview: ‘Corner Gas Animated’ star talks about his hit TV revival Robert J. Ballantyne Canadian comedian was careful to not do anything that would 'damage the legacy' of the original series Fascinating new doc explores fungi: our most powerful allies and potential foes Canadian scientists Gerry Wright and Karen Bartlett on the power of fungi and how it may both help and harm humanity as global temperatures rise Features Above the Fold Inside the mind of Canadian radio’s most important executive A one-on-one conversation with Susan Marjetti, CBC's executive director of Radio and Audio Features Celebrity Tay Zonday talks ‘Chocolate Rain’ on its 10th anniversary Giselle Melanson Tattrie His odd, but earnest music video went viral and became the source of many, many memes. What's life like for Tay today? Meet two people who invisibly influence the future of CBC CBC union presidents Kam Rao and Jonathan Spence are presenting opinions from the public broadcaster's workers to decision makers Features Television An animated chat with Ken Cuperus, creator of YTV’s ‘The Stanley Dynamic’ The Winnipeg-born writer-producer shares the secrets behind his hit live-action/animated kid sitcom Jessica Holmes makes a big return to CBC’s Air Farce The comedienne dishes on impersonating Céline Dion & Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, opening for Seinfeld, Ellen and Oprah Typo? Copyright © 2020 Robert J. Ballantyne. All rights reserved. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of my Terms of Use and Privacy & Cookies Statement. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Robert J. Ballantyne. 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__label__wiki	0.625477	0.625477	Iranian Christian was arrested and took to unknown place Posted on January 5, 2010 by particularkev Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN), reports that at 8 am on December 16, 2009, several security officers entered the home of Hamideh Najafi, a Christian lady who resides in the city of Mashhad, and not only searched her home thoroughly, but also arrested and took her away to an unknown location. According to this news three security officers, two female and one male, who carried an order for arrest from the Revolutionary Court of Mashhad, entered the home of this lady and after searching the her home seized her personal belongings along with books, CDs, and hand painted portraits of Jesus Christ that were hanging on her walls. According to these officers the existence of these pictures will be sufficient evidence that would convict her in court. Even though Mashhad is the birthplace of Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, and is considered one of the holiest centers of the Shiite faith (Ghom being the other center in Iran) and also a center of pilgrimage and theological schools, in the recent years there have been significant growth of the underground home based churches. Mashhad is an ultra-religious city where Rev. Hossein Soodmand, one of the recent Martyrs of the church in Iran was executed on December 3, 1990 at the Mashhad prison and was buried in a trash dump site outside of the city. According to FCNN, after 10 days of her arrest there has been no telephone contact or visitation granted to the family of Hamideh. Despite the worries about her well-being and the location of her detention, coupled with her husband’s frantic efforts to contact the Revolutionary Court of Mashhad in order to have information as to the nature of the charges against Hamideh, unfortunately as of now the officials have refused to provide any answers or information. When her husband finally decided to retain a lawyer in order to investigate his wife’s condition, the court officials notified him that the accusations were political in nature and she would be charged for contacting foreign Christian television networks. This incident is based on the yet-to-be-defined laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding what constitutes a political crime and calling a religious television program does not constitute a political crime. Its is probable that Hamideh Najafi is currently being held at a detention center on the Vakil Abbad Blvd., next to the Mashhad prison, in order to be fully interrogated and confessions be obtained for future court trial. She has a 10 years old daughter that is currently suffering from a severe kidney and bladder infection that only her mother is capable of nursing her. According to news received this little girl’s condition, due to missing her mother and being away from her, is not well at all and during the last 10 days, she has not been able to attend school. The Committee of Christian Activists of the Human Rights in Iran, not only expresses its serious concerns regarding the condition of this Christian woman and the baseless accusations of political crimes that have been filed against her, but it is equally worried about the physical and psychological condition of the 10 years old daughter of Hamideh Najafi who needs her mother, and demands an immediate investigation and speedy freedom of this Christian lady. Report from the Christian Telegraph Posted in Christianity, Iran, Islam \| Tagged accusations, answers, arrest, arrested, attend, Ayatollah Khamenei, based, baseless, belongings, birthplace, bladder, Books, buried, calling, capable, CDs, centeres, charged, charges, Christian, Christianity, Christians, church, churches, city, Committee of Christian Activists of the Human rights in Iran, condition, confessions, considered, constitutes, contact, convict, court, crime, daughter, decided, demands, detention, dump, efforts, entered, equally, evidence, executed, existance, expresses, faith, family, Farsi Christian News Network, FCNN, female, filed, foreign, frantic, freedom, fully, Ghom, girl, granted, growth, Hamideh Najafi, hand, hanging, held, holiest, home, Hossein Soodmand, husband, immediate, incident, infection, information, interrogated, investigate, investigation, Iran, Iranian, Islam, Islamic, Jesus Christ, kidney, lady, laws, lawyer, leader, little, location, male, Martyrs, Mashhad, missing, mother, Muslim, muslims, nature, networks, news, notified, nursing, obtained, officers, officials, order, outside, painted, Persecution, personal, physical, pictures, pilgrimage, place, political, portraits, prison, probable, program, provide, psychological, received, recent, refused, religious, reports, Republic, resides, retain, Rev, Revolutionary Court of Mashhad, school, schools, searched, security, seized, serious, severe, Shiite, significant, site, speedy, suffering, sufficient, supreme, telephone, television, theological, thoroughly, trash, trial, ultra-religious, underground, unknown, Vakil Abbad Blvd, visitation, walls, well, well being, wife, worries \| Leave a comment PAKISTAN: CHARGES FILED AGAINST KIDNAPPERS OF YOUNG SISTERS Posted on February 28, 2009 by particularkev Police ignore arrest order, but lawyers hopeful 13-year-old can be returned to parents. ISTANBUL, February 26 (Compass Direct News) – After months of legal deadlock, lawyers in Pakistan said they have new hope they can restore to her family a 13-year-old Christian girl who was kidnapped and forced to marry a Muslim. Saba Masih might be returned to her family, the lawyers said, if they can legally maneuver around Pakistani policemen who have stonewalled their attempts to pursue a kidnapping case against the captors. On Saturday (Feb. 21) a Pakistani judge charged the suspects with kidnapping for the first time in the seven-month legal ordeal. “The judiciary is one thing, the police are another,” said Arfan Goshe, a lawyer who has taken on the custody case. “I will prove [the three accused men] kidnapped Saba so the judiciary will force the police to arrest them.” On Saturday (Feb. 21), Judge Mohammed Ilyas issued a First Instance Report (FIR) at a subordinate court in the Punjabi village of Chawk Munda against Amjad Ali, Muhammad Ashraf and Muhammed Arif Bajwa on charges of kidnapping, trespassing, and threatening the Masih family. Attorney Goshe, a Muslim, said the three kidnappers trespassed onto the property of Yunus Masih, the father of Saba, and threatened to kill his family and burn down his house in late December. The decision to file kidnapping charges marks a major shift of momentum in the case. In previous hearings judges have nearly always sided with the kidnappers – based on either dubious evidence or threats from local Islamists – in the Muslims’ legal battle to retain custody of Saba and her 10-year-old sister Aneela. A court ruled the younger daughter could return to her family last September. The two girls were kidnapped in June 2008 while traveling to visit their uncle in Sarwar Shaheed, northwest of Multan. Saba was married to Ali the next day. Bajwa and Ali registered a case with police on June 28 for custody of the girls based on their alleged conversion to Islam. The court granted them custody in July. At nearly all the hearings, Muslim groups protested outside the courtroom against lawyers attempting to return Saba to her Christian parents. A traditional interpretation of Islamic law (sharia) does not allow non-Muslim parents to have custody of Muslim children. In spite of the judge’s decision to begin procedures for kidnapping charges, Chawk Munda police have not followed through with the FIR by arresting the three Muslims. Today the judge contacted the local police station and ordered officers to register the kidnapping case against the three men, Goshe told Compass. He said he hopes police will file the FIR within the next few days. “The police are favoring the accused party at this time,” he said. “Everybody knows [Saba] was abducted, and that the culprits are trying to threaten minorities everywhere.” But others are less optimistic the kidnappers will be arrested. Khalid Raheel, Saba’s uncle, said he believes he may have to bribe the police. They would likely demand around 20,000 Pakistani rupees (US$250), he said. Uncooperative police had also blocked the legal team’s efforts to register charges before Saturday’s ruling. As a result, the Christian family’s lawyers filed a private complaint to the subordinate court of Chawk Munda, sidestepping the need for a police investigation to file charges that would be necessary at a normal criminal court. Goshe said the court is finally complying after months of deadlock because the multiple charges against the kidnappers cannot be ignored. Previous court hearings focused on Saba’s alleged conversion to Islam to mitigate the charges of her kidnapping, but the judiciary could not ignore the three suspects’ subsequent crimes of trespassing and attempting to burn down the Masihs’ house, he said. In January, lawyer Akbar Durrani of the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) filed an appeal to register kidnapping charges against Ali, the husband of Saba. Durrani had tried to register these charges in December, but Judge Malik Saeed Ijaz refused the case since it was built upon the testimony of Saba’s sister Aneela, whose status as a minor invalidated her testimony. Instead, the judge ordered Ali to pay a dowry of 100,000 rupees (US$1,255) and allow her parents to visit, both required by Pakistani marriage protocol. Saba, however, relinquished her dowry, a prerogative provided by sharia. Her family suspects that she made this decision under threat. Struggling Family Attempts by Saba’s family to contact and visit her have been thwarted by Ali’s Muslim family members, despite a court order for visitation rights. “We have heard nothing from Saba,” said Raheel, her uncle. “Once we tried to visit her, and [Ali’s family] ran after us and tried to shoot us. But the judges did not do anything.” The seven months of legal battling have taken their toll on Saba’s family. Her parents have eight children but have been unable to send their sons to school due to the ongoing costs of the case, even though CLAAS has undertaken it pro bono. The girls’ uncle has been trying to maintain the family’s quality of life as they struggle to get Saba back and their legal options dwindle. “This year I will try my best to help them and send them to a school,” said Raheel. Aneela continues to adjust to life back with her family, away from captivity. She is preparing to resume her schooling. Common Crime Kidnapping and rape victims in Pakistan are often Christians, since the influence of sharia on the country’s judicial system means they can be unofficially treated as second-class citizens. Last month Muslims allegedly abducted and raped another 13-year-old Christian girl. CLAAS reported that two men kidnapped Ambreen Masih in the industrial city of Sheikupura, located northwest of Lahore. Her attackers threatened to her keep silent, and she was abducted a second time this month before her parents discovered the crime, according to a CLAAS report. The family filed rape charges against the two kidnappers in Sheikupura, but policeman have not yet taken legal action, according to CLAAS. Posted in Christianity, crime, Islam, Pakistan \| Tagged abducted, accused, action, adjust, against, Akbar Durrani, allow, Ambreen Masih, Amjad Ali, Aneela Masih, appeal, Arfan Goshe, arrest, arresting, attackers, attempting, attempts, battle, battling, begin, blocked, bribe, built, burn, captivity, captors, case, Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement, charged, charges, Chawk Munda, children, Christian, Christianity, Christians, citizens, city, CLAAS, common, complaint, complying, contact, contacted, continues, conversion, costs, court, courtroom, crimes, criminal, culprits, Day, deadlock, decision, demand, discovered, down, dowry, dubious, dwindle, everywhere, evidence, family, Father, favoring, file, filed, FIR, First Instance Report, focused, followed, forced, girl, granted, groups, heard, hearings, hope, hopeful, hopes, house, husband, ignore, ignored, industrial, influence, interpretation, invalidated, investigation, Islam, Islamic, Islamists, issued, judge, judges, judiciary, Khalid Raheel, Kidnapped, kidnappers, kidnapping, kill, Lahore, law, lawyer, lawyers, legal, legally, less, local, located, maintain, major, Malik Saeed Ijaz, maneuver, marks, marriage, married, marry, members, men, might, minor, minorities, mitigate, Mohammed Ilyas, momentum, Muhammad Ashraf, Muhammed Arif Bajwa, Multan, multiple, Muslim, muslims, nearly, necessary, new, next, non-Muslim, normal, northwest, nothing, officers, optimistic, options, ordeal, order, ordered, outside, Pakistan, Pakistani, parents, party, Persecution, police, police station, policeman, policemen, preparing, prerogative, previous, private, pro bono, procedures, property, protested, protocol, prove, provided, Punjab, Punjabi, pursue, quality of life, rape, raped, refused, register, relinquished, report, required, restore, result, resume, retain, returned, rights, ruled, rupees, Saba Masih, Sarwar Shaheed, school, schooling, second-class, Sharia, Sheikupura, shift, shoot, sided, sidestepping, silent, sisters, sons, spite, status, stonewalled, struggle, struggling, subordinate, subsequent, suspects, testimony, threatening, thwarted, time, toll, traditional, traveling, treated, trespassing, tried, trying, uncle, uncooperative, unofficially, victims, village, visit, visitation, young, younger, Yunus Masih \| Leave a comment PAKISTAN: DOWRY DEMANDED FROM CAPTOR OF CHRISTIAN GIRL Lawyers try to put financial pressure on husband to secure 13-year-old girl’s release. ISTANBUL, December 16 (Compass Direct News) – After a judge yesterday placed new financial and social pressure on the captors of a Pakistani girl who was kidnapped and converted to Islam, attorneys have guarded optimism they can return her to custody of her Christian parents. Judge Malik Saeed Ijaz ordered the girl’s husband, Amjad Ali, to pay a dowry of 100,000 rupees (US$1,275) and allow her parents visitation rights, two actions required by typical Pakistani marriage protocol. At press time he had done neither. The judge gave Saba Masih, 13, the opportunity to talk with her family during yesterday’s hearing, but she remained mostly silent behind her veil, offering only blunt replies. “I don’t want to see my parents. They are Christians and I am a Muslim,” she said, according to her parents’ attorney. Her younger sister Aneela Masih, who was also kidnapped but returned to her family three months ago, pleaded with her older sister to return home. The 10-year-old told her that Christmas was coming and she didn’t want her sister to spend it with those “who are not our people.” Saba Masih appeared at the Multan branch of Lahore’s High Court yesterday along with her Muslim husband and his family. Her parents filed a contempt petition last month against her captors for failing to follow Pakistani marriage protocol. Islamic law (sharia), however, gives a wife the right to relinquish a dowry. Lawyers said they fear that the Muslim family will pressure Saba Masih to claim this right in order to offset growing financial pressure. Lawyers hope that if her mother can visit her, it will convince her to leave her husband and come home to the family; her family believes he has threatened her with violence if she attempts to rejoin them. At Monday’s hearing, Saba Masih still appeared reluctant to return to her family. Relatives said they were praying that she would change her mind and that the captors would lose their influence over her. “The main thing is Saba must be ready herself to come back,” said her uncle, Khalid Raheel, the family spokesman. “But she isn’t ready to come back yet, and I don’t know how they are convincing her.” On Wednesday (Dec. 17) the judge is expected to adjourn the case and issue a deed requiring Ali to pay the dowry at the convenience of the Masih family. The judge yesterday threatened Ali with prison time if he failed to carry out this order. Akbar Durrani, attorney for the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), said the attorneys might try to use Aneela Masih’s testimony of kidnapping to take the case to the Supreme Court if other options fail. Prostitution Business The Christian family’s lawyer said the attempt to force Ali to pay a dowry was a tactic to mount financial pressure on Saba Masih’s husband and to convince her to return home. Her family and their lawyers believe she has stayed with her Muslim husband because he and his family have issued death threats. The Christian family’s chances of winning run against the judicial status quo for Pakistani religious minorities, but the new push comes after a Sept. 9 ruling that returned Aneela Masih to her parents, a rare legal victory for non-Muslims. “We filed this [contempt] petition so she would come into the court, see her family and hopefully change her statement,” said Durrani of CLAAS. “We also want to put pressure on the Muslim family members because they are afraid of litigation, since they have to pay all these legal expenses.” Aneela and Saba Masih were kidnapped on June 26 while traveling to visit their uncle in Sarwar Shaheed, northwest of Multan. Their parents say local fruit vendor Muhammad Arif Bajwa and three others kidnapped them in Chawk Munda, a small town in south Punjab. Saba Masih was married to Ali the next day. Bajwa and Ali registered a case with the police on June 28 for custody of the girls based on their alleged conversion to Islam. Local residents regard the men as serial kidnappers with connections to a human trafficking ring. The girls’ first defense attorney believed they could have been raped and sold to a brothel. Ironically, attorneys said, the kidnappers’ alleged desire to exploit Saba Masih may now be the best hope of her returning to her parents, as keeping her has become not lucrative but increasingly costly with court hearings continuing and legal fees multiplying. “These [kidnappers] don’t have an emotional link to Saba,” Durrani told Compass by phone. “They are in the business of prostitution and only wanted to use these girls for their business.” Prosecuting attorneys said they have a growing optimism that they can regain custody of Saba Masih, something they thought unlikely two months ago. Long, Hard Battle In previous hearings, a judge allowed Saba Masih to choose whether or not she would return to her family, even though Pakistan marriage law requires the approval of legal guardians at the age of 16. The judge determined that her age was 17 based on her testimony and a report by a medical board pressured by Muslim groups to inflate her age. He did not accept as evidence her birth certificate and baptismal record that showed her age as 13. Younis Masih and his wife first saw their daughters after their kidnapping at a July hearing. The girls were in the company of 16 Muslims and were said to be under pressure to claim they had converted to Islam. After Aneela Masih returned to her family in September, she claimed that their captors threatened to kill them and their family if they did not do everything asked of them. Previously it had been reported that she was raped while in captivity, but there was no medical evidence that she was sexually abused or manhandled, lawyers said. Her sister appears to be suffering, Durrani said. “The family has told us that Saba Masih is not in good condition – most of the time she cries and is not satisfied there,” Durrani said. Recurrent Problem Kidnapping of Christians in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million is not uncommon. Many captors believe they will not be convicted if caught due to the penal code’s influence by sharia, which grants non-Muslims second-class status in society. Every year there are cases of Pakistani Christian children kidnapped, killed or exploited by those who believe their parents are powerless. Last month a Muslim family in Nankan kidnapped the 7-year-old son of Pakistani Christian Binyamin Yusef, 30, over a land dispute. Two days later police found his son’s body, which showed signs of torture and rape. Police did not register the case when Yusef initially approached them. CLAAS representatives hope to open court action against the alleged perpetrators. Posted in Christianity, crime, Islam, Law and Legislation, Pakistan \| Tagged accept, actions, adjourn, afraid, age, Akbar Durrani, alleged, allow, Amjad Ali, Aneela Masih, appeared, approached, approval, attorneys, baptismal, battle, believe, believes, Binyamin Yusef, birth certificate, blunt, branch, brothel, business, captivity, captor, captors, Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement, Chawk Munda, children, Christian, Christianity, Christians, Christmas, CLAAS, claim, claimed, company, condition, connections, contempt, conversion, converted, convicted, convince, convincing, costly, custody, daughters, death threats, deed, defense attorney, demanded, determined, dispute, dowry, emotional, evidence, exploit, exploited, failing, family, fear, fees, filed, financial, fruit vendor, girl, good, growing, guarded, guardians, hearing, hearings, high court, human trafficking, husband, increasingly, inflate, influence, Islam, Islamic, judge, Khalid Raheel, Kidnapped, kidnappers, kidnapping, killed, Lahore, land, law, lawyers, legal, litigation, local, lucrative, Malik Saeed Ijaz, manhandled, marriage, married, medical, medical board, minorities, mother, Muhammad Arif Bajwa, Multan, multiplying, Muslim, muslims, Nankan, nation, non-Muslims, northwest, opportunity, optimism, order, ordered, Pakistan, Pakistani, parents, pay, penal code, people, perpetrators, Persecution, petition, phone, placed, pleaded, police, powerless, praying, press time, pressure, prison, problem, prosecuting, prostitution, protocol, Punjab, rape, raped, record, recurrent, register, registered, relatives, release, religious, relinquish, reluctant, remained, replies, report, representatives, required, residents, return, rights, ring, rupees, Saba Masih, Sarwar Shaheed, satisified, secure, serial, sexually abused, Sharia, showed, signs, silent, Sister, social, Society, south, spokesman, statement, status quo, suffering, supreme court, tactic, talk, testimony, threatened, torture, town, traveling, typical, uncle, veil, victory, violence, visit, visitation, wife, winning, younger, Younis Masih \| 2 Comments	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1573
__label__cc	0.613677	0.386323	Month: July, 2014 The Story of River You may have seen a new album posted on my Facebook area. An album that contains a photo or three of a Shar Pei dog. Her name is River, though once she was known as Daisy. River is a foster-to-adopt dog who had a rough go in her last home and became very stressed out by the shelter. She is quick to recognize us now, even after we dropped her off at the shelter again for an overnight stay before her appointment at the vet’s. River had successful dental work — resulting in clean teeth and only one tooth pulled due to decay — and entropion surgery. Her sutures, which look like eyelashes, come out at the end of the month, and until then she must wear her cone. Keri and I have been fairly proactive in terms of setting up our home for a dog. Cords have been bundled and tucked away, food and water dishes bought along with a leash and collar. A kennel carrier for medium-to-large size dogs has been set up in the corner, which also serves as a platform for cat food and water. Finally, a comfy — if poofy — dog mattress for her bed has been set up. These changes have also allowed us to clean up a few things that we had been putting off. River travels well in car, especially with our new dog seatbelt. It keeps her on the bench seat in my car if I have to brake suddenly, and I’ve shortened it enough to prevent her from whacking herself on doors and windows from a sharp turn. She’s not a fan of any motorcycle, she growls at them with deep throaty voice. Our girl already has the nickname of “Sweetie”, as her namesake River Song from Doctor Who is often heard saying. I usually call Iris “bubi” from Die Hard (“Hans, bubi, I’m your white knight!”), and now sometimes I call her “Sweetie” as well. Cameo Story Over the past year, Keri and I have been watching many series on Netflix, including Community, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, Stargate SG-1, to name a few. As our repertoire grew, so did our recognition of regulars and extras. We started trying to piece together coherent back-stories for all of the extras across the series. Of course, we had to take a few liberties here and there with the air dates of episodes in the series. Here are a few examples – and possible spoilers for series and movies both new and old, read at your own risk! Double Time! I had yet another back-to-back set of tournaments: CBJJF’s Western Canadian BJJ Championships in Penticton, BC, June 28th Katana BJJ’s Roots BJJ Challenge in Richmond, BC, July 5th I competed in Gi Lightweight for both tournaments, and in No-Gi Middleweight for the Western Canadians. The Western Canadians! Held at the South Okanagan Events Centre, it was spacious, with plenty of parking. Inside were multiple change rooms and the new option to weigh in up to three hours before your scheduled division time. This is a fantastic addition, allowing competitors to eat and hydrate before stepping on the mats. My Gi Lightweight division was eleven large, myself included. I unfortunately had to face off against RDC-teammate Cam Deleurme first round, and he got the better of me. Between his stronger wrestling and my ineffective game plan, Cam maintained superior positions and secured a submission finish. It was also the first tournament my parents, my aunt and uncle, and my grandmother were able to attend. Definitely not my best performance. After waiting the rest of the afternoon for No-Gi, our four-man division was called to the bull-pen and sent to mat 6. My game plan seemed ineffective at first, I was stuck in bottom half-guard for three minutes or so, with a failed attempt to take the back, defending my opponent’s attempts at Kimura and Americana arm-locks. Finally he destabilized his own base going for submissions that I was able to sweep him and secure the mount. Now four points up, I could begin to work from a superior position. Unfortunately, he managed a sweep in the closing 30 seconds, but in the end I prevailed 6-4. It was onto the finals against Burnaby BJJ’s Zac who had a more dominant game and secured a rear-naked choke. In the end I took Silver. In between my Gi and No-Gi matches, I coached first-time competitor and teammate Eddie. He was a recent addition to Genesis, and competed in the Master Male White Belt Middleweight division against five others. He won his first match on points, second match via submission, and the finals via points. My coaching voice hadn’t been used in a while, and barely made it to Ed’s third round. Roots BJJ Challenge! Once more held in the Fridge Gymnasium, it proved to be a busy tournament inside of a venue too small for the crowd. Once more in the Lightweight Adult male division, I managed to arrive and change moments before they called my division up to the bullpen. My first match would be against Graeme Martin of Powell River BJJ, the man I had gone against at the Copa Katana III in March. Knowing this, I remembered his guard and triangles, and to shoot early and shoot fast for a takedown to bypass his guard. Graeme kept me on my feet long enough to jump guard, and after transitioning from a cross-collar to an omaplata to a triangle, he sealed it in and finished it. Lesson learned: work on breaking the guard quickly (or the standing break). Now it’s about three months until the next tournament, which happens to be the day after my 30th birthday. I’m looking forward to the Masters division, but I know that if there are not enough of us, we get sent to the Adult division. IT’S CANADA! HAPPY CANADA DAY EH?! She doesn’t look a day over 147! –Kiyoshi “The Prototype” Perkins	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1588
__label__cc	0.744241	0.255759	Primary retroperitoneal tumors, Can we narrow the differential diagnosis? Keywords: Retroperitoneum, Oncology, CT, MR, Diagnostic procedure, Cancer, Pathology Authors: A. H. A. Mohamed, H. Wahba, S. A. A. Z. Hanna; Cairo/EG Fig. 1: Drawing of the anatomy of the retroperitoneal spaces at the level of the... Fig. 2: Diagram of the left retroperitoneal space detailing the fasciae and... Fig. 3: Computed tomography and Magnetic resonance imaging T2 weighted sequence.... Fig. 4: Retroperitoneal spaces.CECT axial images and corresponding illustrations... Fig. 13: A scheme for the approach to abdominal or pelvic mass lesion. Table 1: Differential diagnosis of primary retroperitoneal masses To provide a systematic approach and scheme to narrow the differential diagnosis of primary retroperitoneal masses, based upon the predominant cross-sectional imaging appearance. INTRODUCTION Primary retroperitoneal neoplasms are a diverse group of benign and malignant tumors that arise within the retroperitoneum but outside the major organs . Of the primary retroperitoneal neoplasms, 70%–80% are malignant in nature, and these account for 0.1%–0.2% of all malignancies in the body. One-third of malignant retroperitoneal neoplasms are sarcomas; 15% of all sarcomas originate within the retroperitoneum. Although computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging can... Approach to retroperitoneal masses The majority of retroperitoneal masses arises from retroperitoneal organs and is therefore not considered primary retroperitoneal mass. Diagnosis of a primary retroperitoneal mass may be made once the location is confirmed as within the retroperitoneal space and after an organ of origin is excluded . 1. Tumor location (Determining tumor location into the retroperitoneal spaces) Displacement of normal retroperitoneal structures, such as retroperitoneal organs... The differential diagnosis of primary retroperitoneal masses may be based on the predominant cross-sectional imaging appearance as either cystic or solid and neoplastic and non-neoplastic. Characteristic imaging findings, such as the composition (Fat, calcification and necrosis), enhancement pattern, vascularity, location, and relationship to adjacent structures, may be combined with clinical information and assisted by diagnostic scheme to help narrow the differential diagnosis. Dr.Ahmed Hassan Ali Mohamed Demonstrator of radiology, National cancer institute, Cairo university, Egypt. E-mail: Ahmed.hassan@nci.cu.edu.eg Doc.ahmedhassan@gmail.com Asst Prof.Hisham S.Wahba Mikhael Assistant professor of radiology,National cancer institute, Cairo university, Egypt. Fellow of McGill University, Canada Prof.Sameh Abdel Aziz Hanna Professor of radiology, Faculty of medicine, Cairo university, Egypt. References: Bhargavi D., Avantsa R. andKala P. "MDCT signs differentiating retroperitoneal and intraperitoneal lesions- diagnostic pearls" ECR 2015. Austria Center Vienna, Vienna, Austria, ECR 4 Mar. 2015. Poster presentation. Burkill, G. J. C., and J. C. Healy. "Anatomy of the retroperitoneum."Imaging12.1, 10-20, 2000. Carbognin, Giovanni, Lucia Pinali, and Carlo Procacci. "Retroperitoneal tumors." Radiologic-Pathologic Correlations from Head to Toe. Springer Berlin Heidelberg; 619-643,... Myxoid soft-tissue neoplasms M. Gredilla1, A. Serdio2, M. LETURIA ETXEBERRIA3, J. Elejondo Oddo4, F. J. Barba Tamargo5, K. Biurrun Mancisidor1; 1DONOSTIA/ES, 2Donostia - San Sebastián/ES, 3San Sebastian, Gipuzkoa/ES, 4San Sebastián/ES, 5San sebastian, Guipuzcoa/ES CT/MRI LI-RADSv2018: inter-reader agreement and correlation with pathology A. Borgheresi, A. Agostini, D. Nicolini, R. Montalti, M. Vivarelli, A. Lorenzoni, A. Giovagnoni; Ancona/IT Role of 3D space sequence and susceptibity weighted imaging in the evaluation of hydrocephalus and proposal of refined definition and classification of hydrocephalus A. Chellathurai; Chennai/IN Automatic subgroup classification of same prostate cancer Gleason score based on multiparametric magnetic resonance images M. Xu1, L. Gong2, D. Dong2, J. Tian2, X. Fang1; 1Wuxi/CN, 2Beijing/CN Investigation on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner-dependence and software-dependence of T1 and T2 relaxation times measurements at 1.5 T D. Cicolari1, D. Lizio2, P. Pedrotti2, R. Sironi2, M. T. Moioli2, A. Lascialfari2, M. Mariani1, A. Torresin2; 1Pavia/IT, 2Milan/IT Can the IOTA simple ultrasound rules be applied to CT in the diagnosis of ovarian cancer? C. Crowley, C. Houlihan, J. Barry; Cork/IE	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1593
__label__wiki	0.804875	0.804875	Category: 2015 Bills Murphy doubles-down on Spanish-language advertising; Rubio gets more help from Kochs Democrat Patrick Murphy double-downed Wednesday on Spanish-language advertising — airing a radio spot to match the TV buy he announced a day earlier. Both ads target his rival, Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, for supporting de-funding Planned Parenthood and for opposing abortion — especially at a time when Zika is raising alarms about severe birth defects linked to the virus. “He stands with Donald Trump, whose rhetoric and actions towards women have offended millions,” Murphy spokesman Freddy Balsera said of Rubio. But the Republican’s campaign swung back. “Not only does Murphy support using taxpayer money to fund abortions, he also supports late-term abortions. Murphy’s extreme positions on abortion put him out of touch with the vast majority of Floridians,” said Olivia Perez-Cubas, a Rubio spokeswoman. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio Rubio’s campaign also drew more help Wednesday from the Koch brothers, whose affiliated organizations are strong backers of the first-term Republican. Concerned Veterans for America is targeting Murphy for his vote last year against the so-called VA Accountability Act, meant to hold Veterans Administration employees accountable for misconduct. The measure also was opposed by the Obama administration, which labeled it “unproductive.” Concerned Veterans announced a six-figure digital ad buy aimed at helping Republican candidates in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Florida. Author John KennedyPosted on September 28, 2016 Categories 2015 Bills, 2016 campaigns, Marco Rubio, Patrick Murphy, U.S. House, U.S. SenateTags abortion, bnblogs, Concerned Veterans for America, Koch brothers, news, Spanish-language advertising, Zika virusLeave a comment on Murphy doubles-down on Spanish-language advertising; Rubio gets more help from Kochs Author John KennedyPosted on August 16, 2016 Categories 2015 Bills, 2016 campaigns, Alan Grayson, Congress, Democrats, environment, Marco Rubio, Palm Beach County, Patrick Murphy, Republicans, U.S. House, U.S. SenateTags Keystone pipeline, League of Conservation Voters, newsLeave a comment on Murphy picks up conservation endorsement, over higher-rated Grayson Abruzzo honored for pushing statewide ban on LGBT discrimination Sen. Joe Abruzzo Palm Beach County Democratic Sen. Joe Abruzzo of Wellington will be honored by Equality Florida for sponsoring legislation aimed at ending discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Floridians. Abruzzo has backed a measure that would amend state civil rights laws to ban discrimination against LGBT Floridians at work, in housing, restaurants, hotels and other public accommodations. Palm Beach County is among more than two dozen Florida governments — mostly in South Florida — that already outlaw such bias. But there is no state standard. Abruzzo’s bill failed to get a hearing earlier this year. But he has proposed a similar measure for the session beginning in January. Abruzzo is set to get the organization’s Ally for Equality award at an event Wednesday in the town of Palm Beach. Author John KennedyPosted on November 10, 2015 Categories 2015 Bills, Joseph Abruzzo, legislature, Palm Beach County, State House, State SenateTags bnblogs, Equality Florida, LGBT, newsLeave a comment on Abruzzo honored for pushing statewide ban on LGBT discrimination Scott on tax-cut tour stops at Riviera Beach sign company Gov. Scott to be in Riviera Beach today on tax-cut tour Gov. Rick Scott plans a stop today at a Riviera Beach sign manufacturer as part of a barnstorming tour to promote his proposed $1 billion package of tax cuts. Scott is slated to visit Baron Signs at 1 p.m., on the second day of what is set as a week-long tour. A $76.9 million annual cut beginning in 2017 would go to manufacturers shielded by a proposed permanent elimination of a sales tax on equipment purchases. The Legislature in 2013 erased the tax for three years. But Scott is pushing state lawmakers next year to have the levy taken off the books. Scott’s $1 billion proposal is mostly aimed at businesses and would kick-in over the next two years. Author John KennedyPosted on November 10, 2015 November 10, 2015 Categories 2015 Bills, legislature, Palm Beach County, Rick Scott, state budget, State House, State SenateTags $1 billion tax reduction, bnblogs, news, tax cutsLeave a comment on Scott on tax-cut tour stops at Riviera Beach sign company Redistricting failure avoids Sachs-Abruzzo faceoff — for now Sen. Maria Sachs The Legislature’s latest failure to approve a redistricting plan may reflect badly on the House and Senate’s ruling Republicans. But shelving the proposed Senate boundaries put in play by the House may have saved Palm Beach County Democrats a potentially tough battle — pitting Sen. Maria Sachs of Delray Beach against Sen. Joe Abruzzo of Wellington. At least, for now. In coming weeks, Leon County Circuit Judge George Reynolds and later the Florida Supreme Court will work on crafting Senate boundaries for next year’s elections, now that the Legislature has given up on its efforts. And the House proposal that puts the residences of Palm Beach County Democratic senators Sachs, Abruzzo and Jeff Clemens of Lake Worth in the same district could spring back to life, gaining renewed attention before the judge or justices. Most of the maps considered by legislators reduce Palm Beach County’s four senators to three — with Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, losing his piece of north county and moved into a district comprised of Martin, St. Lucie and Okeechobee counties. The three remaining districts, though, spell trouble for Sachs and Abruzzo. While the proposed boundaries retain a central county district similar to the one currently held by Clemens, the other two combine pieces of the seats now held by Sachs and Abruzzo. Both Democrats say they would be looking to run in the southernmost district, which includes the Glades and western Palm Beach County — an area represented by Abruzzo — and Boca Raton and northern Broward County — which is currently in Sachs’ district. Some of the behind-the-scenes drama was aired Thursday on the Senate floor. Sachs criticized the House map for linking far-flung, very different communities — like Belle Glade and Boca Raton. “Some of the lines stretch out to…communities that have different interests,” Sachs said, adding, “We have to make sure that these lines that are drawn represent the people.” But Abruzzo countered by saying that his current district already includes the financially-strapped Glades region along with Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens and Juno Beach — some of the county’s more moneyed addresses. Although both Abruzzo and Sachs voted against the map, which failed 23-16 in the Senate vote, Abruzzo said he didn’t see anything wrong with proposals that tie diverse income communities together in a district. “I don’t believe we should be talking about segregation here on the Senate floor,” Abruzzo said. Author John KennedyPosted on November 6, 2015 Categories 2015 Bills, 2016 campaigns, Democrats, Jeff Clemens, Joe Negron, Joseph Abruzzo, legislature, Palm Beach County, redistricting, Republicans, State House, State SenateTags bnblogs, news1 Comment on Redistricting failure avoids Sachs-Abruzzo faceoff — for now Is Legislature headed toward another meltdown over redistricting? The Legislature’s second attempt in three months to draw district boundaries looks doomed Lawmakers agreed Thursday to advance a House plan for redrawing Senate districts — but its prospects of clearing the Legislature doesn’t look good. After the Senate early Thursday floated a handful of alternate maps — some attempting to resolve a sticking point with the House over its treatment of Hispanic-leaning Senate seats in Miami-Dade County — Senate Redistricting Chairman Bill Galvano surprised many. He said the House map, after all, will do. The decision sends to the Senate floor this afternoon a House plan for drawing boundaries that has already been rejected once by senators. And because perceived problems involving Hispanic voting performance in three Miami-Dade districts are still contained in the map, many are predicting that it will fail in the Senate. It would be the Legislature’s second collapsed special session on redistricting in less than three months. Efforts to redraw congressional boundaries ended in a standoff between the House and Senate in August. Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, said the latest woes underscore the push by him and fellow Democrats for an independent panel to drawn district boundaries. “You can’t put 40 people together and have them set aside their own viewpoints and ambitions to have an unbiased process. It’s just simply impossible,” Clemens said of the Senate. “I’m hoping after this, maybe they’ll hear my bill.” Author John KennedyPosted on November 5, 2015 Categories 2015 Bills, 2016 campaigns, Jeff Clemens, legislature, Palm Beach County, State House, State SenateTags newsLeave a comment on Is Legislature headed toward another meltdown over redistricting? House ‘Groundhog Day’ includes approval of a Senate map House Redistricting Chair Jose Oliva, R-Miami The House approved a proposal Tuesday redrawing Senate districts but also opening the door to further negotiations with senators on a compromise map while the special session lurches toward the finish line. The plan approved 73-47 by the House diverges sharply from what the Senate narrowly OK’d last week – particularly in dealing with South Florida seats. But with lawmakers slated to end their three-week session Friday, the clash sets up the possibility of yet another deadlock between Republican leaders in the House and Senate. The two sides already have dueled this year over health care, battled through a costly extra session on the state budget, and two go-arounds on redistricting, the first ending in a bitter stalemate. “It seems like we’re stuck in a Groundhog Day movie here in Tallahassee,” Rep. Lori Berman, D-Lantana, told the House, citing the 1993 film that depicted a man doomed to repeat the same day over and over again. House Redistricting Chairman Jose Oliva, R-Miami, said he couldn’t provide Berman and other skeptics “that kind of assurance,” that an accord could be reached between the two sides. But he added, “This is a map that will stand up to the Constitution and a map, I believe, that the Senate will pass.” Moments after approving the plan, the House formally asked the Senate to either accept the proposal – or agree to form a conference committee between the two sides to hash out differences. Senate leaders didn’t immediately respond. “I don’t know if we are standing at the end…or we are standing here just at the middle of this process,” said House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, told the House. Author John KennedyPosted on November 3, 2015 Categories 2015 Bills, 2016 campaigns, Democrats, Jeff Clemens, Joe Negron, Joseph Abruzzo, legislature, redistricting, Republicans, State House, State SenateTags bnblogs, House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, news, Rep. Jose Oliva, Sen. Maria SachsLeave a comment on House ‘Groundhog Day’ includes approval of a Senate map Big brother or oh, brother? House map tucks three Palm Beach County Senate Dems into one district Redistricting Chairs Rep. Jose Oliva (left) and Sen. Bill Galvano. (House photo) The Florida Legislature opens the final scheduled week today of a special session to finalize a redraw of the state’s 2012 Senate map, with the House teeing up its own version of new boundaries. The Senate approved its plan last week, amid some sharp divisions between senators. But the House has taken a proposal crafted by a voters’ coalition and melded it with its own ideas to come up with a fresh plan set to go before its Redistricting Committee this afternoon. With the clock winding down on the session — slated to end Friday — the House and Senate appear far apart at the moment, not likely a good sign, given the history of friction between the two sides over setting political boundaries. In Palm Beach County, the House mash-up map could cause some political upheaval. The district now held by Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, would be moved out of the Jupiter-Tequesta area it currently holds, instead containing Martin, St. Lucie and Okeechobee counties, similar to what the Senate proposed. But the three remaining Palm Beach County districts currently held by Democratic Sens. Jeff Clemens of Lake Worth, Joe Abruzzo of Wellington and Maria Sachs of Delray Beach, undergo some transformation in the House plan. For starters, the residences of all three lawmakers are lumped into the same center county district, which is similar similar to the one Clemens now holds. But Abruzzo and Sachs might have to choose which of the remaining two districts look most like their current boundaries — since the House splices together pieces of each. What looks like Abruzzo’s current, western county district courses in the House proposal from the Glades region south into Boca Raton, then curves into Broward County, taking in parts of Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach. The south county and Broward communities are areas Sachs currently represents, so she also might stake a claim to that district. The third and last county seats ranges north to the Martin County line, taking in West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and such Republican-leaning communities as Jupiter, Tequesta, Juno Beach and Palm Beach Gardens. Author John KennedyPosted on November 2, 2015 November 2, 2015 Categories 2015 Bills, 2016 campaigns, Democrats, legislature, Palm Beach County, redistricting, Republicans, State House, State SenateTags newsLeave a comment on Big brother or oh, brother? House map tucks three Palm Beach County Senate Dems into one district Change at the top of Florida’s largest teachers’ union Joanne McCall, new president of the FEA The state’s largest teachers’ union, a steady antagonist to Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-led Legislature, elected a new president Saturday at its annual conference in Orlando. Joanne McCall is succeeding Andy Ford as head of the Florida Education Association. McCall has been FEA vice-president during Ford’s administration, which began in 2003. McCall is a former speech pathologist in Sumter County. “With the other officers elected this weekend, we will be a diverse and dedicated team working to bolster the teachers and education staff professionals in this state, so that we can improve the lives of the children we teach,” McCall said. The FEA has more than 140,000 members in the state. It has battled the state’s Republican leadership over private school vouchers, standardized testing, the expansion of charter schools, teacher pay and school funding issues. The FEA also has been a potent backer of recent Democratic candidates for governor, steering money and grassroots workers to campaigns. Author John KennedyPosted on October 17, 2015 October 17, 2015 Categories 2015 Bills, 2016 campaigns, education, elections, legislature, Rick Scott, state budget, State House, State Senate, UnionsTags bnblogs, Florida Education Association, newsLeave a comment on Change at the top of Florida’s largest teachers’ union Corruption in the drug rehab industry: How peeing in a cup can make millions At its annual conference in Orlando on Tuesday, the Florida Association of Recovery Residences recognized Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, for her efforts in the passage of HB 21 – which establishes a voluntary certification program for sober homes. After six years of trying to regulate the booming billion-dollar rehab industry, Harrell, along with Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, and Rep. Bill Hager, R-Boca Raton, crafted a bill this year that won overwhelming support in both chambers. Under the bill, the Dept. of Children and Families will select a non-profit organization to oversee the certification process. FARR is currently negotiating with DCF for the contract. Harrell appeared at FARR’s annual conference in Orlando to accept the award. Continue reading “Corruption in the drug rehab industry: How peeing in a cup can make millions” Author Christine StapletonPosted on August 5, 2015 August 5, 2015 Categories 2015 Bills, Bill Hager, Christine Stapleton, Jeff ClemensTags newsLeave a comment on Corruption in the drug rehab industry: How peeing in a cup can make millions	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1595
__label__wiki	0.642692	0.642692	More about HKUST University News Academic Departments A-Z Life@HKUST Library Map & Directions Jobs@HKUST Faculty Profiles About HKUST IPO IPP LAPP MPhil/PhD Students Dual Degree Program (Optional) Areas of Specialization (Optional) Client-based Policy Analysis Project Student Sharing MPhil/PhD in Public Policy Scholarship/Studentship Conference & Workshop In addition to the University admission requirements, applicants must possess a bachelor’s degree in any field with strong academic performance, especially in analytical courses. Applicants are highly recommended to have a satisfactory GMAT/GRE score. Copyright © The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. All rights reserved. Follow HKUST on Copyright © The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1596
__label__cc	0.576944	0.423056	Issue 1/1993 1. Jan. 1993 Long-Term Assessment of Combined Osseous Composite Grafting, Root Conditioning, and Guided Tissue Regeneration. McClain / Schallhorn Although the short-term, success of guided tissue regeneration has been widely reported, few studies on the long-term, success of treatment have been published. The present investigation assessed the 5-year results of guided tissue regeneration procedures used alone or in combination with root conditioning and osseous composite grafts. Results indicated that the long-term success of guided tissue regeneration was significantly enhanced by the addition of root conditioning and grafting procedures. Localized Ridge Augmentation Using Guided Bone Regeneration. I. Surgical Procedure in the Maxilla Buser / Dula / Belser / Hirt / Berthold A new surgical technique for localized ridge augmentation prior to the placement of dental implants has been developed. The technique is based on the principle of guided bone regeneration utilizing barrier membranes. In the present article, the currently used surgical procedure is presented through two case reports. In addition, the different aspects of the surgical technique needed to achieve a predictable success are discussed. Free-Standing Verses Implant-Tooth-- Interconnected Restorations: Understanding the Prosthodontic Perspective The surgical and prosthetic protocols for use of dental implants were originally developed for the treatment of complete edentulism. Implants are now widely used to treat partial edentulism, but the necessary adjustments to the prosthetic protocol have been developed largely on a trial-and-error basis. This paper reviews the efficacy of commonly used restorative techniques for partially edentulous arches and relates these techniques to Brånemark's original prosthetic protocol. Regeneration of Dehisced Alveolar Bone Adjacent to Endosseous Dental Implants Utilizing a Resorbable Collagen Membrane: Clinical and Histologic Results Sevor / Meffert / Cassingham The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of resorboble collagen membrane for guided tissue regeneration. Dehiscences were surgically induced in dog mandibles Hydroxyapatite-coated or grit-blast-ed implants were then placed in a random pattern in both sides of the mandibles (two of each type of implant in each side of the mandible). A resorbable collagen bonier membrane was placed around one pair of implants on each side. The other two implants on each side served as controls. The sites were examined clinically and histologically after 4 or 8 weeks to assess bone regeneration. Sites around experimental hydroxyapatite-coated and grit-blasted implants showed significantly more bone fill than did control sites. In addition to its apparent ability to encourage bone regeneration, the collagen membrane is resorbable obviating the need for a second surgery to allow removal. Melanin Repigmentation After Gingivectomy: A 5-Year Clinical and Transmission Electron Microscopic Study in Humans Bergamaschi / Kon / Doine / Ruben The epithelium-melanin unit is formed by the melanocytes and keratinocytes. There is little information available about the behavior of melonocytes after surgical injury Five white patients with comparable gingival pigmentation underwent gingivectomy to remove bandlike melanin pigmentations for cosmetic reasons Biopsy specimens were taken from gingvectomy sites and healing areas 2, 3, 6, 7, 75, 50, and 780 days and 15, 3, and 5 years after the procedure. Transmission electron microscopic study revealed melanocytes in the process of migration and undergoing mitosis 6 and 7 days postoperatively. These cells exhibited, in the 15-day specimens, renewal of their dendritic processes and the four different stages of melanosome development. Kerotinocytes were devoid of pigmented material until 50 days postoperatively. Clinically, the intensity of the pigmentation varied among the patients. Two reached baseline coloration 1.5 years post-surgery, white three returned to baseline coloration by 3 years postsurgery. Thus, gingival resective procedures, if performed solely for cosmetic reasons, offer no permanent results.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1598
__label__cc	0.532746	0.467254	Don't Get Engaged by Laura Nielson Denke by Samuel Layne The Christmas Walk Caper by JB Michaels The Devil and Dayna Dalton by Brit Lunden Gods and Psychopaths by Louis Park What You Don't Know Can Kill You by Meghan Hansen Four Bears in a Box by Dreama Denver How to Self-publish and Market a Book by Hank Quense Cosmic Swan by Bill Copeland Straight Uphill by Jess Wells Death Perfected by Nathan Wilson by Debbie Tremel Zipolite by Justine R Kelly American Princess Meets Homeboy by Jamy Rosser by Jeffrey Fischmann City of More by Sonya Annita Song Jesus Ascended. What Does That Mean? Teddy Roosevelt, Millie and the Elegant Ride by Jean M. Flahive As The World Falls Down From the ashes of the old world, something new is rising... by Katy Nicholas Contact Author - Katy Nicholas Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite As The World Falls Down is a work of science fiction penned by author Katy Nicholas, focused on survival in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world: “From the ashes of the old world, something new is rising...” Our focus is set on a wipeout situation after a mysterious plague kills nearly the whole of humanity. Halley Clarke is a survivor, and when she ventures out and finds Nate Reynolds, she realizes that they can’t have survived without good reason. The virus has changed them both, with instincts and voices they never knew before. Together, they desire the truth of this new world, but it may be the very thing that tears them apart. Accessible to teen audiences and up for its non-graphic content, author Katy Nicholas has created a highly engaging science fiction and dystopian tale with lots to offer. The backstory of the destruction of humanity is well played out with plenty of excellent detail and thought-out construction, and the strange new world that Nate and Halley embark on is beautifully atmospheric, thanks to the author’s descriptive techniques. The novel is as much a mystery plot as it is a survival tale, and the encounters of the plot structure have a slow but satisfying feel to them as we work towards uncovering the mysteries of the virus, its true effects on people, and what the future of Earth may be. Overall, As The World Falls Down is a great read, recommended for fans of dystopian adventure and mystery tales in unusual settings. Scott Cahan As The World Falls Down by Katy Nichols successfully combines two genres into one exhilarating story. On the one hand, it’s a science fiction apocalyptic survival tale. On the other hand, it’s a steamy romance. The central characters, Halley and Nate, are both survivors of a worldwide epidemic virus that has wiped out almost the entire human race. After years of being alone, they find each other and fall in love. Together, they learn to be happy again, creating their own little paradise built on their love for each other. Soon, however, the question of whether or not there are any other survivors drives them to venture out in search of more people as well as answers about what caused the virus in the first place. What they find on their journey is both unsettling and bizarre. I enjoyed As The World Falls Down for the most part. A large part of the book is devoted to the romance between Halley and Nate and I have to confess that the author almost lost me during those scenes. But, I continued reading because the science fiction element was always close by, hanging over the characters like a dark shadow. As the plot gets thicker, the science fiction element becomes the main focus and at that point, I was hooked. Now that I’ve completed the novel I have to say that Katy Nichols did an excellent job of combing the romance and science fiction elements of her book. The two genres actually benefit from each other. The overall effect is a strange combination of light and darkness. Overall, As The World Falls Down is a great read and I recommend it for anyone who enjoys a satisfying combination of romance and science fiction. Asher Syed As the World Falls Down by Katy Nicholas is a post-apocalyptic science fiction story following a pair of survivors as they navigate the world at large years after a devastating plague. This is the first book in Nicholas' series Cities in Dust. Nineteen-year-old Halley Clark leaves her Aunt Rebecca sleeping in her bed and sneaks out of her English cottage to search for other survivors. A week in, after years of seclusion, she comes across a blacked-out drunk Nate Reynolds, a former doctor in his thirties who has the same tell-tale sign of plague survival Halley has - a red ring around the iris. The attraction is instant and Halley feels strangely drawn to him. As the narrative shifts between “before” the plague and “after”, Halley's past and the onset of the plague are slowly revealed alongside her new life with Nate and an uncertain future that is also slowly revealed with hard truths about their new reality. As the World Falls Down is a great introduction to Katy Nicholas' series, and having it told from Halley's point of view offers a fresh, young adult narrative to a mature science fiction story. I admit that the relationship between Nate and Halley didn't sit comfortably with me initially (due to the age difference), but it adds a necessary layer to the pair's dynamic and Nate being in his thirties is as important to the story as Halley being a young adult. The book is well written and the flashbacks are done with just the right amount of balance to make the transitions feel natural and appropriate. As the World Falls Down is a good read and Nicholas offers some nice twists to a genre that's already deeply stacked. Recommended.	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1600
__label__cc	0.589542	0.410458	Dana Hayes Erickson and her friends plagued by swarm of lovebugs This is the horrific moment a group of friends are plagued by millions of lovebugs while in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. The terrifying clip was captured by Dana Hayes Erickson while she was out fishing with a group of friends off the coast of Lido Key, near Sarasota, Florida. Astonishingly, despite being far from land, the biblical sized swarm of thick black lovebugs was still able to terrorize the group of pals. The orgy of mating insects became so overwhelming that Dana and her friends were forced to pull anchor and flee from their fishing spot. In the disturbing clip, the whole boat can be seen covered by millions of the bugs. Dana and her friends can also be seen covered, from head to toe, in the disgusting insects. At one point in the clip, a woman can be heard saying "We gotta get the hell out of here. We're taken over by bugs. This is f*****d up. Pull the anchor. We gotta go at 100 miles per hour right now." "Look at that," another woman says, pointing to the seats crawling with interlocking black insects. The lovebug is a species of march fly found in parts of Central America and the southeastern United States. They are known to swarm during spring as they attempt to mate. During and after mating, adult pairs remain stuck, even in flight, for several days. 16 May 2019 Pictured: Dana Hayes Erickson and her friends plagued by swarm of lovebugs. Photo credit: Dana Hayes Erickson / MEGA TheMegaAgency.com +1 888 505 6342 The Mega Agency orgy of mating insects terrifying clip disturbing clip group of friends Dana Hayes Erickson species of march fly swarm of thick black lovebugs horrific moment southeastern United States point adult pairs woman land parts of Central America mating whole boat clip Dana seats friends coast of Lido Key head anchor toe spring flight miles Sarasota Florida bugs hell hour days disgusting insects middle of the Gulf of Mexico black insects group of pals fishing spot lovebug lovebugs Lido Key Mexico Central America United States Global Swarming! Group of friends swarmed by millions of lovebugs - 15 May 2019	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1603
__label__wiki	0.819692	0.819692	Redanian Intelligence Bringing you all news on The Witcher on Netflix Redanian Archives Show search form Menu - Select Page -HomeInterviewsRedanian ArchivesForeign AffairsContactOur partners Redanian Archives: Behind the scenes of The Witcher, Part I By HeroOfRodden in Behind the Scenes on September 2, 2019 December 9, 2019 In this new series of posts, Redanian Intelligence will be setting out all we know about the filming of season one, breaking down the entire process week-by-week and adding some entirely new information and photographs along the way that we hadn’t had the chance to share before. In fact, this is how this website came to be. Back in the day, RI founder Gravemaster posted an album of filming pictures on Reddit. After that, a team was assembled to dig deeper and continue the series. That proved a more arduous task than expected, with the filming heating up, and so there were no follow-ups. Not long after, this site was created. While that meant we could share some of our biggest finds, setting out an in-depth timeline wasn’t something we had time for … until now. Enjoy! 1986. A then unknown writer penned a short story for the Polish Fantastyka magazine, inspired by his son’s love of fantasy. The short story, named Wiedzmin, was later translated into The Witcher. November 2015. Following the success of The Witcher 3 video game, Platige Image announced their plans to create a film adaption of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher, to be directed by Tomasz Baginski. At some point, that movie was pitched to Netflix. May 2017. In a generous change of plans, Netflix decided that instead of one movie based on a short story called The Lesser Evil, they would develop the Witcher Saga into a full series. It was quickly dubbed “Netflix’s Game of Thrones“. December 2017. After screening several potential showrunners, Netflix placed Lauren Schmidt Hissrich at the helm of the show. Preproduction began on season one of The Witcher. September 2018. The writers’ room completed the scripts, and it was announced that Henry Cavill would play Geralt of Rivia. October 2018. With filming slated for early November in Budapest, the cast and crew entered high gear. Week 0: Origo Studios and Skanzen Village The week before filming began, the show’s cast and crew gathered in Budapest’s Origo Film Studios, where most of the action took place. Cavill underwent extensive training. As we later learned, he insisted on doing every single stunt on his own. Meanwhile, the set designers were hard at work crafting the first interiors of the Continent. Also at Origo, actor Wilson Radjou-Pujlalte, who plays show-original character Dara, had his face scanned for a yet unknown reason. One possibility is that Dara will have a dryad’s arrow lodged in his eyesocket, and that the art team is making a mold of Wilson’s face to place the arrow inside it. It’s possible, however, that this is something else entirely, and Wilson will be some sort of monster. Dara will be involved in Ciri’s storyline, but little else is known about the character. 🛠🎬📈 A post shared by Wilson Radjou Pujlalte (@wilson.radjou) on Oct 8, 2018 at 10:33am PDT While the cast trained and the art department created the show’s sets, another department rummaged through what would later become one of the show’s filming locations. This is the Skanzen Village Museum, a place that looks just as you would expect from a small town in the Northern Realms. And yes, there’s a donkey, too. The donkey With the show’s star growing more and more comfortable in Geralt’s boots, Netflix released the now infamous Geralt costume test. It was our first official The Witcher promotional material. It became known as Wiggate. Get your first look at Henry Cavill in The Witcher! pic.twitter.com/1O2eWS1MkP — Netflix US (@netflix) October 31, 2018 With November fast approaching, the show’s production was about to begin. Here’s where it gets interesting. Week 1: The Butcher of Blaviken When Baginski came to Netflix to pitch them The Witcher, he offered to film an adaption of The Lesser Evil. Though Baginski’s role changed significantly, and the creative reins were handed to Hissrich, this short story remained the show’s Pilot episode. As it happens, that episode (and its climactic fight scene) were among the production’s first scenes. Present with Cavill on location at Mafilm Studios near Budapest were Shane Attwooll, Matthew Neal and Luke Neal, who together portrayed the outlaw band that follows Princess Renfri, then played by Millie Brady. This fight scene is the centerpiece of The Lesser Evil, and it would later undergo severe reshoots (and also numerous recasts). This sequence was originally filmed by director Alik Sakharov who, as well as directing four episodes, had a significant role in shaping the look and feel of the show. The Witcher’s set at Mafilm Studios, or Blaviken The muddy ground of Mafilm Studios’ Blaviken set A crew member mentioning filming of the Blaviken fight scene During the same week, the crew apparently filmed their first scenes in Skanzen Village. We don’t know which town in the Continent Skanzen stood for in these scenes, but a good guess could be Lower Posada from The Edge of the World. Alik and Lauren celebrating the end of The Witcher’s first week of filming in what appears to be the Skanzen Village Museum Week 2: Mafilm and Origo Studios During production’s second week, the show resumed filming in Mafilm Studios’ Blaviken set, filming various scenes for the pilot episode. Cavill, Attwooll and the two Neals were all on hand. Showrunner Lauren S Hissrich at Mafilm The crew also continued work at the show’s headquarters in Origo Studios, where most of the show’s interior scenes were filmed. Mustaches belonging to the costume department. Henry was probably delighted to see them A set of The Witcher which appears to be the corridor of Cintra glimpsed in the trailer The same set, as seen in the show’s first teaser And that’s all for today. But, worry not! There were 29 weeks of filming for The Witcher‘s first season, and we will be covering all of them. You can expect similar behind-the-scenes posts covering the entirety of the show’s production timeline, as we’ll be delivering them on a regular basis. Coming up next is the filming at Monostori Erod, the show’s stand-in for Cintra. Stay tuned! 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Pingback: Redanian Archives: Behind the scenes of The Witcher, Part II - Redanian Intelligence Countdown to Season 1 The Witcher author on adaptations: “They’re almost always worse” January 18, 2020 Game of Thrones actor Kristofer Hivju possibly cast in The Witcher January 17, 2020 Everything The Witcher’s showrunner has teased about season 2 January 16, 2020 Netflix builds a Witcher town in Arborfield Studios, UK (Exclusive) January 15, 2020 Game of Thrones’ first Night King was originally going to play Ronin Mage in The Witcher January 15, 2020 Redanian Intelligence Newsletter Stay up-to-date to all The Witcher news Netflix builds a Witcher town in Arborfield Studios, UK (Exclusive) The Witcher Season 2 is scouting Scotland with a new director RI interviews The Witcher’s Lauren Hissrich: ‘Ciri really takes center stage in Season 2’ The Witcher showrunner explains why the finale was changed from the books	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1605
__label__cc	0.697745	0.302255	Colleges, Departments, and Organizations Digital Library of Information Science & Technology (DLIST) JournalSHARP News (13)AuthorsBlack, Fiona A. (13) Finkelstein, David (13) SHARP, (Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing) (13) Connors, Linda (12)TypesNewsletter (Paginated) (13) 13CSV 13RefMan 13EndNote 13BibTex SHARP News SHARP, (Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing) (Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing, 1999) This is the Autumn 1999 issue of SHARP News. SHARP News (ISSN 1073-1725) is the quarterly newsletter of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, Inc. Editor: David Finkelstein; Associate Editor: Linda Connors; Book Review Editor: Fiona Black. CONTENTS: IN MY VIEW: WHY DON'T WE HAVE ANY "SCHOOLS OF LIBRARY AND READING STUDIES?"; CROSSING THE LINE: PRINT CULTURE DOWN UNDER; OVERLAPPING BOUNDARIES CONFERENCE; READING CONFERENCE IN EDINBURGH; THE MIGHTY ENGINE: THE BBT SEMINAR; THE AMERICAN PRINT MARKETPLACE: FROM PAMPHLETS TO PH.D. DISSERTATIONS OR, ONE WAY TO TEACH THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK TO GRADUATE STUDENTS; CALLS FOR PAPERS; CALLS FOR CONTRIBUTIONS; CONFERENCES; EXHIBITIONS; FELLOWSHIPS; LECTURES; ESSAY AND MANUSCRIPT PRIZES; SEMINARS; BOOK REVIEWS; BIBLIOGRAPHY; IN MEMORIAM: WILLIAM EVAN FREDEMAN; SHARPEND. This issue includes the following contributions: IN MY VIEW: WHY DON'T WE HAVE ANY "SCHOOLS OF LIBRARY AND READING STUDIES?", by Wayne A. Wiegand (pp. 1-2); OVERLAPPING BOUNDARIES CONFERENCE, by David Finkelstein (p. 3); READING CONFERENCE IN EDINBURGH, by Helen Williams (p. 4); THE MIGHTY ENGINE: THE BBT SEMINAR, by Barry McKay (pp. 4-5); THE AMERICAN PRINT MARKETPLACE: FROM PAMPHLETS TO PH.D. DISSERTATIONS OR, ONE WAY TO TEACH THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK TO GRADUATE STUDENTS, by Paul Gutjahr (pp. 5-6); Expressionism and Modernity: Function and Meaning in German Expressionist Prints; Libraries and the Book Trade: The Formation of Collections in the Public Sphere from the 16th to the 20th Century (CONFERENCES) (p. 7); Chicago under Wraps: Dust Jackets from 1920-1950; Jock Elliott's Christmas Books (EXHIBITIONS) (pp. 7-8); BOOK REVIEWS, by John Feather, Graham Jefcoate, Jonathan Rose, Kathleen Kamerick (pp. 10-14). This is the Summer 1998 issue of SHARP News. SHARP News (ISSN 1073-1725) is the quarterly newsletter of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, Inc. Editor: David Finkelstein; Associate Editor: Linda Connors; Book Review Editor: Fiona Black. CONTENTS: VANCOUVER HOSTS OVER 200 SHARPISTS; NOMINATIONS SOUGHT FOR 1999 ELECTION OF SHARP OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS; UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN TO HOST SHARP 1999; RESEARCHING THE HISTORY OF THE PRINTED BOOK IN THE NETHERLANDS; PENN LIBRARY ACQUIRES MAJOR COLLECTION; SEASECS PERRY ADAMS ANNUAL ARTICLE PRIZE; CALLS FOR CONTRIBUTIONS; CALLS FOR PAPERS; CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT; COURSES; FELLOWSHIP ANNOUNCEMENTS; SCHOLARLY LIAISONS; SEMINARS AND LECTURES; BOOK REVIEWS; BIBLIOGRAPHY; SHARPEND. This issue includes the following contributions: Journal of the Early Book Society; Makers of Western Culture, 1800-1914 (CALLS FOR CONTRIBUTIONS) (pp. 3-4); Second English Culture Conference; Pressing Matters: The Politics of Print; Popular Culture Association; Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand; Early Book Society; Self-Representation in Literature and the Arts; DeBartolo Conference on 18th-Century Studies (CALLS FOR PAPERS) (pp. 4-5); Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT) (p. 5); Drew University MA Programme in Book History; Centre for the History of Print Culture PhD Minor in Print Culture History (COURSES) (p. 5); American Antiquarian Society; Alicia Monti Research Fellowship (FELLOWSHIP ANNOUNCEMENTS) (pp. 5-6); American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies (SCHOLARLY LIAISONS) (p. 6); Centre for the History of Print Culture in Modern America (SEMINARS AND LECTURES) (p. 6); BOOK REVIEWS, by Raymond Birn, Leslie Howsam, Linda K. Hughes, A.S. Hargreaves (pp. 6-10). This is the Spring 1997 issue of SHARP News. SHARP News (ISSN 1073-1725) is the quarterly newsletter of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, Inc. Editor: David Finkelstein; Associate Editor: Linda Connors; Book Review Editor: Fiona Black. CONTENTS: IN MY VIEW; THE TITLE AS A TEACHING TOOL; CALL FOR PAPERS; CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENTS; CALL FOR BOOK CONTRIBUTIONS; SCHOLARLY LIAISONS; EXHIBITIONS; COURSE ANNOUNCEMENTS; LECTURES AND SEMINARS; BOOK REVIEWS; BRIEF NOTICES; NEW PUBLICATIONS; SHARPEND. This issue includes the following contributions: IN MY VIEW, by Robert L. Patten (pp. 1-2); THE TITLE AS A TEACHING TOOL, by Eleanor Shevlin (pp. 2-4); Printed Matters: Printing, Publishing and Urban Culture; American Historical Association Pacific Coast Branch Conference; History of the Book in Australia (HOBA) 1997 Conference (CALL FOR PAPERS) (p. 4); History of the Book in Canada; Re-reading the Past: New Methodologies and Approaches to the History of the Book; School of Criticism and Theory; Sources, Exemplars, and Copy-Texts: Influence and Transmission, 1350-1550; Canterbury Tales Project; Defining Print Cultures for Youth: Children and Reading Since 1876; National School of Information & Library Science; Writing and New Technologies in South-Mediterranean Countries; In Visible Languages: The Visible Dimensions of Print Culture; Macmillan Archive; International Association of Scholarly Publishers (CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENTS) (pp. 4-5); SHARP/ASA Caucus; American Literature Association (SCHOLARLY LIAISONS) (pp. 5-6); Edward Clark Seminars; Habits of Reading in Early Modern England; Old English Literature in Its Manuscript Context; 1997 Programme of Events of the Printing Historical Society (LECTURES AND SEMINARS) (p. 6); BOOK REVIEWS, by Brian Hillyard, David Hunter, Lee N. McLaird, Kate Levin, D.R. Woolf (pp. 6-9).	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1611
__label__wiki	0.537849	0.537849	A 125th Anniversary Tribute to Boris Karloff Writings by Boris Karloff - "With A Grain of Salt", a playlet (with Helene Ripley). Registered for copyright on 21 October 1913. - "Cricket in California". The Screen Player, 15 May 1934. - "Diary of a Monster ... By Boris Karloff ". The Atlanta Constitution, 11 October 1936. - "Houses I Have Haunted". Liberty, 4 October 1941. - "Foreword". Charles Addams, Drawn and Quartered, (Random House, 1942). - "Tales of Terror". Anthology. (New World Publishing Company, 1943). - "And The Darkness Falls". Anthology. (New World Publishing Company, 1946). - "My Life As A Monster". Films and Filming, November 1957. - "Oaks from Acorns". Screen Actor, October-November 1960. - "Memoirs of a Monster". (With Arlene and Howard Eisenberg). Saturday Evening Post, 3 November 1962. - "The Boris Karloff Horror Anthology". (Avon Books, 1965). HOUSES I HAVE HAUNTED. BY BORIS KARLOFF. OCT. 4, 1941. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LIBERTY MAGAZINE. A monster and a murderer tells all … Secret : He's really a very mild man ! Being a bogeyman – like baggage smashing and truck driving – is apt to be a rather exhausting occupation. I know, because I've tried all three. On the whole, I think I would prefer truck driving were it not for the fact that my current job is apt to be more remunerative. And, of course, you meet the most interesting werewolves ! Nevertheless the Hollywood horror man runs into numerous occupational hazards that have nothing to do with the hours of work or the risk run in actual performance. There is, for example, one's social life to consider. Although Hollywood actors have long since come to realize that their private lives are every one's concern but their own, they have at least the comfort of knowing that their public is certain to be reasonably well disposed toward them. Not so in my case. For, no matter how pleasant the company in which I find myself, there is always that awkward moment when newcomers become aware of the fact that the quiet, soft-spoken man in the corner is actually Boris Karloff. (The more horrific my current role, the more I tend to modulate my voice off duty.) Nor are hostesses ever quite sure upon what I feed myself while other guests are sipping their whiskey-and-sodas. According to the popular impression, my hostesses regard me variously as a zombie, a ghoul, an ogre, a vampire, and a monster. As a result, they become convinced that a typical dinner for Karloff should consist of a) a steaming witch's potion, b) one piece of raw red meat ripped from a live and struggling anatomy, c) one seething bowl of fresh blood. But, whatever the jest with which hostesses try to pass off their uneasiness, I am often aware that they look upon me with about the same degree of trust and confidence as they would upon a cobra de capello ! Acquaintances, asking me to their summer homes, fill their medicine cabinets with such niceties as arsenic, old daggers, strychnine, cyanide, and ground glass – somehow feeling that this will make me happy. Why, even Russell Crouse, co-producer of „Arsenic and Old Lace“, a veteran newspaper man who will draw to an open straight without blanching, admits that he spent two weeks shuffling around Hollywood before he could screw up sufficient courage to approach me about playing the role of Jonathan Brewster in the Joseph Kesselring comedy. Nor do I find New Yorkers accepting me with any greater degree of self-assurance than their cousins on the Coast. Even my fellow commuters from South Norwalk, Connecticut, whose composure is shaken neither by missed trains nor by grand-slam bids, are apt to be taken aback on first discovering that the timid gargoyle in the next seat is Boris Karloff. For all these reactions I have naturally no one else but myself to blame. For years now I have been haunting houses – motion picture houses – ever since I first strode on the screen in full horrifying armor as the Monster of Frankenstein. Guilty must I plead likewise to supplying the goose pimples in such pictures as The Mummy, The Mask of Fu Manchu, The Ghoul, The Black Room, The Raven, Devil's Island, The Man they Could Not Hang, The Man with Nine Lives, and The Devil Commands, each with its full complement of shudders. Nor is my present Broadway role calculated to inspire confidence in the New York playgoer, to persuade such widows and orphans as attend the Fulton Theater to entrust me with the management of their estates. True, Arsenic and Old Lace tends to spoof the more serious-minded of the horror films. Yet, all the same, I find myself playing a murderer of considerable distinction, while my fellow players garner the lion's portion of the laughs. If that all sounds rather sinister, I might add that the author makes a good deal of fun of Jonathan Brewster, but that does not prevent the role from being reasonably grim and gruesome. Typical of the embarrassment attendant upon my sort of career was an incident that occurred shortly after the filming of Frankenstein. Mrs. Karloff and I had gone up to San Francisco to visit one of her schoolfriends. To our surprise, we found that Frankenstein, which we had not yet seen, was playing across the bay, in Oakland. What could be more natural than to invite our friend to a performance ? I had, of course, seen rushes of the picture, but never a connected version, and as the film progressed, I was amazed at the hold it was taking upon the audience. At the same time I couldn't help wondering how my own performance would weather all the build-up. I was soon to know. Suddenly, out of the eery darkness and gloom, there swept on the screen, about eight sizes larger than life itself, the chilling horrendous figure of me as the Monster ! And, just as suddenly, there crashed out over the general stillness the stage whisper of my wife's friend. Covering her eyes, gripping my wife by the shoulder, she screamed : „Dot, how can you live with that creature ?“ I was really surprised on arriving in New York to find people quite as apt to stare at me on the street as in Hollywood. Even in the theatrical hotel at which I first registered I seemed to attract more than what I consider my share of attention. But actually not everyone cringes in horror at my approach. On the contrary, I have encountered an amazing amount of sympathy and understanding for parts that seemed to me fairly loathsome. Yet there is always a touch of wonder that I'm not given to eating eight or nine orphans for breakfast. People are inclined to take somewhat the attitude of the famous Marquise du Deffand. Once, during the course of conversation, some one asked her : „My dear madame, do you believe in ghosts ?“ And she smiled sagely and replied, „No – but I'm afraid of them !“ Speaking of ghost stories, my presence at any gathering seems to be all that is needed to inspire an endless flood of them. Even when I returned to England five years ago, I found myself listening to an entire evening of such tales in my home town of Dulwich. One of the most famous of all English ghost stories – which may perhaps be less familiar to American readers – was told again that night. It concerned Harriet Westbrook, unhappy wife of the poet Shelley, who drowned herself more than a century ago in the Serpentine, the famous sheet of water that winds through Hyde Park. One day, just before the first World War, two elderly English ladies were taking a stroll through the park. It was a chilly, windy afternoon in early autumn. The park was almost deserted. As the ladies paused at the bank of the Serpentine, they noticed a series of curious ripples on the water, which caused them to wonder, for they knew there were no fish in the Serpentine. As they watched the ripples, fascinated, a hand suddenly pierced the surface of the water – a human hand, thin and white, a woman's hand ! It clutched frantically, desperately, at the air. It clutched like the hand of a drowning person. It then disappeared again under the surface of the water. But on the middle finger of the hand, both elderly ladies had seen a heavy gold ring, flashy and bright against the drabness of the bleak afternoon. The two old ladies were dumbfounded, petrified in their tracks, for they knew, as all London knew, that according to history Harriet Westbrook Shelley drowned wearing such a ring – a century ago ! By way of a leavening note, I might add that the only time I really enjoyed playing the Monster was at the last annual charity baseball game in Hollywood between a team of comedians and a team of leading men. I strode up to the plate for the occasion in my full make-up as Frankenstein's Monster – whereupon Buster Keaton, who was catching for the comedians, promptly shrieked at the sight of me, did a backward somersault, and passed out cold behind the plate. I waved my bat. The pitcher tossed the ball in my direction, and I swung at it as best I could, encumbered as I was with the Monster's metallic overalls. Luckily enough, I managed to tap the ball, which bounced crazily in the general direction of the pitcher's box. It should have been an easy out at first. But as I approached each base, the opposing player fainted dead away. And the Three Stooges, who were playing second, all passed out cold. It was a home run – though horrible ! But I can't possibly take leave of you without one last plea for my personal character. I am a normal and quiet soul. My wife will tell you gladly of the time we had guests in the house and the radio blared forth the report of a murderous lunatic who had broken loose and was in the vicinity of our neighborhood. The radio suggested the forming of a neighborhood posse. Well, one of my guests rose and said : „Karloff, let's take a quick drink before going out after that murderer.“ They all went to the bar and drank – except me. „Have a drink, Karloff,“ my friend insisted. But I wasn't in the mood. „No thanks, not me,“ I replied. „It gives me too much courage !“ All of which, the reader may surmise, is offered in substantiation of the argument that I am really a mild and harmless sort of fellow who likes his coffee warm and his fruit juice cold ; who enjoys nothing more than puttering around his garden or lying in the sun and reading Joseph Conrad. Which, as a matter of fact, happens to be true, as I could illustrate from now to the last page of Liberty. And just to prove that I am not alone in this conviction, I might add that the producers of Arsenic and Old Lace thought it might serve to promote the cause if I appeared as Santa Claus at a Baltimore party for crippled children. Which I did, successfully ! And on a recent radio program I managed to get away with one of the sweetest and most sentimental scenes of Smilin' Through ! But, of course, such performances are as unusual as they are gratefying to a professional horror man. On the whole, I suspect that I am likely to spend the rest of my career as a purveyor of the macabre, constantly adding to the perils of life on the screen. Actually, my life is nowhere near as bleak as I like to make it sound. For every correspondent who writes that my last picture kept her awake all night (obviously an exaggeration intended as flattery) there are a dozen tending from curiosity to sympathy. Whoever said that nobody loves a zombie has never peeked into my fan mail ! Even the children who write seem to understand the motivation behind my misdeeds, a motivation that occasionally eludes me. On the whole, I have no complaints to make about the roles in which in have appeared. Even Jonathan Brewster of Arsenic and Old Lace has his good points. He is almost kind to his maiden aunts – up to the moment where he finds they have beaten him at his own game of homicide. From what I have confessed in this article, you must realize at long last that, despite the movie houses I haunted, I am not a vicious ghoul. In fact, I let you in on a tremendous secret. When I opened on Broadway early this year in my second legit play in two decades, when my shadow fell upon the door and I, the murderer of twelve persons, walked out upon the stage – all the man-sized frightening was done not by Boris Karloff but by the audience. Because, for all the houses I have haunted, on that opening night, while every one else was feeling fine, I, Boris Karloff, was absolutely and positively scared stiff ! Memoirs of a Monster. BY BORIS KARLOFF, 3 NOV. 1962. SATURDAY EVENING POST. AS TOLD TO ARLENE AND HOWARD EISENBERG. At Halloween the world's most famous bogeyman looks back on his thirty-year career in horror It is not true that I was born a monster - Hollywood made me one. That was thirty-one years ago, and I've lived accordingly ever after. While some potential victims have eluded my fangs, claws and other assorted horrors, I myself have found it almost impossible to escape monster roles. Take the memorable time in 1947 when I was offered the gentle part of Professor Linden in a forthcoming Broadway production of The Linden Tree. I was delighted - but the playwright, J.B. Priestley, was not. "Good Lord, not Karloff," he told producer Maurice Evans. "Put his name on the marquee and people will think my play is about an ax murder." I cabled Priestley in London : I PROMISE YOU I WOULD NOT HAVE EATEN THE BABY IN THE LAST ACT. Upon that solemn assurance, he withdrew his objections. The part was mine. But The Linden Tree folded in less than a week, and I've always been haunted by the thought that possibly Priestley was right after all. On rare occasions I have managed to stay out of character : As jovial Father Knickerbocker in a Shirley Temple Storybook television show ; as a wise Seneca Chief in Cecil B. De Mille's The Unconquered, and in my favourite role of the kindly Gramps in On Borrowed Time in stock. But even then I felt the audience was waiting for me to unmask and exterminate the rest of the cast. AN ORDINARY CHILDHOOD Such morbid expectations also appear to shadow my offstage life. If I stroll into the garden, spade in hand, the postman is almost certain to quip, "Disposing of another body, Mr. Karloff ?" Groucho Marx' standard greeting to me is, "How much do you charge to haunt a house ?"Bright young advertising men are forever soliciting testimonials from me for such things as Devil's food cake. Actually I am assured that I was a quiet infant, and a gentle boy. No whippings by cruel stepparents scarred my childhood. No sadistic governesses read me horror stories by flickering candlelight. My childhood as William Henry Pratt in the serene London suburb of Enfield was extraordinarily tame. Both my parents died during my childhood. I was reared by one amiable stepsister and seven stern older brothers, who knew exactly what I was going to be - a government servant in the family tradition. But my scholarship, or lack of it, during four years at Uppingham, a boarding school I attended 1902-06, bespoke my disinterest in any profession based on higher learning. Actually my macabre career was already settled. At the age of nine, I had appeared in a Christmas-play version of Cinderella. Instead of playing the handsome prince, I donned black tights and a scull cap with horns and rallied the forces of evil as the Demon King. From then on I resolved to be an actor. At Kings College, London, years later, the first-term reports amply reflected the fact that I had attended more plays than classes. I was, in fact, fast becoming a disgrace to the family name. In those days black sheep were exported to Canada or Australia. When I blithely flipped a coin in the family solicitor's office, the unfortunate losers were the Canadians. At 4.30 one morning, a month or two later, I found myself in a Canadian pasture, halter in hand, wondering how to round up four reluctant horses. A week or so later, at Vancouver, British Columbia, I landed a pick-and-shovel job with the B.C. Electric Company - $ 2.50 for a ten-hour day - digging drainage ditches and clearing land. MUMBLING AND BUMBLING Then one day in an old copy of Billboard, I came across the advertisement of a theatrical agent in nearby Seattle. His name was Kelly. I went to him and shamelessly told him I'd been in all the plays I'd ever seen, that I was forced to retire to Canada temporarily for my health and was now hale and ready for a comeback. Two months later, while chopping trees, I received a brief note, "Join Jean Russell Stock Company in Kamloops, B.C. - Kelly." I left my ax sticking in a tree. On the train I concocted my stage name. Karloff came from relatives on my mother's side. The Boris I plucked out of the cold Canadian air. I had finally become an actor, but I mumbled, bumbled , missed cues, rammed into furniture and sent the director's blood pressure soaring. When the curtain went up, I was getting thirty dollars a week. When it descended, I was down to fifteen dollars. The play, significantly now, was Molnar's The Devil. I learned the acting trade during the next six or seven years, playing vintage pieces like East Lynne or Charlie's Aunt all over Western Canada and the United States, and living on eggs fried on inverted pressing irons in "no cooking" boardinghouses. Then I wandered into movies, via a five-dollar-a-day extra role as a swarthy Mexican soldier in a Doug Fairbanks Sr. film, His Majesty, The American. For the next eight or nine years, I played extra and small featured roles when things were good, loaded cement sacks in warehouses when they weren't. At 42 I was an obscure actor playing obscure parts. I quit writing home - for I had nothing to write about. My big break came while I was downing a sandwich-and-tea lunch in the Universal commissary. After a string of sweet-and-kindly roles, I had played the diabolical Galloway, the convict-killer in The Criminal Code. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Mr. Whale would like to see you at his table." Jimmy Whale was the most important director on the lot. "We're getting ready to shoot the most important Mary Shelley classic, Frankenstein," Whale said, "and I'd like you to test - for the part of the monster." It was a bit shattering, but I found that any part was better than no part at all. The studio's head makeup man, Jack Pierce, spent evenings experimenting with me. Slowly, under his skillful touch, the monster's double-domed forehead, sloping brow, flattened Neanderthal eyelids and surgical scars materialized. A week later I was ready for the test, I readily passed as a monster. To fill out the monster costume, I had to wear a doubly quilted suit beneath it. We shot Frankenstein in midsummer. After an hour's work I'd be sopping wet. I'd have to change into a spare undersuit, often still damp from the previous round. So I felt, most of the time, as if I were wearing a clammy shroud myself. No doubt it added to the realism. The scene where the monster was created, amid booming thunder and flashing lightning, made me as uneasy as anyone. For a while I lay half-naked and strapped to Doctor Frankenstein's table. I could see directly above me the special-effects men brandishing the white-hot scissorslike carbons that made the lightning. I hoped that no one up there had butterfingers. Frankenstein was the first monster film of any consequence ever attempted. That, plus the sensitive theme of a man, Doctor Frankenstein, playing at God, made the then-powerful Hayes office hesitate to release it. But director Whale had filmed it with restraint and delicacy. It finally was released for its premiere on December 6, 1931, at Santa Barbara. I was not even invited and had never seen it. I was just an unimportant free-lance actor, the animation for the monster costume. Then my agent called one morning and said, "Boris, Universal wants you under contract."I thought, "Maybe for once I'll know where my breakfast is coming from, after more than twenty years of acting." I soon found myself mildly famous - although not by name. On a motoring holiday in France, for example, I lost my way. In the dreadful remains of my schoolboy French, I inquired in a tiny village butcher shop. The proprietor looked me in the face and exclaimed, "Frankenstein's Monster !" That sort of thing has lasted for thirty years. A GHOUL GAINS FOLLOWERS In a Hollywood studio baseball game, Leading Men versus Comedians - my category escapes me at the moment - everyone fled in mock horror when I batted, allowing me to lumber around the bases for the home run. At radio-show rehearsals the orchestra hissed me realistically, and I leered back. Columnists imaginatively concocted the Karloff cocktail - one sip sent the drinker into shock. Monster fans sent me such birthday gifts as voodoo dolls. Not everyone, however, felt enthusiasm for monsterism. Some parent and civic groups felt Frankenstein was too horrifying for children to see and should be limited to "adults only". The children thought otherwise. On the very first Halloween after the film's release, a crowd of laughing pint-sized ghosts and goblins rang my doorbell and invited me to join in their trick-or-treat rounds. As I wasn't appropriately costumed, I had to decline. Over the years thousands of children wrote, expressing compassion for the great, weird creature who was so abused by its sadistic keeper that it could only respond with violence to violence. Those children saw beyond the makeup and really understood. Frankenstein transformed not only my life but also the film industry. It grossed some $ 12, 000, 000 on a $ 250,000 investment, started a cycle of so-called boy-meets-ghoul movies and quickly made its producers realize they'd made a dreadful mistake. They let the monster die in the burning mill. In one brief conference however, they brought him back alive. Actually, it seems, he had only fallen through the flaming floor into the millpond beneath and could now go on for reels and reels. The watery opening scene of the sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, was filmed with me wearing a rubber suit under my costume to ward off chill. But air got into the suit. When I was launched into the pond, my legs flew up in the air and I floated there like some sort of obscene water lily while I, and everyone else, hooted with laughter. They finally fished me out with a boat hook and deflated me. In March, 1933, I returned to England. My two eldest brothers, Ted and Fred, had retired from Indian Civil Service and were living in London. Jack had been transferred from China to take charge of Far East Affairs in the Foreign Office. A little later I got a surprising reaction from my staid and proper English brothers. Some friends from Hollywood were in London, and before they left for home we gave a sort of joint cocktail party. All went well until a newspaper photographer approached me. "I understand you've some brothers here," he said. "Could we get a photograph or two ?" I was appalled. I thought, How am I going to break this to them ? They won't approve at all. I got them off in a corner and mumbled, "Awfully sorry about this but, you know, publicity and all that, I swear I'm not responsible for the photographer being here. But, well, to cut it short, they want to take pictures of us. They want us in the next room, lined up against the mantelpiece." Well, you never saw such a stampede. The three reserved, distinguished elderlies - Ted, who'd been judge of the High Court in Bombay ; Fred, who'd administered an entire province in India ; and Jack, who'd been chief magistrate of the Consular Court in Shanghai - all but got stuck in the door getting through. And there was quite a to-do about who was to stand where. I fought to keep my composure, but inwardly I was laughing. Returning to Hollywood, I played the monster in Son of Frankenstein - my third and last such role. Others perpetuated him in later films. In a switch, I twice took the part of Doctor Frankenstein myself and found it comfortable to be less loaded with makeup. Next I became a succession of crazed scientists. The formula was successful, if not original. The scientist would set out to save mankind. His project would sour and he with it. In the end he'd have to be destroyed regretfully, like a faithful old dog gone mad. The scriptwriters had the insane scientist transplant brains, hearts, lungs and other vital organs. The cycle ended when they ran out of parts of anatomy that could be photographed decently. While it lasted I : * Robbed graves in The Body Snatcher * Slew with an ax as the leering executioner Mord, Tower of London * Frightened my enemies to death in The Walking Dead I also : * Cheated the hangman in The Man They Couldn't Hang * Invoked the curse of the pharaos as a vengeful mummy in The Mummy * Aggravated the hells of eighteenth-century prison life as the warped warder in Bedlam * Ruthlessly pushed dope to little Jackie Cooper as a dope peddler in Young Donovan's Kid I must confess that I didn't accept this constant and continual madness quite placidly myself. Once, during the crazed scientist cycle, I said wearily to the producer, "These things are all right, but don't you think we should perhaps spend a little more in the writing, or change the format ?" He was in an expansive mood. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a great chart. "Here," he said, "Here's your record. We know exactly how much these pictures are going to make. They cost so much. They earn so much. Even if we spent more on them, they wouldn't make a cent more. So why change them ?" During my most monstrous years, I naturally associated with such aristocrats of Hollywood villainy as Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Peter Lorre and John Carradine. Offscreen I found them to be the gentlest of men. One of my own most terrified moments came in 1940, when the noted playwrights Lindsay and Crouse offered me the part of Jonathan in the Broadway production of Arsenic and Old Lace. Keep in mind, I'd never acted on Broadway, but only in the sticks, or in films. What really sold me on taking the part was a line of Jonathan's in the first scene. He'd just murdered a kindly motorist. Another character says, "He was a nice chap, that man who gave us a lift. You shouldn't have killed him. Why did you do it ?"And Jonathan replies,"He said I looked like Boris Karloff." I expected that I line like that, spoofing me so early in the play, would disarm any New York audience. Then I began wondering : Would it ? Could I put over a big stage role ? By the time I arrived in New York, I was almost shaking from sheer fright. I'd rushed through a hard week at Columbia studios, then taken an all-night flight East. At the theater they handed me a script, and we did something I'd never done in stock or repertory - we sat down, cast and director together, and read cold turkey. I was so tired,and so frightened of my New York role, that I began to stutter - something that always besets me when I'm tired. I rehearsed in stutters for three days, continually thinking that it would cure itself. But instead it grew worse. The third night I wandered the streets of Manhattan wondering what to do. I thought I'd have to walk up to the management and say, "I'm very sorry. I've made a mistake, and so have you. I've got to get out of your play. Do I owe you anything ?" I walked some more and thought, if I do that, honest though it is, I've certainly had it in New York and haven't done myself an awful lot of good in Hollywood either. Somehow I've got to go through with the play." At 5.30 am I returned to my hotel, catnapped briefly, then went to rehearse. I'd always stuck on the word "Come" in the first line. Now I walked on, took a deep breath and said, "Come in, doctor." Not a stutter. By that evening all was OK. The show's reviews were better than OK. It was a big, beautiful hit, and we settled down for a long, happy run of about 1,400 Broadway performances. Later I played Captain Hook, the villain with the wicked, steel-hooked arm, to Jean Arthur's Peter Pan on Broadway. At the end of the first act at matinees, we'd peek from behind the curtain and watch the kiddies leaping hopefully off their seats, trying to fly like Peter Pan. After the show I'd corral as many as my dressing room would hold and ask, "Would you like to try on my hook ?" Even little blond angels would reply, "Yes, sir." They'd turn to the mirror, put on the most terrible face they could make and, without fail, take a terrific swipe at themselves in the glass. Far from being frightened by the villainous Captain Hook, they had caught on to his fun and pomposity. For it is a fundamental instinct of kids to play games, and they knew very well that the swordplay, the ominous crocodile, the poisoning of Peter Pan and all the assorted stage violence was just a game - just good, scary fun. Villain by profession though I may be, however, I must say that my approval of good scary fun does not extend to shows where blood and guts are sloshed about wholesale, simply to create nightmares. A BLACK SHEEP NO MORE Nowadays I find time to play occasional light comedy in Milquetoast roles, to give syndicated radio advice to parents on child rearing and even to make phonograph recordings of childhood favourites such as Mother Goose and The Reluctant Dragon. Occasionally someone asks me if I regret my years as a monster, if the role hasn't been like an albatross around my neck. Rubbish ! Thanks to the monster I've worked steadily at the work I loved best. And I've been well paid - in more ways than with money. Here I am, 75 years old this month, no longer the black sheep of the Pratt family, still hard at work, still enjoying life to the fullest. With my wife Evie I commute some 12,000 miles between my old stomping grounds in England and this country. But I must admit one unfullfilled longing. I would love to be in a play in London. The only time I ever trod the boards there was in a benefit for the Actors' Orphanage, doing a comedy sketch with Hermione Gingold. Even at that, I was absolutely thrilled. But if I never get to do the "real" thing in London, it would be indecent for me to grumble. After all, I've always been a very happy monster. Karloff the Play The American homes of Boris Karloff My Boris Karloff Biography (book) The Soft Side of Boris (My article) My Rondo Award New Biography by Stephen Jacobs Boris Karloff 1887-1969	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1619
__label__cc	0.710859	0.289141	A game designer's view of gaming Game Design Theory Dungeon Sagas DBX Beta God of Battles Eternal Battle Dwarf King’s Hold Lost Patrol is a 2-player board game about a group of Space Marine Scouts, lost on a jungle Death World. One player takes the Scouts and the other the Lurkers. The game was published by Games Workshop and a limited run was released in 2000. Living FAQ Scout Sniper Rules 30 Responses to Lost Patrol Pingback: Sunday Support \| Pingback: Gods, Battles & Eldar Scouts \| I have always wondered about the origins of the “Lurkers” and their role in the Warhammer 40K Universe. How did you envisage them? And, would you care to elaborate? Quirkworthy says: The lurkers were based on the old horror movie principle that things are usually scarier if you don’t show them clearly. Having them as barely seen teeth and glowing eyes allows everyone to imagine them as scary in a way that would be far less effective if they were models. I’m sure that they’d be tempted to do models if they ever re-released the game, but I’d personally leave them as counters. In “reality” I always imagined them something like the mirror demons in the Solomon Kane film – emerging from the forest in a flash to grab a victim and disappear again. They have no impact on the wider 40K universe, being simply an example of the delightful fauna that inhabits Death Worlds 😉 Thank you – and much appreciated! darrenjames1980 says: damn, I never even knew this game exsisted! Good luck finding a copy 🙂 Over at “BoardGameGeek” there is now an entry for a new edition of Lost Patrol by Games Workshop which supposedly has a release date of 17th June 2016. Are you aware of this second edition? Or, is it news to you as well? News to me. Interesting news though. Pingback: Lost Patrol Found Again \| WHich are the box dimensions? Can’t recall offhand, and I’ve not got a box with me to check. From memory, I’d say that the old box was about 30cm square. No idea about the new one. Joel Davies says: Hi Jake you get a chance to pick up the new version of Lost Patrol yet? My initial thoughts are it’s very very hard maybe too hard. I’m thinking it’s more fun (still very hard) if the scouts get double or even triple the number of dice for shooting and assault results. Have also been wondering if limiting the number of genestealers that can appear a turn (or the number that can appear on a tile) might make the game more tactical for the Nid player. When you get a chance would be great to know your thoughts. It’s certainly not the same game you designed though it shares a lot of the same DNA. Picked up a copy today. Haven’t had a chance to open it yet though 🙂 Nick Pile says: Played 20 games yesterday as Nids, won every game, not even close. Played 20 games today as Scouts, got the Drop Pod out twice but couldn’t win. LP was always intended to be hard for the scouts (it was set on a Death World after all). However, I’d expect at least some SM wins out of that many tries. I have finally got myself a copy of the new edition, and will take a proper look at that next week. I was going to look at it this weekend, but I left it in the office by mistake. Doh! Not having played it, I can’t say whether the rules changes have made it easier or harder for the scouts. If GW had let me make the changes I wanted to for a new edition it would have been a bit easier. Sadly that didn’t happen. I do have some house rules from the first version though, and will see how many of them still work. Generally people seem to be having fun with it at the local LGS, though general consensus is it’s probably a bit too hard for the Scouts straight out the box. So house rules are being tried. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on it when you get a chance. What house rules are people trying? Sounds interesting 🙂 Been trying giving scouts more dice for shooting and assaults, double the amount (2 for shooting and assaults, and 4 for shooting the heavy bolter), or triple the amount (3 for shooting and assaults and 6 for the heavy bolter). For shooting each 6 is a kill so you can kill more than one stealer with a shot if you get lucky. In assaults you pick the highest role and work out the results from there. I like this system as you can do the following: Triple number of dice = ‘easy’ mode. (Still not that easy!) Double number = medium mode. Rules as written = hard mode (pretty much impossible!) This is a neat system as you can adapt the rules to your audience. E.g. On Monday I played with some teenage boys we started with medium mode, which they found too hard so then they tried easy mode. It’s just a nice way of setting the difficulty and challenge you want. Other simple modifications to make the game easier if desired are: 1. Remove the -1 in assaults if a scout is alone. I like this as it means a lone scout can survive if alone and fighting 3 genestealers, though his chances are still slim. 2. Don’t let genestealers enter on the drop ship tile. Thanks Joel. I’ll need to read the new rules to see what changes they’ve made. My original intention was to make the SM player feel outclassed, and as that’s Space Marines it implies a very nasty bad guy indeed. All rather weakened by sticking stealers in, I’m afraid. Yes the lurkers as an unknown foe are a lot more terrifying. Genestealers are really only a threat to scouts due to their weight of numbers. On the bonus side we now have rules to play Lost Patrol with lurkers and with genestealers. On a side note, the second edition Tyranid Codex had a great piece of fluff about a Catachan Patrol being picked off one by one by a lictor. As a kid I used to read it over and over again as I loved the story so much. I’ve always wanted to recreate the scenario as a game. I’m starting to think Lost Patrol tiles/style of rules might be the answer. Whatever the game is it needs to provide the conundrum of if we stick together we are safer, from the unknown enemy but it will take us longer/we might not achieve our goal. You ever had any ideas for a hunter style game, where one side is being picked off one by one and they have no idea where the enemy will strike next? That was the original LP. The lurkers are a sort of amorphous representation of an unseen threat which could be a single very fast creature, or several smaller ones. Chris Wolfe says: Hi, good ideas, Joel! I have unboxed and played the newer LP many times now, and while I love it, it definitely wants some “balancing” in favour of the scouts once the shock and mirth of the “total party wipes” gets old. I agree with prohibiting Drop Pod ‘stealer placement, and rolling extra dice is a nice way to establish a deadlier firing curve, rather than simply changing the hit rolls to 5 and 6 for kills, which I tried first for a few games. I wanted to respond to your comment specifically for that rule, as I see its addition is important because it changes more than just % of hits, it changes how the game is played. With the hits as they are (1D6, 6+), the marine player has far more chance of winning the game by forgoing all shooting and simply dashing in multiple directions to turn over as many tiles as possible. While sticking together, the marines find themselves easy targets of getting pinned between ‘stealers and wiped out in a single turn. Even in these dense formations they hardly have enough damage output to slow the enemy. The addition of the shooting improvements allows players to choose which style to play, and have the choice between frantic exploration or stoic defensive tactics. So I support better shooting odds, it promotes different play. I have also implemented to following changes, and it has made it possible for a marine win, but still a challenge. (in addition to double dice for shooting and no Drop Pod Spawns) All models can lend Covering Fire of +1 like the Heavy Bolter, while the Heavy Bolter lends +2. Bonuses are not cumulative. This encourages splitting up, by keeping the sense of fire-support. Scouts and Heavy Bolter Scouts can move and fire as a single action, using half dice (1 and 2 respectively) at 6 to hit. Genestealers can ONLY spawn from Infestation Nodes, which are placed using the same rules as placing Genestealers. This prevents dropping 3 ‘stealers on a hex and then assaulting the same turn, as the Node placement takes an action. This last rule I love. It promotes the Genestealer player reserving models from turn to turn for bigger assault pushes, or forces them into less deadly assaults if you want to keep up a steady stream of pressure on the Marine player. This lengthens the game slightly, and gives the ‘stealer player some deeper thinking to do. Additionally, it promotes using the Infestation Nodes (which are currently totally superfluous). Anyway, good ideas, glad I found this thread! Thanks for the ideas I’m going to try these now. Particularly like the look of the genestealer idea, as it sounds like it should make playing the stealers a bit more interesting, as your going to have to think a turn or two ahead. Heya Joel, since last time i typed, I have settled on a rules addition that favours the Genestealers maybe… 5 to 1? I think other reported wins of 20 to 1 were probably folks getting to a single win at 20 games and figuring that was the statistical spread. I think those were flukes, and you could easily play on another 40 games without a win. So my “nerf” of the aliens and buffs to the marines to get a solid one in five win for the scouts feels feels right. I feel like I made them too good, but 7 games in a row before the scouts got to the pod is pretty hard for a competitive game! I won;t bore you with all the changes, but the theory behind it was that the play for the Stealers was pretty boring. I decided giving them some extra options was key, and so gave them a +1 to Assaulting through tile edges that are impassible to scouts (they are rolling a D6 for the assault per stealer model). this would prompt them to move around more. I also disallowed placing them adjacent to scouts, but ANYWHERE else. I felt that they had so few options the other way, that their whole game was simply getting lucky with lone marines near revealed path exits and jumping them with 2 or 3. As the rules are now, the genestealer player is more mobile, and can be craftier for that assault bonus…. plus the overwatch rule. suffice it to say, the rest of the rules are some very impressive buffs to marines, which on paper look horrifying, but on the table it’s still a hopeless gun battle to the drop pod. Yeah true! If GW really had to replace the lurkers, lictors might have been a better choice than genestealers. I think the difference with the lictor game I have in mind, rather than the lurkers is I wouldn’t want the hunted to know where the hunter will strike next. Where as putting the lurker counters down means they know where the trouble is brewing. Of course that brings in a lot of potentially overly complex secret movement rules, which are often messy. So the lurker counters are a rather elegant compromise in my eyes. Thanks for the complement 🙂 Hidden movement is usually a compromise as it’s tricky (and often requires extra components and/or a referee) to do well. As a purely abstract mechanical experiment I’m currently playing with some new rules to resolve hidden movement in board games. You’ll see if it works as I’ll put it in something 🙂 Love the site– extremely user pleasant and whole lots to see! 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__label__wiki	0.866944	0.866944	Roobla Jem Collins The Joneses (2009) – Film Review The Joneses move in next door... When the Joneses move in next door they really do seem like the family who’ve got it all. The perfect beautiful couple Steve and Kate Jones (David Duchovny and Demi Moore) have all of the latest gadgets and more leisure time than you could possible shake a stick at. Their teenage children Jenn and Mick (Amber Heard and Ben Hollingsworth) appear to be the physical embodiment of too cool for school, whether it’s showing off the latest lipsticks in the locker room or rocking parties at home, everyone wants to be them. Yet within this self-labelled social commentary of the world’s increasingly consumerist lifestyle it quickly becomes apparent that the Joneses have more on their minds than getting to know their new and upmarket suburban next door neighbours. The Joneses is fresh and exciting and the plot itself has plenty of original concepts and twists. Whilst conceptually clever in its creation, The Joneses takes care not to be too taxing, allowing views to enjoy the complexity of the plot whilst still having time for some light-hearted laughter and entertainment. A wealth of sub-plots blend seamlessly into the tale of The Joneses; an unconventional love story, teenage angst and the inability to be truly able to express yourself. Derrick Borte’s film tackles a wide range of issues at the heart of modern life, from within the hub of a family to the wider world as a whole. It opens up the film to a wide audience with appeal for all and leaves much to ponder upon. An acclaimed cast adds to the well-oiled machinery that makes up the film, as both Demi Moore and David Duchovny present with an almost effortless ease characters who are immensely real and tangible, even in perhaps foreign situations. This is directly complimented by the supporting performances from Ben Hollingsworth and Amber Heard whose stellar performances add additional depth and layers. With everything from shiny new cars to romance, The Joneses is a film that will appeal to all genders and ages, making for easy watching. Best gadget: The cars. #David Duchovny #Demi Moore #Film #Reviews #The Joneses Sign in to start a discussion @jem-collins Review: Farewell to the King (1989) Mirror, Mirror (2012) – Movie Review The Slipper and the Rose (1976) – Film Review Up next in Film Thomas Salmon Roobla Podcast EP 13: An interview with Will Jordan the creator and voice of The Critical Drinker In this week's Roobla Podcast Will Jordan talks about how he started his popular YouTube channel reviewing films, tv shows and video-games Roobla Podcast EP 12: An interview with Nathalie Sejean the founder of Mentorless.com In this week's Roobla Podcast Nathalie Sejean talks about how she started the influential film blog Mentorless.com Olivia Haines Film Top list The First World War in Movies 1917 will be the latest addition to a growing list of films set around the Great War, but here are some others that tackled the trenches. Jack Bottomley Review: Little Monsters (2019) Little Monsters is a fun zom-comedy that, when it works, really works! © 2020 Roobla Terms, Privacy and Cookies - Sitemap	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1627
__label__cc	0.600258	0.399742	Railsimroutes.net openBVE add-ons, media and news Projects and Downloads > Birmingham Cross-City South Watford Junction to Rugby UK Rail Infrastructure Library UKTrainSys .NET Plugin Legacy BVE Trainsim Add-ons Miscellaneous BVE Track Sound Standard BVETSS Help > openBVE Help and Information Driver Reference Guide for openBVE About the site, and history Project Status (21st April 2019) [WJ-R]: 1980s object removal (Castlethorpe/Hanslope area) [XCS]: Pending [UkTrainSys]: v0.3.2.0 released [Object Library]: Preparing... [Website]: Fifth version of website launched Blog last updated: 18-04-2019 Read more [...] Welcome to the Railsimroutes.net Blog, where I'll be posting progress updates, work-in-progress screenshots, information about the progress I'm making with active projects, as well as anything else I feel is worth mentioning. Hopefully more frequent updates here will make the wait for upcoming releases more bearable! News from 2008, all the way back to 2001, can be found in the News Archive. My openBVE videos and other comments from users and myself can also be found via my YouTube channel. Blog and Progress Updates Watford Junction to Rugby – current progress on 1980s object removal Posted by Anthony Bowden on 18th April 2019 at 5:23 pm Watford Junction to Rugby – current progress Firstly, I’d just like to say thank you to everyone whose offered me a warm welcome back to the openBVE scene, it is much appreciated and it’s great to be back! Having looked at some of the newly updated openBVE documentation, I’m looking forward to having a play with some of the new features. Let’s see where we can take openBVE in 2019 🙂 Just a quick update on what I’m working on at the moment… As the Watford Junction to Rugby project has developed, I’ve modelled the route with features which occur in two different eras – the 1980s and the 2000s. Such features include signals, gantries, lineside location cases, insulated block joints (IBJs), axle counters, Mk1 and UK1 overhead line equipment, and so-on. The project consists of a “main” routefile at the moment, which includes all of these different-era objects. My current task towards getting the route closer to a release is to hide the 1980s-only objects from the route, leaving just the 2000s objects visible. Here’s a before and after screenshot showing an example of the changes: With 1980s objects in place With only 2000s objects in place The location is between Linslade and Soulbury (south of Bletchley), so I’m making good progress. I have finished inserting the commands and beacons for the UkTrainSys simulation of the Automatic Warning System (AWS) and Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS), as well as added beacons for the neutral section Automatic Power Control (APC) magnets. .Section commands have also been added to the corresponding axle counter locations too. More updates to follow! Take care all 🙂 Tags: openBVE, openBVE Community, Screenshots, Site News, Watford Jn to Rugby Posted in openBVE, Site News, Uncategorized \| 1 Comment » Railsimroutes returns – work resuming on projects, new website design, content updates including updated openBVE help guide and computing section, new UKTrainSys bugfix release Posted by Anthony Bowden on 10th April 2019 at 11:58 pm Railsimroutes returns – new site design, work resuming on projects Well it’s been an incredibly long time since the last update here at Railsimroutes… In the intervening years I’ve been very busy, and many things have changed with real life taking precedence. I studied for a Foundatation Degree in Railway Engineering and embarked on a career with the real railway, which as you can imagine didn’t leave much spare time to devote to the simulated world of openBVE. However I now feel able to return to the hobby and I would really like to get my projects released. I intend to finish off some of the tasks I started working on back in 2014, make the add-ons usable, and aim to get at least something released. These releases won’t be as polished as previous versions, but given that all material will be released as open source and placed into the public domain, it can always be improved upon further down the line (pun intended!). Given how openBVE has developed lately, I also want to release the UK Railway Infrastructure Object Library soon to give the project a boost and provide a nice graphical upgrade for developers or users who wish to use its objects and textures. openBVE development resumes UkTrainSys plugin update – bugfix release v0.3.2.0 Thanks to Chris Lees, I was notified (a long time ago!) of a bug in the Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) simulation where an incorrect variable in the ArmTss() method was reset upon passing an opposite-direction TSS f5 frequency. This was caused by a typo which Chris spotted in my code! Please head over to the UkTrainSys Plugin page for the updated version. I have also updated the Class 323 3D Cab Add-on with the updated UKTrainSys. UK Train System Cross-platform .NET Plugin for openBVE New website design and content updates I wanted to learn HTML5 and revamp the design of Railsimroutes with a more modern format, using the latest web standards with a focus on current standards compliant browsers. So today sees the launch of the fifth incarnation of Railsimroutes, with a theme known as “Glass”. I hope you like the new design. It is aimed primarily at desktop PC and tablet users, but does employ responsive design for use on smartphones, which may be further enhanced in future. The new site design has been hand coded from the ground up to be fully HTML5 and CSS Level 3 compliant, and now fills a greater width of the browser window. Both a Light and a Dark theme variation are provided to suit your taste, with the Dark theme being the default. I have updated the openBVE Help and Installation Guides to reflect Chris Lees’ ongoing developments with openBVE. The new guide gives step-by-step instructions for installing openBVE 1.4.5.x in Windows 10 “Creator’s Update”, and now also includes a guide for macOS Mojave users (I am now a Mac user as well as die-hard PC enthusiast!). The About the Site and History section has been updated, and the previous “Clarity” theme can be seen in the Railsimoutes.net Archive. The Links page has been updated although this is still a work in progress. There are also many more non-railsim related links included near the bottom of the page. The PC Specs section of the site has now been significantly expanded, and renamed Development PC(s) and Network with a new URL. This section covers my long standing interest in computing, from my earliest PCs to my present day machines, including my office/development studio and networking setup, software choices, and so-on. Development PC(s) and Network Railsimroutes now has an SSL certificate installed, so the site can also be accessed via https://railsimroutes.net. I have also set up a mirror of the Railsimroutes website, which is also SSL enabled, at https://railsimroutes.com. This is hosted on my own server; feel free to use whichever you find more responsive. More updates shall follow soon! I am working on the AWS/TPWS implementation in Watford Junction to Rugby next, and also the UK Railway Infrastructure Object Library. I’m working on these projects as and when I get the odd hour spare between my day job and other real-life stuff which has to come first, but I shall try and do more regular updates even if they’re not all that exciting! Tags: Cross-City South, Hardware, openBVE, openBVE Community, Operating Systems, Screenshots, Site News, Software, Watford Jn to Rugby Posted in openBVE, Site News \| No Comments » Watford Junction to Rugby update, and collaborative project development Posted by Anthony Bowden on 12th March 2014 at 11:41 pm Update on Watford Junction to Rugby project I’m pleased to say that I resumed development of the Watford Junction to Rugby project recently. Currently I’m working on implementing new .Beacon commands which support the UkTrainSys plugin’s advanced safety system functionality. Signalling along the entire 66.5 mile / 107.1 km route has been updated, with all aspects now comprised of animated objects with ground night lighting. Sections and axle counters, and TPWS induction loop beacons All Automatic Warning System (AWS) magnets are now comprised of beacons simulating the permanent magnets and electro-magnets of the real life system, and sections are now aligned with track circuit breaks and axle counter head locations. TPWS induction loop beacons All Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) induction loops are now simulated with beacons emulating the real life system in terms of induction loop spacing and frequencies. APC beacons and OHLE neutral section There are four OHLE neutral sections modelled on the route, and all of these are now updated with UkTrainSys compatible beacons for the Automatic Power Control (APC) permanent magnets both before and after the neutral section, as well as denoting the start and end of the dead section of contact wire itself. New signals awaiting commissioning (note the out-of-use covers), and modular AWS magnet objects Collaborative development The other significant development, is that the project is now open to third party contributions, to speed up development and bring the release date closer. Ben Leahy is the first developer to contribute to the project by building objects, and I’d be more than happy to hear from you, if you think you’d be able to contribute some more high quality, efficiently coded 3D models for the route, leaving me free to concentrate on the systems and permanent way infrastructure. Currently there’s a list of objects which need to be created and added to the route. These include: Station buildings from Kings Langley through to Rugby inclusive; A few lineside buildings, such as houses, warehouses and the like, to be positioned at various locations along the route, but especially at Roade, Weedon, and Rugby; A few road overbridges for the Weedon Line, as well as retaining walls at Weedon; Road vehicles for road bridges, and the section of M1 motorway at Watford Gap; Passing train objects. If you think you can contribute any of the above, please get in touch and we can discuss options, and I’ll draw up an effective collaboration plan. Thanks 🙂 Blisworth pointwork and REBs – can you help by creating a new overbridge object for the site? For more information about these ongoing projects: Watford Junction to Rugby Project UK Train System (UkTrainSys) Cross-platform .NET Plugin Tags: Animated Objects, Artwork, openBVE, openBVE 2, openBVE Community, Screenshots, Site News, Trackwork, Watford Jn to Rugby Posted in openBVE, openBVE 2, Site News, Uncategorized \| 12 Comments » openBVE v1.2.10 released, Cross-City South v1.31.11 update, and UkTrainSys v0.3.1.9 now available, with enhanced AWS and TPWS simulation, diesel multiple unit support, and various improvements Posted by Anthony Bowden on 25th December 2010 at 11:15 pm openBVE v1.2.10 released openBVE has now reached v1.2.10, which marks the first stable release to feature cross-platform .NET support. This is great news for non-Windows users, who can benefit from the extended functionality, system simulation, and the AI support feature which new .NET plugins can provide. Please head over to the official openBVE homepage to download the latest stable release, as well as to read about the latest developments. Also, don’t forget to read the changelog, for a summary of various other changes which have taken place since v1.2.8.2. openBVE users who also use my Cross-City South v1.31 route, should also note that the route is now updated for the new version of openBVE, and it also requires the latest version of the new UkTrainSys plugin for full simulation the class 323’s safety systems to be available, because I’ve now altered the route’s .Beacon commands to take full advantage of the enhanced realism of the new UkTrainSys AWS and TPWS implementation. More details can be found below… UkTrainSys v0.3.1.9 now available, with enhanced TPWS and AWS simulation, diesel multiple unit support, and a few other enhancements I’ve just released the next version of the UkTrainSys cross-platform plugin, which is now up to version 0.3.1.9. This latest release includes initial support for diesel multiple units. Other new features include the Vigilance Device reduced cycle time, far more realistic AWS and TPWS simulation, and several other improvements. Here follows some more information about the various features: Diesel engine support: UkTrainSys now has diesel engine support, which means that the plugin can be used with trains which rely on Simon Gathercole’s UKSpt.dll, such as Sprinters or the class 170 (although diesel locomotives are supported too, apart from ammeters and wheelslip protection – I’ll add these later). I’ve decided to recreate much of Simon’s complex diesel engine model, rather than the simple model. This means that UkTrainSys includes the requirement to hold the engine starter button down until the engines are running, as well as simulating the starter motor, and a percentage likelihood that the engine will stall on starting. I’ve also adapted the AI Support feature, so that the AI driver can start the diesel engine, even if it stalls, as well as restart the engine if it is shut down at any point. Vigilance device with reduced cycle time: It’s now possible to set an option within the UkTrainSys.cfg file, which enables the Vigilance Device reduced cycle time of 45 seconds, when the power notch is 6 or 7. Miscellaneous changes: Firstly, I’ve now implemented a solution for the infamous anomalous multiple-arm phenomenon, which a few people have commented on, when openBVE’s AI driver is enabled for the first time in a driving session. You shouldn’t see any weird, freaky stuff going on in the cab any more, provided that you don’t look over your shoulder, at least. 😉 Secondly, when traction power is not meant to be available, openBVE’s internal reverser position is now set to neutral, whereas previously, only the power handle was set to zero. This means that regenerative braking is disabled when passing through a neutral section, for example. Thirdly, I’ve also expanded the range of optional Data values which can be recognised via .Beacon 50 commands. UkTrainSys can now be informed of an upcoming terminal station, and this instructs the UkTrainSys AI Support implementation to leave the reverser alone after stopping, so that UkTrainSys and openBVE aren’t continually squabbling over their respective desires where the reverser handle position is concerned. .Beacon 50 can now also be used to instruct the AI Support to lower the pantograph or stop the diesel engine upon the next station stop, after the doors have opened. .Beacon 50 can also be used to inform UkTrainSys of an upcoming neutral section, now. As UkTrainSys will implement a tap changer in future, and a tap changer can take over 30 seconds to run down to notch 0, this beacon can be placed quite some distance ahead of a neutral section. When this neutral section beacon instruction is encountered, UkTrainSys begins monitoring the train’s speed, along with the distance to the neutral section, and decides when exactly to return the power handle to notch 0. UkTrainSys also checks to see if the tap changer is enabled or not, and if it is, the time taken to run down the tap changer is taken into account. Lastly, the AI guard and related beacons, have been expanded to accommodate multiple stopping points at a station, and UkTrainSys selects which beacon to act upon, depending upon how many cars the player’s train has. Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS): For this release, I’ve also significantly increased the realism of the Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) implementation. With Simon’s previous generation of plugins written for BVE 4, the TPWS simulation seemed to be realistic to the end user, but it didn’t always work in a way which truly reflects how the real TPWS works. Thanks to openBVE, as well as openBVE’s API and documentation, I’ve been able to create a TPWS simulation which works just like the real thing, while also being backwards compatible with routes which were written with Simon’s BVE 4 plugins in mind. For example, the implementation of the Overspeed Sensor System in Simon’s plugin, was a simplification of how the real OSS works. Simon’s plugin recognises the optional Data parameter of a single .Beacon 44002 or .Beacon 44003 command, as a maximum permissible speed. If the train’s speed exceeds the set speed which is encoded in the .Beacon command’s Data parameter, then the TPWS issues an OSS brake demand. This simplified system works well enough, however it doesn’t take acceleration or deceleration curves into account, for example, and it’s not how the real system works. My OSS implementation, works exactly like the real system. UkTrainSys recognises a track mounted OSS as comprised of a pair of induction loops (beacons) – the arming loop, and the trigger loop. Where Simon’s plugin expects to read a set speed from only the trigger beacon, UkTrainSys can read a unique frequency from each beacon’s optional Data parameter instead. The permissible OSS set speed, is now determined by the distance between the induction loops, just like in reality. Furthermore, UkTrainSys implements a pair of on-board OSS timers, and the OSS timeout period can be set in the UkTrainSys.cfg file, to suit a passenger or freight train – there is no need to edit a route file to accommodate both types of train. Each timer acts independently of the other, being armed by different arming frequencies, and this allows for realistic nesting and interleaving of induction loops, as well as realistic system behaviour when travelling backwards over induction loops. The Trainstop Sensor System (TSS) implementation has also been made more realistic. With Simon’s plugins, a single beacon acts as the TSS installation, but with the real system, a pair of induction loops form the TSS – as with the OSS, there is an arming and trigger loop. UkTrainSys recognises TSS arming and trigger induction loops based upon frequencies specified via the optional Data parameter of the .Beacon commands. When the plugin encounters a TSS arming beacon, one of two TSS detection states is activated, and only if a TSS trigger beacon with a suitable frequency is encountered while the arming beacon is still within “detection range”, will the TSS be functional. If a TSS trigger beacon is encountered without an arming beacon having activated the system, then the trigger beacon is ignored, as with the real system. Again, this means that induction loops can be nested and interleaved, and prototypical reverse direction behaviour can be simulated. Automatic Warning System (AWS): A beacon representing an AWS permanent magnet I’ve not only improved the realism of the TPWS simulation, but I’ve also implemented a more realistic implementation of the Automatic Warning System (AWS), as well. With Simon’s previous generation of BVE4 plugins, and the routes designed for use with them, a single beacon command is used to represent an AWS magnet. The new UkTrainSys AWS simulation also supports this legacy behaviour, but UkTrainSys can also now respond to an AWS permanent magnet, together with an AWS electromagnet. Both are defined via separate .Beacon commands, with a distinction between the magnetic polarity of the magnets defined via the optional Data parameter. This allows for a fully realistic AWS simulation, using only one beacon type, whether associated with a signal or a speed restriction. A beacon representing an AWS permanent magnet, plus a beacon representing an AWS electromagnet When UkTrainSys encounters an AWS permanent magnet, the AWS is primed, the AWS sunflower instrument goes black, and a timeout period is started. If an energised AWS electromagnet is detected within this timeout period, then an AWS clear is issued (i.e. the bell/bing sound, and the sunflower instrument stays black). If no electromagnet is detected within the timeout period, then an AWS warning is issued when the timeout period expires, just like with the real AWS. This also allows for a slightly more realistic simulation of the AWS when travelling at very low speed over an AWS magnet associated with a signal showing a green aspect. At very low speeds, the AWS can be primed by the detection of the permanent magnet, but the timeout period can expire before the electromagnet is detected, which leads to an AWS warning being issued, even though the signal is green (Simon’s plugins also simulate this). However, with UkTrainSys, if you don’t cancel the AWS warning, it will actually clear itself when the electromagnet is detected, with the overall effect being an AWS warning horn followed by the bell/bing sound (assuming the electromagnet is detected before a brake demand is issued). UkTrainSys also supports AWS suppression magnets, which are used on bi-directionally signalled lines. By inserting a suppression beacon before or after a permanent magnet beacon, an AWS inductor can be made to work in either a forward only direction, or backwards only direction. Should openBVE support networked tracks and bi-directionally signalled lines in future, this can far more easily allow for a fully realistic simulation of AWS under those circumstances. A summary of the advantages of the new UkTrainSys TPWS and AWS implementation: Acceleration and deceleration curves are taken into account when traversing a TPWS OSS; TPWS induction loops can be nested or interleaved; Passenger and freight trains can have their own OSS timeout periods set, with no need to edit a route file to accommodate either train type; A single beacon type can be used to represent all kinds of track-mounted AWS installations; By defining the AWS permanent and electromagnets separately, a fully realistic AWS simulation can be achieved; AWS suppression is supported; The above features allow for fully realistic behaviour while travelling forwards or backwards over AWS inductors and TPWS loops; It’s more fun when the simulated systems work in the same way as the real systems, with the same advantages and disadvantages of the real systems; Lastly, it’s more future proof. Should openBVE support networked tracks or bi-directional signalling in future, I think the best way to ensure compatibility or ease of code maintenance, is to make the simulated systems work with the same principles, trigger events, inputs, outputs, and variables, as the real-world systems. Placing the TPWS related beacons is a little more difficult, but it’s really no big deal if the documentation is read, and you have a calculator, as well as the ability to type in a few numbers (which any openBVE developer has to be able to do anyway). 😉 UkTrainSys can interpret the new frequency-based beacons in new routes, and it can interpret old speed-based beacons in existing routes (UkTrainSys is fully backwards compatible with legacy beacon commands in these routes), but Simon’s BVE 4 plugins won’t recognise the induction loop frequencies (or magnetic polarities) when encountered in new routes designed for openBVE and UkTrainSys. Two beacons now make up an AWS magnet associated with a signal, but it’s only slightly more trouble than using one beacon. UkTrainSys configuration files for openBVE trains I’ve also released a set of configuration files which can be used with a variety of DMUs and EMUs available from trainsimcentral. If you are a Linux or Mac user, and want to enjoy some UK diesel traction in openBVE, then you can simply extract the latest UkTrainSys.dll into any of the supported TSC train folders, and then extract the appropriate configuration files into each folder. If you are a Windows user, then you might like to experiment with the new fully realistic AWS and TPWS implementation within the UkTrainSys plugin (on existing routes to test the backwards compatible legacy behaviour, and on either Cross-City South v1.31.11 or the AWS/TPWS test route available below, to test the new simulation). I would certainly appreciate any feedback. Please bear in mind that the guard’s buzzer sounds might play more times than they should – UkTrainSys expects the buzzer sound file to contain only one buzz sound, whereas these trains may contain two buzzes in the relevant sound file. For more information and the latest downloads, plus complete documentation and example code snippets, please visit the UkTrainSys project page: [v0.3.1.9 now available] AWS and TPWS test route for use with UkTrainSys (or any supported train class), and Cross-City South v1.31.11 update As with the enhanced neutral section and Automatic Power Control feature included in the last UkTrainSys release, for this latest version, I’ve prepared a test route so that the new AWS and TPWS implementation can be tested. I’ve also updated Cross-City South to v1.31.11, and the openBVE route files now utilise the realistic AWS and TPWS simulation features of the UkTrainSys plugin. The AWS and TPWS test route is around 7 km in length, and demonstrates a variety of AWS and TPWS installations. Each signal is held at red until a preset time, and you can either drive safely or commit SPADs to test that AWS and TPWS are working correctly. There is also a signal and a permanent speed restriction located near to each other, which requires the co-location of a TPWS OSS associated with the signal, plus another OSS associated with the permanent speed restriction. The OSS induction loops at this location are interleaved, and you can test how this works when the signal is red or otherwise. You can also practice driving at normal and extremely slow speeds over AWS magnets, to see how the dual magnet detection works, especially when a signal aspect is green. There is also a single track section, which is equipped with AWS suppression magnets, and you can drive forwards and backwards along the route to test this feature, as well. The AWS and TPWS test route. On the left, is an AWS inductor, comprised of a permanent magnet, suppression magnet, electromagnet, and protection ramps for bi-directional running. On the right, is a pair of co-located TPWS OSS installations, with interleaved induction loops. Each OSS arming loop starts one of two independent OSS timers within the UkTrainSys plugin. Download: AWS and TPWS test route [86 KiB – also includes updated neutral section test route] Once extracted, the route file can be found here: Railway\Route\rsr_uktrainsys_test\ Note: Requires Cross-City South v1.31.11 (update \| full version), along with UkTrainSys v0.3.1.9 installed with a suitable train.The unrefurbished class 323 EMU together with the combined 3D cab and UkTrainSys v0.3.1.9 update is recommended. Also remember that you need openBVE v1.2.10 in order to use this latest UkTrainSys .NET plugin, and also remember that this is an alpha release of the plugin, so it may have some issues, but they’ll be addressed as development progresses. Updated AWS inductor screenshots – Cross-City South v2.0 and Watford Junction to Rugby While coding the latest UkTrainSys updates, I updated the AWS magnet objects which I’m using in my work-in-progress routes. As UkTrainSys now recognises both AWS permanent magnets and electromagnets separately, I thought I’d separate out these parts of the existing AWS magnet into their own respective object files, so they can be easily assigned to beacon or freeobj structure indices, as appropriate. Here are some examples… In the first screenshot, is an AWS permanent magnet associated with a fixed distant signal, which has a protection ramp on both sides, as this is a stretch of bi-directional line. In the second, the same applies, except an AWS electromagnet beacon is also in place. In the remaining screenshots, are permanent magnets associated with permanent speed restriction advance warning boards, which have only one ramp, as these tracks are uni-directional. These objects will be included in the UK Railway Infrastructure Object Library, however you can actually download and use them now, as they are included with the AWS and TPWS test route (see above). Also, here are some examples of full AWS permanent and electromagnet installations on the Watford Junction to Rugby route: West Coast Main Line Video Lastly, anyone with an interest in the real West Coast Main Line, might like to take a look at a video which I uploaded to YouTube recently, which features the Old Linslade and Leighton Buzzard areas – two locations I’m modelling in my representation of the Watford Junction to Rugby section of the WCML. Those of you who noticed or commented on the Train Operated Warning System I demonstrated in my last openBVE video (the rotating orange lights with audible warnings), can now watch the real system in action. This footage was filmed in October 2004 to assist me with developing this part of the route (only in standard definition unfortunately), but you’ll see a couple of class 87s which were still in service at the time. Also featured, are ubiquitous Pendolinos, class 321 EMUs, as well as classes 58, 60 and 66 diesels, and class 90 and 92 25kV AC electric locos. Don’t forget to change to 480p resolution for the best image quality. Lastly, I’d just like to wish visitors a happy and peaceful Christmas, and say thanks for all the interest shown in my work so far. 🙂 Tags: Cross-City South, openBVE, Screenshots, Site News, Software, Trackwork, Watford Jn to Rugby Posted in openBVE, Site News \| 28 Comments » UkTrainSys plugin update; enhanced simulation of neutral sections and Automatic Power Control, neutral section test route released, and new screenshots showing improved Brecknell Willis Highspeed pantograph models and new sunset backdrops Posted by Anthony Bowden on 26th November 2010 at 9:25 pm Firstly, I just wanted to say thank you for the positive reception with which the UkTrainSys cross-platform .NET plugin has been received; this was very nice to see! Based on feedback, I’ve now updated the UkTrainSys plugin, so that the AI driver will operate the Driver Reminder Appliance en-route. I’ve also implemented an enhanced neutral section and Automatic Power Control simulation, but first, a little background information might be in order… Neutral section (phase break) installations View of a real MkIII neutral section Thanks to Daniel Beardsmore for the photo For those who don’t know, a neutral section (or phase break), isolates different phases of the power supply being fed to the overhead electrification system from each other. This is accomplished by inserting a short length of insulated material into the contact wire, which the pantograph head can still slide across at speed. In the UK, I gather these insulated sections are typically comprised of glass-fibre rods with ceramic collars threaded on to them, with the total length of the neutral section itself, being only around 4 metres. At either side of the neutral section, are a pair of track mounted magnets, called APC (Automatic Power Control) magnets. Whenever an APC receiver on an electric train detects these magnets, the APC system flips the state of the air-blast/vacuum circuit breaker (ACB/VCB) between the pantograph and the on-train traction equipment, interrupting or connecting the supply from the pantograph and overhead line. UK1 and MkI neutral sections Thus, when a train approaches the first pair of magnets prior to a neutral section, the ACB/VCB is commanded open, such that there is no power being drawn from the overhead line when passing through the neutral section (this prevents the pantograph from drawing an arc and accidentally connecting one of the power supply phases to earth – the neutral section cantilever/support tubes are earthed so that the two separated phases aren’t connected in the event of an arc). When the train passes the second pair of APC magnets after the neutral section, the ACB/VCB is commanded closed again, and power from the overhead line can be taken. APC magnets and a neutral section See the illustration to the left, for an overview of the installation. The yellow arrow indicates the direction of travel; the red line indicates which parts of the contact wire are still live, even if the Automatic Power Control system has opened the train’s air-blast/vacuum circuit breaker, and finally, the blue line shows the location of the neutral section itself. Updated UkTrainSys cross-platform .NET plugin (v0.3.1.3), with enhanced neutral section and APC simulation Anyway, an updated version of the UkTrainSys plugin is now available together with the class 323’s 3D cab (version 0.3.1.3 – downloads can be found further down), and I’ve made some improvements to the simulation of electric trains. Firstly, I’ve modified the pantograph behaviour – when the pantograph is rising or lowering, pressing the Up/Reset or Down button has no effect until either operation is completed. Pressing the Up/Reset button when the pantograph is already raised, will just re-close the air-blast/vacuum circuit breaker (ACB/VCB) if it’s open. Secondly, and more importantly, I’ve significantly improved the simulation of neutral sections, and Automatic Power Control. Now, the APC magnets and the actual neutral section itself can be declared separately. This means that every time the correctly defined APC magnet beacon is passed, it will flip the current state of the train’s ACB/VCB. This however, does not affect the actual availability of line voltage from the contact wire. What this means, is that if the ACB/VCB is tripped open by an APC magnet, but your train stalls because you weren’t travelling fast enough, you can now manually re-close the ACB/VCB by pressing the pantograph up/reset button. If the train’s pantograph is not within the separately defined 4 metre long neutral section, you can take power from the overhead supply once again, and move the train backwards or forwards as appropriate, so you can try to build up enough speed in order to coast through the neutral section without stalling, this time. If the train’s pantograph does stop within the neutral section, then line voltage is not available, even if you try to re-close the ACB/VCB. In this case, you have to hope that your train is on a gradient, such that if the brakes are released, the train will roll out of the neutral section due to gravity. If this isn’t possible, then you have some explaining to do! There is a more interesting aspect to this, though – with UkTrainSys, you can now drive backwards through a neutral section, not just forwards, and still have the full simulation experience. On a unit like the 323, (I think) the APC receiver is located on the bogie beneath the pantograph, on the second coach. The beacon receiver on an openBVE train is located at the front of the train, however – where the driver is (thereabouts). If travelling forwards, then when the front of the train passes an APC magnet beacon, this triggers a point-based event, and a check can then be performed, which will only carry out the ACB/VCB operation when the train is so many metres beyond the beacon; i.e the distance between the front of the train, and the location of where the APC receiver is supposed to be. But what happens if the train is travelling backwards? The location where the APC receiver is supposed to be, will pass the APC beacon before what is now the rear of the train (where the driver and openBVE’s beacon receiver are located), will pass the beacon, and hence trigger a beacon related event. This obviously won’t work properly, as the action triggered by the beacon, won’t happen until it’s beneath the driver’s position, which is too late when travelling backwards. So, the UkTrainSys plugin now includes what I’m calling the “Offset Beacon Receiver Manager” (OBRM). Whenever the UkTrainSys plugin passes an APC magnet beacon while travelling forwards, the plugin stores information about the beacon in an array. The stored information includes the beacon type, it’s location, it’s optional data, and an offset distance which equates to the distance between the front of the train, and the location of where the APC receiver is supposed to be. The OBRM continually checks whether the train is currently travelling forwards or backwards, and whether the APC receiver location has passed the actual beacon location, taking direction of travel into account. When the trigger point occurs, the OBRM issues a command to the APC system, rather than doing this via the SetBeacon() method. The only other thing to mention, is that jumping to a station clears the encountered beacon history, so you actually have to drive forwards over a beacon for it to be stored by the OBRM. This means that you can drive an EMU like the 323 through a neutral section backwards, but it also means that a Driving Van Trailer (DVT) with an electric loco pushing a rake of coaches from behind, can respond to the APC magnets at the correct time and location, whether travelling forwards or backwards, too. Class 323 3D cab with pre-configured UkTrainSys plugin [v0.3.1.3 – 2.3 MiB] (The unrefurbished class 323 from Trainsimcentral is required first – the 3D cab and plugin update should OVERWRITE any existing files in the “Cl323 Unrefurb_openbve” folder). Important: Remember that you need openBVE v1.2.9.20 in order to use the new UkTrainSys .NET plugin, and also remember that this is an alpha release of the plugin, so it may have some issues, but they’ll be addressed as development progresses. Also, the UkTrainSys changelog can be found here: UkTrainSys project page. Short neutral section test route, for use with UkTrainSys and the class 323 with 3D cab I’ve prepared a short test route so that you can try this new feature. The route includes two neutral sections; the first on level track, and the second on an incline. Using the class 323 with the latest version of the 3D cab update and UkTrainSys plugin, you can drive through the neutral sections and play with the new behaviour. The neutral section test route (the white board gives notice of the neutral section) Download: Neutral section test route [76 KiB – requires Cross-City South v1.31] On the first run, just pass through a neutral section as normal – it should seem pretty much identical to the neutral section experience in Network West Midlands, using Simon Gathercole’s BVE 4 UKMUt plugin. On the second run, you can do things differently though – approach a neutral section slowly, and let your pantograph (where the APC receiver is located) pass the first pair of APC magnets, such that the VCB is tripped open, and then apply the brakes and come to a halt. You’ll note that the Line Volts indicator extinguishes, the VCB indicator light illuminates, and that you can’t take traction power – your train appears stuck. However, when the 323 has stopped, you can now reset the VCB by placing the reverser to Neutral and pressing the ‘2’ key – you should hear the VCB closing with a thud. Provided your pantograph is in contact with a live section of overhead line, the Line Volts indicator will illuminate again, and the VCB indicator will extinguish. Now you can take traction power. But what happens if your train is so close to the dead section of overhead line, that you can’t accelerate enough to coast through the neutral section, without stalling? You have to go to the external view by pressing ‘F2’, so you can see what side of the neutral section your pantograph is on, and choose whether to move the train forwards or backwards, such that you can take a “run up” at the neutral section, next time. If you do stop with your pantograph in contact with the neutral section itself, then there is no line voltage, and resetting the VCB or lowering and raising the pantograph won’t change this. If you are on level track, your train is stuck there (you can cheat, and jump to another station, though). If however, you are on a gradient (the second neutral section is on an incline), then you can move the reverser to Neutral, and move the power handle to Off, and then release the brakes. Your train will now begin to roll backwards due to gravity (in reality, you would need permission from the signaller to do this). When your pantograph makes contact with a live section of overhead line again, the Line Volts indicator will light up, and you can take traction power again. If you continue rolling backwards, you’ll pass the APC magnet prior to the neutral section – this will trip open your VCB, despite heading away from the neutral section, and you’ll have to apply the brakes, stop the train, move the reverser to Neutral, and press the ‘2’ key to reset the VCB. Once done, you can take power, and go back as far enough as is required, to build enough speed in the forward direction to successfully coast through the neutral section. Screenshots showing new sunset backdrops, and improved Brecknell Willis Highspeed pantograph models Finally, I’ve been busy taking photos of sunsets again this week, and I just wanted to post a few more screenshots of the latest enhancement to the Cross-City South v2.0 and Watford Junction to Rugby routes. I’ve also, finally, got around to improving the Brecknell Willis Highspeed pantograph model, which now includes a full 3D pantograph head, with textures used throughout: I hope you like the latest developments. 🙂 Tags: Artwork, Cross-City South, openBVE, Screenshots, Site News, Software, Trackwork, Watford Jn to Rugby Posted in openBVE, Site News \| 8 Comments » New cross-platform .NET plugin for UK trains released, class 323 3D cab and Cross-City South v1.31.09 update, openBVE v1.2.9 development branch, .NET plugins and AI support Posted by Anthony Bowden on 20th November 2010 at 7:30 am Updated: 22nd November 2010 @ 00:15 UTC (FEVF railway and steam loco update – see below) New cross-platform .NET plugin for UK trains (EMUs currently), 323 3D cab / X-City South v1.31.09 updates, and openBVE v1.2.9 AI support After the latest development branch of openBVE (v1.2.9 series) was released last month, I started work on a new open source, cross-platform plugin written in C#, which I wanted to be a suitable alternative to the plugin currently used by the class 323 EMU. Simon Gathercole’s UKMUt.dll has served me well since BVE Trainsim 4 was released, but after the latest openBVE developments, I knew the time had come to create a new plugin which could be developed to take advantage of the new possibilities which openBVE now provides. I also wanted to create a plugin which could be updated as openBVE develops, either by myself, or with help from other programmers and developers, so that the community doesn’t need to experience plugin-related problems for too long. This new plugin is called UkTrainSys (short for UK Train System of course); it is modular in design, and aims to simulate a variety of systems that trains which run on the UK’s rail network may be equipped with. Initially, I’m working to recreate as much of the functionality found in Simon Gathercole’s range of BVE 4 plugins as necessary, although some new features are included as well. So far, the plugin features the following: Automatic Warning System (AWS); Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS); Driver Reminder Appliance (DRA); Vigilance Device; Traction and brake interlocks; Battery which can be discharged, recharged and overloaded; Overhead supply; Pantograph and vacuum circuit breaker; Automatic Power Control; Power supply and electrical system circuit breakers (more for future use); In-cab blower; Head and tail lights; AI guard for station stop monitoring and buzzer codes; AI Support which assists openBVE’s AI human driver in handling systems simulated by the plugin automatically (including support for visible in-cab driver’s hands and arms). Note: Wipers, windscreen rain effects and diesel engine simulation are yet to be started. I’m also planning for various other systems to be inlcuded in future, such as TPWS+ (TPWS Plus), RETB, ERTMS, random failures, and a tap changer. Users of trains which include plugins developed for BVE 4, will likely know that when openBVE’s AI human driver is enabled, the AI driver may not always be able to operate a plugin enabled train correctly, simply because openBVE has no way of knowing what systems are simulated by a plugin, and even if openBVE did know what systems were simulated, it still wouldn’t know what to do with them. Hence, the new UkTrainSys plugin uses openBVE v1.2.9’s AI Support feature, which lets the plugin assist openBVE’s AI human driver with operating the systems which are simulated by the plugin. When you start a route, and enable openBVE’s AI human driver by pressing Ctrl+A, while using the latest release of the class 323’s 3D cab in combination with the UkTrainSys plugin (see below for the download), you will see the AI driver’s arms and hands reach out for the controls, and interact with them whenever necessary. The AI human driver will run through the startup and self-test procedure for you, pressing the AWS reset button, raising the pantograph if required, and setting the taillights and headlights. The plugin takes the time-of-day into account, so the correct headlight setting is chosen based upon the in-game time (and updated as the day goes on). The AI driver will deactivate the DRA before departure, respond to the guard’s buzzer signal with a buzzer response, cancel AWS warnings as they occur, respond to TPWS brake demands, re-raise the pantograph if it is lowered mid-journey, and so-on. The UkTrainSys plugin’s AI Support will also respond to a new beacon type, which instructs the AI driver to blow the horn at certain locations. Note: Both the 323 3D cab and UkTrainSys plugin were updated on 21st November 2010 @ 01:30 UTC Issues with TPWS Isolation, and the driver’s arms remaining visible after turning off openBVE’s AI driver, are hopefully resolved… I’ve updated the class 323’s 3D cab with new animations which require the UkTrainSys plugin (now included in the download), and I’ve also equipped Cross-City South v1.31 with the aforementioned new beacon type, so the AI driver can sound the horn automatically. The updated 323 3D cab and pre-configured UkTrainSys plugin can be downloaded here [2.3 MiB] If you are already using Cross-City South v1.31.071, you can download a small update to v1.31.09 link out of date [95 KiB] If you don’t already have the route, aren’t sure which release of Cross-City South v1.31 you already have, or want to see details about the latest changes, please download the full version and visit the Cross-City South v1.31 project page instead. Important: Remember that you need openBVE v1.2.9.15 in order to use the new UkTrainSys .NET plugin with AI support, and to enjoy the new 3D cab features! Also remember that this is an early alpha release of the plugin, so it has some issues, but they’ll be addressed as development progresses. The UkTrainSys plugin also has it’s own project homepage, where just the plugin, source code, current and planned feature list, changelog and documentation can be found. Train developers with an interest is using the UkTrainSys plugin, now or in future, may wish to visit the following page and read the documentation. Note: If you have downloaded the updated class 323’s 3D cab with the pre-configured UkTrainSys plugin, remember that you should not overwrite the UkTrainSys.cfg file included with the class 323 3D cab update! [Alpha release now available] I’ve also been working on some new backdrops for both Cross-City South v2.0 and Watford Junction to Rugby. I was happy with the daytime backdrops which you’ve all seen already, but the sky portions of the last set of sunset and sunrise backdrops were entirely hand-made (replacing low resolution BVE4-era images), and I wanted to replace these with photographic textures of a similar quality to the daytime backdrops instead. Fortunately, there as been some favourable weather during the past few days, so I was able to take some nice photographs. Here are the new sunrise and sunset scenes, shown with the 323’s latest 3D cab update, and the openBVE v1.2.9 / UkTrainSys plugin enabled AI support feature in use: Recent openBVE v1.2.9 development branch updates Towards the beginning of the November, openBVE v1.2.9.11 was released (now up to v1.2.9.15), and Michelle introduced a new set of experimental preprocessing directives. These take the form of $if(), $else() and $endif(), and obviously, these allow for conditional parsing of blocks of code within a route file. This can be an alternative means of achieving what can be accomplished with the $Include directive, which is handy when only a small block of code needs to be conditional. Personally, I’m finding this very handy for such features as temporary speed restrictions (TSRs). In this scenario, I can randomly introduce TSRs at different locations, so routes can be rather more fun to drive. At the start of the file, we can declare a variable $Sub(0), which has a random number assigned from within a certain range, and then use the value stored in $Sub(0) as a condition which is used by $if() directives. If the value held by $Sub(0) is zero, then the code within any $if() block which depends upon this variable is not used, but if the value is greater than zero, then it is. By using the $else() directive, we can show something else if the TSR is not to be included, such as discarded sections of old rail, left there by the track workers after they made their repairs and removed the TSR. Spate indicators could be handled in a similar way. ; Declare a variable which stores a randomly generated number… $Sub(100) = $Rnd(0;1) With Structure .FreeObj(0) tsr_warn_20mph.csv .FreeObj(1) tsr_20mph.csv .FreeObj(2) tsr_terminate.csv .FreeObj(3) discarded_rail_sections.csv .FreeObj(4) track_workers.csv .Beacon(0) portable_aws_magnet.csv With Route ; Enclose the route commands related to a TSR within $if()/$else()/$endif() directives… $if($Sub(100)) 3000, .Beacon 44001;0, ; portable AWS magnet $endif() 3183, .Freeobj 0;0, ; 20 mph TSR advanced warning board 4200, .Freeobj 0;1, .Limit 33;0, ; commencement of 20 mph TSR $else() 4305, .Freeobj 0;3;5, ; no TSR so show discarded old rails instead 4400, .Freeobj 0;2, .Limit 97;0, ; termination of TSR It’s also possible to use these new preprocessing directives elsewhere in the route file. For example, a different object could be assigned to a free object index, depending upon a condition being true. You can also nest these new preprocessing directives; i.e. place $if/$else()/$endif() selection statements within other selection statements, for example: ; a nested $if()/$else()/$endif() selection statement 4205, .Freeobj 0;4;-4, ; track workers shown based upon another $Sub variable but only if the TSR is shown Support for these new preprocessor directives is still experimental, and not guaranteed to be included in the next stable release of openBVE, however I’ve not encountered a problem with the feature thus far, at least with regard to the things I’d like to use the feature for, and it’s really very easy to use. Some more testing would be beneficial, but I hope the feature stays, and I’ll certainly be making use of it if it does. Other news – Chashinai .NET plugin updated with AI support, new Network West Midlands video, and FEVF railway updates In case you weren’t aware, the new cross-platform .NET plugin which is used by the trains which run on the Chashinai Railway, was updated earlier this month to include AI support, which is a lot of fun, especially with the Chashinai 9000 series train complete with ATS-Sn, ATS-P, ATC and TASC. As with the new UkTrainSys plugin, the updated Chashinai Railway plugin’s AI support assists openBVE’s AI human driver in operating the safety systems, so you can enable the AI human driver and even watch the startup procedures handled by the AI driver. The plugin source code is available as well, of course. Chashinai Railway Takahagi Line (9000 series train, ATS-P, AI driver enabled) I also wanted to quickly mention that Steve Green has posted a short YouTube video of the upcoming Network West Midlands 2010 update, demonstrating animated level crossing barriers interlocked with the signalling, together with updated objects such as a new AWS magnet, which I thought looked really good: Several other videos of the upcoming NWM release can also be found on Steve’s YouTube channel, and screenshots can be found on the Network West Midlands website. Update: 22nd November 2010 @ 00:15 UTC Lastly, I wanted to show something a little bit different – Roberto Benini, developer of the FEVF (Ferrovia Elettrica Val di Fiemme) railway, has released an animated Mallet Henschel & Sohn 6036 steam loco for openBVE, which is well worth a look, and I noticed that the FEVF Railway itself now has some moving trains at Cavalese station too. The route and train can be downloaded here: Download FEFV Railway and animated Mallet Henschel & Sohn 6063 steam loco Roberto Benini has also posted a YouTube video of the new loco: Tags: Animated Objects, Artwork, Cross-City South, Functions, openBVE, openBVE Community, Screenshots, Site News, Software, Watford Jn to Rugby openBVE v1.2.8 and increased rendering speed, openBVE v1.2.9 development branch with cross-platform .NET plugin support, Cross-City South v2.0 update, and openBVE performance with budget versus high-end CPUs, and discrete versus on-board graphics Posted by Anthony Bowden on 14th October 2010 at 12:20 am Updated: 16th October 2010 @ 22:50 UTC openBVE v1.2.8 released, with significant rendering speed improvements openBVE v1.2.8 was released recently, which includes a reorganised renderer which can provide significantly higher framerates than the old renderer found in v1.2.7.4. This is achieved by rendering opaque faces (i.e. faces without alpha), using OpenGL display lists. There are two ways to enjoy the performance increase; if you currently have low framerates, then the boost could make routes more enjoyable, however if you already have high framerates, then you can increase the viewing distance significantly so that you can see much further away from the train, whilst maintaining similar framerates to those you are already used to seeing. You can visit the Official openBVE Homepage for the download and to read the changelog, as well as read this thread on the openBVE forum for more information. Here are some framerate and image quality comparisons which I conducted on my main development PC (Core 2 Quad Q9650 / GeForce GTX 260), showing some notable improvements: On the left is openBVE v1.2.7.4, and on the right, the new v1.2.8: openBVE’s default viewing distance is 600 metres, however, here are some screenshots showing what the upcoming Watford Junction to Rugby route looks like with an increased viewing distance of 2000m. This particularly benefits the straight sections of this route, allowing you to see more than one upcoming signal at the same time. Thanks to the new renderer, it’ s possible to significantly increase the viewing distance, while still having very playable framerates on a good computer with reasonably detailed exterior car objects: Most people are reporting better performance with the new renderer, however if you notice any previously unseen stuttering with the new renderer and detailed routes, I’d really appreciate it if you could contact me with some information about your computer’s specifications and the route being used, as it might be useful for me to know, when I draw up recommended system requirements and openBVE settings, particularly for the upcoming Watford Junction to Rugby project. Thanks. openBVE v1.2.9 development branch released, enabling support for cross-platform .NET train plugins The latest version 1.2.9 development branch of openBVE, includes support for .NET assemblies (plugins), which enables cross-platform plugin compatibility, just as with openBVE itself. With previous versions of openBVE, and of course BVE Trainsim, only Win32 C++ plugins were supported, which limited their use to the Microsoft Windows platform, leaving Linux and Mac users to rely on openBVE’s built-in safety systems only, with a great deal of functionality found in plugin enabled trains unavailable. With .NET assemblies, these can be written in a variety of languages which target the .NET framework, such as C# or Visual Basic .NET, and users of non-Windows operating systems can also enjoy enhanced train functionality once new .NET plugins start to appear. Anyone with at least some programming experience can visit the .NET assembly train plugin section on the official openBVE website, to download template projects to help you get started. If you’ve already developed a Win32 C++ plugin previously, you might prefer to look at the “C# project files (for updating from Win32 plugins)” download specifically. Anyone interested in making general comments can do so in this thread on the openBVE forum, while anyone wanting to help improve the design of the plugin API by making suggestions, can visit this thread instead. I’ve started writing a replacement .NET plugin for the class 323, although I’ll design it such that it could be used with other trains too. I’ll release the new .NET assembly and publish the source code when there’s something worth showing, unless someone else writes a plugin which is sufficiently good enough, before me. Edit (16th October): I forgot to mention that some .NET assemblies are already available; the plugins for the 1000, 2000 and 9000 series trains used by the Chashinai Railway have been ported to C# by odakyufan, and you can download them here (at the bottom of the page). These might be helpful if you’d like to see some example source code and structure, although bear in mind that openBVE .NET plugin support is still experimental at this stage, so you may need to check for both openBVE and plugin updates in future. Of course, if you’re a more advanced non-Windows user and just want to enjoy driving trains, then you too can now experience some of the best in-cab system functionality available for openBVE. Here’s the openBVE v1.2.9.2 development release, with Chashinai Railway’s Misaki Line, and the 9000 series train with fully functional .NET plugin enabled safety systems, running in Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit Linux (itself running within a virtual machine under Windows 7 64-bit, in this case): Chashinai Railway Misaki Line, and 9000 series train with .NET plugin enabled safety systems, used with openBVE v1.2.9.2 in Linux Birmingham Cross-City South v2.0 update If you’ve been keeping an eye on the news infobox at the top left of the blog (or my Projects page), you’ll have noticed that I’ve been continuing work on the pointwork along the Cross-City South route, and I’ve also been working on updating the pointwork on the approach to Birmingham New Street as well. All pointwork between Alvechurch and Five Ways is now finished, and ready for animation to be applied prior to release. The pointwork on the approach to Birmingham New Street is a rather difficult task though. At this location, there are single and double slips, switched diamond crossings and three-way points, all crammed into a rather small space, and all located on quite a sharp curve. There are also a variety of point machines, including electric, hydraulic clamp-lock, and Westinghouse electro-pneumatic types, as well as cast manganese steel and conventional frogs. I like to model these kinds of details, so I’ve spent quite some time working on this area – I’m not finished yet, but will be shortly. Cross-City South was originally designed with a 25 metre block length in mind, however the pointwork doesn’t fit neatly, so much of the pointwork is contained in two large set-piece objects instead. I always felt that this task was going to be the hardest part of the Cross-City South v2.0 upgrade, as it’s rather tedious and difficult (and indeed I was right), however for me, the route wouldn’t be complete without it, as I want Cross-City South v2.0 to be of the same standard as Watford Junction to Rugby, so I’ll endure the pain. Here’s a screenshot of one of the Birmingham New Street pointwork objects: At first glance it doesn’t look like much, but on closer inspection, it’s actually rather detailed and intricate. This object features 4076 vertices, and loads 9 textures. Each rail is carefully texture mapped, to ensure that the Pandrol rail fasteners are as closely lined up with the underlying sleepers as possible, and that the inside of the railhead as depicted in the texture, matches the mapping on the object. Depending upon the location of a rail within the point assembly, different kinds of rail fasteners are depicted. If you examine the existing equivalent object in Cross-City South v1.31, you’ll notice that that old object is afflicted with z-fighting issues; I’ve taken special care to ensure that this doesn’t happen with the new version. In the case of the cast manganese steel frogs, these feature a combination of 3D geometry and use of a photographic texture of the prototype, to create the desired 3D effect: Each fishplate is also modelled in 3D, and these are also responsible for much of the vertex count, incidentally – this also means that they can be easily removed to create a lower detail object, however. Each point blade has a texture depicting baseplates beneath it, and where the tie bar assemblies will go, oil-stained ballast is featured. The object has also been designed in such a way, that animating any of the point blades is very easy to do in future. I’ll post a screenshot of the object within the route, once I’ve finished the second of these pointwork objects, improved the appearance of New Street station a bit, and finished some other things. Prior to starting on the New Street pointwork updates, I also spent some time working on the Kings Norton area. In the existing Cross-City South v1.31, I didn’t lay any track in the sidings to the west of the station, and instead, I included a simple texture depicting a pair of tracks on a flat surface to the right of the loop siding. Cross-City South v1.31 was designed for BVE Trainsim 2 and 4 with their cab-only view and lower resolution, of course, so there wasn’t much point in modelling the extra tracks. With openBVE, it’s well worth adding them, however: Here are some screenshots of the updated pointwork and track geometry at Kings Norton (I’ll replace these points with the more recently installed concrete sleeper versions soon): You might have noticed that scenery has been improved a little in those previous three screenshots; I’m currrently adding the embankment/tree alpha shadow technique I developed for Watford Junction to Rugby, throughout the Cross-City South route as well. Here are a few more screenshots showing the latest scenery enhancements I’ve been working on, as well as little things like extended length sleepers beneath electric point machines, and disused trackbeds: Budget versus high-end CPUs, discrete graphics cards versus on-board graphics, and openBVE/Watford Junction to Rugby performance Sometimes I see people talking about poor framerates or image quality in 3D games which they use, such as openBVE, or others. Upon finding out about the system specifications in use, the cause of the low performance, in the case of Windows 7 and Vista, is often due to inferior graphics drivers being used (i.e. those bundled with Windows by default or obtained via Windows Update, rather than from the graphics card manufacturer). However, the other frequent cause of unsatisfactory performance, is a slow graphics card, and sometimes, a slow CPU. Personally, I’ve used less-than-stellar graphics cards in my desktop PCs for use with openBVE, but being a geek, I’ve never used on-board graphics solutions (integrated on the motherboard) in a desktop PC before, as I’ve always dismissed them as not being up to much. It occurred to me that perhaps I was being too hasty in writing integrated graphics off, as I’ve never actually tried to play games on such a solution in a desktop PC myself. The same goes for budget CPUs, such as those in Intel’s Celeron or AMD’s Sempron lines – I’ve never been interested in them as I’ve always viewed them as merely cut-down versions of “real” fully-featured CPUs, such as those in Intel’s Pentium and Core product lines, or AMD’s Athlon and Phenom lines. So, I thought I’d test openBVE on a contemporary budget PC to find out what it was capable of, with the cheapest of Intel’s newer CPUs that I could find – a socket LGA 775 based Celeron E3300 with the Wolfdale-3M core (the same core used in Core 2 E7xxx and Pentium Dual Core E5/6xxx processors), which runs at 2.5 GHz with 1MB of Level 2 cache. This CPU is combined with the cheapest of all graphics solutions – on-board graphics integrated onto the motherboard – in the form of Intel’s “Graphics Media Accelerator” X4500, which is a part of the G41 Express “Eaglelake” chipset. I was also curious to find something out – if a choice has to be made between a better CPU or a better graphics card, which is the best to go for where openBVE is concerned? I ran the hardware in a few configurations, and tested openBVE’s performance with my upcoming Watford Junction to Rugby route. Here are the results, and in all cases, the best image quality that each graphics solution is capable of was selected, and in all except the last test (number 4), the following constants apply: CPU: Intel Celeron E3300 @ 2.5 GHz RAM: 2 GB PC-6400 DDR2 SDRAM (dual-channel configuration) Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (32-bit) openBVE version: 1.2.8 (Sharp transparency, 1920×1200 fullscreen, 600m viewing distance) Two locations were used for measuring framerates: Watford Junction, and Bourne End Junction. Test setup 1: Graphics: Intel GMA X4500 (G41 Express Chipset, 128MB shared video memory) [Antialisasing: n/a, Anisotropic Filtering: 2x] Framerates (fps) Watford Junction 12 Bourne End Junction 9 Graphics: AMD/ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro (256MB DDR2) [Antialisasing: 8x, Anisotropic Filtering: 16x] Bourne End Junction 24 Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (896 MB GDDR3) [Antialisasing: 16xQ, Anisotropic Filtering: 16x] Watford Junction 118 Bourne End Junction 101 Lastly for comparison purposes, here’s what we get when the GeForce GTX 260 is paired with a faster and more powerful quad-core CPU: CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 @ 3 GHz From these results, we can see that the budget Celeron E3300 is actually a rather nice CPU (which isn’t too surprising I suppose, given the architecture in use), and more than good enough for highly detailed routes such as Watford Junction to Rugby when paired with a decent graphics card. By comparing the two GeForce GTX 260 results, we can see that the speed of the CPU matters, however performance is also very clearly determined by the graphics hardware, and I would say that it’s the more important factor when it comes to openBVE performance. While I didn’t test the Core 2 Quad CPU with Intel’s GMA X4500 integrated graphics, I think it’s highly unlikely that framerates would have been much higher with this combination (overclocking the Celeron E3300 from 2.5GHz to 2.92GHz, made a difference of only around 1 fps when the integrated GMA X4500 was used). Intel’s on-board graphics is simply too slow, and the image quality is a bit poorer too, as there is no antialiasing, and the anistropic filtering level is rather limited (compare this screenshot using Intel’s GMA X4500, and a screenshot using the GeForce GTX 260). Intel’s driver control panel claims to support 16x anisotropic filtering, although openBVE/OpenGL reports that 2x is the maximum supported. The framerates don’t tell the entire story either though, as the much faster GeForce GTX 260 graphics card also gives more fluid and stutter-free performance than the budget Radeon HD 2600 Pro does. This is especially true when large textures, animated objects and higher levels of antialiasing and anisotropic filtering are used, as well. So, if anyone is thinking of upgrading their computer soon and would like to run something like Watford Junction to Rugby, and money is tight, then my advice would be to bias your budget in favour of getting the best graphics card possible, while trying to keep some balance between the CPU and GPU in terms of what each is capable of. For the energy conscious amongst you, also bear in mind that newer generation graphics hardware tends to be more power efficient for a given level of performance. While quad core CPUs are nice to have, dual core CPUs are just fine, too. Indeed, running openBVE on only two of the four cores of the C2Q Q9650 CPU, by setting the affinity for the OpenBve.exe process accordingly, makes only a small difference to performance. Running openBVE on only a single core, even at 3 GHz, does result in performance being halved though, therefore I can’t recommend a single core CPU any more, when dual core CPUs are so common now. Of course, if you can live without the rich graphics or geometrical complexity of the latest openBVE routes, and only want to run less demanding examples, or those previously designed for BVE Trainsim, then even the cheapest contemporary hardware including on-board graphics, may suit your needs just fine where openBVE is concerned, if you don’t mind losing a little image quality and have realistic expectations. For example: [ Uchibo – Intel GMA X4500 \| X-City South v1.31 – Intel GMA X4500 \| Saijou Line – Intel GMA X4500 ] Tags: Artwork, Cross-City South, Hardware, openBVE, openBVE Community, Operating Systems, Screenshots, Software, Trackwork, Watford Jn to Rugby Posted in openBVE \| 4 Comments » openBVE v1.2.7.0 released, new Railsimroutes.net site design, Cross-City South v1.31.07 and miscellaneous project updates, Watford Junction to Rugby screenshot featured in the UK’s PC Gamer Magazine, Genova Brignole – Recco route (as far as Genova Nervi) released Posted by Anthony Bowden on 11th July 2010 at 6:00 am openBVE v1.2.7.0 released Today sees the release of openBVE v1.2.7.0, and some interesting changes have taken place. To begin with, the handling of key and joystick buttons has been revised, and key repeat is now possible. This means that you can hold a key down, and after a short delay, the keypress will be repeated continuously until the key is released again. I’m glad that openBVE now supports this functionality, and this is great for quickly moving a power handle to the limit of it’s travel without having to keep tapping the key, or for sounding the horn in a long and loud fashion, for example. The fly-by camera has also been improved, and now, the leading vehicle (of the nearest train) is tracked by the camera, which is great for loco-hauled trains in particular. 🙂 Superelevation is now simulated differently as well; in previous versions, when cant was applied, the train would simply rotate around it’s z-axis, but now, the outer wheel is raised instead. Cant is also interpolated better now, leading to smoother transitions between differing levels of cant. I’m currently rebuilding the canted track objects used by my routes to make better use of these openBVE improvements, such that the wheels will remain on the rails when passing along superelevated track, and the cant transitions at either end of such sections: Screenshot showing superelevation in openBVE v1.2.7.0 and Cross-City South v2.0. Note the wheels touching the rails throughout the transition curve (scenery is not finished yet). Cant behaviour can also be adjusted now, via the new 'Options.CantBehavior' command. Previously, cant was always applied towards the curve centre, i.e. banking inwards, and this couldn’t be overidden. Also, it wasn’t possible to have cant on straight track. Now though, cant be in either direction, regardless of the direction of the curve, and cant can be applied on straight track too. How might this be useful for simulating a real railway? Well, on the 11th July last year (exactly a year ago as it happens), I was unexpectedly invited for a visit to the preserved Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway, and this line has a curve known as Chicken curve, and one peculiar feature was that the cant at this location leaned outward from the curve rather than inwards. So, openBVE can simulate this too, now. Class 20 “chopper” (20154) was our traction on the day, and here’s a photo for fans of the class 20, which I took before we departed from Toddington: In the cab of a class 20 loco at Toddington, on the preserved Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway. The simulation of track inaccuracy has been overhauled, too. Previously, the familiar cab and vehicle sway was achieved with horizontal and vertical movement, but now, cant inaccuracy and bounce is also modelled, and cars rock from side to side as well as moving vertically and horizontally. While we were testing the new inaccuracy model, I found that this was an interesting way to represent the effect of travelling over more poorly maintained jointed rails. I’ve made some adjustments to the track accuracy in the newly udpated Cross-City South v1.31.07 (see below for download), and travelling over pointwork or on the jointed rail sections of the Cross-City South, should be a little more interesting now, especially when the class 323’s 3D cab is used. 🙂 Essentially, I think .Accuracy values of 0 to 2.0 are suitable for continuous welded rail, and values of 2.1 to 4 are suitable for jointed rails. I’m aware that not everyone may be sure about the new inaccuracy model, however I think it works well when used sensibly, and I would also point out that the development release has been publicly available for testing for at least three weeks, so if you don’t like it, you’ve missed your chance to give feedback prior to the latest stable release. Nevertheless, if you have any comments, please let us know. Personally I prefer the new algorithm and enjoy the representation it can give when accompanied by the sounds of jointed rails, but some may prefer the old; please give it a try with the updated Cross-City South v1.31.07 and class 323 3D cab though (see below), as this update shows what the new inaccuracy model can do. Also bear in mind that you may only prefer the old algorithm because you’re used to it, not because it was more realistic; the old algorithm had it’s limitations. Also, BVE4 style timetable textures can now be displayed when 3D cabs are used, and not just with legacy 2D panels, although this is considered an experimental feature. The timetable texture can be shown as part of the in-game user interface overlay, or as part of a 3D cab (animated object); if the latter is not specifically catered for within the 3D cab, then the former is the default behaviour. Adding BVE4 style timetables to a 3D cab is easy to do; I would recommend simply creating an object with a four-vertex mesh and default texture applied (which is shown if there is no timetable image to display), and add this object to your panel.animated file. Then, make use of the new 'TextureOverride =' command: Object for timetable texture (timetable.csv): CreateMeshBuilder AddVertex,-0.35,2.9,11.52 AddFace,0,1,2,3 LoadTexture,some_suitable_default_texture.png SetTextureCoordinates,0, 0, 0 Addition to panel.animated file: [Object] States = 3d_cab\timetable.csv TextureOverride = timetable I’ve added the aforementioned timetable functionality to the class 323’s 3D cab, but it’s commented out by default, as displaying the timetable images via openBVE’s UI overlay makes more sense where the Cross-City South and class 323 are concerned, plus the feature is still experimental. You can download the update here, and if you want to experiment with the 'TextureOverride =' command, please see the included ‘Readme_3DCab.txt’ file: → 3D cab for unrefurbished class 323 – July 2010 [1.7 MiB] For more detailed information about the new cant behaviour, and timetable support in .animated objects, please read the official openBVE documentation. For details of all the changes introduced with the v1.2.7.0 release of openBVE, including those not mentioned here, please see the changelog. Cross-City South v1.31.07 update As openBVE v1.2.7.0 has been released, I’ve updated Cross-City South v1.31 to remove an obsolete timetable texture, changed some of the timetable images to make them suitable for both openBVE and BVE4, and made adjustments to track inaccuracy to take better advantage of openBVE v1.2.7.0’s new track inaccuracy model. I’ve renamed the route folders to more clearly indicate which sets of routes should be used with openBVE, BVE 4 or BVE 2, as well. I’ve also decided to finally split the openBVE routes away from the BVE 4 routes, as testing every openBVE improvement across numerous route files for 100% backwards compatibility with BVE 4 is somewhat inconvenient, and this also lets me get rid of all those pesky "detail levels" in the openBVE route folder, as these simply aren’t needed with openBVE. The new naming convention is as follows, and should be much clearer (the BVE 2 foldername is as it is, so it’ll fit within the size constraints of BVE 2’s small file selection list): <YourPath>\Railway\Route\Bham_XCitySouth_BVE2\ <YourPath>\Railway\Route\Birmingham_Cross-City_South_BVE4\ <YourPath>\Railway\Route\Birmingham_Cross-City_South_openBVE\ Cross-City South v1.31.05 users can download a smaller update here, which updates v1.31.05 to v1.31.07: → v1.31.07 update for existing Cross-City South v1.31.05 users [1.03 MiB] If you have an earlier version of Cross-City South installed, or you’re not sure which version you already have, please download the full version instead. Important note: Please delete the existing Birmingham Cross-City South folders in your ‘Railway\Route\‘ folder, before installing Cross-City South v1.31.07, whether it’s the update being installed, or the full version! If you don’t, you’ll end up with four Cross-City South route folders rather than three, and you might not be sure which is the right folder to use (incidentally, this is the reason why I haven’t changed the folder names until now). Genova Brignole – Recco route (as far as Genova Nervi thus far) for openBVE released I wanted to mention that a fantastic new route has been released for openBVE, the Italian Genova Brignole – Recco route (as far as Genova Nervi thus far, and 8.1 Km in length). This is one of the most graphically excellent routes I’ve seen to date, with superb textures, and I’m impressed; the route is beautiful. There are some animated objects to enjoy, and staggered catenary as well, which is great to see; pedantic people like me will note that some registration arms pull in the wrong direction, though. 😉 You’ll likely need to read the included PDF instructions before operating the newly released ALn501 – Minuetto v2 train, but it’s well worth the effort. Incidentally, the train comes with some very detailed exterior car objects. These look very nice, although they would benefit from the addition of custom normals to smoothly shade some of the surfaces. Please note that these exterior car objects may have quite an impact on your framerate; even on my Core 2 Quad Q9650 / GeForce GTX 260 system, I get around 30fps in the external view, which is down from anywhere between 80 – 300 fps in the cab view. If you have a slow PC, you may want to stay in the cab. I’m looking forward to seeing this route develop further. 🙂 The Italian Genova Brignole – Recco route (as far as Genova Nervi thus far), available from BVEMania (Trenomania) (see the Download section) I’m officially announcing the Railsimroutes.net UK Railway Infrastructure Object Library today, which will contain all the objects and textures which are shared between my two upcoming openBVE route projects, Birmingham Cross-City South v2.0, and Watford Junction to Rugby v1.0. This library will be maintained by me, and all developers will be welcome to install and use this library with their own projects, without any conditions or requirement to seek permission. The library will contain all sorts of objects, including track, catenary, signals, lineside objects, some basic scenery, and so-on, which might help to make new routes easier to develop. It will also have the advantage, that whenever I update the library, perhaps with higher quality textures or better objects, any routes which call upon the library, will also get updated. I’ll plan it carefully, to ensure that changes remain backwards compatible. I anticipate that the library will be released along with Cross-City South v2.0 initially, and then it’ll receive it’s first update when Watford Junction to Rugby is ready. UK Railway Infrastructure Object Library [Now in development] Next, as you may have noticed, I’ve decided to increase the version number of my upcoming Cross-City South upgrade for openBVE, from version 1.4, to version 2.0. I think I’m making enough changes and enhancements to the route, to justify a version 2.0 release instead. 🙂 I’ve also updated the openBVE Help and Information section to cover the installation of openBVE in Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx). It’s hard to imagine how installing openBVE via the Ubuntu Software Centre could be any easier, and installing openBVE via this method, also makes installing and running the latest official openBVE release with Mono, easier too. I’ve decided to remove the instructions explaining how to run openBVE with Wine, as I’m experiencing problems with the version of Wine available for install with Ubuntu 10.04, relating to GDI+ (and the problem isn’t just occurring with openBVE, either). Perhaps something to do with a Beta release of Wine being supplied rather than a stable release, I don’t know. Running with Mono is much easier though, if you can live without plugin DLLs. openBVE Help and Information updated for Ubuntu 10.04 users I was lucky enough to have one of my screenshots published in the July issue of the UK edition of PC Gamer magazine, where I also gave a brief overview of the work being undertaken on openBVE 2. I will admit that it was nice to handle such a press enquiry! Here’s the screenshot which was chosen for the article, shown amongst screenshots of various simulators, such as Railworks, X-Plane, Sail Simulator, Space Shuttle Mission Simulator, and others: The Watford Junction to Rugby screenshot chosen to appear in simulation article “The Realists”, in the July 2010 issue of the UK edition of the best selling PC Gamer magazine. Incidentally, I also want to apologise for the lack of progress with my routes, and for posting so many screenshots and not delivering anything, which I feel that some of you are not impressed by. This is mainly due to me working on openBVE 2, which means that I don’t have much time to devote to the routes at the moment. openBVE 2 is a priority though, and a fantastic experience for me, so I hope fans of my routes will understand. Besides, both routes will run even better in openBVE 2, anyway. I know that the routes look more-or-less finished already, but they’re not – there are such issues as missing track in places, performance optimisations which still to be carried out, and an entire missing station to deal with at Rugby, to name but a few examples. I don’t make a habit of releasing junk and expecting people to be happy with it, so the projects won’t be released until I’m satisfied that a decent standard of quality has been achieved; that doesn’t mean they have to be perfect in every way, just not a disappointment. New Railsimroutes.net site design As regular visitors will have hopefully noticed, I’ve redesigned the website, as I felt it needed an update, and I also wanted to put some updated website design skills into practice. The site was last redesigned in 2007 with a theme called “Modern”, characterised by a metallic grey colour scheme and smoothly shaded backgrounds, where Windows users would have been greeted with the Tahoma font throughout, and it was designed to be XHTML 1.0 and CSS Level 2 compliant. However, the content of the site wasn’t reorganised very much since the time of the previous “Retro Blue” design, and over time it became somewhat cluttered and untidy in my view. This latest redesign is the fourth incarnation of the site, with a new theme called “Clarity” (hopefully it might live up to it’s name ;)). The new design is meant to be clearer, better organised, and easier to read. The site has been completely rebuilt from scratch; PHP is now used as well as HTML, and much of the site is XHTML 1.1 and CSS Level 3 compliant. I’ve tested the new site using Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 8, Opera 10, Chrome 5, and Safari 5, and everything works well. The site also works just fine in Internet Explorer 7 and earlier too (tested as far back as IE 5.5), but if you use one of those older Microsoft browsers, you might notice a minor rendering issue around the style selector dropdown box in the footer of each page. Essentially, I’m not happy having to devote much time to dealing with the quirks of browsers which aren’t properly compliant with more recent web standards, partly because it’s just annoying, but also because catering for them can lead to such browsers outliving their welcome (IE 6 springs to mind!). So, if you use Internet Explorer 7 or earlier and want perfect rendering, I would recommend upgrading to Internet Explorer 8 if possible, which is just fine. I’ve also decided to reorganise the content of the site somewhat. The navigation bar has been expanded with the addition of Gallery and Help links, and the Projects and Downloads section has been overhauled to place emphasis on active projects, and non-help related information. Much more background information and history concerning my route projects is provided now, and information and downloads should be easier to find when they’re ready for release. You’ll also find a "What I’m currently working on" infobox at the top right of this page, which you can check to see what I’m up to, between blog posts. 🙂 I’ve taken the decision to remove some old sections of the site which never received much of my attention, and I’ve moved my old BVE 2 and 4 add-ons into their own de-emphasised legacy add-ons section, as they’re not really reflective of the quality of work I’m now producing; the emphasis is now placed on my upcoming openBVE projects instead. I’ve also introduced a sitemap, as a couple of people have indicated that some information was harder to find, previously. I’ve also used a different selection of fonts this time: Windows 7 and Vista users will get the Segoe UI font throughout (along with the rather nice Consolas for code snippets), giving the best appearance. Windows XP users will also get the Segoe UI font, if Windows Live Essentials applications have been installed (for example, Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery or Writer), or if Office 2007/2010 has been installed. XP users will also get the Consolas font with Office 2007/2010, or this can be downloaded free from Microsoft’s website. If neither Windows Live Essentials or Office 2007/2010 have been installed, but the free Microsoft Powerpoint Viewer 2007 is installed, then Candara (along with Consolas) will be seen instead. If none of these have been installed, then Trebuchet MS (along with Courier New for code snippets) will be seen, which are fonts included with Windows XP. Others will likely see generic sans serif and monospace fonts (although these look very nice in Ubuntu Linux, for example). Incidentally, I experimented with CSS3’s @font-face declaration for embedding fonts, so that a consistent text style would be seen regardless of which fonts are installed locally on someone’s computer. This does indeed work fine, but I haven’t yet decided upon a set of fonts which I like, and which are also released with acceptable non-restrictive licencing terms, so that I can host the fonts on my own server without issues. I’ll explore this again in future, however. More observant visitors will have noticed that I’ve also renamed the site slightly. I’ve dropped the “UK” part of “Rail Sim Routes UK”, and the site is now called “Railsimroutes.net” instead. The site is still available via two domain names, railsimroutes.net and railsimroutes.co.uk; I have no plans to retire the .co.uk domain, although you might want to update your bookmarks if you still use it. Anyway, I hope you like the new Railsimroutes.net design. 🙂 Tags: Animated Objects, Artwork, Cross-City South, Functions, openBVE, openBVE 2, openBVE Community, Screenshots, Site News, Watford Jn to Rugby Posted in openBVE, openBVE 2, Site News \| 8 Comments » Development PCs and Network RSR News Archive openBVE (41) openBVE 2 (3) Animated Objects Cross-City South openBVE openBVE 2 openBVE Community Watford Jn to Rugby Choose style... Dark Theme Light Theme Website designed by Anthony Bowden [v5.1.7-rc (dev) (HN.L)] Unique visitors: 1,813,412	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1630
__label__cc	0.713665	0.286335	The City of Heroes: Nanchang Ready to Impress Europe Nanchang, a city in China’s Jiangxi province has been reaching out to Europe and intriguing people with its history and culture. As part of the campaign, the Nanchang city promotion programme has been broadcasted in Europe in the UK (Propeller TV) and France (Mandarin TV). Covering over 15 million households to showcase the city. Tengwang… British Cruelty Free Footwear launched London, United Kingdom – HOLT’S is a British owned women’s footwear brand focused on using non-animal derived materials to replace leather. The company creates an alternative luxe through synthetic velvet, high quality faux suede, recycled PU faux leathers, neoprene and non-silk satins without compromising on design, detail and quality. The concept was born in… Take A Walk On the Wild Side… In the dark and surrounded by art In September a group of artists from around the world came together to explore the relationship between art and nature by creating a light and sound installation set in a forest in Norway. The collaborators, Melissa Larsen of Norway, Joao Pereira of Portugal, and Andy Cross from the UK, each brought their own expertise and… Current Nordic exhibition allows you to walk through gendered power structures What is the actual daily life experience of being a female/queer/ transgender/gender fluid person in the most gender equal and privileged countries in the world? The internationally acclaimed artist Snövit Hedstierna is exhibiting in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland during the autumn of 2016, after a long break from the Nordic art scene. In her absence… Aspen the mountain pup and his love for 66°North Aspen the mountain pup is the Instagram famous Golden Retriever with over 98,500 followers. When his owners, Hunter and Sarah Lawrence, visited Iceland for the first time on their honeymoon back in 2013, they fell in love with the landscape, the people and the fashion. As big fans of Icelandic outdoor clothing brand 66°North, they… New York Red Carpet Dress showcases its line of authentic designer dresses Look red carpet ready even if you’re not in Hollywood with authentic designer cocktail and evening gowns in New York, from New York Red Carpet Dress, a premier online resource for all designer evening gowns, prom dresses and cocktail dresses on sale. 66°NORTH åbner sin første internationale butik i København Det islandske tøjmærke 66°NORTH har for nylig åbnet sin første selvstændige butik uden for Island, som ligger i København. Butiksåbningen markerer et nyt kapitel i mærkets historie. Butikken, der ligger i Sværtegade 12, blev designet af de ansete Berlin-baserede arkitekter, Gonzalez-Haase, og den fører herretøj, dametøj og børnetøj i et område på 130 kvadratmeter. Alta to revolutionise 3D printer aesthetics A new Alta 3D printer by POLARWORKS is set to revolutionise the aesthetics of the 3D printer, states TUJobs.com. Alta is a simple and robust printer that is made to be used by more than just printing enthusiasts. It therefore also looks much better than most 3D printers. It actually looks more like a trendy… Titanium Comics launches four new comic titles Titanium Comics has gathered a huge fan following for its comic series ever since it was launched last Halloween. It has launched four new series since then, each of them has been more impressive than the last. The first of its premiere series is Age of Darkness #1 launched on the 31th of October. The… Exciting prints found throughout New Zealand thanks to Wallpaper Trends It takes a bit of everything to make a room properly decorated. From the flooring to the furniture, every piece of the room has an overall impact on its feel – but few of the changes are as easy or affordable as putting up a new layer of wallpaper to provide a detailed and intricate… MEPs demand urgent EU action on alarming situation for refugees in Libya Christmas 2016: ”Also children in the UK can now get a genuine letter from Santa straight from Santa’s workshop in Finnish Lapland.” The Skyscraper of the Year: China wins Emporis Skyscraper Award for the first time Improve your typing skills with free typing games online Gender stereotypes and inequality in education persist in all Council of Europe member states Children & Adults Encouraged to Get Road Sense this Winter Rugged Technology for Outdoor Enthusiasts Stablizier chain Manufacture And Supplier Windsor From India. Mario The Mechanic Delivers Quality Auto Repair Services in Santa Clarita Developers gain confidence through Intel’s innovative industrial solutions and Embedded Design Center Why Do You Need To Choose Natural Skincare Products? With the media and reviews that caution customers of the possibly toxic substances in lots of most commercial skin care products offered in good skin care products stores and shops, that is a complicated query to answer. Firstly, most of the commonly used skincare products contain artificial and synthetic ingredients that the body has troubles… “Kasta macka” (throw a sandwich) is something the Swedish PM does out in nature Throwing sandwiches may sound like an odd thing to do, but not in Sweden. Over there, “kasta macka” or “throw a sandwich” is what Swedes call skipping stones on water. The many benefits and wonders of outdoor Sweden Recently, Mr. Stefan Löfven, the prime minister of Sweden was asked to list his top 5 things… Project Opal a great success: NORTH SAILING WINS AWARDS FOR RESPONSIBLE TOURISM North Sailing has been named Silver winner of the Best Innovation for Carbon Reduction category at the World Responsible Tourism Awards 2015 at World Travel Market in London. North Sailing won the silver at the prestigious World Responsible Tourism Awards 2015 at the World Travel Market (WTM) in London, November 4th. This is the first… Swedes embrace online media streaming services Media consumption in Sweden is increasingly characterized by online streaming services such as Spotify and Netflix. Three out of four 15-74-year-olds now use online streaming services to listen to music or watch video. Youtube, Spotify and Netflix are the most popular online streaming services used. 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__label__cc	0.558148	0.441852	What Remains of Edith Finch review by x_manicure_x What Remains of Edith Finch is not the best graphic novel-alike game around, but it's surely worth its three hours of gameplay. In this game, you get to basically walk around your family's abandoned household and get to know about the story of each of your relatives from letters, diaries and other objects found in their rooms. The strength of this game is the wide variety of visual styles and gameplay choices used to portray each character's story. It's like going through a demo disc crammed with games of different genres. However, while some stories had astonishing visuals and highly imaginative ideas (above all Lewis' and Gregory's stories), some end up being dull or at least could have been expanded a little more (Calvin's and Walter's stories). The storytelling itself has a good pace and deals with deep themes, but in the end it just felt that there was actually nothing consistent connecting all stories together other than a rather shallow "let's appreciate life" moral. Anyway, it's definitely a refreshing and unique gaming experience, actually kind of impressive for an independent game. (6.7/10) x_manicure_xDec 22, 2019 + Nice visuals. I loved the attention to detail in every environment, and how each room told its own story. + Nice music and sound effects that kept me immersed. + Great characters, who were endlessly interesting and fantastical. + Very nice story. Each tragedy really left an impact. + Unique and engaging gameplay. I love how each minigame matched the story of the family-member it was exploring. + A wonderful narrative structure, with an ending that left with me a lot to ponder. This game is great, and a must-have. My rating: 9/10 alextmoldovanDec 21, 2019 «Blew my mind» BergOceanJul 10, 2019 "What Remains of Edith Finch" is definitely a games which starts out slowly and just gets better and more complex as it unfolds. Each location which you find and explore tells an interesting and unique story for each character. And although sad, each story is beautifully complex. Each having a distinct personality and playful spirit, but not to a point as to loose the seriousness of the story. «Can’t stop playing» Ian E.Jun 3, 2019 ' What Remains of Edith Finch ' is once again such a Game that many Players should not do anything with. But! It's a great Experience! It is about the Reappraisal Of various Family Tragedies about the Family ' Finch '. The Player takes on the Role of 17-year-old Edith Finch, who visits her family Home for The first time after years and in this Goes on a Search for traces for the Whereabouts or Fate of various Family Members. This Search runs through the Game as red Paths as you delve into and relive the Individual Stories. This is extremely versatile: Sometimes you find yourself in the Body of a Cat, a baby, a Shark or even as a Cartoon character, and quickly you are drawn into the Action. The Whole thing is very exciting and varied, the Stories have it all and you have to force yourself not to play the Game in one Go. ' What Remains of Edith Rinch ' is similar to games like ' Dear Esther ', ' Firewatch ', or ' Everybody's gone to the Rapture ', but a little more entertaining but more intense in the Experience. You can't run in this ' Game ' either, but the Paths between the Stories are shorter. In addition, Mini-history games were installed, which makes you have some Interaction with the Environment-there are no other Possibilities for interaction in the Main Game, but the Gameplay in the individual Stories differs very different from each other. . As a Cat you have to catch the Bird, go on Foraging as a Tentacle Monster or go armed against the ' Hook man ' In the Comic history with a Crutch. These Possibilities then clearly distinguish it from the aforementioned ' walking simulations ' and make the Enjoyness of the Game a bit more versatile. I really liked it and I'm just interrupting the Game to write this Review and get some to drink! With this In mind: Have Fun at Finch! :) ExHuman I write significantly fewer Reviews than I would like, but well ... Anyway, I feel absolutely a Duty in this Game. What Remains of Edith Finch is a Masterpiece. A masterful Masterpiece in Storytelling. It's hard to describe, but I think you could classify it as a modern, tragic Fairy Tale with a good Pinch of black Humour for Adults. It is basically about a Family in which no Member of a normal death dies, in the End a Kind of Kennedy'S in Hardcore Format. In terms of Playing, it is not very demanding, the Mechanics are rather rudimentary, in Principle it goes from A to B with smaller Puzzles, but I refuse to call this Game a Walking Simulator. That just wouldn't do the Game justice. For you to like this Game, the following Aspects should be included:-you should be Able to immerse yourself in a World. If you want to "get everything done" quickly, you're wrong here. -You should leave a high Standard on game Mechanics at home. -You should be able to do something with black Humor. -You should at least have seen a Halloween Movie. Well, not necessarily, but it would potentially make for a Grin. In Conclusion, with its rather short Playing Time, this Game produces more "WTF Moments" than many 0815 80 Hours of RPG. The ~ 3 Hours were probably more Fun for me (!) than my current 70 Hours at ME: Andromeda. Especially since the few Hours still work in The Aftermath. When Storytelling, the big Studios could cut themselves off several Letters with God, SO have to be told Stories at a Game, just like that. And not in MMO Fashion, please get a First Hand box, otherwise XY dies. Yawn. The 20 Euros is absolutely justified and this Game is worth everyone, really every single Penny. It would be a real shame if you bumps into the relatively short Game Time and therefore buy the Game in the Sale. I want more games like that, I want so many more games of this Kind, but you just have to pay for that as well. Therefore, I can only appeal: If you don't Buy it in the Sale, buy it now, because at the End of the day I don't Feel like 0815 Games anymore and this Game shows how it works. Belphegor879 At least it is short. What remains of Edith Finch is a "walking simulator" that wants you to be curious about the Finch family while actively punishing exploration and curiosity with slow walking speed and nothing to find. WROEF is about the deaths of the Finch family, and puts those death into small beautiful minigames that try to capture the character of the current person. And while those vignettes are interestingly staged, they are almost always about preventable stupid deaths that are 100% the fault of bad parenting or psychic illnesses which remained untreated, and tries to frame them as tragedies. The best things this game has going for it are the voice acting and creative minigames. Sadly that isn't nearly enough in my eyes, especially with this horrid compilation of "tragedies". The twist at the end, is not a twist and if one would want immerse themselves in this experience, I'd suggest just finding a commentary-less walkthrough. «Reviewers bribed» ChocodemonJan 16, 2019 3 of 7 users found this helpful Beautiful and heartbreaking SPFeb 7, 2018 In collections 19	cc/2020-05/en_middle_0078.json.gz/line1632

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