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__label__cc	0.612836	0.387164	Home>Music> Russ Pens Elaborate Origin Story For "Shake The Snow Globe" Russ Pens Elaborate Origin Story For "Shake The Snow Globe" Mitch Findlay @findlaymitch Image via HNHH Russ is ready to reset and recommence. Sitting at the apex of a wild and successful run, Russ Diemon has earned a moment of reflection. Despite having faced no shortage of scorn, animosity, and occasional confrontations with fellow artists, Russ has maintained a loyal fanbase throughout his ascent. And yet, some of the darker moments ultimately took a toll on the rapper, who has opened up about his fear-induced "Paranoia" before. Not long after announcing the arrival of his upcoming album Shake The Snow Globe, Russ took to Instagram to pen the emotional origin story to his upcoming album, one that directly addresses some of those bleaker moments. Citing enemies internal and external alike, it's clear that Russ is alluding to some of his more violent outbursts, aimed in part at Smokepurpp and Adam22. For now, it would appear that those days are behind him; in hindsight, he's pleased to have experienced them at all, emerging on the other side with renewed focus. Should you find it too difficult to make out Russ' reasonably legible handwriting, his message reads as follows: "I'm not proud of the headspace I sunk into in 2018. I allowed myself to be overwhelmed and suffocated by internal and external enemies. It got so bad I thought I was gonna die. I didn't know from what, but looking back I think it was just the immense negativity and pressure in my life. I was tripping. However, I'm proud of myself for going through it and getting through it and I'm thankful for the experience. I stepped away and detached and had a moment of clarity. I realized 'if not now, then when!?' In terms of my happiness. This is IT. Everything that I wished for from the money, girls, fans, etc. I had to unjade and snap out of it so I could snap into it. I had to reflect. I had to reset. I had to shake the snow globe." Check it out below, and look for Shake The Snow Globe to arrive on January 31st. Music News Russ shake the snow globe new album drama title Gram Meechy Darko Speaks On His Father's Murder & Has A Request For Fans Yung Ro Convinced A Man Not To Jump Off A Gas Station Roof While Still On IG Live MUSIC Russ Pens Elaborate Origin Story For "Shake The Snow Globe"	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2668
__label__wiki	0.521385	0.521385	Tag - Napier 07Sep 7 September, 2011 IRD confirms job cuts in regional offices Inland Revenue has confirmed it's cutting 156 jobs from its regional offices. The affected branches are Rotorua, New Plymouth, Napier, Nelson and Invercargill. Deputy Commissioner Carolyn Tremain said the original proposal was for 191 job losses, but after consultation with staff the number has been reduced to 156. She said IRD will keep its offices, but where and how it does some work would change. The process is expected to take 18 months, and will start early next year. By adminEmployment IssuesInland Revenue, IRD, Job Cuts, Napier, Nelson, New Plymouth, Redundancy, Rotorua, StaffComments Off	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2669
__label__cc	0.724631	0.275369	Daily Speculations THE WEB SITE OF VICTOR NIEDERHOFFER: DEDICATED TO VALUE CREATION, BALLYHOO DEFLATION AND APPLYING THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN FINANCE A New Site About Victor Niederhoffer & DailySpec The Man Who Invented More Than 800 Iconic Toys Electioral Accounting Galton on Politics Tweets-Jan/11/2021 Tweets-Jan/8/2021 Perfect Example Private Jet Indicator Tweets-Dec/30/2020 Naval History Lagniappe The Beauty of French Thinking Discussion of Covid Stubby Pringle’s Christmas, from Dailyspeculations Freemasons and Liberty Aaron Krizik Abe Dunkelheit Adam Kretschmann Adam Nelson Adam Robinson Adi Schnytzer Adrienne Raphel Agustin Gonzalez Al Humbert Alan Corwin Alan Millhone Alan Weissberger Alex Castaldo Alex Forshaw Alex Park Alexander Good Alfonso Sammassimo Ali Meshkati Alice Allen Allen Gillespie Alston Mabry Anatoly Veltman Andre Clapp Andrea Ravano Andrei Kotlov Andrew McCauley Andrew Moe Andrew West Andy Aiken Andy Waller Anthony Tadlock Anton Allostrat Anton Johnson Ari Oliver Ari Siegel Arman Agdaian Arthur Cooper B.S Rajput Barry Gitarts Barry Stratig Bernd Dittmann Bilal Raja Bill Benson Bill Craft Bill Egan Bill Fallon Bill Haynes Bill Humbert Bill Rafter Bo Keely Bob Humbert Brett Steenbarger Brian Haag Bruno Ombreux Bud Conrad Carder Dimitroff Carlos Nikros Carole Tierney Chad Humbert Charles Kin Charles Pennington Charles Sorkin Chris hammond Christopher Tucker Cliff Roche Clive Burlin Cole Walton Corban Bates Craig Bowles Craig Cuyler Craig Maccagno Craig Mee D. 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Kadrmas Dale Irwin Dan Costin Dan Grossman Dan Sturzenbecker Daniel Flam Daniel Grossman Daniel Murphy Dave Goodboy David Aronson David Bacille David Higgs David Lamb David Lilienfeld David Whitesel David Wren-Hardin Dean Parisian Dean Tidwell Debra Belanger Kettle Denis Vako Denise Shull Derrick Humbert Dick Sears Diego Joachin Don Chu Doug Kass Douglas Dimick Drew Ferraro Duncan Coker Dwayne Wegner Dylan Distasio Easan Katir East Sider ed stewart Edward Talisse Eht Yob Eli Zabethan Eric Blumenschein Eric Ross Evan McKeown Fabrice Rouah Faisal Danka Faisal Essa Francis Diebold Frank Corberts Fred Belsak Fred Crossman Gabe Carbone Gabriel Ivan Gangineni Dhananjhay Gary Humbert Gary Phillips Gary Rogan Gavin Cowie Gene Gard Geoff Garbacz George Coyle George Criparacos George Parkanyi George Zachar Gershon Lesser Gibbons Burke Gil Humbert Glenn Escovedo Gordon Haave Greg Calvin Greg Gorham Greg Rehmke Gregg Rainone Gregory Van Kipnis Hank Humbert Hany Saad Henrik Andersson Henry Carstens Henry Gifford Henry McGilton Hernan Avella Ian Brakspear Ingo Zachos Ira Brody Iris Bell Isam Laroui J.P. 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Holley Jack Tierney Jaime Klein James Bitumen James Goldcamp James Lackey James Morin James Schroeder James Smyth James Sogi James Tar James Wisdom Jan-Peter Janssen Janet Murphy Janice Dorn Jared Albert Jason Goepfert Jason Humbert Jason Ruspini Jason Schroeder Jason Shapiro Jay Humbert Jay Nelson Jay Pasch Jeff Baatenberg Jeff Beckwith Jeff Rollert Jeff Sasmor Jeff Watson Jeff Watsurf Jeffrey Emmanuel Jeremy Lyter Jerry Parker Jim Armstrong Jim Birk Jim Fenster Jim Joyce Jim Sogi Jim Wildman Joe Gogolak John Alabaster John Bollinger John Burckett John De Palma John de Regt John Holley John Kuhn John Lamberg John Netto John O’Sullivan Jon Goodman Jon Longtin jonathan bower Jonathan Styffe Jordan Low Jordan Neuman Jose Bonamigo Joyce Shulman Julian Rowberry Justin Klosek Kate Fryn Kathryn Lang Ken Drees Ken Sadofsky Ken Woodfin Kenneth Womack Kevin Bryant Kevin Depew Kevin Eilian Kevin Kirkpatrick Kick Ramma Kim Sogi Kim Zussman Kora Reddy Krisrock Kristian Blom Kurt Specht Larry Fletcher Lars van Dort Laslo Minks Laurel Kenner Laurence Glazier Lawrence Chan Lawrence Schulman Legacy Daily Leo Jia Leon Mayeri Lon Evans Louis-Vincent Gave Luca Coloso MacNeil Curry Manuel Bravochico Marguerite Chandler Marion Dreyfus Mark Candon Mark Goulston Mark Hoguet Mark Humbert Mark Isbic Mark McNabb Mark Schuetz Marlowe Cassetti Martin Conroy Martin Lindkvist Marty Fridson Mathew Hayward Matt Humbert Matthew Chlapowski Max Dama Michael Bonderer Michael Brush Michael Cook Michael Covel Michael Hurup Andersen Michael Olagnon Michael Olds Michael Ott Michael Pomada Michael Strong Michael W. Green Micheal Flessas michele pezzutti Michele Reilly Mick St. Amour mick tierney Mike Alona Mike Desaulniers Mike Humbert Mike Libert Mikhail Osipov Misan Thrope Mitchell Jones Monty Humbert Mr. Isomorphisms Mssrs. Humbert Murali Mys Nat Stewart Nate Humbert Neil Eastep Neil Raphel Nemo Lacessit Newton Linchen Nicholas Marchitto Nick Marino Nick Porcella Nick Pribus Nick Sont Nicolas Johnson Nigel Davies Orson Terrill Pal Cseres Pam Van Giessen Paolo Pezzutti Paul DeRosa Paul Marino Perry Metzger Peter Earle Peter Gardiner Peter Grieve Peter Pinkhaven Peter Ringel Peter Tep Petr Pinkhasov Phil Humbert Phil McDonnell Pippa Malmgren Pitt T. Maner III Pradeep Bonde Ralph Di Fiore Ralph Vince Raymond Tylicki Reid Wientge Rich Bubb Rich Ghazarian Richard Gula Rick Foust Riz Din Rob Rice Rob Steele Robert Carlson Robert Mahan Robert McAdams Robert Pinchuk Robert Ray Robert Z. Aliber Roberto de Vries Rocky Humbert Rod Fitzsimmons Frey Rodger Bastien Roger Arnold Roger Longman Ronald Weber Ross Miller Roy Niederhoffer Rudolf Hauser Russ Herrold Russ Humbert Russ Sears Russell Thomas Ryan Carlson Ryan Maelhorn Sam Humbert Sam Kumar Sam Marx Samuel Eisenstadt Scott Barrie Shane James Shmuel Layla Shui Kage Stan Rowen Steen Jakobsen Stef Estebiza Stefan Jovanovich Stefan Lewellen Stefan Martinek Stefanie Harvey Stephan Bisse Stephan Kraus Steve Bal Steve Ellison Steve Leslie Steve Scoles Steve Stigler Steve Wisdom Steven E. Landsburg Susan Niederhoffer Sushil Kedia Susie Paris T.K. Marks Terry Zink Thomas Bjurlof Tim Hesselsweet Tim Humbert Tim Rudderow Timothy Collins Todd Tracy Tom Alexander tom blackwood Tom DeBolske Tom Downing Tom Humbert Tom Larsen Tom Marks Tom Printon Tony Corso Tony Kinoue Tristram Shandy Tristram Waye Troy Torrison Tyler McClellan Uncle Howie Valery Kotlarov Vance Humbert Venkatesh Chari Vic Sarjoo Victor Hrehorovich Victor Niederhoffer Vin Humbert Vince Fulco Vincent Andres Vincent Praver Vinh Tu Vitaliy N. Katsenelson Walter Bader Warren Quick Wil Kenney William Brauer William Hutton William Rafter William Weaver Yanki Onen Yashwan Tup Yishen Kuik Yossi Ben-Dak Yucheng Pan Yuri Skrilivetsky Zubin Al Genubi The Essence of Success, from Richard Owen September 24, 2013 \| 1 Comment Charles Dow used to counsel that no individual should ever be promoted if they hadn't made a large error at some point. Phil Fisher used to insist only in investing in those stocks that had management teams willing to make big mistakes. If they didn't make mistakes, they wouldn't also take the risks required for success. Is this the essence of success? How does a corporate management team, upon the fruition of such errors, survive being "stopped out" of their positions in today's hair twitch paradigm? Is being expropriated from your career rather than your capital not the bigger risk today? And thus can it only be stocks with founder, family or veto shareholdings that make for truly great growth stocks today? Should not Tim Cook undertake an LBO with the Qataris? anonymous writes: Does modern risk management preclude financial Darwinism? Steve Ellison writes: Having worked in the technology industry, it has long seemed to me that many companies are never again the same when founders are replaced by "hired gun" CEOs. My best guess on why this might be is that hired managers don't fully understand non-financial aspects of the founders' visions that prove to be critical to success. As I posted in 2010, this study found that founder-led companies outperform others: "Eleven percent of the largest public U.S. firms are headed by the CEO who founded the firm. Founder-CEO firms differ systematically from successor-CEO firms with respect to firm valuation, investment behavior, and stock market performance. Founder-CEO firms invest more in R&D, have higher capital expenditures, and make more focused mergers and acquisitions. An equal-weighted investment strategy that had invested in founder-CEO firms from 1993{2002 would have earned a benchmark- adjusted return of 8.3% annually. The excess return is robust; after controlling for a wide variety of firm characteristics, CEO characteristics, and industry affiliation, the abnormal return is still 4.4% annually. The implications of the investment behavior and stock market performance of founder-CEO led firms are discussed." It is Interesting to Reflect, from Victor Niederhoffer It is interesting to reflect that out of 37 open market meetings since the beginning of 2009, 11 have closed the day before at a 20 day high versus just 3 at a 20 day low. That might seem unusual without the knowledge that since 2009 there have been 292 separate 20 day highs and only 95 20 day lows. Thus 25% of all days have been at 20 day highs since 2009 but 30% of the open market day precedings have had that honor. A most insignificant but interesting difference and framework. Jeff Rollert writes: I had a long discussion about this with someone internally yesterday. Writing and "doing" concurrently in a team is a very difficult organizational exercise, as ideas and implementation folks have different time frames frequently. I've seen similar dynamics with pilots and racing skippers with their navigators. Steve Ellison adds: I found that even talking about my trades introduced subtle motivations that I did not believe to be performance-enhancing. Why Can’t We Talk About IQ, from Stefan Jovanovich August 13, 2013 \| 1 Comment Have you seen this opinion piece by Jason Richwine: "Why Can't We Talk About IQ". The reason "we" aka the enlightened cannot talk about IQ is that "we" don't want to know what the test mean any more than the group spokespeople who dislike what they presume the results of the testing show. Neither side of the supposed "debate" wants to accept the wisdom of the 14th Amendment. "Race" - as crudely defined in this article - i.e. people of northeast Asian descent, European lineage, sub-Saharan African descent, Hispanic Americans - is so innately stupid a categorization that it has only one purpose - to somehow use skin color as a marker of innate capabilities. People of Northeast Asian descent, i.e Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese from Northeast Asians represent a small group of entrepreneurial minded self selected emigrants. If one were to test the descendants of similar European groups - Huguenots, Moravians, Jews, English Catholics, the IQ results would be disappointingly similar. My father, who created the modern IQ test that is the cause of all this fuss, wanted people to be tested every 3 months so that the test could serve its proper function - which is to measure a person's changes in cognitive abilities. When he offered to sell quarterly testing services to the New York City and other "urban" schools for the same price that he was selling annual testing (in order to avoid any suggestion that he was trying to channel stuff his customers), they turned him down flat. The school bureaucracy knew what a threat such an offer was; it would make it that much harder for teachers to avoid individual accountability. Cognitive science - the new sociology - will do everything it can to avoid using IQ tests as a measure of progress. It will be far more profitable for academics to create yet another "group" question - i.e. are "black" people really more stupid than whites, er, Europeans. If the answer is "yes", the subsidies are guaranteed to flow; if the answer is "no", then clearly there is no reason not to have further quotas in favor of having the skin color of every occupation match the color wheel of the population at large. IQ testing is only useful as a measure of the changes in individual ability; and like all monitoring of organisms the testing needs to be done repeatedly over time for there to be any meaningful results. Dad was able to get a few odd schools to submit to regular testing; what made his experiment interesting is that he had both the parents and teachers participate. The result was what common sense would predict; the children who made the greatest progress were those whose teachers and parents also made the greatest progress over time. His conclusion: "Genius cannot be taught; everything else responds to practice and effort." Framing Bias, from Sushil Kedia This chart is interesting. It comes from a passionate market historian, Robert Prechter and his Elliott Wave group. However, I disagree with it. A local maximum in interest rates is established only after they peak out somewhere and start declining again. So this illustrious list of busts and crises is not happening during the spike, but at its end. A classical cart and horse problem. Framing Bias will make it appear that each time a spike in interest rates happened a crisis happened. The reality is likelier that each time a crisis could no longer be shoved under the carpet, when the economy could not sustain playing on the house money, when the illusory money effect succumbed to gravitational pull of reality, when the epidemic effect of the meme played out the asymptotic end of the S-curve, no one was willing to pay more for using Other People's Money (OPM). Interest rates are a willingness of people to undertake risk. Yet when this willingness becomes a larger risk than the aboriginal risk, a crisis comes. Also, in the customs I learned on this list, there is always a chance that endless other financial crises have come along the curve too. Not sure, just checking with the specs which other key crises have happened at the troughs of interest rate cycles? Have there been any or as many? Yes, there is always bad news around, and any number of events could have been annotated at the low points on the chart, too. Here is an example I posted on the site in 2005. One of my prized possessions is a chart of stock market returns in Venita Van Caspel's book "The Power of Money Dynamics." Each year is annotated with a reason to have been bearish that year: 1934: Depression 1935: Civil war in Spain 1936: Economy still struggling 1937: Recession 1938: War clouds gather 1939: War in Europe 1940: France falls 1941: Pearl Harbor 1942: Wartime price controls 1943: Industry mobilizes 1944: Consumer goods shortages 1945: Post-war recession predicted 1946: Dow tops 200 - market "too high" 1947: Cold war begins 1948: Berlin blockade 1949: Russia explodes A-bomb 1950: Korean war 1951: Excess profits tax 1952: U.S. seizes steel mills 1953: Russia explodes H-bomb 1955: Eisenhower illness 1956: Suez crisis 1957: Russia launches Sputnik 1959: Castro seizes power in Cuba 1960: Russians down U-2 plane 1961: Berlin Wall erected 1962: Cuban missile crisis 1963: Kennedy assassinated 1964: Gulf of Tonkin 1965: Civil rights marches 1966: Vietnam war escalates 1967: Newark race riots 1968: USS Pueblo seized 1969: Money tightens; market falls 1970: Cambodia invaded; war spreads 1971: Wage-price freeze 1972: Largest U.S. trade deficit in history 1973: Energy crisis 1974: Steepest market drop in four decades 1975: Clouded economic prospects 1976: Economic recover slows 1977: Market slumps 1978: Interest rates rise 1979: Oil prices skyrocket 1980: Interest rates at all-time highs 1981: Steep recession begins (Van Caspel, 1983, pp. 124-125) Unfortunately, I have the 1983 edition, so the chart ends there. A modest attempt to bring the record up to date: 1982: Double-digit unemployment 1983: Record budget deficit 1984: Technology new issues bubble bursts 1985: Dollar too strong 1986: Dow at 1800 - "too high" 1987: Stock market crash 1988: Worst drought in 50 years 1989: Savings & loan scandal 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait 1993: Clinton health care plan 1994: Rising interest rates 1995: Dollar at historic lows 1996: Greenspan "irrational exuberance" speech 1997: Asian markets collapse 1998: Long Term Capital collapses 1999: Y2K problem 2000: Dot-com stocks plunge 2001: Terrorist attacks 2002: Corporate scandals 2003: Gulf War II 2004: High oil prices 2005: Trade deficit Trends, from Jim Sogi July 27, 2013 \| Leave a Comment Seems like the market has been rather trendy lately. Of course now that I've realized it its probably near the end of the trend. But that's the same thing I though at the beginning of the trend. Mean reversion systems have difficulty in a trendy market, and simple TA things work well for trends if you're lucky. Rocky Humbert writes: Mr. Sogi writes: "Mean reversion systems have difficulty in a trendy market, and simple TA things work well for trends if you're lucky." I suggest that Mr. Sogi should have written: "Simple TA things have difficulty in a choppy market, and mean reversion systems work well if you're lucky." Every single profitable trade requires a trend! If you buy at 9:30am at a price of 100 and sell at 9:31 at a price of 100.25, there was a one minute trend. Call it whatever you want. But if you have two points connected by a line, that line is a trend. The carpenter ants that live in my yard don't know that my neighbor has much better foraging. As I understand the premise of trend following, it is allegedly good to identify the trend in place before placing one's trade and enter the market on the side of that trend. To say every profitable trade requires a trend seems a tautology to me and not useful since the statement refers to the trend that occurs after entry and hence cannot be known at the time of entry. Bruno Ombreux adds: This is a semantic debate. It all depends how you define a trend. "Point A to point B" is a "line", not necessarily a "trend". There are actually formal definitions for "deterministic trends" and "stochastic trends". There are also statistical tests to check the presence of those trends. Mean-reversion: you can make money in a market going from "point A to point A" instead of "point A to point B". Having spent a number of years in the trend-follower business, I can confirm that trend-following, as practised by some rather large CTAs, means betting on markets where models suggest the continuation of a move. So if the price went up from A to B, a trend follower would make bets where the move from B to C is in the same direction, whereas a mean-reverting player will try trade instruments that he believes will move back towards A. Over the years, I have given much thought to the workings of the whole trend-following business, and its role in the market ecosystem. The Chairman's various critiques of the style are all valid, and worth heeding. Yet, properly understood, I believe trend-following remains a valid approach to trading. i.e., it is a trading style that exposes you to risk factors for which the market is willing to pay you. Rocky Humbert adds: A wise man once said, "There ain't no point in beating a dead horse. But there ain't no harm in it either." We've all had this trend following discussion ad nauseum in the past, and the chair's pathological aversion to trend following is well known. So to avoid re-opening old wounds, I will re-offer the single most plausible and economically rational reason why trend-following can work and has worked. (That is, I'm not saying anything about whether it still works or will work in the future.) In order to move a price, the market requires new information. And this new information takes time to disseminate among market participants. And during this period of dissemination and acceptance of a new perception, prices will appear to trend. If you are the first person to acquire and understand this new information, you are said to have a variant perception. If you are the second or third person to realize that there is new information, you are called a trend follower. And if you instinctively fade this perception as it disseminates through the market, you are either called a contrarian or Anatoly. Strictly speaking, a true contrarian, like a stopped clock, is right twice a day. And while this new information is disseminating through the market, there are obviously many opportunitities to profit. Ultimately, however, a trend-follower is economically equivalent to a person who buys synthetic options or volatility. And a mean-revision trader is economically equivalent to a person who sells synthetic options or volatility. Transaction costs notwithstanding, unless one has superior information, there is no apriori reason to believe that selling synthetic options should, over a career, be more profitable than buying synthetic options. However, the equity profile of an options seller is that of many small profits and a few big losses. Whereas the equity profile of an options buyer is that of many small losses with a few big gains. Unanimity of Signals: Seldom What it Seems, from Bill Rafter In the old days when I used to trade ag futures, about once a year I would see total unanimity of signals. Grains, meats, sugar, cocoa, etc. would all give the same signal at the same time. For example, they would all give a buy signal, such that I would think to myself, "holy mackerel, these markets are going to explode". But the total unanimity was a fake as the markets would stutter and then all drop. I was never bright enough to conjure up a reason why it happened, but it did. Recently all of my financial market indicators gave sell signals. Stocks, Bonds, REITs, Gold. And the sell signals were everywhere. Momentum, behavioral economics, actual volatility, actual volatility of implied volatility, and some bizarre stuff you would never think of. You name it and it was bearish. Even the fundamental stuff I watch like surrogates for employment and retail sales are bearish. We are very mechanized traders, and when I get a bearish signal for equities, I simply look to my overall rankings and see what to switch to. But everything was bearish, so there was really nowhere to relocate. However in looking at the rankings, equities were ranked higher than the competitors (e.g. bonds). So I had no choice but to stay in equities, being very selective and keeping every stock on a very short leash. I have no idea why unanimity of indicators would negate the indication. Any ideas? I don't see any flexion hands in this, but maybe others do. One of the holy grails out there is to know how to forecast future co-movements between different assets. (As if forecasting just one isn't hard enough.) As it all starts to hit the fan, the correlations between all assets approach 1.0 at something much greater than an exponential rate… My qualitative take on it is that the growth rate of the cross correlations as they inexorably accelerate towards parity approaches a certain velocity 'x' at which point, mathematically, we are as close to the asymptote as the 'system' can stand. This is the 'going to the cliff and back again' phenomena that The Palindrome speaks of as a result of 'reflexive' interactions of market participants' expectations with the price and the price's effect upon the market participants' expectations. Arguably this is the ideal time for stabilising 'flexionic' behaviour (as opposed to shenanigans in TY around auctions et al.) How they might do it, and more importantly time it, is a very deep question. For 'them' to have it figured out I think they would have to have figured out the actual underlying price generating process (what really moves prices). Now, I guess only Renaissance Technologies' Medallion Fund has gotten anywhere near identifying the answers to that series of non linear questions. The most that one can say at this stage of the game is that the occurrence of substantial downwards co movements of assets tends to cluster (which is a 'warning sign' in itself) and for short periods after this clustering risk assets often make substantial minima. My first guess to Mr. Rafter's question is that, like a Higgs boson, unanimity in any market is very volatile, unstable, and unsustainable. As Richard Band wrote in a book about contrarian investing (doesn't everybody profess to be contrarian?), "If everybody is bullish, who is left to buy?" To test this proposition, my first idea was to find instances in which the Investors' Intelligence survey of advisors had a 4-to-1 preponderance of bulls over bears or vice versa. There have been no such instances in the 2 years I have subscribed. I settled for instances in which either the bullish or bearish percentage was below 20%. There is typically a sizable group of fence-sitters predicting "correction", so the sum of the bullish and bearish advisors is much lower than 100%. There were 10 recent weekly reports in which the percentage of bearish advisors was less than 20%. I get the reports on Wednesdays, so I tabulated the change in the S&P 500 futures from the Wednesday close to the Wednesday close of the following week. Report One week Net Date Close later Close change 3/13/2013 1550.00 3/20/2013 1549.00 -1.00 3/20/2013 1549.00 3/27/2013 1556.75 7.75 3/27/2013 1556.75 4/3/2013 1548.50 -8.25 4/3/2013 1548.50 4/10/2013 1582.75 34.25 4/24/2013 1574.00 5/1/2013 1577.25 3.25 5/1/2013 1577.25 5/8/2013 1628.75 51.50 5/29/2013 1647.00 6/5/2013 1608.00 -39.00 Average 6.68 Standard deviation 25.31 Considering that the average net change during my subscription has been a gain of 3 points per week, I get a t score of 0.46, which is not only insignificant, but has the opposite sign of what my conjecture implied, i.e., that low bearishness is bearish. Blackjack is Not Easy, from Jeff Watson June 4, 2013 \| Leave a Comment Blackjack tables seem to be the major profit centers in Vegas, and I don't see them going away anytime soon. The house has the edge when you're playing a "perfect game." Make one or two mistakes or deviations from the perfect game and the house vig goes to ~18%. At the Riviera, if they suspect you are counting, that shoe gets reshuffled every other hand. On those non-regulated offshore gambling boats, they either put in a mechanic or a gaffed shoe to bury you. Blackjack, roulette, slots, lotto, keno, etc are way too tough for me. I had three fraternity brothers on the team referenced in the below article. The most obvious parallel with trading is that casinos won't tolerate any player who consistently wins. Casinos have rules against card counting, but the principle applies in other games, too. My wife knows a guy who has won big at video poker and is banned from several casinos. "Aces Return to Vegas for Gaming Panel" "Blackjack is the 'minor leagues,' said John Chang '85, one of three alums from the notorious MIT blackjack team who returned to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas May 28 for a panel discussion at the 15th International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking. The Las Vegas Sun reported on the panel, at which Chang joined Houh '89, SM '91, PhD '98 and Andrew Bloch '91 for a frank discussion of the years-long streak that MIT students enjoyed, putting their math skills to practice. Chang had to join the panel remotely, answering questions in a prerecorded session, since his ban from Caesar's (among other casinos) is still in effect. …" News and Trading, from Victor Niederhoffer There are some traders who make money based on news events. Please tell me how an analysis of the recent news could have been beneficial to traders who analyze news. The first reaction was a drop of 1 % in the last hour in S&P and a rise of a corresponding amount in gold. The reaction overnight was the opposite. Why was this news so bullish overnight? Is all news just an opportunity to do the opposite of the initial reaction? What do you think? Is there a systematic way to profit from news announcements? The 9-11 was not a temporary thing. Was that the clue? I would hypothesize that any market reaction to a news event that triggers strong emotions should be faded because of the availability heuristic (people tend to give too much weight to dramatic but rare events). I would also hypothesize that any market reaction to government statistics should be faded, since they have margins of error and are often significantly revised later. However, when I tested this proposition using the government report that routinely provokes strong market reactions, the monthly US unemployment report, it was not clear there was any edge to trading in the opposite direction of the S&P 500's move on the report day. Jeff Watson writes: I generally don't fade USDA crop reports after they come out and grains are offered limit down. However, I've been known to buy wheat right at the top just before the report and have it go limit down on me. I hate that feeling as the noose tightens when the trapdoor opens. In fact that just happened to me on the last go-around. Alston Mabry writes: How do you test news events? First, you have to immediately and accurately evaluate what effect the event "should" have, ex ante. And then at some future point in time, compare the predicted to the actual effect the event "did" have, ex post. As there is no objective measure to use for the first step, you wind up simply testing whether or not you're any good at predicting the effects ex ante. I tested using the following logic. If the absolute value of the change from Thursday's close to Friday's close on an unemployment reporting day was greater than the median of the absolute value of the daily change in the previous month, I assumed the market was reacting to the unemployment report and selected that day. For all the selected days, I backtested a one day trade entering at Friday's close and exiting at the next trading day's close, positioned in the opposite direction as Friday's net change. That is, if the net change on Friday was positive, the hypothetical trade was a short. The results were consistent with randomness. Sushil Kedia writes: News is a rare commodity in today's world. We are inundated with broadcasts today. Any media missives that bring by a communication of fact and those amongst the fact-set that are beyond the expected may still have some market moving value. The durability of that fact or how out of line of anticipations it was may perhaps have some effect on how much and for how long the prevailing state of prices will be affected. Those broadcasts that provoke emotion are likely that are worth inspecting a fading trade. Whether news of war, crop-failures or any such genre' of information flows that produce an instant or moment of endocrinal rush. The fine art of speculations rests on anticipations. Broadcasting media would never report what is coming to happen tomorrow, but only what may have (no guarantee that the broadcast is totally factual, since we have more "viewspapers" today than newspapers) already happened. Those who rely more on figuring out what they ought to anticipate on such resources are often the food for those who would rely on these broadcasts to figure out where the likely dead bodies will be buried. Price may not have all the information of what keeps happening every moment, but does have more information than any other resources of what is expected to happen. Event Study Method may be a decent tool to evaluate the statistical behaviour of specific kind of events that occur repetitively with varying outcomes and of studying the repetitive actions of specific mouth-pieces than of studying erratic and randomly occurring news. In a highly inter-connected markets' world and where the risk-free rate itself has a volatility the comforts of isolating non-random abnormal returns' evidence too is fraught with risks of playing on a frail advantage that keeps fluctuating in its expected value with ever-changing cycles if not fading away. Thus, it seems fair to me rather than an over-simplification that the most important factor for the next price is the price at this instant or any distant instant is the price at this moment and in the prior moments. I have one secret on this subject that I will share. Well, actually it was explained by Soros and Druck as the "Busted Thesis Rule." I think I've written about this previously on the Dailyspec. If there is a news event that SHOULD BE unequivocal in it's meaning (i.e. bullish or bearish), and the market after a bit of time starts going in the opposite direction to the consensus meaning, then it's a wonderful opportunity to throw your beliefs out the window and go with the short-term direction. Many important big moves start this way. For example, XYZ is bullish news, yet the market after a little pop starts going down, down, down, …. don't fight it. Rather, "Sell Mortimer Sell!" P.S. I learned this lesson the hard way when Bell Atlantic made its ultimately ill-fated bid for TCOMA and Bell Atlantic's stock when straight up instead of what it "should" have done … which was go straight down. I won't describe the censure I received by my legendary boss at the time. Amusingly, neither of these companies still exist. Bell Atlantic became Nynex which became Verizon. And if memory serves me, TCOMA was bought by AT&T when they got into the cable tv business… Gary Rogan writes: In a similar type of episode, when 3Com spun off 5% of Palm thus giving it a market valuation, and the resultant value of Palm significantly exceeded the value of 3Com that still owned 95% of Palm, this marked the end of the dotcom era. How Sports Make You Better at Business, from Jim Sogi March 20, 2013 \| 1 Comment Many top level executives and successful traders and entrepreneurs have sports backgrounds and continue to be active in sports. Sports provide good training and experience for a young (and old) person by: 1. Providing a competitive but safe atmosphere; 2. Allowing the ability to absorb losses and move on; 3. Teaching sportsmanship; 4. Providing health benefits; 5. Honing the competitive instinct, or killer instinct, in a non lethal environment; 6. Giving incentive to give 100 per cent plus; 7. Providing the opportunity to learn how to learn under the guidance of a coach or teacher; 8. Creating the foundation for a training regimen and discipline. 9. Teaching team dynamics and working together as a team in team sports; 10. Making life long friends and connections. 11. Providing a conducive social setting outside of business during which business and personal matters can be discussed in an informal setting. I'm sure there are many other benefits. David Lilienfeld writes: There's also 12. Developing an implementing a strategy which may not work and making the needed changes in it to attain success. It's a variant of "You're going to be wrong. Sports are generally objective. The final score stands regardless of excuses or rationalizations. I have noticed that many athletes become successful salesmen, which might explain why many are CEOs. I was called on by a former Kansas City Chief selling software. Before 2001, EMC had a reputation for seeking out athletes for its sales force, particularly those who had grown up non-affluent, because they were determined, persistent, and never satisfied. This History of Racketball and Markets, from Victor Niederhoffer February 11, 2013 \| Leave a Comment While most of you don't play racketball, I believe the hobo's history of racketball on site was very educational for those with kids who wish to play it or anyone who plays any racket sport. The torque and the backswings on the backhand and the bends in the pictures are most enlightening. One notes that there have been 4 champions who ruled the racketball world for about 5 years each, winning almost every tournament. I noted the same thing in squash, and tennis isn't too far away in that area also. One wonders if a similar phenomenon relates to markets. e.g. is there one stock that can outclass all the others in performance for a certain number of years, like Hogan, Swan, and Kane. Eventually those champions receded due to age, competition, or injury. Is there a predictable turning point? Obviously, AAPL is the current version of this. And looking at AAPL, one sees an example of a company that stumbles as it fails to effectively deploy the very capital it accumulates due to its success. A commenter writes: This is the measure of how good a CEO Jobs was. He may have been a great innovator and manager, but he may not have been that strong of a CEO. A good CEO assures succession, and it isn't clear that Jobs was successful in this regard. The same was true of RCA and David Sarnoff, By comparison, Alfred P. Sloan accomplished this task for GM, Adolph Ochs for the NY Times, Hershey with Hershey Foods, and the Mars family with the Mars candy business. That hasn't been the case with Apple, at least not yet. Any guesses on how long the Board waits until Cook is replaced? David Lillienfeld writes: There will always be outliers. There are also companies at the other tail with managements performing more for "enjoyment" (like me athletically–I suck at racketball but I very much enjoy playing it and when I've had access to a court, done so for 3+ hours a week). Are there stocks in which management is in it for fun rather than shareholder value "enhancement"? Sure. It isn't hard to identify underperforming companies. As for a predictable turning point, there should to be tells in each industry, but that doesn't address your question about one sentinel stock. I don't think there is a sentinel today the way GM was in the 1950s and 1960s. (Some might argue that Johns-Manville was a better sentinel. Either way, there was a single stock.) You've got a globalized market and no one company occupies a dominant position in a sentinel industry (such as autos in the 1950s and 1960s). Of course, implicit in this uninformed comment is that a connection exists between stock performance and corporate performance. Or have I misunderstood your question? Just to do a little bit of counting, here are the 48 non-financial US-based cos with cash of $5B or more, with LT investments added in. The amounts are in billions of dollars, and the list is sorted by the Total column. total cash: 729.4 total LT inv: 337.7 cash + LTinv: 1067.1 Ticker/TotalCash/LTinv/Total AAPL 39.8 97.3 137.1 MSFT 68.1 9.8 77.9 GOOG 48.1 1.5 49.6 CSCO 45.0 3.7 48.7 XOM 13.1 35.1 48.2 CVX 21.6 26.5 48.1 GM 31.9 14.4 46.3 WLP 20.6 22.1 42.7 PFE 23.0 13.4 36.4 ORCL 33.7 0.0 33.7 QCOM 13.3 15.1 28.4 KO 18.1 10.2 28.2 IBM 11.1 15.8 26.9 F 24.1 2.7 26.8 AMGN 24.1 0.0 24.1 MRK 18.1 5.6 23.7 INTC 18.2 4.4 22.6 HPQ 11.3 10.6 21.9 JNJ 19.8 0.0 19.8 BA 13.6 5.2 18.8 CMCSA 10.3 6.0 16.3 DELL 11.3 4.3 15.5 UNH 11.4 2.6 14.1 NWSA 7.8 5.2 13.0 EBAY 9.4 3.0 12.5 LLY 6.9 5.2 12.1 ABT 11.5 0.4 11.9 AMZN 11.4 0.0 11.4 GLW 6.1 5.2 11.3 EMC 6.2 5.1 11.3 HUM 9.3 1.0 10.3 FB 9.6 0.0 9.6 UPS 9.0 0.3 9.3 WMT 8.6 0.0 8.6 SLB 6.3 1.7 8.0 DVN 7.5 0.0 7.5 S 6.3 1.1 7.5 PEP 5.7 1.6 7.3 PG 7.0 0.0 7.0 UAL 6.7 0.0 6.7 HON 5.3 1.3 6.5 DISH 6.4 0.1 6.5 RIG 6.0 0.0 6.0 ACN 5.7 0.0 5.7 COST 5.6 0.0 5.6 NTAP 5.6 0.0 5.6 DE 5.0 0.2 5.2 Richard Owen adds: This is a brilliant list with many lessons. - 80/20 rule: $2tr of surplus cash is bandied about as the figure for US corporations. Here are 50 covering over half of that sum. - The 1% have an internal dissonance. Here is their accumulated share of National Product, all stored up and failed to be reinvested. The 1% neither wish to reinvest their cash, to reduce their share of Product, nor to have GDP decline, nor to run deficits. This is in aggregate impossible. - By giving you will receive. By being cowardly, you will realise your fear. Tim Cook is hoarding his cash out of fear. Nobody has EVER put that kind of cash to work successfully. Not even Warren Buffett could do it on his best day. If Apple attempts to do so, they will end up hanging themselves. David Einhorn is so on the point with his analysis. And for once an activist is helping make management's jobs more secure, not less. They just need to listen. Take some options, recap the stock, make yourself heroes. Don't think you can use that cash to buy another magic wand. You will end up buying a pup. The most recent example of what might happen to Tim Cook if he doesn't see the light is the CEO of Man Group. They totally feared that AHL would stop working. They grasped at their cash looking for any credible diversification. They bought GLG at totally the wrong multiple. And then it all fell apart. All totally well intended, all well thought through. But if they had just recapped the stock - "coulda been heroes". Get out of your own way. A couple of theories: The crossover point from innovator to mature company occurs when revenue from continuing product lines becomes large enough that it dwarfs revenue that could realistically be expected from starting up a new product line in a new niche, was the theory in the innovation class I took in business school. Let's say that a company might develop a completely new line of business. If it were successful, it would be doing very well to get to $1 billion per year of sales of the new line within 5 years. If the company already had $20 billion per year in revenue, management would probably devote more attention to nurturing and further developing the cash cows that bring in the $20 billion than to a risky venture that might, if all goes well, add 5% to existing revenue. One might test this proposition by setting an arbitrary sales per year threshold and checking stock price movements of companies after they move past this level. Adoption of new technologies follows an S curve pattern, driven by a small number of early adopters followed by more cautious but herdlike technology managers at large businesses, was the theory advanced by Geoffrey Moore in Crossing the Chasm. One might test this theory by looking for companies whose sales growth decelerated to less than 20% of the maximum growth rate of the past 5 years. Global Warming vs. Global Cooling, from Jim Sogi January 31, 2013 \| 1 Comment Driving through the Owens Valley on a beautiful sunny clear day, the entire 150 mile stretch with 14000 peaks towering above showed the geological effects of immense glaciers that filled the entire valley during the past ice age. Ice could have been 3000 feet deep gouging up mountains. Even Mauna Kea in Hawaii has clear geological evidence of glaciers! The last ice age was as recent as 10-20,000 years ago and ice covered a large part of North America. Global warming is the end of the current ice age and has provided good weather and prosperity and the growth of civilization and the human race for 20,000 years. The reverse of global warming, namely cooling, is not an attractive alternative. Imagine if cooling began. It would mean summers with snow that did not melt lasting through destroying crops. 4 years of snow on the ground through summer would wipe out most of the world population. 4 years of 40 foot snow accumulation would erase most signs of civilization under a layer of ice. When Krakatoa went off in 1883 the ash plume circled the world and there was no summer in the US that year. Imagine the impact on gnp and the markets if cooling commenced. Its awful to imagine. So its a case of unintended consequences or be careful what you wish for should they figure out how to reverse global warming. Cold weather crops like rye and barley would come back in vogue if we had an ice age which is not unthinkable. The zones for planting crops would change drastically. One would expect that researchers might do some genetic tinkering with corn, wheat, and soybeans, allowing them to flourish in a colder climate. Quite a number of scientists are predicting a Maunder Minimum at the end of this current solar cycle, which coincided with the "Little Ice Age.". Quite a long time ago, I reviewed Evolutionary Catastrophes: The Science of Mass Extinction by Vincent Courtillot. Every one of the 7 mass extinction events identified by M. Courtillot was caused by global cooling. Therefore, I agree that global warming (which I see no reason to doubt) is the lesser evil. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, the asbestos industry maintained that "there was reasonable disagreement" among scientists about asbestos as a cause of lung cancer; no asbestos-related regulations were needed. In the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the same was true of the tobacco industry for tobacco and lung cancer (and other sites, too). In the 1980s, 1990s, and last decade, many in the social conservative school of thought maintained that there was little evidence, or at least controversial evidence, about the role of human papilloma virus in the development of cervical cancer (I won't get into the matter of hand and neck cancer and HPV). In the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s, the US salt industry insisted that the data linking consumed salt and hypertension were controversial and that no regulation of the salt content was needed. The argument against the consensus view holds only so long as additional data do not validate the view of that majority. With Copernicus, that was the case. It was the same with the role of bacteria in the development of peptic ulcers. Absolute certainty and uniform conclusions by all members of the science community shouldn't be needed for policy formulation. If they were, then the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel would still be roaming the ranges and desserts of our television screens. Ralph Vince comments: What a logical stretch David. In the tobacco litigation, we found secret emails amongst the defendant employee's indicating a nefarious conspiracy to keep their methods and activities secret. The East Anglia emails are similar in that regard. I can tell you, from firsthand observation of the computer code that was in the email trove (because I have been writing code since the 70s, and I can tell you from examining someone's code what nationality they are, what mood they were in when they wrote it, and often what they had for breakfast). The code that was dumped was utterly damning to their cause. Not only does it show that the data does NOT sufficiently show that we are experiencing (anthropomorphic or not) temperature rises, but taints the issue because it raises the question of motive. We're left knowing that CO2 in the atmosphere has increased, a seeming understanding that this should have caused temperature rise, and the facts that do not comport to this, and as-yet no legitimate scientific reason (there are some theories, but that's all) to account for this. Scott Brooks writes: I suggest that we look at the motives of the people involved in perpetuating what I believe is a giant con job. Let's say the earth is warming. Is this a man made phenomena or is it just a normal cycle that the earth goes thru from time to time? Who stands to profit from these suggestions to stop global warming? Al Gore and his ilk? Why do we trust these idiots in DC to make decisions that are common sense based and "special interest group" based? If we start down this path that global warmists like yourself want us to go down, what happens when the earth keeps warming up (i.e. let's say it's really just a cycle the earth is going thru and not man made)…….what will happen then? Do you think the politicians will say, "Well, it's not mans fault. So let's roll back all the regulations", or do you think that they'll bloviate about how they need even more power to solve this horrible problem? Why are you so willing to give more and more power to the government when they have a LONG history of abusing that power to their own selfish ends? If you chose to go down that path, you will find people like me standing in your path actively trying to stop you. Garrett Baldwin writes: I wasn't going to jump in on this, but I wanted to shadow something Scott said. With regard to motives, pay attention to the way that the hearings and the solutions to solving this problem are handled. Some of us want the market to solve the problem. For example, let's say that the biggest threat in the world were something that is hard to measure, like the earth is running out of fresh air. I'd argue that if that were a serious problem, a man would come a long and invent a machine to solve it. We'd rely on human ingenuity. We'd beat back that threat… But the people who stand to profit through centralized alchemy only want to do it one way — their way. And any solution that is market based, creates competition, and doesn't enrich allies or decision makers or centralize more power with the government is either demonized, destroyed or regulated from the conversation. The reality is that central planners can't solve this problem. They claim that they invented the internet, but if the government were still operating the internet, it would just be two dudes from DoD playing pong back and forth between New York and Camp Pendleton. This entire hype has evidence of scam all over it. Naomi Klein has demanded that the U.S. distribute $2 trillion to third-world nations who are "victims" of the U.S. and our energy policy. Ironically, the nations that are demanding the money are also the ones that are near the bottom of the Heritage Economic Freedom Index. Countries that aren't developing because they keep they limit their own people's ingenuity and production are going to get $2 trillion and then do what with it? Usher in a green economy? Come on… So, when I hear the idea that we have to "do something" and do it fast without exploring the data, without asking questions, and without being allowed to have a debate because doing so would cast the distrustful of government as people who don't care about the children or the future or humanity. Meanwhile, the alarmist will have a moving wardrobe of children follow him as he spouts off how important his intentions are and how we are monsters. Beyond that, we also ignore one thing in this discussion. What are the positive benefits of global warming? After all, Greenland had a booming farm trade 1,000 years ago. I'd like to get some beach front property in Greenland. I'd also think that trade through the Arctic Circle would be nice and reduce shipping to Asia in half. Why is global warming such a terrible thing? Is it because we refuse to embrace the challenge, and because there's profit to be made by saving us from ourselves? So, I will say from my perspective this. I don't consider climate change a big deal, and it's not something that I worry about. Humanity will adapt after government spends trillions of dollars chasing this dragon.. Range Bound Skiing, from Chris Tucker I was skiing in Vermont recently and as is usual for skiing in the northeast, the slopes weren't as deeply covered with snow as one would wish. When one attacks a steep run in these conditions, it is guaranteed that the center of the trail will be bereft of snow — thin cover is the term we use euphemistically to indicate ice and rocks — mostly ice though. When this happens, there can usually be found some snow piled on the edges of the trail, it having been pushed there by previous skiers who made all their turns in the center, their scraping edges clearing it away off of the underlying hardpack and pushing it to the sidelines. Skiing in such conditions can be done, but not without incurring greater than normal risk. And it is usually not as satisfying as skiing using the entire available path whose deeper, more sweeping turns are somehow more satisfying and which provide greater control. But under these conditions, staying in the center is deadly so advanced skiers will stick to the edges of the trail, making all of their turns in rapid succession on what is in effect a trail only two or three feet wide. This means that turns must be small in degree and therefore must happen very quickly so as not to allow the tips to remain pointed straight down the hill and therefore incurring excessive speed. This kind of skiing requires conditioning, linking extremely rapid turns is exhausting and one must not attempt this when fatigued as the resulting inability to really push hard and dig can be catastrophic. It also requires some nerve, for one, keeping near the edge puts one in dangerous proximity to the treeline (or the edge of the abyss -as the case may be) and one slip at high speed and it's all over. And it means high speed, even while carving one edge after another in succession, the lack of available surface on which to gain traction means keeping the tips pointed perilously close to straight down the fall line. Mistakes at these speeds tend to have greater than normal undesirable consequences. As I enjoy the speed, I will make one or two runs in these conditions just for the thrill of it, but this kind of tight skiing in a narrow and steep path requires tremendous concentration and loses it's appeal rather quickly. I will spend the majority of my time on tamer runs with more snow, even though they may be more crowded, so I can make the more gratifying, longer, carving turns that I prefer. Jeff Watons writes: That's just like surfing big waves vs small waves.I am not comfortable in the brutal conditions Mr Sogi San surfs on an every day basis. In those conditions, I will look for the rip current to get outside, paddle and make a bottom turn, and ride it in. Like typical Sunset. I don't stay out very long as I did when I was younger when it is big. But if the waves are 2-3' overhead, I'm good all day long. I'll still find the rip to make paddling out easier, but I'll attack the wave harder. But some of the very best days are those waist-chest high waves where you cruise on a long board, and catch the glide. However, during calm conditions I have suffered the greatest traumas while surfing. Broken vertebra, herniated discs, tendon and ligament damage, broken nose, etc. Somehow, being relaxed while it's calm is more dangerous then when it's big. Or maybe I'm more careless when the waves are small, and a bit reckless thrown in for good measure. Carelessness happens in the markets also. You start taking your profits for granted. It's humming along nicely with all your positions in the green, then wham, the Mistress gets a little PMS(no sexism intended) and throws the whole system off balance or upsets the cart, and your account suddenly needs a tourniquet. The lesson here is to keep your guard up at all times. Jim Sogi writes: Just back from backcountry skiing in the Eastern Sierras. The conditions were snow that was about a week old, with very cold temperatures, and no wind. The sun made a crust where solar energy hit, so the powder stashes were hidden on north facing aspects where there were old growth trees. The cold had dried out the snow making it sparkle and soft and creamy sugar which was excellent for skiing.. Though it had not snowed for over a week, in the shade, on the north facing slopes shaded by old growth pine where the sun did not affect the snow there was beautiful sugary soft powder. It took some doing finding these niches and some hiking to get there and fighting some pesky brush at lower elevations. No one else seems to have discovered these hidden stashes of nice powder. This reminds me so much of the markets, when even in less than optimal conditions, there are hidden stashes of unridden goods. It takes understanding of the underlying processes that create and destroy snow, the equipment and will to get there, and the ability to ride those conditions. Its surprising in such a huge mountain range that only in such limited conditions would there exist such fine skiing. The last day, new wet snow came and turned everything into the famous Sierra cement. Laurel Kenner writes: I took Aubrey to our favorite ski place, Telluride, a couple of weeks ago. A drought was on and the mountain was brown, but the resort's snow-making machines had been at work since November and most runs were open. A few patches of grass were visible in some popular places — enough to send a skier head over heels in the old days. The new equipment was somehow able to ride it out, although caution was still warranted. That strikes me as like the market; if you're well-equipped enough with margin and numbers to ride out the rough patches, you can still do well in adverse conditions. I ski 10-15 times per year and encounter a wide variety of conditions. Light is an important factor. An overcast sky causes what skiers call "flat light". I slow down in flat light because the lack of shadows makes it hard to spot irregularities on the surface until one is nearly upon them. Dense fog is even worse. I have been in fogs in which I could not see the trees on either side and momentarily lost track of which way was down. I like fresh snow, but there can be too much of a good thing. One day right after a 2-foot snowstorm, I started down my first run and fell on the very first turn when my outer ski caught some snow. I pushed off my hand to get up, but my arm sank into the snow all the way to my shoulder. It took a few minutes of wiggling and maneuvering to get back on my feet. Wind is another factor. The Sierras sometimes have very high winds, which blow loose snow off exposed areas. The result is alternating ice and soft powder (in the spots in which blown snow settles). Going too fast at the transition point can result in a fall. On one traverse I often ski, I use moderate wind to my advantage by letting the wind slow me down as I ski into it with no effort on my part. Duncan Coker writes: When backcountry skiing which Mr. Sogi describes another key element is the approach. There are no lifts, so you hike uphill for every turn you will make downhill. It can be exhausting, but also very rewarding and you get to know the terrain including snow pack, the location of rocks, couloirs, tree wells, cliffs and the grade. After enjoying the view at the top you can descend focusing mainly on execution, making some nice turns. Skiing the steeper, untouched terrain has more dangers but is more rewarding. I love the surfing analogy of "never taking the first wave" alluding to the dangers of being tempted by the first big wave in a set, after a lull. In skiing there are times when it is better to take pass on a run as well. Condition may appear good, but dangers are still there. Ultimately though we all have to "drop in" at some point for whatever activity we are pursuing, and taking some risk is certainly worth it. Conscious Capitalism, from Victor Niederhoffer January 7, 2013 \| 4 Comments One recently waited 15 minutes after making a big purchase at Barnes and Nobles while they held me up because the computer went down and they couldn't take cash, exact payment, credit card. At the end, they sardonically told me that if I had a complaint about the wasted time, effort and treatment, I should talk to their manager. On the other side, I read in John Mackey's new book Conscious Capitalism about how when a hurricane hit a Whole Foods in Conn, the computer broke and a lower level operative without any feedback from headquarters gave everyone in the store free goods for the 1 1/2 hour that the computer was down. They got millions of good will and publicity as an unintended consequence. A study in the book shows that companies that cater to the customer, and employees and suppliers as well as the stockholders have better performance than the average. Panera and The Container Store are examples. I wonder whether this is a real effect and whether these companies will perform better or worse—- and the former will never get my business again and the latter will. What's your experience and view. Vince Fulco writes: My wife works in the textile area of Target, I have tried to look at its operations with a jaundiced eye as a financial analyst would. I've always felt welcomed and well treated there without their knowing we were an employee family. I bumped into a colleague at Costco today who quizzed me about the recent tax changes. Not sure why he thought I would know, but after 5 minutes of listing the various relevant increases I asked, "Do you have time for more of these?" "Not really", he said, adding "You've already depressed me enough". "What are we going to do, raise fees?" he asked. In the wake of recession we have not raised fees, and in many cases lowered them. It is better to stay busy and build good-will when people need it, and raise later when discretionary demand increases. Increased taxes ordinarily reduce demand. But for businesses with existing demand, they are inflationary. Maybe the FED gets what it wants (inflation preferable to deflation), and the agrarian organizers do too. The chair asks a very important question; and the implications transcend business. With the caveat that I'm rather better at asking difficult questions (than answering them), I'd pose the question this way: 1. To what extent do people and organizations act in their self-interest? 2. If (1) is 100%, then any act of altruism MUST BE motivated by either reciprocal altruism or goodwill. If (1) is less than 100%, then any attempt to answer (1) is hopelessly complicated using a rational/analytical framework. And I won't go there since it's a moral argument. 3. A paradox arises because except for reciprocal altruism (i.e. keeping your counterparty in business so he can buy your goods and continue to service your needs), there is a irrationality that occurs for any action which isn't in one's self interest (for both the seller and the buyer) For example, if the customer is rational and self-interested, then ANY warm and fuzzy feelings towards a vendor are not rational if those warm and fuzzy feelings arise because of a historical and non repeating gesture (giving away goods during a power failure assuming that the goods wouldn't otherwise spoil.) However, in contrast, convenience IS rational and is part of the value proposition. That is, a vendor who doesn't make you wait in line when the cash register breaks has a superior product at the same price for SOME (not all) customers. And ceteris paribus, that should garner more business (for some, not all) customers IF he doesn't have to raise prices for a massive fault-tolerant computer system. If he has to raise prices for a massive fault tolerant computer system, then the customer who doesn't care about waiting in line won't shop there anymore. But the lone vendor who tries to gain a lasting competitive advantage by giving away milk and bread during a blackout will fail — since the goodwill generated by this will quickly fade and there's no lasting benefit to the customer. Every economics question can be solved by recognizing that: 1) Incentives Matter. 2) Resources are limited. And … then it's simply a question of utility curves. BUT BUT BUT if there is a moral aspect to the question, then all of the rational analysis goes out the window. And that is, I think, what Whole Foods was trying to do. Right before Hurricane Andrew hit South Dade County and went across the state to hit Naples and Collier County, Home Depot was giving away 4×8 sheets of plywood……just had truckload after truckload, bringing it in to offload it to anyone who wanted it for free to board up windows etc. Their main competitor, Scotty's was gouging, and charging $40 per 4×8 sheets. In the aftermath of the storm, Home Depot kept their prices down while Scotty's jacked them up. Scotty's did the same thing after Hurricane Charley. Much editorial space was spent discussing this in the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, Sun Sentinel etc. Scotty's reputation suffered greatly and eventually went out of business at the end of 2005. There was lots of bad karma and my builder friends avoided Scotty's like the plague. Scotty's said they closed all their stores because of the hyper-competitive building supplies market…..this was when Florida had the biggest construction upswing in history. Again, real bad karma. Home Depot is still a viable corporation. Because of Scotty's actions(and that of others), Florida passed a non-gouging law in 1993 which Scotty's still ignored in 2004. In Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely devotes a chapter to "social norms" (the friendly requests people make of one another) vs. "market norms" (you do x, I'll pay you y). People generally see social norms and personal relationships as being on a higher plane than mere market transactions. In one study cited by Professor Ariely, implementing fines for picking up children late at day care centers actually increased the frequency of late pickups. Before the fines, the parents felt bound by social norms and felt guilty for inconveniencing the day care providers if they were late. After the fines were implemented, a late pickup was reduced to a mere market transaction: I want to be late, and I am paying for extra service. My guess is that companies such as Whole Foods that serve customers beyond the bounds of how customers expect a profit-seeking corporation to behave elevate themselves on the social vs. market scale and thereby gain much customer loyalty. Russ Sears writes: People are cooperative beings, they want to feel they are in a partnership where one looks out for the other. While the individual is the driver of innovation and change, progress is made by the most connected in ideas. Arts, science and technology thrive is these highly cooperative environments such as the big cities. Ideas are one thing that the sum of the parts can become exponentially more. If the business really is adding value, then they display it by highlighting cooperation with their customers. Because long term the good will makes them more resilient and able to grow. Whereas if every transaction is a zero sum game, then the signal to the customer and investor is short term thinking. There is a tinge of buyer beware for the customer and an touch of desperation to next quarters results to the investor. The entrepreneurs I know who are successful only do it because they love the business otherwise the risk the stress and the heartache are not worth the money or the effort. I believe Jobs showed the world that at some point it is no longer is about the money, it is about making a difference, giving others what they want and of course "beating" your competitors. If you can do these 3 things well it is like having a blank check written by the world. Gary Rogan adds: Yes, that's another way of looking at the situation. But Jobs is Jobs, and regardless: when confronted with a situation where a person (or an entire business enterprise) who doesn't know you from Adam is particularly accommodating and friendly to you, you have to decide whether (a) that's just how they are (b) they are doing this to get repeat business as a calculated move (c) they are conning you (d) they saw you and really fell in love with you. The thing is, it could be any combination of these or something else. All I'm saying is that a "they are giving stuff away" or some equivalent to "therefore I will make them by business/partner of choice for a long time" isn't always the most rational thing to do. One really should only feel gratitude to people who are doing it for un-selfish reasons while recognizing that a good businessman will often behave "nicely" as opposed to being a jerk. Clearly almost all expressions of "good will" and cooperative behavior by businesses are self-serving. The rare exceptions are of the nature of some owner or executive clearly touched by the misery of his customers and/or employees and doing something good for them just because. Cooperative, reliable, and resourceful businesses do add value by not wasting their customer's time and money and not aggravating them, so often everybody wins. Sill in many of these situations have to be analyzed carefully because you are typically not dealing with friends or relatives. Otherwise one can become a "victim" of deception, as someone who buys a company's product because its advertising agency made a particularly effective commercial that is often in no way related to the quality of the product. I'd like to share a story that happened this weekend. A number of you know my hobby is racing sailboats. Well, I'm on a number of forums and they have members that range from the grouchy to super nice and helpful. About six months ago, a fellow I'd never met or spoken to offered to lend me a sail to test an idea I had been struggling with. There was not a request on when to give it back; in fact it was open ended. After dealing day in and day out with the squids of our occupation, the offer seemed too nice. Something worth $200-$500? Just drive over to my house and you can have it. Really? This is Los Angeles! Well, in a race this weekend we all got to talking about boats we had owned and one of the guys had the same as mine. We started to compare notes, forums, parts suppliers etc. It turns out he was the guy who made the offer. I was ashamed at how genuine and nice a guy he was, and what I had suspected. I only bring this up as a probability point…no matter how pissed you can get at humanity, the percentage of genuinely nice folks is always above zero. I'd forgotten that lesson. You guys often remind me of that lesson too! 20% PLUS unsustainable? from Steve Ellison January 3, 2013 \| 1 Comment A quick check of the last 61 annual changes in the S&P 500 index shows no significant difference in net changes between years immediately following changes of 20% or more and other years. The average net change one year after a gain of 20% or more was 11%, slightly higher than the average net change of 8%, but with t=0.79, so consistent with randomness. Sorted by previous year change: Date Close Change Previous year change 12/30/1955 45.48 26% 45% 12/31/1959 59.89 8% 38% 12/31/1996 740.74 20% 34% 12/31/1998 1229.23 27% 31% 12/31/1990 330.22 -7% 27% 12/31/2004 1211.92 9% 26% 12/31/1992 435.71 4% 26% 12/31/1981 122.55 -10% 26% 12/31/1962 63.10 -12% 23% 12/29/2000 1320.28 -10% 19.5% 12/29/1989 353.4 27% 12% 12/31/1953 24.81 -7% 12% 12/30/1966 80.33 -13% 9% 12/30/2005 1248.29 3% 9% 12/30/1960 58.11 -3% 8% 12/30/1994 459.27 -2% 7% 12/31/1993 466.45 7% 4% 12/31/2008 903.25 -38% 4% 12/29/2006 1418.30 14% 3% 12/30/1988 277.72 12% 2% 12/29/1995 615.93 34% -2% 12/29/1961 71.55 23% -3% 12/31/1982 140.64 15% -10% 12/31/2001 1148.08 -13% -10% 12/31/1970 92.15 0% -11% 12/31/1963 75.02 19% -12% 12/31/2002 879.82 -23% -13% 12/31/1974 68.56 -30% -17% 12/31/2003 1111.92 26% -23% Of the 58 years from 1951 to 2008, 49 were followed by at least one down year within the next four. The only exceptions were 1981-1985, 1994-1995, and 2002-2003 (and each of these periods included at least one year with a 20% or greater gain). The Sequential System, from Steve Ellison I tested the DeMark Sequential system, as best I could understand it from the information I could find, on S&P 500 futures daily bars about a year ago and found that there were some strikingly good calls on buy signals, including on October 4, 2011 just before a monster rally, but only 14 buy signals in 29 years. Results of the sell signals appeared consistent with randomness. Rome: An Empire’s Story, from Victor Niederhoffer Rome: an Empire's Story By Greg Woolf gives and excellent review of the reasons and history of the rise and decline of Rome's empire which was kept relatively intact for 1500 years. The rise he attributes to efficiency, trade, and military success. The fall he attributes to weak alliances with neighboring countries to rule the provinces, and lack of incentives to produce from the provinces. I find many parallels to the present. The good news is that it took 1500 years to disintegrate. I am partway through volume 1 of Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. There was little incentive for the emperor to rule for the benefit of his subjects rather than for his own pleasure. Rome became a military kleptocracy after the murder of Commodus in 192. The armies knew they were the source of power and demanded an exorbitant price for their support, beginning with the Praetorian guard's murder of Pertinax and subsequent auction of the throne to the highest bidder. Frequently contending for rival generals to seize the throne, Roman armies put more energy into fighting one another than fighting the enemies on the frontiers. Stefan Jovanovich writes: Details, details: "Romans imagined [the empire] as a collective effort: Senate and people, Rome and her allies, the men and the gods of the city working together." This continued as Rome passed from the Republic to the Caesars, who were kings "even if [Romans] could never bring themselves to call them by that name." It is "a history of remarkable stability. If it was largely true that (as one historian has put it) 'Emperors don't die in bed,' it was also true that the murders of many individual emperors seem to have done little to shake the system itself." Since "decline and fall" is the current meme, one should hardly be surprised that publishers and their authors want to cash in on the latest craze. (That is all publishers ever do; and authors, poor things, are usually desperate to oblige.) Professor Woolf should have resisted the impulse. He certainly knows better. The "collective effort" he describes is a complete fairy tale. The Empire never even developed a common language; our "classical" education notions are based entirely on the fact that rich people had too know Greek because that was the commercial language of the eastern provinces — which was where the money was. Latin was for the inscriptions on the public buildings and for the official orations and the school examinations but the "common" people continued to speak their own tongues. Even the Army relied on whistles, drums. and flags for its "commands" when it took to the field. This explains why Latin itself became almost instantly obsolete even south of the Rubicon. No one writing about the Hapsburgs, who did manage to keep their own Empire running for a good long while, would ever have offered up such fictions about "court and people, Vienna and her allies, the men and gods of Vienna working together". But, we have enough information to know that the court spoke French in that Holy Roman empire. The beauty of Roman history is that there are so few actual facts that survive that one can make the story whatever one wants it to be. The key is "1500 years". It's not going to fall apart in the next 100, that's for sure. The difference is that they couldn't do state borrowing in anywhere near the same proportion to their GNP as the US can. It also took less than 100 years from the peak, however defined to really difficult times. And as "mr. grain's" article demonstrates in less than 200 years from the peak free people were volunteering for slavery to avoid taxes, an inflation rate of 15,000% was experienced, free employees were essentially made into slaves at their places of work, and women, children, and parents were physically hauled off and abused to get to the tax evaders. All due to overspending and overtaxation. Also for whatever reason they limited the free grains to a relatively fixed number of people, and the amount was small for quite a long time. Their modern equivalents today with a much more advance education in economics talk about redistribution with such excitement and such lack of concern for where this is all going that would make Nero proud (I mean the part about fiddling while the Rome burned, except they are not fiddling but setting the fires). I am still trying to understand how a society flourishes with reported median family incomes stagnant or below that of a decade ago? And there is no sign the worker is gaining any bargaining power. Sure the govt can artificially tinker with rates reducing the carrying costs but someday existing debt must be paid; at least at the consumer level. It is debt assumption for non-producing overpriced (after debt service costs are added in) consumer goods which will kill this country. Tim Melvin writes: I agree with that to a large degree…..crony capitalism at the expense of everyone else is a cancer in any society….the problem is not capitalism exploiting the workers. it is the complex and intertwined relationship of business and government that does us the most harm. Eisenhower was right. Anonymous adds: I think the malignancy has metastasized much deeper than that, and now sits in a kind of acid bath (the pending "fiscal crisis') where all else is peeled away and we see it clearly (in fact, the fact that people seem to NOT see this clearly is evidence of its metastastization) and it is this: Our society — at every level — is characterized by a desire for more rules, and an exception of those rules for ourselves. Talking different tax rates is a carve out. The argument that the elderly should get a carve out. The birth control carve out. The government worker's salaries untouchability as a carve out. How about when the White House issues exemptions to Obamacare? Affirmative action is a carve out. All corporate socialism is a carve out. Every bill passed by Congress does not apply to them. I call that a carve out! The white lady's sinus-snort lament, "This is RIDICULOUS!" always pertains to her being denied her attempted exception carve-out to the rules. That's the cancer. The cure would take a lot more than Mitt Romney, and likely cannot be cured by a single individual. History doesn't exactly repeat, usually, an incident is followed by another incident of similar cause but differing results and often differing in duration. I don't think we're going into a 1,000 year long dark ages. I think we're racing headlong now to something far more sudden and shocking, and bigger than any one man or political party can purge from our psyches. I used to think the revolution was just around the corner, society was fragile and was about to come apart. Not now. Look at NYC and Sandy: that was an amazing comeback. The recession was bad, but the economy is slowly coming back. Things are not bad now. In the 1940's there was nuclear world war. Japan, Germany, Europe came back. Russia fell apart, but now is back. China killed 10s of millions, but came back strong. People are resilient and social systems are strong. The apocalypse is Hollywood and journalistic bogus hokum ballyhoo. The same is true of the US post-Civil War. Nothing before or since has had the social and economic impact that that war had. The US is more adaptable than Rome was. As Peter Drucker often observed, the US genius is political. One of the signposts that Rome was done was when it was no longer able to rely on client states for security. That isn't the case now with the US. A better paradigm for guidance might be the Persian Empire. I keep coming back to the debt issue, the current size, and the ability and desire by "the powers that be" to accumulate more at an astonishing clip. Four years ago I predicted a debt-driven collapse that Rocky chided me for so much, and while the timeframe now seems indeterminate, what IS the way out without a currency collapse and all that follows in those types of situations? The bond vigilantes are not too concerned, and they know all, but what is it that they see? Can they see far into the future or are they playing musical chairs? David Lilienfeld adds: I'm reminded of the comment by Jim Carville, Bill Clinton's political advisor. In a re-incarnated life, he said, he wanted to come back as the bond market. "It can intimidate anyone it wants to." The Largest Building in the World, from Leo Jia October 12, 2012 \| Leave a Comment Thie largest building in the world is expected to open right before Chengdu, a city in the southwestern Sichuan province of China, hosts the Fortune Global Forum in June of 2013. This video is a virtual reality tour of the compound. It will be the largest building, not the tallest building, so it may be exempt from the Chair's theory that constructing the world's tallest building is a sign of hubris (for example, the Empire State Building was begun near the end of the 1920s boom and finished just as the Great Depression was intensifying). The Limit Order, from Anatoly Veltman September 23, 2012 \| 3 Comments Let's examine the limit order in more detail. There are essentially three scenarios that can occur when you place a limit order. One - you are brilliant. You caught the bottom, nicked the top and got in at an excellent price and can now manage a trade with great risk/reward profile. Two, you were right on the overall direction of the instrument but because you tried to be cute with price you missed your entry and now watch wistfully as prices move away from you while you remain empty handed. Three - you got your fill and now you wish you hadn't as price continues in the opposite direction of your bet. So in summary in two out of three cases you have a negative outcome. Now if you happen to be a superb market timer that may not matter, but if you are just an average Joe (and we all are) then your chances of execution are basically 33% on each scenario which means your chance of winning is only 33%. That's why limit orders are a sucker's bet. They play to our desire for a bargain, but in the end they cost much more than we think. "… your chance of winning is only 33%. That's why limit orders are a sucker's bet." Here is a quick test of that proposition. Imagine that traders A, B, and C each make at most one round trip trade in the S&P 500 futures every week. Trader C is a permabull, so every Sunday afternoon when Globex opens, he immediately buys the contract. He sells at the close on Friday. Trader B wants to only "trade in the direction of the price flow", so he only buys the contract if it goes up 5 points from the Sunday open. Then he sells at the close on Friday. Trader A fancies himself a tough negotiator and places a limit order 5 points below the Sunday open. He is last in line, so his order is only filled if the price drops to 5.25 points below the Sunday open. If filled, he also sells at the close on Friday. Here is how each trader would have fared in the last 64 weeks. Trader A, the user of limit orders, would have had 59 of 64 orders filled. He would have been "too cute" 5 times and missed out on big gains. 7 of his fills would have suffered from adverse selection as the market continued down, and trader B stayed out of the market. Trader A's net profit on his 59 trades was 223 points. 37 of the 59 trades were profitable. Hence the 2 out of 3 things that can go wrong with limit orders occurred less than 20% of the time empirically. Trader A won far more than 33% of the time. Even after detrending the data to correct for the upward drift during the period, trader A's limit orders were profitable 34 of 59 times (58%). Trader B would have avoided all the adverse selection weeks in which the market did nothing but go down. However, his net profit on his 57 trades would have been only 53 points. Trader C, the always-in trader, would have traded all 64 weeks and had a net profit of 172 points. In this test, the user of limit orders did better than the follower of price flow. Sample data: Week Net profit Ending Trader A Trader B Trader C 7/8/2011 12.4 2.4 7.4 7/15/2011 -18.6 – -23.6 7/22/2011 32.1 22.1 27.1 7/29/2011 -36.7 -46.7 -41.7 8/5/2011 -100.4 -110.4 -105.4 8/12/2011 12.1 2.1 7.1 9/2/2011 -1.7 -11.7 -6.7 9/30/2011 9.2 -0.8 4.2 10/7/2011 35.9 25.9 30.9 10/14/2011 — 56.2 61.2 10/21/2011 22.0 12.0 17.0 Software Generated Elliott Wave Counts, from Laurence Glazier Having internalized some basic aspects of wave counts, such as alternation of corrective waves within a motive wave, coming back to the counts produced by Advanced GET is a strange experience, as the software-generated counts seem quite wrong. Have others, as I now have, given up using software to mark the key wave points? Of course one would still use a software grid to mark Fibonacci retracements. Anatoly Veltman writes: Actually, Advanced Get by Tom Joseph was very good when first introduced in late 80's-early 90's. Trick was that one should have also attended Tom's weekend workshop (mostly held near an airport in Ohio), to be tipped on the whole essence: type 1 and type 2 trades, wave 4 index and oscilator. Without figuring out when Wave 4's odds diminish to unacceptable — there is no reliable Elliott Wave trading. And Fib retracements are great — but ONLY if EW type 1 or type 2 trade has first been isolated. I taught Tom's methods for about 15 years. Not sure if any of my students succeeded in black-boxing the entire methodology. Did someone really say fibonacci on the spec list? This could get interesting if it is anything like the old days… Well, that's the whole point. Loving to say Fib doesn't test well– when the wrong application was tested to begin with. Phil McDonnell writes: To be sure one must test something according to the right way of doing things. However that is exactly the problem with wave counts and the like. The rules are so arcane and convoluted even so called experts disagree on them. If you get 5 different Elliot exerts in a room you will get 5 different wave counts at the same time. It is a bit like the game of Fizzbin. The rules keep changing and are unnecessarily complex. Leo Jia writes: I think one probably should take this argument as a not-bad news for Elliot theory or any theory that gives non-consenting results. It means that it likely has some statistical truth in it that is worth one's effort in seeking. Don't we agree that a market theory delivering definitive results does not exist or, if exists, ought to be thrown out? Trying to stay in line with our raison d'etre, I have been coding a method for retrospectively identifying highs and lows of multiple levels of significance. My approach is to go bottom up, starting with an idea I got from one of the Senator's books. A local high is a bar whose close is higher than the closes of both the previous bar and the following bar. A local low is a bar whose close is lower than the closes of both the previous bar and the following bar (a sequence of 2 or more bars with equal closes count as one bar for this purpose). After identifying the local highs and lows, I move up a level. A 2nd level high is one that is higher than both the preceding local high and the following local high. A 2nd level high cannot be recognized until one bar after the lower local high that follows the 2nd level high. I record the time at which the 2nd level high could have been recognized. I follow similar rules to identify 3rd level, 4th level, etc., highs and lows and the times at which they could have been recognized in retrospect. I haven't finished yet, but this method should give me a platform for testing hypotheses about "primary trends", etc. Tom Joseph's contribution to E.W. trading, in my view, was much greater than Prechter's or RN.Elliott's. Tom basically said with his excellent refined Type 1 trade: don't ever place any bid, unless: 1) you've already observed a valid impulse (with extended third wave) 2) a correction is currently in progress, approaching 38% of preceding rally 3) you're filtering this correction with oscilator return to 0, and fourth-wave index still sufficient for fifth wave 4) fifth wave projection extends to at least 2:1 profit/loss ratio, incl. all possible slippage. I say: if all these conditions are not met (and this may not occur every day) - never place a bid at 38% retracement. If all these conditions are not met, you'll have to bid only at near-100% retracement. What does this principle have to do with popular E.W. or popular Fibonacci methods. Nothing!! Laurence Glazier writes: Sure, things are complicated and one would not wish to poke a stick into a hornets nest, but … some things are complicated. It took hundreds of years to elicit the laws of harmony from the canon of classical music (many to this day deny their existence). Put five composers in a room and have them harmonise a tune (the non-believers might refuse to!), and they will do it five different ways, but they will all have added to the map of knowledge. Even knowing those laws, one could not reasonably predict how a piece of music would continue if Pause were pressed (unless it were minimalist) - but one might anticipate it would return to the tonic key, and that the free fantasia would not be over-long, and so on. Those laws are difficult, unprovable, and without material substance but are the result of empirical observation. Gibbons Burke writes: CTA E.W. Dreiss used, in the 1990s, a very similar way to count waves in the market using what he called the Fractal Wave Algorithm (FWA), and he traded futures breakouts from FWA-n magnitude highs and lows. Did quite well, but like all trend followers, it is a bumpy ride. He also came up with the Choppiness Index, which sums the true ranges in the last n periods, and takes that as a ratio of the n-day range. Jason Ruspini writes: This is the natural approach that I took as well. Ignoring the "correct" 1-5 definitions, I just looked for a run of higher such double-X highs and higher double-X lows identifiable with the necessary lag, with attention to what happens when you eventually get a lower major high/low, breaking the "wave" run count, which can keep going after 5. What I found wasn't very interesting, in-line with my previous comment. I'm still unclear if anyone is actually trading a tested (complicated) system or just applying versions of rules with discretion. If it is a tested system, why is it better than a simple long-term momentum system? George Parkanyi writes: I like to keep it simple. Many years ago, I read something written by Larry that said, when the commercials are generally substantially more net long or short than specs - that tends to stop trends and turn markets the other way. He admitted it was a rough rule of thumb - that it may take a while to turn the tanker - but I pay attention and time after time I've got to say it works. So right now two markets that fit that profile are coffee and to a little lesser extent sugar. (Oh yeah, VIX as well) I've been long both for a couple of weeks with modest starting positions, and just had a nibble at VIX. I don't know when the trends will turn and I may have to take a stop or two, but I like the chances for a good position-trade in these two markets - and VIX as a bet on a short-term post-Fed hang-over. I checked back to when coffee started this particular big decline - and it was within two weeks of when commercials were selling the crap out of it and their net-short positions had peaked. Gold and a number of other commodities did the same thing at the beginning of this rally that began in May - except that the commercials were the only buyers at the time. It may be a dumb-as-dirt perspective on my part, and will likely set off Anatoly - but its one thing that has stuck with me from reading a number of Larry's books. Refis, from David Lilienfeld September 2, 2012 \| Leave a Comment We did our refi at 3.5%. I keep hearing about a renaissance in the US housing market, with Toll claiming it has pricing power. Yet mortgage rates continue to drop. This makes no sense to me. If the market for homes is coming back, shouldn't mortgage demand be increasing –leading to higher rates, not lower ones? If mortgage demand is increasing and that is the only variable that has changed then mortgage rates should be rising. But that is not the only variable that has changed over the last couple of years.Helicopter Ben has been flooding the market with easy money via QEn. that is the dominant factor. In Foreclosure City where I live, sales activity is very brisk at prices 60% off 2006 levels. Homes that are priced appropriately are selling very quickly, and inventory is very low since a new state law went into effect that required lenders to prove they actually held the mortgage before foreclosing. Reading the Minutes, from Victor Niederhoffer August 23, 2012 \| Leave a Comment Considering that the 8/1 open market meeting issued a very disappointing statement about the prospects for easing, and the market went down about 2 % from the announcement to other next day, you would think that there could have been a more balanced release that stated how many members were waiting in the wings to be accommodative at the sign of the first easing. Let us hope that the sensibilities of any flexions were not discommoded by this decoy as much as the public. It seems most of the investing public was driven out by the 2000-2002 dot com crash, and the survivors were decimated in 2008. In this respect, the upside down man's pronouncements seem like piling on. I know he wants people to buy bonds instead of stocks, but he has already triumphed completely in this regard. How could anybody reviewing the past 12 years not conclude that "gentlemen prefer bonds"? Market Fatigue? from Ken Drees What of the threat stringing out past the point of threat into a sleep? Market fatigue waiting for the euro mess to resolve, Iran to be bombed, Syria to fall, nat gas to get a pulse, gold to restart, Japan to rise again, GE to come, etc. Natural gas, 6/15/2012: 2.467 (July contract) 2.196 (adjusted for rolls to August and September) Natural gas now: 2.752 (September contract) That's a 23% increase. An Unusual Consilience, from Victor Niederhoffer An unusual consilience of 6 consecutive 20 days maxs in S&P futures has occurred in the last days. It is interesting to put some stats on table for frequencies of how often such events have occurred in last 17 years. Number of consecutive 20 day extremes In case my formatting didn't come across on your screens, the number of consecutive 20 day minima starting from 1 and going to 8 was 203, 95, 37, 17, 9, 5, 0 , 0 The number of consecutive 20 day maxima starting from 1 and going to 11 was 313,165, 88, 50, 17, 9, 4, 2, 1, 1, 0. It is interesting to note the falloffs in consecutive maxs from 4 to 5 and the fall offs in consecutive minima from 2 to 3. If markets were efficient, one would expect a 50% probability that a run of n consecutive highs/lows would become a run of n+1. In this dataset, of 1017 runs of n, 500 (49.2%) became runs of n+1. That doesn't seem far off 50%, but p=.31 by the binomial distribution. There was an upward bias to the S&P 500 in the past 17 years, so not surprisingly the results are more extreme when split into highs and lows. Only 163 of 367 runs of n consecutive lows became runs of n+1, an apparent p of .02, if one neglects to detrend the data. 337 of 650 runs of n consecutive highs became runs of n+1. Capital Structure and the Upside Down Man, from Steve Ellison August 6, 2012 \| Leave a Comment The upside down man's objection: "If wealth or real GDP was only being created at an annual rate of 3.5% over the same period of time, then somehow stockholders must be skimming 3% off the top each and every year" is easily rebutted by Philip Carret's observation that common stock is like a leveraged investment. Bondholders are first in line to be paid, but their claims are fixed, so all upside of earnings beyond a fixed percentage belongs to stockholders (as does all downside if the company fails to perform). If the typical capital structure is 50% debt and 50% equity, the typical common stock is a 2:1 leveraged investment, so an expected return approaching 2x GDP growth would not be unreasonable. There is a complimentary explanation. GDP figures are a sub-set derived from the monetary Marxist notion that nominal expenditure by the government is just the same as voluntary private spending. (This is the same notion that the CIA and all the Galbraithians depended on to decide in the 1970s and 1980s that the Soviet Union had matched or even surpassed the US in economic output.) Er, no. Sherman Tanks may be useful and necessary but their "cost" is not the same measure as the spending to buy a combine harvester. The same applies to civil service pay versus private payrolls; the one measures a Keynesian cost, the other measures an expenditure in search of profit. It should hardly be surprising that, in order to support the dead weight of wars and "public" investments that no private market demands, the equity residual has to grow at twice the rate of the overall "economy" measured in nominal Marxist terms. Ralph Vince writes: Yes, this was the case I made on this or a related list about 4-8 weeks ago and had my economic naivete was assailed. In fact, I would posit that not only should government expenditures NOT be included in the positive column of GDP, but rather might best be place in the negative column. A good portion of government spending is in the form of capital outflows, interest payments to foreign entities, outright gifts to foreign entities (when we give the UN a billion dollars, is that really a billion dollars added to out GDP? 10 billion to Israel, does not increase our GDP by 10 billion), nation building (building schools in Afghanistan does not increase GDP). Outflows such as exports, count on the negative side of the GDP ledger — so too should government spending, or at best, it should be a wash. If GDP growth is anemic now, remove the YoY increase in government spending from GDP and it's a pretty bleak picture in recent years (and no, I'm not being political about the Oreo presidency of the past 11 1/2 years. Same guy, same party, same people, different faces and names). Suppose It Were True, from Victor Niederhoffer There is much pessimism on the site about the stock market. One thing I always like to ask is suppose it were true that the economy is really going to be weaker than people expect. Like we'll have 1 or 2% growth rather than 2 or 3. Why should this affect stock prices? What is the evidence that stocks do worse during periods of below average growth? Why should it matter? How does the rate of return on capital of businesses compare to the 30 year rate as stocks are valued based on discounted value of expected future earnings adjusted for risk, with the growth rate of earnings being determined by the rate of return on capital less the pay out on dividends rate. Is it better to buy stocks when people are pessimistic or optimistic? All these things must be tested. I'm not saying that I'm bullish or bearish on stocks or that one should be. I'm just questioning the glue and the weakness type of stuff. Assuming it was true, which I doubt, why should that be bullish or bearish? Testing is required. A regression of the 1-year S&P 500 return from 1981 to 2010 against the US unemployment rate reported the previous December shows a 16% positive correlation, with the regression line for the next year's S&P 500 net change being -1.9% + (1.9 * unemployment rate). t=0.86, p=0.40 I often ask myself similar questions but can not answer them. Perhaps one has to answer this question first: what percentage of the people in the market are rational? Or rather, what percentage of the money in the market is rational? Though I don't have an answer, I tend to believe that there is more irrational money than rational money in general. The clear problem is that the degree varies all the time. J.T Holley writes: With the std dev of 18% and annual rate of 8-9%, I'll order a double helpin' of "drift" with a side of "thank you". If that meal doesn't fill you up then you must question where you get your meals and disregard the gratuity the next time you sup. Drift only exists if you have a 100 year time frame in my opinion. See 1970s and 2000 to present. Much of investing success last fifty years for most investors is result of membership in lucky sperm club. Craig Mee writes: Doesn't one new variable in a mix during the testing period influence the outcome– QE, no QE, etc etc…(sure, there's been other ways of doing it). But how to judge what has the over riding influence on the outcome? This could vary under certain conditions. How much of the US equity recent rise is in default of Europe, just like EURGBP taking the heat…and how much of the current price is underpinning based on QE to come? What has recent price action illustrated, if anything at all… How should weaker growth effect share prices? I would argue that this would just be a further nail in the coffin, when all the ducks are lining up, but how can we say it's got more weight currently than some other significant half ? It's tough. Are the number of running variables any different than twenty years ago? Maybe not. Are market conditions, HFT, leverage, number of participants in the market any different? Certainly. Has this influenced price action? Maybe Richard Dennis may have some views here. When does the variation in conditions influence the ability to test? I suppose this might be the question. Duveen, from Victor Niederhoffer June 21, 2012 \| 1 Comment Duveen by S.N. Behrman, the prolific playwright (The Second Man, Fanny) contains a smorgasbord of interesting, amusing, and illuminating grist for the mill of readers interested in marketing, history, and finance. Joseph Duveen (1869-1939) was the most successful dealer in fine arts, or indeed any pricey collectibles in history. He achieved almost a monopoly on selling almost all Italian art painted before the 1700's. His techniques to achieve the monopoly are at once hilarious and instructive. He insisted on paying the highest prices for all paintings that came up at auction or through collectors, and made sure that none of his collectors ever suffered a loss on the market value of any paintings he sold to them. He was the main force behind the collections housed in the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery, and the Frick. His customers, included Mellon, Kress, Rockefeller, Hearst, Frick, Morgan, Altman, Huntington, Bache, Goldman (of Goldman Sachs), Widener, Rockefeller and almost every other magnate of his time. A key feature of his selling method included preparing a catalogue of the collector's holdings that immortalized the collection and the collector. The one magnate he wasn't successful with, Henry Ford, is the subject of a hilarious story. Duveen presented a catalogue to Ford with all the greatest pictures available in the 30s. Ford said it was such a beautiful book, that there was no reason for him to buy the pictures. On other occasions, he refused to sell to a collector, until his collection has reached a certain point of grandeur. He always insisted that he could sell his best paintings to Mellon or Kress so why would he wish to sell to a mere millionaire who was not one of his favored customers already. In this technique he predated Madoff. In describing his methods, Mrs. Hearst said, "Duveen didn't want to sell any of his paintings. But his customers always badgered the poor fellow until he gave in." He liked to buy entire collections, and stored the collections in palatial dealing rooms that he maintained in London and New York. His mantra was that "Europe had the paintings but America had the money" so his main customers were the American industrialists, and 5 and 10 centimillionaires of his era. His financing method was to use his paintings as collateral for loans, and to buy up all good collections and store them until the values increased. He was able to beggar his brothers and sisters by buying up their interests and refusing to pay them off during his lifetime. He didn't understand the concept of interest on money, and gave his collectors infinite time to pay their debts to him. Yet during this time, he had to borrow from banks like the Mellon and pay enormous interest. In addition, he had heavy expenses from maintaining his business and paying off all his runners, and finders across the world. Thus, he was always cash poor during his life. He bought out all the interests in his family but didn't pay them off during his lifetime. The main problem in his financing was that he had to pay cash for everything he bought but he gave unlimited credit to all his customers. A favorite technique was to lend a painting to a collector to hang in his home or gallery for several years, while he became acquainted with the painting. He liked to say that the painting was the one asset that a collector could buy that would cost him no upkeep, and give him constant enjoyment from viewing it. They were unable to sue because he was the only one that could sell the paintings in his inventory. Behrman believed that the main customers were lonely, silent men who were ashamed of how they obtained their wealth, and unhappy with the ne'er do wells in their family. Through the paintings they gained respect and immortality. And the paintings never talked back to them, became playboys or died in race track accidents like their children. Duveen had many partnerships with those who could aid him in his marketing. One was with Bernard Berenson, who vetted all his pictures, and received a commission on all that Duveen sold. Berenson eventually turned on Duveen, when the two had a bitter fight about the authenticity of a Titian that Duveen wanted to sell. Other partnerships were with the butlers and comptrollers of all his customers so that he could get advance knowledge of what they had to sell, and when they were in a mode of buying. One of his marketing techniques was to buy up all the English and Impressionist paintings of the era that his collectors had in their possession, so that they would not be tempted to add to their collections. He liked to upgrade his customers into buying only the best paintings and eschewing all commercial items. He found out early that his collectors liked pictures of pretty woman, with bright colors and action in his paintings that came from English Nobility. And when a great masterpiece came up without these characteristics he would buy them but not try to sell them, and store them in his warehouse. He liked to say, "it is much easier to sell a second rate picture that has belonged to any English nobleman than a first rate one that has belonged to a treat man of the Italian nobility." Duveen got his start selling Delft antiques that his poor family collected in Holland. He learned all the techniques of selling from his family's antique furniture business. But he soon came to the conclusion that it was much better to sell million dollar paintings than $ 5,000 rugs and medals. The book is sprinkled with great anecdotes and selling procedures of the time. For example, when he found a Da Vinci that a Russian countess was selling, he had first to pay for an option to buy the piece at a set price of 1 million. But then it had to be offered to the Tsar at that price before he could buy it. Behrman, the author, is one of those 20th century men who despised business people. He took pleasure in thinking that Duveens' customers were "scrupulously dishonest". And he seemed to think it fair that Duveen was equally dishonest with the customers. He fails to note that people like Kress, and Woolworth, and Rockefeller, the billionaires of his day got their wealth from selling goods to the masses that uplifted their standards of living and gave them the comforts that the richest of two generations back couldn't buy. Behrman writes, "as his customers aged, they felt guilt about such things as machinegunning the strikers at their mines, they were characterized as exploiters of the poor and the source of their misery. they felt futility and hostility closing in around them, they longed passionately for the happy company, in the even darker regions ahead." Duveen's paintings and persona provided that company and relief from their guilt. Duveen was always cash poor, as he had enormous overhead and inventory from carrying all the items that were out of favor. He also maintained a lavish life style and was constantly giving works of art, and paying for the buildings of the institutions that ultimately housed the paintings like the Tate and The National Gallery. His New York Gallery was built at enormous expense on the corner of 56th street and Fifth Avenue, currently the Bendel building, but then called the Ministry of Maine. His family complained about the expense but Duveen assured them he had "all the pictures sold". The family said "show us the bills of sale". Eventually when he died, he made a big sale to Mellon, and was able to pay off all his debts and died with an estate of about 7.5 million pounds, the first time he was solvent and debt free in his life. After he died a rival dealer said "We miss him but we are glad he is gone". What can we learn from Duveen? He had a complete marketing operation, with tentacles in every aspect of the supply and demand chain, paying every conceivable source of supply with bribes and emoluments. In this he reminds one of the publicity hungry flexions that run conglomerates of today, especially those in the Midwest, with their politician antennae always attuned to the sources of cheap goods that they can get ahead of everyone else. He liked to pay the highest prices for things, maintaining the market for his goods and creating enthusiasm among his customers. He was completely attentive to the needs of his customers and would do anything to please them, thereby showing the wisdom of the motto used by most great businesses that "the customer is always right", and taking back items with no questions asked at the original selling price regardless of the legitimacy of the complaint. He maintained the viability of his market by buying up all goods that came to it, thereby insuring that his customers always made a profit. But after he died, the prices of all his goods suffered a terrific fall. He was a master at manipulating markets. He bought goods, not because he expected to make a immediate or reasonable profit on them, but in order to maintain the illusion that none of his customers ever sold a painting at a loss, and that his favored 400 year old Italian masters would never decline in value. The importance of running stops, and hitting the exercise price of knock out options comes to mind. I'd like your comments on what we can learn from Duveen. His operation sounds like a corner. Significant Premium in July Ag Contracts, from Steve Ellison Cotton, sugar, corn, and soybeans all have significant backwardation between the July contracts nearing first notice and the new harvest contracts. The entire forward pricing curve is backwardated for soybeans, but the curves for cotton and sugar reverse to contango. Jul’12 1379.75 Nov’12 1316.50 Jul’12 80.04 Dec’12 71.15 Oct’12 20.01 Harry Kat found that commodities in backwardation are more likely to positive returns, and commodities in contango to have negative returns. Devils Furious at Officiating, Lose Game, from Steve Ellison Last night's Stanley Cup final game illustrated the Chair's point about diversion of energy. Having lost the first three games of the best-of-7 final to the Los Angeles Kings, the New Jersey Devils won two games and could have tied the series with a victory last night. Early in the game, the Kings' Jarret Stoll put a late hit on the Devils' Steven Gionta from behind and went unpenalized. Seconds later, the Kings' Rob Scuderi retrieved the puck. After Scuderi passed the puck to a teammate, the Devils' Steve Bernier hit Scuderi late from behind, drawing blood. The officials threw the book at Bernier, assessing a 5-minute penalty and ejecting Bernier from the game. During the 5-minute penalty, the Kings scored three goals. The television announcers noted that the Devils' coach and players were furious at the officials for the gross inconsistency in responding to the two late hits. And, it seemed, the Devils had a valid point. Nevertheless, they went on to lose the game, 6-1. Common Stocks and the Average Man, from Victor Niederhoffer June 4, 2012 \| 1 Comment An interesting list of favored stocks as of year end 1928 appears in Common Stocks and the Average Man by George Frederick, 1930. Allis-Chalmers , American Can , Atlantic Refining , Fleishmann Co , General Motors , Liggett and Myers B , Montgomery Ward , Paramount , Famous Lasky , US Steel , Woolworth . These were recommended for buy and hold, and the kind for George Baker, who made more in one day than all the gold miners in history, with his method of buying good stocks and holding them and living on interest. It is interesting to note, that as far as I can see, almost all of them went bankrupt or close to the same in the next 90 years. The book by Frederick and the comparable one by Ralph Badger, a professor at Brown, (Badger on Investment Principles and Practices, 950 pages), although not 100 years old are both highly recommended as being much better and much more helpful than the average treatise of today, or 30 years ago, especially those like Graham and Dodd. From the same era, I reviewed The Art of Speculation by Philip Carret on the dailyspec a few years ago. At the time I wrote the review, the phenomenon of "stocks carrying themselves" had not occurred in nearly 50 years, but that bullish condition did occur beginning in late 2008 and has been in effect ever since, as evidenced by the backwardation in S&P 500 futures. As Mr. Carret wrote, "Borrowed money is the lifeblood of speculation." I remember as a young kid my savings account at Seaman's Saving Bank paid 5%. I had a ceramic savings container for coins that was a merchant seaman in whites of the era. I vaguely recall that my stocks also normally yielded about a 5% dividend. My father's advice at the time was to use your rear not your head, and sit on the stocks. That must have been in the late 50's. Funny thing is now, again, dividends seem almost attractive with SP yielding over 2%. Some utilities are yielding 4.5% and don't seem to have the volatility of bonds nor industrials. It seems like the SP yield is way below its historical norms, so while it has been rising it has a long way to go to make it all that attractive. Of course given what "they" have done to the fixed yields they are pretty attractive but sooner or later as we all can feel the fixed yields will not stay low or negative even in Denmark and Switzerland forever. If they find a way to leave the dividend taxes alone, no doubt sooner or later the yields will come back to historical averages, so I don't think SP is attractive on that basis. I do firmly believe in sitting on stocks for a long time. The point that was recently made about all the old favorites having gone BK has a counterpoint: if you diversify enough into high yield stocks, a small but noticeable percentage of them will be bought out every year and that combined with the stream of dividends will overcome the BK factor over the years. As far as the bank savings accounts are concerned, I remember fondly how the banks and s & l's were engaged in a rhetorical war over, was it, 1/8th of a percent mandated difference? "You could spend that 1/8th of a point crossing town" was what one commercial said. It's pretty crazy how they "deregulated" the banks but left this one innocuous little Fed behind the scenes and now all savings yields are 0 and all the banks of note are TBTF. To me the moral of the story has always been: if you have FDIC in place all "deregulation" is a joke, but somehow the joke isn't funny to those guys and they don't like talking about moral hazards. You don't even get toasters these days. Gold Mining Stocks vs. Gold, from Steve Ellison A friend told me recently that gold mining stocks had been declining much more sharply than the price of gold. He therefore thought the stocks were undervalued. Attached is a graph of the ratio of GDX (the gold mining ETF) to GLD (the physical gold ETF) with a 50-day moving average and Bollinger bands. Here are the changes in the ratio in the next 50 days after the ratio of GDX to GLD fell below the lower Bollinger band. There have been only 15 non-overlapping occurrences since both ETFs began trading. GDX GLD GDX/GLD Ratio GDX GLD Date Adj Close Adj Clos Ratio change change change 1/18/2007 35.92 62.26 0.5769 1.4% 7.0% 5.6% 8/15/2007 35.42 66.13 0.5356 13.2% 30.2% 15.0% 11/19/2007 44.16 77.24 0.5717 -4.9% 10.0% 15.7% 2/6/2008 46.34 88.95 0.5210 3.2% 5.1% 1.9% 4/24/2008 43.78 87.22 0.5019 -0.2% 4.4% 4.6% 7/24/2008 43.48 91.33 0.4761 -27.0% -34.0% -9.6% 10/3/2008 28.70 82.59 0.3475 4.4% 4.5% 0.0% 3/2/2009 30.72 90.93 0.3378 25.6% 25.3% -0.3% 1/21/2010 43.33 107.37 0.4036 3.8% 7.2% 3.3% 10/19/2010 54.01 130.11 0.4151 6.7% 12.4% 5.3% 1/6/2011 56.58 133.83 0.4228 -1.7% 2.2% 4.0% 5/2/2011 59.95 150.41 0.3986 -3.8% -1.4% 2.5% 8/5/2011 55.26 161.75 0.3416 1.6% 2.1% 0.5% 12/19/2011 51.02 154.87 0.3294 0.0% 7.4% 7.4% 3/14/2012 50.12 159.57 0.3141 -6.2% -11.0% -5.1% Avg 1.1% 4.8% 3.4% Std. dev 11.1% 14.6% 6.5% N 15 15 15 t 0.38 1.05 0.24 The Business of Trading, from George Coyle I'm reading Trading as a Business by Charlie Wright. Pretty good book profiling the evolution from discretionary trader to systematic trader. One of those books where I found myself laughing at having been down the paths. More trend following oriented but I think it is a pretty good synopsis of the systematic world and he covers some bases that added value in terms of elements to consider in one's trading (or at least mine). Decent set of checklists. Do systematically inclined speculators recommend similar books (besides Victor Niederhoffer's and Larry Williams books). Also, Tradestation seems to do most anything a trader would want in terms of trend following testing. I have never used it though. The only flaw I find with systems is that they immediately stop working as soon as you try to use them. I think people need to do more research on fading systems. Christopher Tucker writes: Where's the "like" button on the Speclist? Yes, even systems I developed myself stop working when I try to use them because of data mining bias. Even if there legitimately is an edge, some component of the good backtesting performance is better-than-average luck. The word "enlightened discretionary" is very appealing. The reason for it, I guess, is because of the word "enlightened" more than the word "discretionary". Everyone hopes to be enlightened in someway. Being enlightened seems to be a spiritual consummation. But I guess that is not the first and real reason why people are after being enlightened. The real reason is that it is mystic and mostly unattainable. This coincides with a human nature of always craving for what they don't have, which is among the reasons why most people are persistently unhappy. I feel preferring discretion to system is quite illogical. Aren't whatever rules one uses as a discretion by nature a system? It perhaps is not explicitly sketched out, but it by all means is a system of rules that resides in one's head. Couldn't that be phrased and then programmed? I agree some are not very easy. But are they really impossible? Gary Phillips writes: I've been doing this long enough to instinctively know what works and what doesn't. I only need to look at my P&L for empirical confirmation. If in doubt I just try to see the market for what it is and not what it appears to be. One needs to understand market structure, liquidity, and price action and develop a framework for analyzing the market, somewhere between bottom-up & top-down lies the sweet spot. This allows you to see the market in the proper context and provides you with a compass, which will keep you from feeling lost and will show you the way. Aren't ? Hi Leo, you probably could say "whatever rules one uses as a discretion by nature is a system", but a system may not have the ability to load up once the move kicks (obviously it can be programmed) but at times the opportunity may appear intuitive, and a trader can do that on relatively short notice, whilst keeping initial risk limited. Interesting, Gary, the issue with systems seems to be at times data mining against price action and structure which gives strength of understanding. The HFT may work on massive turnover, low commissions and effectively front running, and unless you have those edges then it appears difficult to succeed from a data mining basis (and relatively scary trading something that you don't effectively understand from a logical point of view). However classifying a markets structure, and working off 3-4 premises no more, (as I believe more would allow any edge to be diluted across a range of options), and the ability to leverage once on a move, appears to be something you can work with. This is purely from a hands on execution basis, no doubt the pure programmers can weigh in. I remember speaking to a guy who professionally programs for others… (admittedly a lot of retail), and we were talking about what are the laws in place for him to not front run me after developing a system I gave him…and he was like "mate, to be honest (probably insinuating "dont flatter yourself") 97% don't make a dime." That was certainly probably expected I suppose, but to hear it in technicolour was confronting and I was surprised he said as much. I really don't believe that discretionary trading today, is any harder than it used to be. The emotional aspects, and risk management, have essentially remained the same. Methodology is different, because algorithmic driven HFTrading has forced intra-day traders to change from momentum chasers to mean reversion traders. And as you stated, there are countless global/macro concerns as a result of the financial crisis and continued global easing. So, it does demand a broader universe of knowledge, and revamped techniques and benchmarks, but it still boils down to identifying what is truly driving price and how it is being driven. I guess this is what gives you the elusive edge. But, as we used to say the edge can sometimes be the ledge. That being said, trading doesn't have to be about being right or wrong the market, or predicting where the market is headed in the next moment, hour, day or week. Trading can be nothing more than a probabilistic exercise, and a trade nothing more than a statistical data point - the next event in a series of events governed by the statistical random distribution of results. Kim Zussman writes: "Trading can be nothing more than a probabilistic exercise, and a trade nothing more than a statistical data point - the next event in a series of events governed by the statistical random distribution of results." One would suggest that trading is a waste of time if your historical or expected mean are random. Article of the Day, from Steve Ellison May 14, 2012 \| Leave a Comment Wondering what the statisticians on Dailyspec think of this Atlantic article "When Correllation is not Causation but Something Much More Screwy" : One of [UCLA professor Judas] Pearl's most interesting deductions is the idea of conditioning on a collider. If a case being observed is a function of two variables then this will induce an artifactual negative correlation between the variables. This is true even if in the broader population there is no correlation (or even a mild positive correlation) between the variables. The article cites Professor Cowen's rules for dining out: Assume that the two main things that let restaurants succeed are food quality and various other things that we can collectively call atmosphere. The logic of conditioning on a collider implies that among surviving restaurants there should be a negative correlation between atmosphere and food. This implies that if you are monomaniacally focused on good food you should follow the heuristic of avoiding fashionistas and seeking out unpopular ethnic groups as the only way such places could possibly stay in business is if they offer good food. The Upas Tree, from Victor Niederhoffer The Upas tree was a terrible tree according to Erasmus Darwin that was so poisonous that it was able to destroy all life of any kind for 15 miles around it. Who and what are the Upas trees of the market? I would say that Madoff and Abelson and the conglomerates and real estate slumps are Upas trees, and in increase in rates, perhaps the first change in direction is also quite lethal. The signal of unbridled interference and flexionism galore as in October 08 would also seem to be a curse. The lyrics to "I've got a little list" from Mikado go through the head. The hoodoo, the parson and the albatross from O'Brian go through the head as does the report "there's a little shadow on this x-ray. Probably nothing to worry about." What would you add? I would like to say Buffett but I refrain. Victor Niederhoffer adds: One Upas tree regularity is the tremendous move against the weak player when he she one is being squeezed out of position. The MF, the Societe General, and the Thailand moves are examples of that. One wonders what the other side of the coin is. What are the apple trees of the market, the benevolent things that cause it to go up. The book "The Man Who Planted Trees" is a very good one for all to read describing how a French man who planted apple trees brought a village to life from death by first stopping erosion. And then providing shade and food and respite from the heat. The oak tree is also a benevolent tree providing food and shelter for countless species and Cervantes mentions the cork tree "whose benevolent fruit provides shelter for beauteous maidens without any thought of its own welfare". What other trees? What's good for the market. Many of the things that are good for the market are bad in the short term but good in the long term. Like a decline in oil prices. The prospect of a decrease in the service revenues is also very good. What are some benevolent and some more destructive things for markets? High junk bond defaults that clear the weak players and reallocate assets to stronger hands come to mind as a short term negative that is a long term positive. Laurel Kenner adds: Obamacare and Dodd-Frank are the two worst and most dangerous pieces of legislation ever introduced into the American field, and have the potential to turn into giant ruinous Upas trees. They are only shells for unknown future rules put into effect by people whom neither the electorate nor Congress will be able to control. They have no sunset, no funding limits, and no restraint on their bureaucracies. I would nominate an inverted yield curve. An inverted yield curve pinches the flexions' net interest margins. 6 of the last 40 years began with inverted yield curves: 1974, 1979, 1980, 1981, 2001, and2007. None of them were good years to be an investor in stocks. Kurt Specht comments: European debt concerns and related debt market convulsions are frequently sited as short term drivers of overall market action. Ken Drees adds: I was about to opine about the benefits of the upas, even something so deadly has good parts and then I tried to fold that into a Madoff or an MF Global and couldn't come up with any quick relationships of how a bad market tree can bestow something positive other than a lesson to be learned. Other than a lesson to future investors, sometimes positive regulation comes out of these dark trees. It is a fairly low source of timber and yields a lightweight hardwood with density of 250-540 kilogram per cubic metre (similar to balsa). As the wood peels very easily and evenly, it is commonly used for veneer work. The bark has a high concentration of tannin which is used in traditional clothes dyeing and paints. In Javanese traditional medicine, the leaves and root are used to treat mental illnesses. In Africa and other Asian nations, seed, leaves and bark are used as an astringent and the seeds as an antidysenteric. Most famous to Africa and Polynesia are the strong, coarse bark cloth derived clothings- which are often decorated with the dye produced from the bark tannins. The plant is often grown purposely for shade or shelter around human dwellings as it provides excellent dense shade from the tropical heat. The leaf litter is an excellent compost material and high in nutrients- often spread around local gardens, which must be grown distant to the antiaris due to its extremely dense canopy. Recently, the plant had allegedly been used by retired Tanzanian pastor Ambilikile Mwasapile to allegedly cure all manner of diseases, including HIV/AIDS, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, asthma, and others. While found to be harmless to humans when boiled in accordance with Mwasapile's mode of creating a medicinal drink out of the bark, it allegedly was undergoing testing by the WHO and Tanzanian health authorities to verify whether it has any medicinal value. However, conflicting reports suggest that the plant in question is not indeed Antiaris toxicaria, but rather Carissa edulis. Poison Humans have long used poison for hunting and warfare. Antiaris toxicaria is most famous for being employed as a poison for arrows, darts and blowdarts. In Javanese tradition, Antiaris toxicaria is used with strychnos ignatii. The Antiaris toxicaria latex sap has the active components of cardenolides (chemicals with cardiac arresting potential). The latex, present in the bark and foliage, contains a cardiac glycoside named antiarin, which is used as an arrow poison called upas: Javanese for poison, but, commonly to the poetic (non literal) quality of many Javanese words has a duality of meanings- watchman, messenger and courier. In China, this plant is known as Arrow Poison Wood and the poison is said to be so deadly that it has been described as "Seven Up Eight Down Nine No Life" meaning once poisoned a person can take no more than seven steps uphill, eight steps downhill or nine steps on level ground. A visitor to South Kensington Museum in 1881 noted a picture of a Upas tree and wrote in their diary 'a picture of the Upas tree the most poisonous in the world any one fall down dead before they can reach it. It turns out there is a poem about this tree by the traditionally the most famous Russian poet: The Upas Tree by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin Deep in the desert's misery, far in the fury of the sand, there stands the awesome Upas Tree lone watchman of a lifeless land. The wilderness, a world of thirst, in wrath engendered it and filled its every root, every accursed grey leafstalk with a sap that killed. Dissolving in the midday sun the poison oozes through its bark, and freezing when the day is done gleams thick and gem-like in the dark. No bird flies near, no tiger creeps; alone the whirlwind, wild and black, assails the tree of death and sweeps away with death upon its back. And though some roving cloud may stain with glancing drops those leaden leaves, the dripping of a poisoned rain is all the burning sand receives. But man sent man with one proud look towards the tree, and he was gone, the humble one, and there he took the poison and returned at dawn. He brought the deadly gum; with it he brought some leaves, a withered bough, while rivulets of icy sweat ran slowly down his livid brow. He came, he fell upon a mat, and reaping a poor slave's reward, died near the painted hut where sat his now unconquerable lord. The king, he soaked his arrows true in poison, and beyond the plains dispatched those messengers and slew his neighbors in their own domains. Manufactures, from Victor Niederhoffer May 2, 2012 \| Leave a Comment The % of manufactures that saw increasing orders went from 53 % to 54.8 % this month, and it caused a break in the round and a 1% up move. Let's say there are 1000 or n manufactures who report in the survey. The standard error of a proportion is 1/2 divided by the square root of n, i.e. 1/60. Thus the actual proportion is less than 1 standard error away from expectation, a 35% shot by randomness to say nothing for the quantum increases in randomness caused by faulty seasonal adjustments. When you add in that manufacturing these days represents 10 or 20% of the economy, it's pretty iffy all around. That's what makes the markets run. If we are generous and estimate "more than 300" as 399 respondents, the margin of error for a 54.8% result is 4.9%, if Manta's listing of 45,000 US manufacturing companies is a rough approximation of the population. Victor Niederhoffer replies: As Sholem Alechem would say, "we are both right". Anton Johnson adds: An off topic anecdote. For those don't who use Gmail, they mine email text to provide targeted ads. From time to time I get a chuckle at what AdWords elicits for me. Today, from Vic's "sholem alechem" comment, the algo determined that soon I will be travelling to Israel and require lodging in Tel Aviv. Flexion Index, from Steve Ellison April 4, 2012 \| Leave a Comment I defined a Flexion Index as the z score of the price of XLF relative to its 39-week average and standard deviation (for example, a z score of -2 would mean the price was on the lower Bollinger Band). My theory is that flexions are happy when the index is above zero because their stocks are going up and they are getting bonuses. When the index is below -1, the flexions are in distress and likely to clamor for bailouts and accomodative monetary policy. Regressing the net change in SPY in the next 39 weeks against the z score of XLF, I found a positive correlation with N=16 and t=1.40 (scatter plot below). Too few observations for significance; furthermore, 30 weeks into a 39-week period that started with a z score of -2.37 last September, SPY so far has nearly a 20% gain. 39-week Change in SPY Date XLF average z score next 39 weeks 9/17/1999 22.91 24.84 -1.58 9.6% 6/16/2000 24.00 23.45 0.33 -21.5% 3/16/2001 25.95 27.58 -1.11 -1.6% 12/14/2001 25.50 26.64 -0.70 -20.7% 9/13/2002 22.37 25.35 -1.66 11.0% 6/13/2003 25.34 22.38 2.16 13.1% 3/12/2004 29.57 27.03 1.51 6.0% 12/10/2004 30.04 28.66 1.83 4.4% 9/9/2005 29.87 29.45 0.54 0.6% 6/9/2006 32.69 31.92 0.58 12.3% 12/7/2007 31.20 34.79 -1.50 -17.6% 9/5/2008 21.74 24.72 -1.00 -24.0% 12/3/2010 15.18 14.90 0.37 -4.1% 9/2/2011 12.54 15.55 -2.37 Why Market Predictions are not Statistically Sound, from Leo Jia I take the view that most market predictions don't produce statistically sound results. I believe market condition is a result of human behavior. Although many fundamental human behaviors are predictable with the advancement of behavioral sciences, the market involves more than the fundamental human behaviors. The key to it lies in the varying derivative perceptions of market participants. Let's say the view "since condition A, then the market will rise" is the fundamental perception. A first derivative view, for instance, can be "since all believe the market rises due to condition A, it will fall". A second derivative can then be "since all believe the market falls due to (…), it will rise". And so on. If the market participants all adhered to one of the principles above, then it would be very easy to predict the market. The thing is that is never the case. The big hands shift views along the derivatives all the time. That is what makes most predictions today unsound. If we have a way (the big winners should have this talent) to predict which derivative view the big hands take, then the prediction would be more accurate. But then, if many could do that, the game changes again. Before that happens, let me raise the question here on how one can develop that talent. This is the principle of ever-changing cycles, as described by Bacon in Secrets of Professional Turf Betting and elaborated on in the Chair's books. One of Bacon's approaches was to look for good horses that had lost in their most recent races. The memories of the recent losses caused the public to have negative opinions about those horses. Market movements (which way, how far, and when) cannot be predicted by DEFINITION. The financial markets are a non-linear system. More than three non-correlated variables, and you cannot predict a specific price at a specific future point in time — a mathematical certainty. However, like many natural cycles, markets exhibit a powerful tendency to revert to the mean. Now that mean moves around and will have its own wobble, but around it there is definitely a clear sinusoidal pattern — actually short and longer term patterns within patterns. Look at any index or commodity chart over an extended period of time. Individual securities will have the same tendency, but the longer term impact of low-probability outliers is more pronounced — your Microsofts or your Lehman Brothers'. The more narrow the influences — the greater the risk (one-trick pony, or bad management risk for example.) If you apply portfolio theory (diversification basically), the risk (and reward) of outliers is significantly diminished, and I believe you can develop successful strategies simply based on price and on the concept of reversion to the mean using indices, sectors, and commodities (anything always economically necessary to greater or lesser degree, that has an extremely low probability of going to zero. Even there it's not quite blow-up risk-free (asbestos didn't really work out.) You can then more safely use leverage and modulate the range of returns with same. Reversion to the mean requires a large sample size, so you need many sources acting on the main influences on price (large underlying product markets, liquid financial markets), and time. The larger the sample size and the longer the time frame, the more reliable a reversion strategy should be. The psychology of what Steve alluded above to is reflected in the aggregate behavior (influences on price) mentioned above. If you're going to go for the "bad horses" though, buy several in case one keels over and dies. Now if they all contract a contagious disease from each other… George Coyle writes: The 86th episode of Seinfeld was called "The Opposite" and involved George Costanza's experience in cycles. The plot goes as follows (from wikipedia): George returns from the beach and decides that every decision that he has ever made has been wrong, and that his life is the exact opposite of what it should be. George tells this to Jerry in Monk's Cafe, who convinces him that "if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right". George then resolves to start doing the complete opposite of what he would do normally."Of course everything goes right for him from then on (until the end of the episode). While funny it brings up the interesting idea of the Costanza trade. Out sample seldom replicate in sample (probably due to ever changing cycles). How can one figure when to follow the trend of profitability and when to apply the Costanza trade to a perceived winner. Bad Times Ahead? from George Coyle February 21, 2012 \| 1 Comment I downloaded SPY weekly data from 1/2000. I calculated the open to close change in percentage terms for each week. Next I used the excel function (=WEEKNUM) to find the week number. 1/3/2012 was week 1, 1/30/12 was week 5 which makes this week 7. I looked back to 1/2000 to see what happens in various weeks (forgive my simplistic counting Rocky, fwiw fundamentally I am wary of being long here). My N was 12 for any period not yet covered in 2012. Only 4/12 week 8s were up (66% down) with an average expectation of -0.80%. Further only 2/12 week 9s were up (83% down) with an average expectation of -1%. Market certainly doesn't seem interested in going down and the N is pretty small but probably worth considering. To avoid the problem of multiple comparisons, I would suggest running a simulation in which you randomly reshuffle the weekly changes and sort them into 52 groups. Repeat the random reshuffle 500 or 1000 times . Then tabulate the extremes (highest and lowest number of up weeks in ANY group) for each repetition. You can then sort the extreme results from each repetition and check what the top 2.5% or top 5% of the highest of 52 groups was in the simulation. If you find actual results that exceed these cutoffs, you may be onto something. There are probably computer programs that will run such a simulation very elegantly; I just use the Excel RAND() function and copy and paste until I have 1000 repetitions Steady Low-Volatility Advance, from Steve Ellison The Chair has noted an unusual percentage of up days recently in the US stock market. In academic studies of simulated trading, this sort of price action occurs when a couple of participants are told the true value of a stock in advance. The uninformed participants trade randomly, and the informed participants' trading moves the price in the direction of true value. I don't think that is what is happening now–insiders have sold 2.5 times as many shares as they have bought in the past two months. The wave of money is coming from elsewhere. In an attempt to quantify what is happening, I divided the last 1800 days of S&P 500 trading into 90 20-day periods. For each period I calculated the average daily percentage change and the standard deviation of the daily changes. I divided the average daily change by the standard deviation to get an estimate of how far the market was moving relative to volatility. In the 20 trading days ending February 10, 2012, the average daily net change of the S&P 500 emini contract was 0.19% with a standard deviation of 0.48%. The ratio of average change to standard deviation was 39%, the 7th highest ratio in the 90 20-day periods (and the 8th highest absolute value ratio). After 12 of the previous 14 instances in which the ratio was greater than 25%, the S&P 500 emini was up during the next 20 days, but one was followed by a steep decline, and the t score was less than 1. 20 days Avg. daily Std Next 20 days Ending change (20) dev Ratio change 3/19/2010 0.2% 0.5% 50.2% 2.9% 12/31/2010 0.1% 0.3% 49.9% 2.3% 4/6/2009 1.1% 2.7% 40.0% 8.8% 12/1/2005 0.2% 0.5% 39.9% -1.4% 11/3/2010 0.2% 0.5% 39.0% 2.1% 2/10/2012 0.2% 0.5% 38.9% 7/22/2011 0.2% 1.0% 25.3% -16.2% It's impossible to know the cause and effect; but if you move from vol=25 to vol=15, stocks SHOULD go up, ceteris paribus. And if we are about to shift from vol=15 to vol=25, p/e's should shrink. Steve Ellison replies: Dividing my 90 20-day periods into a 2×2 matrix, price change up or down and volatility low or high (defined as the standard deviation being above or below the median of the last 30+ 20-day periods), I found the following distribution: Price up 30 30 down 6 24 Price went up in 83% of low volatility periods and only 56% of high volatility periods. Rocky Humbert replies: Thank you as always for your numbers on the table! If I understand this correctly, it confirms my superficial hypothesis … and it's also part and parcel of how the GARCH etc people manage money. Mr. Rogan writes: "How can it be rational for people to react to some short-term decrease in volatility by bidding up prices, when they have no idea if that change will hold the next day?" To Mr. Rogan: The risk of a position is not what it did yesterday. It's what it will do tomorrow. You are making the quaint assumption that it is less "risky" to buy after a price dump. That might be true after some period of time, but it's not true in the days or weeks after a sharp price drop. For investors who use VaR, they are willing to buy/own more of an asset that exhibits less price volatility REGARDLESS OF THE INTRINSIC VALUE of the asset. This is one of those things that got us into the financial crisis. But it is rational if you believe that the market generally gets the nominal pricing correct. I am not going to defend VaR, but neither am I going to call it systematically irrational. I dare say that if you were putting 50% of your net worth into a buy&hole stock, you'd feel more comfortable picking a stock that "only" moves +/- 15% per year versus a stock that moves +/- 90% per year. In financial mathematics and financial risk management, Value at Risk (VaR) is a widely used risk measure of the risk of loss on a specific portfolio of financial assets. For a given portfolio, probability and time horizon, VaR is defined as a threshold value such that the probability that the mark-to-market loss on the portfolio over the given time horizon exceeds this value (assuming normal markets and no trading in the portfolio) is the given probability level.[1]For example, if a portfolio of stocks has a one-day 5% VaR of $1 million, there is a 0.05 probability that the portfolio will fall in value by more than $1 million over a one day period if there is no trading. Informally, a loss of $1 million or more on this portfolio is expected on 1 day in 20. A loss which exceeds the VaR threshold is termed a "VaR break."[2] Thus, VaR is a piece of jargon favored in the financial world for a percentile of the predictive probability distribution for the size of a future financial loss.VaR has five main uses in finance: risk management, financial control, financial reporting and computing regulatory capital. VaR is sometimes used in non-financial applications as well.[3]Important related ideas are economic capital, backtesting, stress testing, expected shortfall, and tail conditional expectation.[4] Let’s play a little game of “Baron Rothschild”, from Rocky Humbert Let's play a little game — it's called “Baron Rothschild” — who once said “I made my fortune by selling too early” (a comment also made by Bernard Baruch)… Suppose that the dealer lays cards down, one after another. Each is an annual market return. At any time, you can call out “Baron Rothschild” and go to a defensive position, or you can gamble and get the entire market return the dealer shows next. The gain cards read, say, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30%. If you're defensive, you lag the market by 10% when the market return is a gain, but you get, say, 5% if the market return is a loss. There is one -20% loss card. Once it appears, the game ends and everyone counts their dough, compounded. It turns out that if the loss comes anytime before the 5th card, you're almost always ensured to beat or tie the dealer by immediately blurting out “Baron Rothschild” even before the first card is shown. For example, 20%, 20%, 20%, 5% beats 30%, 30%, 30%, -20% 20%, 10%, 5%, 5% beats 30%, 20%, 15%, -20% 5%, 5%, 5%, 5% ties 15%, 15%, 15%, -20% You can easily prove to yourself that even for a six-year market cycle, you still generally win even if you call out “Baron Rothschild” after year two. It just doesn't pay to risk the big loss. The point of this isn't that investors should always take a defensive stance — some market conditions are associated with very strong return/risk profiles that warrant substantial exposure to market fluctuations. The point is that the avoidance of significant losses is generally worth accepting even long periods of defensiveness. Because of the mathematics of compounding, large losses have a disproportionate effect on cumulative returns. Remember that historically, most bear markets have not averaged 20%, but approach 30% or more. A 30% loss takes an 80% gain and turns it into a 26% gain. It's difficult to recover from such losses, which is why the recent bull market has not even put the market ahead of Treasury bills since 2000 or even 1998. So again, the point is that the avoidance of significant losses is typically worthwhile even if, like Baron Rothschild, one is defensive "too soon." With regard to present stock market conditions, it would take a correction of only about 10% in the S&P 500 to put the market behind Treasury bills for the most recent 3-year period. That's not an empty statistic given rich valuations, unusual bullishness, overbought conditions, rising yield trends, and a market long overdue for such a correction. Given the average return/risk profile those conditions have historically produced, it makes sense to call out "Baron Rothschild" even if we allow for the possibility of a further advance, in this particular instance, before the market inevitably corrects. 1) Let's assume that one's goal is to beat some passive index (it doesn't have to be stocks; it could be the Yen or Natgas) over an X month period. And let's further assume that one is willing to engage in "selling early." And lastly, let's assume that "selling early" is sometimes the "right" thing to do due to the essay above. As a statistical matter, what is the likely minimum value for X … that permits the speculator to beat his passive index? 2) Let's assume that one's goal is to beat a passive index (again, it doesn't have to be stocks) over an X month period. And let's further assume that one is willing to exit the market "early," but also "buy early." Obviously, if one exits, re-entering is a necessary thing to do. As a statistical matter, what is the likely minimum value for X … such that the speculator can beat his passive index? 3) As a purely statistical matter, which should be better/worse : Buying early and selling early? Or, buying late and selling late ? And, again, what is the minimum X month performance period where either strategy has a chance to beat the passive benchmark. William Weaver writes: 1. Disposition Effect 2. Great essay and the observation of defensive over aggressive is very good but I can't agree with purely taking profits unless there is a reason to exit. Assuming sufficient liquidity, in my humble opinion, it might not be bad to tighten stops (volatility historically has fallen as equities rise - though high levels in the late 1990's - so stops based on standard deviation should tighten anyway) allowing one to lock in profits but continue to profit from any trend that develops or continues. This seems to be a prominent trait of the most successful traders I've met; allowing profits to run by controlling for risk instead of picking a top. 3. The saying "There is nothing wrong with taking small profits" is a great way to lose everything if you don't also control for losses. In this essay there is only an early exit for profits. 4. His analysis of the equity premium to Treasuries is very insightful but I will leave that to the list for independent testing. 5. Every trader is different and must play to their own personality. For me, when trading intraday (which I am new to and still not the biggest fan of but am coming along) I will take off part of a position when anything changes, and this helps manage risk (leads to a larger percentage of profitable days). But will wait for long term momentum to reverse before exiting the last half as this is where the majority of my monthly profits come from. This way I can be a wuss and still profit. 6. Read The Disposition Effect if you have not and are interested in any type of trading/speculation. (To add to things to do to become a successful speculator: know, understand and be able to identify behavioral biases both in your own trading, and in the market). I don't fully understand Rocky's 3 questions at the end. Guess they are meant for some real speculations, rather than for the Baron Rothschild Game, right? If so, then I take Will's approach as described in his Point 2, except that I don't exit on instant stops, but on closing prices of certain intervals (30 minutes for instance for position trades) if the means of the intervals trigger my stops. My feelings about instant stops are that 1) they tend to have more execution errors (due to price chasing), and 2) either they get triggered more often or I have to set them wider (meaning more losses). I don't have concrete results about this and would love to hear other opinions. I can't see how the game closely resembles trading. From what I understand about it, there seem to be many more winning cards than losing ones. So a strategy of simply selling on random cards gives one an easy edge to beat the dealer (though not necessarily achieving the best result). Am I missing something there? Turning to writings from 100 years ago, a friend found this book in his attic in Montana and gave it to me: Fourteen Methods of Operating in the Stock Market. The first article in this book was A Specialist in Panics, which has been discussed on the List before. This method is to buy when there is a panic. There was another article by H.M.P. Eckhardt, "Plan for Taking Advantage of the Primary Movements". He advised buying during steep market declines, as the Specialist in Panics did, but also suggested selling if a rapid rise brought profits equal to the interest the investor could have earned over three or four years. Mr. Eckhardt surmised that, with his money already having earned its keep for at least three years, the investor would probably get a chance to put it back to work in less than three years when another panic occurred. For these sorts of techniques, Rocky's X is the length of a business cycle, which is unknowable in advance, but would normally be at least 48 months. Let's say you start at January, 2004 (arbitrarily chosen start date, but not cherry-picked, i.e., not compared to other possible start dates), and you go to January 2012. You have $100 a month to invest. You can buy the SPY and/or hold cash. You have a total of 97 months and thus, $9700 to invest. If you buy the SPY every month (using adjusted monthly close), you wind up with: But being a clever speculator and wanting to buy the dips, you come up with a plan: You will let your monthly cash accrue until SPY has a large drop as measured by the monthly adjclose-adjclose; each time the SPY has such a drop, you will put half your current cash into SPY at the monthly close. To decide how large the drop will be, you compute the standard deviation of the previous 12 monthly % changes, and then your buying trigger is a drop of a certain number of SDs. Your speculator friends like the plan, but disagree on the size of the drop, so each of you chooses a different number of SDs as a trigger: 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, and the real doom-n-gloomer at 4. The results, showing the size of the drop in SDs required to trigger a buy-in, the final value of the portfolio, and the average cash position during the entire period: SD / final value / avg cash 0.5 $11,522.13 $543.03 1.5 $10,885.80 $1,351.02 4.0 $9,700.00 $4,900.00 You, of course, chose 0.5 SDs as your trigger and so come out with the biggest gain. But your friend who chose 3 SDs says that he could have used his larger cash position to invest in Treasuries and thus have beaten you. You say, "Coulda, woulda, shoulda." Mr Gloom-n-Doom cheated and bought the TLT every month and wound up with $14,465.56. Ten Steps One Should Take to Become a Successful Speculator, from Victor Niederhoffer January 30, 2012 \| Leave a Comment I am often asked what ten steps one should take to become a successful speculator. I would start by reading the books of the 19th century speculators, 50 Years in Wall Street, The Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Markman, and others. Next I would read the papers of Alfred Cowles in the 1920s and try to compute similar statistics on runs and expectations for 5 or 10 markets. Third I would get or write a program to pick out random dates from an array of prices, and see what regularities you find in it compared to picking out actual event or market based events. Fourth, I would read Malkiel's book A Random Walk Down Wall Street and update his findings with the last 2 years of data. Fifth, I would look at the work of Sam Eisenstadt of Value Line and see if you could replicate it in real life with updated results. Sixth, I would start to keep daily prices, open, high, low, and close for 20 of so markets and individual stocks and go back a few years. Seventh, I would go to a good business library and look at the old Investor Statistical Laboratory records of prices to see whether it gave you any insights. Eighth, I would look for times when panic was in the air, and see if there were opportunities to bring out the canes on a systematic basis. Ninth, I would apprentice myself to a good speculator and ask if I could be a helpful assistant without pay for a period. Tenth, I would become adept at a field I knew and then try to apply some of the insights from that field into the market. Eleventh, I would get a good book on Statistics like Snedecor or Anderson and be able to compute the usual measures of mean, variance, and regression in it. Twelfth, I would read all the good financial papers on SSRN or Financial Analysts Journal to see what anomalies are still open. Thirteenth, of course would be to read Bacon, Ben Green, and Atlas Shrugged. I guess there are many other steps that should be taken that I have left out especially for the speculation in individual stocks. What additional steps would you recommend? Which of mine seem too narrow or specialized or wrong? All the activities mentioned are educational, however, notably missing is a precise definition of a "successful speculator." I think providing a clear, rigorous definition of both of these terms would be illuminating and a necessary first step — and the definition itself will reveal much truth. Anatoly Veltman adds: I think with individual stocks: one would have to really understand the sector, the company's niche and be able to monitor inside activity for possible impropriety. Individual stocks can wipe out: Bear Stearns deflated from $60 to $2 in no time at all. In my opinion: there is no bullet-proof technical approach, applicable to an individual enterprise situation. A widely-held index, currency cross or commodity is an entirely different arena. And where the instrument can freely move around the clock: there will be a lot of arbitrage opportunities arising out of the fact that a high percentage of participation is inefficient, limited in both the hours that they commit and the capital they commit between time-zone changes. Small inefficiencies can snowball into huge trends and turns; and given the leverage allowed in those markets - live or die financial opportunities are ever present. So technicals overpower fundamentals. So far so good. Comes the tricky part: to adopt statistics to the fact of unprecedented centralized meddling and thievery around the very political tops. Some of the individual market decrees may be painfully random: after all, pols are just humans with their families, lovers, ills and foibles. No statistical precedent may duly incorporate such. Plus, I suspect most centralized economies of current decade may be guilty of dual-bookeeping. Those things may also blow up in more random fashion than many decades worth of statistics might dictate. Don't tell me that leveraged shorting and flexionic interventions existed even before the Great Depression. Today's globalization, money creation at a stroke of a keyboard key, abominable trends in income/education disparity and demographics, coupled with general new low in societal conscience and ethics - all combine to create a more volatile cocktail than historical market stats bear out. 2001 brought the first foreign act of war to the American soil in centuries. I know that chair and others were critical of any a money manager strategizing around such an event. But was it a fluke, or a clue: that a wrong trend in place for some time will invariably produce an unexpected event? Why can't an unprecedented event hit the world's financial domain? In the aftermath of DSK Sofitel set-up, some may begin imagining the coming bank headquarter bombing, banker shooting or other domestic terrorism. I for one envision a further off-beat scenario: that contrary to expectations, the current debt spiral will be stopped dead. Can you imagine next market moves without the printing press? Will you find statistical precedent of zooming from 2 trillion deficit to 14 trillion and suddenly stopping one day? Craig Mee comments: Very generous post, thanks Victor… I would add, in this day and age, learn tough typing and keyboard skills for execution and your way around a keyboard, so you don't wipe off a months profit in the heat of battle. I would also add, learn ways of speed reading and information absorption, though these two may be more "what to do before you start out". Anatoly, I don't think really understanding the sector and and the niche is all that useful unless one knows what's going on as well as the CEO of the company, which means that in general understanding quite a bit about the company isn't useful to anyone without access to enormous amount of information. It's the subtle, little, invisible things that often make all the difference. There are a lot of people who know a lot about pretty much any company, so to out-compete them based on knowledge is usually pretty hopeless. It is nevertheless sometimes possible to out-compete those with even better knowledge by sticking with longer horizons or by being a better processor of information, but it's rare. That said, it has been shown repeatedly that some combination of buying stocks that are out of favor by some objective measure, possibly combined with some positive value-creation characteristics, such as return on invested capital, do result in market-beating return. Certainly, just about any equity can go to essentially zero, but that's what diversification is for. Jeff Watson adds: In the commodities markets it's essential to cultivate commercials who trade the same markets as you(especially in the grains.) One can glean much information from a commercial, information like who's buying. who's selling, who's bidding up the front month, who's spreading what, who's buying one commodity market and selling another, etc. When dealing with a commercial, be sure to not waste his time and have some valuable information to offer as a quid pro. Also, one necessary skill to develop is to determine how much of a particular commodity is for sale at any given time…. That skill takes a lot of experience to adequately gauge the market. Also, in addition to finding a good mentor, listen to your elders, the guys who have been successful speculators for decades, the guys who have seen and experienced it all. Avoid the clerks, brokers, backroom guys, analysts, touts, hoodoos etc. Learn to be cold blooded and be willing to take a hit, even if you think the market might turn around in the future. Learn to avoid hope, as hope will ultimately kill your bankroll. When engaged in speculation, find one on one games like sports, cards, chess, etc that pit you against another person. Play these games aggressively, and learn to find an edge. That edge might translate to the markets. Still, while being aggressive in the games, play a thinking man's game, play smart, and learn to play a strong defensive game……a respect for the defense will carry over to the way you approach the markets and defend your bankroll. Stay in good physical shape, get lots of exercise, eat well, avoid excesses. Leo Jia comments: Given that manipulation is still prevalent in some Asian markets, I would add that, for individual stocks in particular, one needs to understand manipulators' tactics well and learn to survive and thrive under their toes. Bruno Ombreux writes: Just to support what Jeff said, you really have to define which market you are talking about. Because they are all different. On one hand you have stuff like S&P futures with robots trading by the nanosecond, in which algorithms and IT would be the main skill nowadays, I guess. On the other hand, you have more sedate markets with only a few big players. This article from zerohedge was really excellent. It describes the credit market, but some commodity markets are exactly the same. There the skill is more akin to high stake poker, figuring out each of your limited number of counterparts position, intentions and psychology. I note that the Chair ignored my request to precisely define the term "successful speculator," perhaps because avoiding such rigorousness allows him to define success and speculation in a manner as to avoid acknowledging his own biases. I'd further suggest that his list of educational materials, although interesting and undoubtedly useful for all students of markets, seems biased towards an attempt to make people to be "like him." If gold is up a gazillion percent over the past decade, and you're up 20%, are you a successful speculator?If the stock market is down 20% over a six month period, and you're down 2%, are you a successful speculator?If you have beaten the S&P by 20 basis points/year, ever year, for the past decade, without any meaningful drawdowns, are you a successful speculator?If you trade once every year or two, and every trade that you do makes some money, are you a successful speculator? If you never trade, can you be a successful speculator? If you dollar cost average, and are disciplined, are you a successful speculator? If you compound at 50% per year for 10 years, and then lose everything in an afternoon, are you a successful speculator? If you lose everything in an afternoon, and then learn from your mistake, and then compound at 50% for the next 10 years, are you a successful speculator? If you compound at 6% per year for 10 years, and never have a meaningful drawdown, are you a successful speculator? If the risk free rate is 6%, and you are making 12%, are you a more successful speculator then if the risk-free rate is 0% and you are making 6%? If you think you are a successful speculator, can you really be a successful speculator? If you think you are not a successful speculator, can you be a successful speculator? Who are the most successful speculators of the past 100 years? Who are the least successful speculators of the past 100 years? An anonymous contributor adds: In conjunction with the chair's mention of valuable books and histories, I would append Fred Schwed's Where are the Customers' Yachts?. While ostensibly written with a tongue-in-cheek hapless outsider view of 1920s and 1930s Wall Street, it has provided as many lessons and illustrations as anything by Henry Clews. In this case, I am reminded of the chapter in which Schwed wonders if such a thing as superior investment advice actually exists. Pete Earle writes: It is my opinion that the first thing that the would-be speculator should do, even before undertaking the courses of actions described by our Chair, is to open a small brokerage account and begin plunking around in small size, getting a feel for the market, the vagaries of execution quality, time delays, and the like. That may serve to either increase the appetite for such knowledge, or nip in the bud what could otherwise be a long and frustrating journey. Kim Zussman adds: The obligatory Wikipedia* definition of speculation is investment with higher risk: Speculating is the assumption of risk in anticipation of gain but recognizing a higher than average possibility of loss. The term speculation implies that a business or investment risk can be analyzed and measured, and its distinction from the term Investment is one of degree of risk. It differs from gambling, which is based on random outcomes. There is nothing in the act of speculating or investing that suggests holding times have anything to do with the difference in the degree of risk separating speculation from investing By this definition one must define risk and decide what comprises high and low risk — which may be simple in extreme cases but (as we have seen repeatedly) is not very straightforward in financial markets Chair is quoted in the link Alston Mabry writes in: I'm successful when I achieve the goals I set for myself. And rather than a target in dollars or basis points or relative to any index or ex-post wish list, those goals may simply be to act with discipline in implementing a plan and then accepting the results, modifying the plan, etc. And don't forget Ed Seykota: "Everyone gets out of the market what they want". I find that everyone gets out of life what they want. Plenty a market participant is not in it to make money. Fantastic news for those who are! This will actually bring me back to the question of what is a successful speculator. In my opinion success in life is defined in having enough to eat, a roof, friendships and a happy family (as an aside, after near-death experiences, people tend to report family first). You can forget stuff like being famous, leaving a legacy or being remembered in history books. If you are interested in these things, you have chosen the wrong business. Nobody remembers traders or businessmen after their death except close family and friends. People who make history are military and political leaders, great artists, writers… So you are limited to food, roof, friends and family. Therefore my definition of a successful speculator is a speculator that has enough of these, so that he doesn't feel he needs to speculate. I repeat, "a successful speculator does not need to speculate." Paolo Pezzutti adds: I simply think that a successful speculator is one who makes money trading. Among soccer players Messi, Ibrahimovic are considered very successful. They consistently score. They experience short periods without scoring. Similarly, traders should have an equity line which consistently prints new highs with low volatility and a short time between new highs. Like soccer players and other athletes it is their mental characteristics the main edge rather than knowledge of statistics. One can learn how to speculate but without talent cannot play the champions league of traders and will print an equity line with high drawdowns struggling losing too much when wrong and winning too little when right. Before dedicating time to find a statistical edge in markets one should assess his own talent and train psychologically. In this regard I like Dr Steenbarger work. In sports as in trading you very soon know yourself: your strengths and weakness. There is no mercy. You are exposed and naked. This is the greatness and cruelty of markets and competition. This is the area where one should really focus in my opinion. To elaborate a bit on Commander Pezzutti's definition, I would consider a successful speculator one who has outperformed a relevant benchmark for annual returns over a period of five years or more. Ideally, the outperformance should be statistically significant, but market returns can be so noisy that it might take much of a career to attain statistical significance. I propose a successful speculator dies wealthy, with many friends. Wealth is not measured just in liquid terms. Should a statistical method be preferred, I suggest he is the last speculator, with capital, from all the speculators of his college class. In both cases, I suggest the Chair and Senator are deemed successful, each in their own way. Leo Jia adds: If I may wager my 2 cents here. I would define a successful speculator as someone who has achieved a record that is substantially above the average record of all speculators in percentage terms during an extended period of time. The success here means more of a caliber that one has acquired which is manifested by the long-term record. Similarly regarded are the martial artists. One is considered successful when he has demonstrated the ability to beat substantially more than half of the people who practice martial arts, regardless of their styles, during an extended period of time. It doesn't mean that he should have encountered no failures during that time - everyone has failures. So, even if that successful one was beaten to death at one fight, he is still regarded as a successful martial artist because his past achievements are well revered. With this view, I will try to answer Rocky's questions to illustrate. Julian Rowberry writes: An important step is to get some money. Preferably someone else's. [LOL ] Tom Demark Sell Signal–Market Top, from Steve Ellison I had some difficulty finding a concise definition of the DeMark Sequential indicator. From an article written by Mr. Burke in the 1990s and other sources, I constructed a test, but there are variations in calculation and execution, and there are rumors that Mr. DeMark adds proprietary logic. 1) The method A setup for a buy (sell) occurs when there are 9 consecutive bars with closing prices lower (higher) than 4 bars earlier, and the high (low) of either the 8th or 9th bar is higher (lower) than the low (high) price of a bar at least 3 bars earlier in the sequence. When setup is complete, begin the countdown. Count any bar in which the close is lower (higher) than the close 2 bars earlier. This time, the counted bars do not need to be consecutive. If the price goes above (drops below) the highest high (lowest low) of the bars in the setup sequence, the setup and countdown are canceled. If a new setup occurs in the same direction, the countdown resets to zero. If a new setup occurs in the opposite direction, begin a new countdown and cancel the previous setup and countdown. If the count of bars that close lower (higher) than 2 bars before reaches 13, and the 13th counted bar closes lower (higher) than the 8th counted bar, it is a buy (sell) signal. It was not clear to me what should happen if the count reached 13, but the 13th bar did not close lower (higher) than the 8th. I decided to cancel the setup and countdown in that case. 2) The test Using the above rules, I tested daily bars of the S&P 500 futures from 1982 to 1989. I checked the net change over various periods following the buy and sell signals. Results of buy signals: Change next Date 12 days 18 days 28 days 42 days 63 days 1/3/1984 2.0% 0.3% -5.2% -3.8% -4.8% 3/22/1984 -0.9% 0.8% 2.1% -2.8% -3.1% 7/20/1984 9.5% 9.2% 11.5% 11.1% 12.5% 10/20/1987 18.1% 14.5% 7.3% 14.6% 12.2% 12/4/1987 11.4% 9.1% 11.2% 11.9% 18.6% Average 8.0% 6.8% 5.4% 6.2% 7.1% Median 9.5% 9.1% 7.3% 11.1% 12.2% Average of all periods in sample 0.5% 0.8% 1.3% 1.9% 2.9% Results of sell signals: 10/12/1982 -0.1% 6.8% 1.6% 3.7% 9.9% 4/20/1983 4.6% 2.5% 1.2% 6.1% 5.9% 6/17/1983 -1.0% -2.5% -3.4% -3.4% -2.4% 3/11/1987 1.9% 4.2% 1.1% -0.2% 1.9% 3/14/1989 -0.4% 0.4% 4.1% 5.7% 8.4% Median 0.5% 2.4% 1.4% 1.8% 3.9% There were only 5 buy signals in 8 years, but they worked out very well, including a buy signal on the day after the 1987 crash. The record of the sell signals was decidedly mixed. The best that can be said is that the 28-day net change was lower than average after a sell signal, although still positive. I decided 28 days was the optimal holding period and considered only 28-day net changes after later signals. Buy signals since 1990: Date 28 days 11/15/1991 6.0% 11/7/1994 -1.2% 3/19/2001 6.6% 1/12/2009 -14.2% 10/4/2011 13.3% Average 4.1% Median 6.0% Average of all 28-day periods 0.6% Sell signals since 1990: 8/23/1994 -0.9% 11/8/1995 3.0% 1/7/1999 -3.1% 6/3/2003 3.3% 12/29/2004 -1.2% The results of buy signals have continued to be on average very good, although also very rare. The results after sell signals appear consistent with randomness. Anatoly Veltman writes in: May I ask, why would 7- or alternatively 8- or alternatively 9- or alternatively 10- or alternatively 11- ….be my guest to go on forever… "work"? Jordan Low comments: I understand where you are going, but your critique will apply to all of technical analysis, and not just DM. I am not a follower of DM, but I believe that technical analysis is based on psychology. At 80F, humans can only live 9 days without water — so there is some cognitive explanation why we are counting 9 days of frustration to capitulate those who traded counter-trend, before the real counter-trend arrives. Now, don't ever talk "all T/A". The reason previous volume areas tend to hold the price is because people tend to transact (again) at their former prices. I've always had a beef with time counters who have no accounting for price. The Chair rightfully refers to many as charlatans; but do I understand his page-sized color-coding scheme correctly: the Bond move +0'02 = Bond move +2'00? SP change of 0.50 gets same color as SP change of 15.00?? I bet you that a system that buys a 38%, a 50%, or a 62% retracement of preceding impulsive up-wave will produce better result than a system that buys exactly the "8th declining" 5-min bar, or 15-min bar, or 30-min bar, or 60-min bar or daily bar or weekly bar. Isn't the 8th 5-min bar getting you to where the 4th 10-min bar would get you? What's the magic of counting those bars? Quote of the Day, from Steve Ellison January 9, 2012 \| Leave a Comment By far the most useful advice by Livermore in Reminiscences of a Stock Operator was to avoid tips like the plague. Similarly, Bacon warned: DON’T look at anybody else’s selections of prices or handicaps before making your own selections and prices. That is a rule with no exceptions. If you look at some other prices or selections first, the line you will come up with will be a sort of scrambling of his line and your line. Almost invariably, it will combine the weakest features of both. You’ll have the mistakes and trite opinions of his line and yours. But the possible ‘bright work’ and getting-away-from-the-public part of his figures and yours, will be discarded. Some Reflections on a Trip to London and Paris, from Victor Niederhoffer 1. Every store in London was having a sale of 50% or more except for the Bates one I went to to buy a hat, and all the big stores like Harrods had queues of at least 2 hours. In Paris, no stores had sales and business seemed quite slow except for the health food stores that substitutes quinoa for rice and hummus. Why is there so much better retailing in London than Paris? Does it have to do with the service rate or National Character? The marginal utility for consumers to buy goods in London and Europe rather than property seems to be a function of the much larger ratio of space to population in US versus Europe. When you have 100 square feet to a person, goods seem very attractive and the Holidays with all their bargains, bring out in London "50% of the population". By the end of a week, people are willing to spend a lot more to buy things than at the beginning when they're still testing the waters and looking for bargains. Can this be quantified in markets? 2. The drop and close below 1200 on Dec 19, 2011 is right out of the playbook of the Trojan War. Time and time again a day before the death of one hero or another, in this case Hector as he firebrands the Greek ships and kills and wounds one Greek defender after another, including Ajax, Menelaus, and Odysseus, the Gods look down, especially Zeus, and say, "look he's going to die tomorrow, let him have a blaze of victory today before he goes to Hades as he's put up a good fight and is the favorite of a few mistresses and daughters." One receives a pretrial settlement letter from Dan about a HP executive's harassment of a party planner, including his showing her his million dollar balance at the ATM. And it gets him in trouble because there is an obvious attempt to cover up through his assistant who might not be buyable off now that he is no longer top guy. It's right out of the Trojan war where all the problems arise from romance and the fate of the war hinges on who can seduce Zeus the last, and which Goddess is consumed by revenge the most because Paris chose Aphrodite and how they can use their wiles to turn the tides of war. 3. A trip to the British Museum starts with a building cramming exhibit of Russian Architecture right after the Revolution to show the Russian's spirit and intelligence, and the love and egalitarianism of Russia by the British right now. But at the British Museum a room is devoted to Roman everyday life then compared to England today, and the conclusion is that it's pretty much the same with the soldiers being able to retire to a nice plot of land after 20 years of service then and now. But on looking closer one sees that most of the wealthy in Greek times were the freed slaves who were able to fill the everyday jobs of merchants, doctors, and financiers since they were not tarnished by striving for money and didn't possess extensive land holdings. 4. Throughout Europe the opportunity cost of time is close to zero. Queues are everywhere because free admission is given to all the attractions. One can only get into the Louvre through a back entrance as the lines at the front are 3 hours long, but when you do get in, you have to walk through 10 miles of religious paintings depicting sacrificial and revengeful scenes from the Bible. No such luck at a the Musee D'Orsay where one would have to wait 5 hours to get in, even after purchasing a ticket at the only billetiere open in Paris. 5. London is the theater capital of the world, and it's nice to see the common man at all the events, enjoying his ice cream between acts at 1/4 the price of US events. I have to walk out of Crazy for You and Matilda, two of the hits there, because the music is terrible, and the plots totally contrived and hateful to the business person. The Crazy For You plot is exactly the plot of the current Muppets movie with their depiction of the heartless business man who wishes to close down the theater and the decent poor folk who must stage a show to earn enough to buy out the theater from the evil profit mongers. I enjoyed Three Days in May which shows men as they should be with compromises between Churchill, Chamberlain, and the Hunting Saint that led to the British refusing to surrender as it becomes clear that France was going to capitulate in a week. "Neville, can I chat with you for a half hour before the meeting tomorrow. Without your support, I'll have to resign because I don't believe we should give up," Churchill said. How many times one has been in that position as every man was for himself as in this case the estimate that came back from the front was that 2000 men would be returned from the Dardanelles rather than the 250,000 that came back. Worst of all as Churchill pointed out to his cabinet dissenters, is a show of uncertainty and disharmony as the public would leap on the weakness and the whole battle would be lost. One finds the courage and diplomacy of Churchill inspiring in this case, and one did have it in his rackets career. 6. A highlight of the trip is a visit to Ile de la Cite to see the prisons where the upper class and producers were kept before being guillotined. But instead one lands at the Sainte Chappelle where one is seated in the first row of this 14th century church, to hear a medley of Renaissance music with harpsichord, viola, various flutes and a singer. The highlight as always is a Couperin and Bach piece which is invariably ingenious and beautiful compared to the predecessors. One was mistakenly given a VIP seat here as the reservation made from a fancy hotel and I am reminded of the most valuable thing I got from Soros other than the two tennis can thing. Once I had pneumonia and the hospital mistakenly heard that I was a partner of Soros and they gave me the best room in the hospital, about 2500 square feet with a beautiful view of the park. I did meet a great Dr. there, Dr. Lou Depalo, who I would recommend to anyone with a respiratory problem of any kind, who bought me a Barrons, and I bonded with when it turned out that he had a total love of the Master and Commander canon and unlike me was a nautical personage. Gary Rogan comments: I was in Paris with my wife and daughters over the week preceding and including Christmas. We didn't do much shopping since it was mostly about taking the kids to the main museums, and they all know how much I hate "shopping" but we did spend a couple of ours at Galerie Laffayette, their main shopping mall, on Christmas Eve and the level of energy seemed pretty good to me, but I don't have too many comparison points. I also didn't see any sales signs, but could that be a sign of strength? The outdoor shopping area at the lower end of Champs Elysees was so crowded in the evening it was almost impossible to walk, and this is definitely not the height of the tourist season. The faces of people on the metro which we used a lot seemed somewhat grim, but that's also hard to interpret without recent comparison points. Rocky Humbert comments: 1. Back when I lived in the UK in the 1980's, there were semi-annual sales (post-Christmas and July). This was a tradition at the likes of Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and the other serious London department stores. Prices were generally not discounted except during these sales. No self-respecting Londoner would shop at Harrods (except at the food court) — as it was mobbed with foreign tourists, and the prices were exorbitant. Perhaps a current Londoner can share whether the semi-annual sale pattern still exists. 2. In comparing London and Paris, one recalls Adam Smith's (and Napoleon's) observation that England is a Nation of Shopkeepers. 3. The Chair asks, "Why is there so much better retailing in London than Paris?" As Perry Mason would say, "Question assumes facts not in evidence." Bruno Ombreux comments: 1. About the traditional semi-annual sales (post-Christmas and July), it is the same in France, but the Winter sales are starting only next Wednesday. Which explains why there were sales in London and not in Paris. Different calendars. 2. About the English nation of Shopkeepers, it can be explained by different cultures too. Sales are widely attended in both countries, but from my anecdotal experience living both in London and in Paris, they are really a sacred institution in London compared to Paris. Kathryn Schulz, in Being Wrong, one of the books on the Chair's recommended reading list, wrote: In short, we are wrong about love routinely. There’s even a case to be made that love is error, or at least is likely to lead us there. Sherlock Holmes, that literary embodiment of our … ideal thinker, 'never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer.' Love, for him, was 'grit in a sensitive instrument' that would inevitably lead into error. 10 Things You Can Learn About the Market from Greek and Roman Times and Myths, from Victor Niederhoffer 1. There is a critical point in the market, a critical decision that the market gods weigh on a scale like Zeus with his balance scale deciding whether Achilles or Hector will win, that determines the market fate, and it is key and should be the focus of all news stories and market considerations but never is. 2. Never trust anyone but your family and best friend because everyone is disloyal in a pinch. Peleus was left for dead by his father in law after killing his brother in law to become ruler and this led to the Trojan war. Caesar trusted his best friends but they turned on him when an opportunity for power, money, and romance reared its ugly head. 3. Deception is key. The most successful Greek was the Deceiver Odysseus, and he tricked everyone he dealt with as the market tries to trick you with Odyssean power. 4. The goal is always to come home. Odysseus went home, as does the market. The only loyal ones were the wife and son and the best servant. The market retraces and comes home to break even an inordinate number of times. 5. Never mix romance with business or the market. The Trojan was was started by Paris intervening in romance and being swept off his feet by Aphrodite, and Achilles killed tens of thousands and prolonged the war by 10 years when Menelaus stole his mistress. 6. Don't try to walk with the Gods. Peleus married a half God and married her the last time the Gods and mortals mingled at a celebration and it caused him to be the most distressful of men. Trying to emulate Soros or the other greats is the seed of destruction. 7. Okay, give me the rest. And correct and tighten the above. I'm out of my depth but wanted to get the gist across. Ken Drees comments: Like using a mirror against Medusa, one must plan against the adversary and sometimes use their expected attacks to beat them. Like shielding oneself from the siren song, one must be totally prepared, seek council before the journey (the trade) about what dangers are expected. Also, it seems every entity in mythology had a weak spot. It's probably best to note these weaknesses in your thinking and in your emotions, not how can I beat the market, but how can the market beat me today? Bill Rafter writes: The greatest two rules: (1) nothing to excess and (2) know yourself. One lesson from mythology which resonates with me is the oracles/prophets/predictors almost always forecast correctly, but rarely in an obvious or immediately relevant way. The predictions made are usually realized, but not before taking extremely circuitous, and usually counterintuitive ways to reach fulfillment. In my experience, predictions regarding the direction of equities or commodities inferred from option markets so often prove accurate…but only after traveling in the most wrong, most unanticipated ways. Alston Mabry responds: Pete, I think of that as "shaking the tree", i.e., we're gonna get there, but we're gonna shake out as many weak hands as we can along the way. Peter Earle replies: Absolutely. Stop-running and the like as the "gods" way of seeing who's "worthy"; who can withstand the flood, the fire, the sturm und drang. Jim Lackey writes: In 2008 I learned from Ryan Carlson– Sisyphus. There is a little useless book Wit and Wisdom from Wallstreet. So many of the quotes are the exact opposite from 3 pages ago… yet for a day they are seemingly sage advice. Worse for the long term. It's all good advice, yet in the mean time we must eat, and in the long term we all end up dust in the wind. Traders lament when we miss profits. We are miserable when we lose. If we are not careful we are never happy. I have the habit of having to work myself up into a fury to win a race, pass a test or trade. My wife calls it "business mode" everyone else calls it being a jerk. Finally this year I have the ability to take a loss and this week miss a glorious rally and profit… yet at 4:20 PM its over. I am done pushing the boulder back up the hill for the day. I will return at 1:30am or by 7am, all but two business days a year. It can be torture if you do not like to trade, but if you love it… Here is a quote from my kids music, "This is Our Science" by Astronautalis: "Our work is never done/ We are Sisyphus". p.s I notice that if I don't like the rap beats I miss quite a bit of new poetry. I hear my teenagers say random lines and say what! That is amazing. Then I hear the song and say no wonder I never heard that line before. Damn drum machines. Jack Tierney adds: Recently I've been reading up on complexity, system dynamics, and the unpredictable consequences that occur when tinkering with non-linear systems. The markets seems subject to all and, if I'm even remotely correct in interpreting the literature, there's only one certainty: expecting linear consequences (e.g, provide banks with more liquidity, bringing about an increase in business borrowing, resulting in a resurgent economy) is rarely, if ever, realized. Instead, the unseen effects on unimagined factors, almost always derails the logic train. A source I've referred to on occasion is "Cassandra's legacy." Appropriately enough, the custodian of that site provides an interesting historical allegory, in the form of Goth Princess/Roman Empress, Galla Placidia, and her part in the demise of the Roman Empire. It's a very lengthy read and, unless history like this interests you, tough going. So, a few highlights: "Managing any large structure is difficult and we tend to do it badly; a whole empire may be an especially difficult case. To do it well, we would need to use a method what I mentioned before: system dynamics; which is a way to describe systems and the relation of the various elements that compose them. "…every time that the Romans fought the Barbarians, they could win or lose, but each battle made the Empire a little poorer and a little weaker. The empire was using resources that could not be replaced; non-renewable resources, as we would say today….the solution was not more troops but less troops. It was not more imperial bureaucracy but less imperial bureaucracy, not more taxes but less taxes. "In the end, the solution was right there and it was simple: it was Middle Ages. Middle ages meant getting rid of the suffocating imperial bureaucracy; it meant transforming the expensive legions into local militias; have people paying taxes locally, in short transforming the centralized empire into a decentralized constellation of small states. Without the terrible expenses of the Imperial court and of the Imperial bureaucracy, these small states had a chance to rebuild their economy and start a new phase of prosperity, as indeed it happened during the Middle Ages. "What Placidia could do as an Empress was, mainly, to enact laws….It seems that Placidia was acting according to her style; ease the unavoidable, don't fight it….Placidia forbade the coloni, the peasants bound to the land, to enlist in the army. That deprived the army of one of its sources of manpower and we may imagine that it greatly weakened it. Another law enacted by Placidia, allowed the great landowners to tax their subjects themselves. This deprived the Imperial Court of its main source of revenues." Stefan Jovanovich comments: As much as King George's scribbler Edmund Gibbon despised Christianity, he had the Middle Ages even more because its bureaucracies were the worst of all — local and mean and stupid. Professor Bard should revise his history. What he wrote here — "Middle ages meant getting rid of the suffocating imperial bureaucracy; it meant transforming the expensive legions into local militias; have people paying taxes locally, in short transforming the centralized empire into a decentralized constellation of small states. Without the terrible expenses of the Imperial court and of the Imperial bureaucracy, these small states had a chance to rebuild their economy and start a new phase of prosperity, as indeed it happened during the Middle Ages." - is nonsense. The Roman Empire's tax collections were always "local"; that is why Roman politicians were willing to pay such enormous bribes to be appointed provincial governors. The legions were also "local"; the Empire's expansion came from granting "foreigners" - i.e. the people we would today call Spaniards, French and Syrians - the privileges of citizenship, which meant they were also qualified to serve in the local legions. This was equally true under the Republic; "crossing the Rubicon" would not persist as a bad metaphor if Rome's soldiery had been centralized. As for economics, whatever the "terrible expenses of the imperial court", they were nothing compared to the ravages of coin clipping. The solidus of the Eastern Empire maintained an unchanged weight and measure for 4+ centuries - a record that is likely never to be broken. (It exceeds the span of sound money for the British Empire and the United States of America put together.) After Princess Placida's day coinage, under the wonderful decentralization of the Middle Ages, effectively disappeared. "Dearth of provisions, too, increased by degrees, and the scarcity of good money was so great, from its being counterfeited, that, sometimes out of ten or more shillings, hardly a dozen pence would be received. The king himself was reported to have ordered the weight of the penny, as established in King Henry's time, to be reduced, because, having exhausted the vast treasures of his predecessor, he was unable to provide for the expense of so many soldiers. All things, then, became venal in England; and churches and abbeys were no longer secretly, but even publicly exposed to sale." - William of Malmsbury wrote this in 1140 AD - the period that Professor Bard praises so highly for its progress over the degeneracies of the Empire. Hume deserves the last word on this and most other subjects that interested him. "Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature." Easan Katir adds: The Greeks have fooled people since the Bronze Age. Instead of a horse, they now have Trojan bonds. Steve Ellison comments: Jack, the Atlantic had an article about why projects that had successful pilots often failed when rolled out to the general population. Why Pilot Projects Fail– Here are some excerpts: Promising pilot projects often don't scale … Rolling something out across an existing system is substantially different from even a well run test, and often, it simply doesn't translate. Sometimes the 'success' of the earlier project was simply a result of random chance … Sometimes the success was due to what you might call a 'hidden parameter', something that researchers don't realize is affecting their test. Remember the New Coke debacle? … Sometimes the success was due to the high quality, fully committed staff. … Sometimes the program becomes unmanageable as it gets larger. You can think about all sorts of technical issues, where architectures that work for a few nodes completely break down when too many connections or users are added. … Sometimes the results are survivor bias. This is an especially big problem with studying health care, and the poor. Health care, because compliance rates are quite low (by one estimate I heard, something like 3/4 of the blood pressure medication prescribed is not being taken 9 months in) and the poor, because their lives are chaotic and they tend to move around a lot … In the end, you've got a study of unusually compliant and stable people (who may be different in all sorts of ways) and oops! that's not what the general population looks like. Alternatives to the US Dollar, from Corban Bates Would anyone be able to suggest any alternatives to the US dollar that I would be able to put my money into? What currencies or commodities would be worth using to reduce the risk of dollar? I must admit I know very little about this particular subject. I'm not necessarily looking at this as an investment in which I'm trying to get rich, I'm just looking for something that will hold its value better than the US Dollar. As I put money aside for various things in life, I would hope there is something I could have that would be worth the same ten years from now as it would today. Any insights or suggested reading material would be appreciated. Tyler McClellan comments: If you want to buy things in dollars in the future then you'll want to hold dollars. Gary Rogan counters: That's like saying, "if you want to put gasoline in your car in the future you need to own gasoline today". Given the 90%++ loss of purchasing power of dollars in the last 100 years there just could be better alternatives than holding them today. If the point is that nobody knows what they are with any degree of certainty, that's a valid point. Anton Johnson writes: Inflation protected (at least to the extent of official figures) US series I savings bonds seem to be a decent savings vehicle, especially when they are accumulated over time. Unfortunately, there are minimum ownership periods and the maximum annual purchase is limited to 10K per person. Craig Mee advises: Beware of selling the low, Corban, effectively adding size in a market that's been trending south for some time. If Euro goes to the dump, and USD goes bid a la 2008-09, then that may be a nice way to offload USD then and say buy Aussie at 60c to the USD. (We do have stuff in the ground that helps, although with interest rates cuts just coming through, it appears some goodwill that was present at the start of the year is being priced out of the market against the USD). Good luck. Oh…beware of the Fed, or in this case FEDS, to up end things at any time…. though if history only always repeats to the letter, it would make investing a wee bit more straight forward… With a decent time horizon, you could put some money into corporate bonds and good divvy-paying stocks. That way you get the divs and also exposure to cap gains. just happen to be researching some recently, so here is a diversified group of sample tickers: IVHIX PIGLX PAUIX MAPIX CINF RDS.A Corban, This is an age of vast changes. For that reason, we can easily lose our vision into the future in terms of what will be more valuable. Even though there are many discussions around the topic, I can't decide easily if the US dollar will be more valueless than any other currencies in the future. Many argue that it will lose more value, but I tend to think that it perhaps will be more valuable than most other sound currencies, for the very simple reason that the US has a more fundamentally solid mechanism of being a most promising country. The very fact that the people with big money are not running away from the US demonstrates it. There is the notion (as Gary Rogan pointed out) that the dollar has lost 90% of its purchasing power over the last 100 years. While I agree that there has been a devaluation process going on, I don't think the notion should really be understood literally. Many things around any purchase (including venue, environment, safety, transportation, etc) have vastly changed from 100 years ago. All these add legitimate values to the product and hence cost for the purchaser. One can argue that the egg he buys today is not that different from that his grandfather bought 100 years ago. Yes, sure, but things in a social economy can not be taken separately. Many things in it are vastly different from 100 years ago: farmers' lives, air-condition for the chickens, refrigeration along the transportation, etc. As to what can hold value better for the future, I would like to have agricultural commodities (hope to hear other arguments). I buy into the view that because people in China and India (accounting for nearly 40% of the world population) are getting richer, they will be demanding more higher-scale food like meat which then will demand more amount of lower-scale produces like corn or wheat (I have been actually experiencing the above view personally for the last 10 years in China). Sadly, the production of these lower-scale produces can not be increased easily, so these prices must go up. In the long term, the pressure for the price rise due to the imbalance of demand and supply will be added to the legitimate price rise (as I seasoned in the last paragraph), resulting in much higher prices in dollar's term. One note to add is that the inherent volatilities associated with these commodities along the way should be carefully considered. Additionally if I may add as an option to where to put your money, it should be into your life, your personal and business interests, and perhaps some interests of any community you are in. My feeling is that this might be more important than anything else. There are no safe havens any more. People have been remarkably complacent about the obvious rigging and zombization of financial markets, the transfer of power to lawbreaking elite firms, the restrictions on capital movement out of the country, the baldfaced lies about the nonexistence of inflation, the steady fiscal confiscation of personal assets, The fact that we still can have a meal at pleasure and joke about our plight means nothing in terms of economic freedom. Unfortunately, the one point that holds true is that the foundation of individual liberty is economic liberty. We have merely slipped back into the iron pattern of historical kleptocracies. Maybe that is why there has been so little effective resistance. Those who protest are marginalized by the mainstream propaganda machines. Case in point: Did the Fed just bail out Europe without anyone blinking an eye, and what does that mean for the global future?The only advice that I have found to make sense at all lately is "Be flexible." We are playing against a relentless statist enemy. Some Specs recommend Australian and Canadian currencies. That's merely a play on commodities. I need not remind anyone here that in the past century, the U.S. government made it illegal to own gold, and that a few upward ratchets on certain margin requirements would kill the commodities market. I don't speak from lack of experience. We are all traders; we all like the freedom that brings; and our livelihoods are in jeopardy. Good luck to us all. The world has changed, and continues to speed with reckless blindness toward a future that I doubt will turn out well. Here is a question that might elicit some interesting answer: Let's say you have $X (USD) that you must commit for the next five years. Where would you put it? Leave it in dollars? (Though a 5-year Treasury would make the most sense for "cash" with a 5-year lockup.) Gold? Stocks? Some other currency? Norway bonds? And why? I don't have a good answer to that yet. My starting point on this question would be that diversification, including international diversification, reduces risk. The US economy and the Eurozone have roughly equal GDPs. Japan and the UK are smaller but still quite significant. China is tied to the US dollar. Therefore, a diversified cash portfolio might be 40% US dollars, 40% euros, and 5% each of yen, pounds, Swiss francs, and gold (in recognition of gold's historical role as a form of currency). One could fine tune this allocation to include small percentages of currencies such as the real and Canadian dollar. I would think of this allocation as the equivalent of an index fund, before considering the insights of the many on this list that know more about currencies than I do. Proposed Algorithmic Trading Obligations, from William Weaver This is an interesting piece by Mike O'Hara that underscores the danger of grouping all algorithmic trading with HFT. One of the largest concerns regarding HFT is that it competes with legitimate market makers during normal trading, thus reducing incentives, and then leaves the market during abnormal trading, or worse taking liquidity to close positions when a market makers job is most important. This legislation, in an effort to make it impossible to side-step the responsibility of providing liquidity, would actually require a broker executing VWAPs all day to provide liquidity. Based on the below quote, one simple sidestep would be to start your algo a minute after the open and stop it a minute before the close, but doesn't this defeat the point? I have thought for some time that high frequency traders play a similar role in the market ecosystem to stock specialists. Stock specialists can profitably trade based on their knowledge of order flow, but in return are obligated to use their capital to preserve an orderly market. This proposal seems conceptually to be trying to impose similar obligations on high frequency traders. A Good Article, from Victor Niederhoffer An article I read recently would seem to have significance for producers of branded products like the bottlers, and P and G, and the bond market. What's happening on the internet seems to be spilling over into all areas with price competition increasing. Very true, but another big issue right now for all consumer goods producers is staying ahead of commodity inflation and figuring out how much to pass along to consumers in the form of price increases and package size reductions. In his book Trends 2000, Gerald Celente said that consumers turn away from brand names periodically, but they always come back. He noted a tendency for brand names to be out of favor in the years ending in 0 to 2 each decade, which have often coincided with recessions (the Senator has noted that those years have often not been kind to the stock market). Mr. Celente attributed this regularity to a "10-year corporate spending cycle." Pitt T. Maner II adds: Chlorox would seem to be one of those companies that has had to work for decades to keep market share against generics (bleach). They appear to maintain their higher price per gallon through strong branding/advertising. Perhaps the need for the services and the money spent on strong marketing and advertising companies increases when generics and cheaper alternatives threaten. Or when one is running for election. Inside Bars, by Steve Ellison When the second 30-minute bar of S&P 500 futures pit trading has been an inside bar, as happened today, the rest of the day has been up 12 of the last 20 times. Date Change 10:30 to close Standard deviation 1.1% t 0.91 Avg of all 10:30 to close since 12/10/2010 0.0% SP500 Level and Yield Curve, from Kim Zussman September 25, 2011 \| Leave a Comment The attached is a plot of log SPX vs contemporaneous yield curve (10Y-2Y), monthly 1976-August 2011. Dates are not shown, but the plot is a continuous (albeit mathematically not one-to-one) and shows various regimes between log SPX and 10Y-2Y. The series starts in 1976 at the red dot near the bottom. Stocks (vertical axis) made little headway while 10Y-2Y varied above and below zero, making a series low about -2 in 1980. From the early 1980's to 1990's, stocks moved sharply upward, with 10Y-2Y varying between slightly negative and +1.5. From 1990 to 1992 (~Iraq I), stocks moved up while 10Y-2Y widened. From 1992-94, stocks went up while 10Y-2Y narrowed. From 1994-2000, stocks rose strongly while 10Y-2Y remained in a tight range (activist FED?), and 10Y-2Y went negative when stocks peaked in 2000. From 2000 - 2011 (green dot), 10Y-2Y varied considerably from -0.4 to +2.8 while log SPX was range-bound with considerable variation. The recent picture - range-bound stocks with varying yield curve - resembles the late 1970's, and the overall pattern suggests no consistent relationship between stock levels and 10Y-2Y. Attached is a regression graph of 1981-2010 S&P 500 annual returns vs. the difference between the 10-year yield and 3-month yield at the beginning of the year. N0, t=1.06, p=0.30, Rsq=0.04 The results I posted earlier that showed significance were the second year's S&P 500 returns regressed against the 10-year/3-month yield differential. That result seems suspicious–why should year-old data be more predictive than current data? 2011 so far is not going according to form. George Zachar adds: Because between Volcker's rise and Lehman's fall, the main way the curve steepened was when the Fed lowered rates in the front end, stimulating the economy and stocks, months down the road. A Buffett Buy Indicator, from Sam Marx Thumbs-up, the inverse of professor Robert Shiller's cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio — or CAPE — was greater than the yield on a long-term Treasury. When Buffett wasn't crazy about stocks, the opposite was true. Using the 12-month forward top-down earnings estimate for the S&P 500 of 93.75 published by Standard & Poors, the E/P for the S&P 500 is8.25%, 4.5 times as high as the 10-year Treasury bond yield. Jordan Neuman comments: Historically large stocks have an 11% ROE. The S&P's book value of 594 implies about $65 in earnings. Discount by the Baa rate of 5.2%, not the treasury yield, and you get 1250. With the S&P at 1136, the discount in this measure appears to be the widest since 1974. Most of this list's valuation parameters are positive but I still can't stop the bleeding. Briefly Speaking, from Victor Niederhoffer Have you ever noticed how those who have done you the most wrong, or those who loathe you the most, when they come onto hard times will often come back to you asking for assistance. This often happens to me with former colleagues. I can't always differentiate between whether the colleagues are in such bad straights that they will go to their most unlikely and ill wanted savior, or whether they wish to take their worst enemy down with them once more before they finally go under. I believe it is a variant of rats deserting a sinking ship. The British Navy and I believe all navies have a standard order from their captain "every man for himself " when the ship is sinking. And there is doubtless maritime law about when it is legal to put the captain in chains, (albeit this is somewhat a different situation). I believe the idea has many market implications, especially when markets have gone to the nadir like last week, but more important is how to protect your life in such situations I think. One finds that there are only 25 suicides a year at Niagara Falls these days, and The Golden Gate has much more, but one can't speculate as to whether the sight causes the suicides or whether people with suicide on their mind tend to go there to do the deed. As for market moves, they must cause many more such catastrophes but again whether the person seeks out the opportunity or the opportunity causes the action, or both, it would be hard to unravel and a quantitative study of the types of moves that induce same would be helpful for saving lives and profits. Russ Herrold writes: I've had this happen a few times. I think the reason is that the former colleague or friend is sufficiently 'intimate' with the weak spot that their former friend had, and so can 'get past your guard' more easily. Factor in some perverse pathological character trait, and they may even feel justifies in taking advantage of someone they feel has 'done them wrong' in the past. Indeed, it may be that there was an intent to deceive (conscious, or latent) from the onset of them approaching you, 'the mark'. The best approach is to probably to buy the lunch, but to keep one's checkbook firmly locked up. Polonius: (to his son) Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 75.77 and later Polonius: This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell, my blessing season this in thee! Laertes: Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord. The thought expressed by Vic is that there should be some heightened sense of gratitude if one is dealing with a moral person and 'offering the hand up' and a hand-out. But Twain echoed the Bard on this topic as well: If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. - Pudd'nhead Wilson When my children were 5 and 3, we hiked across the Golden Gate Bridge. There had recently been a freak accident in which a small child had somehow fallen through the small gap between the bottom of the railing and the sidewalk to her death. There were plans to replace the railing with one that went all the way down to the sidewalk, but the work had not been done yet, so I was keeping a close eye to make sure the children did not go too close to the railing. While my attention was diverted in this direction, I was almost caught off guard when the 3-year-old climbed on top of the one-foot high barrier between the sidewalk and the speeding traffic. T.K Marks writes: I, too, have walked across that bridge on numerous occasions. I'd walk over to Sausalito and take the ferry back. A spectacular stroll. One is still struck mid-span by the ease at which a despondent person could reach their goal. The curiously low railings prompt one to macabre thoughts. Who was the civil engineer involved with this project, Derek Humphry? Stefan Jovanovich answers: The answer is Charles A. Ellis. Joseph B. Strauss did everything he could to claim credit for it (Strauss was to architects and engineers what Douglas MacArthur was to the Army and Navy - even when he was wrong, he was right - just ask him). Ellis reworked Strauss' initial proposal for a cantilevered suspension bridge - which would have been the mating of the Forth bridge with a ropewalk - and produced the design one sees today. Ellis did almost all the actual work - the calculations required for the computation of stresses, the specifications, contracts and proposal forms - singlehandedly, working non-stop for 2 years. After Ellis completed the work but before the final designs were submitted to the Bridge District's Board for its review and final approval, Strauss fired Ellis. There was no mention of Ellis in any report by Strauss, including the final report upon the bridge's completion in 1938. Ellis was the equal of Louis Sullivan, and like Sullivan he spent half his working life in total obscurity, unable to get any further commissions. Moisseiff gets credit for the development of deflection theory; but, as events proved (see "original bridge" section of Tacoma Narrows bridge), Ellis was the person who fully understood the necessary relationship between span length and flexibility. He is literally the father of the modern suspension bridge and the engineering theory behind it. Bill Rafter comments: There was a psychology professor that published a study showing that the vast majority of Golden Gate jumpers took the leap on the side facing the city (facing East) rather than the ocean (West) side. The article then attempted to theorize why this might be the case, and he concluded that it was an attempt by the jumper to say goodbye one last time. Nice thought, but it totally ignores the reality that it would be damned hard to jump on the ocean side as that pedestrian walkway is almost always closed. It must be particularly interesting to be on the bridge when one of the big carriers goes under, as they have to time it with low tide to clear. Separating the Wheat from the Chaff in Technical Analysis, from Steve Ellison The scientific method has two parts. There is theory, which requires knowledge and intuition to posit a cause and effect, and there is testing, collecting data to determine whether the observations refute the theory. If I understand your point correctly, empiricism is necessary but not sufficient. There should be a theory that is not entirely based on the observed data. As an imaginary example, “The S&P 500 is likely to decline on Friday afternoon because day traders are biased to the long side and want to be out of the market before the weekend” is better than “The S&P 500 was down on 19 of the past 30 Friday afternoons”. Ralph Vince responds: Steve, yes, but the premise, the cause, needs to be proven. “The S&P 500 is likely to decline on Friday afternoon because day traders are biased to the long side and want to be out of the market before the weekend” needs to be proven as causal, not merely posited as a possible cause. Frankie Chui writes: Yes, I always end up asking myself “why does it not work anymore after it has worked for so long?” when the moment I trade it the system stops working. It has also happened to me quite often where I backtest a strategy, everything seems ok, trade it for 2-3weeks and that’s the end of that system. Therefore, I am now experimenting with optimizing parameters in systems more frequently, perhaps once every two weeks on a rolling basis. Optimize two weeks of data, trade it for a week, optimize the past 2 weeks again, trade it for another week. Of course the 2 week/1 week time frame may not be the best (I just randomly chose it), but has anyone ever done anything with this kind if approach? I’m curious to see if this will work for day trading. I am new in mechanical trading, but I’m very curious to know if optimizing data fast enough will allow a trading system to work better and longer (for day trading). Frankie, you’re running up against Bacon’s ever changing cycles, which tend to render systems obsolete. Phil McDonnell adds: There is an insidious danger when you use optimization. The optimizer will fit the system to the data too well. It will never perform as well out of sample as in sample. It becomes especially important to use tests of statistical significance when you do optimizations. The optimizer can actually create a multiple comparison problem in some cases. For example if you tested, looking for seasonality and wanted to find which month was the best to buy it would create a multiple comparison bias and any test for significance would have to have a much higher threshold than if you just tested September. One way to judge a system and evaluate whether it will continue to work is to plot out the equity curve. If your testing assumes an equal sized investment each time then the system can be plotted on an ordinary arithmetic scale. If you compound it should be plotted on a log scale. Either way the most desirable system would be a system that looks like a smooth line going monotonically up to the right as time passes. If it starts to roll over then it may be a system about to fail. Paolo Pezzutti writes: The system should be quite robust. It should work pretty well with a sufficiently wide range of values of parameters. There should also be few parameters avoiding curve fitting. Down 10 %, from Steve Ellison August 4, 2011 \| 1 Comment The last push down on the S&P 500 futures contract [at approximately 10:30 am EDT on 2011 August 3] ]was turned back almost exactly 10% below the adjusted May 2 high. Earnings Update, from Steve Ellison In the two and a half months from the end of the intense reporting period for first quarter earnings (April 30) to the beginning of the reporting period for second quarter earnings (July 15), the S&P 500 futures declined 2.9%. During the intense reporting period for second quarter earnings (July 18-29), the S&P 500 declined 2.0%. Declines in both the earnings reporting period and the preceding 2 1/2 months have occurred only 9 times in the last 22 years. The following 2 1/2 months were up in 4 of the 9 instances, with an average loss of1.7%. Earnings End Change to next Date earnings begin date When the Market Has a Panic Attack, from Craig Mee July 12, 2011 \| 1 Comment Panic attacks are periods of intense fear or apprehension that are of sudden onset and of relatively brief duration. Panic attacks usually begin abruptly, reach a peak within 10 minutes, and subside over the next several hours. It looks like the part about occuring sharply and subsiding over the next several hours is the key, to determining whether a market is having a panic attack, or a more controlled situation. What was today? Well the market was sold heavily on the open in Asia, and got hit all day, with volatility not essentially picking up until the last hour (this may be a crucial element, as it does appear that the attacks end with lower volatility then higher and this may signal whether another one is in the offering) No doubt some of the causes in the wiki article on panic attacks can be directly compared to economics. Much may depend on one's choice of time frame, but I doubt the original Specialist in Panics would have been excited by a 1.7% decline that started 1% off the 20-day high and 2% off the 2-year high. Home Run Indicator, from Steve Ellison Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro is quoted in Sports Illustrated saying, "Baseball has made a U-turn. We've gone back to pitching and defense and speed. You don't see the power numbers of 15, 20 years ago. There's a change in how games are won." Tom Verducci writes in the same article, "National League teams are averaging the fewest runs per game (4.09) since 1982. American League teams (4.29) haven't scored at a worse clip since 1973, and the league's batting average (.254) is the worst in the 38-year history of the designated hitter." David Hillman writes: Well worth a look-see. A thought…..perhaps the home run indicator should have, as should the home run records have, an asterisk for those years. On a related note, here's a nice piece on a genuine player. The mention of another 3000 hit club member who played his entire career with one team and lived an honorable life is appropriate, and is also, for many of us who were around then to see him play, heartwarmingly nostalgic. Another thought…..In the spirit of 'asking the right question', it seems I feel differently about the game now than I did in my youth, but I wonder if it's the game that's changed so much, or if, instead, I've done the changing? The "old guys" on the Giants - Aubrey Huff, Pat Burrell, Miguel Tejada - see things this way. The young pitchers now know how to change speeds without tipping their pitches and they only throw to corners. "The kids maintain the same arm angles, body turns and strides for all the stuff they throw. You can't read them." Madison Bumgarner, who helped the Giants win the Series last year at the age of 21, is representative; he throws everything on the black. When he doesn't, he gets lit up just the way pitchers always have if they can't throw 98+. Against the Twins recently he tied the Major League record for futility by a pitcher at the beginning of a game. "Bumgarner faced 10 batters and retired only pitcher Carl Pavano, becoming the first player in baseball's modern era to allow as many as nine hits while recording fewer than two outs in a 9-2 loss to the Twins at AT&T Park. The Twins' stunning, eight-run first inning went like so: Single, double, single, double, single, double, single, double, strikeout, double." In his next start against Cleveland he went 7 innings, struck out 11 (his career best) and gave up 1 run. When either the plate umpires or the batters take away the corners, the home runs will come back. They always do. What we will then see is a return of knock-down pitches and fights. We had a preview yesterday in the Baltimore-Red Sox game. Great Migrations, from Victor Niederhoffer There are pictures of migrations in the current National Geographic and group think in movies in the NY Times. Part of the idea that has captured the world in current days? Relation to markets? How to predict the stages of migration and big moves in markets and individual stocks? Vincent Andres writes: Read this interesting article which may relate: America, at its best, is a glittering symbol of promise to would-be immigrants. But where do they actually want to live in the United States? Trulia, the real-estate listings site, has come up with the only data set we've seen that actually breaks that question down to the city level. Their infographic, Global Pursuits of the American Dream, was built using incoming real-estate searches on Trulia's website . These were then broken down by country of origin, and the city being searched. Here's what the data looks like for two relatively wealth countries, Germany and Italy. While California was one of the top U.S. destinations for immigrants in the 1990s and 2000s, during the same years many more native citizens moved out than moved in. Bo Keely writes: The most dramatic human migration in modern history is the Central Americans atop Mexican freight trains the length of Mexico to the USA border. The quest is freedom and financial independence, with the dream of staking a new individual life and sending sponsor money to their thousands of Central American villages to get the next person on the freight. Each day about one hundred wade cross the river border between Guatemala and southern Mexico, hop on a daily freight- up to 100 per train recalling the USA Great Depression- and jiggle north to Mexico City where they fan out on RR lines to the Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California borders. I've ridden with the young men and a handful of women in three years, once getting caught in mid-stream of the Rio Grande river by US border patrol that took some explaining. A breath-taking though small sample of the month long ride is detailed in Nazario's 2003 Pulitzer Enrique's Journey. The journey for Central Americans is a tale of hardship, although this is the first time I've ever been collared by a RR bull who took me home and introduced me to her mother. A Scary Prediction, from Kevin Depew I think this essay is worth reading: "primitive agricultural communities are `dynamic'. They are subject to continuing change in agricultural technology, induced by population pressure…" And also this article by Grantham: "We're Heading Toward a Disaster of Biblical Proportions". Victor Niederhoffer asks Alex Castaldo to explain to him what this is all about. Alex Castaldo writes: The first link is a 108 page essay written in the early 1960s by Ester Boserup , a European agricultural economist I have heard about before but don't really know. At this time many people were concerned that overpopulation was a big problem for the world. In this essay she argues that actually in some cases a surge in population forced people in an area of the world to improve their agricultural technology and make other changes that were beneficial. So (local) population increase was actually a spur to innovation and economic progress. Jeremy Grantham on the other hand is a contemporary money manager from Boston (born in England) who is always somewhat bearish (except in March 2009 when he briefly and correctly turned bullish). He is very environmentally concerned and always worries that humankind is using too many resources or using them unwisely. Quote: "Grantham [believes] that the world has undergone a permanent "paradigm shift" in which the number of people on planet Earth has finally and permanently outstripped the planet's ability to support us." So the Boserup thesis and the Grantham thesis contradict each other, and Mr. Depew is quoting Boserup to counter Grantham. Victor Niederhoffer writes: Julian Simon would turn in his grave, as would the author of The Improving State of Humanity. If on the other hand, the most valuable resource is the human brain, a larger population is better. I would rephrase, "if on the other hand, the most valuable resource is the human independent brain,"(Because globally, what's the use of 1.000.000.000 similar brains ?). The ratio in the brain distribution between the tails and the body probably matters. And the bigger the body, the bigger its reinforcement, and maybe (?) the bigger the crushing of independant brains. … hopefully, this line of reasoning is wrong. Quantitative Studies, from Newton Linchen After 5 years or so, I finally got to the point of confidence in conducting basic quantitative studies. (Very basic…) While reading again Philip's book "Optimal Portfolio Modeling", I got stuck in the following sentences: "Professor Niederhoffer was just such a divergent thinker. His help and guidance taught me to see things at their simplest. That is the essence of his approach. His enlightenment also helped me to learn how to avoid the numerous pitfalls that can arise in quantitative studies. In fact, one of the things he taught me was what not to do on a quantitative study*." I couldn't help to think what such advice would be… And what the Specs thinks of what one should avoid while performing any counting studies. Be very careful to consider only information that was known at the time. For example, when doing a study that uses the high price of the day, you cannot know that any price will be the high of the day until after the close. Similarly, you cannot act on the closing price or anything based on the closing price, such as a moving average, until the next day. Beware of data mining bias. If you test the same set of data enough times, you will find some results that appear to have statistical significance, but occurred just by chance. For example, I analyzed the most favorable trading days of the year. There are an average of 252 trading days per year, so one would expect 12 days to have results with p<0.05 just by chance. You need to control for data mining bias either by setting a more stringent p threshold or testing out of sample. Any time you have considered multiple strategies and selected the one with the best results, you should assume that part of the good result was by luck and expect worse results going forward. Statistical significance is not necessarily predictive. In an era of much quantitative analysis, a regularity may not last long. It has happened more often than I would expect by chance that I found a pattern that was bullish or bearish with statistical significance, and the out of sample results were statistically significant in the opposite direction. Data mining bias can be experienced in the most vivid manner with the new Google correlation engine. It can come up with some of the weirdest, actually impossible, correlations. Google correlation results are more illustrative and striking than any theoretical academic stuff about multiple comparisons. An incomplete list of things NOT to do on a quantitative study: 1. Avoid retrospective data. Many fundamental data bases have retrospectively adjusted data. sometimes the data is adjusted years after the fact and could not possibly be known at the time. 2. Avoid retrospective price data. Many so called quants pat themselves in the back for 'correcting' their data after the fact. Any valid study must include the data as it was known at the time. 3. Avoid the part whole fallacy. There is more on this in the Chair and collab's book Practical Speculation. 4. Use non-parametric/robust statistics to avoid fat tail issues. 5. Simplify your studies to a very small number of variables. 6. Avoid looking at simultaneous relationships. They are descriptive and not tradeable. Instead concentrate on predictive relationships. 7. Avoid indexes, rather use prices that actually trade. This list is only some of the pitfalls and traps to avoid in doing a proper quantitative study. Newton Linchen writes: It has happened more often than I would expect by chance that I found a pattern that was bullish or bearish with statistical significance, and the out of sample results were statistically significant in the opposite direction. Isn't that annoying? Doesn't it pushes us to the other side of the coin, of pure "tape reading", etc? This is a very interesting article with applications to our field. On Chomsky and the Two Cultures of Statistical Learning: "Prof Noam Chomsky derided researchers in machine learning who use purely statistical methods to produce behavior that mimics something in the world, but who don't try to understand the meaning of that behavior. Chomsky compared such researchers to scientists who might study the dance made by a bee returning to the hive, and who could produce a statistically based simulation of such a dance without attempting to understand why the bee behaved that way. 'That's a notion of [scientific] success that's very novel. I don't know of anything like it in the history of science,' said Chomsky." "… while it may seem crass and anti-intellectual to consider a financial measure of success, it is worth noting that the intellectual offspring of [Claude] Shannon's theory create several trillion dollars of revenue each year, while the offspring of Chomsky's theories generate well under a billion." Query of the Day, from Victor Niederhoffer What % of NBA games these days are won by the team that puts in the first point, and can this be generalized to markets? My grandfather used to tell me that a fist fight among boys was usually won by the kid who got in (not threw) the first punch. As an aside, I wonder if markets are susceptible to rhetorical sucker punches? In distance racing it is the opposite. You do not want to be out front at the start. This is especially true at High School races and at the big road races. Too much adrenalin spent at the beginning will waste it. The amount of aggression used at the start, may vary from sport to sport. But might I suggest that one on one sports or team against teams are different than sports like running or poker and trading where it is not just about beating the guy closest too you. You don't want to crush your opponent but use them or propel you to the front. On the other hand you must be watching for signs they can hold the pace. Exhaustion can be contagious if the pacer slows, all follow. Plus you must have confidence in your plan and stick to it. Do you beat all with a kick or do you win with a blistering last mile? Having thousands chasing you can be a rush, but it is also very draining to wear the target on your back. You take the wind hardest without any wind blocks and you are also wasting mental energy setting the pace. What I think all the comments below suggest is there are really 2 questions you need to ask yourself…How aggressive do you want to be at the start? And the second one is how intimidating should you be? As Scott implies below, thugs will nip at you until they know you are or are not armed. But to answer these 2 questions in most civilized matter, you have to know yourself; be confident in your capabilities and and equally realistic about your limitations. In racing, poker and trading, patience is the key. Be aggressive when you truly have the edge. Believe in yourself enough to wait for that edge. What may be more fruitful questions are: what are the signs that the opponent has started too fast? And what are the signs that they are exhausted? A Mr. T.C responds: I spent years running, and I choose to disagree a bit. I don't know what type of resume is required, but I did manage two state championships and posted a 4:12 mile time in college. Going out first doesn't always mean having to go out fast. Runners settle in as soon as someone takes the lead, whether it be track or cross country. If you can use just a quick burst at the beginning to get the lead, you can then set the pace you need in order to win. If it buries others, then great, but if you not, then you know what you have in terms of a kick when it comes to the finish because you set the pace. Losing stinks, but there is nothing worse than losing and still having something left in the tank. That can happen if you let someone else set the pace, and you can't outkick them. Why? Because they set a pace knowing they could still have a strong finish. Yes, there are rabbits, but they are pretty easy to ferret out. They sprint out too far, too far, plus in any race you should have a pretty good idea of who your competition is not just who are the participants are. The wind is a factor, but only when the wind is actually a factor. Giving yourself some distance gives those behind you no benefit. They will hit the same wind. The idea of having to chase someone down can be tiring, and mentally it can crush you if you catch them, then they pull away. The real key is any race with hills. A leader can really stretch a lead on the hills. It is where races are won and lost. I can tell you from experience, you do not want to be chasing on a hill nor do you want someone else to set your pace on a hill. If you have the discipline then being in front means you do not have to catch anyone else, and you merely only have to run the race. The same race you've trained for day in and day out. The same race you've run in your head so many times. When I was good (and believe me when I say I am not good anymore), there was a span of 12 races that I did not lose (it was the 800m for those that care). In that time, I did not even trail a single lap. My first loss came when I altered strategy and ran with the pack. Through a combination of injury and mental roadblocks, I didn't win again after that…until the 4:12 road mile in which I never trailed. It is rarely about adrenalin. It is about preparation, planning, and running your race. And no, for some, it isn't from the front, but for others, they become almost unbeatable if you give them even an inch. Russ Sears responds: Yes, there definitely are times to be the front runner. If you are better than everyone in the field and know it, taking the lead, pushing the pace is the way to go. Winning 8 races in a row shows that you had out grown your competition which does happen in high school and college. But as you imply, if a rabbit sprints to the lead let them go. The goal is not to win the first 100 meter, but the race. A 4:12 mile would never have happened without preparation, planning and running your race, but also a personal record also never happens without digging deeper and find something extra within yourself at the end. As a 2:58 1200 meter runner, but only a 4:05 miler; I did not have a kick. So I understand that often you do not want to leave it down to the last 100 meter and you beat them when you can. But having to lead from start to finish sets yourself up for mental roadblocks in tough races. Finally, I must disagree somewhat about the hills. If you are clearly better than your competition then the hills may further show this. But if your competition is equal or slightly better than you, extra resistance of the hills prevent you from putting too much distance between you. On my hill workouts, I would practice relaxing at the punishing pace up a hill. In a race I would let my equal push trying to get away but near the top when the heart rates are at the highest, I take the lead. After the peak I then tried to stretch the lead on the level or down hill parts. As a high school coach, kids would often think that we did hill work so we could beat the competition on the hills. So they would try to demolish the competition on the hills. But I would tell them it was to withstand the hills, and learn to relax while still giving the most effort, so that you can beat them when they are hurting the most. It is like buying the dips or taking out the cane. Sam Marx writes: 4:05 is very impressive. The greatest mile race I ever saw was Roger Bannister defeating John Landy at the Empire Games in the early 50s. For those of you unfamiliar with these names, etc., Bannister, of England, was the first one to run the mile in under 4 minutes, a major athletic feat at the time. John Landy, an Australian, broke Bannister's record shortly thereafter. The two greatest milers in the world, both of English background, by a strange quirk of scheduling would then shortly meet thereafter and compete at the Empire Games. In their race, Landy had the lead on the 4th lap going around the turn and looked over his left shoulder for Bannister. As Landy was looking, Bannister darted past him on the right took the lead for the last 100 yds and won. It was the first time two men ran the mile in the same race in under 4 minutes or the first time anyone ran the mile in under 4 minutes and lost. Maybe the film clip is on the net. An exciting race to watch and historic. Russ Sears adds: The distance runners are posting some incredible times. Granted the Boston marathon was wind aided point to point course, but simply amazing. Thimes remained flat and perhaps a bit slower from 1985-1994 then times started dropping again. Some of it is in the new training methods, some is due to the coaching available to most that show a promise, some is due to more ways to make a living while still coming up the ranks, and some may be due to the drugs available, but I suspect many of the best are clean, and those that aren't add motivation. Jay Pasch writes: Jeff, quite the interesting post as my father coached the same thing, and being small in stature, that it's not the size of the dog in the fight but the fight in the dog, and to work in tight, inside, where you have the advantage. Having grown up in a "rough" neighborhood and in light of the fact that I've been stabbed 3 times, I have always found that the best course of action was to avoid the fight at almost any cost. I learned early on in life that there are "guys" out there who don't see the world the way 99% of the people do. They don't feel pain or fear like like 99% of the world. They are capable of a level of brutality and violence that is, quite simply, mind boggling. The way they fight and the things they are willing to do to their opponent in a fight is truly scary. They win fights because they are willing to go to a level of violence that 99% of the people in the world are not willing to escalate too. My brother and three of uncles were "those guys". I witnessed them do things in fights that was truly stunning. My uncles grew up in one of the worst toughest neighborhoods in St. Louis. They were, hands down, the toughest guys in that neighborhood….no one was a close second to them. Two of these uncles were only a 2 - 5 years older than me. I remember one time when I was around 12 years old, I was over at my grandmothers house visiting. I was playing down the street from her house when these 4 guys came up to me and started to "accost" me. They surrounded me, started shoving me around and telling me to give them my money, and that they were going to beat the $#!% out of me. Basically, I think they picked on me because they didn't recognize me (they left the rest of the guys I was playing with alone….all of whom were from the neighborhood). One of the thugs asked me what I was doing in their neighborhood and I told them I was visiting my grandma. They kept picking on me. I was really scared and my mind was racing as they were starting "the process" of beating me up. It was then that a possible way out of this situation occurred to me. I asked the guys if they knew my uncles. They, of course, didn't care about knowing my uncles. So I said, you don't know my uncles, Mark and Kerry? The next moment became frozen in time. You could have heard a pin drop. They immediately stopped shoving me around and all they stood perfectly still, first staring at me with a shocked look on their face, then their eyes began to dart from side to side looking at each other with the same stunned look on their face. They immediately began to back peddle. They became my best friends and let me know that they were just joking around and were just messing with me. They said they were good friends with Mark and Kerry and that there was no reason to tell either of them. The "fear" in their eyes and their body language was as visible as lava pouring out of an erupting volcano. The mere mention of the names "Mark and Kerry" was like flipping on a light switch in a dark room. These guys who were just getting ready to steal my money and beat me up, who quickly became my friends, were now really anxious to leave the area as quickly as possible. What happened next was really interesting. When I saw my uncle Mark later in the day, I told him what had happened. He asked me to describe the guys who tried to mug me. Mark knew exactly who the guys were. Mark told me to stay at the house and he left. He returned some time later with bloody knuckles. He said he took care of the problem and that no one in the neighborhood would ever bother me again. He was right. I was never bothered again. I saw those guys a few times after that. They not only never bothered me, they were semi-pleasant, while at the same time trying to get away from me as quickly as possible. Between the level of violence that my uncles, my brother were capable of administering, I have decided that avoiding a fight is always the best policy….why take a chance on running into someone like my brother or uncles. And anyway, even if you get into a fight and whip the other guys butt, if lands one good punch, you'll be laying in bed for the next week saying to yourself, "yeah, I won that fight, but man oh man, does my broken nose really hurt". Call me a wuss if you want, but know this: I've been in more fights than most and had my butt WHUPPED by numerous people……and I never enjoyed any of them. I'll take "avoid" over fight any day of the week. I grew up in the Weequahic section of Newark NJ, in the '40's (popularized in Phillip Roth's books). We didn't fight we sued. I find it nearly impossible to literally score the first point in the market because of the bid-ask spread. If I hit the ask, chances are the next transaction will hit the bid. If I have a limit order to buy, it will not be filled unless the price is going lower. The best I can hope for is the analogy Mr. Sogi once made to a football play: the quarterback always has to retreat a few steps from the line of scrimmage to start the play. Similarly, the strategy on a hockey face-off is to draw the puck back to the defensemen so they can establish puck control and start a play. I often dream of being in the inner circle particularly under the scenarios of a nice outsized move off the O/N lows before the cash session. Then cash opens, declines all of 1/2 pt quickly, stops on a dime then zooms higher doubling the overall move. There are interesting parallels to the three choices for commerce posited by William J. Bernstein in his book A Splendid Exchange: trade, raid, or protect. Sharing Information Corrupts Wisdom of Crowds, from Steve Ellison Bacon said: DON'T look at anybody else's selections of prices or handicaps before making your own selections and prices. That is a rule with no exceptions. If you look at some other prices or selections first, the line you will come up with will be a sort of scrambling of his line and your line. Almost invariably, it will combine the weakest features of both. You'll have the mistakes and trite opinions of his line and yours. But the possible 'bright work' and getting-away-from-the-public part of his figures and yours, will be discarded. A recent study provides evidence of the wisdom of Bacon's advice: SHARING INFORMATION CORRUPTS WISDOM OF CROWDS "When people can learn what others think, the wisdom of crowds may veer towards ignorance. In a new study of crowd wisdom — the statistical phenomenon by which individual biases cancel each other out, distilling hundreds or thousands of individual guesses into uncannily accurate average answers — researchers told test participants about their peers' guesses. As a result, their group insight went awry. …" Green Days, from Victor Niederhoffer There have been many green days (bonds and stocks both up). About the highest since Nov 2009 and March. # of green days Jan 2 3 3 Feb 3 5 6 Mar 6 8 0 Apr 5 5 6 to date May 5 2 June 5 2 July 5 5 Aug 6 2 Sep 3 4 Oct 4 6 Dec 2 7 What do you think it portends, and less interestingly, how come there are so many positive comovements? In the mid-1990s, stocks and US Treasury bonds moved in the same direction on over 65% of all days. In the last four years, stocks and bonds have moved in the same direction on less than 40% of all days. Even after the recent green days, stocks and bonds have moved in the same direction on only 27 of the 77 trading days (35%) in 2011. Comovement Year Percentage The hypothetical value of a stock is the net present value of all future income, discounted by the risk-free interest rate. All other things being equal, then, an increase in bond prices should be bullish for stock prices. However, this relationship might break down for several reasons, including: - Bond prices might rise (fall) in response to deteriorating (improving) economic fundamentals that reduce (increase) expected future corporate income - Asset allocation changes between stocks and bonds might drive price movements more than fundamentals - Variations in very low interest rates might have little or no effect on the net present value of future income (because models might assume more normal rates in the future) Regarding the last point, there appears to be a correlation between the level of interest rates and the degree of comovement of stocks and bonds: 10-year bond yield greater less than Comovement than or equal to N Percentage 2% 3% 203 0.374 4% 5% 1353 0.466 8% 9% 4 0.750 The Best Selling Books of All Time and Markets, from Victor Niederhoffer The enclosed list of best selling books of all time is an excellent indicator of popular culture I think, and should have interesting market applications. How would one dig down into that, and do you think or do you think it's not applicable? The first thing I notice is what a diverse list it is. The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy book. Think and Grow Rich is a self help book. There are conventional novels, children's books, religious books, and even a book about science by Stephen Hawking. Charles Pennington comments: Who'd have guessed that A Tale of Two Cities is the best seller (single volume) of all time? I didn't even know it was the best-selling Dickens novel, which apparently it is by a factor of 20, since no other Dickens novels appear in the list. That's very surprising; am I misinterpreting? No misinterpretation here. ATOTC was so wildly popular in the U.S. - like all Dickens' writings - that people in New York and Boston and Baltimore (? not absolutely certain about that one) literally waited at the dock for the packet to arrive from England with the latest installment. One reason Dickens disliked America and Americans is that some of our enterprising ancestors are known to have bought a copy of the latest serial, set it in type over night and had reprints out on the street the following morning for sale - at, of course, a suitable discount from the price of the legitimate copies. Tale of Two Cities was also the last book that "Phiz" illustrated. Starting with The Pickwick Papers, Dickens has written "monthly parts" that were sold as part of a serial publication. (It literally revolutionized British publishing.) The serials were close to being graphic novels. Robert Seymour, George Cruikshank, and George Cattermole all did illustrations. Hablot Knight Browne (1815-1882) — "Phiz" — did the ones that are best remembered. When Dickens began self-publishing in his own weekly periodicals, Household Words and All the Year Round, Dickens fired his friend as chief illustrator. The parallels with Walt Disney are interesting. Pitt T. Maner III writes: In digging down a bit one sees that 3 of the authors, with over 100 million copies sold, are buried within a couple of hundred miles of each other in England (within a shared cultural environment) and that some of their literary themes had connections with class or race distinctions and warfare /murder (Dickens–French Revolution, Tolkien–races of mythological creatures, Christie– see wiki article on And Then There Were None (which originally had a different title and is about murderers from different classes being tricked into meeting on an island and being tricked in some cases into bumping each other off). There is a whole series of study devoted to the Chinese book Redology and (having not read it), " Dream of the Red Chamber" appears to involve issues of class mobility. Tsao Hsueh-chin, the author of A Dream of Red Mansions, lived between 1715 and 1763. His ancestral family once held great power. As such, he led a wealthy noble life in Nanjing as a child. When he was 13 or 14, the family was declining and moved to Beijing, where life took a turn for the worse. In his later years, he even led a poor life.Drawing on his own experience, Tsao Hsueh-chin put all his life experiences, poeticized feelings, exploratory spirit and creativity into the greatest work of all time - A Dream of Red Mansions. Drawing its materials from real life, the novel is full of the author's personal feelings filled with blood and tears. A Dream of Red Mansions is a novel with great cultural richness. It depicts a multi-layered yet inter-fusing tragic human world through the eye of a talentless stone the Goddess used for sky mending. Jia Baoyu, the incarnation of the stone, witnessed the tragic lives of "the Twelve Beauties of Nanjing", experienced the great changes from flourishing to decline of a noble family and thus gained unique perception of life and the mortal world. Revolving around Jia Baoyu and focusing on the tragic love between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai against the backdrop of the Great View Garden, the novel portrays a tragedy in which love, youth and life are ruined as well as exposes and profoundly reflects the root of the tragedy – the feudal system and culture. Found here. Terrible things can happen if you leave the rich and powerful unchecked and unpunished… is that close to the themes that may be partially beneath the success and appeal of the above best sellers of all time. The meme being that it will be back to the dark ages of murder and mayhem on earth if government social services are the least bit underfunded and the rich continue to not pay their fair share. Dylan Distasio writes: I thought it might also be worthwhile to look at bestsellers by decade. There is a course on 20th century American literature that has been kind enough to share their materials with the interwebs. The full list by decade for the 20th century is at the below link and is worth checking out. Pitt T. Maner III comments: In my first paid job as a 12-year old library aide, Agatha Christie made shelving a pile of returned books easy– her works constituted 10% of the pile and were quickly put back with little effort to the same spacious shelf location. I remember reading "Jaws" then, a book hugely popular at the time. It is doubtful, however, that the Palm Beach socialites checking out multiple Christie books each week would ascribe her popularity to the "Burkean paradigm". The following is a piece on Christie from a self-described "Wilsonian". Perhaps an example of reading into things a bit too much…the retrospective reasons for success when starting with a point of view. Her work conforms to Burkean conservatism in every respect: justice rarely comes from the state. Rather, it arises from within civil society – a private detective, a clever old spinster. Indeed, what is Miss Marple but the perfect embodiment of Burke's thought? She has almost infinite wisdom because she has lived so very long (by the later novels, she is barely able to move and, by some calculations, over 100). She has slowly – like parliament and all traditional bodies, according to Burke – accrued "the wisdom of the ages", and this is the key to her success. From her solitary spot in a small English village, she has learned everything about human nature. Wisdom resides, in Christie and Burke's worlds, in the very old and the very ordinary. I Note, from Victor Niederhoffer A note that "one of the first investors in the world to be bearish on mortgage back" has come across the horn. I have seen many such statements made about someone who was right the previous time. Often, as Harry Browne points out, when you read their things, it is not quite as clear cut as that as they make many statements and often their positions are different if they trade or not. But, But, But. Here's the rub. Why should the fact that someone was right or prescient at some time have anything to do with ones prescience in the future. I would posit an opposite relation. Studies of the persistence of mutual fund performance support this. A person is not good for all seasons. My former good friend, the fencer was very bearish throughout the 2000s. He saw a 50% chance of a terrible debacle at all times. It happened in 2008. He made money. What does that mean for the future? He still sees a 50% chance of total ruination and like 99% of the bears he missed the bull market but is very happy he's only down 10% or so because he was positioned for the big one. The same is true for the worst naivete that comes out of the route 125 boys. They noted that 1929 the months were similar to 1987. So they became very bearish and the drunken grain thresher knew that on Oct 19, it had to be a crash like Black Friday in 1929. Such reasoning. Have conditions changed? Is there any relation between what happened 50 years ago and today. Do things repeat in a predictive way or reverse as they go the way of least effort. Such considerations enable one to reduce the vig and grind at least by not being influenced. Hopefully those on this list will not add overly to the vig or grind. That would be a blow to the muse of not succumbing to the evil houses and their NGO consultants et al. I once worked with people whose jobs were to forecast sales. One posted a humorous list of rules for forecasters. The #1 rule was: If by some chance you are ever right, never let anyone forget it. Evil and Benevolence, from Victor Niederhoffer The talk recently about evil men, the Titanic Thompsons, the Barnies, the Madoff's, the flexions et al…. the …., has led me to consider that it might be interesting to consider what is an evil and benevolent market. As a start, consider that when a market creates a bust, and then goes back to where it was, many weak players loses everything at the expense of the strong, and had they held out for just a little longer, they would have been whole. How would you gain footing on such a quest, and what predictive, and insightful ideas might derive from such a quest? Sam Marx adds: What I find interesting and somewhat overlooked is that getting into a stock after a crash and near the bottom can result in profits of 200%, 300%, 700%, or more and that trivializes the attempt at 18% returns which seems to be today's holy grail as attained by Harvard, Yale, etc. The formula seems to be get out of a bull market when it becomes fully priced, even if it has more to run as Jos. Kennedy Sr. did in 1928, a year before the crash, and then bargain hunt (vulture invest) strong undervalued companies or in Kennedy Sr.'s case NYC real estate. Timing and valuation are the keystones. But who are the good timers? Robert Drach, a commentator who has appeared on Nightly Business Report, has said that the stock market is an evil mechanism that transfers wealth from individuals to wealthy institutions during panics. But the fact that the public rushes in means nothing to me. Without any judgment on my part, it does not matter to me if the public makes money in the game, it only matters if "I" make money in the game. The professional spectator has no interest in whether the public will make money, or if society will benefit from his speculations, he has a personal interest in that he will make money. Society will benefit from that man's speculations by increased supplies, better availability of product, and all the other good things that result from speculation. The public is just betting that there will be a greater fool to come along in the future to ensure that the public makes a profit. (see Greater Fool Theory). Those evil hands earlier described are just running up the market and ensuring their profit now. Really, the difference is just in the time frame, "Will I make my profit now by running up the market and catching the public, or will I buy the market now and hope that a greater fool will come in and bail me out at a later date." Gaming the market, running the market, goosing bids, camouflaging positions, and fading offers, protecting bids, protecting positions…….none of this is evil or larcenous unless there is dishonesty or fraud involved. The market is just a huge game with many different smaller games being played simultaneously. The public is playing one game, the small spec is playing another, the spreader has his game going, while the broker dealer might be playing an entirely different game. Sometimes, the players don't even know which game is being played, and they are the ones that have no business being in the game. But unless dishonesty, fraud, or cheating is involved, none of the game is evil. Our esteemed surfer could have been a railroad man. After William H. Vanderbilt, president of the New York Central Railroad, arrived in in his private railroad car in the yards of the Michigan Central Railroad in Chicago on Sunday October 8, 1882, a freelance reporter, Clarence Dresser, entered the private car and asked to speak to Vanderbilt. (In his memoir, Melville E. Stone, who had been the head of the Associated Press, described Dresser as "one of the offensively aggressive types—one of those wrens who make prey where eagles dare not tread. Always importunate and usually impudent.") Vanderbilt's interview with Dresser began by Vanderbilt's saying that he was in the middle of eating dinner but, if Dresser would wait until he had finished, he would give him a minute. According to Stone, the interview continued as follows: "But it is late," Dresser said, "and I will not reach the office in time. The public—" "The public be damned," Vanderbilt burst out. "You get out of here!" John Steele Gordon says that Dresser tried to sell the story to the Chicago Daily News, where Stone was then editor. When the night editor refused to print the story, Dresser went to the Chicago Tribune, who ran the story the next morning. It was reprinted throughout the country and became the scandal of the year; and to this day, the only quotation for which Vanderbilt is remembered in Bartlett's. Here is the version of the interview Dresser sold to the Tribune: "Does your limited express [between New York and Chicago] pay?" "No, not a bit of it. We only run it because we are forced to do so by the action of the Pennsylvania Road. It doesn't pay expenses. We would abandon it if it was not for our competitor keeping its train on." "But don't you run it for the public benefit?" "The public be damned. What does the public care for the railroads except to get as much out of them for as small a consideration as possible. I don't take any stock in this silly nonsense about working for anybody's good, but our own because we are not. When we make a move we do it because it is our interest to do so, not because we expect to do somebody else some good. Of course we like to do everything possible for the benefit of humanity in general, but when we do we first see that we are benefiting ourselves. Railroads are not run on sentiment, but on business principles and to pay, and I don't mean to be egotistic when I say that the roads which I have had anything to do with have generally paid pretty well." Vanderbilt's nephew, Samuel Barton, was traveling with his uncle that day. His version of the interview, as told to William A. Croffut, who published a biography of Vanderbilt in 1886, went like this: "Why are you going to stop this fast mail-train?" "Because it doesn't pay. I can't run a train as far as this permanently at a loss." "But the public find it very convenient and useful. You ought to accommodate them." "The public? How do you know they find it useful? How do you know, or how can I know, that they want it? If they want it, why don't they patronize it and make it pay? That's the only test I have of whether a thing is wanted—does it pay? If it doesn't pay, I suppose it isn't wanted." "Mr. Vanderbilt, are you working for the public or for your stockholders?" "The public be damned! I am working for my stockholders! If the public want the train, why don't they support it?" in his article for American Heritage magazine (September/October 1989) John Steele Gordon notes that Vanderbilt had said things that matched much of what was printed in each of the versions of the Dresser interview. When Vanderbilt gave testimony to a committee of the New York State Assembly in the 1860s, he gave the following testimony: "I have always served the public to the best of my ability. Why? Because, like every other man, it is my interest to do so, and to put them to as little inconvenience as possible. I don't think there is a man in the world who would go further to serve the public than I." "My system of railroading is … to take care of it just as careful as I would of my own household affairs, handle it just as though it was all mine; … and take good care of its income; that is my aim, you know, and give that to the stockholders." Vanderbilt, controlled the largest railroad company in the world. He never took a salary as president of three railroads; he paid himself solely out of the dividends on his shareholdings. By the time of his death he was, by his own calculation, the richest man in the world and, as he told a friend, "I would not cross the street to make another million." Harper's Weekly estimated that Vanderbilt's fortune exceeded the total value of all assessed property in Nebraska, Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon combined. In his own calculations Vanderbilt did concede that the Duke of Westminster might have a slightly larger fortune ($200,000,000 vs. his $194,000,000); but Vanderbilt thought his was the greater actual wealth because the Duke's landholdings paid less than 2 percent while his own portfolio of government bonds and railroad securities paid 6 percent, Vanderbilt's investment income was roughly a million dollars a month at a time when a middle class salary was $80-90 a month. When he suddenly died in 1885, the report of his death was the only story on the front page of The New York Times. Not a Good Week for Market Efficiency, from Steve Ellison The chart of the S&P 500 this week looked very much like what an uninformed member of the public would think a random walk looked like, but was actually a highly nonrandom pattern of repeated reversals, at least until late Friday afternoon. The biggest move all week occurred when an easily predictable aftershock, that should by the theory have already been priced in, occurred in Japan. On monthly returns for sure. I remember when I was a MBA student in finance class the teacher wanted to show us that the market was random. He displayed a chart of the real DJIA side by side with a chart of a random walk, then asked the class to pick the real stock market. 150 people choose the random walk and 2 of us, that includes me, picked the real stock market. By the way, you need balls to go 2 against 150 in an MBA classroom. I think there are other things at play here. 150 people getting wrong get be attributed to the guys being lemmings, and 2 right guys can be attributed to us knowing the chart in advance (we were among a few with previous trading experience). 10 Ways to be a Successful Beggar, from Victor Niederhoffer If someone could relate the 10 most important ways to be a successful beggar and somehow rate the big CEO's on how they fare on this, perhaps it would be a good way to pick investments these days. Certainly the basketball player, and the [deleted pending resolution of offer and counteroffer] would be high up there, and the heads of the certain institution from areas that are renowned for their ability to compromise would have many lessons to teach, and juicy stocks ripe for investment. The head of a metals company renowned for its low cost elevators in my day was a butler and this would seem to be very ideal training in the absence of a school for beggars in this country. How to generalize? They can't really beg and retain any illusion of authority. They have to prostitute themselves to the regime while plausibly (somewhat) appearing highly enthusiastic and supportive. Some of the skills: -Be able to speak with passion and conviction about complete nonsense, generally in the collectivist/green future and similar areas. -Be able to deny obvious truth with passion and conviction in public, such as the real motivation for any help from the government. -Regularly show up in Davos. -Express a great deal of concern for various oppressed constituencies, at home and abroad and describe at length how the company/CEO are helping them. -Be excited about creating jobs, especially "good" jobs, "skilled" jobs, "green" jobs. Talk at length about how the US needs to be a country that "builds things". -Be able to motivate a large number of employees by any means necessary to contribute the government political candidate. -Invest heavily in a number of "relationships" in DC to create wide-spread support for bailing out the company. -If the company is a conglomerate that owns any media properties turn those properties into the echo chamber for the regime. -Infrequently offer mild criticism of the regime while emphasizing the silver lining. -Get involved as advisers to the various regime commissions. -Hire former regime members. Maiming: In one country I visited, there were many beggars, who served an important role in their religion by giving the faithful opportunities to do good deeds. Many of the beggars had been purposely maimed by their handlers in order to attract more alms. Spinning a yarn: When I first worked in the big city as a young man, I was stunned by how many panhandlers there were. Locals informed me that the Republican president was to blame. I saw the same panhandlers day after day, but every once in a while somebody would approach me with a sad story. One woman rode the subway telling everyone she needed to get to a hospital for a medical procedure but needed money to get there. I occasionally would be approached by someone claiming to be a stranded traveler who needed money to get home. Performing unwanted services to create a sense of obligation: The last time I went to the Los Angeles airport, I was approached as I walked out of the terminal by a woman who asked if I needed help finding anything. I said I just needed to find the shuttle bus for rental cars. She pointed out where it was (it was right in front of me, and I would have found it myself within five seconds) and then asked for money. Squeegie men and charities that send preprinted address labels are in this category, too. Feigning virtue: I know people who have offered jobs to people holding signs saying, "Will work for food". None of the sign holders have ever shown up to work. John Tierney writes: 10 attributes which get the alms seeker off to a good start: 1. stresses that the company is concentrating on "giving back to the community" 2. actively involved in and/or seeking out green initiatives. 3. putting increased emphasis on organic growth, but always has an eye-out for M&A opportunities 4. working hand-in-hand with government agencies/NGOs to address hunger/AIDS/climate change 5. supports and serves on advisory boards of outfits like Breast Cancer Awareness, Habitat for Humanity, Thurgood Marshall Scholarship program, anti-vivisection league, and Sierra Club 6. never misses annual meetings at Davos & Jackson Hole; always has time for interview with CNBC and others; dresses casually, but not ostentatiously for same, addresses interviewer by first name…refers to this year's meeting as "one of the most exciting" ever 7. rarely indulges in short-term predictions, instead devotes most of his time to long term initiatives (which he'd like to discuss, but, at this time, is premature); sees things improving slowly but surely 8. believes the Fed did the right thing - might have made a few small errors but, generally, moved decisively at a critical time. Country will bounce back, always has. 9. bailouts, QE1 & QE2, though regrettable, were necessary for the preservation of the financial system. 10. insists the public will realize a "healthy return" on bailout funds Not to be forgotten, the institutions that pound their chests with pride in their ad campaigns using misinformation as JPM has been doing recently re: the X number of mortgages (400M as I recall) the company has modified in 2010. "In order to do our part and assist ordinary consumers get back on their feet…" is the approximate spirit of the ad. Needless to say, for better or worse, in early consultation with these companies, the administration & Treasury planned for a 4-5X number of alterations. Basically, the main requirement for being a CEO today is excelling at credible hypocrisy. Russ Sears contributes: Here are a half dozen more. 1. Beg for federal money for your customers. This should allow your prices to double what they put in. Plus the room for undetected fraud goes up. (See higher education and Medicare, medicaid and first time buyers tax credits). This way you get the best of both worlds, customers thanking you for making it affordable and tax payers footing the bills. 2. Give away your product to third world countries with tax breaks so that the Feds will extend the favor by lengthening your patent protection in US. Again gratitude for sticking it too us. 3. Have the government make it illegal not to be insured, and then make sure your product must be paid for by insurance. (car, health, PMI etc) Again with the government involved raising the easy of defrauding insurance companies. 4. If you are captured by the unions, make the government give only union shops a chance. 5. Use your size to get tax breaks as incentives, use your popularity to have the citizens build your stadiums. 6. Make sure that court system understands that with all the lawyers you hire, you are the ones keeping the judges in a job. Bringing regulatory capture to a new level, too big to prosecute. World traveler B.K. writes: I've seen countless mutilated beggars in India, enough to make you want to cry coins to them. However, the practical advice is not to give: "In India thousands of children are being mutilated annually. The joints of their bones get injected with bleach. Infection is the result and amputation follows. Eyes are stuck out as well. …" However, the greatest beggar I ever saw was an armless man in the NYC subway with a sign around his neck, 'Please give to buy drum set.' That may well be, but I look at it this way– who am I to judge? I once gave a leg-less homeless man a ten-dollar bill. Well he just absolutely lit up into a beautiful smile, looked me straight in the eye and said "God bless you!". That blessing hit me like a sonic boom. I felt it physically, and walked away feeling like I received much more out of that exchange than he did. Make of that what you will, but it had a huge impact on my outlook on life, and how we relate to each other. Marion Dreyfus writes: I saw the same mutilations and deliberate crippling in Nepal. Hundreds of kids tottered after Westerners, begging and making mewling sounds. If once you gave you were encircled and could not advance another step until each and every child had gotten coins from one. Art Cooper writes: One of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories is "The Man With the Twisted Lip," an exceptionally successful London street beggar, who gave his benefactors psychic value for their alms. Here is an article on organized phony beggars. Those who donate must be able to differentiate the individuals worthy of a helping hand: "Certain persons posing as social leaders have been running the racket of beggary. We are busy in gathering necessary evidence to initiate criminal action against them," Ramalingappa said. He claimed that at few places the "beggary business" was going on a "commission basis" and whenever the officials conducted raids, the beggars escaped from the clutches of law and also alerted others over mobile phones. "Whenever the beggars in disguise are arrested, lawyers rush to get them released," Ramalingappa said. Most of these rackets thrive in and around well known pilgrim centres and religious places where people generously offer to beggars. He said an awareness programme will be launched to impress upon people that beggary should not be encouraged. Stating that no proper rehabilitation of "genuine beggars" has taken place anywhere in the State, Ramalingappa said a comprehensive survey on the conditions of beggars will be taken up soon. There are 914 beggars including 168 women in rehabilitation centres all over the State. Steps were being taken to set these centres in order. Outside Days, from Steve Ellison Monday was an outside day for the S&P 500 futures, and the close was lower than the low of the previous day. Tuesday was another outside day, this time with the close higher than the high of the previous day. This sequence has occurred only twice in the past 6 years. The changes on the third days in those instances were -1.7% and +0.3%. Tuesday was the 47th outside day on which the close was higher than the high of the previous day in the past 6 years. After the previous 46 instances, the next day was up 24 times and down 22 times, t=-0.12. The Selfish Price and Gene Theory Again, from Victor Niederhoffer "It is common to think of individuals to use genes to make more individual, but from the gene's eye view of evolution, its the other way around. Genes use individuals to make more genes. The chicken is the egg's way of making more eggs". p. 114 The Seventy Great Mysteries of the Natural World edited by Michael Benton. Yes, and its the digits of the prices way of replicating itself to make individual market players create more of those digits. (I wrote about this before here). The digit 0 plays a big part in the replication game, and it makes individuals sacrifice themselves to create more 0's. One notes for example that the double digit 00 in 1300 on the sp has been broaches from below on a closing basis from Feb 03 on three times and gone from above to below on three times. Similarly for the triple digit 000 in 12000 on the DJI. The DAX crossed the triple digit 7000 on Jan 3rd from below, went above below then above then below on Jan 07, then crossed to 7097 on Jan 13 but stayed above 7000 until March 14, then fell to 6436 on March 16, a decline of 10% for the year, and now for the first time on March 25 hit a high of 7006 but failed to close above 6981, a fact which must cause great disennu to the triple 0's in 7000 and they must be inducing much political change in Germany as we speak to achieve that level. Similar analysis relates to the Nikkei at 10000 which crossed below 10000 on March 11 briefly, but closed at 100075 and then on the following two days declined 20% captures by the triple 000 at 8000 as its low was 7790, a decline of 25% from its mid December levels of 10300. A similar analysis could be made with the grains especially corn which has shown a similar affinity to 700 as the Dow to 12000 and the SP to 1300. Instead of taking closing prices for granted we should ask how the digits themselves influence our actions so that we can make them reappear over and over again. A simpler version of this is the opposite of the usual "the market did Y today because of X": We say X because it did Y and we need why. The evidence is that for many similar X there are many dissimilar Y. Price is selfish because its impact demands explanation. Gay Rogan comments: I'm having trouble understanding any of this. Genes are selfish in the following sense: if genes don't propagate, they disappear, so the only genes that are here today are proven propagators. How can prices or digits permanently disappear? And why would 0's propagate more than other digits? How do these explanations provide more clarity than simply saying people's brains are attracted to numerical markers, and in the absence of other alternatives they chose round numbers? One possible line of reasoning is that people are more likely to put limit orders at round numbers. People often put stops near round numbers, too, but the research I have seen suggests stops are more likely to cluster on the opposite side of a round number from the current price. Here, then, is a hypothesis: if the last two digits of the S&P 500 closing price are above 90 or below 10 (i.e., near a 00 round), the change the next day is likely to be in the opposite direction as today; if the last two digits are above 10 and below 90 (i.e., away from the 00 round), the change the next day is likely to be in the same direction as today. Checking the last 1584 trading days of the futures, Near 00 round: N: 366 reversal next day: 194 unchanged next day: 3 continuation next day: 169 % continuations excl unch: 46.6% Away from 00 round: N: 1200 unchanged next day: 15 The percentage of reversals was higher near rounds, but the difference was not significant. What was significant was the number of closes near the rounds. One would expect a close within 10 points of a round about 20% of the time, but 23% of actual closes were within 10 points of a round, p=0.0006. Here is an interesting paper on round numbers for individual stocks. It doesn't look at expectations, but does look at bid I believe that this paper could be expanded measure this effect on high volume versus low volume stocks. Therefore its stated cost may not be as large as expected on all stocks. My guess, needing testing is the small stocks have this more frequently than the large stocks, that are often computer traded. A Rather Shocking Study, from Victor Niederhoffer A rather shocking study which shows that investors in mutual funds receive a much worse return than the actual return shown by the mutual fund through putting most of their investment in before the mutual fund goes down and least of their investments when mutual funds before the mutual fund goes up. The actual underperformance seems to be of the order of 3 percentage points of return a year, i.e, 6% versus 9%, with sector funds and specialty funds and growth funds showing much greater underperfomance. This must be a pretty good indicator of when to go against a particular sector. I read Mr. Swedroe's book Rational Investing in Irrational Times. This is very interesting data, but it undermines his main message, that the market is efficient and even professional managers can't beat it, so you should diversify and keep costs low by buying index funds. If mutual funds favored by the public underperform by a wide margin, something else must be overperforming. One might be able to beat the market by simply avoiding the hot funds and their favored stocks, like Bacon's technique of betting on all the other horses besides the overpriced favorite. Mick St. Amour writes: A great contrarian indicator. The retail investor is often guilty of chasing returns and as you can see this is a performance killer. Larry Williams writes: Aha, mutual funds are for the masses, while the elite managers of money: Cohen, PTJ, Dalio– are the winners for their clients. But hold on a moment here. Lots of professional managers have beat the market for many, many years. It can be done, and it is being done. But not all can do it. Just like not all teams will be in the final four, and while luck is part of the game, in the end skill carries the day. Flexionism of the Day, from Victor Niederhoffer So is the consensus now among us non flexions that the radiation danger is merely exaggerated 100 fold so that technology in the US will be set back 30 years, and government intervention will be lubricated for the next 4 years to deal with the crisis which seems so much worse to the US than the Japanese and IAEA? This is not meant to diminish the magnitude of the tragedy in Japan, but merely to wonder if we believe that the subsequent dangers have been much exaggerated for flexionic profit? Yes, of course. One thing to be sure about is that T.Boone Pickens' funds will start getting ahead, as Natural Gas projects (like gradual highway infrastructure to facilitate filling-up vehicles, especially trucks and such) should finally be given light-of-day. "Never let a crisis go to waste." Buy the clashing of bearish cymbals, and sell the euphoric opposite… Kim Zussman ironizes: Buy the clashing of bearish cymbals, and sell the euphoric opposite in flat/choppy markets. If markets ain't flat or choppy, don't buy and sell 'em. No doubt it was my poor judgment, but from the perspective of operating a specialty line in panics, the moments of panic in the past week in the S&P 500 seemed too brief and ephemeral to go all in. The changes since the earthquake were: 3/11 +11.7 3/14 -10.7 There were three moderately large down days in a row, but for perspective, the S&P 500 futures are still up 1.5% year to date. Only for the briefest of moments did they trade below the 1247.9 year-end close of 2010. Panic, from Andrea Ravano March 15, 2011 \| Leave a Comment Thanks God the panic indicator is back! The telephone started ringing early in the morning with frantic if not fearful voices of all sexes, inquiring if it was the right moment to dump Asian, European, American, shares, Oil, Natural Gas and start investing at zero percent on Swissie and JPY. As the trading day went by, along with the Dax 30 down 5.5 percent, down went the tone of the panicky voices and up the inquiries to sell. To say the absolute truth, one does not yet own the Magic to foretell future with unfair odds, but some gut feeling mixed with reasoning as to the speed of the sell off, yes, that we have. Thus the perfect buying moment came as the "oneandonly" came in asking in despair what I thought of the Japanese Market. Indeed, it was not a question. It waited no answer, as I tried to calm the chap down and work out some figures and logical thoughts about NIkkei, and stock markets in general. Yet, everything to no avail. The answers were already built in by the fear of further losses, irrespective of the possibility of cane buying or economic prospects rosier than these sad times are telling us. Probably some bottoming out process will have to take place before we can ring the "all clear" siren, but one first, small sign was visible in the depth of the fearful investor's eye. Recently I reread "A Specialist in Panics". The author recounts: As a constant reminder I printed a sign with my name at the top and beneath the words: Specialist in Panics Below I put this query with a blank space for the answer: Question: Panic Today? Answer: ____________ I decided to buy only when I could truthfully write yes as the answer to the question. For the first time in 2011, one might have answered yes during the last 24 hours. Ken Drees writes: This reminds me of Justin Mamis' work– paraphrasing here: Buy only when your hand is trembling with fear as you can hardly pick up the phone to call your broke. March 1, 2011 \| 2 Comments Today it will be another fight between the almatarians and the reversalists. Last month, it was a massacre in favor of the former. Andrea Ravano writes: Doomsters on the run advising on "how fearful this market is". Surely, they will be right sooner or later, unless of course they have some leverage in their positions. I am on the run. As I noted when I studied the almanac effect a month ago, the almanac has only worked well in 3 of the past 6 years, and it had a good year in 2010. I have a hunch the introduction of the Barclay almanac fund may be a turning point. Ag Futures, from Bud Conrad Yesterday's across the board collapse of ag futures is a very serious move. Lock limit in most grains etc. It looks like wheat and soybeans started to roll over a few days ahead of cotton. The nearby is down almost twice the daily limit, and the rest are all locked. It certainly is unusual and may be a solid confirmation. Has the "realizing market" begun? Roy Longstreet in Viewpoints of a Commodity Trader said that some of the best profit opportunities are in realizing markets, when price is driven by the market's realization of some fact. For example, stock investors realized in 2000 that most of the Internet companies that had been valued on clicks or eyeballs would run out of cash long before they could become profitable. The agri oil boom bust is a spiraling cycle. Oil goes up lowers economy growth, commods like grains go down but then grains substitute, grains go up oil countries populace go hunger/revolt oil goes up, less economy growth but …the cycle is becoming clearer. Gary Rogan replies: Russ, I appreciate the explanation, this is very helpful. On the other hand, the original contention was that this is now a "realizing market". Has the market suddenly figured out this spiral, in the sense that oil going up will definitely (in the economic, not speculative sense) cause agri price to go down because the middle east is on fire? A case can be made that fertilizer prices or agri fuel costs are more important than some destitute people becoming even more destitute b/c of high oil prices and what, not eating any more? Or that raging inflation can manifest itself unpredictably in various commodities, or that transportation costs will raise import agri prices. I'm not sure this is equivalent to everybody figuring out in March 2000 that the Internet emperor was a bit on the under dressed side. « go back — keep looking » The Letters Prize Pre-2007 Victor Niederhoffer Posts Vic’s NYC Junto Programming in 60 Seconds The Objectivist Center Tigerchess Dick Sears' G.T. Index Pre-2007 Daily Speculations Laurel & Vics' Worldly Investor Articles Copyright © 2007 Daily Speculations • Powered by WordPress • Using Blue Zinfandel (v.2) theme created by Brian Gardner and The Worlds Foremost Office Monkey	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2672
__label__cc	0.652823	0.347177	Midnight & the Lemon Boys June 24, 2011 \| Filed under: Blog,Photographs \| Posted by: Marcus Myers Marcus Myers • vocals, rhythm guitar Chris Anderson • bass Mrs Hoggins • drums Nick Sayer • guitar Hi there, this is Marcus, the former lead singer of Midnight and the Lemon Boys and the Kemptown Rockers. I must say, my eyes got slightly misted up reading about all the different bands at that time, and remembering the faces and places. It all seems so long ago! I still have strong memories of drinking Snakebite in the back bar of the Windsor, buying ‘Specky Blues’ five for a quid, and pogoing to just about anybody at the Vault, Alhambra, Art College Basement etc. The Lemon Boys were formed in 78 by Nick Sayer (Sago) formerly of Fan Club with Oggs on drums, Chris Anderson on bass and me on vocals and rhythm guitar. We did seem to get a bit of a buzz going and did a fair amount of touring supporting U2, the Photos and the Lambrettas to name a few. Unfortunately for us, we were never signed and so as far as I know, never actually commited anything to vinyl. However, our then manager Simon Watson (Watto) was known to be a bit of a hoarder and I’m pretty sure he has some kind of archive of photos, demos etc. If you’re out there mate, please get in touch! Nick had a bad back injury in 1980, so for a year we carried on with the late Tony Maybury on guitar. I’ve only just found out about his death. My memories of him are of a very sweet, quiet bloke who was very easy to be around, who always looked ‘cool’, played an equally cool Rickenbacker guitar, and always seemed to have loads of birds after him. The band eventually ground to a halt early in 81. Oggs went off to be a full time drummer with the Test Tube Babies, and after a two year gap, Nick formed Transvision Vamp with Wendy James and made a few bob. I lost contact with Chris, so I’m not sure what he’s been up to. I moved to London and formed Brilliant With Youth, then another band called Hard Rain. I then played in the Test Tubes for three years as Marcus Mystery before joining Then Jerico for a while. After a few failed projects, I eventually started to do a lot of session work, doing guitar and vocals for various people such as Alisha’s Attic and Belinda Carlisle. A couple of years ago I moved to southern Spain with my wife. We now live in a small mountain pueblo but I’m still doing gigs in mad little places around Andalucia. If I do get my hands on any info or photos regarding the Lemon Boys or anybody else, I’ll try to forward them. I hope this has not been too much of a waffle, and I’d just like to say hi to anyone who remembers me! Love Marcus xx P.S. Am I right in thinking you were briefly in the Kemptown Rockers, Blotto? Or was I just pissed that afternoon! 21 Responses to Midnight & the Lemon Boys lorrie sprecher This message is for Marcus. Are you really from Midnight and the Lemon Boys? I am a writer. My first novel, Sister Safety Pin, is about lesbian punks in America. I am now finishing my second novel which takes place in America and England. I saw Midnight and the Lemon Boys when I was at Exeter University in 1980-81 and I have never forgotten you. I was just now writing about Midnight and the Lemon Boys (because I loved that band and wanted it mentioned in the novel). Imagine how thrilled I was to find you online and even get a few tracks! I still have my Midnight and the Lemon Boys badge. If you remember anything or have anything from the gig you played in Exeter (1980-81), could you please get in touch with me? Even if you only remember the exact location and date. I would love to put more information in my novel because I have fond memories of you. Do you have any photos? Thank you for your time. I really hope I hear from you. David Nuttall you won’t remember me , but i used to be around brighton and was number 1 midnight and the lemon boys groupie. plyed with tony and marcus for a while and mr cresswell et al. anyway had my 50th birthday the other night and we played ‘walking back to my place’!. bloody marvelous it was… hope you are well, February 18, 2013 - 12:08 pm Sorry I´ve taken so long to get back to you. Thanks for getting in touch. I´m afraid my memory of that period in Brighton is slightly foggy to say the least, partly due to the excesses of youth and also the many intervening years! However I remember the Lemon Boys as being a truly exciting time, playing on tour with U2 and various other gigs around the country. It was a great shame to hear that Tony passed away a few years ago, he was truly a lovely bloke, and Mr Cresswell went on to do quite well for himself didnt he! Walking Back To My Place was always one of my favourite songs. I wrote the music and Nick Sayer wrote the lyrics…I think he must have been a bit pissed off at the time! I´m still proud of the solo at the end. Happy 50th by the way, I´m also 50 now, scary isnt it! Do you still play? Keep in touch. Marcus Marcus. Me and a friend saw you support U2 at the marquee in 79 I reckon. Just wondered if you were able to remember why you might have started the set with the pronouncement that ‘I love taking drugs!’ Certainly stayed with me and my friend! Not doubting the integrity, but was this your standard intro? All the best Jon July 5, 2013 - 12:20 pm Hi Jon, thanks for getting in touch. “I love taking drugs” was the first line of a song called “Strange Love” written by me and the guitarist Nick Sayer. Although I did dabble with a few joints at that time, I was only 17 and much prefered a pint to be honest! The lyrics were mainly written by Nick and I have no idea why he would want me to sing that line other than it seemed to grab the audience when we started the song with it! We were both into the “Only Ones” and “The Vevet Underground” at the time, so that might have helped. So there you are, a bit of lyrical attention grabbing I reckon, but in your case it seems to have lodged in your memory, so it worked. I hope it didnt encourage you to do anything too illegal!! All the best, Marcus How brilliant is google! Remember you and your band – saw you more than once at the rock garden, covent garden – made quite an impression on me and probably my slightly dubious friends. Sounds like life’s good with you – well deserved – happy memories indeed. Thank you. Great band. Great songs. Jeff Muir January 9, 2015 - 9:45 pm I am working on a web site about U2’s early days, I will be adding the “Boy” tour shortly. If anyone has memories of that tour with Midnight & The Lemon Boys I would be greatfull for any memories of those gigs. http://www.u2theearlydayz.com All the best Jeff Hi Jeff, Yes I have lots of memories of that time….. I will send you an email when I´ve got a bit of time to write it all down…..I was 17 at the time, very exciting times, when anything seemed possible…………. Hi Marcus Do you remember me and my then girlfriend sponging a lift in the band’s van from the Marquee dropping us off in Putney after the Marquee gigs? I also saw you guys at the 101 club. What a great band you guys were, shame there are no recordings. Hi Laval, it was such a long time ago,its all a bit of a blur now! We do have an album to download on Amazon, Called imaginatively “Diamonds the album” . We had to change the name to “Hard Rain London”, as London records signed up another band with the same name 2 years later……..Glad you liked the band, great times at the Marquee! Kirsty Nicol Hey Marcus. i was in a band with Nick, Hoggs and Chris in 78 called ‘The Accents’. Shit name, we made it up in a hurry. We used to practice in the vaults. The 3 of them were great, I was the singer and kinda plucky. but then we got a sax player who sang as well and he was kinda jazz/soul which I wasn’t into at all and it changed the whole sound of the band. We only did about 10 gigs and the last one I got totally drunk because I had lost belief in the music and was lying on the floor laughing at the sax player and messing about. With the owner of the Alhambra shouting ‘who’s that girl?, who’s that girl with the Accents? – she’s Banned!’ And that was the end of that. Sorry Chris Hoggs and Nick if you read this!! Oh actually the last drummer we had was Bernie – the rockabilly who went onto ‘Smeggy and the Cheesybits’. we were all just having a laugh really (well not all because obviously some of them went onto much better things.) Funny to hear you are down in South Spain now……..me too!! With my sister Leoni from the Molestors! Do you remember them? All the best. Hi Kirsty I never knew of The Accents. Do you have any demo or live recordings, or photos? Hi Kirsty, Marcus here…sorry its taken so long to get back to you! Yes I remember you and your sister well, although I don’t remember Ogs and Nick playing with you, but then again it was so long ago…. They were exciting times…with fond memories of The Alhambra and The Windsor pub and all the other watering holes! Did Chris Anderson play sax with you? Everything was a bit alcohol and speed driven back then, which is probably why my memories are a little hazy.. The Lemonboys did a reunion gig at The Albert in Brighton recently, and it was great to catch up with a few of the old crowd. When I say reunion, it was only me and Ogs from the original band as Chris Anderson was sadly recovering from illness, and Nick Sayer has gone awol….apparantly he lives in Brighton, but has gone a bit Syd Barret and doesn’t keep in touch with anyone… Yes I live out in the south of Spain now near Ronda in Malaga province… are you anywhere close? Anyway, lovely to receive your message, and good to hear you are well.. Marcus xx Phil Coles Was at the gig at Jenki nsons with U2 and thought you were better. The joy of youth!!! Hi Phil Do you by chance still have the poster or ticket stub for that gig, I would love to post them if you do? My web site is about U2’s early gigs, and the other bands in Ireland at that time. Any memories of that gig would be more than welcome. August 29, 2018 - 11:41 am HI PHIL, Ian Wilson from Wasted Talent who represented my band (midnight and the lemon boys) and early U2 is writing a book about those days.Ive recently done an interview with him about those first tours we did supporting U2, all over the UK. Its going to be a great book! Thanks! We were! A lot of good that did us!! Hahaha Is it possible to get hold of any audio recordings or demos of live or studio tracks if Midnight and the Lemon Boys? Also of The Kemptown Rockers that u, Marcus, were in with Nick too? Also do u have any pictures of The Kemptown Rockers? If you check out the website “Punk Brighton” They have a whole section on the Lemonboys,lots of live recordings to download. I haven’t found any photos of the Kemptown Rockers yet, they must be out there! We now have a FB page of Midnight & the Lemonboys…… hopefully we´ll get more stuff on there. We do have music, recorded live. For some unknown reason towards the end, Nick decided to change or name to “Jewels Shine Darkly” I think it lasted a few weeks! Rachel Heady Hi Marcus, oh my goodness you were the empitamy of cool back in 1980. I was at the art school in Brighton and midnight and the lemon boys were the main band to follow. I was just thinking about Chris Anderson today and so looked you all up on line.his brother Mark used to be at the art school too.I managed a local band called some of the desert and one of our greatest hits was supporting you guys…the crowd were a lot bigger than we normally had.so brilliant to read about you and this brings back so very hazy happy memories.stay safe in Spain in these troubled times and best wishes to you Yours Rachel Heady	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2694
__label__wiki	0.827732	0.827732	Mav Connections, Project Maverick Programs Honored Programs receive MnSCU awards. Minnesota State University, Mankato Media Relations Office News Release, 6-5-2013 Mankato, Minn. – Two Minnesota State University, Mankato programs were honored by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system office during MnSCU’s annual joint meeting of chief academic and student affairs officers – college and university deans, held May 30-31 at Normandale Community College. Innovative Student Affairs Program Award Minnesota State Mankato’s “Mav Connections: An Academic and Student Affairs Safety Net for Struggling Students” was one of just two programs within MnSCU to receive an Innovative Student Affairs Program Award. Mav Connections is a cross-divisional initiative led by the Division of Student Affairs at Minnesota State University, Mankato that assists students with unmet academic, emotional, or psychological needs. The goal is to identify students with difficulties and intervene well before students are at risk for academic failure or behavioral dismissal from the university. Key components include the Behavioral Consultation Team, MavCares Early Alert System, Residential Life programming, faculty/staff resource guides, and a proactive Office of Student Conduct. For more information on the Mav Connections program, please contact Mary Dowd, Minnesota State Mankato director of student conduct, by phone at 507-389-2121 or by email at mary.dowd@mnsu.edu. Project Maverick Minnesota State Mankato’s “Project Maverick” was one of just four programs within MnSCU to receive an Innovative Partnering and Collaboration Award. Pictured in the photo at right are (seated from left to right): Martin Hebig (president of Maverick Software Consulting), Michael Wells (professor of computer information science at MInnesota State Mankato and Project Maverick director) and Chuck Sherwood (vice president of Maverick Software Consulting). Standing are (left to right): Douglas Knowlton (MnSCU vice chancellor), Scott Hanson (Thomson Reuters manager of technology), Brian Martensen (interim dean of Minnesota State Mankato's College of Science, Engineering, & Technology), Linda Baer (Minnesota State Mankato's interim vice president of Academic Affairs), Brett Anderson (MnSCU trustee). Project Maverick is a collaborative effort between Minnesota State Mankato, Maverick Software Consulting (MSC), and Thomson Reuters Corporation. Students work on real-world software development and software testing projects. Project specifications originate from Thomson Reuters’ information systems staff, and a variety of platforms are used to complete them under the guidance of Maverick Software Consulting’s vice president of software testing. Work schedules are flexible, and school is still the students’ highest priority. Project Maverick may be used to satisfy a student’s internship requirement. More information on Project Maverick is available here. For additional information on Project Maverick, please contact Mike Wells, professor in the Computer Information Science Department and the Project Maverick director, by phone at 507-389-6659 or by email at michael.wells@mnsu.edu. Academic and Student Affairs awards are presented by MnSCU to recognize innovation in partnership and collaboration, innovative programs, and excellence in programming. Doug Knowlton, MnSCU vice chancellor of Academic and Student Affairs, said: “The MnSCU Strategic Framework calls for our colleges and universities to ensure access to an extraordinary education for all Minnesotans, and that requires innovation and excellence in everything we do - from the classroom throughout every service we provide for our students. Although tremendous work is going on at every one of the 31 MnSCU colleges and universities, I am especially pleased to recognize the distinguished examples being honored today.”	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2697
__label__wiki	0.609336	0.609336	Moving Conversations The Moving Group Wilfrid Vertueux Born in 1966 in Fort-de-France, Martinique, and brought up in metropolitan France, Wilfrid (Willy) Vertueux received an education from his parents that kept alive his connection to Caribbean roots. It is thus with a knowing smile that he readily endorses that term all too often used pejoratively- ‘négropolitain’. Trained as a visual designer at Paris’s Arts Appliqués de la Rue Olivier de Serres (ENSAAMA) and at Arts Décoratifs de Paris (ENSAD), Wilfrid has, since 1994, been a freelance graphic designer and illustrator in the fields of publishing, media, visual identity and advertising. Informed by his passion for the image in the broadest sense of the term, his mastery of typography, intuitive understanding of iconographic relationships in modern visual culture, and creative photographic work, he declares himself a ‘multitasking visual designer’. Immersed in music from a young age due to his Caribbean upbringing, Willy also adroitly manages a double life as an internationally leading Latin music DJ. Ever since first acing the turntables in 1987 at the Montecristo Café in the City of Light, and later, as founding member of the Paris DJ Collective Papas DJs and as the second half of the Duo, ‘Devils and Angels’, he has been resident DJ at Paris’s most fabled clubs; he also travels every weekend to play at salsa festivals in Europe and beyond. Despite his constant demand at cross-body salsa events, he can play all types of Latin music, Antillean genres (zouk and kompa) and the Angolan kizomba and semba, depending on the crowd and its taste. ‘There are more bad DJs making wrong choices than bad music’, is his belief. Luckily, life sometimes brings him the opportunity to reconcile his two domains of expertise and passion. His work with Modern Moves as our resident DJ and design consultant is a perfect illustration. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6eGnCBn0IZ8&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D6eGnCBn0IZ8 Previous PostThomas F. DeFrantzNext PostZoe Norridge Creole Power: Modern Moves Closing Party Friday 4th May 2018 Anatomy Lecture Theatre (day) and Great Hall (evening) King’s College London, Strand Campus, WC2R 2LS Five years of Modern Moves draw to a close. Celebrate with… Moving Group Moving Group 5: Tango: Black Atlantic and Beyond. Report by Ananya Kabir Our fifth Moving Group was dedicated to an exploration of tango music and dance, and it involved a double bill. First, we heard Dr Kendra Stepputat, ethnomusicologist from the University… is a five year project at King’s College London funded by the European Research Council. All rights reserved. © Modern Moves 2014. Designed by Wilfrid Vertueux.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2698
__label__wiki	0.863759	0.863759	Nolan for Batman 3 Producer Chuck Roven talks a ‘Dark Knight’ sequel. Amid intense casting rumours for the Batman 3 (Cher as catwoman, really?), producer Chuck Roven has talked about the possibility of a third film. According to Roven, Warners and Legendary are both interested in doing a third in the series, but all involved say it will be up to Nolan to come to them with a story and a plan. “There are a lot of us who emotionally would love to do it,” Roven says. “But it’s really Chris’ call. Chris is the kind of filmmaker who just doesn’t think about the next movie before he has completely finished the movie he is working on.” Nolan is currently taking a well-earned vacation. Says Roven, “When he comes back, we will see how he feels.”	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2700
__label__cc	0.635585	0.364415	Posted on 18/10/2015 by Nick Thorne, The Nosey Genealogist New Book: In Search of Our Ancient Ancestors I was very pleased to hear from Anthony Adolph this week, about his new book In Search of Our Ancient Ancestors: from the Big Bang to Modern Britain, in Science and Myth especially as I had just been reading all about it in Your Family Tree Magazine and was intrigued as the magazine review called it ‘unusual and fascinating’. The following is written by the author: I am delighted to announce the publication of my new book In Search of Our Ancient Ancestors: from the Big Bang to Modern Britain, in Science and Myth, which is being published by Pen and Sword this month. According to science, life first appeared on Earth about 3,500 million years ago. Every living thing is descended from that first spark, including all of us. But if we trace a direct line down from those original life-forms to ourselves, what do we find? What is the full story of our family tree over the past 3,500 million years, and how are we able to trace ourselves so far back? From single celled organisms to sea-dwelling vertebrates; amphibians to reptiles; tiny mammals to primitive man; the first Homo sapiens to the cave-painters of Ice Age Europe and the first farmers down to the Norman Conquest, this book charts not only the extraordinary story of our ancient ancestors but also our 40,000 year-long quest to discover our roots, from ancient origin myths of world-shaping mammoths and great floods down to the scientific discovery of our descent from the Genetic Adam and the Mitochondrial Eve. In Search of Our Ancient Ancestors will tell you where you come from, before the earliest generations of your family tree that you can trace using records. It also saves you having to think any harder about what to buy for your family and friends this Christmas! I do hope you will enjoy it. Anthony Adolph. Anthony Adolph’s book is available from the publishers, Pen & Sword books, and all good booksellers. Click here to buy now: In Search of Our Ancient Ancestors Compensated links used in this post: http://paidforadvertising.co.uk/ CategoriesUncategorized Tagsage, ancestors, Anthony Adolph, author, book, books, Britain, Christmas, direct line, Discover, family, Family Tree, Family Tree Magazine, farmers, forms, from the Big Bang to Modern Britain in Science and Myth, generations, In Search of Our Ancient Ancestors, life, line, links, living, M., Magazine, new book, Norman, Norman conquest, past, Pen & Sword, post, reading, records, roots, sea, search, Sword, Sword Books, thing, tree, UK, world, Your Family Tree, Your Family Tree Magazine Previous PostPrevious Channel Islands ancestors lecture at SoG Next PostNext Family History: Last Will & Testaments	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2704
__label__wiki	0.747875	0.747875	Search papers Search references Mat. Sb.: Personal entry: Mat. Sb., 2013, Volume 204, Number 1, Pages 47–78 (Mi msb8076) This article is cited in 10 scientific papers (total in 10 papers) A family of Nikishin systems with periodic recurrence coefficients S. Delvauxa, A. Lópeza, G. López Lagomasinob a Department of Mathematics, KU Leuven, Belgium b Departamento de Matemáticas, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain Abstract: Suppose we have a Nikishin system of $p$ measures with the $k$th generating measure of the Nikishin system supported on an interval $\Delta_k\subset\mathbb R$ with $\Delta_k\cap\Delta_{k+1}=\varnothing$ for all $k$. It is well known that the corresponding staircase sequence of multiple orthogonal polynomials satisfies a $(p+2)$-term recurrence relation whose recurrence coefficients, under appropriate assumptions on the generating measures, have periodic limits of period $p$. (The limit values depend only on the positions of the intervals $\Delta_k$.) Taking these periodic limit values as the coefficients of a new $(p+2)$-term recurrence relation, we construct a canonical sequence of monic polynomials $\{P_{n}\}_{n=0}^\infty$, the so-called Chebyshev-Nikishin polynomials. We show that the polynomials $P_n$ themselves form a sequence of multiple orthogonal polynomials with respect to some Nikishin system of measures, with the $k$th generating measure being absolutely continuous on $\Delta_k$. In this way we generalize a result of the third author and Rocha [22] for the case $p=2$. The proof uses the connection with block Toeplitz matrices, and with a certain Riemann surface of genus zero. We also obtain strong asymptotics and an exact Widom-type formula for functions of the second kind of the Nikishin system for $\{P_{n}\}_{n=0}^\infty$. Bibliography: 27 titles. Keywords: multiple orthogonal polynomial, Nikishin system, block Toeplitz matrix, Hermite-Padé approximant, strong asymptotics, ratio asymptotics. Funding Agency Grant Number Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación de España MTM 2009-12740-C03-01 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4213/sm8076 Full text: PDF file (723 kB) References: PDF file HTML file Sbornik: Mathematics, 2013, 204:1, 43–74 Bibliographic databases: UDC: 517.53 MSC: Primary 42C05; Secondary 41A21 Received: 16.10.2011 and 13.07.2012 Citation: S. Delvaux, A. López, G. López Lagomasino, “A family of Nikishin systems with periodic recurrence coefficients”, Mat. Sb., 204:1 (2013), 47–78; Sb. Math., 204:1 (2013), 43–74 Citation in format AMSBIB \Bibitem{DelLopLop13} \by S.~Delvaux, A.~L\'opez, G.~L\'opez Lagomasino \paper A~family of Nikishin systems with periodic recurrence coefficients \jour Mat. Sb. \pages 47--78 \mathnet{http://mi.mathnet.ru/msb8076} \crossref{https://doi.org/10.4213/sm8076} \mathscinet{http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=3060076} \zmath{https://zbmath.org/?q=an:06197055} \jour Sb. Math. \crossref{https://doi.org/10.1070/SM2013v204n01ABEH004291} Linking options: http://mi.mathnet.ru/eng/msb8076 https://doi.org/10.4213/sm8076 http://mi.mathnet.ru/eng/msb/v204/i1/p47 This publication is cited in the following articles: Delvaux S., López A., “Abey High-order three-term recursions, Riemann–Hilbert minors and Nikishin systems on star-like sets”, Constr. Approx., 37:3 (2013), 383–453 R. K. Kovacheva, S. P. Suetin, “Distribution of zeros of the Hermite–Padé polynomials for a system of three functions, and the Nuttall condenser”, Proc. Steklov Inst. Math., 284 (2014), 168–191 V. I. Buslaev, S. P. Suetin, “On equilibrium problems related to the distribution of zeros of the Hermite–Padé polynomials”, Proc. Steklov Inst. Math., 290:1 (2015), 256–263 S. P. Suetin, “Distribution of the zeros of Padé polynomials and analytic continuation”, Russian Math. Surveys, 70:5 (2015), 901–951 A. V. Komlov, S. P. Suetin, “Distribution of the zeros of Hermite–Padé polynomials”, Russian Math. Surveys, 70:6 (2015), 1179–1181 W. Van Assche, “Ratio asymptotics for multiple orthogonal polynomials”, Modern trends in constructive function theory, Contemp. Math., 661, ed. D. Hardin, D. Lubinsky, B. Simanek, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2016, 73–85 A. Martinez-Finkelshtein, E. A. Rakhmanov, S. P. Suetin, “Asymptotics of type I Hermite-Padé polynomials for semiclassical functions.”, Modern trends in constructive function theory, Contemp. Math., 661, ed. D. Hardin, D. Lubinsky, B. Simanek, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2016, 199–228 A. Lopez-Garcia, G. Lopez Lagomasino, “Nikishin systems on star-like sets: ratio asymptotics of the associated multiple orthogonal polynomials”, J. Approx. Theory, 225 (2018), 1–40 D. Barrios Rolanía, J. S. Geronimo, G. López Lagomasino, “High-order recurrence relations, Hermite-Padé approximation and Nikishin systems”, Sb. Math., 209:3 (2018), 385–420 Lopez-Garcia A. Lopez Lagomasino G., “Nikishin Systems on Star-Like Sets: Ratio Asymptotics of the Associated Multiple Orthogonal Polynomials, II”, J. Approx. Theory, 250 (2020), UNSP 105320 Full text: 122 First page: 16 What is a QR-code?	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2705
__label__wiki	0.68651	0.68651	MELISSA FARROW EARLY FLUTES Melissa Farrow Ensembles and projects Photo credit: Helen White Based in Sydney, Australia Melissa has a very active and fulfilling career as a period flautist, recorder player, and teacher in the Australian early music scene. She has been Principal flute of The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (ABO) since 2003, and a core member of the Australian Haydn Ensemble (AHE) since its formation. In late 2019 she joined four other colleagues from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, to form Notos Wind Quintet, Australia's premier historical woodwind quintet. Melissa performs and records regularly with Pinchgut Opera in the Orchestra of the Antipodes and has performed with many groups including Ironwood, Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO), Latitude 37, The Marais Project, The Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra, Luduvico’s Band and Sinfonia Australis. Melissa's undergraduate studies were at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Howard Oberg and Geoffrey Collins. She undertook post-graduate studies and Masters in modern flute, recorder and traverso with Marten Root, Harrie Starreveld and Walter van Hauwe at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. In 2012 she travelled to Europe to take lessons with Karl Kaiser, Wilbert Hazelzet, and Lisa Besnosiuk thanks to an ABO International Baroque Study Program and an Australia Council Professional Development Grant . Like many of her musical colleagues, in 2020 Melissa has had to adapt to the huge artistic impact of COVID-19, recording concerts for many digital release in addition to performing live in 2020, The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra's digital platform, Brandenburg One features Melissa performing some movements from JS Bach's Partita in a minor for solo flute, also excerpts from her own curated program for ABO, Ayres and Graces. Melissa has also filmed and recorded with AHE and Wooden Picket Productions in December 2020 and with the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall in June, 2020. Together with Phoenix Central Park Melissa has recorded Telemann solo Flute Fantasies 6 and 7, and together with Karina Schmitz (viola) and Simon Martyn-Ellis ( guitar) they perform W.Matiegka's 'Notturno'. In 2019, as a concerto soloist, Melissa appeared with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra performing J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos numbers 4 and 5. In other recent solo performances Melissa has performed Abel's Concerto in G major with NZ Barok, CPE Bach's Flute Concerto in D Minor with AHE under the direction of Erin Helyard. Previous concerto performances include Vivaldi's la Notte concerto, Telemann’s Flute and Violin Concerto, Telemann's Flute and Recorder concerto, Benda’s Flute Concerto in E minor, Abel's Concerto in G, Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto with harpist Marshall Macguire, Mozart's Andante for Flute and Orchestra, K. 315, and Gretry's Flute Concerto in C major with the Orchestra of the Antipodes. She has worked with directors Ricardo Minasi, Paul Dyer, Stefano Montanari, and Kris Bezuidenhout with the ABO, Marc Destrubé and Erin Helyard with AHE and Miranda Hutton and Graham McPhail with NZ Barok. Melissa's most recent cd recording is with AHE and Neal Peres da Costa, Beethoven Piano concertos 1 and 3 in chamber arrangements, exploring the stylistic attitudes of the period and colours of the Graf piano in combination with period instruments in these clever chamber arrangements by Vi King Lim. In 2016 the Australian Haydn Ensemble released its debut CD, The Haydn Album, featuring Haydn Symphony No. 6 in D major 'Le Matin', the Haydn Cello Concerto in C major with soloist Danny Yeadon and CPE Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in D major with soloist Erin Helyard. Other recordings include The Romantics - Grieg/Mendelssohn/Paganini with Shunske Sato as soloist in Paganini violin concerto with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra -Brandenburg Celebrates, featuring Melissa as soloist with the Telemann flute and violin Concerto in E minor, Smorgasbord Swedish Baroque and Folk music with The Marais Project featuring Roman flute sonata, and touchons du bois, released in 2013. Melissa has had more than 20 years experience teaching flutes and recorders, and has given workshops/lectures and masterclasses at the Sydney Conservatorium, Camberwell Grammar School, MLC School, Flute Connections Studio, the Australian Flute Festival and with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the Australian Haydn Ensemble and at the Albany School of Music in Auckland, New Zealand. Melissa is lecturer in period flute at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and was guest baroque flute lecturer at the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music for 2017. Melissa has a busy teaching studio in Sydney for private students and ensembles with early flutes and recorders, also teaching baroque style for modern flute and recorder. Rembrandt Live with ABO fo the Sydney Festival, 2018. Photo credit: Pedro Greig	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2707
__label__cc	0.516003	0.483997	Home / entertainment / Featured / ENGR A.Ahmed Nahuche Baggs Distinguished Personality Award ENGR A.Ahmed Nahuche Baggs Distinguished Personality Award It was an historic day in FCT Water Board,as the General Manager Engr. A.A NAHUCHE baggs an Award of honour and A Distinguished Personality of the year. On the 25th day of March,2020,The New Nigeria Television Channels,an online platform presents an Award of honour to the General Manager of FCT water board in Abuja. Following the unprecedented achievements recorded in the Water Board under the Leadership of the General Manager,despite the trying time that Nigeria is facing,especially the FCT. Technical reports shows how committed the administration of FCT Water Board were,to ensuring uninterrupted water supply within the FCT as the nation’s capital. According to the Chairman of TNNTV CHANNELS, Comr. SEUN AKINDE who stated in his speech with the description in the accolades he used on the General Manager and the entire management of FCT Water Board which reads”You are a pacesetter,advocate for Justice,an innovator with vision and Focus “ amongst many beautiful adjectives he qualified the General Manager with. Meanwhile,Engnr A. Ahmed Nahuche In his response,expressed his profound appreciation and how delighted he was as he appreciated the Leadership and Management of The Media Outfit TNNTV CHANNELS,who founded him worthy as a recipient of the Award of Honour. He stressed in his statement that being recognized for this award,despite all the challenges in the course of discharging his duty;it’s the lord’s doing. He added that sometimes it looks as if they should quit but, because of the encouragement they normally gets from the people keeps the hope alive and often times remains the ginger pill to always getting the jobs done. He further emphasized on the enormous task on them to sustaining the capital city of Nigeria and by extension, West Africa in efficient service delivery. FCT as it is today,only with collective efforts and very sound professionals that are dedicated in the service delivery and most talented workers and staff which they have got that is making FCT water board growing and of course, yielding the needed results. The General manager also lamented on lack of Funds as a serious challenge faced by the board which is a key component. As a department of the Government that work 24 hours in service delivery,unlike other agencies,even NEPA can not be compared with us in term of service Delivery because sometimes electricity goes off for hours,or even days...,of which water can not be interrupted as such in order for people no to be disappointed. As we all know;water is life” ENGR NAHUCHE heats the nail aloud, that so much Sacrifices has to be paid behind the scene,but because we have being able to build a gangatua relationship with our customers with unique innovation and technology that gets the system running through a dynamic and Digital device located in various units of the FCT. Residents today, can pay for their water service without any stress across the Federal Capital Territory, aided by the numerous workshops, Sensitization programs both on TV and radio and most significantly, our very explanatory and educative flyers shared to citizens in order to to keep the people updated just to mention but a few. He added.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2711
__label__wiki	0.599719	0.599719	Title: Tintin Volume 3 Author: Hergé Translator: Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper & Michael Turner Publisher: Egmont Original Title: Tintin Volume 3 by Hergé The internationally successful ‘Adventures of Tintin’ are Belgian comic writer and artist Hergé’s most well-known and beloved works. Tintin Volume 3 contains three classic Tintin graphic novels available in one deluxe hardcover edition. The Broken Ear A mysterious statue created by the fierce South American Arumbaya tribe has disappeared. Tintin sets off for South America but discovers he is not the only one looking for it. San Theodoros is a banana republic constantly changing hands between a corrupt dictator General Tapioca and his archrival, General Alcazar. The Broken Ear takes Tintin on a tropical adventure deep within the jungle where he finds hidden native civilizations, encounters criminals, long-lost explorers and is arrested as a terrorist. However, there is a revolution on the horizon which could aid Tintin in his bid for freedom. The Black Island After his escapades in Latin America in The Broken Ear, Tintin is hoping for a well-earned rest, but when he comes to the aid of an aircraft that has made a forced landing and one of the pilots shoots at him, he knows that this is the start of yet another adventure. This time Tintin travels to Great Britain, where there is a plot to make him disappear. Framed for theft, Tintin is arrested by the duo detectives Thomson and Thompson, who are on the trail of a gang of counterfeiters. Discovering that the printing press used to create the false money is hidden on Black Island, off the coast of Scotland which is supposed to be haunted by a wild beast, Tintin needs to find out the truth behind these stories. King Ottokar’s Sceptre A briefcase is left on a park bench in Brussels. The case belongs to Professor Alembick, a sigillographer (a specialist in the study of stamps and wax seals). Tintin’s adventure begins when he returns the briefcase to the professor, and before he finds himself joining Alembick on a trip to Syldavia in the Balkans where he uncovers a plot aimed at dethroning the King, Muskar XII. Tintin undertakes to recover the stolen sceptre and foil the coup. These three-in-one volumes of Tintin stories are convenient and excellent value. Although they don’t quite match up to the big print of the individual comics making it harder to enjoy the detail in Hergé's layouts, they still provide hours of entertainment as the reader becomes absorbed in the Tintin adventures.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2713
__label__wiki	0.758283	0.758283	GAY BALLET Andee Scott and YOU @Ground Floor Theater (979 Springdale Rd.): 11:00am – 1:00pm After a two years hiatus, Gay Ballet returns to OUTsider! This is an all-inclusive beginning ballet class taught by interdisciplinary dance artist and University of South Florida faculty member Andee Scott. An exhilarating interactive experience that responds to the need for an alternative to traditional adult ballet classes. All populations are welcome, with priority given to queers & beginners. EARLY CAREER RETROSPECTIVE: Thirza Cuthand Thirza Cuthand @ VORTEX (Main): 2:00pm – 3:30pm For this year’s Early Career Retrospective, we’re highlighting the DIY decolonial delights of Thirza Cuthand: Lessons in Baby Dyke Theory, You are a Lesbian Vampire, 2 Spirit Introductory Special $19.99 and more! Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1978, and raised in Saskatoon, Cuthand’s charmingly kooky and chucklesome films blithely burlesque an outsider existence of queerness, Indigeneity and living in Canada’s settler colonial society. Co-sponsored by Cine Las Americas and Austin Film Society. CURB ALERT! Elliot Reed and Others TBD @ VORTEX (Tent): 4:30pm – 5:30pm This work is an impromptu OUTsider debut: Working from the cabinet of curiosities theme, performance artist Elliot Reed will write an original script using sampled text from the “Free Stuff” section of Craigslist–a section of the site that many artists know as a treasure trove of unwanted items ranging from spare bricks, dirt, and wood, to furniture, VHS Tapes, and discarded cardboard. Performers will also be hired via a Craigslist posting, inviting a makeshift cast to one rehearsal before their debut at the fest. This performance thus creates a conversation around notions of value, reflecting on the many creative ways we collect, recycle, and reassemble different elements in our lives. Who we are is formed by what we have access to. As we grow into ourselves, we take greater control and exercise choice. With humor, Reed investigates this process of never-ending discovery by putting themself on the spot. It’s a Janet Jackson Sunday Sidebar! STILL OR I’VE BEEN CHOREOGRAPHED Kevin Williamson Kevin Williamson directs and performs Still or I’ve Been Choreographed, a new evening length solo. In it, he moves atop projected images, examining the various ways his body is disciplined as an expressive subject. As he morphs through quotidian actions and various dance genres, he reads a letter to his idol, Janet Jackson, asking her questions about life and improvises with his discomforts and failures. It is a dance about being a dancer and making art right now. Lighting design by Carol McDowell. CLOSING NIGHT PARTY! w/ Dorian Wood and Felix and the Future @ VORTEX (Main & Tent): 8:00pm – 10:00pm Singer/composer Dorian Wood will perform Janet Jackson’s 1989 masterpiece “Rhythm Nation 1814” in its entirety, arranged for voice and piano. Says Dorian: “I was 14 when this album came out. No other music at the time sounded like it. I knew every lyric and every dance move, and Janet’s messages of social justice and reluctant sensuality helped shape my adolescence.” Felix and the Future presents Conquest of a Pink Planet! Holy Hands Vol. 2 is the debut full length album from Mexican-American Artist, Felix and the Future. Felix and the Future is a runaway. He leaves Earth looking for home in Outer Space, where Holy Hands Vol. 2, begins. The songs are the soundtrack to his memories searching for false idols and prophets. He confronts characters, like Karen, who set the tone for the album. Mission & Backstory OUTsider Team 2021: Future in Flux 2017 Schedule* Copyright © 2021 OUTsider Fest.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2714
__label__cc	0.550628	0.449372	THE TWO SIDES OF TONY (T.S) MCPHEE 3.48 \| 12 ratings \| 2 reviews \| 0% 5 stars Studio Album, released in 1973 1. Three Times Seven 3.13 2. All My Money Alimony 3.00 3. Morning's Eyes 4.48 4. Dog Me, Bitch 2.48 5. Take it out 5.23 6. The Hunt 19.08 Tony(T.S.)McPhee - Two ARP 2600 Synthesisers, Electric Piano, Rhythm Ace Drum Synthesiser, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar. LP WWA001 (1973) CD Castle CLA267 (1994) Thanks to unknown for the addition and to easy livin for the last updates Edit this entry Buy GROUNDHOGS The Two Sides of Tony (T.S) McPhee Music GROUNDHOGS The Two Sides of Tony (T.S) McPhee ratings distribution Excellent addition to any rock music collection(36%) Good, but non-essential (55%) GROUNDHOGS The Two Sides of Tony (T.S) McPhee reviews Collaborators/Experts Reviews Review by mystic fred SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator "McPHEE QUITS GROUNDHOGS" - Sounds 1973 " I feel that I have something valid to say outside the framework of the Groundhogs and I want to get it out of my system.." -TS During Tony's dalliances with Synthesisers and Mellotrons he became a master of the keyboards, creating his own home studio in Haverhill, Suffolk and producing his first solo album "Two Sides of Tony McPhee", a very personal work particularly concentrating on the subject of fox hunting - this vile practice was always abhorrent to Tony and indeed to most of us, and the cruel nature of the course of a day's fox hunt is reflected in the whole of side two using electronic synthesisers entitled "The Hunt". Synthesisers are used to good effect simulating the chase , the animal's last dying moments and the baying of the advancing hounds and is a very progressive and involving piece. Though many new listeners today may find the sounds on "The Hunt" dated and somewhat primitive, remember the use of Synthesisers was in its early development in 1973 and few pioneers had had any success with it, but here the sheer emotions within the piece are revealed.. "Yelping hounds pack to form a Gorgon's head of gyrating tails ready to turn a Stag's heart to stone at a single glance. Each dog has a pedigree that would fill a ream of paper as have their masters boasting generations of good breeding. Family trees with branches laden with the names of past landed gentry, their greatest contribution to the land being when they fall in their Autumn years, providing the earth with the same humus as their mongrel serfs." The musical passages are interspersed with artificial yelps, howls and hunting horns, creating an atmosphere of sinister cruelty which culminates in a reflection of man's inhumanity to his fellow creatures. "It makes me feel so sad, then again it drives me mad to realise the state of people's minds. Life is a frail thing but not a rich man's plaything, how far has he come from the days of ice. It's true the world is hard, death is always the final card in the game and no-one gets another deal. So shun the ace of spades, take your hand and only raise in the pursuit of life and not ....of death. " The practice of hunting "game" in England was abolished recently but hunts still prevail in many areas of the UK without interference from the law. but from a growing band of hunt saboteurs. The "Other" side of Tony T.S. McPhee is pure blues. social review comments \| Review Permalink Posted Sunday, February 8, 2009 \| Review this album \| Report (Review #202047) Review by Easy Livin SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin In the time between the Groundhogs albums "Hogwash" and "Solid", Tony McPhee decided to create a genuinely solo album. Quite why he felt the need to do this is not abundantly clear, his role in the band being the only one outside the rhythm section. However, the album fits in well in the Groundhogs discography, offering two distinct sides of their music, i.e. the blues on which they were founded and the later electronic sounds which became increasingly relevant to their style. The five tracks which occupy side one of the LP are short acoustic affairs, featuring only McPhee and acoustic guitars. The style is blues/folk with a southern, swampy drawl. We do not get the standard blues song structure, the tracks generally being more upbeat, but the influences are clear. Fans of the Groundhogs are probably best advised to steer clear of these songs, even the straight blues of the first album "Scratching the surface" was more exciting than this. McPhee's performances are of course beyond reproach, but this is dull stuff. Side two is a completely different kettle of fish. Here McPhee vents his anger at the peculiar British sport of fox-hunting. He does so via one of his closest ventures to prog, a 19 minute synthesiser and mellotron based side filler. The track takes us through the stages of a hunt, with intermittent narration telling us what is going on. The narrations act as links between the improvisations, each of which can be seen as a separate sub-track or section. With electronic rhythms as the only percussion, the overall effect is not unlike the experiments of Krafwerk and Tangerine Dream, a little clumsy perhaps but in its day this would have sounded quite novel. Overall, this is probably one of the most divided albums ever. On the one hand we have rambling acoustic blues, on the other pioneering electronic prog. Posted Sunday, February 20, 2011 \| Review this album \| Report (Review #403990) Post a review of GROUNDHOGS "The Two Sides of Tony (T.S) McPhee"	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2716
__label__cc	0.630297	0.369703	Joseph Heller Picture This Mr Heller treats the whole panorama of history past and present with the bravado of Mark Twain in one of his sassier moods The New York Times Book ReviewA keenly satirical look at the world of art and Title: Picture This Author: Joseph Heller Mr Heller treats the whole panorama of history past and present with the bravado of Mark Twain in one of his sassier moods The New York Times Book ReviewA keenly satirical look at the world of art and museums by the author of the modern classic, Catch 22. Best Download [Joseph Heller] Ë Picture This \|\| [Religion Book] PDF ↠ Joseph Heller 477 Joseph Heller Title: Best Download [Joseph Heller] Ë Picture This \|\| [Religion Book] PDF ↠ Posted by:Joseph Heller About "Joseph Heller" Librarian Note There is than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.Joseph Heller was the son of poor Jewish parents from Russia Even as a child, he loved to write at the age of eleven, he wrote a story about the Russian invasion of Finland He sent it to New York Daily News, which rejected it After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1941, Heller spent the next year working as a blacksmith s apprentice, a messenger boy, and a filing clerk In 1942, at age 19, he joined the U.S Army Air Corps Two years later he was sent to Italy, where he flew 60 combat missions as a B 25 bombardier Heller later remembered the war as fun in the beginning You got the feeling that there was something glorious about it On his return home he felt like a hero People think it quite remarkable that I was in combat in an airplane and I flew sixty missions even though I tell them that the missions were largely milk runs See also enpedia wiki Joseph_H Erik Graff Heller's Catch-22 was probably the most popular novel at Maine Township South High School. My one attempt at reading it while on study break in the libary one Friday afternoon was circumvented by a brush up the nape of my neck. Dean Elbert Smith, objecting to the feel of it, a tapered bristle being required, told me then and there that I was suspended until the hair was cut to regulation. I returned the copy of Heller to my friend Richard who was sitting in front of me, marvelled with him about [...] Sergei_kalinin Я не люблю науку историю. Потому как это и не наука вовсе В самом скучном виде - это бесконечный список событий с датами. В самом вздорном виде - это попытки историков (каждого на свой лад) установить (измыслить? реконструировать? вообразить?) связи между этими событиями из сп� [...] David Beavers i've fancied myself a kind of minor champion of this book for a long while. Catch-22 was one of my first real "favorite" books, and Joseph Heller was one of the first authors I really recognized as having this authorial voice that I could learn from & follow. And Catch-22 is great, terrific, wonderful, everyone knows that . . . but when I read Picture This it appealed to me in this strange dark way which is also wickedly smart, and has always had a unique place in my book-loving heart's a di [...] This is a book which is quite different from Catch-22 and attempts to compare the two wouldn't be doing it justice. Still, I am going to do it. Compared to Catch-22, this is a much more sophisticated book, it deals predominantly with art and intellectuals, and their lives. The centre piece of this book is a painting by Rembrandt which has "Aristotle" with his hand on a bust of "Homer" as he ponders vacantly. I use the quotes because the book tells us: nothing is what it seems. It's a painting wh [...] Hugo Emanuel Imaginem que iniciam a leitura de uma obra de um autor cujos romances anteriores haviam considerado excelentes. Imaginem que o autor em questão tem uma voz extremamente única - deliciosamente satírica, irónica e espirituosa - na qual anseiam por voltar a mergulhar. Imaginem ainda que a sinopse do volume da obra que se propõem a ler descreve-a como sendo constituída pelos pensamentos e considerações do quadro "Aristótles contemplando o busto de Homero" de Rembrandt van Rijn que, de algum [...] A glorious coming of age story about a young English boy who attends wizard school and discovers his treasure trove of hidden magical ability whilst cavorting with hirsuite giants and majestic Owls. Wait, I was reading it upside down. Actually, Its a novel about a real painting written from the point of view of the painting itself. Uhmm, yeah. Thomas Strömquist An absolute gem of a brilliant little book that is nothing like anything you've read before. Not a quick read, you rather have to go slow and contemplate, but incredibly rewarding. Maybe later. Not what I wanted to read right now. I did 40 pages. “Picture This” is a book that is remarkable on many levels. The concept for the novel itself is almost genius, and the execution of that concept is no mean feat, and Mr. Heller pulls it off nicely.It is amazing how this novel, published in 1988, feels like it was written yesterday about very current events. It just goes to show you how much history is a cycle of events and how much Western Civilization (and all civilization) just rotate through the same stories again and again. Page 101 of t [...] I'm a little embarrassed, but it took me a few years to finish this book I had tons of other books to read for school and work, but this novel is a bit demanding, as well. Heller does something original, as far as I know, in the history of literature. He tells the story of Rembrandt painting Aristotle contemplating a bust of Homer. One the very first page, we find out that the painting of Aristotle can observe the world, think, and feel, but cannot move. (I know, it's impossible, just like Toy [...] Christian Holt Picture This is a really good book that should be and could be a masterpiece. The seeds for it are sewn throughout. Unfortunately, most of them are fallow seeds and fail to germinate. The amount that this book accomplishes is very impressive. Its critique of history is never boring, but also never extravagantly exaggerated. Heller has done a rare thing here that I've never seen duplicated elsewhere. The main problem it suffers from is pacing, and I can't even explain why it is a problem. The pac [...] Most underrated Heller? (Although, aren't they all underrated apart from Catch-22?)Picture This is Heller's meditation on art, history, commerce, democracy, and the myths embedded in all four. He paints Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Rembrandt the same way he does Yossarian, Slocum, Gold, and King David, and it's remarkable how well they fit into the Heller worldview. Greg Diamond If you liked Good as Gold, and you like the idea of hearing from Aristotle on history and such, you'll like this book, because it trots out the same sort of rickety framework for what -- in Kurt Vonnegut's hands -- would probably have turned out to be a book of essays that, freed from the need to be a novel, would have been much more entertaining and illuminating. This book whetted my youthful appetite for art and history and philosophy all together. Phrodrick I came to Joseph Heller's Picture this, for a second time. My warning should have been that I remembered nothing from my first read. I am a J Heller fan. I can quote much of Catch 22 by heart. I still bristle at those who call him a One hit Wonder. I took the extra try to get through Something Happened and am glad that I did. Picture This, in this, my second read through was aggravating.Picture This is something of an experimental novel. There is not a plot so much as a central story line. The p [...] Ola Hol Amazing. A book about a painting by Rembrandt and the story behind it. It's not a mere account of events but a decription of life conditions in the 17th century Netherlands as well as Ancient Greece. It refers to a number of paintings by the Grand Master that I immediately wanted to see in the great and accessibile gallery of google. Parts of philosophers' views (mainly those of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) are intertwined in the narrative and parts of Plato's dialogues are sometimes used (at lea [...] Lidens This book is definitely not for everyone. If you like light reading about the lives of Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, then you'll probably like it. I thoroughly enjoyed Heller's writing on Rembrandt's life. I learned a lot of amusing details there. The bits on Plato and Aristotle are boring. Socrates, at least, is always interesting to read about. Heller is better at writing about the students these philosophers taught or people they knew such as Alexander the Great and Pericles. His opinions o [...] A post-modernist account of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and Rembrandt. It's hard not to love Catch-22, but even if you do, this is a very hard slog.There are occasional bon mots -- "The motion in the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse to restore order in Sicily was deceitful, corrupt, stupid, chauvinistic, irrational and suicidal. It carried with a large majority." -- but they weren't enough to sustain my interest. Anshuman Sinha Brilliant in its conception and its delivery. It's like talking back to history and we find not much has changed. Two principle truths evolve, we never learn from our mistakes and there is no form of good governmentever! It is also an insightful history lesson that changes your outlook and perspective from the one dimensional view of history we are fed. Про Рембрандта, Сократа и Аристотеля. Как Рембранд рисовал Аристотеля, когда тот думал о Платоне. Замут еще тот, люблю такие. Много про него думала, очень много. Выводы утешительные )"Рембрандт не мог позволить себе Рембрандта.""Он был еще одним искателем логической вразумит� [...] Got bored on Ancient Greece parts :) Dark humor, dark history and unexpected parallels. Everything to likeAnd nothing to dislike about this book. Ani Artinyan Оригиналност без цел и структура. Поне в моите очи, поне сега. Andrew Nease Now, I'm not naive. I understand, after -- at the time I read this -- seven years of reading him that any factual assertion made by Joseph Heller should be taken with a full packet of salt, but the history, philosophy, and art analysis of this book make it particularly readable. The bizarre angle's interesting, Heller's equally cynical and humane sense of humor carries it a good part of the way (as it usually does) and, fuck me, I really do feel like I learned something. Chad Bearden I'm not sure what's more impressive about "Picture This". Is it Joseph Heller's chameleon-like ability to write something that in no way feels anything like any other book he's ever written, while still managing to be distinctly Hellerian? Or is it his ability to combine together such a disparate cacaphony of elements that aren't even connected by so much as a plot, and still somehow manage to make it work as a novel?According to the book's general description, "Picture This" is supposed to be a [...] "Игра на въображението" е интелигентен коктейл от епохи, личности и събития. Хелър ги омесва хаотично (дори в самите глави), правейки паралели между минало и настояще. Като пряк свидетел ни връща в Холандия от времето на Рембранд (ХVІІ-ти век) и в древна Гърция на Омир, Сократ, � [...] Tymur Существует ли еще одна книга, хоть сколь-нибудь похожая на «Вообрази себе картину»? Я в этом сомневаюсь.Особенная, необычная и ни на что не похожая книга Хеллера попалась мне совершенно случайно. А именно – прочитав знаменитую «Уловку-22» я решил продолжить изучение Джозеф� [...] Dmitry Petrov After reading Catch 22 I really did not expect anything likethis book from Joseph Heller. This book is not really a fictionto me, but more of an attempt to fit several parts of historyin the same book.The connection between parts of the book are two fold - first ismore physical - we have a story of Socrates, Plato and Aristotlewho knew each other, Rembrandt who painted Aristotle, theircountries at that moment and Rembrandt'r paintings. Second is morein the field of ideas - historical fate of the [...] This book really confused me. I was expecting what the jacket said it would be, a story that follows a sentient painting through its life from creation to present day hanging in an art gallery.However the jacket was wrong and the story was split into three parts one about Athens, Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, the second about the Dutch and Rembrandt and the third about Modern Day America.It is a history book that follows no timeline. Each chapter can contain parts from each of the three main st [...] I really enjoyed the premise of Heller's Picture This. Parts of it were truly engaging. However, much of the narrative followed history in a nearly "history book" kind of way with the choice of what to include and how to include it making it more interesting. Those sections could be very slow and tedious. The novel begins with the painting of Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer by Rembrandt and traces, in a witty narrative style, the creation of the painting; the lives of Rembrandt, Aristotl [...] Saga of the Swamp Thing: Book Four The Fragile Bridge Conflict Management in Chinese ... Echoes from Freire for a Critically Engaged Pedago... Sieci Linux. Receptury Georges Vanier: Soldier: The Wartime Letters and D... Look at the Bunny: Totem, Taboo, Technology Negative Capitalism: Cynicism in the Neoliberal Er... The Siege of Peter Marak The Elements of Character They Came from Ghana: The Two Worlds of Kwame and ... Vals beschuldigd Software Designers in Action: A Human-Centric Look... Mermaid's Scar, Vol. 2 1,001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes: Delicious, Easy-... The Last Blank Spaces: Exploring Africa and Austra... Bonfire of the Certainties	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2722
__label__wiki	0.781664	0.781664	posted Friday, September 21, 2012 - Volume 40 Issue 38 'In the Life' calls it quits Broadcast TV's first and only LGBT news program's final episode to air in December by Shaun Knittel - SGN Associate Editor After 20 years in production, the end is near for In the Life, the venerable LGBT newsmagazine aired mainly on PBS stations. The show's producer, In The Life Media (ITLM), announced this week that the final episode will air in December. Though legally dissolving the organization is a process that will continue into 2013, all regular ITLM operations will conclude with the last broadcast. At a time when LGBT people were virtually invisible in media, In the Life brought the real stories, struggles, and issues of the community into living rooms across the country. Beginning as a variety show in 1992, In the Life evolved into its current newsmagazine format over the years, becoming one of the most honored and respected sources for LGBT journalism in any media. In addressing difficult, critical issues, the show regularly gives voice to marginalized individuals, profiles unsung heroes of the LGBT movement, and documents the movement's most historic moments. It was the first major national media outlet to expose the alarmingly high rates of homelessness among LGBT youth, the epidemic rates of suicide among LGBT children who are bullied, and the widespread discrimination against Transgender individuals in the workplace. In the Life, said ITLM Interim Executive Director Ellen Carton, 'has had the extraordinary privilege and responsibility of being the only newsmagazine to reflect the diversity of the LGBT communities, daring to tell stories other media outlets - both mainstream and LGBT - did not touch.' Much has changed since In the Life first premiered. LGBT people now figure prominently in TV news and media. A majority of Americans, including the president, now support marriage equality. Studies show that visibility is the driving force behind this rapid shift in cultural attitudes toward the LGBT community. 'As the media organization that pioneered LGBT visibility on television,' said ITLM Board Co-Chair Jayne Sherman, 'we believe ITLM played a significant role in this historic progress.' VISION WILL ENDURE ITLM is coming to an end, but its vision is not. The organization will pass the baton to communities, networks, and individuals in the form of an online hub featuring thousands of hours of incomparable, never-before-seen video footage. Users will view, share, and build on the archive with their own stories, using the power of open-source, interactive technology to create a new wave of compelling LGBT media that will break down barriers to lasting social and political justice. ITLM has entered into conversations with other organizations with the potential, passion, and infrastructure to create and lead this project. 'Creating high-quality, in-depth journalism is expensive, but digital technologies provide a new way forward,' said Henry van Ameringen, who co-chairs the ITLM board with Sherman. 'I am immeasurably proud of our legacy and the critical role we've played in the movement. We are committed to preserving our invaluable archive chronicling the evolution of LGBT rights in America with an online product that will continue to advance equality in new and innovative ways.' Tell a friend: Share on MySpace! Share on StumbleUpon! A banner day for pro-LGBT fundraising Renters' rights and Referendum 74 DADT repeal: one year later Cheryl Chow honored by city The marriage equality money battle One soldier a day Michael Castorini White House welcomes young Northwest activists Neck-and-neck in the 1st District Lesbian candidate leads in WI Senate race Marriage equality bill fails in Australia Ask Michael: What does Gay really mean? New amfAR grants announced The Gay Raider's final zap We're still puffing ourselves to death Trans rights are human rights For 1st time, gay marriage may win statewide vote A New Inning, Late in the Game See who links to the SGN links to the SGN You might find them interesting too! post your own information on the Seattle Gay Blog SGN on cell phone or dial up 1605 12 Ave., Ste. 31 copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2012	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2723
__label__cc	0.506502	0.493498	2020欧洲杯指定投注社科网2020欧洲杯指定投注\|论坛\|人文社区\|客户端\|官方微博\|报刊投稿\|邮箱中国社会科学网您现在的位置： 2020欧洲杯指定投注 >> English >> China-EU Relations >> China-EU Relations by IES Researchers >> 正文 No turning back the tide of globalization （Jiang Shixue） Author：Jiang Shixue From：http://www.chinadaily.com.cn Update：2019-09-18 15:04:04 Delivering his keynote speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, President Xi Jinping reiterated China's commitment to opening-up and its firm opposition to trade protectionism. Speaking in front of political and business leaders from around the world, he said it is not globalization that should be blamed for the sluggish recovery of the global economy. The unimpressive economic recovery and the widening gap between the haves and have-nots as well as the South and the North, as Xi pointed out, are the result of insufficient momentum for growth, ineffective global governance and unbalanced development. His comments come at a time when economic globalization is fraught with uncertainties, or as some pessimists argue, is in reverse, following Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election and the United Kingdom's "all-out" departure from the European Union, including its single market. However, calling it the demise of globalization, which features increasing interdependence among all economies thanks to the free flow of commodities, capital, personnel, and information, is going a bit too far. Brexit and a worrisome new US government are indeed not good news, but they are not likely to turn the tide of globalization. The expansion of global trade is both a result of economic globalization and an engine of it. The global value chains forged over decades of cross-border exchanges have greatly changed how the world economy works: The economic well-being of all countries are more intertwined than ever. International mechanisms are contributing to globalization, too. The Trade Facilitation Agreement, inked after the ninth World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference on the Indonesian island of Bali in 2013, includes provisions pledging to fight all forms of protectionism. It is estimated that the implementation of the Bali package, the first multilateral agreement to be ratified since the WTO's birth, could increase global trading by about $1 trillion per year. The unanimous ratification of the Paris Agreement on climate change marks a historic step in the efforts to deal with global climate change. Under the deal, all signatories are obliged to step up their cooperation to contain the rise of the global average temperature and curb greenhouse gas emissions. China, one of the main beneficiaries of globalization, is now a torchbearer for better global governance. While hosting the G20 Hangzhou summit last year, it made clear its commitment to globalization and proposed solutions to the problems. Not only has Beijing proposed inclusive concepts such as a community of shared destiny for all humankind and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, it is also making progress in realizing them. The success of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the BRICS New Development Bank, speak volumes for China's development, which as Xi said at Davos, is "an opportunity for the world". The nation welcomes other countries to share the opportunities of its development. Countries aspiring to make a difference should adopt an innovation-driven approach to improve old growth models, and cooperate on reciprocal, inclusive programs for shared development. With the bright prospect of more technological breakthroughs, globalization can remain on the right track. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2017-01/21/content_28017484.htm （Contact Jiang Shixue：jiangsx@cass.org.cn） Back _articles: China, Italy pursue innovation Next _articles: Staying Close--Sino-Swiss relations can be enhanced even further （Jiang Shixue） The Institute of European studies Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,All Rights Reserved 5,Jianguomennei Avenue,Beijing 100732,P.R.China Tel:(++86-10)6513 8428 Fax:(++86-10)6512 5818	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2725
__label__cc	0.729514	0.270486	Ritual Killing In Africa Human Rights, Rule of Law, and Superstition in Africa Why publish this site? African voices against ritual killing Eswatini (Swaziland) voices Gabon voices Ghana voices Ivory Coast voices Liberia voices Malawi voices Mali voices Namibia voices Nigeria voices Senegal voices South Africa voices Tanzania voices Uganda voices Zambia voices Zimbabwe voices What is albinism? Muti murder European cases Category Archives: Kitale Kenya: Uasin Gishu police arrest five following rape and murder of children – ritual murder suspected Posted on July 9, 2020 by Dr. F.P.M. van der Kraaij Another case, maybe not of a ritual murder, but of parents who fear that their child has become victim of a ritual murder. We always have to be careful in labelling a murder as a ritualistic act based on superstition, but it is striking that as soon as a mutilated body has been found local people think of a ritualistic killing. A very telling signal. One of their basic human rights is the right to live without fear. For this reason I have included the case below. (webmaster FVDK). Uasin Gishu police arrest five following rape and murder of children Nominated MCA Belinda Tirop (left) with Ms Loice Muthoni, Ms Sharon Sakwa and Ms Caroline Naliaka Nabiswa whose children’s murders remain unsolved. PHOTO \| JARED NYATAYA \| NATION MEDIA GROUP By: Daily Nation, Kenya – Titus Ominde Police in Moi’s Bridge have arrested five people on suspicion of being serial killers and defilers. Five children have been found murdered in the town in seven months. The arrests came after protests by Nominated Ward Representative Belinda Tirop and area residents. Locals say the crimes could be linked to ritual killings. Uasin Gishu county police chief Johnston Ipara praised the residents of Soy Sub-County for providing information that led to the arrests. He added that more people would be arrested and prosecuted. MISSING FOR A MONTH The county police boss said the five have already appeared in court as police pursue two other people still at large. “Detectives on the ground are gathering crucial information to link the pair to the ones who have already been arrested,” he said. Early in the year, a man and his daughter were arraigned for the murder of a 12-year-old girl. The two were freed when the prosecution said it could not link them to the heinous crime. Mr Ipara said those freed by courts are still being investigated. “We have not given up on the suspects. They could be rearrested,” the county police commander said. MUTILATED BODY Two weeks ago, the mutilated body of Grace Njeri, who had been missing for a month, was found in a thicket. This was the fifth child killing in six months. On December 31, Ms Sharon Sakwa’s daughter was killed in a similar fashion. The girl, Stacy Nabiswa, was a Standard Five pupil. She disappeared on New Year’s Eve and her body found near the railway line the following day. Ms Sakwa accused police of doing little to apprehend the perpetrators of the crimes. Thirteen-year-old Lucy Wanjiru was defiled and killed on January 16. Her mother, a greengrocer, was at the market when the murder occurred. FREED FOR LACK OF EVIDENCE Wanjiru’s stepfather was arrested but released later due to lack of evidence. The girl was a Standard Six pupil at Moi Township Primary School. Two weeks ago, local leaders and residents held a demonstration on the Kitale-Eldoret road to protest the killings. They accused security agents of doing little to stop them. In response to the protests, Mr Ipara urged residents to provide information that would lead to arrests and prosecutions. Mr Ipara, however, challenged parents to monitor their children. “Let us be responsible and watchful if we are to eradicate these incidents,” Mr Ipara said. He advised families to ensure children do not go to the shop or market unaccompanied. Source: Uasin Gishu police arrest five following rape and murder of children Posted in 2020, child, children, Eldoret, FVDK, Human rights, Kenya, Kitale, Moi Bridge, Soy-Sub County, Superstition, Uasin Gishu County South Africa: staggering number of children murdered each year Zimbabwe: Mwenezi girl (6) killed in suspected ritual murder Kenya: mutilated body of girl, 14, discovered in thicket Zambia: witchdoctor claims police offered him money and a house to implicate two soldiers indicted for the ritual killing of seven Lusaka men in 2016 Why killings for rituals are on the increase in Nigeria (2017 article) Categories Select Category ‘Edunga’ (1) ‘Harper Seven’ (3) ‘mingi murder’ (1) ‘nganga’ (1) ‘Nsomankwaahene’ (1) ‘Sakawa’ (1) ‘Sous le même soleil’ (1) ‘Sunyanitifi’ (1) ‘Under the same sun’ (1) ‘Yahoo-plus’ (1) ‘Yahoo’ (1) 1847 (1) 1884 (1) 1912 (1) 1944 (1) 1945 (1) 1946 (1) 1947 (1) 1948 (1) 1953 (1) 1960 (1) 1960s (1) 1965 (1) 1966 (1) 1967 (1) 1970s (5) 1971 (1) 1976 (1) 1979 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__label__wiki	0.836241	0.836241	[VIDEO] Tulsi Gabbard and Thomas Massie Interviewed by Matt Kibbe Thread: [VIDEO] Tulsi Gabbard and Thomas Massie Interviewed by Matt Kibbe Matt Collins __________________________________________________ ________________ "A politician will do almost anything to keep their job, even become a patriot" - Hearst Tulsi is by far the best Democrat. If only we can get Gabbard to agree with us on more than half of the issues instead of just 30%. Was hoping Tulsi could have significant position in Trump admin Brian4Liberty Staff - Moderator Matt Kibbe is joined by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to discuss their bipartisan bill to repeal the Patriot Act and enact major reforms to protect Americans’ privacy rights. The legislators from both parties recognize the need to safeguard against intelligence agencies that operate in secret without respect for the Fourth Amendment and other important constitutional protections that stand between us and tyranny. Subscribe to Kibbe on Liberty everywhere you get podcasts. #mattkibbe #tulsigabbard #thomasmassie #kibbeonliberty Watch Kibbe on Liberty on BlazeTV: https://blazetv.com/kibbe Follow Kibbe on Liberty on Facebook: https://facebook.com/KibbeBlazeTV Follow Free the People on YouTube: https://youtube.com/freethepeople Follow Free the People on Twitter: https://twitter.com/freethepeople Follow Free the People on Instagram: https://instagram.com/freethepeople Follow Free the People on Facebook: https://facebook.com/freethepeople Visit Free the People's website: https://freethepeople.org Join Free the People's community: https://community.freethepeople.org Watch all episodes of the Kibbe on Liberty podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...MJXHBSuWfUm57k "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul “They are what they hate.” - B4L The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons. shakey1 Seems a worthwhile endeavor. Don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows Thomas Massie Live with Matt Kibbe (Today) By Brian4Liberty in forum Thomas Massie Forum [VIDEO] Sen Mike Lee interviewed by Matt Kibbe By Matt Collins in forum Grassroots Central TYT: Tulsi Gabbard Opens Up On Syria Trip (Video) By Peace Piper in forum U.S. Political News Thomas Massie Interview w/ Matt Kibbe By TaftFan in forum Thomas Massie Forum [Video] Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks Endorses Greg Brannon for US Senate By lib3rtarian in forum Greg Brannon 2014 Forum	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2728
__label__wiki	0.860214	0.860214	Home A Soulful Noise, SoulTube, Video SoulBounce Brandy Reveals ‘B7’ Album Cover & Release Date And Delivers ‘Baby Mama’ For ‘Good Morning America’ D-Money Everybody say Brandy! The 41-year-old star is coming back in a big way and making sure that her upcoming album has the biggest push it can get. To that effect, she's been making the media rounds with her latest single, "Baby Mama," and giving all the interviews she can. She took a break from the media blitz, however, to offer us a peek at the album's cover and finally give us the set's release date. First, you can see the gorgeous album art above. It's a picture of Brandy reimagining herself in the vein of Cleopatra with her signature braids dripping with bronze beads. The style frames her lovely face (which has been beaten within an inch of its life thanks to whatever makeup magician Miss Norwood enlisted for the task), further solidifying the regal look. B-Rocka also made fans dreams come true by letting us know that the album will be heating up our summer when it arrives on July 31st. In addition to her media duties, Brandy also called in to Good Morning America this week to offer a quarantine performance of "Baby Mama." While not the same as the live performance that we would've gotten, Brandy made it work with a pre-recorded set featuring her and her dancers getting down to the track from the comfort of their own homes. The industry vet didn't disappoint, though, making sure to give us a show with multiple camera shots and even a cameo from Chance The Rapper (which looked like it was probably filmed from the video's set). We don't know about y'all, but we're very excited about Brandy's new era. Get into her GMA performance right here and mark your calendars for B7. TAGS: brandy, Chance the Rapper Previous: Kehlani Explores Love, Lust & Loss On ‘It Was Good Until It Wasn’t’ Next: JoJo Shows Tory Lanez She’s Got That ‘Comeback’ To Make Him Keep Coming Back Terrace Martin Gifts Us With Star-Studded Holiday EP ‘Village Days’ Jazmine Sullivan Brought ’60s Glamour To The Soul Train Awards With ‘Lost One’ & ‘Pick Up Your Feelings’ Camper & Brandy Are Restless In Love On ‘Sleep’ Brandy, Erykah Badu, H.E.R. & Teyana Taylor Rocked The Mic Right For Their BET Hip Hop Awards 2020 ‘Ladies First Cypher’ Brandy & Ty Dolla $ign Unite To Harmonize Like There’s ‘No Tomorrow’ The Mixologists: dj harvey dent ‘SoulBounce Remixed Vol. 2’	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2730
__label__cc	0.739097	0.260903	Spokane Yellow Pages Washington Yellow Pages > Spokane Yellow Pages > Tools, Electrical & Hardware > Compressors, Generators & Motors > Air & Gas Compressors Service & Repair in Spokane Air & Gas Compressors Service & Repair in Spokane, Washington Air Electric Equipment & Tools Inc 5603 E 3rd Ave Air & Gas Compressors Service & Repair, Air Compressors Sales & Service, Compressors, Generators & Motors, Hardware Tools & Accessories, Pressure Washing Equipment & Repair 5603 E 3rd Ave Spokane WA 99212 We offer 2 local business listings for Air & Gas Compressors Service & Repair in Spokane. Find local Spokane Air & Gas Compressors Service & Repair in zip code 99212. People who search for this, may also be interested in: air compressors sales & service,compressors - air & gas-parts,compressors air & gas repairing,compressors generators fans & pumps,equipment & supplies - business supplies related,industrial machinery & equipment,industry,machinery. Atmosphere of Earth The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, commonly known as air, retained by Earth's gravity, surrounding the planet Earth and forming its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for liquid water to exist on the Earth's surface, absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention (greenhouse effect), and reducing temperature extremes between day and night (the diurnal temperature variation). By volume, dry air contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1% at sea level, and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere. Air composition, temperature, and atmospheric pressure vary with altitude, and air suitable for use in photosynthesis by terrestrial plants and breathing of terrestrial animals is found only in Earth's troposphere and in artificial atmospheres. Popular Spokane Categories COPYRIGHT 2007-2020 BY www.Spokaneyellowpage.com	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2732
__label__cc	0.555351	0.444649	Browse: Home / Issue #10 / The Virgin Atlantic Intergalactic Writers’ Workshop «« Previous ∞ Index»» The Virgin Atlantic Intergalactic Writers’ Workshop Oliver Michell (University of East Anglia, UK) Two weeks ago, I had some terrible news. The oxygen on this spacecraft is not running out. Consider what this means. Turn it over in your head. It means there is no end. No finale, no epilogue. It means that thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of Richard Branson and the incompetence of his mechanics, this flight upon which the five of us are trapped, heading deeper and deeper into space, can promise us no delicious asphyxiation, no ecstasy of suffocation. I shall have no final, zero-gravitational fun, watching my fellow delegates turn from pink to red to purple. Instead, the oxygenation plant will carry on keeping the five of us floating, but alive. Ratchett, Rollo, Lynne, Marina and me. Compulsively workshopping into infinity. In one another’s company. Reading each other’s work. And appreciating it. For ever. I have spent five years trying to finish a novel about Enoch Powell. Even as I write it, I can scarcely believe it. As one side of my brain remembers, the other is incredulous. How many years? The Enoch Powell? Seriously? I thought a so-called Writers’ so-called Workshop in space would be my last chance. After a long selection procedure, we were handpicked, the five of us, by Richard Branson himself. Rollo, a twenty-eight year old prize-winning novelist, still attending Creative Writing Conferences because he “still had so much to learn.” Ratchett – her actual name Sue, but she reminds me so strongly of Nurse Ratchett from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest that I now can’t think of her any other way. Thirty-two years old, very severe, very plain. Harbours a passionate dislike of me, generously reciprocated. Lynne, a forty-nine year old “single mum” from Surrey, writing a novel about how tough it is being a single mum from Surrey, constantly showing me photographs of her shockingly unattractive kids. Then – I can hardly write her name – Marina. Marina Carew. Poetess, bee-fancier, ethereal spirit, possessor of the husky eyes, a sort of fairy goddess. Ah Marina! At first it all went well. We whizzed up through the stratosphere, straining to be complimentary and constructive and encouraging of one another’s literary endeavours. Then it happened. A big bang. One of the rockets malfunctioned, blasting us away from Earth. Leaving the five of us. On board. With each other. And our novels. You, dear reader, at this point throw your hands up in the air. “Why don’t you just stop? I mean, you’re in space, doomed to die from old age, or boredom, or a lethal surfeit of literary appreciation, which is the same thing, or smashed into pate by a merciful asteroid. Face it. You’re buggered by Branson. Instead of orbiting the stratosphere, in a last desperate search for your Muse, a blaster mistakenly blasted in the wrong direction and set you on course for oblivion. Which, as unpublished novelists, was sort of where you were in the first place. So stop turning up. Stop debating whether or not sunlight really does fall through leaves like a handful of golden coins thrown into the air, or whether Enoch Powell’s wife would describe her husband’s penis as ‘iron-hard’ or as ‘a thousand tiny claws tearing at her being’.” Christ, I can still picture it. Lynne, holding up her tiny, papery fist. “Well, you see, Mark, I think, a hard one of…well, of those…you see, it’s more like this…” – she makes a grotesque punching motion with her fist – “but that’s just one view.” Another writers’ group staple: it’s just one view. What else would it be except “one view”? Never “I’m right. Change it.” The constant polite hedging of bets. The constant Englishness. The endless disclaimers, even flying towards the sun at two thousand miles per hour. We’re about to be vaporised and die miserable and terrified, but at least we’ll die miserable, terrified and polite. You, dear reader, are now rolling your eyes. “Oh stop complaining,” you say. “If you feel that way, give up. Do it as a last gasp of the Human Spirit. The string quartet playing on the decks of the Titanic. Salvage some bloody dignity and quit. You only signed up because you couldn’t meet girls.” And that’s another thing. Have you ever tried being sexually frustrated in an environment that has “Virgin” written on everything? Where you brush your teeth with Virgin toothpaste, stir your coffee with a Virgin spoon? Do you have any idea what that’s like? It’s like being fifteen years old and your parents are force-feeding you Viagra. That’s what Rollo and Lynne always say in Writers’ Workshop. “Oh Mark, why are you always so cynical?” Because, Rollo, I wank myself off five times a day onto loo paper that has “Virgin” written on it in a never ending scroll. Well, dear reader, there are a number of counterarguments. The first is, you don’t exist. This diary will be fizzed into a trillion atoms along with Marina’s blue-eyed perfection, when we hit the Ultimate Literary Criticism In The Sky in the form of a bloody great fireball, somewhere just past the Rings of Saturn. So frankly, as you’re just one half of my brain talking to the other half, you can do as you’re bloody told. Secondly, have you ever tried giving up going to Writers’ Workshops? There are no nicorette patches. There is no methadone. The horrors of cold turkey cannot be diluted. “I’ve decided to focus on radio plays.” Even I have never sunk to that level. Focus on radio plays and you’re properly fucked. That’s like getting up at lunchtime. That’s Red Stripe lager and Doritos for breakfast. I have nothing against the Big Issue, but it’s a well known fact that most of their vendors have, at one point or another, focused on radio plays. You aim for the afternoon slot on Radio 4 when you’ve really given up. You’re living with your mum, metaphorically and probably literally. I’m on a spaceship going to my death and, even then, I wouldn’t mess with the Afternoon Play. There’s no going back from that shit. But even before you reach that level of self-hatred, before you start submitting ideas to BBC Writers’ websites that have taken literally not one idea, ever, from that website for a programme that actually gets made, before you blog, before you twitter, there are all kinds of stages you go through before you can face up to the fact that you’re actually just no good. You put your novel ‘on hold’ (a state mysteriously different from ‘abandoned’ which, while requiring the cessation of all creative endeavour, rules out all possibility of returning to paid employment). You work on short stories. You start your memoirs, describing your career as a writer before you actually have a career as a writer. I’d better introduce my fellow castaways. And let me say at this point that, of the three of them, if I want any one of them to find this diary, it’s you, Rollo, you smug Oxbridge shit. Rollo is really, really talented. I mean, properly talented. Rollo comes from one of those London families, the members of which have devoted their lives selflessly to worthy causes that pay nothing. They’ve gone on marches. They’ve written articles for the Observer. They’ve shunned private schooling, they’ve campaigned for cars to be banned from Richmond Park. They sit on the Board of Hospital Trusts. They serve on immigration appeals tribunals. And somehow, magically, over the course of their lives devoted to these admirable and poorly remunerated pursuits, they have acquired a shitload of money. How this works, I have no idea. My parents worked all their lives in jobs they hated and ended up with nothing. Rollo’s parents have fucked around directing plays and taking up occasional fellowships at the LSE, and have ended up with multiple properties, including a five storey house in Camden. Camden so their smug hypocritical bastard children can all go to comprehensive schools but still go to Oxford and Cambridge. Oxford, inevitably, in Rollo’s case. About a week after the crew of the ship had used the only means of escape to return safely to Earth, we realised that we were about to lose radio contact with Virgin Ground Control. We had five and a half hours of radio time left. So we decided that we would read someone’s novel down the blower, so the work of one of us would be preserved for posterity. But then we had to decide. Whose novel would it be? Finally all the polite hedging of bets had to come to an end. All the “hm, really interesting” and “what vibrant imagery” and “what a strong sense of place.” Finally we had to decide who was best. Five of us, five votes, and you couldn’t vote for yourself. Of course I voted for Marina. Beautiful, lovely Marina, blonde haired, blue-eyed, light-limbed pale-skinned, with her wonderful gentle, caring voice, her lovely delicate nose, her graceful, yet strangely seductive way of moving her limbs…oh Marina. I knew it wouldn’t be me who won the ballot. I just prayed it wouldn’t be… “Rollo Marshall-Williams is the successful delegate, congratulations…” Rollo, of course, was magnanimous. Particularly towards me, and on purpose. “Guys, guys, let’s divide up the time between us. Mark, what about that amazing radio play you’ve written about Enoch Powell…” It is hard to communicate the depth of hatred you can feel for someone who is truly talented at writing fiction. I pictured his handsome face spinning away through a cloud of radioactive dust, the vacuum gently disembowelling him as it muffled his screams. “No Rollo, you read your novel…after all, you’re the only one of us who’s been published…” “Mark, mate, I keep telling you, it’ll come…” “How, precisely?” I wanted to answer. “A particularly open-minded vanity publisher on Pluto? A literary agent in a passing lunar module?” Instead, of course, I bottle it. “Thanks, mate.” “Anyway, if you feel you have to write, you have to write. Success or no success, it’s irrelevant.” Rollo is complimentary about my novel in the way you can be when you know that your own writing is better. Marina is complimentary about my novel in the way you can be when you know that you will never, ever have sex with the author. There is that sort of ineffable sweetness, so readily recognised by men who never get laid, that big sisterly, doting manner adopted by attractive women who know at the most fundamental level of their being that you really, really want to sleep with them and they will never, ever let you. It makes prose take wing. When I read from my novel the 8th redraft of Chapter 71 of Part Five – “Thorneycroft, Powell and Birch – Falling on the Sword of Fiscal Responsibility” – Marina described herself as being on the edge of her seat. “Oh Mark! I believe you have given me my first nightmare about Harold Macmillan!” This is Writers’ Group code for “Mark, I am never going to have sex with you because you are 35, and short and losing your hair, and a bit overweight, and the fact that you have pissed away your tedious but secure career for an elaborate delusion of Enoch Powell-related artistic integrity is neither romantic nor daring, but slightly pathetic. But what I can offer you in return is a big pile of lies. When you attempt a Wolverhampton accent as you read out your three page monologue of Enoch Powell rejecting the public spending plans of Harold Macmillan, I will fake rapt attention as a way of compensating you for the fact that you will never see me naked.” Oh Marina! Instead, there is another member of the group for whom Marina saves her waspish remarks, her catty asides. You guessed it. Fucking Rollo. And why does she attack him? Sexual bloody tension, and the heightening thereof. Rollo, a qualified teacher of the Alexander Technique, the twat, spices up their sex life with literary badinage. Marina’s cattiness towards Rollo is matched by her generosity towards me, as if towards a deaf uncle. This reduces me in effect to the role of Rollo’s fluffer. “I think Mark’s point about subordinate clauses is an extremely valid one, actually, Rollo.” “Well, Mark’s spot on, I think, Rollo. The plot of Great Expectations would be perfect set in Las Vegas.” None of this is lost on Nurse Ratchett, sitting on the opposite side of the circle, eyeing me as if I were a short, fat Jack Nicholson. The most remarkable thing about Ratchett is her hair. Do you remember from school or telly – why do you ask whether you remember, you’re talking to yourself you fucking moron, of course you remember, you’re you – that famous picture of Henry V in profile? His hair is black like Ratchett’s, but it’s a kind of bowl haircut, slipping down the back of his head. Ratchett has exactly that haircut and, even more extraordinarily, she has clearly trimmed it since take off back into that shape. It leaves a harsh black fringe across her pointy face, giving her a striking resemblance to Rowan Atkinson in the first series of Blackadder. It has always fascinated me how Ratchett acquired this haircut. You sit in the barber’s chair and they say “What would you like, a Jennifer Aniston, a Julia Roberts, a Keira Knightley?” Ratchett says “Give me a Plantagenet.” “Ooh, the Hundred Years War. Not a lot of call for those.” “Do your best…” For weeks after take-off, I was nice to Ratchett. I was nice to everyone. Even when the engines malfunctioned and the gravity cut out, I agreed with Rollo that it was essential that we stay positive. What can I say? I thought the oxygen was running out. Then I discovered that no such respite awaited us. And I thought it might be time to tell everyone frankly what I thought of their novels. Ratchett’s book is set in South London. It’s about angels who speak in a West Indian accent, ie the way white middle class Londoners think West Indians speak. Lots of “Ay mon, bamba klat Babylon” bollocks. Ratchett is profoundly proud of the fact that she has read Paradise Lost and her book works on the fool-proof marketing conceit that your average reader in WH Smiths has also read Paradise Lost several times and wants to be titillated by cross-references to that piss boring poem in every chapter. This is another mystery of Writers’ Groups. Some people are good, some are bad. But occasionally you get people who are obviously bad, who everyone else thinks are brilliant. Rollo, Marina and Lynne love Ratchett’s novel. They can’t wait to hear the next instalment about the Angel Gabriel selling weed outside Brixton Tube. But after we discovered that the ship generated its own oxygen, I’d had enough. “Sue, what makes you think that constantly referring to Milton is an effective way of engaging the reader’s attention?” There was silence. You don’t say this kind of thing at Writers’ Groups. You say “Very Martin Amis. I was definitely hooked in, but could the emphasis be differently distributed to make the prose a little less rich?” Instead, when Ratchett sighed and snapped “What didn’t you like about it Mark?”, I said what I had been yearning to say for twenty thousand light years of space travel. There is no sound in space. But the sound of four people shrinking back in their chairs seemed to boom the length and breadth of the cosmos. “You were what?” Ratchett said. “Bored. I was bored. Why should I care about a bunch of angels fannying around South London talking like Lenny Henry doing Theophilus P. Wildebeeste?” Ratchett crossed her arms, tucking her fish-eye nipples under her armpits. “This from a man who has written a two hundred and fifty thousand word novel on the subject of Enoch Powell.” “Guys, guys” Rollo interjected. “I must say, Mark, I’m beginning to find your constant cynicism detrimental to the productivity of the group.” I rounded on Lynne. “What exactly are we producing, Lynne? This isn’t the Hay Festival, we’re on a space ship for God’s sake, beyond radio contact, heading into the outer solar system. No-one gives a shit whether we write well or not.” “We give a shit, mate,” said Rollo calmly. “Why? I mean, what’s the bloody point? My novel about Enoch Powell, at least my Dad read it before I left.” “Mark, your novel is absolute bullshit,” Ratchett snapped. “Maybe it is,” I replied. “But what does it matter? No-one is going to read this crap, let alone publish it. We’re all just deluding ourselves, can’t you see that?” Rollo leant forward. “Mark, I have to say, I’m finding the negativity coming off you really detrimental to my creativity at the moment.” “What creativity? Why are we even sitting here?” My voice broke into sobs. “We’re going to die, don’t you get that?” “We were going to die on Earth. That’s why it’s important for its own sake.” “No it isn’t!” I screamed, tears rolling down my face. “It is so absolutely not important for its own sake!” It’s a quarter to six. Time for our Writers’ Workshop. Nobody has spoken to me much since that last session. I resolved for a while afterwards to stop going. Stop writing. To turn instead, to you, my dearest reader, my darling diary. A private exercise, just between you and me. But look. I’m on my feet. I’m out of my bunk. I’m writing these last sentences standing up. And now, my dear friend, I’m going to take you to the Richard Branson Recreation Area at the other end of the ship and expose you to the judgment of my peers. Oliver Michell is originally from South London, but currently divides his time between Norwich and Berlin, where he has a four year old daughter. He is a full-time student on the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2736
__label__wiki	0.771799	0.771799	‘A Late Quartet’ feels a little out of tune November 13, 2012 November 9, 2012 by Douglas Strassler Mark Ivanir, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Christopher Walken make music together in ‘A Late Quartet’ [rating=2]Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mark Ivanir, Catherine Keener, Imogen Poots, Christopher Walken Director(s): Yaron Zilberman Writer(s): Seth Grossman and Yaron Zilberman Oh what a frustrating movie A Late Quartet turns out to be. What could have been an eye-opening look at a fringe industry and the lives of the talented performers who thrive within it ends up being a by-the-numbers melodrama, despite a sterling cast. Yaron Zilberman, a documentarian making his feature film debut, has adapted Quartet with Seth Grossman, from his own short story, and though it only focuses on its four titular string players, there are reversals and revelations to spare. Gorgeously shooting a snow-covered upper Manhattan as though it were a travel video, Zilberman looks at what happens when widowed cellist Peter Mitchell (Christopher Walken) is diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, a debilitating illness sad for anyone but particularly devastating for those whose careers and passions lie in the nimble work of one’s hands (Frederick Elmes was director of photography). Quartet would cover the winter of everyone’s discontent, however. This movie is not about Peter’s journey but the deleterious effect his diagnosis has on the rest of the Fugue Quartet, an elite group whose other members are younger than Peter and are firmly in the process of creating their own mid-life dramas: Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a second chair violinist, decides that when Peter leaves the group, he should ascend, at least partially to, first chair, alternating with Daniel (Mark Ivanir). This irks Daniel, who complains to viola player Juliette (Catherine Keener, working opposite Hoffman for the third time in eight years), since Juliette is Robert’s wife. Mark Ivanir, Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman in ‘A Late Quartet’ The web gets more incestuously tangled as Juliette and Robert’s daughter, Alexandra (Imogen Poots), seduces Daniel. Latent resentment among all four of these characters rise as Peter quietly adjusts to his fate in the film’s background. These formulaic plots, with plenty of backstory force-fed to the viewer via faux-documentary clips and a deluge of expository dialogue, undercut Zilberman’s commentary on the (waning) art of classical music and the need for a quartet to become an unbreakable family, simpatico with one another so as to make the sum of the four instruments a greater whole (Zilberman provides Walken with several monologues delivered to a music class that includes Alexandra about the intricacies of solo performance versus quartet performance to drive home the point.) Structurally, the filmmaker aims to shape his movie a la Beethoven’s Quartet in C sharp minor (Op. 131), a famous 40-minute string quartet with seven movements that are to be played with no pause, performed by the Brentano String Quartet as the cast pantomimes the playing. But Quartet proves to be repetitive and clunky, thanks to its soapy sidebar plots. Hoffman is sensational when it comes to fleshing out his flawed violinist, though Keener and Ivanir don’t overcome Zilberman’s booby-trapped plot quite as well; Poots fares worse, with stilted line readings and no way of bridging her character’s oddly juvenile motivations. Walken proves to be the quartet’s key player, on stage and in the film. In addition to subtly portraying the weakening abuse of Parkinson’s, he also steers his portions of the movie away from pathos. Grossman and Zilberman arm him with a particularly moving monologue that’s as classy a “thank you and goodbye” as your likely to hear. When he’s onscreen, Quartet is actually uplifting. It’s when the film’s other characters show up and start careening into each other that the movie starts hitting off notes. Run Time: 1 hr., 45 mins. [springboard type=”video” id=”599573″ player=”tlsl009″ width=”500″ height=”400″ ] Categories FilmsTags Catherine Keener, Christopher Walken, Douglas Strassler, Philip Seymour Hoffman Post navigation Countdown to ‘Skyfall’ – A history of the James Bond film franchise Part 9 On Veteran’s Day, Tail Slate offers up a few flicks about veterans	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2738
__label__wiki	0.681582	0.681582	What is PR How to be purposeful Leaders Create Leaders Purposeful Relationships Cultivating clear communication, asking meaningful questions and understanding your story. 01612361122 enquiries@rdpr.co.uk icon--facebook icon--twitter icon--linkedin St. Modwen half yearly statement North West icon--twitter icon--linkedin icon--facebook icon--gplus Posted by Sam Hughes Sep 7, 2016 4:35:02 PM Topics: News, Steven Knowles, St. Modwen’s North West Regional Director, added: “The North West region has experienced growth during the first half of the year. We have added a number of strategic acquisitions to our future development portfolio, increased net rental income and sold two assets for which we have recycled the income received back into the business. “We have continued to add value to our existing portfolio of income producing assets with the recent acquisition of Crosby Town Centre, along with Wharf Industrial Estate and Chamberhall Business Park, both of which are in Bury. We have also entered a wider agreement with Knowsley Metropolitan Council on the development of a further 60 acres to complement the purchase of Kirkby Town Centre which was completed at the end of 2015. “The sale of two major distribution centres totalling more than 129,000 sq ft to international parcel delivery firm DPD in Stoke-on-Trent and Stonebridge Business Park in Liverpool in December brought a share of the £25 million investment to the North West. At the start of the New Year we completed the sale of Heron Business Park in Widnes for £3.5 million. Despite the disposal of these assets we have continued to grow our income in the region. “In September we will be starting the development of 80,000 sq ft of retail space at Great Homer Street in Liverpool. “We have had a positive response to our asset management initiatives which have already secured more than 65 new leases from the retained portfolio of commercial estates we own and manage across the region. These include a number of new leases at Kirkby Town Centre, where we also have interest from a leading supermarket, and Wythenshawe Town Centre where our premises are close to being fully let. Our rent roll has risen to in excess of £14 million from more than 700 occupiers. “This strong base provides us the resource with which to strengthen our portfolio in the region and we will continue to seek new opportunities where we can add value throughout the second half of the year and beyond.” Tatton Social Debuts: New Food, Play and Artisan Offerings Announced at Ashley Hall Stars and Cheshire set turn out for the inaugural Tatton Social event Tatton Estate launches new summer event at Ashley Hall INNSiDE by Mélia set to launch new restaurant and bar concept Manchester Hoteliers’ Association chair Adrian Ellis welcomes the government announcement on the re-opening of hotels © Roland Dransfield Site by BGN	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2741
__label__wiki	0.572816	0.572816	Summer Reading: The Myth of Human Supremacy Wrong Kind of Green Jul 11, 2016 Whiteness & Aversive Racism In this impassioned polemic, radical environmental philosopher Derrick Jensen debunks the near-universal belief in a hierarchy of nature and the superiority of humans. Vast and underappreciated complexities of nonhuman life are explored in detail—from the cultures of pigs and prairie dogs, to the creative use of tools by elephants and fish, to the acumen of caterpillars and fungi. The paralysis of the scientific establishment on moral and ethical issues is confronted and a radical new framework for assessing the intelligence and sentience of nonhuman life is put forth. Jensen attacks mainstream environmental journalism, which too often limits discussions to how ecological changes affect humans or the economy—with little or no regard for nonhuman life. With his signature compassionate logic, he argues that when we separate ourselves from the rest of nature, we in fact orient ourselves against nature, taking an unjust and, in the long run, impossible position. Jensen expresses profound disdain for the human industrial complex and its ecological excesses, contending that it is based on the systematic exploitation of the earth. Page by page, Jensen, who has been called the philosopher-poet of the environmental movement, demonstrates his deep appreciation of the natural world in all its intimacy, and sounds an urgent call for its liberation from human domination. About Derrick Jensen DERRICK JENSEN speaks on behalf of a younger generation whose sense of impatience and indignation stems from the fact that they, like him, will still be walking this earth fifty years from now. Jensen writes beautifully, asking fundamental questions about our civilization and our species. Activist, philosopher, small farmer, teacher, leading voice of uncompromising dissent, Derrick Jensen holds degrees in creative writing and mineral engineering physics. His books include Dreams; Endgame, Volumes 1 and 2; As the World Burns, with Stephanie McMillan; A Language Older Than Words; The Culture of Make Believe; What We Leave Behind, with Aric McBay; The Derrick Jensen Reader, with Lierre Keith; and Deep Green Resistance, with Aric McBay and Lierre Keith.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2743
__label__cc	0.603607	0.396393	Gooseberries in Grasmere. Today, August 7th … Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of the poet William Wordsworth, clearly had a writer’s inclinations herself. It appears however, that she had no inclination for publication, preferring (or allowing) that fame for her brother, and to that end she devoted herself to the domestic chores of the household she shared with him in England’s Lake District. Her writing shines in her journals, and in amongst her lyrical descriptions of the surrounding countryside, she recorded the homely household chores such as the cooking. On this day in late summer in 1800 she wrote: “Thursday Morning….Boiled gooseberries – N.B, 2 lbs of sugar in the first panfull, 3 quarts all good measure – 3lbs in the 2nd 4 quarts – 21/2 lb in the 3rd.” Etymologists disagree over the origin of the word “gooseberry”. Is it a corruption of an old German name (krausbeere) or old French name (groseille)? Or is it something to do with the goose? The OED refuses to commit on this, saying “The grounds on which plants and fruits have received names associating them with animals are so commonly inexplicable, that the want of appropriateness in the meaning affords no sufficient ground for assuming that the word is an etymologizing corruption.” Dorothy almost certainly used her gooseberries in pies, but they have had a wide range of culinary uses over the centuries. Thankfully, in spite of their being no evidence at all for an etymological connection with the goose, there is a culinary connection – perhaps this IS the connection!. Gooseberry sauce was a common accompaniment to fish such as mackeral, but it was also used with goose, as in the following recipe from “The queen’s royal cookery: or, expert and ready ways for the dressing of all sorts of flesh, fowl, fish: …” by T.Hall, free cook of London (1709). Sauce for Green-Geese. Take Sorrel, pick it and wash it, and swing it in a coarse Cloth and stamp it, and strain the Juice; then have some Gooseberries tender scalded, but not broke; then melt some Butter very thick with the Juice of Sorrel; then sweeten it well with Sugar, and put in the Gooseberries, put it into the Dish, and lay the Geese upon it; and garnish the Dish with scalded Gooseberries and a little scrap’d Sugar; this Sauce will serve for a boiled Leg of Lamb. There is something satisfying about the idea of green gooseberry sauce for a green goose, is there not? (“green” in this case, meaning young and fresh, not mouldy or putrefying!) According to the OED, the phrase “Gooseberry wine” can mean “an inferior or spurious champagne”, but it can mean the real thing too, and the real thing was said to taste like “English Frontiniac”, which was surely made from the variety called “Champain Gooseberry”? There are recipes for Gooseberry Wine in Hannah Glasse (1747) and Mrs. Dalgairns (1840) on the Companion to The Old Foodie site. A "Good Gooseberry Tart" appeared in the story of June 8th 2006 Tomorrow: Nella's Orange Jelly. Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music out of doors, played by somebody I do not know. Keats. To make a French cheese. An excellent parrot soup. Authentic Chop Suey. Blue means safe to eat. How to Roast a Swan. St Bartholomew's Day. Soyer in Scutari. The "Pot au Feu" of Scotland. Exploring (with) Goats. The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee. Fun with Potatoes. Parmentier and Potatoes. Paraguay Tea. There is reason in roasting eggs. Welsh Rabbit, Chapter II. Italian Cake Day. Recipe Archive Updated! Welsh Rabbit. Mustard making. The first pineapple tart. Nella's Orange Jelly. A Huge Pie. Gastronomic Society. Musings on Moose. Lammas Time.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2757
__label__cc	0.681927	0.318073	Caprinae World What is "caprinae world"? Give species a face! Caprinae petroglyphs The illustrated dictionary of Caprinae horns How I got into Ibex & Co Caprinae Species Takins (Budorcas taxicolor) Mishmi Takin (Budorcas taxicolor taxicolor) Bhutan Takin (Budorcas taxicolor whitei) Sichuan Takin (Budorcas taxicolor tibetana) Golden Takin (Budorcas taxicolor bedfordi) Musk Oxen (Ovibos moschatus) Chiru (Pantholops hodgsonii) Arabian Tahr (Arabitragus jayakari) Himalayan Tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus) Bharal (Pseudois nayaur) Greater Bharal (Pseudois nayaur) Tibetan Bharal (Pseudois nayaur nayaur) Chinese Bharal (Pseudois nayaur szechuanensis) Pamir Bharal (Pseudois nayaur ssp) Helan Shan Bharal (Pseudois nayaur ssp) Dwarf Bharal (Pseudois nayaur schaeferi) Serows (Capricornis sp.) Sumatran Serow (Capricornis sumatraensis) Himalayan Serow (Capricornis thar) Encounter with a Serow in the Mishi Hills Chinese Serow (Capricornis milneedwardsii) Indochinese Serow (Capricornis maritimus) Burmese Red Serow (Capricornis rubidus) Japanese Serow (Capricornis crispus) Taiwan Serow (Capricornis swinhoei) Gorals (Nemorhaedus sp.) Himalayan gorals Himalayan Brown Goral (Nemorhaedus hodgsoni) Himalayan Gray Goral (Nemorhaedus goral) Chinese Goral (Nemorhaedus griseus) Burmese Goral (Nemorhaedus evansi) Long-tailed Goral (Nemorhaedus caudatus) Red Goral (Nemorhaedus baileyi) How to make a distinction between goral and serow? How to tell the sex of gorals by the horns Mountain Goat (Oreamnos americanus) Northern Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra) Alpine Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra rupicapra) Chartreuse Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra cartusiana) Tatra Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra tatrica) Balkan Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra balcanica) Carpathian Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra carpatica) Anatolian Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra asiatica) Caucasian Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra caucasica) Southern Chamois (Rupicapra pyrenaica) Pyrenean Chamois (Rupicapra pyrenaica pyrenaica) Cantabrian Chamois (Rupicapra pyrenaica parva) Apennine Chamois (Rupicapra pyrenaica ornata) Ibex (Capra sp.) - monotypical species Alpine Ibex (Capra ibex) Nubian Ibex (Capra nubiana) Walia Ibex (Capra walie) Asiatic Ibex (Capra sibirica) Iberian Ibex (Capra pyrenaica) Victoria Ibex (Capra pyrenaica victoriae) Hispanic Ibex (Capra pyrenaica hispanica) Pyrenean Ibex (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica) Portuguese Ibex (Capra pyrenaica lusitanica) West Caucasian Tur (Capra caucasica) East Caucasian Tur (Capra cylindricornis) Markhor (Capra falconeri) Flare-horned Markhor (Capra falconeri falconeri) Heptner's Markhor (Capra falconeri heptneri) Straight-horned Markhor (Capra falconeri megaceros) Wild Goats (Capra aegagrus and Capra hircus cretica) Bezoar Wild Goat (Capra aegagrus aegagrus) Chiltan Wild Goat (Capra aegagrus chialtanensis) Sindh Wild Goat (Capra aegagrus blythi) Cretan Wild Goat (Capra hircus cretica) Aoudad (Ammotragus lervia) Mouflon (Ovis aries musimon and Ovis gmelini) Anatolian Sheep (Ovis gmelini gmelinii) Cyprus Mouflon (Ovis gmelini ophion) Tyrrhenian Mouflon (Ovis aries musimon) Urials (Ovis vignei) Laristan Sheep (Ovis vignei laristanica) Afghan Urial (Ovis cycloceros) Afghan Urial (Ovis vignei cycloceros) Transcaspian Urial (Ovis vignei arkal) Bukhara Urial (Ovis vignei bocharensis) Punjab Urial (Ovis vignei punjabiensis) Ladakh Urial (Ovis vignei vignei) Argali (Ovis ammon) Gobi Argali (Ovis ammon darwini) Tibetan Argali (Ovis ammon hodgsoni) Tianshan Argali (Ovis ammon karelini) Nura Tau Argali (Ovis ammon severtzovi) Nilgiri Tahr (Nilgiritragus hylocrius) Snow Sheep (Ovis nivicola) Putorana Snow Sheep (O. n. borealis) Yakut Snow Sheep (O. n. lydekkeri) Kharaulakh Snow Sheep (Ovis nivicola spp.) Koryak Snow Sheep (O. n. koriakorum) Kamchatka Snow Sheep (O. n. nivicola) Dall's Sheep (Ovis dalli dalli) Stone's Sheep (Ovis dalli stonei) Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis) Afghanistan, 2020 Darwaz, Tajikistan 2020 Winter birds of Darwaz, Tajikistan USA Southwest, 2019 Dovrefjell, Norway 2019 Mosor and Biokovo Mountains, Croatia 2019 Rini Mountain, Yunnan, China 2018 Kyrgyzstan 2018 Birds of the Tien Shan Chartreuse, France 2018 High Tatras, Slovakia 2018 Mishmi Hills, India 2017 Mishmi Hills Birds Slovenia + Risnjak NP 2017 Mandra Edera, Sardinia 2017 India (North-east) and Bhutan 2016 Corsica, France 2016 Ladakh, India 2015 Abruzzo National Park, Italy 2015 Qinling Mountains, China 2010 Novosibirsk, Russia 2009 St. Lucia Lake, South Africa 1998 Ralfs Buch zu Bär, Luchs und Wolf Fauna von Endenburg Mit sieben Falken unter einem Dach Naturschutz im Bioverlag 1000 Kilometer zu Fuß über die Rockies Ralfs' Wildlife and Wild Places © 2021 Ralfs' Wildlife and Wild Places. No, I haven’t been there. But during my trip to Tajikistan I had the chance to look across the border every day, got an impression how life is over there and even saw some animals. I also put some useful information together. For most people it is the forbidden country. But actually it is not. You can already travel to Afghanistan (see below) and the ongoing peace talks nurture the hope that one day the whole country will open up again. For biologists and mammal watchers it should be a very interesting place. Some taxa are near-endemic, shared only with one or few neighbours like for example Pakistan. Some of these are Tajik Markhor (Capra falconeri heptneri), Straight-horned Markhor (C. f. megaceros), Kashmir Markhor (C. f. cashmiriensis) and Afghan Urial (Ovis vignei cycloceros). Some populations have never been studied thoroughly at all. According to Zalmai Moheb (University of Massachusetts), to whom I talked last year, the Hindu Kush Mountain Range in Wakhan National Park remains one of the least biologically explored areas in Afghanistan. For example the subspecies status for Siberian Ibex (Capra sibirica) and Urial (Ovis vignei) has not even been specified yet. During my staying in Tajikistan we had many opportunities to look across the border, get an impression of the life standard over there and also see some animals. The landscape on the Afghan side of the Panj Valley An Afghan of the Darwaz region in traditional clothes While the road on the Tajik side of the Panj Valley is part of the new silk road, the road on the Afghan side is not even paved. Villagers dig up the same road that has been buried by an avalanche further north. Donkey caravans going up … … and down the Panj Valley are still common. Living off the land must be very hard. This pair of oxen pull a wooden plough. Girls getting water in canisters from the Panj River One day we hear constant rock fall. Then we discover these men high up on a cliff. They were chopping wood on the plateau above and then throwing down the pieces. 500 metres below they could then collect the shredded wood. Below that cliff two boys collect branches, which they eventually pack on a donkey … poor donkey. A second donkey brings them home … One of our Tajik guides discovers an Ibex on the Afghan side. Siberian Ibex It was said that these tracks were made by a Brown Bear. For my taste the single tracks are too much in line to originate from a bear. But bears were definitely around on the Tajik side. Our Tajik guides confirm that they see Ibex, Markhor and Brown Bear on the Afghan side of the Panj Valley once in a while – although in lower numbers compared to the Tajik side. The reason could be that local people hunt for subsistence and that there is no community-based wildlife management in place like in Tajikistan. Travelling in Afghanistan If you wanted to explore Afghanistan you could do that in the so called Wakhan Corridor, a panhandle shaped strip of land in the extreme north eastern part of Afghanistan. This is where the Pamirs meet the Hindu Kush. It’s a legendary place that saw famous explorers such as Marco Polo and Sven Hedin travel through. It’s also where the fringes of the Russian and British empires collided in the 19th century and instigated a quest for influence in Central Asia. During the peak of this secret, geo-political chess game known as the Great Game the Wakhan Corridor served as a buffer zone to avoid military escalation between the two super powers. Jan Bakker and Christine Oriol write in their book „Trekking in Tajikistan“ about the Wakhan Corridor: „Nowadays this sparsely populated high-altitude mountain wilderness is a true paradise for trekkers who seek a genuine mountain adventure.“ A trek they have worked out starts and finishes at Sarhad-e-Broghil and takes you all the way to Chaqmatin Lake (total distance: 177 km/10 days). The trail takes you over several very high mountain passes (highest point: 4905 m – Shpodkis Uween Pass). „The people of the Wakhan Corridor are incredibly generous and welcoming. This is the other Afghanistan!“ Vladimir Dinets mentions in his report the following mammal species for the Wakhan Corridor: Huge numbers of Long-tailed Marmots, lots of Large-eared Pikas on talus slopes, and a Pallas’ Cat in the vicinity of Sast. He writes that the part of the valley near the Chinese border is completely deserted and has herds of Marco Polo Sheep, Blue Sheep, Siberian Ibex, Snow Leopards, Wolves and Brown Bears. Afghan biologist Zalmai Moheb wrote me (2020-04-17) that he can not confirm the presence of Pallas‘ Cat and Blue Sheep. You can apply for an Afghan tourist visa in advance. The embassies in London, The Hague, Dubai, Vienna and Washington DC are known to grant visas but in most cases you have to apply in person. However the easiest way to gain Afghan visas is to use the Afghan consulate in Khorog, Tajikistan, which can issue the necessary visa on the same or next day. It is also arguably better for safety, as the consular staff are acutely aware of the current security situation over their border and will not issue visas to cross if there is any increased risk. – Thanks to Marley Burns from Silk Road Adventures, who provided this info. To enter the Wakhan Corridor you don’t come from the South. Overland travel from and to Kabul is said to be still „highly dangerous and should not be contemplated“. Instead you enter the Wakhan Corridor via the Tajik town of Ishkashim. However also Ishkashim is not really the place, where you want to spend much time. The German “Auswärtiges Amt” (Bureau of Foreign Affairs) writes (2020-04-22): „Travel to the Tajik border district of Ishkashim is strongly discouraged.“ Unfortunately this is the place, where you get your other permits to be allowed to travel in the Wakhan Corrdor. It is recommended to get these done by a local tour operator. Finding a reliable trekking guide who speaks English to accompany you in the Wakhan Corridor is difficult, according to „Trekking in Takikistan“: „Malang Darya is a central figure in organising trekking expeditions in the Wakhan. He speaks English well and has more than 10 years of experience arranging trips for tourists in this part of the world. Contact him well in advance to reserve a trekking guide and a cook as quality trekking staff are scarce. Note that it may take a while to get an answer back as internet in the Wakhan is unreliable. For more details, check www.wakhan-adventure.com. He can be reached by phone on +93 79 476 6067 (Afghanistan) or +992 93 929 7661 (Tajikistan). Another reliable English speaking guide is Safi Usmani, +93 79 899 9062. An english-speaking guide costs US$50/day, a cook US$30/day and pack animals around 1000 Afghani (US$15-20).“ Trekking route through the Wakhan Corridor and how to get there: First you cross the border from Tajikistan to Afghanistan near Ishkashim (to the very left). From there you hire a car to Sarhad-e-Broghil (apparently fixed price: US$ 450). Normally this stretch of the journey should take 8-10 hours, but the road is prone to flooding and you might end up walking part of the route. The actual trek leads you from Sarhad to Chaqmaqtin Lake (red dots) and back on a partially different route. Note that all mountain passes in the Wakhan Corridor that cross into a neighbouring country are strictly off-limits. You will find much more detailed information in „Trekking in Tajikistan“. Bakker, Jan and Oriol, Christine, 2018: Trekking in Tajikistan – the northern ranges, Pamirs and Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor. Cicerone. in Afghanistan, 2020, Allgemein, Darwaz, Tajikistan 2020, Travel / Reise Afghanistan Mammal watching Afghanistan Wakhan Corridor	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2763
__label__cc	0.744411	0.255589	INSIDER'S PICK: 2014 ERIC TEXIER COTES DU RHONE ST JULIEN EN ST AUBIN $23.99 The name Eric Texier has been an important name in the world of wine making for about two decades now, even if you have never heard of him. Eric jumped into the industry without owning any vineyards or having any familial connections, choosing to lease and source vineyards over the cost of buying parcels. His strict traditional methods applied to his vineyards and wine making earned a reputation that flew in the face of the trends of the time, which either brought great praise or scorn depending on where you fell on the flavor scale. Very polarizing, but the wines have encouraged similar risks being taken in many other parts of the world, and the leasing and pursuit of forgotten parcels of vines has become the mantra for a new wave of Californian wine labels that have helped breathe new life into the industry. One of the more controversial elements of the Texier methods- primarily Biodynamic, with his own emphasis on certain parts more than others-is the desire to use little to no sulfur. While it can affect the stability of the wine once bottled (creating consistency issues from bottle to bottle, especially when not stored well), there is no doubt that it allows the wine to have a very singular flavor. The vineyard for this Cotes du Rhone sits in the 10-15 mile void between the southern end of the Northern Rhone and the northern end of the Southern Rhone. Taking more inspiration from the Northern Rhone on this, the wine is 100% Syrah and drinks with the savoriness and high toned fruit expression of a fine St Joseph or Cornas. Deep in color, the aromatics are surprisingly elegant and perfumed with lots of violets and red skinned fruits, almost hinting at citrus. The use of whole clusters gives the palate an almost Burgundian combination of silky tannins and earthy dryness. a very traditional texture that shows less of the sappy, extracted fruit and more earthy tones. The real ride comes as the wine sits open for an extended period of time, and the red fruits start to emerge and bring a constantly changing array of blue and black fruits into the picture. Patience is necessary for this wine, either over the course of an evening or in a decently controlled storage space, but fans of the style will be heroically rewarded.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2764
__label__cc	0.567793	0.432207	January 14, 2021 by Guest Blogger 1 Comment No matter who the president, prime minister, or sovereign head of state is, one individual rules the online world – Mark Zuckerberg. The founder and owner of Facebook, and now Instagram, recently released new content rules for his virtual empire. Instagram’s new terms of service, effective December 20th, crackdown even more harshly on Instagram content, listing “suggestive elements”, “regional sexualized slang”, and “contextually specific or commonly sexual emojis” as terms of violation. While the social media site is already notorious for punishing users (through means of taking away accounts, shadow banning them, removing followers) at their seemingly random will, this new set of rules almost explicitly targets sex workers who use the app for marketing purposes. The pandemic has undoubtedly been a catalyst for the explosion of OnlyFans, a platform where creators can post nude or sexually explicit photos and videos for paid subscribers. Unfortunately, many have lost their jobs due to coronavirus, and the need for supplemental earning is higher than ever. Research has shown that women, especially women of color, have faced the brunt of the emotional and economic burden caused by the pandemic. This creates an environment ripe with possibilities for exploring sex work as a means of income. The accessibility of OnlyFans as a platform for creators to sell content is undeniable. One of the site’s most unique aspects is that they have a team of lawyers who ensure the content that creators post is not leaked or distributed for free. This means that the exploitation factor is very low for creators- their content can only be consumed by paid subscribers. Yet, this means that creators have to turn elsewhere to promote their OnlyFans profile and must rely on other social media networks – TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter – to gain a following in hopes that ‘fans’ will eventually purchase a subscription. Of course, these creators are not posting the kind of explicit content they would on OnlyFans; Instagram will ban accounts for even putting the link to their OnlyFans profile on an Instagram post or bio, never mind a sexual video clip. Unless you’re an existing celebrity, self-promotion on social media is the lifeblood of online sex work. Instagram already makes it difficult to work around their existing rules, and these terms will only make it harder, critically draining the livelihoods of thousands of sex workers, who are majority women. Instagram doesn’t only discriminate against sex workers. In fact, the site has had a long and storied history of targeting female, black, queer, and plus-sized influencers. Instagram’s existing ‘algorithm bias’5, a euphemism for programmed discrimination, will undoubtedly exacerbate the penalization of femme creators, specifically black creators under the new rules. There is evidence that this algorithm bias is already working swiftly without Instagram’s harsher rules; in August, a photo of plus-sized black woman Nyome Nicholas-Williams was removed from a professional photographer’s account for violations of Instagram’s terms of service. There was nothing ‘sexual’ about the shirtless photo. The photographer who shot the photo responded, saying “I have posted photos of many more women – white women – who had [fewer] clothes on than Nyome that never got reported or deleted…what is it about a plus-size black woman’s body that is so offensive and so sexualized? The Playboy [Instagram] feed is filled with naked white models and it’s all for the male gaze, which is the opposite of what I do, and they’re allowed to stay”5. In a country where black women are already oversexualized in all aspects of life (especially in the media), they will now be forced to accept additional emotional, financial, and social consequences on social media imposed by the czars of Silicon Valley. Two months prior, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri acknowledged the company’s technological bias, admitting that he had been “hearing concerns about whether we suppress black voices and whether our products and policies treat everyone equally”. If Instagram’s previous terms of service can’t decipher between artistic versus sexual content, provocative nudity versus body positivity, and business promotion versus sexual solicitation, there are very low hopes for any kind of progress towards a more equitable future on Instagram after December 20th. It’s truly ironic that a decade ago Facebook started as a website for Zuckerberg to rate his female peers. Now that women across the world have decided to monetize that same misogyny, he’s shutting them out and taking away their platform. Below is the image of Nyome Nicholas-Williams that was repeatedly taken down from photographer Alexa Cameron’s Instagram account. By Laura Goodfield (Laura Goodfield, a member of “Generation Z”, seeks to make sense of the increasingly virtual world in which she was born into. She is specifically interested in how patriarchal and capitalist structures persist on social media platforms. ) (Photo Credit: The Guardian / Alexandra Cameron) January 10, 2021 by Guest Blogger Leave a Comment The Peel Region is in southern Ontario, Canada. In September 2016, officers responded to a 911 called at a Peel primary school. The `emergency’ was a six-year-old Black girl whose behavior `caused alarm.’ This was the fourth time the police had responded to an emergency call concerning this girl’s behavior. At the time, the girl weighed 48 pounds. Police took the girl, handcuffed and shackled her and, having shackled her wrists and ankles, lay her on her stomach, in full view of everyone, for a little under a half hour. This week it was reported that the Human Rights Tribunal had decided that race, and more specifically anti-Black racism, was a factor, that the girl, known as J.K.B., “suffered implicit harm in experiencing anti-Black racism at a very tender age”. The Tribunal awarded J.K.B. $35,000, $30,000 in damages, $5,000 in counseling costs. The Peel police said there is room for improvement. J.K.B.’s mother, known as J.B., said, “I can now focus on what lies ahead, which is making my daughter whole.” Who else will focus on making Black daughters, in Canada, in the United States, whole? Activists and allies wish the damages had been more, wish the police anti-racist training were better, wish the actions were more sustained and definitive, and with good reason. At the same time, why do schools call police to address student behavior, and especially in primary school? Where are the counselors? Where are the alternative public services? How many times must we `discover’ that the police are not trained to address emotional and psychological situations, much less crises? A girl is having a bad day, a terrible day. Why would adults call in people with guns and handcuffs to address that girl? And if that girl is Black, in an area where Black people constitute less than 10 percent of the population, how would adults, adult educators, not understand that calling the police on J.K.B. was far beyond the last thing they should have done. That phone call should never have occurred. The possibility of that phone call should never have been imaginable. J.K.B’s story was reported January 7. The next day, January 8, it was reported that the police, in Aurora, Colorado, who drew their guns on a Black family they `thought’ was driving a stolen car, the two White officers who drew their guns on the family, who took the four children and handcuffed them and laid them on the ground, would not face prosecution. I can now focus on what lies ahead, which is making my daughter whole. Who else will focus on making Black daughters whole? By Dan Moshenberg (Photo credit: Toronto Star) Filed Under: General Tagged With: Black girl students, Canada, Dan Moshenberg, Haunts January 7, 2021 by Guest Blogger Leave a Comment Do NOT be mistaken. In the shadow of yesterday’s violence and siege of the United States Capitol, many of us are NOT calling for additional police. We were not yesterday, and are NOT today, wishing or hoping there had been more police. We are NOT wishing or hoping police had treated the trump mob with the type of violence they unleash on people who protest racial injustice and social inequity. What many of us want is for law enforcement to NOT be violent with us just like THEY CHOSE not to be violent with yesterday’s majority white, male rioters. And I want to know that law enforcement – including Capitol police – are NOT comprised of the kind of people shown in the photograph below. Yes. He’s posing for a selfie, with a domestic terrorist, who is participating in an attempted coup. #GetOut By Aurora Vasquez Aurora Vasquez is a Washington based attorney and activist. You can find her on Twitter at @SoyYoya Filed Under: General Tagged With: Aurora Vasquez A man with a bachelor’s degree has accredited knowledge while a woman with a doctoral degree merely professes knowledge. At least, that’s what Joseph Epstein and his acolytes would have you believe. In his recent Op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Epstein sets out to reproduce the terms of Enlightenment thought in which a white (and white-passing) man is the prototypical human subject, having reason, with a white woman’s claim to reason as fraudulent: “Any chance you might drop the ‘Dr.’ before your name? ‘Dr. Jill Biden’ sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic.” That he casually mentions being referred to as ‘Dr. Epstein’ in academia and by scientists recalls how men, at various stages of knowing and accomplishment, are legible as experts in the eyes of the patriarchy. Despite my belief that experience can have equal intrinsic value to formal education – that someone with a bachelor’s degree and experience can be just as knowledgeable and impactful as someone with a doctorate – patriarchal norms are responsible for gender asymmetries that hail men as having legitimate knowledge while vilifying women’s knowledge as fraudulent. Imani Perry’s groundbreaking work in Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation urges us to reconceptualize patriarchy in order to uncover how it operates as a system that produces, structures, and stratifies categories of non-personhood. White women are human-adjacent, caricatures of white men whose doctoral prefixes denote real knowledge. Affixing ‘Dr.’ to a woman’s name is an affront to the disciplinary arm of patriarchy, misogyny, which is levied by folks like Epstein to reinstate men’s predominance as legitimate knowers. Some have narrowly interpreted this piece as emerging from a disgruntled senior with antiquated views on “Dr.” being the preserve of the medically trained. I’m more inclined to read this drivel as that which replicates the grammar of misogyny in the service of patriarchy, a practice that is very much à la mode. Distinguishing between misogyny and sexism, Kate Manne, author of Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny says, “sexism is taken to be the branch of patriarchal ideology that justifies and rationalizes a patriarchal social order, while misogyny is the system that polices and enforces its governing norms and expectations.” In his op-ed, Mr. Epstein addresses Dr. Jill Biden in the second person, and employs the language of misogyny in his policing of her title and disavowal of her knowledge. For Epstein, Dr. Jill Biden disappears as a woman through a title that puts distance between her as a person and her relationship to a man…and not just any man, the man: President Elect Joe Biden. He will become, like many before him, the ultimate symbol and agent of patriarchal dominance. Knowing this, Mr. Epstein attempts to ‘rescue’ and foreground her womanhood by collapsing and tethering her identity to her husband. She is not Dr. Biden, she is Mrs. Biden. And in order to close the distance between himself and this doctoral holding woman, he infantilizes her by referring to her as “kiddo” and personalizes his address by calling her “Jill.” It is a disgusting move that reeks of condescension. A ‘watch-me-put-you in-your-place kiddo’ kind of move. Using the language of fraudulence becomes a way of policing womanhood. A woman who is threatening to the patriarchy proudly goes by Dr. so and so. Another mitigates patriarchal anxiety by elevating her position as ‘wife’ and hiding the credentials that make being a wife seem secondary. What makes Epstein’s comments even more significant is that Dr. Jill Biden will soon be ascending to one of the most hallowed sites of femininity in the world: the First Lady. It is imperative for many that it remains a site that fixes women’s subordinate status to men in every respect. What would it mean for the wife of a president to demand that she be seen primarily through the lens of her own knowledge and worldmaking rather than through her relation to her husband? Would a First Lady who didn’t take her husband’s last name have committed an even more egregious sin? It is somewhat comforting to see the outpouring of support for Dr. Biden, with many academic women on twitter deciding to go by ‘Dr.’ in their Twitter bios in solidarity. One such person tweeted: “Added ‘Dr’ to my profile, wearing my doctorate with pride. So #JosephEpstein and other bitter misogynists can crawl back to the 1930s. Doctorates are not easy, @DrBidenshould be proud of her achievements. Being First Lady doesn’t and should not mean reducing who you are! #PhDs”. Another shared: “Misogyny is when a man calls a woman with a doctorate ‘kiddo’; Misogyny is when the editor of @WSJ thinks a sexist attack is a good piece of journalism. Misogyny is following sexist tropes of the 50s. #DrJillBiden #DrBiden.” I pause, however, at the implication that Epstein’s misogyny is anachronistic. Misogyny, defined by Kate Manne as “a property of social environments in which girls and women are prone to face hostility because of the enforcement and policing of patriarchal norms and expectations,” is mobilized by the gendered norms and expectations of today. His piece cannot be reduced to fringe speak that reflects a bygone era. Rather, it is distinctive of a 21st century social order where women have yet to be elected to the world’s highest political office. People like Mr. Epstein enact the violence of misogyny by policing how women take up space in a world made for men. Dr. Jill Biden ain’t it, he intones sagely. Sit down, be woman. And if you thought misogyny was the extent of Joseph Epstein’s appeal, try his misogynoir: “Political correctness has put paid to any true honor an honorary doctorate may once have possessed. If you are ever looking for a simile to denote rarity, try ‘rarer than a contemporary university honorary-degree list not containing an African-American woman.’” In stratifying categories of non-personhood, patriarchy has determined that Black women be relegated to the nadir. Honorary degrees, like white women with doctoral degrees, are already suspect, but disproportionately awarding them to African-American women, the most fraudulent kind of woman imaginable, is all the evidence you need of their worthlessness. By Sarah-Anne Gresham Sarah-Anne Gresham is an Antiguan Ph.D. student in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University (Image Credit: Mashable / Vicky Leta) Filed Under: General Tagged With: Sarah-Anne Gresham December 31, 2020 by Guest Blogger 6 Comments “How do we overcome war and poverty only to drown in your sea?” Jehan Bseiso For the last few years, Europe (including the United Kingdom), the United States, and Australia – the imperial ‘we’ – turned bodies of water, such as the Mediterranean, into massive graveyards. This year, dissatisfied with having poisoned the Mediterranean, Europe extended the Mediterranean into the Atlantic Ocean, to the Canary Islands. According to Helena Maleno and her organization, Caminando Fronteras, this year 2170 people died, drowned, trying to reach Spain. The overwhelming majority of those who drowned died on their way to the Canary Islands. 1851 people died in 45 shipwrecks. In 2019, 893 people died trying to reach Spain. A 200% increase in African deaths is considered a success in Fortress Europe, having `secured’ the Mediterranean by increasing military patrols and forcefully decreasing rescue ships. As of two days ago, 1,156 deaths were recorded this year in the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean Sea the deadliest migration route and, extending now to the Canary Islands, the largest cemetery ever built. None of this is new or unexpected. December 30, 2016: “This year, all that is human drowned in the sea, all that is holy has been profaned, and we are at last compelled to face with sober senses our real conditions of life, and our relations with our kind. In 2016, at least 5000 migrants drowned in the Mediterranean. Last Friday, two boats capsized, and `about 100 people are missing and feared dead.’ Who fears them dead? No State and no amalgam of nation-States fears them dead. Rather, in this the deadliest year ever for migrants trying to reach Europe, the year’s epitaph is simple: `2016: The year the world stopped caring about refugees’. We are the world, and we turned the sea into a graveyard. This year, the women, child, man of the year lies on the bottom of the Mediterranean, and we do not know their names, and we do not much care. If we did, they would be alive today. So here is a poem for the unknown refugees who lie in the cemetery that we have made of the Mediterranean.” December 31, 2017: “The year ends with the surface of the Mediterranean concealing thousands of humans lost, sinking into the sea bottom as it reveals the sinking of our own collective humanity. Last year, over 5000 women, children and men drowned in the Mediterranean. The year before close to 4000, and the year before that, a little over 3000. This year, the reported death toll hovers just over 3000. That “success” is largely due to draconian measures that have sent refugees back to slave markets and brutal prisons in Libya and life-in-death in Morocco. Spain has replaced Italy as the preferred port of entry for those seeking a life, be they called migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers. Such is today’s morbid mathematics that over 3000 innocents drowned in one body of water in one year is touted as `success’.” December 31. 2019: “Once again, the year ends with the surface of the Mediterranean concealing thousands of humans lost. According to the International Organization of Migration, 1246 people – women, children, men – drowned in the Mediterranean while trying flee certain death. In certain circles, this number, 1246, is being celebrated as a mark of success. The numbers of dead have declined. Fortress Europe, like Fortress Australia and Fortress USA, is working. This is the mathematics of success in our contemporary world. 2019: 1246 dead: “the fifth straight year of at least 1,000 deaths on the Mediterranean”. 2018: 2299 dead. 2017: 3139 dead. 2016: 5143 dead. 2015: 4054 dead. 2014: 3283 dead. From 2014 to today, 19,164 souls – women, children, men – thrown into the deep waters of unmourning. No language, no marking of names, no taking of place. No singing. Only the silence of `success’. December 31, 2020. A country’s President asks his constituents, his brothers and sisters, to light a candle tonight, to remember and honor those whom we have lost, whom we remember and cherish. There are no candles able to offer light at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, there is no light on the Atlantic Ocean’s floor. Here is a poem, a prayer, for the failure and collapse of the fortresses that turn oceans and seas into graveyards, for the human that is not yet drowned … No Search No Rescue By Jehan Bseiso To the families and lovers at the bottom of the sea, trying to reach Europe. Misrata, Libya Habeebi just take the boat. In front of you : Bahr. Behind you : Harb. And the border, closed. Your Sea, Mare,Bahr. Our war, our Harb. Augusta, Italy Where is the interpreter? This is my family. Baba, mama, baby all washed up on the shore. This is 28 shoeless survivors and thousands of bodies. Bodies Syrian, Bodies Somali, Bodies Afghan, Bodies Ethiopian, Bodies Eritrean. Bodies Palestinian. Alexandria, Egypt Habeebi, just take the boat. Behind you Aleppo and Asmara, barrel bombs and Kalashnikovs. In front of you a little bit of hope. Maps on our backs. Long way from home. (“No Search, No Rescue”, by Jehan Bseiso appeared here) (Photo Credit: Electronic Intifada /Oren Ziv/Active Stills)” Filed Under: General Tagged With: Caminando Fronteras, Dan Moshenberg, Haunts, Helena Maleno Garzón, Jehan Bseiso, Mediterranean When Doling Out the Vaccine, Do Not Forget Domestic Workers December 29, 2020 by Guest Blogger Leave a Comment Maria Del Carmen, a housekeeper in Philadelphia As the Covid-19 vaccine makes its way across America, the biggest question is, “when can I get it?” States must make difficult choices when deciding who can receive the limited amounts of vaccines currently available. As the rollout marches on, domestic workers must be one of the first groups to get the vaccine. The news from today has been heartening. In Kansas, one of the first five employees to be vaccinated at St. Francis hospital was a housekeeper in the COVID-19 unit. In Massachusetts, the first employee in the VA Bedford Healthcare system to get the vaccine was a housekeeper in environmental management services. It is good to see that domestic workers are being recognized as a priority for the vaccine in institutional settings. Domestic workers have been hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of the first week of April 2020, 72% of domestic workers in the US reported losing all of their clients. Domestic workers are desperate for work and, since they are excluded from most labor protections, are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. The CDC recommends that workers in essential and critical industries be prioritized for the vaccine when supply is limited. This leaves interpretation up to individual states, and they must recognize domestic workers as essential workers. While domestic workers like nannies may not be explicitly mentioned as essential workers, a feminist understanding of production underscores how crucial they are. Domestic labor is the cog that keeps the machine called society running. While some may not recognize it, domestic works is a multi-million dollar industry that goes mostly ignored. This industry is often seen as unworthy because, as explained by Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein in Caring for America, “Black, immigrant, and poor white women long have undertaken these jobs; indeed men who engage in them usually earn less than other men, experiencing the costs of racialized feminization.” They also cite “the way the state chooses to structure it” as another reason for the lack of respect given to care work. Nannies and housekeepers are not considered essential workers because the state undervalues domestic labor. Since the state plays a large role in devaluing care work, active steps such as ascribing care workers a higher priority for the COVID-19 vaccine will prevent domestic workers from falling through the cracks. If domestic workers are vaccinated on the same schedule as everyone else, how can we expect any sort of economic recovery? It will be impossible to get people back into their offices without adequate childcare. This will also prevent care shortages if the number of vaccinated people in other industries outpaces vaccinated care workers. People will likely start requesting care workers be vaccinated before coming into people’s homes. If the demand for domestic workers outpaces the vaccinations, many workers could be pressured into taking jobs in an unsafe environment. This issue speaks to our country’s need for a new understanding of domestic labor. While it is excellent to see housekeepers included in these initial vaccinations, we mustn’t forget about domestic workers as the vaccination rollout continues. By Katy Ronkin (Photo Credit: The New York Times / Hannah Yoon) Filed Under: General Tagged With: Katy Ronkin Farmers’ Protest in India Is An Intersectional Feminist Issue It is important for the Indian farmers’ protest movement currently unfolding in New Delhi, India, to be seen as intersectional feminist issue. Farmers from the Punjab are protesting the latest laws of the Indian government designed to now hand over to the billionaires—who already hold this poor country’s wealth since the so-called liberalization of the 1990s.The farmers are calling attention to the government’s colonizing of the agrarian sector. Among networks covering news about the farmers’ protest in New Delhi, we see only male farmers and male protesters and male speakers. Where are the women, especially since the state of Punjab is rife with violence against women, a warped sex ratio, and the wide economic gap between the genders? The reality is that women farmers all over India are underrepresented in the news. They do the same work as men and use machines that are easier for men to use than for women. In the spate of suicides among farmers that we have seen in the past decade, women farmers are part of this statistic, but did not make the news. According to Surbhi, “out of total 8007 farmers suicide in 2014, 441 were female farmers.” Additionally, the women are affected by the farmers who commit suicide, since now they become the sole supporters of their families and receive no welfare form the government. Undervalued, women farmers are the building blocks of the country’s economy. What is the reality on the ground during the current farmers’ protest in New Delhi? Women from across villages and towns in Punjab have traveled to Delhi to speak. When a women protests, she is speaking for her whole family and for her whole village of farmers. Women protestors are enlightening the public about the bias against female farmers who are called agricultural laborers and are paid less and given poorer implements and are exposed to toxic chemicals. In fact, the women farmers work hard for long hours and do the same kinds of work as their male counterparts, from sowing and harvesting, to threshing and winnowing. The farmers are protesting not just the lack of control over the prices of their products but the corporate pressure to use GMO seeds. In a recent Twitter post, Vandana Shiva states, “In 1984 Punjab farmers were protesting against the #GreenRevolution model saying if you cannot choose what you grow or how you will grow it , these are conditions of slavery . They have already paid a very high price with debt , suicides & a #CancerTrain”. Shiva’s ecological activism is based on understanding that the exploitation of the earth and our ecology is both intersectional and transnational. She traces back the exploitation of the most vulnerable, earth, women, and the poor to colonialism and capitalism. In the same Twitter feed, Shiva argues, “No one was dying of famine in India in 1965 when the World Bank & US govt imposed the #GreenRevolution on Punjab to sell left over war chemicals. Chemical Monocultures of dwarf rice & wheat forced on farmers use 10 times more water.” Here is an example of economic colonialism at play, which in another 60 years has not subsided but increased in power. As Shiva and other feminist activists see, a stitching together of agricultural activism across borders can impact governments subservient to corporate interests. In the current farmers’ protest, Sikh women in the U.S., Canada, Amsterdam, are taking to the streets, bringing attention to their farming families spread over the diaspora. As Ramanpreet Kaur, one of the Sikh activists in Queens, New York says, “Even if you don’t feel a personal connection to India or the farmers out there like many of us do, as a human being who lives on earth you should be concerned about exploitation of the people who feed you everyday.” Women activists who are part of the long arc of farmer activism in Indian history are not only protesting the Indian state with its development model but also patriarchy and capitalism. Currently organizations such as Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch (MAKAAM) are on the ground offering the strong voices of women farmers. In other parts of India, there are grassroots movements such as Fatima Burnad’s Society for Rural Education and Development (SRED), which lists support of women farmers as part of the intersectional model. SRED challenges the oppression of Dalit and women laborers. These movements are intersectional and bring religious, caste, communal, and gender perspectives into the fight for farmers’ rights. What is interesting about the Sikh farmers is that Sikhism as a religion is critical of caste discrimination and religious divisions. Men and women were equally active during partition. They are admired for their warrior spirit and their generosity. At the height of the protest, the farmers offered langaar, or food donation, to all protesters—a sign of their good will despite the draconian measures they are battling. The farmers are careful not to let the news media misconstrue their protest into a religious protest or the 1980s disastrous “Khalistan” protest. They do not want to be labeled anti-national. In fact, the stories about women farmers can become the linchpin for any success that can be seen in this latest farmers’ protest movement. In addition, feminist protests across the globe can show solidarity with the farmers and increase pressure on the Indian government and point to the danger to food, earth, and human and animal health. Pramila Venkateswaran (Photo Credit: Reuters / Anushree Fadnavis) Filed Under: General Tagged With: Farmers' Protest, India, Pramila Venkateswaran Neither eviction wave nor tsunami, what’s coming is ethnic cleansing, a pogrom December 20, 2020 by Guest Blogger 20 Comments For the past few months, the United States, at all levels, has and has not faced the reality of impending mass evictions. The Center for Disease Control, or CDC, issued an eviction moratorium, which runs out December 31. Numerous states, counties, and cities have issued their own eviction moratoria. In almost each case, the moratorium was riddled with loopholes and way too short-term. None of the moratoria cancelled debt or rent, although some cancelled late fees. Thus, once the moratorium expires, families and individuals will be faced with months of piling debt. Along with debt, hunger has intensified and expanded. Many are forced to decide between food and shelter. Meanwhile, with the pandemic surging, with lockdowns proliferating across the country, evictions are not only ongoing but, in some parts of the country, spiking, despite the pretense of a moratorium. Why? What is the investment in evictions? When staying at home means staying alive, what `inspires’ landlords and police or sheriffs to throw fellow human beings into the cold? What is our investment in evictions that we let them go on? Eviction haunts the United States. Why do we take eviction for granted? For the past few months, housing activists and advocates as well as the media have warned that mass evictions are on the way, to no avail. Every day brings another spate of heartbreaking stories of people who did what they were supposed to do and are facing eviction or have been evicted. These stories are generally under headlines that invoke eviction waves or, more emphatically, eviction tsunamis. Again, to little or no avail. “It’s terrible and no one cares.” The impending mass eviction is not a wave, nor is it a tsunami. It’s ethnic cleansing, it’s a pogrom. Various reports have demonstrated that mass evictions will do exactly what evictions have done for decades, target Black and Latinx households, communities, and neighborhoods. The central focus of this assault is, and historically has been, Black women. A recent study of racial and gender disparities among evicted people in the United States found “Black renters received a disproportionate share of eviction filings and experienced the highest rates of eviction filing and eviction judgment. Black and Latinx female renters faced higher eviction rates than their male counterparts. Black and Latinx renters were also more likely to be serially filed against for eviction at the same address.”. This was based on evictions between 2012 and 2016. As eviction scholar Matthew Desmond noted, in a research article published in 2012, “In poor black neighborhoods, eviction is to women what incarceration is to men: a typical but severely consequential occurrence contributing to the reproduction of urban poverty.” And this year, during the pandemic? “During the pandemic, the rate of evictions in majority Black and Latino neighborhoods has been twice that of mostly white neighborhoods, even as COVID-19 affects minorities disproportionately.” According to last week’s Government Census Household Pulse Survey, among Black and Latinx households, around 40% say they have little to no confidence they’ll be able to meet next month’s rent payment. Most are already heavily in debt to both credit cards and family members. Evictions today increase the numbers of Covid deaths, immediately, and will hobble Black and Latinx for years to come. Of the nearly 40 million people targeted for eviction, “women are both disproportionately likely to be evicted and disproportionately hit by the current economic downturn.” Here’s what disproportionality looked like in October: 15% of Asian, non-Hispanic women were behind on rent; 19% of Latinas and 25% of Black, non-Hispanic women couldn’t pay rent. A tsunami is “a brief series of long, high undulations on the surface of the sea caused by an earthquake or similar underwater disturbance. These travel at great speed and often with sufficient force to inundate the land.” A pogrom is “an organized massacre aimed at the destruction or annihilation of a body or class of people … an organized, officially tolerated, attack on any community or group.” The United States is not facing an eviction tsunami, it is creating an eviction pogrom. Eviction is not a natural force crashing on our built environment; eviction is an officially tolerated, organized attack on a community, with the ultimate purpose of extermination. Call it a pogrom. (By Dan Moshenberg) (Photo credit: The New York Times / Sally Ryan) Filed Under: General Tagged With: Dan Moshenberg, evictions, Haunts, mass eviction, pogrom Cruelty has a Human Heart Sometimes the world is awash with spectacular cruelty. England races to deport asylum seekers ahead of Brexit. The President of the United States races to execute people before he leaves the White House. In this world of Big Men, Big Women making big decisions, what is the life of an eleven-year-old girl in Birmingham, England? Apparently, for the Birmingham City Council, very little, if that much. Here’s the story. It’s a small story. An 11-year-old girl, born in the United Kingdom, lost her mother to a terminal illness. The girl’s father was denied permission to enter the United Kingdom. When the mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness, she asked the girl’s father to assume responsibility for the girl. He refused. When the mother died, family friends took her in. They acted as foster parents. They also applied to the Council for help, specifically a social worker, and financial support. The Council, deciding that the arrangement was “private”, denied the application and moved to start proceedings to have the girl deported. This week, the Ombudsman ruled in the girl’s favor, noting, “As a result of the council’s actions, [the girl] spent over two years in a placement that was legally insecure. She was not recognised as a ‘looked after’ child and therefore missed out on the additional support and protections that come with this. “She lost contact with her only remaining relatives and was at risk of being deported due to her fragile immigration status. She lost significant sums from the trust fund provided by her mother. Despite her vulnerabilities and the significant upheaval in her life following her mother’s death, her needs remained unassessed and potentially unmet.” The Birmingham City Council has agreed to pay the girl £1,000 for distress caused; £1,000 to the family friends, along with the support money they should have received; and money to cover the cost of the girl’s citizenship application, when that day arrives. The story ends: “A spokesman for Birmingham Children’s Trust, which is in charge of caring for looked-after children for the council, said it accepted the ombudsman’s findings and apologised to both the complainant and the girl.” We don’t know if the complainant and the girl accepted the apology. They shouldn’t. We shouldn’t either. In what world does it make sense to deport an 11-year-old girl child, whose mother has just died, whose father has rejected her? Ours. We must address the cruelty. The world is awash with the tears of those who suffer cruelty, spectacular cruelty, intimate cruelty. Cruelty. Cruelty has a Human Heart. (Image Credit: Martin Kammler) Filed Under: General Tagged With: cruelty, Dan Moshenberg, Haunts Say it out loud December 9, 2020 by Guest Blogger Leave a Comment (Gender-Based-Violence) Irked is he at the acronym saying it hides the word violence Connected to jazz is Nigel Vermaas on evening Bush Radio the 16 Days Campaign at its end Gender-Based-Violence don’t hide it don’t let it hide Behind an acronym Behind a committee Behind a veil a cloak Behind a pandemic Woman got a right to be follows the little opinion a Caiphus Semenya song he finds fitting He said it out loud Bush Radio’s Nigel Vermaas puts his foot down on evening community radio. By David Kapp (Photo Credit: Design Indaba) Filed Under: General Tagged With: 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, David Kapp, South Africa Is Preventive Surveillance How We Will Ensure Women’s Safety? No. https://t.co/GhD0DIGTmV via @FeminismInIndia #India 1 minute ago In Western Australia, Aboriginal women go to prison for unpaid fines https://t.co/DcGGBq6HJ6 #FreeHer #Australia @DebKilroy 4 minutes ago Job Loss And Pay Cuts: How Teachers In India Navigated Through The Pandemic https://t.co/iCUQHrZnbM via @FeminismInIndia #India 4 minutes ago Farmers’ Protest in India Is An Intersectional Feminist Issue https://t.co/JxQX7Opux2 #India #FarmersProtests @womenincluded 5 minutes ago A farewell to Ah Kam, and an ode to domestic workers everywhere https://t.co/NSMLQ2LiG3 via @scmpnews #HongKong #domesticworkers 6 minutes ago	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2765
__label__cc	0.72821	0.27179	2014: January We open 2014 with our views on the time to make cuts, why youth investment should be no fad and praise all those who went out carolling... Time to finally make the cuts The re-occurring economic mantra of the political classes is all about how current cutbacks are essential in order to safeguard future prosperity. Making things more efficient and flexible are aims that should be embraced - although care must always be taken about just how quick and deep cuts should be in order to improve overall quality. However, now that the question of national registration has been sorted out, surely the time has come to look at implementing a radical answer to the age old question of the number of bands competing in their various sections throughout the UK. Despite the advent of the First Section in 1992, the reluctance of contest administrators to accept the need for radical change has left us with an outdated system geared towards rewarding the quantity rather than the quality of competitors. Few would argue against the evidence that the current ‘national’ structure is increasingly misrepresentative and inflexible. The problems start at the top: Can anyone honestly say that the UK can boast close to 90 true Championship Section bands? If in doubt, have a listen to them playing ‘St Magnus’ in a few weeks time and then decide. The resultant ‘trickle down’ effect throughout the sections is shown in startling levels of mediocrity, as bands struggle to meet the musical demands of test pieces that in theory they should be well equipped to perform. Competitive banding cannot hope to survive in this way much longer. The need for well thought out cuts in competitive numbers and a radical re-organisation of the sections to accommodate them is paramount. Without it there is no possibility of future prosperity. Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com Why investment in youth is no fad At the height of the first wave of popularity for the National Lottery in the mid to late 1990s, brass bands certainly cashed in on the substantial awards made to support their ‘good causes’. Instruments were flying off the production lines faster than semi quaver runs in top section test pieces as successful applications to set up youth bands by the dozen were paid out. Most centred on fairly straight forward plans to create new youth bands, aided by the recycling of old instruments that would be handed down by senior counterparts. The gravy train lasted a fair old time - but the evidence that it had any lasting effect is questionable. How many youth bands were actually created and how many survive to this day? And how many bands really made claims based on nothing but hope, hot air and a desire to cash in on handouts that had next to no follow up once the money was safely in the bank? Just a quick glance in the banding press of the time reveals a great deal (and the substantial awards) - whilst the current internet information on some of the bands that had the payouts makes for rather disconcerting reading. Where did all those youth bands go? For all our claims to be entitled to government cash - the brass band movement in the UK hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory by the way it previously spent what it got its hands on. And its perhaps explains why it now requires bands to come up with much more concrete, realistic and accountable proposals to funding bodies if they are to get their hands on grant aid, and why those that are successful now have to work so damn hard to justify their awards. In praise of carolling As a means of fund raising for the band coffers, nothing is quite as effective as the age old pastime time of Christmas carolling. The weather may well be cold, wet and miserable, yet as many bands up and down the country (and across the banding world) found out this festive season, that if you put in the time and effort, the general public don’t half dig deep into their pockets. So to all of you who did your bit in support of your band, or for a charity or good cause, then hold your head high (and we saw plenty of pics of players freezing in the cold) and just comfort yourself with the thought that you won’t have to start doing it again for another 11 months. James Garlick BMus (Hons), QTS Conductor, Band Trainer, Adjudicator, Tutor	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2778
__label__wiki	0.54341	0.54341	Woodstock 50 Celebrating Woodstock at 50 Woodstock was more than just a music festival, it was a cultural touchstone that has echoed far beyond its own generation. In the decades since it has come to represent ideals now often overlooked or thought out-of-fashion, a testament to togetherness bonded forever through music. Whatever the... Woodstock 50 Officially Cancelled After months of venue changes, legal battles, financial disagreements, and invalid contracts, Woodstock 50 has finally been cancelled. According to Variety , vendors and stakeholders were notified on Wednesday July 31 st that plans for the 50 th anniversary celebration would not be moving forward... Miley Cyrus and Santana the Latest to Drop out of Woodstock 50 Miley Cyrus , Santana , The Lumineers , and The Raconteurs are the latest to remove themselves from Woodstock 50. The beleaguered festival finally found a home last week , moving on from s everal rejected locations in Upstate New York . The anniversary event is now scheduled to take place at the... Woodstock 50 Music Festival Secures New Venue In Maryland Call it the underdog of music festivals, because according to a report by Bloomberg , Woodstock 50 has secured a new location and is back on track. Possibly. After failing to secure a permit in Vernon, NY, the festival's organizers will be moving the event from upstate New York to the Merriweather... Woodstock 50 Loses Another Location, Possibly the Final Nail for the Festival Woodstock 50 is filled with peace and love, but they can’t find anyone to understand them. The wayward festival has once again lost out on a location, as the planning board of Vernon, NY has denied the application to hold the three day concert at Vernon Downs in August. Vernon is the latest to shut... Woodstock 50 Permit Denied by Another Proposed Site VERNON, NY (AP/1010 WINS) The upstate New York town of Vernon has denied Woodstock 50's application to host the three-day festival at Vernon Downs horse track. There was a lack of planning documents included in the application, which was submitted late, according to Vernon town attorney Vincent... Woodstock 50 Loses Venue and Event Producer, Still Insists Show Is Happening The latest on the ill-fated festival Judge Clears the Way for Woodstock 50 but Funding Still Needed Dozens of major acts still planning to be there Woodstock Co-founder Insists 50th Anniversary Festival is Happening The major investor backed out citing health and safety concerns Update: Has Woodstock 50 Been Canceled? Organizers of the highly anticipated Woodstock 50 are arguing over whether the festival will go on or not. While Woodstock fans geared up to buy their tickets to this year’s 50th anniversary celebration of the music festival, “Billboard” reports that organizers have released a statement saying, “We...	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2779
__label__wiki	0.948846	0.948846	Chinese Org Team Black Has Been Banned By Moon Studio Vignesh Raghuram 13/Oct/2020 01:34 pm Chinese team Team Black has been disqualified from the Moon Studio Mid-Autumn League after investigations following reports of "suspicious gameplay". The organization also added that Team Black will be the first team to officially be banned from Moon Studio tournaments. Moon Studio removed the Chinese organization, Team Black, from the Moon Studio Mid-Autumn League. The decision comes following investigations due to ”suspicious gameplay” against IG.Vitality in the group stages of the tournament. RELATED: VPGame admin caught fixing Asian Dota2 matches Chinese team Team Black Banned By Moon Studio Moon Studio disqualified the team from the tournament and communicated its decision via Twitter. The match in question: Moon Studio stated that the match in question happened in the group stages of the Mid-Autumn League against IG.Vitality earlier today where Team Black lost the series 2-0. Team Black’s roster competing in the Moon Studio Mid-Autumn League is: rpkfan 正道的光 Major Dota 2 Match Fixing Incidents in 2020 Previously, in June 2020, Malaysian team RISE Esports was disqualified from the Huya World E-sports Legendary League after the tournament organizers suspected and eventually concluded that the team was intentionally playing "passively". The team was awarded a technical defeat in all its matches and a permanent ban has been placed on its players for all future Huya World competitions. RELATED: SEA Team Disqualified From $70,000 Chinese Tournament After Match-Fixing Suspicions On 22nd June 2020, American Dota 2 team PlusOne was disqualified from the BTS Pro Series 2: Americas tournament following multiple confirmed instances of match-fixing, according to the tournament organizer Beyond The Summit (BTS). The team was also banned from competing in all future BTS tournaments. RELATED: Match Fixing: NA Team Disqualified From BTS Pro Series 2 Not even DPC tournaments were spared from match-fixing incidents. On May 15, Newbee was blacklisted from Chinese Dota 2 competitions for match-fixing in the StarLadder ImbaTV Dota 2 Minor Season 3 Chinese Qualifiers. Chinese organizations ImbaTV and CDA conducted investigations and banned the Newbee organization and the 5 Dota 2 players who took part in match-fixing. RELATED: Chinese Team Newbee Blacklisted from Chinese Tournaments for Match-fixing In August 2020, Team Black won the Moon Studio Asian League which had a $45,000 USD prize pool. The ongoing Moon Studio Mid-Autumn League is an online league that takes place from October 1st to 28th. 18 teams from China and SEA have been invited to the tournament and will compete for a total prize pool of $55,000. The winner of the tournament will receive $20,000 as prize winnings. Vignesh has been covering the esports industry for nearly 5 years starting with the early days of the DPC. His industry expertise includes experience in Dota 2, CS:GO and Mobile Esports coverage.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2781
__label__cc	0.56934	0.43066	Afrimat continues to ride out tough conditions JSE materials supplier - Afrimat - continued to withstand tough business conditions and deliver growth, with a 10% top line increase for the year to February 2011 generating a 5% rise in profits. The commendable results reflect the benefits of the group's sustained focus on new business development over past years and successful expansion and diversification into high growth regions and sectors. Afrimat racked up another operational milestone during the year with a strategic acquisition instigating a foothold for the group in industrial minerals. Revenue increased to R854 million from R778 million. Headline earnings was up 4,9% boosting headline earnings per share ("HEPS") by 3,9% to 53,3 cents, despite an effective 5,6% reduction as a result of the group's BEE transaction and the impact of new royalty-related mining legislation. Gearing remained very low at 5,2%. The group declared a final dividend for the year of 11,0 cents a share, up 10% on the previous year, taking the total dividend for the year to 17 cents a share (2010: 16 cents). CEO Andries van Heerden says Afrimat's flexible business model is yielding benefits, with the group making significant gains in market share. "Our ability to operate anywhere in the sub-continent is a major competitive advantage. This exceptional geographic flexibility has helped mitigate the impact on the group of the prevailing construction downcycle." The 'Mining & Aggregates' division was once again the group's stellar performer and looking ahead he remains positive of continued growth in volumes, with a number of new large-scale road contracts across the country having replaced current projects coming to an end. Van Heerden attributes Afrimat's new project wins to the New Business Development executives. "Our team enjoys considerable success in sourcing and securing new projects." Although the Western Cape - one of Afrimat's original markets - remains economically hard-hit, van Heerden says he is cautiously optimistic that having hit rock bottom there are now the first signs of improvement in the region's economy. The 'Readymix' and 'Concrete Products' divisions remain under pressure with intense competition eroding margins. In addition van Heerden points to delays in government housing projects which have impacted 'Readymix' specifically. At the end of the year Afrimat entered the industrial minerals market with the acquisition of Glen Douglas Dolomite. Van Heerden says this market offers a promising avenue for growth. The Glen Douglas quarry south of Johannesburg will become the largest in Afrimat's portfolio with an annual output of over one million tonnes. He is confident the acquisition will deliver significant reward for the group once Afrimat's turnaround strategy optimises the mine's efficiencies. He says: "The mine has a strong, loyal client base which will benefit the group in the future." Looking ahead he expects the slowly recovering market to continue on an upward trend. Further, the group's new foothold in industrial minerals is expected to continue bolstering the 'Mining & Aggregates' division which should accordingly remain the dominant segment for the foreseeable future. He is also comfortable with the 'Concrete Products' division's prospects, but is rather more cautious regarding 'Readymix'. He concludes: "Focus will be foremost on increasing volumes and reducing costs in all operations. Above that diversification into high growth markets such as industrial minerals and open cast mining will continue, with an eye at all times on maximising profitability in the ongoing tough conditions. By keeping our noses to the grindstone so far we have succeeded in delivering to the market our promised sustained growth and we intend to continue down that path." Afrimat's share closed yesterday at R3,55. This puts the company on a PE of 6,88 making it an attractive investment. Michèle Mackey/Sunet Grobler (011) 325 5944 / 082 497 9827 On behalf of: Afrimat Limited Andries van Heerden, CEO www.afrimat.co.za Issue date: 12 May 2011	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2782
__label__wiki	0.864194	0.864194	Home > News > iPad, Mac 3D – Mar 3, 2015 6:30 am The Future of Graphics: Introducing Vulkan—Heir Apparent to OpenGL / OpenGL ES Khronos Group, the stewards of computer industry open standards like OpenGL and WebGL, have announced the Vulkan, a next-generation graphics API system and replacement to industry-standard and leading OpenGL and OpenGL ES. The future of computer graphics today will be greeted by a new prince. Introducing Vulkan, the next-generation high-efficiency API (application programming interface) destined and planned to replace the aging and somewhat limited OpenGL and its mobile equivalent OpenGL ES. Today The Khronos™ Group, an open consortium of leading hardware and software companies, has announced the availability of technical previews of the new Vulkan™ open standard API for high-efficiency access to graphics and compute on modern GPUs (graphics processing units) used in a wide variety of devices. Bold New Ground-Up Design Previously referred to as the Next Generation OpenGL Initiative, Vulkan is a ground-up new design that provides applications direct control over GPU acceleration for maximum performance and predictability, and uses Khronos’ new SPIR-V™ specification for shading language flexibility. Vulkan’s initial specifications and implementations are expected later this year and any company may participate in Vulkan’s ongoing development by joining Khronos. Industry feedback, is very welcome says the consortium. 01 – Vulkan(tm) is the latest graphics and compute combined future API for GPUs across all devices. “Industry standard APIs like Vulkan are a critical part of enabling developers to bring the best possible experience to customers on multiple platforms,” said Valve’s Gabe Newell. “Valve and the other Khronos members are working hard to ensure that this high-performance graphics interface is made available as widely as possible and we view it as a critical component of SteamOS and future Valve games.” Vulkan Technical Previews at GDC in San Francisco Timed for the Gaming Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco this week, the Khronos Group will be providing a technical preview of the new graphics API system. The two sessions are noted below: Vulkan: The Future of High Performance Graphics — noted by Valve: Thursday, March 5 at 10-11 AM in Room 2006 in the West Hall of the GDC Conference. In this session a technical preview will be shown with advanced techniques of the API and live demos of real-world applications running on Vulkan drivers and hardware Vulkan: the Next Generation Graphics and Compute API — Thursday, March 5 at 12 – 1:30 PM. Venue: SF Green Space at 657 Mission Street, Suite 200. Five minutes walk from GDC. Vulkan overview, demos and direct interaction with the working group members. No GDC pass required, however seating is limited so please register if you plan to attend. Industry Support and Key Achievements Readers may be wondering what is happening to OpenGL and OpenGL ES, the version of OpenGL designed for mobile platforms like the ARM architecture platforms behind the iPhone. The short answer is they will be maintained fully alongside Vulkan giving developers optionality for how to target GPUs for both compute and graphics, within the context of an expanding universe of connected digital devices with graphics-based interfaces. ¹ Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group and vice president at NVIDIA, spoke to Architosh at length days ago ahead of the announcement about what Vulkan truly means for the future of graphics and compute using GPUs. For readers interested in the technical details about Vulkan we will be sharing many details in a companion feature. What is key to know about Vulkan now is that it will develop alongside OpenGL and OpenGL ES. 02 – Vulkan provides developers more direct connection and control of the GPU hardware. Our technical feature on Vulkan explains in detail many more differences. (image: courtesy Khronos Group. All rights reserved.) “Vulkan expands the family of Khronos 3D API’s, and complements OpenGL and OpenGL ES,” says Neil Trevett, “that between them, provide access to billions of GPUs today, and will continue to be evolved and maintained to meet industry needs.” The biggest industry hardware players are behind the Vulkan API, including Apple, AMD, ARM, Imagination, Intel, Nokia, NVIDIA, Samsung, Sony, Qualcomm, and Vivante. But importantly, as our feature article on this announcement discusses, it was the game engine companies, such as EPIC Games, that helped initiate the push the Vulkan initiative. Industry Support and What Vulkan Means “With direct influence on several generations of hardware and software architectures for milliwatt to kilowatt platforms, OpenGL is undeniably the industry’s most successful 3D Graphics API,” said Raja Koduri, corporate vice president, Visual and Perceptual Computing, AMD. “Vulkan is a transformation to OpenGL that brings forth exciting low-overhead capabilities to enable compelling increases in performance and power efficiency while maintaining developer productivity.” 03 – The working group participants include the biggest names in the computer industry—including Apple, ARM, AMD, Nvidia, Imagination and more. (image: courtesy Khronos Group. All rights reserved) “Since helping found Khronos, ARM has strived to improve the efficiency of standards and deliver compelling graphics to mobile devices with minimum energy consumption,” said Jem Davies, vice president of technology, media processing group, ARM. “Vulkan is a big step forward in enabling our ecosystem of developers to unleash the capabilities of the latest ARM GPU technology.” “The Vulkan API is a groundbreaking rethink of graphics software technology,” said Dan Baker, co- founder, Oxide Games. “The efficiency and threading abilities are profound leaps forward that enable Oxide Games to create entirely new game genres on a variety of platforms.” To learn more go to Khronos online here. To understand additional items as they related to Apple perhaps, read some of the posted comments below. One reader asked about Apple’s new Metal API for graphics. We address that below in the comments. [edit. note: this paragraph was added after original publication, 11:56 AM EDT. 3 Mar 2015] 1 – This sentence was uncorrected stated earlier as that “ultimately OpenGL and OpenGL ES were meant to be phased out.” That is not correct, entirely. Khronos will continue to develop and advance both OpenGL and OpenGL ES alongside Vulkan, giving developers options, as the market demands. Filed under: Editor's Pick, iPad, Mac 3D, News Story tags: Khronos Group, OpenCL, OpenGL, Vulkan API Matthew Ivanov – March 3, 2015 06:58 am EST Matthew Ivanov liked this on Facebook. #CAD The Future of Graphics: Introducing Vulkan—Heir Apparent to OpenGL / OpenGL ES http://t.co/w4rzSvXxkU Maik Obermüller Maik Obermüller liked this on Facebook. Nicolas Miard Can Vulkan be compared to Apple’s recent Metal API for iOS? aiming at a more direct access to the GPU? If Apple is part of the development, will the abandon Metal for Vulkan? Or maybe it’s just for the Mac. Answering Nicolas Miard, VulKan goes farther than Apple’s Metal in terms of direct access to the GPU hardware. If on one end of the spectrum we can speak of being explicit (hardware side) and easy (easier for coders) than Metal is less explicit than Vulkan. Anthony Frausto-Robledo AIA, LEED AP Answering Nicolas again, Apple likely has no plans for abandoning Metal for Vulkan anymore than Microsoft would abandon DirectX. Vulkan compliments existing APIs, while giving developers choice. For platform-specific developers, using DirectX or Apple’s new Metal has some advantages, for developers who need to target more platforms they choose open-standards APIs. Vulkan was developed for the future, a world where we have dozens if not more types of compute and/or graphical devices, from TVs, robots, smart cars, smart watches, appliances, computers, tablets and smartphones. All the other previous API architectures didn’t start with this Internet of Things vision, thus they have serious limitations in addressing it. antonypelosi RT @architosh: The Future of Graphics: Introducing Vulkan—Heir Apparent to OpenGL / OpenGL ES: The future of computer g… http://t.co/cO6u…	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2789
__label__wiki	0.808266	0.808266	Concerts and Movies Gadgets and Apps No extension of sunset provision of TEZ perks People's Journal Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has opposed an extension of the period, wherein companies in Tourism Enterprise Zones (TEZs) may avail of government incentives. Republic Act (RA) 9593, otherwise known as the Tourism Act of 2009, was enacted in 2009 but its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) was issued only in November 2016. The law provides TEZ developers and tourism firms a six-year income tax holiday that may be extended for another six years. The IRR also has a sunset provision, which states that tax incentives may only be given until 2019. Because the sunset provision will be ending next year, there have been appeals that the income tax holiday be extended further since the IRR was issued seven years after the law took effect. “The law is the law. It’s not my fault that it was not implemented,” Dominguez said in an interview Tuesday. “We could have not implemented it but I said it’s already there, so might as well implement it. Now, it’s not my fault,” he added. Finance officials have said that the government is losing billions from tax perks extended to companies that are no longer entitled to it because they have already become financially strong. Earlier, Finance Undersecretary Karl Chua said that for 2016 alone, the government lost P178.56-billion worth of potential revenues due to tax holidays extended to about 3,102 firms registered with investment promotion agencies. Citing data from the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs, Chua said P74.53 billion of the supposed revenues were from income tax holidays, P46.66 billion from special income tax rates, and P57.38 billion from customs duties. DTI chief assures support for local PPE makers SYKES Kind brings hope during the pandemic PAL increases CdO, Pagadian flights CMDC studying funding for private sector workers’ retirement Banks' real estate loan limit raised jato 25% Biz group wants private sector in IATF Insurers' exemption from payment leeway good for policyholders More from this section... Copyright © 2001-2021 Journal Online. All Rights Reserved. Please add https://journal.com.ph to your ad blocking whitelist or disable your adblocking software.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2791
__label__wiki	0.902017	0.902017	Privacy group's aims complaint at Google-DoubleClick merger · April 21, 2007 12:00 am WASHINGTON - A consumer group asked the Federal Trade Commission on Friday to investigate and block Google Inc.'s proposed $3.1 billion purchase of online advertising firm DoubleClick Inc. unless the companies don't improve consumer privacy protections. The complaint, filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), alleges that Google and New York-based DoubleClick collect exhaustive personal information on consumers using the Internet but don't adequately protect the privacy of that information. Google's acquisition of privately held DoubleClick ''will give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world,'' the complaint from the Washington-based group said. ''There is simply no consumer privacy issue more pressing for the Commission to consider than Google's plan to combine the search histories and Web site visit records of Internet users.'' The complaint cites published reports that claim Google plans to combine its data with DoubleClick's and can track an individual's Internet searches and Web site visits. DoubleClick said Google would not have access to the data it collects on consumers who view its online ads. That data belongs to clients, DoubleClick said Friday in a prepared statement. EPIC's complaint said that each Google user has a unique, trackable Internet ''address'' and that Google keeps a record of user searches.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2792
__label__cc	0.736188	0.263812	2017 UCI Cycling Women's World Tour - GP de Plouay-Bretagne UCI Cycling Women's World Tour Plouay 🚴 Cycling 2017 : GP de Plouay-Bretagne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_UCI_W... Website http://www.grandprix-plouay.com @GrandPrixPlouay https://www.uci.org/road/events/uci-wome... https://www.facebook.com/UnionCyclisteIn... @UCI_cycling @UCIWomenCycling @UCI_WWT UCIWWT 4 March 2017 Strade Bianche Italy Siena 11 March 2017 Ronde van Drenthe Netherlands Hoogeveen 19 March 2017 Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio Italy Cittiglio 26 March 2017 Gent - Wevelgem Belgium Wevelgem Ghent 2 April 2017 Tour of Flanders Belgium Oudenaarde 16 April 2017 Amstel Gold Race Netherlands Maastricht 19 April 2017 La Flèche Wallonne Féminine Belgium Mur de Huy 23 April 2017 Liège-Bastogne-Liège Belgium Liège Bastogne 5 - 7 May 2017 Tour of Chongming Island 11 - 14 May 2017 Tour of California 7 - 11 June 2017 The Women's Tour 30 June - 9 July 2017 Giro d'Italia Internazionale Femminile 20 - 22 July 2017 La Course by Le Tour de France 29 July 2017 RideLondon Classique United Kingdom London 11 August 2017 Crescent Vargarda TTT Sweden Vårgårda 13 August 2017 Crescent Vargarda 17 - 20 August 2017 Ladies Tour of Norway 26 August 2017 GP de Plouay-Bretagne France Plouay 29 August - 3 September 2017 Holland Ladies Tour 10 September 2017 Madrid Challenge by la Vuelta Spain Madrid	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2797
__label__cc	0.729341	0.270659	Tag Archives: Travels with a Medieval Queen Italian Regional, References to Cookery Books, Sicilian MARY TAYLOR SIMETI and her new book:SICILIAN SUMMER An adventure in cooking with my grandsons. September 21, 2017 marisa@internode.on.net 1 Comment Many of you would be familiar with the writings of Mary Taylor Simeti, one of the greatest authorities on Sicilian food. You may have a copy of her classic, in-depth, definitive book of the culinary history, traditions and recipes of Sicily called Pomp and Sustenance: Twenty Five Centuries of Sicilian Food. This was published in several editions and the same text was later republished as Sicilian Food: Recipes from Italy’s Abundant Isle. Or you may have read her other books about Sicily: On Persephone’s lsland: A Sicilian Journal, Travels with a Medieval Queen or Bitter Almonds: Recollections and Recipes from a Sicilian Girlhood. She has also written other books published in Italian as well as travel and food articles for various American, Italian and British publications including the New York Times and the London Financial Times. Her new book is called SICILIAN SUMMER: An Adventure in Cooking with My Grandsons. This time Mary takes us to her farm at Bosco, located some 40 miles west of Palermo in the hills overlooking the Gulf of Castellammare. The farm has been in the Simeti family since 1933. Mary and her husband Tonino inherited it in 1966 and is now a diversified farm of less than forty acres of vineyards, olive groves, fruit and vegetables with organic certification for their Bosco Falconeria wine, olive oil and produce. SICILIAN SUMMER: An Adventure in Cooking with My Grandsons, is an account and photographs of the food that Mary and her 4 grandsons (aged 13, 10, 7 and 5 years) cooked over 10 intensive, continuous days for the Simeti family – Mary and Tonino Simeti (the nonni), the four grandsons and the four children’s parents. The recipes that Mary and the boys prepare are all described and they use the abundant summer produce they themselves have helped to harvest from the fields: cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes, almonds, zucchini blossoms and zucchini. And when you have abundance, you use the same vegetable to produce various dishes – there are numerous ways to eat tomatoes and the zucchini blossom is enjoyed battered, stuffed and cooked in pasta dishes. But it is so much more than a book of recipes suitable for her grandsons of various ages. Mary captures the pleasure that family brings when the three generations of the Simeti family gather on the farm each summer and she meditates on the role food can play within the family in bonding, consolidating tradition and identity and creating memories of her own childhood and those of her children. In between memories and recollections there is a beguiling mix of a family history and an account of the development of the farm that Mary and Tonino now share with their daughter, her husband and two grandsons. Mary’s honesty shines through the book. She questions her skill and ability to conduct these cooking experiences and is concerned about using safe implements for her young cooks. I loved the description of the very special garlic press: A little boat of burnished steel, it has holes in its hull through which tiny pieces of garlic rise up as you press it into the peeled cloves rocking back and forth on a cutting board. And I loved the description of Tonino. Grandson Matteo when young, would only see his grandfather once a year when he visited with his parents and brother from New York. Matteo was finding it difficult to relate to Tonino as he was unaccustomed and unfamiliar to him. But Mary describes how this all changed when the young Matteo … saw his grandfather drive up to the farmhouse on a tractor, a vision that in his mind would have outshone Apollo driving up in the chariot of the sun. Familiar or not, Tonino had achieved godhood. Mary reflects on the current plight of the world that her grandsons are growing up in and wonders about the cooking project she has undertaken with them: Am I compiling an album of childhood memories, scenes that will have some relevance to their adult lives, or will this be the record – even for them – of a lost and irretrievable Golden age? She hopes that these experiences in her kitchen will make these moments more significant and render their memories more indelible. The book ends with the preparation of the last meal for Tonino’s 79th birthday celebration. Scattered as we soon would be, the shared memory of the past ten days, the cooking and the laughing and eating together would link us firmly together. I have never felt closer to my grandchildren, more sure than our sense of family. Could this be the last summer that the Simeti family spends together? Sicilian Summer: An Adventure in Cooking with my Grandsons. The publication date is 25 September, but it is already available for pre-ordering on line, either in paperback form or as an ebook (search for them on line). Obviously, if you would rather support your local bookshop and help promote Mary’s writing by doing so, you could ask your favourite bookshop to order it. Mary Taylor Simeti is one of my heroes – I think that sometimes it takes a newcomer with a passion to observe and describe and rediscover what is Sicily and tease out the history behind the food (not that she is a newcomer any longer, she is part of Sicily, an expatriate who has spent all her adult life dedicated to her new homeland and appreciating its culture). Dimensions 140 x 216 x 9mm \| 231.33g Publication date 25 Sep 2017 Publisher SilverWood Books Ltd Publication City/Country Bristol, United Kingdom Illustrations note colour photographs Bitter Almonds Recollections and Recipes from a Sicilian GirlhoodMary Taylor SimetiOn Persephone’s lsland: A Sicilian JournalSICILIAN SUMMER: An Adventure in Cooking with My Grandsons.SicilyTravels with a Medieval Queen	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2799
__label__cc	0.555585	0.444415	To assist immigrants and refugees who have multiple barriers towards a successful settlement and integration outcome. To build bridges, harvest diversity and foster integration through service and advocacy. A world of multicultural harmony. Action Commitment Transformation 27 West Pender Street, Vancouver 221-1024 Ridgeway Avenue, Coquitlam S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Action Commitment Transformation Program (ACT) provides specialized services to immigrant and refugee families (adults and youth) through a case-management base, client-centred approach with a goal to support them toward a successful settlement and integration outcome. Arabic, Cantonese, Dari, English, Farsi, French, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Kurdish (Sorani) Mandarin, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tigrinya and Vietnamese. Click here to view flyers and contact numbers in the available languages. Moving Ahead Program \| S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Copyright © 2013.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2801
__label__wiki	0.727721	0.727721	Posts Tagged ‘George Hawi’ A Testimonials of Lebanon civil war (1975-1990) In: Diaries \| Events/Cultural/Educational/Arts \| religion/history \| social articles \| testimonials/civil war Testimonials of a civil war: A Communist party member The issue of daily Al Balad, April 26, 2005 Samir Al Ocda was barely 12 years old when the civil war started. His father was a dedicated Communist party member and hided a Kalashnikov in his house located in Ras Nabaa. Samir’s father was strict in never allowing any one in the family to touch the Kalashnikov, or missing a school day for demonstrating, or to hanging out in centers where political meetings were taking place. Once, as Samir was 10 years old, his father and a few of his comrades parked the jeep in the neighborhood. His father lifted the kid Samir and placed him behind the Doshka machine gun mounted on the jeep. That was the first great impression for power and glory. Samir political awareness began in 1980 when he was in middle school: He read the daily newspaper “Al Watan” (the Nation) distributed at the school door. He badly desired to wear the green vest called “field” that was donned by the communist fighters. When the bombing intensified, he stood at the school door and harangued the students not to enter and instead to join the demonstrations. The school principal remonstrated them and they replied by throwing rocks at him. In Ras Nabaa stood a house called “Nadi Ruwad” (the patrons club) which hosted Russian delegates and various sports activities. In this house, Samir got indoctrinated and started reading ideological books and participating in discussions. In 1981, Samir was already 15 years old and joined a training camp for the Communist in Kfar Matta under the direction of a comrade called “Stalin”. He had told his family that he was going out on a scout camp. The taller the comrade the closer to the front row was the regulation and thus, short Samir was always standing in the back wearing oversized Cuban military garments. Abu Anis, the war code name for the head of the Communist Party George Hawi, sent immediately these fresh graduating recruits to manning the barricades in St. Theresa, in the Dahia neighborhood in order to face-off the offensives of the “Amal” militias also called the disinherited Shiaas.(Nabih Berri, chief of the Parliament for 25 years, claims that he is the leader of this militia) Samir was restless from then on and barely visited his family. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and entered Beirut. Samir helped his comrades recover the military vehicles and hardware buried in the “Sport City” compound and distributed the vehicles to various corners in West Beirut, and mainly around the “Cola” neighborhood. By dawn, the inhabitants got the fright seeing that amount of military vehicles and chars and started vacating to more peaceful areas in coincidence with the admonishments of the Israeli flyers for the people to empty the surroundings and so Samir’s folks did too. Samir collected 250 house keys that the tenants left with him for safe keep. While guarding barricades, Samir used to finger his guitar and a photo was published of him with the legend stating “The break time of a fighter at “Mat7af” (National Museum area)”, followed by the slogans “Down with guns; Long life to guitars!” His last battle was at “Mat7af” where he faced the Israeli soldiers and managed to earn the scare of his life before successfully retreating. Samir still believes that he fought for a just cause, but the circumstances and new facts are leaving him to wonder whether this civil war was worth the damage and death. Since the Taif agreement in 1990, which stopped the war, but left no victors, and the parliament proclaiming that “All has been forgiven and all involved have been pardoned”, Samir has experienced deep depression periods and witnessed a half-peace and lack of opportunities to earn a living. (These militia/mafia “leaders’ are still in control of Lebanon in the last 3 decades and bankrupted the State at all levels) An eye witness confessed to see a bunch of kids playing soccer on a sandy field to discover that the ball was indeed a human skull. Rami, now 33 years old, used to gather insects in bundles and burn them just to hear the crackling sounds in the fire. Tags: A Testimonial, adonis49, daily Al Balad, George Hawi, Kfar Matta, Lebanon Civil War, Nadi Ruwad, Samir Al Ocda A lost Lebanon – in pictures. Part 3 Posted by: adonis49 on: January 6, 2017 In: Book Review \| cities/geography \| Events/Cultural/Educational/Arts \| Lebanon/Middle East/Near East/Levant \| social articles George Hawi visiting a Communist Militia Camp, Ayoun Al Siman Mountains, 1976 Photograph: Diab Alkarssifi Political martyrs memorial rally, Almarg village, 1977 Diab Alkarssifi Photograph: Diab Alkarssifi A lost Lebanon – in pictures When artist Ania Dabrowska started working with Diab Alkarssifi, a homeless Lebanese man in London, she made a startling discovery. He was a compulsive photographer with a hoard of unseen pictures from his homeland To support the publication of this archive, visit A Lebanese Archive at kickstarter.com/projects/ 723440909/a-lebanese-archive-by-ania-dabrowska Brothers Khader and Mohammed Alkarssifi, Baalbeck, 1977 Diab Alkarssifi Photograph: Diab Alkarssifi Nesrin Jare and Ietedal Alkarssifi, Baalbeck, 1981 Photograph: Diab Alkarssifi Mustafa Shalha, Baalbeck, 1974 Photograph: Diab Alkarssifi Tags: adonis49, Ania Dabrowska, Diab Alkarssifi, George Hawi, In pictures, lost Lebanon, Mustafa Shalha, Nesrin Jare, Political martyrs memorial rally Late Ghassan Tueni. Good or bad: A tribute is a tribute Posted by: adonis49 on: June 21, 2012 In: biographies/books \| Essays \| Events/Cultural/Educational/Arts \| Lebanon/Middle East/Near East/Levant \| political Artical \| professional articles Good or bad? A tribute is a tribute: on late Ghassan Tueni Ghassan Tueni, a famous Lebanese journalist, the owner of the daily Al Nahar (The Day), a politician, a deputy, a minister, a representative to the UN, a board founder of educational institutions…passed away on Friday June 8, 2012. He was 87 years old. And he was a heavy smoker. For 10 days now, the daily Al Nahar is publishing tributes by hundreds of people. All the tributes published in Al Nahar and other dailies describe a “freedom loving leader” and very dedicated to freedom of expression and… Tueni joined the Syria Social National Party (SSNP), the Lebanese branch, early on in his youth while the leader Antoun Saadeh was exiled in Argentina. When Saadeh returned to Lebanon in 1947, he dismissed Tueni and scores of other leading members for transforming the party into a Lebanese party and not representative of the Syrian people (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Iraq). Tueni published a scathing diatribe of the 24-hour mock trial that ended in the execution of Saadeh by a government of a pseudo-State that tacitly supported the creation of Israel. Tueini later rejoined the party after Saadeh was executed and was elected deputy as a member of the SSNP in the 50s. Ghassan Tueni was sent to jail several times for his outspoken criticism of the performance of various governments in Lebanon. Ghassan Tueni knew how to recruit talented journalists with different viewpoints. The journalists views were published complete in the daily, but the editorial line of the paper represented Tueni’s current political positions… Al-Nahar was a leading Lebanese paper in the 1950s, 60s and 1970s, and contributed in the publishing of many valuable cultural periodicals such as “Fekr” (Research opinion) that canalized the free expressions of many intellectuals… An-Nahar is no longer such a leading free opinion daily: people still think that it remains “leading” to this day…For example, Israeli scholars of the Arab world still cited Al-Hawadith magazine because they still think that it is as popular was it was back in the 1970s. Tueni mimicked the successful journalistic formula of the US: the use of weekly supplements, the division into sections, the sensational use of pictures on the front page, and the introduction of technology when newspapers were very old-fashioned in the Arab world. Tueni was mostly able to sustain the preeminence of his daily in Lebanon thanks to the financial support from Gulf countries and from other Western powers during the Cold War. An-Nahar and its publishing houses were intensely involved in anti-communist propaganda during the Cold War. A book on the cultural Cold War in the Middle East would have a special section about An-Nahar. Ghassan Tueni was made famous in the world community when he delivered a speech at the UN demanding “let my people live…” during the 17 year-long civil war. Ghassan Tueni believed that the civil war was instigated and planned by foreign powers, (superpowers and regional powers), though the Lebanese people know that they were and still are dried branches, ready to burn for failure to reform and change their social/political structure since 1943… A few people are angry for heaping all the good qualities and attributes on Ghassan Tueni. As’ad AbuKhalil posted on his blog Angry Corner on June 14 under “Ghassan Tueni: About the Tributes” (with slight editing): “It is one thing to see the March 14 (Hariri and Saudi-funded) press in Lebanon paying tributes to Ghassan Tueni. But to see Western media talking about him is to be reminded about the extent of propaganda and its disconnection to reality. When David Ignatius, for example, writes about Ghassan Tueni and his contribution to Arab media, you have to question if he knows what he’s talking about? How can someone who does not know the language and culture of a region comment on press in that culture? What is the value of my comments on Chinese media if I don’t know Chinese? That only shows that those are recycling conventional wisdom and established propaganda clichés. The New York Times carried a glowing obituary of Tueni and singled him out as the most important Arab journalist. Funny, the New York Times even linked him to the “Arab spring” as if anyone in the new Arab generation followed his writings. Who in Tunisia or Saudi Arabia knows who Ghassan Tueni is? Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, for example – whether you like it or not – is known and read throughout the Arab world. Tueni never had that stature outside the Near East region. Abdul-Bari Atwan is another Arab journalist who is known and read throughout the region, particularly due to his Al Jazeera appearances, but Tueni never enjoyed that kind of acclaim. Sami Moubayed wrote another glowing tribute and claimed that Tueni was courageous about support for “freedom” – even Saddam spoke about the virtues of generic freedom. Moubayed spoke about the courage of Tueni when the man was never known for his political courage and made peace with whoever dominated Lebanese politics (his son, Jubran was in fact outspoken against the Syrian regime). For decades Al Nahar exhibited racist anti-Syrian rhetoric. But Western media don’t know better. Elias Khoury in Al-Quds Al-Arabi even referred to Tueni as “revolutionary”. Various tributes talked about his love of “freedom”. Yet, George Hawi (late assassinated communist leader) in his book published by Dar An-Nahar put it best: “Tueni supported freedom only when he was out of power, and only occasionally”. Tueni is the champion of the counter-revolution in the Arab world. He has been aligned with the conservative Arab regional and international order throughout the decades. His paper was part of the propaganda devices of the US during the Cold War. The paper was successful and effective in the 1960s up to the eruption of the Lebanese civil war in 1975. Tueni, far from being a courageous critic of regimes, was aligned with successive regimes in Lebanon. For example, Al-Nahar, under Tueni, praised President Bishara al-Khoury before belatedly joining the opposition, and it remained faithful to the terrible rule of President Camille Chamoun. It was critical of President Fouad Chehab but only on behalf of the right-wing coalition of the Hilf (“the alliance”) in the 1960s. An-Nahar was aligned with the regime of Elias Sarkis and Tueni had the most influential political role in the administration of Amin Gemayyel – probably one of the worst and most corrupt administrations in contemporary Lebanese history. People forgot (or pretended to forget) that Tueni served as the overall coordinator of the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations that produced the still-born May 17 Agreement. The paper never raised its voice against the repression of Amin Gemayyel. When Ghassan’s son, late Jubran (assassinated), took over the paper, it no longer pretended to adhere to the cloak of journalistic objectivity. It became vulgar and sectarian, and played a partisan role in the Lebanese conflict. Khouri talked about hiring leftists, but it would be more accurate to say that the Tuenis, father and son, only tolerated leftists after they become ex-leftists. The ideology of the paper was unmasked even during the times of Ghassan. He said so in the book Sirr Al-Mihnah (“Trade Secret”): The three intellectual and political influences in his life were Charles Malek, Camille Chamoun, and Antoun Saadeh. Malek and Chamoun inspired him all his life and he adhered to their conservative and right-wing agenda in the paper. His long time editor-in-chief, Louis al-Hajj, spoke of the services that the paper rendered to Pierre Gemayyel (founder of the right-wing Phalanges Party) and even revealed the sectarian mindset of the paper. Tueni played an important political role in Lebanese politics and society. He promoted conservative and right-wing notions and themes under the guise of a liberal bourgeois framework. But he was always cautious politically and his editorials were only daring in favor of this traditional politician against that traditional politician. In the Arab Cold War, Tueni’s paper earned tremendous financial benefits due to its stance in favor of the anti-communist coalition (Al-Hayat and An-Nahar were the voices of anti-communism and of the Arab regimes of oil and gas). While the stature and political significance of the paper declined, it continued to do well financially. However, this was only due to a corrupt monopolistic scheme that its Lebanese Forces’ ally, Antoine Choueiri, arranged whereby most revenues from the ad market would end up at the paper at the expense of all other papers in Lebanon. Tueni left an already insignificant newspaper. An-Nahar belongs to a bygone era. The arena is now taken over by new outlets and publications. But there is no denying that Tueni was influential a very long time ago”. End of As’ad AbuKhalil post Ghassan Tueiny shouldered his responsibilities when his dad died and his elder brother died and had to run a daily in young age. He had a full-life. He lost his brother. He lost all his three children, the latest was Jubran, assassinated. He lost his first wife Nadia. He remarried at the age 70… How many of us can claim that we have a life? Good or bad, a tribute is a tribute for an engaged and active life. Compassion and passionate occasions were plenty to disseminate and flow around… Ghassan Tueini knew how to lead people and go the extra mile in sustaining a daily and its employees, train journalists and reporters and maintaining Lebanon a base for freedom of expression when dictatorial regimes all around forced their intellectuals to flee to greener pasture for free opinions… Tags: A tribute is a tribute, adonis49, Antoun Saadeh, As'ad AbuKhalil, daily Al Nahar, George Hawi, journalism, late Ghassan Tueni, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Sirr Al-Mihnah (“Trade Secret”), writing Another wave of assassinations readied In: politics/finance Today Another wave of assassinations readied: Bi-Weekly report (#26) Israel has readied another wave of assassinations in Lebanon. The main strategy of Israel in Lebanon is to encourage civil wars because it is helpless to tame the Lebanese by brute force; it tried it three times after 1992 and failed miserably. As soon as Israel gathers intelligence on social unrest in Lebanon then it begins enflaming sectarian conflicts that the Lebanese have not manage to overcome by its archaic political structure and election laws. We can already predict the timing of political assassinations when the governments in Lebanon fail to form unity government. Israel participated heavily in the execution of an international decision to assassinate late Rafic Hariri PM because the timing was appropriate. After Israel and Cheney assassinated Rafic Hariri then Israel went on assassinating the intellectuals and activists George Hawi, Samir Kassir, and Jubran Tuweiny who were in the vanguard of seeking unity among the Lebanese. The civil war failed to materialize because the leaders of the majority in the Parliament knew that these assassinations were perpetrated by Israel and not by the opposition or Syria. Israel resumed another wave of assisations on political figures and Deputies such as young Pierre Gemayel. Civil war failed to take off and thus Israel decided to activate her military plan to invading south Lebanon for the seventh time. The war occured in June 2006; after 33 days of active bombardement and destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure the ground attack failed miserably because Hezbollah resistance kept her ground and defended evey yard and evey town. The trend of assassination before the June war 2006 and afterward pointed to close cooperation with Israel among inside Lebanese leaders; it was as if the Lebanese leaders were implicitly selecting for Israel the potential personalities that are disposable for assassination because they constituted liability for the progress of George W. Bush and French Chirac strategy in the Greater Middle East. What prompted my article is that after the parliamentary election of June 7, 2009, the same majority in the Parliament are trying to resume their older plan of failing to form a unity government as was agreed on in Dowha. The signs are pretty leaning toward that direction of hording the government and key civil posts in the administration. The majority elected 4 under-secretaries to Nabih Berri in the Parliament such as Marwan Hamadeh, Fatfat, Ogasapian, and Zahrat and eliminated a representative of the Tayyar of General Aoun who has a block of 27 deputies out of 128. These four under-secretaries are servile to their masters and big mouths but they share one other common denominator: they failed to recognize the new dynamics in the region and thus they have become huge liability to their leaders; they should have declined to resume doing politics as usual and stepped out of politics. My hunch is that if within 10 days Saad Hariri (called upon by 86 Deputies to form a government) drags his feet in constituting a unity government then Israel would have received the strong hint to try destabilizing Lebanon and would step in. It stands to reason that one of the first candidates for assassination could be from among those big mouths that are serious liabilities to their leaders and have served their duties. There is another Deputy who is a liability to all leaders and has no value in representing any one; his death has greater value for short term gains during the formation of a government. Iran won on two counts in the latest round of problems during and after the election. The Iranians have proven that they have national objectives and are ready for reforms. I would have been sceptic that the regime in Iran is functioning well if not for these mass demonstrations that are pointing direction for change and rejuvenation of an empire. Tags: adonis, adonis49, and Jubran Tuweiny, Bi-Weekly report, books, general aoun, George Hawi, humor, israel, lebanon, politics, Samir Kassir, social, USA, writing, Zionism Important Event: June 7, 2009 (Lebanon) In: lucubration Today What is Legitimate, Temporary, and Necessary ?(June 5, 2009) On June 7, 2009 the Lebanese will vote for a new Parliament. Two groups of citizens will vote: The group constituted of the patriotic, secular, and reformists and the group of an amalgam of statue-quo confessionals, feudalists, isolationists, and “colonial minded” mentalities. The “colonial minded” citizens follow leaders who invariably rely on foreign interventions (regional or superpower States) to balance out a broken alliance among the confessional castes system and perpetrate the conditions for weak central governments. A brief current history might elucidate this drastic splitting among the Lebanese citizens. In May 24, 2000, Ehud Barak PM of Israel withdrew from most of south Lebanon with no preconditions, the first ever decision in Israel 61 years history. The joint strategy of Lebanon President Lahoud and Hafiz Assad of Syria enabled Hezbollah a resounding victory. The Arab League decided to hold its annual meting in Beirut in August 2002 as a good gesture for its acknowledgment of the victory in 2000 of this tiny State. In 2003, Syria had plans for partial withdrawal to the Bekaa Valley but the vehement rhetoric from the Druze leader Walid Jumblat and the Patriarch of the Maronite Christian sect slowed down the execution process. Before the assassination of Rafic Hariri in February 14, 2005, the Bush Jr. Administration and Jacque Chirac of France issued the UN resolution 1559 for the retreat of the Syrian forces from Lebanon and the dismantling of Hezbollah’s military wing and the return of its heavy armament. The withdrawal of the Syrian troops was not the main objective because the international community and the main Arab States wanted and kept high hopes that Syria will ultimately be pressured to do the dirty work of taming Hezbollah. The Syrian government factored in many variables to opposing the frequent lures and pressures of what is expected of her to do in order to remain in Lebanon. The targeting of Rafiq Hariri for assassination by the US, France, Saudi Arabia, and Israel was not one of the variables considered; and Syria strategy was shaken violently. In fact, Rafic Hariri received so many encouragements and acted in such confidence that the Syrian government forgot to contemplate such an evil and drastic eventuality. The mass demonstration on February 14 was not a threat to Syria; General Aoun was still in exile in France and was pressured by the French government not to return to Lebanon. What Syria comprehended the loudest was the mass demonstration by Hezbollah on March 8, 2005. Hezbollah thanked Syria for its sacrifices, which meant “Now it is time for your complete withdrawal”: Hezbollah was always nervous of the Syrian presence in Lebanon because it was the only power capable of restraining its activities. Hezbollah was sending the message to Bashar Assad “We can take care of ourselves and still continue the resistance against Israel if you definitely put an end to the international pressures by getting out of Lebanon” The mass demonstration in March 14, fortified by the supporters of General Aoun (The Tayyar Horr), was not even a threat to Syria. It was the realization of Syria that its continued presence in Lebanon will ultimately confront its army directly as the Lebanese government lost control over events and cowered under uncertainties. Syria withdrew quickly to the frustration of the US and France who realized that they wasted Hariri for nothing in return: Hariri could still be of greater benefit to their policies in the Middle East region alive rather than dead. The International Community, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia fell back to plan B: re-kindling the civil war in Lebanon. They initiated a series of bombing in Christian quarters hoping that the Christian will side en mass with the Sunni/Mustakbal/Hariri clan. Plan B petered out. They came back with more vigorous scare tactics by assassinating Christian personalities. Samir Kassir, George Hawi, and Jubran Tweiny were marked as potentially not reliable and could shift sides because they were independent minded and honest characters. This wave of select assassination backfired because General Aoun signed a pact with Hezbollah and de-activated a potential civil war targeting the Christians. Plan C also failed and civil war did not flare out. Thus, direct intervention from outside was considered and Israel trained its forces for incursion into Lebanon with the US total aids and support in all phases of war preparation. Hezbollah, intentionally or by coincidence, preempted the completion of the plan in June 12, 2006. Israel launched its offensive for 33 days and failed miserably in all the goals. The attack backfired and the stature of Hezbollah ballooned and overflowed to all the Arab and Moslem populations. The International Community, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia did not desist. Plan D was to re-enforce the Sunnis with a military wing of extremist salafists called “Jund Al Sham” and financed by Bandar Bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia. In the summer of 2007 a few ignorant and violent Sunni extremists preempted the timing by slaughtering Lebanese soldiers; the army pride and dignity reacted with an all out attack and crushed this insurrection in Nahr Al Bared Palestinian camp after many months and many martyrs. The International Community, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia studied for two years to dismantle Hezbollah’s secured communication lines and to start a mini civil war in Beirut between the Shiaa and Sunnis. Plan E backfired again on May 8, 2008 and the Lebanese leaders had to meet in Dowha and agreed on the election of a President to the Republic, an election law for the Parliament, and the constitution of a national government. Lebanon has suffered for 4 years of an incompetent and illegitimate government; the Lebanese lived in a totally insecure political vacuum; the economy was farmed out to the size of the Hariri clan and the financial debt skyrocketed to $60 billions. This “political” debt is intended to pressure the Lebanese government into accepting the settling of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in return for debt cancellation. We need to compare four categories of leaders along the two dimensions of principled leaders and pragmatists. In the dimension of principled leaders we can discriminate the hate monger isolationist leaders versus the principled for the public and State good. In the pragmatic dimension we have the individual interest oriented and the public/State pragmatists. For example: Walid Jumblat, Merwan Hamadeh, Amine Gemayel, Samir Geaja, and the Patriarch of the Christian Maronite sect can be categorized in the isolationist, confessional, and personal minded leaders. Ex-President Emile Lahoud, General Michel Aoun, Suleiman Frangieh, and Hassan Nasr Allah could be classified as the principled and public/State oriented pragmatists. The classification of the remainder of the semi-leaders I leave it to the readers as exercises. The Mufti of Beirut is a non entity: he is the bugle of Saad Hariri. Saad Hariri is a non entity: he re-edited the slogan of the chairman of General Motors to say “What is good for the Saudi Monarchs is good for Lebanon”. General Motors has declared bankruptcy; the Hariri/Seniora clan will declare bankruptcy on June 8, 2009. With the exception of General Aoun who refused any kind of occupation, all leaders welcomed the mandate of Syria for 20 years; they kept repeating the mantra “The presence of Syria in Lebanon is “Legitimate, Temporary, and Necessary”; Merwan Hamadeh and all the actual ministers were the ones repeating this mantra to the nauseating public. The Maronite Patriarch Sfeir was against the Syrian presence but was pretty cool regarding Israel’s occupation. The members of the Seniora PM government did not voice out their refusal of Israel’s occupation of part of south Lebanon and constantly conspired to weaken the resistance forces against the Israeli occupiers on the basis that only international diplomacy can pressure Israel! Only President Lahoud stood steadfast with Hezbollah and refused to deploy the army in areas of the resistance’s operations. Thanks to Hassan Nasr Allah and President Lahoud Lebanon managed to secure its integrity and unify its army. Thanks to Hassan Nasr Allah and General Michel Aoun Lebanon buried any likelihood for the resurgence of a civil war. My spirit went to statesman General Aoun who said, once the Syrian troops crossed the borders back to Syria, “Syria is now out of Lebanon. I have no qualms with Syria anymore. This is the time to open a new page in our relations”. This position stands in contrast to those who begged Syria for crumbs and privileges for 20 years and once Syria withdrew they refrained from normalizing relations with Syria; the fictitious excuses to antagonizing Syria were dictated by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. What kind of state leadership is that? The election results of June 7, 2009 should fortify Lebanon as a Nation and project the image of a solid central government with serious reforms and changes to the archaic political system. That are my wishes but I know the struggle will be long and protracted. Sweet revolutions need time to mature in this diversified Lebanon. Tags: "Jound Al Sham", adonis, adonis49, Amine Gemayel, and Necessary, Bashar Assad, books, General Michel Aoun, General Motors, George Hawi, Hassan Nasr Allah, Hezbollah, history, humor, Jacque Chirac, Jubran Tweiny, lebanon, Legitimate, Merwan Hamadeh, Patriarch Sfeir, politics, President Lahoud, Rafic Hariri, Samir Geaja, Samir Kassir, social, Suleiman Frangieh, Temporary, Walid Jumblat, writing Legitimate, Temporary, and Necessary In: cities/geography \| politics/finance Today \| religion/history \| testimonials/civil war Legitimate, Temporary, and Necessary (June 5, 2009) On June 7, 2009 the Lebanese will vote for a new Parliament. Theo groups of citizens will vote; the group constituted of the patriotic, secular, and reformists and the group of an amalgam of confessionals, feudalists, isolationists, statue quo, and “colonial minded” mentalities. The “colonial minded” citizens follow leaders who invariably rely on foreign interventions to balance a broken alliance among confessional castes system and perpetrate the conditions for weak central governments. A brief current history might elucidate this drastic splitting among the Lebanese citizens. In May 24, 2000 Ehud Barak PM of Israel withdrew from most of south Lebanon with no preconditions, the first ever in Israel 61 years history. The joint strategy of Lebanon President Lahoud and Bashar Assad of Syria enabled Hezbollah a resounding victory. The Arab League decided to hold its annual meting in Beirut in August 2002 as a god gesture for its acknowledgment of the victory in 2000 of this tiny State. Before the assassination of Rafic Hariri in February 14, 2005 the Bush Jr. Administration and Jacque Chirac of France issued the UN resolution 1559 for the retreat of the Syrian forces from Lebanon and the dismantling of Hezbollah’s military wing and the return of its heavy armament. The withdrawal of the Syrian troops was not the main objective because the international community and the main Arab States wanted and kept high hopes that Syria will ultimately be pressured to do the dirty work of taming Hezbollah. The Syrian government factored in many variables to opposing the frequent lures and pressures of what is expected of her to do in order to remain in Lebanon. The targeting Rafic Hariri for assassination by the US, France, Saudi Arabia, and Israel was not one of the variables considered and Syria strategy was shaken violently. In fact, Rafic Hariri received so many encouragements and acted in such confidence that the Syrian government forgot to contemplate such an evil and drastic eventuality. The mass demonstration on February 14 was not a threat to Syria; General Aoun was still in exile in France and was pressured by the French government not to return to Lebanon. What Syria comprehended the loudest was the mass demonstration by Hezbollah on March 8, 2005. Hezbollah thanked Syria for its sacrifices, which meant “Now it is time for your complete withdrawal” Hezbollah was always nervous of the Syrian presence in Lebanon because it was the only power capable of restraining its activities. Hezbollah was sending the message to Bashar Assad “We can take care of ourselves and still continue the resistance against Israel if you definitely put an end to the international pressures by getting out of Lebanon” Syria withdrew quickly to the frustration of the US and France who realized that they wasted Hariri for naught: Hariri could still be of great benefit to their policies in the Middle East region alive rather than dead. The International Community, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia fel back to plan B: re-kindling the civil war in Lebanon. They initiated a series of bombing in Christian quarters hoping that the Christian will side en mass with the Sunni/Hariri clan. Plan B petered. They came back with more vigorous scare tactics by assassinating Christian personalities. Samir Kassir, George Hawi, and Jubran Tweiny were marked as potentially not reliable and could shift sides because they were independent minded and honest characters. This wave of select assassination backfired because General Aoun signed a pact with Hezbollah and de-activated a potential civil war targeting the Christians. Plan C also failed and civil war did not flare out. Thus, direct intervention from outside was considered and Israel trained its forces for incursion into Lebanon with the US total aids and support in all phases. Hezbollah, intentionally or by coincidence, preempted the completion of the plan in June 12, 2006. Israel launched its offensive for 33 days and failed miserably in all the goals. The attack backfired and the stature of Hezbollah ballooned and overflowed to all the Arab and Moslem populations. The International Community, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia did not desist. Plan D was to re-enforce the Sunnis with a military wing of extremist salafists called “Jound Al Sham” and financed by Bandar Bib Sultan of Saudi Arabia. In the summer of 2007 a few ignorant and violent Sunni extremists preempted the timing by slaughtering Lebanese soldiers; the army pride and dignity reacted with an all out attack and crushed this insurrection in Nahr Al Bared Palestinian camp after many months and many martyrs. The International Community, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia studied for two years to dismantle Hezbollah secured communication lines and to start a mini civil war in Beirut between the Shiaa and Sunnis. Plan E backfired again on May 8, 2008 and the Lebanese leaders had to meet in Dawha and agree on the election of a President to the Republic, an election law for Parliament, and the constitution of a national government. Lebanon has suffered for 4 years of an incompetent and illegitimate government; the Lebanese lived in a totally insecure political vacuum; the economy was farmed out to the size of the Hariri clan and the financial debt skyrocketed to $60 billions. This “political” debt is intended to pressure the Lebanese government into accepting the settling of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in return for debt cancellation. We need to compare four categories of leaders along the two dimensions of principled leaders and pragmatists. In the dimension of principled leaders we can discriminate the hate monger isolationist leaders versus the principled for the public and State good. In the pragmatic dimension we have the individual interest oriented and the public/State pragmatists. For example: Walid Jumblat, Merwan Hamadeh, Amine Gemayel, Samir Geaja, and the Patriarch of the Christian Maronite sect can be categorized in the isolationist, confessional, and personal minded leaders. Ex-President Emile Lahoud, General Michel Aoun, Suleiman Frangieh, and Hassan Nasr Allah could be classified as the principled and public/State object oriented pragmatists. The classification of the remainder of the semi-leaders I leave it to the readers as exercises. The Mufti of Beirut is a non entity: he is the bugle of Saad Hariri. Saad Hariri is a non entity: he re-edited the slogan of the chairman of General Motors to say “What is good for the Saudi Monarchs is good for Lebanon”. General Motors has declared bankruptcy; the Hariri/Seniora clan will declare bankruptcy on June 8, 2009. With the exception of General Aoun who refused any kind of occupation all leaders welcomed the mandate of Syria for 20 years; they kept repeating the mantra “The presence of Syria in Lebanon is “Legitimate, Temporary, and Necessary”; Merwan Hamadeh and all the actual ministers were the ones repeating this mantra to nauseating public. The Maronite Patriarch Sfeir was against the Syrian presence but was pretty cool regarding Israel’s occupation. The members of the Seniora PM government did not voice out their refusal of Israel’s occupation of part of south Lebanon and constantly conspired to weaken the resistance forces against the Israeli occupiers on the basis that only international diplomacy can pressure Israel! Only President Lahoud stood steadfast with Hezbollah and refused to deploy the army in areas of the resistance’s operations. Thanks to Hassan Nasr Allah and President Lahoud Lebanon managed to secure its integrity and unify its army. Thanks to Hassan Nasr Allah and General Michel Aoun Lebanon buried any likelihood for the resurgence of a civil war. My spirit went to statesman General Aoun who said once the Syrian troops crossed the borders “Syria is now out of Lebanon. I have no qualms with Syria anymore. This is the time to open a new page in our relations”. This position stands in contrast to those who begged Syria for crumbs and privileges for 20 years and once Syria withdrew they refrained from normalizing relations with Syria; the fictitious excuses to antagonize Syria were dictated by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. What kind of state leadership is that? Tags: "colonial minded", "Jound Al Sham", adonis, adonis49, Amine Gemayel, and Jubran Tweiny, and Necessary, Bandar Bib Sultan, Bashar Assad of Syria, books, Ehud Barak, general aoun, General Motors, George Hawi, Hassan Nasr Allah, Hezbollah, history, humor, Jacque Chirac, lebanon, Legitimate, Merwan Hamadeh, Nahr Al Bared, Patriarch of the Maronite, politics, President Emile Lahoud, Rafic Hariri, Samir Geaja, Samir Kassir, Sfeir, social, Temporary, Walid Jumblat, writing	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2804
__label__cc	0.597872	0.402128	Home Episode Reviews Juuni Taisen Juuni Taisen Episode 3 Review. Juuni Taisen Episode 3 Review. Watch Juuni Taisen Episode 3 Juuni Taisen Episode List Okay, now I’m sure, the person/character who narrates the story ends up dying by the end of the episode. If you don’t know what I’m talking then for your information I’m talking about Juuni Taisen. Episode 3 has been released and here are my Juuni Taisen Episode 3 Review. At the start, I was not very much excited about this series but then I watched it anyway because its writer is one who wrote the Monogatari series. The writer of Monogatari series is famous for planting some good twist and turns and doing unexpected. The episode started with the narration of Boar and I kind of started to see her as the main character and I also started to like her but then, in the end, she died. It was kind of edgy and, to be honest, a nice way to start the series and keep the viewers attracted. Same happened in the second episode Dog gets to narrate the episode second, gets his characterization. We get to see his backstory and his plan to conquer the Juuni Taisen but then, in the end, he also ended up dying. And now in the third episode, Chicken gets all the spotlight, she appeared to be the main character (as she was narrating) but as I expect, she died. To be honest, this way of ending episode is good but don’t they have to get into more details about Juuni Taisen and the magic part of the series. Well, that’s about the predictive twist of the series now let’s start with the episode. As I mentioned Chicken was the main character in this episode and we also saw her killing Dog in the last episode. Which was pretty cold blooded. This was all her plan from the start to get the boost from the Dog and then kill him but she also ended by getting killed by OX. Now in this episode, if you ask me why Chicken get killed? Where Chicken made mistake? Then it was all Dog who messed it all up. What Dog did to the Chicken in the last episode increased the physical as well as mental abilities of the Chicken. She can fight at her best and also let her think better than before. This was good but this also start to leak the emotions she was hiding and that’s what was the exact reason she died. There is one more thing that I noticed and that is the theme of the series. They used Chinese Zodiacs as the theme and each of our warriors belongs to one of the Zodiac family. Not just their attire and their fighting style is same as those zodiac traits but their compatibility and relation also depend on their compatibility chart of Chinese Zodiacs. Rabit and Boar are not compatible and we get to see what happened at the end of the first episode, just like this we see Chicken killing Dog as they both are also considered as bad luck. Now in the third episode, I noticed Chicken opening up in front of Monkey and according to the Zodiac Compatibility chart, there is mutual understanding between both Monkey and Chicken. On basis of this, we get to see Chicken putting her emotions out in front of Monkey and get’s killed just because of emotion leak. Just like the last episode, this episode was also amazing. It was predicted but amazing at the same time. Though, I don’t want to follow the same pattern in the entire series but let’s see what happen. Top anime of all time. Boruto Episode 28 Netflix To Add 30 Anime Series By The End Of 2018 Black Clover Episode 3 Review Juuni Taisen Episode 3 Review Juuni Taisen Episodes Read Juuni Taisen Episode 3 Review. watch Juuni Taisen Episode Bearded Writer https://geeksnipper.com Junnie Taisen Episode 11 review Junnie Taisen Episode 9 review	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2812
__label__cc	0.543349	0.456651	AZ Law Could Outlaw Parodies AuthorKhristen FossPosted on July 30, 2013 November 25, 2015 Categoriescheap web hosting Cyber bullying is a big problem. It’s a problem that we’ve addressed on this site. We've also talked a lot about cyber squatting via cheap hosting sites. In a sort of mix of both forms of cyber crime, the state of Arizona has made an interesting move. Amendments to Arizona House Bill 2004 were introduced in December 2012, making the act of impersonating another online, even on a social media site, a ‘Class 5’ felony. The sentence associated with this level of felony? More than one year in prison. AZ Law Could Outlaw Parodies: The Bill Introduced by Representative Michelle Ugenti, the bill aims to limit cyber bullying. Although it's a real issue that needs to be addressed, does it go too far? Does this bill go against freedom of speech? A deeper probe into the subject reveals that Ugenti may have had person reasons for implementing this bill. As it turns out, there are various Twitter accounts that impersonate Ugenti. What are the terms of this bill? Anyone that tries to impersonate another “…without obtaining the other person's consent and with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten any person, uses the name of persona of another person to…(1) create a web page on a commercial social networking site or other Internet website; (2)post or send one or more messages [on these sites]” is deemed guilty in the state of Arizona – an already controversial state. AZ Law Could Outlaw Parodies: The Issue Will “Only…Get Bigger” When bringing the bill forward, Ugenti said it won't be the last time citizens see a bill that tries to put a stop to cyber bullying. “It's an issue that's only going to get bigger,” Ugenti said to the Arizona Republic. “The Internet has gone from a novelty to having a position of credibility, and it's appropriate to have statutes that address it specifically.” AZ Law Could Outlaw Parodies: The Other Side Of The Issue Some are concerned about the lack of freedom of speech involved in this new bill. Ugenti wants to make it illegal for anyone to create a cheap hosting webpage or social media account that impersonates another. Where does it end? “The concern is whether overzealous prosecutors would use this language to intimidate somebody,” said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to the LA Times. “The concern is that this would have a chilling effect.” Marie-Andree Weiss, New York intellectual property, privacy, and social media attorney, had this to say on the matter: “…there is a particular concern with [the bill] that it would be applied to constitutionally protected parodies or caricatures of public officials and figures. Protection for parody, even crude parody that causes emotional injury, is clearly within the protection of the First Amendment.” Do you feel this bill is important, or does it go too far? Shouldn't politicians expect a little parody now and then as, you know, a form of opinion? ← The Kerstner Foundation: Free Hosting for Non-Profits More Torrent Sites Blocked in UK →	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2823
__label__cc	0.660263	0.339737	Effective date: February 07, 2019 Andrew May (“us”, “we”, or “our”) operates the www.andrewmay.com website (the “Service”). We use your data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, accessible from www.andrewmay.com Andrew May uses the collected data for various purposes: Andrew May will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of your data and other personal information. Andrew May may disclose your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: To protect and defend the rights or property of Andrew May Piwik or Matomo – Piwik or Matomo is a web analytics service. You can visit their Privacy Policy page here: https://matomo.org/privacy-policy Clicky – Clicky is a web analytics service. Read the Privacy Policy for Clicky here: https://clicky.com/terms Statcounter – Statcounter is a web traffic analysis tool. You can read the Privacy Policy for Statcounter here: https://statcounter.com/about/legal/ If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us by email: business@andrewmay.com	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2827
__label__cc	0.637662	0.362338	Ryan Benner Articles and blogs about Identity and Access Management (IAM) can be found on just about any technology-related website. Many articles point out the benefits of the myriad tools and products that will magically give you a complete IAM system or fill some gap in your IAM posture. But for those who are a little less mature in their journey or who have not revisited their IAM Program since the iPhone 4, there’s good reason to review your IAM strategy and capabilities. While not new, over the past few years much has changed in these six areas: remote workers, contractors and partners, consumers, regulation, cloud applications, and IOT and API’s. It is imperative that every organization examine how its IAM program is currently supporting these concepts. 1. Remote Workers Though we’ve been supporting remote and mobile workers for a long time, we’ve never done so under the circumstances we see today. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, most organizations had to send a majority of their workforce home, practically overnight. IT organizations had to scramble to support the exponential growth of their remote workforce with technologies that weren’t designed for the sheer quantity or complexity. While most IT organizations were able to quickly scale their systems to support the size of the new remote workforce, many were unable to adequately adjust to the complexity that it brought. In terms of complexity, a few areas should be considered. First, how are the endpoints (and associated) traffic being secured? Many of our security tools and controls were built with the idea that the end user would be within the corporate walls. For the (relatively few) mobile users, we would force all traffic back to corporate to be subject to those same controls. With a majority of users remote, however, it is no longer feasible to force all traffic back through a single chokepoint. Organizations need to leverage a more distributed or cloud-based toolset to enable the same inspection and controls as before. Second, many of the group or user-based access controls we previously had in place were based on a physical presence on the office network. Now we need to provide that same level of differentiated and segmented access to remote users. Lastly, we need to think about the devices themselves. Are our employees now able to use personal devices to connect to corporate resources and, if so, how are we ensuring identity, device security, and data governance with those? With many children attending school from home, are those children occasionally using their parents’ corporate devices? If so, what security threats could that be introducing and how do we contain them? 2. Contractors and Partners This is another area we’ve supported for a long time, but the advent of Coronavirus has changed the requirements. In some cases, we may have been providing system access to a partner via a secured site-to-site VPN. If the partner’s employees are remote, we may need to rethink this architecture. Similarly, if our partners or contractors had been coming to our location to access systems but now are forced to be remote, how do we keep providing that same secure, differentiated access to them remotely? Lastly, many organizations have a proliferating group of partners and contractors—which leads to additional questions: How are we providing provisioning and deprovisioning governance? How do we provide periodic recertification? What identity store do we use—should we mix employees, contractors, vendors, and partners into the same identity store? 3. Consumers While many organizations offer customer-facing applications, the pandemic has accelerated the growth and use of these apps. Customers have generally stopped interacting with us physically; but they’re interacting with our digital presence more than ever. It’s easy enough to develop these apps, but are we stopping to examine how we’re managing and storing customer identities? Here again, do we mix customer identities into our employee identity database or create a separate one? What kind of metadata will we keep with the identity and will we use it to make app-level access decisions? What password polices should we use in our customer apps? How critical is it to provide 100% identity assurance in our consumer applications? 4. Regulation We deal with an acronym-soup of compliance regulations on a daily basis. Over the last few years, the biggest change has been how such regulations are being enforced with stiff penalties for non-compliance. GDPR and CCPA were the first to enact such penalties. But with state and federal governments worldwide taking a more hands-on approach to their constituents’ cybersecurity, we’ll continue to see more regulations and penalties for non-compliance. Each of these regulations have provisions dealing with identity management. It’s a good time to review which regulations your company is subject to and how compliant you are in supporting the identity provisions within the regulations. 5. Cloud Applications The move to cloud-based applications began years ago but has accelerated over the last few years and exponentially since the pandemic began. While this has alleviated a lot of strain in corporate datacenters and decreased our reliance on infrastructure operations, it has increased your need to think about Identity and Access Management. The first question is whether you’ve architected the capability to support cloud-based identity systems or is everything still on-premises? Then are you able to leverage your cloud-identity store with your SaaS apps or can you federate? If not, how will you manage the separate identity store within the SaaS app? Are you able to automate the provisioning and deprovisioning process? How do you recertify accounts? Can you provide the necessary differentiated access? What governance features do they have? Are there single-sign-on capabilities? How do you provide the same experience, not only across multiple cloud-based apps, but also in your on-premises apps? 6. IOT and APIs In 2018, a hacker was able to take control of a family’s baby monitor and threaten to kidnap him. In 2017, it was shown that a hacker could easily take control of implantable cardiac devices and control shocks, administer incorrect pacing, and deplete the battery. In yet another event, hackers were able to break into a casino network by exploiting an internet-connected thermometer in an onsite aquarium. These examples–and many more–highlight the exponentially increasing attack surface enabled by IOT and API’s. Most organizations consider people and human-to-machine interaction in their identity and access management strategy, but many forget to also consider machine-to-machine interaction via IOT devices, API’s, and Bots. To protect the organization from arguably the largest attack surface, a complete Identity Management strategy must account for these devices and interactions. You should consider these questions: How do you authenticate control traffic to IOT devices? How do you authorize data collection? How do you limit which devices can communicate with other devices? These questions (and more) also apply to API’s and Bots. While none of these concerns are new to the IAM world, recent changes in the macro environment are cause for additional focus on how our IAM strategies deal with them. Now is a great time to reach out to Anexinet to help craft and implement your IAM strategy and ensure you’ve considered the best approaches to effectively incorporate these concepts into your strategy. Anexinet Launches Innovative Identity & Access Management (IAM) Modernization Assessment AD Security & the Legend of the Local Administrator Accounts Remote-Workforce Scaling in the Face of the Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic Identity Access Manangement by Ryan Benner Technology Executive at Anexinet Installing Drupal programmatically (Mac)	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2830
__label__wiki	0.510481	0.510481	State of Emergency Declared in Flint, Michigan, After Water Contamination The emergency declaration clears the way for millions in government aid to help clean the city water of toxic lead. Transcript for State of Emergency Declared in Flint, Michigan, After Water Contamination We turn now to the growing outrage in Flint, Michigan. The city's water contaminated with lead. The president declaring a state of emergency. As Flint's most outspoken citizen calling for the arrest of the governor. Michael Moore. Eva pilgrim has the latest. Water in the city has been destroyed and it's been destroyed by the governor of this state. Reporter: Famed filmmaker and Flint native Michael Moore holding a rally today on the steps of city hall. Making that call for Michigan governor Rick Snyder's arrest in the wake of the city's toxic water scandal. We need the president of the United States here. We need federal help. Reporter: Many here are outraged. Synder did this. He is sticking other people up in the beginning to say that they are responsible. He is responsible. Reporter: Many residents here claiming the state knew the water contained toxic levels of lead and did nothing about it. The city of Flint switched water suppliers in 2014 from lake Huron to the Flint river to save money, and allegedly opting not to add a chemical that could have made the water safe. The National Guard doubling its number of troops here helping out. The Michigan attorney general and the department of justice are investigating to see if laws were broken. The governor said as soon as he became aware of elevated lead levels, he took action. Thank you. Legionnaires' Disease Cases Spike in Flint The Michigan city is currently dealing with a contaminated water crisis. Michigan Governor Seeks Federal Help With Flint Water Crisis Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is asking President Obama to issue a disaster declaration for the city of Flint. Lead Found in Tap Water in Flint, Michigan Growing fear and health concerns as the city's water has been contaminated for over a year. Now Playing: Legionnaires' Disease Cases Spike in Flint Now Playing: Michigan Governor Seeks Federal Help With Flint Water Crisis Now Playing: Lead Found in Tap Water in Flint, Michigan {"duration":"1:34","description":"The emergency declaration clears the way for millions in government aid to help clean the city water of toxic lead.","mediaType":"default","section":"ABCNews/WNT","id":"36338084","title":"State of Emergency Declared in Flint, Michigan, After Water Contamination","url":"/WNT/video/state-emergency-declared-flint-michigan-water-contamination-36338084"}	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2832
__label__wiki	0.874251	0.874251	Akuo Completes Financing for Wind Farm in Uruguay With KfW Funds (Bloomberg) — Akuo Energy SAS, a French developer of clean-power projects, completed financing for a wind farm in Uruguay by raising $78.5 million from KfW Ipex Bank GmbH and Denmark’s Eksport Kredit Fonden. The unit of the German development bank is providing all of the 50-megawatt project’s construction and long-term financing, partly covered by a guarantee from EKF, Akuo said Monday in an e-mailed statement. Eurus Energy America Corp. bought shares and provided shareholder loans of at least $26 million. The company declined to disclose the total cost of the project. “Uruguay is a country with exceptional renewable wind resources,” Eric Scotto, chief executive officer and co-founder of Akuo, said in the statement. The wind farm is the company’s third project in Uruguay and will bring its installed capacity there to almost 150 megawatts, he said. The Florida II wind farm will produce enough power for about 30,000 homes and the electricity will be bought by Uruguay’s state-owned grid operator, according to the statement. Randall Hackley, Sarah McGregor	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2833
__label__cc	0.748434	0.251566	Triodos Starts Share Issue to Raise Funds for Local Solar Farm (Bloomberg) — Triodos Bank NV and Chelwood Community Energy Ltd. started a share issue to raise money to build a 5-megawatt sun-powered plant in the U.K.’s southwest. The companies plan to raise 2.75 million pounds ($4 million) to finance a solar energy facility in Chelwood that will produce enough electricity to power about 1,160 homes, Zeist, Netherlands-based Triodos said Monday in an e-mailed Ana Monteiro, Alastair Reed	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2834
__label__wiki	0.736903	0.736903	FG ASKS EFCC TO SUBMIT PATIENCE JONATHAN'S CORRUPTION CASE FILES GANG-RAPING Tag: GANG-RAPING ANOTHER JSS3 STUDENT GANG-RAPED IN LAGOS DAYS AFTER 11-YR OLD WAS RAPED TO DEATH By Evelyn Usman Another Junior Secondary School 3 student has been ganged-raped in Egan, Igando area of Lagos, over the weekend. This occurred barely one week after an 11-year-old girl, who was sent on an errand was gang-raped to death in Ejigbo area of Lagos, with her assailants still on the run. At press time, the JSS 3 student, as gathered, has had her virginal stitched at an undisclosed private hospital due to tear she sustained, which resulted in bleeding. Information at Vanguard’s disposal revealed that she was lured from… NewsGANG-RAPINGLeave a comment 7 MEN GANG-RAPED MY 13-YR OLD SISTER AFTER ABDUCTING HER IN RIVERS, VICTIM’S SISTER CRIES FOR JUSTICE Dennis Naku, Port Harcourt A family member of a 13-year-old girl has narrated how the victim was abducted and gang-raped by seven men gang in the old Port Harcourt town axis of Rivers State. The victim’s elder sister, Charity Isaiah, who spoke on a radio station, 92.3 Nigeria Info, in Port Harcourt on Thursday, said the teenager was also battered. Charity explained that one of the alleged rapists was their neighbour, adding that he called the young girl as if he wanted to send her on an errand. The sister… NewsCHILD SEX, GANG-RAPING, Port HarcourtLeave a comment 4 ARRESTED IN ANAMBRA FOR GANG-RAPING A WOMAN AND COLLECTING 1MILLION NAIRA FROM HER Tony Okafor, Awka The Anambra State Police Command, on Wednesday, arrested four men for gang-raping a 21-year-old woman. The men, who recorded the incident on video, allegedly collected N1m from the woman in order not to circulate the video. The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Haruna Mohammed, said the suspects were arrested by the command’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad in conjunction with the recently launched Operation Kpochakpu at Ozubulu in the Ekwusigo Local Government Area of the state. He gave their names as Collins Okpala, 25; Nwachukwu Chimanya, 20; Kenechukwu Anyasi,… NewsAnambra, GANG-RAPING	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2836
__label__cc	0.685062	0.314938	How KC Power Clean Turned a Costly Mistake into a Booming Service Business Visit Website ›› We profile Jobber customers and industry experts for #thedailyhustle to learn how they build and operate successful businesses. It was not the happy-go-lucky final day of college most graduates dream of. “My girlfriend was taking a mirror down from a wall in the apartment we were vacating and ripped some drywall off. We decided to patch and paint it ourselves,” begins Kristopher Cook of KC Power Clean. “Later, when we were packing stuff into the back of our car, I spilled some of the leftover paint. Not knowing what I was doing, I tried to clean it up with a hose and wash it down the drain. Then we went for lunch.” By the time the pair had returned, no less than four city-operated environmental rigs were on-site to clean up the storm drain. “I knew right away I was in deep shit,” he recalls. Cook was told that if he didn’t pay the $5,500 clean-up tab by 8 a.m. the next morning, the case file would be turned over to the city—by the time they added administrative and legal fees, the payment could skyrocket to more than $17,000. “I got my dad on the phone and he vetted things. Turns out, it was the real deal. I didn’t have the money, so dad ended up paying the bill,” says Cook. “To pay him back, I went home for the summer and started washing windows in dad’s janitorial business.” Pretty soon, Cook realized that he could make three or four times the money he was being paid as an hourly employee by working with clients directly. “So I told dad; Thanks, but I’m going to start my own company now.” And that’s how KC Power Clean of Brea, California was born. Early days and growth In the beginning, KC Power Clean was Kris, a ladder, a bucket and a squeegee. “After about three years, I bought a power washer from Home Depot so I could wash walls as well as windows,” says Cook. “It was just a little, one gallon of gas thing. You were supposed to pour the oil into a little reservoir, but I didn’t know that, so I dumped it right in with the fuel.” Right away Kris made another emergency call to his dad. “He was like, You idiot! But we managed to drain it out onto a cardboard box and get it working again,” Cook laughs. By 2009, Cook had parlayed the utility of that tool to become a full-fledged power washing company. Things progressed from there until 2014 when KC Power Clean was approached by Starbucks, who were looking for a local supplier to strip paint from their drive thru. This, in turn, led to an opportunity to provide the accompanying sandblasting service. “So we went out and got a couple trucks for that,” says Cook. “It was a sink or swim moment – getting into sandblasting that way – and it ended being a great pivot.” Mobile, agile and social Today, Cook’s business has a threefold market address: Contractors (to support sandblasting requirements on bigger jobs), Property Management companies (who provide regular maintenance income), and residential cleaning jobs. Instagram is such a great way to show what we do with the before and after pictures. We use it like our visual library. Seeing is believing. Kristopher Cook, President, KC Power Clean “It can be challenging from a marketing standpoint to always get our message pointed the right way,” says Cook.”We have a couple different web domains and emails now for the various markets. The key is finding a way to appeal to each buyer without detracting from their experience, or confusing them with stuff they’re not interested in.” To help get the word out, KC Power Clean employs a variety of digital tools, including Google Adwords, Facebook and Instagram. “Instagram is such a great way to show what we do with the before and after pictures. We use it like our visual library. Seeing is believing.” Customer reviews and referrals also play an important role in keeping Kris and his team busy. “We love the client follow-up feature in Jobber,” he says. “Being able to see those ratings from 1 to 10 help us thank the customers who rate us high and rectify things fast for those who may not. That feature alone has probably helped us to eliminate on headcount in the office.” We love the client follow-up feature in Jobber,” he says. “Being able to see those ratings from 1 to 10 help us thank the customers who rate us high and rectify things fast for those who may not. Testing new markets Always seeking ways to intelligently scale the business, KC Power Clean has developed an excellent ‘foot-in-the-door’ approach to sales based on providing little samples of what they can provide. “By the time people call us, they’ve usually done a bit of recon and know what they’re looking for. At that point, winning the business is really about proving to them that you can deliver the results they want,” he says. “So, we’ll take a rig out and do maybe a two foot by two foot patch on their driveway, or brickwork, for a nominal fee just to cover our expenses. Once they see what we can do, we usually get the deal.” That ability to generate will serve Kris well as a business owner and new dad himself. He and his then girlfriend, now wife, welcomed their first child not too long ago. “And maybe more on the way,” Kris says. For budding entrepreneurs like himself, Kris offers this advice: “Don’t be afraid to invest in yourself. It’s just usually a matter of time before it pays off. Once I started to believe in me, life started treating us better.” Lightning round with KC Power Clean! What is your favorite Jobber feature? I’m in love with the new quote approval feature. I also really like to queue my visits in the unscheduled area on the calendar. What is your top marketing channel? AdWords for residential contracting. In 2000 I used an analytics program on my own, then I took a break from that and started using AdWords Express in 2014. We grew to a size where we were eventually able to contract someone to do that for us. What is the most valuable tool in your work toolbox? One of our rigs has both hot water power washing and media blasting, which is rare to see, and provides end-to-end exterior cleaning and restoration service. A lot of jobs we do require both services, or the customer isn’t sure what will be required beforehand. This one truck allows us to deal with both situations. Outside of work tools, what would you never leave home without before a day in the field? When we were working on the Starbucks project we were living on the road, so we bought everyone a tactical backpack. My backpack helps keeps me organized, and using it means everything is in the same spot: my phone charger, phone, laptop, snacks, notepad, trifold brochures are always there. It’s my little mobile carry unit. What’s your favorite way to unwind after a hard day’s work? We recently had our first child, who is now a 15 month old tornado. Coming home to him makes it really easy to turn off now. There may be two more on the way! We just found out. Every day I think “Another day, another dollar. Back to the grind”. Tags: BUSINESS OPERATIONSMARKETINGBEST PRACTICESBUSINESSCUSTOMER SERVICESCHEDULINGTEAM & EMPLOYEES	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2837
__label__cc	0.620536	0.379464	Italy: cyberattacks will influence the vote, here is how In the annual report of the secret services presented yesterday at Palazzo Chigi the risks of the so-called hybrid threats to our country are denounced and, in particular, a cyberattacks risk that would take the form of “campaigns of influence that, starting with the online dissemination of stolen information through cyber attacks, aim to condition the orientation and sentiment of public opinion, especially when the latter are called to the polls “. The call is right and, given the source, there is to be believed. However. In reality, as we do not have a unifying theory of electoral choices, we do not have a unique and exhaustive theory of the effects of information in the process of building public opinion. And even less we know about the role that fake news, at the center of disinformation campaigns, may have in guiding the electorate. We are still studying these effects. THE ROLE OF DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA However, we know that disinformation and propaganda campaigns have always been a means of influence and that, while in the past they aimed to hit individual decision makers and opinion leaders, in the present they aim to influence that larval form of public debate that takes place in social networks. But, attention, fake news rarely creates a new way of thinking, rather they act as powerful confirmations of our prejudices, reinforcing pre-existing political and cultural options. The point, as claimed by Professor Walter Quattrociocchi, is that fake news are not different from propaganda and that these, spread virally in social networks, create a confirmation bias, induce users to cooperate for a shared vision and to ignore information in contrast. His group “Data Sciences and Complexity” studied the phenomenon on 376 million Internet users. It is in this context that the pro-Russian propaganda of some media such as RT and Sputnik, the “troll factories” of St. Petersburg and the disinformation campaigns that in the case of Clinton maligned to manage a pedophile tour in a pizzeria in Indiana has proliferated and generated the armed assault of an exalted man against his patrons. And despite the 13 Russians suspected of Trumpgate, we still do not know how they have influenced the opinions of American voters. It is likely that they played a role, but together with other factors: the erosion of the credibility of the media and public institutions and especially the ability of agencies specialized in using personal profiles to sew a political message on them that they were not able to refuse. It is therefore difficult to say how the viral spread of beliefs and convictions affect the vote. A research study by the CNR, the italian National Research Council, has shown that the majority of politicians’ followers are made up of inactive users or fake profiles, so we understand that the echo chambers can not be so effective. THE TRUE ALARM: THE SUBMISSION OF PERSONAL DATA AND THE ATTACK OF CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE For this reason, the other appeal made by our services seems to us to be more interesting: “The maneuvers of foreign actors — suspected of operating in conjunction with their respective intelligence apparatuses — are active in pursuing strategies aimed at occupying increasing spaces in the market also through improper practices, lobbying relations, expropriation or pre-arranged turnover of Italian managers and technicians, as well as spy-like interferences for the improper acquisition of sensitive data”. And here things become interesting. Fake news is actually a cyber problem. They are the evolution of social engineering attacks: “the more I know about you from your digital data, the more I can offer you what you are already inclined to desire, even the political offer built around fake news.” The trait d’union of these two threats, the cybernetic campaigns of influence and the profiling of tastes and tendencies of Internet users is represented by the role of Nation state hacker. They are the ones who do it. They often take the form of APT, Advanced persistent threats, which can be installed in an electoral database, as in the case of Hillary Clinton, in a bank, an oil company, or able to interfere with a critical service for society, such as health, transport, electricity. It has already happened in England, Estonia and Ukraine. Think what would happen if a cyber attack blocked the waste chain in a big city or suddenly switched off traffic lights, aerial control towers and water purification. Apart from the deaths it could do, it would create a situation of alarm, panic and perhaps street riots. We know many of these actors. The Russian speaking criminals APT28 and APT29 attack ministries, embassies and European and American media; Koreans like the Lazarus Group attack financial institutions and cryptocurrency; Middle Eastern ones, Turla, steal profiles on social networks and English-speaking attackers use cybernetic weapons stolen from the NSA to watch over citizens and steal industrial secrets. Italy is gearing up to face these threats. We probably need to work on it, even after the elections. The Client-Side Battle Against JavaScript Attacks Is Already Here Ben Diamant in The Startup Improving your passwords John Kearney in Tradecraft How to Keep Google from Stealing Your Data and Tracking You Jason Weiland in Freethinkr Authentication in the Context of APIs Chathura Ekanayake in The Startup Turning Signal App into a Coarse Tracking Device David Wells in Tenable TechBlog Backups are Awesome Ryan Schuetzler in Computers Are Awesome The Killer Cookie Ignaz Wanders Discovering The Hidden Web Vickie Li in InfoSec Write-ups	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2855
__label__cc	0.588279	0.411721	An Award-Winning App for Learning Sign Language March 12, 2018 · Posted by Leon in Case Studies · Add a comment This month we're checking back in on Apps for Good, an organization that teaches young students how to build mobile apps and IoT products. Balsamiq provides free licenses to the students to wireframe their products. We first met Apps for Good in 2013 and are delighted to see how much success they've had since then. In 2017, the Apps for Good team from St Marylebone School in London designed an app called Sign Time which won the "People's Choice Award" at the annual competition. Here's Anna, Michelle and Lily collecting their award: And here's their pitch video: We asked the team a few questions about their project and what they learned along the way. Q&A with the St Marylebone School Apps for Good team What does your app do and how did you come up with the idea? Sign Time is an app that teaches sign language through visual learning and educational games. Our app breaks down communication barriers and teaches signing in a simple yet entertaining way. We were inspired to create Sign Time as a way to educate and entertain. We designed this app for personal reasons, as one of our team members (Michelle) has a partially deaf cousin. Her cousin found that learning to sign was frustrating because he was handed boring, non colourful sheets of paper that weren't helpful and didn't teach him properly. He often said that he would rather have instructional videos and colours to make his learning more fun. Deaf children all around the UK experience the same problem, so we were inspired to create Sign Time as a way to educate and entertain. What's next for your team? Winning the award opens up so many incredible opportunities. We are excited over a number of things! First of all, simply winning the award opens up so many incredible opportunities, and we have both decided to join the fellowship after learning more about Apps For Good. Furthermore, we are obviously very excited about our mentoring session with Holly Branson at Virgin Red! The opportunity for the mentoring session entails is very exciting. What suggestions do you have for someone looking to build their own apps? The advice we give to anyone hoping to develop their app idea is definitely to think about target audience. By contacting Lambeth Deaf Children's Society, we were able to gain an insight as to what our target audience wanted in an app and didn't want. This helped us perfect our idea and make it as suitable as possible. [It's] good to have many ideas and compare them all to get the best one. Also, don't just stick with one specific idea! As a team, we had to go through countless ideas before we settled on Sign Time, so it is good to have many ideas and compare them all to get the best one. Why and how do you use Balsamiq? Balsamiq is a software that allows you to create mockups of a phone. It is really helpful when you want to convey your app idea onto a screen. Sometimes explaining the process of how your app works can be difficult to understand, especially to someone who has never seen it before. By using this software we were able to show Sign Time’s main features step by step using Balsamiq; we even used it in our pitch. Do you have any feature ideas or suggestions for how we can improve our product(s)? Although Balsamiq is a good software to use, it can sometimes take a very long time to produce mockups of your app. To make it better, they could possibly add ways to quicken the process, instead of just their ‘lock’ feature. They could also regularly update to have the newest versions of smartphones (we had to work with an iPhone three), but apart from that, we think it's a very useful software. (Editor's note: to quickly create multiple screens based on the same template, we suggest using our Symbols feature - there's a quick tutorial here. Additionally, all of our versions now include multiple iPhone sizes (up to iPhone X) and a generic smartphone control. Desktop users can visit our Download page to get the latest version.) Congratulations Anna, Michelle and Lily! We can't wait to see what you build next! Do you have a story to share about the awesome things you do with Balsamiq? Send an email to champions@balsamiq.com with your stories or blog posts! Leon for the Balsamiq Team « UX/UI Links, February 2018 The Balsamiq Software Donation Program »	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2865
__label__cc	0.72499	0.27501	Barrie man facing 52 charges in series of brazen break-ins Kim Phillips Barrie.CTVNews.ca Producer @ctvbarrienews Contact Police releases this image of a suspect wanted in connection with a series of break-ins from Barrie to Peel Region during August 2020. (Supplied) BARRIE, ONT. -- A four-month, multi-jurisdictional investigation led officers to charge a Barrie man with 52 offences in connection to a brazen spree of break-ins over the summer. Police say the accused used a vehicle stolen from Peel Region in a series of 14 commercial property smash and grabs during the month of August. According to investigators, the crimes started in Barrie and stretched into Peel, York and Simcoe County. Police accuse the suspect of damaging 15 properties, arson and theft of about $18,000 in cash and items during the crime spree. South Simcoe Police arrested the 34-year-old Barrie man and charged him with 52 crimes, including 15 counts of break and enter, 16 counts of mischief, 14 counts of theft and one count of arson, among others. The accused was released from police custody with a future court date scheduled. None of the allegations have been proven in court.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2866
__label__wiki	0.63376	0.63376	Campus Crime & Fire Log I Can Bearly Hear You! What to Do in Waco D.C. Blogs Lariat Letters NATIONAL CHAMPIONS! Soccer and Volleyball Acrobatics & Tumbling and Equestrian Cross Country and Track & Field Sports Takes Lariat TV News Lariat TV News Today Don’t Feed the Bears Baylor Backstory Housing Edition TAB: End of the Decade FOR 90’S KIDS ONLY TAB: Filtered Baylor Homecoming 2018 TAB: Color-Coded TAB: It’s Not All Bad News, Bears Coupon Corner Home Opinion Editorials Editorial: Olympics should be held in better city Editorial: Olympics should be held in better city With the 2014 Winter Olympics quickly approaching, the Russian city of Sochi is bracing for the world’s stage. More than $50 billion has already been spent on the games, making it the most expensive Olympics ever. Given Sochi’s ill-prepared status as a city ready to host the Winter Olympics, it’s a wonder the International Olympic Committee (IOC), awarded the Olympics to Sochi in the first place. The IOC could have awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics to a number of world-class cities, and choosing Sochi, Russia was a mistake. In 2006, when the IOC was narrowing down finalists for the 2014 Winter Olympics, the candidates were Salzburg, Austria; Pyeongchang, South Korea; and Sochi, Russia. When selecting a host city, the IOC evaluates 11 different criterion. Areas of evaluation include the number and quality of sporting venues, security, government support and financial viability. Salzburg ranked first in nine of the 11 categories and was considered the favorite to win the bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics. In a confusing decision, the IOC selected Sochi, for the 2014 Olympics instead of the heavy favorite, Salzburg. Typically, when selecting a location for the Winter Olympics, the first qualification is a city with cold weather and snow. Sochi is one of Russia’s warmest cities. Sochi is located in the southwest region of Russia on the coast of the Black Sea. In the city of Sochi, there is no actual snow. Sochi is a rare Russian city that technically has a subtropical climate and is considered to be Russia’s largest resort city. In order to compete in outdoor winter events, athletes will have to travel for more than an hour to Krasnaya Polyana in the Caucasus Mountains. Not only does Sochi not have snow, but Sochi is also astonishingly close to a conflict zone. In the North Caucasus region, roughly an hour from Sochi, armed rebellion and terrorist attacks have overwhelmed the area. Over the last 13 years, there have been 124 suicide bombings in Russia. Social and ethnic tensions are crippling Russia. Sochi is not prepared for the Winter Olympics and neither is Russia as a country. Just last month, suicide bombers killed more than 30 people in Volgograd. Russia has taken drastic measures to try to shore up security for the Winter Games. The Russian government has sent more than 30,000 police officers and Interior Ministry troops to Sochi to bolster security. But the fact is that Sochi is in the midst of a volatile political scenario and the higher likelihood of violence and tragedy is an unnecessary risk the IOC mistakenly embraced when it selected Sochi to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. Maybe with the world descending upon Sochi, tensions in Russia will calm down. Sports can be a healing agent and it’s conceivable that maybe Russia can be cooled off and rejuvenated by the spirit of the Olympic games. But any positives of holding the Olympics in Sochi are overshadowed by the grave danger Russia poses. America has not held a Winter Olympics since 2002 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Colorado has never hosted the Olympics and would be a pristine, world-class location. France has not hosted the games since 1992. Germany has not been awarded the Winter Olympics since 1936. The Scandinavian countries of Sweden and Finland are also viable candidates to host the Winter Olympics. Norway hosted a Winter Olympics in 1994, but Sweden and Finland have never hosted the Winter Olympics. Clearly, the IOC had better locations such as Salzburg, Austria, as options for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Instead, the IOC unwisely selected a tumultuous geopolitical location with a penchant for violence. The IOC should have learned its lesson. However, the 2018 Winter Olympics have already been awarded to South Korea. Surely this decision by the IOC did not help soothe South Korea’s relations with its volatile northern neighbor. Considering Sochi’s violent and unstable state, the lack of cold weather, inaccessibility to snow and turbulent regional violence, the IOC should have never given the 2014 Winter Olympics to Sochi. Any reward for hosting the Olympic Games in Sochi is far outweighed by the numerous risks. If you’re surprised, you aren’t paying attention Biden’s cabinet picks don’t challenge the norm The downfall of the online rush process The Baylor Lariat Print Edition Lariat Instagram Tweets by @bulariat Lariat Facebook Social work graduate student dies due to COVID-19 Breaking News January 17, 2021 Shorthanded Lady Bears fall to Iowa State No. 2 Bears remain undefeated in defensive road battle against No.... Men's Basketball January 16, 2021 Don’t Feed the Bears — Depth Chart Reveal Don't Feed the Bears May 8, 2015 Buzzfeed quizzes go viral, connect people online Arts and Life February 25, 2014 Don’t Feed the Bear – Basketball winding down Don't Feed the Bears March 4, 2015 Baylor4417 Arts and Life2238 Points of View1521 Waco1188 Editorials1091 Articles, photos, and other works by staff of The Baylor Lariat are Copyright © Baylor® University. 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__label__cc	0.722133	0.277867	Home Cool Gadgets 10 Best USB C to Ethernet Adapters for MacBook Pro and MacBook... 10 Best USB C to Ethernet Adapters for MacBook Pro and MacBook Air Rajesh Mishra - Rajesh Mishra In the race to make the MacBooks look slim and elegant, Apple killed almost all the essential ports including MagSafe 2 charging port, HDMI port, SD card slot, Thunderbolt 2 port, and the USB-A port long ago in 2016. Though no one can argue the benefits of USB-C ports, they have forced everyone to live with dongles and adapters. Whether you find it ironic or just a long-awaited change that had to happen someday, adapters have become the need of the hour. I personally miss the Ethernet port as for certain tasks, the WiFi just doesn’t cut it. That’s why, we have rounded up the 10 best USB C to Ethernet adapters for MacBook which let you access ultra-high speed internet. Best USB C to Ethernet Adapters for MacBook Pro/Air in 2020 Featuring pretty compact yet durable casing and strong cable, these USB C to Ethernet adapters are designed to take on wear and tear. Being lightweight, they can easily sneak into even in a tiny pocket. So, you can carry them anywhere without any hassle. What’s more, USB-C to ethernet adapters supports data transfer speed of up to 5 Gbps. As a result, you can transfer tons of data, play online games, and access network storage devices with top-notch speeds.. Not to mention, they are readied to keep the plug-and-play convenience intact. As for the compatibility, they work with both older and newer MacBook models. To be more precise, you can use these USB-C to Ethernet adapters with following models: MacBook Pro 13-inch (2016 or later) MacBook Air 13-inch (2018 or later) Apple MacBook (12-inch) With all that said, let’s get started with the extensive lineup of the top USB-C to ethernet adapters designed to work with 12-inch MacBook, MacBook Pros, and MacBook Air. Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter FRETREE uoeos Syntech Mokin 1. Anker When it comes to producing top-notch chargers and adapters, Anker is one of the best in the business. So, if you are looking for a highly efficient USB C to Ethernet adapter for your MacBook, do check it out. The adapter is designed to be pretty lightweight and compact. Thus, you can comfortably carry it even in your tiny pocket. Notably, it can deliver speeds up to 1 Gbps which is up to the mark for transferring data faster. With the LED indicators, it also keeps you in the loop about whether it’s powered on or connected to the network or the Ethernet cable is connected. Overall, it’s a top-quality USB C to Ethernet adapter that can excel in most departments. By from Amazon: $17.99 2. Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Both in terms of efficiency and high transfer speed, the Apple Thunderbolt to gigabit Ethernet adapter is right up there among the top. So, if you are in quest of a well-built USB C to Ethernet adapter that can transfer speed at a high speed, keep it in your mind. Design-wise, Apple’s USB C to Ethernet adapter sports a simple design. It’s quite lightweight and portable. So, it can comfortably sneak even into a small pocket. Though it’s priced slightly higher at $28, you can bank on it to get the job done without any fuss. 3. AUKEY Should you wish to get a highly-rated USB C to Ethernet adapter at a comparatively low price ($13), give serious consideration to this offering from AUKEY. Yeah, you read that right! AUKEY USB C to Ethernet adapter for MacBook is pretty tiny but well-built. Even in terms of transferring data, it’s second to none. Thanks to the support for 10Mbps, 100Mbps, and 1Gbps network speed levels, it’s fully equipped to live up to the asking rate. So, whether you want a USB C to Ethernet adapter for lag-free video streaming or fun-filled gaming, you can’t go wrong with AUKEY’s offering. 4. Lention Just in case you want your USB C to Ethernet adapter to be a bit more functional, I would recommend you to take a close look at Lention’s offering. It’s incredibly lightweight but fully equipped to take on the assigned task. What has caught my eyes in this Ethernet adapter is the uni-body design which is made of aluminum alloy with ionized finish. It complements the MacBook’s famed uni-body design. Notably, it also features 3 USB 3.0 ports and one RJ-45 port. And with the ability to transfer data at 5 Gbps, it allows you to transfer files, stream video or play high-octane games without having to deal with buffering. 5. FRETREE Another USB C to Ethernet adapter that packs a solid punch way above its weight is FRETREE. Despite being priced relatively low, it’s quite good in most aspects. For starters, it has a small form-factor for improved portability. Made of aircraft-grade aluminum alloy, it’s very durable and can resist shock with ease. So, you can trust this adapter to take on some on beating. Beyond design, FRETREE comes with an upgraded chip that enables it to work with multiple operating systems including macOS and Windows. Besides, with support connection speed up to 1 Gbps and downward compatibility with 1Mbps/10Mbps/100Mbps speeds, it is surely one of the best Ethernet adapter on the market. 6. uoeos Though uoeos may not be as popular as some of the noted names mentioned in this lineup, it has come up with a top-quality USB C to Ethernet adapter for MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. Probably the best part of this adapter is the design and durability. With the impressive aluminum casing, it has a good-looking profile. And with the presence of strong braided nylon cable, it has also got the needed durability to survive the wear and tear. Design aside, uoeos USB C to Ethernet adapter delivers connection speeds up to 1 Gbps. Additionally, it’s also backward compatible with 100Mbps/10Mbps/1Mbps, which further enhances its usability. 7. Syntech Sporting a rugged construction, Syntech is a compact yet exceptionally durable USB C to Ethernet adapter for MacBook. Made of high-grade zinc alloy, the casing is shock-resistant. And with the nylon braided cable, it’s a long-lasting companion for your notebook. Impact-resistant construction aside, Syntech is equally efficient when it comes to transferring data at a rapid speed. It doesn’t feature an LED indicator to ensure there is no distraction. Priced at $16, it’s also among the cheapest USB C to Ethernet adapters for MacBook in the market right now. For more than one reason, this offering from AmazonBasics has looked top-notch to me. What makes this USB 3.1 Type C to Ethernet adapter a strong contender is the ability to offer access to fast network speeds. You can use it to transfer files with speed up to 5 Gbps, which is more than enough to take on large files. Furthermore, it’s also backward compatible with 10M/100Mbps networks, which is yet another plus from a usability perspective. Beyond speed, AmazonBasics adapter is also among the most durable USB C to Ethernet adapters thanks to a compact yet rugged construction that can fight out shock with ease. 9. Mokin Mokin USB C to Ethernet adapter is designed to take on various tasks with the desired efficiency. Boasting 5 Gbps data transfer speed and 1 Gbps network speed, it can let you transfer HD movies or stream 4K content on YouTube without a hitch. Thus, you will be able to simply plug and play without having to deal with the lagging or buffering issues. Talking about the design, it has an impact-resistant aluminum body that not only enhances the look but also strengthens the casing. Moreover, the presence of multiple ports offers you the needed flexibility to enhance multitasking. Lastly, Mokin comes in two color variants such as silver and space gray and comes at $18. 10. UGREEN There is a lot to like in UGREEN USB C to Ethernet adapter for MacBook. First and foremost, it has got a modern-looking design that can get along nicely with your notebook. The solid casing coupled with the strong cable makes it a reliable companion. Design aside, UGREEN USB C to Ethernet adapter is equipped to transfer data with a top speed of up to 5 Gbps. That means you won’t have to deal with buffering while streaming action flicks, binge-watching your favorite shows, or transferring tons of data. Keeping in mind these qualities, the $12 price tag puts it among the cheapest yet very efficient USB C to ethernet adapters for MacBook. Choose the Top USB C to Ethernet Adapters for MacBook for Seamless Plug-N-Play So, these are the top USB C to ethernet adapters for MacBook Pro and Air. Both in terms of durability and efficiency, they are ahead of the curve. So, choosing a high-quality ethernet adapter that can take on your demanding tasks shouldn’t be a big deal. Have we missed out on any notable ethernet adapter? If yes, feel free to let us know in the comments below. Also, tell us about the adapters that are going to work with your MacBook. Joe Jan 10, 2021 At 5:15 pm Simon, I don’t really understand what you mean with “the slot for both is the same”? They aren’t. Jon is right, its a Thunderbolt 1/2 – Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, it’s not Thunderbolt 3 (which is USB-C). However I understand your point. If you want to stick with Apple, then Apple’s Thunderbolt 2 (!) – Gigabit Ethernet Adapter can be a good choice, but you also have to buy Apple’s USB-C – Thunderbolt (1/2) adapter, if you want to use it as a “USB-C Ethernet Adapter”. I think, Jon is right. The article statement “a well-built USB C to Ethernet adapter” in this context (without additional information) isn’t correct. Jon is right, that’s a Thunderbolt 1/2 > Gigabit Ethernet adapter, it’s not Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C). Simon Peters Dec 29, 2020 At 9:09 pm Of course you are right, but there is no practical difference; the slot for both is the same, and Apple don’t offer a ubs-c option, so if you want to stick with Apple, this is the only option. It would have been counter intuitive to leave it off the list. Jon Nov 28, 2020 At 5:33 am Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter is NOT a usb-c adapter, that does not belong on this list. 8 Best Bumper Cases for iPhone 12 Pro Max You Can Buy 10 Best MagSafe Accessories for iPhone 12 Pro Max 15 Best iPhone 12 Pro Accessories You Can Buy 10 Best GoPro Hero 8 Black Alternatives You Can Buy 17 Best GoPro Hero 9 Black Accessories You Can Buy Wondershare InClowdz: Sync and Migrate Data from One Cloud to Another Future MacBook Pros Will Feature No Touch Bar, More Ports & MagSafe Charger: Kuo Apple, as previous reports suggested, will launch two new MacBook Pro models this year. And today, reputed Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said (via MacRumors)... Beebom Staff - Jan 15, 2021 Of all the iPhone variants launched in 2020, the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the largest in size, featuring a 6.7-inch display. It also... Arjun Sha - Dec 3, 2020 Apple to Release Two Mini LED MacBook Pros in 2021, MacBook Air in 2022 We have heard about Apple working towards using Mini LED displays in its devices, including the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. While earlier reports... Akshay Gangwar - Dec 3, 2020 New Apple Patent Suggests 3D Touch for the MacBook Pro Touch Bar Remember 3D touch? The feature everyone loved to hate until Apple actually got rid of it and we realised it was very useful in... Akshay Gangwar - Nov 27, 2020 Apple MacBook Pro with M1 vs Apple MacBook Air with M1: Which One to... In more ways than one, the Apple M1 chip has kickstarted an all-new era for Macs. An era where Apple computers will have a... Rajesh Mishra - Nov 13, 2020 LG Tone Free HBS-FN7 TWS Review: An Exquisite but Pricey Affair 8.5 Akshay Gangwar For the most part, truly wireless earphones feel very much alike. True, you can get them in a variety of price ranges with a bunch of features, but they are essentially similar features with improveme[...] Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i Review: A Powerful Workhorse It’s been quite some time since Intel announced its 11th-gen laptop processors, complete with the new logo design and Intel Iris Xe graphics. And yet, so far I’ve not gotten my hands on a [...] Mi Robot Vacuum-Mop P Review: Smart Cleaning at a Good Price As far as robot vacuum cleaners go, there’s no dearth of choices and options out there. However, most of them are from brands unheard of, or extremely expensive. So when Xiaomi launched its Vacu[...]	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2871
__label__cc	0.581069	0.418931	Home News iPhone 12 Event Tipped for October 13, Pre-orders from October 16 iPhone 12 Event Tipped for October 13, Pre-orders from October 16 Akshay Gangwar - Akshay Gangwar Last Updated: September 24, 2020 11:16 am Apple is yet to launch its iPhone lineup for the year, since the September event was all about the new Apple Watch Series 6 and SE, new 8th-gen iPad, and 4th-gen iPad Air. However, other than confirming that the iPhone 12 is delayed, Apple hasn’t really given out any information about when we can expect it to launch. Now, according to information shared with MacRumors by an employee at a UK carrier, it seems Apple will be launching the new iPhones on October 13. MacRumors points out (and so are we) that there’s no way to confirm this information. However, it does tick the boxes Apple usually ticks with its launch date. It’s on a Tuesday, and it’s in the second week of October. Apple has historically launched iPhones on the second Tuesday of the month so this information may actually be correct. Apart from the launch date, the employee apparently claimed that the company will accept pre-orders immediately after the event and the phone will start shipping from October 16. While that’s exciting, as MacRumors points out, this is an unusually short time gap between the announcement and the launch of the phone. As such, it could be that Apple will start pre-orders from October 16, with the launch a week after that on October 23. As for what we’re expecting to see on October 16, there should be four new iPhones, all with 5G support and OLED panels. There are also some rumours of the 5.4-inch iPhone Mini actually shipping with a less powerful B14 chipset. Either way, we will get to know all about the new iPhones, their shipping dates, and most importantly, pricing, on October 13, it seems. SOURCEMacrumors professionalresumes Sep 24, 2020 At 1:37 pm While you start your seek for a profession, look on-line on the Occupational Handbook positioned on-line by the US Labor board and see if you could find a profession that’s not solely in excessive demand however one which is able to fulfill your long run targets for wage and academic necessities. Be aware of your profession alternatives earlier than you lock your self right into an everlasting profession alternative. 10 Best Skins and Wraps for iPhone 12 You Can Buy RAEGR Launches iPhone 12 MagSafe-Compatible Cases, Wireless Chargers in India 8 Best Cases with Stand for iPhone 12 and 12 Pro 8 Best Wooden Cases for iPhone 12 and 12 Pro iPhone 12 Series Users Plagued with LTE and 5G Connection Drop Issues	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2872
__label__cc	0.745682	0.254318	(585) 494-1121 ext 21 Town of Bergen New York Town Assessor Bldg & Code Enforcement Highway Dept. FEE SCHEDULE FOR THE TOWN OF BERGEN TRANSFER STATION EFFECTIVE – July 1, 2018 Individuals will place all household trash (light purple bags), recyclables and/or construction and demolition materials in the respective containers provided and must pick up their own dropped or spilled materials. No hazardous wastes, empty drum, barrels, aerosol cans, pesticide containers, paint cans, etc. will be accepted. Items and quantities not specifically mentioned in the following fee schedule will be accepted and priced at the discretion of the Attendant. Persons not following these rules will not be issued further permits. WEEKLY HOUSEHOLD GARBAGE AND TRASH $5.00 per bag (light purple) which are only available from the Town Clerk during normal business hours. CONSTRUCTION & DEMOLITION (C & D) MATERIALS AND BULK ITEMS The Town will make every effort to have a container at the Transfer Site every Saturday, during the summer months, for C & D materials. At the discretion of the Town Officials, the container may be on-site for extended periods. The following items will be accepted when C & D container is available: $40.00 per level COMPACT pickup truck, minivan or station wagon $50.00 per level FULL-SIZE pickup, or equivalent sized box trailer or van $70.00 for loads that are filled over the top of the standard sides of the truck NO LARGER QUANTITIES WILL BE ACCEPTED $10.00 per item tied and bundled no larger than 3 feet long by 2 feet high and 2 feet wide $15.00 per non-stuffed chair (kitchen, dining, etc.) $25.00 per stuffed chair, mattress or bed springs $35.00 per car load, sofa or equivalent size rolled carpet TELEVISION SETS $5 CEE EQUIPMENT – FREE OF CHARGE All METALS will be accepted for recycling at no cost – including CLEAN food cans. APPLIANCES must have motors removed, but the motors will be accepted separately. REFRIGERATORS, AIR CONDITIONERS, FREEZERS, DEHUMIDIFIERS, ETC. will be assessed a $20.00 charge for Freon removal and collection to the person disposing of the unit. The fee will be charged whether or not the freon has been removed. PLEASE! Do not cut the tubing and release the freon into the air! A much better alternative is to insist that the store selling you the new unit takes your old unit when delivering the new one. TIRES: We accept up to 2 tires per family per week at a cost of $5.00 per tire up to 15 inch, $10.00 per small truck tire (16-19 inch) or $20.00 per large truck tire. TRANSFER STATION HOURS – SATURDAY 9:00 AM UNTIL 3:00 PM The Transfer Station is located on Townline Road (Route 262). Bags and Punch cards for C & D items must be purchased at the Town Clerk’s office. THE TRANSFER STATION DOES NOT FOLLOW THE HOLIDAY OFFICE CLOSINGS OF THE TOWN CLERK’S OFFICE. Tentative Roll Notice Water District News Town Board Minutes Zoning Board Minutes License & Info Town News & Legal Notices Town Clerk Hours Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 8:00 AM – Noon and 1:00 - 4:00 PM Saturday 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM Closed Thursdays Phone: (585) 494-1121 ext 21 Town Court Hour Wednesday 1:00 -5:00 pm & Thursday 11:00 – 3:00 pm Traffic Court: 1st Wednesday of the Month 5:00 pm; Criminal Court: 2nd Wednesday of the Month 5:00 pm; 3rd Wednesday of the Month 3:00 pm Civil Court: 4th Wednesday of the Month as Scheduled Town Board Agenda for April 23rd 2019 Leroy – Bergen Community Revitalization Plan In accordance with Federal Law and U.S. Department of Agriculture policy, this institution is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all program). To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410 Or call (800)795-3272 (Voice) or (202)720-6382 (TDD) © Town of Bergen. All rights reserved. Mail Login	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2873
__label__cc	0.659342	0.340658	Riversand, Verdant, and ESHA Research Announce Global Partnership for Integrated Compliance and Product Data Management and Syndication New food and beverage industry partnership delivers seamless integration of top nutrition labeling, business eCommerce, and product information management Riversand, ESHA Research, and Verdant announce an integrated product offering that provides robust product data management capabilities paired with best-in-class nutrition and labeling compliance automation tools. This partnership combines the expertise and experience of three market leaders: Riversand is a visionary cloud-native SaaS Master Data Management (MDM) and Product Information Management (PIM) solution provider. ESHA Research is a leading provider of product formulation and labeling compliance software. Verdant is a well-known provider of innovative SaaS solutions for CPG. Together, Riversand, ESHA Research, and Verdant provide a powerful, integrated solution to help food and beverage companies work smarter. Food and beverage (F&B) companies are struggling to balance the demands of mounting regulatory complexity with the need for increased speed and visibility being driven by customers and eCommerce opportunities. This integrated, cloud-based offering provides companies an opportunity to significantly upgrade their product development and go-to-market capabilities with digital tools that drive efficiency and automation to meet today’s demands and to open up new opportunities. "Food and beverage clients need for their digital transformation a reliable and comprehensive digital Product Information Management (PIM) solution that pulls and synthesizes data from a variety of sources," said Upen Varanasi, co-founder and CEO at Riversand. "This innovative solution from ESHA, Verdant, and Riversand complements our strong PIM capabilities, omnichannel visibility in supplier and customer collaboration, and intelligent change management and approvals." Riversand will leverage ESHA’s Genesis R&D and Verdant’s COG Integration Platform to capture, enrich, approve, and publish accurate technical information for food ingredients, recipes, and key product data such as claims and nutrition labeling. This offering enables seamless collaboration between internal and external stakeholders, management of the complete digital product record, and facilitation of approvals and change management—all while assuring that critical nutrition labeling and compliance data is generated and validated with confidence. "Riversand MDM and ESHA Genesis R&D are both leaders in their spaces and well-regarded by our F&B clients and we are pleased to partner with them to provide this integrated offering," said Wes Frierson, Chief Strategy Officer at Verdant. "Our partners truly complement each other and this solution offers a cost-effective, yet powerful solution that meets many of the most pressing needs for F&B firms." "This joint partnership offering will help customers streamline their commercialization process, enabling them to get their products to market faster and more efficiently," said Craig Bennett, CEO of ESHA Research. To learn more about the integrated solution, visit: https://www.riversand.com/product-data-management-and-syndication/ About ESHA Research ESHA Research, founded in 1981, offers a variety of nutritional analysis and label development solutions to ensure regulatory compliance. Our software programs and databases are used all over the world, by food manufacturers, educational facilities, restaurants, healthcare facilities, and other industry institutions for nutrient analysis, labeling, product development, and more. In addition, ESHA Research offers software and regulatory compliance consulting and label-generation services. Visit www.esha.com for more information. About Verdant Verdant is focused on improving innovation, quality, and commercialization capabilities by transforming the way companies leverage technology and data. Verdant has become a trusted partner to many of the world’s leading CPG brands by offering industry-specific advisory and professional services paired with innovative technology and product offerings. Visit www.verdantservices.com for more information about services and offerings. About Riversand Riversand’s cloud-native master data management solutions are designed to support customers’ digital transformation journeys through improved business agility, faster adoption and improved collaboration across the enterprise. Driving data to experiences, Riversand has a vision of helping companies know their customers better, move products faster, automate processes, mitigate risk and run their businesses smarter. Visit Riversand for more information and follow us @RiversandMDM on Twitter and Riversand on LinkedIn. Ilana Friedman pr@riversand.com Global Automotive Roof System Market Outlook 2019-2020 & 2027 - Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities - ResearchAndMarkets.com Global Online Recruitment Markets 2020-2024 with Microsoft, Recruit, Axel Springer, and SEEK Dominating Russia Jails Putin Critic Navalny for 30 Days, Defying West Accenture to extend home working in Italy beyond COVID emergency The "Automotive Roof System - Global Market Outlook (2019-2027)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Dublin, Jan. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Global Online Recruitment Market: Size & Forecast with Impact Analysis of COVID-19 (2020-2024)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. "Global Online Recruitment Market: Size & Forecast with Impact Analysis of COVID-19 (2020-2024)", provides an in-depth analysis of the global online recruitment market with description of market sizing and growth. The analysis includes market by value, by application and by region. In addition, the report also provides detailed application and regional analysis. Furthermore, through online recruitment employers can attract a larger number of potential employees. Companies can also develop their e-recruitment platforms in-house, use e-recruitment HR software or employ recruitment agencies that utilise e-recruitment as part of their package. Moreover, on the basis of application online recruitment market is segmented into, hotel, computing, accounting, technical, medical care, managerial, sales & marketing, clerical and other. The global online recruitment market has increased at a steady pace over the years and the market is further expected to augment progressively during the forecasted years 2020 to 2024. The market would augment owing to different growth drivers such as escalating urban population, growing smartphone penetration, emerging number of internet users, rising youth population and surging social network users. However, the market faces some challenges which are hindering the growth of the market. Some of the major challenges faced by the industry are: rapidly changing needs and preferences and negative economic, social and geopolitical conditions. Whereas, the market growth would be further supported by various market trends like augmenting adoption of artificial intelligence technology, increasing machine learning technology, implementation of gamification, etc. Moreover, the report also assesses the key opportunities in the market and outlines the factors that are and would be driving the growth of the industry. Growth of the overall global online recruitment market has also been forecasted for the years 2020-2024, taking into consideration the previous growth patterns, the growth drivers and the current and future trends. Some of the major players operating in the global online recruitment market are Microsoft Corporation (LinkedIn Corporation), Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., Axel Springer SE (StepStone), and SEEK Limited, whose company profiling has been done in the report. In this segment of the report, business overview, financial overview and business strategies of the respective companies are also provided.Key Topics Covered: 1. Executive Summary 2. Introduction2.1 Recruitment: An Overview 2.1.1 Factors Influencing Recruitment2.2 Recruitment Process 2.3 Online Recruitment: An Overview 2.4 Advantages and Limitations of Online Recruitment2.5 Online Recruitment Segmentation 3. Global Market Analysis3.1 Global Online Recruitment Market: An Analysis3.1.1 Global Online Recruitment Market by Value3.1.2 Global Online Recruitment Market by Application (Hotel, Computing, Accounting, Technical, Medical Care, Managerial, Sales & Marketing, Clerical and Other)3.1.3 Global Online Recruitment Market by Region (Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and Middle East & Africa)3.2 Global Online Recruitment Market: Application Analysis3.2.1 Global Hotel Online Recruitment Market by Value3.2.2 Global Computing Online Recruitment Market by Value3.2.3 Global Accounting Online Recruitment Market by Value3.2.4 Global Technical Online Recruitment Market by Value3.2.5 Global Medical Care Online Recruitment Market by Value3.2.6 Global Managerial Online Recruitment Market by Value3.2.7 Global Sales & Marketing Online Recruitment Market by Value3.2.8 Global Clerical Online Recruitment Market by Value 4. Regional Market Analysis4.1 North America Online Recruitment Market: An Analysis4.1.1 North America Online Recruitment Market by Value4.1.2 North America Online Recruitment Market by Application (Hotel, Computing, Accounting, Technical, Medical Care, Managerial, Sales & Marketing, Clerical and Other)4.1.3 North America Online Recruitment Application Market by Value4.2 Asia Pacific Online Recruitment Market: An Analysis4.3 Europe Online Recruitment Market: An Analysis4.4 Latin America Online Recruitment Market: An Analysis4.5 Middle East and Africa Online Recruitment Market: An Analysis 5. COVID-195.1 Impact of Covid-195.2 Response of Industry5.3 Regional Impact of COVID-195.4 Impact of COVID-19 on Recruitment Operations 6. Market Dynamics6.1 Growth Drivers6.1.1 Escalating Urban Population6.1.2 Growing Smartphone Penetration6.1.3 Emerging Number of Internet Users6.1.4 Rising Youth Population6.1.5 Surging Social Network Users6.2 Challenges6.2.1 Rapidly Changing Needs and Preferences6.2.2 Negative Economic, Social and Geopolitical Conditions6.3 Market Trends6.3.1 Augmenting Adoption of Artificial Intelligence Technology6.3.2 Increasing Machine Learning Technology6.3.3 Implementation of Gamification 7. Competitive Landscape7.1 Global Online Recruitment Market Players: A Financial Comparison 8. Company Profiles8.1 SEEK Limited8.1.1 Business Overview8.1.2 Financial Overview8.1.3 Business Strategy8.2 Axel Springer SE (StepStone)8.3 Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.8.4 Microsoft Corporation (LinkedIn Corporation) For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/ia1zkk Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. CONTACT: CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 (Bloomberg) -- A Russian court ordered opposition leader Alexey Navalny, detained Sunday on arrival from Germany where he’d been recovering from a poisoning attack, jailed for 30 days, defying U.S. and European calls to free him.The activist faces as much as 3.5 years in prison at a hearing set for Jan. 29 on charges he violated the terms of a suspended sentence. In a makeshift courtroom in a police station outside Moscow Monday, a judge ordered Navalny, 44, held until Feb. 15 for those alleged violations.The outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin was stopped by police at passport control as he landed in Moscow from Berlin, where he’d gone for treatment after the August nerve-agent attack he and western governments blame on the Kremlin. His detention threatens a new round of tensions with the West, as well as demonstrations in Russia.In a video appeal recorded in the courtroom Monday, he called on supporters to protest. “Don’t be scared. Come out on the streets -- not for me but for yourselves and your future,” he said. Allies said they would seek to organize protests nationally on Jan. 23. They typically defy authorities’ refusal to grant permits.Before the ruling, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged Russia to “immediately” release Navalny and ensure his safety, adding her voice to similar calls from the U.S., Germany, the U.K. and other governments.“Detention of political opponents is against Russia’s international commitments,” she said in a statement on Monday, also calling for a “thorough and independent” investigation of his August nerve-agent poisoning.The ruble slipped against the dollar Monday, falling to the lowest level in a week.Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov brushed off the Western concern over Navalny, whose corruption exposes and success in galvanizing anti-government votes have increasingly needled the authorities.Dismissing the criticism as “artificial and unjustified,” Lavrov said the U.S. and its allies were just trying to distract from their domestic problems. “Everything that is happening with Navalny in connection with his return and arrest is a matter for law-enforcement bodies,” he told reporters in an online press conference. “This is purely a question of applying Russian laws.”Stopped by Russian law enforcement shortly after landing in Moscow, Navalny kissed his wife, Yuliya, before walking off with police. He spent the night in a cell in a police station in Khimki, a Moscow suburb near the airport.At the hearing Monday, Navalny sat beneath a picture of a Stalin-era secret-police chief Genrikh Yagoda. Authorities said the unusual session was held at the police station because Navalny hadn’t had a recent negative Covid-19 test, Tass reported. Prosecutors argued he’d violated the terms of the 2015 suspended sentence by failing to make required check-ins with authorities, including while he was recovering in Germany.Read More: Putin, Poison and the Importance of Alexey Navalny: QuickTakeU.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo -- who departs with the rest of the Trump administration on Wednesday -- condemned Russia’s decision and called for Navalny’s immediate and unconditional release.The move to imprison the most prominent opponent of the Russian president marks the biggest crackdown by Putin in recent years. Coming days before Biden takes office, it could trigger an immediate clash with the new Democratic administration.Jake Sullivan, incoming President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, blasted the Kremlin and called for Navalny’s release.For the moment, however, investors don’t see much chance of major additional sanctions.“It doesn’t sound like this is the hill the new U.S. administration intends to die on,” said Paul McNamara, who oversees $5 billion in emerging-market debt as a money manager at GAM Investments in London and holds Russian government bonds. “The noises have been subdued.”Navalny returned home amid rising political tension ahead of Russian parliamentary elections this autumn and as support for the Kremlin falters amid the coronavirus downturn. Putin, 68, whose two-decade rule makes him the longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, last year overturned term limits, allowing him to stay in power until 2036. Speculation that he may step down far sooner is building.The opposition politician, who also potentially faces separate charges of embezzlement punishable by up to 10 years in prison, decided to confront imprisonment on the calculation he’ll become a powerful symbol of resistance to Putin, according to analysts.While for years Navalny was repeatedly jailed for weeks at a time and faced assaults on the street -- at one point nearly losing his eye -- the poisoning attack marked the most serious attempt to kill him. Russia denied any involvement and said it found no proof the opposition politician was poisoned, accusing him of fabricating it as part of working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P. Consulting and outsourcing services provider Accenture Plc said on Monday it would extend home working for its employees in Italy beyond the coronavirus emergency. The pandemic has caused a rapid shift in working habits worldwide, with many major companies repeatedly extending the home working policies put in place last year as infections show no sign of abating and both workers and employers experience benefits. Accenture's 17,000 Italy-based workers will be able to work remotely three days a week, up from two pre-pandemic, it said in a statement, rising to five in case of special health needs. Gantry Delivers $3.0 Billion in New U.S. Commercial Mortgage Placements in 2020 Gantry completes $3B of commercial mortgages for 2020, reports $17B loan servicing portfolio performing at near 100% across all asset types . 2021 Market Insights on the Global and Chinese Construction Industry in the Philippines - ResearchAndMarkets.com The "Global and Chinese Construction in Philippines Industry, 2021 Market Research Report" has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Arsenal vs Newcastle prediction: How will Premier League fixture play out tonight? Image source: Getty Images We're all supposed to have money set aside for a rainy day, and ideally, your emergency fund should contain enough cash to cover three to six months' worth of essential living expenses. Arsenal vs Newcastle prediction: How will Premier League fixture play out? Global Advanced Glass Market Expected to Hit $90.21 Billion, Growing at 7.2% CAGR from 2019 to 2026 - [320 pages] Exclusive Report by Research Dive The global advanced glass market is expected to experience notable growth in the coming years. The rise in the applications of advanced glass in various industrial sectors is fueling the growth of the market. The safety & security sub-segment and laminated glass sub-segment are projected to lead the market during the forecast period. The Asia Pacific market is estimated to bring in rewarding growth opportunities in the near future.New York, USA, Jan. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A new report on the global advanced glass market has been added by Research Dive to its repository. As per the report, the market is anticipated to surpass $90.21 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 7.2% from 2019 to 2026. This report sheds light on the current position and future outlook of the global industry. The report is drafted by expert market analysts and promises to be a trustworthy source of data and market insights for new entrants, investors, prevailing market players, stakeholders, shareholders, etc. Check out How COVID-19 impacts the Global Advanced Glass Market. Click here to Connect with our Analyst to get more Market Insight: https://www.researchdive.com/connect-to-analyst/57 Factors Impacting the Market Growth: Rising usage of advanced glass in construction projects is the major factor boosting the growth of the global advanced glass market . Moreover, growing adoption of advanced glass in home appliances, automobiles, electronic gadgets, and smartphones are fueling the growth of the market. Besides, growing focus of market players on the development of cost-effective technologies for improving energy efficiency and productivity of advanced glass are projected to unlock lucrative opportunities for the market growth throughout the forecast period. However, shortage of raw materials and high prices of advanced glass are likely to obstruct the market growth. Download Sample Report of the Global Advanced Glass Market and Reveal the Market Overview, Opportunity, Expansion, Growth and More: https://www.researchdive.com/download-sample/57 The report segments the global advanced glass market into function, product, end use, and region. Safety & Security Sub-segment to Lead the Market Among function segment, the safety & security sub-segment is projected to dominate the market and garner $32,837.4 million by 2026. This is mainly because due to versatile and multifaceted applications of advanced glass in house windows and shop-fronts. Check out all Materials and Chemicals Industry Reports: https://www.researchdive.com/materials-and-chemicals Laminated Glass Sub-segment to Lead the Market Among product segment, the laminated glass sub-segment is estimated to lead the market by collecting a revenue of $26,522.5 million by 2026. This growth is mainly owing to growing use of laminated glass due to its properties such as enhanced strength, binding power, and durability. Asia-Pacific Region Market to Unlock Rewarding Growth Opportunities The report evaluates the global advanced glass market across several regions such as Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and LAMEA. Among these, the Asia-Pacific region market is anticipated to unlock rewarding opportunities for the market growth and garner $30,250.1 million by 2026. This is mainly owing to the rising demand for integrated advanced glass in nations like China, Malaysia, and India due to noteworthy growth in infrastructures and automotive sectors in this region. Access Varied Market Reports Bearing Extensive Analysis of the Market Situation, Updated With The Impact of COVID-19: https://www.researchdive.com/covid-19-insights Major Players in the Market: 1. Advanced Glass & Mirror, Inc.2. Asahi Glass Co.3. PPG Industries4. Saint Gobain5. Nippon Sheet Glass Co. Ltd.6. Corning Inc.7. Sherwin Williams Company8. Guardian Industries9. Sisecam Group. The report also provides several industry-top tactics and approaches like winning strategic moves & developments, product/service range, business performance, Porter Five Forces analysis, and SWOT analysis of the foremost players, functioning in the global industry. Click Here To Get Absolute Top Companies Development Strategies Summary Report TRENDING REPORTS WITH COVID-19 IMPACT ANALYSIS Personal Protective Equipment Market: https://www.researchdive.com/covid-19-insights/212/personal-protective-equipment-marketActivated Carbon Market: https://www.researchdive.com/176/activated-carbon-marketElectronic Chemicals Market: https://www.researchdive.com/177/electronic-chemicals-market CONTACT: Mr. Abhishek Paliwal Research Dive 30 Wall St. 8th Floor, New York NY 10005 (P) +91-(788)-802-9103 (India) +1-(917)-444-1262 (US) Toll Free: 1-888-961-4454 E-mail: support@researchdive.com Website: https://www.researchdive.com Blog: https://www.researchdive.com/blog/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/research-dive/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ResearchDive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Research-Dive-1385542314927521 Emirex Signs Memorandum of Understanding with M-Strategy for Expanding the Business Linkages Emirex and M-Strategy have officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish terms & conditions for the collaboration between the parties in an effort to better current international positions and open up new opportunities for investment advisory and deal structuring.Dubai, UAE, Jan. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via Blockchain Wire) Emirex and M-Strategy have officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish terms & conditions for the collaboration between the parties in an effort to better current international positions and open up new opportunities for investment advisory and deal structuring. M-Strategy is a consulting firm in Dubai jointly established by Mr. Mandar Joshi and Mr. Haytham Abou Al Nasr, who have accomplished credible career achievements in corporate CXO positions, investment banking, private banking and various entrepreneurial ventures in diversified industry sectors such as mining, chemical manufacturing, Oil & Gas, FMCG and telecommunication. M-Strategy is specialised in deal structuring and investment transactions in respect of mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, franchise distribution models and VC funding for start-ups. Precisely, M-Strategy provides the following professional services: Preparation of a business plan & financial model for the projects; Ensuring availability and adjusting resource allocation (team/technical knowledge/support services); Coordination of internal resources to ensure flawless execution; Tracking project progress and measuring project performance; Establishing and managing the relationship with stakeholders and service providers; Presenting financial reports and escalating diversions from the budget to the management team. Delighted to make this announcement, Kirill Mishanin, Chief Sales Officer at Emirex, stated that the signing of this Understanding is, “for the purpose of advancing and promoting the mutual interests of the parties particularly in the field of investment and continual improvement of greater coherence in business opportunities”. The current Memorandum of Understanding identifies the following object of cooperation: The mutual promotion of projects of each of the parties. Search for venture projects and investors for Venture Catalysts funds. The mutual attraction of investments and promotion of products and services of each of the parties. Any questions regarding this Memorandum of Understanding can be directed to the Emirex team here: support@emirex.com Contact: Kirill MishaninChief Sales OfficerEmirexkirill.mishanin@emirex.com https://emirex.com New Children’s Book Explores Effects of George Floyd’s Death on the Black Community Author and Educator Dr. Danielle Hyles inspires today’s youth to stand up against racism in her latest release, ‘We Can’t Stop Now’WHITBY, Ontario, Jan. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After international protests following the death of George Floyd, there has been a newfound focus on teaching children the impact of his story and the importance of fighting racism. This critical conversation can be discussed during story time with the new children’s book, “We Can’t Stop Now”. Written by vice principal Dr. Danielle Hyles, readers are introduced to friends Vivien, Deryn and Ayanna as they address how skin color affects their father’s treatment in society. In this compelling picture book, the characters share their fears for their black father’s safety from police officers after Floyd’s death. They address the hate they experienced and their confusion over it being about their appearance. As they reflect, they gain the inspiration to voice their feelings to elected officials and teachers to help bring about positive change for the black community. Dr. Hyles hopes this book encourages families and educators to have an open discussion on race, diversity and social justice with young readers. Her previously published works also tackle significant issues such as bullying, woman in the workplace and career progression. Many young readers will be able to see themselves reflected in the book’s captivating illustrations. With easy to grasp language and beautiful messaging, this book is a perfect addition to any child’s reading list. “We Can’t Stop Now” highlights the most important topic of our generation and delivers representation, meaningful discussion and a reminder of the value of kindness. Young readers should take away the essential message that all people, no matter their skin color, should be treated equally. “We Can’t Stop Now” By Dr. Danielle Hyles ISBN: 9781663207487 (softcover); 9781663207494 (electronic) Available at the iUniverse Online Bookstore, Amazon and Barnes & Noble About the author Dr. Danielle Hyles is a Canadian author with Trinidadian heritage who is currently a Vice Principal for the Durham Catholic District School Board. She received her B.M. in Music Education from Howard University, M.Ed. from Harvard University and Ed.D. from the University of Toronto. She has also written a research-based educational leadership book entitled “Bridging the Opportunity Gap” for educators all over the globe and children’s books, “Loving My Working Mom”, “Seeds of Belonging” and “God’s Children Are Math Wizards”. She resides in Whitby, Ontario with her 9-year-old daughter. iUniverse, an Author Solutions, LLC, self-publishing imprint, is the leading book marketing, editorial services, and supported self-publishing provider. iUniverse recognizes excellence in book publishing through the Star, Rising Star and Editor’s Choice designations—self-publishing’s only such awards program. iUniverse is headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana. For more information or to publish a book, please visit iuniverse.com or call 1-800-AUTHORS. CONTACT: Courtney Vasquez LAVIDGE 480-306-7065 cvasquez@lavidge.com Desktop as a Service Market Research Report - Global Forecast to 2024 - Cumulative Impact for COVID-19 Recovery The Desktop as a service will register an incremental spend of about USD 3.93 billion, growing at a CAGR of 19.68% from 2020-2024 DeFi Project KingSwap Launches Visa Debit Card Globally KingSwap’s Visa debit card offers no annual fees or foreign transaction fees, with rewards of up to 3% back on all depositsSINGAPORE, Jan. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via Blockchain Wire) - DeFi project KingSwap (https://www.kingswap.io/) today announced the launch of its Visa debit card, available globally. The card offers no annual fees or foreign transaction fees, with rewards of up to 3% back* on all deposits. Accepted anywhere that Visa is accepted, KingSwap’s debit card uses a tier one bank and its distributors for payment processing and banking solutions. KingSwap’s Visa debit card features a sleek, high-end metal design and entitles card holders to perks including high-yield rewards. By owning one of these debit cards, users will be able to purchase cryptocurrencies with lower fees on the KingSwap platform. They’ll also gain access to benefits and products through KingSwap’s partnerships. KingSwap’s Visa debit cards are limited in quantity, and available on a first-come, first-serve basis for users who have completed KYC verification and begun staking on KingSwap. To request a KingSwap Visa debit card, users can sign up here and complete ID verification. Applicants will be notified when their card is ready to ship. KingSwap will release four tiers of Visa debit cards, starting with the King’s Royal Black Card, followed by the Queen Platinum Card, Royal Knight Gold Card, and Blue Squire Card. To acquire a KingSwap Visa debit card in the King’s Card tier, users are required to stake a minimum of 1 King NFT, with an additional 1,000,000 $KING Tokens staked on the KingSwap decentralized exchange (DEX). Queen Platinum Cards require a minimum stake of 1 Queen NFT and 100,000 $KING tokens. KingSwap’s Royal Knight Card and Blue Squire Card offer a lower entry point to the KingSwap ecosystem, allowing users to stake a small amount of $100-$500 USD and still see significant rewards, including 1 percent back on all deposits. KingSwap Visa Debit Cards are loaded with fiat rather than digital assets, and all transactions are denominated in fiat currency. Use of the card is subject to terms and conditions of the applicable cardholder agreement, and may be subject to fees such as ATM fees. KingSwap was founded by a team of experienced leaders in banking, finance, and crypto, including Dr. Anish Mohammed, who has advised and worked for companies including HSBC, Lloyds, and Zurich, and was an early advisor to Ripple and Ocean Protocol; Dunstan Teo, Chief Architect of the Fido Protocol and President of Sanctum Pte Ltd.; and Ho Chin Shin, who previously worked as a director at Standard Chartered Bank; Nomura, Japan’s largest investment bank; and the Bank of Singapore. Prior to KingSwap’s public launch in October 2020, venture capital firms and cryptocurrency investors participated in a private fundraising round, raising more than $20 million USD in funding and liquidity support. KingSwap’s backers include Plutus VC, Hashstreet VC, Alpha Sigma Capital, Tradecraft Capital and 7CC. ABOUT KINGSWAPKingSwap (https://www.kingswap.io/) is a DeFi project based out of Singapore with a regulated** token that introduces a liquidity pool platform with possible fiat conversions. KingSwap’s high-yield liquidity platform offers extensive staking rewards and digital collectibles. "Cash-Back Amount" - This amount depends on which tier of Kingswap Cards the holder owns, and whether the holder has qualified through the required staking of $King tokens on the Card account. Holders should look at the terms and conditions and requirements at the KingSwap Cards url. "Regulated" - KingSwap commissioned Gravitas International Associates Pte Ltd, a Singapore Payment Services Act ("PSA") exempt company, to issue the $KING tokens. A legal opinion regarding the token issuance has been submitted to the MAS in accordance with the PSA requirements. Gravitas has already submitted an application to the MAS for full licensing under the PSA, and the said application is pending review. KingSwap itself has no licensing specific to DeFi projects, as there is no such specific legislation anywhere in the world at this point in time, and is following the regulatory framework of the PSA in Singapore at the time of writing.” CONTACT: Media Contact: Transform Group, kingswap@transformgroup.com Medical Billing Outsourcing Market Size to Surpass Around USD 23.7 Bn by 2027 The medical billing outsourcing market size is expected to surpass around USD 23.7 billion by 2027 from USD 9.5 billion in 2019 with a CAGR 12.1% from 2020 to 2027. OTTAWA, Jan. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Precedence Research, Recently Published Report on “Medical Billing Outsourcing Market (By Component: Outsourced and In-house; By Service: Back End, Middle End, and Front End; By End-use: Physician Office, Hospital, and Others) - Global Market Size, Trends Analysis, Segment Forecasts, Regional Outlook 2020 - 2027”. Medical billing includes the revenue cycle management (RCM) process that comprises of the most crucial and complex components of the healthcare IT business. The present systems in practice for managing the revenue are steadily becoming obsoleteowing to the lack of revenue management tools andexpertise in tackling new payment models. Get the Sample Pages of Report for More Understanding@ https://www.precedenceresearch.com/sample/1103 Growth Factors The medical billing outsourcing market is mainly driven by the factors such as rising need to make the medical billing process more efficient, increasing emphasis on compliance & risk management, and efforts to reduce the in-house processing costs. Unless a medical practitioner or an office is implementing the services offered by an experienced billing provider, there is a significant chance of revenue loss. In fact, statistics estimates that more than 20% of physician's revenue is lost because of mistakes and loopholes in the medical billing process. This has prominently spurred the need to transform the process of medical billing into more efficient, in addition, skilled professionals are required for the billing process. Efficient billing can further reduce the overall cost to the company as well as improvise the benefits. Increasing flow of patientsin the hospitals along with increasing the burden of medical processes that includeinsurance eligibility and records of patient check-inhave created chaos in the point of care, as well as has triggered the need to manage such records. In the sake of improving of the medical billing process, clinicians and other medical practitioners adopt the medical billing outsourcing service to effectively and efficiently manage patients and billings records. Hence, the rising demand for efficient medical billing positively influence the market growth. View Full Report with Complete ToC@ https://www.precedenceresearch.com/medical-billing-outsourcing-market Report Highlights North America led the global market in 2019 due to shifting focus of numerous healthcare service providers in the U.S. towards end-to-end outsourcing firms for effectively managing their billing processesDeveloping regions such as Latin America and the Asia Pacific projected to record lucrative growth rate during the forecast year due to standardization of outsourcing practices across the globeBased on component, outsourced segment held the largest market value share in the year 2019, in addition to this, the segment exhibits lucrative growth over the forecast periodBy service, front end service comprises of the main function of medical billing outsourcing along with this accounted for the largest market value share in the year 2019Middle end services are likely project lucrative growth over the coming years because of new market entrants in the sector as well as rising awareness for the middle end service among practitionersHospital segment dominated the global medical billing outsourcing market with nearly half of the value share in 2019 and analyzed to maintain its dominance during the forecast periodPhysician offices and private clinics are also adopting outsourcing services in various fields, thus experience the fastest growth in the global market in the coming years Get Customization on this Research Report@ https://www.precedenceresearch.com/customization/1103 Regional Snapshots North America dominated the global medical billing outsourcing market with significant value share in the year 2019, This is mainly because of the advent of novel technologies as well as their rising adoption is influencing the United States to expand in the healthcare industry. Furthermore, rising healthcare expenditure is the key factor contributing towards the growth of this region. Increasing patient flow in the hospitals along with the rising need for efficient medical billing are the other prime factors that propel the market growth. Being a developed nation, the healthcare system in the United States is well established and the adoption of paperless work is higher comparing to other regions. On the contrary, the Asia Pacific exhibits prominent growth over the forecast period due to high spending on medical infrastructure. Key Players & Strategies The global medical billing outsourcing market is moderately competitive because of the presence of significant number of players in the market. These players are prominently focusing towards expanding their geographical reach through mergers & acquisitions, partnership, collaboration, joint venture, and other inorganic growth strategies this in turn expected to boost market growth in the upcoming years. For instance, in December 2016, AllscriptsHealthcare Solutions, Inc. acquired Core Medical Solutions, an Australian healthcare IT software provider that significantly increases product offerings of the company in the country. Browse more Healthcare Industry Research Reports@ https://www.precedenceresearch.com/industry/healthcare Similarly, in July 2018, Veritas Capital announced to acquire GE Healthcare’s Enterprise Financial Management asset that includes its Ambulatory Care Management asset, RCM business, and Workforce Management assets. Some of the key players operating in the market are Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc., R1 RCM, Inc., Cerner Corporation, and Experian Information Solutions, Inc., eClinicalWorks LLC, GE Healthcare, Kareo, Inc., Genpact, McKesson Corporation, and Quest Diagnostics among others. Market Segmentation By Component OutsourcedIn-house By Service Back EndMiddle EndFront End By End-User Physician OfficeHospitalOthers By Regional Outlook North America U.S.Canada Europe U.K.GermanyFrance Asia Pacific ChinaIndiaJapanSouth Korea Rest of the World Buy this Premium Research Report@ https://www.precedenceresearch.com/checkout/1103 You can place an order or ask any questions, please feel free to contact at sales@precedenceresearch.com \| +1 774 402 6168 About Us Precedence Research is a worldwide market research and consulting organization. We give unmatched nature of offering to our customers present all around the globe across industry verticals. Precedence Research has expertise in giving deep-dive market insight along with market intelligence to our customers spread crosswise over various undertakings. We are obliged to serve our different client base present over the enterprises of medicinal services, healthcare, innovation, next-gen technologies, semi-conductors, chemicals, automotive, and aerospace & defense, among different ventures present globally. For Latest Update Follow Us: https://www.linkedin.com/company/precedence-research/ https://www.facebook.com/precedenceresearch/ https://twitter.com/Precedence_R Global Unified Communication Market is expected to reach 74.24 Billion by 2023: Says, AMR Novelties in the technology for product offerings, increasing need to improve interoperability & operational efficiency, growth in demand for cloud solutions, and rise in application areas among end users drive the growth of the global unified communication market. Moreover, by region, the market across North America dominated the market in 2016 and is anticipated to lead the trail throughout the forecast period.Portland, OR, Jan. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the report published by Allied Market Research, the global unified communication market was pegged at $32.88 billion in 2016 and is anticipated to garner $74.24 billion by 2023 manifesting a CAGR of 12.60% from 2017 to 2023. The report offers an in-depth analysis of the key investment pockets, market player positioning, drivers & opportunities, and business performances of major players Download Report Sample (150 Pages PDF with Insights) @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/210 Covid-19 Scenarios- The outbreak of covid-19 has positively impacted the growth of the global unified communication market. The increase in adoption of work from home culture have fueled the growth of unified communication market.At the same time, various industries are now following the trend of bring your own device (BYOD), owing to curb the use of one device by multiple employee. This is anticipated to increase the growth post covid as well. Get detailed COVID-19 impact analysis on the unified communication market: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/210 Novelties in the technology for product offerings, increasing need to improve interoperability & operational efficiency, growth in demand for cloud solutions, and rise in application areas among end users drive the growth of the global unified communication market. In addition, increase in adoption of IoT along with rise in need for enterprise mobility BYOD trend and increase in use of smart devices has further fueled the market growth. On the other hand, concerns related with operating the unified communication solutions and threats regarding the data breaches restrain the market growth. At the same time, rise in awareness regarding technological changes in the untapped emerging economies among end using industries is expected to usher a plethora of opportunities for the market players in the near future. The global unified communication market is segmented based on application, industry vertical, and geography. Based on application, the market Is further divided on the basis of video, telephony, conferencing, mobility, unified messaging, IM & presence, and contact center. The telephony segment held the highest market share with more than one-fourth of the market share in 2016 and is expected to maintain its dominant share throughout 2023. On the other hand, the mobility segment is expected to portray the fastest CAGR of 15.30% during the forecast period. Based on industry verticals, the market is segmented into energy & utilities, IT & telecom, retail, healthcare, manufacturing, BFSI, public sector, aerospace & defense, and others. The IT & telecom segment held the major share in 2016, with more than one-fifth of the total market share. However, the energy & utilities segment is expected to register the fastest CAGR of 15.06% during the forecast period. For Purchase Enquiry: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/210 Region wise, the market is report analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA. The North American region has dominated the market in 2016 with more than one-third share of the total market revenue share and is expected to rule the roost throughout the forecast period. On the other hand, the market across Asia-Pacific is anticipated to portray fastest CAGR of 16.10% from 2017 to 2023. The key market players in the report include Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, At&T, Cisco, Connect solutions, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Siemens Enterprise Communications, and Verizon Communications Access AVENUE- A Subscription-Based Library (Premium on-demand, subscription-based pricing model) at: hthttps://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/library-access Avenue is a user-based library of global market report database, provides comprehensive reports pertaining to the world's largest emerging markets. It further offers e-access to all the available industry reports just in a jiffy. By offering core business insights on the varied industries, economies, and end users worldwide, Avenue ensures that the registered members get an easy as well as single gateway to their all-inclusive requirements. 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American Water Celebrates Inclusion & Diversity by Hosting Second Annual Inclusion Day American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE: AWK), the largest publicly traded U.S. water and wastewater utility company, demonstrated its commitment to inclusion and diversity by hosting its second annual Inclusion Day on January 12 to explore how the company can continue to foster open, fair, inclusive and respectful ways of working together. PRGX E-Book Demonstrates Why Recovery Audits Remain Essential in 2020 E-book explores COVID-19’s impact on the source-to-pay cycle, common challenges companies face and how to overcome themATLANTA, Jan. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PRGX Global, Inc. (Nasdaq: PRGX), a global leader in recovery audit and spend analytics services, announced its e-book, “Why Recovery Audit Remains Essential in 2020,” is now available for download here. While the number of remote work opportunities have increased over the years, the rapid impact of the COVID-19 pandemic forced many finance teams to pivot entirely to remote work overnight. The chaos caused by these rapid changes raises the risk of invoice errors, missed credits and overpayments – at a time when companies are trying to maximize cash flow as much as possible. Now, finance departments around the globe are adapting to this new environment and applying lessons learned over the previous year to improve source-to-pay processes and controls. As companies prioritize cash flow and margin improvements, PRGX’s “Why Recovery Audit Remains Essential in 2020” e-book offers key tips to: Create effective internal partnerships and secure support from upper management;Enhance and expand recovery audit techniques;Identify common errors, particularly those that have increased due to COVID-19; andImplement transformation programs and technology that drive recovery audit results. “Last year presented a new level of change and uncertainty that many of us have never experienced before, and it is unrealistic to believe processing and payment errors have not occurred as a result,” said Angie Holsen, Senior Director of Client Relationships for PRGX. “To stay effective in uncertain times, it is essential for companies to put collaboration and communication first so issues can be identified, and resolved, quickly.” About PRGX PRGX helps companies spot value in their source-to-pay processes that other sophisticated solutions didn’t get to before. Having identified more than 300 common points of leakage, we help companies reach wider, dig deeper, and act faster to get more value out of their source-to-pay data. We pioneered this industry 50 years ago, and today we help clients in more than 30 countries take back $1.2 billion in annual cash flow. It’s why 75% of top global retailers and a third of the largest companies in the Fortune 500 rely on us. For additional information on PRGX, please visit www.prgx.com. Media Contact: Jacob HamiltonArketi Groupjhamilton@arketi.com	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2875
__label__cc	0.692443	0.307557	Applications of HEOR Analytics: Covariate-Adjusted Analysis of Phase 3 Clinical Trial Data of Lenvatinib versus Sorafenib in Hepatocellular Carcinoma April 17, 2020 - 9:09 am, by Avalon Health Economics LLC By: Katherine Dick and Andrew Briggs, DPhil Avalon Health Economics An important and growing field within health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) is what we call “HEOR Analytics.” Traditional HEOR has focused mainly on model building and utility development, with the end goal of calculating costs per quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). But as data sources have become more nuanced and complex, and product value pathways have become more intricate, there is a need to push the limits of HEOR by applying state-of-the art statistical analyses of data. These tasks include novel statistical analyses of HEOR data, such as trial data or quality of life data, and novel applications of those analyses to statistical and economic models. In this blog entry we report on a good example of HEOR analytics: our recent study of covariate-adjusted analysis of trial data of lenvatinib versus sorafenib in hepatocellular carcinoma. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common type of liver cancer and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide.[1, 2] Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis are critical risk factors in the development of HCC.[2] Sorafenib is currently the only first-line systemic treatment available to treat unresectable HCC, but lenvatinib showed potential as an alternative therapy in a Phase 2 clinical trial.[3] The Phase 3 REFLECT trial found that lenvatinib was noninferior to sorafenib in the primary outcome of overall survival and superior in the secondary outcome of progression free survival.[1] The Phase 3 trial was randomized, but there was a notable imbalance in baseline characteristics between the trial treatment arms. These baseline variables were important prognostic factors for overall survival, so the imbalance appeared to bias the outcomes against lenvatinib. Our covariate-adjusted analysis of the trial data assesses the magnitude of and adjusts for these imbalances.[4] To determine the potential importance of the candidate variables identified by the clinical experts, each variable was entered into the Cox proportional hazards regression model as a univariate adjustment of the treatment effect. The Forest plot in Figure 1 shows the univariable impact on the estimated hazard ratio for lenvatinib treatment compared to sorafenib after adjusting for each covariate. In terms of these univariable results, MPVI or EHS or both, AFP < 200 ng/mL, disease site, hepatitis B etiology, and receipt of a previous procedure are all predictive of overall survival and adjusting for them influences the estimated hazard ratio of the treatment effect in favor of lenvatinib. A multivariable adjusted analysis was developed using a “forward stepwise” procedure to systematically select covariates for inclusion. The chosen multivariable Cox model analysis resulted in an estimated adjusted hazard ratio for lenvatinib of 0.814 (95% CI: 0.699–0.948) when only baseline variables were included. Adjusting for post-randomization treatment variables further increased the estimated superiority of lenvatinib. This analysis suggests that the original noninferiority trial likely underestimated the true effect of lenvatinib on overall survival due to an imbalance in baseline prognostic covariates and the greater use of post-treatment therapies in the sorafenib arm. To read more, the full text of the article is available from the British Journal of Cancer at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41416-020-0817-7. Kudo, M., et al., Lenvatinib versus sorafenib in first-line treatment of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma: a randomised phase 3 non-inferiority trial. Lancet, 2018. 391(10126): p. 1163-1173. Villanueva, A., Hepatocellular Carcinoma. N Engl J Med, 2019. 380(15): p. 1450-1462. Ikeda, K., et al., Phase 2 study of lenvatinib in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. J Gastroenterol, 2017. 52(4): p. 512-519. Briggs, A., et al., Covariate-adjusted analysis of the Phase 3 REFLECT study of lenvatinib versus sorafenib in the treatment of unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma. Br J Cancer, 2020. HEOR About author: Avalon Health Economics LLC	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2879
__label__wiki	0.588804	0.588804	THE NEXT WAVE Smaller but bolder: Ulysse Nardin launches its new Diver timepieces in 42 mm! The next wave! Slim and sleek on the wrist, the very contemporary Diver 42mm models are designed for the deep but just as much at home in the city. Led by the Diver blue shark, they join the new school of shark-inspired diving watches launched by Ulysse Nardin in September. The new Diver 42mm “three-hand” fleet reinforce the relaunch of the Ulysse Nardin Diver Chronometer Collection. The concave bezel and domed sapphire glass are the same as on the 44mm models launched in September, but the timepieces now have a new, unexpected vintage look, with an uncluttered dial design, touches of retro beige, and a central second instead of a small second counter. The inspiration clearly comes from the house’s 1964 dive watch, the “Diver Le Locle”. The GPS coordinates of Le Locle, the Manufacture’s hometown since 1846, adorn the dial. All the essential diver codes are here: Superluminova on the 0, hands, and rotating bezel for at-a-glance readability from the murkiest depths; and water resistance to 300 meters. The classic mid-20th century diver's watch aesthetics are fully backed by 21st-century silicium, technology first introduced to watchmaking by Ulysse Nardin. Slim enough to fit snugly under a shirt, they come with stylish strap options: blue fabric, black veal, three-row stainless-steel or, in a first for Ulysse Nardin, a stainless-steel Milanese mesh bracelet. Gorgeous, super comfortable, and strong enough to have earned the nickname “shark-proof”, the Milanese mesh bracelet, when properly built, is the most versatile option in the classic watch strap repertoire. For this first-ever usage Ulysse Nardin has opted for a very thick mesh, stamped from sheet steel, painstakingly stitched together by hand, and finished with a retro-styled butterfly buckle. The result is a dressy alternative to other metal bracelets, as easy chic, easy cool stylish as it is sturdy, go-anywhere rugged. Diver Blue Shark Limited Edition The hero of the new rollout, in stainless steel with pvd blue bezel and a blue dial and strap pepped-up with bright orange touches, this limited-edition of 300 pieces knockout is blue-shark stamped on the case back, a nice echo to its big brother, the Diver Great White 44mm. Accessibly priced and exceptionally comfortable, these latest additions to the Ulysse Nardin’s armada of diver watches reassert its status as the watchmaker of the oceans and demonstrate the Manufacture’s continued capacity to sail ever forward. Contact AVSTEV for media enquiries	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2883
__label__cc	0.726194	0.273806	One Sunday afternoon our family gathered around our big oak table for dinner. Soon my daughter Kate’s laughter rose above the talk. “Gram, you’re silly!” she said. We all turned to see my mom delicately lifting to her mouth a small strand of peas on the blade of her knife. All but one pea made it, and everyone clapped. Then Mom told us the story behind her unorthodox technique: “When I was little we didn’t have much. It was the Depression. But we did have a table full of food because my father grew wonderful vegetables. Lots of hoboes who had jumped from the train wandered onto our property, looking for a meal. More often than not an extra seat was pulled up to our dinner table. “One summer afternoon I was sweeping the kitchen floor when my father’s voice came through the screen door: ‘Lizzy, set another plate. We have company tonight.’ Our guest paused in the doorway, and dipped his head in a gesture of gratitude. ‘Looks like he doesn’t speak much English,’ Dad said, ‘but he’s hungry like we are. His name is Henry.’ “When dinner was ready Henry stood until we were all seated, then gently perched on the edge of his chair, his head bowed and his hat in his lap. The blessing was said and dishes were passed from hand to hand. “We all waited, as was proper, for our guest to take the first bite. Henry must have been so hungry he didn’t notice us watching him as he grabbed his knife. Carefully he slid the blade into the pile of peas before him, and then lifted a quivering row to his mouth without spilling a single pea. He was eating with his knife! I looked at my sister May and we covered our mouths to muffle our snickers. Henry took another knifeful, and then another. “My father, taking note of the glances we were exchanging, firmly set down his fork. He looked me in the eye, then took his knife and thrust it into the peas on his plate. Most of them fell off as he attempted to lift them to his mouth, but he continued until all the peas were gone. “Dad never did use his fork that evening, because Henry didn’t. It was one of my father’s silent lessons in acceptance. He understood the need for this man to maintain his dignity, to feel comfortable in a strange place with people of different customs. Even at my young age I understood the greatness of my father’s simple act of brotherhood.” Mom paused, looked at her grandchildren, and winked as she plowed her knife into a mountain of peas. Contributed by Cori Connors, of Farmington, Utah, to Guideposts, March 1997, p. 36	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2885
__label__cc	0.658503	0.341497	Rajiv mehta Paul Gils puts his 'thinking cap' on India foray The company launched officially in India in 2012, but it was restricted to online. Not the best strategy, the brand realised soon enough and went back to the drawing board to recalibrate its India foray Arvind Group walks into footwear retail The country's footwear retail market is currently valued at $5.2 billion Arvind Fashion officially launches menswear brand True Blue with Sachin Tendulkar The company expects to launch about 30 stores in five years, targeting a turnover of Rs 200 crore Arvind Sports to launch Cole Haan and Heatwave Shoes in India Move comes in as part of a plan to cash in on the country's growing premium footwear market Sachin Tendulkar starts his new innings with Arvind's apparel brand True Blue The first outlet will come up in the Master Blaster’s home city, Mumbai, in May Puma tops the sports shoe heap Decoding the German brand’s winning formula Advertising / 1 hr ago	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2905
__label__cc	0.626417	0.373583	November 1, 2020 challenyee3 Comments Central themes in our lives are composed of many pieces… 150804-N-DB801-015 PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (Aug. 4, 2015) The Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine USS Bremerton (SSN 698) is underway on routine operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Steven Khor/Released) Some parts play a major role, like fulfilling the needs of the Navy serving as a crew-member aboard a submarine, and some parts are small pieces which add to the sum total. A sight, a smell, a voice, or just a word or command, perhaps, can trigger a flood of memories. On the non-classified side, the songs we listened to form a part of that mind-scape. Unique music and meaningful lyrics can grab you like nothing else and capture the emotions with a sense of being there. We are building a collections of music, some are American Classics, songs selected by 698 alum that bring them back the wondrous years surrounding their experiences while being a Bremerton sailor. One song per man is allowed and we’re just getting started. Click on the big adult brown liquid beverage or click this link,(https://bremertonreunion.net/bremertunes-through-the-years/). There you can click on some of your BremertonShipmates’ choices and listen to the music. Courtesy of RMCS/SS Don Jones, 698 Plankowner Request for more music submissions If you are an alumni of the American Classic, the BadFish, USS Bremerton SSN 698, and you have not already submitted your song, you may take part by leaving a comment with your rank/rate, years served on the 698, and your ONE musical selection. If you can provide a you-tube link (one without advertisement if possible) that would be appreciated. You may also include a brief note to be posted with your selection. SAVE THE 698 Join the Movement. Are you passionate about preserving the USS Bremerton in any way shape or form? Do you wish to be involved before, during and after her decommissioning in whatever works are needed to establish the memory of 698 for the benefit of the public and of naval history? You are invited to a new closed group forum on Facebook “SaveThe698” to be involved in public discussion related to Saving 698. You can see the group site by clicking HERE. Copyright © 2019-2020 bremertonreunion.net Posted in BadFish, history, SSN698, submarine, U.S. Navy, USS BremertonTagged BadFish, music, SSN 698, SSN698, USS Bremerton October 27, 2020 October 27, 2020 challenyeeLeave a comment Reprinted in whole in modified format from “USS BREMERTON CONTINUES INACTIVATION PROCESS” By Max Maxﬁeld, PSNS & IMF Public Affairs \| Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility \| Oct. 23, 2020 BREMERTON, Wash. — Los Angeles-class submarine USS Bremerton (SSN 698) entered Dry Dock 1 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility Oct. 14, 2020, to continue its inactivation process. According to Gary Van Horn, project superintendent, while the ship is in dry dock, the propulsion plant will be deactivated and defueled; components and parts that might be used by other active Los Angeles-class submarines will be removed and stored; and hull blanks will be installed. Van Horn said ship’s force will be working side by side with PSNS & IMF workers to help speed the inactivation process along. Also, the Bremerton Project Team will try to take advantage of lessons learned from other recent inactivations of Los Angeles-class submarines. “Lessons learned from the ‘bridge and tower’ system that is being used currently in Dry Dock 5 for defueling operations on USS Olympia (SSN 717) and USS Louisville (SSN 724) will help with Bremerton,” said Van Horn. “We have been monitoring their progress closely and expect to realize time savings based on their lessons learned.” The docking portion of the inactivation process is estimated to take about 11 months. Bremerton departed Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, April 20, 2018, on its way to Bremerton, Washington, where it began the inactivation and decommissioning process. Bremerton was commissioned on March 28, 1981, and is named after the city of Bremerton, Washington. The tenth ship of the Los Angeles-class nuclear powered attack submarine, much of Bremerton’s activities remain under wraps. Its most high-proﬁle mission was to assist local, state and federal ofﬁcials with the disposal of the commercial tanker, New Carissa. The vessel had been spilling oil since it was shipwrecked near Coos Bay, Oregon, Feb. 4, 1999, and posed a danger to the environment. Once the uniﬁed command completed work in preparation for the ship’s disposal, Bremerton stepped in to ﬁre one MK-48 advanced capability torpedo to sink New Carissa March 11, 1999. Article provided through the courtesy of Capt. Alan R. Beam, USN (ret), USS Bremerton CO from 1985-1988. WARSHOT LOADED TO READ MORE ABOUT THE BREMERTON SINKING THE SHIP THAT WOULD NOT SINK, GO HERE: https://www.ussnautilus.org/uss-bremerton-ssn-698-sinks-a-ship/ Image of a Badfish Mk48 doing its duty may possibly be subject to copyright Posted in BadFish, DECOM, history, Inactivation, submarine, U.S. Navy, USS BremertonTagged BadFish, Decommissioning, history, Inactivation, PSNS & IMF, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, The American Classic, USS Bremerton The Awaited 698 News October 12, 2020 challenyeeLeave a comment The official date for the Decommissioning of the USS Bremerton (SSN-698) arrived last week from her Commanding Officer, CAPT. Chris Lindberg. Click Here to go to the Captain’s Log Image credit: seaforces.org USS Bremerton SSN 698 in Bremerton May 2012 Posted in BadFish, DECOM, history, REUNION, SSN698, submarine, U.S. Navy, USS BremertonTagged BadFish, Chris Lindberg, DECOM, Decommissioning, The American Classic PacFleet Sub Museum Update September 24, 2020 challenyeeLeave a comment Aloha from USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park – soon to be the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum! Construction on site is wrapping up and we are transitioning to exhibit installation. Pacific Studio, our exhibit installer arrived on island. They are very well organized and have hit the ground running. Their first container has been delivered and we expect five additional containers over the next two weeks. Four to five additional containers will follow. Pacific Studio plans to complete the exhibit installation prior to Christmas. The museum’s audio-visual (A-V) systems will be installed between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The A-V system will be tested and content will be loaded in early January 2021. We are on track for a soft opening of our museum in mid to late January and a grand reopening in February – March. As soon as we can set a date with confidence, we will do so and will let you know. I have attached some pictures of the current work in progress. Thank you very much for your interest and support of our renovation. Chuck Merkel Captain, U.S. Navy (Retired) Executive Director, Pacific Fleet Submarine Memorial Association DELIVERY OF FIRST CONTAINER CONTAINERS ON LANAI CONTAINER OFFLOAD EMPTY CONTAINER TYPICAL PACKAGING OUTDOOR SIGN STANDS INTERPRETIVE SIGN STANDS COLD WAR GALLERY 698 LOOKING FORWARD USS Bremerton, the most senior not yet de-commissioned submarine in the United States Navy, is currently at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard preparing for her date with destiny. Decom ceremony and reunion in Bremerton are tentatively scheduled for Spring of 2021, that puts BadFish on course for a 40 year run. Cheers – from RMCS(SS) Don Jones, Plankowner, SSN698 Posted in history, SSN698, submarine, U.S. Navy, WWIITagged COLD WAR, Navy, Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum, Pearl Harbor, SSN698, submarine, WWII USS Bremerton (SSN 698) List of Commanding Officers June 8, 2020 October 18, 2020 challenyeeLeave a comment 1MC: “Bremerton, Arriving…” Thomas H. Anderson (1978-1982) Douglas S. Wright (1982-1985) Alan R. Beam (1985-1988) John C. McMacken (1988-1990) Louis A. Hughes (1990-1992) John M. Crochet (1992-1995) Ronald R. Cox (1995-1998) Robert L. Thomas (1998-2000) Brian K. Nutt (2000-2002) Charles J. Logan (2002-2005) Thomas A. Zwolfer (2005-2008) Howard C. Warner III (2008-2010) Caleb A. Kerr (2010-2013) Wesley P. Bringham (2013-2016) Travis W. Zettel (2016-2018) David I. Kaiser (2018-2018) Christopher C. Lindberg (2018-PRES) USS Bremerton ends her active service with her final destination being Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in April 2018. 2018 Reunion Poster Artist: Richard Crombie Posted in BadFish, DECOM, history, SSN698, submarine, U.S. Navy, USS BremertonTagged BadFish, CO, Commanding Officer, DECOM, skipper, SSN 698, submarine, US Navy, USS Bremerton SSN 698 Plankowner Search / Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Affinity.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2907
__label__wiki	0.884854	0.884854	Senior UN human rights official ‘deeply concerned’ by Trump’s pardons for mercenaries who massacred 17 Iraqi civilians Date: December 23, 2020Author: Brett Wilkins 0 Comments Originally published at Common Dreams A senior United Nations human rights official on Wednesday added her voice to the chorus of condemnation of President Donald Trump’s pardons for four U.S. mercenaries convicted of massacring 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007. Marta Hurtado, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said in statement that the agency is “deeply concerned” by Trump’s December 22 pardon of former Blackwater guards Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, and Nicholas Slatten. The four men were sentenced to 12 years to life in prison for crimes including for first-degree murder for their roles in the September 16, 2007 Nisour Square massacre in central Baghdad. “Pardoning them contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes in the future,” Hurtado said of the Blackwater guards. “By investigating these crimes and completing legal proceedings, the U.S. complied with its obligations under international law,” she added. “The U.N. Human Rights Office calls on the U.S. to renew its commitment to fighting impunity for gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law, as well as to uphold its obligations to ensure accountability for such crimes.” We are deeply concerned by the recent #UnitedStates presidential pardons for four security guards from the private military firm #Blackwater who were convicted for killing 14 Iraqi civilians: pardoning them contributes to impunity. Read 👉 https://t.co/4Jtg0sSLuq pic.twitter.com/Cb32smuxBx — UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) December 23, 2020 In one of the most publicized crimes of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, Blackwater mercenaries were escorting a diplomatic convoy when, apparently unprovoked, they opened fire in the crowded square with machine guns, grenade launchers, and other weapons in broad daylight. “The shooting started like rain,” recalled survivor Fareed Walid Hassan, who said he witnessed a woman dragging her dead young son as she fled for her life. Another victim, Mohassin Kadhim, was shot dead as she shielded her son in her arms. Survivor Mohammed Kinani’s son Ali, age 9, was shot in the head as they sat in their car. “I was standing in shock looking at him as the door opened, and his brain fell on the ground between my feet,” Kinani said. Trump chose to use his last few weeks in power pardoning this boy's killers. Shameful. https://t.co/GUJGlAtYmt — CODEPINK (@codepink) December 23, 2020 When the shooting finally stopped after 15 horrific minutes, 17 Iraqis—men, women, and children; people fleeing in cars and on foot; a man with his arms raised in surrender—lay dead. Twenty others were injured, some severely, including one victim wounded by a grenade launched into a nearby girls’ school. As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, Trump’s pardon of the convicted war criminals was roundly condemned by peace activists, journalists, progressive politicians, prosecutors, and others. Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group CodePink, tweeted Tuesday that “Trump could have pardoned whistleblowers Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden. Instead he chose to pardon four Blackwater mercenaries who murdered 17 Iraqi civilians, including two boys [aged] 8 and 11, in an unprovoked attack on a crowd of unarmed people.” As Donald Trump tonight pardons Blackwater contractors convicted of murdering Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square, Iraq, it's worth (re)watching my rather intense exchange with Blackwater founder Erik Prince on this very issue, back in 2019, on @AJHeadtoHead:pic.twitter.com/7f4unXn1zz — Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) December 23, 2020 Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner lamented in an MSNBC interview that “it seems like there’s no line Donald Trump won’t cross.” “To this old prosecutor, it feels like what he just did was like an indiscriminate drive-by on the rule of law,” Kirschner continued. “I mean, he pardons people who are lying to the FBI as part of the Russia probe. He pardons Republicans who were either stealing from their donors, committing campaign finance violations, or engaged in insider training.” “What galls me the most and hits home for me personally is [that]… these four Blackwater contractors… slaughtered innocent, unarmed, Iraqi men, women, and children,” he added. “That was prosecuted… three times by my former office, the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia. The lead prosecutor, a gentleman named Pat Martin, is somebody I tried murder cases with. He poured his heart and soul into fighting for justice for those Iraqi victims.” Ali KinaniBlackwaterDonald TrumpDustin HeardEvan LibertyIraq warMarta HurtadoNicholas SlattenNisour Square massacreOHCHRPaul SloughTrump pardonsU.S. war crimesUnited Nations Previous Previous post: Palestinians left to wait—and die—as Israel prepares to vaccinate against Covid-19 Next Next post: Experts blast Trump plan to sell nearly $500 million in arms to criminal Saudi regime	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2908
__label__wiki	0.942052	0.942052	BADGER ONE LIVE Badger / Brian Parrish The band was co-founded by keyboardist Tony Kaye after he left Yes, with David Foster. Foster had been in The Warriors with Jon Anderson before Anderson co-founded Yes. Foster later worked with the band on Time and a Word. Kaye had worked on a soloproject by Foster that was never released. The pair found drummer Roy Dyke, formerly of Ashton, Gardner & Dyke, and Dyke suggested Brian Parrish formerly of Parrish & Gurvitz which later became Frampton’s Camel (after Parrish left P&G) on guitar. The new band began rehearsing in September 1972 and signed to Atlantic Records. Badger’s first release was the live album, One Live Badger, co-produced by Jon Anderson and Geoffrey Haslam, and was taken from a show opening for Yes at London’s Rainbow Theatre. In the progressive rock genre, five of the songs were co-written by the whole band, with a sixth by Parrish (initially written for Parrish & Gurvitz). The cover art was done by Roger Dean, the artist responsible for many of Yes’s album covers, although Kaye left Yes before their partnership with Roger Dean. One Live Badger is to soul what In the Court of the Crimson King is to jazz. It is a bloody shame what happened next: most of the band had left by 1974, leaving only Kaye and drummer Roy Dyke. Upon the first listen to the band’s sophomore release, White Lady, released later that year, one will find that this is clearly not the same Badger. The band championed onOne Live Badger was no more by this point, and the new Badger found itself dominated by new singer Jackie Lomax, who transformed their sound into more of a purist’s idea of soul. White Lady is a travesty for prog fans. While it’s not utterly terrible (for a soul record it’s actually fairly decent), there is just nothing progressive about the damn thing. Therefore, I would definitely not recommend the album to anyone reading this to broaden their progressive horizons. On the Way Home Flashback Press Release date1972 & Remastered CD May 2016 CatalogSWBD009 / WECLEC2526 LabelAtlantic Records / Esoteric Recordings FormatVinyl, Digital, CD Tracklist above Listen to this awesome release! Previous ReleaseLOVE ON MY MINDNext ReleasePARRISH & GURVITZ TWO	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2909
__label__cc	0.746351	0.253649	BSN* Asus X99-E WS Motherboard Leaked As more and more X99 motherboards leak, it only made sense to release a portion of the trove of boards that haven’t already been announced or leaked. The Asus X99-E WS, a Bright Side of News* exclusive, is a particularly interesting one because it is Asus’ (TPE:2357) latest high performance motherboard for workstation users. Because X99 is an entirely new platform there are very likely going to be a lot of people searching for new workstation boards like the X99-E WS to upgrade their workstations. In terms of features, you get all the expected things Haswell-E support, a plethora of PCIe 3.0 slots, which includes support for 4-way CrossFireX and SLI with X16 links. This board is specifically designed to support both Core i7 and Xeon E5 class chips (including the E5-1600, thanks to retailer leaks) thanks to being only a single socket workstation board. Because this is a workstation board, ASUS also talks about the boards overall power efficiency focusing on their Dr. MOS, 12k hour capacitors, ProCool power connector and beat thermal choke. The Asus X99-E WS also has a Q-code logger and Dr. Power, even though it also has a plethora of connectivity which make it all the more attractive. That includes dual Gigabit NICs, a whopping 10 USB 3.0 connectors on the rear IO alone, not to mention the standard audio connectors, eSATA and the expected IO. You will get the full 8-slot DDR4 configuration, which is to be expected even though you very likely won’t get much memory overclocking support like the Rampage series of boards. Asus X99-E WS IO In addition to all of this, you will be getting backed by an Asus 3 year warranty which brings the MSRP price of this board to a whopping $519. Yes, this is a fairly high price for a single socketed board that isn’t an overclocking board, but X99 is a performance platform and this is a workstation board which should mean you are paying for higher quality components and reliability. In fact, some retailers already have it available for pre-order but don’t really have any details or pictures of the board. So, you can already get it for $499 via some retailers, already lower than the $519 MSRP. Original Author: Anshel Sag This news article is part of our extensive Archive on news that have been happening in the past 10 years. Here at BSN we love to cover latest tech news, so be sure to visit our homepage for up-to date stuff. Additionally, we take great pride in our Home Office section, as well as the VPN one, so be sure to check them out as well. VPN3 months ago Does a VPN Hide Your Browsing History? Latest Tech News6 months ago One wheel to steer them all: Logitech G923 is official Is a triple VPN overkill? Game Development7 months ago How much does a Unity license cost? Home Office3 months ago BSN’s Guide to the latest Wi-Fi Standards What is Onion over VPN, besides a bad idea? BSN’s Special: The NordVPN Breach Explained Logitech Announced the G733 LIGHTSPEED Wireless Gaming Headset Can you be tracked with a VPN? Mass Effect Re-Normalized on Ryzen CPUs Copyright © Bright Side of News	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2910
__label__wiki	0.830819	0.830819	The market is looking for clues from the Fed on whether it will adjust bond buying U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell are seated to testify before a House Financial Services Committee hearing on oversight of the Treasury Department’s and Federal Reserve’s coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic response on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 22, 2020. The Federal Reserve could provide clues about its bond buying program when it releases its minutes Wednesday, but the odds the central bank takes action at its December meeting have fallen slightly with the expected nomination of Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary. Minutes from the Fed’s last meeting are released Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET. The Fed talked about possible ways to adjust the program at that early November meeting, so it may reveal some aspects of that discussion. Market speculation had been building that the Fed will tweak the bond buying program when it meets in December by changing the duration of the bonds it is buying but keeping the total Treasury purchases at $80 billion a month. The theory is if the Fed increases the purchases of longer duration Treasurys, like 10-year notes and 30-year bonds, that would keep the rates that impact mortgages and other loans from rising. Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at Mellon, said the minutes may not reveal much other than that changing the average duration of its purchases is just one possibility. “The minutes aren’t about news. On one level, there’s going to be a natural disappointment,” he said. “We probably will get information on their intentions on asset purchases and whether it’s going to be more rules based.” Yellen is expected to be named to the Treasury by President-elect Joe Biden, and as a former Fed chief is expected to be sympathetic to the Fed and also an advocate for fiscal stimulus. Some market pros had expected the Fed to move in December on its bond program because Congress has failed to approve more stimulus for the economy as the virus outbreak is worsening. Some theorize now that the Fed could hold off on the bond program, if it knows Yellen is a strong advocate for other stimulus. “I still think it’s a possibility. It’s a coin toss. It might have been 60/40, but with [Yellen] possibly being the Treasury Secretary, maybe there’s a ‘let’s see,'” said Jim Caron, head of global macro strategies at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. The 10-year Treasury yield, edging towards 1% earlier this month, has been trading lower based on speculation the Fed would buy more Treasurys in that sector. The 10-year yield was slightly higher Tuesday at 0.88%. The market has been split on whether the Fed would move, but expectations increased after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last week informed the Fed that the Treasury would not extend some of the Fed’s emergency programs that expire at the end of the year. But strategists say Yellen would likely move to restore those programs fairly quickly if the Fed believes it still needs those backstops. Among the facilities impacted were the Fed’s programs for corporate debt and municipal debt. “The best metaphor is Secretary Mnuchin took down the guardrails they put up, and year end is a sharp turn and that is dangerous,” said Reinhart. But he added the Fed still has control of the programs it needs to manage the markets across year end, like the repo operation. He said if the Fed moves on the bond program, it actually may not have much impact. “You’ve got the 10-year Treasury as low as you want. They’ve got housing fully on the boil,” he said. After the November meeting, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that the Fed had a “useful discussion” about the bond buying program, but he felt it was effective and the Fed was providing the right amount of accomodation. The Fed is buying a total $120 billion a month in its asset purchase program, including $40 billion in mortgage securities. If the Fed were to change its Treasury purchases, market pros say it could double the nearly $10 billion it is buying at the long end of the curve. Ian Lyngen, head of rate strategy at BMO, said Yellen’s nomination may not make much of a difference. “On the margin, I would say it might make the decision to follow through with an extension of the weighted average maturity of Treasury purchases slightly more difficult. However, I don’t think it changes the calculus at the end of the day. At this point I think the market thinks they do it,” said Lyngen. He said the 10-year yield could move back towards 1% if the Fed does not increase the longer end purchases. JPMorgan beats profit estimates on better-than-expected credit, record trading revenue Despite rising yields, $7.9 billion money manager believes inflation comeback worries are premature Opponents to $2,000 stimulus checks say they are not targeted. How that could be fixed ‘No vaccine, no service:’ How vaccinations may affect travel plans in the future These entrepreneurs want a second PPP loan. What you should know if you’re applying for more money Biden to deploy FEMA, National Guard to set up Covid vaccine clinics across the U.S.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2914
__label__wiki	0.663396	0.663396	NEET MCQ MCQ on Titration MCQs on Titration Titration or volumetric analysis is a method used in the laboratory to determine the concentration of an unknown solution. It is a quantitative method of chemical analysis. In this, a titrant of known concentration is prepared and used to react with the analyte to determine its concentration. The volume of titrant, which reacts with the analyte is known as titre volume. There are different types of reactions used in titration. The most common is the acid-base titration and redox titration. An indicator is used to determine the endpoint, which is indicated by the colour change. 1. Which of the following is used as an indicator in the titration of iodine with hypo? (a) Methyl red (b) Methyl orange (c) Starch (d) Potassium ferricyanide 2. What will be the pH at the equivalence point in the titration of a weak acid and a strong base? (b) >7 (d) <7 3. On adding a large amount of titrant, an asymptote is obtained in the titration curve, this asymptote represents (a) Ka of the initial solution (b) pH of the initial solution (c) pH of the titrant 4. The buffer region is represented by (a) the concave curve after adding titrant (b) the flat curve before the equivalence point (c) the flat curve after the equivalence point (d) the steep curve after the equivalence point 5. How many mmols of NaOH will be used in the titration with 33ml of 3 M HCl to form NaCl and water? (a) 10 mmol (b) 100 mmol (c) 3 mmol (d) 33 mmol 6. The pH range of methyl orange as an indicator is (a) 3-5 (b) 8-9 (c) 2-4 (d) 6-8 7. The amount of NaOH used in the titration of 100 ml 0.1 N HCl is (a) 4 g (b) 0.04 g (c) 2 g (d) 0.4 g 8. The equivalent weight of an acid can be calculated by (a) Molecular weight × basicity (b) Molecular weight/basicity (c) Molecular weight × acidity (d) Molecular weight/acidity 9. The normal rain water is acidic due to (a) SO2 (b) NO2 (c) NH3 (d) CO2 10. Which of the following represents the equivalence point in the graph of pH Vs volume of titrant? (a) Point at the highest pH (b) Point at the greatest magnitude of the slope of the curve (c) Point at the lowest pH (d) Point at the least magnitude of the slope of the curve NEET Chemistry Syllabus 2020 NEET Chemistry Important Topics NEET Chemistry MCQs How to Score 160 Plus in NEET Chemistry NEET 2020 NEET Exam Date Aipmt Question Paper How to Crack NEET in 2 Months Chemistry MCQ for NEET Tips for NEET Exam Top Medical Colleges in India NEET Syllabus	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2915
__label__cc	0.540934	0.459066	How Do You Calculate The Ionization Energy Of A Hydrogen Atom In Its Ground State How do you calculate the ionization energy of a hydrogen atom in its ground state? By using the Rydberg expression: The wavelength λ of the emission line in the hydrogen spectrum is given by: 1λ=R[1/n12−1/n22] R is the Rydberg Constant and has the value 1.097×107m−1 n1 is the principle quantum number of the lower energy level n2 is the principle quantum number of the higher energy level. The energy levels in hydrogen converge and coalesce: The electron is in the n1=1 ground state we need to consider series 1. These transitions occur in the u.v part of the spectrum and is known as The Lyman Series. The 1/n22 decreases. The Rydberg expression then written as 1λ=R[1/n12−0]=R/n12 Since n1=1 this becomes: 1λ=R ∴1λ=1.097×107 ∴λ=9.116×10−8m c=νλ ∴ν=c/λ=3×108/9.116×10−8 =3.291×1015s−1 E=hν ∴E=6.626×10−34×3.291×1015=2.18×10−18J This is the energy needed to remove 1 electron from 1 hydrogen atom. To find the energy required to ionize 1 mole of H atoms we multiply by the Avogadro Constant: E=2.18×10−18×6.02×1023=13.123×105J/mol E=1312kJ/mol What Is Charge On One Mole Electron Known As How Is An Organism Different From A Population The Hybridisation Of Carbon In Ethylene Is Name The Major Air Pollutant Emitted By The Vehicles Which Type Of Farming Is Suitable In Hilly Areas Explain The Life Cycle Of Silk Moth Can Real Image Be Obtained On The Screen What Is The Work Done By An Electrochemical Cell Equal To What Are Some Important Scientific Prefixes Give An Example Of A Carbohydrate Which Exhibits Lowest Boiling Point	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2916
__label__cc	0.547642	0.452358	Is The Molecule Sf4 Polar Or Non Polar Is the molecule SF4 polar or non-polar? If there is an odd number of lone pairs of electrons around the central atom, the molecule is polar. If there is an even number of lone pairs, you must check the VSEPR structure to decide. The geometry of Sf4 will be asymmetric electron region distribution around the central atom (S). Therefore this molecule is polar. When Dilute Hcl Reacts With Zinc Meta Which Gas Is Liberated Which Plant Hormone Promotes Seed Dormancy During Environmental Stress When Is The Sun At The Highest Point In The Sky What Is Lateral Displacement Matter In Any Form Is Made Up Of Fill In The Blank What Is A Primitive Unit Cell How Is A Rainbow Produced By What Makes The Blood Look Red Which Is The Largest Primate In The World On Acceleration Time Graph The Area Under The Curve Equals The	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2917
__label__wiki	0.733874	0.733874	LeBron James will make a little NBA history tonight in San Antonio January 23, 2018 January 23, 2018 BlowoutBuzz When he arrived in the NBA back in 2003, he already was known as “The Chosen One” and just a couple years later people were pondering whether he was the best ever. Then, he took his talents to South Beach, won a couple of NBA titles and then returned to where it all started for him and won a championship in Cleveland where there hadn’t been successes like that since the 1960s for any sport. His cardboard? It’s been among the royalty of the NBA since Day 1 — this isn’t about that. But tonight in San Antonio LeBron James will likely make a different kind of NBA history but is just as significant (if not more so) from a historical perspective. With just seven points against the Spurs he’ll join the 30,000 Point Club, reaching a plateau that has been done by just seven players before him in ABA/NBA history at age 33. (The list is below.) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? He played until he was 41. Karl Malone played until he was 40. Kobe Bryant hung them up at age 37, while Jordan was 39 — with all those seasons missed to baseball, retirement, whatever that was — while Wilt Chamberlain was 36 as was Julius Erving. The only active player ahead of James is Dirk Nowitzki, who is still trucking along in Dallas at age 39. Barring injury, at his approximate scoring pace James will pass Dr. J. this season and Wilt The Stilt and MJ next year. Then, The Mailman the year after that. It might take a couple more seasons after that to contend for the top spot if he chooses to keep playing — until he’s roughly 37. (Where that might be? That could be interesting for his cardboard.) We all know James’ place on cardboard — that’s been a given since his arrival — but his place in NBA history seems to be coming into focus as intensely and as elite as was thought since the beginning. This collector decided it was worth taking that look again — and you can watch it happen tonight at 8 p.m. on TNT. TOP 20 NBA/ABA CAREER SCORERS (* — denotes Hall of Famer, bold denotes active) 1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar* 38,387 2. Karl Malone* 36,928 3. Kobe Bryant 33,643 4. Michael Jordan* 32,292 5. Wilt Chamberlain* 31,419 6. Dirk Nowitzki 30,837 7. Julius Erving* 30,026 8. LeBron James 29,993 9. Moses Malone* 29,580 10. Shaquille O’Neal* 28,596 11. Dan Issel* 27,482 12. Elvin Hayes* 27,313 13. Hakeem Olajuwon* 26,946 14. Oscar Robertson* 26,710 15. Dominique Wilkins* 26,668 16. George Gervin* 26,595 17. Tim Duncan 26,496 18. Paul Pierce 26,397 19. John Havlicek* 26,395 20. Kevin Garnett 26,071 >> Click here to buy NBA cards on BlowoutCards.com BasketballCleveland Cavaliers, Dirk Nowitzki, Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, LeBron James 30000, Miami Heat, Michael Jordan, NBA, Wilt Chamberlain Previous Article Board Buzz: Must-read threads on the Blowout Forums (Jan. 23) Next Article First Buzz: 2017 Leaf Perfect Game All-American Classic baseball cards	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2927
__label__wiki	0.604991	0.604991	Cytisus scoparius link - A natural antioxidant Raja Sundararajan1, Nazeer Ahamed Haja1, Kumar Venkatesan1, Kakali Mukherjee1, Bishnu Pada Saha1, Arun Bandyopadhyay2 & Pulok Kumar Mukherjee1 BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine volume 6, Article number: 8 (2006) Cite this article Recent investigations have shown that the antioxidant properties of plants could be correlated with oxidative stress defense and different human diseases. In this respect flavonoids and other polyphenolic compounds have gained the greatest attention. The plant Cytisus scoparius contains the main constituent of flavone and flavonals. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the in vitro antioxidant activities of extract of aerial part of Cytisus scoparius. The plant extract was tested for DPPH (1, 1-diphenyl, 2-picryl hydrazyl) radical scavenging, nitric oxide radical scavenging, superoxide anion radical scavenging, hydroxyl radical scavenging, antilipid peroxidation assay, reducing power and total phenol content. The extract exhibited scavenging potential with IC50 value of 1.5 μg/ml, 116.0 μg/ml and 4.7 μg/ml for DPPH, nitric oxide and superoxide anion radicals. The values were found to lesser than those of vitamin C, rutin, and curcumin, as standards. The extract showed 50% protection at the dose of 104.0 μg/ml in lipid peroxidation induced by Fe2+/ ascorbate system in rat liver microsomal preparation. There is decrease in hydroxyl radical generation with IC50 value of 27.0 μg/ml when compared with standard vitamin E. The reducing power of the extract depends on the amount of extract. A significant amount of polyphenols could be detected by the equivalent to 0.0589 μg of pyrocatechol from 1 mg of extract. The results obtained in the present study indicate that hydro alcoholic extract of aerial part of Cytisus scoparius is a potential source of natural antioxidants. Oxidative stress plays an important role in the pathogenesis of various diseases such as atherosclerosis, alcoholic liver cirrhosis and cancer etc [1, 2]. Oxidative stress is initiated by reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide anion (O - 2), perhydroxy radical (HOO-) and hydroxyl radical (HO·). These radicals are formed by a one electron reduction process of molecular oxygen (O2). ROS can easily initiate the lipid peroxidation of the membrane lipids, causing damage of the cell membrane of phospholipids, lipoprotein by propagating a chain reaction cycle [3]. Thus, antioxidants defense systems have coevolved with aerobic metabolism to counteract oxidative damage from ROS. Most living species have efficient defense systems to prevent themselves against oxidative stress induced by ROS [4]. Recent investigations have shown that the antioxidant properties of plants could be correlated with oxidative stress defense and different human diseases like aging process etc [5–8]. In this respect flavonoids and other polyphenolic compounds have received the greatest attention [9]. The genus cytisus consists of about 70 species confined to the mild climate regions of south and central Europe, North Africa and West Asia. About four species have seen introduced into India and one of them Cytisus scoparius Link (Family – Leguminosae) is now fairly common in the Nilgiri and Simla hills. In ethnomedical information, this plant used for diuretics, hypnotic & sedative [10], diabetes [11] and liver disease [12]. Pharmacological studies have confirmed its uterine stimulant effect [13] and anti spasmodic activity [14]. It has also been found to have diuretic activity, hypotensive activity [14] and estrogenic effect. The plant Cytisus scoparius contains the flavone such as 6'' O acetyl scoparin [15], flavonals namely rutin, quercetin, quercitrin, isorhamnetin and kaempferol [16] and some isoflavones like genistein and sarothamnoside [17]. Quinolizidine alkaloids namely spartein, sarothamine and lupanine [18] and Benzenoid compounds like tyramine, hydroxyl tyramine [19], phenyl ethanol and cresol [20] have also been reported to be present in the plant. Most of the reported biological activities and active constituents of this plant may be related to its antioxidant nature. Based on this idea the in vitro antioxidant activity of the extracts of aerial part of Cytisus scoparius has been evaluated and reported hereunder. Rutin was obtained from Acros organics, New Jersy, USA. DPPH (1, 1-diphenyl, 2-picryl hydrazyl), NBT (Nitro blue tetrazolium), NADH (Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate reduced), PMS (Phenazine methosulphate), TCA (Trichloro acetic acid), Ferric chloride and BHT (Butylated hydroxy toluene) were obtained from Sigma chemical co USA. Ascorbic acid, curcumin and Vitamin E were obtained from SD Fine chem. Ltd, Biosar, India. TBA (Thiobarbituric acid) and pyridine were obtained from Loba chemie, Mumbai, India. EDTA (Ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid) and Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) were obtained from Qualigens Fine chemicals, Mumbai, India. Naphthyl ethylene diamine dihydrochloride was obtained from Roch-light ltd, Suffolk, England. Sodium nitro prusside was obtained from Ranbaxy lab, Mohali, India. Pottassium ferric cyanide was obtained from May and Backer, Dagenham, UK. 2-deoxy-2- ribose was obtained from Fluka (Buchs, Switzerland). Plant material Aerial parts of Cytisus scoparius was collected in Nilgiri hills, Tamilnadu region and authenticated through Government Arts College, Ooty. Voucher specimen (SNPS-011/ 2003–2004) of this plant material has been retained in the School of Natural Product Studies, Jadavpur University, India. The aerial part of Cytisus scoparius plant was dried at room temperature and reduced to coarse powder. This powder was extracted with mixture of ethanol: water (7:3 ratio) for 48 hours. The solvent was completely removed by rotary evaporator and further removal of water was carried out by freeze drying. The dried extract was stored in vacuum desiccator for further use. DPPH radical scavenging activity The free radical scavenging capacity of the extracts was determined using DPPH. A methanol DPPH solution (0.15%) was mixed with serial dilutions (0.5 μg to 8 μg) of Cytisus scoparius extracts and after 10 min, the absorbance was read at 515 nm using a spectrophotometer (Perkin – Elmer Lambda 20 UV – visible spectrophotometer). Vitamin C used as a standard. The inhibition curve was plotted and IC50 values obtained [21]. Nitric oxide radical inhibition assay Nitric oxide radical inhibition can be estimated by the use of Griess Illosvoy reaction [22]. In this investigation, Griess Illosvoy reagent was modified by using naphthyl ethylene diamine dihydrochloride (0.1% w/v) instead of 1-napthylamine (5%). The reaction mixture (3 ml) containing sodium nitroprusside (10 mM, 2 ml), phosphate buffer saline (0.5 ml) and Cytisus scoparius extract (10 μg to 160 μg) or standard solution (rutin, 0.5 ml) was incubated at 25°C for 150 min. After incubation, 0.5 ml of the reaction mixture mixed with 1 ml of sulfanilic acid reagent (0.33% in 20% glacial acetic acid) and allowed to stand for 5 min for completing diazotization. Then, 1 ml of naphthyl ethylene diamine dihydrochloride was added, mixed and allowed to stand for 30 min at 25°C. A pink coloured chromophore is formed in diffused light. The absorbance of these solutions was measured at 540 nm against the corresponding blank solutions. Rutin used as a standard. Superoxide anion scavenging activity Measurement of superoxide anion scavenging activity of Cytisus scoparius was done based on the Nishimiki method [23]. About 1 ml of nitroblue tetrazolium (NBT) solution (156 μM NBT in 100 mM phosphate buffer, pH 7.4) 1 ml NADH solution (468 μM in 100 mM phosphate buffer, pH 7.4) and 0.1 ml of sample solution of Cytisus scoparius (1.25 μg to 10 μg) in water were mixed. The reaction started by adding 100 μl of phenazine methosulphate (PMS) solution (60 μM PMS in 100 mM phosphate buffer, pH 7.4) to the mixture. The reaction mixture was incubated at 25°C for 5 min, and the absorbance at 560 nm was measured against blank samples. Decreased absorbance of the reaction mixture indicated increased superoxide anion scavenging activity. Curcumin was used as a positive control. Lipid peroxidation assay The rat liver microsomal fraction was prepared by the method of Bouchet et al [24]. The reaction mixture contained in a final volume of 1.0 ml, 500 μl of liver microsomal fraction, 300 μl buffer containing the plant extract (50–150 μg), 100 μl of FeCl3 (1 mM) and 100 μl ascorbic acid (1 mM) to start peroxidation. Samples were incubated at 37°C for 1 hour, after that lipid peroxidation was measured using the reaction with thiobarbituric acid (TBA). Thiobarbituric acid reactive substances were determined by the methods of Houghton and Aruoma [25, 26]. The absorbance of the organic layer was measured at 532 nm. All reactions were carried out in triplicate. Vitamin E used as a standard. Hydroxyl radical scavenging assay The assay was performed as described by Halliwell method [27] with minor changes. All solutions were prepared freshly. 1.0 ml of the reaction mixture contained 100 μl of 28 mM 2-deoxy-2-ribose (dissolved in phosphate buffer, pH 7.4), 500 μl solution of various concentrations of the Cytisus scoparius (10 to 80 μg), 200 μl of 200 μM FeCl3 and 1.04 mM EDTA (1:1 v/v), 100 μl H2O2 (1.0 mM) and 100 μl ascorbic acid (1.0 mM). After an incubation period of 1 hour at 37°C the extent of deoxyribose degradation was measured by the TBA reaction [23, 24]. Measure the absorbance at about 532 nm against the blank solution. Vitamin E was used as a positive control. Reducing power The reducing power of Cytisus scoparius was determined according to the Oyaizu method [28]. Different concentration of Cytisus scoparius extract (100 μg – 1000 μg) in 1 ml of distilled water was mixed with phosphate buffer (2.5 ml, 0.2 M, pH 6.6) and potassium ferricyanide [K3Fe(CN)6] (2.5 ml, 1%). The mixture was incubated at 50°C for 20 min. A portion (2.5 ml) of trichloroacetic acid (10%) was added to the mixture, which was then centrifuged at 3000 rpm for 10 min. The upper layer of the solution (2.5 ml) was mixed with distilled water (2.5 ml) and FeCl3 (0.5 ml. 0.1%) and the absorbance was measured at 700 nm. Increased absorbance of the reaction mixture indicated increased reducing power. Butylated hydroxy toluene used as a standard. Determination of total phenolic compounds Total soluble phenolic in the aqueous extract of Cytisus scoparius were determined with Folin-Ciocalteu reagent according to the standard method [29] using pyrocatechol as a standard. Briefly, 0.1 ml of extract solution (contains 1000 μg extract) in a volumetric flask diluted distilled water (46 ml). About 1 ml of Folin – Ciocalteu reagent was added and the contents of the flask mixed thoroughly. After 3 min, 3 ml of Na2Co3(2%) was added, then the mixture was allowed to stand for 2 hour with intermittent shaking. The absorbance was measured at 760 nm. The concentration of total phenolic compounds in the Cytisus scoparius determined as microgram of pyrocatechol equivalent by using an equation that was obtained from Gulcin et al [30]. The equation is given below: Absorbance = 0.001 x Pyrocatechol (μg) + 0.0033 All the invitro experimental results were mean ± S.D of five parallel measurements. The hydro alcoholic extract of Cytisus scoparius exhibited a significant dose dependent inhibition of DPPH activity, with a 50% inhibition (IC50) at a concentration of 1.5 μg/ml. The result was mentioned in figure 1. The IC50 value of the extract was found to be lesser than the standard, vitamin C (IC50 3.0 μg/ml). Scavenging effect of Cytisus scoparius extract and standard vitamin C on 1, 1'-Diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) radical. Results are mean ± S.D of five parallel measurements. The scavenging of nitric oxide by plant extract was increased in a dose-dependent manner as illustrated in figure 2. At concentration of 116.0 μg/ml of extract 50% of nitric oxide generated by incubation was scavenged. This IC50 value of extract found to be lesser than the standard, rutin (IC50 160.0 μg/ml). Scavenging effect of Cytisus scoparius extract and standard rutin on Nitric oxide radical. Results are mean ± S.D of five parallel measurements. The superoxide anion derived from dissolved oxygen by Phenazine methosulphate/NADH coupling reaction reduces nitro blue tetrazolium. The decrease the absorbance at 560 nm with the plant extract thus indicates the consumption of superoxide anion in the reaction mixture. As mentioned in figure 3, the plant extract as well as curcumin showed the scavenging activity; IC50 values, 4.7 μg/ml and 5.84 μg/ml, respectively. Effect of Cytisus scoparius extract and curcumin on scavenging of superoxide anion radical formation. Results are mean ± S.D of five parallel measurements. Activity of plant extract against non-enzymatic lipid peroxidation in rat liver microsomes has been shown in figure 4. Addition of Fe 2+/ascorbate to the liver microsomes cause increase in lipid peroxidation. The extract showed inhibition of peroxidation effect in all concentrations, which showed 50% inhibition effect at 104.0 μg/ml. The extract inhibition value was found to be lesser than the standard, vitamin E (IC50 120.5 μg/ml) Effect of Cytisus scoparius extract and vitamin E on lipid peroxidation of liver microsome induced by Fe2+/ascorbate. Results are mean ± S.D of five parallel measurements. To attack the substrate deoxyribose hydroxyl radicals were generated by reaction of Ferric-EDTA together with H2O2 and ascorbic acid. When the plant extract were incubated with the above reaction mixture, it could prevent the damage against sugar. The results are shown in figure 5, the concentrations of 50% inhibition were found to be 27.0 μg/ml and 32.5 μg/ml for the extract and standard of vitamin E, respectively. The extract inhibition value was found to be lesser than the standard Effect of Cytisus scoparius extract and vitamin E on deoxyribose degradation assay. Results are mean ± S.D of five parallel measurements. Figure 6 shows the reductive capabilities of the plant extract compared to butylated hydroxy toluene. The reducing power of extract of Cytisus scoparius was very potent and the power of the extract was increased with quantity of sample. The plant extract could reduce the most Fe3+ ions, which had a lesser reductive activity than the standard of butylated hydroxy toluene. The reductive ability of Cytisus scoparius extract and butylated hydroxy toluene. Results are mean ± S.D of five parallel measurements. The total phenolic contents of hydro alcoholic extract of Cytisus scoparius was 0.0589 μg pyrocatechol equivalent /mg. Free radicals have aroused significant interest among scientists in the past decade. Their broad range of effects in biological systems has drawn the attention of many experimental works. It has been proved that these mechanisms may be important in the pathogenesis of certain diseases and ageing. There are many reports that support the use of antioxidant supplementation in reducing the level of oxidative stress and in slowing or preventing the development of complications associated with diseases [31]. Many synthetic antioxidant components have shown toxic and/or mutagenic effects, which have shifted the attention towards the naturally occurring antioxidants. Numerous plant constituents have proven to show free radical scavenging or antioxidants activity [32]. Flavonoids and other phenolic compounds (hydroxyl cinnamic derivatives, catechines etc) of plant origin have been reported as scavengers and inhibitors of lipid peroxidation [33]. In our present study demonstrated that, DPPH is a free radical, stable at room temperature, which produces a purple colour solution in methanol. It is reduced in the presence of an antioxidant molecule, giving rise to uncoloured methanol solutions. Figure 1 illustrates the decrease in the concentration of DPPH radical due to scavenging ability of hydro alcoholic extract of plant and vitamin C, which is comparable to the reported value of Thabrew et al [34]. Nitric oxide radical inhibition study proved that aerial part of the extract is a potent scavenger of nitric oxide. This nitric oxide generated from sodium nitro prusside reacts with oxygen to form nitrite. The extract inhibits nitrite formation by competing with oxygen to react with nitric oxide directly and also to inhibit its synthesis. Scavengers of nitric oxide compete with oxygen leading to reduced production of nitric oxide [35]. From the nitric oxide test, rutin was used as a standard. The IC50 value of the rutin is comparable to the reported value of Badami et al [36]. In the PMS/NADH -NBT system, superoxide anion derived from dissolved oxygen by PMS/NADH coupling reaction reduces NBT. The decrease of absorbance at 560 nm with antioxidants thus indicates the consumption of superoxide anion in the reaction mixture. Addition of various concentrations of extract as well as curcumin (standard) in above coupling reaction showed decrease in absorbance. The antioxidant property of curcumin is generally attributed to its phenolic nature [37]. Sreejayan and Rao et al [38] have earlier observed that for superoxide and DPPH scavenging, the order of activity was: curcumin > demethoxycurcumin > bisdemethoxycurcumin > diacetylcurcumin (almost inactive). The liver microsomal fraction undergoes rapid non-enzymatic peroxidation when incubated with FeCl3 and ascorbic acid. The use of Fe (III) in the presence of a reducing agent such as ascorbate produces .OH [39] and they attack the biological material. This leads to the formation of MDA (malonodialdehyde) and other aldehydes, which form a pink chromogen with TBA, absorbing at 532 nm [40]. The extract and vitamin E exhibited strong scavenging effect of hydroxyl radical which could inhibit lipid damage at different concentration. The scavenging effect of vitamin E is in accordance with the report of Hemanth et al [41]. The extract was examined for its ability to act as .OH radical scavenging agent. Ferric EDTA was incubated with H2O2 and ascorbic acid at PH -7.4; hydroxyl radicals were formed in free solution and were detected by their ability to degrade 2-deoxy-2- ribose into fragments that on heating with TBA at low pH form a pink chromogen [26, 27]. When Cytisus scoparius plant extract and vitamin E were added to the reaction mixture they removed hydroxyl radicals and prevented the degradation of 2-deoxy-2- ribose as mentioned above. The observed IC50 values of the extract and Vitamin E were analogous to the reported values of Sen et al [42]. Figure 6 shows the reductive capabilities of plant extract compared with butylated hydroxy toluene. For the measurements of the reductive ability, we investigated the Fe3+ to Fe2+ transformation in the presence of hydro alcoholic extract using the method of Oyaizu et al [28]. The reducing power increased with increasing the amount of extract. The reducing capacity of compound may serve as a significant indicator of its potential antioxidant activity [43]. The absorbance values of the extract at different concentrations were found to be less than that of the reference compound. The value of reference compound is in accordance with the report of Illhami et al [44]. The phenolic compounds may contribute directly to anti oxidative action [45]. This result indicates that polyphenol present in aerial part and its extract could be partly responsible for the beneficial effects. Compelling evidence indicates that increased consumption of dietary antioxidants or fruits and vegetables with antioxidant properties may contribute to the improvement in quality of life by delaying onset and reducing the risk of degenerative diseases associated with aging. Therapeutic potentials of various Indian medicinal plants of Simla hills are well documented from its traditional origin in different aspects [46, 47]. 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Marcocci L, Packer L, Droy-Lefai MT, Sekaki A, Gardes-Albert M: Antioxidant action of Ginkgo biloba extracts EGb 761. Methods Enzymol. 1994, 234: 462-475. Badami S, Moorkoth S, Rai SR, Kannan E, Bhajraj S: Antioxidant activity of caesalpinia sappan Heartwood. Biol Pharm Bull. 2003, 26 (11): 1534-1537. Toda S, Ohnishi M, Kimura M, Nakashima I: Action of curcuminoids on the hemolysis and lipid peroxidation of mouse erythrocytes induced by hydrogen peroxide. J Ethnopharmacol. 1988, 23: 105-106. Sreejayan , Rao MNA: Nitric oxide scavenging by curcuminoids. J Pharm Pharmacol. 1997, 49: 105-107. Aruoma OI.: Characterization of drugs as antioxidant prophylactics. Free Rad Biol Med. 1996, 20 (5): 675-705. Kosugi H, Kato T, Kikugawa K: Formation of yellow, orange and red pigments in the reaction of alk-2-enals with 2-thiobarbituric acid. Anal Biochem. 1987, 165: 456-464. Jadav HR, Bhutani KK: Antioxidant properties of Indian medicinal plants. Phytother Res. 2002, 16: 771-773. Sen T, Dhara AK, Bhattacharjee S, Pal S, Nag Chaudhuri AK: Antioxidant activity of the methanol fraction of Pluchea indica root extract. Phytother Res. 2002, 16: 331-335. Meir S, Kanner J, Akiri B, Hadas SP: Determination and involvement of aqueous reducing compounds in oxidative defense systems of various senescing leaves. J Agric Food Chem. 1995, 43: 1813-1817. Duh PD, Tu YY, Yen GC: Antioxidant activity of aqueous extract of harnjyur (Chyrsanthemum morifolium Ramat). Lebensm wiss Technol. 1999, 32: 269-277. Mukherjee PK: GMP for Indian system of medicine. GMP for Botanicals – Regulatory and quality issues on Phytomedicines. Edited by: Mukherjee PK, Verpoorte R. 2003, Business Horizons, New Delhi, India, 99-112. Rajan S, Seturaman M, Mukherjee PK: Ethnobiology of the Nilgiri hills, India. Phytother Res. 2002, 16: 98-116. The pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed here:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/6/8/prepub Financial assistance from All India Council for Technical Education through AICTE – QIP (Quality Improvement Programme) Project is gratefully acknowledged. School of Natural Product Studies, Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, 700 032, India Raja Sundararajan, Nazeer Ahamed Haja, Kumar Venkatesan, Kakali Mukherjee, Bishnu Pada Saha & Pulok Kumar Mukherjee Molecular Endocrinology Laboratory, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, 700 032, India Arun Bandyopadhyay Raja Sundararajan Nazeer Ahamed Haja Kumar Venkatesan Kakali Mukherjee Bishnu Pada Saha Pulok Kumar Mukherjee Correspondence to Pulok Kumar Mukherjee. The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests. SR: Performed the study KFHN: Performed the study VK: Performed the study KM: Design, analysis and acquisition of data BPS: Helped to perform the study AB: Helped to perform the study PKM: Supervised the study design along with drafting the manuscript. Sundararajan, R., Haja, N.A., Venkatesan, K. et al. Cytisus scoparius link - A natural antioxidant. BMC Complement Altern Med 6, 8 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6882-6-8 Butylate Hydroxy Toluene Total Phenolic Compound	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2928
__label__wiki	0.750112	0.750112	Native and exotic plants with edible fleshy fruits utilized in Patagonia and their role as sources of local functional foods Melina Fernanda Chamorro1 & Ana Ladio ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2844-67041 BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies volume 20, Article number: 155 (2020) Cite this article Traditionally part of the human diet, plants with edible fleshy fruits (PEFF) contain bioactive components that may exert physiological effects beyond nutrition, promoting human health and well-being. Focusing on their food-medicine functionality, different ways of using PEFF were studied in a cross-sectional way using two approaches: a bibliographical survey and an ethnobotanical case study in a rural community of Patagonia, Argentina. A total of 42 studies were selected for the bibliographical review. The case study was carried out with 80% of the families inhabiting the rural community of Cuyín Manzano, using free listing, interviews, and participant observation. In both cases we analyzed species richness and use patterns through the edible consensus and functional consensus indices. Local foods, ailments, medicines and drug plants were also registered. The review identified 73 PEFF, the majority of which (78%) were native species, some with the highest use consensus. PEFF were used in 162 different local foods, but mainly as fresh fruit. Of the total, 42% were used in a functional way, in 54 different medicines. The principal functional native species identified in the review were Aristotelia chilensis and Berberis microphylla. In the case study 20 PEFF were in current use (50% were native), and consensus values were similar for native and exotic species. These were used in 44 different local foods, mainly as fresh fruit. Only 30% were recognized for their functional value by inhabitants (mainly as gastrointestinal and respiratory treatments). The species with the highest functional consensus were the exotic Sambucus nigra and Rosa rubiginosa, followed by the native A. chilensis, Ribes magellanicum and B. microphylla. Infusions also constituted important local functional foods. This survey highlights the importance of studying the different local functional foods to depict the biocultural diversity of a human society. The preparation of different beverages and herbal medicines was relevant, and would be a promising subject to investigate in the future. The living heritage of PEFF appears to have undergone hybridization processes, such that exotic species play an increasingly significant role. A poor diet, with little consumption of fruit and vegetables, among other characteristics, is known to be strongly associated with mortality through non-communicable diseases (such as cardiovascular diseases and cancer) [1]. Extra-nutritional substances present in plants have the capacity to reduce cellular oxidative stress, thus lessening the probability of developing these illnesses [2,3,4]. The current challenge is to generate policies centered not just on nutrients, but on healthy foods [5]. Species with edible fruits deserve special attention not only for their value per se, but also as local foods. The importance in this study of the variety of ways of ingesting plant-based foods is highlighted by Heinrich et al. [6]. They developed the concept of “local foods” through the study of the Mediterranean diet, distinguishing those recipes that are shared in a territory or culture, and which form a fundamental part of local food knowledge [6]. This represents an interesting field of study in the subject of functional foods, a concept that originated in Japan in the 1980s as Foods for Specified Health Use (FOSHU). At the present time, “Functional Food Science in Europe” (FUFOSE) proposes that functional food is that which is “satisfactorily demonstrated to affect beneficially one or more target functions in the body, beyond adequate nutritional effects, in a way that is relevant to either an improved state of health and wellbeing and/or reduction of risk of disease” [6]. From an ethnobotanical perspective, other concepts arise such as “Folk functional foods” [7], or what we will call here “local functional foods”, based on the multifunctional character of food use by local inhabitants [8]. The study of plant-based local functional foods currently offers an opportunity for ethnopharmacological research, as a wide range of biocompounds is revealed, which is made available to humans in the different recipes used, capable of transforming human gastronomic habits. The study of native and exotic edible plant use in rural and indigenous communities offers an opportunity to appreciate how humans have experimented with the diversity of their plant surroundings in search of wellbeing. As established by Etkin and Ross [9], plant studies in these communities should be approached with understanding of the integral nature of food and health concepts. In their search for this functionality, humans have intentionally selected dual-purpose resources (edible-medicinal) and have also tended towards diversification of food types and new forms of consumption. Consequently, we are interested in showing the multidimensionality and multifunctionality of the PEFF, considering all their plant parts in an integral way. The study of the potential of Patagonian native fruit species is relatively recent. Progress has been made from the perspectives of agronomy [10, 11], phytochemistry [12,13,14] and nutrition [15, 16]. Several studies have demonstrated the antioxidant properties of some Patagonian fruits and their usefulness in regulating glucose metabolism, thus indicating their nutraceutical value [17,18,19]. Nevertheless, the diversity of existing species and their local foods has been little described up to now [20]. One aspect highlighted in the ethnobotanical studies carried out in Patagonia is the high proportion of exotic edible plant use in some local communities [21,22,23]. For example, in rural areas, the gathering of edible plants seems to be linked to environmental changes, with the incorporation of more exotic fruit-bearing species that grow wild, including invasive plants like sweet briar, elmleaf blackberry and apple (Rosa rubiginosa L., Rubus ulmifolius Schott, Malus domestica Borkh) [21]. Due to processes of colonization and imposition, since the arrival of Europeans the region has tended towards the cultivation of exotic fruits [24]. In market gardens and fruit farms 90% of the fruit grown is exotic in origin, such as plums and apples [25]. This pattern, called the hybridization process [26], is prevalent and of great interest when considering local foods. In this study we focus on native and exotic plants with edible fleshy fruits (PEFF) that grow in Patagonia; that is, species that may be wild, cultivated or in an intermediate state of domestication, which bear fruit that is distinguished by its flavor, preferably sweet, and its use principally as a food resource. In general, they have a high proportion of water and sugars that are easily digested and absorbed, and they have long contributed fiber, minerals and vitamins to the diet of local populations [27]. Very little information is available concerning the total number of species involved in this group and how people have used them. In addition, far fewer studies exist that deal with the safety aspect of consumption of PEFF and their different preparations. Understanding the use patterns of PEFF as part of the local biocultural heritage of Patagonia is crucial [27]. In recent times, as in the rest of the world, rural and urban societies of this region have experienced sociocultural and environmental changes. These changes have led to a reduction in traditional plant use [28], and some elements of the flora seem to be in danger [29]. These alterations will have serious long-term repercussions for PEFF use, as motivation for the generational transmission processes (oral traditions) is weakened, and consequently, the patrimony for future generations is reduced. In this study we propose a cross-sectional approach which enables exotic and native species richness, local foods, medicines and their use patterns to be evaluated, and which will also help us understand in greater depth, from an ethnobotanical perspective, that diet and health are linked concepts. We will carry out a bibliographical review and a case study of a current rural community in order to synthesize existing information on the functionality of native and exotic PEFF, and analyze their use patterns and potential. Our main questions were: Which native and exotic plants from Patagonia constitute PEFF? Which species are currently in use? What proportion is used as functional food? How many local foods are involved? This analysis of mixed information also enables us to show the continuity or change in use of functional and non-functional PEFF, shedding light on the existing biological and cultural diversity, and its potential. Ethnohistorical and ethnobotanical bibliographical review The bibliographical review involved quali-quantitative analysis of ethnohistorical and ethnobotanical texts published since 1947 which mention the use of native and exotic fruits in the Patagonian region [30]. The review was conducted using Scopus, Science Direct and Scielo, and Google Scholar search engine, as well as the library and database of the Grupo de Etnobiología. The key words and phrases used in the search were: native and exotic edible fruits and Patagonia; edible plants and Patagonia; medicinal plants and Patagonia; Patagonian flora and uses; ethnobotany of Patagonia; medicinal and alimentary uses and Patagonia, and native fruits of Patagonia. The search was carried out in Spanish and English, and a total of 2133 documents were examined. The works selected were mainly primary field studies, but compilations were also included given that each review used independent protocols for species evaluation, according to the author of the work. Study region Location of Database publications: The articles selected were from studies carried out in Argentine rural and urban communities with non-indigenous people, Creoles, and people of Mapuche-Tehuelche-Selk’nam ancestry, distributed over an area extending approximately between 37o and 54o lat. S. Of the articles studied, 58% dealt with organized indigenous communities, while the remainder were rural and/or urban communities which were pluricultural in character. The phytogeographical heterogeneity of the bibliographical approach led to the inclusion of a high diversity of plants, life forms and botanical families that were used by the majority of the indigenous populations in the region [31, 32]. Fieldwork location: The fieldwork was carried out in the rural community of Cuyín Manzano, which is located in Nahuel Huapi National Park, (40° 45 S and 71° 10 W), 70 km from Bariloche city. This location lies within the Andino Norpatagonica Biosphere Reserve (UNESCO). The climate in the region is temperate-cold and humid, with a Mediterranean precipitation regime, such that rain and snow fall principally in winter (MAT 7.2 °C). The rural community is located in an ecotonal environment between steppe and forests of Austrocedrus chilensis and Nothofagus spp. The population is of mestizo origin; some individuals are direct descendants of the Mapuche people, while others have mixed ancestry, known locally as Criollos (Creoles). At present only 13 families live here, due to strong processes of emigration. The economic activity of inhabitants has become more varied with time; they work with livestock, tourism, handicrafts and also as employees in the state school hostel and a private ranch. This community has a long-standing history of settlement in the area, according to archeological records [33]. Our previous studies in this location [34,35,36] have shown that this population is very representative of a typical Patagonian rural community. Considering its low population density at present, the native and mixed ancestry of the people, its immigration and migration process, its contact with the city and the maintenance of its traditions, Cuyin Manzano reflects shared sociocultural patterns with other rural settlements. In addition, the fieldwork was greatly facilitated due to the close ties of trust we have built up with the people over several years. The information obtained from each source was systematized in a database according to the following criteria: 1) The species should be identified taxonomically in the original study; 2) It should grow in Argentine Patagonia; 3) Native and exotic species were included. Native species were defined here as plants whose origin is central or southern Argentina, below 35° southern latitude, and exotic species were those which did not fulfill this condition [31]; 4) Wild, semi-domesticated and cultivated species were included; 5) The species were categorized as 1 exclusively edible, and 2, functional, when the plant had at least one functional citation (edible, with also one or more medicinal uses) in the bibliography. Following these criteria, 42 studies and 358 citations were included. Each citation corresponds to a species referred to in a publication, with its corresponding ethnobotanical information. The following information was selected: species, common and indigenous names, richness of local foods, medicinal uses, herbal medicines made with PEFF and parts of the plant used (named plant drugs). The local foods were classified as: fresh fruit (F), jams and sweets (S), non-alcoholic drinks (D), fermented drink called “chicha” (Ch), other (OT). The classification of ailments was adapted from Molares and Ladio [37]: respiratory (RS), gastrointestinal (GI), urinary (U), pain and inflammation (PI), dermatologic (DE), fever (F), obstetric (OBS), gynecological (GYN), blood (BL), circulatory and heart (CH), nervous system (NS), cultural syndromes (CS), osteo-articular and muscular (OA), allergies (AL), dentistry (DEN), ophthalmological (OP), refreshment (RE), others (OT). The different herbal medicines were classified according to method of administration: fruit ingestion (F), infusion (In), decoction (De), bathing, washing and rubbing (Ba), gargling (Ga), poultices and compresses (Ca), creams and ointments (Oi), other (Ot). The plant drugs were categorized according to the part of the plant used: fruit (F), flowers (Fl), leaves (L), branches (B), bark or stalk (S), root (R), the whole plant (Pl). Fieldwork was carried out according to the Code of Ethics of the International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE) and the Consensus Statement on Ethnopharmacological Field Studies [38]. Free listing, semi-structured interviews, in-depth interviews and participant observation were performed with participants [39, 40], prior oral informal consent. If the participant consented to being recorded during the interview, oral consent was also tape-recorded. This procedure is supported by national research regulatory agencies and international agreements (Argentinian National Law N.°27,246). A total of 80% of the population (11 households) took part in the study, including several members of each family. The ages of the adult participants ranged from 31 to 67 years. Inhabitants were consulted on their knowledge of the PEFF that grew in the area, and their alimentary and functional uses. The information gathered was reorganized following the categories used for the bibliographical review. The database included 125 citations with information on PEFF. Each citation corresponds to a species referred by each interviewee. The same quali-quantitative analysis [41] was performed for both approaches. Due to the categorical nature of the data, the analyses were principally non-parametric, using the SPSS 23 package for Windows. Species richness Species richness (S) was calculated in total, according to biogeographical origin, and by botanical family. Native and exotic species richness were compared using the binomial test (p < 0.05) [42]. Consensus index Whether a native or exotic species was used as edible or functional was evaluated by consensus indices, mainly utilized for use pattern analysis of ethnobotanical data [43,44,45,46]. These indices enable us to consider the agreement in a community or between diverse authors (and their publications) on the use of a certain species or plant family. The cultural importance index of edible plants (CIE) was calculated for the species and for the families: CIE = FC/N × 100, where FC = the frequency of citation of the species or family and N = the number of total publications/informants. We also calculated the CIF index for functional species and families, as CIF = FC/N × 100, where FC = the frequency of citation of the functional species or family. The Mann Whitney test was performed to compare these indexes for native and exotic species (p < 0.05). The percentage of each category was calculated in relation to the total reported methods of use of all the PEFF, that is, the total foods. %SC A = SSCA/ƩSSCA..i × 100. Where %SCA = the percentage of the subcategory A (for instance, drinks); SSCA = the richness of species of the subcategory A; and ƩSSCA..i = the total of local foods. Use value The use value is an index that indicates the versatility of a species, that is, the diversity of ailments that can be treated by a given species [37, 47, 48]. It was obtained as follows: UVs = ƩUVis/N [49], where UVis = the number of different medicinal uses registered by publication/informant for species S. Herbal medicines and plant drugs Similarly to local foods, the percentage of each category was calculated in relation to the sum of the plant richness for each subcategory. That is, in relation to the total medicines or plant drugs (medicinal parts of the plants). In the field study all native and exotic plant species were mentioned by their common names, and were later identified taxonomically by the authors. The collection of wild and cultivated species with fleshy fruits was performed with the assistance of local dwellers. In addition, field herbaria and photographs were utilized in the interviews to confirm the taxonomic identity of plants. Plant identification followed Correa [50,51,52] Plant specimens were placed in the Ecotono-Ethnobiology Group-INIBIOMA- University of Comahue herbarium, and will be deposited in the Herbarium of the Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche (BCRU). Voucher specimens of all reported species are shown in Table 3. It should be noted that the Berberidaceae family was treated according to Landrum [53]. All scientific names were updated using World Flora Online (www.worldfloraonline.org). Bibliographical study Richness and use pattern (CIE) of PEFF A total richness (S) of 73 species was found through the bibliographical review (Table 1, Fig. 1a). The average richness per study was 8.5 species (min: 1, max: 43). Richness of native species (78%, 57 species) was notably greater than that of exotic plants (22%, 16 species) (p < 0.05, binomial test). Coincidentally, the CIE of native PEFF was higher than for exotic plants (p < 0.05, Mann Whitney test) (Fig. 1b). Table 1 PEFF from Patagonia (Argentina) and their local foods (N = 42) Edible Consensus Index (CIE) from the review analyses a) The 30 most cited PEFF from Patagonia (Argentina) b) Comparison between native and exotic species. Blue = native; orange = exotic. Asterisks illustrate significant difference, (p < 0,05 Mann Whitney test) The native species with highest CIE were Berberis microphylla, Ribes magellanicum, Fragaria chiloensis, Ephedra ochreata, Aristotelia chilensis, Gaultheria mucronata, Berberis darwinii and Berberis empetrifolia (Fig. 1a). The exotic species with highest CIE were Sambucus nigra, Rubus idaeus, Prunus cerasus, Rosa rubiginosa, Ribes aureum and Ribes uva-crispa. The PEFF belonged to 24 botanical families, the main ones being Rosaceae (12 species), Grossulariaceae (8 species), Anarcardiaceae and Berberidaceae (7 species each). The families with the highest CIE values were Berberidaceae, Rosaceae and Grossulariaceae. Local foods with PEFF In the bibliography, 162 local foods were identified. Most publications reported the use of fresh fruits (43% of the total local foods). A wide variety of preparations were found that generally included the addition of sugar, such as jams and jellies (14%). The most significant species used to make jams were B. microphylla, B. darwinii, R. magellanicum, R. cucullatum and F. chiloensis. Another important way of taking advantage of PEFF was the preparation of drinks, mainly as soft drinks. These included non-alcoholic beverages (16%) made from the fruit of 25 different species, such as Ephedra triandra, Aristotelia chilensis and Berberis microphylla. The next most common drink was the fermented “chicha” (12%), which used 20 different PEFF, amongst which stood out Schinus polygama, Geoffroea decorticans, R. magellanicum and Amomyrtus luma. The production of “chicha” from A. luma mixed with fruits of other species is also mentioned. Fifteen percent of local foods includes preparations with cooked, boiled or roasted fruits, as in the case of Maihueniopsis darwinii. Wines are also prepared, such as those made from A. chiloensis fruit, or liqueurs from B. microphylla or Gaultheria poeppigi fruits. Similarly, this category includes flours such as those made with Condalia microphylla and Geoffroea decorticans fruits. Richness and use pattern (CIF) of functional PEFF Of the total number of species registered, the proportion of functional PEFF was 42% (31 species, Table 2), similar to the non-functional species (58%, 42 species) (p > 0.05, binomial test). The richness of functional species was composed mainly of native species (90%, p < 0.05, binomial test). It was also found that the CIF of native species was significantly higher than that of exotic plants (p < 0.05, Mann Whitney test). Table 2 Functionals PEFF from Patagonia (Argentina) The principal functional species according to the CIF values were the native Aristotelia chilensis, Ribes magellanicum, Ephedra ochreata, Berberismicrophylla, Fragaria chiloensis, Luma apiculata and Amomyrtus luma, and the exotic Sambucus nigra, Rosa rubiginosa and Prunus cerasus (Table 2). The functional PEFF found belonged to 14 botanical families. Among these were Anacardiaceae (6 species); Berberidaceae, Ephedraceae and Rosaceae with 4 species each, and Myrtaceae with 3 species. At botanical family level, Elaeocarpaceae, Ephedraceae, Grossulariaceae, Myrtaceae, Anacardiaceae, Rosaceae, Adoxaceae and Berberidaceae were families with high CIF values. The functional PEFF registered in the bibliography were used for a wide range of ailments (Table 2), mainly gastrointestinal, respiratory, dermatological, gynecological, obstetric, related to the nervous system, heart and circulatory system, fever, pain and inflammation. The most versatile species according to their UV value were Aristotelia chilensis, used to treat more than ten ailments, followed by Berberis microphylla, Luma apiculata, Sambucus nigra, Fragaria chiloensis and Fuchsia magellanica (Table 2). Medicines with PEFF The PEFF used as herbal medicines totaled 54 (Table 2), which mainly included forms that can be ingested, but also some of external use. The most important were two forms of drink: decoctions (35%) and infusions (33%). For example, infusions made of leaves or bark of R. magellanicum were used to “componer la sangre” (depurative) and for digestive ailments. A decoction of B. microphylla bark is also used to bring down a fever, or its fruit is used to combat diarrhea. The direct ingestion of A. chilensis fruit was also used to treat fever and diarrhea. Among the methods of external use that stand out were: bathing (9%), for example, using Luma apiculata leaves to bathe infected wounds; gargling (6%), with the same species but in this case to treat lesions of the gums. The application of exudates and poultices (4% each) has also been documented, for which the aerial parts of the plant were generally used, such as the exudate of Schinus johnstonii leaves used to treat toothache. The exudate of L. apiculata as an anti-inflammatory is also frequently cited in the literature [21, 54, 55]. Poultices such as those prepared from dried A. chilensis leaves were used to clean wounds. Creams and fresh fruit made up the remaining 9%. The parts of the plant most frequently used medicinally were the leaves (22%), fruits (19%), bark or stalk (18%) and roots (18%). A total richness of 20 PEFF was found (Table 3, Fig. 2a), an average of 11 species being cited per informant (min: 7, max: 19). This richness was divided equally between native (10 species) and exotic (10 species) plants (p > 0.05, binomial test). In contrast to the findings from the review, in Cuyín Manzano the CIE was the same for native and exotic species (p > 0.05, Mann Whitney test) (Fig. 2b). Table 3 PEFF from Cuyín Manzano and their local foods (N = 11) Edible Consensus Index (CIE) from Cuyín Manzano a) The 20 cited PEFF b) Comparison between native and exotic species. Blue = native; orange = exotic. No significant diference was found (p < 0,05 Mann Whitney test) The native species with highest CIE were Berberis microphylla, Fragaria chiloensis and Aristotelia chilensis (Fig. 2a). These were followed by other Berberidaceae species, such as the “michay de la costa” (B. empetrifolia) and “michay de cordillera” (B. serratodentata). According to the CIE values, some of the most important exotic species were Rosa rubiginosa, Prunus cerasus, Sambucus nigra, Prunus avium, Prunus domestica, and finally Rubus idaeus, which is known throughout the world (Fig. 2a). The PEFF in Cuyín Manzano belonged to eight botanical families. Rosaceae contributed most to the list (8 species), followed by Grosulariaceae (4 species) and Berberidaceae (3 species). However, the families with the highest CIE were Berberidaceae, Rosaceae and Elaeocarpaceae. In Cuyín Manzano 44 local foods with PEFF were registered. Of these, 45% were consumed as fresh fruits. In general, this method of use implied consumption at the time of gathering, with no storage involved. Locals reported consuming these fruits when they were out in the countryside and felt hungry, the main reasons being that they like them a lot (such as the Berberis fruits), and they are “good for them”. To a lesser extent, the PEFF were lightly processed, through the addition of sugar or cream. Also frequently consumed were sweets (23%), including jams, jellies and syrups made from mature fruit. Among other preparations (23%), were the alcoholic beverages, which in this case played a role as social drinks. The most frequently cited of these was the “guindado” made with the fruit of the exotic Prunus cerasus, which was served to visitors in the home. Non-alcoholic drinks represented 9% of this category, mainly in the form of infusions, such as those prepared with the fruit of Rosa rubiginosa and Sambucus nigra, but also in the form of juices. Other forms of consumption were also mentioned, such as the addition of fruit to baking products in the home. Furthermore, the fruit tended to be used in the form of desserts, as in the case of stewed fruit, where fresh fruit such as plums were boiled in water and sugar. Consumption of dried fruit called “orejones” was also registered. It is worthy of note that the preparation of “chicha” from PEFF was not mentioned here as it was in the review. A total of 6 species (30%) were known to locals for their functional value (Table 4); however, the proportion of edible and/or functional species did not differ statistically (p > 0.05, binomial test). The functional species included 4 native and 2 exotic species. In contrast to the review, in Cuyín Manzano the CIF values were similar for native and exotic species (p > 0.05, Mann Whitney test). Table 4 Functionals PEFF from Cuyín Manzano (Argentina) As shown in Table 4, the functional PEFF with highest CIF were the exotic Rosa rubiginosa and Sambucus nigra, followed by the native Aristotelia chilensis, Ribes magellanicum, Berberis microphylla and Ribes cucullatum. The PEFF in Cuyín Manzano belonged to 5 botanical families: Grossularaciaceae (2 species), and Rosaceae, Berberidaceae, Elaeocarpaceae and Adoxaceae (1 species each). In terms of CIF, the families that stood out were: Adoxaceae (73%), Rosaceae (73%), and to a lesser extent, Elaeocarpaceae (36%). The PEFF in Cuyín Manzano were used principally to treat respiratory, gastrointestinal and dermatological ailments (Table 4). Sambucus nigra was one of the most versatile species, followed by Rosa rubiginosa, Aristotelia chilensis and Ribes magellanicum, and finally, Berberis microphylla. The inhabitants of Cuyín Manzano used 11 medicines prepared from PEFF to treat specific local ailments (Table 4). These species were mainly used in the form of infusions (33%), utilized generally to treat or prevent respiratory disease. One of the most frequently used infusions was sauco (elderberry) tea, which was drunk at night to “warm up the body”, and probably played a preventative role. This infusion was prepared by putting a spoonful of Sambucus nigra syrup in a cup, then adding boiling water. The syrup was also consumed alone, without dilution, mainly by children but also by adults suffering cold symptoms (25%). Mosqueta (rosehip) tea was used similarly as a recreational drink, to warm up the body and treat illness. Fresh fruits were always consumed (17%) in the context of relieving gastrointestinal problems, and decoctions were also prepared (17%). The only external method of application was using creams (8%) made from Rosa rubiginosa fruits by women from a nearby community. The medicinal parts of functional PEFF are mainly the fruits (34%) (Table 4), and to a lesser extent, leaves (17%), the whole plant (17%), followed by flowers, seeds, bark and roots (8% each). Finally, five of the medicines were also considered as food by locals: elderberry and/or rosehip infusions, the fresh fruits of maqui and michay, and elderberry syrup, which in total represent 11% of local foods. The bibliographical analysis revealed a high number of native and exotic PEFF (73 species), providing an overall picture (spanning 70 years and an ample geographical range) that shows the study potential of all these Patagonian species. The nutritional role of this plant diversity and the safety of their use is still unknown, but they presumably represent food security for locals. Food security is founded on three elements: the availability, access, and utilization of food, elements that were elucidated indirectly in both the bibliographical texts and the testimonies of Cuyin Manzano inhabitants. It is also important to consider that the conservation status of some of the native species (15 species, Table 1) is challenging, and must be solved by cultivation and/or sustainable management, given that their availability and access are threatened. The need for an integrated study of these aspects must be taken into account in future investigations. Moreover, the field study showed that 20 PEFF on this list continue to be used. Although this rural community is probably experiencing a process of dietary transition from smallholder farming-based to industrialized food systems, as well as integration into the global food trade, PEFF continue to be part of their local heritage. Lifestyle changes probably affect food production, plant gathering and consumption, with consequences for the healthfulness of diets, but these species still have an appreciated role in home-produced foods. Further field research should be carried out in other Patagonian communities, using this tool to survey food security in order to investigate whether local people keep PEFF use alive in their food traditions. This aspect is of great importance given the processes of abandonment and loss of knowledge associated with plant use observed in Cuyín [50] and numerous other rural communities throughout the world [51]. Our cross-sectional approach coincides in the cultural importance of the three native species with highest consensus: Berberis microphylla, Fragaria chiloensis and Aristotelia chilensis. The michay plant has attractive blue-violet berries with a flavor which is sweet, but sour, and is widely distributed in forest and the Patagonian steppe, therefore present also in the most arid zones. The native strawberry has strongly scented fruits, and has been used to obtain Fragaria x annanasa, the strawberry which is commercially cultivated throughout the world [56]. The berries of the maqui plant are acid to the taste, and have been designated a superfood due to their high content of anthocyanins [57, 58]. At present these species are being intensively studied as target species [19] and are attracting much attention for future innovation and development projects [59, 60]. The remainder of the list of PEFF may also be considered by policy makers and researchers in the planning of agricultural and phytochemical research action that will support sustainable diets and local food systems. All this biodiversity is introduced into local gastronomy through a large variety of local foods. Remarkably, in both studies the use of fresh fruit is high (43% in the review and 45% in Cuyín Manzano). Traditional culinary habits could promote better use of nutrients, since a lower level of processing generally leads to greater availability of nutrients such as vitamin C [61]. In second place, the preparation of preserves and beverages from the fruit indicates strategies that favor preservation over time, storage, and the use of excess fruit, as found in other parts of the world [62, 63]. Preserves include some forms, such as syrups, which are of great interest due to the compounds that contribute phenolic acids, fiber, and soluble solids [64,65,66]. These plant preparations could be also highlighted, as local people could be skillfully managing the plant chemicals during food processing. Patagonian communities have experimented extensively with the diversity of PEFF fruits in the preparation of fermented beverages, mainly in the form of “chicha”. This drink is made with fruit and seeds, which in many cases were chewed by the people before being stored for fermentation. This preparation holds great cultural and spiritual value, as it is drunk in traditional Mapuche festivities [67]. Nevertheless, in Cuyín Manzano preparation of these beverages with the PEFF berries was not identified. Although the medicinal use of these preparations was not documented, some studies associate moderate consumption of fermented beverages with prevention of cardiovascular diseases and cancer, due to their polyphenol and alcohol content [68]. This opens up a wide range of possibilities for the exploration of fermented beverages, taking into account ancient food traditions. These customs are considered key elements for development projects related to food sovereignty [69]. The PEFF heritage possesses a great richness of species whose functional value has been well taken advantage of, and which can therefore constitute alternative healthy or phytotherapeutic food. The 31 species taken from the bibliography and listed here are mainly native to Patagonia, and represent 31 opportunities for study, for which the consensus values can be a useful guide. In this sense, our findings are in accordance with Jennings et al. [70] as to functional species use. To understand the meaning of their functionality, contextualization of the food-plant spectrum based on both local beliefs and wider structural factors is needed. In our field study we found that dwellers consider that the fruit did them good. From the Mapuche worldview, their consumption of wild fruits implies nourishing the Earth’s energy (called in native Mapuzungum “afutum”), energy that cannot be transferred in any other way [71]. In other words, the classification of a species as functional is inseparably supported by both the local worldview and its chemical and biological attributes. A whole universe of chemical compounds may be related to the health effects of the PEFF. The medicinal value of the species used as food has been explained in detail by authors such as Johns [72, 73], based on the presence of a wide range of phytoconstituents. Today we know that food plants have diverse constituents such as polyphenols, in addition to nutritional compounds. These molecules are recognized for their antioxidant properties; they are important radical scavengers through inhibition of prooxidant enzymes and restoration of antioxidant enzymes. However, new mechanisms of action have been proposed to explain their bioactivity, such as interaction at the level of the plasmatic membrane with proteins and phospholipids, and the regulation of signal transduction pathways [74, 75]. Of the PEFF, those which have berry-type fruits stand out as functional species, and are known worldwide as healthy foods. Berries contain vitamins, minerals and phenolic compounds, and are credited with antioxidant, antiaging, chemoprotective and chemotherapeutic, anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties [76, 77]. With a strong consensus between our two studies, the key species are: A. chilensis, Ribes magellanicum, Ephedra ochreata and Berberis microphylla. A. chilensis is the species with the highest number of described pharmacological properties, including the ability to attenuate pain and inflammation [74]. This activity matches the local ailment treatments described in our work. Little is known about Ribes magellanicum, but the antioxidant potential in vitro of the fruits found in Argentine-Chilean Patagonia has been demonstrated [14]. Unfortunately, Ephedra ochreata is one of the least-studied species in the region. Concerns about it eventual toxicity, should be carefully considered, since other Ephedra spp. have been demonstrated to exhibit toxicity (https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-dangers-of-the-herb-ephedra). It must be used with great care, given that toxic effects have been reported for other species of Ephedra, such as cardiac and psychiatric disorder [78,79,80]. Future research should focus on E. ochreata in order to test its food safety. The study of other species, such as B. microphylla, have begun only recently, revealing promising antioxidant content and antidiabetogenic activity according to in vitro and in vivo studies [81,82,83]. Again, more studies and further analysis is required to relate these chemical and biological findings to the health claims presented here. Similar to the PEFF heritage, the use of functional species seems to be undergoing hybridization processes. This was evident in the rural community we worked in, where the CIF values were similar in native and exotic plants. These results show how locals have been using a combination of native and foreign species in edible and functional terms. Although this has been happening for a long time in the region, it seems to be more prevalent at the present time [84], probably due to changes in food procurement. The use of exotic functional PEFF in our region may be interpreted as a reflection of the long, strong historical influence of European immigration on the use patterns of this area. Various studies carried out in South America have shown that the introduction of Eurasian plants led to diversification in the use of medicinal plants [85], and many edible fruits form part of the pharmacopeias brought from Europe [86]. Shikov et al. [87] and Totelin [88] suggest that the use of edible fruits as medicine is due to the great influence of the food-medicine conceptions of Ancient Greece. However, the food-medicine interface had also been described previously, without the use of exotic plants, in Patagonian indigenous communities [89]. We suggest, therefore, that this food-medicine continuum may have been generated independently, and that the knowledge of indigenous and European communities converged at a later date. Some of the exotic berries registered in this work have been extensively studied with regard to the biological activity that supports their local functional use. In the case of Sambucus nigra, there is in vitro evidence to support the effectiveness of its antibacterial and antiviral properties [76, 90]. Hawkins et al. [91] recently found that elderberry fruit can improve respiratory complaints associated with influenza, and so McCarty and DiNicolantonio [92] propose its use (in a dose of 600–1500 mg) for the treatment of COVID-19 infection. Rosa canina, a species closely related to Rosa rubiginosa, has been studied with regard to its use in treating skin ailments [93]. The dermatological use of R. rubiginosa and use of the other functional exotic species were also registered in our field work. This pattern shows how the berry repertoire grows with input from highly reputed exotic plants. With respect to ailments, the review shows that more than 17 ailments have been treated with PEFF. In Cuyín Manzano this number is much lower (only five ailments) and is focused on primary health care issues. The broad scope of the review shows the potential of these species, even though the main ailments treated with PEFF are those most frequently treated by traditional medicine, such as digestive and respiratory complaints. Several studies have proposed that this redundancy gives flexibility to the regional herbal medicine, the use of A. chilensis and S. nigra fruits standing out as being the most versatile elements the population has within its reach [44]. The PEFF are also important sources of herbal medicines (54 in the review and 11 in Cuyín Manzano) since, as previously shown, different plant parts of the PEFF are used in an integral way. Infusions (and decoctions according to the bibliography) constitute the main method of medicinal use in the region, and this is also, within local foods, the main form of beverage in Cuyín Manzano. Recent research has revealed how infusions of exotic Rosa rubiginosa fruit can contribute compounds with antioxidant activity [94]. The same occurs with the infusion of exotic Sambucus nigra fruit, which was shown to contain considerable amounts of polyphenols and anthocyanins, comparable to an ethanolic extract [95]. Infusions are therefore, in general, good vehicles for phenolic compounds, and this is possibly the basis for their functional value in Patagonian cultures. According to our analysis of the information gathered from the review, complemented by the fieldwork, we can reinterpret the comprehensiveness of the food-medicine interface in Patagonia, outlined in Fig. 3. In the review work we found a notable superposition of use (edible and medicinal) for single native or exotic species (given by the sum of citations of different authors and different study sites). However, in the analysis of each one of the studies included in the review and the fieldwork, we observed that the Patagonian communities have not only experimented with native and exotic plants and discovered their medicinal properties, but they have also developed diverse forms of preparation. These make up a wide range of methods of use, but also form part of local food tradition, which considers plants from the perspective of functional, complementary logic, for their general health in their daily lives, local foods and medicines. Within this group there are forms of preparation that prove effective as food and medicine (superposition of use forms depending on context), known in the literature as food medicines or healthy foods [62]. Conceptual framework of food-medicine interface Within this group we find the subgroup of the local functional foods. As shown in our field study, this is the case of Rosa rubiginosa and Sambucus nigra, two exotic berries that are used in the form of infusions and indistinguishable as food or medicine. They are used as a preventative food, which in nutrition is known as a functional food [7]. These infusions seem to be important local functional foods, given that these water solutions are good vehicles for active compounds found in plants, such as polyphenols [96, 97] . Finally, the functionality attributed by a culture to its native and exotic species includes superposition at different levels, and may be described in theoretical terms as different categories. However, most important is that they are principally based on the use of the entire plant. In the case of Patagonian native and exotic plants with edible fruit, the people seek food, healing, and also prevention (“it warms up the body”, “it does you good”) through the use of infusions and the ingestion of fresh fruit. Previous studies have shown the potential of some native PEFF, due to their polyphenol content, but little has been studied on the teas prepared with them. More integrative research is required into this use pattern of native and exotic species, their local foods and their potential as local functional foods. Argentine Patagonia holds great richness of native and exotic PEFF and the cultures who have lived on these lands have experimented with them as a source of local foods and medicines, generating a food-medicine continuum. The living heritage of Patagonian PEFF appears to have undergone hybridization processes, such that exotic cosmopolitan species play an increasingly significant role. Ethnobotanical research can contribute solutions to health problems worldwide by surveying food security and investigating whether local people maintain PEFF use alive in their food traditions. 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Hawkins J, Baker C, Cherry L, Dunne E. Black elderberry (Sambucus nigra) supplementation effectively treats upper respiratory symptoms: a meta-analysis of randomized, controlled clinical trials. Complement Ther Med Elsevier Ltd. 2019;42:361–5. McCarty MF, DiNicolantonio JJ. Nutraceuticals have potential for boosting the type 1 interferon response to RNA viruses including influenza and coronavirus. Prog Cardiovasc Dis. Elsevier Inc. 2020. p. 79–81. Preprint at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7130854/. Chrubasik C, Roufogalis BD, Ulf M-L, Chrubasik S. A systematic review on the Rosa canina effect and efficacy profile. Phyther Res. 2008;22(1):725–33. Jiménez-López J, Ruiz-Medina A, Ortega-Barrales P, Llorent-Martínez EJ. Rosa rubiginosa and Fraxinus oxycarpa herbal teas: characterization of phytochemical profiles by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, and evaluation of the antioxidant activity. New J Chem. 2017;41(15):7681–8. Duymuş HG, Göger F, Başer KHC. In vitro antioxidant properties and anthocyanin compositions of elderberry extracts. Food Chem. 2014;155:112–9. Atoui AK, Mansouri A, Boskou G, Kefalas P. Tea and herbal infusions: their antioxidant activity and phenolic profile. Food Chem. 2005;89(1):27–36. Carabajal MPA, Isla MI, Zampini IC. Evaluation of antioxidant and antimutagenic activity of herbal teas from native plants used in traditional medicine in Argentina. South African J Bot SAAB. 2017;110:258–65. We are deeply grateful to the families from Cuyín Manzano for their willingness to participate, and for sharing their knowledge. Special thanks to Mr. Antonio Bergant, who was not only a great person, but also the best field assistant. The authors acknowledge with appreciation the constructive comments made by the referees Andrea Pieroni and Timothy Johns on the earlier version of this paper. We would also like to thank the CULTIVA (CYTED) network. This investigation was supported by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) of Argentina (PIP 0466), and by Centro de Investigación y Extensión Forestal Andino Patagónico (CIEFAP). INIBIOMA, CONICET, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Quintral, 1250-8400, San Carlos de Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina Melina Fernanda Chamorro & Ana Ladio Melina Fernanda Chamorro Ana Ladio M.F.C.: Conducted the review process, the fieldwork, analyzed the data and contributed to the manuscript. A.L.: Conceived and designed the research, conducted the review process, analyzed the data and contributed to the manuscript. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript. Correspondence to Ana Ladio. This study was conducted according to the ethics guidelines of ISE Code of Ethics (http://ethnobiology.net/code-of-ethics/) and Nagoya Protocol (Argentinian National Law N.°27246). All informants orally confirmed free and informed consent prior to data collection. No other specific additional procedure is mandatory for this kind of study in our country. Chamorro, M.F., Ladio, A. Native and exotic plants with edible fleshy fruits utilized in Patagonia and their role as sources of local functional foods. BMC Complement Med Ther 20, 155 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-020-02952-1 Traditional uses, herbal medicine, phytotherapy, food-medicine Native fruits Local use Biocultural diversity Patterns of use, knowledge and attitudes	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2929
__label__cc	0.550461	0.449539	Systems biological approach on neurological disorders: a novel molecular connectivity to aging and psychiatric diseases Shiek SSJ Ahmed1,2, Abdul R Ahameethunisa3, Winkins Santosh1, Srinivasa Chakravarthy2 & Suresh Kumar4 Systems biological approach of molecular connectivity map has reached to a great interest to understand the gene functional similarities between the diseases. In this study, we developed a computational framework to build molecular connectivity maps by integrating mutated and differentially expressed genes of neurological and psychiatric diseases to determine its relationship with aging. The systematic large-scale analyses of 124 human diseases create three classes of molecular connectivity maps. First, molecular interaction of disease protein network generates 3632 proteins with 6172 interactions, which determines the common genes/proteins between diseases. Second, Disease-disease network includes 4845 positively scored disease-disease relationships. The comparison of these disease-disease pairs with Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) classification tree suggests 25% of the disease-disease pairs were in same disease area. The remaining can be a novel disease-disease relationship based on gene/protein similarity. Inclusion of aging genes set showed 79 neurological and 20 psychiatric diseases have the strong association with aging. Third and lastly, a curated disease biomarker network was created by relating the proteins/genes in specific disease contexts, such analysis showed 73 markers for 24 diseases. Further, the overall quality of the results was achieved by a series of statistical methods, to avoid insignificant data in biological networks. This study improves the understanding of the complex interactions that occur between neurological and psychiatric diseases with aging, which lead to determine the diagnostic markers. Also, the disease-disease association results could be helpful to determine the symptom relationships between neurological and psychiatric diseases. Together, our study presents many research opportunities in post-genomic biomarkers development. Systems biology is an indispensable approach to study the complex mechanisms of any disease or disorders. After post-genomic era the accumulation of genomics and proteomics data are widely flooded. However, there is an unrealized opportunity remains in the understanding of detailed molecular mechanisms of several neurological disorders [1, 2]. Thus, the molecular diagnosis of most of the neurological disorders remains difficult and mostly carried out by neurological examination [3]. The current molecular connectivity approaches of systems biology are mainly focusing on building large protein networks without probing the interaction mechanisms specific to disorders or disease condition [4, 5]. Hence, the possibility of finding successful biomarkers through systems biology approach is intricate. In order to gain a better understanding of molecular mechanism, disease relationship and biomarkers, the genes implicated within similar disorders are need to be focused. The systems biological concepts of disease interaction were usually made by collecting signature genes of genetically heterogeneous hereditary diseases and investigating the different mutations in a same gene (allelic heterogeneity) giving rise to different disorders [6]. Similar, trends are followed for differentially regulating genes and linking them to various diseases [7]. Here, we had taken an integrated approach of mutated and differentially regulating genes and exploring diseasome network that corresponds to the neurological and psychiatric diseases. Such integrative approach will improve the confidence of finding specific markers for diseases. The reasons that we choose an integrative approach on neurological disorders are two-fold. First, the understanding of neurological disorder is considerably less, because of difficulty in obtaining brain tissue for many cases. Second, there is an increasing prevalence rate [8, 9] and lack of molecular diagnosis for most of the neurological disorders [10, 11]. In this study, we propose an integrative, network-based model of mutated and differentially regulating genes of 100 neurological and 24 psychiatric diseases (see Additional File 1 for a disease category), that identifies the neurological and psychiatric relationship and their association with aging. Furthermore, this network model helps to understand the common mechanism between diseases through common pathway network (CPN). Overall, our findings highlight the importance of integrating the gene/protein data of neurological diseases into future molecular biomarkers and drug target discovery. In this study, we developed a novel computational framework (Figure. 1) to build disease-protein network (DPN) (Figure. 2), disease-disease network (DDN) (Figure. 3) and common pathway molecular network (CPN) (Figure. 4). Our approach of integrating mutated and differentially expressed diseases genes allow us to validate the neurological and psychiatric relationships with aging. In addition, this approach helps to predict the disease specific biomarkers for the potential diagnosis. We showed that this approach was effective in constructing a statistically significant molecular connectivity map of 124 diseases with 3632 proteins. This work pointed out a new direction for biomedical researchers to investigate the molecular interaction network with the known dysfunctional genes to identify disease relationship. The results of disease-disease connectivity map constructed from disease protein interactions helps to guide the hypothesis for generation of biomarkers for neurological and psychiatric diseases. Computational framework for developing molecular connectivity maps. The framework consists of three major components: disease protein network, disease-disease network and disease biomarker network. The first component takes the inputs from database and literature and outputs a disease protein network (DPN). The second component takes the input from DPN and generates the output of positively scored disease-disease network (DDN) using scoring algorithm. Further, the second component was used to generate sub-component of common pathway network (CPN). The final disease biomarker network (DBN) component was generated from DPN showing proteins specific to diseases. Disease protein network (DPN). In DPN each nodes (seed and enriched proteins) were colored yellow and the aging genes were colored as red and the proteins interactions were represented in violet solid lines. Disease-disease network (DDN). In disease-disease network, each node represents to a disease yellow colored. Two diseases were connected by red solid line, if they attained the positive score in algorithm. The total of 4845 positively scored disease-disease interactions were shown along with the aging interactions. Common pathway network (CPN). In CPN, node represents to a disease (gray) and their associated pathway represented in red. Two diseases were connected to a pathway, if both the disease shares proteins/genes that are associated to a pathway. We used OMIM and literature mining to generate the initial list of 1211 seed genes for 124 diseases. Using STRING, we expanded 1211 seed genes/proteins to 13011 human proteins with 11800 proteins as enriched set. Of 13011 proteins, most of the proteins were associated to one or more diseases showing the possibility of successful interactions between the diseases. These records were further mapped to HGNC database to obtain a unique gene symbol, to avoid false interactions. As explained in the methodology, the disease protein network (DPN) was constructed to have 3632 proteins with 6172 interactions (see Additional File 2 for protein interaction). In addition, we included the 261 ageing genes to the DPN, to make a valid correlation of aging within the analyzed diseases. These aging genes were presumably more interesting to determine the association of aging with neurological and psychiatric diseases. This final DPN containing 3999 proteins with 6557 interaction (Figure. 2) was important to generate the disease-disease relationship (Figure. 3), common disease pathway network (Figure. 4) and disease biomarker network (Figure. 5). In Figure 2, we showed the curated view of seed and enriched set of proteins interactions including aging genes/proteins. All proteins were shown as nodes; the seed and enriched proteins are colored yellow and the aging genes were colored as red. Similarly, in Figure 3, nodes indicate disease and edges indicate the link between diseases. The disease-disease interaction was comprehended but the reliability of the DDN depends on DPN. Therefore, the overall proteins involved in the DPN were validated by analyzing its significance by a random sampling method. For instance, the protein sub-network (PSN) of Parkinson's disease contains 297 proteins, in which PSEN1 is highly connected protein, showed 12 interactions in its network. Therefore, the index of aggregation was calculated as 4.04. The random sampling method was carried out as described in the methodology. Only seven runs out of 1000 resulted in an index of aggregation value greater than 4.04 (Figure. 6A). Therefore, the p-value of the observed index of aggregation of the Parkinson's disease network was 0.007. Similar trends were followed for all the diseases and geometric mean for overall p-values was calculated as 0.00612. With the significance of disease-protein interaction data, the DDN was generated in order to determine the relationship between the diseases. Two diseases were connected by a link if same proteins/genes were implicated in both the diseases. These identified disease-disease interactions were further validated by interaction score. This process generated a total of 4845 positively scored disease-disease interactions (Additional File 3 for positively scored interaction). In these identified interactions, 79 neurological and 20 psychiatric diseases were shown to have a strong association with aging (Figure. 6B) (see Additional File 4 for aging interaction). Further, the analyses of 100 neurological diseases revels 98 diseases were shown to have relationships with any of the analyzed psychiatric diseases. For example, 78 neurological diseases provide the common association with both major depressive disorder and manic depressive psychosis, suggesting the role of depressive state in these 78 diseases (Figure. 6C). To access the reliability of these connections, we mapped the connected disease pair onto MeSH term. Of 4746 positively scored disease-disease links excluding aging interactions, 1219 (25%) pair shared common disease term (see Additional File 5 for MeSH validated interaction), (Figure. 6D). For example, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease were present in the neurodegenerative disease section of the MeSH tree. The remaining 3527 disease pairs were not located in the same branch of MeSH tree. However, these positively scored disease connections that located in different branches of MeSH tree was particularly interesting, because they provide novel disease relationships that were primarily relying on gene similarity instead of phenotypic classification. For example, Parkinson's disease has been connected to REM sleep behavior disorder, not surprisingly, many studies indicate the association of REM sleep behavior disorder with Parkinson's disease [12–14]. However, they were not explicitly in same disease branch according to MeSH. For better understanding of common mechanism between the diseases, the proteins/genes that commonly associated between each disease pairs were mapped to NCI-Nature Pathway Interaction Database [15]. This process generates 179 associated pathways between the disease pairs (Additional File 6 for common pathway network). Further, analyses of these pathways may guide for the drug target discovery. For instance, our study showed the association of glucocorticoid receptor regulatory network between Alzheimer's and major depressive disorder. Supportive to this result, previous study of Filippo et al., suggests glucocorticoid receptor can be the common drug target for both Alzheimer's and major depressive disorder [16]. Disease biomarker network (DBN). The disease biomarker network contains 24 diseases (green) with 73 biomarkers. The biomarkers were colored based on the diagnostic parameters (gray). The associations of biomarkers with any of the diagnosis parameters (gray) are represented in yellow, while other biomarkers are indicated in violet. Characterizing the disease modules. (a) Histogram of the index of aggregation distribution for Parkinson's disease enriched sets of proteins randomly selected from a database. The arrow indicates the aggregation values for the enriched Parkinson's disease proteins set. The Venn diagram (b) showed the neurological diseases relationships between aging and psychiatric diseases, The Venn diagram (c) showing the neurological disease relationship with depression. (d) Peak representation of positively scored disease pairs category and MeSH disease pairs category. The common region indicates the similarity disease pairs between the two categories. The Venn diagram (e) shows the presences of biomarkers in biofluid and house keeping genes. Biomarkers are the most interesting part of any biomedical research, and it is essential for neurological and psychiatric diseases because most of these diseases lack diagnostic markers. Every disease was expected to have its own fingerprint, which subsequently helps in detection of diseases. Though, we analyzed 124 diseases, only 24 diseases were shown to have a disease specific biomarkers (Figure. 5) (Additional File 7 for biomarkers list) while, others may have shared their fingerprint with their related diseases. Interestingly, few of our identified biomarkers were previously reported. For instance, our previous study suggests that pyruvate dehydrogenase lipoamide beta (PDHB) and neuropeptide FF-amide peptide precursor (NPFF) are the biomarkers for Parkinson's disease [17]. However, this approach provides the additional information that PDHB is not only associated with Parkinson's disease but also associated with Athetosis and Friedreich Ataxia, whereas NPFF was found unique to Parkinson's disease, suggesting the possibility as biomarker. The significance of these disease specific biomarkers was validated by enrichment score based on gene ontology with a threshold of 1.3. All the identified disease biomarkers passed the threshold and confirmed its significance to its diseases. Furthermore, the identified biomarkers of each disease was scored based on the feasibility of diagnosis from biofluids, this analysis would be of marginal interest to researchers focusing on diagnosis of these 24 diseases from biofluids. Each parameter such as house keeping genes and biofluids circulating proteins were assigned a value (m-score) to generate the overall diagnostic score. In comparison with other biofluids, urine has two characteristics feature that makes it a preferred high m-score value of 0.7 for feasible diagnosis. First, urine can be obtained in large quantities using non-invasive procedures. This allows repeated sampling of the same individual for disease surveillance. Second, the urinary protein content is relatively stable probably due to the fact that urine "stagnates" for hours in the bladder [18]. However, the reliability of diagnostic biomarkers in CSF is high because, it has direct contacts with the extracellular space of the brain, making it as a unique medium in detecting biochemical changes in the central nervous system. However, obtaining the CSF samples is difficult thereby it was assigned to a least diagnostic m-score of 0.3. Considering the feasibility of both urine and CSF, the average m-score of 0.5 was assigned to biomarkers presence in blood plasma. Of 73 identified biomarkers proteins, 18 were found to be present in any one of the biofluids and three biomarkers were identified to be circulating in all the biofluids (Figure. 6E). Further comparison of biomarkers with house keeping genes, showed six biomarkers proteins were encoded by essential genes, which enhances the possibility of diagnosis in any tissue. Though, we suggest these top scored proteins as feasible diagnostic markers (Figure. 5) (Table. 1), further studies are need to be carried out to determine its significance as biomarkers. Table 1 Biomarkers score Cross-validation of network To validate our computational approach, the results obtained from this study were compared with the results of Goni et al and Goh et al approaches [19, 4]. Our result was in agreement with Goni et al studies showing the successful interaction between Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis. In addition to our result, several other studies also confirm the molecular relationship between Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis [20–22]. However, similar interaction trend was not been achieved with Goh et al approach. This is because Goh et al approach of molecular connectivity was carried out on mutated genes, while our approach uses both differentially expressed and mutated disease genes for the generation of DDN. Hence, our approach confirms the effectiveness of integrating differential and mutated genes for reliable disease-disease relationships. On the other hand, the proposed biomarkers of our study were cross-validated using genetic association database (GWAS) [23] to confirm its disease specificity in context to neurological or psychiatric diseases. In our identified 73 biomarkers, only 27 biomarkers were shown to have disease association information, while the information of 46 biomarkers was not available in GWAS database. This is because the genetic associations of few diseases were not been included in GWAS database. However, the precision rate (PPV) was calculated only on these 27 biomarkers. All 27 biomarkers were confirmed to be specific to its diseases in context to the analyzed disorders. Hence, the PPV was calculated to be 100%. Though, our present approach provides good accuracy in determining the disease-disease interaction and biomarkers, it has limitation in the aspects of biomarkers detection. In medicine, biomarkers are the molecules, specific to its pathological condition. Since, our study is focused on neurological and psychiatric diseases the obtained biomarkers are specific to its diseases of neurological and psychiatric disorders. However, there is a possibility for these 73 biomarkers to have an association with other disorders irrespective neurological and psychiatric diseases. Such limitation can be avoided by including all the disorders in a network and implementing our biomarker strategy for detection of biomarkers. However, with the available information of these 27 biomarkers, we validated across GWAS database. The results confirm that 15 biomarkers are specific to its disease and have no association with any other disorders (Table. 1). In conclusion, the disease-disease relationships are of great interest because such knowledge not only enhances our understanding of disease mechanisms, but also accelerates many aspects of biomarker and drug target discovery. These results can be interesting to neurologists, and our method can be generalized to other disease biology areas for systems biological investigation. We believe our approach to understand the mechanism involved in neurological disease has given a valuable insight into the relationship of aging and psychiatric illness. Moreover, these combined efforts resulted in identification of biomarkers that will greatly improve in diagnosis of neurological and psychiatric diseases. Initial collection of disease related genes The initial 124 disease list was manually collected and validated against the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) database [24] in order to determine its neurological and psychiatric relationship. Of 124 diseases 100 have shown the relationship with neurological and 24 with psychiatric diseases (Figure. 7). These 124 diseases were taken as the basis for developing disease protein network. The network was constructed by retrieving the genes related to these diseases from Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database [25] and literature mining. The human mutated genes were retrieved from OMIM and literature mining was carried out to retrieve the genes that are differentially expressed in its corresponding diseases. Overall, 1209 seed genes were retrieved and most of these genes were common to one or more diseases. Further, 261 human aging genes were included to this study to identify the association of aging to the analyzed diseases. This aging gene set was downloaded from GenAge database [26]. MeSH based disease classification of 124 diseases. The manually collected 124 diseases represented in white blocks were grouped based on the MeSH disease category (blue block) of neurological and psychiatric diseases (yellow block). Most of the diseases were linked to one or more MeSH disease categories. The overall linkage between the diseases was represented by solid lines. Enriched protein network The Search Tool for Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Protein (STRING) database [27] was used to collect protein interaction data to construct disease-protein network (DPN) from 1209 seed genes. The STRING database contains experimental and predicted protein interaction data of 630 organisms of both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. This study includes both experimental and predicted interaction of human proteins for the generation of disease-protein network, considering the successfulness of predicted interactions in several disease interaction studies [5, 28]. To build disease-protein network, we pulled out proteins that are interacting to seed genes/proteins, with confidence scores ranging from 0.5 to 1.0. Such expanded set of initial seed proteins were denoted as enriched protein set and the interaction of seed and enriched set of each disease is known as protein sub-network (PSN). The aging genes set were included to the network without enrichment to make a strong correlation with neurological and psychiatric diseases. All genes were mapped to the official gene symbol using HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC) [29] to avoid false interaction to same genes/proteins and the data curation was carried out using Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access. From these non-redundant interaction data, disease-protein network (DPN), disease-disease network (DDN), common pathway network (CPN) and disease-biomarker network (DBN) were created and visualized using Cytoscape version 2.7.0 and NAViGaTOR version 2.1software. In DPN, node represents disease proteins. The proteins of two diseases were connected if same proteins are associated with both diseases. In DDN, node represents disease, two diseases are connected to one another if they share at least one protein common to both the disease. Further, CPN was created from the commonly associated genes/protein between the disease pair and DBN was created by pulling out the disease specific seed proteins from DPN. Statistical significance of network To validate the DPN, we adopted a similar method developed by Chen et al[28]. The index of aggregation was calculated for each PSN and their significance was evaluated by random re-sampling method. The largest connected protein in each PSN was selected and the index of aggregation for each PSN was calculated. Index of aggregation ( % ) = Largest connected protein in protein sub-network Total number of proteins in its protein sub-network In order to determine significance of DPN, the following random sampling method was executed, Randomly select same number of seed proteins as in each PSN from Brain Gene Expression Map database [30]. Pull out the enriched set for the randomly selected seed proteins from STRING database. Compute an index of aggregation. Repeat the above steps for 1000 times to generate index of aggregation. Compare the index of aggregation of protein-sub network with the distribution of previous steps, to calculate p-value. Similarly, repeat the above steps for remaining PSN. Finally, compute the geometric mean to the obtained p-values of 124 PSN. Disease-disease interaction score The interaction score was assigned for each disease pair (Φdij). The score indicates the strength of the interaction between the diseases based on the protein interaction. Φ dij = log (P ij * N + Z) – log (P i * P j + Z ) Here, Pi and Pj are the total number of proteins for the disease, i and j, respectively. Pij is the total number of common protein between the two diseases. N is the size of entire proteins involved in the disease protein network. Z is a constant (Z = 1) introduced to avoid out-of bound errors, if Pi = Pj = Pij = 0. The expected result of Φdij is positive, when the disease pair is over-represented and negative, when the disease pair is under-represented. MeSH based disease interaction mapping Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is the National Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary thesaurus. It consists of sets of terms naming descriptors in a hierarchical structure that permits searching at various levels of specificity. We downloaded the disease tree file from MeSH, which contains 16 categories, including disease, chemicals and drug category, etc. The neurological disease category (C10) was classified into 15 major clusters and psychiatric disorder (F03) was classified into 16 major clusters. Each positively scored disease pair (Φdij) was mapped to the neurological and psychiatric disease category to determine the reliability of disease connectivity. For instance, if each disease pair presents in single major cluster suggest having strong connectivity. Common Pathway network In order to understand the common molecular mechanism between diseases, the proteins/genes that associated between each disease pair of disease-disease interaction were mapped to the NCI-Nature Pathway Interaction Database (PID) [15]. PID is a manually curated human pathway database contains 116 human pathways with 6180 interactions. PID provides the p-value based on the probability of occurrence of the proteins in the defined pathway. Lower the p-value the greater the probability of proteins associated towards a given pathway. Hence, we filtered the common pathway between the diseases by p-value 0.05. Biomarker's identification The analysis of DPN was carried out to determine the biomarkers for each disease involved in this study. Biomarkers were identified by finding the disease specific seed proteins from the DPN network. This process was carried out by comparing the each seed protein of one PSN with the other PSN. If the seed protein was unique to its PSN, then the identified seed protein was considered as a biomarker (pi) to its disease. Significant enrichment biomarkers score The functional enriched biomarkers score for each disease was computed based on the gene ontology. The scores were calculated using Biological Network Gene Ontology (BiNGO) plug-in in Cytoscape software. BiNGO provides p-value statistics based on the probability of occurrence of the genes/proteins in the defined ontological categories [31]. Here, the p-values for each disease biomarkers were calculated on the entire ontological categories such as molecular function, biological processes and cellular localization. Further, the geometric mean of p-values of each disease was calculated and the negative logarithm was performed. The biomarkers relationship to its disease was significant, if the score obtained to be greater than a threshold of 1.3 [32]. Biomarker scoring for diagnosis from biofluid The identified biomarkers were scored based on the feasibility of diagnosis. The biomarker score (Ψpi score) for each protein (pi) was calculated by assigning the score for each parameter such as house keeping genes (μi), urine protein (αi), plasma protein (βi) and CSF protein (γi) in a given scoring formula. Ψ pi score = μ i + 3 ( α i + β i + γ i ) The proteomic data of urine was obtained from [33] and plasma proteome data was obtained from the Human proteome organization database [34]. The CSF proteome and house keeping genes data were obtained from the literature of previous studies [35, 36]. In scoring formula (Ψpi score), μi: scored 1.0, if the protein (pi) is encoded by house keeping gene, else it is scored 0.5; αi = 0.3, if the protein (pi) circulating in CSF; βi = 0.5, if protein (pi) circulating in plasma; γi = 0.7, if the protein(pi) circulating in urine. The absence of protein (pi) in any biofluid indicated as, αi (or) βi (or) γi = 0. Cross validation of network In order to validate our computational approach, the results obtained from this study were compared with the results of previous studies. The disease-disease interaction was cross-validated with Goni et al and Goh et al approaches [19, 4]. Furthermore, the identified biomarkers were validated using Genome Wide Association studies (GWAS) database [23] to calculate the precision rate. Precision rate ( PPV ) % = TP TP + FP TP: Number of True Positive FP: Number of False Positive GWAS contains disease associated gene/protein information in terms of gene expression, proteomic expression and mutation data. Cross validation of identified biomarkers with GWAS database will be valuable, to utilize the measurable threshold of our biomarkers for diagnosis. Hasegawa T, Mikoda N, Kitazawa M, LaFerla FM: Treatment of Alzheimer's disease with anti-homocysteic acid antibody in 3xTg-AD male mice. PLoS One. 2010, 5: e8593- 10.1371/journal.pone.0008593 Banno H, Katsuno M, Suzuki K, Iguchi Y, Adachi H, Tanaka F, Sobue G: Molecular-targeted therapy for motor neuron disease. Brain Nerve. 2009, 61: 891-900. Miriam D, Sarah H, Bruce AR: Neuroscience Biomarkers and Biosignatures. Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, The National Academies Press 2008 Goh KI, Cusick ME, Valle D, Childs B, Vidal M, Barabasi AL: The human disease network. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2007, 104: 8685-8690. 10.1073/pnas.0701361104 Li J, Zhu X, Chen JY: Building Disease-Specific Drug-Protein Connectivity Maps from Molecular Interaction Networks and PubMed Abstracts. PLoS Comput Biol. 2009, 5: e1000450- 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000450 Vogelstein B, Lane D, Levine AJ: Surfing the p53 network. Nature. 2000, 408: 307-310. 10.1038/35042675 Hu G, Agarwal P: Human Disease-Drug Network Based on Genomic Expression Profiles. PLoS ONE. 2009, 4: e6536- 10.1371/journal.pone.0006536 Patel V, Simbine AP, Soares IC, Weiss HA, Wheeler E: Prevalence of severe mental and neurological disorders in Mozambique: a population-based survey. Lancet. 2007, 370: 1055-1060. 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61479-2 Hirtz D, Thurman DJ, Gwinn-Hardy K, Mohamed M, Chaudhuri AR, Zalutsky R: How common are the "common" neurologic disorders?. Neurology. 2007, 68: 326-337. 10.1212/01.wnl.0000252807.38124.a3 Diagnosis Wrong. http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/intro/difficult.htm Ahmed SS, Santosh W, Kumar S, Christlet HT: Neural network algorithm for the early detection of Parkinson's disease from blood plasma by FTIR micro-spectroscopy. Vib Spectrosc. 2010, 53: 181-188. 10.1016/j.vibspec.2010.01.019. Boeve BF, Silber MH, Ferman TJ: REM sleep behavior disorder in Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol. 2004, 17: 146-57. 10.1177/0891988704267465 Trenkwalder C: Sleep dysfunction in Parkinson's disease. Clin Neurosci. 1998, 5: 107:114- Comella CL, Nardine TM, Diederich NJ, Stebbins GT: Sleep-related violence, injury, and REM sleep behavior disorder in Parkinson's disease. Neurology. 1998, 51: 526-529. Carl FS, Kira A, Shiva K, Jeffrey B, Matthew D, Timo H, Buetow Kenneth H: PID: The Pathway Interaction Database. Nucleic Acids Res. 2009, 37: D674-679. 10.1093/nar/gkn653 Filippo C, Agata C, Ferdinando N, Filippo D: Depression and Alzheimer's disease: Neurobiological links and common pharmacological targets. Eur J Pharmacol. 2010, 626: 64-71. 10.1016/j.ejphar.2009.10.022 Ahmed SS, Santosh W, Kumar S, Christlet HT: Metabolic profiling of Parkinson's disease: evidence of biomarker from gene expression analysis and rapid neural network detection. J Biomed Sci. 2009, 16: 63- 10.1186/1423-0127-16-63 Decramer S, Peredo A, Breuil B, Mischak H, Monsarrat B, Bascands JL, Schanstra JP: Urine in Clinical Proteomics. Mol Cell Proteomics. 2008, 7: 1850-1862. 10.1074/mcp.R800001-MCP200 Goñi J, Esteban FJ, Mendizábal NV, Sepulcre J, Trevijano SA, Agirrezabal SA, Villoslada P: A computational analysis of protein-protein interaction networks in neurodegenerative diseases. BMC Syst Biol. 2008, 2: 52- Witte ME, Bol JG, Gerritsen WH, van der Valk P, Drukarch B, van Horssen J, Wilhelmus MM: Parkinson's disease-associated parkin colocalizes with Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis brain lesions. Neurobiol Dis. 2009, 36: 445-452. 10.1016/j.nbd.2009.08.009 Evangelou N, Jackson M, Beeson D, Palace J: Association of the APOE å4 allele with disease activity in multiple sclerosis. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1999, 67: 203-205. 10.1136/jnnp.67.2.203 Dal B, Bradl M, Frischer J, Kutzelnigg A, Jellinger K, Lassmann H: Multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease. Ann Neurol. 2008, 63: 174-183. 10.1002/ana.21240 Becker KG, Barnes KC, Bright TJ, Wang SA: The Genetic Association Database. Nature Genetics. 2004, 36: 431-432. 10.1038/ng0504-431 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) database. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/ Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/omim The GenAge database. http://genomics.senescence.info/genes/ STRING database. http://string-db.org/ Chen JY, Shen C, Sivachenko AY: Mining Alzheimer Disease Relevant Proteins From Integrated Protein Interactome Data. Pac Symp Biocomput. 2006, 367-378. Bruford EA, Lush MJ, Wright MW, Sneddon TP, Povey S, Birney E: The HGNC Database in 2008: a resource for the human genome. Nucleic Acids Res. 2008, 36: 445-448. 10.1093/nar/gkm881. Brain Gene Expression Map. http://www.stjudebgem.org Maere S, Heymans K, Kuiper M: BiNGO: a Cytoscape plugin to assess overrepresentation of gene ontology categories in biological networks. Bioinformatics. 2005, 21: 3448-3449. 10.1093/bioinformatics/bti551 Zhu W, Yang L, Du Z: Layered functional network analysis of gene expression in human heart failure. PLoS ONE. 2009, 4: e6288- 10.1371/journal.pone.0006288 Human Urinary Proteome Database. http://mosaiques-diagnostics.com/ HUPO plasma proteome project database. http://www.bioinformatics.med.umich.edu/hupo/ppp Ferrari LD, Aitken S: Mining housekeeping genes with a Naive Bayes classifier. BMC Genomics. 2006, 7: 277- 10.1186/1471-2164-7-277 Pan S, Zhu D, Quinn JF, Peskind ER, Montine TJ, Lin B, Goodlett DR, Taylor G, Eng J, Zhang J: A combined dataset of human cerebrospinal fluid proteins identified by multi-dimensional chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry. Proteomics. 2007, 7: 469-473. 10.1002/pmic.200600756 We thank Drs. Mohamed Ali and Selva Murugan for their intellectual input. This work was supported by SRM University, Tamil Nadu, India. Department of Biotechnology, School of Bioengineering, SRM University, Kattankulathur -603 203, Tamil Nadu, India Shiek SSJ Ahmed & Winkins Santosh Computational Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai -600 036, Tamil Nadu, India Shiek SSJ Ahmed & Srinivasa Chakravarthy Department of Bioinformatics, School of Bioengineering, SRM University, Kattankulathur -603 203, Tamil Nadu, India Abdul R Ahameethunisa Department of Neurology, SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Kattankulathur -603 203, Tamil Nadu, India Shiek SSJ Ahmed Winkins Santosh Srinivasa Chakravarthy Correspondence to Winkins Santosh. SSJ designed the study, performed the analyses, interprets the results and wrote the manuscript. ARA, SK and SC were contributed for data interpretation. WS is the principal investigator of this project. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript. MeSH based disease categorization Additional file 1:. Classification of manually collected 124 diseases based on the MeSH terms. This file is in PSI-MI level 2.5 format and can be viewed by Cytoscape software. (RTF 33 KB) Curated disease protein network (DPN) Additional file 2:. Disease protein network of 3632 proteins with 6172 interactions. This file is in PSI-MI level 2.5 format and can be viewed by Cytoscape software. (XML 7 MB) Extracted disease-disease network (DDN) using scoring algorithm Additional file 3:. List of positively scored disease-disease interactions. This file is in PSI-MI level 2.5 format and can be viewed by Cytoscape software. (XML 4 MB) Disease and aging interaction Additional file 4:. Positively scored interaction between of disease and aging. This file is in PSI-MI level 2.5 format and can be viewed by Cytoscape software. (XML 212 KB) MeSH validated disease interaction pairs Additional file 5:. List of MeSH validated disease interactions. This file is in PSI-MI level 2.5 format and can be viewed by Cytoscape software. (XML 2 MB) Additional file 6:. Common pathway associated disease pairs. This file is in PSI-MI level 2.5 format and can be viewed by Cytoscape software. (XML 9 MB) Gene/protein sets uniquely representing specific disease as biomarkers Additional file 7:. Disease specific biomarker proteins. This file is in PSI-MI level 2.5 format and can be viewed by Cytoscape software. (XML 227 KB) Ahmed, S.S., Ahameethunisa, A.R., Santosh, W. et al. Systems biological approach on neurological disorders: a novel molecular connectivity to aging and psychiatric diseases. BMC Syst Biol 5, 6 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1752-0509-5-6 Seed Protein Psychiatric Disease Aging Gene MeSH Tree	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2930
__label__wiki	0.666657	0.666657	GovConVideo ExecutiveBiz ExecutiveBiz covers emerging companies in Washington's government contracting sector. Executive Spotlight LMI to Extend Air Force Logistics Process Support; Robert Lech Quoted MIL Books $81M Navy Systems Engineering IDIQ Microsoft Changes Government Cloud Access Requirements to Help Small Businesses Adopt CMMC Standards Microsoft, HITRUST Unveil Security Controls Compliance Matrix for Azure Home/Search Results for: Northrop Grumman (page 2) Search Results for: Northrop Grumman Executive Spotlight: Interview with Ginger Wierzbanowski, VP of Intelligence Solutions at Northrop Grumman Andy Reed October 11, 2017 Executive Spotlight, General “While the battle space is constantly changing, our focus remains dedicated to helping our customers achieve mission success. We are providing them the ability to operate in a trusted, digital environment that enables decision advantage.” EM: Can you tell our readers about your background and how it prepared you for … Northrop Grumman’s Cyber Program Teams to Occupy San Antonio Building Under 5-Year Lease Nichols Martin September 13, 2017 Industry News, News Northrop Grumman has signed with Port San Antonio a five-year lease agreement for a 7,700-square-foot facility located near Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas to accommodate employees designated to cyber programs. The new office at 903 Billy Mitchell Boulevard will employ a “user experience feature” designed to support updates to … Northrop Grumman’s Australia-Based Business Receives MRO&U Assignment from F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program Office Scott Nicholas November 14, 2016 Industry News, News Northrop Grumman‘s subsidiary in Australia has received an assignment from the multinational F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program office to oversee maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade work on the multi-role aircraft. Northrop said Friday it will offer six MRO&U services out of 10 repair technology categories that the JSF program office … Northrop Grumman to Participate in National Guard Conference & Tech Exhibition Neel Mehta September 9, 2016 Technology Northrop Grumman will feature some of its technologies at the National Guard Association of the United States’ 138th General Conference and Exhibition in Maryland from Sept. 9 to 12. The company said Thursday it will present technologies that work to support the National Guard in the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and … Northrop Grumman to Conduct Initial Integration Event on Ground/Air Radar in October Dominique Stump August 24, 2016 News, Products & Service Northrop Grumman is set to conduct an initial integration event in October to demonstrate the Ground Weapon Locating Radar mode for the AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar system. The company said Tuesday the IIE includes initial system tests and follows the completed preliminary and critical design reviews in February and August, respectively. The integration event seeks … Northrop Grumman to Provide IT Support for Army Business Operating System Dominique Stump July 21, 2016 News, Products & Service Northrop Grumman has secured a $14 million cost-plus-fixed-fee, incrementally funded contract from the U.S. Army to provide information technology services in support of the Army Planning, Programming and Budgeting Business Operating System. The company will perform work in Washington and is expected to complete services by July 28, 2021, the Defense Department said … Northrop Grumman to Spearhead Projects Aimed at Future Cyber Workforce; Kathy Warden Comments Neel Mehta April 11, 2016 News Northrop Grumman is set to hold several cyber defense competitions in the U.S., Middle East and Europe in April as part of the company’s cyber education and workforce development goals. “Globally, we face a critical shortage of trained professionals ready to take on the job of securing our systems and networks,” Kathy … Ann Marie Fudge Joins Northrop Grumman’s Board of Directors Neel Mehta March 21, 2016 News Northrop Grumman has added Ann Marie Fudge, a former chairman and CEO of Young & Rubicam Brands at WPP Group, as a member of its board of directors. Fudge is the 13th member of Northrop’s board, the company said Thursday. “Her global leadership and track record of success across a range of … Northrop Grumman Lands $71M Army Contract for Artillery Warning Tech Support Scott Nicholas March 8, 2016 News, Products & Service Northrop Grumman has landed a $71 million contract from the U.S. Army to provide hardware and support services for rocket, artillery and mortar warning technology that combat brigades use. The Army Contracting Command awarded the contract via Internet solicitation with one received response for the services estimated to complete on Feb. … Northrop Grumman Mounts SYERS-2 Intelligence-Gathering Sensor on Global Hawk Ramona Adams February 26, 2016 News, Products & Service Northrop Grumman has flown a SYERS-2 intelligence-gathering sensor on an RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system using its Universal Payload Adapter. The company said Thursday the demonstration marked the first time the U.S Air Force sensor has been mounted on a high-altitude drone. The flight tests conducted at Northrop’s California facility are part of … Northrop Grumman Announces 2016 CyberCenturion Competition Finalists Neel Mehta February 22, 2016 Education Northrop Grumman has announced the 10 qualifying teams that will vie for the 2016 CyberCenturion Competition championship. The company said Friday the finalists will face off on April 26 at The National Museum of Computing after they made it through three rounds of cybersecurity challenges in the past four months. Northrop and Cyber Security … Northrop Grumman Contributes Software to Naval Academy, Presents Sperry Award Neel Mehta February 17, 2016 Philanthropy Northrop Grumman contributed $3.17 million worth of its Voyage Management System software to the U. S. Naval Academy Foundation to support midshipman training at the U.S. Naval Academy. The company said Monday the donation of 135 software licenses seeks to improve the education and development of future U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps officers. … Northrop Grumman to Help Update Air Force GPS Tech; Bob Mehltretter Comments Jay Clemens January 7, 2016 News, Products & Service Northrop Grumman has received a $4.8 million contract to update the U.S. Air Force’s global positioning system and inertial navigation system intended to help transmit military signals. The company will test the modes of performance of new GPS receivers, conduct trade research, evaluate military GPS user equipment and assist in the … Northrop Grumman Global Hawk Receives William W. Otterson Award; Mick Jaggers Comments Neel Mehta January 6, 2016 News, Technology Northrop Grumman has received a technology recognition for the company’s Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system from San Diego-based innovation company accelerator Connect. Connect presented the William W. Otterson Award at the company’s Most Innovative New Products ceremony on Dec. 1, 2015, Northrop said Tuesday. “Global Hawk has always been on the cutting … Northrop Grumman Recognizes NICE Systems for NYC Emergency Comms Work Neel Mehta November 30, 2015 News Northrop Grumman has awarded NICE Systems the 2015 Supplier Excellence Award for NICE’s contribution to New York City’s Emergency Communications Transfer Program project. The award recognizes Northrop’s information systems sector suppliers in accordance with schedule, management, technical, financial and quality standards, NICE said Nov. 16. “NICE is honored to receive … Receive Daily News Briefing Merito Group	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2934
__label__cc	0.737565	0.262435	Musharaff Out! Pakistan Gets Yet Another Historic Opportunity Like the Democratic party in America, which is capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of certain victory, I have seen fewer countries in the world that have the ability to waste historic opportunities like Pakistan has. Much that I have been a critic of President Dictator Musharraf in Pakistan, I do have to give him credit for not having been the evil dictator that General Zia had been about 20 years ago. On top of that, I must laud retired General Musharraf for having the decency to step down, and resign instead of facing impeachment. In that, he has shown greater courage and decency than either president Bill Clinton did or that I wish President George Bush would show. Some of the statements in his farewell speech were laughable. But, one also has to understand how difficult it must be for any president, much less a dictator, especially one who suffers from a savior complex that Musharaff did, to step down. But all is well that ends well. And one has to say that the Musharraf presidency and role in Pakistani politics has run its course. For better or worse he is now a part of history. Now it is up to the Pakistani coalition government as well as the Pakistani population to decide where they want to go from here. Will Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif, the two men in power for now, do the right things for Pakistan? Will they have the good sense, decency and moral courage to put their own political ambitions aside and focus on putting Pakistan on the right track? In this case, the right track that Pakistan needs to be on is, in reality, a long and winding road - of several interconnected and sometimes opposing paths! On the one hand Pakistan has to do everything in its power to curtail the evil of fundamentalism and lawless terrorism that has become the norm. On the other hand it also has to stand up for its national self-interest, even if that means standing up to United States pressure. Pakistan has to ensure that education of the masses, especially in the rural areas is a high priority. But, it cannot be done at the expense of economic development in the major cities. It needs to ensure the provinces get their fair share of revenues and development funds, but not at the expense of idiots holding up building of dams and power plants needed to survive, much less thrive, in coming years. I am personally a big proponent of considering dictators and their supporters punishable by death when they overthrow an elected government. However, we also have to remember that the so-called elected rulers of Pakistan generally have themselves been guilty of becoming "elected dictators". So, yes, there is some value to charging Mr. Musharraf with treason, which he did commit, in overthrowing the government of Mr. Sharif. This is especially true if the Pakistani people seriously want future generals and dictator wannabes to have the deterrent of death staring them in the face, should they decide to overthrow an elected government. But, at the same time, I realize that the Pakistani army is not going to stand by and watch one of its own actually be hanged. I am also quite certain that Mr. Musharraf and his partners in crime, including bureaucrats, and people like Mr. Shaukat Aziz, have played a major role in plundering the economy of Pakistan, playing the stock market, and manipulating commodity prices to their own benefit. However, these are crimes that have been committed by every single government, and every single ruler, in Pakistan. So, if we want to jail or imprison Mr. Musharraf, we should be ready, willing, and able to do the same for Mr. Sharif as well as Mr. Zardari. After all, neither Mr. Musharraf, nor Mr. Sharif, were ever given the name Mr. 10% that Mr. Zardari is commonly known as. In the immediate future the biggest threat to Pakistani democracy and being on the right track does not come from the Army or from any external threat. The biggest internal risk to Pakistani democracy would come from the politicians starting infighting for greed and personal ambition. Let us all hope for the best and make sure we keep the pressure on these new rulers to follow the rules. Let us pray that this historic opportunity is also not squandered by politicians, bureaucrats and illiterate followers of fundamentalist murderers. ADDED: Aug. 28. A server problem (as usual a GLOBAT web host mistake!) prevented this post from appearing online for weeks. Zardari is hell-bent on becoming sole proprietor of Pakistan, the fawning corruption-in-waiting Assembly members are least bothered to do what is right for the country. Let the looting begin. ADDED: Aug. 25. During this time, Mr. Ten Percent, Asif Zardari, the man Benazir Bhutto had ensured keeping out of the picture, has had himself nominated as candidate for President. He has already reneged on written agreements for restoration of the Supreme Court Chief Justice and an independent judiciary. Result, the coalition that was able to bring down Musharaff has collapsed a few minutes ago. Labels: America, Army, Bush, Clinton, Constitution, Democrats, Dictator, Fundamentalism, General, Impeachment, Military, Musharaff, Musharraf, Pakistan, President, Sharif, Zardari Can Bush Push Mush? Another Legacy Leaving Opportunity Lost For all the years I have followed Pakistani politics, from the inside as a student political leader, or from the outside as a media person, I have always been amazed by the huge number of historic opportunities squandered by Pakistan, Pakistanis and Pakistani generals, judges and politicians. From the dictator Zia having an opportunity to clean up the country of corruption, to Benazir Bhutto doing something for womenkind and education, history was wasted. Ghulam Ishaq Khan was thrust into the role of President and blew a historic opportunity for him to be apolitical, and have a chance to be someone Pakistanis would remember as a hero. Alas, once in power in most countries, and especially in Pakistan, elected and unelected heads of state, regardless of being 40 years old or 70, seem to live in the moment, for the moment, and moment by moment. Even the aged Ghulam Ishaq Khan did more to enrich his relatives, and play political games, than grab the incredible opportunity he had to become a new father figure in Pakistani history. It is amazing that in Pakistan's 61 years, there is not a single head of state who has tried to, or left, a legacy good enough for Pakistanis to consider adding his (or her) photo on even a (now defunct) One Rupee note. We now have a situation that is eerily similar to what we have seen before. A dictator, even more unpopular than Zia, is clinging to power, simply because one of the most unpopular American Presidents, ever, George W. Bush's grand foreign policy for the South Asian region is --- 'we stand by Musharraf.' Perhaps Bush supports Mush because it ensures there is at least ONE President who is more unpopular than Bush himself is! But, jokes aside, even a tragic accident of history like George W. Bush is trying, belatedly and with no success, to spend the next 6 months trying to "leave a legacy." I can easily say Musharraf is a far smarter and more cunning man than Bush ever was, or will be. But, one thing they both share in common besides the sound of their names - no understanding of how legacies are left. They do not understanding that a legacy is not created by clinging to power, or failed ideas, but by doing things in the greater interest, things bigger than what even our biggest admirers could imagine us doing. Legacy and history smile on us when we do things even we could not imagine being selfless, brave and visionary enough to do. When we become bold enough to stop living for our own egos today, but to step aside now, so the future can look back on us with respect. Alas, neither Bush, nor Mush, get the concept, which is why they are both close to each other in how history will not remember them. They are among the most unpopular, ineffective, and impeachable Presidents - though they rule over countries thousands of miles apart, and worlds apart in political, religious and social systems. Labels: America, Army, Benazir, Benazir Bhutto, Bhutto, Bin Laden, Bush, Democracy, Dictator, Dictatorship, Dignity, disaster, Election, Elections, Freedom, General, incompetent, Islamabad, Judges, Justice, Musharaff, Musharraf, Opportunity, Pakistan, Politics, President, Republican Transitioning From Guesswork To Analysis In Predicting Apple Product Transitions There has been some discussion going on about the direction of Apple next new models. Speculation became rampant when the Apple CFO referred to some product transition coming up, which may squeeze profit margins. People are trying to guess if it means a switch from Intel to AMD, some new chipset from Semi, the company that Apple acquired, some new video chipset, etc. I can see that they can be called 'trasitions' - but then, so is changing the way a power adaptor connects to the laptop. I do not see any of these as having significant enough impact to warrant the CFO warning of some lower profit margins. My prediction is that Apple may decide to let Mac OS X run on non-Apple 'Windows/Wintel' machines (which would lower margins and be a product 'transition' at the same time). To keep pace with, while not really price-matching the low quality fares of HP and Dell, they would also reduce their own hardware prices somewhat, but still command a premium for additional things like Semi related chips, perhaps GPS and a WWAN capability built in. And, finally, perhaps it is time for the granddaddy of the old and defunct Apple Newton, bring in a TouchMac. A tablet style MacBook Pro with touchscreen, iPhone like functionality, and 3D display capability. It would be cute to call them TouchBooks, but Panasonic may object based on their Toughbook trademarks. That would be tough to book as a trademark! Labels: Apple, handheld, Intel, iPhone, Laptop, MacBook, Panasonic, Prediction, tablet, TouchBook, TouchMac, touchscreen, Windows Musharaff Out! Pakistan Gets Yet Another Historic ... Can Bush Push Mush? Another Legacy Leaving Opportu... Transitioning From Guesswork To Analysis In Predic...	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2935
__label__wiki	0.703216	0.703216	Posted on June 25, 2020 June 25, 2020 by Abby Kincer Major June Bookmail Roundup I haven’t been great during the month of June at sharing my book mail over on @bookmarkedbya on Instagram, so here comes a major roundup – complete with synopses – to make up for that! Check out the titles I’ve received from publishers lately + let me know if any are on your TBR. Meadowlark, Melanie Abrams Out now – “A haunting novel about the lasting effects of childhood trauma and the resulting choices we make for our children. After growing up in an austere spiritual compound, two teenagers, Simrin and Arjun, escape and go their separate ways. Years later, Simrin receives an email from Arjun. As they reconnect, Simrin learns that he has become the charismatic leader of Meadowlark, a commune in the Nevada desert that allows children to discover their ‘gifts.’” Anxious People, Fredrik Backman Out September 8 – ”A poignant comedy about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined. Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers slowly begin opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths.” Craigslist Confessional, Helena Dea Bala Out July 7 – “For fans of Humans of New York and PostSecret, a collection of raw, urgent, and heartfelt stories, shared anonymously. What would you confess if you knew it would never get back to your spouse, your colleagues, or your family? What story would you tell about your life if a stranger was willing to listen with no judgement, no stigma, and no consequences—just an unburdening and the relief of confession?” Memoirs and Misinformation, Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon Out July 7 – “A fearless semi-autobiographical novel, a deconstruction of persona. In it, Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon have fashioned a story about acting, Hollywood, agents, celebrity, privilege, friendship, romance, addiction to relevance, fear of personal erasure, our ‘one big soul,’ Canada, and a cataclysmic ending of the world–apocalypses within and without.” Trust Exercise, Susan Choi Paperback out now – “In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving ‘Brotherhood of the Arts,’ two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher… will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, and about friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.” Very Nice, Marcy Dermansky New cover paperback out now – “Rachel Klein never meant to kiss her creative writing professor, but with his long eyelashes, his silky hair, and the sad, beautiful life he laid bare on Twitter, she does, and the kiss is very nice. Zahid Azzam never planned to become a houseguest in his student’s sprawling Connecticut home, but with the sparkling swimming pool, the endless supply of Whole Foods strawberries, and Rachel’s beautiful mother, he does, and the home is very nice. Becca Klein never thought she’d have a love affair so soon after her divorce, but when her daughter’s professor walks into her home, bringing with him an apricot standard poodle named Princess, she does, and the affair is . . . a very bad idea.” Pizza Girl, Jean Kyoung Frazier Out now – “Eighteen years old, pregnant, and working as a pizza delivery girl in suburban Los Angeles, our charmingly dysfunctional heroine is deeply lost and in complete denial about it all. She’s grieving the death of her father (whom she has more in common with than she’d like to admit), avoiding her supportive mom and loving boyfriend, and flagrantly ignoring her future. Her world is further upended when she becomes obsessed with Jenny, a stay-at-home mother new to the neighborhood, who comes to depend on weekly deliveries of pickled-covered pizzas for her son’s happiness. As one woman looks toward motherhood and the other toward middle age, the relationship between the two begins to blur in strange, complicated, and ultimately heartbreaking ways.” Filthy Beasts, Kirkland Hamill Out July 14 – “A gripping, true riches-to-rags tale of a wealthy family who lost it all and the unforgettable journey of a man coming to terms with his family’s deep flaws and his own long-buried truths… Following a rancorous split from New York’s upper-class society, newly divorced Wendy and her three sons are exiled from the East Coast elite circle. Wendy’s middle son, Kirk, is eight when she moves the family to her native Bermuda, leaving the three young boys to fend for themselves as she chases after the highs of her old life: alcohol, a wealthy new suitor, and other indulgences.” A Princess for Christmas, Jenny Holiday Out October 13 – “A modern fairy tale just in time for Christmas about a tough New Yorker from the other side of the tracks who falls for a princess from the other side of the world.” Wow, No Thank You., Samantha Irby Out now – “A rip-roaring, edgy and unabashedly raunchy new collection of hilarious essays. Irby is forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what Inspirational Instagram Infographics have promised her. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and has been friendzoned by Hollywood, left Chicago, and moved into a house with a garden that requires repairs and know-how with her wife in a Blue town in the middle of a Red state where she now hosts book clubs and makes mason jar salads. This is the bourgeois life of a Hallmark Channel dream. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with “tv executives slash amateur astrologers” while being a “cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person,” “with neck pain and no cartilage in [her] knees,” who still hides past due bills under her pillow. The essays in this collection draw on the raw, hilarious particulars of Irby’s new life.” The Family Upstairs, Lisa Jewell Paperback out now – “Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk. When they arrived,… downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.” Invisible Girl, Lisa Jewell Out October 13 – “A taut and white-knuckled thriller following a group of people whose lives shockingly intersect when a young woman disappears… With evocative, vivid, and unputdownable prose and plenty of disturbing twists and turns.” The Golden Cage, Camilla Lackberg Out July 7 – “An exhilarating new novel from a global superstar–a sexy, over-the-top psychological thriller that tells the story of the scorned wife of a billionaire and her delicious plot to get her revenge and bring him to his knees.” Luster, Raven Leilani Out August 4 – “Edie is stumbling her way through her twenties—sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric with a family in New Jersey, including a wife who has agreed to an open marriage—with rules. Edie finds herself unemployed and invited into Eric’s home—though not by Eric. She becomes a hesitant ally to his wife and a de facto role model to his adopted daughter. Edie may be the only Black woman young Akila knows.” Blue Ticket, Sophie Mackintosh Out June 30 – “Calla knows how the lottery works. Everyone does. On the day of your first bleed, you report to the station to learn what kind of woman you will be. A white ticket grants you marriage and children. A blue ticket grants you a career and freedom. You are relieved of the terrible burden of choice. And once you’ve taken your ticket, there is no going back. But what if the life you’re given is the wrong one?” The Unstoppable Wasp, Sam Maggs Out July 14 – “Nadia Van Dyne is new to this. New to being a Super Hero, new to being a real friend and stepdaughter (to one of the founding Avengers, no less), new to running her own lab, and new to being her own person, far, far away from the clutches of the Red Room–the infamous brainwashing/assassin-training facility. She’s adjusting well to all of this newness, channeling her energy into being a good friend, a good scientist, and a good Super Hero. It’s taking a toll, though, and Nadia’s finding that there are never quite enough hours in a day. So, when she’s gifted a virtual assistant powered by the most cutting-edge A.I. technology that the world has to offer, Nadia jumps at the opportunity to “do less, experience more”-just like the advertisements say.” A Burning, Megha Majumdar Out now – “An electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise–to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies–and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India. Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan’s fall. Lovely–an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor–has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.” Weird But Normal, Mia Mercado Out now – “Birth control. Body hair removal cream. Boobs. It’s all weird, but also pretty normal. Navigating racial identity, gender roles, workplace dynamics, and beauty standards, Mia Mercado’s hilarious essay collection explores the contradictions of being a millennial woman, which usually means being kind of a weirdo.” The Shadows, Alex North Out July 7 – “You knew a teenager like Charlie Crabtree. A dark imagination, a sinister smile–always on the outside of the group. Some part of you suspected he might be capable of doing something awful. Twenty-five years ago, Crabtree did just that, committing a murder so shocking that it’s attracted that strange kind of infamy that only exists on the darkest corners of the internet–and inspired more than one copycat… It wasn’t just the murder. It was the fact that afterward, Charlie Crabtree was never seen again…” The Secrets We Kept, Lara Prescott Paperback out June 30 – “At the height of the Cold War, Irina, a young Russian-American secretary, is plucked from the CIA typing pool and given the assignment of a lifetime. Her mission: to help smuggle Doctor Zhivago into the USSR, where it is banned, and enable Boris Pasternak’s magnum opus to make its way into print around the world. Mentoring Irina is the glamorous Sally Forrester: a seasoned spy who has honed her gift for deceit, using her magnetism and charm to pry secrets out of powerful men. Under Sally’s tutelage, Irina learns how to invisibly ferry classified documents—and discovers deeply buried truths about herself.” What’s Left of Me Is Yours, Stephanie Scott Out now – In Japan, a covert industry has grown up around the “wakaresaseya” (literally “breaker-upper”), a person hired by one spouse to seduce the other in order to gain the advantage in divorce proceedings. When Satō hires Kaitarō, a wakaresaseya agent, to have an affair with his wife, Rina, he assumes it will be an easy case. But Satō has never truly understood Rina or her desires and Kaitarō’s job is to do exactly that–until he does it too well. While Rina remains ignorant of the circumstances that brought them together, she and Kaitarō fall in a desperate, singular love, setting in motion a series of violent acts that will forever haunt her daughter’s life.” Running, Natalia Sylvester Out July 14 – “When fifteen-year-old Cuban American Mariana Ruiz’s father runs for president, Mari starts to see him with new eyes. A novel about waking up and standing up, and what happens when you stop seeing your dad as your hero—while the whole country is watching.” The Lightness, Emily Temple Out now – “A stylish, stunningly precise, and suspenseful meditation on adolescent desire, female friendship, and the female body that shimmers with rage, wit, and fierce longing… One year ago, the person Olivia adores most in the world, her father, left home for a meditation retreat in the mountains and never returned. Yearning to make sense of his shocking departure and to escape her overbearing mother—a woman as grounded as her father is mercurial—Olivia runs away from home and retraces his path.” Mother Daughter Widow Wife, Robin Wasserman Out July 7 – “Who is Wendy Doe? The woman, found on a Peter Pan Bus to Philadelphia, has no money, no ID, and no memory of who she is, where she was going, or what she might have done. She’s assigned a name and diagnosis by the state: Dissociative fugue, a temporary amnesia that could lift at any moment—or never at all. When Dr. Benjamin Strauss invites her to submit herself for experimental observation at his Meadowlark Institute for Memory Research, she feels like she has no other choice… To Alice, the daughter she left behind, Wendy Doe is an absence so present it threatens to tear Alice’s world apart. Through their attempts to untangle the mystery of Wendy’s identity—as well as Wendy’s own struggle to construct a new self—Wasserman has crafted a jaw-dropping, multi-voiced journey of discovery, reckoning, and reclamation.” Paperback out June 30 – When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.” The End of October, Lawrence Wright Out now – In this riveting medical thriller–from the Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author–Dr. Henry Parsons, an unlikely but appealing hero, races to find the origins and cure of a mysterious new killer virus as it brings the world to its knees.” CategoriesMiscellaneous Previous PostPrevious The Roxy Letters: Mary Pauline Lowry Next PostNext Q&A with Frances Cha, Author of If I Had Your Face	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2946
__label__cc	0.603718	0.396282	Nubia: Real One L. L. McKinney (Author) Robyn Smith (Illustrator) Pre-Order Ships Feb 23, 2021 Can you be a hero...if society doesn't see you as a person? Nubia has always been a little bit...different. As a baby she showcased Amazonian-like strength by pushing over a tree to rescue her neighbor's cat. But despite her having similar abilities, the world has no problem telling her that she's no Wonder Woman. And even if she were, they wouldn't want her. Every time she comes to the rescue, she's reminded of how people see her: as a threat. Her moms do their best to keep her safe, but Nubia can't deny the fire within her, even if she's a little awkward about it sometimes. Even if it means people assume the worst. When Nubia's best friend, Quisha, is threatened by a boy who thinks he owns the town, Nubia will risk it all--her safety, her home, and her crush on that cute kid in English class--to become the hero society tells her she isn't. From the witty and powerful voice behind A Blade So Black, and with endearing and expressive art by Robyn Smith, comes a vital story for today about equality, identity, and kicking it with your squad. Comics & Graphic Novels - Superheroes Comics & Graphic Novels - Coming of Age L. L. McKinney is an advocate for equality and inclusion in publishing, and the creator of the hashtag #WhatWoCWritersHear. Elle's also a gamer, Blerd, and adamant Hei Hei stan, living in Kansas. Her works include the Nightmare-Verse books, starting with the A Blade So Black trilogy, the upcoming Black Widow: Bad Blood as presented by Serialbox; Splintered Magic of the Mirror novels from Disney; and the Jane Eyre reimagining Escaping Mr. Rochester. Robyn Smith is a Jamaican cartoonist, currently based in New York City. She has an MFA from the Center for Cartoon Studies and has worked on comics for the Seven Days newspaper, CollegeHumor, and the Nib. She's best known for her minicomic The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town and for illustrating Jamila Rowser's comic Wash Day. Besides comics she spends most her time watching American sitcoms and holding on to dreams of returning home, to the ocean. K-12 Titles Celebrating Inclusion! VIEW LIST (25 BOOKS)	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2949
__label__wiki	0.596691	0.596691	Medical error victim boy returned to Ethiopia Finally medical error victim boy is in Ethiopia. Ethiopian activist did an extraordinary job to bring the matter to the attention decision makers and Ethiopia’s new reformer prime minister acted as a leader on the matter. https://borkena.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Medical-error-victim-returned-home.mp4 (Video credit : EBC) June 8,2018 Ethiopian boy who became a victim of medical error in Saudi Arabia is returned to Ethiopia, reported state media Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority. Mohammed Abdulaziz was born to Ethiopian family in Saudi Arabia. At the age of 4, Halima Abdulaziz, his mother, took his took him to Dr.Sulaman Fakih hospital, in Jeddah, to remove a skin tag from inside his nostril and the medical procedure was meant to be a very minor one. As it turned out, due to a medical error by the hospital he never woke up and remained in a coma for more than twelve years. Halima sued the hospital as she care for her son and after a long battle a court in Saudi ruled that the hospital pay the medical victim boy SR 2.4 million (Saudi money) in restitution which the hospital did not honor. The Ethiopian embassy in Saudi Arabia did give Halima the attention she deserves nor the embassy did try to bring the matter to the attention of Saudi authorities. Then Nebiyu Sirak,an Ethiopian activists based in Saudi Arabia, stepped in to help out and organized an online campaign seeking justice to Mohamed, he calls him blatenaw. His campaign became a success in that it got the attention of Abiy Ahmed’s administration. When the new prime minister visited Saudi Arabia last month, he raised the matter to the Saudi prince who ordered the authorities to pay the victim boy SR 3 million( adding SR 600,000). Abiy made changes to the Ethiopian Embassy in Saudi Arabia soon after his return to Ethiopia ; Ethiopian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia was removed. Abiy Ahmed personally went to the Saudi hospital to comfort Halima. He promised her to return the boy to Ethiopia. And it happened. Amir Aman, Minister Health for the Federal Government of Ethiopia, tweeted : Mohammed Abdulaziz and his mother Mrs. Halima Muzeyen have finally returned back home safe. Mohammed has been admitted to St. Paul’s Hospital & will receive care at the Intensive Care Unit. Mohammed and Halima are indeed brave fighters, and I wish them the very best! pic.twitter.com/HscylHJ1Pt — Amir Aman, MD (@amirabiy) June 8, 2018 The boy is to receive care at St.Paul Hospital intensive care unit in the capital Addis Ababa. The arrival of the boy in Ethiopia elated those who were campaigning to demand justice when the authorities did not give it attention. Nebiyu Sirak, who was relentlessly organizing campaigns, wrote in his social media page that he was in tears out of joy that the goal to get justice done to Mohammed was done. Halima Abdulaziz, medical error, Mohamed Abdulaziz	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2953
__label__wiki	0.565324	0.565324	Roche: A New Chapter In Red Sox History By Dan Roche, WBZ-TV SportsBy Dan Roche August 19, 2015 at 6:04 am Filed Under:Ben Cherington, Boston Red Sox, Dan Roche, Dave Dombrowski David Dombrowski. (File photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images) BOSTON (CBS) – When the trio of John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino bought the Boston Red Sox in 2002 it signaled the beginning of a new era. Dan Duquette, who brought a lot of talent to Boston, was let go and Theo Epstein was brought in. It marked a fresh start as Theo built teams that would finally win a World Series – two of them. Yes, there were rocky times (think Gorilla suit), but Henry put together a group that could put their egos aside and make wise business decisions. Everyone had a role and a voice. Fenway was on a 10-year renovation plan that was brilliantly spearheaded by Lucchino and Janet Marie Smith. The team on the field contended year in and year out. Eventually it grew stale though and Theo left. Then a disastrous 2011 finish and an even worse 2012. But, in stepped a man who had been a rock in the organization going back to the Dan Duquette regime. Ben Cherington rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He brought in good veteran players who knew how to play the game right. Napoli, Victorino, Peavy, Drew, Gomes, and it worked. The 2013 Boston Strong season will always be a special one. But in August of 2015, some 13 years later, a new era was born. John Henry decided a drastic change was needed – and available. Gone are Larry Lucchino and Ben Cherington (and possibly John Farrell). Baseball operations will change. Larry Lucchino and Ben Cherington (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images) This is a significant move especially with Lucchino leaving. Sam Kennedy is the new CEO. He will lead the business side. I was warned that if Henry and Werner didn’t hire a successor to Larry then there could be big problems – such as Henry and Werner making baseball personnel decisions. So, in comes Dave Dombrowski. Dave Dombrowski. (Photo by Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images) He has a wealth of experience and is a solid baseball man. He will bring in a general manager and possibly a new manager and staff. He will have arguably the best farm system in baseball with a ton of young talent from Bogaerts to Betts to Swihart to E-Rod to Castillo, all the way down. He will have to fix the big league roster. But make no mistake about it, this is a great job to take. I wish all the best to Ben Cherington – as fine a human being as I’ve ever met in the game. A true gentleman and a great baseball man. He will be back to work in no time. And that goes for his staff too. I hope this works out for all parties involved. I think Red Sox fans should be happy too. A new era in Red Sox history has begun. Follow WBZ-TV’s Dan Roche on Twitter @RochieWBZ. Dan Roche More from Dan Roche	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2954
__label__cc	0.688478	0.311522	One of the Most Persistent Entrepreneurs of Our Time Published August 11, 2014 by Aaron Hoddinott Category: Service, StartupsTagged entrepreneur, innovate, Uber, niche market, great entrepreneurs, unwavering persistence, Apoorva Mehta, Instacart, online grocery delivery service, Y Combinator, tech entrepreneur, Instacart's Business Model 11 Things I Learned from Reading Blood Feud by Edward Klein Afghanistan is About to Blow I’m convinced that my son, the precocious toddler, will make an excellent entrepreneur. He is one of the most persistent people I know, a trait he gets from his mother. From trying to steal our 90 pound rhodesian ridgeback’s chew toy from her mouth to refusing to be carried anywhere outside, his persistence is something I hope he never loses. Entrepreneurs need a rejection-proof hide with unwavering persistence because they face rejection at almost every turn. But by no means is the rejection indicative of their ability – quite the opposite. Great entrepreneurs often see things before others do, and when they innovate the masses are either not convinced, or mistakenly convinced that it’s just another attempt at reinventing the wheel. From customers, to angel investors and venture capitalists, entrepreneurs are thrown rejection in all shapes and sizes. The one entrepreneur that comes to mind when I think of persistence is Apoorva Mehta. Apoorva is the co-founder of Instacart – the Amazon.com meets Uber of groceries; and while it has expanded ahead of Amazon’s grocery offering, getting here was no easy ride for Apoorva. By the way, his name in Sanskrit means ‘like none other’. A Story of Persistence This unique entrepreneur is the picture of persistence. Apoorva started out at Amazon in the back-end dungeons of programming fulfillment optimization. That lasted a couple of years. He then moved on to Builder of Stuff, a company he tried to get off the ground, but stardom didn’t come with that project. It took another 25 attempts before the rejections and failures relented and left ‘like none other’ at the top of a new niche market. Apoorva saw the light at the end of the 25th rejection and decided that he needed to be passionate about whatever he did next… That’s when he kicked off Instacart. Instacart’s Business Model Instacart is an online grocery delivery service that Apoorva co-founded and is currently CEO of. The company was almost an instant hit and the idea, concept and market just clicked with consumers. I view Instacart’s business model as if it is the Uber of groceries. People sign up to shop for other people and other people make grocery purchases on Instacart’s platform. Thanks to Instacart, one of your fellow community members can now do your grocery shopping if you are tight on time or can’t be bothered. No need for large scale distribution centers. Pretty savvy, if you ask me. Somewhere in his subconscious Apoorva had stumbled upon the right formula for what the market needed. He got to work coding the app that pulls everything together and moved up the execution; but, just when he was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, Apoorva realized he needed more investment to cross the finish line on this 26th attempt at success. In Need of Cash In the summer of 2012, Apoorva was seeking funding and wanted to get into the Y Combinator tech incubator. But, as things would have it, applications were closed for that year’s summer intake while other candidates were being considered. Apoorva reached out to as many Y partners as he could, hoping to squeeze into the incubator, but they all told him the same thing. It was one rejection after another, until… he came to the last partner who didn’t say no, sort of. This funder/partner politely told Apoorva that his idea was ‘nearly impossible’. To Apoorva ‘nearly impossible’ is not a rejection, even though it is intended to be. For him, and those similar (likely to be my son one day), ‘nearly impossible’ is an invitation to try harder because a glimmer of possibility exists. And the mere thought of achieving something that is supposedly ‘nearly impossible’ gets his blood pumping. Instead of sulking and giving in to the repeated rejection, Apoorva sent the potential funder/partner a six pack, using Instacart. Cutting to the chase, the partner had no clue what was going on upon receiving the beer. But when Apoorva gave him a call, and told him the beer was from Instacart, it all clicked. The funder set up an interview for Apoorva and Instacart with the rest of Y Combinator’s partners and the startup was accepted into the program. 40 million dollars and 17 locations later, Instacart is looking to be the next Amazon. In fact, its more like Amazon + Uber = Instacart. Being a tech entrepreneur is not about spreadsheets and lines of code. It’s not really about inventing the next gadget, either. It is more about having passion for what you do and not taking no for an answer. If you doubt me, just look at some of the greatest tech entrepreneurs of our time: Jobs, Kalanick, Bezos and very likely to be Apoorva (a.k.a. like none other). Afghanistan is About to Blow11 Things I Learned from Reading Blood Feud by Edward Klein Aaron Hoddinott Investor and marketer willing to take big swings at bold ideas. More from Aaron: Getting Comfortable with Chaos Disruption Comes from the Outside Are You Willing to Pay the Price? The Missing Human Element Our Unhealthy Obsession with Being Right	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2957
__label__wiki	0.93547	0.93547	Top Five WWE WrestleManias – #2 WrestleMania X8 The countdown to the biggest show of the year in pro wrestling is on. WrestleMania is to pro wrestling what championship games are for professional sports. No matter how may pay-per-views the WWE may hold in a year, WrestleMania is always the biggest. In counting down to the big event, I will take a look at my top five WrestleMania shows of all time. The criteria in determining the top five WrestleMania shows is a little complex. For one, I look at historical significance. The first WrestleMania is historic as the original and gets high consideration on that alone. Other WrestleMania shows may be historic for crowd attendance, availability, a particular point in wrestling history, matches, appearances, or a variety of other reasons. There are a lot of great matches from WrestleMania but only a few are considered the greatest. It is common for a terrible WrestleMania to be looked upon far more favorably years later due to one great match. One great match can make a WrestleMania and put the show in the history books forever. Star power is another big component in the mix. The power of the stars may be just as much about wrestling star power as it is power from the outside world. There is a big difference in a WrestleMania stacked with great stars as opposed to a show without a Randy Savage, Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Steve Austin, The Rock, Bret Hart, etc. One WWE superstar doesn’t make a show, but a collection of stars is something that can truly make a WrestleMania special. 2 – WrestleMania X8 03/17/02 Toronto, Ontario WrestleMania X8 will go down as arguably the most remembered WrestleMania behind WrestleMania III. As grand as the event is today, WrestleMania X8 was truly bigger than life. WrestleMania X8 featured what one could argue one of the greatest lineups in WrestleMania history. That was an easy feat to achieve, as free agents from WCW and ECW were readily at the disposal of Vince McMahon and the WWE. This was the first WrestleMania after the integration of ECW and WCW within the WWE. WrestleMania X7came shortly after the sale of WCW to the WWE. Stars from WCW were present, but nobody from WCW had actually wrestled yet in the WWE. ECW was still closed, yet fans still had dreams that it was still alive. The failures of the WCW and ECW invasion angle also prompted Vince to bring back WrestleMania’s greatest hero for the first time in over ten years at WrestleMania X8. WrestleMania was Hulk Hogan’s show from day one. The event was created in big part to capitalize on Hulk Hogan’s popularity in the 1980s. Hulk Hogan was the center piece of the first eight WrestleManias. WrestleMania IX was closed and remembered for Hogan’s triumph over Yokozuna for the WWF title. WrestleMania was Hulk Hogan and Hulk Hogan was WrestleMania until Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and a new generation of stars ascended to the top. All of the stars truly came out for WrestleMania X8. Several worlds of nostalgia collided as WrestleMania saw several heroes of WrestleMania past make their returns. Ric Flair, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Curt Hennig, all joined Hulk Hogan in returning to WrestleMania. It was truly the only WrestleMania that featured stars from three generations competing on one big show. WrestleMania spawned a new generation of heroes once Hogan left for WCW in 1994. WrestleMania wasn’t just about one guy anymore. WrestleMania now produced a variety of heroes. Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Steve Austin, the Rock, and the Undertaker were all WrestleMania heroes yet none of them truly epitomized WrestleMania the way the Hulkster did. As great as they were, something was still missing from the biggest show of all-time. 2003 was the first time in almost ten years that fans from all generations could watch their heroes on the same stage in one night. WrestleMania X8 had the one of the last great dream matches featuring the Rock and Hulk Hogan. The Rock was the new generation’s Hulk Hogan. The Rock had overtaken Steve Austin as the number one babyface in the WWE and arguably the biggest star in all of pro wrestling. The Rock had a love affair with the fans that may never be duplicated. The immediate rivalry between the Rock and Hogan was a natural. Hulk Hogan returned at No Way Out as part of the N.W.O. with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. It was apparent from the start that Hogan was bigger than the group. Hogan’s return to Monday Night Raw was one of the most chilling moments in wrestling history. Hogan returned as a heel, but nobody wanted to boo him. The hero had returned, yet the circumstances were much different than they were ten-years ago. The match between the Rock and Hulk Hogan is one of the most fun matches that you will ever see. Both men had a natural chemistry, yet the crowd was truly the show in this one. The crowd went wild for both wrestlers throughout the match. Both wrestlers had the crowd in their hands and the scene was just absolutely electric. The Rock won the match, but Hulk Hogan won the show. Triple H defeated Chris Jericho for the first-ever undisputed championship. The WCW and WWE titles were combined for the first-time in wrestling history before WrestleMania. Chris Jericho won a tournament with the likes of Steve Austin, Rock, and Kurt Angle to become champion. Even with Stephanie McMahon, Jericho was no match for Triple H. Triple H used the Pedigree on Jericho to beat him for the title and claim his WrestleMania moment. For the first-time since WrestleMania 13, Steve Austin wrestled on a WrestleMania and wasn’t in the main-event. Austin took a backseat to Hogan and the Rock for a match with Scott Hall. This would also be Scott Hall’s first WrestleMania since WrestleMania XI. The feud never seemed to click, yet the two had a really good match. Austin has talked in interviews about the fact he didn’t like the match. I think the two wrestled well together and had some decent chemistry. There was something off about seeing Austin so low on the card at a WrestleMania. Austin would pin Scott Hall with the Stone Cold Stunner to win the match. Austin left the WWE shortly after the match. Austin would return to next year’s WrestleMania main-event losing to the Rock. WrestleMania X8 is known by some as Ric Flair’s last stand. Flair was once the greatest of all-time, and WrestleMania X8 was one of Flair’s last great moments. Ric Flair returned to WrestleMania for the first-time since WrestleMania 8. Flair would leave WrestleMania X8 the same way he left WrestleMania 8. A bloody and battered Flair lost the match, yet won the house. Flair had an unlikely classic against the Undertaker. On paper, this didn’t look like a good match. Nobody expected much from these two and quite honestly, Flair hadn’t had a great match in years up to thet point. Yet, the two tore the house down with both men giving Hogan and Rock a run for the money in stealing the show. The added stipulation of a street-fight added to the intrigue and excitement of the pre-match hype. A bloody Flair would lose a valiant fight to the Undertaker. The match was a roller coaster of emotion for the fans. Flair’s ex-Horsemen buddy Arn Anderson even made a surprise run-in during the match. Undertaker beat Flair with a Tombstone in one of the greatest matches in Flair’s career. Other notes from WrestleMania X8 – Rob Van Dam and Booker T made their WrestleMania debuts. Mr. Perfect returned to WrestleMania for the first-time since WrestleMania IX in a dark match. The WWE Hardcore title changed hands five times this night. The live attendance was over 68,000 while the show did a 1.68 buyrate. Rikishi, Scotty Too Hotty, & Albert beat Mr. Perfect, Test, & Lance Storm when Rikishi pinned Perfect Rob Van Dam pinned William Regal to win the WWF I-C Title. WWF European Champ Diamond Dallas Page pinned Christian. WWF Hardcore Champ Maven NC Goldust. Throughout the show, the title changed hands several times Spike Dudley pinned Maven to win the title Hurricane pinned Spike to win the title Mighty Molly pinned Hurricane to win the title Christian pinned Molly to win the title Maven pinned Christian to win the title Kurt Angle pinned Kane The Undertaker pinned Ric Flair in a “street fight” match. Edge pinned Booker T Steve Austin pinned Scott Hall WWE Tag Champs Billy Gunn & Chuck Palumbo beat The Acolytes, Matt & Jeff Hardy, and Bubba & D-Von Dudley in an “elimination” match The Rock pinned Hulk Hogan WWE Women’s Champ Jazz beat Trish Stratus and Lita in a “triple threat” match Triple H pinned Chris Jericho to win the WWE World Title Justin Henry is a freelance writer whose work appears on many websites. He provides wrestling, NFL, and other sports/pop culture columns for CamelClutchBlog.com, as well as several wrestling columns a week for WrestlingNewsSource.com and WrestleCrap.com. Justin can be found here on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/notoriousjrh and Twitter- http://www.twitter.com/cynicjrh. Pre-order WWE WrestleMania 27 DVD Brock Lesnar’s autobiography – Death Clutch: My Story of Determination, Domination, and Survival WWE WrestleMania – The Complete Anthology 1985-2006 Buy the WWE: The True Story of WrestleMania DVD Grab discounted WWE DVDs, merchandise, t -shirts, figures, and more from the WWE Shop on Amazon.com Related Items:chris jericho, hulk hogan, ric flair, Steve Austin, The N.W.O., The Rock, The Undertaker, triple h, WCW, wrestlemania, WrestleMania 18 Hulk Hogan Set To Make His Return Home To WWE Sting: Into the Light WWE DVD Review	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2964
__label__wiki	0.902994	0.902994	Culture Article Feiyang Xue / 17 November 2020 / Categories: News, Culture, Music, Art Anti-racist Instagram Opera: Shaping and Rethinking the Theatrical Form “I think of the images and text surrounding the operatic content as the ‘set’ and ‘props’ of the production; this content builds the world within which the chamber opera sits.” -- Jasmin Kent Rodgman As a response to the prejudice shown towards the East and South East Asian diaspora during the pandemic, the anti-racist Instagram opera, nineteen ways of looking, a constellation of music, image, dance and spoken word, will go live to the public on 17 November. Mixing social media with social realism, documentary with fantasy, the Instagram opera offers nineteen individual experiences of the pandemic - nineteen threads that relate to racism, isolation, media and mental health which will be rolled out via daily Instagram posts. Each Instagram square will contain chapters of this semi-linear narrative, unfolding post by post, unravelling in real time for the audience. Verbatim quotes taken from people’s social media will be juxtaposed with a poetic libretto by Chen Si’an, contributing from Beijing. Dance will be conducted by choreographer and dance artist Si Rawlinson and the project’s dramaturg Jude Christian. The voices of nineteen ways of looking will be the distinctive sounds of countertenor Keith Pun and contralto Hildur Berglind Arndal. The highest male and lowest female vocal registers are rare and beautiful tones that conjure feelings of awe, unfamiliarity and angst throughout the opera, performing Chen’s libretto in multiple languages, wordless and experimental. Jasmin Kent Rodgman, 19 Ways of Looking, Hildur Berglind Arndal Commissioned by Chinese Arts Now (CAN), the UK’s leading platform for British Chinese artists, this highly unique virtual production used technology to shape and rethink the theatrical form. It embraces the challenges of lockdown and social distancing using arguably one of the world’s most important platforms to create art, perform to and interact with audiences. As a result, it is also one of the most accessible operatic productions out there in the world, housed on a free-to-use and international platform. The idea of creating an online opera came to Jasmin Kent Rodgman the composer and director of nineteen ways of looking when she was watching live streamed performances and concerts during lockdown. The inconsistency within these online performances and the fact that people’s attention spans have been significantly diverted to social media inspired her to use these platforms to house a production. “Opera uses music, movement and theatre to tell stories for us on the stage, so why not use those tools to recreate a production on Instagram?” says Jasmin. Jasmin Kent Rodgman, portrait 2, photo Jonathan Hines Nineteen ways of looking is centred around the discrimination and racism faced by the BESEA diaspora; the rising prejudice as a result of the pandemic as well as the existing stereotypes and tropes that the community has faced since the diaspora began to settle in the UK. Equally, it explores the shared global experience of isolation, a longing for connection, otherness and the media we consume on a day-to-day basis. “nineteen ways of looking is about empathy or moments where there is a lack thereof. Through bringing together a plurality of voices, it’s a constant reminder of humanity,” says Jasmin. Jasmin’s favourite part of the production is Inbetweener, which as she describes is a huge emotional climax in the work. In this part, Chen Si’an’s beautiful libretto is based on an incredibly sad, real-life story about a Wuhan-born woman living in London, who lost both parents in quick succession to the pandemic earlier this year. Mourning the loss of her entire family, she feels unable to return to China but at the same time faces a level of prejudice in London unlike anything before. Feeling trapped between two worlds, drifting, this aria and story represent loss and otherness on the personal, cultural and societal levels. Jasmin Kent Rodgman, 19 Ways of Looking, Trotters (Photo credit, Ning Zhou, Food Stylist, Premila van Ommen) The project reaches out to the British East and Southeast Asian community in solidarity, very much inspired by the strength of the Black Lives Matter movement, a call to unite and speak up about important issues that have long since shaped people’s lives in the UK and Europe. As a British-Malaysian herself, Jasmin wants to connect with the ESEA community and other ethnic minorities who share similar experiences of being ‘othered’. “I want to engage audiences who might challenge the idea that racism even exists, who do not consider the impact British history, both colonial and post-colonial, have had on people who rightly call the UK their home.” As the Covid-19 pandemic triggered more xenophobia which has been peddled by the governments and media for far too long, Jasmin hopes this Instagram opera can be a bridge which enables audiences on both sides of racial discrimination to have a frank and transparent conversation with each other. Responding to Covid-19, Chinese Arts Now (CAN) offered six digital commissions to artists who identify as having Chinese cultural heritage or make work that incorporates contemporary Chinese perspectives. Nineteen ways of looking as one of the six commissions will go live to the public on 17 November and unfold via daily Instagram posts until 27 November. To access the public view of nineteen ways of looking, please follow the account here: https://www.instagram.com/nineteenwaysoflooking/ For the other five CAN digital commissions, please go to the website: https://chineseartsnow.org.uk/whats-on/ “This year is the equivalent of Stephen Lawrence for ESEA in the UK, we need to speak up now” says anti-racism activist Sounds Like Scran: A celebration of food and languages that is exclusive to Mancunians Feiyang XueFeiyang Xue Other posts by Feiyang Xue Sounds Like Scran: A celebration of food and languages that is exclusive to Mancunians Organisations Sounds Like Scran: A celebration of food and languages that is exclusive to Mancunians By Na Qing Anti-racist Instagram Opera: Shaping and Rethinking the Theatrical Form Art By Feiyang Xue “This year is the equivalent of Stephen Lawrence for ESEA in the UK, we need to speak up now” says anti-racism activist Organisations “This year is the equivalent of Stephen Lawrence for ESEA in the UK, we need to speak up now” says anti-racism activist By Anonym Feminism in China: Chinese-American illustrator defines the undefined Art Feminism in China: Chinese-American illustrator defines the undefined “I want to depict women as nuanced, complex and human" A virtual journey into London Chinatown’s now and then Technology A virtual journey into London Chinatown’s now and then “Look Within”: A storytelling artist sewing faith and culture into garments Philosophy “Look Within”: A storytelling artist sewing faith and culture into garments	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2969
__label__cc	0.701158	0.298842	Friday Thoughts: The National Diversity Awards Posted on September 28, 2019 by Chronically Jenni It’s strange to think, as I sit here in bed in my most comfortable tracksuit with a bloated tummy and sore head, that this time last week I was sat down for a 3-course dinner in a beautiful cathedral, which looked like it had been taken straight out of a Harry Potter film, dressed like a modern-day Ariel who had just learned to walk. I was surrounded by funny, interesting, brilliant people and had just been laughing as Sally Phillips, from Miranda & Bridget Jones’ Diary, made fun of the current mess of our country’s leadership. It definitely wasn’t an ordinary Friday night. I spent last Friday morning traveling to Liverpool for a wonderful and exciting event that evening. I had been nominated for the Positive Role Model for Disability Award at the National Diversity Awards 2019. It was an absolute honour to just be present at such a wonderful occasion. Let alone being there because I had been nominated for an award myself. It was a very special night. The first surprise of the night came well before we’d even reached the stunning setting of Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral. After our very long journey’s mum and I got glammed up at our hotel a few miles away. I gave mum a quick lesson in taking the perfect Instagram shots before our Taxi arrived and we headed to the venue. The surprise comes when we get out of the Taxi and he tells us it will only be £3?! I like it up north 😛 Not only this but outside we were greeted by a huge tribe of drummers to welcome us. I was flattered with so many compliments before we’d got to the entrance but I did have a strange conversation with a random stranger who did not appear to be going to the event but merely a passerby. He complimented my hair and then spotted my walking stick and said ‘Is the cane a reference to a film or tv show or something?’ This was a new one. ‘No, it’s just a walking stick’, I replied. ‘Right…Good…Because that would be bad’, said the stranger. Yes, yes it would, I thought as I carried on my way. A few more pictures outside, got to get the good light, and we headed into the cathedral itself. From the outside It wasn’t the most beautiful building, it’s a strange rusty colour which doesn’t fit with the image of a cathedral which I have in my mind but the inside was a completely different story. The stained glass windows sparkled under the lights that my lighting designer boyfriend would have geeked out over. Waiters floated around with champagne and canapes whilst film crews and photographers whizzed round. It really did feel like the Oscars. Then we spotted the dining area full of hundreds of candles on tall candelabras atop over 50 round tables in long rows. It really did feel like I was about to attend the yule ball at Hogwarts. Then I met the first of many superstars of the evening, The lovely Elin from My Blurred World, who was also nominated in my category, yet far more deserving! In 2018 she was named one of the most influential disabled people in the UK for her Disability & Lifestyle blog all about living with a visual impairment. She was diagnosed with degenerative eye condition Retinitis Pigmentosa aged 6 and was registered blind by 12. We had a lovely chat with Elin & her mum before we went to our respective tables for dinner. Catering for my difficult dietary requirements is tricky so whenever I go to big events with mass catering my expectations are always low. However, I was very pleasantly surprised. We had a very tasty tomato soup with a gluten-free dumpling to start. Now, I’m not going to lie, I still can’t tell you what the vegetarian main was, I’m going with some kind of Polenta slice but the vegetables, fondant potatoes and sauces which accompanied it made the whole plate taste fabulous. They’d gone to great effort with the vegan dessert to make a soy panna cotta with raspberry coulis but desserts generally aren’t my thing, especially milk-based ones even if they are dairy-free, but a gave it a try. We had some fab people on our table. From SuperTeacher Sarah Mullin, who was nominated for positive role model for gender and has way too many letters after her name, to another nominee from my category, Terry McCorry, a disability hate crime advocate and rheumatoid arthritis sufferer from Northern Ireland. He had brought along his beautiful wife Patricia. We talked twitter and walking sticks and had a lovely time. Talking of walking sticks, I was so excited to have been gifted a brand new one for the occasion by NeoWalks. Lyndsay, who runs Neowalks, is a beautiful soul. An amputee herself she wanted to make sure people know that walking sticks can be stylish too. I had chosen the champagne fizz stick which is clear and has beautiful bubbles in the acrylic. These catch the light and make the whole stick sparkle. I think this was the first time I’d ever felt proud to use a mobility aid. It complimented my forest green, sequinned mermaid dress, which Mike had bought me last Christmas, so well and with my freshly coloured red hair I did feel like a real-life Ariel for the evening. I felt like a million dollars. As soon as I have some spare cash I know I will have a whole NeoWalks walking stick wardrobe! Terry & I had a little wander around before the awards segment of the evening got started; the chairs were not ideal for people with hip problems. We were lucky enough to meet Sally Phillips who was so lovely and had time for everyone and asked questions despite being on a tight schedule. We also got to meet National Diversity Awards CEO Paul Sesay who thanked us for our hard work. Finally, we got to meet Dan White, who we had both met separately through Twitter. Dan is a broadcaster, writer and campaigner who had been nominated for these awards in the past but that evening he was there to celebrate the achievements of his amazing daughter Emily, who, at just 12 years old, won the award for positive role model for age. Emily was born with Spina Bifida, among other things, and has been a wheelchair user since she was 3. She wanted to see more people like her represented in TV & Books so, with the help fo her dad created ‘The Department of Ability Comic‘ which features 5 disabled superheroes. She has also appeared on almost all the major TV channels campaigning for better access & care for disabled children. She’s a true rockstar! Then it was time for the awards to be given out. A whole host of celebrities and public figures were in attendance to present the awards from the Mayor of Liverpool herself to Reggae Reggae Sauce creator Levi Roots, and one of my all-time favourite Paralympians, Hannah Cockcroft. Presenting my category was the editor of Able Magazine, Tom Jamison and Sports Pundit Chris Kamara who rather surprising got the whole room to join him in a chorus of Let It Be which you can see in my latest vlog. Unfortunately, It was not to be for me this time, but I’d come to that conclusion as soon as the nominees had been announced and I’d seen the caliber of who I was up against. Having been shortlisted from over 28,500 nominees, I felt like a winner just being in that room. Plus, Terry and I had already had the discussion that neither of us could possibly win considering we are disabled and we were seated right at the back 😛 The prize went to the brilliant Myles Sketchley who has Schizencephaly, a rare brain defect that caused cerebral palsy, scoliosis, kyphosis. He is a youth ambassador for Strong Bones and has traveled across Europe making wheelchair accessible guides to various attractions. Obviously, the whole room was filled with incredible people doing amazing things but one fo the main people that stood out to me was the winner of the entrepreneur of excellence award, Codilia Gapare. She is a breast cancer survivor who the first-ever range of false eyelashes for people undergoing chemotherapy called ‘C Lash‘. It’s such a simple but brilliant idea that I’m sure makes such a huge difference to people with Cancer and Alopecia. Her speech was so eloquent and she just really shone. After the awards, we were treated to some great entertainment including a fabulous Toy Story inspired number from Jennifer Ellison’s dance company, Jelli Studios. But one of my highlights of the night was the LMA choir who you may have seen on The X Factor. There was a technical glitch at first so they treated us to an impromptu acapella performance of the Circle of Life from The Lion King which, in the acoustics of the cathedral, sounded magical. But my favourite performance of there’s, which they ended up doing as an encore, was This Is Me from The Greatest Showman. I know this song is done to death despite the fact it’s been nearly 2 years since it’s release, but having a whole room of incredible, diverse people who knew exactly what that song meant singing along was a highlight of the evening. The evening finished with all the nominees getting on stage for a fabulous group photo. We shook hands with CEA Paul Sesay as he tried to convince us to join everyone at the after-party but after a 4 hour + journey that morning and a long evening of festivities I decided not to let the fear of missing out win and Mum and I headed back to our hotel in another £3 taxi despite it being almost 1am. Until I was nominated for one I’d never even heard of the national diversity awards but I think they are a hugely important event which should be much better recognised. Celebrating diverse people and inclusive companies which often don’t get any recognition despite their amazing work. I’m so glad to have many so many amazing people and to have learned about so many more. Thank you so much to the NDAs for having me and huge congratulations to all of the nominees & winners. To see more about my time at the national diversity awards and weekend in Liverpool head here to watch my vlog. Category: Illness, UncategorizedTags: awards, chronic illness, disability, diversity, eds, ehlers-danlos, ehlers-danlos syndrome, hsd, hypermobility, Illness, liverpool, national diversity awards, paul sesay, pots, role model, sally phillips, spoonie, vlogger, zebra ← My EDS Survival Kit (Part 1) Pain Awareness Month: A Letter to Pain → One Comment on “Friday Thoughts: The National Diversity Awards” Pingback: Friday Thoughts: The National Diversity Awards - National Diversity Awards	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2972
__label__cc	0.725625	0.274375	The rise of the chatbot in the contact center Do we see a model of coexistence emerge in the future where the agent and the bot complement each other's value proposition? ET CONTRIBUTORS By Ratna Puri In a typical contact center scenario, an agent requests a customer to wait for an issue resolution. Any slight delay or a short-of-best response, and the customer may look elsewhere to solve the problem. Even switch over to a competitor. As businesses push to reduce inefficiencies and costs, automation and other artificial intelligence (AI) programs are gaining prominence. And contact centers of the future may look beyond human agents to handle simple customer queries to provide better resolutions. Will chatbots be the answer to provide better customer care in the future? Which human tasks can chatbots perform diligently, and can they perform complex tasks hitherto managed by humans? The jury is out on that. But the bigger question is, do we see a model of coexistence emerge in the future where the agent and the bot complement each other's value proposition? In my assessment, this situation would be both scary and bright. Scary because it will demand an overhaul of the workplace. Bright as it will create a new niche agent work model. The Case for Chatbots When chatbots were first introduced around 1966, they were programmed to respond to a user's questions with simple matching patterns. Today, they possess sophisticated techniques to understand users' questions and deliver useful and relevant responses. For a chatbot, time is never a constraint. If a customer calls even at midnight for an issue resolution, the chatbot is at his service. If the customer is dissatisfied with the resolution and wants a longer conversation, the bot can still handle it. With businesses looking at reducing hiring and recruitment costs, chatbots can provide significant cost savings by replacing live agents at lower costs. For businesses, good customer service equals brand success. By using chatbots for instant response - even if it is just a plain "thank you" - and providing appropriate timelines for resolution, businesses earn customer goodwill. Chatbots may be contact centers' answer to the fundamental question: How do you delight customers without losing the human touch? Chatbots assist businesses by providing real-time, accurate responses to low-complexity customer queries, which largely revolve around non-functional product, warranty expiration, etc. Since time is of the essence, chatbots can bypass dependency on repair personnel and directly provide responses to customers and save precious time. Also, customer information is stored in the organizational database, making it easier for chatbots to dig out previous instances of customer problems and offer speedy resolution. The Numbers Prove It So how good are bots really? Studies have been conducted to gauge the efficiency and the future of chatbots. The number of users of virtual assistants in the US will grow by 23.1% in 2017. And by 2022, chatbots will save over $8 billion annually, up from $20 million in 2017. Let's look at the consumer side. About 27% of customers were unsure whether their last service interaction was with a bot or a human. And 40% didn't care who answered their query -- an agent or a bot - as long as it was resolved. So, bots are slowly blurring the lines between a human and a software program. The perception about bots is changing among customers, although favoring bots completely over human interactions is still a long way. Attitude-wise, 38% of consumers worldwide rated their overall perception of bots as positive, while only 11% rated their interaction as negative. When it comes to bots with "personality," 48% customers worldwide prefer a bot that solves their issues rather than a bot with a personality. With businesses including chatbots in increased frequency in customer interactions, the perception ratings of the bots will rise rapidly. The numbers are the best indication to prove it. And the interesting thing is its application across different industries. There is increased acceptance of chatbots, especially among customers, to resolve their queries. In an era of acute competition for business share, we will see their numbers only move up in the future. The Trouble With Bots In 2016, Microsoft released an AI bot named Tay, designed to mimic language patterns of a 19-year-old American girl and learn from interacting with Twitter users. But Tay began tweeting inflammatory and racist messages. An alarmed Microsoft shut down the bot only 16 hours after launch. Similarly, Facebook's bot created panic in the tech world when reports emerged it had created its own unique language. But the issue was blown out of proportion, and Facebook slammed the alarmist headlines. The underlying fact is the world is wary of chatbots/AI. Every technology has its limitation, and bots are no different. When customers interact with a bot, there may be occasions where the conversations might turn personal. A smart agent will notice this and try to steer the conversation to its original purpose. Since a bot is programmed to respond to any type of interaction, it might not be able to control unwanted conversations. A human agent can easily differentiate between a happy, sad, or angry customer and shape his responses accordingly. But can a bot in a contact center understand the vagaries of human emotions? We are in an era where agents are expected to provide personalized service to customers. In a crisis call, the bot may fail to recognize that a customer is in distress and its response may turn out to be lopsided. It may not be the bot's fault, but the customer will fault the contact center itself! The Future of Chatbots A study says nearly 80% of companies have used or plan to use chatbots by 2020. As AI marches, chatbots will move beyond customer service roles. But on the larger question whether they can fully replace human agents, the answer is no! They can be enhancements to the existing customer service processes. They can be deployed for basic, routine, and mundane tasks, freeing agents for complex processes. In the customer service business, chatbots will result in reduced holding times, improved FCR, and higher CSAT. Marketing, sales, research, lead generation are some areas where chatbots can be deployed. Contact centers that handle healthcare clients can use chatbots to expedite consultation-related paperwork and save time on administrative tasks. In finance, streamlining of cumbersome processes can be relegated to chatbots. Chatbots in retail and e-commerce businesses can be used to provide personalized shopping experience to customers and assist them in making logical decisions during shopping. We do see a future where businesses will integrate chatbots in many operations. Their use will help contact centers to reduce operational costs and improve process efficiencies - the two mantras the BPM industry lives by. Chatbots will not replace intelligent human operations, but they will surely complement and assist human agents in delivering superior customer service. The art of crystal-gazing is fraught with risks, but chatbots are here to stay! (Ratna Puri is Associate Director, Training and Quality, Concentrix India.) Concentrix India Most Read in Corporate French IT firm Atos makes $10 billion DXC takeover approach: Sources Scotiabank ropes in new CTO from JM Financial	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2974
__label__wiki	0.509279	0.509279	Rustic Meets Modern Homeowner Sam Silvey, principal of Silvey Huffaker Creative, with his girl, Annie For Sam Silvey, building a bluffside retreat has “been a journey” – one that began when he was rock climbing up the side of Lookout Mountain. By Rebecca Rochat Photography by Med Dement Full PDF here He was cresting over an outcropping of boulders when he came upon an empty lot. It wasn’t just any lot – the Lookout Mountain property had a sweeping 180-degree view of the valley below and a 100-foot waterfall. So why hadn’t it been built on? His curiosity piqued, Silvey decided to do some research when he got home. He found that the lot had actually been for sale for seven years, but had never been purchased having been deemed “almost impossible” to build on. If a house were to be constructed, he discovered, it would have to be built on partial rock. Not only that, loads of fill dirt would have to be trucked in to stabilize the remaining lot. After long consideration, Silvey decided he was up for the challenge. He purchased the one-acre lot in April of 2012 and began construction that August. Sam says the home’s interior was “built for entertaining.” In the common area, separate spaces are defined by furniture placement – an open floor plan allowing for easy movement across the space. To maximize the view at the rear of the house, Sam swapped traditional fixed windows and doors for 30 feet of custom-made accordion doors that open out to a back deck. Whether relaxing, dining, or watching TV, distant views of the mountains and horizon are always visible. Silvey’s Outdoor Area A sitting area facing one section of the doors is comprised of a sofa, coffee table, occasional chair, and footstool. The table, designed and built by Sam, uses a 120-year-old butcher block for the top and two short tree trunks for the base. A long bar paired with black walnut stools divides the living area from the kitchen. The contemporary kitchen’s clean lines and stainless steel surfaces give it fresh and minimalist look. Situated in front of a second set of accordion doors is a custom-made black walnut kitchen table paired with aluminum side chairs, over which hangs a white globe-shaped lantern. Between the two sections of doors is a wall housing a flat-screen TV. Sam says that when he was determining the design and position of the house, there were two things he wanted to maximize: the view and natural daylight. To allow for an abundance of sunlight throughout the day, the roofline was offset and a band of five narrow windows was incorporated into the western-facing front roof of the house. The Master Bedroom Concrete footers were poured to add support to the deck, which juts out over the bluff and the boulders below. Sam says there are two events he especially enjoys from his house’s perch on the bluff: one, the stars on a clear night, and two, the storms moving through the valley. He says that when things are very quiet, you can hear the sound of the waterfall flowing and the wind blowing through the trees. And since cool breezes flow from the outside when the doors are open, the air conditioner is rarely needed. Oak barn doors on sliding metal tracks open into the master bedroom, which has contemporary furniture with a minimalist flair. With its floating sideboards flanked by floating end tables, the bed is the focal point of the room. Gray and white bedding in a mixture of smooth and textured fabrics contributes to the room’s sense of calm. To take advantage of the view from the bedroom and let in plentiful natural light, Sam installed large plate glass windows. In front of two corner windows is a seating arrangement with two Eames molded plywood chairs and a Marcel Breuer tubular steel cocktail table. The home’s use of subtle texture continues into the master bath, which is outfitted with tiling of varying sizes and shades of gray. Natural materials are once again adapted to a modern structure with the double vanity, comprised of two vessel sinks of roughhewn stone atop a handmade wooden counter with a steel base.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2976
__label__cc	0.533708	0.466292	CU Denver and Auraria Campus are open and operating on a normal schedule today, Tuesday, Sep. 8, 2020. For updates, call 1-877-556-3637. Read More » Inclusion & Climate Home About Us Philosophy Department News Philosophy Department News Please click here for information about our ongoing Lecture Series. The CU Denver Philosophy Department welcomes you to the new semester. CultureKlatsch: A Humanities Podcast About Contemporary Culture - Season 2 premiere Wednesday, October 14th. CultureKlatsch, a production of the English and Philosophy Departments at the University of Colorado Denver, extends our conversations about contemporary culture by sharing nuanced, perceptive, philosophical commentary on the content and issues that matter most. The conversations happening on social media and streaming platforms have the ability to point our cultural lenses in a thousand different directions. CultureKlatsch examines the media that are most relevant to the current cultural moment and most likely to emerge in our everyday discussions with friends. We’ll recreate the spontaneous and philosophical conversations that happen in coffee shops while delving deeply into what topical books, television, and movies have to tell us about who we are and what we care most about. CU Denver News // CU Denver Launches Redesigned University and Student Services Websites. CU Denver/Anschutx Office of Diversity and Inclusion awards our own Dr. Boram Jeong with the 2020 Rosa Parks Diversity Award for faculty! CU Denver News // City Stories Coronavirus-Era Career Advice From Recession-Era Alumni featuring CU Denver Philosophy Graduate Alaina Moore '08! CU Denver News // City Stories Where Are All the Women Philosophers? segment with our very own Dr. Sarah Tyson. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all Spring, Maymester, and Summer courses will be offered as remote or online. Remote courses will incorporate both synchronous and asynchronous teaching methods where the professor will be available for the entirety of the meeting time over email and through the scheduled ZOOM meeting times. ZOOM meeting times will vary from course to course, so be sure to check the course descriptions for specific times. Online courses will remain asynchronous. Resources for transitioning to remote learning. David Hildebrand became the President of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (2020-2022). CU Denver will host the SAAP meeting in March 2021. What is SAAP? "SAAP exists to advance scholarship and teaching in the diverse areas of American Philosophy. Work on figures and issues in American pragmatism, American idealism, American naturalism, American transcendentalism, and process philosophy are encouraged. The society also supports collaborative transactions between these strains of American thought with feminism, indigenous philosophies, African American philosophy, Latin American and Latinx philosophies, post-colonialism, and race theories, to name just a few." Learn more at https://american-philosophy.org/about Dr. Sarah Tyson has started a new Philosophy Department Podcast series. Check out the first session with Dr. Tyson and Dr. Candice Shelby, Substance Use in a Pandemic. NEW STUDY ABROAD OPPORTUNITY - CU Denver Philosophy in Berlin, Fall 2020! CU Denver Philosophy will no longer be offering the Certificate of Ethics. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, our remaining guest lectures have been cancelled. 4+1 Masters Program. In conjunction with the University of Colorado Denver Masters of Humanities Program, the Philosophy Department has launched a 4+1 Program. With proper planning, this program allows qualified students to earn a Master’s Degree in Humanities (Philosophy and Theory track) in 5 years. At the end, students will have both Philosophy Major (B.A.) and an MH degree. Majors in particular are invited to apply to the program. Upon acceptance, students are allowed to take graduate-level courses during their remaining semesters of undergraduate study. These classes count BOTH towards satisfying requirements of the BA major and the Master’s degree in Philosophy. Students may take up to 5 dual-counted graduate seminars in this way, so that by the time the student completes their undergraduate degree, they are already half-way done with their Masters degree. Those interested should contact department advisors or the Program Assistant for more information. Program Assistant. The Department welcomes John Brogan to the position of Program Assistant in the Philosophy. Liz Puente-Calderon has decided to pursue new adventures and will be sorely missed but we're excited to have John on board. Promotion. David Hildebrand was promoted to Professor in 2019. Sarah K. Tyson publishing a book Where are the Women?: Why Expanding the Archive Makes Philosophy Better (Columbia University Press, 2018). The department will be hosting a book release event in October. Dr. Tyson has also recently contributed a book chapter to The Heart of the Other? in which she frames a conversation between the philosopher Jacques Derrida's first year of seminars on the death penalty with the words of Spoon Jackson, a poet serving a sentence of life without parole, to consider what it means to abolish the death penalty. Tyson was recently promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure. Robert Metcalf published the book Philosophy as Agôn: A Study of Plato's Gorgias and Related Texts (Northwestern University Press, 2018) Based on a careful reading of the Gorgias and related Socratic dialogues, such as Apology and Theaetetus, Metcalf contends that agôn is indispensable to the critique of prevailing opinions, to the transformation of the interlocutor through shame-inducing refutation, and to philosophy as a lifelong training (askêsis) of oneself in relation to others. Metcalf was recently promoted to Professor. Boram Jeong (Ph.D. Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA/ Ph.D. Université Paris VIII Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Paris, France-Philosophy, under a dual-degree agreement) joined the faculty as Assistant Professor in Fall 2017. Boram works on 19th-20th Century Continental Philosophy, Contemporary French Philosophy, and Social and Political Philosophy. Welcome, Boram! Candice Shelby Published a book, Addiction: A Philosophical Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Candice has had a successful event at the Auraria Library and an event at Barnes and Noble, and she will have more lectures regarding her book throughout the year. Congratulations, Candice! Brian Lisle Receives promotion to Senior Instructor! Congratulations, Brian! "Zamosc-Regueros presents paper in UK" (Dean's Notes, CLAS, October 2014) "Philosophy Department Hosts Engaging Series of Events" (Dean's Notes, CLAS, October 2014) "Philosophy Event Takes Humans to Court" (CLAS Pinnacle, May 2014). David Hildebrand devotes his time this semester to teaching one section each of an eight-part certificate program. The certificate program, run through CU Denver's Graduate School, is being referred to as the "Mini School of the Humanities." The program is free and open to the public, and students who attend at least six lessons will receive an academic Certificate in Humanities. Dr. Hildebrand will teach "Objectivity and Neutrality in Contemporary Media." "University of Colorado Denver hosts a free Mini School for the Humanities, starting tonight" (Westword, Oct. 2, 2013) "Hildebrand gives multiple presentations in Scandinavia" (CU Newsroom, Jul. 2013). "Metcalf selected for institute and teaching in Italy this summer" (CLAS Pinnacle, May 2013). "Don Maloney: Faith, science, and music for a true Renaissance Man" (UCD Advocate, April 2013). "Sarah Tyson: No easy choices in a philosopher’s work" (UCD Advocate, Feb. 2013). "Passion for knowledge triumphs over career-seeking," By Adam Blair, Philosophy Major and "inFocus" Editor for the UCD Advocate (UCD Advocate, Nov. 2012). "Philosophy hosted visiting scholar Frega" (CLAS Pinnacle, Nov. 2012). Sarah Tyson (Ph.D. Vanderbilt University) joined the faculty as Assistant Professor in Fall 2012. Sarah works on Feminist Theory, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, and Social and Political Philosophy. Welcome, Sarah! "Metcalf named Co-Director of the Ancient Philosophy Society and led seminar in Italy" (CLAS Pinnacle, Sept. 2012). "Hildebrand presents paper to annual Advancement of American Philosophy meeting" (CLAS Pinnacle, May 2012). "Ethics Bowl team repeats win at Rocky Mountain Regional, moving on to National Championship" (CLAS Pinnacle, Jan. 2012) In Fall 2011, Dr. Mark Bauer (Ph.D. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) joined the department as a Visiting Assistant Professor. His specialties include Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Biology. "Sam Walker: Deep thoughts and hard rock beats" (UCD Advocate, Nov. 2011). "Tennis: Philosophy Grads Find Success in Music" (CLAS Pinnacle, Jul. 2011). "Hildebrand Gives Talks on Pragmatism and Democracy in Rome and Paris" (CLAS Pinnacle, Jul. 2011). Why Philosophy? CultureKlatsch Receives CARES Grant CultureKlatsch Podcast goes Interdisciplinary for Season Two Philosophy Department Launches a New Podcast On-line Symposium focuses on Sarah Tyson’s Where are the Women Philosophy podcast now co-hosted by Sarah Tyson Feed from Deans Notes , University of Colorado Denver Campus Box: 955 Lawrence St. Plaza Building, Room M108 Program Assistant: John Brogan David Hildebrand Department Advising: Undergraduate Advisors for Majors & Minors in Philosophy/Ethics: Mark Tanzer Sam Walker Advising, CLAS Undergraduate (General): CLAS Undergraduate Advising	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2978
__label__wiki	0.712284	0.712284	Soaker Throw Cold Water on Jack White ‘Pork Pie Hat’ Rock Andrew Bonazelli Courtesy of Soaker While we question at least one-third of the theorem that sex is natural, fun and best when it's one-on-one, we know that intimacy is inexorably enmeshed with most of our favorite art. In today's Late Night Dedication, we test the carnal knowledge of art-damaged noise-punk three-piece Soaker, comprised of ex-members of Run DMT and Yellow Eyes. Their four-song eponymous debut EP is dropping November 4 on Wharf Cat and can be pre-ordered here. Check out "Sendhi" below. What was on the first mix you made for a crush? My memory is completely Chaka Khan-ed, so I can’t remember all the specifics, but I did like to mix up some Crystal Palace and Cokes in my parents’ basement and play the classic rock station for crushes. In Rochester, this was 95.1 The Fox — Steve Miller Band and Pure Prairie League and stuff. This would signal that I’m a fun guy who can take care of you if need be. No crush of mine has ever really cared about music too much, and I don’t care about turning them on to anything new, to be honest. John Cusack is a bitch. What albums can you not listen to because of a break-up? This has never happened to me, but I dated a girl who listened to a lot of Jack White pork pie hat rock music, and I can’t fucking stand that. Girls in New York with big hats think they look like Stevie Nicks, but they look like Jack White. Thoughts on PDA at a gig? It’s very, very good. I saw a 14-year-old kid finger his girlfriend during Cypress Hill at Rock the Bells festival a few years ago. Is music during sex corny? The Soaker EP is really good for this kind of thing. Does going to a show constitute a date? If you hold hands during the last song of the night, yes, it can be a special thing. That said, I wouldn’t recommend it. Best to go get an ice cream and chat sweetly; or if you aren’t good at talking, go see a movie, and then you can just talk about it afterwards. Shows generally stink, so unless you’re going for the stink thing, I’d just avoid it. What musician would you want to make out with most (dead or alive)? Shania Twain under the cold Canadian moon. Mutt Lange is in the distant background, flailing in the icy sea. He calls for help, but we just ignore him as the freezing water fills his lungs. Adios, Mutt. Does music taste matter in a relationship? If your s.o. doesn't like the good shit, you may honor-kill them in accordance with the Hadith. Would you ever date someone that was a fan of your band? Yeah — we didn’t start this band for the money, I’ll tell you that much. Have you ever cried while listening to a song? If so, what was the last time? I’m in control of ALL EMOTIONS for the most part, so no, not really, but I was at a military funeral recently and did well up during "Taps." Sad music generally makes me feel pretty good, though. I don’t want to sit there and cry. Put my face in the pillow and leave a big make-up face on the pillow case. Have you ever had to talk to somebody about a song you’ve written about them? Not verbally; more like transmitted through his eyes the first time I saw him after I knew that he knew. What musician knows the most about love? Billy Joe Shaver does. He married the same woman three times and divorced her twice. If I were going to cry during a song, it might be Billy Joe’s “Day by Day." He’s 77, and if you go see him play, he’s moving around, drinking Red Bulls, giving it 100 percent. His wife died, and I think he figures that if he slows down too much, he’s done for. Do you like love songs or hate songs more? The best love songs are — deep down — actually filled with hate. This works both ways. The record we just made sounds pretty angry, but it’s really quite a sexy record. It’s best to just mix everything together and make a human song. That’s the key to being a perfect artist and making a hit record. Filed Under: Late Night Dedication, Soaker Categories: Columns	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2982
__label__wiki	0.52015	0.52015	San Antonio - Bed & Breakfast General Availability Information - San Antonio Country Inn Bed Only Country Inn Room List Room Available Gozo Malta Weather Xlendi Bay Suba Diving Gozo Walks A list of sites that feature the weather for today and the next 7 days for the Maltese islands AccWeather Malta Weather Malta Airport Windfinder Club Gozo Limited is a Maltese registered company bearing no. C17058 and Vat No. 1318-9036. We are members of the Gozo Tourism Association. We are a small family owned and operated business run by the Grech and Zammit Family. George Grech, his sister Maria Zammit, and their mother Anna Grech. Being a family run business, we offer a more personalised service, and are there when you need us, either for information or if you have any difficulty. We first started with a few apartments in Xlendi bay and this has now grown to a modest size. We now offer clients a wide range of accommodations be it for a short holiday or an extend stay for long term rentals. Discount - Sconto - Remise - ディスカウント We offer a 10% SPECIAL discount on DIRECT RESERVATION, certain conditions apply. If you have any questions on our DISCOUNT OFFER send me a email from the Contact Us Form on the main menu! Enter the word "DISCOUNT" in the coupon code box when making a reservation. Nous offrons un rabais spécial de 10% sur une réservation directe. Certaines conditions s'appliquent. Si vous avez des questions sur notre offre de remise, envoyez-moi un email à partir du formulaire de contact du menu principal! Entrez le mot "DISCOUNT" dans la case du code du coupon lorsque vous effectuez une réservation. Offriamo uno sconto speciale del 10% sulla PRENOTAZIONE DIRETTA, si applicano determinate condizioni. Se hai domande sulla nostra OFFERTA SCONTO, inviami una e-mail dal modulo Contattaci nel menu principale! Inserisci la parola "DISOUNT" nella casella del codice coupon quando effettui una prenotazione. 直接予約で10％の特別割引を提供します。特定の条件が適用されます。あなたが私たちの割引提供について何か質問があれば私にメインメニューのお問い合わせフォームから私にメールを送ってください！予約時に、クーポンコードボックスに「DISCOUNT」と入力してください。 Gozo Accommodation Gozo Bed & Breakfast San Antonio Guesthouse is a cosy bed and breakfast that is just a five-minute walk from Xlendi bay. The Guesthouse is also within very close proximity of restaurants, dive shops and other points of interest, including a bus stop that is just a minute's walk. This Bed and Breakfast has just 22 rooms, all complete with air-conditioning and a private shower or bathroom. And there are two large pools for your enjoyment. Gozo - Maltese: Għawdex, pronounced “awdɛsh, formerly Gaulos in Ancient Greek) is an island of the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. The island is part of Malta. After the island of Malta itself, it is the second-largest island in the archipelago. Compared to its south eastern neighbour, Gozo is more rural and known for its scenic hills, which are featured on its coat of arms. The island of Gozo has long been associated with Ogygia, the island home of the nymph Calypso in Homer's Odyssey. In that story, Calypso, possessed of great supernatural powers, and in love with Odysseus, holds him captive for a number of years, until finally releasing him to continue his journey home. As of March 2015, the island has a population of around 37,342 (out of Malta's total 445,000), and its inhabitants are known as Gozitans (Maltese: Għawdxin). It is rich in historic locations such as the Ġgantija temples, which, along with the other Megalithic Temples of Malta, are among the world's oldest free-standing structures. The island is rural in character and, compared to the main island Malta, less developed. It was known for the Azure Window, a natural limestone arch that was a remarkable geological feature, until its collapse in 2017. The island has other notable natural features, including the Inland Sea and Wied il-Mielaħ Window. There are many beaches on the island, as well as seaside resorts that are popular with both locals and tourists, the most popular being Marsalforn and Xlendi. Gozo is considered one of the top diving destinations in the Mediterranean and a centre for water sports. Gozo has been inhabited since 5000 BC, when farmers from nearby Sicily crossed the sea to the island. Due to the discovery of similar pottery found in both places from the Għar Dalam phase, it has been suggested that the first colonists were specifically from the area of Agrigento; however, it is currently unknown exactly where in Sicily the farmers came from. They are thought to have first lived in caves on the outskirts of what is now known as San Lawrenz. Gozo was an important place for cultural evolution, and during the neolithic period the Ġgantija temples were built; they are among the world's oldest free-standing structures, as well as the world's oldest religious structures. The temple's name is Maltese for "belonging to the giants", because legend in Maltese and Gozitan folklore says the temples were built by giants. Another important Maltese archaeological site in Gozo, which dates back to the neolithic period, is the Xagħra Stone Circle. Also, native tradition and certain ancient Greek historians (notably Euhemerus and Callimachus) maintain that Gozo is the island Homer described as Ogygia, home of the nymph Calypso. In July 1551 Ottomans under Sinan Pasha and Dragut invaded and ravaged Gozo and enslaved most of its inhabitants, about 5,000, bringing them to Tarhuna Wa Msalata in Libya, their departure port in Gozo was Mġarr ix-Xini. The island of Gozo was repopulated between 1565 and 1580 by people from mainland Malta, undertaken by the Knights of Malta. The history of Gozo is strongly coupled with the history of Malta, since Gozo has been governed by Malta throughout history, with the brief exception of a short period of autonomy following the uprising against the French forces after Napoleon's conquest of Malta, between 28 October 1798 and 20 August 1801. Contact Us - We are a Family run bed and Breakfast just a five-minute walk to the sea! San Antonio Guest House Tower Street Xlendi Gozo Malta Mobile - Whatsapp: +356 9949 6807 - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. DISCOVER THE THINGS TO DO ON GOZO! This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse you accept their use. Subject: Message:	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2983
__label__cc	0.706045	0.293955	Ephesians overview – 3:14-19, part 51: Inner man; the good heart developed by commitment to the Lord in all circumstances. EPHESIANS-1-2006014 length: 86:15 - taught on Jun, 14 2020 Sunday June 14,2020 Title: Ephesians overview - 3:14-19, part 51: Inner man; the good heart developed by commitment to the Lord in all circumstances. All who desire to live godly will be persecuted. 2TI 3:12 And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. It’s important to see the context of this verse. Why are the godly persecuted, and why is it important to remain faithful to godliness when we are? 2TI 3:1-5 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these. It’s no mistake that at the top of the list of everything wrong man would do was to be a lover of self. All the rest that Paul insightfully writes flows from this top problem. The fallen man without God is alone in the world. We don’t discover this until we’re old enough, but from birth we go astray from our Creator. Without God, man seeks to give to himself, protect himself, and knowing that men should have worth (things he ought to do and not ought to do), he elevates himself and calls himself holy (holding to a form [outward shell] of godliness). If he can satisfy himself that he has accomplished this, which he is only lying to himself, then he sits content, i.e. the man who built barns and filled them. If he cannot satisfy himself in this, he lashes out at others (unloving, irreconcilable, gossip, brutal, treacherous, reckless) and claims that he has been treated unfairly. This is where all the claims of social injustice comes from. 2TI 3:6- 9 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 And just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected as regards the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, as also that of those two came to be. MAT 10:16-18 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves. 17 But beware of men; for they will deliver you up to the courts, and scourge you in their synagogues; 18 and you shall even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.” PRO 29:9-12 When a wise man has a controversy with a foolish man, The foolish man either rages or laughs, and there is no rest. 10 Men of bloodshed hate the blameless, But the upright are concerned for his life. 11 A fool always loses his temper, But a wise man holds it back. 12 If a ruler pays attention to falsehood, All his ministers become wicked. What are the believers and lovers of God to do? 2TI 3:10-17 But you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, 11 persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord delivered me! 12 And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them; 15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings [Timothy’s mother was a Jewess] which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work [the epignosis leading to the truth]. 1PE 4:19 Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2987
__label__cc	0.67559	0.32441	Augmented Reality in Museums and Exhibitions: Improving Visitors Experience Philipp Begala Museums today face a challenge in keeping a steady stream of visitors coming in. As technologies become embedded in everyday life, seeing a static sculpture, a fossil, or the ruins of a centennial building, do not seem interesting enough anymore — especially to younger audiences who have grown up in a digital world. How can museums remain relevant in our technology-driven society? Critic, curator and academic, Robert Hewison, says, “Museums are much more than repositories of objects; they are meeting places for people and ideas. Their future depends on remaining a dynamic part of the public realm”. The key to the survival of museums is dynamism, and apps utilizing new technologies such as Augmented Reality and Image Recognition might be the solution. Bridging the gap between digital and physical Of course, audio guides, QR codes and mobile apps are already being used by many museums to enhance the visitor experience, but that is not enough. The goal of museums is to entertain and educate, and in the new museology doctrine, storytelling is at the center of the experience. Such interactive, digital narratives can be successfully achieved through augmented reality (AR) and related tech, such as image recognition. With the help of these technologies, visitors can see extra digital content on top of the view of the actual objects at the museum, and to do this, they only need a mobile device. Several museums started to develop AR apps to increase engagement by bringing displays alive and crafting stories that can make the learning realm of museums much more fun. Think ‘Night at the Museum’ blended with Pokémon Go! Examples of Augmented Reality apps in museums Augmented Reality apps had a strong presence at the Museums and the Web 2016 conference, including a GLAMi Nomination to the Kspace Augmented Reality Trial app, brought by the National Museum of Australia in collaboration Eye Candy Animation. Kspace is an interactive game for kids where you can build your own time-traveling robot and then go on an adventure to explore a mystery location in Australia’s past. It’s not all just games for kids though! The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History developed an app that brings dinosaur skeletons and fossils alive by just directing your camera towards the object. Using the Skin and Bones app, you can see life-size models of the species through Augmented Reality. Technology is also transforming contemporary art. For example, Mexican “Virtualidades” was among the first exhibitions to experiment with transforming the art objects via Augmented Reality. When visitors held a tablet or smartphone up to the pieces, the objects “came to life”: broken mannequins became whole, walls grew robot arms and magical creatures appeared out of thin air. This calls for art museums to adopt image recognition and AR technologies in order to keep up with artists and be able to display their work in innovative ways. Benefits of AR apps for museums and exhibitions If you are in the Museum business, you should consider integrating AR apps to improve your visitor experience. Here’s all that you’ll be able to achieve: Create visual tour guides that are adaptable, updatable and viewable without special devices (using everyday mobile devices only). Resurrect objects that people were not able to see until now, bringing people and objects that existed thousands of years ago to life. Allow visitors to immerse themselves in virtual worlds and recreate entire building interiors and exteriors. Turn education into entertainment through interactive AR gaming experiences for young visitors. Create compelling storylines that can be taken outside the museum, or re-created differently during the visits, so the experience never feels repetitive. After all, as well as preserving the past, museums and exhibitors must mirror the outside world to stay relevant if they want to survive. If you are hungry for more content on museum tech, don’t miss out on our Case Study on how the Australian National Portrait Gallery used our tech to improve the visitors’ experience. Photo and video credits: National Museum Australia, Council of Australasian Museum Directors, Galeria Merida (Mexico), Museu de Mataró (Spain), The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (USA), Science Museum Oklahoma Machine Visualization (7) News & Events (7) Packaged Goods (38) Print and Publishing (20) 16 Cool Augmented Reality Advertising Campaigns The Top Way to Showcase Built-in Components and Products Grocery Scanners for Product Ordering: Supermarkets Online Revolution	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2990
__label__wiki	0.704535	0.704535	cats facts Cat Who Had Been Missing for 11 Years Is Finally Reunited with His Owner in New York Carol O’Connell had been watching Tiger roam around her neighborhood for three years before she managed to get close enough to the cat DUTCHESS COUTNY SPCA A woman was in for the surprise of a lifetime when her beloved cat who had been missing for over a decade turned up in New York this week. Dutchess County SPCA staff member Carol O’Connell spent the last three years watching a stray cat roaming around her neighborhood, according to the Hyde Park animal rescue, who shared the amazing story on their Facebook page on Thursday. Though the feline would come by her home from time to time, the DCSPCA said O’Connell never managed to get close enough to pet him — that is until recently. “On a whim, she borrowed a scanner from the shelter and discovered the cat was microchipped,” the DCSPCA wrote on Facebook, adding that the chip allowed O’Connell to learn that the black and brown furry animal had a name and an owner. But that wasn’t the most intriguing part of the story: Tiger, as he was called, had been missing from his mom Maggie Welz for a whopping 11 years! After seeing a doctor, who noted Tiger was in “remarkably good shape for having been on the streets that long,” he was finally reunited with Welz on Thursday. The sweet moment was documented through a series of photos on the DCSPCA’s Facebook and included everything from Tiger sitting in his cage, to him getting checked out by a vet, to the heartwarming moment where he was reunited with Welz. “Today he is back with his family whom he had not seen since he was 3 years old,” the shelter proudly wrote beside the happy images. Speaking to ABC 7 after the reunion, O’Connell explained that she was inspired to help the kitty after noticing that his health appeared to be declining. “Each year he came to my house, he deteriorated more and more each year, and that’s when I realized either somebody just abandoned him or he just was missing or lost or he was just a feral cat,” O’Connell told the outlet. “This spring he started to come around a little bit more in the mornings so I started to work harder to try to gain his trust,” she added. Welz also shared with the local news outlet that Tiger had run away 11 years ago after someone accidentally opened their door and let him escape. “We were heartbroken and we ended up a year later moving to another house about 10 houses from that house and we told those owners to keep an eye out for him but he never returned,” she recalled to ABC 7. Despite being gone for more than a decade, Welz said she was always confident that her furry friend would one day return home. “At that point, we determined that he was coming home, we had made a commitment to him and we wanted him to come back home to us,” she told the outlet. Now, with her beloved cat back in her arms, Welz said she is forever indebted to O’Connell and her family for finding Tiger. “I can’t tell them how grateful I am to them for their persistence and their dedication and for making sure that our cat was okay,” Welz said. “I have no idea where he was for the years in between, I’m sure he could tell us many tales, but the thing is that he is now home with us and he will be with us for the remainder of his life,” she sweetly added. Watch The Video : Share this story with friends Cat Who Was Rejected for Being a Lap Cat, Finds Family that Loves Him and Can’t Stop Cuddling Lady Dies Within Hours of Losing Her Beloved Cat Clever Cat Visits Store Every Day To Ask People To Buy Him Treats Kitten Saved from Highway by Officer, Jumped into His Lap and Insisted on Going Home with Him Man Helps Stray Cat Just in Time So Her Kittens Can Have a Better Life Elderly Man Collects Scrap Metal Every … Stray Kitten Found Under Bus Cuddles … Guy Finds Kittens Frozen To The … Cat Has Never Been A Fan … Shy Cat Finds Happiness When She … A Family Gave Their Dad With … Cats Street Copyright © 2021.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2991
__label__wiki	0.748191	0.748191	More History (6245) Books > History > 1965 War The Inside Story (Defence Minister Y.B. Chavan’s Diary of India-Pakistan War) 1965 War The Inside Story (Defence Minister Y.B. Chavan’s Diary of India-Pakistan War) by R.D. Pradhan R.D. Pradhan joined the Indian Administrative Service (lAS) in the erstwhile Bombay State in 1952.ln 1960 he joined Y.B. Chavan, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra as his Private Secretary. In 1965 he joined the Ministry of Commerce and handled several landmark negotiations. In 1967 he was appointed as India’s Representative in Geneva to UNCTAD and GATT and later joined the UN. In 1982 he was appointed the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra and in 1985 the Union Home Secretary. In 1987 he became the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh and also acted as Governor of Bihar. He was awarded Padma Bhushan for distinguished Public Service in negotiating peace accords for the Punjab, Assam and Mizoram. As an author he has to his credit books like Working with Rajiv Gandhi and Debacle to Revival-On Y.B. Chavan’s Tenure as the Defence Minister. He has written several books in Marathi as well. Currently settled down in Mumbai, he is Vice-chairman of the Nehru Center and a Trustee of the Y.B. Chavan Foundation. The diary of the 1965 Indo-Pak War recorded by the Defence Minister in his own hand was found in Y.B. Chavan’s papers deposited according to his ‘Will’ in the Venutai Chavan Smarak Library in Karad, Satara district of Maharashtra. Late Shri Shyamrao Pawar, a Trustee, made it available to me for publication in a suitable manner. I had reproduced it in my book Debacle to Revival, Y.B. Chavan as Defence Minister 1962-65, published by the Orient Longman (1999). This publication is not an account of 1965 India-Pakistan War. The author, while familiar with the working of the Defence Ministry, the Army headquarters and defence formations, does not claim any expertise to deal with complex military operations. Deployment of troops and battles have therefore been dealt with somewhat sketchily, with the limited objective of annotating what the Defence Minister-has written in the Diary in his own cryptic style. During the last four decades, several books detailing the Military Operations have been published by defence officers of India and Pakistan. In describing the course of these events in the Indo-Pak War of 1965, the author has mainly relied on accounts given in The Indo-Pakistan Conflict by Russel Brines; Behind the Scene by Maj. Gen. Joginder Singh and Missed Opportunities, Indo-Pak War 1965 by Maj. Gen. Lachhman Singh. The author has found material available in Capt. Amrinder Singh’s Lest We Forget (1999) and Lt. Gen. Harbaksh Singh’s In the Line of Duty-A Soldier Remembers (2000) of use in checking out material used from three publications mentioned earlier. Author gratefully acknowledges debt that he owes to all these authors. This book is intended to highlight what is known as the ‘Higher Direction of War’ by the Defence Minister, who enjoyed trust and full backing of the Prime Minister late Lal Bahadur Shastri. For the author that alone is an important reason to publish the Diary. The Henderson-Brook Report of Inquiry into NEFA Reverses in 1962 India-China War had commented that the political leadership did not offer to the Service Chiefs sufficient guidance in shape of what is known in military parlance as ‘Higher Directions of War’. Chavan had described that the main aim of the Inquiry was to learn lessons. 1965 War was a test, whether those lessons had been learnt, and how well? The Defence Minister’s Diary may help military historians to make that assessment. In order to help reader to follow the course of events, the book is divided broadly in three sections. The first section, Chapters 1-5, briefly describes situation on ground, Pakistan’s intentions and India’s military assessment. Second section contains the Diary of 22-day India-Pakistan War as recorded by Y.B. Chavan. It is presented in two parts. In Part I, Chapters 6-13, it has been reproduced in full, with commentary relating to the military operations and other matters referred to by the Defence Minister while Part 11, Chapters 14-17, contains day-to-day extracts of the Diary relating to the United Nations and other diplomatic interventions. Third section, Chapters 18-22, is an overall assessment of the conduct of war, of relationship between the Defence Minister and the Chiefs, of lessons learnt after the India-China conflict in 1962 and Y.B. Chavan’s reflections on futility of wars to resolve the basic issue that led to the first India-Pakistan war. I hope that this publication may be of interest to students of military history, officers of armed forces and may be of use to political leaders, who are entrusted with the task of defence and security of India’s borders and decisions relating to war and peace. 1965 Indo-Pakistan War had its origin in what Pakistan regarded as the Kashmir issue. In 1962, when China attacked from the northern borders, Pakistan saw an opportunity to create problems on the Western Front. Pakistan was firmly restrained by the United Kingdom and the United States. On the Chinese declaring unilateral ceasefire both offered military assistance to India. That had upset President Ayub, and Pakistan started strong propaganda against the massive arms aid to India. India’s position on Kashmir was made clear at the beginning of 1964 by the Indian representative in the UN Security Council. He stated that, “The threats of violence which have been emanated from Pakistan must cease.” Then he added, “Once better atmosphere prevails, it would be possible-we are prepared to discuss with Pakistan all our outstanding differences.” In December 1964, the Home Minister, Gulzarilal Nanda, declared in the Parliament political measures which would put the state of Jammu and Kashmir on par with the other Indian states under the Constitution. These measures included legal powers to enable Government of India to impose the President’s Rule. After this, President Ayub and Pakistan Government started preparations for armed conflict with India. Pakistan developed a four phase strategy to capture Kashmir valley by force. The first consisted of a ‘probing encounter’ in some place of Pakistan’s choosing; the second, an all-out but disguised invasion of Kashmir. The third was a full-scale army assault by the Pakistan Army in the Chhamb Sector to cut off the Indian supply line to Jammu and Kashmir and finally, a massive lightning armoured attack to capture Amritsar and as much of other Indian territory as possible, to be exchanged eventually for Kashmir. The first operation, code-named The Operation Desert Hawk was launched early in 1965 in the Ram of Kutch. On the outbreak of the conflict Harold Wilson initiated moves to secure ceasefire and eventually the matter was referred to arbitration. That set the stage for the second phase to launch a guerrilla type operation in Jammu and Kashmir, named Operation Gibraltar. On failure of Operation Gibraltar, President Ayub Khan egged on by Zulfikar Bhutto, his Foreign Minister, decided on military option. On 29 August he sent a top secret order to his Army Chief General, Mohammed Musa: 1. ... to take such action as will defreeze Kashmir problem [sic], weaken India’s resolve and bring her to the conference table without provoking a general war. However, the element of escalation is always present in such struggles. So, whilst confining our actions to the Kashmir area we must not be unmindful that India may, in desperation, involve us in a general war or violate Pakistani territory where we are weak. We must therefore be prepared for such contingency. 2. To expect quick results in this struggle, when India has much larger forces than us, would be unrealistic. Therefore our action should be such that can be sustained over a long period. 3. As a general rule, Hindu morale would not stand for more than a couple of hard blows delivered at the right time and the right place. Such opportunities should therefore be sought and exploited. The operation was code-named: Operation Grand Slam. Author’s Note xi Preface xv Prologue xvii 1. A Momentous Decision 3 2. Backdrop to Operation Gibraltar 5 3. Geographical Features and Indian Army’s Appreciation 9 4. The Attack 12 5. A Defence Minister’s Diary 14 Part - I: military operations 6. Surprise: Pak Offensive 21 7. Operation Riddle: Counter Offensive 32 8. Of Cowardice and Panic 39 9. Turning the Corner 45 10. The Stupid Incident 54 11. Stepping Up of Pressure 57 12. Retreat to the Beas 62 13. The Chinese Checkers 65 Part-II: Un & Other Diplomatic Interventions 14. Last Phase 77 15. War & Diplomacy 85 16. U Thant’s Diplomacy 91 17. Ceasefire Drama 99 18. Preparation for Role 103 19. Defence Minister and the Chiefs 108 20. Higher Direction of War 119 21. A Futile War 125 22. Future of India-Pakistan Relations: Chavan’s Reflections 128 Annexure: Statement by the Defence Minister Regarding the NEF A Enquiry 130 Captured weapons and ammunitions being shown to Defence Minister 68 Defence Minister with Air Officers and Gnat that shot down Pakistan’s F-I04 70 Y.B. Chavan addressing Army Officers and Jawans 71 Defence Minister visiting Front with COAS 72 Y.B. Chavan with Jawans 73 Pak’s Patton Tanks captured in Khemkaran Sector 73 At dinner hosted for the Chiefs: (left to right) Air-Marshal Arjan Singh, Gen. ].N. Chaudhuri, C. Subramaniam, Admiral D.S. Soman 74 President Ayub greeting PM Lal Bahadur Shastri 121 Tashkent Conference in session 122 PM Lal Bahadur Shastri with President Ayub, Kosygin and others 123 PM Lal Bahadur Shastri signing the Agreement with Y.B. Chavan by his side 124 The Chhamb Sector 13 Pakistani Thrust and India’s Counter-thrust (Western Sector) 30 The Western Front 31 Pak Offensive Plan-Khemkaran Sector 44 Atlantic Publishers and Distributors Pvt. Ltd. 9 inch X 5.5 inch 160 (12 B/W Illustrations) Viewed 5531 times since 17th Feb, 2016 Items Related to 1965 War The Inside Story (Defence Minister Y.B. Chavan’s Diary of... (History \| Books) The Blood Telegram: India’s Secret War in East Pakistan by Gary J. Bass Random House India Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd. Item Code: NAJ941 CONFLICT UNENDING: India-Pakistan Tensions since 1947 by SUMIT GANGULY Oxford University Press, New Delhi Witness to Life and Freedom (Margaret Bourke White in India and Pakistan) by Pramod Kapoor & Gopalkrishna Gandhi Roli Books The Great Divide: India and Pakistan by Ira Pande Islam, Women and Violence in Kashmir: Between India and Pakistan by Nyala Ali Khan Tulika Books Nuclear Deterrence In Southern Asia: China, India And Pakistan by Arpit Rajain Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd. India’s China War by Neville Maxwell Natraj Publishers Item Code: NAG683 The Birth of Bangladesh (Pakistan Splits ) by Lt. Col. J.R. Saigal Manas Publications Train to Pakistan (50th Anniversary Edition; With Partition Photographs by Margaret Bourke White) by Khushwant Singh with Partition photographs by Margaret Bourke-White Roli Books Pvt. Ltd. THE IDEA OF PAKISTAN by STEPHEN PHILIP COHEN Eagles Over Bangladesh (The Indian Air Force In The 1971 Liberation War) by P.V.S. Jagan Mohan and Samir Chopra Women War and The Making of Bangladesh ( Remembering 1971) by Yasmin Saikia Women Unlimited Islam in India and Pakistan (A Religious History of Islam in India and Pakistan) by Murray T. Titus	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2994
__label__wiki	0.642379	0.642379	Cataclysm Closed Beta Has Begun! 由 fewyn 发表于 2010/06/30，18:20 Blizzard has just put out an official press release - the Cataclysm closed beta has begun! Edit: Added a few links to the bottom of the blog. Remember to join the beta you will need to opt-in on your Battle.Net account. To do that head over to the Battle.net Beta Profile Settings upload your system information and select what games you'd like to beta test for! You can read the official press release after the break! BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT BEGINS CLOSED BETA TEST FOR WORLD OF WARCRAFT®: CATACLYSM™ IRVINE, Calif. – June 30, 2010 – Blizzard Entertainment announced today that the closed beta test for Cataclysm™, its highly anticipated new expansion for World of Warcraft®, has begun. The company has started issuing invitations to participate in the testing process to a wide range of players from around the world who signed up via their Battle.net® accounts. While enjoying an early look at the game, beta testers will provide valuable feedback to help Blizzard Entertainment find bugs, address balance issues, and polish the new content. "Our focus with Cataclysm has been to build on the knowledge we've gained through the previous expansions to deliver the best, most compelling World of Warcraft content for our players to date," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "Gathering focused feedback during the beta test will go a long way in helping us reach that goal when we launch Cataclysm later this year." Cataclysm is the third expansion for World of Warcraft, the most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game in the world. The first two expansions, The Burning Crusade® and Wrath of the Lich King®, each shattered PC game sales records upon their release. In Cataclysm, the face of Azeroth will be forever altered by the return of the corrupted Dragon Aspect Deathwing. Players will explore once-familiar areas of the world that have now been reshaped by the devastation and filled with new adventures. In an effort to survive the planet-shattering cataclysm, two new playable races -- worgen and goblins -- will join the struggle between the Alliance and the Horde. As players journey to the new level cap of 85, they'll discover newly revealed locations, acquire new levels of power, and come face to face with Deathwing in a battle to determine the fate of the world. For more information on World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, please visit the official website at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/cataclysm. To set up a Battle.net account and sign up for a chance to participate in the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm beta test, please visit the official Battle.net website at http://www.battle.net. About Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. Best known for blockbuster hits including World of Warcraft® and the Warcraft®, StarCraft®, and Diablo® series, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating some of the industry's most critically acclaimed games. Blizzard Entertainment's track record includes eleven #1-selling games and multiple Game of the Year awards. The company's online-gaming service, Battle.net®, is one of the largest in the world, with millions of active players. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements: Information in this press release that involves Blizzard Entertainment’s expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Blizzard Entertainment generally uses words such as “outlook,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “might,” “remains,” “to be,” “plans,” “believes,” “may,” “expects,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “estimate,” future,” “plan,” “positioned,” “potential,” “project,” “remain,” “scheduled,” “set to,” “subject to,” “upcoming” and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause Blizzard Entertainment’s actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements set forth in this release include, but are not limited to, sales levels of Blizzard Entertainment’s titles, shifts in consumer spending trends, the impact of the current macroeconomic environment, the seasonal and cyclical nature of the interactive game market, declines in software pricing, product returns and price protection, product delays, retail acceptance of Blizzard Entertainment’s products, competition from the used game market, industry competition and competition from other forms of entertainment, rapid changes in technology, industry standards and consumer preferences, including interest in specific genres such as real-time strategy, action–role-playing and massively multiplayer online games, protection of proprietary rights, litigation against Blizzard Entertainment, maintenance of relationships with key personnel, customers, licensees, licensors, vendors and third-party developers, including the ability to attract, retain and develop key personnel and developers who can create high quality “hit” titles, counterparty risks relating to customers, licensees, licensors and manufacturers, domestic and international economic, financial and political conditions and policies, foreign exchange rates and tax rates, and the identification of suitable future acquisition opportunities, and the other factors identified in the risk factors section of Activision Blizzard’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this release are based upon information available to Blizzard Entertainment and Activision Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither Blizzard Entertainment nor Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements are not guarantees of the future performance of Blizzard Entertainment or Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. Beta Forums Unofficial Patch Notes What your Battle.net account should look like: screenshot (except for the artistic effect) blizzard expansion news Mists of Pandaria 2012 Press Event: Full Monk Talents Revealed and More! 295 条评论 News Roundup: Cataclysm Hotfixes, Heroics, Project Titan, Starcraft II Demo 16 条评论 News Roundup: Cataclysm Launch, Developer Interviews, Explorer's League Journal 2 条评论 Guild Achievements No Longer Reward Guild XP 16 条评论 Cataclysm Expansion Launches Tonight 184 条评论 "Give the Gift of Warcraft!" Promotion for US and Europe 12 条评论评论来自 Pwntiff WOOHOO! How long did the TBC beta last? Are we looking at a mid-late Q4 release? 评论来自 212003 This post was from a user who has deleted their account. 评论来自 VeniVidiVici Edit: Are they sending emails to people who got into the beta or what? 评论来自 Maka And Cata even gets released this year! Double-win! 评论来自 SirPunky Anar'endal dracon. Hot times are coming. I just realized this puts an almost real deadline on getting my non-80s to 80 >.< 评论来自 Sentrios Oh wow, 3.3.5 and now this! Pure awesome. If I won't get a key I'll be crushed. 评论来自 crsh1976 There are still plenty of months ahead of you to do that. 评论来自 goshadstep2lose for great justice! Along with the thousands upon thousands of others :). 评论来自 echo808 damn, it shows my C Drive space while my WoW is located on another drive. hopefully that wont cause me missing out since my C Drive i only have my Windows stuff (thus a way smaller space). 评论来自 thelaks It's going to hard pulling out the real invite from all the fakes ones I've been getting of late. 评论来自 Draol Brb, i need new pants Hence my "almost real deadline" :P I think it will be visible on your Battle.net too. Does this mean the NDA will soon be lifted? 评论来自 Ashkir I hope I get a key :3 评论来自 Blitzfire NDA's are lifted With the NDA getting lifted, one of the F&F alpha/beta testers made a nice list of what is and what is not currently implemented available; among new features, some are a nice surprise to me: CURRENTLY IMPLEMENTED / IN-GAME / TESTABLE: (This does NOT mean it's complete, just that at least a part of it is currently in game) Zones explicitly stated by Blizzard as being ready for testing are tagged as such. -Levels 81 & 82 -Goblins! -Worgen! -Some of the stat rework -Flying mounts in Kalimdor & Eastern Kingdoms -Some new/updated maps -New Race/Class Combinations -New talent window layout -New water graphics(For PC only) -Most of the Mastery System -New Hunter Resource System (Focus) -Some new talents/abilities for some classes -Rankless abilites -New Warlock Shard System -Hunter Pets at lvl 1 -Spell book now shows level req of unlearned skills -New mana regen mechanics -New Druid eclipse bar -New multi-track system for minimap -New sunshaft visual effect -Experimental DX11 support Read the whole thing here. 评论来自 Fireroflmage So has anyone gotten their inv yet, or are they releasing em on different days?	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2997
__label__cc	0.718697	0.281303	Roller Coaster ReviewsSteel Roller Coaster ReviewsHyper Coaster Titan at Six Flags Over Texas \| Roller Coaster Reviews Hyper Coaster, Roller Coaster Reviews, Steel Roller Coaster Reviews I was overcome by euphoria. For a moment, there was just so much joy that I was speechless. All of that emotion/thoughts and Titan had only begun. To be fair, Six Flags Over Texas’ hyper coaster Titan was only partially responsible for me state of nirvana. As I climbed the orange skyscraper’s 245′ lift hill, I had an excellent view of the surround area including the beautiful Cowboys Stadium. Two of my passions the Dallas Cowboys and roller coasters collided and and I nearly geeked out so much driven heart attack if that’s possible. About the only thing that would made it better would have been having my favorite super hero or martial artists as a riding companion. Chuck Norris as Walker Texas Ranger would have been appropriate given my location. After the intense g-forces from similar coaster, Six Flags Magic Mountain’s Goliath, caused me to gray out, I was apprehensive about Titan. Would the Texas version tun the lights down as well? Some coaster fans don’t mind gray outs, but I do. Either way, I had to give the ride a spin. Hyper coasters are must ride for their height and speed. It was the New Texas Giant’s opening day. The surge in attendance caused a longer than usual wait for Titan. Guests told me they hadn’t waited so long in a while. After Titan’s climb and my moment, I remembered where I was. I wiped away my nerd tears and got back to the business at hand. On the opening drop we plummeted back to, and then below, the Earth. The train charged swiftly in and out of an underground tunnel. Then, we rocketed up and into a tall banked turn. The second drop had a little air and seemed especially fun. Next, was the ride’s only true somewhat parabola-shaped hill. Most hyper coasters boast many of these hills as they’re most effective at producing airtime. I don’t remember this hill delivering much airtime, but I was likely distracted and bracing myself for the ensuing helices. Titan careens into an upward 540-degree helix. The tight turn is packed with g-forces and I start to experience a little graying out just before the track flattens out. The train enters a brake run high above the ground. Coming to a halt, the train begins to creep forward again. Dumped out of brake run with an heavily banked turn to the left. Next, Titan does a couple turns which set up a lengthy downward helix close to the ground. This more intense helix similar to Goliath’s had a similar effect as I grayed out a bit before we exited the element. Titan finishes with another turn and then the station brakes. Overall, Titan’s a good roller coaster. Texans should be happy to have a fun hyper coaster at their park. For the well-traveled coaster fan though, Titan doesn’t really measure up to some of the greater hypers out there. Still, I give Titan the same rating as Magic Mountain’s Goliath, a 7 out of 10. It’s a solid ride and if you don’t mind graying out, you might really like it. For me though, one spin on this orange monster was enough. Final Rating – 7.0 (Good) Here’s an off-ride video of Titan at Six Flags Over Texas. Sorry I couldn’t find a professional POV video: What’s Your Take? What would you rate Titan at Six Flags Over Texas? Have you had a similar experience? By that, I mean the g-forces, not the Cowboys and coasters moment. Leave a comment below. Image courtesy of Flickr user LostinTexas. Featured Photo #26 – Braking With Style Top 3 Most Common Roller Coaster Name Themes Founder of CoasterCritic.com. My favorite coasters are B&M hypers and gigas. I'm also a huge fan of terrain roller coasters. Trent August 9, 2011 I find Titan (and Goliath) to be just "OK". Those helixes just don't feel right on a hyper coaster. My sister hurt her neck on the first helix, she couldn't ride anything for the rest of the day. Piedude81 August 9, 2011 Personally, I have been on a few hyper coasters in my short life (Raging Bull@SFGA and Magnum XL-200@Cedar Point). None of them have had a helix section as far as I'm aware, so I can't really comment on a complaint from a hyper. But, I have grayed out on Superman Flying Coaster at SFGA, and I agree, it is NOT fun Surya August 9, 2011 Apart from the extra helix, this ride should be identical to Goliath SFMM. I remember the first drop there being packed with airtime in the back, and that camelback delivering the goodies anywhere in the train. Lovely. Rode it A LOT when I was there 🙂 By the way: quite some B&M hypers have a helix, like Nitro, Goliath at SFOG and Silver Star. Ducky August 10, 2011 SFMM (Six flags magic mountain) Goliath always makes me grey out. in my mind when its happening Breath in, out, in, out, dont pass out. breath. Prof.BAM August 10, 2011 Which did you like better CC? Titan or Goliath? I saw you gave both a 7. Max August 10, 2011 Man I love this ride, i think I handle grey outs better than than most people. The first drop is MUCH better than Goliath's first drop, the 3rd drop offers amazing floater air, and the helixes are really unique to Titan. Now this ride is nothing compared to the New Giant (My New Favorite). And it doesn't compare to Nitro, Intimidator or Apollo's Chariot, But it's in my home park and i love it. (By the way I have ridden El Toro, and I Put the New Giant in front of for sure. By the way, did you ride Shockwave while you were there? Pretty fun, good airtime, old feel (Not rough, just feels like it's been there for 30 years) and of course Double Loops. Gotta love that. The Coaster Critic August 11, 2011 Unfortunately I didn't ride Shockwave. It was finishing up its off season rehab that week. I was really looking forward to it too as Schwarzkopf coasters are rare. I also didn't get to ride Judge Roy Scream. It was closed due to high winds. And I skipped Batman because the line was so long I didn't think it was worth it as I've ridden clones at other parks. By the way, you can see all of the roller coasters I've ridden on my Complete Ride List Page. I just added Woodstock Express this week! I'll probably review Mr. Freeze next. Gearhart August 13, 2011 I've always had gray out moments on Goliath and it's not very pleasant to me, but I experienced nothing even close to that on my multiple rides on Titan. There was some good floater air on the one camelback and overall it seemed just more enjoyable than it's west coast brother. If it had a few more pops of air this would be a fantastic ride, I still think it's really good though despite it's shortcomings. Looking forward to your take on Freeze CC. Well, its not like you missed out on a whole lot there, mean, the Judge is ROUGH, and Batman of course, is fun but there are so many of them. And Shockwave is fun for sure, but I dont know if its worth coming back to texas for. Jack December 18, 2011 I rode the Goliath and it was fun It does resembles Titan but it has a lot of helix's I messed up on resembles Joey Till August 7, 2012 Was kinda young when I rode back in 2007 and thought that the rides drop from what I remember didn't provide much, atleast for how menacing looking it is. and the ride was not nearly as good as other hyper coasters. Well see how Goliath compares when I ride. Plus I did grey out and did not like it, so that kinda lowered the rating for me.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line2999
__label__wiki	0.782206	0.782206	Learn Coding \| Programming Tutorials \| Tech Interview Questions Home Python Python Set Python Set Coding Compiler Learning about Python set is another important part when it comes to mastering python programming language. Here is all you need to know. Chapter 8: Python Set Python Set: Operations on sets with other sets Python Set: Intersection {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}.intersection({3, 4, 5, 6}) # {3, 4, 5} {1, 2, 3, 4, 5} & {3, 4, 5, 6} # {3, 4, 5} Python Set: Union {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}.union({3, 4, 5, 6}) # {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} {1, 2, 3, 4, 5} \| {3, 4, 5, 6} # {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} Python Set: Difference {1, 2, 3, 4}.difference({2, 3, 5}) # {1, 4} {1, 2, 3, 4} - {2, 3, 5} # {1, 4} Symmetric difference with {1, 2, 3, 4}.symmetric_difference({2, 3, 5}) # {1, 4, 5} {1, 2, 3, 4} ^ {2, 3, 5} # {1, 4, 5} Superset check {1, 2}.issuperset({1, 2, 3}) # False {1, 2} >= {1, 2, 3} # False Subset check {1, 2}.issubset({1, 2, 3}) # True {1, 2} <= {1, 2, 3} # True Disjoint check {1, 2}.isdisjoint({3, 4}) # True {1, 2}.isdisjoint({1, 4}) # False with single elements Existence check 2 in {1,2,3} # True 4 in {1,2,3} # False 4 not in {1,2,3} # True Add and Remove s = {1,2,3} s.add(4) # s == {1,2,3,4} s.discard(3) # s == {1,2,4} s.remove(2) # s == {1,4} s.remove(2) # KeyError! Set operations return new sets, but have the corresponding in-place versions: method in-place operation in-place method union s \|= t update intersection s &= t intersection_update diﬀerence s -= t diﬀerence_update symmetric_diﬀerence s ^= t symmetric_diﬀerence_update s = {1, 2} s.update({3, 4}) # s == {1, 2, 3, 4} Section 8.2: Get the unique elements of a list Let’s say you’ve got a list of restaurants — maybe you read it from a file. You care about the unique restaurants in the list. The best way to get the unique elements from a list is to turn it into a set: restaurants = ["McDonald's", "Burger King", "McDonald's", "Chicken Chicken"] unique_restaurants = set(restaurants) print(unique_restaurants) prints {‘Chicken Chicken’, “McDonald’s”, ‘Burger King’} Note that the set is not in the same order as the original list; that is because sets are unordered, just like dicts. This can easily be transformed back into a List with Python’s built in list function, giving another list that is the same list as the original but without duplicates: list(unique_restaurants) [‘Chicken Chicken’, “McDonald’s”, ‘Burger King’] It’s also common to see this as one line: Removes all duplicates and returns another list list(set(restaurants)) Now any operations that could be performed on the original list can be done again. Python Set: Set of Sets {{1,2}, {3,4}} leads to: TypeError: unhashable type: 'set' Instead, use frozenset: {frozenset({1, 2}), frozenset({3, 4})} Python Set: Set Operations using Methods and Builtins We define two sets a and b a = {1, 2, 2, 3, 4} b = {3, 3, 4, 4, 5} NOTE: {1} creates a set of one element, but {} creates an empty dict. The correct way to create an empty set is set(). a.intersection(b) returns a new set with elements present in both a and b a.intersection(b) {3, 4} a.union(b) returns a new set with elements present in either a and b a.union(b) {1, 2, 3, 4, 5} Diﬀerence a.difference(b) returns a new set with elements present in a but not in b a.difference(b) {1, 2} b.difference(a){5} Symmetric Diﬀerence a.symmetric_difference(b) returns a new set with elements present in either a or b but not in both a.symmetric_difference(b) {1, 2, 5} b.symmetric_difference(a) {1, 2, 5} NOTE: a.symmetric_difference(b) == b.symmetric_difference(a) Subset and superset c.issubset(a) tests whether each element of c is in a. a.issuperset(c) tests whether each element of c is in a. c = {1, 2} c.issubset(a) a.issuperset(c) The latter operations have equivalent operators as shown below: Method Operator a.intersection(b) a & b a.union(b) a.difference(b) a - b a.symmetric_difference(b) a ^ b a.issubset(b) a <= b a.issuperset(b) a >= b Disjoint sets Sets a and d are disjoint if no element in a is also in d and vice versa. d = {5, 6} a.isdisjoint(b) # {2, 3, 4} are in both sets False a.isdisjoint(d) This is an equivalent check, but less efficient len(a & d) == 0 True This is even less efficient a & d == set() Testing membership The builtin in keyword searches for occurances 1 in a 6 in a False The builtin len() function returns the number of elements in the set len(a) len(b) Python Set: Sets versus multisets Sets are unordered collections of distinct elements. But sometimes we want to work with unordered collections of elements that are not necessarily distinct and keep track of the elements’ multiplicities. setA = {'a','b','b','c'} set(['a', 'c', 'b']) By saving the strings ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘b’, ‘c’ into a set data structure we’ve lost the information on the fact that ‘b’ occurs twice. Of course saving the elements to a list would retain this information listA = ['a','b','b','c'] ['a', 'b', 'b', 'c'] but a list data structure introduces an extra unneeded ordering that will slow down our computations. For implementing multisets Python provides the Counter class from the collections module (starting from version 2.7): Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.7 counterA = Counter(['a','b','b','c']) counterA Counter({'b': 2, 'a': 1, 'c': 1}) Counter is a dictionary where where elements are stored as dictionary keys and their counts are stored as dictionary values. And as all dictionaries, it is an unordered collection. Read More Information Python Data Types Python For Beginners Python Language Basics Python Date and Time Python Date Formatting Previous articlePython Date Formatting Next articlePython Simple Mathematical Operators Only Size-1 Arrays Can Be Converted To Python Scalars Python Anti Patterns Tutorial Secure Shell Connection in Python Tutorial 15 Best Linux Distros For Gaming 300+ Useful Tools For Remote Work 12 Best Linux Distros For Beginners 20 Best Linux Distros For Developers File I/O in Java with Examples Python224 Interview Questions213 Python Tutorials206 Java Tutorial94 Java Programming90 What is Machine Learning? – A Complete Beginners Guide on ML Machine Learning January 23, 2018 60 Java Multiple Choice Questions And Answers 2021 Interview Questions February 15, 2018 Java OOPS Interview Questions And Answers Interview Questions November 14, 2018 © 2020 - All rights reserved. CodingCompiler.com created with from India.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line3000
__label__wiki	0.557804	0.557804	About the Theatre 2018-2019 Crockett Theatre Performance Series A Tribute to Johnny Messer The talented John Messer, who was front man for Moody’s Goose and the Johnny Messer Band, will be honored in a show that includes members of both bands and special guests. A Christmas Show This show features James Gordon Freeze and the Kellys. James Gordon Freeze is a multi-talented musician, vocalist, and record producer. The Kellys is an all-male Southern Gospel quartet with powerful vocals. The Glen Miller Orchestra The most popular and sought-after big band in the world today for both concert and swing dance engagements. With its unique jazz sound, the Glen Miller Orchestra is considered to be one of the greatest bands of all time. The Larry Sparks Show One of the most widely-known and respected touring musicians in bluegrass and gospel music today, Larry Sparks began his career in the mid-1960s as guitarist with the Stanley Brothers. The Crockett Theatre is wheelchair accessible. Please request wheelchair seating when ordering tickets. Purchase by Phone lawrenceburgtn.gov All Events Begin at 7:00 PM Box Office Opens at 6:00 PM © 2018 Crockett Theatre Performance Series. All Rights Reserved.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line3013
__label__wiki	0.695785	0.695785	Home \| Live Coverage \| ASTMH 2016 Mutant Ebola May Have Caused Explosive Outbreak This post originally appeared on NPR – Goats and Soda. One mutation. A simple tweak in the Ebola gene — a C got turned into a T. That’s all it took to make Ebola more infectious during the West Africa epidemic, scientists report Thursday. Two studies, published in the journal Cell, found that a single mutation arose early in the epidemic. It allows Ebola to infect human cells more easily than the original version of the virus — way more easily. “The largest difference we saw was about a fourfold increase in the number of cells infected,” says Jeremy Luban, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, who led one of the studies. “When you’re talking about a virus that could kill you, this is a pretty scary number.” When Ebola appeared in West Africa late in 2013, it spread faster and further than any previous Ebola outbreak. One reason was because it hit densely populated cities. And countries in West Africa didn’t have the tools to stop the epidemic. But early on, computational biologists at Harvard University also noticed the virus was changing. Its genes were mutating. That’s not surprising, Luban says, on its own. It’s what viruses do, especially when they first start spreading in people. But the mutations raised a big concern: “Is this virus somehow becoming more transmissible, more dangerous or more deadly?” Luban says. The computational biologists were stumped. They could see the mutations, but they didn’t know what they did. Read full story here>>	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line3015
__label__wiki	0.819377	0.819377	Three veteran CoinMarketCap executives leave the company 31 August 2020 3Сommas Blog Sin categoría 0 <img class=”wpe_imgrss” src=”https://s3.cointelegraph.com/storage/uploads/view/9f0d334ed01ba35cb22747ea598dd361.jpg“><p dir=”ltr” id=”docs–internal–guid–de384fe4–7fff–014b–8e43–a56d840eeaba“>CoinMarketCap’s chief strategy officer and acting CEO Carylyne Chan is leaving the well–known crypto market data site — together with two of her colleagues, Jeremy Seow and Spencer Yang. Chan, who has worked at CMC since January 2018, publicly announced her departure on Aug. 31. She had stepped in as interim CEO shortly after CMC was acquired by Binance in April of this year. Seow, for his part, has been CMC’s vice president of products since June 2019, the same month that Yang joined as vice president of operations, growth and revenue. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Chan said that she is leaving the firm with the hope that CMC will assume a more prominent role in cryptocurrency education. A cornerstone of the strategy she laid out for the near feature was “CMC Alexandria” — a new educational section of CMC that aims to orient newcomers to cryptocurrency. Chan sketched out her vision of cryptocurrency as a cooperative and community-led “revolution,” which still requires significant collective efforts before it can break through and “cross the chasm” to widespread use. “Apart from shedding light on the complicated inner workings of crypto, I believe that there is also a lot more that we need to do to make the actual use of the technology easier. We’ve all known for a while that better user experiences and simplified interfaces and products will be key to ramping up adoption of crypto,” Chan said. In her departure letter to the CMC community, Chan noted that she had personally hired and trained over a quarter of CMC’s almost-50 person team. During her tenure, she played a prominent part in the site’s push to elicit more transparent disclosures and accountability from projects in the cryptocurrency space. This included the Data Accountability & Transparency Alliance and the introduction of new metrics and scores to improve the integrity of data and volume reporting on the site. In spring 2019, CMC launched two cryptocurrency benchmark indices on Nasdaq, Bloomberg, and Refinitiv (Thomson Reuters) as part of the site’s efforts to bring data on cryptocurrency assets to “mainstream” platforms. “Over time, I hope that we address the misconceptions that the public may have about the crypto space,” said Chan. “This will happen over time, as the utility of various crypto products, and crypto-based derivatives gain prominence, and show their true potential in the wider economy.” Cointelegraph reached out to CoinMarketCap to enquire into who would be replacing the departing executives. In response, a representative wrote that the site will be “sharing more updates soon.” Signature Bank Gave Dozens More PPP Loans to Crypto Firms Than Previously Reported – CoinDesk Binance Card to soon expand to US as Swipe taps new partnership	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line3017
__label__wiki	0.544299	0.544299	CryptoCurry > Blog > News > Dash Reveals Massive Plans Until 2020 Dash Reveals Massive Plans Until 2020 June 28, 2017 by Brian Forester What are in store for Dash in the next three years? Dash is one of the fast-rising cryptocurrencies today. It has surpassed popular cryptocurrencies before and now it is at no.7 in the world’s leading cryptocurrency when it comes to market capitalization. Dash has been doing great recently catching attention from developing and developed countries What are in store for Dash in the next three years? Dash is one of the fast-rising cryptocurrencies today. It has surpassed popular cryptocurrencies before and now it is at no.7 in the world’s leading cryptocurrency when it comes to market capitalization. Dash has been doing great recently catching attention from developing and developed countries to getting interests from some of the world’s huge companies. But what should we look forward from Dash in the next three years? Check this out! Dash, a leading payments-focused digital currency, has today unveiled its highly anticipated roadmap for Evolution, as well as ambitious plans for 2017 through to 2020 and beyond. The eight-page roadmap, now publicly available on Dash’s website, details a phased launch of its landmark product, a decentralized payments platform designed to be completely secure, merchant and consumer friendly, globally accessible, instant, available on any computer or device, and with fees far cheaper than competing payment methods. Dash Evolution, under design for nearly a year and a half and now two thirds of the way through development, is set for a full public launch in June 2018. The Evolution Alpha test release is scheduled for December for select business partners. A limited set of Evolution functions will be deployed to mainnet in February with the full release of Evolution scheduled for June. CEO of Dash Core Ryan Taylor said: “Dash Evolution will dramatically improve the experience of using a digital currency. Our aim with Evolution is to tear down the barriers to adoption for both merchants and consumers so that any person, no matter their age, nationality, education, or technical proficiency, can use digital currency everyday and for almost any purpose. Think of Evolution as online payments, a system similar to PayPal or Venmo, but completely decentralized, so that a user is always in control of his or her own money. Moreover, Evolution will be incredibly inexpensive, with no cross-border fees or restrictions. Disruptive innovation in the payments space is accelerating; with our approach, Dash could be the first to bring digital currency to a truly massive audience.” Evolution will join Dash’s comprehensive list of upgrades that will allow the protocol to handle hundreds of millions of on-chain transactions a day, confirmed within a few seconds. CTO of Dash Core Andy Freer said: “We are already in talks with channel partners who have access to thousands of merchants; the days of losing 3% cuts against each sale are numbered. Through continuous development and testing phases, Dash will begin onboarding merchants, fiat converters, gateway services and users, listen closely to their feedback, and adjust the platform accordingly. Evolution is a massive endeavor with gigantic promises, but we will accomplish our goals through the help of an All-Star team of dozens of the world’s best programmers, researchers, project managers, technologists, and user experience experts. We’re working every day to ensure that Evolution will be a superior payments option embraced by millions.” Dash plans to enable a high volume of transactions at physical points of sale, on devices, and through online transfers simultaneously through a Proof of Service masternode model and with the assistance of Dash-specific hardware chips capable of processing orders of magnitude faster than general-purpose computing platforms. The hardware project will be spearheaded by Dash’s new scientific and research branch, Dash Labs, led by CTO Andy Freer and Founder & Senior Advisor Evan Duffield. “Dash Labs will be responsible for the research and development of custom, open-source hardware, including specialized chips for accelerated processing of blocks. We’ve seen how difficult it is for a Blockchain to scale, especially when adoption is growing so fast. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are having serious slow-downs when they approach 300,000 transactions per day. Ours is a different philosophy, one that actually aligns most closely with the Bitcoin inventor’s vision that nodes would eventually grow into individual server farms, with users accessing from lite clients. The P2P network becomes the backend of the currency, with the frontend comprised of the end-users,” said Freer. Dash will reduce mining imbalances seen in other Proof of Work networks and enable enhanced on-chain scaling because their system provides compensation for running the hardware needed to service the network. Masternodes will become more powerful over time, and the incentive model ensures that as Dash grows and the need for sophisticated hardware grows, providers are paid accordingly for their service. Dash’s hardware ambitions are due to arrive in the year 2020, with plans to put masternode hardware on individual chips, allowing each masternode to scale to the point where they may occupy their own data center. “We are delighted to announce our intentions to the world. The Dash community aims to reinvent money and how it works to create a world of financial opportunity and freedom on a massive scale. By providing the world’s first truly usable digital cash that can reach every person on earth with a phone, we believe the possibilities to transform people’s lives is immense,” said Taylor. via The-Blockchain Cardano(ADA)$0.370-0.40% USD Coin(USDC)$0.999-0.01% cUSDC(CUSDC)$0.0210.043%	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line3018
__label__cc	0.587603	0.412397	Governor Abbott, Texas National Guard Launch Disinfection Mission For Nursing Facilities Filed Under:Cleaning, Coronavirus, Covid-19, deadly virus, DFW News, Disinfectant, doctors, Facilities Disinfection Teams, Governor Greg Abbott, Health, home healthcare, Mission, Nurse, Nursing Homes, Palliative Care, Pandemic, PPO, Seniors, Texas, Texas National Guard AUSTIN, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) – Governor Greg Abbott announced that the Texas National Guard has activated Facilities Disinfection Teams to support Texans in nursing homes and to help limit the spread of COVID-19. “The Texas National Guard readily accepts this newest mission assignment,” said Major General Tracy Norris. “We take our charge of protecting all Texans, especially our most vulnerable populations, extremely seriously. Our service members have proactively trained for this mission alongside the Health and Human Services Commission and other partner agencies. We stand ready to continue to serve both here at home and abroad in the war fight.” Formed in coordination with Texas Health and Human Services Commission, six teams were already mobilized to facilities across the state with more coming online. “The Texas National Guard plays a crucial role in our ongoing response to COVID-19, and I am grateful for their work to address the unique challenges our nursing homes face during this pandemic,” said Governor Abbott. “The training these Guardsmen have received will equip them with the knowledge and tools they need to provide this crucial assistance to these facilities.” The teams consist of Guardsmen from Joint Task Force 176, and each team is equipped with unique supplies such as advanced personal protective equipment, ionized sprayers, and vital oxide. The teams received training from the Texas Military Department 6th Civil Support Team, who specialize in man-made and natural disaster assessment and rapid response in hazardous environments.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0024.json.gz/line3046

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