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Young conservatives go into media, government, and think tanks with paychecks and a future. Young progressives go into the street or just give up. |
The online application portal closes on 31-August-2016. |
The Karnataka Private Post Graduate Colleges Association has announced the dates for Karnataka Management Aptitude Test (KMAT) which is going to be conducted in the month of September. The examination is being conducted thrice a year. The association conducts this entrance test to fill up seats in approved University a... |
The examination was conducted in the months of May and June. The examination received a huge response. It was conducted across 20 centers in the country. The candidates who did not attend the examination in the months of May and June can appear in September. |
The online registration portal opened on 25-July-2016. |
The candidates can download the admit cards on 9-September-2016. |
The examination will be conducted on 11-September-2016. |
The results will be declared on 20-September-2016. |
Each section carries 40 marks and the question paper carries 120 questions. A thorough practice in all the above-mentioned topics is essential to qualify in the examination. |
news The Federal Department of Human Services today announced a deal with IT services giant Accenture that will see the company help replace the ageing Child Support payments system, using the SAP technology which Accenture developed extensive skills with during the Commonwealth Bank’s core banking placement project. |
The current Child Support platform, known as ‘Cuba’, was first deployed in 2002, according to tender documents released last year — more than a decade ago, or an age in technology terms. It contains all of the Child Support Agency’s electronic customer records and supports transactions for assessments, payments and dat... |
And the scale of the system is not small. It directly supports over 1.2 million Australian children through providing some $3.2 billion per year in payments. It also helps the department administer child support services and collects child support so that separated payments can ensure “the financial and emotional wellb... |
It also notes that its aims in future include the ability to support self-sufficiency through online and mobile platforms — implying it has limited capability in that area right now — and that it wants to reduce the number and impact of “system-generated errors” in its current Cuba platform. It also appears that the cu... |
In May 2013, Human Services Minister Jan McLucas announced that the then-Gillard Government would, as the Senator said at the time, “deliver improvements to information technology systems to ensure millions of Australians receive government payments efficiently and effectively,” upgrading the Child Support system. |
In a statement released today, the Department said the new system would be delivered using SAP technology and with the support of both Accenture and SAP. The contract represents part of a $102.2 million investment over five years announced by McLucas to replace the Department’s outdated child support payment system. |
New Minister for Human Services, Marise Payne said the contract would see DHS staff working closely with Accenture and SAP teams. “Accenture and SAP will assist in building the replacement system while ensuring that the department is left with a skilled, in-house workforce able to maintain the system into the future, a... |
Managing director of Accenture’s health and public sector business in Australia Catherine Garner said the company was very pleased to have been selected to deliver the new payment system. |
“This is an extremely important initiative that will improve the Department’s ability to effectively and efficiently deliver services to families,” Garner said. The new Child Support system is expected to be implemented in 2015 with further upgrades to be completed by June 2018. |
Accenture has solid experience in recent times both with SAP as well as with the Federal Government. It was responsible for substantial packages work on the Commonwealth Bank’s mammoth core banking upgrade program, which also used SAP technology, as well as the Australian Taxation Office’s Change Program, which used Or... |
With hundreds of thousands of tracks from thousands of artists, Jamendo is easily one of the biggest repositories of free music on the web. You won’t find all of your favorite artists here, but the site’s streamlined user interface makes it great for browsing and finding talented new musicians. Instead of browsing by g... |
Today I give the floor to Steve Wake, the man behind #EVA21, the conference so cool it is known only by its hashtag*. In his own unique style he explains what makes this magical conference work every year, why you should deAgile yourself and how to tame the overwhelm with a single piece of paper. |
EVA was first started as an event to raise awareness and profile for what we now know as Earned Value Management. Nobody was going to market it for me so I had to learn by doing. One day, 10 presentations. All about Earned Value. |
Now we have two days and over 20 presentations, of which one might be about Earned Value. It is all about Building a Better Project Manager. The Thinking Person’s PM. Total PM. A way of life. Not a job. |
It was always a little different. It was the event I wanted to attend. Few come close. Even now. It has always remained ahead of the curve. I like new ideas. I like new presenters. I like practitioners. We never repeat presentations. Return presenters talk about something else. I like ideas from elsewhere. I like metap... |
I am the only curator I know who does this. I am not just a plain event organiser or marketing executive. I know or get to know the speakers. I work with them on presentations. I do not buy them from the catalogue. And I don’t take kindly to corporate ‘control-freakery’. |
I am a producer, a curator. EVA is my diary, my State of the Nation. Who I have met and seen or stalked or pitched at with a view to presenting. |
I now get few refusals. People want to come listen, talk and speak. The conferences are small, up to 100 attendees. If you stick around for 2 days you get to know everybody and the speakers stick around too. It feels like Glyndebourne and Davos. You go away with new ideas rather than a reconfirmation of what you alread... |
I’ve just come back from a lovely 10 day ‘break’ in sunny Seville. If you haven’t been, you must. |
I came back unrested. I had been checking my smartphone every 15 minutes or so. Responding where I could. |
But not where I should. |
I should have ignored it. Turned it off. I still came back to 350 emails which I spent day 1 of my return responding to. |
Observation #1: The sky will not fall in when you go away. |
Rule 1: Do not check email when away. |
Rule 2: Get a separate cheap non-smart mobile for when you are on holiday. |
Rule 3: Make sure those that should know do know you are away and when you will resurface. |
Observation #2: People, myself included get sucked in to the responsive vortex. You send an email. You expect an answer by return. You get tetchy and self-righteous if this doesn’t happen. You pay no account whatsoever to what has happened at the other end. |
Observation #3: Fast (Agile) response to email is often poorly thought through, ill-advised and sometimes unnecessary. The speed rather than the quality has become paramount. Trouble is the consequent unsatisfactory action or meeting makes this glaringly apparent. |
Rule 4: Slow Down! DeAgile yourself. Activity is not Action. |
I took a Japanese Trade delegation round London and then to dinner. Simpsons. They loved it. And they were talking and drinking and talking and drinking. |
But as the dinner progressed the conversation died down until it ground to a halt. I thought they were jet-lagged or cross about something. |
It was explained to me that there is nothing better than for a companionable silence to prevail. It signalled consensus, trust, contentment. Happiness even. |
I thought that was brilliant and beat, “Ooh isn’t it quiet? Somebody say something,” out of sight. |
I am addicted to music. I hear it in glorious 3D in my head. A photographic memory. I have the world’s largest CD collection. When I go out it’s generally to something with music. |
I do not like background music. I do not have it on in the car. It is too distracting. |
What I like is silence. |
Silence to reflect, to converse with myself, to plan things out, to ruminate. |
I find and need the time and space. It makes my decisions better and myself happier. I don’t feel irritable or hassled or put upon. It’s my own tempo, my own control. |
I wake up sometimes and think OMG I have so much to do. It can be daunting. So I compartmentalise like this. |
Jot down all the topics of things I have to do. |
Join them with lines and boxes and arrows. Lots of them link together. |
The paper becomes a scope, a target. Once it’s in boxes and links and lines it become manageable and achievable. In my head. In me. I have visualised and externalised. |
You may have to fight to create that. But you can, and you can do this in silence. |
I also try to bookend this short meditation technique. I was taught this by a Vietnamese colleague 35 years ago in Paris. |
Think of a single thing. Picture an object, concept, phrase or piece of music. Exclude everything else for 5-10 minutes. It clears, focuses and steadies. |
Then do something. Like fill out a page of A4. |
Do this every now and again. Me? Every 2 or 3 weeks or just before I go away. So I know how all the plates were spinning. Then I review it when I come back. |
After thinking about these, I think I am a real mixed up extrovert introvert who has found that listening to people is far more enriching than blowing your own misguided trumpet. Particularly if you are a real leader and want to make change that sticks. |
Getting other people to really buy in to what you want them to do so it becomes theirs and makes it good for everybody is my aim in leading a good life. But that’s for another time. |
About Steve: Steve Wake has worked in the print, automotive, aerospace, defence, insurance and IT industries as a project manager and consultant. He is an internationally acknowledged expert on Earned Value Project Management and has written and presented many times. He is currently chairman of the Board of the Associa... |
Steve has also had to become an accomplished event organiser and chair with his own EVA conference in its 21st year as well as continued close involvement in the high profile PMI UK Synergy events, both productions with a reputation for the unusual and innovative. His long passion for all kinds of music is almost match... |
* I’m kidding about the hashtag. The conference has been around longer than hashtags. |
Thank you for this article! Shutting off and truly relaxing on vacation is something I have a problem with. I always feel I need to be productive. |
I know the feeling well. I’m heading off on a short break soon and I’m going to try really hard only to work on the days that I am there to work. The rest of the time, it’s holiday! |
In earlier times, the tallest tower is a sign of power. Building a tower requires architectural skills and a solid foundation. Build the tallest structure and place each stone carefully on top of each other to stack and align them correctly. Go higher with each level and earn well-deserved coins. Discover new themes an... |
As you can see in the quality/durability guidelines here ... quilting layers that aren't more than "about an inch or so" thick won't have a meaningful effect on the durability or useful life of a mattress. The BestMattressEver uses all high quality high quality and durable materials and as you can also see in my commen... |
Last edit: 01 Nov 2015 19:07 by Phoenix. |
Appreciate the comprehensive summary of the disruptor mattresses! I'm leaning towards T&N as it seems is the most firm of all of these options. Certainly doesn't hurt that it's priced more competitively (esp. with the Amex + underground discount). Given the free trial periods, I'm wondering if anyone has actually order... |
I'm leaning towards T&N as it seems is the most firm of all of these options. |
Based on general feedback it's probably among the firmer options out of the single firmness mattresses and may be firmer than some of the "medium" firmness options for mattresses that have multiple firmness options but it probably isn't as firm as some of the "firm" options that are available. |
Different people can also have very different perceptions of firmness and softness compared to others as well and a mattress that feels firm for one person can feel like "medium" for someone else or even "soft" for someone else (or vice versa) depending on their body type, sleeping style, physiology, their frame of ref... |
Last edit: 09 Nov 2015 00:16 by Phoenix. |
Phoenix, I am so grateful to have found your website and the wealth of knowledge it contains. Thank you so much for bringing this much-needed information together in such a cohesive and useful way! I am looking at both the Love Bed from Nest Bedding and the Sedona Sleep base mattress and topper from Sedona Sleep. I wou... |
There is more information about the 3 most important parts of "value" of a mattress purchase in post #13 here which can help you make more meaningful quality/value comparisons between mattresses in terms of suitability (how well you will sleep), durability (how long you will sleep well), and the overall value of a matt... |
The most important part of the "value" of a mattress purchase is how well you will sleep on it and whether a mattress is a good "match" for you in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and your Personal preferences. While your own careful testing or personal experience is the only way to know for certai... |
Outside of PPP ... the most important part of the value of a mattress purchase is durability which is all about how long you will sleep well on a mattress. This is the part of your research that you can't "feel" and assessing the durability and useful life of a mattress depends on knowing the type and quality of all th... |
Both of these manufacturers are completely transparent about their materials and both of them use high quality materials and there are no lower quality materials or weak links in either design that would compromise the durability or useful life of either mattress. |
Having said that ... they are both very different designs. The topper that goes with Sedona Sleep is a solid layer of blended Talalay latex which would be a little bit more resilient than the convoluted continuous pour synthetic Dunlop in the Love bed and is also a more costly material (Talalay latex is more costly tha... |
Both of them offer multiple firmness options. |
The Love Bed has a cover that is quilted with polyfoam and the Sedona Sleep topper uses an unquilted stretch knit cover so you would be sleeping more directly on the latex itself. Which type of cover you prefer would be a preference issue and there is more about the pros and cons of quilted covers vs a thinner stretch ... |
The Love Bed has a 100 night free return/exchange policy and trial period. Sedona Sleep also has a 100 night trial period but there will be a small shipping cost involved to either exchange the topper for a different firmness or return the mattress for a refund. |
A mattress/topper combination also has the advantage of being able to replace just the topper after the trial period without having to replace the entire mattress if your needs or preferences change down the road or if the topper softens or breaks down before the rest of the mattress (the top layers of a mattress are g... |
You are certainly looking at two great quality/value choices and once you have narrowed down your options to a list of finalists that are all choices between "good and good" (which you have) and none of them have any lower quality materials or "weak links" in their design relative to your weight range (which they don't... |
Last edit: 18 Dec 2015 12:25 by Phoenix. |
We ended up returning our BME as the Latex feel wasn't for us. Working with them was a pleasure and they even gave a topper to try, but we spent nights in our guest room as we just didn't like the feel of the BME. We went mattress shopping again today and really liked memory foam (temper-cloud elite mattress was our fa... |
However, as a 240 lb male these simplified choices are all listed as cautionary or recommended against. I have read many of your posts and the cross references but it is almost burying me in information. We are willing to spend up to a temperpedic but after becoming so knowledgeable from your site (thanks again!), I re... |
In terms of my specific interests, I could even consider going firm and putting a topper on the mattress so it supports my weight and is extra plush for myself and my bride-to-be (120lb). I narrowed it down to the Novosbed and Nest Alexander Medium. Is this smart or should I go a different route? If so do you recommend... |
The third post in this topic is being "reserved" for a different purpose. |
There are a number of the "simplified choice" mattresses that are already described in post #2 in this topic as being suitable for any weight range in terms of the quality and durability of the materials. |
If you tend to prefer more traditional memory foam mattresses and if you are looking at online options then outside of the simplified choice list the mattress shopping tutorial also includes several other links to lists of many of the better online options I'm aware of (in the optional online step) that include many di... |
While the process of how to choose a mattress would involve the same steps that are listed in the mattress shopping tutorial ... most people in higher weight ranges will generally need or prefer firmer mattresses (firmer materials will feel softer because you will sink into them more) and materials and components that ... |
You can also see my comments about choosing a mattress first with the intention of adding a topper later in post #2 here . |
In most cases I would avoid this approach because of the uncertainty involved with two purchase choices instead of only one and choosing a topper that would be suitable in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and your Personal preferences) for a specific person on a specific mattress can sometimes be a... |
It can also be more costly than just buying a mattress which includes the same materials as the topper as a layer inside the mattress itself and you would be avoiding the risk of having additional materials in your base mattress that you may not need or that may be lower quality foam (that can soften or break down more... |
Having said that ... if you do choose a suitable mattress/topper combination which turns out to be a good "match" for you in terms of PPP (and there are no lower quality materials or "weak links" in the mattress/topper combination) then it would have the advantage of being able to replace just the topper without replac... |
1. Careful testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in the tutorial) to make sure that a mattress is a good match for you in terms of "comfort", firmness, and PPP ... and/or that you are comfortable with the options you have available to return, exchange, or "fine tune" the mattress and any costs involved if you... |
2. Checking to make sure that there are no lower quality materials or weak links in a mattress you are considering relative to your weight range that could compromise the durability and useful life of the mattress. |
Last edit: 17 Mar 2016 19:26 by Phoenix. |
I'm knew to this forum and interested in purchasing a new mattress in the next couple of months. My wife and I have been sleeping on a King size tripedic memory foam mattress from select-a-bed.com for about eight years now. I find that the support and pressure relief has been insufficient for some time time now (I'm ab... |
I've spent a lot of time trying to research on the internet about mattress buying and quality components. I must admit that the bed-in-a-box category is appealing, perhaps due to the very vigorous and clever on line marketing campaigns that make their product appear more 'authentic' than traditional mattress manufactur... |
The tripedic mattress you own is a good quality/value mattress but if you are no longer sleeping well on it and it has lost its "comfort" and/or support then after 8 years it's very likely that it's time for a new mattress. |
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