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2 February 2013 Lights behind the cross on the Sacred Heart church in Kaikoura have been restored so that as well as lighting the way, they glow red, blue or green according to the liturgical season. Parishioner Kerry Howden replaced the expensive neon tubing with LED strip lighting. He says he came across this solution after trying rope lighting which he bought from the local hardware store. It did the job but didn’t last. The LED strip is ‘a new and unique product which incorporates 60 individual lights per metre, each light comprising three primary colours – red, yellow and blue, plus a white. ‘The manufacturer has guaranteed these lights for 20,000 hours of operation but states it may well exceed 40,000.’ The four colours are controlled by a remote control. ‘The colours can give different visual displays allowing the user to control their movement and colour to suit different celebrations and seasons of the Church. The lights are on a timer which turns them on at dusk and they go off again around midnight.
New State Law Shows Compassion to Rape Victims Posted January 15, 1998 RALEIGH — Being the victim of a sexual assault is devastating enough, but many women feel they are victimized further by waiting for hours to be examined in a crowded emergency room. Now, hospitals, police, district attorneys and victim advocates have teamed up to help change that with the Victim Support Plan. It used to be that rape victims had to be seen by a doctor, but now a new state law now allows specially-trained nurses to examine victims and even to testify in their court cases. The first training of nurses in the state is taking place at Wake Medical Center this week. The nurses are learning about evidence, the courtroom and compassion. Rape survivor Amy Simms says that the emergency room wait was almost as bad as the crime itself. Robin Frankenberry of the N.C. Coalition Against Sexual Assault says that victims used to have to wait for a physician to examine them. But thanks to Senate Bill 320,which was passed last year, nurses are now being trained to collect evidence in sexual assault cases. They are also trained to testify about that evidence in court. Nurse Cheryl Scott says that the training teaches folks to report the facts -- not how they feel. Wake Medical Center is designating an exam room and dressing rooms away from the emergency room, just for rape victims. Simms thinks that the separate areas are a welcome change. Wake Medical Center hopes to have its examination area for sexual assault victims ready by March 1. Within the next two years, the state hopes to train more than 300 nurses in North Carolina to handle sexual assault cases.
Editor's message: Benchmarking - using data to compare policies and practices with those at other employers - is likely to be a day-to-day activity for many HR professionals as they work to achieve key people management objectives. Collecting, analysing and using good-quality data is essential to this process. HR professionals can use benchmarking data to measure and monitor how their organisation compares on pay and benefits, absence and leave, recruitment and retention and other key HR metrics. Many HR professionals opt to benchmark their organisation’s people data against organisations of similar size or operating in the same sector. Benchmarking begins with gathering data. Employers can choose from a range of data sources to use in benchmarking exercises. For example, XpertHR Benchmarking users can access interactive benchmarking data on all aspects of the employment relationship, including key HR metrics such as rates of absence and labour turnover, annual leave entitlements and typical ratios of employees to HR staff. XpertHR also has an ongoing research programme covering all aspects of employment practice. Michael Carty, benchmarking editor XpertHR's Benchmarking service enables users to access the full data behind XpertHR surveys for the first time. This table presents a complete index of links to all XpertHR benchmarking survey data now available via the XpertHR Benchmarking service, together with links to the relevant XpertHR analysis for each survey. Take part in employment and human resources surveys, check on the progress of recent XpertHR research, and find out what we will be investigating over the coming months. Are you getting the most out of XpertHR Benchmarking? Access our user guide for full details of how to use Benchmarking or contact our team to arrange a training session. People analytics success requires a balance of intuitive and data-driven decision-making. Michael Carty reports from last month's Tucana People Analytics World conference in London. With data and analytics moving up the HR agenda for 2017, Michael Carty identifies five essential principles for an effective people analytics strategy. With data and analytics playing an increasingly critical role in HR decision-making, latest analysis from XpertHR Benchmarking reveals the seven essential HR metrics for 2017. HR analytics skills are becoming a priority area for HR as data and analytics move up the HR agenda, according to research from the US Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). HR and legal information and guidance relating to benchmarking. XpertHR research surveys cover all aspects of employment practice, from recruitment strategies to exit interviews, from pay and benefits to contingency planning. The quality of our research is dependent on those organisations that regularly complete our surveys. Taking part in our surveys always entitles you to a free copy of the report. XpertHR surveys tells you more about our research programme and allows you to register to be notified when a new survey is launched.
Kevin Crosby (Upland, IN) is the sustainability coordinator for Taylor University and a founding member of the Y.E.C.A. Steering Committee. Through his environmental science and engineering studies, Kevin learned that "when the land isn't healthy, people aren't healthy." As a Christian called to love his neighbor and pursue justice, Kevin says "I took it on as my calling to be the person who cares for the land." "Within that, climate change is probably one of the largest...issues that we face today." Discussing his work as the sustainability coordinator for Taylor University, Kevin says: "Here at Taylor, we try and be good stewards of our resources. Our financial resources, our environmental resources, and also our human resources. A lot of those energy efficiency projects allow us to save money and reduce our emissions." Kevin and his wife do a lot of little things, such as keeping their thermostat low and biking to work. "But we also try to be vocal about our views on this." Kevin elaborates, saying "My prayer for Christian leaders and political leaders alike is that they realize that if we really want to love our neighbors, there are some consequences of our actions...and we need to take steps to mitigate that, no matter what the cost." "I often get very discouraged at the selfishness of our society...the question often is what can politics do for us? What can the church do for us?" Kevin laments. But he is not completely without hope: "I'm really excited about the great work that the others of Y.E.C.A. are doing, and I think it'll have a great impact in the years to come." Filmed by: Kaleb Nyquist, Kristin Crosby Edited by: Kaleb Nyquist
Creating Your Sleep Environment - Your bed should have enough room to turn and stretch comfortably, (even with a friend or little person sharing it!). - Your mattress, pillow and bedding should be the correct firmness and thickness for you to avoid waking with sore back, neck and shoulders (a new pillow and clean sheets is like disneyland for adults). - Keep the noise level down– loud noises are cause of many people finding it difficult to get to sleep. Use a fan, earplugs or low music of relaxing sounds. - Keep your room as dark as possible during sleep hours- even light from a television of computer can disturb your sleep. Thick curtains or an eye mask can assist. - Keep your room at a comfortable temperature and well ventilated. Make sure there are no drafts from doors or windows interfering with your sleep. - Reserve your bed for sleeping- using your bed and bedroom for work, study or completing errands you will develop a habit of associating your bed with negative and stressful tasks. Only use your bed for sleep, snuggling and sex. Top 5 Essential Oils for Sleep and Relaxation These oils can be used in a bath, massage oil blend, on your pillow, oil burner or vaporizer or in a cream to apply directly to the skin – only a couple of drops necessary! - Lavender- The ultimate relaxation essential oil - Chamomile- Great as a tea 1 hour before bed - Lemon balm- Balances and neutralizes emotions - Ylang Ylang- A calming essential oil, also useful as an aphrodisiac! - Bergamot- Soothing and uplifting- good tension reliever. Top 5 Tips for Sleep and Relaxation - Apply at least one of the essential oil suggestions to your sleep routine - The television can portray violent, confronting or mentally stimulating images- so avoid watching TV before bed, especially in your room. - Calming imagery and imagination can be a useful tool in relaxing the mind. While breathing deeply imagine your favourite relaxing place and allow your mind to be taken on a journey there. - Limit caffeine-containing beverages to the morning hours, or if necessary, no later than 2pm. Caffeine is a stimulant that causes a racing mind and more frequent urination, both are things that will prevent and disturb sleep. - If a herbal tea (chamomile is a winner) doesn’t tickle your fancy, a warm glass of milk (only if you can tolerate milk and with no sugar) half an hour to an hour before bed is useful, as it contains tryptophan, a protein that helps people to fall into the first stage of sleep. We will learn more about things that affect sleep, positively and negatively, in the next few week!
XAML Spy 3 | XAML Spy 2 In order to spy an app, the app needs to connect to the XAML Spy service. Access to the source code of a XAML app is preferred but not required. When you do not have access to the source code of a XAML app, XAML Spy can still connect the app for you in many cases. XAML Spy comes with MSBuild tasks and targets to be included in your project. Just add a single project import to your Visual Studio project and XAML Spy is automatically enabled for your app. XAML Spy for Visual Studio adds a menu option to the project contextmenu, automating the process of adding/removing the project import. Follow these steps to enable XAML Spy in your XAML project. Alternatively, watch this 30 second mini-tutorial on how to use XAML Spy. More details about Visual Studio integration can be found in the XAML Spy for Visual Studio guide. See the How to connect manually tutorial when using MSBuild is not an option, or when you need to connect a remote device. When you do not have access to the source code of a XAML app, you can use the Add App wizard. Launch the wizard by selecting the Add App button in the toolbar of the XAML Spy Explorer. The wizard displays a selection of the XAML platforms supported on your system as is demonstrated in the following image; XAML Spy can launch any in-browser Silverlight app that is available on the web, as well as installed out-of-browser apps and Silverlight XAP packages located on the local file system. Before launching the Silverlight app, XAML Spy injects a piece of code that automatically connects the app to the XAML Spy service. XAML Spy is able to launch Windows Phone apps based on phone XAP packages located on the local file system. The phone app is launched in the target device or emulator that is selected in the add app wizard. XAML Spy can attach to running WPF apps. Just run your WPF app as you normally would, launch the Add App wizard, select WPF > Attach to process and double-click the WPF app that you want to spy on.
John Yoo LAW ’92, the author of legal opinions justifying Bush administration interrogation techniques, drew crowds of protesters outside his classes in California last Wednesday. A group of protesters gathered last Wednesday in front of California Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, where Yoo has been a law professor since 1993. The protesters called on university Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to fire Yoo for his involvement in the authorization of intensive interrogation methods for alleged terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Abu Ghraib and other military prisons under the administration of George W. Bush ’68. While at the Department of Justice from 2001 to 2003, Yoo co-authored a series of memos written to various members of the White House Counsel. In some of these memos, Yoo provided legal justification for the controversial interrogation techniques used on suspected Al-Qaeda combatants. Bowing to pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union, the administration of President Barack Obama released many of the memos on March 2. But Yoo has been under harsh criticism since 2008, when a convicted terrorist filed a civil suit, seeking one dollar in damages and a judgment ruling that the techniques Yoo justified were unconstitutional. Jonathan Freiman, a lecturer at the Yale Law School, is currently representing the man, Jose Padilla, in a civil suit against Yoo. Padilla was convicted in 2007 of conspiring with Al-Qaeda and was sentenced to 17 years and four months in the “supermax” prison in Florence, Colo. Freiman filed the suit on behalf of Padilla in January 2008, alleging that Yoo’s legal arguments in the memos led to Padilla’s being tortured. The case is still being reviewed, and Freiman and two other Yale-affiliated lawyers working on the suit declined to comment for this article. In June, a judge denied Yoo’s motion to dismiss the suit, but the ruling is currently under appeal. The National Accountability Action Network (NAAN), a San Francisco-based organization founded in protest of Bush administration policies, organized Wednesday’s protests. Cynthia Papermaster, the organization’s director, said NAAN hopes to see Yoo fired, prosecuted and disbarred for his role in drafting the memos. “His work product was incompetent,” Papermaster wrote in an e-mail. “But worse, his legal advice was given to provide legal cover for illegal practices, and then later rescinded because it was concluded by the Department of Justice that the advice was wrong.” She also said NAAN is working with a group of students at Boalt Hall, UC-Berkeley’s law school, but that the group, the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture, has not been involved in any protests so far. Their work, Papermaster said, focuses more on academic programs and discussions about legal issues surrounding torture and human rights abuses. Boalt Hall Dean Christopher Edley responded to protests in August with a statement called “The Torture Memos, Professor Yoo and Academic Freedom,” in which Edley says Yoo did nothing more than offer legal advice on an issue that fell under the domain of his scholarship. “It does matter that Yoo was an adviser, but President Bush and his national security appointees were the deciders,” Edley wrote. Other members of the UC Berkeley community disagree vehemently. Professor Brad DeLong’s wrote on his blog that Yoo almost certainly conducted a “breach of professional ethics” and that his actions under the Bush White House are tantamount to crimes. Yoo’s future at the university is safe for the moment. According to the “General University Policy Regarding Academic Appointees,” rules adopted by the 10-campus University of California, Yoo would have to be convicted of a crime that “clearly demonstrates unfitness to continue as a member of the faculty” in order to be eligible for dismissal.
Usually I leave short commentary and links to interesting news on Twitter, but three recent stories piqued my interest and warrant more discussion here. And no, none of them are about whale trading, which has been covered far better by others in the blue blogosphere. Instead, these stories involve sea creatures that actually breathe water and the people who try to make a living off of them. Starting off all the way at the top, NOAA Fisheries Administrator Eric Schwaab announced that the goal of having a management plan for all federally managed fisheries has been met. Previously, some data poor or primarily bycatch fisheries had no set catch limits of management plans. Now there is theoretically at least some accountability for any species landed in the U.S. Some of these fisheries remain data-poor, and fishery complexes are still a problem in cases where life history varies among the target species, but there is now a framework to potentially manage everything. As Amy at Southern Fried Science points out, this announcement also has the distinction of being one of the few truly bipartisan government actions in the past few years. And this one doesn’t even involve indefinite detention of American citizens. There will be kinks to work out and bumps in the road, but this is quite the milestone. Scaling down to state level, my old home state of Rhode Island has a gap in fisheries management that is leading to potential big problems for the state’s fishermen and marine environment. According to this thorough summary and call to action at The Dented Bucket, pair-trawlers, huge fishing vessels targeting entire schools of Atlantic herring, are allowed to operate within the 3-mile boundary of Rhode Island’s state waters. This includes an apparent “hot spot” that is actually inside Narragansett Bay, where these large vessels can be a major disruption to the smaller fishing vessels typically found within state waters. What’s more, this spot is at the mouth of the Narrow River, an estuary that leads up to Gilbert Stuart Brook, one of the state’s major herring runs (and the site of a fish ladder popular with area schools). J.P. is calling for rational action to convince the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to ban these bulls in the China shop (from out of state, no less) until a better management strategy can be developed. Unfortunately I’m no longer a Rhode Island resident and can’t get more directly involved than spreading the word, but if you are a citizen of the Ocean State start talking to your friendly neighborhood DEM official. We end our fisheries management news update at my new home, where the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries has issued a proclamation closing that state’s spiny dogfish fishery north of Browns Inlet and cutting the daily limit for vessels fishing south of the inlet to 500 lbs. Browns Inlet is south of Bogue Inlet and Morehead City, and this proclamation effectively closes the dogfish fishery in North Carolina. Dogfish can be fairly common south of Cape Hatteras to Cape Lookout, and during the winter can be found as far south as Georgia on a regular basis, but the vast majority of the population inhabits waters north of Cape Lookout. Even if dogfish can be found in the open area, the daily catch limit has still be dramatically reduced. This comes frighteningly close on the heels of a 50% hike in the dogfish quota (after a proposed 75% hike, yikes), which only happened in late November. Were rosy projections of the health of the dogfish stock overblown, leading to managers having to scramble to keep fishing mortality down? Or is this an artifact of fewer dogfish migrating into North Carolina waters due to a warmer than average winter? It will be interesting to see the reactions of other states in the fishery. If other states (particularly Massachusetts and Virginia) close their fisheries early like North Carolina, it may mean that the dogfish stock wasn’t ready for increased quotas. Of course some will still argue that there are too many. Catch limits and herring trawlers and dogfish, oh my. Lots going on in fisheries management lately.
NAIROBI, May 17 (Xinhua) -- The UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that 30 countries in Africa with a total population of 508 million are considered to be at different levels of risk for yellow fever. WHO Kenya Country Representative Dr Custodia Mandlhate told journalists in Nairobi that the global community should not be passive to this reality. "Most of the estimated 200,000 yellow fever cases and deaths occurring annually are from African countries at risk," Mandlhate said during Kenya's launch of the Yellow Fever Risk Assessment Survey. The field exercise runs from May 20 to June 2. "Kenya decided to carry the survey so as determine if there is circulation of the yellow fever virus," she said. WHO said that the results will provide advice for implementation of the National Yellow Fever Control measures as well as help contribute to update the global WHO Yellow Fever Risk Map. "Half of Kenya is currently classified by the WHO as high risk based on historical data and proximity to neighboring countries with recurrent outbreaks," the country representative said. She noted that the most recent outbreak in the region occurred in South Sudan in 2003 and Uganda in 2011. WHO added that yellow fever was not reported from east Africa until the outbreak emerged in Kenya in 1992. "Following the incident sentinel surveillance was established," she said. Mandlhate added that yellow fever is one of the acute infectious viral hemorrhagic diseases. "If not detected and contained appropriately, it can cause explosive outbreaks particularly in high density areas which including urban centers," she said. "It is therefore a disease of public health concern and can have a negative impact on the economy," the WHO official said. Mandlhate said that despite yellow fever being preventable; it has re-emerged across the continent and some South American nations. "At present, a high proportion of travelers visiting at risk areas are being immunized as required by the international health regulations," she said. She added that WHO will continue to provide technical support to countries at risk, so that they can develop and monitor disease surveillance activities. Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Mark Bor said that the government, with the help of partners has concluded plans to conduct the risk assessment in 15 randomly selected points. He added that the exercise will cost approximately 183,000 U.S. dollars. "The assessment will involve conducting a zero-prevalence study in humans in order to determine the proportion of the population that has ever been infected with yellow fever," he said. Bor added that the survey will also determine the presence of species, density, infectivity of yellow fever virus vectors in various ecological zones. Ministry of Health Director of Public Health Shahnaz Sharif said that the public can also prevent infection by through wearing protective clothing or using bed nets and insect repellents. "The survey results will also provide evidence based information that will assist the government to determine whether to include yellow fever vaccination into the routine immunization schedule," he said. Sharif said that currently only two counties carry out routine immunization as they were affected in the last outbreak. Ministry of Health Head of Division of Disease Surveillance and Response Dr Ian Njeru said that yellow fever is a viral infection with no specific treatment. "Immunization is the primary means for preventing yellow fever while other measures taken are aimed at vector control," he said. Njeru noted that approximately 85 percent of all cases involve the mild form while the rest can result in severe cases. Kenya Tourism Board, Head of Finance Jonah Orumoi said that Kenya's classification as a risk area has had a negative impact on the tourism sector. "It is therefore in our interest that the activity takes off and comes to a conclusion, so that Kenya like neighboring Tanzania is given a clean bill of health based on study finding," he said. Orumoi noted that if Kenya is declared a no risk zone, citizens will not be required to have yellow fever vaccine whenever they travel abroad.
Air India is the first airline in the world to reserve seats for women passengers after a groping incident happened during a recent flight. Effective from 18 January 2017, six seats (two rows) in the economy section of all domestic flights will be reserved for women passengers travelling solo. The Times of India also reported that women can request for the seats without any extra charges. The Indian national carrier implemented this move to ensure the safety of its women passengers. “We feel, as national carriers, it is our responsibility to enhance comfort levels to female passengers. There are a lot of female passengers who travel alone with us and we will be blocking a few seats for them,” Meenakshi Malik, Air India General Manager – Revenue Management, was quoted in an exclusive to The Hindu. Although it is common for public transportation in India such as buses, trains, and rickshaws to have a certain number of seats allocated for women commuters only, women-only rows on flights is an unprecedented move for the airline industry worldwide. The controversial move has been widely criticised by both men and women alike. Air India introduced the new seating arrangement as a response to a groping incident that took place on a flight from Mumbai to Newark on 21 December 2016. During the flight, a business class passenger requested to change his seat to a vacant one in the economy section next to a female passenger. He made the request under the pretext of wanting to work with a colleague seated in the same section. When the female passenger was asleep, the 40-year-old man put his hand under her shirt and touched her breasts. Four hours into the flight, the woman was awakened by the inappropriate touch that left her crying hysterically. Upon arriving in the United States, the victim and the Air India crew lodged a complaint against the alleged molester. The alleged was handed over to the police. According to the Times of India, the alleged later wrote a 6-page apology letter pleading for forgiveness and requesting the victim to withdraw her complaint as it would affect his immigration status in America and the future of his family. “…Please do not let a moment’s stupidity on my part kill my children’s future. I beg of you. I know I should have thought of these things before… I acknowledge I was stupid. Please do not let everyone suffer because of me,” the letter read. Two weeks before the groping incident, a female flight attendant was molested by a male passenger onboard an Air India flight from Delhi to Oman as reported in the Telegraph UK. Safety or sexist? The move has sparked controversy with Indians questioning whether women-only seats is the solution to ensuring women’s safety. — Anushri jain (@NobodysDamsel) January 12, 2017 Former Air India Executive Director describes the move as a “misplaced priority” in an interview with The Hindu. “To my knowledge, this (women-only airplane seats) happens nowhere else in the world. Planes are not unsafe for women passengers. In case of unruly behavior, the airline crew are authorized to take action according to the law.” Calling the move a prelude to “gender discrimination”, the National President of Air Passengers Association of India says “it is an impractical move… the airline should not go ahead with this plan.” Many Air India frequent flyers have also chimed in on Twitter claiming that the need for cleaner airlines is more important than having women-only seat reservations. Some even called the move “sexist” and added that women are capable of taking care of themselves without the need for such outrageous reservations. Dear Air India, I don’t want reserved seats. I want cleaner seats. Please look into it. Yours truly, Disgruntled Passenger — Sohini (@Mittermaniac) January 12, 2017 Although having women-only rows will give solo women flyers a little peace of mind, it is a move that merely covers the crux of the issue with a blanket. The move is not a one-stop solution for in-flight misbehaviour. What really needs to change is the attitude of people towards women who choose to travel solo and giving them their right to comfort and space.
Good people are not those who lack flaws, the brave are not those who feel no fear, and the generous are not those who never feel selfish. Extraordinary are those who choose to do something about it. (Shankar Vedantam, The Hidden Brain) For a spiritual traveler this is certainly true as well. Angels may be on our side when we manifest our notion of Heaven and earth, but we nevertheless will encounter some scary moments along the WAY. Should we criticize ourselves for being fearful? Why should we as long as we keep moving in the right direction. If anything, we should be proud; it is the journey that matters, not our self-imposed doubts and fears. In the same vein, there is no need to be embarked about our so-called darker cravings. The jealousy, the greed, the desire, the anger, the lust, and all the other perceived obstacles along the WAY. It is ok to feel the way we do, we are human after all. Million of years of gene competition made us a little selfish, that's the price to pay to manifest here on earth. Feeling darkness in our bones doesn't mean that we have to go and run with it. And even if we miss a beat along the WAY now and then, so be it. We can be proud of our spiritual journey as long as we look out for your SELF to the best of our abilities. When we recognize a mistake, we apologize and do our best to reverse it afterwards. So much of our precious energy is wasted on questioning, criticizing and worrying. Yet, it is simply part of being human. Accept your feelings and then stand up for your SELF.
By Alison Weir / CounterpunchMinimally explored in all the coverage of the momentous Egyptian uprising taking place over the last 10 days are the Israeli connections. A central and critical reality is that it is US tax money that has propped up Hosni Mubarak’s despotic regime over the past 30 years, and that this money has flowed, from the beginning, largely on behalf of Israel. Israel is generally a significant factor in events in the Middle East, and to understand ongoing happenings it is important to understand the historic and current Israeli connections. The violent creation, perpetuation, and expansion of a state based on ethnic expulsion of the majority inhabitants has been central to Middle East dynamics ever since Israel was created by European and American Zionists in 1948 as a self-identified “Jewish State.” Israeli leaders and outside observers realized from the very beginning that the only way to maintain such a violently imposed, ethnically based nation-state was through military dominance of the region. For Israel to achieve this military dominance required two things: (1) The creation of a military more powerful than all the others in the region combined. Israel has achieved this through a uniquely massive influx of US tax dollars and technology, occasionally purloined but largely procured through the machinations of its lobby. (Among other things, Israel has several hundred nuclear weapons, a fact almost never mentioned by American media or the American government.) (2) The prevention of any other nation in the region from becoming a threat. Israel has attained this goal through several strategies: divide and conquer techniques, direct invasions and attacks (or pushing the U.S. to carry out attacks), and the propping up of despots who would openly or tacitly agree (sometimes in return for similarly large influxes of American tax money) not to support the rights of those oppressed and ethnically cleansed by Israel. For the past 30-plus years, Egypt has been among those despotic regimes supported by the U.S. and Israel in return for turning its back on Palestinians. The Egypt-Israeli peace treaty of 1979 has occasionally been mentioned in news reports on the current uprising. That treaty was an arrangement in which the Egyptian leader of the time, Anwar Sadat, stopped opposing Israel’s previous ethnic cleansing of close to a million indigenous Palestinian Muslims and Christians (at least 750,000 in 1947-49 and an additional 200,000 in 1967). This removed the most populous and politically significant country from the Arab front opposing Israel’s illegal actions and led the way for other nations to “normalize” relations with the abnormal situation in Palestine. In return, Israel gave back to Egypt the Sinai, Egyptian land it had illegally annexed in its 1967 war of aggression. (Egypt had almost managed to re-conquer this land and more in 1973, but the most massive airlift in American history, engineered by Henry Kissinger under pressure from the Israeli lobby, was sent to Israel, preventing this outcome.) Also in return, the United States agreed to give Egypt more US tax money than any other nation, with the exception of Israel. Since 1979, Egypt has received an annual average of close to $2 billion in economic and political aid /a/ from American taxpayers (most of whom have known nothing about this use of our money). /3/ The arrangement has allowed Mubarak to stay in power for decades despite periodic attempts by Egyptians to free themselves from his ruthless rule. At the same time, it’s important to note that the U.S., as broker of the peace treaty, gave Israel even greater rewards: guaranteeing Israel’s oil supplies for the next fifteen years; assuring Israel of American support in the event of violations; committing to be ‘responsive’ to Israel’s military and economic requirements; and promising a variety of major transfers of technology and aid, including $3 billion to relocate two Israeli air bases out of the Sinai, where, as journalist Donald Neff noted, they had no right to be in the first place. In fact, the American financial arrangement with Israel, which had begun years before Egypt’s, has been far cozier than Egypt’s: Israel gets considerably more money from the US, even though its population is one-tenth of Egypt’s; there is little U.S. oversight of how it uses that money; and, unlike Egypt, which receives its allotment monthly, Israel receives its handout in a lump sum at the very beginning of the fiscal year (which means that Americans then pay interest for the rest of the year on money that the government has already given away, while Israel makes interest on it). In the cases of both Israel and Egypt, the Israel lobby’s role in procuring this U.S. tax money has been central. While this fact is largely missing from US media reports and many liberal/left analyses, it is frequently referred to in Israeli and Jewish media. For example, a current Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) report states: “The question of whether to stake a claim in the protests against 30 years of President Hosni Mubarak’s autocracy is a key one for the pro-Israel lobby and pro-Israel lawmakers because of the role they have played in making Egypt one of the greatest beneficiaries of U.S. aid.” Through the years a variety of Egyptian groups have opposed the Egyptian regime, some using violence (while the regime has used greater violence against them). This is virtually always reported without context and in extremely negative terms, without noting that it is routine for resistance movements to use violence; the American Revolutionary War was not known for its nonviolence. Yet, Israeli-centric U.S. media rarely discuss this. As conditions change in Egypt, U.S. lawmakers known for their allegiance to Israel are evaluating what to do about U.S aid. Many such Israel partisans have particularly powerful and relevant positions, such as Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the foreign operations subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee; Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Middle East subcommittee; Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), ranking member on the Foreign Affairs committee and the author of last year’s sweeping Iran sanctions law; and Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev), member of the subcommittee on the Middle East of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. A person close to the Israel lobby notes: “No matter what happens, clearly one of the top criteria Congress is likely to use is Egypt’s approach to its peace treaty obligations with Israel.” In recent years, Mubarak has collaborated with Israel in closing off the Gaza Strip, largely imprisoning 1.5 million men, women, and children, resulting in a humanitarian disaster in which children suffer malnutrition, stunting, and trauma, and 300 Gazan patients have died through lack of essential medical supplies or being denied exit passes for medical care. Egyptian citizens, furious at their nation’s complicity in this cruelty, have been powerless to stop it. Israel has long worked to create enmity between Egypt and the U.S. In the early 1950s the Israeli secret service, the Mossad, hatched a plan to firebomb areas in Egypt where Americans gathered — and to make these attacks appear to be the work of Muslim extremists. The plot was discovered and caused a scandal in Israel known as the “Lavon Affair,” but few Americans have ever heard of it. Some analysts suspect that other such plots succeeded and that the little-known Israeli attack on the U.S. Navy ship USS Liberty may have been a similar false-flag operation. (Certainly, there is little doubt that the U.S. would have attacked Egypt if Liberty crewmembers had not succeeded, against all odds, in getting a distress signal out before Israel succeeded in sinking the ship with all men aboard.) Another little-discussed result of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty was the creation of an international peacekeeping force in the Sinai, known as the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), charged with mediating between Egypt and Israel. It is telling that this force was not placed on Israeli land but instead occupies Egyptian territory. Its current head is Ambassador David M. Satterfield, an American diplomat who served extensively in the Middle East, was Senior Advisor on Iraq for former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and held a number of other high positions in the state department, including Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. In 2005 Satterfield was named as having provided classified information to an official of the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, AIPAC. According to documents, Satterfield had discussed secret national security matters in at least two meetings with AIPAC official Steven J. Rosen, who was subsequently indicted by the U.S. Justice Department (later quashed over the objections of the FBI.) In 2004 Satterfield presided at a State Department conference on the 1967 war. A Washington Report on Middle East Affairs report on this conference stated that Satterfield repeatedly referred to Palestinian terrorism while failing to mention Israel’s brutal attacks on Palestinian civilians. The article reports “Satterfield’s remarks dampened audience expectations for an even-handed U.S. approach to peacemaking.” Among those in the audience at the conference’s panel on the USS Liberty, though not on the panel itself were USS Liberty survivors, trying to tell their story. State Department moderator Marc Susser quickly cut them off, and his treatment of the survivors reportedly “bordered on abusive.” Now, David Satterfield is heading up international forces occupying Egyptian land charged with being a “neutral” mediator between Egypt and Israel. It is unknown whether his conversations with AIPAC continue. Alison Weir is President of the Council for the National Interest and Executive Director of If Americans Knew. She can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org.
I’m amazed at how many people are confused about why we celebrate the holidays that we do. Labor day is a federal holiday when most Americans have the good fortune of getting the day off. I have to admit, in my 34 years it has only been recently that the meaning of labor day has meant anything to me. To me it has always meant a time for vacations, time off from school or work, cookouts, and fun, but it’s so much more than that. It is also very different from any of our other holidays. It’s not to celebrate a person, or the sacrifices the military has made for our freedom, or the fact that we have freedom at all. It’s about the people. It’s about us. It’s about the blood, sweat, and tears that the American people have put in to our country to make it great and prosperous. Lets take a walk back in history…. today we hear the term “union” and we think of something bad, because we are taught that unions are bad, and in some ways they are right. Some of the unions today are really good, they allow for some of the best paying jobs with some of the most well treated employees with amazing healthcare. In other respects they do little to nothing but make workers lives harder. However, at one time unions were a really good thing. Labor day all started with the labor movement. The labor movement involved organizing labor to get regulations on workplace rights, wages, working hours, and other working conditions. Without unions and without the labor movement we would not have the strict regulations on labor that we have now. The regulations that employers are currently trying very hard to break. They sponsored their own political parties, they wanted a break from elitism, they wanted their own rights as workers. Sounds familiar right? Labor day itself is said to have been prompted by the Pullman strike. A strike where railroad employees were boycotting the railroads and factories because the company cut wages of all their employees. During the course of the strike the United States Army and US Marshals were ordered by Grover Cleveland to break up the strike. In the end 13 strikers were killed and 57 wounded. This is about workers fighting for the rights that you currently have. The rights for 40 hour weeks, for breaks, for weekends, for equal pay, for it to be illegal to decrease pay, all of that. All of these laws that employer are now trying to work around, to find loopholes for. We should celebrate labor day as workers, as people who deserve respect and fair and equal pay. We deserve a living wage. We deserve to be treated like people, not like slaves for our CEOs. Make a stand for the people who fought for our rights. They did not die so that we can be slaves to our employers
Get Down: Stories by Asali Solomon Publication Date: Jan 22, 2008 List Price: $18.00 (store prices may vary) Page Count: 208 Imprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Parent Company: Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck Read Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s description of Get Down: Stories Book Reviewed by Idrissa Uqdah Asali Solomon's collection of short stories, Get Down is a short story reader's delight. The stories are so real and many are set in Solomon's hometown of Philadelphia (which is my hometown too). Most are about adolescents coming of age during the 1980s; and depict awkward moments of trying to find your place in the world where you never seem to fit. The adult characters are also struggling with issues and problems that most people face. This collection will appeal to the YA (Young Adult) market as well as adult readers. In the story; Twelve Takes Thea, we meet Thea Brown whose parents, the first in their families to attend college, are determined to give their children the very best education. Thea is sent to a very prestigious, private girls' school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Thea's social life, where she is one of two African American students, is told with humor. When her best friend is transferred to a local Catholic school; her friendship with Nadja Bell deteriorate due to distance and Thea is hurt and confused. The new Black girl at the school is nothing like her friend, Nadja and Thea is forced to try to fit in with an East Indian girl who betrays her. Adolescence is such a painful experience for Thea who just wants to fit in. William Is Telling A Story is about a student from an HBCU, on a spring break vacation, in Jamaica with some of his friends. As they sit around one night drinking and playing the game ’truth and tell’, Williams divulges a secret about having a sexual encounter with another male student. William passes it off to a one-time thing to his friends but in reality; it was more than that and despite his relationships with women, he still desires his former homosexual lover. William's torment with his confusion about his sexual orientation is written with such class and honesty. The author seems to see inside this young man's soul. My favorite story in the collection is The Star of The Story. Middle-aged Akousa, ’nee Betty Wilson has dreams in her head about her life "...before she got married. Before he bought a three-story in West Philadelphia, had a son, got a divorce, kept the house.’ She had come from a proper up bringing in the suburbs of Philadelphia where both of her parents where teachers. Akousa set off to New York City to attend Hunter College under the pretense of becoming a teacher. All she really wanted to do was escape to the Big Apple; a place with excitement, unlike where she grew up. In New York City; she dated Black men from every ethnicity and became enthralled with a Latino man, a type she had rarely come in contact with back home. Akousa re-invented herself and became what she called an ’Afrocentric Lola Falana’. There is so much compassion for the human heart in these stories. You will get caught up in the characters and the circumstances of their lives. You will relate to the stories of Black America during the 1980s when Ronald Reagan was President, The Cosby Show was a given weekly experience and hip hop was born. Asali Solomon is a young writer to watch. Her voice is clear and her vision is unmistakably our story.
By MIRA REINBERG Audiences and readers of Samuel Beckett have long since become aware that of all the different nuances that the playwright attributed to the meaning of responsibility, Beckett has never deemed it his task to attenuate the gravity with which he beheld life. He doled out his views of the absurdities and ruthlessness of our existence in a dish devoid of relishes and demanded that we withhold clinging to all conceptual crutches. But perhaps not entirely. He was a consummate artist whose very genre embodies incontrovertible truths: the urgency of the creative act, the essential role of live enactment, and the imperative to generate interaction between performers and spectators. His art needed the living lifeline of the theatre. This is the insight that is most strikingly manifest in this production of Waiting for Godot in the Jungle Theater. The proverbial stark set, designed by director Bain Boehlke, adheres to Beckett’s barren aesthetic, where even the rise of the evening moon signifies exhaustion and sterility: another fallow day of our life has evaporated in frustration. Godot has forfeited another coming. But on stage are Estragon (Nathan Keepers) and Vladimir (Jim Lichtscheidl), and their interaction is the antithesis to the desolation and abjection of the visual aesthetic of the play. The conceptual framework – language, philosophy, mood – are Beckett’s through and through. But Keepers and Lichtscheidl enter the figures of the hungry tramps and succeed in activating the bleak and hopeless existential questions and in turning them from arcane ponderings into flesh and blood human interaction. Estragon and Vladimir are two separate people whose long-time connection cannot be accounted for solely by their comparable predicament. Estragon’s flimsy rebelliousness comes forth as reluctant but grateful loyalty in Keepers’ rendering, and Lichtscheidl displays Vladimir’s exuberant attentiveness with a convincing measure of self-irony. Beckett’s judgment of man’s cruelty is crystallized in the figures of Pozzo (Allen Hamilton), the rich aristocrat, and Lucky (Charles Schuminski), his subjugated bondservant. But Lucky is no lackey; the dynamic between the two represents the complex philosophical question of the relationship between the master and the slave and of the crushing interdependency they are mired in. The play opened in 1953 in the aftermath of the logical and ethical abyss in which Europeans found themselves after the barbarism of the Second World War had become apparent. But the play’s modernism is in its insistence on bespeaking the absurd vagaries which engulf our daily relationships – with our economic conditions, religious beliefs, and ideological convictions. Hamilton’s despotic Pozzo is crudely boisterous and the irrationality of his heartlessness marks this arbitrariness in treating other humans. Schuminski manages to convey the most contradictory in human spirit as he succumbs to Pozzo’s callous whims only to awaken, when permitted, and deliver a seemingly erudite speech. Is it the agency of the human spirit that generates Lucky’s sermon or Estragon and Vladimir’s philosophical ruminations? Or have they all, while waiting for Godot to wiggle them out of the enduring dreariness of their existence, become automatons, set to react obediently to the ball and chain to which reality charges them? This production has less of the tragic to it, perhaps due to Keepers and Lichtscheidl’s age, their performance lively and agile under Boehlke’s direction. Despite the debilitating and almost hallucinatory disappointment delivered by their savior’s little messenger, telling them that Godot will not come yet again, Lichtscheidl is all too real as he calls out, emphatically: “You saw me! Tell Mr. Godot!” We certainly did see him, his performance was no hallucination. Waiting for Godot By Samuel Beckett. Directed by Bain Boehlke. At the Jungle Theater, 2951 Lyndale Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota. August 24-September 30, 2012. Tickets at Box Office Phone: (612) 822-7063 or Box Office Email: email@example.com
Sandboxes are usually reserved for toddlers – but a very special one is an important new tool in our firefighting arsenal. It’s giving our wildland firefighters a new kind of hands-on experience – without even burning a twig. Practice makes perfect, and that’s as true of fighting wildfires as it is for anything else. The best way to learn the effectiveness of different firefighting techniques is to test them under different conditions – and our wildland firefighters spend lots of time in the field, doing exactly that. But this kind of experience is also expensive and time-consuming. These limitations can make it hard for students to compare different approaches and variables across situations. A simulation sand table – the first of its kind in Canada – is helping the students at the Hinton Training Centre to overcome these barriers. Using satellite maps as a reference, we can change the sand to mimic topographical elements like mountains, rivers, and valleys. Once the stage is set, the effects of a wildfire are simulated. Features like temperature, wind speed and direction, and time of day can be changed – and students can watch the wildfire react to these changes. They decide where to place firefighting crews, and see the effects of creating fuel breaks, dropping fire retardant, and other tactics. Students can fast-forward to see the results of their choices instantly – and learn from them. And because they’re learning from a simulation, that simulation can be run again and again to allow them to test their new knowledge before they face a real wildfire. The result is smarter training. And that’s good news for our crews and for the communities – and forest ecosystems – they protect.
I was at university in the early 1990s, a period that we can now refer to in hindsight as the crest of the first wave of political correctness. There were even arguments over appropriation of voice and cultural appropriation that were loudly debated at meetings of the Writers’ Union of Canada. For those of you with an interest in such historical matters, Philip Marchand covered the moment in an essay later reprinted in Ripostes: Reflections on Canadian Literature (1998). Then things died down. When Russell Smith sent up the whole matter of identity politics in his novel Muriella Pent in 2004 he was very much looking back on matters that no longer seemed that relevant. Here is the first paragraph from my review of Muriella Pent, which I wrote 13 years ago: Muriella Pent is a curious novel that could be easily mistaken as prematurely dated. It has, for example, a lot to say about fashions in the arts, about what’s in and what’s out, and it directs its satire toward subjects (like the debates over political correctness and appropriation of voice) that are now very out. Ouch. In my defence, I did end the review by saying it would be wrong to write Muriella Pent off as “a blast from the past,” and closed with these now prophetic words: “I have a hunch it might be ahead of its time.” Well, it’s been a while but the once “very out” topics of political correctness and appropriation of voice are now very much back in. For good and ill. Who would have thought in 2004 that in 2016 someone would come along and ride a crusade against the forces of political correctness all the way into the White House? That would have seemed even more preposterous than a President Trump. Whatever you think of all this, it’s clear we’re now experiencing a second wave. Looking at the dates it’s hard to miss the generational ebb and flow. That may be one explanation anyway for the curious rise and fall and rise again of the same arguments, expressed with the same rhetoric, pro and con (roughly, freedom of speech vs. exploitation and oppression). We even have, in place of Smith’s Muriella Pent, Stephen Henighan’s Mr. Singh Among the Fugitives, a new satire on identity politics in Canadian cultural circles. It’s déjà vu, but is it progress? I’ll avoid entering into the arena here, mainly because I think there is a basic disagreement over the terms of the debate (or conversation, as it’s more gently styled). Well-meaning people seem to mean very different things when they use the term cultural appropriation. For some, every work of art necessarily involves cultural appropriation, while for others it is an act of genocide. Both sides have a point to make, but obviously, expressed in these terms, they have no common ground. But why are these matters becoming so prominent now? Is it because of the generational ebb and flow I mentioned? Or the effect of so many highly publicized examples of the phenomenon in recent years, like the cases of Rachel Dolezal (the former head of the NAACP who was outed by her parents as being white), Joseph Boyden (whose Indigenous heritage has been called into question), and Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner commercial (co-opting the Black Lives Matter movement to sell cola)? I’m sure that cases like these all provided fuel to the fire, but I don’t think they were the real drivers. For that, I’d point the finger elsewhere. (1) The media. You can’t exaggerate how much the media plays this stuff up, and the effect that has. After the story broke about Hal Niedzviecki quitting his post as editor of the Writers’ Union of Canada’s magazine due to an editorial he wrote (that began “I don’t believe in cultural appropriation”) there was a barrage of high-profile, mainstream commentary. The CBC ran op-ed pieces, as well as broadcasting interviews and hosting discussions online and on their flagship news programs. I think the National Post had two columns a day for nearly a week talking about it, and other newspapers followed suit. When was the last time, if ever, that anything having to do with writers in Canada received half as much media attention? (2) Universities. I’ve previously pointed out that matters of identity are now the only subject of interest in English departments. Identity politics now constitute the foundation of any English program, and are of far more importance than the practice of textual analysis or making judgments of aesthetic value. What this has led to is the current critical dispensation, where, for example, the only question we need to ask about Joseph Boyden is whether his voice can be established as authentic. These were both drivers of the cultural appropriation debate twenty years ago, but they have since metastasized. The media, in transitioning online, is far more dependent on pushing people’s buttons in order to grab clicks and eyeballs, going after immediate responses and snap moral judgments. Meanwhile, universities have limited the accepted terms of critical discourse to include only such matters of identity as are now being re-argued. Working in tandem they have made this time around an amplified version of the same debate we had in the 1990s, but not one with much more to say. My guess is that the conversation will move away again after a while, but I don’t think we’ll be moving on.
Wednesday, June 21, 2017 NELSON-WIGGEN STYLE 4X This is a Nelson-Wiggen style 4X orchestrion. It could be set up to play either the 4X or G paper roll. It differs from many contemporary designs using a single stroke marimba rather than a reiterating one. The Nelson Wiggen machines were some of the most complex vacuum operated machines of the era and some of their critics said if there was a simple way to do something they would not even consider doing it that way. This was one of the more popular instruments produced by Nelson-Wiggen, but how many have survived is unknown. The music is contained on a paper roll with holes punched in it, which normally contains 10 songs. The punched holes are "read" by a vacuum control system, that in turn opens valves allowing the compressed air to enter the selected pipes and play the music. The vacuum and compressed air are suppled by wood and leather bellows pumps driven by a crankshaft, which is turned by the electric motor mounted in the bottom of the instrument. Our machine plays a ten tune 4X roll, which controls a Piano, Mandolin Rail, Trap Drum, Marimba & Triangle. Built about 1925, its location is unknown until it was owned by Jake, who got it in parts someplace in New York State and reassembled it. It played for several years after it came to us, but got weaker as time went on. We did some patch work to keep it playing, but by 2012 it needed serious work, so we did a fairly complete repair, including case refinishing. In the process, we found Jake had bypassed several control function, which we restored to the original condition. Oscar Nelson and Peder Wiggen, worked as engineers and factory supervisors for the J.P. Seeburg Company, until striking out on their own and forming the Nelson Wiggen Co. in Chicago in 1922.
The news three weeks ago that Fujifilm is discontinuing two of its Professional lines did not come as a shock but more a sigh of disappointment. Fuji Film is discontinuing the film lines; Fujichrome Velvia 100F in 35mm, 120 and 4×5 formats and Fuji Velvia 50 in 4×5 and 8×10 but not 35mm or 120. The fact that Velvia 50 is still available in 35mm and 120 format shows there is still popularity for this film. Velvia 50 was dropped once before in 2005 due to sourcing raw materials that made up part of the composition of the film. Velvia 50 was re-released into the market in 2007 after synthetic substitute was found for the raw materials. Velvia is a saturated, fine grain film much valued by nature and landscape photographers. The cancellation of the 4×5 and 8×10 may be more due to the lack of people shooting large format photography. Fuji’s news did not surprise me as Kodak had made a similar statement in March, when they discontinued three of the colour transparency films Kodak Professional Ektachrome E100G, Kodak Professional Ektachrome E100VS Film and Kodak Professional Elite Chrome Extra Colour 100. Kodak’s reason for their action was; “due to a steady decrease in sales and customer usage, combined with a highly complex product formulation and manufacturing processes….”. These films are known as colour reversal or transparency films and have a different development process to colour negative films (Colour reversal film uses E6 development and colour negative use C41). Once the film has been developed you don’t need to have pictures printed as you can using a light box, a slide projector or even your window view the images straight away. As a child I remember one relative visiting once a year with his slide show and projecting it onto my grandfather’s living room wall. Transparency film is what I preferred to use in the studio, mainly because it saved time. Once I had my 120 film back from the lab I could move to the light box and quickly select my images without having to scan the whole roll of film. I was also able with filters to look at how much colour correction had to be made before I sat down at the computer. Whereas with negative film I would spend time scanning every image only to sought through the ones I didn’t want to use. While it may seem that slide film is losing its profitability, negative film still has some profitability; Kodak has said that they will continue to make Negative film as long as it is still profitable. The black and white films have been weathering the storm slightly better. Ilford still has full range of films available and have even commented that there sales have been steady. Black and white Photography is an area of expertise and being such it is less a consumer product and not so affected by the changes in the consumer market. There have been a few discontinuations, Fuji Neopan 1600 was discounted. Its use was mainly with sports, journalism, stage shows and astrophotography. Kodak also discontinued in 2010, Plus X 125 but with a reasonable replacement in T-max 100 still available. Film products have slowly been discontinued. This is not startling as digital photography has really taken off. Since 2007 I would say it has been harder to get film developed in 1 hour like you could before. Mostly the wait can be a day to a week. I had some film developed last year and put onto cd (no prints). What would have taken 5 years ago a day now took a week. This is due to there being a lack of demand from the majority of consumers. Film no longer is a mass consumed product but is becoming more and more an enthusiasts and niche fashion product. Lomogrpahy in the last two years has started to build a huge fan base and Lomography needs film. That being said I have seen a digital back for a Holga. Many years ago there were arguments about film vs. digital. Digital will kill off film was the main mantra being repeated. But Digital won’t kill off film. Digital will force film to change. Film for years in photography fought its battles against itself producing films that both the consumer and the professional needed. Companies changed the makeup to suit the need of the photographers. For consumers they started making films with brighter more intense colours, whereas for the professional you had a choice of different levels of saturation, brightness and fineness of grain. For example Fuji Pro160S was designed for portraiture; “featuring more highly optimized skin tone reproduction and neutral grey balance, especially important for portrait photography.” For Professionals film grain and film speed was a constant conflict. You want smooth clear images but you also want to be able to take pictures in low light. There was no grain reduction system in editing like there is for noise reduction in digital photography. Of course grain can give a certain feel to a photograph in some situations. The idea of knowing what you wanted to take before you took the picture was something a photographer had to think about, because the choice of film would depict the beginning tone of the image. In digital photography this is not such an important thought process for some. In digital photography there are plugins and pre-sets for different faux film settings. I know I do tend to use them when I want a particular look. Digital photography has changed the way that a photographer has to think and work with their camera. Film now has to look at itself and not try to compete with the digital photography directly but offer itself as an alternative to digital photography, an alternative experience that you no longer get. The surprise of how a picture looks when you first open the envelope with prints inside. This will be hard as in the high tech modern world we live in, we want things quicker faster and more instantaneous. Also we want to be able to share their pictures hassle free. At the moment Film has taken a beating in the ring due to the fact that digital did not just hit the film market but also the photographic paper and chemicals market and the companies that sold as well. Some companies like Kodak and AFGA are now bankrupt. Polariod has stopped production of all film lines as of 2008. Kodak has had to reorganise its business and will continue producing film while it is profitable as well as concentrating on digital printing products. AFGA has stopped production of all of its lines, except you can still by their film for aerial photography but under the name ROLLEI. Specifically, these re-branded AGFA materials include ROLLEI RETRO 80S, 200S and 400S, DIGIBASE CN200 and CR200. Polaroid is still making printers and even televisions. What is the future of film and why is it not dead? Films future is in its niche markets that are slowly being carved out. Film is not dead just taking a breather seeing where the digital age is taking it. There are some pure film enthusiasts and just enough to keep the industry alive at the moment. There is also at this time a resurgence in film. If this keeps up then there will be happy future but what has been lost will still be missed.
The main objective of using the principles of design, which is the second factor of ‘AestheticÂ’, is to govern the relationship between the elements of design in one building or project. A building is not only a structure composed of repeated elements such as lines, shapes, and texture, but also exhibits a thoughtful use of these elements according to the employment of the principles of design. However, the main objective of using the principles of design, which is the second factor of ‘Aesthetic’, is to govern the relationship between these elements in one building or project. By using the principles of design, the architect will be able to create a meaningful building with a unique architectural composition. These principles of design include: Pattern / Rhythm, Balance (Symmetry / Asymmetry), Contrast, Scale / Proportion, Theme / Variation, Unity in Variety, harmony, and Emphasis / Dominance. 1. Pattern and Rhythm In architecture, pattern is the repetition of all or some of the elements of design, such as lines, shapes, and forms. Patterns can be formed of regular or irregular shapes and it helps the architect to create visual interest to the viewers and passers-by. In a building or a project, rhythm can be defined as the regular repetition of patterns, which create an architectural composition and add movement and excitement to the physical appearance of a building. Regular pattern (columns): rhythm can be sensed in the repetition of column. Regular pattern: rhythm can be seen in the repetition of windows. Irregular pattern: rhythm can be seen in the repetition of matchboxes. 2. Balance (symmetry / asymmetry): Balance is an important tool, which create visual weight as well as a feeling of stability to the building. In architecture, balance can be recognized, if the shapes on one side of an imaginary centerline drawn through the façade appear to have the same weight as those shapes on the other side. Balance could be symmetrical or asymmetrical as long as the building expresses and maintains a sense of equilibrium. Symmetrical balance / Asymmetrical balance Contrast is another important element, which create a visual variety, excitement and interest to the building and can be achieved in one building or a group of buildings on the scale of streetscape. Contrast can be recognized in a building, when two adjacent parts are very different from one another, different materials, colors and textures. Light, shade and shadow of masses also create contrast. Even on the scale of streetscape, adjacent old and modern buildings create and interesting contrast. Contrast between buildings by the use different forms and the old and the new 4. Proportion / Scale Proportion can be defined as the relationship between two things of different size. In architecture, proportion is usually used to describe the relationship between the size of spaces and masses and the size of the human body. However, this kind of proportion is called scale. In this case, scale is a very important tool which greatly affects the way a human being perceives a space. Sometimes a building is intentionally designed out of proportion to the human scale in order to emphasize things or an architectural idea. For example, a very high minaret in a mosque or a tower of a cathedral makes people feel quite insignificant in comparison to the remarkable power of God. Architects also deliberately design spaces with different scales in order to create a dynamic movement through these spaces. Human-scale architecture Inhuman-scale aerchitecture 5. Theme and Variation: Another essential element of design is the theme / variation. It can be defined as a dominant feature (line, shape, colour), which is used throughout the building. A variation can be seen as the change in the dominant elements with the main architectural idea still recognizable. In designing a building, the architect is free to develop any theme based on modern or historical references. On the scale of the city, one can create a theme to the various buildings of the area with variety in their heights and sizes. Geometric shapes represent the theme of the house with variations in its sizes. 6. Unity in Variety: A work of architecture has unity when its elements are used and grouped together in a logical manner. In architecture, a variety of elements is used to add interest and excitement to a design. However, the architect’s main concern is to tie these varied elements in order to give unity to the overall image, as well as creates a sense of harmony. However, repetition of shapes and forms unifies the different parts of the building, while the differences between the vertical and curved shapes give the building a balancing sense of variety. Unity in Variety 7. Emphasis / Dominance ‘Dominance’ is an important principle of design that relates to the visual weight of an architectural composition, while ‘Emphasis’ refers to the object or element which first catches the attention of the viewer. An architect needs to create an area of emphasis or a focal point, which is considered as the visual starting point from which the eye will begin the journey of recognizing the whole architecture work.
YouTube announced on its blog today that it has added a new tool allowing users to blur out the faces in an uploaded video. The site wants to give anonymity to users that might fear reprisal by public viewers. "Whether you want to share sensitive protest footage without exposing the faces of the activists involved, or share the winning point in your 8-year-old’s basketball game without broadcasting the children’s faces to the world, our face blurring technology is a first step towards providing visual anonymity for video on YouTube," the site's post announced. After you upload the original video, YouTube's Video Enhancements tool will lead you to "Additional features." Here you can click apply under "Blur All Faces." Checking "Delete original video" will then trash your copy of the video with exposed faces. Currently, YouTube warns that the technology is imperfect, and may leave some faces un-blurred. But you can view the video before you post it. If the tool did not catch all of the faces, you can choose to keep the video private. Also, the tool can only blur out every face in a video, so you can't single out faces for blurring, and leave the identities of others exposed to the world. Jessica Mason, a spokesperson for YouTube, wrote to Ars in an e-mail that the company was working on improving the technology and creating new features in the future. The technology may be imperfect on YouTube's site, but the pieces that make up the technology are hardly new. "We use an algorithm that scans a video and detects facial features like eyes. From there it blurs the detected faces by adding things like noise and pixelation to the detected features," Mason wrote. Facebook has been using face detection technology in its photos since last year, and offline video editors have been able to blur faces for much, much longer than that. But better late than never. Considering YouTube's importance in disseminating citizen journalism, the feature will likely be useful to people with kids, or anyone who wants to stay under the radar while still making certain actions public. Of course, YouTube's Community Guidelines "prohibit illegal content or material that incites violence," so you still won't be seeing tours of anyone's 2,000 sq ft meth lab anytime soon. Mason told Ars that YouTube began to "seriously discuss and pursue" the feature at the 2011 Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference. She also credited activists and human rights organizations, specifically the 2011 Witness Cameras Everywhere report, for pushing for this kind of feature. In a quick test of the feature, we found that YouTube is right—the blur tool does work imperfectly, but it's better than nothing. Applying the blur effect went very quickly on an 18 second clip, although obviously the longer your video is, the longer you'll be waiting for the edit to resolve (ultimately it will depend on your Internet connection, though). Before using the tool, my clip had a few moments where the camera was shaky. When the image was particularly poor, but YouTube's algorithm still detected a face, the blur tool would blur out large swaths of the image, in a hilarious (or frustrating) case of over-correction. And when only half of a face was visible, the blur tool wouldn't work at all. For some it may be better to obscure more of the image than less, but if you're marching in a demonstration or jogging down the touchlines of your kid's soccer game, be aware that using YouTube's tool on irreparably shaky video might negate the whole purpose of videotaping the event. Still, for fast and free anonymity, YouTube's new feature is incredibly easy, and will certainly go a long way toward hiding identities in a world of seemingly ubiquitous cameras. Update: YouTube's Jessica Mason responded to our inquiry into how possible or easy it is to undo the blur effect on their videos. Regarding unblurring, "We can't say it's impossible to unblur, but we have made it incredibly difficult," Mason told Ars in an e-mail late Wednesday evening. "We feel we've made it so difficult that it's not worth the immense effort required to try." In addition, Mason noted that after the original video is deleted, the unblurred version is completely gone from Google's servers "very quickly."
How Well Do You Know Node.js? - Answers (Part 2)18 Jan 2017 | node-js What’s the problem with the process uncaughtException event? How is it different than the exit event? this event emmits, it means that your application is in an undefined state and it is not safe to continue. Hence this event should only be used to perform synchronous cleanup of resources, logging and shutting down the process. exit event is emitted when the Node.js process is about the exit as a result of either: process.exit()method being called explicitly - The event loop has no additional work to perform What does the _ mean inside of Node’s REPL? Node’s REPL always sets _ to the result of the last expression. Do Node buffers use V8 memory? Can they be resized? No to both questions - Node.js buffers correspond to fixed-sized, raw memory allocations outside the V8 heap. What’s the difference between Buffer.alloc allocates a memory chunk, initializes it (sets every cell to either zero or some predefined value) and returns a Node.js Buffer wrapping this memory chunk. Buffer.allocUnsafe skips the initialization stage. Instead it returns a Buffer pointing to uninitialized memory. This reduces the allocation time duration, but creates a possibility for (sensitive) data leakage, if this uninitialized memory is exposed to the user. Thus, you should only Buffer.allocUnsafe only if you plan to initialize the memory chunk yourself. How is the slice method on buffers different from that on arrays? buf.slice() method on buffers is a mutating operation which modifies the memory in the original buffer. Array.prototype.slice() method returns a shallow copy of a portion of an array and does not modify it. What is the string_decoder module useful for? How is it different than casting buffers to strings? string_decoder is useful for decoding a Buffer instance into strings while preserving endoded multi-byte UTF-8 / UTF-16 characters. In oppose to simple buffer cast to string, the string_decodure can detect incomplete multibyte characters and handle them. For example: What are the 5 major steps that the require function does? Module._cachefor the cached module - If cache is empty, create a new Module instance and save it to the cache - Call module.load() with the given filename. This will call module.compile()after reading the file contents - If there was an error loading/parsing the file, delete the bad module from the cache Read more about how require actually works here What is the require.resolve function and what is it useful for? require.resolve methods resolves a module to its absolute path. What is the main property in package.json useful for? The main field is a module ID that is the primary entry point to your program. For example, if your package is named foo, and a user does require("foo"), then your main module’s exports object will be returned. What are circular modular dependencies in Node and how can they be avoided? We say that module A dependends on module B if A has require('B') in it. Assume a dependency graph where an edge (A,B) means that A dependens on B. Then Circular modular dependencies are cycles in this dependency graph. Two ways to avoid circular modular are: - move the requirestatements from the top of the file to the point in code they’re actually used. this will delay their execution, allowing for the exports to have been created properly - restructure the code. For example move the code that both modules depend on into a new module C and let both A and B depend on C. What are the 3 file extensions that will be automatically tried by the require function? When creating an http server and writing a response for a request, why is the end() function required? res object is a stream, we can write into it in several stages. the end() method indicates that we’ve finished writing into it and that the response is ready to be sent to the client. When is it ok to use the file system When it is OK to block the process while the syncronous operation takes place. For example, this may be valid when writing a CLI tool. It’s most likely not OK when writing a server that should handle multiple clients concurrently. How can you print only one level of a deeply nested object? You can use the What is the node-gyp package used for? node-gyp is a cross-platform CLI tool used for compiling native addon modules for Node.js. It bundles gyp (Generate Your Project), which is essentially a Meta-Build system: a build system that generates other build systems. GYP specificy sources, flags, etc. for different architectures and module are all globally available in every module but they are different in every module. How? Before a module’s code is executed, Node.js wraps it in the following code: This means that while module appear to be global variables, they’re actually specific to the module If you execute a node script file that has the single line: console.log(arguments);, what exactly will node print? As seen in the answer above, the module code is an invocation of a function taking as arguments, so these arguments will be printed. How can a module be both requirable by other modules and executable directly using the node command? A module can detect if its being requirable or executed directly by inspecting the What’s an example of a built-in stream in Node that is both readable and writable? net.Socket is an example for a Duplex (both readable and writable) stream. What’s the difference between using event emitters and using simple callback functions to allow for asynchronous handling of code? The biggest difference between using callbacks and using event emitters is that callbacks directly couples the original function and the callback, whereas using event emitters can let you keep the calling function and the callback separate. The require function always caches the module it requires. What can you do if you need to execute the code in a required module many times? The cache in which modules are cached in is accessible using require.cache. Thus, if you delete a module key from require.cache, the next time you require it will reload it (and will execute the code in it again). What is the console.time function useful for? console.time is useful to measure the time difference between two points in the code; calling console.time('label') will record the current time, and later calling console.timeEnd('label') will display the time difference up to this point (in miliseconds), alongside the label. What’s the difference between the paused and the flowing modes of readable streams? Readable streams operate in either paused or flowing modes. When in flowing mode, data is read from the underlying system automatically and provided to an application as quickly as possible using events via the EventEmitter interface. In paused mode, the stream.read() method must be called explicitly to read chunks of data from the stream. What does the --inspect argument do for the node command? --inspect argument allows to attache Chrome DevTools to Node.js instances for debugging and profiling. When working with streams, when do you use the pipe function and when do you use events? Can those two methods be combined? .pipe() is a function that takes a readable source stream src and hooks the output to a destination writable stream essentialy it means that .pipe() takes care of listening for end events from src. So, to answer the questions, .pipe() can make the code more straight forward when this is the functionaly you’re interested in. Events can be used to tailor more specific functionaly for your use case. Well, this was fun, and I leart quite a lot while writing these posts. I hope it was beneficial to you as well. I’d really like to read your feedback at the comments section below.
Death is Universsal When you have had a loved one go to be with the Lord, do not feel like youre the only person who has had this experience. There is an Eastern legend about a Hindu woman whose only child had died. She went to a prophet to ask for her child back. The prophet told her to go and obtain a handful of rice from a house into which death had not come. If she could obtain the rice in this way, he promised to give her the child back. From door to door she asked the question, “Are you all here around the tablefather, mother, childrennone missing?” But always the answer came back that there were empty chairs in each house. As she continued on, her grief and sorrow softened as she found that death had visited all families. yes, death is universal; our painful experience is not the only one of its kind. Because God is faithful, because Jesus Christ is alive, so is your loved one and mine.
STROPHE DIVISIONS OF MODERN TRANSLATIONS The Victorious Power of the God of Jacob For the choir director; on stringed instruments. A Psalm of Asaph. A Song. |The Majesty of God in Judgment||A Song of Zion Celebrating God's Ultimate Victory Over the Nations||God the Victor||Hymn to God the Awe-inspiring| READING CYCLE THREE (see "Guide to Good Bible Reading") FOLLOWING THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR'S INTENT AT PARAGRAPH LEVEL This is a study guide commentary which means that you are responsible for your own interpretation of the Bible. Each of us must walk in the light we have. You, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit are priority in interpretation. You must not relinquish this to a commentator. Read the chapter in one sitting. Identify the subjects (reading cycle #3). Compare your subject divisions with the five translations above. Paragraphing is not inspired, but it is the key to following the original author's intent, which is the heart of interpretation. Every paragraph has one and only one subject. 1. First paragraph 2. Second paragraph A. The OT mentions what seems to be conflicting revelation. 1. God's special care and attention to the family of Abraham (Ps. 76:1-7) 2. God's desire for all the nations to know Him (Ps. 76:8-12) B. I think this very issue is the purpose of the new covenant which is revealed in the NT (i.e., the gospel of Jesus Christ). I have tried to express this theological tension in two Special Topics. WORD AND PHRASE STUDY NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 76:1-3 1God is known in Judah; His name is great in Israel. 2His tabernacle is in Salem; His dwelling place also is in Zion. 3There He broke the flaming arrows, The shield and the sword and the weapons of war. Selah. 76:1-3 This strophe reflects the "holy war" imagery (Ps. 76:3). The historical setting seems to be the period of the Divided Monarchy (i.e., 922 b.c.-586 b.c.) because it mentions both Judah and Israel (922-722 b.c.). Exactly which military campaign or invasion by a pagan neighbor or ANE power is uncertain. 76:1 "known" The Hebrew connotation has two aspects. 1. information about something or someone (cf. Gen. 4:1; Jer. 1:5) 2. personal relationship See Special Topic: Know. ▣ "His name" Notice that "His name" is parallel to Elohim. For "name" see Special Topic at Ps. 1:6. For Elohim see SPECIAL TOPIC: NAMES FOR DEITY. 76:2 "Salem. . .Zion" See Special Topic: 76:3 There are several military items listed to illustrate YHWH's military victory. 1. arrows (BDB 905) 2. shield (BDB 171) 3. sword (BDB 352) 4. weapons of war (BDB 536) The destruction of the enemies' weapons (cf. Ps. 46:9; Isa. 9:5; Ezek. 39:9-10) became a way of showing that 1. the enemy is completely defeated 2. Israel trusted in YHWH and did not need the weapons ▣ "Selah" See notes at Psalm 3:2 and Introduction, VII. NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 76:4-7 4You are resplendent, More majestic than the mountains of prey. 5The stouthearted were plundered, They sank into sleep; And none of the warriors could use his hands. 6At Your rebuke, O God of Jacob, Both rider and horse were cast into a dead sleep. 7You, even You, are to be feared; And who may stand in Your presence when once You are angry? 76:4-7 This strophe continues the military imagery. NASB"resplendent. . .majestic" NKJV"glorious and excellent" NRSV, TEV"glorious. . .majestic" NJB"radiant. . .renowned" JPSOA"resplendent. . .glorious" These two terms describe YHWH. 1. The first (BDB 21) may be another term related to "thunder bolt" (cf. Ps. 78:48) of Ps. 76:3, emphasizing a luminous aspect (i.e., light) to YHWH's presence, like the Shekinah Cloud of the Exodus. 2. The second (BDB 15) may refer to YHWH's superiority among all gods (idols), which is alluded to in Ps. 76:7 (cf. 1 Chr. 16:25; Ps. 89:7; 96:4). JPSOA"the mountains of prey" LXX"the everlasting mountains" NJB"the mountain of booty" NET"you descend from the hills where you killed your prey" Obviously this is a difficult phrase to interpret. The UBS Text Project (p. 330) gives the NRSV option a "C" rating (considerable doubt). This imagery may be the focus of Hab. 3:6. UBS suggests the NRSV or NJB options. The NET Bible sees it as a metaphor of a "lion." 76:5 "the stouthearted" This term (BDB 7 construct BDB 524) implies a stubborn, anti-God attitude (cf. Isa. 46:12). This characterizes the invaders who will be 1. killed (i.e., sleep, as a metaphor for death) 2. plundered (BDB 1021, KB 1531, Hithpoel perfect) because they were so afraid they could not fight (i.e., use their hands). NRSV"stripped of their spoil" TEV"stripped of all they had" NJB"taken from them" (used as verb for Ps. 76:4b) This rare form (Hithpolel) is defined by KB (1531) as "to be robbed." BDB (1021) defines it as "spoiled." The invaders wanted to despoil God's city/temple, but were despoiled themselves. 76:6 "At Your rebuke" YHWH's powerful voice wins victories (cf. Ps. 80:16), as it creates (cf. Genesis 1; Job 26:5-11; Ps. 18:7-15; 104:5-9). His voice is an idiom of His will in the world. He speaks, it is done! It is possible the rebuke (BDB 172) may refer to (1) a lion's roar from Ps. 76:4b. The JPSOA sees Ps. 76:2 as referring to a lion's den (uses Job 38:39-40 as a reference) or (2) a battle cry. ▣ "O God of Jacob" This is a title that focuses on YHWH's promises and covenant with the Patriarchs. ▣ "Both rider and horse were cast in a dead sleep" This is terminology from the splitting of the Red Sea for Israel's escape, but its closure on the elite Egyptian military unit (cf. Exod. 14:28,30; 15:1,21). This same imagery is found in Jeremiah's description of the defeat of Babylon (cf. Jer. 51:21). It is possible that Ps. 76:6 is restating 76:5. If so, "sleep" is the warriors' inability to perform their skills (i.e., limp hands), not a reference to death, which is often described as "sleep" (cf. Deut. 31:16; 2 Sam. 7:12; 1 Kgs. 1:21; Job 7:21). The OT often speaks of God's causing people to not understand by using "sleep," "seeing," "hearing" (i.e., Deut. 29:4; Ps. 69:23; Isa. 6:9-10; 29:10; Micah 3:6). 76:7 "to be feared" This may refer to 1. the enemies of the covenant God and His people 2. the idols of the nations (cf. Ps. 89:7; 96:4; 1 Chr. 16:25) ▣ "who may stand in Your presence" This is court scene imagery, usually associated with the end-time (cf. Ezra 9:15; Ps. 130:3; Nah. 1:6; Mal. 3:2; Rev. 6:17). God's people will be able to stand before Him on that day (i.e., Luke 21:36; Jude vv. 24-25). NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 76:8-10 8You caused judgment to be heard from heaven; The earth feared and was still 9When God arose to judgment, To save all the humble of the earth. Selah. 10For the wrath of man shall praise You; With a remnant of wrath You will gird Yourself. 76:8-10 It is possible that Ps. 76:7 should go with this strophe (cf. NKJV, NRSV, TEV, NJB). In this context "all the humble of the earth" refers to those who fear/revere YHWH (cf. Ps. 40:13-17). Note the universal element and the contrast between 1. God saves the humble 2. but all acknowledge Him (cf. Ps. 72:11; 76:12; Phil. 2:6-11) 76:10 "remnant" This word is used in several different senses. ▣ This striking imagery alludes to YHWH as warrior (cf. Isa. 59:17). This same imagery is used by Paul in Eph. 6:10-17, which denotes "spiritual warfare." YHWH is the victor! YHWH is the champion of those who trust Him! The UBS Handbook (p. 669) mentions that the NAB and NEB (also REB) change the vowels in this verse to geographical locations in the north (city) and south (nation) of Palestine to make it parallel to Ps. 76:11b. 1. man (אדם) becomes Edom (אדם) 2. wrath (המת) becomes Hamath (המת) The problem is that the word "wrath" is used twice in Ps. 76:10. Unless it is a purposeful word play, this change of vowels is speculation and is not supported by any ancient versions. NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 76:11-12 11Make vows to the Lord your God and fulfill them; Let all who are around Him bring gifts to Him who is to be feared. 12He will cut off the spirit of princes; He is feared by the kings of the earth. 76:11-12 As Ps. 76:7 could go with 76:8 and 9, so too, Ps. 76:10 could go with 76:11-12 (cf. NKJV, NRSV, TEV, NJB). Paragraphing does not have a textual marker. It is not an inspired aspect of the Hebrew text. Paragraphing must be ascertained from the context (i.e., every paragraph has one central truth or subject). 76:11a This describes "the humble" of Ps. 76:9. Two imperatives are used to describe their actions. 1. make vows - BDB 623, KB 674, Qal imperative 2. fulfill them - BDB 1022, KB 1532, Piel imperative (cf. Leviticus 27; Numbers 30; Deut. 23:21-23) 76:11b The second line of Ps. 76:11 has a Hiphil imperfect used in a jussive sense ("let all who are around Him bring gifts to Him. . ."). This is a third descriptive phrase referring to either 1. thank offering for the termination of a vow 2. appropriate sacrifice (cf. Leviticus 1-7) If Ps. 76:11a refers to faithful followers in the covenant people, then 76:11b refers to worldwide followers who will worship YHWH (cf. Ps. 45:12; 68:29,31; 72:10; Isa. 18:7; Zeph. 3:10). 76:11 "bring gifts to Him" In Gen. 49:10, the famous prophecy of Jacob/Israel denotes Judah as the tribe from which Messiah will come. There the name Shiloh, שׁילה (BDB 1017) parallels "ruler," however it is possible to divide the consonants into שׁי לה, "tribute to him" (BDB 1010) by adding new vowels (cf. NIDOTTE, vol. 4, p. 1223). If this is correct then the concept of YHWH accepting "tribute" from the nations is confirmed (cf. Ps. 68:29; 76:11; Isa. 18:7). This tribute was an ANE way of showing sovereignty. One day the nations will come to YHWH (see Special Topic: YHWH's Eternal Redemptive Plan). 76:12 As YHWH's deliverance/salvation is universal (cf. Ps. 76:9), so too, His judgment (Ps. 76:12). The term "spirit" (ruach, BDB 924) means human person. The verb "cut off" (BDB 130, KB 148, Qal imperfect) is a Hebrew root that has several meanings. 1. cut off - meaning to take away 2. cut off - meaning to gather, such as a grape harvest 3. cut off - by fortifying an enclosed place (i.e., fortress) Because of Ps. 76:11 one wonders if option #2 may denote an end-time gathering of believing nations (i.e., "princes," BDB 617, cf. Ezek. 28:2) who fear (lit. who is terrible, BDB 431, KB 432, Niphal participle) God by denoting His awesome power in protecting Jerusalem and His covenant people. This is a study guide commentary which means that you are responsible for your own interpretation of the Bible. Each of us must walk in the light we have. You, the Bible and the Holy Spirit are priority in interpretation. You must not relinquish this to a commentator. These discussion questions are provided to help you think through the major issues of this section of the book. They are meant to be thought provoking, not definitive. 1. Does Ps. 76:1 reflect the period of the divided Monarchy? 2. Why is Ps. 76:4 so hard to translate? 3. Is Ps. 76:9 another universal allusion or a reference to the Jews in exile? 4. How do Ps. 76:11-12 relate to the preceding verses?
I thought I’d look at some inspiring and happy craft areas… this is what I found to share: A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince. Life beats down and crushes the soul; and art reminds you that you have one. There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun.” If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. Vincent Van Gogh Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.
More than 40 percent of businesses experienced at least one ransomware attack in the last year, according to a recent study by Malwarebytes. In the U.S., that number jumps to over 50 percent. Dennis Magbata, an IT administrator at TaylorMade, shared with us his story of a recent ransomware scare—and how having Code42 CrashPlan saved the day. If you’re in IT and paying any attention to the news, it’s hard to go a week without reading about another high-profile ransomware attack. So I knew the threat was out there, but when I started getting calls from panicked users, I was still surprised. The culprit was an email attachment that looked like an internal expense report. By the time we started getting the calls from users, more than 20 had already taken the bait—and dozens more weren’t sure if they had downloaded the attachment. The ransomware overwrote many of our files and even went beyond the endpoints, locking down the files on our network drives. Facing a grim outlook Without CrashPlan, we would have had to completely start over. We would have been looking at a best-case scenario of at least a week of painstakingly scanning each device and recovering each file, one by one. To make matters worse, we wouldn’t have been completely certain which devices were infected. So we would’ve had to wipe the devices of anyone who might have opened the attachment. This larger-scale recovery would’ve likely meant outsourcing the work to a third party—at an even higher cost. This protracted restore effort would’ve left our users working on loaner laptops, without many of the files they need to get work done. Productivity would’ve taken a huge hit. On top of all of this, we would’ve seriously considered paying the ransom. Which, of course, isn’t just an added cost—it’s adding fuel to the ransomware fire. Backed up—and back in the game Fortunately, we’ve been a Code42 CrashPlan customer for almost four years, so we knew right away that our data was backed up. We were able to start from scratch, wiping the infected devices and knowing that we had a clean restore from right before the ransomware hit. Faster restore cuts IT time in half, gets users back to work days sooner No cyber attack is ever a walk in the park—it’s always stressful; it always adds work for IT. But CrashPlan made it much easier and faster. I’d estimate that we cut our data recovery time in half. That meant fewer headaches for our IT team and significantly lower IT costs. The faster restore also meant we were able to give users their devices back—with their data—in a day or two, instead of a week or more. Lesson learned: be certain At TaylorMade, we spend a lot of time educating users on how to work in ways that support data security—how to spot suspicious emails, not clicking on unknown links or downloading unverified attachments. But anyone who has ever worked in IT knows users still click. With CrashPlan, we know we’re covered. We’re not relying on our users to execute the backups, and IT isn’t handling manual backups for 1,200 users. If something happens, we don’t worry about when the latest backup happened—backup is continuous and automatic. I’m doing everything I can to keep ransomware from hitting us again. But if it does, I know we won’t be locked out. I know our users won’t be stuck without their devices and their data. And I know we won’t pay the ransom.
EDIT: Tony Clement has officially stated that if the CRTC does not reverse their position, the cabinet will overturn it for them. You can read more in the following articles: Ottawa enters dispute over higher Internet fees Clearing up the confusion over the caps CRTC to review billing practices for wholesale Internet services There’s been a bit of buzz going around our northern bit of the internet lately. You may have heard of it, especially now that Harper and major news outlets are getting in on the story. And it is a potentially ugly one. What’s happened is that the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission) has passed a decision that will give Bell and other Canadian internet service providers permission to set a bandwidth cap on all of their service plans, and then charge all customers per gigabyte for every GB they use above that cap. Small, independent ISPs are also being forced into caps. For example, starting March 1, Teksavvy’s bandwidth cap is looking to be 25 GB a month (both uploading and downloading combined) — a significant drop compared to their previous 200 GB per month. Bell’s standard cap is the same. If you use more than those 25 GB, you can expect to be charged for every GB that you go over the limit. Furthermore, Canadian ISPs are allowed to charge uneven prices across the country — Bell users in Québec receive more than double the bandwidth for the same price that customers in Ontario pay. For the less tech-savvy who are wondering why this is a problem, bandwidth is (technically) the amount of data that can be uploaded and/or downloaded by your internet connection at any given second. Most internet service providers, however, will use “bandwidth” to describe the total amount of data you can upload or download using your connection over a single month. Every single thing you access over the internet — a single webpage, Google, YouTube videos, instant messaging, e-mail, online college courses, eBay — has a bandwidth cost. Services with streaming video (Skype, YouTube, CBC) typically have the highest bandwidth cost; streaming audio is second. If you use torrents or P2P programs for sharing video, that bandwidth might be doubled since you’re likely to be downloading from and uploading to several people at the same time. Perhaps you don’t access the internet that much, and think that you don’t use enough bandwidth for a cap to be an issue. It’s possible that that’s true, but if you browse the internet enough to find this blog article, it isn’t likely. This article talks about a similar bandwidth cap issue that came up in the States back in 2007, and as a result they took a poll asking users what their monthly bandwidth usage was. At least 60% of the people who responded used more than 25 GB of bandwidth a month, and more than 45% used over 50GB — and that was back in 2007. Webpage sizes and the standard amount of data transferred over the internet on sites like YouTube has gone up significantly since then. If you want a more accurate idea of how much bandwidth you use just on a regular basis, you can try downloading a program like DU Meter and letting it measure your bandwidth usage for a month. Or if you want to make a really rough estimate, do a speed test on your current internet connection. The speed test will tell you how long (roughly) it would take to download an 800 megabyte movie on your connection. (1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte, so a movie would be just under a gig’s worth of bandwidth.) In my case, when my connection is at its peak, downloading that movie would take about 11 minutes. That tells me that I would be using up about 1 GB of bandwidth for every 11-20 minutes of constant data transfer on my internet connection. With a 25 GB bandwidth cap, that would mean that for every month I’d have roughly 8 hours of solid data transfer before I hit the cap. If I had a faster connection, it would be even less. Add the fact that in my household there are six people sharing the same internet connection, and that would put us down to a little more than 1 hour of solid data transfer per person per month. To be fair, that’s one hour of solid data transfer, meaning 1 hour’s worth of constantly downloading gigabytes of material, but that still isn’t enough for a week, never mind a month. If we wanted to use anything more than that, we would be paying by the gigabyte. Finally, all of this analysis is only focused on personal home use. These bandwidth caps would have an even bigger effect on business websites in Canada — especially for small businesses who rely on an online presence to bring in the customers they need. Any businesses that need to offer video content to their visitors, such as film production companies, would be hit doubly hard. It’s gotten to the point where the issue is being taken into account by the upper levels of parliament. Stephen Harper has posted a Tweet saying that he’s looking into the CRTC’s decision, but no one knows what will be done about it yet, if anything. More public response and support is needed. If you want to help keep the internet — and information — equal and open in Canada, there are a few things you can do. Sign the petition at StopTheMeter.ca, join the coalition or spread the word at SaveOurNet.ca, or contact your local member of parliament and tell them what you think of this. More information on the CRTC’s decision: Internet groups criticize CRTC bandwidth ruling Internet download limit slashed for many Usage Based Billing – CRTC creates A sure fire way to cripple Canada’s digital economy CRTC Finalizes ISP Usage-Based Billing [Canada Bandwidth Cap starting March 1st] CRTC okays use of bandwidth throttling
The second week of SARP began bright and early with a 5:40AM departure from the hotel for the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility (DAOF) in order to prepare for the 8AM takeoff of our first SARP flight. After a 6:30AM preflight briefing by the P-3 pilots and crew, the first flight took off at 8AM with all of the Ustin group onboard. The goal of this flight was to calibrate the MASTER instrument over Lake Tahoe (flying several lines at different altitudes over temperature targets) and to test all of the other instruments (AVOCET, WAS, and the UH instruments). Onboard the P-3, the Ustin group got the opportunity to learn about and and assist in the operation of all of the instruments. The flight was very smooth and the group returned with broad smiles after their 3-hour flight. After lunch, the second flight (and first science flight) took off with half of the Blake group and half of the Kudela group onboard. Thanks to our meteorologist, Dr. Fuelberg, we knew that the Santa Barbara Channel was going to be very clear and that we had the opportunity to collect fabulous, cloud-free data. Those of us on the ground were able to chat with those onboard via a text-chatting application called x-chat. Dr. Sherry Palacios, the ocean group mentor who was onboard the P-3, provided frequent updates about what was going on inside the plane. After all of the science goals of the flight were completed (including a missed-approach over LAX, samples of clean marine air off of the coast and polluted air from the LA basin, and flight lines over the Santa Barbara Channel), the pilots gave all onboard a special treat by letting them experience zero gravity (for just a second). At the end-of-day postflight briefing, everyone who flew for the first time received an Airborne Science Program pin from our pilot in a special ceremony. Fortune smiled on us yet again with clear weather over the Santa Barbara Channel! After a group shot in front of the P-3, the first flight of the day took off for Santa Barbara. After takeoff, the Ustin group left Palmdale to drive to Delano, CA for their field trip. SARP 2012 group shot in front of the P-3 before takeoff on June 26, 2012 Flight track (in red) for the morning flight on June 26 Altitude profile for the afternoon flight on June 26. Note the six low altitude passes over Los Angeles area airports Flight track (in red) for the morning flight on June 27 The P-3 as seen from a vineyard near Delano, CA (Image Credit: Kate Garner) The Ustin group prepares for the P-3 overflight (Image Credit: Kate Garner) Flight track of the final SARP science flight (afternoon of June 27) At the end of our final flight, our pilots treated us yet again to a brief zero gravity experience. The SARP faculty, mentors and students were all thrilled with how much data was collected during the six SARP flights! One group (the Aquanauts) decided to forgo sleeping in so that they could watch an early ER-2 takeoff. The ER-2 flies at such high altitudes (~70,000ft) that the pilot has to wear a spacesuit. We watched as the pilot emerged from his life support vehicle, climbed aboard the ER-2 and took off. SARP participants pose next to the ER-2 After packing up and checking out of the hotel in Palmdale, the Blake, Lefer, and Kudela groups departed for the Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC). Just outside the entrance to Edwards Air Force Base (DFRC is inside Edwards), we met up with the Ustin group who had left their field site in Delano, CA very early in the morning. Once at DFRC, we were treated to a rare, behind the scenes tour that included the Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) and the Global Hawk control center. We were also given an up close look at Dryden’s research fighter aircraft and many history-making aircraft such as the X-1E. After lunch and a stop at the Dryden giftshop, all of SARP headed for the University of California Irvine, our new home for the next six weeks where students will analyze and interpret the data they collected onboard the P-3 Orion.
Here is the crazy truth. More often then not you are the only thing standing in the way of achieving your goals. Sound crazy? Think about it: How often do you tell yourself that you don’t have enough time/money/energy? How often do you say you’re not ready yet? The weather needs to be warmer/colder. Conditions need to be perfect, the timing has to be right. You have to *fill-the-blank* before you can do it. Each of these things you tell yourself are not obstacles, they are all excuses. They are the safety blanket preventing you from leaving your comfort zone. Each of these things you tell yourself are preventing you from putting in the hard work and really getting what you want. Want to know why? Fear. Fear of change, fear of failure, feeling uncomfortable and challenged. Its the fear of what might possibly go wrong and how you’d feel when that happens. But most of us don’t even realise that the fear that we feel is in our imagination, its a story we are telling ourselves. I’m not saying that there are no risks when you tackle a big goal, I’m saying you are assuming the worst case scenario when there is nothing to say anything bad would happen. In this monthly series I’m going to share with you some easy steps that you can take to make your dreams a reality. This month is all about daydreaming. I want you to spend some time really thinking about what you want. It could be something big or small, something you have always thought about in the back of your mind and wanted to get to it ‘someday’. Or it can be something you have thought of recently and can’t get it out of your mind. I want you to think about this thing every day, whenever you have time. It could be saving for a new car or a fancy camera. It could be learning a new skill, changing a bad habit, or taking the trip of a life time. Write the idea down and puzzle on it. I want you to come up with the one thing you want to make happen and next month I’ll take you to the next step of achieving this goal. Get ready, ‘someday’ is closer then you think!
Like every summer, I had few sightings of Kids Lemonade Stand this year too. The parental psyche around getting their kids inspired to take up this favorite American summer activity is all too consistent. Parents want their kids to get out and learn some essential entrepreneurial skills by way of selling lemonade. And let’s not underestimate skills learned in this traditional summer activity-it teaches you the essence of all the courses that you might have taken in your pricey Ivy league MBA. Selling lemonade after all requires kids to plan & mobilize their friends into teams, source raw materials cheaply(commodities–sugar, water, limes, cups etc), manufacture and process raw materials into final product, decide on 3 P’s (Product, Price, Place), work on advertising campaign to attract its target consumers and finally endure the scorching heat to execute their plan–end to end and come with some profits. Indeed, one could argue this activity actually teaches life skills of perseverance, working with teams, dealing with failures and enjoying the pleasure of few hard earned bucks. Now I have no quantitative evidence( and data) to back my claim but I have a simple hypothesis that this summer, we probably had lesser Kids Lemonade Stands compared to last year and in coming years they will become more and more extinct. Verifying my claim could be great Freakonomics project. But my claim is based on the on simple argumentation that this summer Kids had yet more avenues of consuming Digital Lemonade all while sipping real bottled lemonade loaded with high fructose corn syrup. Realize that our kids are consuming a very addictive form of Digital Lemonade. This Digital Lemonade is delivered to them in very interesting form factors like online games, some silly and some useful mobile apps, Skype Chat or Google Hangout sessions, Vine, SnapChat etc. Parents too were consuming the same Digital Lemonade and had difficulty inspiring the traditional summer activity of teaching kids essential life skills by way of selling lemonade. So why not we all take cue from this digital consumption behaviors of our kids and try revive this traditional idea in decline–but with a new spin. Like real lemonade stand, Digital Lemonade requires same planning, team and execution skill sets. Your AppStore is stand for your Digital Lemonade. You still need to think of 3P’s but very differently–Place becomes Internet, Product becomes anything that can entertain, educate, inform or add any other commercial/community value and Price becomes free but you may earn money from ad clicks. Selling Digital Lemonade will still need socialization strategy via social platforms versus traditional advertising strategy. Raw materials needed for Digital Lemonade as commodity as raw materials of needed for making real lemonade. Almost all offerings from AWS compute and storage services has free tier & can allow for your kids Digital Lemonade shop run for free. You need man-power? that’s available for cheap or free price too–just go to Amazon Mechanical Turk or other Crowd-sourcing platforms. In short, selling Digital Lemonade is wiser idea and it teaches all the skills that selling real lemonade teaches and goes beyond to teach real skills needed for finding place in, surviving & thriving in digital economy. Want to teach your kids how to sell Digital Lemonade ? Come join C2P Kids movement .
Poster in support of the "Conspiracy 8" The Chicago Seven (originally Chicago Eight, also Conspiracy Eight/Conspiracy Seven) were seven defendants—Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner—charged by the federal government with conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other charges related to anti-Vietnam War and countercultural protests that took place in Chicago, Illinois, on the occasion of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Bobby Seale, the eighth man charged, had his trial severed during the proceedings, lowering the number of defendants from eight to seven. Seale was eventually sentenced to four years in prison for contempt of court, although this ruling was later reversed. After a federal trial resulting in both acquittals and convictions, followed by appeals, and reversals, some of the seven defendants were finally convicted, although all of the convictions were reversed. The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago in late August to select the party's candidates for the November 1968 presidential election. Prior to and during the convention—which took place at the International Amphitheatre—rallies, demonstrations, marches, and attempted marches took place on the streets and in the lakefront parks, about five miles away from the convention site. These activities were primarily in protest of President Lyndon B. Johnson's policies for the Vietnam War, policies which were vigorously contested during the presidential primary campaign and inside the convention. Anti-war groups had petitioned the city of Chicago for permits to march five miles from the central business district (the Chicago Loop) to within sight of the convention site, to hold a number of rallies in the lakefront parks and also near the convention, and to camp in Lincoln Park. The city denied all permits, except for one afternoon rally at the old bandshell at the south end of Grant Park. The city also enforced an 11:00 pm curfew in Lincoln Park. Confrontations with protesters ensued as the police enforced the curfew, stopped attempts to march to the International Amphitheatre, and cleared crowds from the streets. The Grant Park rally on Wednesday, August 28, 1968, was attended by about 15,000 protesters; other nearby activities involved hundreds or thousands of protesters. After the large rally outside of the venue, several thousand protesters attempted to march to the International Amphitheatre, but were stopped in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel, where the presidential candidates and their campaigns were headquartered. Police worked to push the protesters out of the street, using tear gas, verbal and physical confrontation, and police batons to beat people; protesters retaliated by throwing rocks and bottles, and damaging private commercial property. The police made scores of arrests. The television networks broadcast footage of these violent clashes, cutting away from the nominating speeches for the presidential candidates. Over the course of five days and nights, the police made numerous arrests, in addition to using tear gas, mace, and batons on the marchers.Hundreds of police officers and protesters were injured. Dozens of journalists covering the actions were also clubbed by police or had cameras smashed and film confiscated. In the aftermath of what was later characterized as a "police riot" by the U.S. National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violencea federal grand jury indicted eight demonstrators and eight police officers. Following the convention on September 9, 1968, a federal grand jury was convened to consider criminal charges. The grand jury focused on the possible grounds for charges in four areas: - A conspiracy by protesters to cross state lines to incite a riot; - Violations by police of the civil rights of demonstrators by use of excessive force; - TV network violations of the Federal Communications Act; and - TV network violations of federal wiretap laws. Over the course of more than six months, the grand jury met 30 times and heard some 200 witnesses. President Lyndon Johnson's Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, discouraged an indictment, believing that the violence during the convention was primarily caused by mishandling of the protests by the Chicago police. The grand jury returned indictments only after President Richard Nixon took office and John Mitchell assumed the office of Attorney General. On March 20, 1969, eight protesters were charged with various federal crimes and eight police officers were charged with civil rights violations. The eight defendants were charged under the anti-riot provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1968which made it a federal crime to cross state lines with the intent to incite a riot. The Chicago Eight indictments alleged crimes of three kinds: - That all eight defendants conspired (together with another 16 other co-conspirators who were not indicted) to cross state lines to incite a riot, to teach the making of an incendiary device, and to commit acts to impede law enforcement officers in their lawful duties. - That David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale individually crossed state lines to incite a riot. - That John Froines and Lee Weiner instructed other persons in the construction and use of an incendiary device. Bobby Seale as depicted by Franklin McMahon at the trial. The original eight defendants indicted by the grand jury on March 20, 1969, were Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale. The trial began on September 24, 1969. The defense attorneys were William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the judge was Julius Hoffman, and the prosecutors were Richard Schultz and Tom Foran. On October 9, the governor of Illinois requested the United States National Guard for crowd control as demonstrations increased outside the courtroom. When the names of the defendants were mentioned in court, at the early part of the trial, Judge Hoffman made a comment about defendant Abbie Hoffman; "He is not my son." In an immediate reply, Abbie called out, "Dad, dad, have you forsaken me?!" Early in the course of the trial, Black Panther Party activist Bobby Seale was denied his constitutional right to counsel of his choice and was thereafter illegally denied his right to defend himself. Seale requested that the trial postponed so that his attorney Charles Garry could represent him (as Garry was about to undergo gallbladder surgery). The Judge denied the postponement, and refused to allow Seale to represent himself. Seale vehemently protested the judge's illegal and unconstitutional actions, and arguing that they were not only illegal, but also racist. The judge in turn accused Seale of disrupting the court, and on October 29, Judge Hoffman ordered Bobby Seale to be bound, gagged, and chained to a chair, citing a precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court case Illinois v. Allen.For several days, Seale appeared in court bound and gagged before the jury, struggling to get free and managing to make muffled sounds. Defense attorney Kunstler declared, "This is no longer a court of order, Your Honor, this is a medieval torture chamber." (This was alluded to in Graham Nash's song, "Chicago", which opened with: "So your brother's bound and gagged, and they've chained him to a chair"). Ultimately, Judge Hoffman severed Seale from the case, sentencing him to four years in prison for contempt of court, one of the longest sentences ever handed down for that offense in the U.S. up to that time.Due to the judge's unconstitutional actions, the contempt charges against Seale were soon overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals. The Chicago Eight were then reduced to the Chicago Seven. The defendants, particularly members of the Youth International Party ("yippies"), Hoffman and Rubin, mocked courtroom decorum and the widely publicized trial became a focal point for a growing legion of protesters. One day, defendants Hoffman and Rubin appeared in court dressed in judicial robes. When the judge ordered them to remove the robes, they complied, to reveal that they were wearing Chicago police uniforms underneath. Hoffman blew kisses at the jury. Judge Hoffman was a frequent target of the defendants, who insulted him to his face. Abbie Hoffman (no relation) told Judge Hoffman "you are a shande fur de Goyim [disgrace in front of the gentiles]. You would have served Hitler better." He later added that "your idea of justice is the only obscenity in the room." Both Davis and Rubin told the judge "this court is bullshit." I pointed out that it was in the best interests of the City to have us in Lincoln Park ten miles away from the Convention hall. I said we had no intention of marching on the Convention hall, that I didn't particularly think that politics in America could be changed by marches and rallies, that what we were presenting was an alternative life style, and we hoped that people of Chicago would come up, and mingle in Lincoln Park and see what we were about. — Abbie Hoffman, from the Chicago Seven trial. “ While defending the Chicago Seven, [Kunstler] put the war in Vietnam on trial—asking Judy Collins to sing "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" from the witness stand, placing a Viet Cong flag on the defence table, and wearing a black armband to commemorate the war dead. ” — Ron Kuby, in his 1995 eulogy of Kunstler. The trial extended for months, with many celebrated figures from the American left and counterculture called to testify, including singers Phil Ochs, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, and Country Joe McDonald; writers Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg; and activists Timothy Leary and Rev. Jesse Jackson. Ochs, who was involved in planning for the demonstrations, told the court that he had acquired a pig to nominate as a presidential candidate. Rubin had tried to deliver the acceptance speech for the pig, named Pigasus, but before he could finish, police arrested him and Ochs under a livestock ordinance; this charge was later changed to disorderly conduct. While the jury deliberated on the verdict, Judge Hoffman cited all the defendants—plus their lawyers Kunstler and Weinglass—for numerous contempts of court, imposing sentences ranging from 2½ months to four years. On February 18, 1970, each of the seven defendants was acquitted of conspiracy. Two (Froines and Weiner) were acquitted completely, while the remaining five were convicted of crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot. The crime was instituted by the anti-riot provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, a provision that was introduced in the House by Representative William C. Cramer of FloridaOn February 20, they were sentenced to five years in prison and fined $5,000 each. On November 21, 1972, all of the convictions were reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on the basis that the judge was biased in his refusal to permit defense attorneys to screen prospective jurors for cultural and racial bias. The Justice Department decided against retrying the case. During the trial, all of the defendants and both defense attorneys had been cited for contempt and sentenced to jail, but those convictions were also overturned on appeal. The contempt charges were retried before a different judge, who found Dellinger, Rubin, Hoffman, and Kunstler guilty of some of the charges, but did not sentence any of them to jail or fines.
As Einstein said once, time is relative. He may have been talking about the physics of moving objects, but I think it applies to ripping open an envelope you’ve been waiting for with excitement, pacing the doctor’s waiting room, and to waiting in lines at an amusement park. It goes fast when you are having fun and slows down when you are waiting for something wonderful (or painful) to happen. Sometimes it seems minutes and hours just whiz by, and you don’t know where the time went. Anticipation, and fear, can make time feel warped and twisted. “Time Warp” is a handmade liquid-filled snow globe with two clockfaces, back to back, and a few extra timepieces, including an hourglass thrown in for good measure. On the largest clockface, in front, tiny people figures ride the arms, count the minutes and wait. Time has warped and no longer has a point of reference for how much as passed. Instead of traditional snow, the liquid fills with a mixture of iridescent dust and silver numerals that have become separated from the clock, setting their own pace as they swirl and fall. Perhaps one of these quotes applies to you: “Time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted time.” – Marthe Troly-Curtin. “Let’s do the Time Warp again.” – Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies Articles for a special issue of Open Library of Humanities CFP Deadline: 15 December 2016 Since the first key publications in the nineties on videogames research in Humanities and Social Sciences contexts, the field of Game Studies has become an established platform for discussion and debate on how games contribute to our cultural, social and aesthetic experiences. Game Studies has, consequently, taken up debates on diversity and inclusion, time and again. Following the return of radical reactionary and conservative forces across the globe, the recent bigoted GamerGate controversy provoked incisive discussions on gender, and questions of race in games have also been at the forefront of such debates. Not much, however, has been said about the representation of colonialism, empire and neo-colonialism in videogames although some of the very earliest games have featured these issues, sometimes in problematic ways. As games perpetuate past and present global power structures in relation to inequalities in material wealth, exploitation of labor, and hegemonic articulations of history and the Other, it is necessary for game studies not only to bring these issues to light, but also critically to analyze the relationship between videogames and existing postcolonial power relationships. Analyzing games as disparate as Age of Empires, Far Cry 2 andAssassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry reveal intrinsic questions about how the ludic relates to colonialism and how it informs the postcolonial experience. This open access special issue of the Open Library of Humanities multidisciplinary journal aims to bring questions of Postcolonialism to the forefront of game studies. An often underexplored and neglected area in the domain of studying both digital and analogue games, a critique of the (mis)representation of Orientalist attitudes, race, hybridity, notions of space and the fragmented postcolonial identities is urgently required. We therefore seek submissions that provide critical analysis of colonial representations in games and challenge notions of colonial hegemonic power structures. Possible topics might include, but are not limited to: - Colonialism / Neocolonialism / Postcolonialism / Imperialism - The Other / Alterity - Postcolonial praxis - Global capitalism / economy - Self-representation / voice / agency - Indigenous culture - Religion(s) / Language(s) / Nationalism(s) - Game studies & politics of knowledge Research articles should be approximately 8,000 words in length, including references and a short bibliography. Submissions should comprise of: - Abstract (250 words) - Full-length article (8,000 words) - Author information (short biographical statement of 200 words) Please submit abstracts to Emil Hammar (firstname.lastname@example.org) by 15th December 2016. Submissions should be made online at https://olh.openlibhums.org/submit/start/ in accordance with the author guidelines and clearly marking the entry as [“Postcolonial Game Studies” SPECIAL COLLECTION]. Submissions will then undergo a double-blind peer-review process. Authors will be notified of the outcome as soon as reports are received. Authors will be notified about the acceptance of their submissions by 16th January 2017. Final essays should be within the range of approx. 8,000 words, submitted as a Word or Rich Text Format. For abstract submissions that have been accepted, full papers will be due by Friday 28th April 2017. For more information please contact the co-editors. The special collection, edited by Dr Souvik Mukherjee (Presidency University, Kolkata) and Emil Hammar (University of Tromsø, Norway), is to be published in the Open Library of Humanities (OLH) (ISSN 2056-6700). The Open Library of Humanities journal is an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded multidiscplinary humanities journal with a strong emphasis on quality peer review and a prestigious academic steering board. Unlike some open access publications, the OLH has no author-facing charges and is instead financially supported by an international consortium of libraries. To learn more about the Open Library of Humanities please visit: https://www.openlibhums.org/ Above adapted from Webpage.
The Carleton University Parking and Traffic Regulations link below is a downloadable document that contains general information about the University’s parking and traffic system. Its purpose is to acquaint users with the system’s features, rules, and regulations. Your compliance is encouraged since the ultimate success of the parking and traffic system depends upon mutual consideration, courtesy and co-operation. Regulations are enforced by Campus Safety Officers and Parking Enforcement Officers – their efforts are focused on keeping the campus safe. - Respect the speed limit…did you know that the maximum speed limit on the Carleton University campus is 40km/h? Avoid getting a ticket by keeping your speed within this limit. - Thank you for stopping! Help keep our campus safe – stop at all stop signs. - Leave the phone alone – distracted driving is not safe driving! It is the responsibility of all cyclists and vehicle operators to be aware and compliant with the University Parking and Traffic Regulations while cycling or driving on campus.
A santa letter to child is an ideal method of getting your child a memory you can expect to both cherish forever. There are lots of sites available that provide a huge selection of products starting from fake snow to reindeer food. Below I gives you several tips on how to pick the best gift without spending a small fortune this Christmas. 1) Ensure that the Santa website you’re visiting sends their letters postmarked from the North Pole. This really is crucial in getting a “real letter from Santa”.: ) 2) Ensure you are getting a genuine handwritten personalized santa letter. Yes, some of the sites out there are selling computer generated letters. Don’t get fooled from this. To the memory being authentic you will want real handwritten Santa letter. 3) Don’t get sucked into a variety of novelty products. The Santa letter is the most important thing. You can find fake snow, reindeer food (dog or cat food), etc. from Michael’s, Wal Mart, etc. You can find a real handwritten Santa letter for roughly $15. The major online Santa retailers provide you with the letters cheaper however are not handwritten. They then make an effort to sell you plenty of products for $7 here and $5 there. Beware. 4) Are you currently in the states? Then verify where your letter will originate. Most of the Santa sites are in the uk, Sweden, Australia, and Ireland. There English 83dexjpky not American English. Ordering readily available sites might get you some pretty strange spellings and grammar. It can be my hope that you just found this useful. I understand how the santa autograph make GREAT gifts. You simply will not be disappointed within the reaction your youngster has as he/she would go to the mailbox and receives a letter from Santa.: )
What makes a good parent? In one word? Humility. In two words? A sense of humor and humility. Lately, I have spent more time with my five grandchildren, all of them aged two and under. I am struck by the fact that most adults are not natural baby whisperers and that our society really does not spend time preparing hapless adults to become parents. Children, especially babies are, well…little. Little and vulnerable. Vulnerable to the large, often clueless adults, who care for them. Put yourself in a baby’s situation. Preverbal for years, it must be frustrating to be tired or in pain, only to have a bottle thrust into your mouth or have a tense, upset mother try to nurse you when your stomach is bloated with burps. This disconnect does not end once children can communicate. Nope, our adult reasoning simply does not always compute in little brains. Why, I have been told that human beings do not get their adult brain until they are 25 years old! Apparently, the frontal lobe that makes sane, rational decisions is not fully developed until the mid-twenties. That means that for almost a quarter of a century, humans need a special kind of love and nurturing that will not only meet them and connect with them right where they are, but also guide them gently without controlling them and stunting their own growth intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. That means that the best parents are willing to learn — from their offspring, from books, from experience, and from others. Good parents need a wonderful sense of humor to laugh at their own blunders, to laugh at their kids’ blunders. Openness to try new tactics helps, as does creativity. But most of all, they need to be intuitive, listening to their little ones’ body language and tone of voice and their own gut feelings and instincts. As Catholics we are called to listen to the voice of God within because those kids are His and He knew them before they were born. He knows how they tick better than you or I. And this is often where the greatest lessons in humility enter in. Listening to this voice of God is what truly makes us a “good” parent. Ponder: How is God calling me to grow as a parent? Lord grant me the gift of humility as I stand before each of my children, recognizing them as gifts from you, their heavenly Father. Copyright 2014, Melanie Jean Juneau Painting: “Baby’s First Caress,” by Mary Cassat
Today’s Gospel: Luke 8:4-15 Optional Memorial of Saint Januarius, Bishop and Martyr Optional Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today’s Gospel features the parable of the sower. The parable is notable in my mind for two reasons. One is that it is perhaps the easiest of all the parables to understand; the other is that, in spite of that, Jesus follows the parable with an explanation of its meaning. If today’s reading had only included the first five verses, most of us would get the idea. Yet Luke describes the disciples asking Jesus what the parable might mean. Jesus goes on to say something I find interesting: “Knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of God has been granted to you; but to the rest, they are made known through parables so that ‘they may look but not see, and hear but not understand.’” In the quote within the quote above, Jesus cites Isaiah chapter 6: “Go, and say to this people, ‘Listen and listen, but never understand! Look and look, but never perceive!’” Jesus seems to be saying that he does not really want his audience to understand what he is saying. The contradiction for me is that, at least in this case, it seemed obvious what the parable meant, but his comment to the disciples afterward is a mystery to me. As I was reviewing this reading to write this commentary, I came upon a story on CNN.com by a professor from the Vanderbilt University Divinity School and College of Arts and Sciences. In this piece, Professor Amy-Jill Levine describes four parables that everyone gets wrong. Everyone? Oh my! Her premise is that we can’t understand the parables because we are not first century Jews. People of Jesus’ time would have, for example, viewed the parable of the landowner as a call for wage earners to advocate for the unemployed, nothing whatever to do with the afterlife. (Whatever did she make of the opening line, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner”?) The prodigal son? Simply a story that tells us that one son counted and the other didn’t. The author may be right about what meaning Jesus’ contemporaries would have taken from the parables; does that make them right and us wrong? It’s my guess that Jesus was speaking to an audience over millennia. Perhaps he knew that his audiences were made up of those who could hear but not understand. He knew that you could not pour new wine into old wineskins. From the viewpoint of the 21st century Christian, it is quite easy to understand the symbolic meaning of the seed sown in rocky soil or in sand. Perhaps Jesus felt that his contemporaries needed to have the parable interpreted because 1st century Jews were not really his intended audience. Perhaps his many parables were not directed to them but past them. After telling the Parable of the Sower, Jesus cried out, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.” What did he mean by that? Jesus, I pray that I might listen to your word and understand. We thank our friends at The Word Among Us for providing our gospel reflection team with copies of Abide In My Word 2015: Mass Readings at Your Fingertips. To pray the daily gospels with this wonderful resource, visit The Word Among Us. Copyright 2015 Kirk Whitney
It is sometimes thought that one of the grammatical differences between AmEng (American English) and BrEng (British English) is the way in which the latter allows certain singular nouns to have plural agreement. Data for two examples from the COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and the BNC (British National Corpus), as presented in the following table, shows the difference. The COCA contains 4.5 million words, the BNC 1 million words, so I have adjusted the COCA figures to produce results comparable to those from the BNC. The raw COCA figures are in brackets. |1a. the government is||628 (2827)||742| |1b. the government are||28 (124)||303| |2a. the committee is||37 (169)||79| |2b. the committee are||5 (23)||18| This clearly shows that plural agreement in these two cases is indeed more frequent in BrEng than in AmEng. In both varieties singular agreement is more frequent than plural agreement, but it is more frequent by a greater factor in AmEng than in BrEng. In the case of 1, singular agreement is 22 times greater than the plural in AmEng, whereas it is only 2.5 times as frequent in BrEng. More examples would be required to allow a definitive conclusion, but BrEng does seem, in these two instances, more sympathetic than AmEng to notional than grammatical agreement. In ‘The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language’, Pam Peters gives the examples The family has decided to celebrate on Sunday The family have decided to celebrate on Sunday and suggests that ‘The singular verb implies an official consensus of the group, whereas the plural makes the reader / listener more aware that individual members assented to the suggestion.’ Much the same could be said for a comparable sentence using ‘the government’ or ‘the committee’. Peters provides a list of other words which, at least in BrEng, allow a choice between singular and plural agreement. They include, among others, audience, assembly, board, company, congregation, council, group and panel. Why BrEng should be more adaptable in this respect is not clear. With government, at least, plural agreement isn’t new, for the OED has three citations showing its use in the nineteenth century. Perhaps the question to ask is why AmEng is so averse to it.
This video offers a brief overview of what distinguishes the Montessori Philosophy. The central focus of Montessori education is to help children achieve their full potential. The Montessori Method of Education is backed by over a century of research and its philosophical principles are acknowledged by developmental researchers, child psychologists, teachers and educational institutions worldwide. Below, we list just a few of the multiple benefits derived from Montessori education. (See also: Why AMI Montessori?) Above all, AMI Montessori children are: - Happy, self-motivated and enthusiastically-disposed learners - Better socialized and equipped in conflict resolution - Fluent readers and masters of abstract mathematical concepts - Well advanced in grade placements - Calmly self-assured, polite and compassionate Other important principles include: - The child is guided to learn at their own pace, through individualized lessons and specialized materials - Lessons are taught incrementally, starting with basic and concrete templates, facilitating an in-depth understanding of the subject and a sense of achievement. Gradually, more complex lessons are added with higher levels of abstraction until the more advanced concepts are fully comprehended. This methodology enhances the child’s self-confidence, independence and self-esteem. - Rather than focusing on individual subjects, the curriculum adopts an inter-disciplinary approach to learning. This methodology enables children to study, over extended periods of time, the various components and levels of each topic while cementing their understanding of the core concepts — thus distancing the over-reliance on memorization. - Multi-age class settings and an array of group activities throughout the day foster advanced cross-learning, socialization skills and leadership qualities. For additional information about the benefits of Montessori, please visit our section “Montessori vs. Traditional Preschools.” The following guide can help in identifying the appropriate Montessori school for your family: Finding an Authentic Montessori School.
Full title: The Cult of the Sacred Centre – Essays on Celtic Ideology Author: Proinsias Mac Cana Publisher: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies In this series of essays the author deals with the concept of unity – geographical, cultural, and political – in Irish, Welsh, and Gaulish tradition. He draws on his profound knowledge of the languages and literature of the Celtic speaking peoples as well as on the Roman accounts of continental Celtic society. He also provides a comparative study of traditions regarding unity in Indian and south-east Asian societies. The Cult of the Sacred Centre is made up of four parts: The paradox of Irish history, which has three essays. The sacred centre in Comparative traditions, which has seven essays. The ideology of cultural unity in Ireland, which has seven essay, and finally Reflections, which has two essays. The book has no bibliography or index, but it is heavily footnoted. The book starts with a preface by Fergus Kelly. It explains how it was published after the death of its author and all the work involved in getting the book to the publishers and then out to the public. Next comes the Introduction, in which the author talks about what is going to come in the essays in a general way. He also defines terms like nation and nationality and how he is going to use them when they come up in the essays. Part One: The Paradox of Irish History As I was saying above, this first part has three essays. They should be read together as if they are one chunk because in essence they talk about myth, legend, history, nationalism, politics and culture. They also talk about the revisions of history and myth that happened and the people who pioneered them and why. However, I think the jewel of this part is the third essay about the Irish culture and how pre-Christian traditions may have influenced Christian Ireland. It also talks about what we could possibly learn from the writing left behind by the monks even from the historical point of view. Part Two: The Sacred Center in Comparative Traditions In this part the author talks about the sacred centre in many of the I-E daughter cultures (even devoting one whole chapter on Gaul alone), as well as the four quarters and ritual circumambulation. He isn’t afraid to talk about the Christian bits of the subject mater either which was interesting. Part Three: The Ideology of Cultural Unity in Ireland In this part I show my bias because it was the part that I read, and re-read a couple of times. This was my favourite part of the book. It talks about Ireland and its unity. This included talking about the Celtic religion, the culture of the country (including literature and the laws) with a focus on the Fianna in one of the chapters. Also, because this book is about the sacred centre there is a whole chapter on the five provinces of Ireland and their centre, and Tara. Part Four: Reflections The last two chapters of the book discuss Medieval Irish nationality and the mismatch between political and cultural unity. This book is not an easy read. I’ve had it for a while, and I’ve been reading it one essay at a time in between reading other books mainly because MacCana can be a dry read and at times. I’ve had to put the book away to give my brain a rest. It was worth it though. This book had one part that I am probably going to go back to time and again for certain things. It talks about something that it usually mentioned in passing in history books (unity) and it does it from the point of view of the sacred centre and Celtic ideology. All in all, an interesting read even if it wasn’t an easy one.
>submitted by Robin Schmidt It is the information age. We can find out pretty much anything through books, television, or the world wide web. We value knowledge and pursue it. We have game shows where people compete to see who possesses greater knowledge. Remember Ken from Jeopardy? He seemed to know EVERYTHING. We believe knowledge is power. If we know then we are in control. My father-in-law is not a doctor, but he plays one on the internet. With a small amount of research he can diagnose symptoms, attempt to manage treatment and presume to advise doctors. Sometimes a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Recently, I have been reflecting on the connection between knowledge and fear. In the beginning there was a tree and it was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of all that God created this was the one tree whose fruit man and woman could not eat. Then came the lie. You will not die if you eat this fruit, said the serpent, eat it and your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. You will be like God. What did the woman think that meant? Exactly like God? Equal to God? Did she get that it was just like God in knowing? Fast forward a few hundred/thousand years and consider some shepherds outside of Bethlehem. An angel appeared to them, and his first words were: Fear not. Why? Because an angel appeared to the shepherds and suddenly they knew. They knew that angels existed. They knew they were not alone. They knew what an angel sounded like, looked like, and they were afraid, sore afraid. Faced with the knowledge of an angel, we know we are not the biggest thing going. We are NOT God, we are little and powerless and vulnerable and we become afraid. Very afraid. Sore afraid. We are made in God’s image but we don’t have his perspective, his power, you name it we ain’t got it. So, here we are, NOT a lot like God, only now we know. The woman saw that the tree was good for food, it was a delight to the eye and it was desirable for gaining knowledge. She desired knowledge so she took it and ate and gave it to the man. You might say she had a hunger for knowledge. So do we. They ate the fruit and they recognized their nakedness and attempted to hide it and then hid themselves from God because they were afraid. Afraid of what? I’m thinking they were afraid of what they knew. God told them not to eat from that tree, presumably because they didn’t need to know good and evil. God walked with them in the garden and was asking them to live on a need to know basis. But knowledge is power and we want to know. The thing is, they already knew all they needed to know. They knew God.
Each rest stop on the Pennsylvania Environment Ride is called an “oasis.” They appear about every 10-15 miles, and they’re spots where riders can grab a snack, refill their water bottles, relax, and have their bikes tuned up if necessary. The oases are run by a volunteer crew that sets them up, breaks them down, and provides medical care and lots of cheer leading. Often the oasis crew chooses wacky themes and they decorate the oases or dress up to match. My next post in this series will explore those themes. One of the photos below features a man dressed in Civil War costume. He’s not part of the crew. The lunch oasis that day was in Valley Forge National Historical Park, and this man came to gave a short local history lecture to our group. Read the first post in the series: Hit the Road With the Pennsylvania Environment Ride. Read the second post in the series: Faces of the Pennsylvania Environment Ride. Read the third post in the series: Ephrata Cloister Welcomes the Pennsylvania Environment Ride. Read the fifth post in the series: Personalities of the Pennsylvania Environment Ride. Read the sixth post in the series: Pennsylvania Environmental Council Celebrates a Successful Fundraising Ride.
== Live Chat == === Intro === A live chat applet has been setup for the community to use so that we can better communicate in real time when we need assistance. To access the livechat applet, use the following url Once you have reached the URL, type in the name you are using on MyCA Communities in the Nickname box, and press connect. You will be able to chat in real time to other MyCA users who are online at the same time '''If you ask a question, and don't get a response immediately, stick around as someone will see the question''' '''As a plus, the more people who stick around, the more likely your question will get answered !!''' === How to use it === You can see everyone who is currently participating in the list on the right hand side of the screen. * Names with the "@" symbol in front of them are the channel operators. They are the equivalent of the forum moderators. There is a box down the bottom where you can type in the message you want to send to everyone in the chat room. Once you've typed the message in, hit enter to send it. You can change the theme of the chat by clicking on the gears in the top right. If someone you're chatting with doesn't seem to be responding because they may be looking away from their computer, usually mentioning their name will cause their client to beep. This may be enough to get their attention. Otherwise you can send them a direct message (see below) to try to get their attention. ==== Commands ==== * To change your name once you've joined the chat type in - /nick <new name> * To private message someone in the chat room, type in - /msg <name> <message> * To narrate your action, type in - /me waves hello to everyone This will show up as *[yournickname] waves hello to everyone * To leave the chat, simply close the window down. === Servers === The channel is #CAIM. AustNet has servers strategically placed to provide coverage to nearly all countries worldwide. To obtain the best connection, you should generally find the closest server to you and connect to it using your IRC client of choice. You are able to easily connect to our IRC servers using the following addresses: Here are the servers you can use: *irc.austnet.org - (international) *au.austnet.org - (Australia) *us.austnet.org - (United States)
I am using a image-collecting system based on the Cypress 68013. But I am not the hardware person, this is my partner's work. I just need to do the PC application. Now when I only receive data and not do other things in my app, I can receive stable data rates up to 22Mbytes/s. However if I do some data processing in another thread, the data rates will be not stable that in fact the data sometimes can't be received completely(the waitForDataXfer is timeout). I use your "streamer" application as an example to design my app. My experimental desk computer is not a new one with winxp system and old i3 cpu. In other hand, my app can work stably on my PC with i5 cpu and win8.1 system. The last, I want to say the imaging-collecting system I used doesn't have a ram buffer to store one frame from the cmos imaging sensor. It will transmit a frame to the PC if it gets PC's request code for a simple agreement. That is to say sometimes I can't receive a frame in time and completely with the asynchronous method （BeginDataXfer/WaitForXfer/FinishDataXfer）that Cypress offered. My image frame is 1280 * 720. Thank you for help. The C++ Streamer has a feature of displaying the data while simultaneously grabbing the data. You can refer how this feature is implemented in the Streamer and may adopt the same in your application. (i.e doing some other task while transferring data)
I have read the application notes AN84868 -- Configuring an FPGA Over USB Using Cypress EZ-USB FX3. I also referred to the Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA Configuration User Guide. Over the FPGA, there are mode pins M[1:0] used to select certain mode to configure FPGA. For example, M[1:0] = 11 indicates slave serial mode. However, in the application notes AN84868, there is not a discussion about M[1:0]. How should I set M[1:0], follow the Xilinx Configuration guide or just ignore? You can either select the M0 and M1 pins either both ON, or both OFF. It does not matter in this application. So basically you can ignore these switches.
Poor line-by-line pacing is one of the most common problems I run into while editing otherwise great manuscripts. Authors who are skilled at writing descriptive paragraphs can run into trouble when they apply the same sort of language and sentence structure to action sequences, and vice versa. Afraid you sometimes fall into the same rut? Chris Eboch to the rescue! She’s the author of Advanced Plotting and You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers, and this week in Pen to Pen, she’s stopped by to give some practical advice on improving the pacing of your stories. Buckle up and enjoy the ride. —Dale Grab Readers with Page-Turning Pacing By Chris Eboch A page turner. “I couldn’t put it down.” Why do some books get these comments, while others are called slow or flat? Characters, plot, setting, and theme are all part of pace. But once you have a fast-paced draft, you can pump up the pace even more by focusing on the line-by-line level. In fact, relatively minor changes in sentence structure and paragraphing can make a scene much more dramatic. A page that is one solid block of text looks dull and intimidating. On the other hand, with short paragraphs the reader’s eyes move more quickly down the page, giving a sense of breathless speed. The book literally becomes a page turner because the reader finishes each page so quickly. This means you can make action scenes more dramatic by using short paragraphs. Here’s an example from my middle-grade mystery, The Eyes of Pharaoh. Seshta is on the roof, spying down a stairwell. When someone comes up the stairs, she must escape. She glanced back at the stairwell. She didn’t have much time. Seshta turned and lowered herself over the edge of the roof until she hung from her elbows, her legs scraping against the wall. From the stairwell, a head rose into view. Seshta let go and fell. Imagine all that in one paragraph. It wouldn’t have the same pace. Sentence length affects pace as well. Short sentences have a different rhythm from long ones. Long sentences can feel leisurely, while short ones have blunt impact – the difference between a hug and a slap. You want a variety of sentence and paragraph lengths, because if everything is the same the story will feel clunky or sluggish. But save the longer sentences and paragraphs for description and introspection, and use short sentences and short paragraphs for maximum impact in action scenes. Here’s another example from The Eyes of Pharaoh. This is the end of a chapter where Seshta is waiting for a friend who is supposed to bring important news. Ra, the sun god, carried his fiery burden toward the western horizon. Horus caught three catfish. A flock of ducks flew away quacking. Dusk settled over the river, dimming shapes and colors until they blurred to gray. The last fishing boats pulled in to the docks, and the fishermen headed home. But Reya never came. The long paragraph of description conveys time passing slowly. Putting the last short sentence into its own paragraph gives it added emphasis, causing it to seem more important and ominous. Print your story or a chapter of your novel and look at your paragraphing. Don’t read it, just see how it looks on the page. Do you have variety, or is everything about the same length? Do you favor short paragraphs or long ones? Now look closer. Do you have long paragraphs of action, where several things are happening within one paragraph? Consider breaking that into shorter paragraphs, starting a new one for each small piece of action, as in the first example above. Look at your chapter endings, especially when you have cliffhangers. Can you break your paragraphs into smaller pieces for more drama? Can you shorten your sentences? How does the feel of the section change as you play with sentence and paragraph length? Note the difference between even small changes in wording and punctuation. For example, consider the following two (unpublished) action scenes: My car picked up speed as it rolled down the steep hill. The light at the bottom turned yellow so I stepped on the brakes. The car didn’t slow down. The light turned red as I pressed harder, leaning back in my seat, using my whole leg to force the brake pedal toward the floor. I sped toward the intersection while other cars entered from the sides. I sailed into the intersection, horns blaring and brakes squealing around me as I passed within inches of two cars coming from each side. My car picked up speed as it rolled down the steep hill. The light at the bottom turned yellow. I stepped on the brakes. The car didn’t slow down. The light turned red. I pressed harder, leaning back in my seat, using my whole leg to force the brake pedal toward the floor. My car sped toward the intersection. Other cars entered from the sides. I sailed into the intersection. Horns blared and brakes squealed around me. I slid within inches of two cars coming from each side. These use nearly the same words. The only differences are that in the second version I broke up some long sentences into short ones, and I use seven paragraphs instead of one. I think the second version captures more of the breathless panic that the narrator would be feeling. Or compare these examples: I heard a noise and looked up with a gasp in time to see a huge rock tumbling toward me. I heard a noise above my head. I looked up and gasped. A boulder tumbled toward me. It’s almost hard to follow the action in the first example, because too much happens in one sentence. Shorter sentences clarify the action and give each piece more impact. You can do this exercise with published books as well. Note sections that are poorly paced and try rewriting them to see how things change as you vary the structure. Master pacing, and keep those pages turning. About Chris Eboch Chris Eboch is the author of over 40 books for young people. Her writing craft books include Advanced Plotting and You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers. Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog. As Kris Bock, Chris writes novels of suspense and romance with outdoor adventures and Southwestern landscapes. Fans of Mary Stewart, Barbara Michaels, and Terry Odell will want to check out Kris Bock’s romantic adventures. “Counterfeits is the kind of romantic suspense novel I have enjoyed since I first read Mary Stewart’s Moonspinners,” writes Roberta in a 5-star review at Sensuous Reviews blog. Read excerpts at www.krisbock.com or visit her Amazon page. Sign up for the Kris Bock newsletter for announcements of new books, sales, and more. About Pen to Pen Pen to Pen is a weekly column where authors stop by to share what they’ve learned about the art and business of writing. Do you have wisdom to share, or maybe a lesson you learned the hard way? Please sign up to be a guest author. To get a weekly roundup of all my posts for writers, sign up here.
It’s hard to believe that the first mobile phone was released over 40 years ago, by early pioneer Motorola in 1973. This was a time when Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) had just started its operations, and Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and many other tech giants had not even existed. The simple act of being able to make a call wirelessly was a huge technological step forward in the information age. The first mobiles were heavy brick-like devices, almost unrecognizable from the sleek mini computers, which we carry in our pockets today. Since then mobile industry have been through many technological shits and transformations, there have been four generations of mobile devices and each generation had its own share of breakthrough devices. Through this infographic, we can understand just how far mobile devices have evolved, with radical improvements and declining cost in every generation. - The first mobile phone, the Motorola Dynatac was made available to the public in 1983.It cost US$3995 and weighed almost 800 grams, with a battery life of just 18 mins. - The Motorola Microtac was the world’s first flip phone. It was released in 1989,with a price tag of almost $250. - The IBM Simon was introduced in 1993. It was a revolutionary device which could send and receive faxes and e-mails, and it even had an address book. - The Motorola StarTac was the smallest and lightest phone at the time of its release, weighing in at just 88 grams. - The most recognizable phone of all time is the Nokia 3210. Released in 2000, it became a cultural icon and introduced texting to the market. It sold 160 million units worldwide and remains one of the best-selling phones of all time. - The third generation of mobile devices saw the introduction of mobile broadband. The era of Apple and Android dominance began with the release of the first iPhone in 2007, and HTC dream in 2008. - The HTC Evo was released in 2010 and was the first publicly available 4G ready device. We are now in the fourth generation of mobile devices. These devices are designed to increase broadband speeds and promote high-speed transfer of data. There were 4.33 billion mobile users in the world in 2013 and this figure is likely to touch 5.13 billion by 2017. Interest in wearable technology is increasingly rapidly and it may be possible that these devices will herald in the next generation of mobile devices.
I don’t know the meaning of being happy, but what I exactly know is, a man healthy outside comes from inside. I am so much conscious about health as everyone should be. But I focus on my dental care more than everything. Because I believe that health is not something having a good body but you must have a pleasant smile with fresh breath, nothing is visible more than your face and nothing is more prominent than your teeth, so develop good eating habits. I develop my eating behavior,keeping in my mind my dental care. I love to have greens, vegetables and fruits in my food that incorporates fresh ingredients in my food. Many people ask me why I am so choosy about my meal, I simply give them answer that meal is not to enjoy only,…… it is what our body really needs. For me, food is a set of ingredients that rejuvenate and energize our body and nourish our mind. In mealtimes I chew my food and relish every bite of it, with lots of fresh water .Certainly fresh food with fresh water is equally necessary for dental care. The motive behind choosy foods is only related to dental care. Because I want to enjoy my natural smile, and want to avoid dental implants. The quote of Ogden Nash never allows me to show negligence towards my teeth. “Some tortures are Physical,and some are mental,but the one that is both, is dental”Just Focus on your Dental Care It makes me more impulsive in my endeavor to maintain oral health because I seriously want to avoid Dental Implants. Missing one teeth is just like missing diamond from the mine of your mouth. Sometimes to maintain oral health is not in your hands, there may be some physical discrepancy that is directly affecting your teeth. It may be disease like diabetes, or sometimes teeth decay just happen due to lack of water , because slavia gets thick which causes cavity in mouth. Oral care helps you not to face these difficulties in future, the decay of teeth or eruption of teeth is indispensable if good eating habits are not developed. Make sure that you got healthy teeth Remember, your bad mouth represents, how uneven and shabby personality you are. Don’t let yourself down before the people and the simple way out is this to keep your dental care your first priority. I have seen people who are in their 30’s visit Implant Dentistry. I wonder in their early age they want dental implantation rather than being conscious and careful. They are totally depending on dentist rather than taking prevention against such epidemics. Can you maintain your dental care I guess such implantation of teeth suits only to the people who are older enough. It is not what they demand, it is their age and in order to get rid of weak, and shaky teeth they adopt Denture Implants facility. While using denture they can eat freely and can chew everything. However I do not disagree with the idea that everyone should consult to the dentist, to get the education about oral health, how can they maintain oral health for long time. Well, I strongly believe , that people should be well informed about oral health and must know how much important it is.
Sir John B Gurdon, Gurdon Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom and Shinya Yamanaka, Kyoto University have been earlier today declared the joint winners of this year’s Nobel prize for medicine. They were the pioneers in reprogramming mature cells back into pluoripotent stem cells. Such cells are termed induced pluoripotent cells. John Gurdon was the first person to clone frogs by transferring nucleus from a somatic cell into an anucleate zygote. This proved that the differentiated cells have the ability to revert back and give rise to other tissues. Incidentally, he published his famous experiment in 1962, the year Shinya Yamanaka was born. Stem cells are undifferentiated cell lines which differentiate to yield mature cell lines or more stem cells. They are of two types, embryonic and adult. Embryonic stem cells come from embryos while the adult ones can be extracted from bone marrow, adipose tissue or blood. Embryonic stem cells have not yet been approved for any treatments, though adult cells have been used for years to treat leukemia by bone marrow transplantation. Use of embryonic stem cells also raises obvious ethical concerns. These concerns were bypassed by Yamanaka’s work. Shinya Yamanaka came up with a solution in induced pluripotent stem cells. iPS cells are derived from mature cells by transferring into them certain genes characteristic of stem cells. Viral vectors, usually retroviruses are used for transfection. His group achieved the reprogramming in mouse fibroblasts in 2006, followed by human fibroblasts a year later. The breakthrough has raised hopes for regenerative medicine. iPS cells have many limitations yet but promises are in plenty as well. Picture credits: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012, Nobelprize.org. 8 Oct 2012
At least eleven people were killed and two were missing in flash floods in northern Vietnam that were triggered by Typhoon Dianmu over the weekend, authorities said Monday. The Typhoon also left eight people injured due to falling trees, collapsed house and landslides, the National Committee for Search and Rescue said in a report. “The death toll can be higher than the data in the report because localities are still calculating losses,” committee member Do Huy Phuong told dpa. Among the dead were six people who were killed by landslides and three others who were swept away, the report said. Torrential rain caused 89 houses to collapse and damaged nearly 2,000 others, according to the Central Steering Committee on Disaster Prevention and Control. Heavy rains also submerged nearly 11,000 hectares of rice, the Committee said. The National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting said the north region received rainfall ranging from 220 to 344 millimeters for the past three days. More rains and flooding would hit the area in the coming days, likely to cause more floods and landslides. Vietnam loses between 1 and 1.5 per cent of its gross domestic product every year due to natural disasters, the Vietnamese government said.
Neuro Balance Therapy is a unique and revolutionary approach to treating mental and physical health issues. This therapy uses the power of the brain to restore balance in the body and mind. It is an innovative, holistic approach to treating a variety of conditions, including anxiety, depression, PTSD, chronic pain, and more. Neuro Balance Therapy is gaining popularity in the health and wellness world as an effective treatment for many issues, and it may be the answer to improving your mental and physical health. In this blog post, we will explore what Neuro Balance Therapy is, how it works, and how it can help you. What is Neuro-balance Therapy? Neuro-balance therapy is a holistic approach to healing that focuses on the whole person, taking into account physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects. It is designed to restore balance and harmony in the body, mind, and spirit, creating the conditions for optimal health and well-being. Neuro-balance therapy is based on the latest scientific research and combines a variety of techniques, such as mindfulness meditation, breathwork, movement, nutrition, and lifestyle changes to help clients achieve their goals. By addressing the root cause of the problem, it can help alleviate a wide range of issues such as stress, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and more. Neuro-balance therapy is a powerful and holistic approach to healing that can help individuals create lasting change in their wellbeing. - “Unlocking the Potential of Neuro Balance Therapy”Neuro Balance Therapy is a unique and revolutionary approach to treating mental and physical health issues. This therapy uses the power of the brain to restore balance in the body and mind. It is an innovative, holistic approach to treating a variety of conditions, including anxiety, depression, PTSD, chronic pain, and more. Neuro Balance Therapy […] - All Slimming HerbsProduct Name: All Slimming Herbs Click here to get All Slimming Herbs Homepage CLICKBANK at discounted price while it’s still available… All Slimming Herbs – The All Day Slimming Tea is a powerful new tea for supporting healthy weight loss & detox, digestion and better sleep. Instead of a typical weight loss supplement that is […] - Solar Power program that truly helps peopleProduct Name: Solar Power program that truly helps people Click here to get Hot Offer! Solar Power program that truly helps people! Crazy EPCs! at discounted price while it’s still available… Description: Solar Power program that truly helps people Click here to get Hot Offer! Solar Power program that truly helps people! Crazy EPCs! at […] - Neuro Balance Therapy | Neuro Transformational TherapyNeuro Balance Therapy is a unique and revolutionary approach to treating mental and physical health issues. This therapy uses the power of the brain to restore balance in the body and mind. It is an innovative, holistic approach to treating a variety of conditions, including anxiety, depression, PTSD, chronic pain, and more. Neuro Balance Therapy […] - Sports Investing SystemSports Investing System Description: In these 5 days we give you a COMPLETE test run. You see all the members step-by-step videos, all of our past history, and EVERYTHING you need to make a serious income from wagering on sports. Sports Cash System is a world-class system that was developed by myself, Tommy Krieg, a […] Neuro-balance Therapy Features & Benefits is a unique, evidence-based and holistic approach to treating imbalances in the nervous system. This therapy is designed to promote a healthy balance between the body’s sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, as well as to reduce the impact of stress and trauma on the body. It can be used to help people with a variety of physical and mental health issues, from chronic pain, to depression, to anxiety, and even to addiction. Neuro-balance Therapy utilizes a variety of techniques and tools to help people achieve a balanced and healthy nervous system. These techniques include deep, slow breathing techniques, visualization, mindfulness, and body-based techniques such as massage and movement. Neuro-balance Therapy has been shown to be an effective treatment for a variety of mental and physical health issues and can be used to help people improve their overall wellness and quality of life. Who is Chris Wilson? Chris Wilson is a physical therapist and the founder of Neuro Balance Therapy. He has been practicing physical therapy since 1999, and specializes in the recovery of individuals from neurological injuries and diseases. Chris has a special interest in the use of innovative methods to address the physical, emotional, and cognitive limitations of those affected. He has developed a unique approach to physical therapy that integrates modern scientific methods with traditional healing techniques. He believes that the combination of these two components can provide an effective and comprehensive treatment plan for those affected. Chris is an expert in his field and is well-known for his work in the area of Neuro Balance Therapy. The Story of Maryanne’s Balance Problems Maryanne had been struggling with balance issues for years, but had never been able to get a diagnosis or proper treatment. She was frustrated and confused as to why no one could help her. After trying various different treatments, she decided to try Neuro Balance Therapy. Neuro Balance Therapy is a holistic approach to restoring balance using physical therapy along with other forms of therapy. Maryanne worked with a physical therapist to improve her strength, coordination and balance. She also worked with a cognitive therapist to learn strategies to maintain her balance in everyday activities and cope with the emotional effects of her balance issues. After a few months of therapy, Maryanne was finally able to regain her balance and start living a normal life. She is now living a full and happy life, free of her balance problems. Common Mistakes That Increase the Risk of Falls Neuro-Balance Therapy is an innovative treatment for balance problems, such as those experienced by Maryanne. This therapy works to restore balance by focusing on the nervous system, as well as the musculoskeletal system. Neuro-Balance Therapy combines the latest advances in physical and neurological therapy to improve balance, coordination, strength, and flexibility. It can be used to treat a variety of balance disorders, such as vertigo, disequilibrium, vestibular dysfunction, and postural instability. The therapy begins by evaluating the patient’s posture, movement, and nervous system. Once the evaluation is complete, the therapist will develop a personalized treatment plan that includes exercises, manual therapy, and balance activities. This plan is designed to help Maryanne improve her balance, reduce her risk of falls, and improve her overall quality of life. How Neuro-balance Therapy Works Neuro-balance therapy is a holistic approach to balancing the brain and nervous system. It works by using non-invasive techniques to access the deeper levels of the brain and nervous system, allowing the practitioner to bring in needed energy and healing to restore balance. This includes techniques like Neuro-emotional technique (NET), Energy Psychology, and Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). Each of these techniques is designed to help the body access and release stored negative emotions, experiences, and beliefs, allowing the body to find equilibrium. Neuro-balance therapy can be used to help with a variety of mental, physical, and emotional issues, such as chronic pain, depression, anxiety, addiction, and more. It is a safe and effective way to bring balance and healing to the body, mind, and spirit. Neuro Balance Therapy is a type of therapy that uses brain training and neuro-cognitive exercises to provide long-term relief from emotional and physical pain. This type of therapy is used to treat a variety of conditions, including depression, anxiety, ADHD, chronic pain, and addiction. Through the use of cognitive-behavioral techniques, Neuro Balance Therapy helps the patient to improve their emotional and physical health by focusing on their mental and emotional wellbeing. It also helps improve the patient’s overall functioning by teaching them how to better manage their emotions, cope with stress, and improve their communication skills. Neuro Balance Therapy is a safe and effective way to treat a wide range of conditions, and can provide long-term relief from physical and emotional pain.
What is a data warehouse? A data warehouse (DW) is a digital storage system that connects and harmonises large amounts of data from many different sources. Its purpose is to feed business intelligence (BI), reporting, and analytics, and support regulatory requirements – so companies can turn their data into insight and make smart, data-driven decisions. Data warehouses store current and historical data in one place and act as the single source of truth for an organisation. Data flows into a data warehouse from operational systems (like ERP and CRM), databases, and external sources such as partner systems, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, weather apps, and social media – usually on a regular cadence. The emergence of cloud computing has caused a shift in the landscape. In recent years, data storage locations have moved away from traditional on-premise infrastructure to multiple locations, including on premise, private cloud, and public cloud. Modern data warehouses are designed to handle both structured and unstructured data, like videos, image files, and sensor data. Some leverage integrated analytics and in-memory database technology (which holds the data set in computer memory rather than in disk storage) to provide real-time access to trusted data and drive confident decision-making. Without data warehousing, it’s very difficult to combine data from heterogeneous sources, ensure it’s in the right format for analytics, and get both a current and long-range view of data over time. Benefits of data warehousing A well-designed data warehouse is the foundation for any successful BI or analytics program. Its main job is to power the reports, dashboards, and analytical tools that have become indispensable to businesses today. A data warehouse provides the information for your data-driven decisions – and helps you make the right call on everything from new product development to inventory levels. There are many benefits of a data warehouse. Here are just a few: - Better business analytics: With data warehousing, decision-makers have access to data from multiple sources and no longer have to make decisions based on incomplete information. - Faster queries: Data warehouses are built specifically for fast data retrieval and analysis. With a DW, you can very rapidly query large amounts of consolidated data with little to no support from IT. - Improved data quality: Before being loaded into the DW, data cleansing cases are created by the system and entered in a worklist for further processing, ensuring data is transformed into a consistent format to support analytics – and decisions – based on high quality, accurate data. - Historical insight: By storing rich historical data, a data warehouse lets decision-makers learn from past trends and challenges, make predictions, and drive continuous business improvement. What can a data warehouse store? When data warehouses first became popular in the late 1980s, they were designed to store information about people, products, and transactions. This data – called structured data – was neatly organised and formatted for easy access. However, businesses soon wanted to store, retrieve, and analyse unstructured data – such as documents, images, videos, emails, social media posts, and raw data from machine sensors. A modern data warehouse can accommodate both structured and unstructured data. By merging these data types and breaking down silos between the two, businesses can get a complete, comprehensive picture for the most valuable insights. Some key terms There are lots of terms to make sense of in the world of DW. Here are some of the most important. Explore some other terms and FAQs in our glossary. Data warehouse vs. database Databases and data warehouses are both data storage systems; however, they serve different purposes. A database stores data usually for a particular business area. A data warehouse stores current and historical data for the entire business and feeds BI and analytics. Data warehouses use a database server to pull in data from an organisation’s databases and have additional functionalities for data modelling, data lifecycle management, data source integration, and more. Data warehouse vs. data lake Both data warehouses and data lakes are used for storing Big Data, but they are very different storage systems. A data warehouse stores data that has been formatted for a specific purpose, whereas a data lake stores data in its raw, unprocessed state – the purpose of which has not yet been defined. Data warehouses and lakes often complement each other. For example, when raw data stored in a lake is needed to answer a business question, it can be extracted, cleaned, transformed, and used in a data warehouse for analysis. The volume of data, database performance, and storage pricing play important role in helping you choose the right storage solution. Data warehouse vs. data mart A data mart is a subsection of a data warehouse, partitioned specifically for a department or line of business – like sales, marketing, or finance. Some data marts are created for standalone operational purposes as well. While a data warehouse serves as the central data store for an entire company, a data mart serves relevant data to a select group of users. This simplifies data access, speeds up analysis, and gives them control over their own data. Multiple data marts are often deployed within a data warehouse. What are the key components of a data warehouse? A typical data warehouse has four main components: a central database, ETL (extract, transform, load) tools, metadata, and access tools. All of these components are engineered for speed so that you can get results quickly and analyse data on the fly. - Central database: A database serves as the foundation of your data warehouse. Traditionally, these have been standard relational databases running on premise or in the cloud. But because of Big Data, the need for true, real-time performance, and a drastic reduction in the cost of RAM, in-memory databases are rapidly gaining in popularity. - Data integration: Data is pulled from source systems and modified to align the information for rapid analytical consumption using a variety of data integration approaches such as ETL (extract, transform, load) and ELT as well as real-time data replication, bulk-load processing, data transformation, and data quality and enrichment services. - Metadata: Metadata is data about your data. It specifies the source, usage, values, and other features of the data sets in your data warehouse. There is business metadata, which adds context to your data, and technical metadata, which describes how to access data – including where it resides and how it is structured. - Data warehouse access tools: Access tools allow users to interact with the data in your data warehouse. Examples of access tools include: query and reporting tools, application development tools, data mining tools, and OLAP tools. Data warehouse architecture In the past, data warehouses operated in layers that matched the flow of the business data. - Data layer: Data is extracted from your sources and then transformed and loaded into the bottom tier using ETL tools. The bottom tier consists of your database server, data marts, and data lakes. Metadata is created in this tier – and data integration tools, like data virtualisation, are used to seamlessly combine and aggregate data. - Semantics layer: In the middle tier, online analytical processing (OLAP) and online transactional processing (OLTP) servers restructure the data for fast, complex queries and analytics. - Analytics layer: The top tier is the front-end client layer. It holds the data warehouse access tools that let users interact with data, create dashboards and reports, monitor KPIs, mine and analyse data, build apps, and more. This tier often includes a workbench or sandbox area for data exploration and new data model development. Data warehouses have been designed to support decision making and have been primarily built and maintained by IT teams, but over the past few years they have evolved to empower business users – reducing their reliance on IT to get access to the data and derive actionable insights. A few key data warehousing capabilities that have empowered business users are: - The semantic or business layer that provides natural language phrases and allows everyone to instantly understand data, define relationships between elements in the data model, and enrich data fields with new business information. - Virtual workspaces allow teams to bring data models and connections into one secured and governed place supporting better collaborating with colleagues through one common space and one common data set. - Cloud has further improved decision making by globally empowering employees with a rich set of tools and features to easily perform data analysis tasks. They can connect new apps and data sources without much IT support. Top seven benefits of a cloud data warehouse Cloud-based data warehouses are rising in popularity – for good reason. These modern warehouses offer several advantages over traditional, on-premise versions. Here are the top seven benefits of a cloud data warehouse: - Quick to deploy: With cloud data warehousing, you can purchase nearly unlimited computing power and data storage in just a few clicks – and you can build your own data warehouse, data marts, and sandboxes from anywhere, in minutes. - Low total cost of ownership (TCO): Data warehouse-as-a-service (DWaaS) pricing models are set up so you only pay for the resources you need, when you need them. You don’t have to forecast your long-term needs or pay for more compute throughout the year than necessary. You can also avoid upfront costs like expensive hardware, server rooms, and maintenance staff. Separating the storage pricing from the computing pricing also gives you a way to drive down the costs. - Elasticity: With a cloud data warehouse, you can dynamically scale up or down as needed. Cloud gives us a virtualised, highly distributed environment that can manage huge volumes of data that can scale up and down. - Security and disaster recovery: In many cases, cloud data warehouses actually provide stronger data security and encryption than on-premise DWs. Data is also automatically duplicated and backed-up, so you can minimise the risk of lost data. - Real-time technologies: Cloud data warehouses built on in-memory database technology can provide extremely fast data processing speeds to deliver real-time data for instantaneous situational awareness. - New technologies: Cloud data warehouses allow you to easily integrate new technologies such as machine learning, which can provide a guided experience for business users and decision support in the form of recommended questions to ask, as an example. - Empower business users: Cloud data warehouses empower employees equally and globally with a single view of data from numerous sources and a rich set of tools and features to easily perform data analysis tasks. They can connect new apps and data sources without IT. Data warehousing best practices When you build a new data warehouse or add new applications to an existing warehouse, there are proven steps for achieving your goals while saving time and money. Some are focused on your business use, and other practices are part of your overall IT program. The following list is a good starting point, and you will pick up additional best practices as you work with your technology and services partners. Business Best Practices - Define the information you require. Once you have a good understanding of your initial needs, you can find the data sources to support them. Often, trade groups, customers, and suppliers will have data recommendations for you. - Document the location, structure, and quality of your current data. Then, you can identify data gaps and business rules for transforming the data to meet your warehouse requirements. - Build a team. This includes executive sponsors, managers, and staff who will be using and providing the information. For example, identify the standard reporting and KPIs they need to do their jobs. - Prioritize your data warehouse applications. Pick one or two pilot projects that have reasonable requirements and good business value. - Pick a strong data warehouse technology partner. They must have the implementation services and experience needed for your projects. Make sure that they support your deployment needs, including both cloud services and on-premise options. - Develop a good project plan. Work with your team on a realistic blueprint and schedule that supports communications and status reporting. IT Best Practices - Monitor performance and security. The information in your data warehouse is valuable, though it must be readily accessible to provide value to the organisation. Monitor system usage carefully to ensure that performance levels are high. - Maintain data quality standards, metadata, structure, and governance. New sources of valuable data are becoming available routinely, but they require consistent management as part of a data warehouse. Follow procedures for data cleaning, defining metadata, and meeting governance standards. - Provide an agile architecture. As your corporate and business unit usage increases, you will discover a wide range of data mart and warehouse needs. A flexible platform will support them far better than a limited, restrictive product. - Automate processes such as maintenance. In addition to adding value to business intelligence, machine learning can automate data warehouse technical management functions to maintain speed and reduce operating costs. - Use the cloud strategically. Business units and departments have different deployment needs. Use on-premise systems when required, and capitalise on cloud data warehouses for scalability, reduced cost, and phone and tablet access. Modern data warehouses, and increasingly cloud data warehouses, will be a key part of any digital transformation initiative for parent companies and their business units. They capitalise on current business systems, particularly when you combine data from multiple internal systems with new, important information from outside organisations. Dashboards, KPIs, alerts, and reporting support executive, management, and staff requirements, as well as important customer and supplier needs. Data warehouses also provide fast, complex data mining and analytics, and they don’t disrupt the performance of other business systems. Given the flexibility to start small and expand as needed, both corporate offices and business units can improve decision-making and bottom-line performance with modern data warehouse technology. Explore SAP's data warehouse solution Get unified data and analytics for trusted decisions in the cloud. More in this series Data warehouse FAQs A data lake is a place to store all kinds of Big Data, whether it’s structured data from business applications or unstructured data from mobile apps, social media, or Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Because data is stored in its natural format – structured, unstructured, semi-structured, or binary – conversion, normalisation, or other processing may be needed to enable analytics across multiple data types. Most data lakes are cloud based due to the large volumes of data they store, the need for high-speed connections to distributed sources, and the need for scalability. ETL stands for “extract, transform, and load.” Together these activities make up the process used to take data from the source and convert it into a usable format – and then move it into a data warehouse or other data store. ETL is especially useful on transactional data, but more advanced tools can also manage a variety of unstructured data types. A data mart is a partitioned segment of a data warehouse that is oriented to a specific business area or team, such as finance or marketing. Data marts make it easier for departments to quickly access the data and insights that are relevant to them, and also to control their own data sets within the larger data store. Data models are a foundational element of software development and analytics. A data model is a description of how data is structured, and the form in which the data will be stored in the database. A data model provides a framework of relationships between data elements within a database, as well as a guide for use of the data. Data modelling is the process of creating data models. When creating a database or data warehouse structure, the designer starts with a diagram of how data will flow into and out of the database or data warehouse. This flow diagram is used to define the characteristics of the data formats, structures, and database handling functions to efficiently support the data flow requirements. The modelling provides a standardised method for defining and formatting database contents consistently across systems, enabling different applications to share the same data. An enterprise data warehouse (EDW) stores all current and historical business data in one place – the embodiment of master data management, data warehousing, and a data strategy based on a holistic approach to data management. EDWs provide a welcoming environment for analytics software and the maintenance of accurate, company-wide KPIs and reporting. Many EDWs are cloud-based for scalability, access, and ease of use. SAP Insights Newsletter Gain key insights by subscribing to our newsletter.
Black Swan (def): An unpredictable or unforeseen event, typically one with extreme consequences. For some time now, thanks to the work of London economist Alasdair Macleod, we know the banking system worldwide is in trouble, especially in Europe. The banks are in trouble because high interest rates and the strong dollar are wreaking havoc on their balance sheets. Because the banks are highly leveraged with derivatives and the higher interest rates (lower bond prices) are causing a dramatic rise in margin calls and potential liquidation. As Macleod mentioned several weeks ago, “Banks are withdrawing credit. They know economic conditions are deteriorating and understand business as a whole is not good. Early signs of a global liquidity crisis are all there.” Learn How to Avoid Costly Rookie Mistakes & Invest in Gold Like a Pro!Get Free Gold Investor Guide Mike Savage of Raymond James, offers confirmation of this deteriorating picture with the following: “The European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and Bank of England are all using extraordinary measures and buying “whatever it takes” to keep yields on government bonds under control. Despite these efforts, we are still seeing bond yields flailing all over the place and trading more like stocks than the usually boring bonds. This indicates that there is something underneath the surface (lack of liquidity and willing buyers is most likely) that is causing all of this turmoil.” In conclusion, Savage says, “I believe that NOW is the time to get whatever it is you need because it appears that those ‘in charge’ need a crisis to cover their tracks as the global economy and indeed the entire debt-based system appears ready to implode. It doesn’t seem it would take too much for a Black Swan event to appear.” In a recent interview with King World News, Michael Oliver, founder at MSA Research, had even more to offer on this subject: “In 2008-2009 we had the black swan of mortgage-backed securities where the Fed came in and supported that market by acquiring the securities and artificially pricing them which caused great illiquidity in that market.” Ultimately the stock market reacted with a 50% drop, but Oliver says this around there is much more at stake: “This time around is totally different because the bubble is much bigger. A crisis is now unfolding in the bond markets and it’s the biggest crisis we’ve ever had in any market arena. We have an illiquidity crisis and it’s a black swan of the largest magnitude.” Oliver emphasizes that, “You can’t have a crisis in Japan, UK, Switzerland and Europe overall without the US being directly affected. It’s no wonder Janet Yellen of the Treasury Department expressed concern about illiquidity several days ago and actually went to the largest banks asking if they needed help supporting their bonds. In other words, there is an emergency here.” By targeting low interest rates and printing money from thin air, the Federal Reserve created massive bubbles in the financial markets. Then, in trying to stem inflation, the Fed essentially has pricked the bubbles, including the US bond market, the biggest asset class in the world. Of course, the Fed will soon try to stem the crisis, but as Oliver states, “Once you create an implosion in a blow off market, it is impossible to stop it.” Like the bond market, gold prices have also fallen due to higher interest rates and a strong dollar. But Oliver believes, “The liquidity crisis is actually very positive for gold and contends that as the crisis worsens and the dollar remains strong, investors will revert to gold because history shows in a crisis of this nature, gold is the one asset class that will maintain its value. As the crisis worsens, confidence in the underlying government debt will go out the window, as will confidence in the Fed. Illiquidity means implosion, a point we could be reaching very quickly. The practical and psychological need to own physical gold (and silver) will never be greater.” Public interest in the paper prices of gold and silver continues to wane. The Open Interest numbers reported by COMEX continue to indicate that the level of buying interest in gold and silver is dramatically low and you must know that is a reliable sign the metals are forming a bottom. Also, it’s critical to understand that as per Alasdair Macleod, “Available physical gold and silver are disappearing on this price takedown. Central banks, old money, and wealthy private individuals are taking the opportunity to accumulate physical gold and silver, aware that currencies and financial systems face increasing systemic risks.” It’s no wonder the prices and premiums of certain gold and silver coins are rising (while the paper prices fall). As reported in the recent past, the available supply of physical gold and silver is low at every level. The fundamentals are very bullish and as physical demand finally overwhelms the paper supply, prices will soar. Considering the depth of our problems and the very real possibility of a Black Swan event right around the corner, never has there been a better time to get into wealth preservation mode.
This Amazing 7-Year-Old Gives A TED Talk Telling Us How To Play With Our Kids When my kids were little, I played with them. I let the “helicopter” swoop down and feed them a spoonful of the homemade baby food I made them. There’s a video of the three of us, my twin daughters and I, giggling as the blanket covers their smiling faces only to surprise them when the blanket is pulled off of their heads. I bought all of the gadgets, the alphabet mat, the blocks with three-letter words on them, the foam bathtub letters hoping they would learn how to spell their names before they turned two. I had high expectations for them and for me. In an enlightening Ted Talk, speaker Molly Wright teaches parents five ways we can help our kids not only survive but thrive — and she says you don’t need to buy anything to help their development. The astonishing thing? Molly Wright is seven years old. In the seven-minute video, Molly explains that helping our kids thrive begins during pregnancy, even before our kid is born. We know the importance of eating healthy, exercising, and maintaining — as best we can — a healthy mental and emotional state while we are pregnant. But what about the babies, how can we help them thrive while pregnant? Molly’s first two tips to help your baby thrive are connecting and talking with your baby. You can do both of these while they are growing in your belly. At night, when your indigestion keeps you up, say kind words to your growing baby. The act of rubbing your belly is a way of connecting with your baby. Playing music, singing, taking a walk, and explaining what you see to the baby, all help with their development before you give birth. In Molly Wright’s Ted Talk, she reminds us that we must “serve and return” with our kids, which includes connecting and talking to them. Molly also points out that playing with your child aids in their development in ways that will help them later in life. “Interactions, early and often, matter,” she states. “Take it from me, the seven-year-old up here talking about brain science.” Molly Wright doesn’t explicitly say it, but she uses the example of a father and son, one-year-old Ari and his dad Amarjot, to show us in real-time what happens when parents are more concerned with their devices than their children. You can see the stress that Ari is under when his father decides to focus on his iPad rather than on his son, who is also right there in front of him. “Kids are hardwired to seek out meaningful connections,” Molly says as baby Ari fusses for his dad’s attention. “Not receiving it causes confusion and stress.” There is no denying that we, as parents, often spend too much time on our devices, even while at dinner. After listening to the advice from Molly Wright, I will no longer get irritated with my wife when she’s out with the kids and doesn’t return my text or phone call. I know she is being attentive to our kids and their needs. My wife is so good about being with our kids and in the moment with them, and I am learning from her. Molly’s final tip is about providing a community for your child. The people we surround our kids with matter. From family to friends to neighbors, our children are influenced by everyone who comes into their life. It’s our job as their parents to protect them and provide a healthy community of people they can learn from and be supported by. Not only does a community provide support for parents, but it provides an exposure to diversity and a sense of belonging for kids. “Community involvement sends a powerful message to children. It’s one that says you are important. You are loved. You belong. And it’s a message that, with it, holds the strength to empower every child in the world,” says Children’s Bureau. You’ve heard the adage that it takes a village to raise a child, and the people we choose to make up that village will have a lifelong impact on our kids’ development — so choose wisely. Exchange Family Center has some valuable tips on strengthening your “village” … or outright creating one if you’re lacking. “Every moment together is an opportunity to connect, talk, and play,” Molly reminds us at the conclusion of her talk. “To us, to children, it’s so much more than just a game. It’s our future.” This article was originally published on
Tech News related to Efficient Power Converters, Data Storage – Fluorescent Dyes, AI Identifying Causes of Serious Disease, Optics – Electronics, Autonomous Chemical Mini-Plant, Intelligent Optical Chip Note: I do not write/own any of the tech news bits (and cover picture) given here. The links on each of the news bits will redirect to the news source. The content given under each headline is a basic gist and not the full story. 1. Toward More Energy Efficient Power Converters Source: Nara Institute of Science and Technology 11 Oct 2021 Scientists used the mathematical method called automatic differentiation to find the optimal fit of experimental data up to four times faster. This research can be applied to multivariable models of electronic devices, which may allow them to be designed with increased performance while consuming less power. 2. Storing Data as Mixtures of Fluorescent Dyes Source: American Chemical Society 13 Oct 2021 As the world’s data storage needs grow, new strategies for preserving information over long periods with reduced energy consumption are needed. Now, researchers have developed a data storage approach based on mixtures of fluorescent dyes. The dyes are deposited onto an epoxy surface in tiny spots with an inkjet printer. The mixture of dyes at each spot encodes binary information that is read with a fluorescent microscope. 3. AI-Based Technology Quickly Identifies Genetic Causes of Serious Disease Source: University of Utah Health 14 Oct 2021 An artificial intelligence (AI)-based technology rapidly diagnoses rare disorders in critically ill children with high accuracy, according to a report. The benchmark finding foreshadows the next phase of medicine, where technology helps clinicians quickly determine the root cause of disease so they can give patients the right treatment sooner. 4. Bridging Optics and Electronics Source: Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences 14 Oct 2021 Researchers have developed a simple spatial light modulator made from gold electrodes covered by a thin film of electro-optical material that changes its optical properties in response to electric signals. Original written by: Leah Burrows 5. Scientists Develop Fully Solar-Driven Autonomous Chemical Mini-Plant Source: Universiteit van Amsterdam 14 Oct 2021 Scientists have developed a fully operational standalone solar-powered mini-reactor which offers the potential for the production of fine chemicals in remote locations on Earth, and possibly even on Mars. In a paper, the team presented their unique, fully off-grid photochemistry system. 6. Intelligent Optical Chip to Improve Telecommunications Source: Institut national de la recherche scientifique – INRS 15 Oct 2021 Researchers have developed a smart pulse-shaper integrated on a chip. The device output can autonomously adjust to a user-defined target waveform with strikingly low technical and computational requirements. Original written by: Audrey-Maude Vézina That’s all the tech news for this week! Maybe you can help me provide news better. Leave a comment below if you have any suggestions or send me a message via the contact form! Have fun!
Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. They accomplish their infection and propagation with two cycles that work in concert: the lytic cycle and the lysogenic cycle. These life cycles are the driving force for the spread of bacteriophage infection. The lytic cycle is the most common form of replication for viruses, and results in the destruction of the host cell. The beginning of the lytic cycle, known as penetration, involves the virus entering the host cell. They either attach to a receptor on the cell surface or simply invade by brute through the plasma membrane. Once inside, the virus releases it's DNA to begin the bio-synthesis of other viral components. The virus utilizes the host's cellular machinery to create necessary proteins and DNA for replication. After the necessary components are produced, they are combined to form complete viruses, which then cause the host bacterium to lyse. The broken cell releases these newly synthesized viruses to begin infecting other bacteria. Some viruses do not completely destroy the host cell, instead budding from the membrane to be released. Viruses that infect eukaryotic cells often replicate this way and it is not common among bacteriophages. As opposed to the lytic cycle, in which viruses utilize cell machinery to immediately reproduce, the lysogenic cycle is a dormant cycle in which the virus inserts its genetic elements into the host's genome. The genetic element is transferred to daughter cells via the normal replication cycle of the host, until some external stimuli (chemical, UV radiation, etc) allows the reactivation of the viral elements. At this point, the lytic cycle begins again. Lysogeny is an effective tool for molecular biologists. It can be utilized to insert genes of interest, via lambda phage, into a target bacterium for expression. GENETIC MATERIAL REPLICATION Bacteriophages use a combination of the lytic and lysogenic cycles. Under certain conditions, a primarily lytic bacteriophage may be induced to lysogeny in order to preserve the genetic elements for later activation. A key difference among different kinds of bacteriaphage is the status of the genetic material. Most bacteriophages have double stranded DNA (dsDNA), while others have single stranded DNA or even RNA as the source of genetic information. These different nucleic acids are organized either in a linear fashion, similar to eukaryotes, or in a circular plasmid-like structure. The copying of genetic material is critical for replication and bacteriophage life cycles.
Monday’s decisions in Plain English on Jun 22, 2011 at 3:20 pm If you read the blog regularly, you probably know that the Justices announce opinions in reverse order of seniority. Some days, like Monday, that tradition leaves us on tenterhooks (because many Court-watchers believe that the Chief is writing that opinion). And sometimes it means that the Court saves the best for last: Monday, after announcing three important but less visible opinions, Justice Scalia (second in seniority only to the Chief) proclaimed, “The Court has decided the case of Wal-Mart v. Dukes.†The news media went wild. Here’s why:  Wal-Mart was one of the most anticipated cases of the Term, because of its effect on class action litigation and big business defense. Let’s discuss. First, you’ve probably heard that the Wal-Mart litigation was the biggest class action lawsuit in history (with “was†being the operative word here, because the Court’s decision effectively ended the case in its current form). Approximately one million female Wal-Mart employees joined together to sue the chain, arguing that the chain had discriminated against its female employees all over the country in the way that it paid and promoted them. In understanding the Wal-Mart decision, it’s important to keep in mind what the Court did not do (and which we hadn’t expected the Court to do): the Court was not deciding whether the company had in fact discriminated against its female employees. Instead, it held only that their lawsuit against the store could not continue as a class action (for more on how class action works, see my Plain English post from March 31). All nine Justices agreed that the suit was improper under the rules that govern class actions, in part because the women sought backpay and other money damages.  On the other hand, only five Justices (the ones typically regarded as the Court’s more “conservative†members) agreed that the plaintiffs did not have enough in common to form a class; essentially, they could not show that Wal-Mart had a companywide policy or a corporate culture of discriminating against women, in part because the company was so large and spread out, with individual regions and managers having discretion to make employment decisions. Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Breyer,  disagreed with the majority. In her dissent, Justice Ginsburg (a former women’s rights attorney and the Court’s gender discrimination expert) argued that the female employees had shown enough evidence of a pattern of discrimination throughout the company that they could properly form a class, even if they could not bring a class action under the particular rule on which they had relied. The Court’s decision in Wal-Mart was, to put it mildly, good news for big business. That’s because the opinion here is likely to limit future class action suits against large companies like Wal-Mart. But the win for “Goliath” will require “Davids” like Betty Dukes and her co-workers to to bring their claims individually or in much smaller classes. That’s a big problem: Litigation is costly and expensive, especially against a corporate giant like Wal-mart; many of the women (most hourly workers) may not be able to bring their own cases. That’s why – even though the Court never actually determined whether Wal-Mart had discriminated against its female employers –women’s rights organizations have been speaking out against the opinion over the last twenty-four hours. Probably the second biggest case of the day, American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut had a major legal impact on global warming regulation. You may remember that, three Terms ago, the Court decided Massachusetts v. EPA, holding that the Clean Air Act covered carbon dioxide emissions and that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could therefore decide whether or not to regulate them. In this follow-up case, a group of plaintiffs that included several states sued five electric-power companies, which together are responsible for nearly ten percent of all human emissions of carbon dioxide in the United States. The plaintiffs argued that the carbon-dioxide emissions were a “public nuisance†– an offense that injures the community rather than individuals – and asked the court to order the power companies to reduce their emissions. The court of appeals would have allowed the case to move forward, but on Monday the Supreme Court reversed. The Court first split four to four (with Justice Sotomayor recused because she had participated in the case as a judge on the Second Circuit) on the question of whether the plaintiffs even had a right to sue. Because the Second Circuit had held that they did, that ruling was affirmed by an equally divided Court, but it will not have the force of law in the rest of the country. Next, however, the Court reversed the Second Circuit’s holding that the federal courts could set a cap on carbon dioxide emissions.   Here’s why. The EPA has agreed to make a final decision about whether it will issue final regulations by May 2012; because that decision (and possible regulations) are forthcoming and would cover the emissions issue, the Court explained, the courts could not grant a “common law†(or judge-made) remedy.  This approach makes sense, the Court explained, because the EPA – as an expert on issues related to the environment – is in a better position to address (and, if necessary, cap) emissions than individual district judges. What if EPA declines to issue regulations about greenhouse gas emissions? Then, the Court said, states or other groups injured by the emissions could sue to ask the courts to decide just what the Clean Air Act requires. But, the Court explained, federal courts cannot act on their own to make law when other branches of government – here, Congress and EPA – have passed laws and enacted regulations. As I’ve commented often, the Justices are generalists.  A huge variety of cases make their way to the Court, resulting in decision days like Monday, when we get opinions all along the legal spectrum. In Turner v. Rogers, the Court decided an issue entirely unrelated to class action litigation or greenhouse gasses; here, the Justices considered the right to an attorney in a civil contempt case. In this case, Michael Turner, a father in South Carolina, ended up in court — without a lawyer to represent him – after he failed to pay over five thousand dollars in child support. The family court judge found him to be in contempt of court and sentenced him to prison for twelve months.  Turner appealed, arguing that he had a constitutional right to have a lawyer appointed to represent him, just like a criminal defendant would have, because he faced the possibility of a prison sentence. The South Carolina Supreme Court rejected Turner’s argument, but the Court’s answer was more complicated.  In the end, it took a middle ground. The Court agreed with South Carolina that an indigent defendant such as Turner does not have an automatic right to an attorney, even when the proceedings in which he is unrepresented could result in jail time. In particular, the Court explained, the Constitution does not require a lawyer when the other side is not represented by counsel and there are enough other safeguards to ensure that the decision to send someone to jail is a fair one. Here, the Court held, these safeguards did not exist: the family court did not tell Mr. Turner what would happen if he did not pay, ask him for financial information that would allow the family court to determine whether he could pay, or appoint a social worker to evaluate the situation; therefore, it “vacated†(tossed out) the lower court’s decision and sent the case back to the South Carolina courts. Finally, in a lower-profile but quite interesting case involving First Amendment rights, Borough of Duryea v. Guarnieri, the Court considered the scope of the First Amendment’s Petition Clause, which protects the right to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances.† After Charles Guarnieri, a government worker, was fired from his position as Chief of Police of a Pennsylvania town, he filed a complaint with his union. He later got his job back but was given a list of new rules that restricted his ability to work and get overtime. Guarnieri sued, claiming that the new rules were issued in retaliation for his original union complaint and that the retaliation violated his First Amendment rights. By a vote of eight to one, the Court disagreed. It held that the government is not liable for violating the Petition Clause unless a complaint involves a matter important to the general public; the fact that the complaint is important to one person and his job (and, believe it or not, to his little dog, which Guarnieri’s lawyer asked the jury to consider in deciding the former police chief’s case). That’s it for today. The Court still has ten merits cases to decide by the end of the Term, and we are expecting opinions both tomorrow and Monday. It should be exciting, and we will be back to explain them in Plain English.
- What conditions could be assisted by a Psychiatric Service Dog? - Psychiatric Service Dog Training and Tasks - Can you train your own dog to be a Psychiatric Service Dog? - Public Access Rights of Psychiatric Service Dogs - What's the difference between Psychiatric Service Dogs and Emotional Support Dogs (ESAs)? Unlike other service dogs (or assistance, guide dogs) that are trained to perform major everyday tasks for people with physical disabilities, Psychiatric Service Dogs (PSDs) are specially trained dogs that help people with psychiatric or mental health problems. Let’s take a closer look at these amazing companions. What conditions could be assisted by a Psychiatric Service Dog? Usually, a Psychiatric Service Dog can help the owner manage anxiety and panic attacks helping to relieve the symptoms. PSDs help with psychiatric conditions such as: • Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) • Severe Depression • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders (OCD) • Epilepsy or other seizure-related disorders Psychiatric Service Dog Training and Tasks Each Psychiatric Service Dog is specifically trained to their handlers' personal needs based on their medical condition and may or may not include the tasks described below. Normally, a Psychiatric Service Dog is trained to provide: Assistance in a medical crisis - The dog is trained to retrieve a bag with medication from a specific location that he is taught to go to on command. - The dog is trained to locate a purse with medication at home, in the office, or on a dresser, desk, or chair in the hotel room on command. - The dog is trained to bring the handler a mobile phone. - The dog is trained to go and get help in an emergency and to escort the emergency personnel to the handler’s location. - The dog is trained to wake up his/her handler or human partner - The dog can be trained to remind the handler of the medication at a specific time of day Assistance coping with emotional overload - The dog is trained to soothe feelings of loneliness and sadness by licking the handler’s face - The dog is trained to calm racing thoughts and irritability - The dog is trained to provide deep pressure therapy during a panic attack. - The dog is trained to repeatedly circle the handler to help create a comfortable distance. Security enhancement tasks - The dog is trained to turn on the bedroom or hall lights or other lights if needed. - The dog can be trained to open a locked door from the inside on command. Can you train your own dog to be a Psychiatric Service Dog? Most of the tasks listed above seem to be challenging. But they are possible. Some Psychiatric Service Dogs are trained by the handler - usually with the help of a professional trainer through assistance or service dog programs or courses. The advanced training for Service Dogs refines the skills learned in the intensive service dog training. For example, the training of the Psychiatric Service Dog to retrieve beverages or medication is based on the Service Dog Retrieve training. If you’re interested in training your own dog to be a PSD dog, talk to your doctor about your disability first and discuss which tasks and jobs your dog can specifically do to assist you on a daily basis. Public Access Rights of Psychiatric Service Dogs Psychiatric Service Dogs may be of any breed or size, and can go anywhere their handler goes. Under federal law, PSDs can: • Accompany their owners into businesses that pets normally cannot enter • Live with their owners in traditional "no pet" housing • Fly in the cabin of an airplane with no additional What's the difference between Psychiatric Service Dogs and Emotional Support Dogs (ESAs)? The main difference between PSDs and ESAs is that Psychiatric Service Dogs are actually trained to perform specific tasks that are directly related to an individual’s psychiatric disability. Providing emotional support is only part of their jobs. They help the handler perform important tasks that they would otherwise not be able to perform independently. Besides, a Psychiatric Service Dog must be trained to recognize and respond to the handler’s need for help. In contrast, an Emotional Support Dog is more likely to be a pet that is not trained to perform specific acts directly related to an individual’s psychiatric disability. If you suffer from a mental or emotional disability and don’t have the resources to train a canine for service, you may be eligible for an emotional support dog/animal. While a dog’s companionship may offer emotional support, comfort, or a sense of security to people with mental illnesses or psychiatric disabilities, trained Psychiatric Service Dogs can be a wonderful source of mitigating the handler’s disabilities.
The management has a good tool that allows you to determine the reality of the operation, the company’s achievements, as it is the administrative audit. Thanks to its applicability you can get beneficial information that allow you to ensure efficient management. Read more here: Isaac Dabah. Gilbert Alexis Garcia, reminds us that the administrative audit is a systematic review and qualifying for an entity or part of it, which is carried out with the purpose of determining whether the organization is operating efficiently. It constitutes a search to locate the problems relating to efficiency within the organization. The administrative audit includes a review of the objectives, plans, and programs of the company; its organic structure and functions; their systems, procedures and controls; the staff and facilities of the company and the environment in which develops, depending on the operation efficiency and saving costs. The auditing administrative can be carried out by the Bachelor in business administration and other trained professionals, including to the public accountant trained in administrative disciplines or backed by other specialists. The result of the auditing administrative is an opinion on the administrative efficiency of the entire company or part of it. The main problems that occur in an administrative audit are the following: resistance problems: such problems occur when the Auditor is with executives reluctant to accept suggestions for the improvement of performances, mainly by virtue of an opposition to any change. This is what many scholars of the organizational behavior science called: resistance to change. Is very likely that in the course of an administrative audit has encountered difficulties due to fear, distrust and reluctance to change. Rightly or wrongly, many people stick is all that to which they are accustomed. By habit or personal interests, they want to follow in the same tasks, methods, ideas and ways of doing things. They do not decide to leave what is known by what is as yet unknown.
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, January 21, 2003 continuing ed classes The University of Montevallo’s Continuing Education Department will offer the following classes this year: Painting from Nature – class encourages creating technical skills with water-soluble oils or watercolors and features individual guidance and critiques for beginners and experienced painters. Section 1 meets Feb. 8, 15 and 22 from 10 a.m. to noon. Section 11 meets March 8, 15 and 22 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Ramsay Conference Center room 9. Cost is $125 per section or $195 for both sections and does not include supplies. Instructor is Jill Johnson, UM painting instructor. Let’s Play Chess – learn the basics of the game, strategies, moves, check and checkmate. Bring chessboard to class. Class will be 7-9 on Mondays and Thursdays between Feb. 3-March 13 in the Ramsay Conference Center room 119. Cost is $35 per person. Instructor is Alex Mechitov, UM associate professor of business. The Alabama Constitution – an eight-hour seminar focusing on the current status of the 1901 Constitution. Is it time for reform? How have the more than 700 amendments changed the original document? Why are some of these amendments in violation of the U.S. Constitution? Active discussion and debate regarding specific reform proposals. Seminar will be 7-9 p.m. on Wednesdays from Feb. 5 to March 26 at the Ramsay Conference Center room 105. Cost is $75, and instructor is Dr. Jack Hamilton, professor of social sciences at UM. Antique Furniture – learn how to identify specific pieces and specific styles. Space is limited. Class will be 7-9 p.m. on Tuesdays from Feb. 18 to April 22 at the Ramsay Conference Center room 121. Cost is $100 and instructor is Nancy C. Rogers, a certified appraiser and associate member of the International Society of Appraisers. Photography – indepth basic photography for 35 mm cameras. Learn photocomposition, shutter speeds, aperture, action photos, film types and more. Bring camera to first class. Class will be 6:30-7:30 p.m. on Tuesdays from Feb. 11-March 18 at the Ramsay Conference Center room 119. Cost is $185 per person and includes one roll of film, processing and printing fees and critique. Professional photographer Golson Harrison will be the instructor. Digital Photography – learn to shoot inside and outside activities as well as portrait photographs. Edit and transform digital photographs by manipulating images and creating textures and backgrounds. Bring digital camera and photo paper to class. Class will be 6-8:30 p.m. on Tuesdays from March 4-April 15 at the EBSCO classroom in the Carmichael Library. Cost is $130 per person, and instructor is Liz Hamilton. Morning Water Exercise* – cardiovascular and muscular toning class. Open to men and women. Class is each Monday and Wednesday from 7-8 a.m. from Jan. 15 to May 7 at the McCall Pool. Semester program is $110 per person. Dr. Carolyn Miller, UM professor, is the instructor. Weight Training* – individually assessed and assigned personal weight training to meet specific needs: weight management, rehabilitation, general mobility and body re-shaping. All fitness levels included. Open for men and women. Class is each Tuesday and Thursday from Jan. 16-May 8 from 7-8 a.m. in the Myrick Gymnasium Weight Room. Semester program is $110 per person and instructor is Dr. Carolyn Miller. *Take both classes for a discount, $200 per person or for participants over age 65. Judith Crowe’s Water Fitness Class – class is 7:30-8:30 p.m. each Tuesday and Thursday from Jan. 16 through May 8 at the McCall Pool. Cost is $110 per person, and instructor is Judith Crowe. All health classes offer one complimentary session to introduce the benefits. Attend the first class with your swimsuit or workout clothes
Excessive heat warning for Shelby County Published 5:10 pm Monday, August 2, 2010 Crank up the air conditioner for the next few days. An excessive heat warning has been issued for Shelby County by the National Weather Service. The warning is in effect until 7 p.m. Aug. 3 but conditions are likely to persist through Aug. 5. An excessive heat warning means that a prolonged period of dangerously hot temperatures will occur, according to the alert. High temperatures will climb above 100 degrees in many areas and heat indices will rise to the 108-115 range. Overnight lows will not provide much relief as the lows will stay in the mid to upper 70s. To prevent heat illnesses during this time, drink plenty of fluids, stay out of the sun and check in on elderly relatives and neighbors.
ACS to host cancer prevention study Published 2:23 pm Friday, June 1, 2012 By KATIE MCDOWELL/Lifestyles Editor The American Cancer Society is asking Shelby County residents to enroll in a cancer prevention study this August. The study, known as Cancer Prevention Study-3 (CPS-3), is the latest in a handful of studies over the last few decades that examine how genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors cause or prevent cancer. “We’re really known for our cancer prevention studies,” ACS Communications Director Scarlet Thompson said. “We’re bringing it to large metro areas across the nation for the next year and a half.” The American Cancer Society hopes to enroll about 300,000 people nationwide in CPS-3. They hope to enroll about 1,000 from the Birmingham metro area. “You can help us find out what is causing cancer and how to prevent it,” Thompson said. “It’s really cool. You’re basically changing health history by participating in it.” Previous studies have produced several “revelations” about cancer causes and preventions, including the link between being overweight and living a sedentary lifestyle to increased risk of cancer. A 1980s study linked aspirin use to a lower risk of colon cancer. “We were the first study to ever link smoking to cancer back in the 1950s and 60s,” Thompson said. Enrollment in the Birmingham metro area will be held Aug. 22-29 at various locations, including the Pelham YMCA, 2610 Pelham Parkway, and the Greystone YMCA, 5414 Highway 280. Participants must be 30-65 years old and have no history of cancer, unless it’s a non-melanoma skin cancer. To enroll, participants will be asked to - Read and sign a consent form. - Complete a comprehensive survey that asks for information about lifestyle, behavioral and other health factors. - Have his or her height, weight, heart rate and waist circumference measured. - Give a small blood sample. Survey participants must complete follow-up surveys either online or by mail every few years for the next two to three decades. “It’s all confidential,” Thompson said. “The only folks who have that information are our researchers at our home office in Atlanta.” Participants will also receive annual newsletters with study updates and results. For more information, visit Cps3birmingham.org.
Feed the need: Evangel packs meals for hungry kids Published 12:56 pm Friday, February 26, 2016 By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor ALABASTER – As soon as the countdown hit zero, about 50 Evangel Classical Christian School students began calmly, but quickly, packing food bags and passing them along an assembly line and into rows of waiting boxes. From the beginning of the line in the ECCS gymnasium, students scooped non-perishable food items into a plastic bag before sealing it and passing it down a line of students onto a table. From there, students packed each bag neatly into a cardboard box containing inspirational Christian messages before taping the box shut and stacking it for shipment. Throughout the day on Feb. 26, every student at the school had a chance to participate in the activity, which simultaneously served as an activity to help those in need and a fundraiser for the school. Through the school’s Feed the Need program, students began working in January to secure sponsorships from members of the community. Those who donated gave a certain amount of money to sponsor the students’ charity packing party on Feb. 26. By the time the event began, the school had smashed its goal. “It’s at almost $66,000 right now,” ECCS teacher Beth Mitchell said, noting the event’s fundraising goal was $60,000. “For a school our size, that’s amazing. We surpassed our goal, so the Lord has truly blessed us.” During the packing party, ECCS students prepared a total of 10,000 meals for hungry children in Haiti and Jefferson County. About 8,500 meals – accompanied with messages of Christian gospel – will be mailed to Haiti while the remainder will help hungry children in Jefferson County. The event was organized by ECCS teachers Kelly Parker and Lisa Coston, and the Chelsea-based Champion Events Group provided the food the students packed to ship to those in need. “It’s wonderful to see everyone coming together to make this happen,” Mitchell said. “Not only will the kids receive food, they are also going to receive the gospel of Christ.”
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Waldkirch, 22 January 2019 – At the Hanover Fair from 1 to 4 April 2019, SICK will present its first application based on deep learning algorithms. The solution permits previously unimagined applications and drives forward Industry 4.0. Due to the increasingly dynamic market forces, the pace of product development is also becoming ever faster. New developments are brought to market readiness in monthly instead of yearly cycles. Existing concepts are therefore hardly able to provide an answer to this. Flexibility is essential. Also for production locations, which can be adapted for individual tasks. Sensor technology plays a key part here in the industrial environment. Suitable sensors are available for a large number of standardized applications, but there is an increasing demand here also for customized products in response to the growing need for individual solutions. “Up until just a few years ago, manufacturers tried to develop sensors to meet every requirement. Today, the increasingly individual tasks are solved by new sensor software concepts. SICK has already created a platform in this field with the SICK AppSpace eco-system that permits realization of flexible solutions for automation applications,” explains Bernhard Müller, Senior Vice President Industry 4.0 at SICK. The sensor manufacturer is now going one step further in the direction of Industry 4.0 and is presenting its first sensor solution that operates on the basis of deep learning algorithms. Customized functionality possible SICK uses the new deep learning technology itself in the industrial environment to specialize the functionality of its sensors. Here, the sensor learns to process information and thus receives new functions. In addition, new processes are possible on the basis of adapted sensors. The sensor supplies, processes and analyzes data using self-learning algorithms. In one sensor solution, for example, sensors are trained with a large number of images to give an answer to a specific question. On the basis of this training, the sensor can then independently assign new unknown images to a result. “We are currently working with deep learning on a pilot project in the lumber industry, for example. The basis of our solution is a camera with deep learning functionality,” explains Müller. Sensible use of resources and high quality In order to ensure optimum use of the raw lumber material, sawmills must know about the conditions in the logs. Where are the age rings, where is the core? This is necessary to ensure good processing of the lumber. “In order to find out how the lumber can be used best, we taught the camera this by means of deep learning. This task could previously be performed only by humans,” adds Müller. This technology makes it possible to realize new, previously inconceivable applications that make processes more efficient and more productive. “In our pilot project, we were able to increase the material utilization, improve the quality of the products and avoid wasting resources,” continues Müller. And sustainable use is possible not just with materials. Employees also no longer have to perform monotonous activities and are free for more complex tasks. SICK is one of the world’s leading producers of sensors and sensor solutions for industrial applications. The company, which was founded in 1946 by Dr. Erwin Sick and has its headquarters in Waldkirch im Breisgau near Freiburg in Germany, is among the technology market leaders. With more than 50 subsidiaries and equity investments as well as many agencies, SICK has an agency all over the world. In the 2017 fiscal year, SICK had more than 8,809 employees worldwide and a group revenue of just under EUR 1.5 billion.
Skin Renewal Peeling Treatment for Wrinkled and Aging Skin The Skin Renewal System | $1000 How does our peeling reverse skin damage and aging? During the exfoliation of the skin, the basal cells in the epidermis multiply at a great rate. This results in the production of young cells, not only in number but also a renewal of the basal layers of the epidermis. After peeling, this results in the thickening of the epidermis and more importantly, the thickening of the layers of living cells. To clarify- Aging skin (whether caused by nature or the sun) has a decreased number of layers of living cells and an increased number of layers of dead horny cells. Peeling, therefore, restores the structures of the aging epidermis to one resembling a more youthful skin. These effects constitute a genuine rejuvenation of epidermal tissue. The multiplication of cells in both the epidermis and the dermis which happens during and after peeling, along with the stimulation of the blood supply, are not mere guesswork but have been confirmed by examination under a microscope of skin biopsies taken from volunteers throughout the exfoliation process. The stimulation and formation of new collagen and elastin resulting in the emergence of new plump skin cells continue over several months. This is why the skin looks better in the months after peeling is completed than it does straight after the peeling. The skin continues to improve up till one year after peeling. Schedule online. It's easy, fast and secure. © 2021 by Skin Revision by Davianne LLC
Supporting yourself, your whānau, and others after a disaster. Recovering from a disaster is a gradual process that takes both time and support from your whānau, friends, and wider community. Disasters occur very suddenly and with great force. Often there are no visible signs of physical injury, but the aftermath can leave an emotional toll. Understanding normal responses can aid you in coping effectively, with your feelings and behaviours, and will help you along the path to recovery. Common responses to disasters Initially, you may be overcome with sock and denial, which are both normal responses to traumatic events and disasters. You may feel stunned, dazed, numb, disconnected from life, or combination of these. Following the initial shock, your response may include intense emotional reactions such as sudden mood changes, and you may feel especially anxious, nervous or depressed. In some cases, a trigger will cause you to remember the traumatic experience, which is not only upsetting but may cause physical reactions that accompany stress. You may even find that your thoughts and behaviours are affected, so you may find it difficult to concentrate, make decisions, sleep, and eat. Because your usual activities are disrupted, you might withdraw from personal relationships which may leave you isolated. You may need further assistance if you are experiencing: - Difficulty in communicating your thoughts - Difficulty sleeping - Difficulty maintaining balance in your life - Feelings of frustration - Increased use of drugs/alcohol - Limited attention span - Poor work performance - Headaches/stomach problems - Tunnel vision/muffled hearing - Colds or flu-like symptoms - Disorientation or confusion - Difficulty concentrating - Reluctance to leave home - Depression, sadness - Feelings of hopelessness - Mood-swings and bouts of crying - Overwhelming guilt and self-doubt - Fear of crowds, strangers, or being alone. It is important to know, that there is not one "standard" reaction to stress, caused by traumatic experiences following a disaster. Some people respond immediately, while others have delayed reactions - sometimes months or even years later. Some people will experience long-term effects, while others recover quickly. Factors that may affect the impact of the disaster on your life, include the degree of intensity and loss, your ability to cope with emotionally challenging situations, and other stressful events preceding the disaster. Individuals faced with other emotionally challenging situations, such as serious health problems or family-related difficulties, may have more intense reactions and need more time to recover. What can I do to help myself, my whānau, and my friends? Restoring your emotional well-being following a disaster or other traumatic experience might be: - Giving yourself time to adjust and mourn the losses you have experienced. Try to be patient with changes in your emotional state - Communicating your experience by talking with family or close friends or keeping a diary. Group discussion can help people by listening to other individuals in the same circumstances who have similar reactions and emotions - Engaging in healthy behaviours and (re)engaging in routines such as eating well-balanced meals - Take some time off from the demands of daily life by pursuing hobbies or other enjoyable activities - If you experience ongoing difficulties with sleep, you may be able to find some relief through relaxation techniques - Avoid alcohol and drugs - Avoid major life decisions such as switching careers or buying a home, as these activities tend to be highly stressful. Should I seek professional help? Some people are able to cope with the emotional and physical demands brought about by traumatic events, by using their own support systems. Others with prolonged reactions that disrupt their daily functioning should consult a mental health professional. Psychologists and other appropriate mental health providers help people affected by trauma, to find constructive ways of dealing with the emotional impact. Skylight's counselling services can help. Helping kids cope with disaster Disasters can leave children feeling frightened, confused, and insecure, so it is important for adults to be informed and ready to help. Children may respond to disaster by demonstrating fears, sadness or behavioural problems. Younger children may return to earlier behaviour patterns, such as bed wetting, sleep problems and separation anxiety. Older children may also display anger, aggression, school problems or withdrawal. Suggestions to help re-assure children include the following: - Personal contact is reassuring - Calmly provide factual information about the recent disaster and current plans for insuring their safety along with recovery plans - Encourage your children to talk about their feelings - Re-establish their daily routine for work, school, play, meals, and rest - Praise and recognise responsible behaviour - Understand that your children will have a range of reactions to disasters - Limit their exposure to media. If the reactions worsen over time, or if they interfere with daily behavior at school, at home, or with other relationships, it may be appropriate to talk to a professional. A qualified mental health professional can help. Skylight offers professional support for children and young people and has developed resources that can help with the lasting after effects of a disaster. See links for further help.
7 ideas to engage through storytelling "Those who tell stories rule the world" - Plato Storytelling - the buzz of 2012? I remember so many articles from last year, many great, claiming that 2012 was the year of brand storytelling. The power of those stories central to marketing dialogue. Let's remember first that storytelling isn't new, using narrative to evoke emotion in people is central to clever advertising creative from decades ago. It's 'digital' and 'direct' marketing that has only more recently moved marketing too more of a science - and often a very lazy one at that - bypassing all the important learning of what it means to market to, and motivate, real people with unmet needs. It seems though that we’re all catching back on to the effectiveness of building stories through content and connecting with people, our consumers. When your information is communicated in story form, it's claimed that people relate and remember it better and that we're affected by it more deeply. This is the latest science at least, results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. Where evolutionists claim that the chemistry of our brains hasn't changed in over 50,000 years, back then stories sparked emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, trust…), and that brain chemistry remains the case today. Until recently though we’ve only been able to speculate about evolution and story’s persuasive effects, now psychologists such as Green & Brock argue that fictional storytelling radically alters the way that information is processed by the human brain, that our guard is down. In Peter Guber's book 'Tell To Win', the idea is that using stories or narrative as construct for brand or product messages is a form of Trojan Horse, where the story is a delivery system for the storyteller's agenda. The psychology and science goes that by helping people feel is they key, and that we're more emotional than rational - that being central to shopping science (Paco Underhill, Martin Lindstom being key authors in that space) as well. Brands are telling these stories right now, some better than others, across a number of different mediums - from packaging to video to visual and verbal content. Engagement meets storytelling - the new buzz of 2013? Research consultancy Latitude, released part 1 of a study, “The Future of Storytelling,” which identifies trends and audience attitudes about branded content. The tips Latitude provides on telling stories are the following: - Immersion - Create an immersive experience through content that is delivered in multi-media and that is multi-sensory; - Interactivity - Allow the consumer to become a part of your brand narrative; - Integration - Ensure that there is coherence across the many touch-points; and - Impact - Make it lead to real action Seems like great advice? In 2013 we're seeing the idea of interactivity and engagement come to the fore, enabling and encouraging people to do something. Makes good sense, but does that really build connection. I don't think interacting alone with, for example liking a brand, or commenting on a piece of content, really means anything. Though logically an interaction is a low level signal, of some sort. Harvard Business Review (HBR), challenge the linear assumptions of storytelling, they ran a series of posts from a study that poo-poo's some of the beliefs held by engagement evangelists… - Myth #1: Most consumers want to have relationships with your brand. Turns out only 23% have some feeling that this may benefit them, and the perceived benefit is for discounts. - Myth #2: Interactions build relationships. Only 13% of people cited frequent interactions with the brand as a reason for having a relationship. HBR say evidence is that brand values are more effective in building consumer relationship. So, to build relationships, start by clearly communicating your brand's philosophy or higher purpose. The consumer decides if you're there kind of company - Myth #3: The more interaction the better. Without realising it, claim HBR, many marketers are only adding to the information bombardment consumers feel as they shop a category, reducing stickiness rather than enhancing it. Treat the attention you do win as precious. Storytelling and user engagement can earn permission of course, but lasting engagement, we might agree probably not? The HBR piece too though, strays a little into linear assumptions, they claim that, for example, people fly with Southwest Airlines because they share the value of “democratization of air travel,” and other people will purchase Pedigree dog food because they share the value that “every dog deserves a loving home.” I think that sounds pretty far fetched, does that even sound like something you can imagine a pet owning friend even say that? So with strong arguments for storytelling, engagement and brand values, what is the recipe to success with storytelling? I think it's based on combining all of the above and remembering one crucial factor... It's always about them, not you If we forget about marketing jargon (hard, I know!) around storytelling, engagement and brand values, marketing is relationship building on some level. That's how loyalty is achieved beyond a Tesco ClubCard, right? The answer is to give people what they want, whether that's some easily accessible information on your website, features of your product and service, or creative content that echoes their own values. I believe the HBR notion of having strong brand values, that the business lives and breathes, must be actively communicated - but that the best way to do that is in story-telling through rich content. The story becomes the vehicle to communicate brand values that will resonate with the (right) customer. Those brand statements and values are not in place to make you feel great, they're there to ensure that you're delivering what your customer wants at every touch-point that they have with your brand. Our 7 take-aways for effective story-telling Story-telling is not a guarantee of marketing success - of course explore this for your brand, here's our tips to help do that: Your crafted story + authentic values = Engagement - Brand values - take HBR's point first - what is your brand about and who for? Define and embrace what’s true about your brand, and make sure you can back up the stories and philosophy you put forth. - Create meaning - don't just give me raw information and data, apply your brand values so that is has value, interest and mending for me. Develop the narrative, include captivating imagery. Why else do strong info graphics and video explainers work so well. - Motivate people - Stories can motivate people towards your goal, they can simplify decisions through clarity and understanding. I immediately think of Steve Jobs' Apple presentations - story-telling art? - Bake sharing in - Seth Godin talks about stories are easily shared, we can repeat them to each other. People do not repeat your product benefits to each other - they tell stories of benefits and applications to each other. Make your stories easy to share for effective social media marketing. - Craft the irresistible truth - this does not happen over night, it takes time to develop. Using brand narrative or stories is sound, but only if it’s grounded in an own-able truth that sets you apart, otherwise the brand is weak, and its impact will be weak. Real brand storytelling builds a strong brand; the opposite will result in only a fleeting sense of community, a transient fan. - Brand experiences - How can you include people in your story, let them evolve or become a part of it, the recent Lynx Apollo campaign springs to mind. Open up great experiences for people to get involved in order they leave you feeling something. - Long term over short term - It's hopefully obvious that this is a 'get out what you put in' thing. This isn't an 'SEO programme' or a display ad campaign. Integrated and considered programmes of effort and strong online platforms are in investment to build the brand, over short campaigns designed to 'engage' While the transition from direct to digital media has drive a real focus toward rich content, the caution is that today, with ever more social tools and communication media, there’s a need for cohesive, cross-platform and meaningful connections in a marketing world that is 'always on'. It requires more of brand communication. This is where your story-telling matters. Create strong, brand touch-points across web, packaging, video, textual and verbal content. Your marketing role is increasingly less about directing and more about curating that consumer journey. As ever, please share your ideas in the comments below...
A California Startup Is Using Ashes to Protect Forests Better Place Forests is accepting reservations from those who wish to have their remains scattered in a redwood forest in northern California You may not think much about your own death. Hopefully, you don’t have to. But to a growing group of green burial cemeteries and startups, the way you get buried is as important as how you live. “People [who] have a need to take back the rights to their disposition of their loved ones, are more aware of options. I liken it to the organic food movement,” says Kate Kalanick, executive director of the Green Burial Council. “There was a certain period of time where people didn’t really think about the fact that that last footstep could fall pretty heavy.” There are many ways to address this problem. Cremation, while not without its drawbacks, has seen a steady increase in popularity since the Catholic Church began allowing it in the 60s. A 2011 study from The Netherlands examined environmental impacts, including carbon and methane emissions and land use, of different types of burial there. While some of the laws and customs differ, their results showed that cremation carried about half the environmental impact—measured to include carbon and other emissions, as well as use of land and other resources—compared to traditional burial. Based partly on this research, a California startup is developing a way to use that process to protect forests, permanently. Better Place Forests, founded in 2015 by Jamie Knowlton, Sandy Gibson and Brad Milne, purchased a large chunk of redwood forest on the northern California coast and is accepting reservations for plots for individuals and families who wish to have their ashes scattered there. “The idea is to use cemetery law in the same way that protects normal cemeteries,” says Gibson. “Our focus is to go and find the most beautiful land in the area around a city … and then we’re protecting that land.” There’s no burial here in Better Place Forests’ forests, only spreading of ashes. For $625, customers can reserve a plot beside a particular redwood, or spend more to get a whole tree for a family. Better Place has acquired the land, and is in the process of acquiring permits. Other startups are exploring the technological side of alternative burials. Raoul Bretzel and Anna Citelli designed Capsula Mundi, an egg-shaped biodegradable pod big enough to contain a body, and built to have a tree planted on top. Though it remains a conceptual design, they will soon begin selling a smaller version for ashes. Bios Urn sells a $145 biodegradable urn with a tree seed in it, and it is accepting pre-orders for a smart planter to start a seedling in your house. But neither has addressed the burial aspect; once you’ve got the urn you’re on your own. Meanwhile, “natural burials”—wherein the deceased is placed in the ground sans embalming, coffin or concrete bunker—are also on the rise. These are offered as an alternative to both traditional burials and cremation, and hold some benefits over both. “The green burial concept isn’t anything new, this is the way we buried everybody pre-civil war,” says Kalanick. “When the civil war came along, we had the need to preserve bodies so that boys could be sent back home to their families.” Natural burial also aims to reduce the environmental impact of after-life traditions, especially by eliminating non-biodegradable elements and reducing carbon emissions, says Kalanick. Like Better Place, the price advantage is a draw as well; Herb Engman, president of Greensprings, a cemetery in Newfield, New York, says the cost of a traditional burial averages $11,000 in New York. Greensprings, which is associated with naturalburial.org, is also a preserve, disallowing headstones and supporting grassland bird species. But the cemetery discourages cremation. “There’s an environmental cost to burning bodies,” says Engman. “There’s a lot of mercury in the human body, and that gets released into the air, and then of course settles into the ground. And there’s a lot of energy taken to burn a body.” He’s not wrong, says Better Place Forests’ Knowlton. But there are challenges to natural burial too, including transport of bodies, refrigeration to replace embalming, and the speed with which they must be buried. “There are a lot of logistical constraints that make it very difficult to offer natural burials on scale,” says Knowlton. He likes the idea of natural burial, but Better Place was founded to provide options for those who do want cremation. By spreading ashes, they don’t have to worry about digging holes around the trees, and the trees themselves sequester some of the carbon released by cremation. In the future, they want to offer carbon-offsetting options. The Netherlands study points out that there are drawbacks to green burial as well: “Burying can cause soil disturbance, eutrophication and acidification, which can be very harmful in certain nature areas.” The study also discusses several new techniques, found to have even less impact. In the practice of cryomation, a body is freeze dried, shattered and either buried or composted. In resomation, a body is dissolved in a basic solution. Both remain highly niche. “There are a lot of very positive ideas that people have around new ways to replace cremation,” says Knowlton. “Those are things that we’re very supportive of, and would love to adopt as they become market standards.”
Episode 39: Bringing Together Multiple Perspectives to Provide Better Health Outcomes Episode 39 of the podcast More than Health Care: Nonprofits and Health Care Working Together is now available on the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities’ website and on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify. Once a month, a new episode uncovers keys to collaboration and holistic health in pursuit of improved health outcomes and lower costs for all. Camden Coalition is grounded in what is known as, “Perspective Taking.” In other words, they consider a variety of different perspectives on issues in order to provide, adopt, and achieve a better outcome for individuals. Victor Murray, director of field building and resources at Camden Coalition explained further, “Our goal is to include as many perspectives as possible—whether that’s a local health department, a health system, community-based organizations, [or] primary care—whomever these institutions or organizations might be that can help us to better understand the population that we’re serving and resources that we need.” It’s through the power of community partnerships that Camden Coalition started connecting the dots on a micro-patient level, creating a narrative around each patient. By implementing its “Big Tent” approach, it is better equipped to apply a holistic health method and help community members navigate systems and receive better services. In addition, by knowing the strengths of their community partners, they have been able to leverage those strengths during COVID-19 to better deliver pressing services. One example was through their ”quarantine hotels,” where community members without housing could come and properly quarantine, receive critical care, and get assistance with making connections to family, friends, or other needed services. Carter Wilson, associate director for the National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs, an initiative of the Camden Coalition, talked through how health systems are a key partnership moving forward from COVID-19, “I think COVID helped clarify for health systems that their work needs to go beyond the traditional health care delivery system. I think that’s clear. But what isn’t clear is how health systems will respond, in part, that health systems have had a hard year. I’m worried that a lot of these institutions will choose to go fast, and to go fast you go alone.” Wilson goes on to say that as these health systems race forward, he hopes they do so with the perspectives and the partnership of community to create the necessary impact. Because this is often easier said than done, Murray and Wilson close out the episode outlining the investments they see as critical to provide proper complex care to community members, both locally and nationally. Listen to Victor Murray and Carter Wilson as they explain how shifting to a collaborative infrastructure approach will better impact individuals with complex needs in Episode 39 of the More than Health Care Podcast available through the Alliance website or subscribe on the Apple Podcast, Google Play, or Spotify apps. About the Podcast While many are realizing that collaboration and holistic approaches are the solution, the health care and human services sectors are struggling to find the right formula to realize the full potential. The More than Health Care podcast is designed to help organizations overcome barriers to partnerships resulting from cultural differences, financial pressures, and rules and regulations. In addition to showcasing inspiring examples of integration from across the country, featured experts will expose the myths, misconceptions, and shortcomings of efforts to address the social determinants of health through collaboration across sectors. This podcast is presented by the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities-Council on Accreditation, Beech Acres Parenting Center, and KVC Health Systems. Host Jill Huynh, vice president of new business development at Beech Acres, and producer Erin Keltner, vice president of clinical services for KVC West Virginia, work at the intersection of health and human services, bringing the expertise and practical experience to uncover key takeaways for improving health care and human services integration. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify. Learn more about the Alliance’s efforts to improve population health and well-being.
Given the emotional and demanding nature of social work, burnout is a significant problem among social workers. As burnout often results in negative emotional and occupational repercussions, it is essential for social workers to recognize the warning signs, practice prevention and engage in adequate self-care. This article dives into these topics, while presenting helpful resources from PositivePsychology.com. In doing so, it will provide social workers with the tools and information needed to carry out their invaluable work. Year of Publication:
You are here Referral of sexual violence against children: How do children and caregivers use a formal child protection mechanism in Harare, Zimbabwe? Despite widespread expansion of policies to prevent and respond to violence over the past three decades, sexual violence against children remains common globally. Zimbabwe has expansive legal and policy frameworks to prevent, and formal services to respond to, sexual violence. Yet evidence is lacking about how children and caregivers use formal referral mechanisms. This study conducted secondary qualitative analysis of sexual violence cases [N=74] processed in Harare Magistrates Court and referred to Childline Zimbabwe, in October-November 2020, to examine which experiences children and/or their caregivers formally refer as sexual violence; how they perceive and manage these experiences; and how this relates to national policy contexts. Caregivers, particularly female, were central to reporting sexual violence. Data suggested that some forms of sexual violence were formally referred, including community sexual assault and abuse within families, however some adolescent girls faced blame and shame. There were gaps in reporting of sexual violence against boys, and sexual violence from dating partners or authority figures, with data suggesting that gendered stigma, shame, and fears of institutional authority, were barriers for reporting. Caregivers also reported consensual adolescent sexual relationships to police. These findings contribute to the limited evidence on forms of sexual violence that are and are not formally referred globally, and in sub-Saharan African settings. Existing policy frameworks in Zimbabwe can be strengthened around age of maturity, adolescent sexuality, sidelining of boy survivors, and the role of schools in child protection. Interventions should support caregivers’ efforts to report violence, while also addressing gendered blame and stigma, and stigmatisation of adolescent sexuality.
10 Amazing Green Initiatives in Nova Scotia Happy Earth Day everyone!! The first program of its kind in Canada, Efficiency NS was created to help Nova Scotia save power through energy efficiency and conservation programs. They estimate that their programs save Nova Scotians $475 million and have reached 1 000 000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent avoided annually. This year, Efficiency NS launched the SolarHomes rebate program, which has made switching to solar energy a financial possibility for homeowners around the province. Many of us know this non-profit as Clean Nova Scotia, but they actually offer programs, education, policy contributions, strategic collaborations and more all over Atlantic Canada with the goal of tackling some of our most pressing environmental issues. Hope for Wildlife Hope for Wildlife is much more than a rehab center for wild animals (though that in itself would be enough!). In addition to taking on over 4500 animals every year, the center also offers assistance to over 20 000 callers annually, provides offsite education sessions, runs tours, and is able to collect a wide range of data collected from the treated animals. photo: Hope for Wildlife Common Roots Urban Farm This community farm, which is currently in the process of moving from its original home by the QEII hospital to BiHi park, provides an urban space for the community to come together to grow their own produce, run a produce market, and offer workshops and education sessions. Green Schools Nova Scotia This free program is an initiative from Efficiency Nova Scotia that supports our teachers and students in becoming energy savvy. Through this programming, the entire school community learns how to waste less energy and the importance of energy efficiency. Ecology Action Centre Located in Halifax’s North End, this member-based charity tackles environmental challenges around Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada. They cover a wide range of issues including community planning and development, oceans and coastal areas, energy, food policy, wildlife, and more. Zero Waste Nova Scotia Looking for some local advice and inspiration on minimizing your consumption and living a zero/low waste lifestyle? @zerowastenovascotia shares tons of great tips on their Instagram account. The Tare Shop And speaking of zero waste, this list wouldn’t be complete without one of our Solar Schools Canada This non-profit is particularly near and dear to us because it helps to bring solar energy systems to schools around the province (and beyond). Solar Schools not only helps to bring solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to schools but it also involves the students along the way and provides hands-on learning about renewable energy. Edge Energy Management and Consulting Edge sprang from its co-founders’ passion for energy efficiency and carbon reduction and works to help businesses reduce their energy waste and adopt energy-saving practices and technologies. This is just a small list of the many amazing green initiatives going on around Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada! We’re thrilled that both the government and our community have come together in so many ways to help support our environment and create a brighter, greener future. We’re passionate about the environmental benefits of solar energy and the massive large-scale impact it can have for our province and our planet. To learn more about the environmental benefits, check out our post here and to get started with your own solar energy system, get your FREE customized report here. Low Cost Backup Power: Which Unit is Best? Grid Outages and the Need for Backup Power In the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona and its devastating effects on the Atlantic Provinces, we’ve been getting a lot of questions about battery backup systems. Some people have been without power for several days as Nova... The Elevator Pitch – Why Solar Ascent? What’s your “Elevator Pitch”? I was having an interesting conversation with a potential client a few weeks back. At this point I’ve had probably a thousand or so similar conversations about the benefits of solar energy adoption, and I’ll admit they can get a bit... The Future of Solar Energy in Nova Scotia On Monday, the Canadian Solar Industries Association released their NS Residential Solar Market Outlook and Supply Chain Study, which aimed to predict the future of solar energy in Nova Scotia over the next ten years. The findings? Let’s just say the future looks very...
Marijuana stinks. Here’s what cities, businesses and neighbors can do about it. By Brooke Edwards Staggs, The Cannifornian Posted on Sep 11, 2018 Even the most ardent marijuana lovers can’t deny it: The plant, at least to some noses, stinks. Marijuana odors have triggered lawsuits against cannabis companies. They’ve also led residents to try to block commercial operations from coming to California and the other eight states where recreational cannabis is legal and, increasingly, big business. Odor has sparked some neighborhood friction, too, as marijuana smoke drifts from one apartment or yard to the next. There are products on the market that claim to test for smells, block all odors from wafting out of indoor operations, and even help control the stench of outdoor marijuana farms. Long before legalization, the cannabis industry grew accustomed to working underground — making growers and processors and distributors pretty good at hiding the smells associated with their businesses. While that might ease the possibility of odor-related friction, it doesn’t foster industry-wide communication about new ideas for tackling the issue, even as new anti-odor technologies are coming to market. Only now — with odor control an area that’s both problematic and ripe for technical solutions — are marijuana entrepreneurs starting to share ideas about their industry’s stink factor. “That’s probably the biggest hurdle now, for everybody involved, is knowing what’s available as best practices, and what’s feasible,” said Dana Pack with Fogco, an Arizona-based company that makes systems to neutralize unwanted smells. Cities can mandate odor-control systems for home growers, or as a condition for approval of marijuana-related business permits. But some in the industry note that odor requirements aren’t yet universal, and that odor control is yet another element of the marijuana business in which regulators aren’t keeping pace with the spread of legalization. “The licensing agencies are still in a learning curve,” said Chuck McGinley, technical director of St. Croix Sensory, a lab in Minnesota that tests for odors and makes products that help others do so in the field. “This is a very young industry.” NEIGHBORS FIGHT BACK Residents claim the stench of weed disrupts their quality of life, lowers their property values and causes problems for people with respiratory issues such as asthma. In June, after the city of Palm Springs issued what might be the first permit for a cannabis lounge in Southern California, the owner of a spa next-door threatened to leave town. Since January 2016, the South Coast Air Quality Management District — which monitors air quality issues for most of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties — has received 11 complaints of odors allegedly created by marijuana growers, dispensaries or processing facilities, according to spokesman Sam Atwood.* Santa Barbara County and cities in its boundaries have received more permits to grow marijuana than any other county in California. Now residents of the beach town Carpenteria say they’re stuffing pillows under their doors to block odors coming from nearby cannabis farms. In Colorado, three years ago, owners of residential property sued a marijuana farm that was set to open next-door, claiming cannabis-related odors would ruin their horse rides and harm their property values. The lawsuit cited racketeering laws, typically used to prosecute organized crime rings, since marijuana remains illegal under federal law. A federal district court initially dismissed the Colorado claim, but an appeals court in 2017 cleared the case to move forward. That paved the way for a number of other lawsuits that raise racketeering charges while also citing odor and other nuisance concerns, and similar suits have been filed in Massachusetts and Oregon. Some of those suits have been settled or dismissed. Others are pending, raising concerns within the industry about how state-legal marijuana programs might be upended by legal battles that often start with simple complaints about smell. SOLUTIONS ARE OUT THERE Most odor control solutions for the marijuana industry involve tweaking products that are already used by landfills, wastewater treatment plants and other businesses that generate offensive smells. The most common fix is to add carbon filters, or “scrubbers,” to ventilation systems. As air passes through, odor molecules bind to the activated charcoal. As long as everything is properly installed and maintained, McGinley said the air that comes out of the vents should be virtually odorless. But carbon filters have to be replaced often, making them pricey for large operators. Carbon filters also rely on a lot of electricity, making them less than ideal for many environmentally conscious greenhouse owners. And, of course, air filters can’t do anything about the smell generated by outdoor farms. That’s where fog systems might come into play. These systems involve placing nozzles at the spot where air from a grow operation will be expelled. The system mixes water with an odor-neutralizing chemical and forces that mixture through the nozzles at high pressure. The water instantly evaporates, leaving the chemical in the air to attract and neutralize any cannabis smells. “The idea is to build a barrier of fog between the odorous air and community,” said Pack with Fogco. Such systems don’t need to be in constant use, so Pack said energy use and maintenance are “a fraction” of what’s required to use carbon filters. Mark Stanley, a vice president with Palm Springs-based MicroCool, which also makes a fog odor-control system, said marijuana growers are showing enough interest in his company’s products that it’s hard to keep up with demand. Pack, of Fogco, said that while greenhouse operators are his company’s biggest clients, his company also sets up systems to control odors from outdoor farms. They line the perimeter of the farm with nozzles, which they can turn on when plants are flowering and monitors show that wind speed and direction might carry the scent to neighbors. Some online grower forums recommend “ozone generators,” which can disrupt smells by converting oxygen into ozone. But the California Air Resources Board advises against using the devices with people around since, to remove odors, they have to create ozone molecules at levels that aren’t safe for humans to breath. LOCAL LAW RULES With such a wide range of techniques available, Santa Monica-based cannabis attorney Michael Jensen said it’s key to write odor-control regulations that leave room for innovation. Currently, California law doesn’t do much to address odors, requiring only that marijuana businesses limit emissions from generators and from the solvents used in the extraction of certain marijuana compounds. Otherwise, state agencies overseeing cannabis have said odor control is a local issue. Most California jurisdictions ban all marijuana businesses. And many cities and counties that do permit them simply include a line or two in their regulations that say marijuana odors can’t be noticeable. Los Angeles’s marijuana regulation rules run 33 pages, only three sentences of which address odor control. The rules state that air vented from marijuana businesses must be filtered so that odors can’t be detected outside, or in adjoining sites, by a person with a “normal sense of smell.” Long Beach requires businesses to submit odor control plans when they apply for local permits, and the system must be certified by a licensed engineer. Local authorities are also the go-to source for complaints about marijuana odors. While it’s legal in California for adults 21 and over to consume marijuana, and grow up to six plants at home, residents bothered by the smell can report it as a nuisance to their local code enforcement office. If the neighbor lives in an apartment, under a homeowner’s association or has a landlord, residents might have better luck reporting complaints through those entities, since they can ban smoking and cultivation in their units. Odor complaints are tricky to investigate, according to Alan Abbs, executive director of the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association. Smells tend to dissipate quickly, and the offensiveness of certain smells can be subjective. One way to remove some of that subjectivity is to use devices called field olfactometers, which offer science-backed data about the intensity of odors. McGinley’s lab makes a field olfactometer called the Nasal Ranger. It looks like a telescope with a mask on the skinny end and a rotating dial on the fatter end. Users adjust that dial, then hold the Nasal Ranger up to their nose and breath in. Carbon filters purify some of the air. Then, based on the dial’s setting, the device mixes the filtered air with the air coming in from outside before it gets to the user’s nose. The more dilution required to get rid of the smell, the stinkier the outside air would be. Denver has set odor standards for marijuana and other stinky businesses based on the measurements tracked by the Nasal Ranger and similar devices. But for now, many California cities and counties rely on repeated complaints as evidence of a problem. In Santa Barbara County, for example, if county authorities get three odor complaints from a business in a year, the company must take steps to fix the problem. And if the business doesn’t stop the stench, the county may revoke local permits. “There’s going to be a tough learning curve,” Jensen said. “Time will tell whether this becomes an issue.” *An earlier version of this story misstated the number of recent complaints to South Coast Air Quality Management District related to marijuana odors due to incorrect information provided to the Orange County Register. The story has been updated.
Pain in the thumb could be the result of arthritis Dear My problem is pain in my right hand. It is in the thumb, just at the wrist. It doesn't hurt unless I grasp something. I have great pain writing this letter. Is it some form of arthritis? I have some joint stiffness in other points of my body, but when I get up and move around that disappears. The thumb pain is there all the time. You mention cortisone a lot. Would cortisone shots help me?-- H.R.Quite a few things can go wrong to cause pain at the base of a thumb.Under ordinary circumstances, arthritis would be a good possibility. If it's arthritis, it should react positively to the anti-inflammation drugs such as aspirin, indomethacin or ibuprofen. Successful treatment of symptoms often leads back to a presumed diagnosis.Cortisone shots are always a possibility. You need a bit more than a guessed-at diagnosis, though, since cortisone is strong medicine.In an edited portion of your letter you say your doctor referred to "bracing." I don't know what he meant; my guess is that he would like to fit you with a kind of brace that would be slipped over the thumb to allow healing. I have seen small braces work for just such a hand problem.L.F., who writes with similar symptoms, asks about surgery. When medicine and bracing fail, then you look to surgery. In one procedure, the arthritic bone can be fused together. Loss of some degree of motion is a price paid for control of pain.You also should rule out navicular fracture, a wrist-bone break near the thumb. X-rays would show it.Dear A chest X-ray revealed that my heart is slightly enlarged. My doctor said it is nothing to worry about.. What might cause such an enlargement, and how will it affect me?-- MRS. J.I trust that in all other matters, you check out fine.No such finding is ever dismissed out of hand. But if, as I assume, your doctor has ruled out ominous causes, you can dismiss it as a simple finding worth noting.Had your exam not gone well, your doctor probably would have wanted more pictures, etc.If it continues to concern you, ask your doctor to explain further.Dear I read your response to the question about the effects of cocaine. Could you please answer the same question with regard the effects on the whole body. Also, what about crack cocaine?-- C.F.Cocaine stimulates the brain into a short intense euphoria. After that brief effect, the headache, anxiety, depression and loss of reality take over.The whole body feels the effects. Blood vessels constrict, and blood pressure rises. Body temperature rises as well. Cocaine has led to strokes, even among young users.Snorted, it can ulcerate and deteriorate the cartilage that separates the nostrils.Crack is purified cocaine, which when smoked acts like the inhaled type. Crack's effects are far more rapid in intensity, more immediate in effect and more stubborn in addicting quality.
Former Rep. Parren Mitchell, founding member of Congressional Black Caucus BALTIMORE — Former Congressman Parren J. Mitchell, an eloquent but soft-spoken founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and champion of civil rights, died on Memorial Day. He was 85. Mitchell had been in intensive care, Greater Baltimore Medical Center spokesman Michael Schwartzberg said Tuesday in confirming his death. He had been living in a nursing home since suffering a series of strokes several years earlier and died of complications from pneumonia, The (Baltimore) Sun reported. Mitchell was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Baltimore in 1970 and was Maryland's first black congressman. The Democrat served eight terms before stepping down in 1986 to be the running mate to former Attorney General Stephen Sachs in his unsuccessful bid for governor. "Throughout his life, Congressman Mitchell dedicated himself to opening the doors to opportunity for all Americans," said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Democrat who now holds the 7th District seat. "He was a true servant leader, never concerning himself about fame or fortune but, rather, devoting himself entirely to uplifting the people he represented." Mitchell was a member of one of the country's prominent civil rights families, dubbed the "black Kennedys" for their extensive record of service. His brother Clarence Mitchell Jr. helped shepherd the major civil rights legislation of the late 1950s and 1960s as the NAACP's principal lobbyist, and was known as the 101st Senator. Parren Mitchell's sister-in-law, Juanita Jackson Mitchell, was the long-time head and legal counsel of the Maryland NAACP. Parren Mitchell was also a political mentor to former NAACP President and Congressman Kweisi Mfume, who said his death was like losing a second father. "He helped shape and define an era," Mfume said. "He wasn't just going up against a doctrine, a lot of times he was going up against the government, and that required a special courage. He had the heart of a lion." Gov. Martin O'Malley described Mitchell as "a transformational leader," and a source of inspiration. "In the midst of a time of upheaval and change, he saw clearly where our nation's ongoing struggle for justice must head next — economic opportunity for all," O'Malley said. Born in Baltimore in 1922, Parren Mitchell was a graduate of Morgan State College and earned a master's degree from the University of Maryland, according to biographical information supplied by Cummings' office. He also served as a commissioned officer in the Army during World War II, and received the Purple Heart. Before his election to congress, Mitchell worked in the administrations of Baltimore Mayors Theodore R. McKeldin and Thomas J. D'Alesandro III, and Gov. J. Millard Tawes. As a congressman, he fought for legislation requiring local governments to set aside 10 percent of federal grants to hire minority contractors. He gained attentioned during the Wedtech scandal in the 1980s, initiating the congressional investigation that ironically ensnared his nephews, state Sens. Clarence Mitchell III and Michael Mitchell. The two were sentenced to federal prison for their part in the scandal, which involved bribes to obtain no-bid military contracts. Parren Mitchell was never accused of wrongdoing in the case. Even as his health was failing in his final years, Mitchell remained a fiery advocate for change. "I saw him a couple of months ago and he grabbed me by the collar and said, 'Never stop giving them hell,'" Mfume said. Associated Press Writer Todd Hallidy contributed to this report.
Explore osmosis and diffusion! In this practical, dialysis tubing is used as a surrogate cell membrane for a visual demonstration of osmosis and diffusion. This inexpensive and simple experiment provides students with a clear visual result that effectively demonstrates how the size of a molecule can affect its ability to be transported into or out of a cell. It also illustrates the mechanics of diffusion and osmosis by which a cell will attempt to create homeostasis, or equilibrium between its inner and outer environments. - 1 x Dialysis Tubing (3m) - 1 x Starch Solution (2%) (100mL) - 1 x Glucose Solution (30%) (100mL) - 1 x Iodine/KI Solution (15mL) - 20 x Transfer pipettes - 50 x Glucose Test Strips
Qwiic is a very efficient way to quickly prototype an idea but not all Qwiic-enabled devices have two ports. The SparkFun Qwiic MultiPort adds additional ports to boards that have only one Qwiic port on the I2C bus. Once added, you can use it as a hub to add as many I2C devices to the bus as you need! Included are mounting holes so that the board can be secured to any system. The SparkFun Qwiic Connect System is an ecosystem of I2C sensors, actuators, shields and cables that make prototyping faster and less prone to error. All Qwiic-enabled boards use a common 1mm pitch, 4-pin JST connector. This reduces the amount of required PCB space, and polarized connections mean you can’t hook it up wrong. Based on 1 ratings: 1 of 1 found this helpful: My garden project was designed in a tight space. Am ADC converter did nit have any QWIIC ports. Long QWIIC cables clutter the project. Utilizing the QWIIC multipart allowed a reduction in required space and declutter. Very handy. Looking for answers to technical questions? We welcome your comments and suggestions below. However, if you are looking for solutions to technical questions please see our Technical Assistance page. Log in or register to post comments.
It’s not that the world needs yet ANOTHER fitness system or program. There are a lot of great ones out there for everyone. What I think the world needs is a fitness program that improves people beyond just the physical. Even beyond the typical other benefits regular exercise has to offer. I think traditional martial arts holds some of these secrets, but not a lot of people necessarily want to spend years studying martial arts philosophy (although I highly recommend it). A common cause to society’s problems Look at the news and the world today and we see a number of problems. There’s violence, racism, bullying, exploitation, misinformation, scams, stress, anxiety, mental health issues, fear, anger. Negative emotions experienced by some people can lead to negative actions. Fear and anger drive irrational and destructive behaviour. Yet we all experience these emotions sometimes. How well do you understand what makes you tick? The most powerful thing anyone has is their ability to make decisions. Making good decisions requires us to have complete control over where our attention lies. However, sometimes if we aren’t careful we let other things or people influence and control our attention, and those decisions. Negative emotions for example. Trouble starts when our decisions lead directly to a negative outcome for another person. Suddenly, they start feeling these emotions and we get a chain reaction. This is an internal conflict everyone has which is with us since birth. Conflict is part of us, and is a sort of fighting nature that we needed in order to survive thousands of years ago. But, have you ever actually thought about where that comes from, where it lives within you, or how it affects your life and the lives of people around you? That’s where SparX and mindful fitness comes in. This phenomenon is physical by nature, and requires physical practice to understand it better. Then, you can start to gain control of it and use it for good! Tear down the walls Walls and conflict go hand in hand. As a self-defense mechanism many people erect emotional walls or barriers to protect their vulnerabilities against the pressures of society. This causes stress, as these walls separate a person from who they truly are inside causing them to become more reserved or behave in unnatural ways with respect to their true nature. Happiness and freedom come from experiencing who you are and being in touch with that which is inside us. In order to achieve this, we need to become vulnerable. SparX helps us practice letting our guard down, becoming vulnerable and feeling more free. This ultimately reduces stress and anxiety and improves confidence. What are these SparX skills used for? The skills developed through the SparX fitness training program are portable – they are life skills you can take anywhere and everywhere. They can be applied when you play sports, do other exercise programs, or even when you’re stressed, or dealing with a difficult person at work. Whether you are weight lifting, racing, jumping, or any other athletic endeavor there are times when you need an extra burst of speed, explosiveness or energy. By waking up that primal force of conflict and fighting deep within yourself, you can push a bit harder than you could otherwise. This is the same place that energy comes from when you go into ‘fight or flight’ mode and are able to run really fast or fight really hard. The same source of strength that has allowed mothers to lift cars off of their children trapped underneath. You’ll develop a keen sense of empathy, being able to understand why other people act a certain way, and are better able to handle the situation with respect and benevolence. All while keeping yourself and your emotions in control. You’ll be more aware of other’s motivations, looking at things with a discerning eye. You’ll trust in yourself and be far less likely to fall victim to scams or misinformation. If you are fully in control of where your attention is, that means that someone else doesn’t own or control your attention. This is an important distinction. Who currently has your attention? Facebook? Twitter? The News? Apple? Tesla? Your friends? What are they doing with your attention, and why do they want it? You had a bad day at work, you get home feeling tired and you just want to sit on the couch. You sometimes feel like going into your car and screaming. It’s ok to let it out, but channel it for something positive. You take that energy and yell “I’M FINALLY GOING TO DO MY TAXES RIGHT NOW”, “I’LL CLEAN OUT THE GARAGE”. It sounds a bit absurd, but anger and frustration can be effectively channeled this way. I’ve done it many times. Try SparX and discover what you’re made of You’re stronger than you think, both mentally and physically. You just have to know where to look and how to unlock it.
Tue., Aug. 30, 2016 Last year, an average of $720 per student in Idaho came from voter-approved supplemental levies As the Legislature’s Public School Funding Formula Committee opened its meeting today, Tim Hill of the Idaho State Department of Education shared stats on supplemental levies approved by voters in school districts around the state – essentially voluntary local property tax increases that voters pass to help fund local schools. Hill presented a report showing the funding per student from supplemental levies in each district in the state in the just-completed year. “There’s quite a spectrum, anywhere from zero to several thousands of dollars,” Hill said. “The statewide average was $720.49.” State Board of Education member Linda Clark, who had requested the report, said, “I just thought it was important for the committee to have the information, as we look at the whole scheme of funding. It’s exactly what I requested. Thank you, Mr. Hill.” Committee Co-Chair Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, said she and Senate Co-Chair Chuck Winder, R-Boise, held a workshop meeting during the Idaho Association of School Administrators’ annual convention. “We had excellent conversations with superintendents from all around the state and other administrators,” Horman reported. “We received some excellent feedback and commentary.” She said the two will share that with the committee at a future meeting, once it’s compiled. The panel is tasked with exploring updates to the state’s school funding formula, which hasn’t been updated since 1994. It’s a big topic affecting millions of dollars, and how the state parcels out the funds to school districts large and small. The committee will take public testimony today at 1:15 p.m.; it’s meeting in the Lincoln Auditorium. You can watch live here. It’s also working on a survey of school administrators, teachers, parents, board members, citizens and others; the 28-question survey is scheduled to be conducted in the second half of September.
Who Invented Floss? You floss your teeth once a day, but have your every wondered who invented floss and how people used to clean between their teeth before its invention? Learn a little more about this interdental cleaner below. Take Your Pick In prehistoric times, a horse hair floss was used to clean between teeth. However, toothpicks were the preferred method for keeping... read more »
Regardless of whether you’re just starting out in your career or you’re on the fast track to an early retirement, effective cash management needs to be an essential part of your financial plan. Particularly in Asia, where saving is such an ingrained part of its culture, many people have too much cash in their overall personal portfolios. That’s right: Just as there’s such a thing as not having enough cash, there’s definitely such a thing as having too much cash. Here, we’ll unpack the latter: How much is “too much” cash? And why is “too much cash” a bad thing? The purchasing power of cash decreases with inflation, so you’re actually losing money if you leave excess cash in your current account. Even if you consider yourself risk-averse, there are low-risk, medium-to-long-term investment options that can earn a return on your cash. Even if the markets are down, don’t sell off your long-term investments unnecessarily: this means that your money suddenly goes from a long-term growth strategy to most definitely not earning anything. Cash may appear to be liquid and safe, but the reality is that if you have too much of it and the cash you do have isn’t in the right places, your cash isn’t safe. That’s right — cash, when improperly managed, isn’t safe. What we mean by that is that you’re actually losing money when excess cash isn’t in the right vehicles, because the purchasing power of cash inevitably decreases with inflation. Because cash loses its value over time, it’s important to understand exactly how much cash you should have and where you should keep it. You should only have 1 to 2 months of cash in your current account to cover your immediate expenses. You should have 6 months worth of expenses in an emergency fund. Keep these funds in a low-risk, liquid, interest-earning account. StashAway Simple™ is our ultra-low risk cash management portfolio that lets you earn competitive returns on your cash. It has a projected 3.3% p.a. return on any amount (seriously, any balance has that projected return), with none of the hassle of investment requirements, credit cards, tiered earning structures, and whatever else the banks have come up with to make it painful to manage your cash. You can withdraw any amount of your funds at any time without penalties. If you’re risk averse, you’re probably afraid of losing money. And, as we know, if you have too much cash, the value of your money is most definitely declining. Sure, your cash doesn’t have a huge downside, and this inherently makes it low-risk, but having too much cash does mean you’d be unnecessarily writing a death sentence for a portion of your cash. It can be deceiving to think that you aren't losing money, because unlike investment accounts that show your positive or negative returns, current accounts don’t show that the cash's purchasing power is actually declining. In fact, it’s like being in an investment that has an invisible ever-worsening negative return. Though cash itself isn’t an investment, it’s still an asset that you must manage intelligently as part of your financial plan. If you consider yourself risk-averse, there are low-risk, medium-to-long-term investment options that can earn you more than you more than what cash management solutions might. In fact, our lowest-risk investment portfolio has earned an annualised return of 2.3% and cumulative return of 11.2% in USD terms since its inception in 2017¹. How? “Low risk” means that you’re not exposing yourself to a large downside — it doesn’t mean you’re not able to earn returns. Our investment framework, ERAA®, strategically and uniquely maximises returns within a given risk constraint. Your money should be accessible and low-risk, and that’s why we don’t have any lock-up periods. Dividends that don’t get reinvested can cause cash allocations in portfolios to compound. At StashAway, we reinvest your dividends to make sure we’re making the most of your investments. We also use fractional shares down to 0.0001 of a share to maximise the power of your cash. To be as efficient as possible with your investments, we target a 1% cash allocation for your portfolios. Your cash management strategy is absolutely part of your long-term financial plan. A successful long-term financial plan requires discipline not to overspend on your monthly budget and not to tap into your emergency fund for non-emergencies (no matter how badly you think you need that vacation, we promise you it's not an emergency). Likewise, it also requires discipline not to liquidate your long-term investments unnecessarily. Irrationally, people often “get in and out of the markets” when they feel uneasy about the markets or economy, or if they’re trying to capture earnings when they think the markets are high. We already know that the likelihood of you re-entering at the ideal time is slim to none, usually ultimately resulting in lower potential returns. But, there’s another problem with taking your money out of medium-to-long-term investments: It increases your cash allocation for an indefinite amount of time. That means that your money suddenly goes from a long-term growth strategy to most definitely not earning anything. Plus, when are you going to go back in? Right away? In a year from now? Who knows! You could be waiting months, missing out on the markets’ opportunities, and losing to inflation. ¹ Returns of our General Investing portfolio with an SRI of 6.5%, as of March 2022. StashAway Malaysia Sdn Bhd (201701046385) is licensed by the Securities Commission Malaysia (Licence eCMSL/A0352/2018).
Don Riddell is an executive coach and the Master Chair of Vistage Peer Advisor Groups. Vistage Worldwide is a global organization that assembles and facilitates private advisory boards for CEOs, senior executives, and business owners. Vistage and its affiliates have over 23,000 members in 20 countries, representing the world's leading chief executive coaching organization. Their members grow at an average of 2.2 times the rate of average US companies. Today we discuss Don's philosophy about how nobody changes until the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change, the power of asking questions, the importance of emotional intelligence when managing relationships, and much more. Don brings a unique background. He played basketball in college and immediately moved into coaching basketball. He then went to work in the restaurant business. After this, Don started his own Human Resources Consulting business. He then sold this business and left to run a state-wide independent study charter school. At this time, Don joined Vistage. He quickly began to learn about life and business and his personal growth took off. After leaving the charter school, he became a Vistage Chair, the person who builds and facilitates the groups. Now, at any given time, Don is coaching about 20 C-level executives. "People will not change until the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the perceived pain of the change." Decision-making individuals often make up a story about how painful a certain change may be by thinking through all of the layers of connections and ties that will need to be addressed if a change is made. That fear of confrontation becomes too much and the executive moves into a state of denial. Often, it's as simple as playing through the different scenarios and creating a gameplan for what will be done if certain things do happen in the future. The exercise of projecting forward in time and determining future consequences can greatly help broaden the perspective of the business owner with their head in the sand. "I always want you to be the hero in your own story." When leading other team members within your organization, it's important to guide the individual to the correct process and result, but do not do the work for them. They need the proper resources, but also appropriate space, to produce results by themselves. Leaders may get frustrated when staff doesn't see things on their same wavelength. Leaders may know the solution and attempt to lead the staff to the ideal goal and action plan, and the staff member may not arrive there. "The more you can empower your employees, allow them to make non-fatal mistakes, to learn and grow from those mistakes, you'll be able to grow a lot faster." As a leader, you have to wear a lot of hats. You can be a dictator, a coach, and a mentor - all three may be appropriate at different times. - Consulting - giving expertise/knowledge - Coaching - asking great questions - Mentoring - sharing experience Emotional intelligence is a skill that can be improved like any other skill. Don felt, early on, that he always suppressed his emotions. A lack of conflict isn't always good - if there's no conflict and a conflict arises, the parties may not understand how to deal with the issue. To work on emotional intelligence, individuals must spend time and learn from other emotionally intelligent people. Individuals must read and study emotional intelligence, there are tremendous resources available. There are also assessments available to gauge emotional intelligence. Often, individuals have a perception of what will make them happy or successful. They have beliefs about what is required of them to receive love and adoration from others. These beliefs become heavily embedded into daily life. Even then, many individuals are aiming at the wrong targets for success and happiness. "To be _____, I must be _____." Limiting belief: To be loved, I must be successful. Achieving financial and business goals may result in financial success, the disconnect is that financial success won't automatically transfer into personal success or happiness. So the individual, after achieving their lofty goals, still feels depressed. The belief itself is incorrect. Limiting belief: To travel the world, I must be very wealthy. With this mindset, this person will never travel. However, with curiosity and asking questions, truly restructuring your life to make travel a priority, this can be done. In our world today, we often look to address the symptoms of depression rather than addressing the root cause. We need to ensure we're bringing up problems, not symptoms. Many individuals fail to differentiate between problems and symptoms. You can say whatever you want to someone, and even if it's great advice, it won't matter if the recipient isn't ready to receive the message. The right questions must be asked before offering this advice - the recipient needs to be led to open up to the feedback and guidance. Before digging too deep into giving unsolicited feedback, the recipient must be on board or a disconnect will be created and both parties will waste their time. "The key to a lot of our relationships is to shut up and listen, and be curious. If you do those two things consistently, you'll increase your own self-awareness." Learn more about Don and his work: https://www.vistage.com/
Effectively sanitize and restore vats, tanks, fermenters, and more equipment with the power of steam Cleaning all the equipment you use to make all kinds of liquor can be a grueling and time-consuming task, but there is a better way with dry steam cleaning. Compared to the traditional process of using vinegar, a specialized cleaning solution, water, and a brush, steam cleaning removes visible grime, bacteria, microbes, mold, mildew, and more with a significant reduction in effort and time. Additionally, steam cleaning can effectively sanitize both the interior and exterior of all your equipment – no need to have separate cleaning solutions and processes for each. Steam cleaning with the Optima Steamer also allows you to swell, rehydrate, or restore your vats and foeders more efficiently, extending their lifespan and reducing your water Swell, rehydrate, and restore vats and foeders with the Optima Steamer While the Optima Steamer and power of dry steam can effectively and efficiently clean all sorts of equipment, they really shine when you need to rehydrate, swell, or restore the large wooden vessels at your distillery. Whether you call them vats or foeders, you know how annoying and tricky the upkeep can be. Without swelling them before use, all the good liquid inside can leak out, so you have to rehydrate them often. These huge barrels are a big investment, so you to prevent them from drying out to the point that they become unusable. The Optima Steamer will not only lengthen the lifespan of your vats and foeders but speed up the rehydration process as well! With our dry steamer, the process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours, compared to a full day or two using water. In addition to saving on time, you’ll also save on water because you won’t have to fill the entire vessel with water. The Optima Steamer will use just 2-10 gallons, depending on the barrel’s capacity(for a 500-2500 gallon foeder for example). The Optima Steamer… KILLS MOLD, BACTERIA and YEAST Heat, especially moist heat (a.k.a. steam), can effectively and rapidly inactivate most microorganisms. A temperature of 175 °F (80 °C) for 5–10 min, for example, will destroy all active bacteria, yeast, and fungi. While some yeast strains are known to be resistant to low pH, high alcohol and/or SO2, high temperatures delivered by dry steam can combat these spoilage microbes. EXCEEDS SAFETY STANDARDS The Optima SE-II is designed to the highest international standards, including OSHA-approved (bearing ASME and NB stamps) and CSA-certified (Canadian-compliance) models, all with a sleek, self-contained design so that you can be rest assured your business and staff are safe operating an Optima Steamer. GIVES YOU SUSTAINABLE SANITATION The Optima Steamer uses a fraction of water creating high temperature steam to kill microbes. The lack of wastewater and the eliminated need for chemicals is eco-friendly and allows breweries to operate in compliance with the Clean Water Act. Why dry steam is superior to plant steam Common distillery equipment like fermenters, mash tuns, and stills are all fairly large, and most have lots of little nooks and crannies that are difficult to reach when cleaning, but not when using an Optima Steamer. Unlike hot water or wet steam (water vapor), the steam produced by an Optima Steamer is saturated steam (dry steam). The dry steam can reach areas that hot water and other liquid cleaning solutions can’t while also penetrating deeper into surfaces, meaning you’ll get a better clean without having to do more work. A dry steamer like ours can penetrate deep into wooden staves much quicker and sanitizes better than wet plan steam can. Steam cleaning is also completely natural and doesn’t use any chemicals – just hot, pressurized steam. Benefits for you and the environment In addition to saving you time, effort, and energy, distillery steam cleaning with Optima can also save you money. Fermenters, mash tuns, and stills can take several gallons of water each to fully clean, but the Optima Steamer uses a fraction of this amount. Not having to heat up hundreds of gallons of water will reduce costs on your power bill, and the steam cleaning method does not produce any wastewater that needs to be disposed of. Using less water and energy is better for both your distillery and the environment. Making distilled products like whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, and other hard alcohols requires equipment that is clean and safe to use. Get a better, easier clean with an Optima Steamer today! FOR MORE INFO OR TO ARRANGE A DEMO Please visit the link below for global inquiries outside of North and South America and the Caribbean. YOU'RE ALMOST THERE WE LOOK FORWARD TO WORKING WITH YOU We will be in touch shortly.
SPMC's FAQs provide guidance for your technical challenges. What are the typical packaging tests that should be performed after distribution testing? Last Updated On April 18, 2011 Tests that should be performed after distribution generally revolve around evaluating package integrity. Distribution testing is designed to cause specific controlled events to happen to packaged product configurations that are related to product requirements and planned method of delivery. The integrity of a package is more likely affected by these staged cycle events than it is to the conditioning that occurs in accelerated aging or environmental stress testing. This is because conditioning is relatively static apart from temperature transitions. What this means is that the selection of test methods is based on identifying the impact of these controlled events on the package integrity and the specific barriers designed into the packaging materials. If, for example, puncture strength is a desired characteristic, this would be tested during design and evaluation stages, but it would add little information after distribution testing. Instead, to understand whether events occurring during the distribution cycles caused a puncture or some fracture of the material, an integrity test such as a bubble leak, pressure decay, or helium leak testing may be used. If a product or packaging configuration has the potential to stress the seals resulting in a loss of integrity, dye penetration may be applied. It may benefit to measure seal strength as well to determine whether strength has been reduced in the cycles. This may threaten loss of integrity during subsequent events in the field of use. The selection of this test method here may be influenced by what was used prior to distribution testing: ASTM F88 for seal strength testing, F1140 or F2054 for burst and creep testing, for example. In this way, it may be possible to com- pare and to measure a change before and after distribution cycling. To measure a related change to barriers for moisture or gas, knowledge of product requirements would determine the level of sensitivity necessary and therefore determine the test method of choice. Overall, product attributes and requirements are the determining factors for test method selection. The characteristics needed to protect the product are determined during package design. The objective of postdistribution cycling is to measure the impact of these simulated events on package integrity and on the strength to maintain the integrity of the package during its life cycle to end use. Consult ASTM F2097 for guidance on test method selection.
The teaching of reading is a real strength. Right from when they first join the school, children are taught phonics using an effective programme. Adults are experts in helping pupils learn to read. Reading (Please also look at our Phonics page) At St John’s, we provide access to high quality texts, which will promote wonder and, through collaboration, generate trust in order to achieve. Books have been carefully selected to help develop children’s skills as a reader but also a passion and enthusiasm for reading. There is a broad range of subject matter, styles and levels of challenge. Children are immersed in high quality children’s literature during story time. The EEF (Education Endowment Fund) researched based evidence (diagram below), highlights the key strands of reading that form the skills that will be taught throughout the school. Progression in Reading As a school, we seek to ensure children’s love of reading will extend far beyond the classroom and allow them to build on their skills independently through a real wonder and thirst for knowledge. We have a fantastic library that we are developing to provide our pupils with a diverse range of reading materials. Great Books Guide Here are 100 books that come recommended by the Book Trust. They are books to engage and excite children from Nursery to Year 6. Please also visit your local library to see a huge range of books your child could choose from and enjoy. eBooks We have put together a list of free e-books that you can use with your children. You will need to join but it is free to use You will need to join but it is free to use Whole Class Reading (WCR) At St John’s, children are taught the appropriate strategies in reading to help develop their comprehension skills, including word recognition, phonic skills and the use of picture and contextual cues. The whole class will be taught the same objectives and these will be covered in great depth to better prepare children for the expectation of written responses at the end of KS2. Here are some examples of strategies we use to promote the development of reading: - Whole class reading - Book chosen to support into writing learning sequence - Story time - 1:1 reading Children will be given reading books to take home each week and it is helpful if parents can make a brief comment in their child's reading record to help us understand how they are getting on with their reading at home. This is monitored by staff, with children being rewarded accordingly. All children are expected to read at least 3 times a week. We expect children to bring their reading books and record into school every day. Teaching of reading skills The teaching of reading skills follows the National Curriculum. The teaching is further broken down into 8 core strands as shown below. Give/explain the meaning of words in context Retrieve and record information/identify key details from fiction and non-fiction Summarise main ideas from more than one paragraph Make inferences from the text/explain and justify inferences with evidence from the text Predict what might happen from details stated and implied Identify/explain how information/narrative content is related and contribute to meaning as a whole Identify/explain how meaning is enhanced through choice of words Make comparisons within the text Accelerated Reader is a computer program that we use to help us to manage and monitor our children’s independent reading practice. Children pick books at their own level and read them at their own pace. When finished, a short quiz is taken, on the computer. (Passing the quiz is an indication that the child has understood what they have just read - this is the skill of fluency ) Accelerated Reader gives children and their teachers feedback based on the quiz results, which the teacher can then use to help children to set goals and direct ongoing reading practice. Children using Accelerated Reader choose their own books to read, rather than having one assigned to them. This makes reading a much more enjoyable experience as they can choose books that are (in the main) interesting to them. Teachers and support staff will help children to choose books at an appropriate readability level that are challenging without being frustrating, ensuring that your child can pass the quiz and experience success. If children do not do well on the quiz, the teacher or support staff member may help your child: - Choose another book that is more appropriate. - Ask more probing questions as your child reads and before your child takes a quiz. - Pair your child with a partner, or even have the book read to your child. In most cases, children really enjoy taking the quizzes. They read books at their appropriate reading and interest levels and are therefore likely to be successful. This will be satisfying and encouraging for for most of our children. Best of all, they learn and grow at their own pace. Brilliant!
One of the most sought after grails in the athletic and aesthetic worlds is that of muscle hypertrophy. This refers to the gaining of muscle strength and size. Whether you’re looking to be the next Michael Phelps or just live a healthy lifestyle, compound weight training will change your life. Weight training utilizes resistance in the form of machines, barbells and dumbbells in order to stress the muscles into adapting and coming back stronger. Your muscles are made up of many microscopic fibers. There are a fixed number of fibers in each muscle. Strength gains are made from two sources, hypertrophy and neural adaptations. During weight training, micro tears occur in the muscle fibers; this is the soreness that’s felt after a difficult workout. These micro tears then repair themselves via inflammation that triggers protein synthesis and come back thicker and stronger. We covered the science of inflammation in our podcast Episode 6: Inflammation Roundtable. This mechanism is your body adapting to the workload and responding to stress. Why Core Lifts Matter Core lifts are compound stapes in any weight training program. These lifts utilize multiple muscle groups as well as smaller stabilizer muscles. They are multi-jointed power movements. In order for maximal muscle gain, muscle fiber stimulation is a key component. These heavy compound movements produce an intense stress on the muscles working causing the highest degree of fiber usage. Due to motor coordination of these synergistic muscle groups this results in a high degree of functional strength. This functional strength carries over into the athletic world producing powerful individuals. As far as aesthetics and bodybuilding, compound lifts produce grand proportional muscles. Another crucial response to heavy compound lifts is the increase in testosterone release. In males, testosterone is the key component in muscle growth, bone density, and is a pivotal component of overall health. Natural increases in testosterone have been shown to reduce blood pressure, decrease chance of heart attack, lower obesity, and increase self-efficacy. Here are the main compound exercises that should be incorporated in every workout. - Bench Press – this hits the chest, triceps and shoulders - Squat – all of your leg muscles, lower back, core, stabilizers for balance - Deadlift – Legs, back, arms, trapezius. (Basically everything) - Dips – Triceps, chest, shoulders - Pull-ups – Back, biceps, forearms - Shoulder overhead press – Shoulders, triceps Other types of exercises often used in weight training programs consist of axillary lifts and plyometrics. Axillary lifts are single-jointed isolation exercises. Most axillary lifts consist of dumbbells and machines. These put far less stress on the working muscles and lack usage of stabilizer muscles yielding minimal results. Lack of stabilizer muscle development can lead to functionally useless muscles while also increasing the risk of injury. Although highly criticized in the weight training world, they have their place in every workout. These specific movements target single muscle groups. This can be beneficial for “burning out” the muscle after a hard workout. These are to be thrown in after compound lifts. Sample 3 day split intermediate workout (4 sets of 8 for all compound lifts) Monday: Chest and Triceps - Bench press 4×8 - Dips 4×8 - Overhead shoulder press 4×8 - Side lateral raises 3×12 Wednesday: Back & biceps - Deadlift 4×8 - Pull-ups 4×8 - EZ bar curl 4×8 - Hammer curls 3×10 Saturday: Legs & abs - Squat 4×8 - Lunges 4×8 - Leg press 4×10 - Crunches 4×20 - V-ups 4×20 Every effective weight training program must adhere to the progressive overload principle. This states that a gradual increase in stress on the muscles must be maintained in order for strength gains. This can be achieved by either an increase in weight or number of reps performed. This should be done weekly for maximal gains. Even with a proper weight training program that utilizes the overload principle, results will be minimal without proper rest and nutrition. A healthy diet high in lean meats and vegetables should be implemented with every program. Muscle mass is approximately 80% water, so daily hydration is also essential. Alcohol is a weight trainer’s biggest nightmare due to its effects on lowering testosterone levels, dehydrating the body and inhibiting restful sleep. Sleep is the final key component in every successful exercise program. This is where your body regenerates torn muscle fibers causing inflammation, healing, and in turn, increased muscle size. The harder you train, the more sleep you need to recover that inflammation. Remember… Consistency is key to any exercise program. “Rome wasn’t built in a day”
Strategic Analysis Best Practice 1 – Integrity Without Excuses For any strategic analysis to be effective, it must be done with an open, honest assessment of the facts. Organizations acting with integrity without excuses seek to identify and eliminate instances where fact-based assessment conclusions are diluted by unrelated factors or opinion-based influences. This mitigation often seeks to justify action perceived as desirable when the fact-based evidence would suggest another course. Justification is frequently based on business factors that are not specifically value related or biases lacking a relevant performance basis.[wcm_restrict plans=”25541, 25542, 25653″] Compliance Does Not Equal Excellence Local and federal regulations establish minimum performance standards to protect the organization and the public against unacceptable, adverse consequences. These regulations not established for the purpose of creating business value and represent a cost of doing business. Therefore, value-based business decisions between competing alternatives should not be made solely on the basis of regulatory requirements. While an organization must meet the minimum regulatory requirements, additional actions may yield significant business value; making such efforts worthy of pursuit. Under similar circumstances, organizations acting with integrity without excuses assess alternatives differently than those tending to take a minimalist approach. Organizations acting with integrity will meet the regulatory requirements and claim the job ‘well done’ because ‘we meet all of the requirements and don’t need to do any more.’ Organizations acting with integrity without excuses will meet the regulatory requirements and challenge themselves to identify and pursue activities beyond those defined by the regulations that add substantial value to the business. These organizations don’t equate excellence with compliance but rather equate excellence with the maximization of the business’s value. It Can Happen Here Organizations acting on bias also tend to forgo potential business opportunities. In these cases, assessment conclusions are discounted because of a belief the conclusion could not be true of or apply to the organization. Such biases are often rooted in the organization’s performance history; the past successes and failures experienced with various products, services, business units, individuals or the business environment. Organizations acting with integrity without excuses seek to eliminate decision bias in several ways. While decision-making balances facts and experience, members of these organizations validate the relevance of their experience to the circumstances of the decision to be made. Additionally, they seek to understand and apply the circumstantially similar experiences of others. Finally, they employ techniques, such as the devil’s advocate, to challenge their decisions from different perspectives in order to eliminate potential organizational bias. It can be extremely difficult for an organization to always act with integrity without excuses. Reinforcement of this behavior must come from the top to prevent subordinates from diluting ‘the message’ to one they believe will be acceptable to the boss. However, only when a strategic analysis is performed with integrity without excuses and the complete message delivered can decision-makers select the most value adding course for their organization.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”25541, 25541, 25653″] Hi there! Gain access to this article with a FREE StrategyDriven Insights Library – Sample Subscription. It’s FREE Forever with No Credit Card Required. |Sign-up now for your FREE StrategyDriven Insights Library – Sample Subscription In addition to receiving access to Strategic Analysis Best Practice 1 – Integrity Without Excuses, you’ll help advance your career and business programs through anytime, anywhere access to: Best of all, it’s FREE Forever with No Credit Card Required. Additional information regarding strategic analysis can be found in the StrategyDriven whitepaper series Strategic Planning. About the Author Karen K. Juliano is StrategyDriven‘s Editor-in-Chief and Vice President of Communications and Marketing. Prior to joining the StrategyDriven team, she helped produce weekly programming for a Public Access Television station and served as a production assistant in the public affairs office at United States Naval Base, Philadelphia. To read Karen’s complete biography, click here. Leave a ReplyWant to join the discussion? Feel free to contribute!
Starting Your Business In Style – You Don’t Have To Go It Alone Once you’ve had that Eureka moment, your mind will be fully focused on growing those seeds of an idea into a fully grown business. As such, it’s only natural that you’ll want to take control of the entire venture. In reality, though, anyone wanting to turn their dreams into reality should accept that going it alone is rarely the best solution. While it’s vital to analyze your personal credentials, there’s nothing wrong with seeking support along the business journey. In fact, this help can come from many different sources. Here are just seven that could prove to be crucial. A Business Partner The likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Steve Jobs all had business partners. Frankly, if that pathway was good enough for them, it’s good enough for you too. As they say, two heads are better than one, and a business partner can be your greatest asset en route to the top. A business partner can be a friend, a former colleague, or a new acquaintance. In truth, the key is that they have the skills, passion, and traits to complement your natural talents. It may even be possible to team up with an entrepreneur that has already gained success in this field. In this case, they can become a mentor as well as a partner. In some cases, you may have many partners. Together, your dream team will build the foundations of success. Every startup requires funding, even if the versatility of the modern business world does reduce the costs. Financing the venture from your personal savings is an option, but won’t be open to many. Moreover, it will cause serious problems if you misjudge the costs involved. Financial backing can come from private investors. However, an increasing number of entrepreneurs are now turning to crowdfunding instead. This allows you to raise funds by gaining a little support from lots of people. In addition to raising funds, it can be a great way for startups to start establishing their client base. This can help them make a far stronger start in business. The other option, of course, is to look at traditional bank lenders. Building a strong team of employees is one of the most significant challenges facing any modern business owner. Many hands make light work. Their productivity is what will essentially drive the business towards the desired destination. Do not get this wrong. Recruiting the best senior staff members should be at the top of your agenda. These manager interview questions will prove to be very effective during the process. Once you have the right personnel in those crucial roles, you can be sure that junior staff will perform far better too. The team ethic truly counts for everything. A happy team is a better team. Simple. When consistency and motivation levels are high, your startup will reap the rewards. Remote Workers & Contractors In addition to your permanent on-site staff, your business can benefit greatly from taking on remote workers. Aside from making the staffing budget work harder, it reduces the need for extra space and equipment. This is particularly useful when filling roles that can be completed autonomously as it lets you focus more energy on the main team. This can aid productivity too. Modern tech has enabled businesses to completely overhaul their approach to productivity. Whether it’s admin or accounting, HR or customer care, several tools can help. Cloud computing, smartphone messaging Apps, and project management systems are all very useful. Contractors offer a great solution too, particularly for temporary positions. While the majority of your work is likely to be handled by employees and contractors, there is another option. Outsourcing parts of the operation to companies rather than individuals can work wonders too. Especially when you need continued support. Finding a suitable IT management company can be very beneficial for the venture. Likewise, physical security via CCTV management or security guard companies can help the company. By having these external business matters under control, you can focus on the core principles of the venture to unlock its full potential. Distractions are the last thing you need. Not all businesses are your competition. Team up with the right ones for greater success. Winning new customers is naturally a priority at all times. However, your existing clients can also be used to leverage success in the world of marketing. The power of recommendation is greater than any other strategy or technique. Learning to embrace it can change everything. Encouraging customers to spread the word can be achieved in several ways. The use of testimonials is one that can influence virtually anyone that encounters your brand. Affiliate schemes support the business further as users refer their friends and family to your products and services. The ROIs gained from this technique are huge. Furthermore, it improves the way existing customers view your business. A mentioned, only a small percentage of businesses are considered to be direct competition. Teaming up with some of the others can aid the venture in a range of situations. Now is the perfect time to make those winning connections at networking events or through their contact details and social media. Taking a proactive approach in this arena can truly change everything. Advanced partnerships can include stocking their items, sharing facilities, or working together. If it’s good enough for major car companies, your small business can certainly embrace it. When done well, it can spearhead far greater levels of efficiency. At the basic end of the scale, gaining backlinks from other websites will boost your SEO strategy and online visibility. The truth of the matter is that successful businesses rely on people rather than products. By now, you should see that going it alone will limit your hopes of success. Besides, you cannot possibly be wrapped up in the business 24/7. By knowing that others have the venture moving in the right direction, your dreams will soon become a reality. Leave a ReplyWant to join the discussion? Feel free to contribute!
Power Query: Expand Your Calendar 28 October 2020 Welcome to our Power Query blog. This week, I finish my calendar creation. It’s been a while since I looked at how to create a calendar, and Power Query has moved on since then. It’s time to bring my calendar creation up to date. This is the sequel (not SQL), and below is the state of my calendar so far: The M code is currently: = List.Dates(StartDate, Calendar_Length, #duration(1, 0, 0, 0)) From last time, I promised to point out the deliberate mistake in the Calendar_Length. Currently, it will only reach yesterday – if I want today then I need to add one (1): The first thing I need now is to see my calendar when I open the query. I can do this by adding a step which points back to the ‘Changed Type’ step. Now I can add more columns. I can start with the year, which is easy to add from the ‘Add Column’ tab, where I have a number of options under ‘Date’, viz. I can go on to add a few more date columns. There are of course many columns which I can add, depending upon my requirements. One column which can be useful is the financial year, but this is not available from the ‘Add Column’ menu. This varies by country, but in the UK, the financial year starts in April. For simplicity here, I will assume the financial year starts on April 1 (more fool me). I can add a custom column to do this: I have done this by amending the ‘Inserted Year’ M code. Instead of = Table.AddColumn(Custom1, "Year", each Date.Year([Date]), Int64.Type) I have used: = Table.AddColumn(#"Inserted Month Name", "Financial Year", each Date.Year([Date] + #duration(275,0,0,0) ), Int64.Type) So, I am treating April 1st as if it is January 1st of the next year, by adding 275 days. Since February is not involved, leap years are not an issue. Come back next time for more ways to use Power Query!
Target muscles: Gluteal muscles and ankle stabilizers Action desired: Activate the gluteal muscles that help stabilize the knee and ankle, as well as the hip and lower back. This exercise stimulates the muscles that are supposed to stabilize these joints so that the body does not use smaller muscles not designed to hold up the involved joints. Position: Standing on one leg. Exercise movements: Do a squat on one leg, reaching with the free leg as far as you can with stability, touching the ground as if you stepping on an egg, trying not to break it. You will reach in a star pattern. Try to keep your balance on the non-reaching leg. Do not let the hips unlevel. Times per day:
Renowned birder Nils van Duivendijk from the Netherlands was among the first to try the 115-mm objective module for spotting scopes. Find out what his first impressions were and how he found greatness in the smallest detail. One of my favourite sites to look at waders and search for rarities amongst them is Balgzand, a large coastal mudflat close to my home in the northwest of the Netherlands. In spring and late summer the numbers of waders are always huge here. However, Balgzand has one disadvantage: the tide has to be really high for the birds to come close enough to see any details, and such high tides only come once every few weeks. Together with Mark Collier, both of us armed with the brand new 115-mm objective modules, we ignored the tide-tables and went to the spot in the evening. The tide was far from ideal, with the closest birds still at several hundreds of meters. Even now, in mid-June, the numbers were impressive. Hundreds of Spotted Redshanks (Tringa erythropus) were already back from their breeding grounds, often our first sign of ‘autumn’. Despite the distance, we could see every detail of their plumage with the 115-mm objective module. All turned out to be males, typical this early, straight from the Arctic with not a single feather changed to winter-type yet. Attaching the 115-mm objective module (which we affectionately nicknamed the ‘beast of birding’, or BoB) to the BTX module we were blown away. Wow, what an image! We scanned through the Curlews (Numenius arquata), Whimbrels (Numenius phaeopus), Common Redshanks (Tringa totanus), Ringed Plovers (Charadrius hiaticula), gulls and terns. No rarities unfortunately, but thanks to the phenomenal image, we could be sure of that… Later that evening the light began to fade, so it seemed ridiculous to go into more than species ID under the circumstance, but with ‘BoB’ we are on to our game. The light-gathering power of ‘BoB’ seemed to be even more obvious in these light conditions. Second calendar year Curlews can sometimes be picked out by their now heavily worn and bleached primaries, and only little or no summer-plumage feathers. With ‘BoB’ it was still clear to see, compared with the less worn adults. We are eagerly waiting for the more exciting time to come with birding to match the sensational image of ‘BoB’, the new 115-mm objective module. Nils van Duivendijk is an ornithologist and author based in Petten, the Netherlands. Although working as a medical technician (for lung function and exercise physiology) in a hospital, he also finds time to regularly contribute to Dutch Birding and other esteemed ornithological journals. In 2010, Nils published the “Advanced Bird ID Guide: The Western Palearctic” describing every plumage of all 1,000 species recorded in Britain, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. He has been part of the Dutch Rarities Committee since 2002. Although he also loves cycling sports, he says that there “is not a single day, perhaps not even an hour, in my life without an aspect of birding.” He highly recommends the 115-mm objective module to all those who are “looking for rarities in a ‘steady’ situation, like open areas which can be overviewed from just a few spots. For sea-watching this is the ultimate top when attached to a BTX.”
Recent developments in railways rolling stock have shown numerous applications of so-called “zero-emission trains” relying on innovative technologies. So far limited to buses and urban rail, this trend turning into conventional rail is a promising way to serve sustainable growth. But is it that simple to convert regional or intercity services to green? What is the price to pay? And are these trains really zero-emission? Which innovations for zero-emission trains? Beside electric trains, which operation is already zero-emission by the way, many technologies have been explored for passenger services applications as an alternative to diesel trains: other fuels, batteries, hydrogen or even solar power, and combinations of them as “hybrid” trains. - Solar power can quickly be excluded from stand-alone solutions as the solar radiation on the Earth surface is too limited to power a train for regular passenger service, and eventually operate by night. - Alternative fuels like natural gas generally do not prove relevant for avoiding Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Only BioGas, when relying on agricultural waste, is an interesting option: its combustion still emits other particles than GHG and large-scale application are a challenge but turning methane into less-prejudicial carbon dioxide even makes it a GHG-consumer with a negative balance! - Batteries-trains are the closest evolution of classic electric trains: onboard energy storage allows them to run where there is no catenary whilst relying on the same efficient principles rail traction engineers have been optimizing for decades, from wheel-rail contact to energy recovery. Autonomy and lifecycle (manufacturing, dismantling) of batteries are currently the two main concerns to focus on. - Hydrogen-trains rely on the so-called “fuel cell” to generate electricity from hydrogen. As these devices run on stable duty cycles, extra batteries are needed to manage the power peaks the vehicle needs. Hydrogen-trains are battery-trains too, but autonomy is not a concern with a dense pressurized hydrogen tank onboard. With hydrogen not directly available in the environment, operating a Hydrogen-train is all about producing it – with costs, energy and GHG balance at stake: even more than Batteries-trains, Hydrogen-trains reflect the local electricity mix! How to choose the best option? All these technologies show pros and cons, so can we figure out what the best option is? - When the local electricity mix makes technical solutions similar in terms of GHG performance, rail operation parameters help select the best option: “How long is the interstation?”, “How fast shall the trains be refilled?”, “How demanding is the route?” are essential questions for a fast assessment of the potential solutions. - The capacity to rely on existing fleets or facilities and tune them up to “Zero-emission” shall also be considered, to adapt combustion engines to biogas or fit batteries into hybrid trains - Considering investments, there is obviously a scale factor to be considered. Selecting between available solutions is a matter of splitting costs between Infrastructure, Rolling Stock and Energy expenses: the relative network span, fleet size or facilities needed are service-related parameters with limited correlation. This variety of solutions is a global opportunity. It makes the industry capable of offering emission-reducing solutions adapted to the local context. Emerging countries forced to scale the development of their energy industry and limit the span of sources locally available are not bound to diesel: they can find the Zero-emission trains fitting their energy pattern, thus proving that economic development does not contradict environmental sustainability – should global decisions be the right ones! Which evolutions can be expected? Generally, it can be foreseen that authorities will regulate energy transition by law. This is already the case for buses in some countries like France. : SYSTRA takes part in many of these e-mobility projects and supports local authorities anticipating similar changes for rail. - Regarding batteries, there is room for a quick improvement over the next years. The power of the automotive industry is likely to come up with increased capacity and lifetime while decreasing costs, thus benefitting the rail industry too… Looking at some oil & gas giants buying smaller batteries suppliers gives us a clue on the potential of this trend. - Biogas solution is often overlooked for cultural and historical reasons, with a probably limited scalability. But its adequation to some particular needs may let local initiatives to emerge for rail lines with little traffic and looking for easy-to-implement solutions to reduce their carbon footprint. - Hydrogen is a topic in itself. Seen from the sole mobility point-of-view, hydrogen solutions never prove the best option in current conditions. But more than solely a fuel for transportation, hydrogen should rather be seen as a storage mean for carbon-free electricity. In other words, should electricity producers, gas supplier and rail industry cooperate, developing hydrogen trains could be the flagship to introduce zero-emission transportation in countries with carbon-full electricity mix… Hydrogen train: the flagship to introduce zero-emission transportation in countries with carbon-full electricity mix? © Alstom Relying on a versatile portfolio is the solution Where traffic is too small to justify electrification, the rolling stock industry proves reactive in offering relevant alternatives to reduce the environmental footprint whilst controlling costs. But no stand-alone solution exists yet to compete with a catenary. As the very effective batteries show intrinsic constraints on the operation over their whole lifecycle, it is up to the technology to make progress for realizing its huge potential. Trendy hydrogen and underrated BioGas are dependent on the development of large-scale production and distribution circuits– which cannot be borne by low-traffic railways services. Rather than gambling to choose one solution, the wiser option sounds like relying on a versatile portfolio and adapt the technology to the rail service’s very needs and to the local power supply opportunities. Moreover, the “zero-emission” label mostly depends on the electricity mix at the plant where the power source is generated. Zero-emission technologies can then be looked at in a totally different perspective. Considering the possibility to turn electricity into storable and transportable goods, couldn’t they pave the way for an international trading of green, cost-controlled energy ? With Zero-emissions trains as first messenger.
magpabutiFilipino / Tagalog language translation for the meaning of the word magpabuti in the Tagalog Dictionary. Definition for the Tagalog word magpabuti: Verb conjugations of magpabuti:Focus: Actor Root: butiConjugation Type: Magpa- Join us! We are a free online community for Filipino / Tagalog language learners How to pronounce magpabuti: Related Filipino Words:butimabutibumutikabutihanikabutimakabutimapabutibuti na langmabutihinpagbutihin Related English Words:improveimprovesimprovedimprovingmade betterhave made bettermade betterhave something made betterhave something improved Feedback / Suggestions:Did you find an error or do you know of an improvement for this entry? Please let us know, your feedback is very helpful! Submit Suggestion »
The petrochemical industry is an industry branch that produces organic intermediate products such as refinery products, natural gas, plastic, rubber, fiber raw materials. The petrochemicals industry has evolved out of oil and gas processing by adding value to low value by-products, which have limited use in the fuels industry. The industry now produces a remarkable range of useful products, including plastics, synthetic rubber, solvents, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, additives, explosives and adhesives. These materials have important applications in almost all areas of modern society. Petrochemical products are used in cars, packaging, household goods, medical equipment, paints, clothing and building material to name just a few of the common applications. Furthermore the industry continues to innovate through new technology and the ability to process different types of raw materials.
Letter: Athletes have a First Amendment right to protest injustice Sadly, I feel I’m reliving the contentious, emotionally-fraught years of the Vietnam era. The controversy du jour — NFL players kneeling during the national anthem — reminds me of the protests that divided the nation during the Vietnam War. Coincidentally, PBS just concluded airing Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary “The Vietnam War,” rekindling the raw emotions of America’s conflicting opinions about that engagement. During those troubled times, antiwar activists staged massive public protests, questioning the very legitimacy of American involvement in Vietnam. In one episode, Merrill McPeak, a retired four-star USAF general who flew 269 combat missions in Vietnam, described that rancorous period this way: “The whole movement toward racial equality, the environment, women’s rights … I don’t know how we could exist today as a country without that experience. That produced the country we have today, and we’re better for it.” Which brings me back to the issue of NFL players taking a knee. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, an American poet, wrote: “To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards out of men.” And Elie Wiesel said, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” How ironic that the president excuses those who fly the confederate flag and support the public placement of confederate monuments but vulgarly berates athletes who kneel in prayer during the national anthem. NFL players have the right to exercise their First Amendment rights by protesting what they see as an unequal application of the law, and they have made it abundantly clear their actions are not meant to denigrate the flag or those who serve to protect it. Let’s not forget where irrational fears and over-heated emotions once led us: “Four dead in Ohio.” Cray Little, Vero Beach
These holy women kissed boo-boos, changed diapers and, in some cases, raised their own little saints. Here are the results of our informal poll, listed in order of those who received the most reactions in likes and loves. We’ve included some of the comments from our readers, too. A favorite perhaps because of her inspirational patience, St. Monica (322- 387) prayed for the conversion of her son St. Augustine of Hippo, who eventually became a Doctor of the Church. She also endured a marriage to a man who mocked Christianity until he finally converted. Frank and Katie Conetta: “St. Monica always reminds me of the power in persistence of prayer.” Tricia G.: “I think my favorite mom saint right now is St. Monica. As a mom of boys I look up to her as a prayer warrior who didn’t look at her son’s sin and shortcomings, but loved him as her beloved son made in the image of God. She saw the amazing potential he had to serve God if only he would surrender and she brought that burden to the one who could, and did, restore him!” Dear St. Monica, pray for our patience in this world of haste and rush. Help us to be calm and patiently aware of God’s will in our lives. Gianna Beretta Molla (1922 –1962) was an Italian pediatric physician, a working mother, an avid outdoorswoman, and a loving wife best known for her decision to not abort her child when complications arose during her fourth pregnancy. However, she displayed heroic virtue throughout her life, joining the St. Vincent de Paul Society at the age of 12, and Catholic Action later in life. She earned her medical degree in 1949 intending to use her skills to help the poor in Brazil, but when poor health prevented that, she opened her own office, focusing especially on helping poor women. When doctors discovered, early in her fourth pregnancy, that she had a tumor in her uterus, they recommended an abortion or complete hysterectomy, either of which would have killed the child. Instead, she opted to remove the tumor, saying, “If you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate: choose the child—I insist on it. Save the baby.” The baby was delivered safely, but Gianna died of complications a week later. The baby, Gianna Emanuela, grew up to follow in her mother’s footsteps by becoming a physician, and was present with her father at her mother’s canonization in 2004. Carmen Pastorek Hinze: “Loving wife. Amazing mom. Dedicated doctor. She struggled to keep up with it all, but offered herself as a sacrifice, and yet we can see in her letters she was a totally normal human being.” Libia Rios Dudzinski: “Great example of trust in divine providence.” God, our Father, you have granted to your Church the gift of Gianna Beretta Molla. In her youth she lovingly sought you and drew other young people to you, involving them, through apostolic witness and Catholic Action, in the care of the sick and aged, to help and comfort them. We thank you for the gift of this young woman, so deeply committed to you. Through her example grant us the grace to consecrate our lives to your service, for the joy of our brothers and sisters. –from a Novena to St. Gianna St. Zelie Martin The mother of St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Zelie (Dec. 23, 1831-Aug. 28, 1877) was canonized with her husband Louis Martin in 2015. Zelie gave birth to nine children, four of whom died. The other five joined religious life. Zelie died of breast cancer at age 45. St. Therese wrote of her parents, “God gave me a father and a mother who were more worthy of heaven than of earth.” Marie Stamm: “She’s one of my favorites—especially when I’m having stubborn 6-year-old daughter issues! (I usually appeal to both Louis and Zelie together … since their ‘problem’ child ended up being a saint, maybe they can help me!).” Saint Zelie Martin, pray that I might have supernatural patience this day, to make me an icon of God’s unconditional love for my children— especially when they need my love and patience the most. As the mother of Mary and the grandmother of Jesus, St. Anne (50 B.C.-12 A.D.) is a remarkable maternal figure in Church history. … But we don’t know too much about her. However, she must have taught Mary in some way at some point to be so open to God’s will. Hannah Elaine Bentley-Keeven: “She’s my patron saint, and I always try to look to her example of love and kindness in my own mothering (not that I ever succeed).” Dear Sts. Anne and Joachim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and grandparents of Jesus, our divine savior, have pity on thy loving and trusting client, and listen to the petition which I present before thee. Oh, blessed saints, thou art both most dear to the heart of Jesus, whose beloved mother was thy own tender, devoted child! Can he refuse anything to thee, in whose veins the same blood flowed which afterwards furnished the precious price of our redemption? Great saints, nothing was impossible to thy power and influence over the young Jesus ‘who grew and waxed strong, full of wisdom’ under the maternal care of thy glorious daughter, the Queen of Heaven and Earth. In mercy and compassion, be like unto him ‘who went about doing good,’ and come to the aid of thy servant in my great necessity! St. Anne, St. Joachim, beloved parents of Mary, “our life, our sweetness and our hope,” pray to her for me and obtain my request. Amen. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton American-born St. Elizabeth (Aug. 8, 1774- Jan. 4, 1821) was Protestant until she became a widow and was helped by Catholics in Italy. Upon returning to America as a Catholic, she started a religious order (she was still allowed to raise her young children), founded the first free Catholic school in America and started an orphanage. Martianne Stanger: “I love how St. Elizabeth Seton overcame so many trials, converted, loved her children and raised them well, and also put herself wholeheartedly into educating and bettering the lives of other children.” Danielle Elean: “I’ve always loved St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Always serving our Lord and his people.” A Prayer of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Blessed, blessed Lord, keep us always in your company, and press our weak hearts ever in your service. Forgive what I have been, correct what I am, and direct what I shall be. St. Frances of Rome St. Frances (1384-1440) had plans to become a nun, but her father ordered her to marry instead. Unhappily she did, but through her marriage she learned that her sister-in-law also wanted to be a nun. So together they fed the poor, tended to the sick, all while taking care of their families and each other. She had three children and after her husband’s death, she finally became a nun. Carla Fanelli Dobrovits: “She wanted to be a nun, she followed God’s will to be a wife and mother — she wanted to do penance and wear sackcloth and ashes, she wore clothes befitting her station and loved her difficult husband.” O God, who have given us in Saint Frances of Rome a singular model of both married and monastic life, grant us perseverance in your service, that in every circumstance of life we may see and follow you. St. Elizabeth, mother of St. John the Baptist St. Elizabeth is Mary’s relative and the mother of John the Baptist. What we know of her we learn from the Gospel of Luke. Luke tells us that St. Elizabeth had difficulty conceiving a baby but in her advanced age she became pregnant with John. “Blessed are you who believed* that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Lesser-known but Equally Inspiring Special thanks to our readers for pointing out these mom saints. Sts. Perpetua and Felicity Tracy Bua Smith: “Sts. Perpetua and Felicity … their story brings me to tears as they left behind their family and children to stand for Truth and eventually face a gruesome death and become martyrs.” Read more about Sts. Perpetual and Felicity in Saints for Kids. Maria N’ Seth Jansen: “St. Rita. Her sacrificial love and forgiveness amazes me.” To learn more about St. Rita, read this kid-friendly story. Katie Nelson: “St. Helena … because of her own personal story of conversion and how faithful she was. Also, how she never gave up hope on Constantine’s conversion.” Here is a piece from New Advent on St. Helena, the mother of Constantine. St. Margaret Clitherow Amy Lynn Loomis: “St. Margaret Clitherow … She was one of three women martyrs killed under Elizabeth I’s reign in England. Martyred by being “pressed” under a door with weights placed on it. She was a brave wife and mother who didn’t hide her faith in times of persecution, but because she was so cheerful and generous, her Protestant neighbors didn’t turn her in. Her four living children all entered religion. … And somehow two more women were martyred under her reign.” Judi Baker-Tyrrell: “Following her execution, Elizabeth I wrote to the citizens of York expressing her horror at the treatment of a woman. Because of her sex, she argued, Clitherow should not have been executed.” St. Elizabeth of Hungary The queen who was so generous to the poor that royal officials worried she would give away everything in the castle. They expelled her and her children from the castle when her husband died; she kept serving the poor anyway. You can read a short story about her service to the poor in Meet Elizabeth of Hungary! • Saints for Kids. St. Margaret of Cortona Kellie Hove: “Margaret of Cortona: a saint from the Middle Ages who was the mistress of a nobleman and had a baby boy out of wedlock. When her lover was murdered, she had a profound conversion experience. She and her child left their grand residence to live with Franciscan Friars and she took up a life of prayer, penance, and caring for the poor and sick. She was considered the second Mary Magdalene of the Middle Ages. Her son became a Franciscan Friar himself. I think she’d be awesome saint for single mothers or mothers who have had children out of wedlock.” Read a story to your children about St. Margaret of Cortona here. St. Angela of Foligno Kellie Hove: “St. Angela of Foligno, another medieval saint who was married with children and lived a superficial, frivolous life until the age of 40 when she converted. Her husband and children died in a plague and she became a Third Order Franciscan, but the grace of a God helped her cope with the death of her family.” Franciscan Media has more about St. Angela of Foligno here. St. Jane Frances de Chantal Kellie Hove: “St. Jane Frances de Chantal, wife and mother to many children and whose spiritual director was St. Francis de Sales. When she received the calling from God to start a religious order and confirmation in this vocation by St. Francis, as she was leaving her children (mostly grown up, but some in the care of a guardian), one of her sons threw himself on the floor in front of the door to prevent her from leaving. She softly rebuked him and stepped over him and went out the door. Can you even imagine?!! I believe her heart was terribly torn between staying with her children or pursuing God’s will and she chose the harder path.” To learn more about St. Jane, read this article from Franciscan Media. 1 thought on “Your favorite mom saints”
January 7, 2021 Can Employers Legally Mandate COVID-19 Vaccinations? Unless your state government enacts mandatory vaccination laws requiring it as a condition of employment, you could put your company at legal risk. The COVID-19 vaccination has been touted as the easiest way for our country to return to normalcy following the almost year-long pandemic. Such vaccinations will allow businesses to safely reopen and permit individuals and families to return to their routines. Employers, in particular, are eager for business to return to pre-pandemic levels. While the 2019-20 influenza season cost employers $13.1 billion in lost productivity, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the global COVID-19 pandemic is expected to be even more damaging. It’s not surprising, then, that many employers are wondering if they can require employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The answers are “maybe” and “it depends.” You want to protect your employees, and the COVID-19 vaccination might seem the simplest answer. But, before you decide to require every employee to get the vaccination when it’s available, make sure your actions do not put you at a legal risk. Theoretically, employers can mandate that employees receive vaccines for both the flu and COVID-19 as a condition of employment. Certain high-risk workplaces, such as hospitals and nursing homes, already do so, and they can legally require employees to get one or more existing vaccinations. Experts assume that the COVID-19 vaccination would be included in the list of approved vaccinations. In addition, many states also require students to receive certain vaccinations in order to attend public or private K-12 schools. While these practices suggest that schools and employers with traditionally high-risk workplaces might be able to mandate vaccinations, they are not common in schools or workplaces not associated with health care. Therefore, before pursuing similar requirements, check to see if federal or state laws support your actions. 2020 CARES Act The federal CARES Act requires group health plans to pay for COVID-19 vaccines that are recommended by the U.S. Preventive Health Services Taskforce and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. If your health plan complies with this law, your employees will have access to the vaccine at no cost if they choose to take it. Although the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has not addressed the issue of mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations in the workplace, it did address the issue during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. The EEOC said that both the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employers from compelling employees to be vaccinated for H1N1 regardless of their medical condition or religious beliefs even during a pandemic. However, employers may be able to require COVID-19 vaccinations under the ADA or Title VII guidelines if they can demonstrate that the vaccine is “job-related and of business necessity” or prevents a “direct threat” to workplace safety. However, the EEOC says that under the ADA an employee with an underlying medical condition could be entitled to an exemption from mandatory vaccination for valid and supported medical reasons. The U.S. Supreme Court says that states – not the federal government – can decide whether to enact legislation making vaccinations mandatory. If your state makes vaccinations mandatory, then the decision has been made for you. As wonderful as a vaccination sounds, not everyone is excited about taking a vaccine that was fast-tracked and has no performance record. Pharmaceutical companies were tasked with developing a drug in just a few months – a process that usually takes 10 years, according to the Wellcome Trust, a biomedical research charity in London. Many people wonder whether a vaccine developed so quickly can be safe for everyone. Individuals who have certain preexisting conditions could be at elevated risks. Others may have a religious objection to vaccinations in general. If you decide that mandatory vaccinations are the best course for your company, you will need to make accommodations for employees who: - Have certain health conditions - May suffer negatively if taking certain medications - Have religious objections You may have to make accommodations so these employees can work from home. A less controversial option would be to strongly encourage flu vaccinations or to hold an onsite clinic.
Share a Folder in Windows 7? If you only have one (1) computer, sharing a folder doesn’t make sense. However, if you have a network of computers, small or big, sharing your file and folder does a very big sense. What does sharing a folder can do? Sharing a folder in Windows 7 can help you copy files from one computer to another, without walking through each PC, all you have to do is to network that certain computer, and copy what you need. It saves time and effort. How to share a folder in Windows 7? In the previous OS (Operating System), the windows XP, sharing a folder wasn’t complicated. All you have to do is to “right click” the folder you want to share on your network, choose “sharing”, select “share this folder” and you are ready to go. In XP, you are given two options to share a folder, share it as “read only” or “allow network to read and write”. Basically, the former is the most preferred for security reason. In Windows 7, sharing a folder isn’t hard as well. However, you need to do extra steps to complete the sharing process. Follow these simple steps: - Right click the folder you want to share. - Click properties and navigate to “sharing” tab. - Click “share” a pop up window appears. - In the drop arrow menu, choose people to share with, “everyone”, “guest” or you can create new users. Then, set a permission level, whether you allow them to “read and write” or “read only”. - In this tutorial, I choose “everyone” then click “add” followed by “share” another pop up window appears. - In the pop up window, you are given the option to choose private network or public network sharing. - Choose what’s appropriate for you. Congratulation, you successfully shared a folder in windows 7. - Now that you shared the folder, let’s go to “Network and Sharing Center”. - Right click your shared folder and select “properties”. - Click the link at the bottom “Network and Sharing Center” a window should appear as what the image shown below. As you can see, there more options on how should you share your folder on the network. Take note, the previous sharing procedure above, will of no-effect if we will leave “Network and Sharing” to its default settings. What options should you choose to completely enable your folder sharing? - Turn on Network Discovery. This will make your computer visible to the network. - Turn on File and Printer sharing. This will make your file and printer open to the network. - Turn on Sharing so anyone with network access can read and write in the Public folders. - Turn off password protected sharing. Now, you can connect with your shared folder from another computer with no problems. Disadvantages of sharing your folder on your network. Sharing is loving. However, if you are not careful, it may lead to disaster instead of a help. When, sharing you must: - Share only the public documents. - Never ever open your confidential records on your network. - Choose only those computers that can see your files and folders. - Enable your built in Windows Firewall. - Make sure that your Antivirus is updated to avoid spreading the virus on your network, just in case one of your computer will get infected, because the virus can easily travel to network computers and folders, if it is shared. Do you have some idea of sharing a folder in Windows 7? Please share it with us, we want to hear from you. Leave a Reply
As each of the industries contributes to the world’s economy measured in GDP, Technerds being the best in terms of outcomes, helps to determine in bringing the latest technologies merging with current business strategies, such that it is a proportional growth. Our group of experts with synergetic approach ensure that we align with service quality dimensions. We adhere to our standards which guarantees outstanding solution as we possess extensive domain knowledge and business administration skills. We, at Technerds help you strategize the cyber risks such that it will reduce the risk of attacks which will reduce the financial and operational impacts. Cyber-attacks continue to increase in growth rapidly as the attackers are using a wide range of tactics which includes Crypto jacking, Ransomware, Phishing and Malware attacks. Our security analysts take the responsibility of planning security measures and controls, protecting digital files, and conducting security audits. Our primary goal is to protect your organization assets from threats and focus on quality. As a technology is utilized in different ways, new attacks pop out. For example, with IoT being popular now, using this as a medium, there is an increase of attacks. There comes our role in the urge to secure the networks.We ensure that we adhere to SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002). Technerds help the clients to prevent their enterprise from any breach by assisting them in providing Cyber Security programs to their employees as they might tend to open the gateway for viruses into the workplace unintentionally. We provide the awareness training to them such that we help to understand the aftereffects of attacks to keep the organization safe and free from We help you pick up the right strategy to protect your sensitive data and assets. We provide solutions such that your security architecture meets the business objectives and With the help of this process we detect threats and breaches, zero-day threats. It is also possible to identify the suspicious behaviour in the system. We provide solutions to address the detected threats. The risk management and assessment encompasses of analysing each risk in comparison to the security of the client’s systems, devices, and concentrate on potential threats. Our leads use methods like Public Key Infrastructure(PKI) authentication, Application Program Interface(API) security to fight the cybercrime attacks rooted in IoT devices. Designing and implementing the security architecture using the strong analytical skills, and problem-solving skills. We also help the clients to create and manage hardware, software, and security policies for the protection of systems, networks, and data with in-depth understanding of electricals and computers in a combined form. It is best in the market to practice multiple approaches like Behavioural Analytics, Virtual Private Networks(VPNs), Access Control, Wireless Security, Firewalls and The security engineers ensure that they implement best secured practices such that features like Authentication, Authorization, Encryption and Security Testing are in place from external threats throughout the entire application lifecycle. Designed to cover the responsibilities like traditional software services, host machines, data servers, data storages, physical networks and end-users hardware which protects the cloud computing environments, applications running in the cloud and data held in the cloud. We follow a holistic approach such that the infrastructure remains protected. We adhere to Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency(CISA) recommendations and implement the approaches accordingly. This helps in benefiting the organization in terms of Data Protection, Internal Communications are Secure, Multi-sharing of networks as there is question of threats.