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0.931767 | In December of 1983, Apple Computers ran its' famous "1984" Macintosh television commercial on a small unknown station solely to make the commercial eligible for awards. The commercial cost $1.5 million and only ran once in 1983, but news and talk shows everywhere replayed it, making TV history.
The next month, Apple Computer ran the same ad during the Super Bowl and millions of viewers saw their first glimpse of the Macintosh computer. The commercial was directed by Ridley Scott, and the Orwellian scene depicted the IBM world being destroyed by a new machine called the "Macintosh."
Could we expect anything less from a company that was once run by the former president of Pepsi-Cola? Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers had been trying to hire Pepsi's John Sculley since early 1983. While he eventually succeeded, Jobs soon discovered that he did not get along with Sculley who, after becoming CEO of Apple Computers, ended up booting him off Apple’s "Lisa" project. The "Lisa" was the first consumer computer with a graphical user interface or GUI.
Jobs then switched over to managing the Apple "Macintosh" project that was started by Jeff Raskin. Jobs was determined that the new "Macintosh" was going to have a graphical user interface like the "Lisa," but at a considerably lower cost. The early Mac team members (1979) consisted of Jeff Raskin, Brian Howard, Marc LeBrun, Burrell Smith, Joanna Hoffman and Bud Tribble. Others began working working on the Mac at later dates.
Seventy-four days after the introduction of the "Macintosh," the company was only able to sell 50,000 units. At the time, Apple refused to license the OS or the hardware, the 128k memory was not enough and the onboard floppy drive was difficult to use. The "Macintosh" did have "Lisa's" user friendly GUI, but was missing some of the more powerful features of the "Lisa," such as multitasking and the 1 MB of memory.
Jobs compensated by making sure developers created software for the new "Macintosh", Jobs figured that software was the way to win the consumer over and in 1985, the "Macintosh" computer line received a big sales boost with the introduction of the LaserWriter printer and Aldus PageMaker, which made home desktop publishing possible. That was also the year that the original founders of Apple left the company.
Steve Wozniak returned to college and Steve Jobs was fired as his difficulties with John Sculley came to a head. Jobs had decided to regain control of the company from Sculley by scheduling a business meeting in China for Sculley and so that Jobs could carry out a corporate takeover while Sculley was absent.
Word of Jobs' true motives reached Sculley before the China trip and he confronted Jobs and asked Apple's Board of Directors to vote on the issue. Everyone voted for Sculley and so, in lieu of being fired, Jobs quit. Jobs later rejoined Apple in 1996 and has happily worked there ever since. Sculley was eventually replaced as CEO of Apple. |
0.954108 | Motif patterns of maximal saturation emerged originally in contexts of pattern discovery in biomolecular sequences and have recently proven a valuable notion also in the design of data compression schemes. Informally, a motif is a string of intermittently solid and wild characters that recurs more or less frequently in an input sequence or family of sequences. Motif discovery techniques and tools tend to be computationally imposing, however, special classes of "rigid" motifs have been identified of which the discovery is affordable in low polynomial time.
In the present work, "extensible" motifs are considered such that each sequence of gaps comes endowed with some elasticity, whereby the same pattern may be stretched to fit segments of the source that match all the solid characters but are otherwise of different lengths. A few applications of this notion are then described. In applications of data compression by textual substitution, extensible motifs are seen to bring savings on the size of the codebook, and hence to improve compression. In germane contexts, in which compressibility is used in its dual role as a basis for structural inference and classification, extensible motifs are seen to support unsupervised classification and phylogeny reconstruction.
Off-line compression based on extensible motifs can be used advantageously to compress and classify biological sequences. |
0.958743 | John Tyler signaled the last gasp of the Old Virginia aristocracy in the White House. Born a few years after the American Revolution in 1790 to an old family from Virginia's ruling class, Tyler graduated from the College of William and Mary at the age of seventeen, studied law, and went to work for a prestigious law firm in Richmond. At twenty-one, Tyler had used his father's contacts to gain a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates where he began immediately fighting the Bank of the United States, which he opposed as a broadening of nationalist power. After serving an uneventful stint in the military during the War of 1812, Tyler won election to the House of Representatives and quickly became a Washington insider, seen frequently at Dolly Madison's posh parties.
As a southern planter, Tyler bitterly opposed a strong standing army, tariffs, and extending the vote to men without property, resenting this challenge to traditional southern power. The popular Andrew Jackson of Tennessee represented everything in politics that Tyler was against, especially the new voting power of the West. When Jackson's government attempted to restrict slavery in new states west of Missouri, Tyler saw it as such an abuse of federal power that he resigned from Congress in disgust.
When he returned to Washington in 1827, Tyler reluctantly supported Jackson's reelection in 1832 but became furious when Jackson threatened to use federal force against South Carolina when the state renounced federal tariffs. Twice he stridently condemned the President on the Senate floor for what he considered the President's abuse of executive power. Disgusted with Jackson, Tyler teamed up with Henry Clay and Daniel Webster to form the new Whig Party.
Martin Van Buren's failure to alleviate the economic depression which followed Andrew Jackson's presidency gave the Whigs the chance they needed in 1840. The Whigs' presidential candidate, William Henry Harrison, was marketed as a humble frontiersman, the "Log Cabin and Hard Cider" candidate, despite the fact that he was highly educated, wealthy, and descended from Virginia's ruling class. John Tyler was selected as his running mate to appeal to the South. Under the slogan, "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too," Harrison and Tyler won the election with broad populist support in a backlash against Van Buren's insider ways. Ironically, Tyler was propelled into office by the commoners he had formerly tried so hard to lock out.
On the day of his inaugural, Harrison gave a rambling two-hour speech outdoors in freezing weather without coat or hat. A month later he was dead. Tyler, who had returned to his Virginia plantation after the inaugural, was rushed to Washington to fill the vacant presidency. Because no President had ever died in office before, some felt that Tyler was merely an acting or interim President. Tyler firmly asserted that the Constitution gave him full and unqualified powers of office and had himself sworn in immediately as President, setting a critical precedent for an orderly transfer of power following a President's death. Fearing that he would alienate Harrison's supporters, Tyler decided to keep the dead President's entire cabinet even though several members were openly hostile to Tyler and resented his assumption of the office. After Tyler vetoed a bill to resurrect the Bank of the United States, his entire cabinet resigned in protest, with the exception of Secretary of State Webster, then in the midst of sensitive negotiations with Great Britain. During his second year in office, the Whigs, led by Henry Clay, expelled him from the party and tried to have him impeached. The Whigs had to settle for one of their committees passing a resolution of censure against the President.
In a bid for reelection, Tyler worked to annex Texas, against the wishes of abolitionists who feared that it would become another slave state. Tyler's Democratic rival, James Polk, blunted the issue by also endorsing Texas statehood. Tyler pushed ahead though, introducing Texas annexation to Congress as a joint resolution requiring only a majority vote of each chamber of Congress, thereby dodging the two-thirds majority required to ratify a treaty. This approach succeeded in achieving Texas's incorporation into the Union.
The 1844 presidential election boiled down to a fight between Tyler, Polk, and Henry Clay. Fearing that he and Polk might split the vote, handing the election to Clay, Tyler voluntarily withdrew, consoling himself that at least he took Clay down with him. In a final insult, Congress overrode his veto of a military appropriation, marking the first override of a presidential veto in American history. The nearly bankrupt Tyler moved back to his plantation in Virginia with his second wife, Julia Gardiner Tyler. Just prior to the Civil War, Tyler chaired the Richmond Convention, which attempted to reconcile the North and South. When Lincoln rejected his proffered compromises, Tyler became a leading proponent of Southern secession. |
0.999712 | depth. Its inscription reads "- - NA MAQI LUGUDECA MUC- - CUNEA". - "decendant of Cunea" |
0.961784 | What is the most difficult language to learn in the world? Have you ever wondered? I always thought the language I was studying was the most difficult one to learn:))) It turns out The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State did a research to find out how long it takes to learn a language for English speakers. According to the study the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers are Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
The Number of Hours Needed to Learn each Language for English speakers according to FSI. |
0.999984 | Is it possible to rationally believe that certain aspects of the identity don't change, while still acknowledging the fact that we are not the same person we were an instant ago? In other words, is it possible to believe in an ever changing identity while still believing parts of us persevere?
The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.
As Plutarch states, some people intuit that the ship remains the same despite incremental changes over time while others intuit that it does not remain the same.
The Ship of Theseus is an ancient thought experiment in the metaphysics of identity that continues to fascinate us as we learn ever more about the replacement rates of the cells that make up our own bodies and wonder about our own identities and that of those around us.
There are several different ways of explaining our intuitions concerning this puzzle, all of which could be described as "possible." This Wikipedia page gives an overview of them. Being Wikipedia, it should not be taken as gospel, but it is a start.
I'm not sure about the correct self-translation of the question, but I think it's about the variability of a person throughout his life. I believe that the physical Self =the Sum of the self, for a period of time from physical birth (inhalation) to (last exhalation) physical death, in a given environment, including social. As a result, the only I simply does not exist (in other words, we can not have identity), we are constantly changing both in the direction of development and in the direction of degradation...Try to answer the question: "Who am I?"...Could it be someone between yesterday and tomorrow? Maybe it's someone just now?...Maybe this someone doesn't exist? : -),...so "Who am I?"
Take the "Ship of Theseus" example given earlier one step further.
Is it rational to consider an electron to exist and travel along a trajectory, knowing that at the same time virtual particles exist?
We could assume that in every instant a new electron and positron arise from empty space, the positron annihilates with the existing electron, and the slight gap between them is the reason we now see an electron in a slightly different place.
Movement is then an emergent phenomenon of virtual particles. Is it still real? Of course it is. This is simply a case of multiple realizations. There is no reason to see one or the other view here as more real than the other, and it is perfectly rational to accommodate all the equivalent models of the same thing at once.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged identity belief change or ask your own question.
How does Parfit's “brain division” thought experiment refute the brain theory of personal identity? |
0.999291 | With the increasing importance of relevant and content-rich websites, many web designers are starting to pay special attention to typography, a crucial element, often ignored in the past. There is no use having excellent content if that content is not presented well to the visitors, and most of them would quickly hit the “back” button on their browsers if they see illegible text, conflicting colors, or mixture of different font types and sizes, crowded on the same web page.
What are the most important typography elements, which web designers should pay attention to?
For starters, the font should match the site’s theme and niche. Using CSS allows for more than one font to be selected and adding list of fonts (also known as stacks) rather than a single one is always a wise choice. Most Windows machines come with the same popular fonts installed by default, but Mac users might have different default fonts and their browser will simply choose the first available font from the list. Selecting the font size also requires careful consideration since smaller letters are difficult to read, while using bigger size might force the users to scroll up and down in order to see the content of the web page. The color is also important and while black on white is always a good choice as it gives decent contrast and ensures readability, white or gray font colors could work well in some case too.
Ascender is the upward portion of lowercase letters such as l, t, h, b, d, and descender is the downward portion of letters such as q, g, and p. The x-height is defined as the distance between the mean line and the baseline in a typeface and this is typically the height of the letter x in the font, hence the name. Kerning and leading refer to the space between letters in a word and the space between lines respectively and can be used to make sure that the letters do not appear scrunched up or spaced out.
When styling the page, attention needs to be paid not only to the font’s properties, but to white space and alignment as well. The proper use of headings, paragraphs, and hyperlinks would make the content easy to read and draw attention to the important elements. Left alignment is used to present easy to read text, center alignment is appropriate for titles and headlines, and right alignment is commonly used in business correspondence.
As a rule, the web sites should be designed for “basic” machines, where only the default fonts are installed, and these designs should be loaded in the top browsers in order to ensure that they are displayed properly. In addition, choosing typography, which will make the website easy to surf on mobile devices, is something worth considering. With the increasing popularity of mobile surfing and the number of Smartphone and tablet users growing at an exponential rate, using fluid and responsive design is quickly becoming essential.
Mixing fonts should be done with caution and the rule of thumb is to be rather conservative than over-creative. Most designers are tempted to build pages that stand out and are different and although this could work well in many cases, when it comes to presenting content, legibility is the most important factor. Typefaces with similar line quality or proportions might work well and establish visual hierarchy throughout the site, while contrasting fonts could be used to draw attention to areas of interest.
Got set of tips . Ive been looking out for related tips on implementing a more text based design approach to by web design and development blog at www.webdevelopmentcenter.net. Could you suggest the best fonts for the blogs ? |
0.996049 | Lee Majors' father died before he was born, and his mother was killed in an auto wreck before his second birthdate. The toddler was then adopted by his paternal aunt and uncle, who brought him to their home in Middelsboro, Kentucky. Majors lettered in football for the high school team, which now plays its home games at Lee Majors Field. He also played college football, and was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals (when that was a football team). He started acting as a hobby in 1962, and came to Los Angeles the following year. With his degree in Physical Education, he got a job working for the city parks department, where he oversaw North Hollywood Park and started buddying up with actors he met there. His new contacts helped open doors for auditions, and Majors became a working actor with a tiny but pivotal role in William Castle's schlocky thriller Straight-Jacket, playing Joan Crawford's husband.
Majors had a more lasting career in television. In his first series, the 1960s western The Big Valley with Barbara Stanwyck, Majors played the half-brother Heath. He later joined the long-running The Virginian in its final season, playing a ranch hand with a mysterious past as the show was retitled The Men from Shiloh. He played the sidekick lawyer to Arthur Hill on Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law until he was offered the lead in The Six Million Dollar Man. When Majors left Owen Marshall, his character was replaced by a pre-Hutch David Soul.
The Six Million Dollar Man ran from 1973 until 1978, usually in slow motion with bwa-wa-wa bwa-wa-wa sound effects. Majors played Steve Austin, the rebellious NASA test pilot whose body was mangled in a ghastly crash. But with the bio-technological advances of the 1970s, as the opening voiceover explained, "we can rebuild him... better than he was before. Better. Stronger. Faster." The series was based on Martin Caidin's well-written science fiction novel, Cyborg, and the first few episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man were faithful to the novel's stoicism, but soon the program devolved into camp, with Austin meeting Bigfoot, and the eventual addition of a bionic boy and bionic dog. Later Majors reprised his bionic Steve Austin role in several TV movies, most recently marrying Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner in 1994's Bionic Ever After?.
Majors began dating Farrah Fawcett years before she was famous for Charlie's Angels, and during the late 1970s they were perhaps the most famous couple in Hollywood. Beginning in 1978, Majors sought to reinvent himself as a movie star, and he was featured in some of the worst films of the era, including The Norseman with Cornel Wilde, Killer Fish with Karen Black, and Steel with Jennifer O'Neill. He returned to television playing the Gary Cooper role in the ill-conceived High Noon II. Majors starred in another action series, The Fall Guy, playing tough guy Colt Seavers, a stunt man who was also a bounty hunter. In later series, Majors took a supporting role as a tough veteran of three wars in Tour of Duty, and a wrinkly Majors returned to sidekick chores in the cheap, syndicated superninja drama Raven.
Various sources give 1939, 1940, 1941, or 1942. |
0.957733 | The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA; Spanish: Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, TLCAN; French: Accord de libre-échange nord-américain, ALÉNA) is an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the 1988 Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Canada, and is expected to be replaced by the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement once it is ratified.
NAFTA has two supplements: the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC).
Most economic analyses indicate that NAFTA has been beneficial to the North American economies and the average citizen, but harmed a small minority of workers in industries exposed to trade competition. Economists hold that withdrawing from NAFTA or renegotiating NAFTA in a way that reestablishes trade barriers will adversely affect the U.S. economy and cost jobs. However, Mexico would be much more severely affected by job loss and reduction of economic growth in both the short term and long term.
On September 30, 2018, it was announced that the United States, Mexico, and Canada had come to an agreement to replace NAFTA with the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). The USMCA is the result of the renegotiation of NAFTA that the member states undertook from 2017 to 2018, though NAFTA will remain in force until the USMCA is ratified by its members.
The impetus for a North American free trade zone began with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who made the idea part of his campaign when he announced his candidacy for the presidency in November 1979. Canada and the United States signed the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 1988, and shortly afterward Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari decided to approach US president George H. W. Bush to propose a similar agreement in an effort to bring in foreign investment following the Latin American debt crisis. As the two leaders began negotiating, the Canadian government under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney feared that the advantages Canada had gained through the Canada–US FTA would be undermined by a US–Mexican bilateral agreement, and asked to become a party to the US–Mexican talks.
Back row, left to right: Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, at the initialing of the draft North American Free Trade Agreement in October 1992. In front are Mexican Secretary of Commerce and Industrial Development Jaime Serra Puche, United States Trade Representative Carla Hills, and Canadian Minister of International Trade Michael Wilson.
Following diplomatic negotiations dating back to 1990, the leaders of the three nations signed the agreement in their respective capitals on December 17, 1992. The signed agreement then needed to be ratified by each nation's legislative or parliamentary branch.
The earlier Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement had been controversial and divisive in Canada, and featured as an issue in the 1988 Canadian election. In that election, more Canadians voted for anti-free trade parties (the Liberals and the New Democrats), but the split of the votes between the two parties meant that the pro-free trade Progressive Conservatives (PCs) came out of the election with the most seats and so took power. Mulroney and the PCs had a parliamentary majority and easily passed the 1987 Canada–US FTA and NAFTA bills. However, Mulroney was replaced as Conservative leader and prime minister by Kim Campbell. Campbell led the PC party into the 1993 election where they were decimated by the Liberal Party under Jean Chrétien, who campaigned on a promise to renegotiate or abrogate NAFTA. Chrétien subsequently negotiated two supplemental agreements with Bush, who had subverted the LAC advisory process and worked to "fast track" the signing prior to the end of his term, ran out of time and had to pass the required ratification and signing of the implementation law to incoming president Bill Clinton.
Before sending it to the United States Senate Clinton added two side agreements, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) and the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), to protect workers and the environment, and to also allay the concerns of many House members. The U.S. required its partners to adhere to environmental practices and regulations similar to its own. After much consideration and emotional discussion, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act on November 17, 1993, 234–200. The agreement's supporters included 132 Republicans and 102 Democrats. The bill passed the Senate on November 20, 1993, 61–38. Senate supporters were 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats. Clinton signed it into law on December 8, 1993; the agreement went into effect on January 1, 1994. Clinton, while signing the NAFTA bill, stated that "NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement." NAFTA then replaced the previous Canada-US FTA.
The goal of NAFTA was to eliminate barriers to trade and investment between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The implementation of NAFTA on January 1, 1994, brought the immediate elimination of tariffs on more than one-half of Mexico's exports to the U.S. and more than one-third of U.S. exports to Mexico. Within 10 years of the implementation of the agreement, all U.S.–Mexico tariffs were to be eliminated except for some U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico, to be phased out within 15 years. Most U.S.–Canada trade was already duty-free. NAFTA also sought to eliminate non-tariff trade barriers and to protect the intellectual property rights on traded products.
Chapter 20 provides a procedure for the international resolution of disputes over the application and interpretation of NAFTA. It was modeled after Chapter 69 of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement. The roster of NAFTA adjudicators includes many retired judges, such as Alice Desjardins, John Maxwell Evans, Constance Hunt, John Richard, Arlin M. Adams, Susan Getzendanner, George C. Pratt, Charles B. Renfrew and Sandra Day O'Connor.
NAFTA is, in part, implemented by Technical Working Groups composed of government officials from each of the three partner nations.
The North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act made some changes to the copyright law of the United States, foreshadowing the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994 by restoring copyright (within the NAFTA nations) on certain motion pictures which had entered the public domain.
U.S. congressional approval for NAFTA would have been impossible without addressing public concerns about NAFTA's environmental impact. The Clinton administration negotiated a side agreement on the environment with Canada and Mexico, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), which led to the creation of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) in 1994. To alleviate concerns that NAFTA, the first regional trade agreement between a developing country and two developed countries, would have negative environmental impacts, the commission was mandated to conduct ongoing ex post environmental assessment, It created one of the first ex post frameworks for environmental assessment of trade liberalization, designed to produce a body of evidence with respect to the initial hypotheses about NAFTA and the environment, such as the concern that NAFTA would create a "race to the bottom" in environmental regulation among the three countries, or that NAFTA would pressure governments to increase their environmental protections. The CEC has held four symposia to evaluate the environmental impacts of NAFTA and commissioned 47 papers on the subject from leading independent experts.
From the earliest negotiation, agriculture was – and still is – a controversial topic within NAFTA, as it has been with almost all free trade agreements signed within the WTO framework. Agriculture is the only section that was not negotiated trilaterally; instead, three separate agreements were signed between each pair of parties. The Canada–U.S. agreement contains significant restrictions and tariff quotas on agricultural products (mainly sugar, dairy, and poultry products), whereas the Mexico–U.S. pact allows for a wider liberalization within a framework of phase-out periods (it was the first North–South FTA on agriculture to be signed).
NAFTA established the CANAMEX Corridor for road transport between Canada and Mexico, also proposed for use by rail, pipeline, and fiber optic telecommunications infrastructure. This became a High Priority Corridor under the U.S. Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991.
In 2008, Canadian exports to the United States and Mexico were at $381.3 billion, with imports at $245.1 billion. According to a 2004 article by University of Toronto economist Daniel Trefler, NAFTA produced a significant net benefit to Canada in 2003, with long-term productivity increasing by up to 15 percent in industries that experienced the deepest tariff cuts. While the contraction of low-productivity plants reduced employment (up to 12 percent of existing positions), these job losses lasted less than a decade; overall, unemployment in Canada has fallen since the passage of the act. Commenting on this trade-off, Trefler said that the critical question in trade policy is to understand "how freer trade can be implemented in an industrialized economy in a way that recognizes both the long-run gains and the short-term adjustment costs borne by workers and others".
A study in 2007 found that NAFTA had "a substantial impact on international trade volumes, but a modest effect on prices and welfare".
According to a 2017 report by the New York City based public policy think tank report, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), bilateral trade in agricultural products tripled in size from 1994 to 2017 and is considered to be one of the largest economic effects of NAFTA on U.S.-Canada trade with Canada becoming the U.S. agricultural sectors' leading importer. Canadian fears of losing manufacturing jobs to the United States did not materialize with manufacturing employment holding "steady". However, with Canada's labour productivity levels at 72% of U.S. levels, the hopes of closing the "productivity gap" between the two countries were also not realized.
According to a 2018 Sierra Club report, Canada's commitments under NAFTA and the Paris agreement conflict. The Paris commitments are voluntary, and NAFTA's are compulsory.
According to a 2018 report by Gordon Laxter published by the Council of Canadians, NAFTA's Article 605, energy proportionality rule ensures that Americans have "virtually unlimited first access to most of Canada's oil and natural gas" and Canada cannot reduce oil, natural gas and electricity exports (74% its oil and 52% its natural gas) to the U.S., even if Canada is experiencing shortages. These provisions that seemed logical when NAFTA was signed in 1993 are no longer appropriate.:4 The Council of Canadians promotes environmental protection and is against NAFTA's role in encouraging development of the tar sands and fracking.
US President Donald Trump, angered by Canada's dairy tax of "almost 300%", threatened to leave Canada out of the NAFTA. Since 1972, Canada has been operating on a "supply management" system, which the United States is attempting to pressure it out of, specifically focusing on the dairy industry. However, this has not yet taken place, as Quebec, which holds approximately half the country's dairy farms, still supports supply management.
Maquiladoras (Mexican assembly plants that take in imported components and produce goods for export) have become the landmark of trade in Mexico. They moved to Mexico from the United States, hence the debate over the loss of American jobs. Income in the maquiladora sector has increased 15.5% since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994. Other sectors now benefit from the free trade agreement, and the share of exports to the U.S. from non-border states has increased in the last five years while the share of exports from border states has decreased. This has allowed rapid growth in non-border metropolitan areas such as Toluca, León and Puebla; all larger in population than Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and Reynosa.
The overall effect of the Mexico–U.S. agricultural agreement is disputed. Mexico did not invest in the infrastructure necessary for competition, such as efficient railroads and highways.This resulted in more difficult living conditions for the country's poor. Mexico's agricultural exports increased 9.4 percent annually between 1994 and 2001, while imports increased by only 6.9 percent a year during the same period.
One of the most affected agricultural sectors is the meat industry. Mexico went from a small player in the pre-1994 U.S. export market to the second largest importer of U.S. agricultural products in 2004, and NAFTA may be a major catalyst for this change. Free trade removed the hurdles that impeded business between the two countries, so Mexico has provided a growing market for meat for the U.S., and increased sales and profits for the U.S. meat industry. A coinciding noticeable increase in the Mexican per capita GDP greatly changed meat consumption patterns; per capita meat consumption has grown.
Production of corn in Mexico has increased since NAFTA. But internal demand for corn has increased beyond Mexico's supply, and imports have become needed, far beyond the quotas Mexico originally negotiated. Zahniser & Coyle also point out that corn prices in Mexico, adjusted for international prices, have drastically decreased, but through a program of subsidies expanded by former president Vicente Fox, production has remained stable since 2000. Reducing agricultural subsidies, especially corn subsidies, has been suggested as a way to reduce harm to Mexican farmers.
A 2001 Journal of Economic Perspectives review of the existing literature found that NAFTA was a net benefit to Mexico. By the year 2003, 80% of the commerce in Mexico was executed only with the U.S. The commercial sales surplus, combined with the deficit with the rest of the world, created a dependency in Mexico's exports. These effects were evident in 2001–2003; the result of that recession was either a low rate or a negative rate in Mexico's exports.
A 2015 study found that Mexico's welfare increased by 1.31% as a result of the NAFTA tariff reductions, and that Mexico's intra-bloc trade increased by 118%. Inequality and poverty fell in the most globalization-affected regions of Mexico. 2013 and 2015 studies show that Mexican small farmers benefitted more from NAFTA than large-scale farmers.
NAFTA has also been credited with the rise of the Mexican middle class. A Tufts University study found that NAFTA lowered the average cost of basic necessities in Mexico by up to 50%. This price reduction increased cash-on-hand for many Mexican families, allowing Mexico to graduate more engineers than Germany each year.
Growth in new sales orders indicates an increase in demand for manufactured products, which resulted in expansion of production and a higher employment rate to satisfy the increment in the demand. The growth in the maquiladora industry and in the manufacturing industry was of 4.7% in August 2016. Three quarters of the imports and exports are with the U.S.
Tufts University political scientist Daniel W. Drezner has argued that NAFTA made it easier for Mexico to transform to a real democracy and become a country that views itself as North American. This has boosted cooperation between the United States and Mexico.
Many economists consider that NAFTA was beneficial for the United States. In a 2012 survey of leading economists, 95% said that on average U.S. citizens benefited from NAFTA. A 2001 Journal of Economic Perspectives review found that NAFTA was a net benefit to the United States. A 2015 study found that US welfare increased by 0.08% as a result of NAFTA tariff reductions, and that US intra-bloc trade increased by 41%.
A 2014 study on the effects of NAFTA on US trade jobs and investment found that between 1993 and 2013, the US trade deficit with Mexico and Canada increased from $17.0 to $177.2 billion, displacing 851,700 US jobs.
In 2015, the Congressional Research Service concluded that the "net overall effect of NAFTA on the US economy appears to have been relatively modest, primarily because trade with Canada and Mexico accounts for a small percentage of US GDP. However, there were worker and firm adjustment costs as the three countries adjusted to more open trade and investment among their economies." The report also estimated that NAFTA added $80 billion to the US economy since its implementation, equivalent to a 0.5% increase in US GDP.
The US Chamber of Commerce credits NAFTA with increasing U.S. trade in goods and services with Canada and Mexico from $337 billion in 1993 to $1.2 trillion in 2011, while the AFL–CIO blames the agreement for sending 700,000 American manufacturing jobs to Mexico over that time.
University of California, San Diego economics professor Gordon Hanson has said that NAFTA helped the US compete against China and therefore saved US jobs. While some jobs were lost to Mexico as a result of NAFTA, considerably more would have been lost to China if not for NAFTA.
The US had a trade surplus with NAFTA countries of $28.3 billion for services in 2009 and a trade deficit of $94.6 billion (36.4% annual increase) for goods in 2010. This trade deficit accounted for 26.8% of all US goods trade deficit. A 2018 study of global trade published by the Center for International Relations identified irregularities in the patterns of trade of NAFTA ecosystem using network theory analytical techniques. The study showed that the US trade balance is influenced by tax avoidance opportunities provided in Ireland.
A study published in the August 2008 issue of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, found NAFTA increased US agricultural exports to Mexico and Canada, even though most of the increase occurred a decade after its ratification. The study focused on the effects that gradual "phase-in" periods in regional trade agreements, including NAFTA, have on trade flows. Most of the increase in members' agricultural trade, which was only recently brought under the purview of the World Trade Organization, was due to very high trade barriers before NAFTA or other regional trade agreements.
The U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) in NAFTA countries (stock) was $327.5 billion in 2009 (latest data available), up 8.8% from 2008. The US direct investment in NAFTA countries is in nonbank holding companies, and in the manufacturing, finance/insurance, and mining sectors. The foreign direct investment of Canada and Mexico in the United States (stock) was $237.2 billion in 2009 (the latest data available), up 16.5% from 2008.
Many American small businesses depend on exporting their products to Canada or Mexico under NAFTA. According to the U.S. Trade Representative, this trade supports over 140,000 small- and medium-sized businesses in the US.
According to University of California Berkeley professor of economics Brad DeLong, NAFTA had an insignificant impact on US manufacturing. The adverse impact on manufacturing has been exaggerated in US political discourse according to DeLong, and Harvard economist Dani Rodrik.
According to a 2013 article by Jeff Faux published by the Economic Policy Institute, California, Texas, Michigan and other states with high concentrations of manufacturing jobs were most affected by job loss due to NAFTA. According to a 2011 article by EPI economist Robert Scott about 682,900 U.S. jobs were "lost or displaced" as a result of the trade agreement. More recent studies agree with reports by the Congressional Research Service, that NAFTA only had a modest impact on manufacturing employment, and that automation explains 87% of the losses in manufacturing jobs.
According to a study in the Journal of International Economics, NAFTA reduced pollution emitted by the US manufacturing sector: "On average, nearly two-thirds of the reductions in PM10 and SO2 emissions from the U.S. manufacturing sector between 1994 and 1998 can be attributed to trade liberalization following NAFTA."
According to the Sierra Club, NAFTA contributed to large-scale, export-oriented farming, which led to the increased use of fossil fuels, pesticides and GMO. NAFTA also contributed to environmentally destructive mining practices in Mexico. It prevented Canada from effectively regulating its tar sands industry, and created new legal avenues for transnational corporations to fight environmental legislation. In some cases, environmental policy was neglected in the wake of trade liberalization; in other cases, NAFTA's measures for investment protection, such as Chapter 11, and measures against non-tariff trade barriers threatened to discourage more vigorous environmental policy. The most serious overall increases in pollution due to NAFTA were found in the base metals sector, the Mexican petroleum sector, and the transportation equipment sector in the United States and Mexico, but not in Canada.
According to the Department of Homeland Security Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, during fiscal year 2006 (i.e., October 2005 through September 2006), 73,880 foreign professionals (64,633 Canadians and 9,247 Mexicans) were admitted into the United States for temporary employment under NAFTA (i.e., in the TN status). Additionally, 17,321 of their family members (13,136 Canadians, 2,904 Mexicans, as well as a number of third-country nationals married to Canadians and Mexicans) entered the U.S. in the treaty national's dependent (TD) status. Because DHS counts the number of the new I-94 arrival records filled at the border, and the TN-1 admission is valid for three years, the number of non-immigrants in TN status present in the U.S. at the end of the fiscal year is approximately equal to the number of admissions during the year. (A discrepancy may be caused by some TN entrants leaving the country or changing status before their three-year admission period has expired, while other immigrants admitted earlier may change their status to TN or TD, or extend TN status granted earlier).
Canadian authorities estimated that on December 1, 2006, 24,830 U.S. citizens and 15,219 Mexican citizens were in Canada as "foreign workers". These numbers include both entrants under NAFTA and those who entered under other provisions of Canadian immigration law. New entries of foreign workers in 2006 totalled 16,841 U.S. citizens and 13,933 Mexicans.
We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It's pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory south of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, ... have no health care—that's the most expensive single element in making a car—have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.
... when [Mexico's] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals.
Perot ultimately lost the election, and the winner, Bill Clinton, supported NAFTA, which went into effect on January 1, 1994.
In 1996, the gasoline additive MMT was brought to Canada by Ethyl Corporation, an American company when the Canadian federal government banned imports of the additive. The American company brought a claim under NAFTA Chapter 11 seeking US$201 million, from the Canadian federal government as well as the Canadian provinces under the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT). They argued that the additive had not been conclusively linked to any health dangers, and that the prohibition was damaging to their company. Following a finding that the ban was a violation of the AIT, the Canadian federal government repealed the ban and settled with the American company for US$13 million. Studies by Health and Welfare Canada (now Health Canada) on the health effects of MMT in fuel found no significant health effects associated with exposure to these exhaust emissions. Other Canadian researchers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency disagreed citing studies that suggested possible nerve damage.
The United States and Canada have argued for years over the United States' 27% duty on Canadian softwood lumber imports. Canada filed many motions to have the duty eliminated and the collected duties returned to Canada. After the United States lost an appeal before a NAFTA panel, it responded by saying "We are, of course, disappointed with the [NAFTA panel's] decision, but it will have no impact on the anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders." (spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman) On July 21, 2006, the United States Court of International Trade found that imposition of the duties was contrary to U.S. law.
On October 30, 2007, American citizens Marvin and Elaine Gottlieb filed a Notice of Intent to Submit a Claim to Arbitration under NAFTA, claiming thousands of U.S. investors lost a total of $5 billion in the fall-out from the Conservative Government's decision the previous year to change the tax rate on income trusts in the energy sector. On April 29, 2009, a determination was made that this change in tax law was not expropriation.
Several studies have rejected NAFTA responsibility for depressing the incomes of poor corn farmers. The trend existed more than a decade before NAFTA existed. Also, maize production increased after 1994, and there wasn't a measurable impact on the price of Mexican corn because of subsidized corn from the United States. The studies agreed that the abolition of U.S. agricultural subsidies would benefit Mexican farmers.
Preparations for NAFTA included cancellation of Article 27 of Mexico's constitution, the cornerstone of Emiliano Zapata's revolution in 1910–1919. Under the historic Article 27, indigenous communal landholdings were protected from sale or privatization. However, this barrier to investment was incompatible with NAFTA. Indigenous farmers feared the loss of their remaining lands, and also feared cheap imports (substitutes) from the US. The Zapatistas labelled NAFTA a "death sentence" to indigenous communities all over Mexico. Then EZLN declared war on the Mexican state on January 1, 1994, the day NAFTA came into force.
Another contentious issue is the investor-state dispute settlement obligations contained in Chapter 11 of NAFTA. Chapter 11 allows corporations or individuals to sue Mexico, Canada or the United States for compensation when actions taken by those governments (or by those for whom they are responsible at international law, such as provincial, state, or municipal governments) violate international law.
This chapter has been criticized by groups in the United States, Mexico, and Canada for a variety of reasons, including not taking into account important social and environmental considerations. In Canada, several groups, including the Council of Canadians, challenged the constitutionality of Chapter 11. They lost at the trial level and have subsequently appealed.
Methanex Corporation, a Canadian corporation, filed a US$970 million suit against the United States because, it said, a California ban on Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), a substance that had found its way into many wells in the state, was hurtful to the corporation's sales of methanol. The claim was rejected, and the company was ordered to pay US$3 million to the U.S. government in costs, based on the following reasoning: "But as a matter of general international law, a non-discriminatory regulation for a public purpose, which is enacted in accordance with due process and, which affects, inter alios, a foreign investor or investment is not deemed expropriatory and compensable unless specific commitments had been given by the regulating government to the then putative foreign investor contemplating investment that the government would refrain from such regulation."
In another case, Metalclad, an American corporation, was awarded US$15.6 million from Mexico after a Mexican municipality refused a construction permit for the hazardous waste landfill it intended to construct in Guadalcázar, San Luis Potosí. The construction had already been approved by the federal government with various environmental requirements imposed (see paragraph 48 of the tribunal decision). The NAFTA panel found that the municipality did not have the authority to ban construction on the basis of its environmental concerns.
In Eli Lilly and Company v. Government of Canada the plaintiff presented a US$500 million claim for the way Canada requires usefulness in its drug patent legislation. Apotex is sued the U.S. for US$520 million because of opportunity it says it lost in an FDA generic drug decision.
Lone Pine Resources Inc. v. Government of Canada filed a US$250 million claim against Canada, accusing it of "arbitrary, capricious and illegal" behaviour, because Quebec intends to prevent fracking exploration under the St. Lawrence Seaway. Milos Barutciski, the lawyer for Lone Pine, has decried portrayals of his client as "another rapacious multinational challenging governments' ability to regulate for health, safety and the environment".
Lone Pine Resources is incorporated in Delaware but headquartered in Calgary, and had an initial public offering on the NYSE May 25, 2011, of 15 million shares each for $13, which raised US$195 million.
Barutciski acknowledged "that NAFTA and other investor-protection treaties create an anomaly in that Canadian companies that have also seen their permits rescinded by the very same Quebec legislation, which expressly forbids the paying of compensation, do not have the right (to) pursue a NAFTA claim", and that winning "compensation in Canadian courts for domestic companies in this case would be more difficult since the Constitution puts property rights in provincial hands".
A treaty with China would extend similar rights to Chinese investors, including SOEs.
NAFTA's Chapter 19 is a trade dispute mechanism which subjects antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) determinations to binational panel review instead of, or in addition to, conventional judicial review. For example, in the United States, review of agency decisions imposing antidumping and countervailing duties are normally heard before the U.S. Court of International Trade, an Article III court. NAFTA parties, however, have the option of appealing the decisions to binational panels composed of five citizens from the two relevant NAFTA countries. The panelists are generally lawyers experienced in international trade law. Since NAFTA does not include substantive provisions concerning AD/CVD, the panel is charged with determining whether final agency determinations involving AD/CVD conform with the country's domestic law. Chapter 19 is an anomaly in international dispute settlement since it does not apply international law, but requires a panel composed of individuals from many countries to re-examine the application of one country's domestic law.
A Chapter 19 panel is expected to examine whether the agency's determination is supported by "substantial evidence". This standard assumes significant deference to the domestic agency. Some of the most controversial trade disputes in recent years, such as the U.S.–Canada softwood lumber dispute, have been litigated before Chapter 19 panels.
Decisions by Chapter 19 panels can be challenged before a NAFTA extraordinary challenge committee. However, an extraordinary challenge committee does not function as an ordinary appeal. Under NAFTA, it will only vacate or remand a decision if the decision involves a significant and material error that threatens the integrity of the NAFTA dispute settlement system. Since January 2006, no NAFTA party has successfully challenged a Chapter 19 panel's decision before an extraordinary challenge committee.
In a 60 Minutes interview in September 2015, 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump called NAFTA "the single worst trade deal ever approved in [the United States]", and said that if elected, he would "either renegotiate it, or we will break it". Juan Pablo Castañón, president of the trade group Consejo Coordinador Empresarial, expressed concern about renegotiation and the willingness to focus on the car industry. A range of trade experts have said that pulling out of NAFTA would have a range of unintended consequences for the United States, including reduced access to its biggest export markets, a reduction in economic growth, and higher prices for gasoline, cars, fruits, and vegetables. Members of the private initiative in Mexico noted that to eliminate NAFTA, many laws must be adapted by the U.S. Congress. The move would also eventually result in legal complaints by the World Trade Organization. The Washington Post noted that a Congressional Research Service review of academic literature concluded that the "net overall effect of NAFTA on the U.S. economy appears to have been relatively modest, primarily because trade with Canada and Mexico accounts for a small percentage of U.S. GDP".
Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, called it "a continuation of other disastrous trade agreements, like NAFTA, CAFTA, and permanent normal trade relations with China". He believes that free trade agreements have caused a loss of American jobs and depressed American wages. Sanders has said that America needs to rebuild its manufacturing base using American factories for well-paying jobs for American labor rather than outsourcing to China and elsewhere.
Shortly after his election, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would begin renegotiating the terms of NAFTA, to resolve trade issues he had campaigned on. The leaders of Canada and Mexico have indicated their willingness to work with the Trump administration. Although vague on the exact terms he seeks in a renegotiated NAFTA, Trump threatened to withdraw from it if negotiations fail.
In July 2017, the Trump administration provided a detailed list of changes that it would like to see to NAFTA. The top priority was a reduction in the United States' trade deficit. The administration also called for the elimination of provisions that allowed Canada and Mexico to appeal duties imposed by the United States and limited the ability of the United States to impose import restrictions on Canada and Mexico. The list also alleged subsidized state-owned enterprises and currency manipulation.
According to Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Trump administration's list "is very consistent with the president's stance on liking trade barriers, liking protectionism. This makes NAFTA in many respects less of a free-trade agreement." The concerns expressed by the US Trade Representative over subsidized state-owned enterprises and currency manipulation are not thought to apply to Canada and Mexico, but rather to be designed to send a message to countries beyond North America. Jeffrey Schott of the Peterson Institute for International Economics noted that it would not be possible to conclude renegotiations quickly while also addressing all the concerns on the list. He also said that it would be difficult to do anything about trade deficits.
An October 2017 op-ed in Toronto's The Globe and Mail questioned whether the United States wanted to re-negotiate the agreement or planned to walk away from it no matter what, noting that newly appointed American ambassador Kelly Knight Craft is married to the owner of Alliance Resource Partners, a big US coal operation. Canada is implementing a carbon plan, and there is also the matter of a sale of Bombardier jets. "The Americans inserted so many poison pills into last week's talks in Washington that they should have been charged with murder", wrote the columnist, John Ibbitson.
"A number of the proposals that the United States has put on the table have little or no support from the U.S. business and agriculture community. It isn't clear who they're intended to benefit", said John Murphy, vice-president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Pat Roberts, the senior US senator from Kansas, called for an outcry against Trump anti-NAFTA moves, saying the "issues affect real jobs, real lives and real people". Kansas is a major agricultural exporter, and farm groups warn that just threatening to leave NAFTA might cause buyers to minimize uncertainty by seeking out non-US sources.
A fourth round of talks included a U.S. demand for a sunset clause that would end the agreement in five years, unless the three countries agreed to keep it in place, a provision U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has said would allow the countries to kill the deal if it was not working. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with the House Ways and Means Committee, since Congress would have to pass legislation rolling back the treaty's provisions if Trump tries to withdraw from the pact.
From June to late August 2018, Canada was sidelined as the United States and Mexico held bilateral talks. On 27 August 2018 Mexico and the United States announced they had reached a bilateral understanding on a revamped NAFTA trade deal that included provisions that would boost automobile production in the U.S., a 10-year data protection period against generic drug production on an expanded list of products that benefits pharmaceutical companies, particularly US makers producers of high-cost biologic drugs, a sunset clause—a 16-year expiration date with regular 6-year reviews to possibly renew the agreement for additional 16-year terms, and an increased de minimis threshold in which Mexico raised the de minimis value to $100 from $50 regarding online duty- and tax-free purchases. According to an August 30 article in The Economist, Mexico agreed to increase the rules of origin threshold which would mean that 75% as opposed to the previous 62.5% of a vehicle's components must be made in North America to avoid tariffs. Since car makers currently import less expensive components from Asia, under the revised agreement, consumers would pay more for vehicles. As well, approximately 40 to 45 per cent of vehicle components must be made by workers earning a minimum of US$16 per hour, in contrast to the current US$2.30 an hour that a worker earns on average in a Mexican car manufacturing plant. The Economist described this as placing "Mexican carmaking into a straitjacket".
Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that they were willing to join the agreement if it was in Canada's interests. Freeland returned from her European diplomatic tour early, cancelling a planned visit to Ukraine, to participate in NAFTA negotiations in Washington, D.C. in late August. According to an August 31 Canadian Press published in the Ottawa Citizen, key issues under debate included supply management, Chapter 19, pharmaceuticals, cultural exemption, the sunset clause, and de minimis thresholds.
On September 30, 2018, the day of the deadline for the Canada–U.S. negotiations, a preliminary deal between the two countries was reached, thus preserving the trilateral pact when the Trump administration submits the agreement before Congress. The new name for the agreement will be the "United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement" (USMCA).
Following Donald Trump's election to the presidency, a range of trade experts have said that pulling out of NAFTA as Trump proposed would have a range of unintended consequences for the U.S., including reduced access to the U.S.'s biggest export markets, a reduction in economic growth, and increased prices for gasoline, cars, fruits, and vegetables. The worst affected sectors would be textiles, agriculture and automobiles.
According to Tufts University political scientist Daniel W. Drezner, the Trump administration's desire to return relations with Mexico to the pre-NAFTA era are misguided. Drezner argues that NAFTA made it easier for Mexico to transform to a real democracy and become a country that views itself as North American. If Trump acts on many of the threats that he has made against Mexico, it is not inconceivable that Mexicans would turn to left-wing populist strongmen, as several South American countries have. At the very least, US-Mexico relations would worsen, with adverse implications for cooperation on border security, counterterrorism, drug-war operations, deportations and managing Central American migration.
According to Chad P. Bown (senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics), "a renegotiated NAFTA that would reestablish trade barriers is unlikely to help workers who lost their jobs—regardless of the cause—take advantage of new employment opportunities".
According to Harvard economist Marc Melitz, "recent research estimates that the repeal of NAFTA would not increase car production in the United States". Melitz notes that this would cost manufacturing jobs.
If the original Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) had come into effect, existing agreements such as NAFTA would be reduced to those provisions that do not conflict with the TPP, or that require greater trade liberalization than the TPP. However, only Canada and Mexico will have the prospect of becoming members of the TPP after U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in January 2017. In May 2017, the 11 remaining members of the TPP, including Canada and Mexico, agreed to proceed with a revised version of the trade deal without U.S. participation.
The American public is largely divided on its view of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with a wide partisan gap in beliefs. In a February 2018 Gallup Poll, 48% of Americans said NAFTA was good for the U.S., while 46% said it was bad.
According to a journal from the Law and Business Review of the Americas (LBRA), U.S. public opinion of NAFTA centers around three issues: NAFTA's impact on the creation or destruction of American jobs, NAFTA's impact on the environment, and NAFTA's impact on immigrants entering the U.S.
After President Trump's election in 2016, support for NAFTA has become very polarized between Republicans and Democrats. Donald Trump expressed negative views of NAFTA, calling it "the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country". Republican support for NAFTA has decreased from 43% support in 2008 to 34% in 2017. Meanwhile, Democrat support for NAFTA has increased from 41% support in 2008 to 71% in 2017.
The political gap is especially large in concern to views on free trade with Mexico. As opposed to a favorable view of free trade with Canada, whom 79% of American describe as a fair trade partner, only 47% of Americans believe Mexico practices fair trade. The gap widens between Democrats and Republicans: 60% of Democrats believe Mexico is practicing fair trade, while only 28% of Republicans do. This is the highest level from Democrats and the lowest level from Republicans ever recorded by the Chicago Council Survey. Republicans have more negative views of Canada as a fair trade partner than Democrats as well.
NAFTA has strong support from young Americans. In a February 2017 Gallup poll, 73% of Americans aged 18–29 said NAFTA was good for the U.S, showing higher support than any other U.S. age group. It also has slightly stronger support from unemployed Americans than from employed Americans. The issue of NAFTA continues to remain a predominantly divisive issue.
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^ Government of Canada, Foreign Affairs Trade and Development Canada. "Eli Lilly and Company v. Government of Canada". Retrieved January 20, 2017.
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^ a b Gonzales, Lilia (November 14, 2016). "El Economista".
^ Eric Martin, Trump Killing NAFTA Could Mean Big Unintended Consequences for the U.S., Bloomberg Business (October 1, 2015).
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^ "Canada, Mexico talked before making NAFTA overture to Trump". Retrieved April 3, 2018.
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^ "U.S. makes lower trade deficit top priority in NAFTA talks". Reuters. July 18, 2017. Retrieved July 18, 2017.
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Maxwell A. Cameron, Brian W. Tomlin (2002) The making of NAFTA: how the deal was done. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8781-1.
Poynter. 2018. Everything you should know about North American trade, in 8 fact checks.
Text of the agreement, on the official website of the NAFTA Secretariat.
NaftaNow.org, jointly developed by the Governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States of America.
Abbott, Frederick M. North American Free Trade Agreement, Case Law (Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law).
A Place Called Chiapas is a 1998 Canadian documentary film of first-hand accounts of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) the (Zapatista Army of National Liberation or Zapatistas) and the lives of its soldiers and the people for whom they fight. Director Nettie Wild takes the viewer to rebel territory in the southwestern Mexican state of Chiapas, where the EZLN live and evade the Mexican Army.
The Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) headquartered in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, is a binational organization created in 1994 by the Federal Governments of the United States of America and Mexico under a side-agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). BECC along with its sister-institution the North American Development Bank (NADB), established by the same agreement and headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, USA, are charged with helping to improve the environmental conditions of the Mexico–United States border region in order to advance the well-being of residents in both nations. The scope of their mandate and the specific functions of each institution are defined in the agreement between the two governments (the "Charter"), as amended in August 2004.
The CANAMEX corridor is a series of improvements to freeways and other transportation infrastructure linking Canada to Mexico through the United States. The corridor was established under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Currently the corridor is defined by a series of highways. However, the corridor is also proposed for use by railroads and fiber optic telecommunications infrastructure.
Cultural protectionism in Canada has, since the mid-20th century, taken the form of conscious, interventionist attempts on the part of various Governments of Canada to promote Canadian cultural production and limit the effect of foreign culture on the domestic audience. Sharing a large border and a common language with the United States, Canadian politicians have perceived the need to preserve and support a culture separate from US-based North American culture in the globalized media arena. Canada's efforts to maintain its cultural differences from the US and Mexico have been balanced by countermeasures in trade arrangements, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC; Spanish: Comisión para la Cooperación Ambiental; French: Commission de coopération environnementale) was established by Canada, Mexico, and the United States to implement the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), the environmental side accord to the North American Free Trade Agreement. The CEC's mission is to facilitate cooperation and public participation to foster conservation, protection and enhancement of the North American environment for the benefit of present and future generations, in the context of increasing economic, trade and social links among Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Integration is a political and economic agreement among countries that gives preference to member countries to the agreement. General integration can be achieved in three different approachable ways: through the World Trade Organization (WTO), bilateral integration, and regional integration. In bilateral integration, only two countries economically cooperate with one another, whereas in regional integration, several countries within the same geographic distance become joint to form organizations such as the European Union (EU) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Indeed, factors of mobility like capital, technology and labour are indicating strategies for cross-national integration along with those mentioned above.
The economy of North America comprises more than 579 million people (8% of the world population) in its 23 sovereign states and 15 dependent territories. It is marked by a sharp division between the predominantly English speaking countries of Canada and the United States, which are among the wealthiest and most developed nations in the world, and countries of Central America and the Caribbean in the former Latin America that are less developed. Mexico and Caribbean nations of the Commonwealth of Nations are between the economic extremes of the development of North America.
Mexico lies in between these two extremes as a newly industrialized country (NIC), and is a part of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), being one of the only two Latin American members of this organisation (together with Chile). The United States is by far the largest economy in North America and the largest national economy in the world.
The US, Canada and Mexico have significant and multifaceted economic systems. In 2011, the US has an estimated per capita gross domestic product (PPP) of $47,200, and is the most technologically developed economy in North America. The United States' services sector comprises 76.7% of the country's GDP (estimated in 2010), industry comprises 22.2% and agriculture comprises 1.2%.Canada's economic trends are similar to that of the United States, with significant growth in the sectors of services, mining and manufacturing. Canada's GDP (PPP) was estimated at $39,400 in 2010. Canada's services sector comprises 78% of the country's GDP (estimated in 2010), industry comprises 20% and agriculture comprises 2%.Mexico has a GDP (PPP) of $15,312, and per capital income is estimated at approximately one-third of the United States'. The country has both modern and outdated industrial and agricultural facilities and operations, and is modernizing in sectors such as energy production, telecommunications and airports.
Canada is regularly described as a trading nation as its total trade is worth more than two-thirds of its GDP (the second highest level in the G7 after Germany). Of that total trade, roughly 75% is done with countries which are part of free-trade agreements with Canada, primarily the United States through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). By the end of 2014, Canada bilateral trade hit C$1 trillion for the first time.The North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico came into force on January 1, 1994, creating the largest free-trade region in the world by GDP. By 2014, the combined GDP for the NAFTA area was estimated to be over C$20 trillion with a market encompassing 474 million people. Building on that success, Canada continues to negotiate and has concluded free-trade agreements with more than 40 countries, most recently with South Korea, which represents Canada's first FTA with a partner in the Asia-Pacific region. As of 2018, Canada has also concluded two other significant multilateral trade agreements: the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Union and the eleven-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) with ten other Pacific Rim countries. On 21 September 2017, CETA was provisionally applied, immediately eliminating 98 per cent of EU's tariff lines on Canadian goods. Canada currently has free trade agreements in force with all other G7 countries. Free trade with the final G7 country, Japan, commenced when the CPTPP entered into force on 30 December 2018.
The "giant sucking sound" was United States presidential candidate Ross Perot's phrase for what he believed would be the negative effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he opposed.
North American Free Trade Agreement's impact on United States employment has been the object of ongoing debate since the 1994 inception of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico. NAFTA's proponents believe that more jobs were ultimately created in the USA. Opponents see the agreements as having been costly to well-paying American jobs.
The NAFTA superhighway is a term sometimes used informally to refer to certain existing and proposed highways intended to link Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Although the term has not been used publicly by governments in an official policy context, there are some dissident beliefs about this appellation that are associated with conspiracy theories regarding alleged secret plans to undermine U.S. sovereignty. Development of these routes is supported by the North American SuperCorridor Coalition as part of a NASCO Corridor. These include Interstate 35 from Laredo, Texas to the Canadian border that downgrades to a non-freeway route ending at Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Interstate 29, a spur that also downgrades to a regular highway at the border and continues to Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The term is also sometimes used to describe some additional partly-built or proposed highways and supercorridors which are intended to connect the road systems of the three nations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trade bloc. One of these is Interstate 69 that is mostly complete from the Canada–US border at Port Huron, Michigan to western Kentucky. In Canada, Ontario Highway 402 and other freeways in the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor can be considered a northeastward extension of this version the NAFTA superhighway. To the southwest, from western Kentucky to the Mexican border, there is currently no single superhighway yet completed. Pending completion of I-69, the main highway links to Mexico follow parts of US routes 45 and 51 from Kentucky to western Tennessee, I-155 from Tennessee to Missouri, parts of Interstates 55 and 40 from Missouri to Arkansas, and I-30 from Arkansas to the Texas stretch of I-35 that continues south to the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas. The uncompleted section of I-69 south of Kentucky is expected to eventually continue southwestward to the Texas Gulf Coast. It will have a spur linking to the original Pan-American route through Mexico to Laredo, and additional branches extending to the Mexican spurs that cross the border at Pharr, Texas, and Brownsville, Texas.
The CANAMEX Corridor is another major route that links the three NAFTA countries. It includes Mexican Federal Highway 15, American I-19 and I-15, and Alberta highway 2. The route is sometimes referenced as part of the NAFTA superhighway concept, but it already has a name of its own. Interstate 94 is an important east-west freeway that indirectly links the CANAMEX Corridor with the I-29 and I-35 routes of the 'NAFTA Superhighway' and the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor. The Canadian route links with the I-69 and I-94 freeways at the same Port Huron border crossing.
NAFTA is an acronym for the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) is an environmental agreement between the United States of America, Canada and Mexico as a side-treaty of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The agreement came into effect January 1, 1994.The agreement consists of a declaration of principles and objectives concerning conservation and the protection of the environment as well as concrete measures to further cooperation on these matters between the three countries. Part Three of the NAAEC establishes the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), which was set up as part of the agreement. The structure of the CEC is composed of the Council, which is the governing body, a Secretariat based in Montreal and the Joint Public Advisory Committee.
Prosec (Program of Sectoral Promotion) is a program started by the Mexican government after the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to overcome the challenges faced by international factories (maquiladoras)) in Mexico resulting from NAFTA article 3. Article 3 states that no NAFTA member can waive or reduce import tariffs conditioned upon the export of the finished good to another NAFTA country. The result was that after Mexico joined NAFTA the tariff rates for many of the raw materials used by maquiladora manufacturing companies would have risen significantly, particularly for goods of Chinese origin.
Prosec is a tariff-reduction measure that avoids running into problems with NAFTA article 3 by allowing either foreign or domestic producers, irrespective of whether the finished good is intended for exportation or domestic sale, to petition the government for a reduction or elimination of a tariff rate.
The U.S. Sugar program is the federal commodity support program that maintains a minimum price for sugar, authorized by the 2002 farm bill (P.L. 107-171, Sec. 1401-1403) to cover the 2002-2007 crops of sugar beets and sugarcane.
(3) limiting the amount of sugar that processors can sell domestically (under marketing allotments) when imports are below 1.532 million short tons.Import restrictions are intended to meet U.S. commitments under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture. Processor and refiner marketing allotments are set by USDA according to statutory requirements. Marketing allotments and new payment-in-kind authority are designed to help the USDA meet the no-cost-requirements to the federal government by avoiding the forfeiture of sugar put under loan. Other parts of the new program can include a storage loan program for sugar processors, and reduced (by 1%) the USDA interest rate charged on sugar loans.
After it officially went into effect on January 1, 1994, U.S. public opinion on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has varied over time.Early public opinion on NAFTA was ambivalent, where a plurality of polled Americans was either unsure about NAFTA or did not have an opinion about NAFTA. As public opinion on NAFTA evolved, there were intermittent shifts in polls and surveys between support and opposition for NAFTA. However, support or opposition to NAFTA was frequently out of a plurality, as there was regularly a significant portion of respondents that were unsure about NAFTA and or did not have a substantial opinion on NAFTA.Notably, during the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump became a briefly polarizing force on public opinion about NAFTA, where negative views of NAFTA not only proliferated among Republican voters, but also the general population.Broadly, present public opinion on NAFTA is positive, with recent surveys finding that a majority of Americans viewing NAFTA as good for the U.S. economy. However, to note, public opinion towards NAFTA greatly fluctuated when survey data was organized into different categories (e.g. political party, level of education).Currently, accessible public opinion scholarship on NAFTA is scarce with two studies done in the late 1990s. Each examined two different aspects about public opinion on NAFTA. On one hand, Jeffrey E. Cohen—a professor of political science at Fordham University—observed if NAFTA was a case of how well public opinion was taken into consideration by presidents. On the other hand, Eric M. Uslaner—a professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland—College Park—studied whether or not the case of NAFTA demonstrated that shifts in public opinion are in response to major events.
The Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada is a signed but not ratified free trade agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States. It is referred to differently by each signatory—in the United States, it is called the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA); in Canada, it is officially known as the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) in English (though generally referred to as "USMCA" in English-language Canadian media) and the Accord Canada–États-Unis–Mexique (ACEUM) in French; and in Mexico, it is called the Tratado entre México, Estados Unidos y Canadá (T-MEC). The agreement is sometimes referred to as "New NAFTA" in reference to the previous trilateral agreement it is meant to supersede, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The Agreement is the result of a 2017–2018 renegotiation of NAFTA by its member states, which informally agreed to the terms on September 30, 2018, and formally on October 1. The USMCA was signed by United States President Donald Trump, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on November 30, 2018 as a side event of the 2018 G20 Summit in Buenos Aires. Each country's legislature still must ratify the agreement.
Compared to NAFTA, USMCA increases environmental and labor regulations, and incentivizes more domestic production of cars and trucks. The agreement also provides updated intellectual property protections, gives the United States more access to Canada's dairy market, imposes a quota for Canadian and Mexican automotive production, and increases the duty free limit for Canadians who buy U.S. goods online from $20 to $150. |
0.933676 | The Dōngzhì Festival is one of the most important festivals celebrated by the Chinese and other East Asians during the Dongzhi solar term on or around December 22 when sunshine is weakest and daylight shortest.
How do Chinese celebrate the Winter Solstice?
Sunday marks the winter solstice of 2013. The Northern Hemisphere will have its longest night and shortest day in the year. The Winter Solstice is an astronomical phenomenon as well as a traditional holiday in many cultures. The Chinese tradition of celebrating dates back some 2,000 years. For many, it's nearly as important as the Spring Festival, or the Chinese New Year. |
0.991331 | Aside from the latent typing, the major source of constraints on a Scheme implementation's data representation is the garbage collector. The collector must be able to traverse every live object in the heap, to determine which objects are not live.
There are many ways to implement this, but Guile uses an algorithm called mark and sweep. The collector scans the system's global variables and the local variables on the stack to determine which objects are immediately accessible by the C code. It then scans those objects to find the objects they point to, et cetera. The collector sets a mark bit on each object it finds, so each object is traversed only once. This process is called tracing.
When the collector can find no unmarked objects pointed to by marked objects, it assumes that any objects that are still unmarked will never be used by the program (since there is no path of dereferences from any global or local variable that reaches them) and deallocates them.
In the above paragraphs, we did not specify how the garbage collector finds the global and local variables; as usual, there are many different approaches. Frequently, the programmer must maintain a list of pointers to all global variables that refer to the heap, and another list (adjusted upon entry to and exit from each function) of local variables, for the collector's benefit.
The list of global variables is usually not too difficult to maintain, since global variables are relatively rare. However, an explicitly maintained list of local variables (in the author's personal experience) is a nightmare to maintain. Thus, Guile uses a technique called conservative garbage collection, to make the local variable list unnecessary.
The trick to conservative collection is to treat the stack as an ordinary range of memory, and assume that every word on the stack is a pointer into the heap. Thus, the collector marks all objects whose addresses appear anywhere in the stack, without knowing for sure how that word is meant to be interpreted.
Obviously, such a system will occasionally retain objects that are actually garbage, and should be freed. In practice, this is not a problem. The alternative, an explicitly maintained list of local variable addresses, is effectively much less reliable, due to programmer error.
Every heap object has a two-word header, called a cell. Some objects, like pairs, fit entirely in a cell's two words; others may store pointers to additional memory in either of the words. For example, strings and vectors store their length in the first word, and a pointer to their elements in the second.
Guile allocates whole arrays of cells at a time, called heap segments. These segments are always allocated so that the cells they contain fall on eight-byte boundaries, or whatever is appropriate for the machine's word size. Guile keeps all cells in a heap segment initialized, whether or not they are currently in use.
Guile maintains a sorted table of heap segments.
Thus, given any random word w fetched from the stack, Guile's garbage collector can consult the table to see if w falls within a known heap segment, and check w's alignment. If both tests pass, the collector knows that w is a valid pointer to a cell, intentional or not, and proceeds to trace the cell.
Note that heap segments do not contain all the data Guile uses; cells for objects like vectors and strings contain pointers to other memory areas. However, since those pointers are internal, and not shared among many pieces of code, it is enough for the collector to find the cell, and then use the cell's type to find more pointers to trace. |
0.999931 | There are many evils in the world, but extinguishing people's lives with targeted, extra-judicial killings, when you don't even know their names, based on "patterns" of behavior judged from thousands of miles away, definitely ranks high on the list. Although the Obama White House has not approved of this request from CIA Director David Petraeus, these so-called "signature strikes" that "allow the agency to hit targets based solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior" are already robustly used in Pakistan -- having been started by George Bush in 2008 and aggressively escalated by Barack Obama. There is much to say on this new report, but in order for me to focus on three discrete points, permit me to highly recommend two superb articles that highlight other vital aspects of this policy: (1) this article from my Salon colleague Jefferson Morley this morning on why this form of drone-targeting is pure American Terrorism, and (2) this essay from Chris Floyd about a recently published Rolling Stone article by Michael Hastings on Obama's love of drones and secret wars and how the military's slang for drone victims -- "bug splat" -- reflects the sociopathic mindset that drive them.
Initially, it's critical to note how removed all of these questions are from democratic debate or accountability, thanks to the Obama administration's insistence that even the basic question of whether the CIA has a drone program is too secret to permit it to publicly acknowledge, even though everyone knows it exists -- especially in the countries where it routinely kills people. Recall that Obama officials refused to tell the ACLU, in response to a FOIA request, whether any documents relating to a CIA drone program even exist because even that is too much of a secret to address, and when the ACLU then sued the Obama administration -- seeking the most basic information about why the Obama administration thinks it has the power to kill people this way and how it decides who will die -- the Obama DOJ again insisted in court that it cannot even acknowledge that such a program exists, let alone provide any basic disclosure or transparency about it.
So here we have this incredibly consequential policy adopted in total secrecy by the Obama administration, one that empowers the President to secretly target people, including American citizens, for instant, due-process-free death. They have placed the policy beyond the rule of law -- by insisting that it's too secret for courts to examine -- and shielded it completely from democratic debate. The only time we are permitted even to hear about it is when the President, his aides and loyalists politically exploit the corpses they create by strutting around with chest-beating, tough-guy boasting about how Strong it shows Obama to be (because, really, what is more courageous, more embodying of the noble American warrior spirit, than killing people by remote-controlled video game while the killers are ensconced in secure bunkers in the U.S.?).
In the 21st century, the United States is convinced that one of the most significant divisions among nations will not be north/south, east/west, religious, or any other category so much as whether they are open or closed societies. We believe that countries with open governments, open economies, and open societies will increasingly flourish. They will become more prosperous, healthier, more secure, and more peaceful. . . .
I know we don’t need to make the case for openness to you. You’re here. But what we have to do is make a convincing case that those of us who have joined up to the Open Government Partnership really mean what we say. It’s not enough to assert that we are committed to openness. We have to deliver on the commitments that we have made.
Let me mention a few examples of how that is already occurring. . . . I want to commend the Slovak Republic and Montenegro for also introducing whistle-blowing protection laws to ensure that those who expose corruption are not punished or harmed. . . .
These initiatives are designed to reduce corruption because we know corruption kills a country’s potential. It drains resources. It protects dishonest leaders. It takes away people’s drive to improve themselves or their communities. So the cure for corruption is openness, and by belonging to the Open Government Partnership, every country here is sending a message to their own people that we will stand for openness. And we’re going to hold ourselves accountable. . .
Last week, the Obama administration indicted its 7th whistleblower on charges of espionage -- more than double the number of such cases under all prior Presidents combined -- and it continues to insist that its CIA drone program is too secret even to acknowledge for purposes of court cases or public debate, even as it boasts of that same program on the front pages of newspapers. That's apparently what Clinton means when she trumpets the "global ethos of accountability and transparency."
From Pakistan to Yemen to post-American Iraq, drones often spark deep resentment where they operate. When they do attack, they kill as brutally as any weapon of war. The administration’s practice of classifying the strikes as secret only exacerbates local anger and suspicion. Under Obama, drone strikes have become too frequent, too unilateral, and too much associated with the heavy-handed use of American power.
Rohde also noted: "after promising to make counterterrorism operations more transparent and rein in executive power, Obama has arguably done the opposite, maintaining secrecy and expanding presidential authority." Last night, in response to this Post article, Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen wrote: "At some point - as the bombs continues to fall - people are going to come to the conclusion that Yemen is under western military attack" and "signature strikes in Yemen could easily expand the war well beyond one the US could ever kill its way out of." He observed that "signature strikes" are likely to kill far more civilians since "in Yemen just because it has a beard, carries a gun, and talks about Islamic law doesn't mean its al-Qaeda" and then asked: "If US has been carrying out strikes in Yemen since Dec. 2009 then why does AQAP keep getting stronger?"
In late 2009, an Obama-approved attack with Tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs killed dozens of innocent Yemenis, including 21 children. In May, 2010, a U.S. drone attack killed a popular Deputy Governor of a Yemeni province. In October of last year, two weeks after Obama successfully ordered the death of U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki, a U.S. drone strike killed his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman (today's Post article asserted, seemingly without any basis, that that killing was "inadvertent," even though the alleged target was apparently nowhere near the scene). It's not hard to imagine what ordinary Yemenis think of the U.S., and whether they'd be more sypmathetic to Al Qaeda's message after all of this.
So here we have -- yet again -- the U.S. doing more than anyone else could to increase the threat of Terrorism with the very policies it claims are necessary to combat Terrorism. It's impossible to know whether that outcome is a feature or a bug for U.S. policy makers, but what is certain is that the threat that continues to fuel impenetrable American secrecy, massive erosions of civil liberties, the proliferation of the Surveillance State, and the ongoing expansion of endless war and militarism, is the very same threat which the American National Security State -- as it well knows -- is primarily responsible for sustaining with its actions.
A recent poll shows that most Democrats overwhelmingly support the drone program, and Congress passed a law in February that calls for the Federal Aviation Administration to "accelerate the integration of unmanned aerial systems" in the skies over America. Drones, which are already used to fight wildfires out West and keep an eye on the Mexican border, may soon be used to spy on U.S. citizens at home: Police in Miami and Houston have reportedly tested them for domestic use, and their counterparts in New York are also eager to deploy them.
Indeed, one Obama-loyal writer at a popular Democratic blog -- echoed by another -- recently explained that he has little interest "in civil liberties" and what he euphemistically called "a less bellicose foreign policy." That's because he instead "is primarily interested in the well-being of the American middle-class" -- not poor brown Muslims in Yemen whose children are being wiped out of existence by the Democratic Nobel Peace Prize winner whom he adores -- as well racism on U.S. soil (but not, obviously, outside of it). To the extent Democratic groups talk about any of these things at all, it is, disgustingly, to hail them as glorious "Obama foreign policy successes." Put another way, there is now about as much objection to these ongoing policies of rampant slaughter, secrecy and lawlessness in most Democratic and progressive venues as there was at The Weekly Standard and Fox News during the Bush years (though at least The Weekly Standard and Fox are consistent and intellectually honest about it: they supported these things under Bush and now do the same under Obama).
It's unclear whether Obama will approve Petraeus' request for the use of "signature strikes" in Yemen, so most Democrats will avoid taking a position until that happens (I still so fondly recall when Democratic partisans cheered Obama for transparency when he announced he'd disclose torture photos in the possession of the U.S., then cheered him again for Protecting Our Troops when, two weeks later, Obama reversed himself and said he would instead conceal the photos). But whatever else is true, the policies of rampant drone slaughter -- and the secrecy and radical executive power theories that shield them from legal and political scrutiny -- are well entrenched, now more so than ever. |
0.999946 | Older adults (OA) need to make many important and difficult decisions. Often, there are too many options available to explore exhaustively, creating the ubiquitous tradeoff between exploration and exploitation. How do OA make these complex tradeoffs? We investigated age-related shifts in solving exploration-exploitation tradeoffs depending on the complexity of the choice environment. Participants played four and eight option bandit problems with numbers of gambles and average rewards available on the screen. OA reliably performed worse in a more complex choice environment and were also more deviant from an optimality model (Thompson sampling), which keeps track of uncertainty beyond just the mean or last reward. OA seem to process important information in more complex choice environments sub-optimally, suggesting limited representations of future rewards. This interpretation fits to multiple contexts in the complex cognitive aging literature, in particular to the context of challenges in the maintenance of goal-directed learning. |
0.999999 | With so many climate change stories in the news these days, what's an owner of a medium-size or small business to do? There's a lot of talk about what governments and large, global companies are doing to climate-ready their businesses, but fewer tips for smaller businesses.
market changes including energy and other resource cost increases, new provisions to "green" your lease terms, or shifts in workforce and consumer valuation of sustainability practices.
While the scale of these risks is certainly smaller in terms of overall costs/revenue/GDP, the relative risk to each business can be significant, even making the difference between thriving or going under.
Here are 5 things any business owner or leader can do to take action on climate change and make their business more resilient.
Know your climate impacts: How much energy do you use to run your business? How much do you pay for your energy? How climate-intensive are your other business purchases and operations?
Assess your climate risks: How might climate-related physical, regulatory or market changes impact your supply chain, employees, sales, delivery and other business operations?
Make a plan to reduce the impacts and mitigate the risks: Tackle the low-hanging fruit first before moving onto the bigger challenges. Increase energy efficiency, integrate more climate-friendly supplies and process improvements, and explore using cleaner energy sources.
Measure your climate emissions reductions and cost savings: Be sure to measure both the environmental reductions and associated costs and savings. Allocate some of the costs savings for longer-term investments to make your business more sustainable and climate adaptive.
Communicate with your employees, customers, investors, vendors and community about #1-4. It's important to talk with all your key stakeholders about what you're doing (and why) to make your business more resilient. |
0.977537 | First, wash the squash. Two reasons. If there's something yucky-gucky on the squash's skin, just cutting into it with your knife will transfer the yuck-guck to the part you will eat.... To microwave butternut squash, poke holes into the skin and flesh with a fork. Slice the top and bottom of the squash off, then microwave the squash for roughly 3 1/2 minutes. Let the squash cool,... Slice the top and bottom of the squash off, then microwave the squash for roughly 3 1/2 minutes.
Partially baking makes cutting and peeling a butternut squash so much easier. Just follow the easy steps below. Just follow the easy steps below. To partially bake a butternut squash, you can either cut it in half lengthwise (if you own a sharp knife, but if not just wrap the entire thing in foil, put in a casserole dish, and bake at 375º F. for 35 to 55 minutes, depending on the size of the how to cut cake layers straight Step 5: Peel the entire outside of the squash and put the peelings in the plastic bag. Step 6: Cut your squash into thin strips. The wider parts of the squash will be curve-shaped like above; just slice off the stringy parts and simply cut those into cubes.
Now, you can dice it up and microwave, bake, or boil it. This particular batch I microwaved and then pureed. If you want to bake it, just toss it with a little olive oil and then lay out on a This particular batch I microwaved and then pureed.
Step 5: Peel the entire outside of the squash and put the peelings in the plastic bag. Step 6: Cut your squash into thin strips. The wider parts of the squash will be curve-shaped like above; just slice off the stringy parts and simply cut those into cubes. |
0.999999 | This is example text for the description text. This is my boss, Jonathan Hart, a self-made millionaire, he's quite a guy. This is Mrs H., she's gorgeous, she's one lady who knows how to take care of herself. By the way, my name is Max. I take care of both of them, which ain't easy, 'cause when they met it was MURDER! Knight Rider, a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. Michael Knight, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless in a world of criminals who operate above the law. Just the good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm. Beats all you've ever saw, been in trouble with the law since the day they was born. Straight'nin' the curve, flat'nin' the hills. Someday the mountain might get 'em, but the law never will. Makin' their way, the only way they know how, that's just a little bit more than the law will allow. Just good ol' boys, wouldn't change if they could, fightin' the system like a true modern day Robin Hood. This is my boss, Jonathan Hart, a self-made millionaire, he's quite a guy. This is Mrs H., she's gorgeous, she's one lady who knows how to take care of herself. By the way, my name is Max. I take care of both of them, which ain't easy, 'cause when they met it was MURDER! Knight Rider, a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. Michael Knight, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless in a world of criminals who operate above the law. Just the good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm. Beats all you've ever saw, been in trouble with the law since the day they was born. Straight'nin' the curve, flat'nin' the hills. Someday the mountain might get 'em, but the law never will. Makin' their way, the only way they know how, that's just a little bit more than the law will allow. Just good ol' boys, wouldn't change if they could, fightin' the system like a true modern day Robin Hood. |
0.970407 | There are countless benefits of eating healthy, and while it can be a challenge to change your lifestyle, it will be worth it in the end!
Eating healthy should typically include a balanced intake of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. The definition of eating healthy can be subjective, depending on who you’re listening to. However, most experts agree that eating healthy means eating with a raised awareness of the food you are ingesting, and of what effects it will have on your body. As modern diets have become increasingly processed, many people no longer consume the wide spectrum of vitamins and minerals needed for optimum health.
The most important benefits of eating healthy include its effects on your immune system, weight loss, heart health, metabolism, and longevity.
A well-balanced diet is considered to be one that not only provides adequate energy for the day but also delivers the nutrients your body needs to maintain health and prevent illness. Many people suffer deficiencies in vitamins A, B, C, and E, as well as minerals like zinc and magnesium. A healthy diet also promotes a healthy body weight, which can prevent many diseases that occur in middle-aged and elderly populations.
A diet rich in whole grains and vegetables, with low dairy and low fat, has been shown to help prevent heart disease by reducing high blood pressure and cholesterol. It also helps in preventing diabetes.
A high-calcium diet, with adequate sources of vitamin D and magnesium, is essential for strong bones and teeth and helps slow the bone deterioration that occurs with age.
A healthy diet especially rich in fiber is also an effective way of reducing obesity. You can add vegetables and fruits that are high in fiber and lose the excess pounds easily.
Of course, when your body is healthier, you live longer. In combination with daily exercise, healthy, low-calorie diets help people extend both their lifespans and their quality of life, as well as avoiding higher healthcare costs as they age.
Healthy eating habits not only help you live longer and avoid increasing health concerns, but they also make you feel better. A protein-rich diet reduces stress by lowering cortisol levels. Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids also help lower the risk of depression and regulate moods. Finally, a proper nutrient intake will also help increase focus and productivity, thanks to increased oxygen flow, energy, and clarity.
Note: There are no side effects to eating healthy. However, as a result of the wealth of conflicting health information available to consumers, it is important to check with a medical professional before making major changes to your diet and nutritional intake. |
0.944464 | care tips for african masks?
I have close to 30 houseplants all healthy. However, I have killed 3 African masks and none of the tips I've gotten online have helped. As this is a favorite plant in my family, any information would be appreciated.
African Masks are a type of caladium. They like bright indirect light, consistently damp soil and high humidity. In my experience, what typically kills African Masks is a lack of humidity. If you feel that they are getting enough humidity, light might be the issue.
For me, these plants do best if they spend some time outdoors in the summer in a shady spot. |
0.999998 | Microsoft has recently made some updates to their SkyDrive online storage option that makes the service much easier to work with. In addition to offering more free storage than most of the other popular cloud storage services, you can now get a SkyDrive folder in Windows 7 to easily manage the files that you have uploaded to your SkyDrive. If you are familiar with Dropbox, then you might recognize this feature as something that Dropbox also offers. However, due to the increased storage capabilities offered by SkyDrive (new users can get 7 GB of storage, while existing users can upgrade to 25 GB for a limited time) you might find SkyDrive to be a superior solution for your cloud storage needs.
If you have not already created a Windows Live ID, that is the first step necessary to get a SkyDrive folder in Windows 7. Creating a Windows Live ID is a free process, so follow this link to create your account. Once you have completed the process of creating your Windows Live ID, you then need to go to the SkyDrive page and sign in with the Windows Live ID that you just created. You will then see a page that looks like the image below.
Click the Get the SkyDrive App for your PC or Mac in the blue section at the top of the window to download the SkyDrive folder in Windows 7. This will take you to the download page for the SkyDrive folder, where you will need to click the Get the app button under SkyDrive for Windows. You will note that there are also other options, such as SkyDrive for phones and SkyDrive for Mac. If you wish to install a SkyDrive folder on any of these devices, simply navigate to this page from that device to download the appropriate app.
After you click the Get the app option under SkyDrive for Windows, you will be redirected to another page where you must click the Download button at the center of the window.
Click the Run button to download the SkyDriveSetup.exe file, which will launch automatically after the download is complete.
Once the SkyDrive installation process has completed, you are only a few short steps from getting the SkyDrive folder in Windows 7. The screen shown below will appear on your screen once the installation has completed, so click the Get started button at the bottom-right corner of the window.
After you click the Next button, you will be shown a screen that informs you that if you want to have the files on this computer available to you on other devices, check the box to the left of Make files on this PC available to me on my other devices.
Now that you have finished getting the SkyDrive folder in Windows 7, you can start adding files to this folder in the same manner as you would add any files to any other folder on your computer. For quick access, click the Windows Explorer icon in your taskbar, then click the SkyDrive folder in the column at the left side of the window.
Files added to this folder will automatically be synced with your SkyDrive, as well as other devices on which you have downloaded the SkyDrive app. |
0.99998 | Do you need advice on how to play volleyball?
Understanding terms can go a long way in helping your success on the court.
Especially if you are trying out for a team, the better you can understand the language of volleyball, the better you'll be at communicating with your coach.
If you can speak the lingo, you'll be more comfortable playing and your coach will more likely pick you to be on the team.
Before stepping onto the court, you first need to understand a few rules.
The more you understand and know the rules, the more prepared you'll be to play the sport of volleyball.
The more you understand the rules and strategies of the game, the more you'll enjoy the experience.
Enjoying your first experience playing is key to continuing to want to play the sport.
Getting a grasp on what's going on isn't too difficult, but it will take some effort on your part.
Be sure to review the basic rules before your first practices and games.
Rather than plunging in and attempting to memorize all the rules in a single sitting, try to review them for a little while every day until you get comfortable with them.
Don't take learning rules for granted. You can really broaden your understanding of the game by learning the rules and this can lead to a greater confidence, making playing learning how to play volleyball more fun.
You don't want to show up unprepared for competition.
Water bottle. Bring a water bottle with your name clearly marked on it. You don't want friends sharing your water bottle and have germs being spread around.
Shoes. You need to wear shoes that are appropriate to wear on a court. Mizuno shoes are a brand of shoe popular for volleyball. Nfinity shoes are shoes made specifically for volleyball. Asics shoes are also a very popular brand of volleyball shoes.
Knee pads. Knee pads are important for protecting players' knees when diving for a ball. Knee pads come in different sizes and styles, so I recommend you try them on to make sure they fit comfortably and don't compromise your playing ability on the court.
The following are the main volleyball positions on the court and how to play volleyball.
Each of these positions involves specialized skills.
Just like a basketball team has a point guard, and a football team has a quarterback, the volleyball team also has a player that leads the team out on the court. The setter leads the team on offense.
The offense often revolves around the setters skills.
The setters job is to take a ball that's passed from a passer and set it to an attacker.
Setting is a very important position in volleyball because the better your setter is, the more efficient your offense can be, and the more opportunities your team will have to score points.
The strong side hitter is also referred to as outside hitter. This player usually plays on the court in the left front position.
The obvious goal of volleyball is to set the ball up at the net so an attacker can hit the ball over the net to the opponents side to score points.
The outside hitter is usually the number one weapon for scoring points and your team will rely on him for most of your offense.
The middle hitter is also referred to as middle blocker. The middle is mainly responsible for blocking, but sometimes is a big threat for attacking.
The middle hitter is set quick sets to the middle of the court and is often used as a decoy.
For example, if you want your outside hitter to be one-on-one with the opponents blockers, the middle hitter can fake a quick set to the middle, drawing the opposing middle blocker which then leaves the outside hitter in a one-on-one situation.
Outside hitter's would much rather be one-on-one because it's much easier to get a kill in that situation.
The opposing hitter is also referred to as weak side hitter. The weak side hitter plays on the right side of the court. The weak side hitter usually gets the least amount of sets and is mainly responsible for blocking the opposing strong side attackers.
The libero is the team's main defensive specialist. The libero is a player that specializes at passing and digging.
The libero can replace any player in the back row and each replacement doesn't count as a substitution.
The defensive specialist (DS) is similar to a libero in that this player specializes in passing and digging.
The big difference is that the DS must sub into the game and can only replace a player in one position, whereas the libero can replace anyone on the back row. |
0.999999 | Are you aspiring to learn how to take care of an adult Rottweiler? Typically, Rottweilers are a recognizable and dominant dog variety and are characterized by massive muscles and tan and black markings on their bodies. Additionally, they are distinctive compared to other breeds due to their high protective instincts. Therefore, learning on how to take care of an adult Rottweiler is essential, and here are excellent tactics to help you maintain a healthy dog.
Naturally, a Rottweiler can weigh up to 135 pounds; therefore, the dog will need a high-quality diet and which should contain crude protein, crude oil, and high fiber content. However, you should ensure that your dog does not become overweight, through proper exercising and which is also essential as it facilitates muscle development.
Most importantly, adult Rottweilers are very susceptible to gastric dilatation disorder, which is the accumulation of gases in the stomach. Therefore, you should feed your dog with either two or three smaller bowls of non-fatty meals daily, and do not mix dry foods with water. Additionally, allow the Rottweiler access to a clean and fresh water source, but in small amounts to prevent gastric stomach disorder. Also, it is essential to ask your veterinary for feeding recommendations to ensure that your dog grows healthier and stronger.
Firstly, before training your dog, you need to understand the dominance of your Rottweiler, and then teach him with a careful and kind understanding. Naturally, there are numerous ways you can instill good behavior in your dog without being rough or aggressive.
Secondly, you should enhance the socializing skills of your dog as they are essential in ensuring that the Rottweiler is comfortable around other dogs as well as around people.
Typically, you can improve the social aspect of your dog by taking him for a walk in public places or by going with him to your friend’s house. Therefore, by keeping your dog’s social experience excellent and positive, he will learn to become more confident and active.
Additionally, you should teach your Rottweiler simple commands to assure complete training by using positive reinforcement tactics. Some of the standard terms you can train your dog includes, come, sit, stay, paw, down and no. However, if he does not respond to your directives, you should not yell at him or use physical discipline such as hitting, as these will confuse and frighten the dog.
Rottweilers are usually athletic, large, and active; hence, adequate exercising is vital to keep them in shape and to maintain their muscular physique. Additionally, working out your dog will prevent him from becoming overweight, a condition which can lead to heart, thyroid, join, and breathing problems.
Usually, an adult Rottweiler requires a 50 to 60 minutes’ walk every day, and other excellent dog exercise ideas, including short runs, fetching, obstacles, frozen bottles, and a tug of war.
You should maintain the nails of your Rottweiler by trimming them because long nails can cause injuries when the dog is running or digging, and also brush his hair to keep him clean and tidy.
Next articleExtend Your Rottweiler Life In These 5 Steps ! |
0.999255 | Relatively new to the mystery novel scene, Brian Haig stands out against a crowded field. His lighthearted style gives his leading character panache -- he's a self-deprecating guy, yet nobody's fool.
Army Attorney Sean Drummond takes part in an exchange program between the military and the private sector, where he is assigned to a high-end firm in Washington, DC. As a fledgling member of the prestigious firm, Drummond clearly establishes himself as a bad boy who's not too concerned with keeping this assignment. He has no love for such an arrogant group of lawyers who cater to the most successful and elite of Washington businessmen. Sean disdains these smooth talkers with their extravagant lifestyles and has no intention of fitting into this elite niche.
While cavorting through his days in designer suits and driving a new-model dark green Jaguar (provided by the firm to upgrade his image), Sean is baffled by the aura of menace that surfaces as soon as he asks questions about his predecessor, a young woman recently found murdered. Naturally inquisitive, Drummond is especially interested since he once dated the young woman. Any attempt on his part to uncover her activities at the firm before her death is met with a wall of silence, which, of course, only piques Sean's curiosity.
Not one to be easily thwarted, Drummond continues his pursuit of inside information, enlisting the aid of a local DC cop and the deceased woman's sister, Janet, who works in the District Attorney's office. The more Sean learns, the more convoluted the motive for the murder appears. But when more young women are killed in a similar fashion but with progressively more violence, the police request help from the FBI, assuming they are dealing with a serial killer. There is far more afoot than serial murders; Sean and Janet delve deeper than is appropriate in the circumstances, and their actions put them both in jeopardy.
Private Sector offers a volatile mix of sociopathic assassins, CIA operatives and FBI investigators -- a veritable stew of possibilities. A master of bluff and bravado, Haig's Sean Drummond is a most sympathetic character, the kind of guy who is easy to like even with his imperfections. No matter how dangerous the situation, Drummond stubbornly pursues the motive and the murderer, as well as other activities that may affect ongoing investigations. Add a convoluted plot with international criminal overtones and the infamous inter-agency conflicts between the CIA and the FBI and you have an outstanding mystery novel by a talented author who knows how to write. Haig has a bright future ahead with his fresh voice and penchant for innovative plots. He'd better start buying those designer suits. |
0.945073 | The Fourth of July is upon us! As a small business, we are so grateful to live and operate in a country where entrepreneurs are not only supported, but also celebrated. With that in mind, we are dedicating this post to a service that has evolved significantly over the last decade and has incredible potential to empower entrepreneurs and small- to medium-size businesses (SMBs): software-as-a-service (SaaS).
Saas is a cloud-based method of software delivery, meaning that it allows data to be accessed from any device with an Internet connection and web browser. It is one of the three major categories of cloud services (the other two are infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS)).
Organizations typically pay for SaaS through a subscription fee, on a monthly or annual basis, as opposed with the traditional model of paying for software through a perpetual license, with an upfront cost and optional ongoing support fees.
How can small businesses benefit from it?
SaaS is particularly powerful for small and medium businesses with fairly straightforward business processes that are looking to reduce upfront expenses. SaaS differs from on-premise software in its pricing model: on-premise software is typically purchased through a perpetual license, meaning that buyers own a license to the software. They also pay 15-20% per year in maintenance and support fees. SaaS, on the other hand, allows buyers to pay an annual or monthly subscription fee, which typically includes software license, support, and most other fees. This structure allows businesses to avoid expenses (such as that of in-house IT support required to maintain on-premise equipment) and spread whatever costs there are over time.
Because the applications delivered by SaaS are available over the Internet, users can typically access software from any device and location that has Internet connectivity. This provides a new level of flexibility and accessibility, which is particularly useful in this new age of remote work.
The third primary benefit of SaaS is the ability to use the service quickly, thus providing easy scalability. As with other cloud services, SaaS tools allow enterprises to ramp services and/or features up or down as needed – nothing more, and nothing less. This is particularly effective for small businesses that are growing quickly but are still typically operating on a tight budget.
There are some considerations to keep in mind when assessing SaaS and whether it is a good fit for your organization. Similar to other cloud services, users of SaaS rely on their service providers to be up and running at all times and up-to-date (new features, security patches, etc.) so that they can access their applications as needed. This means that in adopting SaaS, organizations accept loss of some control. That can be a hard pill for some leaders to swallow.
Data security is another, somewhat related, sticking point for companies considering SaaS. When we discuss both this and the “control” issue, we often come back to the fact that SaaS providers have far more resources to invest in security, backups and maintenance than any SMB. They also undergo stringent security procedures. For that reason, we often remind small businesses that while the switch might be a hard one to make, the benefits massively outweigh the risks.
Lastly, the cost-saving potential of an SaaS tool depends on the pricing model for the individual SaaS offering and the enterprise’s usage patterns. The pay-as-you-go model of payment enables enterprises shift costs to an ongoing operating expense which is easier to manage budget-wise. But in some situations, SaaS can cost more than traditional software licenses. It is critical for organizations to set a broad “cloud strategy” to accurately map out these costs when assessing SaaS tools and ensure that each tool adopted truly adds value and cuts costs.
Is it Right for My Organization?
SaaS is an ideal solution for SMB’s with straightforward business models that are looking for a way to reduce upfront costs. If there is one area that SaaS is still working to make up ground in terms of offerings, it’s delivering the same level of robust functionality that on-premise system, so if your business is large or has complex business processes, a traditional on-premises solution might be a better choice since it offers more functionality and allows for full customization.
Still unsure about whether SaaS is the right answer for your organization? Give us a call – our experts are more than happy to have a conversation to help set you in the right direction. |
0.999624 | Are distances big in the Algarve?
The distance from the Spanish border to the utmost western point with the landmark lighthouse is only 170 km / 106 miles, so it is really not a very large area. You will always be within 10 or 15 kilometers from a supermarket, regardless how rural you go. Roads are generally very good, and the airport in Faro well located so that almost every holiday home can be reached within an hour of driving. |
0.999883 | Still unable to gather a single shred of evidence that anyone involved with President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, special counsel to the investigation Robert Mueller on Monday announced unrelated charges against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and campaign aide Rick Gates. Considering recent revelations about another Russia scandal, one involving the very people investigating Trump, the timing is at least a little suspect.
Mueller announced that Manafort and Gates are facing charges ranging from money laundering to failure to properly disclose financial information related to their work helping to elect Ukrainian pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych (who was later toppled by the CIA) under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Personal Liberty’s Jay Baker reported on the charges and the discrepancies within this morning.
Just after the charges were announced, much of the uninformed Democratic establishment cheered the proof that the investigation is going somewhere– but legal expert after legal expert are on the record stating that the situation is very much the opposite.
Mueller and his Russia investigation, according to people familiar with prosecutor tactics, are showing all the signs of fishing for breaks in a stalled case.
Judge Andrew Napolitano said Manafort and Gates will be the “first of many dominoes to fall” as the investigation continues to search for a smoking gun.
“You’re going to indict people going up the totem pole to see if you can squeeze them,” he said.
Napolitano did call it “troubling and newsworthy” that the indictment suggests that Manafort was involved in alleged criminal activity as recently as Spetember 2016, when he would have been working for the Trump campaign.
But Mueller’s indictment, it’s worth noting, mentions nothing about President Trump or the 2016 election.
In other words, Mueller’s team is suggesting to the public that the investigation stumbled upon the Manafort’s and Gates’s alleged criminal conduct as it searched for ties between Trump, his campaign and Russia.
And if these charges had come months, or even weeks, earlier, they would seem far more legitimate as they pertain to the investigation. The serious illegal activity the two are charged with, remember, happened about a decade ago.
Instead, the bombshell first charges filed in the Trump collusion investigation come just after highly publicized reports implicating Mueller and a whole bunch of other former Obama administration officials working under the direction of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in actual collusion with Russia to sell out the American people– and then cover it up– via the Uranium One deal.
The short version of the scandal is this: While Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and partially responsible for vetting the Uranium One deal’s potential impact on the U.S., federal officials learned that Russian “nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States…” Unsurprisingly, that was around the same time former President Bill Clinton was raking in big bucks through the Clinton Family Foundation from…. Russian nuclear officials.
Regardless of what anyone believes about the current president’s relationship with Russia, it’s pretty clear that applying the same standard of DoJ scrutiny to the deal as the leftist establishment demanded over Trump/Russia collusion claims should have led to a very swift investigation into the matter.
But that investigation never occurred. And that means someone at the top must have had a hand in making sure it didn’t.
You see, Clinton was supposed to win the election. And when she won, this Uranium One business was supposed to be covered up via her powerful connections.
But Clinton didn’t win– and so the Deep State and the political establishment it controls needed to tie someone else to Russia. It’s a classic totalitarian tactic: Accuse others of what you are doing to create confusion. Long before Saul Alinsky made the tactic part of his radical rules, it was being used by murderous dictators throughout the world.
Mueller and his investigators are going to do their best to throw the book at Manafort and Gates in an effort to get any damaging information possible about the Trump administration. And, even if it has nothing to do with the investigation into Trump, there’s no doubt the special prosecutor has what he needs to crucify the lobbyists. But he also has the power to offer a big bargain in return for a Trump take-down. Someone’s going to break, even if it means fabricating something damaging.
This is the Swamp striking back.
Stone, a longtime Trump adviser and former lobbying business partner of Manafort and Gates, correctly pointed to the president’s next logical move if he hopes to survive: Leave Mueller alone– but get a separate special prosecutor on the Uranium One case immediately.
It’s possible that Trump is in the process of getting that investigation rolling. He met with Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the charges against Manafort and Gates were announced Monday.
One thing is certain, things are going to get uglier before they get better in Washington in the weeks and months ahead. Stay tuned.
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Celebrate the holiday season with Homer School District 33C.
Students, under the direction of choral director Diane Pullara and band directors Jason Thompson and Kenton Brace, are planning a series of holiday concerts in late November and December.
Among those performing are the Hadley Middle School 5th and 6th grade choruses; the Homer Junior High School Chorus; the Homer Junior High School Show Choir; the 6th grade Band; the Homer Junior High School Concert Band; and the Homer Junior High School Symphonic Band.
Don’t let the holidays pass you by without hearing at least one of these talented groups of student musicians.
More than two dozen band and choir students from Homer Junior High School have been selected to participate in the Illinois Music Educators Association (ILMEA) Elementary and Junior High Division’s District I Music Festival in November.
The students auditioned for the opportunity in September and will join 250 student musicians from 70 schools in the southwestern metropolitan Chicago area at a joint performance on Nov. 4 in New Lenox.
“We are very proud to have these musicians represent Homer CCSD 33C,” said Homer Junior High School Choral Director Diane Pullara.
More than 1,200 students, including about 100 Homer Junior High School chorus and band students, auditioned for the opportunity.
Those selected to participate will attend a full day of rehearsals on Nov. 4, followed by a public Festival Finale concert at Lincoln-Way Central High School in New Lenox.
Doors open at 2:30 p.m. The concert begins at 3 p.m.
Steve Balich Editors Note: If teacher and administrative pay in Illinois is one of the highest in the U.S. and teacher evaluations are at 97% positive why are Illinois students on average doing poorly. Could it be that high salary does not make a good teacher, and that the learning environment may be the problem. Society looks at the family in new ways that break from traditional values. So in an effort to be politically correct the traditional nuclear family is no longer what it was when our children did better than their parents. Teachers in the past scolded students for not behaving or preforming in a proper manner, while today this is not allowed. Students in the past feared a call to the parents because they did not do their homework, misbehaved, or continue to fail tests. No child flunks a grade in our society. The Teachers Union in Illinois is powerful as far as a voting block. Property tax is increasing to the point that people on fixed incomes are being forced out of their home. Increased cost of taxes forces parents into taking second jobs just to make ends meet. Students are often on their own at home because the parents are at work, or exhausted in trying to keep things going.
I don’t think paying those teaching and caring for our most valuable asset a good wage is wrong. I do however think our children will continue to fall behind until we find ways to strengthen the family, morals, ethics, and hope for the future. Throwing money at education is proven not to work by the results.
Three years into new testing metrics, Illinois’ public school students still are largely not proficient in math or English.
Released Tuesday, the Illinois Report Card for the 2017 school year showed that the state’s students are still in need of improvement on the basics. The results of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, test shows 37 percent of students in grades three through 11 are proficient in the English Language Arts portion of the test. Only 31 percent passed the math test.
The test is scored on a 1-5 grade scale. A “4” or “5” is considered proficient.
State Superintendent of Education Tony Smith says there has been improvement over the years, but there is still more to be done to have students ready once they graduate.
The PARCC test has been the subject of criticism over the last two years of its implementation. The board has said in years past that it’s a much more rigorous test and that scores will improve as its implementation continues. Since 2015, the average score has increased by 1.1 percent.
2017 is also the first year of statewide SAT testing. In the first year, 38 percent of Illinois’ 11th graders were considered “proficient” in their SAT scores. 40 percent were considered proficient in English Language Arts and 36 percent proficient in math.
The report showed continued struggles for 8th graders to pass basic Algebra as well. Of those that even qualified to take the course, only 29 percent passed Algebra 1.
“The State Board of Ed would like to see as many students as possible taking Algebra 1 and passing it by the time they’ve reached 8th grade,” Patrick Payne, director of Strategy and Analytics, said.
Information on Illinois’ teachers and administration was also made available. The average teacher salary increased to $64,516 in 2017, an increase of $1,066. The average administrator salary increased by $2,639, from $103,634 in 2016 to $106,273 in 2017. Using national data from previous years, the average Illinois salaries remain higher than all but a handful of state. Despite low levels of test proficiency, the state’s average teacher evaluation is 97 percent.
Local results can be found at IllinoisReportCard.com. |
0.991491 | Mirage is a projection apparatus that makes uses of principles from optics and artificial neural network research. Mirage generates a synthesised landscape based on its perception through a fluxgate magnetometer (Förster Sonde). It registers the magnetic field of the earth, which is dependent on the earth geodynamo and its interactions with the activity of the sun, and feeds it into a unsupervised learning algorithm for analyzation. At the same time the algorithm, that is inspired by the principle of a Helmholz Machine, “dreams” variations of the previously analyzed signal.
This variations are translated into a two dimensional matrix that physically transforms a thin mirror sheet by 48 muscle wire actors. The surface of the mirror sheet changes analog to the systems state. A thin laser line is directed on the mirror surface in a acute angle to generate a depth landscape like projection on the wall. Through the constant shifting signals the projection resembles a subliminal wandering through a landscape.
In 2013 Geoff Hinton, one of the leading researchers in the area of artificial neural networks and deep learning, joined Google to support them on various products that use AI and learning algorithms. He introduced back-propagation algorithms for training multi-layerd neural networks. One of his contributions to the field of unsupervised learning algorithms is the so called “Helmholtz Machine”, a machine that uses the principle of a wake-sleep-algorithm to consolidate its neural network. The alogrithm is trained during the wake phase by its sensory input. In the sleep-phase it cuts-off its sensory input and feeds the network backwards with random patterns. On its input layer (retina) it generates versions of is previously perceived images of the world.
I am speculating that the computers in the enormous Google data-centers cut off their perception (search queries, user behaviour, speech regognition, image data) once a day and start to “sleep”. What do their “dreams” look like? |
0.9619 | How do you get the PID in bash?
The variable $$ contains the PID.
This is usually correct, but not always. Sometimes it can be incorrect, but in a way that's actually closer to what you wanted.
To run a function in the background bash uses a multiprocess model, forking a subshell for each one, so we should expect both a & and b & to give new PIDs. In order to make this process faster, though, and because POSIX says so, bash doesn't reinitialize itself when creating a subshell. This means $$, which was computed once when bash started, continues to have its original value. $BASHPID always looks up the current PID of the executing process, however, so it does change when you make a subshell.
Because pipes run in a subshell if $$ were defined like $BASHPID all of these some_command outputs would build up in some random file in /tmp and other_command would look in a different file. Instead $$ happens to mean the right thing, and everything works. |
0.999996 | Three boxes are stacked one on top of the other. One box is 5 feet 10 inches tall , one is 4 feet 2 inches tall and one is 2 feet 3 inches tall. How high is the stack ?
11 feet + 1 foot 3 inches = 12 feet 3 inches.
10 + 2 + 3 = 15" = 1' 3"
11' + 1' 3" = 12' 3"
Let's add these vertically and then carry as needed.
If you add up the inches, you get 15. But there are 12 inches in a foot, so write down 3 inches and carry 1 ft.
Then add up the feet.
Add up the inches, change that into feet and inches, add in the whole feet from the boxes, to get the total in feet and inches. |
0.999828 | Well, for my birthday party I invited my friends over, and we had a dart gun war. It actually was REALLY fun, and every girl decided to keep their gun for future use. Now, originally I wanted to buy everyone Nerf guns, but those, of course, are all really expensive. The best we could've done was a single gun for $10, and if there were 8 of us, thats way too expensive. While in the aisle, I saw a two pack of guns, that shot 6 darts, came with some darts, and even a target, for $10. That would mean we needed 4, and 4 x $10 = $40, while 8 x $10 = $80, and with this we would've needed to buy some darts.
So, we bought the guns and when everyone got to the party, we excitedly went out to play. These shoot accurately, and pretty far. I would estimate that these shoot about 12-15 feet, give or take a little. They do need to be cocked before every shot, but very few guns don't. When purchasing these, I thought we probably wouldn't be using the targets, but as it turns out, later in the night when everyone was pretty tired of running around, we put the targets up and shot at those.
Overall, I was EXTREMELY happy with these, and I think we got a far better deal that we would've if we had bought any other guns. |
0.999998 | Answer just three questions below to find the best workout to help you reach your goals!
1) What is your fitness level?
2) What type of workout do you want?
3) How much time do you want to spend working out? |
0.944698 | and give me your professional opinion on the possibility to use it for preventing malnutrition.
In addition to the very problematic use of the image of a bottle, already noted by another contributor, this product appears to be very high in sugar. It is difficult to tell since the label information available at their website does not state the serving size in grams, but indicates 15 g sugars and it seems that information relates to a daily dose of the product. For comparison, in every 100 g of a cola drink there are about 11.5 g sugar. Further, the website appears to be making claims about omega-3 fatty acids. The US DRI for alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) for children 1-3 years is 0.7 g or 700 mg, and this product delivers only 13 mg omega-3. The product lists refined fish oil as an ingredient but it is not possible to tell how much omega-3 is provided as ALA and how much as DHA as they are reported together as 13 mg. |
0.939544 | Исследование CRISPR-Cas системы адаптивного иммунитета бактерий. Механизмы CRISPR-aдаптации и CRISPR-интерференции.
- В процессе праймированной адаптации новые спейсеры преимущественно соответствуют протоспейсерам той же цепи, что и исходный протоспейсер (Savitskaya et al., 2013).
- РАМ мотив задает ориентацию встраивания спейсера в CRISPR-кассету; предшественники спейсеров, не имеющие по какой-либо причине РАМ, могут быть встроены в обеих ориентациях (Shmakov et al., 2014).
- Разработана уникальная высокоэффективная методика получения штаммов с протоспейсерами против заданного бактериофага и индуцибельной экспрессией cas генов (Strotskaya et al., 2015).
Rapid Multiplex Creation of Escherichia coli Strains Capable of Interfering with Phage Infection Through CRISPR. Strotskaya A, Semenova E, Savitskaya E, Severinov K. Methods Mol Biol. 2015;1311:147-59.
Kostyuchenko M, Savitskaya E, Koryagina E, Melnikova L, Karakozova M, Georgiev P Zeste can facilitate long-range enhancer-promoter communication and insulator bypass in Drosophila melanogaster. Chromosoma. 2009 Oct;118(5):665-74.
Kostyuchenko MV, Savitskaya EE, Volkov IA, Golovnin AK, Georgiev PG. Study of functional interaction between three copies of the insulator from the MDG4 transposable element in the model system of the miniwhite gene of the Drosophila melanogaster. Dokl Biochem Biophys. 2008 Jul-Aug;421:239-43. Russian.
Chetverina D, Savitskaya E, Maksimenko O, Melnikova L, Zaytseva O, Parshikov A, Galkin AV, Georgiev P. Red flag on the white reporter: a versatile insulator abuts the white gene in Drosophila and is omnipresent in mini-white constructs. Nucleic Acids Res. 2008 Feb;36(3):929-37.
Comet I, Savitskaya E, Schuettengruber B, Negre N, Lavrov S, Parshikov A, Juge F, Gracheva E, Georgiev P, Cavalli G. PRE-mediated bypass of two Su(Hw) insulators targets PcG proteins to a downstream promoter. Dev Cell. 2006 Jul;11(1):117-24.
Kostyuchenko MV, Savitskaya EE, Karakozova MV, Georgiev PG. Study of the regulatory region of gene white of Drosophila melanogaster. Dokl Biochem Biophys. 2005 Nov-Dec;405:383-7. Russian.
Savitskaya E, Melnikova L, Kostuchenko M, Kravchenko E, Pomerantseva E, Boikova T, Chetverina D, Parshikov A, Zobacheva P, Gracheva E, A, Georgiev P. Study of long-distance functional interactions between Su(Hw) insulators that can regulate enhancer-promoter communication in Drosophila melanogaster. Mol Cell Biol. 2006 Feb;26(3):754-61.
Pomerantseva E, Biryukova I, Silicheva R, Savitskaya E, Golovnin A, Georgiev P. Transposition of Regulatory Elements by P-Element-Mediated Rearrangements in Drosophila melanogaster.Genetics. 2006 Apr;172(4):2283-91. Epub 2005 Dec 30.
Kravchenko E, Savitskaya E, Kravchuk O, Parshikov A, Georgiev P, Savitsky M. Pairing between gypsy insulators facilitates the enhancer action in trans throughout the Drosophila genome. Mol Cell Biol. 2005 Nov;25(21):9283-91.
Kostyuchenko MV, Georgiev PG, Savitskaya EE. The promoter region of the yellow gene of Drosophila melanogaster contains excess regulatory elements.Dokl Biochem Biophys. 2004 Nov-Dec;399:374-5. Russian.
Karakozova M, Savitskaya E, Melnikova L, Parshikov A, Georgiev P. The Mod(mdg4) component of the Su(Hw) insulator inserted in the P transposon can repress its mobility in Drosophila melanogaster.Genetics. 2004 Jul;167(3):1275-80.
Karakozova MV, Savitskaya EE, Parshikov AF, Georgiev PG. Cis-modifiers of the yellow gene repression induced by the Su(Hw) insulator in the absence of the Mod(mdg4) protein in Drosophila melanogaster. Dokl Biochem Biophys. 2003 Mar-Apr;389:110-3. Russian.
Golovnin A, Birukova I, Romanova O, Silicheva M, Parshikov A, Savitskaya E, Pirrotta V, Georgiev P. An endogenous Su(Hw) insulator separates the yellow gene from the Achaete-scute gene complex in Drosophila. Development. 2003 Jul;130(14):3249-58.
Muravyova E**, Golovnin A, Gracheva E, Parshikov A, Belenkaya T, Pirrotta V, Georgiev P. Loss of insulator activity by paired Su(Hw) chromatin insulators. Science. 2001 Jan 19;291(5503):495-8.
Murav'eva EE*, Golovnin AK, Parshikov AF, Georgiev PG. New properties of the Su(Hw) insulator. Dokl Biochem Biophys. 2001 May-Jun;378:181-5. Russian.
Georgiev PG, Murav'eva EE*, Golovnin AK, Gracheva EM, Belen'kaia TIu. [Insulators and interaction between long-distance regulatory elements in higher eukaryotes] Genetika. 2000 Dec;36(12):1588-97. Review. Russian. |
0.905604 | Read the extract and answer the questions that follow.
Our race has been without a will -without a purpose of its own, for all this length of time. Because of that, we have developed few men who are able to understand the strenuousness of the age in which we live. Where can we find in this race of ours real men? Men of character, men of purpose, men of confidence, men of faith, men who really know themselves, I have come across so many weaklings Who profess to be leaders, and in the test I have found them but the slaves of a nobler class. They perform the will of their masters without question. To me, a man has no master but god.
1.comment on four language features in the excerpt.
3. Which is the correct meaning for token as it is used in this sentence? |
0.999999 | My daughter has recently started at a school where they do a lot of eisteddfod competitions. She never did this at her previous studio and I wonder how important this is in a career as a professional dancer.
Each school has a slightly different focus and some schools do place a lot of emphasis on competitions and eisteddfods. Performing frequently can help the young dancer enormously in learning how to prepare herself physically and psychologically for performing on stage and in developing strategies to manage performance anxiety. However, it may also involve significant financial expense with the combination of costumes, travel, and competition entry fees. Performing regularly exposes the young dancer to the standard of girls of a similar age, and of the grades above them, which can be both; positive or negative. Girls who are used to being the best at their small studio may get a rude awakening that there are girls at other studios who are far more capable than themselves. Depending on the personality of the student, this may be taken on as a challenge to improve her own skills or as a devastating blow to her ego, resulting in feelings of incompetence or worthlessness. It is a difficult time between the ages of 11 and 15 with girls maturing at different rates, and rapid changes due to puberty often have an impact on technical skill. One girl who was amazing at 10 may suddenly lose her flexibility with a growth spurt and be devastated that the girls she used to beat are now out performing her.
Watching the older students perform can give girls a level to aspire to, especially if they have watched a particular dancer develop over several years. It is important for the girls to watch and appreciate performance skills such as conveying emotion as well the technical skills and acrobatic tricks which they often hang onto. It is also extremely important though, that students are learning the correct ways of doing particular steps, and do not include movements that are beyond their skill level at a certain age as this will rapidly increase their chance of injury.
The decision to participate in competitions is really a personal preference, and depends mainly on the personality of the young dancer. There are many dancers who are dancing and performing at a professional level that did not compete in such competitions extensively at a young age, and many that did. I do feel however, that as the girls get older it is good for them to enter various competitions to help gain experience and understanding of the demands performing under pressure on stage, as performing a solo piece in a competition is very different to performing in the dance schools end of year show. Care must be taken to ensure that the push for presentation and performance dramatization does not take of the place correct execution of technique in their dance training. |
0.999656 | Write about the following topic: Using cell phones and computers made communication among people much easier. We need to turn our computers and power our phone down. I really do think that letter writing can..
control how crafting of your paper flows. Depending on the type of retail store, retail inventory shrinkage ranges from.5 - 6 of gross sales with the average falling around.75. What most customers and store clerks tend not to notice is the increasing amount of shoplifters. The way to the mans heart is through his stomach. The concept combines social services with punishment in order to reduce reliance on expensive and ineffective short-term jail sentences for non-violent offenders and boost the communitys confidence in the system (Ballenstedt, 20 words - 5 pages life.
Read this full essay on Shoplifting.
1500 words - 6 pages betw een good and bad consumer behavior.
Sometimes, a consumer behavior that.
Why stealing is wrong essay - All kinds of writing services custom papers.
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What Happens to Shoplifters? Our support managers will steroids essays answer any question concerning your order. How can managers address this issue to ensure success? There are no minor remarks. Something needs to be done to ensure that teenagers stop stealing and learn discipline. Children and elderly persons sometime steal without realizing they are committing a crime. Sometimes friends are looking for other people to give them feedback about their choices. |
0.999551 | Kerry caught on hot mic: Was he criticizing Israel?
(CNN) - Secretary of State John Kerry raised eyebrows Sunday following comments, caught on an open mic, that left some wondering whether he was criticizing Israeli assurances that its ground offensive in Gaza would be limited?
Kerry's comments occurred between multiple television interviews. He was heard in a phone conversation with a State Department deputy, Jonathan Finer, discussing the deaths of Israeli soldiers killed overnight.
@ gurgy said 0bama was very smart kn0w the truth ? At what gurgy letting our border get invaded by terrorist and a possible attack ? The Border Patrol has already found prayer rugs and mats . read up .
Only the truly delusional can find proof of their fantasies everywhere they look.
Please don't waste anymore time or jet fuel on this. Make a few phone calls if you wish, but make them brief. Israel must do what it must do to protect its country from 7x24x365 rocket attacks from Gaza and Hamas. The Palestinians have brought this on themselves and should suffer the consequences. They VOTED FOR these Hamas terrorists and now they have become terrorists and terrorists sympathizers. So bottom line is you lay down with dogs, you get fleas. You lay down with terrorists, you get treated as a terrorist.
Yeah, the Palestinians voted for Hamas. They were duped into believing that moderation, caution, and negotiation was a weakness, and now they are paying the price. The neo-cons in the right wing in this country make the same arguments. The war mongers, the fear mongers, and the hate mongers are what will divide and destroy this country.
@Tone you should move to Gaza and take your Anti x with you that would be fine and the usa could recover from the mess that you follow . |
0.999933 | One effective way to reduce the pain and confusion that comes along with hearing loss is to reduce noise pollution in and around your home.
Noise pollution is not only a growing concern with the rise of technology, but it is also a common cause of hearing loss. One effective way to reduce the pain and confusion that comes along with hearing loss is to reduce noise pollution in and around your home. With this, noise pollution can often be overwhelming, distracting, and dangerous to your overall health in the long-term. If you are looking to eliminate noise pollution around your home, consider the many ways to reduce unnecessary sounds in your living space.
By utilizing parts of your landscape, such as trees and larger plants, you naturally eliminate noise coming from the street or neighbors around your home. Be sure to choose trees that will work this way throughout the year, such as evergreen trees. Consider this step as one of the first proactive measures to take before soundproofing the interior of your home. Not only will trees create a natural barrier from noise pollution in your neighborhood, but they can also add a beautiful element to your landscape.
Some of the most prevalent sources of noise pollution in your home are electronic devices. With this, it is crucial to turn off your television and radio when they are not in use. It may also be useful to silence other noise-making devices in your home, such as beeping noises made by the refrigerator, microwave, or home alarm systems. Even these small and seemingly insignificant noises can significantly contribute to large volumes of sound in your home.
While you may not be in control of all of the specific elements of your home, such as insulation, there are other factors you can control to reduce noise pollution in your home effectively. Add rugs to your hardwood or laminate floors to significantly reduce noise transfer around the house as you, your family, and your pets walk from room to room. Even furniture placement, such as strategic placement of larger pieces of furniture, can contribute to reducing noise pollution in each of your rooms. With a few simple steps, you are sure to notice a change in the noise level of your house. |
0.999592 | What is the definition of excellent customer service? Good customer service, in short, means making sure that the customer is happy. Excellent customer service to Continental, means going above and beyond, ensuring that the customer or client is satisfied in every aspect with the product and service provided, with the sales, delivery, and overall appearance of the product. What Continental will never do, is draw the line at good customer service; we strive for excellence.
As a national real estate developer, it is natural for us to touch the lives of many people around the country. Through our multifamily, retail, and hospitality developments, we are able to provide housing, jobs, and help grow the local economies. The dedication of our in-house and onsite team members make this possible each and every day with their constant drive to perform their work better than they have done before.
We are pleased to announce that Springs at Orchard Road has reached stabilization. This community is one of five communities in Illinois, bringing the total home count to 1,432. Featuring 300 apartment homes, Springs at Orchard Road features one of our newly designed clubhouses with a 24-hour fitness center and resident lounge, enlarged pool deck, and a great grilling area. |
0.999687 | A guide to an evidence-based approach for teaching college-level psychology courses Teaching Psychology offers an evidence-based, student-centered approach that is filled with suggestions, ideas, and practices for teaching college-level courses in ways that contribute to student success. The authors draw on current scientific studies of learning, memory, and development, with specific emphasis on classroom studies. The authors offer practical advice for applying scholarly research to teaching in ways that maximize student learning and personal growth. The authors endorse the use of backward course design, emphasizing the importance of identifying learning goals (encompassing skills and knowledge) and how to assess them, before developing the appropriate curriculum for achieving these goals. Recognizing the diversity of today's student population, this book offers guidance for culturally responsive, ethical teaching. The text explores techniques for teaching critical thinking, qualitative and quantitative reasoning, written and oral communication, information and technology literacy, and collaboration and teamwork. The authors explain how to envision the learning objectives teachers want their students to achieve and advise how to select assessments to evaluate if the learning objectives are being met. This important resource: Offers an evidence-based approach designed to help graduate students and new instructors embrace a student-centered approach to teaching; Contains a wealth of examples of effective student-centered teaching techniques; Surveys current findings from the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning; Draws on the American Psychological Association's five broad goals for the undergraduate Psychology major and shows how to help students build life-long skills; and, Introduces Universal Design for Learning as a framework to support diverse learners. Teaching Psychology offers an essential guide to evidence-based teaching and provides practical advice for becoming an effective teacher. This book is designed to help graduate students, new instructors, and those wanting to update their teaching methods. It is likely to be particularly useful for instructors in psychology and other social science disciplines. |
0.999986 | Checker's is a restaurant located in Bladensburg, Maryland. Based on ratings and reviews from users from all over the web, this restaurant is a Good Option.
Interested in eating in Checker's? Check out this restaurant's features and options and find driving directions, so you can spend more time eating and less time figuring out how to get there. |
0.932431 | Like other deep learning systems, PaddlePaddle supports training models from sequence data. Also, like other systems, PaddlePaddle represent a mini-batch of sequences as a Tensor. What is different is that PaddlePaddle doesn't require all sequences in a mini-batch to be of the same length. Thus no need for padding zeros.
PaddlePaddle achieves this flexibility by passing through a new data type, LoD Tensor, which is a Tensor attached with segmentation index known as LoD, between operators. The LoD index doesn't only segment a tensor, but also recursively segments sub-sequences. This document presents the design of LoD and LoDTensor.
Most deep learning systems represent a mini-batch as a Tensor. For example, a mini-batch of 10 images, each of size 32x32, is a 10x32x32 Tensor. Another example is that each mini-batch contains N sentences, where each word is a D-dimensional one-hot vector. Suppose that all sentences have the same length L, we can represent this mini-batch by a NxLxD tensor.
Both examples show that the elements of sequences are usually of the same size. In the first example, all images are 32x32, and in the second one, all words are D-dimensional vectors. It doesn't make sense to allow variable-sized images, as that would require transformations like convolution to handle variable-sized Tensors.
The real challenge is that in most cases, sentences have variable lengths, and we will need an index data structure to segment the tensor into sequences. Also, sequences might consist of sub-sequences.
To understand our solution, it is best to look at some examples.
where each | represents a D-dimensional word vector. The numbers, 3, 1, and 2, form a 1-level LoD.
LoD tensors generalize to the case where elements are higher dimensional objects, like images. Suppose that a mini-batch contains videos of the same frame size 640x480. Here is a mini-batch of 3 videos with 3, 1, and 2 frames, respectively.
The underlying tensor is of size (3+1+2)x640x480, and each 口 represents a 640x480 image.
A model parameter is just a usual Tensor, which, just like the above example, is a 0-level LoD Tensor.
It is indeed a tree, where leaves are elementary sequences identified by branches.
For example, the third sentence in above example is identified by branch <0,2>, where 0 indicates the first article with length 3, and 2 indicates the third sentence in this article with length 4.
LoD[i][j] is the length of the j-th segment at the i-th level.
To quickly access elementary sequences, we adopt an offset representation -- instead of saving the lengths, we save the beginning and ending elements of sequences.
so we know that the first sentence is from word 0 to word 3, and the second sentence from word 3 to word 5.
When we use the above 2-level LoD Tensor as the input to a nested-RNN, we need to retrieve certain sequences. Here we define the sequence identified by branch as the -slice.
# Create a LoDTensor that has the above recursive_sequence_lengths info.
# This recursive_sequence_lengths will be converted to an offset representation of LoD in the C++ implementation under the hood. |
0.963117 | Chrissy Teigen has recently been sharing a number of pictures of her little baby wearing a teeny-tiny helmet on Instagram; something which has bemused and amused a number of Instagram users. Why is she doing this? Well as it turns out, baby Miles has been fitted with a special helmet to correct his slightly-mishapen head. Now another mother, who has a child with the same issue, has opened up about her own daughter's 'flat head' - which has also required a helmet to fix.
When Evelyn Helmick was four weeks old, her mom Lindsay (who hails from Winterson in England) noticed that her head was flatter on one side then the other, and was unable to turn her head. Concerned, Lindsay googled her daughter's symptoms, was disturbed by the results. She took Evelyn to visit a craniosacral fascial therapist and realised that she could follow Chrissy Teigen's lead and get Evelyn her own helmet.
Credit: Press AssociationCommenting on her child's condition, Lindsey stated: "I brushed it aside as just 'first-time mummy anxiety' and carried on as normal, until I felt like I had to go with my gut and check with a specialist just to be safe. And when I Googled ‘my baby’s head is flat,’ the first thing that came up was plagiocephaly and brachycephaly – or flat head syndrome, which I’d never heard of. I went to Technology in Motion, a company suggested by other mums online, to get the helmet, as it wasn’t available on the NHS since they stopped supplying it three years ago as they believe it was only a cosmetic issue."
She added: "We spoke to the specialists and were shown a 3D screening of Evelyn’s head, compared to a normal child’s. The difference was quite shocking. I knew there and then I had to get her the right treatment ... There are so many different things I’ve heard about flat head syndrome and the possible consequences of not treating it. It can affect cognitive functions, such as speech, but it can also be purely cosmetic. Either way, I wanted to fix it, as I couldn’t stand the thought of Evelyn one day being bullied for having a different shaped head, once she hit her teens."
However, the practice isn't condoned by all doctors, and some people doubt the effectiveness of the helmet treatment. For instance, the NHS' official website states: "These helmets and headbands generally aren’t recommended because there isn’t clear evidence to suggest they work. They often cause problems such as skin irritation and rashes. They’re expensive, typically costing around £2,000. Your baby will need to be checked every few weeks to monitor their head growth and make any necessary adjustments and they may be uncomfortable and distressing for your baby."
So if you are considering getting your own tot to wear one of these helmets then please consult a doctor first. |
0.944109 | By the time of John Jay's birth, the Jay family had established a place among the social elite of New York City. John's father, Peter, a wealthy merchant, was both a freeman of the city and a vestryman of Trinity Church, while his mother, Mary Van Cortlandt, had been born into one of the colony's great patroon families. Taking advantage of his privileged background, the young John Jay graduated from King's College in 1764 and entered the legal profession, first clerking for Benjamin Kissam, then establishing a legal practice with Robert R. Livingston, and eventually opening his own law office in 1771. During these years, Jay cultivated himself as a young gentleman, participating in elite social clubs, dancing assemblies and debating societies (see John Jay et al., 1/22/1768, Jay ID #886).
With the intensification of colonial resistance following the passage of the Coercive Acts in 1774, Jay found himself propelled into the political arena, being selected as one of a Committee of Fifty that New York's conservatives had created to guide the protest movement within the colony (see John Jay to John Vardill, 5/23/1774, Jay ID #5021). Shortly afterwards, Jay was elected as one of New York's delegates at the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, which went on to pass a nonimportation agreement known as the Continental Association. Returning to New York at the close of the First Congress in late 1774, he concentrated his energies, as one of the newly selected Committee of Sixty, on enforcing the Association (see Peter Jay to John Jay, 5/20/1775, Jay ID #7864). Throughout, however, Jay was a cautious, even lukewarm revolutionary, evincing the characteristic moderation that would be a hallmark of his career.
In the spring of 1776, he was elected to the New York Provincial Congress, where he remained even as the Continental Congress was declaring the nation's independence, a move he would probably have voted against had he been in Philadelphia. In the summer of 1776, with British ships and British troops descending on New York City, Jay contributed to a committee whose purpose was to obstruct and harass the British (see [Outlines for plans to obstruct the Hudson River], 7/19/1776, Jay ID #4027). He also played an active role in the state's campaign against Loyalists, sitting on the Committee for Detecting Conspiracies, where he oversaw the prosecution of a number of prominent opponents of the new nation, including Beverly Robinson and Cadwallader Colden, Jr., the son of the former lieutenant governor under the crown (see Cadwallader Colden Jr., to John Jay, 7/27/1777, Jay ID #13167). Elected to the Fourth New York Congress, Jay was placed on the committee responsible for framing the state's constitution. During the winter of 1776-77, Jay played a key role in formulating the committee's draft. Though he objected privately to various elements of the final version (see John Jay to Robert R. Livingston and Gouverneur Morris, 4/29/1777, Jay ID #2819), in public he was the new constitution's resolute defender. In the summer of 1777, the Provincial Convention elected Jay the first Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court. In this position, which he held for two years, he presided over cases, including many property crimes, stemming from the chaotic conditions that accompanied the military and civil conflict of the revolutionary years in New York (see John Jay et al. to Governor George Clinton, 5/20/1778, Jay ID #1054).
A long period of national and international service followed before Jay once more made his presence felt within the ambit of New York through his powerful contributions to the struggle to ratify the federal Constitution. Best known are his contributions as Publius to the Federalist. His first contributions, numbers 2 through 5 (see draft of Federalist #5, 10/31/1787, Jay ID #10401), appeared in the New York Independent Journal in October-November 1787. More influential still was his pamphlet, "An Address to the People of New York," written in the spring of 1788 (see George Washington to John Jay, 5/15/1788, Jay ID #7238). An authoritative restatement of arguments in favor of the federal Constitution, and a rebuttal of counterarguments, the "Address" played a role in securing ratification in New York despite the presence of a powerful Anti-Federalist opposition.
Upon returning from his mission in Europe in 1784, Jay had proceeded to build a family house in New York City (see John Jay to Philip Schuyler, 3/17/1785, Jay ID #9354), in which the Jays continued to live until he became Governor of New York. As Governor for two terms, from 1795 to 1801, Jay oversaw legislation that established a state penitentiary (see Matthew Clarkson to John Jay, 11/21/1797, Jay ID #3275), dealt with Indians over land claims (see John Jay to Timothy Pickering, 4/23/1798, Jay ID #3144), bestowed aid upon those fleeing from revolutionary Saint Domingue (see John Jay to the New York Legislature, 11/1/1796, Jay ID #3505), and confronted both a yellow fever outbreak (see Richard Varick to John Jay, 9/24/1798, Jay ID #9293) and the prospect of invasion by the French (see John Jay to James McHenry, 7/17/1797, Jay ID #3086).
After his second term, Jay retired from public life, establishing himself as a country farmer on his property at Bedford in Westchester County. There he lived out his days, though in close communication with his two sons who remained active within New York's public realm (see Peter Augustus Jay to John Jay, 10/10/1821, Jay ID #6251). |
0.999693 | McDonald's is trialling table service at a number of its British outlets in a move to drum up customer numbers and improve the quality of its service.
McDonald’s has been testing out several initiatives including table service, which, if successful, could be rolled out across its 1,200 UK outlets.
McDonald's is testing table service at its concept restaurant in Milton Keynes, at peak times.
Fast-food outlets have increasingly sought to trial new initiatives, including new technology and food products, at a number of selected restaurants, in a bid to gain competitive advantage over their rivals.
The Milton Keynes outlet has state-of-the-art décor, as well as boasting iPads and a "magic-zone" for children.
Additionally, in an effort to try and entice business customers, it has a private meeting room with a boardroom.
Like McDonalds, Pizza Express is trailing a number of similar, cutting-edge initiatives at a concept store. |
0.976482 | Just over a month ago, Microsoft ended support for Windows XP which makes it unsafe for business practices. Even with no support, China has decided to ban XP's replacement, Windows 8, from being installed on official government PC's.
China, which has been a major country in replica (fake) items, has already been in Microsoft's spotlight. Microsoft has already accused China of being a "center of Windows piracy", and in 2012, accused nine Chinese re-sellers of running unlicensed software before the official Windows 8 launch. Microsoft has also tried working with the country to slim illegal copies, but this has yet to show results.
According to Xinhuanet (China's official news agency), this ban was to ensure security after Microsoft's support shutdown of XP. XP, which runs the majority of government PC's in China, will continue to be the primary OS until a custom build of Linux can be developed. This custom Linux OS is to ensure security updates won't stop after a specific amount of time and will allow Chinese IT companies to develop an OS which meets their specific needs. The first step to using this custom OS is to promote uses to those who will be the "official users", then market to the general public.
Windows 8 will still be allowed for general use, but will not be allowed on official government issued hardware. Will Microsoft really be effected by a country whose majority is running pirated software? Please let me know your thoughts on this matter. |
0.999951 | In my last post I introduced readers to both the Ecomodernist and Degrowth movements. Both movements look to provide a roadmap to get humanity off its current ecological/climate change path and on to one that is more sustainable. The Ecomodernists see a world where we seek continued economic and social growth conducted in a manner intended to de-couple human activities from environmental destruction while the Degrowthers seek to stop economic growth and return to a harmonious co-existence with nature (ref). As I discussed in my previous post, based on my reading of the literature, the critical difference between the two movements is their vision of humanity. To my best understanding, the Ecomodernists view the world from a more libertarian lens [author's note: it has been pointed out that I am wrong in this in that Ecomodernism is completely compatible with social democratic government]. Their plan acknowledges that humans are the products of our evolutionary and genetic heritage and that changing human nature is not going to happen soon. Thus their approach allows for this by encouraging green-growth and de-coupling that growth from the environment through improvements in technologies. Degrowthers view a future through a more socialist lens and believe that we can grow to be better than our evolutionary and genetic heritage. As any reader of my blog knows, I am a pragmatist and as such I do not believe that we can ignore the lessons of history and those lessons are clear. Every society that has attempted to implement a socialist worldview has failed in that quest. In every case, the reason has been that egalitarianism ignores the fact that once an embryo starts undergoing cell division we start becoming less equal, and by the time our genetics combine with our varied upbringings all ideas of egalitarianism go out the window. Most importantly, parents have a genetic predisposition to aid kin first, community or social grouping second and strangers last. Given a choice between kin and stranger humans will almost always choose kin.
Form my reading I understand that in a future Ecomodernist world, life would be very similar to life in the cities today. Humans would live more densely packed than is the current norm but would otherwise have lives very similar to those lived in a modern New York, Tokyo or Boston. There would be universities, high-tech hospitals, manufacturing and modern services. Power would be supplied by some combination of solar, geothermal, wind and run-of-the-river hydro and supplemented, when necessary, by a major expansion of nuclear energy. The biggest change would be the reduction/elimination of the suburbs. Suburban lifestyles, with large yards and large distances between houses would no longer be feasible. Instead the areas currently dedicated to suburbia would be allocated to greenhouses and food production. Resource extraction would continue but in a less destructive manner. An Ecomodernist world would still need rare earth metals, steel and aluminum, but the footprint for these facilities would be limited. By densifying our cities the energy needed to transport food and household supplies would be reduced on a per capita basis. Providing services like sewer and potable water would be simplified by reducing the number of miles of underground pipe resulting in lower per capita costs for supply and maintenance. On a personal level, an individual willing to work harder than their neighbor would still be able to excel and pass on the fruits of their hard work and excellence to their progeny. Outside of the human footprint nature would be allowed to re-establish itself in areas previously dedicated to human resource exploitation or human habitation.
The implementation of this future scenario would require the expenditure of tremendous amounts of political and financial capital and could only be accomplished following a number of major technological advances, including cheaper, more plentiful nuclear energy (thorium reactors etc..). Major investments would also be needed to improve renewable energy technologies. Suburban and rural land-owners would need to be compensated for loss of access to their lands and many outdoor wilderness activities would need to be curtailed as we decoupled the human from the non-humans parts of the planet. Huge costs would be incurred in building cities as the only way to make this vision work would be to invest in infrastructure in some of the world’s poorest countries. Moreover, those investments would necessarily be covered primarily by the richer countries. Call it climate reparations or what you will but a huge transfer of wealth would be necessary from the wealthier societies to the less wealthy societies. In the absence of such transfers the Ecomodernist scenario would fail. Investments in cities in North America and Europe, absent similar investments in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, would only result in the creation of an unsustainable two-tiered world and the continued degradation of our shared ecological and environmental heritage. Of interest to me, I have yet to read a critique of the Manifesto which considers the tremendous outlay of capital necessary to bring the lesser-developed world up to a standard where they could be part of an Ecomodernist world-view.
In summary, looking at the Ecomodernist future there are some holes in the application of the philosophy big enough to drive a supertanker through the biggest being: who will pay for what? and can we really de-couple to allow for growth without increased environmental degradation? That being said, in my mind this path represents the best future alternative because it does not call for us to completely overhaul our human nature. It provides outlets for human ingenuity and allows for a future where people can lead healthy, happy, productive lives on a healthy and ecologically productive planet.
All this sounds so delightfully pastoral and beautiful. The problem is that with the exception of the “maintaining bikes” the life described is that of a sustenance farmer from the Middle Ages. For the non-history buffs out there sustenance farmers in the Middle Ages lived lives that were solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short (H/T Thomas Hobbes).
The reason our society flourishes the way it does is because of the benefits of specialization and mechanization. An agrarian town is fine until your bicycle frame breaks and cannot be fixed, the last tractor breaks an axle and the farmers are forced to farm by hand. It is unclear to me how an agrarian village is going to pay to train and equip a thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon or to be less extreme, how about a hospital with a functioning emergency room? Without the benefits of high tech who is going to build the defibrillator and who is going to insert the rod into your child’s leg when they fall off the fence and get a compound fracture? Who is going to manufacture the insulin so the type I diabetic baby doesn’t go into insulin shock and die? Who will make and distribute the vaccines when the last of the vaccinated generation dies and the measles, and whooping cough return with a vengeance? Our lives of relative safety, security and health are built upon specialized skills that can only be developed and maintained in a society with a sufficient number of taxpayers to support a service economy. Water treatment plants and sewage treatment facilities don’t build themselves and infrastructure like our water and sewer systems cannot be maintained with the free labour of a handful of “jack-of-all-trades”?
The minimum amount of agricultural land necessary for sustainable food security, with a diversified diet similar to those of North America and Western Europe (hence including meat), is 0.5 of a hectare per person. This does not allow for any land degradation such as soil erosion, and it assumes adequate water supplies. Very few populous countries have more than an average of 0.25 of a hectare. It is realistic to suppose that the absolute minimum of arable land to support one person is a mere 0.07 of a hectare–and this assumes a largely vegetarian diet, no land degradation or water shortages, virtually no post-harvest waste, and farmers who know precisely when and how to plant, fertilize, irrigate, etc.. In India, the amount of arable land is already down to 0.2 of a hectare; in Philippines, 0.13; in Vietnam, 0.10; in Bangladesh, 0.09; in China, 0.08; and in Egypt, 0.05. By 2025 the amount is expected to fall to: India, 0.12 of a hectare; Philippines, 0.08; China, 0.06; Vietnam, 0.05; Bangladesh, 0.05; and Egypt, 0.03 (ref).
So under the Degrowth economy most of Southeast Asia and over half the world’s population live in countries where sustenance agriculture would not be possible due to population constraints. In the extract they suggest that a person can live off 0.5 hectares, using the most optimistic numbers I could find (ref) a person would need 0.44 acres to survive growing an absolute minimum number of calories to survive and assuming no famines, crop losses, insects etc.. . As of the year 2000, the US Northeast had a population of 49.6 million people who live with a population density of 359.6 people/km2 (ref). This translates to 0.69 acres per person. So under a radical Degrowth scenario there would barely be enough land to support the population of the US Eastern Seaboard with a minimal vegetarian diet. Without modern sewage treatment and water supplies the population would indeed undergo massive Degrowth as diseases and weather slowly eliminated the majority of the population. You see, under the 0.44 acre scenario, the only power would be supplied by solar panels. Solar panels will certainly supply a house in South Carolina with reliable power in summer, but the same cannot be said about those same panels in a northern winter. Consider the “Snowpocalypse of 2015” and think about how those solar panels would provide power in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record, while buried under two meters of snow?
As for nature, once you discounted the areas where humans cannot farm (bogs, lakes etc..) there would not be an unallocated acre on the Eastern Seaboard. There would be no room for growing crops for profit and more importantly there would be no room for nature of any sort. I don’t see that existence as being in harmony with nature as much as being utterly antithetical to nature.
I hate to keep harping on the topic, but the reason we live so well in this era is that we have the excess financial capacity to train, equip and pay specialists to build and run our hospitals and water treatment facilities. We pay electricians and electricity companies to ensure consistent access to power, even in the worst weather. Even in the most simple of the simplicity scenarios the citizens had access to bicycles and solar panels. Bicycles and solar panels do not grow on trees. They are manufactured in facilities that require raw materials, power and workers. In order to maintain a reasonable quality of life we would need to keep many of those facilities open and the only way to do that is to produce an excess of resources elsewhere to pay the specialists so that they too, might be able to feed and clothe their families. I do not understand where those specialists will come from in a Degrowth society.
Very good! I sent your previous post to a couple of widely read economists. If they like it it should increase your traffic.
When I started my blog I intended it to be a forum where I wrote comments to be read by my family, so it's a bit eclectic, and jumps from this to that subject. And I can't write 1/3 as good (I think it's because I write in two languages about two-three hours a day).
I agree with your conclusions in this post and want to add an observation.
I picked up on two statements that will cause are currently under the radar for the general public but are discussed all the time by advocates in your introduction and description of Ecomodernist Tomorrow: “changing human nature is not going to happen soon” and “Suburban lifestyles, with large yards and large distances between houses would no longer be feasible”. While I agree with much of the ecomodernist approach I think it goes a bit too far in its expectations of human nature change while of course, as you point out, the Degrowth approach fails in that regard almost completely.
In particular, I have done a fair bit of traveling to date across the US and Canada and in recent years have observed something that I have never seen addressed. Keeping in my mind that there are folks who despise sprawl and suburbs, I have come to the conclusion that there is some driver to human nature that makes more people than I had imagined want large yards and privacy far beyond what I consider to be suburbs. In the middle of what appears to be nowhere there always are homes that have to have been built where space to do what the owners want and privacy was a primary driver. When the time comes that lifestyle is inhibited or outlawed, I am sure there will be loud protests precisely because changing that trait in human nature is not going to happen easily or quickly.
Privacy is easily maintained in high density environments, provided the building standards are high enough.
I live in a suburb. All my near neighbours can see into my yard, and sometimes even my house. I certainly get to hear them easily enough.
In a high-rise block, with concrete floors above and below, and properly spaced so each apartment does not share a common wall (being in corners, with lifts between, or voids) one cannot see nor hear a neighbour. Other high rises need not be close, and looking in can be avoided by judicious angling or special glass.
Only when in the centre of cities like Manhattan where each building is cheek by jowl does high rise mean near neighbours. That's more a function of stinginess than anything else. Like overly packed suburbs, in fact (usually called slums)., it is a result of packing people in too close.
It is possible to build beautiful apartment buildings which face inwards, around central gardens, and with external decks for fresh air. Although usually only done these days with hotels, it is not a technical challenge.
And nothing makes apartments need to be small. There are plenty of people who live in 3,000 and 4,000 square foot apartments.
Just because people don't usually live in luxury in apartments doesn't mean that needs to be the norm. We can, and should, start moving to cities, but in the same standard and size house that we adopt in the suburbs, not shoeboxes. |
0.999981 | Find hidden money in a divorce.
A situation where a husband hides money in divorce can have serious consequences. With a bit of detective work and some creativity, it is possible to find money and other assets that a husband (or wife) is trying to keep excluded from marital property in a divorce action.
There are several places that a suspicious spouse (or their attorney) can look for hidden assets in a divorce. You can locate a paper trail if you know where to look.
You will need to note how many employers paid the husband during the year. The W-2 forms also indicate whether he has a 401K or a 403(b) plan that may be considered marital property.
A schedule attached to the income tax return will identify the source of any interest income over a set amount. You will also want to check the income tax return for any tax-exempt income, since this may lead to the discovery of the source of that income. Your goal should be to track down the financial vehicle that generated the interest.
If a payout was received from an IRA account or a deferred-compensation fund, those funds should be traced to determine how they were disposed of.
Losses from previous years can be carried forward and credited against income for future years. This tax credit may be considered a marital asset in some circumstances. The fact that a loss appears on the income tax return indicates that an asset did exist. It's important to determine whether it was disposed of, and when.
This is a clever example of a way a husband hides money in a divorce. If his plan is to file for divorce, but not immediately, he may pay too much in taxes during the year in anticipation of getting a large income tax refund after the divorce is final that he can keep for himself.
Steps should be taken to confirm that any property taxes indicated on the return relate to property that both parties are aware of. Owning property in another jurisdiction may be a sign that there are other assets or sources of income that need to be investigated.
The information provided to a bank or other lender must be truthful and accurate; otherwise, the person has committed a federal offense. These documents should be included in the discovery process during a divorce, even though your lawyer may need to get a subpoena to gain access to them. More than likely, your lawyer will decide to ask the husband to disclose each lending institution that he has a relationship with. Armed with this information, the lawyer can ask for copies of the relevant records from the bank.
In some jurisdictions, when the money is discovered, the Court will consider whether an order was in effect to stop either party from disposing of assets as well as what the funds were used for. However, in situations where the Court determines that one spouse deliberately tried to hide money or other assets from his or her spouse, that person should not be allowed to reap any benefit from having the asset. The Court may determine that the money all belongs to the "wronged" spouse. |
0.856428 | Guy de Maupassant's scandalous tale of an opportunistic young man corrupted by the allure of power, "Bel-Ami" is translated with an introduction by Douglas Parmee in "Penguin Classics". Young, attractive and very ambitious, George Duroy, known to his admirers as Bel-Ami, is offered a job as a journalist on La Vie francaise and soon makes a great success of his new career. But he also comes face to face with the realities of the corrupt society in which he lives - the sleazy colleagues, the manipulative mistresses and wily financiers - and swiftly learns to become an arch-seducer, blackmailer and social climber in a world where love is only a means to an end. Written when Maupassant was at the height of his powers, "Bel-Ami" is a novel of great frankness and cynicism, but it is also infused with the sheer joy of life - depicting the scenes and characters of Paris in the belle epoque with wit, sensitivity and humanity. Douglas Parmee's translation captures all the vigour and vitality of Maupassant's novel. His introduction explores the similarities between Bel-Ami and Maupassant himself and demonstrates the skill with which the author depicts his large cast of characters and the French society of the Third Republic. Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) was born in Normandy. By the late 1870s, the first signs of syphilis had appeared, and Maupassant had become Flaubert's pupil in the art of prose. He led a hectic social life, and in 1891, having tried to commit suicide, he was committed to an asylum in Paris, where he died two years later. If you enjoyed "Bel-Ami", you might like William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair", also available in "Penguin Classics".
Guy de Maupassant was born in Normandy in 1850. By the late 1870s, the first signs of syphilis had appeared, and Maupassant had become Flaubert's pupil in the art of prose. He led a hectic social life, and in 1891, having tried to commit suicide, he was committed to an asylum in Paris, where he died two years later. Douglas Parmee is a well-known French translator. |
0.999998 | Pythagoras What is the History of the Pythagorean Theorem?
After you kill the merc and get the spear, go back to Bryce and she�ll open the door for you. Get ready to face off against the Medusa. This is the fourth artifact you�ll need, which means you can go back to Pythagoras and complete the Gates of Atlantis quest.
In order to know the history of how a theorem was created, first we must know the history of the person who invented the theory. The Pythagorean Theorem was invented by Pythagoras of Samos.
The pythagorean theorem might be seen to reveal the right triangle as the basic unity. I�m stuck, however, in constructing an argument that: All (Euclidean) space is reducible or expressible as rectilinear figures (and hence the unity that underlies is the triangle of which all rectilinear figures can be reduced to). Can you produce THAT argument?
With all the hatred and vitriol floating around the Web, I needed to go back to something uplifting, something ancient. I went back to a bit of research I had done on Pythagoras and the Golden Verses. |
0.999999 | Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Which is the second largest?
Saturn is the second largest planet in our solar system. |
0.97327 | Is there a minimum Python requirement to build Python?
Python 3.5 does not build with Python 2.6. Python 3.4, Python 3.3, and Python 2.7 build with Python 2.6 so this is recent change in build requirements.
For example, this build failure occurs on CentOS 6. |
0.998793 | Three tailors had opened their shops in the same street, and as the competition was great, their business was bad. They were all very anxious to attract customers.
The first tailor tried to tempt the public by placing over his shop window this advertisement: The best tailor in the town. The second immediately hung up a large signboard, with this words: The best tailor in the world. The third was greatly puzzled, for he could not find a more attractive title. At last he painted on his shop the following words in big letters: The best tailor in the street.
The others were so vexed that they took away their signboards and closed their shops.
1. Does "the competition was great" mean "the competition was intense/fierce"?
2. I don't understand the meaning of "placing over his shop window this advertisement". Does this "over" mean the same as "over" in "all over the place"?
3. Does "he painted on his shop" leave out the word "window"? Should it be "he painted on his shop window"?
1. Yes, you have the right meaning.
2. This is an old piece of writing. We don't frame sentences like this in modern English. We say instead: "...by placing this advertisement over his shop window."
3. I don't think so at all. The first guy painted on his window. The third tailor decided to make his advertisement even larger and more prominant - so he painted it on his shop's wall. |
0.996889 | Review: Nailed by Opal Carew | The Biblioholic ~ Read more. Sleep less.
I can see many people enjoying this book.
Kane and River had a short affair in college. He approached her on a dare/bet. He took her virginity. He and his friends humiliated her. Fast forward and Kane sees River as the girl who got away. And he wants to rekindle the romance. But River is still harboring resentment for how she was treated in the past.
This story would have been enjoyable if it focused on these two characters and their developing connection. But the author kept throwing in Will and shoved the menage theme down my throat. When she kept throwing in this dynamic, she threw away my interest.
Please take my rating with a grain of salt. I'm a bit old fashioned and am not a big fan of sharing or menage themes. However, I would have enjoyed it if the author took the time to develop all three characters and their feelings and made them seem real. Made their relationship seem realistic.
I also had an issue with how there was absolutely no discussion on safety in this book. No condom. No pill. No tests!
Otherwise the story was good and I did like it for the most part. |
0.924175 | How portable is Swing vs AWT Do I get the same degree of GUI portability with Swing than with AWT?.
Using AWT your application will mantain the same behaviour and the same "layout" but controls will render using the control set of host platform, then will be slightly different changing platform.
The reason why AWT is used, for example in applets, is that rendering and handling requires fewer downloaded classes because is managed by client/browser environment (the jar containing Swing extensions is a little big). AWT is supported by all the browsers Java enabled (java.awt is a core API).
Summarizing, and answering your 1st question, we can say that with Swing also appearance is portable.
About the 2nd question, Swing is dependent from AWT because there are some classes in Swing extending, wrapping, and using classes from AWT package, then there's a deep dependency between AWT and Swing. |
0.999999 | What has five finger but is not alive?
In the land of Brainopia, there are three races of people: Mikkos, who tell the truth all the time, Kikkos, who always tell lies, and Zikkos, who tell alternate false and true statements, in which the order is not known (i.e. true, false, true or false, true, false). When interviewing three Brainopians, a foreigner received the following statements: Person 1: I am a Mikko. Person 2: I am a Kikko. Person 3: a. They are both lying. b. I am a Zikko. Can you help the very confused foreigner determine who is who, assuming each person represents a different race?
Person 1 is a Miko. Person 2 is a Ziko. Person 3 is a Kikko.
This is a newspaper headline: Workers Strike - Want to Make Less Money! What is going on?
The workers work at the mint and are tired of being overworked. They want to work less, which is making less money, since money is made at the mind!
You are a prisoner sentenced to death. The Emperor offers you a chance to live by playing a simple game. He gives you 50 black marbles, 50 white marbles and 2 empty bowls. He then says, "Divide these 100 marbles into these 2 bowls. You can divide them any way you like as long as you use all the marbles. Then I will blindfold you and mix the bowls around. You then can choose one bowl and remove ONE marble. If the marble is WHITE you will live, but if the marble is BLACK... you will die." How do you divide the marbles up so that you have the greatest probability of choosing a WHITE marble? HINT: The answer does not guarantee 100% you will chose a white marble, but you have a much better chance.
Place 1 white marble in the bowl, and place the rest of the marbles in the other bowl (49 whites, and 50 blacks). This way you begin a 50/50 chance of choosing the bowl with just one white marble, therefore life! BUT even if you choose the other bowl, you still have almost a 50/50 chance at picking one of the 49 white marbles.
General Custer is surrounded by Indians and he's the only cowboy left. He finds an old lamp in front of him and rubs it. Out pops a genie. The genie grants Custer one wish, with a catch. He says, "Whatever you wish for, each Indian will get two of the same thing." Custer ponders a while and thinks:"If I get a bow and arrow they get two. If I get a rifle they get two!" He then rubs the bottle again and out pops the genie. "Well," the genie asks "have you made up your mind?" What did Custer ask for to help him get away? |
0.950495 | Aircraft insurance, while not required, is highly recommended for aircraft owners and operators. If you’re new to general aviation insurance, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the basics of insurance for airplanes. Lucky for you, this article covers the basics of plane insurance.
An aircraft insurance provider is the person who actually carries the risk and pays the claim. On the other hand, aircraft brokers source and arrange the best insurance coverage and pricing options. Brokers can offer customers insurance advice, insurance certificates, and confirmation of insurance coverage.
Most standard aircraft insurance policies cover passenger, hull, and third-party liability coverage. With that in mind, it’s important to know that malicious damage and other situations may require additional coverage. Additionally, you can arrange for personal accident coverage.
When signing up for an insurance policy, the provider will need to know all details of your operations. This includes full information on all aircraft under your name as well as descriptions of crew experience and training. Additionally, you will be required to inform the provider of any previous insurance claims.
When looking into insurance policies, it’s important to trust your gut. If you feel even slightly unsure about the deal you’re getting, you should consider continuing to shop around. Additionally, it can be beneficial to be a part of a larger group policy. When insurance markets start to harden, it can be helpful to be able to take advantage of bulk buying power.
Despite the fact that according to the International Air Transport Association, more than 3.5 billion people flew safely on 37.6 million flights in 2015, accidents do happen. It could be in your best interest to invest in aircraft insurance to ensure the safety of yourself, any crew or passengers, as well as your aircrafts. |
0.973687 | The Ontario general election of 1987 was held on September 10, 1987, to elect members of the 34th Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada.
The governing Ontario Liberal Party, led by Premier David Peterson, was returned to power with their first majority government in half a century, and the second-largest majority government in the province's history. Peterson had successfully managed to govern with a minority in the Legislature by obtaining the co-operation of the Ontario New Democratic Party, led by Bob Rae, in a confidence and supply agreement. It was through the NDP's support that Peterson was able to form a government, even though the Progressive Conservative Party had won a slightly larger number of seats in the previous election.
The PC Party, led by Larry Grossman, campaigned on a platform of tax cuts to stimulate the economy. Its support continued to slide, however, as voters opted for the change that the Liberal-NDP arrangement provided, with even Grossman losing his own seat. The NDP was unable to convince voters that it should be given credit for the success of the Liberal government that it had supported. Despite losing six seats, the party became the Official Opposition for the second time in the party's history. The PCs fell to 16 seats and third place in the legislature, their worst showing in an election in half a century.
Dalton McGuinty, Sr., MPP for Ottawa South, died on March 16, 1990. No byelection was held; the seat was vacant until the 1990 election in September. |
0.999967 | Динамик: коаксиальный, с твитером, 10"
What's the one thing that almost all small venue musicians strive for when it comes to amplifiers? Some might say "pure immersive tone", which would undoubtedly be followed by "portability". The Ibanez T Series Acoustic Guitar Amplifiers deliver exactly that, along with the striking appearance of a hand-crafted boutique amplifier.
What's the one thing that almost all small venue musicians strive for when it comes to amplifiers? Some might say "pure immersive tone", which would undoubtedly be followed by "portability". The Ibanez T Series Acoustic Guitar Amplifiers deliver exactly that, along with the striking appearance of a hand-crafted boutique amplifier. Whether you're playing the local coffee shop or you're gigging at religious venues, the sounds of the T Series will fill the room. Plus, you won't have to break your back getting your amp in and out.
The Ibanez T Series was designed with portability in mind Mic Input The mic input features an independent preamp, so it won't be colored by effects going through the guitar side. It also features independent volume, bass and treble controls. Chorus, Reverb All Troubadour amps include chorus for producing natural, beautiful tones as well as reverb for a wider variety of sound options. |
0.975674 | Call of Duty is the best game in the best-selling franchise in the world. The first series started on the PC platform which then penetrated into the console, and even Hand held mobile aircraft. Call of Duty set in World War II, but has now expanded to other series. Call of Duty was first released in October 2003, and since then it appears that the next series the series more interesting. And produce the biggest franchises in the gaming industry.
Call Of Duty was released in 2003 which is the first series of games that are very successful. The game is based Quake III engine which is one of the most successful gaming machine of all time. This game is the first in a series of shooter games which of course paved the way for some shooter game franchise in the world to produce games. |
0.999287 | President Clinton on Health Reform: "America Stands at a Historic Crossroads"
President Bill Clinton adds his voice on the urgent need for reform.
Does this bill read exactly how I would write it? No. Does it contain everything everyone wants? Of course not. But America can't afford to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And this is a good bill: it increases the security of those who already have insurance and gives every American access to affordable coverage, and contains comprehensive efforts to control costs and improve quality, with more information on best practices, and comparative costs and results. The bill will shift the power away from the insurance companies and into the hands of consumers. |
0.997863 | Make clear what the objectives of the evaluation of a gender-responsive safety policy are.
The evaluation stage is important because it permits establishing whether or not public policies, and the programmes and actions within these policies, were effective in promoting women’s safety in the city and whether or not the objectives and results identified in the design of the policy have been met. Evaluation also permits analyzing how the policy has really been implemented, identifying critical points, gaps, promising practices and choosing alternatives for improvements in the public policy, and obtaining information about the results of the policy. Evaluation permits, on the one hand, that the government be informed about the effectiveness of actions in achieving proposed results, and, on the other hand, that civil society obtain the information, training, and means to follow up on state actions.
Manual de Diseño de Políticas Públicas Locales con Enfoque de Género. Técnicas de facilitación y proceso metodológico (Manual for Designing Local Public Policies with a Gender Perspective: Facilitation Techniques and Methodological Processes) (Apoyo a la Descentralización en Espacios Rurales (APODER), 2008). Red de Municipalidades Rurales del Perú (REMURPE), Peru. This manual is organized into four chapters that establish the link between public policy and a gender focus and provide methodological guidelines in order to promote the process of incorporating a gender perspective in municipal policies with specific strategies for implementation. The final part of the document centres on the evaluation and monitoring of public policies, and establishes different tools and procedures for evaluating them. A matrix model is developed to evaluate the process of implementing a public policy, which includes the following aspects: public policy objectives, timeframe required, advances to date (considering the indicators), what remains to be done, responsible parties, and observations. Available in Spanish.
Develop indicators that can be used to evaluate the results of public policies.
Indicators are tools used to measure changes, such as changes to gender relations. As with all comparative measurements, these indicators serve to compare similar objects or situations at the same moment or the same object across a span of time (Cepal, 2006: 22). While several recommended indicators in the field of violence against women are now more widely available and endorsed by experts, the field of Safe Cities and gender-based violence against women and girls is especially incipient and emerging. As such, adaptation and testing of monitoring and evaluation methodologies and indicators specific, for example, to sexual harrasment and sexual violence in public spaces may be more experimental and the advice of data and research experts would be advisable whenever possible.
Evaluate the level of participation of different actors, including women’s organizations, in the development of public policies and their implementation.
Public policies should result from the interaction between different state and societal actors. As such, in formulating a gender-focused safety policy/programme/action, it is important to return to the relevant actors, including women’s organizations, in order to evaluate the level of involvement each has had in developing and implementing the policy and programmes - the roles they assumed, the actions they developed and to what extent their proposals were incorporated into the different programmes and interventions. The following box provides an example of possible dimensions and indicators to take into account when evaluating the level of participation and involvement of each programme partner.
(Review and Methodological Contributions to the Regional Programme Cities without Violence against Women, Safe Cities for All, executed by UNIFEM with the support of the Government of Spain/AECID, implemented by Women and Habitat Network of Latin America and the Caribbean). Unpublished material.
Make an Achievement Map of the results of a policy/programme/action aimed at promoting a safer city for women and girls.
An Achievement Map is a participatory methodology that is used to evaluate policies/programmes/actions. Achievement Maps allow local governments to be held accountable to citizens regarding the results achieved in relation to violence against women, and at the same time provide the opportunity to incorporate lessons learned about accomplishments and necessary adjustments to consider in order to reach desired results. |
0.994508 | FLAMINGOS-2 is a near-infrared wide-field imager and fully cryogenic multi-object spectrometer for Gemini Observatory being built by the University of Florida. FLAMINGOS-2 can simultaneously carry 9 custom cryogenic multi-object slit masks exchangeable without thermally cycling the entire instrument. Three selectable grisms provide resolving powers which are ~1300 to ~3000 over the entire spectrograph bandpass of 0.9-2.5 microns. We present and discuss characterization data for FLAMINGOS-2 including imaging throughput, image quality, spectral performance, and noise performance. After a lengthy integration process, we expect that FLAMINGOS-2 will be in the midst of commissioning at Gemini South by the fall of 2008.
We report the design of a new generation multi-object high throughput Doppler instrument and first light results at the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) telescope. This instrument, capable of simultaneously monitoring 60 stars for planet detection, is called the W.M. Keck Exoplanet Tracker (or Keck ET) thanks to the generous gift from the W.M. Keck Foundation. It is designed for a planet survey around hundreds of thousands of stars with V =8-13 for detecting tens of thousands of planets in 2006-2020. The Doppler precision is between 3-25 m/s depending on the star magnitude. We also report a new planet detected with a prototype single object version ET instrument at the KPNO Coude Feed/2.1 m telescopes. The extrasolar planet, ET-1 (HD 102195b), has a minimum mass of 0.49 Jupiter masses and orbits a V = 8.1 G8V star with a 4.1 day period. The planet was identified using the Coude Feed 0.9 meter telescope in spring 2005. This is the first time an extrasolar planet around a star fainter than V=8 magnitude has been discovered with an under 1 meter size astronomical telescope and Doppler instrument. This planet discovery is possible due to the extremely high throughput of the instrument, 49% measured from the fiber output end to the detector.
We report the development of the first high resolution cross-dispersed silicon immersion grating spectrometer. This instrument is called the Florida IR Silicon immersion grating specTrometer (FIRST). FIRST can produce R = 50,000 under a 0.6 arcsec seeing and simultaneously cover 1.3-1.8 μm with a 1kx1k HgCdTe array at the Apache Point Observatory 3.5 meter telescope. FIRST has a 50 mm diameter collimated beam and the overall instrument is within a volume of 0.8x0.5x0.5 m<sup>3</sup>. The high dispersion, large wavelength coverage and small instrument volume become possible due to the use of a silicon immersion grating (54.7 deg blaze angle and 50 mm diameter entrance pupil) with extremely high dispersion power (3.4 times dispersion power of a conventional echelle) and coarse grooves (16.1 l/mm, coarser than the commercially available echelles). The silicon immersion grating used in a lab bench mounted Czeney-Turner spectrograph with an only 25 mm diameter collimated beam and a 100 um core fiber has produced R = 55,000 cross-dispersed solar spectra. This instrument is designed to precisely measure radial velocities of low mass stars, M dwarfs for detecting 5-10 Earth mass planets. The estimated Doppler precision is ~ 3 m/s for a J = 9 M5V dwarf in 15 min at the APO 3.5m telescope.
The ET instrument being developed at Penn State is a novel approach that is capable of precision radial velocity measurements using a modest resolution. A prototype version of this instrument is now set up permanently at the Kitt Peak 2.1m telescope and has recovered the radial velocity curve of 51 Peg. The stability of the Michelson interferometer used in the setup is very crucial to obtain accurate velocity results. In this paper we discuss the issues associated with field widening and temperature compensation over a wide wavelength range and also describe the design of a prototype interferometer that meets these criteria. Our current prototype design built in the lab already outperforms our old interferometer over short time spans. A new interferometer based on the prototype will replace our current actively stabilized interferometer at Kitt Peak. The increased stability will enable us to start our planet search program in 2005, and to observe targets suitable for asteroseismology.
An all sky survey for extrasolar planets with wide field telescopes, Sloan 2.5m and WIYN 3.5 telescopes, is being developed. This survey will use a multi-object version of current Exoplanet Tracker (ET) Doppler instrument commissioned at the KPNO 2.1m telescope in June 2004. This instrument is based on dispersed fixed-delay interferometer, a combination of a Michelson interferometer with a moderate dispersion spectrometer (Ge 2002). This custom designed instrument (f/2 optics) has a wavelength coverage of ~ 600 Å with a 4kx4k CCD camera at a spectral resolution of R = 5,000. The measured instrument detection efficiency, including telescope, fiber, interferometer, spectrometer and detector losses, has ~ 18% (or 50% throughput from the fiber input to the detector), more than 4 times higher than current echelle instruments being used for planet detection. ET has been able to routinely obtain S/N ~ 80 data for V ~ 8 mag. stars in 15 min exposures with the KPNO 2.1m. It allows us to reach ~ 3.5 m/s Doppler precision for radial velocity (RV) stable stars with S/N ~ 120 per pixel. It also allows us to confirm an exoplanet curve of HD 130322 (V = 8.05) with rms Doppler error of 12.3 m/s (preliminary results). We are in the middle of design of two prototype multiple object RV instrument for the Sloan and WIYN telescopes, which are capable of observing 50 stars (V ~ 8-13) in a single exposure. We plan to conduct the all sky survey for planets around ~ 1 millions of stars with Sloan starting in 2008. Our goal is to identify ~ 100,000 extrasolar planets with ~ 1,000 solar analogues through this survey.
Multi-object dispersed fixed-delay interferometry provides a powerful way for all sky Doppler radial velocity (RV) searches for extrasolar planets. This technique takes advantage of high sensitivity of a fixed-delay interferometer for precision Doppler RV measurements. The interferometer fringes are dispersed by a moderate resolution spectrometer for broad band observing. Compared to current state-of-the-art high resolution echelle techniques responsible for detection of more than 100 exoplanets, this technique offers several new capabilities such as wide field multiple object observation capability, high instrument throughput and stable instrument responses. The instrument can be used in the visible as well as in the near-IR and UV for observing stars with all spectral types from early A type to later M and L types. Once this kind of instrument is coupled with wide field telescopes (a few degrees of field of view, such as Sloan and WIYN), hundreds of stars with m<sub>v</sub> < 12 or brighter can be simultaneously monitored with Doppler precision of σ = 15 m/s or better within an hour integration. Millions of stars can be monitored annually. Tens of thousands of extrasolar planets will be uncovered by this proposed all sky RV technique in a decade for studying planet formation and evolution. A prototype instrument has been observed at the KPNO 2.1m telescope in 2002, demonstrating a short term Doppler precision of ~ 3 m/s with eta Cas (V = 3.5), a RV stable star. It also helped to uncover a RV curve for 51 Peg (V = 5.5), confirming previous planet detection using the echelles. The total measured detection efficiency from the above the atmosphere to the CCD detector is about 5% without iodine absorption under 1.5 arcsec seeing conditions, comparable to all of the echelle spectrometers for planet detection. A new instrument, fed with both interferometer outputs, is being developed with a higher efficiency Volume phase holographic grating and better optical design for an initial planet search at the KPNO 2.1m telescope in 2003. It will provide about 20% total detection efficiency. In this paper, we will present principle of the technique, new results from our current instruments and grand plans for all sky Doppler surveys for extrasolar planets.
The Exoplanet Tracker (ET) is a new concept of instrument for measuring stellar radial velocity variations. ET is based on a dispersed fixed-delay interferometer, a combination of Michelson interferometer and medium resolution (R~6700) spectrograph which overlays interferometer fringes on a long-slit stellar spectrum. By measuring shifts in the fringes rather than the Doppler shifts in the absorption lines themselves, we are able to make accurate stellar radial velocity measurements with a high throughput and low cost instrument. The single-order operation of the instrument can also in principle allow multi-object observations. We plan eventually to conduct deep large scale surveys for extra-solar planets using this technique. We present confirmation of the planetary companion to 51Peg from our first stellar observations at the Kitt Peak 2.1m telescope, showing results consistent with previous observations. We outline the fundamentals of the instrument, and summarize our current progress in terms of accuracy and throughput.
A fixed delay interferometer combined with a post-disperser is a new technique for high precision radial velocity (RV) measurements. The Doppler measurements are conducted by monitoring the stellar fringe phase shifts of the interferometer instead of absorption line centroid shifts as in the echelle. High Doppler sensitivity is achieved through optimizing the optical delay in the interferometer and measuring multiple fringes over a broadband. The broadband operation is achieved by using the post-disperser for dispersing fringes in different wavelengths. Comparing to the state-of-the-art cross-dispersed echelle spectroscopy, this interferometer technique provides almost identical RV precision based on photon statistics. However, the interferometer method has a potential for lower systematic noise due to its simpler instrument response than the echelle. The interferometer can be optimized for higher throughput than the echelle. The interferometer approach also allows fringes to be recorded in one dispersion order instead of many cross-dispersed echelle orders. Therefore, this instrument opens up a great opportunity for multi-object observations to allow all sky surveys for extra-solar planets at moderate sized wide field telescopes. Initial observations with a prototype at the Hobby-Eberly 9 m and Palomar 5 m telescopes demonstrate ~9 m/s Doppler RV precision with stellar fringe data recorded on a 1kx1k CCD detector (or 140 Å wavelength coverage), a S/N ~ 120 per pixel and a post-disperser spectral resolving power of R = 6,700. This precision is consistent with the photon noise limit. Future improvement in wavelength coverage and wavelength calibration can reduce the Doppler error to a few m/s or less.
Characterization of extra-solar planetary systems requires surveying for planets around hundreds of thousands of nearby stars of all types, with different metalicities, environments (star cluster and multiple star systems), ages etc. Space missions such as SIM, NGST and TPF will identify many of these systems. However, these missions need ground-based surveys to find candidates to improve their efficiency and provide complementary work. Among these surveys, Doppler radial velocity (RV) surveys, which have detected almost all of ~ 100 known planetary systems, will continue to be the most efficient for detecting planets. Though the cross-dispersed echelle spectroscopy has demonstrated high sensitivity and good efficiency for observing thousands of stars, (limited to late F,G, K and M type), it would be tremendously challenging to search for hundreds of thousands of stars since this would require more than 2 orders of magnitude improvement in observing efficiency. New techniques with high throughput and multi-object capability for high precision RV surveys are crucial in solving this problem. Here we introduce a new technique based on a multi-object fixed-delay interferometer with a first order grating postdisperser which provides the potential for all sky radial velocity surveys for planets. This kind of instrument is a combination of a fixed-delay interferometer with a moderate resolution post-disperser. Doppler measurements are conducted by monitoring stellar interferometric fringe phase shifts instead of absorption line centroid shifts as in the echelle. High Doppler sensitivity is achieved by optimizing the optical delay in the interferometer and reducing photon noise by measuring multiple fringes over a broadband realized by the post-disperser. Since the resulting Doppler sensitivity is independent of the dispersion power of the post-disperser, the whole instrument can be designed for multiple objects, high throughput, and high Doppler sensitivity, while the instrument can be made very compact, thermally and mechanically rigid, and low-cost compared to the echelles. Its superior stability and simple instrument response allow its easy adaptation to other wavelengths such as UV and IR. Once a multi-object instrument of this type, with possible UV, visible and near-IR instrument channels, is coupled with a wide field telescope (a few degree, such as Sloan and WIYN), it will produce hundreds of fringing spectra to allow simultaneous searching for planets around late type F, G, and K stars in the visible, early type B and A-type stars, and white dwarfs in UV and late M-dwarfs in near-IR. The first light observations of our prototype interferometer at the Hobby-Eberly 9m and Palomar 5m telescopes in 2001 have demonstrated that this new technique can approach high Doppler precision mainly determined by photon statistics (Ge et al. 2001; van Eyken et al. 2001; Ge et al. 2002). For instance, a stellar intrinsic Doppler precision of ~ 3 m/s has been achieved with a wavelength coverage of ~ 140 Å and S/N ~ 120 per pixel. The overall short-term Doppler measurement error is ~ 9 m/s. This is mainly caused by low fringe contrast (or visibility) of the iodine absorption lines (~ 2.5% vs. ~7% in stellar lines) for wavelength calibration. Recent observing at the KPNO 2.1-m telescope demonstrated good instrument throughput and increased wavelength coverage. The total detection efficiency including the sky, telescope and fiber transmission losses, the instrument and iodine transmission losses and detector quantum efficiency is 3.4% under 1.5 arcsec seeing conditions. This efficiency is already comparable to all of the echelle spectrometers for planet detection. |
0.962244 | This comes from my cousin and his friends. They want to know what a good sample of old stories would be. Please let me know what suggestions you have on any part of this.
1. At least 1 story per Doctor.
2. Stories should be representative of the era in both style and quality.
3. When possible, select average stories.
4. Backstory for the current series breaks any ties.
5. Doctor order for first 7 stories: 4,5,6,7,1,2 3.
I only used stories that are complete (which was harder than I thought it would be).
I wanted a representative and average example in part because I want my nephew and his friends to get a real feel of the series. I hope they become fans of the series, warts and all. He did say that he and his friends were going to take these recommendations are starters and go on from there.
I'd like to think that since they think shows like iCarly, VicTorious, and Hannah Montana are "good", that a "representative sample" of Doctor Who would be good.
Also: Background on The Doctor himself, Daleks, Cybermen, Time Lords, the Master, etc.
For 4, 7, and 3, the first story is my first choice. The second story is the close second.
1st Dr - Dalek Invasion Of Earth, The Romans, The Chase, The War Machines.
2nd Dr - Power Of The Daleks (Colour animated), Moonbase, Tomb Of The Cybermen, Enemy Of The World, Web Of Fear, Invasion, Seeds Of Death, War Games.
3rd Dr - Spearhead From Space, Silurians, Ambassadors Of Death, Inferno, Day Of The Daleks, Three Drs, Frontier In Space, Green Death, Invasion Of The Dinosaurs.
4th Dr - Ark In Space, Terror Of The Zygons, Seeds Of Doom, Deadly Assassin, Face Of Evil, Robots Of Death, Talons Of Weng Chiang, Horror Of Fang Rock, Invasion Of Time, Destiny Of The Daleks, City Of Death, Keeper Of Traken.
5th Dr - The Visitation, Black Orchid, Earthshock, Black Guardian Trilogy, Kings Demons, Five Drs, The Awakening.
6th Dr - Attack Of The Cybermen, Vengenance On Varos, Two Drs, Revelation Of The Daleks, Trial Of A Timelord.
7th Dr - Time And The Rani, Delta And The Bannermen, Remembrance Of The Daleks, Happiness Patrol, Silver Nemesis, Greatest Show In The Galaxy, Battlefield, Ghostlight, Curse Of Fenric.
8th Dr - Shada Webcast, Night Of The Dr.
9th Dr - Rose, End Of The World, Dalek, Empty Child/Dr Dances, Bad Wolf/Parting Of The Ways.
10th Dr - Tooth And Claw, School Reunion, Girl In The Fireplace, Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday, Human Nature/Family Of Blood, Blink, Utopia, Turn Left, Waters Of Mars.
11th Dr - Eleventh Hour, Victory Of The Daleks, Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone, Vampires Of Venice, Vincent And The Dr, Pandorica Opens/Big Bang, A Christmas Carol, Drs Wife, Lets Kill Hitler, Wedding Of River Song, Angels Take Manhattan, Name Of The Dr, Day Of The Dr, Time Of The Dr.
12th Dr - Deep Breath, Into The Dalek, Listen, Time Heist, Kill The Moon, Mummy On The Orient Express, Dark Water/Death In Heaven, Magicians Apprentice/Witches Familiar, Under The Lake/Before The Flood, Zygon Invasion/Inversion, Face The Raven, Heaven Sent/Hell Bent, Husbands Of River Song, The Pilot, Smile, Knock Knock, Oxygen, Eaters Of Light, World Enough And Time/Dr Falls, Twice Upon A Time. |
0.999614 | Are you searching for the best destination for water sports? Well, Dubai is the right option for you because it has many marine thrills and adventurous. Over 50km of coastline, water sports abound in the Dubai city. If you want to enjoy the marine fun and adventurous, then you can prefer flyboarding. Flyboarding is one of the closest things to flying on water. With the one-person, water-propelled hoverboard can make you fly up to 9m in the air.
In the water hoverboard dubai, you can get a hover board with a 20-metre hose that is directly connected to the personal watercraft. You will have an exhilarating experience while doing this water sports. When you come to enjoy this adventure, bring a reliable videographer to capture all the action. Along with this activity, you can have sea ride dubai.
The flyboard Dubai is the water flyboard pack, which goes on your feet and lets you surf the sky, explore the blue seawater, and even swim like a dolphin. The powerful flyboard ski motor is attached with the flyboard, which drag you to the awesome water routes with the connection of a pair of flyboard boots.
The flyboard connection and arrangements give you a chance to fly into the sky as a bird up to 9meters and dive or explore underwater. Thus, flyboard Dubai is one of the exceptional water adventure sports that offer the finest opportunity for adventure seekers in the ultimate location of the Dubai (Arabian Gulf). So, come and enjoy this water adventurous with your family and friends.
While visiting Dubai, it is one of the must do water sports activity. This water activity is very easy to do because you will get training for few minutes by the professional flyboard instructors before actually doing it. Once you start flying with the flyboard on balance and confidence, it becomes easier to dive, turn, and even do some tricks on the underwater or sky.
With this adrenaline-powered flyboard activity, you can challenge gravity and fly like your favorite superhero. You can experience the sensation of flying above sea level at flyboard dubai jbr beach. If you are a beginner, you will get 30-minutes flyboard sensation including 10minutes of instruction from the experts in order to ensure your safety. The professional instructor will support you and manage the flyboard power as per your skill level. Once you have become comfortable with the device, the professional will show some new tricks and dive like a dolphin. Additionally, you will also access the option of taking pictures with JBR in your background. In the website, you can check flyboarding price before booking a ticket.
Along with flyboarding, you can enjoy various other adventurous and thrilling activities present in the Dubai. You can have luxury marina dinner cruise along with live saxophonist. Even you can avail a helicopter tour to explore the Dubai from the sky. Spend some wonderful time on Jumeirah beach and much more. All the packages are cost-effective and perfectly fit your budget. You can also access various flyboard dubai deals based on your budget. Thus, you can enjoy everything in the Dubai if you spare some time. |
0.997358 | (CNN) - She's the other woman in a special congressional election in South Carolina that's captured national attention.
No. We're not talking about Maria Belen Chapur, the woman from Argentina who in 2009 was involved in an affair with Gov. Mark Sanford. Fast forward to 2013 and the former governor is now divorced from his wife and engaged to Chapur, and he's seeking political redemption as he runs for a vacant House seat that he once held for three terms. Sanford's been very open about the affair on the campaign trail making it the subject of his first political ad.
The other woman we're talking about is actually House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who the Sanford campaign has repeatedly tied to Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert and Sanford's Democratic opponent in next Tuesday's special election.
"I've fought hard over the years to make South Carolina a better place to call home. But those efforts pale now against the larger battle for the direction of our country. Maybe that's why Nancy Pelosi and allies have spent more than a million dollars to defeat me. But this contest is bigger than them or me, it's about two different visions of how we restore America and reign in Washington spending," says Sanford, looking into the camera in a new commercial that his campaign says will run district wide starting Wednesday.
Sanford has repeatedly brought up the former House Speaker recently, and last week even debated a cardboard cutout poster of Pelosi to call out Colbert Busch for not accepting more than one debate. Sanford had invited Colbert Busch, an official with Clemson University's wind turbine drive testing facility, to a series of debates prior to the May 7 special election, but the Democratic candidate agreed to one showdown, which was held Monday.
At that debate Sanford said that a vote for Colbert Busch would also be a vote for Pelosi, who has high negatives with Republican voters and who most likely would become House speaker again if the Democrats run the table and regain control of the chamber in the 2014 midterm elections. And he once again brought up the money that national Democratic groups have poured into the South Carolina race recently.
"What it says is, whose voice do you carry when you go to Washington, D.C.?" he said Monday, pointing to the hundreds of thousands of dollars that national Democratic groups have spent on the race.
Colbert Busch, responding to the Sanford criticism, sought to distance herself from Washington.
"I want to be very clear, Mark, nobody tells me what to do, except the people in South Carolina's first district," she said at the debate. "I am a fiscally conservative, independent tough businesswoman."
It's not just Sanford who brings up Pelosi. So does his campaign spokesman. Responding Tuesday to new TV ad by a pro-Democratic group that highlighted Sanford's affair, Joel Sawyer told CNN that "this new ad is still more evidence that pro-Pelosi forces are heavily invested in getting another reliable vote for her agenda in Congress. We believe voters of the 1st District will see through attempts to buy this race on Nancy Pelosi's behalf," Sawyer said.
The strategy appears simple. Tie Colbert Bush to Pelosi in hopes of convincing Republican voters (in a district held by the GOP for three decades) to vote for Sanford, who is carrying a load of political baggage dating back to his infamous affair.
The congressional seat became vacant when Rep. Tim Scott, who won re-election by 27 percentage points in last November's election, was named by GOP Gov. Nikki Haley to fill the Senate seat of Sen. Jim DeMint, who stepped down late last year to take over as the head of the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Maria Belen Chapur, the woman from Argentina who in 2009 was involved in an affair with Gov. Mark Sanford dose look a little similar to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Deep down Mark loves Pelosi , whats to be just like her .
Sanford , Mommy issues !
Well, I suppose by now it should be obvious to everyone that the Sanford campaign has decided they can't win the contest if they run against Colbert-Busch. Buh-bye, Mark....you were entertaining, but show's over....tick tock...15 minutes up.
Sounds like Sanford is either secretly sporting wood for Nancy.....or he doesn't really know who his opponent is, at any rate, this guy is down right pitiful.
"PLEASE don't focus on me"
Man up Senor Sanford! Your opponent is Elizabeth Colbert-Busch.
What's the deal with republicans talking to inanimate objects??
That's the GOp for you, blames anyone but me syndrome. One down and Boehner, McConnell, Cruz, Bachmann and Cantor to go.
A vote for Sanford is a vote for Boehner? Well, I guess they could compare tanning creams.
This guy really needs to go away. What the heck does Nancy Pelosi have to do with anything??
Typical GOP behavior. They know their candidate is toast, so let's divert their attention away from the fact that he's a lying, cheating, scumbag who left his family and his post to chase tail halfway around the world. But let's talk Pelosi. Hilarious.
@Greg in Arkansas – Sounds like Sanford is either secretly sporting wood for Nancy.....or he doesn't really know who his opponent is, at any rate, this guy is down right pitiful.
The man does have a life-sized poster of Pelosi and is okay with talking to it in public. He's just plain creepy.
Pelosi is a perfect example of what's wrong with this country.
After his defeat, Sanford is welcome to visit beautiful San Francisco, famous for the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Cable Cars going up and down steep hills, Chinatown, North Beach, America Cup races, restaurants, museums, and Nancy Pelosi.
"The man does have a life-sized poster of Pelosi and is okay with talking to it in public. He's just plain creepy."
And cowardly. Pelosi would eat this tool's face bath-salts-style if he tried condescending to her like that in person.
This is too painful to watch. This guy is completely without portfolio and seems not to even know who is opponent is. Thankfully, on May 7, he can return to the Appalachian trail.
"....it's about two different visions of how we restore America and reign in Washington spending."
Well, we know Republicans cannot control spendiing when they're in charge. Deficit spending is all that they understand. Spending is something that concerns Republicans only when they're not in power. It's been their track record for more than 30 years, and the Ryan Plan is proof positive that they will continue down the same deficit spending path.
What's wrong with this country is a radical, obnoxious gaggle of fearful, narrow-minded, right-wing bigots who get all of their distorted viewpoints and mindless conspiracies from hate media. You spend all of your time desperately working each issue to find fault with the political opposition rather than trying to help America. |
0.891868 | After two charming trailers and lots of cheeky photos, "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life" is officially streaming on Netflix for fans to binge.
And while the new series answered lots of fan speculation about Lorelai's love life and her relationship with her mother, it was the four final words that are going to drive us nuts.
Final spoiler warning: Don't keep reading if you don't know how the series ends!
The series winds down with Lorelai and Luke's small wedding in the town square with Rory, Luke, Lorelai, Lane, and Michele (yes Michele) as her man of honor. The wedding is super opulent for such a small gathering, but in typical Stars Hollow fashion, it's gorgeous.
The last scene is Lorelai and Rory sitting at the gazebo with one another, laughing and talking about how Lorelai feels being married and later how Rory and Paul — her most recent, boring boyfriend — broke up via text message.
"It needs to fit," Lorelai tells her. "He'll find someone amazing someday. And so will you."
LORELAI: Hey, what's going on in there?
RORY: I want to remember it all. Every detail. Mom?
So, yes, fans called it, but who is the father?
There are a few possibilities. In 2007 when the series ended, Logan and Rory decided to break up after he proposed to her and she refused. Their relationship continued into the Netflix revival, as complicated and messy as showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino likely thinks today's relationships can get: Logan and Rory are only together when they're in the same city, otherwise they're nothing.
It could also be Paul's, Rory's aforementioned boring boyfriend who just broke up with her in the final scene, though we doubt it. After watching all four episodes, we're doubting you even care about him and Lorelai's "Who?" at the end of the episode really speaks volumes.
The one person we're pretty sure it's not? Jess. Though there is a moment in the revival where it appears Jess is longing for Rory and we know that he was the one to convince her to start writing her own novel, they never get together. When Luke asks him about it, Jess insists that their relationship is "long over."
The next question is does this line of dialogue hint at future reboots of "Gilmore Girls"? Could it be a spinoff that follows Rory's single motherhood life? All we know for sure is this has been planned by Sherman-Palladino from the beginning.
"It is very much what Amy wanted. If anyone knows her storytelling they'll maybe know what to expect," Alexis Bledel (Rory) said in an interview with Lauren Graham (Lorelai) for Entertainment Weekly. "I honestly don't know what to say about it without using specifics. It does kind of, hmm, it does kind of throw you."
"For some reason, my first question was, 'Who says them?' Because I assumed it was one character, when it's two," Graham said. "It's not as resolved as I thought they would be. I thought they would be, 'Honey I'm home!' or something like, 'Goodbye, small town!' So I was like, 'Oh? Really?'"
Oh really, indeed. "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life" is streaming now on Netflix. |
0.999996 | The Following section list the famous and worth visiting Places to visit near Vadodara.
Pavagadh is main place of Shakti worship around the Mahakali Temple. The Pavagadh is crowded with funfair during the Navratri festival. The Pavagadh is naturally beautiful place to visit near Vadodara. The Pavagadh is very famous for breathtaking scenery from the hill and the religious importance of the place attracts thousands of visitors daily. There is also a cable car. The cable car goes to the hill top till the main temple, thus reducing the efforts of climbing the long flight of steps. If you want to go by steps then the best time to go is in the early morning in order to avoid the heat and it takes around 4.5 hours for the round trip. There are limited facilities at the top so visitors are recommended to carry all the water you will need. The Pavagadh is truly worth visiting tourist places around Vadodara and one of the lovely hill station near Vadodara.
Champaner is located at the foot of the Pavagadh. The Champaner is famous for Hissar-e-khas, mosque Shehar, mosque Nagina, mosque Kevda and Jama Masjid, Wada Talav. There are also many tourist places near Vadodara, located on the border of Champaner village are Helical Stepwell, remains of Amir Manzil mansion, Saat Kamaan, Teliya Lake, Chassiya Lake and Dudhiya Lake, Lakulish Temple, Makai Kothar. The Champaner is one of the awesome tourist places around Vadodara.
The Jambughoda Wildlife Sanctuary is located at a distance of 70 kilometers from Vadodara. The Jambughoda Wildlife Sanctuary is home to amazing hills, awesome forest cover and valleys with small village settlements. The Jambughoda Wildlife Sanctuary is mainly has teak and bamboo trees. The Jambughoda Wildlife Sanctuary is home to leopard, Sloth bear, jackal, hyena, Blue bull, Four-horned antelope, wild boar, Barking deer and porcupine. The Jambughoda Wildlife Sanctuary is home to Reptiles which include pythons, venomous and non-venomous snakes and crocodiles. The water reservoirs at Kada and Targol are amazing place to visit near Vadodara. Both of these reservoirs have amazing forest guest houses on their banks and Kada also has a picture perfect campsite. The Jambughoda is connected to Pavagadh by ST buses. The Hired vehicles are available and best option for exploring the forest and observing the animals from safe distance. The Jambughoda is one of the best tourist places near Vadodara.
The Dabhoi is a boundary fortress built in the 13th century during the Solanki period. The Dabhoi fortress was captured successively by the Muslims, Marathas and British. The Dabhoi fortress has four large gates, carved with fascinating religious iconography, are called Vadodara Gate, Hira Gate, Mahudi Gate and Nadodi Gate. The Hira Gate is relatively well preserved with careful fine carvings. The gate is related with the legend of Hiradhar Shilpi, who was the architect of Dabhoi Fort, who was in love with a beautiful woman named Ten. While building the Dabhoi fort, Hiradhar Shilpi secretly built Ten Talav for his lover. Accused of embezzlement, he was condemned to death and buried alive under the arch decorated with a carved elephant. Also famous is the rare image of Hayagriva, a horse-headed form of Lord Vishnu, on the Nanderi and Vadodara gates. The gates are all under reconstruction. The Dabhoi also houses largest narrow-gauge railway station in Asia. Although it is now being discontinued, but two trains still travel daily from Pratapnagar Station in Vadodara. The Dabhoi is connected to Vadodara by ST busses. The Dabhoi is truly fascinating place to visit near Vadodara.
The Chhota Udepur is a small but main town in the tribal heartland and known for its ancient heritage and culture. The Chhota Udepur is surrounded by forests and mountains which makes it a perfect place for holiday. The Chhota Udepur is located on a lakeside and has many structures from the 1920s that give it a unique look. The Jain Temple is a perfect example of Victorian influenced plaster art. The eye-catching Kusum Vilas Palace and Prem Bhavan shares a 7 hectare campus. The Chhota Udepur is also interesting tourist place near Vadodara.
The Chanod is a pilgrimage site famous for its ghats along the Narmada River. The Chanod is a place for post-death rituals and houses many temples and ashrams including the famous Ma Anandmayi, Jeevan Sadhana and Gangeshvar Mahadev ashrams. The historic Shesh Narayana Temple houses paintings which are believed to be 1,500 years old that portray scenes from Lord Krishna's life on its ceiling. The Aarti is performed in the temples in the evening. The boats can be taken on rent for a trip to Triveni Sangam, the meeting of the Narmada, Orsand and Gupta Sarasvati rivers, where asthi visarjan (immersion of ashes) and ceremony are carried out. The only accommodation options here are the ashrams. Various shared jeeps and ST buses run between Chandod and Dabhoi. The Chanod is among the must visit tourist places around Vadodara.
The Kayavarohan locally known as Karvan, is the ancient town associated with the Lord Shiva. The Kayavarohan is said to be the origin of the Pashupati sect, which worship Shiva as the God of animals. There are many temples including one devoted to Lakulish, one of the forms of Shiva who is said to be the first guru of the Pashupati sect and the creator of yoga. You can also visit the Gayatri Shaktipeeth and lovely archeological museum. The Kayavarohan is located on the way to Por Village and ST buses stop here. The Kayavarohan is lovely tourist place near Vadodara.
Sankheda is popular for its lacquer-painted woodwork called Sankheda ware and is worth walking through Sutharwaga in Kharadi Faliya just to see the artisans at work. Around 150 families practice this 400 year old trade. Among the Indian craft traditions, the Sankheda artwork has survived and flourishing due to market demand. The products include chairs, swings, photo frames and various household products. The local traders also provide shipping services. The ST buses to Chhota Udepur and Bodeli stop here.
The Vadhvana Wetland is popular for bird watching. The Vadhvana Wetland attracts more than 110 species and about 50,000 birds during its peak season that is from November to March. The birds Species include tern, stork, ibis and spoonbill. Spread over 600 hectare, the Vadhvana Wetland was built in the early 20th century as an irrigation reservoir. The Vadhvana Wetland provides water to 25 surroundings villages. The tourist huts, a watchtower and peripheral roads are being built near Vadhvana Wetland. There is no bus service to reach the location, but if you want to visit this lovely tourist place than you can rent a vehicle from Dabhoi and take the Hira Bhagol Road. The Vadhvana Wetland is also worth visiting tourist place to visit near Vadodara.
The Kadval is a small village surrounded by farmland and was once a princely state. The descendant of the former king still reside in this magnificent Darbargadh Kadval by the same name and have converted part of Darbargadh Kadval into a heritage hotel with modern services and facilities. The Darbargadh Kadval is located near the forest and its natural beauty and night campfires make this heritage hotel a perfect stay. You can also visit to nearby tourist places like Hathini Falls and Sukhi Dam. This heritage hotel provides Facilities like veg and non-veg meals on request, horse riding, wildlife safari, pottery, tribal art, mountain biking.
The Gujarat Nature Conservation Society has grown a small artificial forest in the gorge of the Mahi River which is located near the Sindhrot. The Gujarat Nature Conservation Society is home to rare species of animals and birds, herbs and plants. The Gujarat Nature Conservation Park is a perfect trip for nature lovers. The Gujarat Nature Conservation Park also offers planetarium shows, sky observation, bird watching and explanations of plant and animals and also night walks. The Gujarat Nature Conservation Park is interesting tourist place near Vadodara. This tourist place is one of the best Tourist Attractions in Gujarat.
This Gangeshvar Mahadev Temple is located beside a tranquil bank of the Narmada, which is about 3 kilometers from Chanod. This Gangeshvar Mahadev Temple is said to be over a century old and notable because Sri Aurobindo, who later established the world famous Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry where you can meditate. The peaceful environment and the river are the main attractions. |
0.998838 | Barbara did her utmost to avoid being photographed but looked stylish in her monochrome outfit It is believed that Niall and Barbara met for the first time earlier this year on one of One Direction's trips Stateside.
They soon started following each other on Twitter and have been pals ever since, also enjoying a golfing date this month.
Catching Fire at the cinema and at the afterparty following the premiere of David Beckham's new documentary Class Of ' Niall Horan and Barbara Palvin have reportedly ended their relationship after finding the long-distance aspect of the romance too difficult to manage While Niall, also 20, has been doing his best to recover from an operation to his injured knee ahead of One Direction's upcoming Where We Are tour, Barbara has been busy with modelling commitments all over the world.
They are both really busy but are still in touch and friendly.
The Victoria's Secret beauty had also dressed to impress for the night out, wearing a chic LBD, leather-trim coat and patent brogues. According to reports, the pair decided to call time on their relationship, which began late last year, after the distance between them meant the romance began 'fizzling out'.
Hungarian model Barbara has kept quiet about her romance with Niall, both 20, on her Twitter page, but did reveal that she had jetted to the UK with her sister to celebrate New Year.
Barbara, 20, then appeared to confirm the split by posting a picture of herself cuddling up to a mystery man on her Instagram page, alongside the caption 'Early Valentine'.
Niall wore a T-shirt, jacket and jeans with trainers for the casual evening with his girlfriend, who can be seen in the background of the shot She wrote: Niall and Barbara attended the afterparty following the premiere of Class Of '92 in London last month. His knee dislocates and it is very uncomfortable.
A source told The Sun: Barbara appeared to confirm the split by posting an image of herself with a mystery man on her Instagram page earlier this week Niall looked smart in a navy suit, purple shirt and purple tie as he arrived for the party at Chakana nightclub at around midnight, with Barbara arriving just 30 minutes afterwards.
After enjoying refreshments at the premiere afterparty, Niall and Barbara were seen leaving via the same rear exit just minutes apart.
Catching Fire together at a London cinema. Share She also shared pictures of herself, Niall and Barbara all posing up for selfies together. Meanwhile, it was claimed earlier this week that Niall is set to fly to America next week to undergo emergency surgery on his knee ahead of the next 1D tour, after dislocating it when he was younger. |
0.965083 | Tool chests may include a hammer.
A tool chest is used to hold common tools like screwdrivers and wrenches.
A tool chest may include a cordless drill.
A tool chest is a storage container for various tools, including those commonly used around the house. Keeping tools in a chest is not only a great way to keep them organized, but also can help prevent rust and damage in a proper environment. There are many different types of tool chests available, from basic models to extensive and impressive multi-layered structures.
Like a dresser for clothing, a tool chest for tools can be an asset to any organized work room or garage. Basic models typically can fit the most common tools, such as hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, and a variety of screws, nails, and other accessories. Some come with handy drawer liners as accessories, that even provide imprints of each tool so that each has a specific place. A basic tool chest is a great gift for a person remodeling a home or for a newly qualified mechanic, carpenter, or woodworker.
More expansive models of tool chests may feature dozens of drawers and cabinets, each a perfect storage place for a specific type of tool. Drawers are often created at specific widths and depths to help make management of certain tools and accessories easier. A large chest is meant for the dedicated handyman or worker, and probably is not necessary for someone who just occasionally puts a nail in a wall to hang a picture.
Most professional-level tool chests have extensive features that increase safety and durability. Most are made from metal, such as steel, to provide protection against damage and ensure a long life of usefulness. Tools can be quite expensive, and a tool chest may help protect valuable tools by providing locks on each drawer and even limited protection from fires or floods. Since a tool chest can represent quite an investment, many come with multi-year warranties to help ensure continued satisfaction.
Some people eschew the modern metal chest and prefer instead to make a more personal item. Those proud of their woodworking ability may want to craft their own tool chest out of wood, creating not only a useful product but a family heirloom or personal gift. Giving a child his or her own customized tool chest is a great way to encourage an interest in tools and crafts and teach valuable lessons about the proper care and storage of tools.
Tool chests are available online and in many home improvement stores. It is important to consider the size of the chest versus the amount of tools that need to go in it before purchasing. A good tool chest will have enough room to store tools neatly, but not so much that most of it is left empty. Consider checking consumer review websites to get an idea of the performance, durability, and flexibility of different models before buying.
What Is a Multi-Bit Screwdriver?
What are Different Types of Fiber-Optic Tools? |
0.947217 | On November 26, 2015, an Istanbul court ordered Can Dündar, chief editor of the independent daily Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gül, the daily's Ankara bureau chief, to be held in pre-trial detention on charges of espionage and aiding a terrorist group, according to reports. The journalists' arrests are connected to reports published in Cumhuriyet in May and June 2015 that alleged Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) had transferred weapons to Syria under the cover of humanitarian aid.
The report in May 2015 alleged that weapons were found on two occasions in January 2014, when Turkish gendarmerie stopped trucks in southern Hatay and Adana provinces on the orders of local prosecutors. The Cumhuriyet report was published under the headline: "Here are the weapons that Erdoğan says do not exist." In a follow up story by Gül, published on June 11, 2015, Cumhuriyet published images that it said allegedly showed the MİT transporting weapons to Syria. Turkish authorities deny that the trucks contained weapons, according to reports.
On May 29, 2015, the same day Cumhuriyet published its story, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he had filed a criminal complaint against the daily. "What only matters to them is casting a shadow on Turkey's image. I suppose the person who wrote this as an exclusive report will pay a heavy price for this... I will not leave go of him," Erdoğan said during a live broadcast on the state-owned Turkish Radio and Television, on June 1, 2015.
According to court documents reviewed by CPJ, the journalists were accused on November 26, 2015 of exposing secret documents and espionage for Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organization/Parallel State Structure, a group the Turkish government claims exists and is a terrorist organization. According to the documents, authorities said that Dündar and Gül were arrested for "knowingly and willingly aiding an armed terrorist organization," "terrorist organization membership," and "obtaining and exposing secret documents of the state for means of political and military espionage." Dündar and Gül denied the accusations, the court documents showed.
According to the documents reviewed by CPJ, authorities said videos included in Cumhuriyet's report, which allegedly show the discovery of weapons alongside medical equipment on the trucks, were forged, and insisted that the contents of the trucks' loads was a matter of national security.
The journalists were sent to Silivri prison in Istanbul, according to reports. An appeal lodged by Cumhuriyet's legal team on November 30, 2015 was rejected, reports said.
Separately, Alican Uludağ, a journalist at Cumhuriyet, has been summoned by an Istanbul prosecutor after sharing on social media part of Erdoğan's criminal complaint against Dündar on November 26, 2015, according to news reports. |
0.999951 | 1 METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SECURE PASSWORD/PIN INPUT VIA MOUSE SCROLL WHEEL Background 5 Online security is becoming a growing concern as more personal information is placed over the internet or in a data format on a personal computer. While much of this data is typically password-protected, current technology allows hackers to spy and extract information, such as passwords, personal identification numbers (PINs), or credit card numbers. 10 Currently passwords are input via a keyboard or through a biometric password manager/fingerprint reader. The disadvantages are that there are several known methods to steal sensitive information from a keyboard input. Hackers use hardware and software key loggers. Also persons sitting next to a user can watch the user entering a password or video cameras could also be hidden to capture users typing their passwords. This problem 15 is even more relevant for blind users who may not be aware of other persons observing their movements. The disadvantage of a fingerprint reader is that they are not common devices, and even if they were ubiquitous a user would have to register his fingerprint and passwords on each device. It would be advantageous if there was provided a method and system for protecting users from having passwords or other sensitive data stolen. 20 Summary In a first aspect the present invention a method of securely providing a secret character string for a computer system in data communication with a server over a network 25 comprising: receiving input signals from an input device comprising a mouse wheel coupled to the computer system at the server, wherein the input signals are input by a scrolling movement of the mouse wheel; grouping the signals into sets of signals for mapping at the server in response to a user 30 input action; selecting one of a plurality of mappings at the server in response to the user input action; mapping each set of signals into at least one respective symbol at the server for providing the secret character string based on the selected mapping. 35 In an embodiment, the inputting of the signals can be performed by turning the wheel of a wheelmouse into a first direction. The user input action can be to change the turning direction of the wheelmouse in order to input a consecutive group of signals. In other words, consecutive signals that are inputted while the wheel is being turned into the same direction are grouped into the same group. The change of the turning direction of the 40 wheel mouse is an implementation of the user input action for signaling the end of a sequence of signals and the beginning of a consecutive sequence of signals.
2 Other embodiments include clicking or moving the computer mouse to indicate the transition from one group of signals to the next. In other words, the user input action indicates a transition from a sequence of signals forming a group to a consecutive sequence of signals forming the next group. The groups of signals are translated into 5 characters such as by means of a mapping table that assigns predefined sequences of signals to characters. In another aspect, the present invention a system for securely providing a secret character string, comprising a computer comprising a handheld input device comprising a mouse 10 wheel in data communication with a server over a network, the server comprising: means for detecting signals input by a scrolling movement of the mouse wheel from the handheld input device; means for grouping the signals for mapping in response to a user input action using the computer; 15 means for selecting one of a plurality of mappings in response to the user input action; means for mapping the grouped signals into symbols based on the selected mapping; and means for using the symbols for the secret character string. Embodiments of the present invention are particularly advantageous as a protection for 20 sensitive data, in particular for protection against so called identity theft, as the user's input of the character string into the computer is difficult, if not impossible to observe. Brief Description of the Drawings 25 An exemplary embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: FIG. 1 depicts a system capable of using a preferred embodiment. 30 FIGs. 2a to 2c provide examples of input devices that are capable of sending signals that are usable by the preferred embodiment. FIG. 3a provides an example login/input device that could be displayed to a user in order to trigger use of the password input in the preferred embodiment. 35 FIGs. 3b to 3f are example methods of grouping scrolling movements to be input and translated by the preferred embodiment. FIGs. 4a to 4c are example ways that mapping files can be used in the preferred 40 embodiment.
WO 2007/048687 PCT/EP2006/067054 3 FIGs. 5a to 5e provide example mapping files to translate groupings of increments/sets of signals into symbols for password input. FIG. 6 depicts the logic and steps performed by a preferred embodiment to receive an 5 input, translate the groupings, and submit as a password. Detailed Description To avoid the dangers of malicious hackers stealing passwords or other sensitive infor 10 mation and to avoid the inconvenience of fingerprint readers, the present invention pro vides a system that could bypass loggers and make it more difficult for cameras to view the actions of a user when entering information. The preferred embodiment uses com mon inputs, such as a mouse wheel, to input signals that would be translated into char acters used in a password. The advantage of this input method is that loggers are not 15 able to track the input, and even if they could log the mouse events it would be difficult for a hacker to put the mouse movements in the right context to recognize that a pass word is being input. A further layer of obfuscation may be added by creating mappings to translate the scrolling into characters, making it even more difficult for hackers to steal the password string. It would also be difficult to decipher the movements by per 20 sons sitting next to a user or by a camera. Input for blind users would be easier, and unlike fingerprint readers, there are multiple devices usable in different embodiments to enter a password, and input devices like computer mice with a wheel are already ubiqui tous. 25 In a preferred embodiment, the mouse wheel of a computer mouse is used to input sen sitive information, such as a password, PIN number, any input needed to bypass a se curity mechanism, or any account numbers (e.g. credit card, bank number, social secu rity number, e-commerce accounts, etc.), etc. These movements are measured in in crements (constituting incremental values) as the mouse wheel's increments are de 30 tectable by touch because each increment is a separate click on the wheel. These in crements are individual signals sent by the mouse, and these grouping of sig nals/increments (hereinafter referred to as "groupings" or a "set of signals") are grouped together using various triggers and translated into symbols. These symbols and/or characters are then appended together to form a password. For example, signals from WO 2007/048687 PCT/EP2006/067054 4 the increments on a mouse wheel are grouped when triggered by a change in the direc tion of movement. Thus, as an example, four increments forward (e.g. up) on the mouse wheel followed by two increments backwards (e.g. down) and then three forward again can be grouped as the incremental values "4," "2," and "3." This is because the 5 trigger for the embodiment to group the first four increments was the change in direction from forward to backward. These values can then be translated into other symbols. For example, a mapping file of the preferred embodiment may translate the '4' increments into the letter 'A', the number '8' or possibly even the symbol '+' if the system were able to accept non-alphanumeric characters in the password. Other more complex varia 10 tions can also be used with the same system as will be explained below. While the ex amples provided use passwords as the input string, one can appreciate that this system can be adapted for input of many different kinds of sensitive data. FIG. 1 depicts a system capable of utilizing a preferred embodiment of the present in 15 vention. A computing unit 100 is connected to an input device 102 through a communi cation medium 101. The computing unit 100 consists of anything that can process in puts from a user, such as a computer. The input device 102 is typically handheld, such as a mouse, but could be any peripheral device, particularly those with scrolling capabil ity, such as a touchpad. The preferred embodiment utilizes a mouse because the 20 mouse's wheel is capable of scrolling. Mouse wheels often have increments that are easily detectable by touch. Touchpads do not have detectable increments and thus embodiments would be more complex in order to recognize increments. Many mice now also have a tilt wheel capable of scrolling horizontally. Scrolling can be vertical as well as horizontal; however, any type of bi-directional scrolling movement would be us 25 able with the preferred embodiment, such as the general movement of a mouse. The communication medium 101 could be a wireless signal, a wire, USB connection, etc. FIGs. 2a to 2c depict three types of input devices 102 that have scrolling capability. In FIG. 2a, a mouse 200 has a scroll wheel 201 which can be moved in a forward/up or 30 backward/down motion which when viewed horizontally 202 is left and right, respec tively. Scrolling is typically a bi-directional movement, thus scrolling can also be ac complished by touchpads as shown in FIGs. 2b to 2c. FIG. 2b depicts a rectangular touchpad where the scrolling occurs on the right hand side of the pad. The scrolling movement of the rectangular touchpad is similar to that of the mouse wheel, where for- WO 2007/048687 PCT/EP2006/067054 5 ward and backward scrolls up and down, respectively. FIG. 2c depicts a circular touch pad where scrolling is performed on the outer rim of the circle while the inner circle is used for cursor activities. Scrolling up and down can occur by moving the finger on the pad in a counterclockwise and clockwise direction. While these are some of the com 5 mon inputs for scrolling, one skilled in the art would also be able to adjust the setting such that scrolling forward and backward could be done in other directions, such as horizontally. For example, circular touchpads can also be set so that counterclockwise and clockwise scroll horizontally left and right. Rectangular touchpads can be adjusted so that scrolling forward and backward appears as a horizontal left and right motion, 10 respectively, on the screen. The preferred embodiment would be usable with any of these scrolling inputs which provide bi-directional movement. In order to determine how to translate signals from mouse input to a password, the pre ferred embodiment uses signals from the mouse and groups them together. For exam 15 ple, in a typical mouse wheel, a user is able to feel the clicks under his finger as he moves the wheel forwards and backwards. Scrolling movement can thus be measured by these detectable increments of clicks on the mouse wheel. The group of increments, or a grouping, can be grouped as a single set of signals to be translated by the em bodiment. For example, four increments forward can be grouped together as a single 20 set of signals with an incremental value of four. The preferred embodiment could trans late this incremental value as a symbol, such as an alphanumeric character. A distinguishing characteristic between the various input devices is that some of the input devices have detectable increments during the scrolling movement, such as the 25 mouse wheel, while others do not, such as the scrolling in a touchpad. In input devices that cannot provide incremental feedback to a user, it may be possible to use other means to measure incremental values, such as a change in direction, to indicate an in crement. Thus, a movement forward followed by a movement backward would be measured as two increments, with an incremental value of two, regardless of the dis 30 tance moved during the forward or backward movement. FIG. 3a depicts a typical login/password box which could be displayed by the preferred embodiment. Normally, a user would use the keyboard to type in the password in the password box 301 (where the password is typically encrypted and displayed to the user WO 2007/048687 PCT/EP2006/067054 6 as "****"). In some embodiments of the present invention, a user may have a button 300 to indicate that input will be from an alternative fashion, such as a mouse. In other embodiments, the default could be to input the password via a mouse. Furthermore, it is possible to not display the password as it is input, particularly for blind users to pre 5 vent observers or cameras from discerning the number of symbols that are in the pass word string. FIGs. 3b to 3f depict how the user would physically enter the password and various methods of grouping sets of signals from the different scrolling movements and 10 increments. In FIG. 3b, increments are grouped as a set of signals by the change in direction. Thus, an increment forward 302, followed by four increments backward 303, two increments forward 304, and three increments backward 305 would result in a grouping of the incremental values one, four, two, and three. The equivalent mouse signal stream would be as follows: 15 <Up><Down><Down><Down><Down><Up><Up><Down><Down><Down> This could be translated as the password "1423"; however, as will be explained later, the "1423" could be translated into other symbols. 20 An advantage of this embodiment is that whereas a keyboard logger would be able to read the keyboard input stream: <1><4><2><3>, a mouse logger would receive the mouse input stream and not be able to discern that it is a password input. Furthermore, a camera watching the keyboard would not be able to discern the amount of increments 25 because the incremental clicks are difficult to gauge by visual feedback. FIG. 3c depicts an alternative grouping method. A user scrolls the mouse wheel one increment forward (up) 306 and then triggers the end of the grouping using a mouse button click 307. The trigger or "interrupt" separates the increments and allows the em 30 bodiment to group the increments. The user then scrolls forward four increments 308 followed by another interrupt by a mouse button click 309. The user then completes the example password by scrolling backward (or, alternatively, forward again) two incre ments 310. The mouse signal stream would be as follows: WO 2007/048687 PCT/EP2006/067054 7 <Up><interrupt><Up><Up><Up><Up><interrupt><Down><Down> This creates the groupings "142". An extra advantage of this embodiment is that be cause the button is involved, the translation mapping can be more complex because the 5 mouse stream could also provide the system with groupings mapped based on their direction, such that the system could read the stream as "1 Up, 4 Up, 2 Down" and have "Up" increment values translate differently than "Down" increment values, as will be ex plained further in the translation section below. For example, "up" could translate to numbers, while "down" translates to letters (or vice-versa), and therefore the stream 10 above could translate to "14B". Another alternative embodiment is to trigger groupings based on increments that are made while a button is pressed down. In FIG. 3d, a user could depress a mouse button 314, and all the movements that are made can be collected as subgroups. For exam 15 ple, while holding a button down 314, a user could increment forward once 311, back ward four times 312, and forward twice 313. The change in directions would be placed in subgroups and all the increments made while the mouse button was down 314 would be translated as one symbol or character. Thus one symbol or character will be mapped to the mouse input stream of "1 Up, 4 Down, 2 Up." One skilled in the art can 20 appreciate the complexity of the groupings that could be created under this embodi ment. FIG. 3e depicts one of the groupings that could be created for input devices that cannot detect increments, such as a mouse wheel without increments, a tilt wheel, a touchpad, 25 etc. As explained earlier, increments would be indicated by changes in direction. The grouping would thus have to be triggered by an interrupt, such as a mouse button click. Due to this hardware limitation, increment groupings created using an input device with out detectable increments would be slightly less complex than those input by a mouse wheel having increments. In the example displayed in FIG. 3e, a user would move his 30 finger back and forth three times to indicate three increments 314 followed by a mouse button click 315 to trigger the embodiment to group the first three increments as the value "3." The user would then move his finger back and fourth four times 316 to indi cate four increments and follow this with a mouse button click 317. The incremental values would be "34" which could then be translated as other characters.
WO 2007/048687 PCT/EP2006/067054 8 FIG. 3f depicts an example of the embodiment where the input device is a circular touchpad. Like the rectangular touchpad in FIG. 3e, the circular touchpad also cannot detect increments and could also be used to measure increments by the different tech 5 niques already explained, such as using button interrupts between scrolling or holding the button down while scrolling. The circular touchpad could also input scrolling move ments measured by the degrees and direction around a circle. For example, a user could scroll two and one-fourths revolution counter-clockwise 318 or equivalently 810 degrees counter-clockwise around the circle 318 to represent a single grouping. The 10 user could then scroll a quarter-circle revolution clockwise 319 or equivalently 90 de grees clockwise around the circle 319. The user then scrolls three-fourths revolution counter-clockwise 320 or equivalently 270 degrees counter-clockwise around the circle 320. This input could then be mapped to different symbols. 15 In FIG. 3f, the user would not necessarily have to start each scroll from the end of the last scroll. For example, when the user changes direction between scrolls 318 and 319 the user starts where he had originally stopped. However, the user can, as shown be tween scrolls 319 and 320, pick up his finger and start from anywhere else in the circu lar touchpad. An advantage to this method is that even if a camera is watching the key 20 board, the user can change starting positions each time he inputs the same password, making it harder to detect the movements. FIGs. 4a to 4c depict several ways the preferred embodiment can translate the group ings into symbols. A mapping is a way of associating at least one input to at least one 25 output. Thus, the sets of signals that were input could be translated to different symbols using a mapping. In FIG. 4a, a set of signals could already be pre-set such that all sys tems (represented by servers 401, 402, and 403) have the same universal mapping 400 between sets of signals and characters. For example, a server 401 could have the de fault mapping of one increment translated as the letter 'A', two increments as the letter 30 'B', three as the letter 'C', and so on. Another server 402 could have the same map ping. An advantage of this system is that users 404, 405, 406 would only have to re member one type of mapping to be used in all systems when accessed over a network 407.
WO 2007/048687 PCT/EP2006/067054 9 Alternatively, in FIG. 4b, it is also possible to have the mappings set on the server side so that a user inputting a password will have to know the mappings of each server they are accessing over the network 407. For example, each server 401, 402, 403 repre sents a different website where users enter using a login/password. Users 404 and 405 5 use the same first mapping 400 to enter the first server 401. Users 404 and 405 would use the same second mapping 408 to enter a second server 402; however, the first 400 and second 408 mappings are different. Since these systems are accessible over a network 407, a third user 406 would be able to register and use the same mappings as the first two users. An advantage of this system is that it would be more complex for a 10 mouse logger to decipher or for a camera watching the movements to determine the password without knowing the associated server and its mapping table. Alternatively, in FIG. 4c, it is possible to have the mappings established on the client side by the user. Thus, a user 404 could create one mapping file 400 which could be 15 used with any server 401, 402, 403 because the embodiment would translate the group ings from the mapping 400 into character symbols before submitting the encrypted password string over the network 407. A second user 405 could also have his own mapping file 408 to be used on any server 401, 402, 402 accessible over a network 407. An advantage to this method is that a user would only have to remember one type 20 of mapping, but a logger or camera would still need the mapping file because each mapping by a user would be different. For example, if a first user 404 inputted four in crements forward as one grouping, in his mapping system that could translate to the letter 'A', but in the mapping system of a second user 405, the same grouping could be translated as the number '5'. 25 Alternatively, it could be possible to let the user choose from multiple mapping files. Thus, a user 406 could use a first mapping file 409 on a first server 401 accessed over a network 407, and use a second mapping file 410 to access a second server 402. In another separate instance the user 406 could choose to log in using the second map 30 ping file 410 to access the first server 401. The advantage of this method is that the added complexity would make it extremely complex to decipher from a camera or a mouse logger because deciphering would require knowledge of the movements and the correct mapping file to translate and recognize the movements.
WO 2007/048687 PCT/EP2006/067054 10 FIGs 5a to 5d provide examples of some of the mappings that could located on a server or created by a user. In FIG. 5a the mapping file translates groupings to character symbols. In FIG. 5b the mapping adds complexity by translating groupings by number as well as direction in order to determine the character. This is an example of a map 5 ping that would likely use mouse interrupts or holding down the mouse button in order to group increments. In FIG. 5c the mapping file translates groupings into either numbers or letters depending on the direction. For example, the increment '3' could be either the number '1' if the scroll was forwards or the letter 'A' if the scroll was backwards. The mapping could also be adapted so that the increment '3' could be the number '1' if the 10 scroll was backwards or the letter 'A' if the scroll was forwards. FIG. 5d provides an example mapping that could be used for groupings made while holding down a mouse button. For example, if a user pressed a mouse button and moved the mouse wheel three forward, four backward, two forward and then let go of the mouse button, the grouping would be translated to the letter 'A'. FIG. 5e provides an example mapping 15 that could be used with groupings created using the circular touchpad. In these various mappings the groupings are translated into alphanumeric characters, however, the symbols could be any character which the password system may require. As passwords are input by keyboard currently, passwords accepted by systems are 20 typically only alphanumeric characters. However, an advantage of the preferred em bodiment is that a system or user could create a mapping between a set of signals and a more complex symbol. For example, three increments forward could translate to the character '§." One could have a password mixed between alphanumeric characters and symbols, for example, a password could be "@$14at@''. 25 FIG. 6 provides the logic and steps performed by a system of the preferred embodi ment. The preferred embodiment would wait for the selection of the password input 600. As explained earlier, the default may be to enter the password using a mouse wheel or other input device, but some embodiments may have the keyboard input as a 30 default and require a user to initialize input using another device. A next possible step may be for the system to determine the mapping 601. This is an optional step because the mapping could already be a pre-determined universal mapping. On the other hand, the server may be reading the mapping from a file created specifically for that server or the embodiment may accept a mapping file created by the user. The embodiment can 11 Then receive the input signals from the user 602. When the user has input the incre ments the system will recognize a trigger that groups the increments 603, the trigger being a change in direction, an interrupt of some kind, a lifting of the mouse button, etc. The system will then translate the grouping 604 into the appropriate symbol using the 5 mapping format. A user can then either enter more increment groupings to append to the password 606 or indicate that he has completed his password entry 605. Embodi ments can vary on when the translation step will occur. Translation of the groupings 604 could occur on-the-fly as shown in FIG. 6 or at the completion of the password en try. This may depend on if the mapping file exists on the server side or the client user 3 side. Several embodiments of the present invention are specifically illustrated and described herein. However, it will be appreciated that modifications and variations of the present invention are covered by the above teachings and within the purview of the appended 5 claims without departing from the spirit and intended scope of the invention. In the claims which follow and in the preceding description of the invention, except where the context requires otherwise due to express language or necessary implication, the word "comprise" or variations such as "comprises" or "comprising" is used in an in D clusive sense, i.e. to specify the presence of the stated features but not to preclude the presence or addition of further features in various embodiments of the invention. It is to be understood that, if any prior art publication is referred to herein, such refer ence does not constitute an admission that the publication forms a part of the common !5 general knowledge in the art, in Australia or any other country.
2. A method according to Claim 1, wherein the input device comprises a handheld input device.
4. A method according to Claim 2 or Claim 3, wherein the scrolling movement is measured by increments of movement of the mouse wheel.
5. A method according to Claim 4, wherein the increments are detectable by the 25 user.
7. A method according to any one of Claims 4 to 6, wherein the signals are scrolling movements measured by the increments of movement of the mouse wheel and delineated by a change in direction of the scrolling movement.
8. A method according to Claim 7, wherein each set of signals is grouped in 35 response to the user by changing direction of the scrolling movement.
10. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the selected mapping is read from a file stored on the server.
11. A method according to Claim 8, wherein each set of signals grouped from scrolling 5 in a predetermined direction is mapped to numeric characters or characters in an alphabet, or alphanumeric symbols.
13. A system for securely providing a secret character string, comprising a computer comprising a handheld input device comprising a mouse wheel in data communication with a server over a network, the server comprising: means for detecting signals input by a scrolling movement of the mouse wheel 15 from the handheld input device; means for grouping the signals for mapping in response to a user input action using the computer; means for receiving a selection of one of a plurality of mappings in response to the user input action; 20 means for mapping the grouped signals into symbols based on the selected mapping; and means for using the symbols for the secret character string.
14. A system according to Claim 13, wherein the scrolling movement is measured by 25 increments of movement of the mouse wheel.
16. A system according to Claims 15, wherein increments are not detectable tactually by the user.
17. A system according to any one of Claims 14 to 16, wherein the signals are scrolling movements measured by the increments of movements of the mouse wheel and 35 delineated by a change in direction of the scrolling movement.
19. A system according to any one of Claims 13 to 17, wherein the grouped signals for 14 mapping are grouped in response to the user clicking a button of the input device or holding down the button.
20. A system according to any one of Claims 13 to 19, wherein the selected mapping 5 is read from a file stored on the server.
22. A system according to any one of Claims 13 to 21, wherein the secret character string is used to input a password or an account number, or a PIN number.
FR2925799B1 (en) * 2007-12-19 2011-04-01 Bull Sas Process for entry of an identifier, input device and associated computer program and data processing device comprising an input device. |
0.999998 | Provide 5 flat woods which consist of four long sizes and one thick.
Take two woods of the same size and cut them into two parts.
Put two parts of the thick wood to be hanged in the right and left side.
Use the saw for cutting some pieces in every top of the right and left side with a right angle triangle size. Then, stand the three pieces of wood which is the same size and gather them into a long square of building kitchen cabinets.
Put the thick one under side and cut it in every four sides to be right angle triangle and gather it with the upper side of the building.
Finally, the two pieces of wood must be closed together with the right and left side of under space.
Those are some tips to make building kitchen cabinets in a big size.
First, there will be need four pieces of woods.
Cut one wood into two parts to be used in the right and left side.
Gather all four woods into one building which is made into square. Cover the front side of the wood with a cabinet.
Finally, nail all the every side of wood into the one in order to stand strongly.
These are the simple ways to make a small size of building kitchen cabinets.
On the other hand, there are some materials to start making with a simple style of building kitchen cabinets such as a nail, wood, and others. Then, those criteria of size building kitchen cabinets depend on the model of building kitchen cabinets. Therefore, there are two types of making building kitchen cabinets based on the size. |
0.999594 | In preparation for an overnight Sierra Club backpacking trip, I took a full pack on a two mile walk in the neighborhood. How cool is it to carry everything you need to live outdoors on your back?
The first mile was a loop, because I quickly realized hiking while walking the dog is slow. My second mile loop was thirty minutes, without a dog. It’s slow going with 30 lbs on your back! I kept adjusting the weight and the position of the pack to make it more comfortable. I also did some hula hooping, yoga, and stretching at the end. |
0.941178 | Do you have a recipe you want to change to make healthier? Changing ingredients in a tried and true recipe may take some trial and error. However, there are some ingredients that most times can be substituted and still contribute to a good overall product.
Note: To avoid dense, soggy or flat baked goods, don't substitute oil for butter or shortening.
Note: If ingredient lists include the term "partially hydrogenated," it may have up to 0.5 grams of trans fat in one serving. To avoid dense, soggy or flat baked goods, don't substitute diet, whipped or tub-style margarine for regular margarine. |
0.999993 | Falkenberg is the archetypal small south German Village sometimes shown on maps as Markt Falkenberg. It is extremely attractive to the eye with a brooding castle overlooking its former market place. What is more important to me is that it has one of five commune breweries left in the Oberpfalz (Upper Palatinate), one of the constituent principalities of the Bayerischer Freistadt (the Bavarian Free State).
These breweries are now to be found only in this area which is close to the Czech Republic border. Unlike some of the other towns and villages with them, Falkenberg has preserved the history of its example extremely well. So please allow me to provide a condensed version of that.
The story starts in 1467 when Abbot Nikolaus IV granted the citizens permission to brew beer. This was normally only normally given to towns that had a chartered market with their own laws. This did not apply to Falkenberg so it must be regarded as a special privilege. Eventually the market was chartered and the renewal of this in 1567 confirmed the brewing rights.
However something went wrong and brewing ceased in the town with beer being imported from Waldsassen. I think that back then, if they stopped brewing the right was lost, although that needs to be confirmed. This was rectified with the third renewal of the charter in 1672 when full brewing rights were restored.
It is not known exactly when the current brewery building was constructed but it has always to be found in the same place, alongside the river at the foot of the castle hill (see photo below). A new iron brew kettle was installed in 1870. The mash tun and the cool ship (Kühlschiff) were still made of wood at that time. All of the equipment was renewed in 1927 and a well was dug to supply brewing water instead of taking it from the river. Electric power was installed in 1930.
The equipment has always been heated from a wood-burning furnace. From 1959 municipal water was used but the brewery fell in to disuse in 1960. See below for the demographic reasons for this.
Back in September 1864 116 citizens were brewing or took beer from the Commune brewery. By 1880 it was down to 39 yet brewing was being done at least 60 times per annum. Generally two brewers combined to brew winter beers and for summer or lager beers there was just one.
The beer was often taken to a cellar that wasn't necessarily on the premises of the purveyor. The two main pubs in the town, the Sternwirt and Zum Roten Ochsen each brewed between five and seven times a year.
By 1930 the number of households using the brewery had declined to 12. But then, the Second World War took its toll and at the finish there were about five citizens exercising their rights. As mentioned above the last was in 1960 when Zoigl-Wirt Flaschner closed its doors.
Yet, eighteen years later in 1978, the brewery was back in business when Kramer opened his Zoigl outlet. This proved to be a catalyst and since then two more have re-opened, and the Roten Ochsen, an important pub in the village has started making its own beer again. It is possible more will follow, such is the current popularity of Zoigl beer. I find it fascinating that production ceased for a time before revival. Was it the same in other towns?
The resumption of communal brewing has meant that badly needed cash has come in to enable some modernisation of the brewery. In 1992 the cool ship was updated with a stainless steel version. Note that the old methods were being perpetuated, no modern cooling systems. During 1998 and 1999 the brewing equipment was replaced. In 1998 the local government listed the building as a historical artefact.
Well that brings us right up to the day of my visit.
After alighting from the bus, I went back to take a photograph of the brewery in Wiesauener Strasse. I then walked past the bus stop and the Marketplace along Tirschenreuther Strasse, past the other two Zoigl houses, which of course were closed on that day.
The three houses open on average every 3 to 4 weeks, normally Friday to Monday but not exclusively. Sometimes there are weekends when none are open. Please refer to websites as below.
I hadn't walked too far before I heard the sounds of laughter and the clinking of glasses and then my destination appeared on the left side of the road.
Wolfadl is approached up outside steps and on my left was the biergarten in front of the house and it was half full.
I went in and turned left in to the main room and it was empty! Nevertheless I was happy; I could take photographs and I am no sun lover and it was a hot day. I had a look around and noticed that there was another level above the main room with a sort of balcony reached by stairs and it was all made of varnished wood.
The main room with the bar area lead into another with wooden tables and chairs. The ceiling is decorated with dangling musical instruments.
The owner / waiter came in from conversation with his customers and served me a Zoigl beer. This was quite a change from the one I had drunk earlier in the day at Windischeschenbach. I thought it was much thinner in body yet malty. The aftertaste was very dry though with a slightly sour finish as well. I hope this description doesn't make it sound bad, just different.
I liked this pub and the man in charge was friendly even though he became very busy when the biergarten filled up. This is a very nice Zoigl house in a very beautiful village, highly recommended.
See www.markt-falkenberg.de or www.wolfadl-zoigl.de for dates of opening.
The village was reached by using bus route 6267 from the front of Wiesau railway station.
It is quite infrequent and you need to consult the timetable which is available on line.
There are not many on Saturdays and none on Sundays. So it is down to Mondays and Fridays.
I caught the 11.15 from Wiesau, returning on the 13.20 from Falkenberg. |
0.995463 | Ronald Friedman, Co-Leader, Retail/Consumer Products Industry Group, Featured in BuzzFeed Business Article "a J.C. Penney Hits Reset to Before Former CEO's Arrival"
J.C. Penney reported its second-quarter results today, and the biggest takeaway was that it's essentially hitting the undo button on former CEO Ron Johnson's tenure.
J.C. Penney used Tuesday's earnings report to both wash its hands of former chief executive officer Ron Johnson and lay the blame for its disastrous performance over the last 18 months at his feet.
"There are no quick fixes to correct the errors of the past," said current CEO Mike Ullman, who was brought back to the company to replace Johnson in April. "That said, we have identified the challenges, put solid plans in place to address them, and have experienced and capable people in key roles to do so."
Included among the areas in need of "fixing" is the retailer's home departments, where Johnson's "lengthy renovation and disappointing re-merchandising" hurt the company's sales results during the second quarter. Ullman said J.C. Penney is planning to reverse the slide by restoring private-label brands such as St. John's Bay, bringing back more than 1,000 permanent cash registers and the J.C. Penney customer loyalty program, amping up coupons and sale events, and reinvesting in the company's workforce.
J.C. Penney also said today that it hosted summits for domestic and international suppliers during the quarter, citing their "strong support" for the retailer. Credit has become a major concern for J.C. Penney after a report in The New York Post this month said CIT Group temporarily stopped financing deliveries from smaller manufacturers to the company – a claim the retailer said was false.
Still, J.C. Penney has a long way to go toward restoring goodwill among its supplier network.
"If I'm a supplier to J.C. Penney, I'm basically giving them short-term credit, meaning I want to get paid every 30 days, I don't want to take an order six months out — maybe two or three months at the most," said Ron Friedman, head of retail and consumer products at Marcum, which works with a number of J.C. Penney vendors. Factors such as CIT, which guarantee the credit of manufacturers, are adding a surcharge of 1% to 2% to do business with J.C. Penney, making the entire process more expensive, he said. |
0.999948 | Experiential learners often struggle in classroom situations, as the information is usually just presented visually and auditorily. There is little experiencing of the information in the classroom. However, these students learn well when given the opportunity to physically try something. For example, telling an experiential learner where the line is through a turn does little; nor does drawing the line on a track map. It's not until this person actually drives the line, feeling how much steering it takes to make the car go there that it truly sinks in. Sometimes, the experiential learner can pick up what they need simply by feeling the motion of the car while sitting in the passenger seat, experiencing your driving.
Having said all that, I want to dispel a myth: learning styles are not as important as many people think. There is some validity to the theory, but it's way over-done and over-emphasized. Why do I say that? Because, while we may have a dominant learning style, we all learn through all three modes. The mistake that many instructors make is thinking that they need to hone in on just one style with each student. Instead, great instructors use a combination of all three learning styles.
And that's the main message I want you to take away from this article: use a combination of learning styles when instructing.
Then, when you have your student do mental imagery of a technique you want him to learn, have him use his visual, auditory and kinesthetic (feel, balance) senses. Have him mentally picture the technique, hear what is happening, and physically move his body and imagine the forces he would feel.
Learning happens physically, but also mentally, meaning that your student can learn things from physically doing them, but also by imagining them. This is typically referred to as visualizing, but my point is that your student should be using more than just their visual sense when imagining. They should be using as many senses as possible to maximize the learning experience.
So, does everyone learn the same way? No. But the best way to help your student learn is to mix and match a combination of different teaching modes or styles. If your student doesn't "get it," try a different approach. Remember, there is always a way in, always a way to reach your student and help him learn. |
0.93007 | From Gregorian chant to Bach s Brandenburg Concerti, the music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods is both beautiful and intriguing, expanding our horizons as it nourishes our souls In this Very Short Introduction, Thomas Forrest Kelly provides not only a compact overview of the music itself, but also a lively look at the many attempts over the last two centFrom Gregorian chant to Bach s Brandenburg Concerti, the music of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods is both beautiful and intriguing, expanding our horizons as it nourishes our souls In this Very Short Introduction, Thomas Forrest Kelly provides not only a compact overview of the music itself, but also a lively look at the many attempts over the last two centuries to revive it Kelly shows that the early music revival has long been grounded in the idea of spontaneity, of excitement, and of recapturing experiences otherwise lost to us either the rediscovery of little known repertories or the recovery of lost performing styles, with the conviction that, with the right performance, the music will come to life anew Blending musical and social history, he shows how the Early Music movement in the 1960s took on political overtones, fueled by a rebellion against received wisdom and enforced conformity Kelly also discusses ongoing debates about authenticity, the desirability of period instruments, and the relationship of mainstream opera companies and symphony orchestras to music that they often ignore, or play in modern fashion.
Should be titled European music that's not that old: a very short introduction. I know older songs off the top of my head than described here but to hear them describe it the first song was written in the reign of Loius VIII by a white dude.
This information has potential to become drier and drier. This book presents what you need to know, without giving you cotton mouth. Great read if you need to know a weirdly large amount about early music. I love music so I enjoy knowing weirdly large amounts about it. That's why I gave this book a high rating.
Brilliant. a book every lover of this stately, captivating music should read.
Short, easy to read, a great book (in paperback) to take out to the park or garden in summer because of its small size. Covers succinctly with a good overview of much of Early Music in its forms. |
0.999494 | Seth lived for 912 years.
Seth was 105 when Enosh was born.
Enosh lived for 895 years.
Kenan lived for 910 years.
Kenan was 90 when Mahalalel was born.
Mahalalel lived for 895 years.
Mahalalel was 65 when Jared was born.
Jared lived for 962 years.
Jared was 162 when Enoch was born.
Enoch lived for 365 years.
Enoch was 65 when Methusaleh was born.
Methusaleh lived for 969 years.
Methusaleh was 187 when Lamech was born.
Lamech lived for 777 years.
Lmech was 182 when Noah was born.
Noah lived for 950 years.
Noah was 500 when Shem was born.
Shem lived for 600 years.
Shem was 100 when Arpachshad was born.
Arpachshad lived for 438 years.
Shelah lived for 433 years.
Shelah was 30 years old when he became father to Eber.
Eber lived for 464 years.
Peleg lived for 239 years.
Peleg was 30 years old when he became father to Reu.
Reu lived for 239 years.
Reu was 32 when he became father to Serug.
Serug lived for 230 years.
Serug was 30 years old when he became father to Nahor.
Nahor lived for 148 years.
Nahor was 29 when he became father to Terah.
Terah lived for 205 years.
Terah was 130 years old when he became father to Abraham.
Abraham lived for 175 years.
Abraham was 100 when he became father to Isaac.
Isaac lived for 180 years.
Jacob lived for 147 years.
Jacob married Rachel and Leah at age 84.
Estimate that Jacob became a father at 85 years of age to Reuben. |
0.934541 | Travis is an outgoing, good-natured young man. He loves meeting new people and new animals! Travis would like to have a pet, whether it is a cat, guinea pig, turtle, or tarantula. He would also like to try riding a horse or milking a cow on a farm. While Travis stated he is not the biggest fan of spending time outdoors, he does like fishing, riding his bike, and playing basketball and football. Travis has a love for swimming, but prefers to swim in indoor pools where the water is nice and warm and there are no fish swimming about. Other indoor activities Travis enjoys are playing video games, listening to country music, watching horror movies, and reading comic books. At this time, Travis is very interested in learning how to fence. Travis is passionate about food and cooking and does an excellent job making sandwiches. He is currently perfecting his grilled cheese sandwich, and next up would like to trying making a gyro with lamb and cucumber.
When asked what he would contribute to a family, Travis answered “laughter and silliness.” Those who know Travis were in agreement with his answer! Travis not only has a great sense of humor, but is also very kind, caring, and helpful. Travis does well socially and has good relationships with peers and adults. Travis is curious and is not afraid to ask a lot of questions when he wants to learn some new information or a new skill.
A family for Travis will need to provide structure, routine, and consistency. It is also important for a family to have appropriate and realistic expectations specific for Travis and exhibit patience with him as he learns new skills. Travis would do best with a supportive family who is able to advocate for him and who can meet his emotional and educational needs. A family who is trauma-informed and can provide Travis with one-on-one attention is preferred. Travis said he would like parents who he can talk to and have a close relationship with and would also like to have siblings who he can play with. Overall, Travis said he just wants a nice family. |
0.999894 | How do I get the Ruler to snap to an on-screen element?
To get the Ruler tool to snap to an on-screen element, hold down the Control key while dragging the ruler near the object you're trying to measure. When the calipers are shown, they will be used as the snapping point, otherwise the inner corner where the rulers meet will be used. |
0.947788 | What do you do when your child throws food on the floor?
1) They are testing your limits.
2) They are not hungry.
3) They are now learning the concept of gravity which attracts them to dropping food and seeing it fall.
The first time they drop food say or sing 🎶 , “Food stays on the plate.� The second time they do it, say, “I see we are not ready to eat. I’m going to move your body and place you on the floor.� When they show signs of wanting to eat again or whine or look up at the chair, then place them back in the chair and start the process over again.
During this developmental stage of learning about gravity, it is also important to allow them the time and opportunity to experience it. Providing activities where they can pour water and/or see things fall that are heavy and light, makes it fun for them and helps them see when it is appropriate to drop things and when it is not. Setting up a big bin with pom-poms, feathers and tennis balls can demonstrate the difference between how things move in the air and how they are pulled to the ground. |
0.999421 | Python's print function automatically adds a newline to the output. When you're printing a single line, the newline isn't noticed.
However, if you are reading lines from a text file, the newline is more noticeable. Here is a simple text file.
This is line 1. This is line 2. This is line 3.
Here is a simple Python script to read the text file and print each line.
The output looks like this, with the unwanted newlines in between each line.
To avoid the unwanted newlines, add an end parameter to the print function.
Now the output is cleaner, without the unwanted newlines.
Pauls-MacBook-Pro:Scripts paulcunningham$ python3.6 printlist.py This is line 1. This is line 2. This is line 3. |
0.950469 | The burial record of Gladys M Gusler. Cemetery: German Cemetery, Location: Ossineke, Alpena, Michigan, United States. Birth: 1918, Death: 1995.
We found more records about Gladys M Gusler.
Gladys M Gusler was 11 years old when Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio. George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "The Bambino" and "The Sultan of Swat", he began his MLB career as a stellar left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees. Ruth established many MLB batting records, including career home runs (714), runs batted in (RBIs) (2,213), bases on balls (2,062), slugging percentage (.690), and on-base plus slugging (OPS) (1.164); the latter two still stand as of 2018. Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time. In 1936, Ruth was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its "first five" inaugural members.
Gladys M Gusler was 21 years old when World War II: Nazi Germany and Slovakia invade Poland, beginning the European phase of World War II. World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although conflicts reflecting the ideological clash between what would become the Allied and Axis blocs began earlier. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most global war in history; it directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of total war, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Gladys M Gusler was 22 years old when The Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz. The Holocaust, also referred to as the Shoah, was a genocide during World War II in which Nazi Germany, aided by its collaborators, systematically murdered some six million European Jews, around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, between 1941 and 1945. Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event involving the persecution and murder of other groups, including in particular the Roma and "incurably sick", as well as ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet citizens, Soviet prisoners of war, political opponents, gay men and Jehovah's Witnesses, resulting in up to 17 million deaths overall.
Gladys M Gusler was 37 years old when Disneyland Hotel opens to the public in Anaheim, California. The Disneyland Hotel is a resort hotel located at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, owned by the Walt Disney Company and operated through its Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products division. Opened on October 5, 1955, as a motor inn owned and operated by Jack Wrather under an agreement with Walt Disney, the hotel was the first to officially bear the Disney name. Under Wrather's ownership, the hotel underwent several expansions and renovations over the years before being acquired by Disney in 1988. The hotel was downsized to its present capacity in 1999 as part of the Disneyland Resort expansion.
Gladys M Gusler was 46 years old when The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a "record-busting" audience of 73 million viewers across the USA. The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the foremost and most influential music band in history. Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock and roll, the Beatles later experimented with several musical styles, ranging from pop ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock, often incorporating classical elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways. In 1963, their enormous popularity first emerged as "Beatlemania"; as the group's music grew in sophistication, led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, the band were integral to pop music's evolution into an art form and to the development of the counterculture of the 1960s.
Gladys M Gusler was 59 years old when Star Wars is released in theaters. Star Wars is a 1977 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first film in the original Star Wars trilogy and the beginning of the Star Wars franchise. Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, and Peter Mayhew, the film focuses on the Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia (Fisher), and its attempt to destroy the Galactic Empire's space station, the Death Star.
Gladys M Gusler was 71 years old when Cold War: Fall of the Berlin Wall: East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to travel to West Berlin. The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic Republic, starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. |
0.930096 | One of the main influences on the framers of the Constitution was the unwritten democratic constitution under which the Iroquois Confederacy had operated since the 16th century, according to a group of American Indians and scholars.
''If Americans are going to celebrate the anniversary of their Constitituion, we figure we had better tell them where the idea came from,'' said Chief Oren Lyons, an Onondaga and an associate professor of American studies at the State University at Buffalo.
The Onondaga, based south of here, are one of the six nations that now make up the confederation, which stretches from the Mohawks near Albany to the Senecas near Buffalo.
While Americans celebrate the bicentennial of the United States Constitution this year, a group of Iroquois has solicited help from scholars in assembling evidence of the Indian precedent and the encouragement the colonists received from Indian leaders to unite and establish their own nation. Professor Lyons said they hoped to publish the research as a book next year.
As proof, they cite records kept by the colonists. An Onondaga named Canassatego suggested that the colonists form a nation similar to the Iroquois Confederacy during a meeting of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania in Lancaster on June 25, 1744.
In the years that followed, the colonists went from one meeting to another, looking for unions they should study, according to the executive director of the New York State Bicentennial Commission, Stephen L. Schechter.
One forum to share ideas between the colonists and the Iroquois, in the years leading to the French and Indian War, was the the Albany Congress between June 19 and July 9, 1754. At the meeting, representatives of the six Indian nations and seven colonies heard Benjamin Franklin. champion the Iroquois example as he presented his Plan of Union.
Starting next September, the curriculum for seventh and eighth graders in public schools in the state will include information about the Plan of Union, which was turned down by the English rulers, and the Iroquois influence on the United States Constitution, according to an associate in social studies education at the State Education Department, Kenneth Wade.
In addition to assembling evidence of their influence, the Iroquois group is also documenting the references to Indians in the Constitution and the ways in which the Government has dealt with the Indian nations.
The Constitution granted the Government power to regulate commerce, enter treaty agreements and make war and peace with the Indian tribes. The fact that treaty-making powers were taken from the states has become the basis of an Oneida claim to six million acres of land in the state, from Pennsylvania to Canada.
''There was an expectation in the U.S. Constitution that the practices toward the Indian nations would be the same as they had been with the British and other Europeans for the previous 150 years,'' said Howard Berman, a professor at the California Western School of Law in San Diego.
''That practice was based on mutual agreements and consent and, in almost all respects, was an international relationship between two different countries,'' Professor Berman, who works with the Iroquois research project, added.
Instead, after the Constitution was written, the Government enacted laws allowing the seizure of Indian land and such interference on sovereign Indian territory as the arrest of Indians for major crimes, Professor Berman said.
The Iroquois continue to live under their constitution and government. For example, the 26 Onondaga chiefs met this month to ban gambling and the sale of fireworks from their territory near here. |
0.999998 | Por segundo año tutorizo el curso de GIS Cloud en el máster a distancia UNIGS. El curso se ofrece tanto como módulo para los alumnos del máster profesional en SIG como curso de especialización abierto a cualquiera que quiera profundizar en esta temática.
El curso se desarrolla entre el 14 de mayo y el 25 de junio y el período de inscripción acaba el 7 de mayo con un precio de 375 euros, bonificables a través de la Fundación Estatal para la Formación en el Empleo (anteriormente conocida como Fundación Tripartita).
El año pasado fue una experienca muy interesante. Como trabajador en remoto y además miembro de un equipo de soporte, la metodología didáctica de los cursos de UNIGS me resulta totalmente familiar. Desde sus casas o centros de trabajo los alumnos siguen los materiales a su ritmo y disponen de varios foros (en función del tipo de duda) para preguntar. Es muy interesante ver cómo poco a poco la gente se suelta y cómo acaban por ayudarse entre ellos. Para mí son unas semanas ajetreadas, de intentar resolver las dudas lo más rápido posible y a la vez dar la mejor información complementaria para que puedan aprender el máximo. A la vez algunos hasta descubren que se pueden incrustar gifs animados casi en cualquier lado 😄.
Personalmente creo que el curso me enriquece a mí tanto como a los alumnos, porque nada te da mejor perspectiva que el feedback que te devuelven aquellos que llegan por primera vez, con pocos prejuicios y diferenets backgrounds.
Luego seguimos con Mapbox, el mejor servicio (tanto entre los productos libres como privativos) para diseñar mapas vistosos y potencialmente complejos. Mapbox Studio es una herramienta que no te la acabas.
Acabamos con CARTO Builder, un completo SIG en la nube con el que hacer análisis y publicar cuadros de mando que van más allá de un simple mapa.
En realidad como en cualquier curso de este tipo, lo importante es aprender a valorar las herramientas, encontrar sus puntos fuertes y sus puntos débiles así como desarrollar las capacidades para criticar cualquier otro servicio al que los alumnos se enfrenten en el futuro. Como decía un excompañero de trabajo, es esto mismo lo que nos hace tecnólogos en lugar de simples operadores de un software concreto.
Finalmente comentar que me encanta el flujo de trabajo que la gente del SIGTE lleva, usando para el control de la documentación repositorios git con tareas y pull requests asociadas y Sphinx para la edición de la documentación. Se nota que tienen mucha experiencia y saben lo que hacen.
Pues nada, eso es todo, que si lo que he contado te parece interesante y te apetece dedicar unas semanas de esta primavera a aprender más sobre los SIG en la nube, nos vemos en el Moodle de UNIGIS 😉.
This entry was posted in CARTO, cartography, education, GIS, webmapping on 24 April 2018 by Jorge.
NOTE: I’ll use CARTO but you can apply all this to any webmapping technology backed by a modern database.
Easy peasy, we have a map with many stacked points. From here you can jump to this excellent post by James Milner about dense point maps. My example is not about having thousands of scattered points that at certain zoom levels overlap. Mine is a small set of locations but many points “stacking” on them. In this case you can do two things: aggregate or not. When you aggregate you pay a prize for readability: reducing all your data to those locations and maybe using visual variables to show counts or averages or any other aggregated value and finally try to use the interactivity of your map to complete the picture.
So at this point we have something like this map, no aggregation yet, but using transparency we can see where CARTO has many employees. We could also use a composite operation instead of transparency to modify the color of the stacked points.
OK, let’s do a GROUP BY the geometry and an aggregation like counting. At least now we know how many people are there but that’s all, we loose the rest of the details.
So we can combine the json_agg function with MustacheJS iteration over objects to allow rendering the names of our employees.
We could do this without JSON types, composing all the markup in the SQL statement but that’s generating quite a lot of content to move to the frontend and of course making the whole thing way harder to maintain.
At this point we can repeat the same function for the rest of the fields but we need to iterate them separatedly. It’d be way better if we could create JSON objects with all the content we want to maintain in a single output field we could iterate on our infowindow. With PostgreSQL we can do this with the row_to_json function and nesting an inner double SELECT to give the properties names. We can use directly row_to_json(row(field1,field2,..)) but then our output fields would have generic names.
With this query now we have a data field with an array of objects with the display name and web address for the employee picture. Easy now to compose this in a simple infowindow where you can see the faces and names of my colleagues.
That’s it. You can do even more if you retrieve all the data directly from your database and render on the frontend, for example if you use D3 you probably can do fancy symbolizations and interactions.
One final note is that if you use UTF grids (like in these maps with CARTO) you need to be conservative with the amount of content you put on your interactivity because with medium and big datasets this can make your maps slow and too heavy for the front-end. On those cases you may want to change to an interactivity that works like WMS GetFeatureInfo workflow, where you retrieve the information directly from the backend when the user clicks on the map, instead of retrieving everything when loading your tiles.
Check the map below and how the interactions show the aggregated contents. What do you think of this technique? Any other procedure to display aggregated data that you think is more effective?
This entry was posted in CARTO, cartography, GIS, SQL, webmapping on 20 February 2017 by Jorge.
TL;DR If you are interested on getting a daily digest of geospatial links subscribe to this mailing list or this atom feed. Take «daily» with a grain of salt.
Over the last six years Raf Roset, one of my favourite geonerds out there, has been sending all the cool stuff he founds about our geospatial world to Barcelona mailing list at OSGeo mailman server. He started circa 2011 sending one link per mail, but in 2013-04-03 he started to make a daily digest. A gun burst in Spanish is called Ráfaga so the joke was really at hand when someone proposed to call those digests that way.
Time passes, September 2014 and I ask Raf to send them also to Valencia mailing list, since most people there understand Catalan and the content was too good to be enjoyed only by our loved neighbours. Finally in January 2015 I decide to start translating them into Spanish and send them also to Spanish and Seville mailing lists.
Then in May I join CARTO and @jatorre thinks is a good idea if I can send them to the whole company mailing list so after some weeks I stop translating them into Spanish. Since that day I only do it English, trying to follow Raf lead everyday translating his mails and forwarding them to CARTO internal mailing list and the rest of the OSGeo ones.
Also at June I decided to put those mails in a simple website so the Ráfagas would also be accessible on GitHub and a static jekyll website so anyone could use the Atom feed to reach them.
Final chapter, in July I also decide to create a dedicated mailing list just for those people who are only interested in receiving those digest mails, obviously thinking in a broader audience, not just my fellow friends from Spain. I think at some point I will stop sending them to the Spanish lists because normally Ráfagas don’t fire any discussion and I’m sending the same message to three lists. To be fair they sometimes provoke discussions at CARTO mailing list. By the way I’m almost certain the full team has a filter to move them to their archives and they think I’m just an annoying spammer (a couple of times I’ve changed the subject just to troll them xDDD).
Raf is an early bird and sends the digest in the morning, I copy the contents into a shared Google Doc where a group of collaborators help me on translating the content. It may seem not a lot of effort, but doing this every single day needs a team. Really.
I go to my favorite text editor, put the translated content into a new file and start a local server to check the website renders properly.
I commit and Push to the GitHub repo so the website is updated along with the feed.
I archive Raf’s mail from my inbox.
That’s it. Raf you are a formidable example of perseverance and I hope you’ll have the energy to keep giving us all those contents for many years. Thanks mate!
This entry was posted in CARTO, cartography, GIS on 14 February 2017 by Jorge.
After that experience, and thanks to Pedro’s friendship with Carlos Galcerán, a Cuban GIS consultant working in New Zealand, we had the opportunity to put our brains working again for another pet project. The idea is easy, have you ever wondered who is on your antipodes? Yes, three quarters of our planet are oceans so the chance to have an inhabited antipodes is not high but here in Spain, it happens that half of the Iberian Peninsula is antipodal to New Zealand. Join that with the possibility to have data about schools on both countries and well, that’s reason enough for us to start playing. Imagine a geography class on primary school, say in the north coast of Galicia, where kids can contact their antipodal school in Christchurch and practice their English, or kiwis practicing their Spanish, both learning about our cultures, favorite sports, our differences.
We started with a dataset only for Galician schools and end up digging a national registry of schools to create a full dataset of schools for the country. That and the help of Carlos and some help from the Spanish Embassy in New Zealand, gave us all the data needed to set up two tables on CartoDB, so the last piece was just a web interface to develop. With the recent release of OpenLayers 3, and having played with it a bit before, I wanted to do something more complex. We’ll leave the technical details about data and software for another post or two. The application is available at http://antipodes.decasaalcole.com.
If you like the idea and know someone in New Zealand or Spain that could be interested, please spread the word. And of course, the data is available for reuse on CartoDB and the code is also on GitHub, ready to be reused on other lucky antipodal combinations, we’d love to see both data and software reused and improved!!
This entry was posted in cartography, development, education, PostGIS on 13 January 2015 by Jorge.
Tras una semana frenética de actividad en OpenStreetMap para ayudar en todo lo posible en la crisis por el tifón Haiyan/Yolanda, acabar haciendo una sesión de formación y sobre todo construcción de comunidad en Valencia para mí ha sido toda una experiencia.
Por un lado la increíble respuesta de la comunidad OSM en general a esta crisis (ya casi llegamos a los mil colaboradores), con noticias cada día más esperanzadoras de la cantidad de información que se ha generado en tan poco tiempo, así como la actividad en la lista de correo del equipo HOT. Por otro lado artículos en medios de comunicación como The Atlantic y espectaculares visualizaciones como la del NY Times. Y finalmente la guinda con la sorpresa de obtener una buena aceptación por parte de los estudiantes de cartografía de Valencia para participar en la sesión.
De hecho se nos desbordó un poco el asunto y tuvimos que prometer que repetiremos la actividad la semana que viene en la universidad con ellos para que no vinieran todos hoy. Y menos mal porque hemos casi llenado las instalaciones que tan amablemente nos han cedido la gente de beCode. Creo que vamos a seguir contando con ellos para hacer cosas juntos, ya que casi sin conocernos nos han abierto sus puertas y nos ofrecido de forma desinteresada su local para que hagamos allí lo que se nos ocurra. ¿Mola no?
Al final hemos sido algo más de veinte personas, prácticamente todas noveles en OSM. Tras una charla ultra rápida sobre qué es OSM y qué íbamos a hacer hoy, la gente se ha puesto primero a pillarle en tranquillo a JOSM, y después ya a trabajar. Y la tarea no era para nada sencilla, ya que había que comparar datos anteriores al tifón (la imagen proporcionada por Bing) con la imagen del satélite Pleiades que Esri ha servido para que la comunidad pueda identificar los daños del tifón. Imágenes desplazadas, usuarios que no habían sido muy cuidadosos con la creación de cartografía y algunas nubes más o menos densas han sido los mayores problemas que ha tenido la gente para poder dar de alta nuevos edificios y carreteras y marcar aquellos que han quedado destruidos por el paso de Haiyan.
Como suele ser habitual en estas sesiones, han habido muchas dudas, algún problema técnico y unos cuantos despistes por mi parte pero en general la gente creo que ha entendido tanto la mecánica del trabajo en OSM, como la importancia del trabajo en estas situaciones de desastres medioambientales. Realmente sesiones como hoy hacen comunidad y me alegra ver que las nuevas generaciones de cartógrafos se interesan por estos temas, espero que cale el mensaje y desde Geoinquietos Valencia hayamos contribuido a aumentar la comunidad de OSM en nuestra ciudad.
A ver qué tal nos sale la semana que viene.
This entry was posted in cartography, geodata, OSM on 16 November 2013 by Jorge.
En los últimos años ha proliferado el uso del LiDAR como técnica topográfica. Básicamente, consiste en un telémetro láser que mide el tiempo que tarda una pulso láser en ir y volver después de haber rebotado en un objeto. De este modo consigue hallar la distancia entre el instrumento y el objeto. Es decir, es sencillamente un distanciómetro, pero con la particularidad de que puede llegar a medir unos 100000 puntos por segundo (100 MHz). Si, además, incorporamos a los equipos de medición un GPS que nos dé la posición y un sistema inercial que nos de la orientación si estamos en movimiento, podemos dar coordenadas globales, normalmente en el sistema WGS84, a todos los puntos medidos. Por tanto, tendremos lo que se denominan nubes de puntos de los cuales conoceremos su posición en un sistema de referencia global, además de otras características relativas al objeto, como la intensidad o diferentes ecos de retornos, o referentes a la medición como ángulo de emisión del pulso, tiempo o distancia relativa al sensor.
formato propio o, al menos, conocido.
Sin embargo, como en el ecosistema de los GIS, existe un software privativo que monopoliza casi todo el mercado del software para realizar los trabajos de post-proceso. No voy a dar el nombre de ninguno de estos paquetes porque el objetivo de esta entrada es justamente la contraria, exponer las posibilidades existentes para utilizar software libre a la hora de trabajar con datos LiDAR.
Lamentablemente, para extraer los datos de la mayoría de los equipos actuales no hay alternativas y necesitamos utilizar obligatoriamente software privativo. Comprar la licencia no es el verdadero problema, porque si tenemos dinero para comprar un equipo que cuesta varias decenas de miles de euros es que también podemos comprar al menos una licencia por un par de miles. Lo peor es lo que verdaderamente implica el software privativo, es decir, que no eres libre de hacer lo que quieras con producto adquirido. Sin embargo, si alguien quiere hacerse un telémetro láser, puede utilizar el módulo para la captura de datos de las librerías PCL, ya que soporta algunos dispositivos conocidos. Pero sobre la librería PCL y otras más hablaremos más datelladamente en otra entrada. Además, en la mayoría de los casos, cuando podamos acceder a datos LiDAR, estos estarán ya en un fomato conocido. Lo lógico es que obtengamos los datos en el formato LAS que es el formato estándar que define la ASPRS (American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing).
Hay varias librerías libres para la lectura y escritura de archivos en este formato LAS. La decana de ellas es LASlib. Está desarrollada y mantenida por Martin Isenburg y está escrita en C++. Está licenciada bajo LGPL, por lo que se puede utilizar en otros paquetes, aunque sean privativos. Al descargar estas librerías y compilarlas genera unas herramientas llamadas LAStools que sirven para la gestión de archivos LAS (las2las, lasmerge), para creación de LAS a partir de archivos de texto (txt2las) o archivos de texto a partir de LAS (las2txt), para dar información sobre archivos (lasinfo, lasprecision, lasdiff) o para crear un índice espacial de los puntos dentro de los archivos (lasindex). En las últimas versiones, también se crea la herramienta laszip que sirve para comprimir archivo LAS. El formato de salida es LAZ y el archivo de comprimido ocupa SOLO entre el 7% y 20% del tamaño del archivo original. A todo esto hay que añadir que con la librería LASlib también se distribuye otra librería para leer y escribir formatos LAZ, también en C++ y también con licencia LGPL. Para los usuarios de windows, además, están disponibles otras herramientas precompiladas, de las cuales no voy a dar detalles porque no son libres, sino que son shareware.
De la librería LASlib se hizo un fork y nació la librería libLAS, que está bajo el auspicio de OSGeo. También escrita en C++ pero incorporan bindings para una gran cantidad de lenguajes de programación. También incorpora herramientas para la gestión de archivos en formato LAS y texto, que se llaman de igual manera que las LAStools, aunque la utilización de los comandos pueda variar. Las diferencias que existen actualmente entre ambas librerías se pueden encontrar aquí.
La librería SPDLib es bastante reciente. Tanto es así que empezó a desarrollarse en el verano de 2011. El formato estándar que utiliza para trabajar con datos LiDAR se denomina precisamente SPD (Sorted Pulse Data) y está basado en el formato HDF. Es un formato de datos ordenados e indexado que está optimizado para el acceso rápido a los datos y en el que es posible trabajar con toda la señal del pulso de retorno, en inglés full waveform, no sólo con ecos discretos, como hace las librerías anteriores. Y precisamente ésta es una de sus grandes virtudes. Por lo demás, está en consonancia con las librerías ya vistas. Está desarrollada en C++, con bindings para python e IDL, y con licencia GPL. Al compilar se crean una serie de herramientas para la gestión, manipulación e información de archivos SPD, así como una herramienta imprescindible para transformar entre formatos LAS y SPD. Otra de las ventajas que presenta es que incorpora utilidades para generar modelos digitales en cualquier formato soportado por gdal, y para aplicaciones forestales. ¡Todas ellas libres! Sin embargo, al ser desarrollada principalmente por una sola persona y ser tan reciente, uno de los problemas que presenta es la escasa y, en algunos casos, inexacta documentación.
Sin duda, existen más librerías capaces de trabajar con datos LiDAR pero con otros propósitos distintos a los que hemos cubierto aquí. Las intentaremos tratar en otras entradas. Manteneos atentos.
This entry was posted in cartography, FOSS, GIS on 29 July 2013 by tolanss.
¡Hazme un mapa de España! … ¡y bien rápido!
This entry was posted in cartography, geodata, OSM, PostGIS on 5 July 2012 by vehrka. |
0.983099 | Elmer Lee LeFevre was 44 years old when Disneyland Hotel opens to the public in Anaheim, California. The Disneyland Hotel is a resort hotel located at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, owned by the Walt Disney Company and operated through its Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products division. Opened on October 5, 1955, as a motor inn owned and operated by Jack Wrather under an agreement with Walt Disney, the hotel was the first to officially bear the Disney name. Under Wrather's ownership, the hotel underwent several expansions and renovations over the years before being acquired by Disney in 1988. The hotel was downsized to its present capacity in 1999 as part of the Disneyland Resort expansion.
World War II: The Battle of Bukit Timah is fought in Singapore. World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although conflicts reflecting the ideological clash between what would become the Allied and Axis blocs began earlier. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most global war in history; it directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of total war, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease and the only use of nuclear weapons in war. World War II: The Battle of Bukit Timah is fought in Singapore. World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although conflicts reflecting the ideological clash between what would become the Allied and Axis blocs began earlier. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most global war in history; it directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of total war, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Elmer Lee LeFevre was 41 years old when Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom. Elizabeth II is Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms. Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom. Elizabeth II is Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms. |
0.999844 | Have you ever been working your way toward a goal that you really wanted to achieve, only to suddenly lose your way?
When you’re working toward a goal, it’s not enough to simply want it. Even if it’s the attainment of your life’s dream, you have to keep yourself constantly motivated or else you won’t stick with it. Here are some tips on how to stay on course and make it happen.
¬†An object at rest stays at rest. That’s what Isaac Newton discovered and it’s just as true about human beings as it is with physical objects. It’s easy to give up a goal when you take too long of a break from it. The momentum you need to keep going comes from taking action toward your goal daily.
 If you have a big goal, the fear of failure might be lurking somewhere in the back of your mind. This can cause problems with your confidence that can result in you falling out of step and giving up. The best way to keep your confidence up is to remember your past successes and achievements. Write these down and keep them handy in case you need them.
¬†In just the same way, it helps keep you moving when you can see how much progress you’re making. Keep track of your progress and every time you feel like giving up, look at the evidence. If you’re losing weight, keep records of how much you’ve lost. If you’re saving money, look at the growing pile of cash.
¬†Positivity is a much better motivator than negativity. If your goal is to get out of your current job, quit smoking, or break your bad habits, try to put a positive spin on it. For example, instead of saying you’ll quit smoking, make your goal to become a non-smoker or to make healthier lifestyle choices. Negative motivators can help, but it’s much better to make the main overall goal a positive one.
¬†There are always going to be roadblocks along the way and these obstacles can stop you dead in your tracks. It’s easy to let them. But an obstacle is really nothing more than a challenge. What it requires is a change of strategy and that’s all. When you get stuck and feel that you can’t move forward, review your goal and the process you’ve created for getting there. Brainstorm some small changes that you can try out.
¬†When you mess up and make a mistake (or you’re weak and let yourself slip), don’t beat yourself up about it. Instead, separate yourself from the situation and look at it objectively. Why did the mistake happen? Where did it come from? Look closely at it and use it as a learning experience.
¬†Lots of people try to do everything themselves and avoid asking for help even when they need it. It’s incredibly hard to achieve a goal without any support whatsoever. When you first get started, identify some people who can help you. When you have tough times, turn to them.
Don’t forget as you work your way to the attainment of your goals that you need rewards. It’s not enough to always anticipate the big day when the goal is reached. Schedule rewards for yourself after you complete your tasks or reach your sub-goals. Rewards are the best motivators. Besides, you deserve them.
What motivates you? Show me how to keep it up! |
0.999994 | Former Wayne County Commissioner Bernard Parker has served as a board member since 2014, nominated by Wayne County Executive Warren Evans. Parker has dedicated his life to community and public service. As a commissioner, longtime activist and leader, he has accomplished a great deal and has left an indelible mark on the community for over 30 plus years.
Parker currently serves as the Chairperson of the DWMHA Finance Committee, Vice-Chairperson of the Strategic Planning Committee and is a member of the Policy Committee.
Parker attributes his political success to his mentor the Honorable Mayor Coleman Young. Mayor Young took Bernard under his wing and mentored him to understand politics and the necessity of working with people to get things accomplished.
As a Commissioner, Parker was appointed Chairperson of the Wayne County Health and Human Service Committee, where he was at the forefront of endless actions that positively impacted the citizens of citizens. Commissioner Parker believes that prevention programs are essential in giving children an alternative to joining gangs and increasing self-esteem. A notable accomplishment was the development of the Comprehensive Management Organization (CMO). This is a program designed as an alternative to incarcerating children, allowing them to stay in their homes and attend school while being monitored through court appointed processes. The implementation of the program also led to the building of a state-of-the art juvenile facility. Additionally, Operation Get Down, a well-known community organization located on the eastside of Detroit, is practically synonymous with Bernard Parker, who happens to be the co-founder and former Executive Director.
He championed a millage that funded the development of Wayne County Aquatic Center in Chandler Park on Detroit’s east side; and oversaw the successful appropriation of ten balanced budgets during his tenure. Under his supervision millions of dollars for youth prevention and non-profit housing programs were awarded to organizations within the county.
Parker was born and raised on the eastside of Detroit. He attended Highland Park Community College and the University of Michigan. Bernard is married to Lorine Mays, has five children, seven wonderful grandchildren, and he still resides on Detroit’s lower east side.
Article: "Dr. Iris Taylor: WSU 2019 Alumna of the Year!"
Iris Taylor has served the Detroit Medical Center (DMC) system for the past 40 years. Throughout her time there, she has held the roles of staff nurse, manager, educator, chief nursing officer, and since 2002, President. Approximately 10 of those years were spent at Detroit Receiving Hospital, which she helped transform from a primarily emergency care facility to one with numerous specialties. As a lifelong devotee to service, Iris has enjoyed mentoring future nurses and implementing programs that help the people of Detroit. She has volunteered for community organizations and served on several director boards, such as those of Detroit Central City Community Mental Health and the Merrill-Palmer Institute. She is also an adjunct professor at Wayne State University’s College of Nursing and School of Medicine. Iris holds her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing and a doctorate in philosophy.
Commissioner Tim Killeen represents eight communities in Wayne County, including: Harper Woods, part of Detroit and the Grosse Pointe’s. He has served the citizens of Wayne County since 2006. Commissioner Killeen serves as Chairperson of the Commission's Committee of Health and Human Services and is also a board member of the Detroit Wayne County Health Authority. He was instrumental in the process of the Detroit-Wayne County Community Mental Health Agency becoming an Authority as he helped chair the transition meetings and held public hearings around the county to ensure the public was knowledgeable about the changes.
Ghada Abdallah is an experienced pharmacist and owner of Park Pharmacy. She knows the patterns of substance abuse or misuse, professionally and personally, as several family members have struggled with addiction including her cousin who died of an overdose.
Ms. Abdallah has worked with DWMHA as a member of our SUD Oversight Policy Board since 2016 and was instrumental in making our Narcan program a success. She is also a board member for The Family Center, serving Harper Woods & the Grosse Pointes, the Wayne County Pharmacists Association since 2013, involved with the Michigan Pharmacists Association in Lansing since 2009, and in 2016 became the first Muslim woman to serve on their board. She also helped found SAFE, a substance abuse coalition in the Dearborn area.
Dorothy Burrell is well versed in government processes having worked human resource management in several capacities, most notably with the Detroit Wayne Mental Health Authority while it operated under the county between 1982 and 2002. Her experience includes claimant advocate and consultant for the Michigan Employment Security Agency, mediator for the City of Detroit's Human Rights Department and Chairperson for the City of Detroit Board of canvassers for 20 years.
Burrell is an advocate for the mental health community as she provides a voice for her own family members and persons throughout Wayne County. She is very active in her community as a Precinct Delegate for the Michigan Democratic Party for over thirty years and works in her community spreading awareness by coordinating mental health forums on depression, suicide and stigma through her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. - Detroit Alumnae Chapter, as the former Chairperson of the Social Action Committee. Burrell earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Master of Arts in Industrial Relations from Wayne State University.
Angelo Glenn serves as Director of the Substance Use Disorder Prevention Programs at Mariners Inn, a residential treatment facility in Detroit, Michigan for men who suffer from the disease of addiction. Mr. Glenn began his career in substance abuse disorders with Mariners in 2006 and has held several key positions during his tenure.
He was appointed to the National Black Leadership Commission on Aids, Inc. (NBLCA) in June, 2015 and served as Chair for NBLCA Detroit. He was initially appointed to the DWMHA Board by the Wayne County Commission in July 2013 sitting on the Recipient Rights Advisory Committee. He also served as Chairman of the Substance Use Disorder Oversight Policy Board since its inception in 2014.
Dr. Cynthia Taueg is Vice-President of Ambulatory & Community Health Services for St. John Providence Health System where she is responsible for administrative oversight and leadership for numerous outpatient and community based services and programs.
She currently serves on several boards including the Detroit Wayne County Health Authority, the Board of Adult Well-Being Services and Advantage Health Centers. She is co-author of a book entitled Taking Care of the Uninsured: A Path to Reform released in 2008.
She is the recipient of numerous local and national awards including the American Medical Association's Nathan Davis Award and Black Caucus Foundation of Michigan Partners in Progress Award.
Cynthia began her career as a registered nurse graduating from Wayne State University with a Bachelor of Science Degree. Later she received a Masters Degree in Public Health from the University of Michigan and Doctorate in Health Administration (DHA) from Central Michigan University.
Issues raised during Good and Welfare/Public Comment that are of concern to the general public and may initiate an inquiry and follow up will be responded to and may be posted on www.dwmha.com. Feedback will be posted within a reasonable timeframe. Information that is HIPPA related or of a confidential nature will not be posted, but rather responded to on an individual basis.
Note: Dates and/or times may change.
will meet on July 8th @ 1pm. Please mark your calendars. |
0.999882 | Bangalore is well known as a hub for India's information technology and is colorful, diverse, energetic and amazing. Capital of the state of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and fifth-most populous urban agglomeration and one of the most cosmopolitan cities in South India.
Located at a distance of around 40 kilometers from the city, the Kempegowda International Airport gets its name from the patron of the city. Teeming with tens and hundreds of duty-free shops, the airport is a treat for the travelers looking to find gifts and souvenirs for their loved ones.
Also known as the cultural capital of Gujarat, Vadodara is one of the few cities, besides the metros, to host an International Marathon every year. Formerly known as Baroda, Vadodara plays host to the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, the largest university in Gujarat.
Situated in the suburb of Harni, Vadodara airport is officially known as Vadodara Civil Aerodrome. Developed jointly with the ministry of new and renewable energy, this airport has also been rated by Green Ratings of International Habitat Assessment, the highest national rating for green buildings conceived by The Energy and Resources Institute.
What is the frequency of flights from Bangalore to Vadodara?
There are 28 flights plying between Bangalore to Vadodara. The weekly frequency is quite decent between these two destinations. |
0.999946 | Try to bring the audience into the act. It takes you step by step through:-Acquiring basic public speaking skills -Building confidence -Speaking effectively the quick and easy way -Earning the right to talk -Vitalising your talk -Sharing the talk with the audience as well as organisation and presentation skills. Many people tend to open with an apology by saying that the didn't have enough time or that they didn't do their research. Học hỏi kinh nghiệm từ ngừoi khác. That is the weakest part of this book, which the author admits. By 1916, Dale was able to rent Carnegie Hall itself for a lecture to a packed house.
When you walk out there, before your audience to give your speech, do it with anticipation. Có 3 bước để thực hiện nó: -Cống hiến hết mình cho chủ đề mà bạn làm -Không chú ý đến những gì làm bạn thất vọng và lo lắng -Luôn tự động viên bản thân 4. Hãy đảm bảo rằng bạn có hứng thú với chủ đề mà bạn định phát biểu 3. A really easy way to show what you have to say is to use statistics. If a business person goes home frustrated, if they talk with their significant other about it, if they lay awake at night stewing about it, inevitably the problem is some person at work - a colleague, subordinate, or boss. The end is really the most tragic part of the talk, what one says last, the final words that leave a ringing in the audience. In otherwords, this book presents us with rules and principles to guide us while speaking, before speaking and habits to incorporate in our daily activities in order to achieve the desired end result of being an effective public speaker.
Your speech will be far more entertaining if the audience can make their own movie out of the speech. You can share an interesting fact with your audience, which at best, should have a relationship or something to do with the group of people you are speaking to. Start your the introduction by giving the exact title of the speakers talk or what you want to mention. If you explain to somebody how to swing a golf club only by words, he will get bored. You must select your subject and then limit it, narrow the subject down to an area that will fit.
Giữ vững mục tiêu Nếu bạn thật sự khao khát thành công, bạn sẽ có dc thành công- William James 3. In my experience this book is a light and effective tool for everyday communication in the business world. If you have a lot of patience and absolutely no experience with speaking in public, this may be useful, otherwise, you'd be better off getting a book more suited to your specific concern fear of public speaking, visual presentation, speechwriting, etc. Someone wrote a negative and mean spirited review of this book, even suggesting it was written by someone else after Mr. I don't think more experienced speakers will enjoy it as much, but there is enough here to please most people who want to improve their speaking skill, novice or expert. It's what takes up the majority of their time and - more important - the bulk of their head space.
Dẫn nhập vào nội dung chính 3. Use concrete, familiar words that create pictures. If you explain to somebody how to swing a golf club only by words, he will get bored. Every talk has one of four major goals. It is equally relevant for students and professionals.
Hãy khiêm tốn Khán giả thích sự khiêm tón và ghét sự pho trương, tự cao, tự đại. Get attention immediately Get an arresting opening, something that will seize the attention immediately. The examples of actual students and successful speakers get a little shallow sometimes. Hãy luôn quyết tâm giành lấy thành công: Tận dụng mọi cơ hội để có được một phần phát biểu thành công. If you put the principles of the book into practice, you will go into an adventure in which your vision will sustain you. But the principles presented here are not a magical eloquent formulas as this book is filled with disciplines to follow so that we could train ourselves to become an effective public speaker.
Fundamentals of Effective Speaking 1. This is further proof that information from Facebook is inaccurate and that newspapers are the way to go in terms of obtaining information. Chuẩn bị tâm lí sẵn sàng cho bài thuyết trình ứng khẩu 3. Click Download or Read Online button to get the quick and easy way to effective speaking book now. This way you discover facts of interpretation and arguments that you might have missed, and the form most suitable for the story you have to tell. The book is filled with inspiring examples, tips and lessons. Do you miss out on new opportunities? By the time of Carnegie's death, the book had sold five million copies in 31 languages, and there had been 450,000 graduates of his Dale Carnegie Institute.
All in all, you're in good hands. Speak on a topic that you have expertise in and are passionate about. Try to put them in your point of view. Make the end of the talk perfect. Carnegie explicitly states that his ideas and suggestions have to be practically implemented in order for anyone to become a more effective speaker.
Public speaking is an important skill which anyone can acquire and develop. What I really love about his works is that it provides principles that is easy to be understand and followed as it uses simple words by avoiding jargons and subtle instructions. Dieses unterhaltsam geschriebene Buch zielt darauf ab, Ihnen die Angst vor der öffentlichen Rede zu nehmen. This adventure will change you, inside and out. Instead of writing about them and explaining their accomplishments in more practical terms, Bornstein leaves us with a history lesson. A full summary of each part is found conveniently at its end for quick reference so you can revise and easily memorize what you have read.
Be sure you are excited about your subject. I can unequivocally say that I prefer Carnegie's write-ups, because his books are often constructive and directive: Carnegie provides concrete guidelines and steps to achieve what the reader seeks for himself. Thank you Carnegie for your valuable thoughts and advice. Be enthusiastic In making an introduction of a speaker, the manner also very important. Choosing a topic that excites you will make you talk with interest, vocal variety, and good body language because when we discuss our likes or dislikes. This book has stood the test of time and helped thousands of people, I'm glad to say that I'm one of them. |
0.999999 | Skånepartiet ("the Scania party") is a separatist, right-wing populist, anti-immigration political party in the Swedish province of Scania, established in 1979. The founder and leader of the party is Carl P. Herslow.
The original aims of the party were abolition of the Swedish state's monopoly of the radio and television market, and self-government for Skåne. Originally it advocated full independence for Skåne as a republic, but later altered this to instead back devolution within the Swedish state. Recently however the party has again restated a desire for full sovereignty. It started criticizing Swedish immigration policy in the mid-1980s, and since the 2000s has focused heavily on an aggressive campaign against Islam. Its support has shrunk over recent years and it is today not represented in any council, losing its last local seats in the 2006 election.
The party was founded on 24 March 1979 in Lund. Based on the Scania Movement ("Skånerörelsen") founded in 1977, its initial main issues was to achieve regional autonomy for Scania, particularly regarding the mass media, alcohol, energy, tourism and education policy. It ran in the 1979 election on three main issues; a Scanian provincial government, an independent advertising-funded Scanian TV channel with broadcasting associations, and the free sale of beer, wine and liquor in Scania. The election was however ultimately a failure for the party. It started local radio broadcasts in 1982. Although the party had put in much work for the 1982 election, it again failed to win any representation.
By 1984 the party reportedly had more than 4,000 members, and had expanded its radio broadcasts. It had also become more radical, now demanding that Scania become an independent republic. The party also started to criticize the economic, social and cultural consequences of Swedish immigration policy. In the 1985 election the party finally broke through, and helped to remove the Social Democratic Party from power in Malmö for the first time in 66 years, winning five mandates. It also gained representation in a few other municipalities. In the 1988 election the party was reduced to three mandates in Malmö and lost its representation in all other municipalities except one. The party held municipal seats only in Malmö through the 1990s. In the late 2000s the party has failed to win any representation, and has been marginalized by the advancing Sweden Democrats in competition for votes.
stop the "communist radio and television empire"
1985 election; 5 mandates in Malmö, 2 in Burlöv, 2 in Svedala, 1 in Staffanstorp and 1 in Vellinge.
1988 election; 3 mandates in Malmö and 1 in Staffanstorp.
1991 election; 2 mandates in Malmö.
1994 election; 3 mandates in Malmö.
1998 election; 2 mandates in Malmö.
2002 election; 2 mandates in Malmö.
^ a b c d e f "Om Skånepartiet". skanepartiet.org (in Swedish). Retrieved 26 December 2010.
^ Hjälte, Kenny (20 September 2010). "Val2010: Skånepartiet gjorde ännu ett katastrofval". Expo (in Swedish). Retrieved 26 December 2010.
^ "Punktprogram". skanepartiet.org (in Swedish). Retrieved 26 December 2010.
^ "Alla svenska städer: valresultat 1994". CyberCity (in Swedish). Retrieved 26 December 2010.
^ "Alla svenska städer: valresultat 1998". CyberCity (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 24 September 2010. Retrieved 26 December 2010.
^ "Alla svenska städer: valresultat 2002". CyberCity (in Swedish). Retrieved 26 December 2010.
^ "Alla svenska städer: valresultat 2006". CyberCity (in Swedish). Retrieved 26 December 2010.
^ "Alla svenska städer: valresultat 2010". CyberCity (in Swedish). Retrieved 26 December 2010.
Following the elections, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven lost a vote of no-confidence on 25 September, forcing a parliamentary vote on a new government. In the meantime, his government remained in power as a caretaker government. Speaker Andreas Norlén nominated Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson to form a government on 9 November. However, Kristersson lost a vote to confirm him in office by a margin of 195–154. He was supported by his own Moderate Party, the Christian Democrats and the Sweden Democrats, but the Liberals and the Centre Party, the other parties in the centre-right Alliance, were not willing to form a government reliant on the Sweden Democrats. On 15 November, Norlén invited Centre Party leader Annie Lööf to try to form a government, but she was unable to do so. Norlén then nominated Löfven, but he lost a confirmation vote on 14 December.Hours after the failed vote to confirm Löfven, Norlén announced that he would be meeting with representatives of the Election Authority regarding a potential extraordinary election. The Speaker also stated that he would be engaging in talks with the parties during the weekend and that he would present the next phase of the government formation process by the following week. Löfven was finally re-elected as Prime Minister on 18 January 2019 after the Social Democrats struck an agreement with the Greens, the Liberals, and the Centre Party; and after the Left Party agreed to abstain from voting against Löfven.
Bornholm's Self-Government Party (Danish: Bornholms Selvstyre parti) is a local political party in Denmark, which seeks to establish the independence or autonomy of Bornholm, a small island in the Baltic Sea with a population of slightly below 40,000 people. Founded in the 1990s, the party has seen only minor successes, securing at most a few hundred votes at a time.
Carl P. Herslow (born November 14, 1943) is a Swedish politician and leader of the Scania Party.
Islamophobia in Sweden refers to the set of discourses, behaviours and structures which express feelings of anxiety, fear, hostility and rejection towards Islam and/or Muslims in Sweden. Historically, attitudes towards Muslims in Sweden have been mixed with relations being largely negative in the early 16th century, improving in the 18th century, and declining once again with the rise of Swedish nationalism in the early 20th century. According to Jonas Otterbeck, a Swedish historian of religion, attitudes towards Islam and Muslims today have improved but "the level of prejudice was and is still high." Islamophobia can manifest itself through discrimination in the workforce, prejudiced coverage in the media, and violence against Muslims.
This is a list of political parties campaigning for self-government. Listed here are parties with a specific ethnic minority background or regional parties active on a national level promoting more autonomy or independence for their region. Only parliamentary (including regional parliaments or councils) or former parliamentary parties are listed. Some of these parties are members or observers of the European Free Alliance (EFA).
The constitutional functions of the Riksdag are enumerated in the Instrument of Government (Swedish: Regeringsformen), and its internal workings are specified in greater detail in the Riksdag Act (Swedish: Riksdagsordningen).The seat of the Riksdag is at Parliament House (Swedish: Riksdagshuset), on the island of Helgeandsholmen in the central parts of Stockholm. The Riksdag has its institutional roots in the feudal Riksdag of the Estates, by tradition thought to have first assembled in Arboga in 1435, and in 1866 following reforms of the 1809 Instrument of Government that body was transformed into a bicameral legislature with an upper chamber (Swedish: Första Kammaren) and a lower chamber (Swedish: Andra Kammaren).
The period following the accession of Oscar II to the throne of Sweden in 1872 was marked by political conflict. The Lantmanna Party, representing peasant proprietors, dominated the Lower House of parliament, and demanded tax reductions and reforms of the system of military service. The Upper House opposed these positions. A compromise was reached in 1884 with reduction in land taxes and increased periods of military service, processes that continued in later years.
In trade policy, advocates of Protectionism gained the upper hand in 1888, and import duties were imposed on barley and other commodities. Pressure grew for extension of the franchise, leading up to the introduction in 1907 of universal manhood suffrage for elections to the Lower House, and a proportional representation system for both Houses.
During King Oscar's reign many important social reforms were implemented. In a spirit of patriotism, physical activity was promoted: compulsory gymnastics was introduced in schools in 1880, and the Swedish Ski Association was formed in 1892. |
0.999999 | I am planning to update a bathroom in my home with new flooring. I would like to install tile in my 6 by 5 foot bathroom. What are the average costs I should expect as I compare quotes from contractors?
Tina, when estimating the cost for your new bathroom floor, keep in mind that the type of tile you choose is going to effect the overall price of your project. Floor tiles generally cost between $3 and $6 per square foot, but of course there are some specialty tiles that can cost several times this estimate. The other cost variable for your bathroom floor is the type of grout that you choose, as some epoxy grouts can cost quite a bit more than standard cement-based grouts. I think that this extra cost is money well spent, as epoxy grouts are less likely to stain or mildew over the long haul.
One way to insure an apples-to-apples comparison when reviewing your gathered work estimates is to specify to the bidding contractors the exact type of tile and grout that you want, as well as a specific tile pattern. You should also have the bidding contractors specify in their quotes the other materials that they will use for the job, such as cement backer board and tile sealer, as well as any ancillary work that may need to be done, such as removing and installing bathrooms fixtures or installing base board trim.
If you select a modest priced 12 x 12 ceramic tile, then your flooring project might cost around $1000 or less. If you want to upgrade any wall tile or perhaps a vanity top, then consider asking the tile installer do the work while he has the tools set up for the job. |
0.99795 | 1. Select a suitable within the meaning of the word and insert it into the verb in the sentence: You look tired. Sit ... and have a cup of tea.
2. Select a suitable within the meaning of the word and insert it into the verb in the sentence: Turn .... the music. It's too loud!
3.Vybrat appropriate within the meaning of the word and insert it into the verb in the sentence: Come ...! You'll be late for college.
4.Vybrat appropriate within the meaning of the word and insert it into the verb in the sentence: John! Wake ...! Can you hear a noise downstairs?
Wrong answers can be correct, because the wrong answer marked 0. |
0.999998 | What are the benefits and shortfalls of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index?
The primary advantages of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) are the simplicity of the calculation necessary to determine it and the small amount of data required for the calculation. The primary disadvantages of the HHI stem from the fact that it is such a simple measure that it fails to take into account the complexities of various markets in a way that allows for a genuinely accurate assessment of competitive or monopolistic market conditions.
The HHI is a measure of market concentration in an industry. It measures the market concentration of the 50 largest companies in a particular industry to determine if that industry should be considered competitive or as close to being a monopoly. Market concentration in an industry is determined by examining the number of companies that manufacture or market a particular product or line of products, along with the relative distribution of market share in terms of sales for each company within the industry. Economists consider the concentration of market share to be an important determinant in the viability of market competition and consumer choice.
The calculation for the HHI is the sum of the squared market shares of the 50 largest companies in an industry. The calculation for the HHI is simple and straightforward, requiring only basic market data, which is the primary advantage of using the HHI. The HHI value can range anywhere from near 0 up to 10,000. A higher index value means that the industry is considered to be closer to monopoly conditions. Generally, a market with an HHI value of under 1,000 is considered to be competitive. The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are wary of any mergers that would result in an HHI value over 1,000 and are likely to disapprove any merger that would result in an HHI value over 1,800.
The basic simplicity of the HHI carries some inherent disadvantages, primarily in terms of failing to define the specific market that is being examined in a proper, realistic manner. For example, consider a situation in which the HHI is used to evaluate an industry determined to have 10 active companies, and each company has about a 10% market share. Using the basic HHI calculation, the industry would appear highly competitive. However, within the marketplace, one company might have as much as 80 to 90% of the business for a specific segment of the market, such as the sale of one specific item. That firm would thus have nearly a total monopoly for the production and sale of that product.
Another problem in defining a market and considering market share can arise from geographic factors. This problem can occur when there are companies within an industry that have roughly equal market share, but they each operate only in specific areas of the country, so that each firm, in effect, has a monopoly within the specific marketplace in which it does business.
For these reasons, for the HHI to be properly used, other factors must be taken into consideration and markets must be very clearly defined. |
0.959088 | Line and Fill Effects in Excel Charts Using VBA.
Excel charts offer a wide variety of formats, but you can use Excel's drawing tools to enable even more formatting choices. It's possible to draw shapes on the chart to produce these formats, using the polygon drawing tool. This allows more line formats, by enabling more choices of line thickness and by making it easier to read dashed lines. More fill possibilities are made possible than merely filling below a series, as in an area chart: the fill can go below or to the side of the series, and in fact, an enclosed region in the chart can be filled. The fill can be made transparent too, allowing gridlines to show through the shape.
Click on an image to go to the relevant description.
This article presents VBA procedures that automate the polygon drawing tool, and gives hints about the kinds of formatting which may be achieved.
The table below shows the sample data used for several examples, and a simple XY Scatter chart which will be used in the first example.
Select the chart and run the TraceXY procedure below. The drawn line (red) and plotted series (blue) are both shown for comparison. Hide the XY series: before running the macro, double click on the series, and on the Patterns tab, select None wherever possible.
The line shape can be double clicked to open the formatting dialog. In the following chart, the line has been made thicker (1.5 pt) and given a dashed pattern.
In this version of the chart, a more intricate dashed line patter was selected, and arrowheads were defined for the endpoints of the line. Notice how the pattern continues around nodes. In the lines in a scatter chart, the pattern resets at each point, so closely spaced points may not display any of the dashed pattern at all.
A modified version of this procedure that connects corresponding points of two XY series with arrows has been posted in my blog at Connect Two XY Series with Arrows (VBA).
Below are sample data and a simple XY Scatter chart used for the next example. To fill in the polygon, the procedure uses all of the points in the XY series, repeating one of the endpoints so it starts and stops at the same location.
Select the chart and run the DrawFilledPolygon procedure below. The drawn polygon (green) and plotted series (blue) are both shown for comparison. Hide the XY series: before running the macro, double click on the series, and on the Patterns tab, select None wherever possible.
The shape is formatted by double-clicking on it. You can choose any colors, including fancy gradients like this. You can use textures or pictures to fill the shape. You can also use transparency to let hidden features show through the shape.
This chart uses the same data as the first example.
Select the chart and run the ShadeBelow procedure below. The drawn polygon (yellow) and plotted series (blue) are both shown for comparison. Hide the XY series: before running the macro, double click on the series, and on the Patterns tab, select None wherever possible.
This chart has been embellished by using a transparent fill, and by running the TraceXY procedure to create a heavy red line for the series (using the border of the polygon would result in a line around the entire periphery of the shape, not just where the data is plotted).
This chart uses the same data as the first example, except X and Y have been switched.
Select the chart and run the ShadeLeft procedure below. The drawn polygon (cyan) and plotted series (blue) are both shown for comparison. Hide the XY series: before running the macro, double click on the series, and on the Patterns tab, select None wherever possible.
This chart has been embellished by using a transparent fill, and by running the TraceXY procedure to create a heavy dashed blue line for the series (using the border of the polygon would result in a line around the entire periphery of the shape, not just where the data is plotted).
Line and Fill Effects in Excel Radar Charts Using VBA shows how to apply these techniques to Excel's radar charts.
To fill the area below or between two XY series, you can also use the following techniques. They have advantages over the VBA techniques, since they don't use VBA, and the filled regions are behind any data in the XY series, but they also require more work in setting up additional series and secondary axes.
To fill the area between two line series, you can use the following technique.
These procedures draw polygonal shapes, using each point in the series as a node. The first procedure merely draws a polygonal line from the first point to the last point, while the other procedures add additional points, closing the polygon to produce a filled shape. The X and Y coordinates of each point are converted from the axis scale to the chart's coordinate system, so the polygon accurately traces the series.
These procedures are designed to work on the first series in the active chart. The TraceXYMulti shows how to expand the TraceXY example to all series in the chart).
The VBA procedures below do not have any error-checking built into them. If a chart is not selected, the procedure will crash. If the active chart is not a Scatter chart, the shape will not be correctly drawn, and the procedure may crash before drawing any shape. If the axes display the values in descending order, the shape will be a mirror image of what it should be.
The procedures draw shapes with predetermined colors. The VBA code could be adjusted to produce shapes of any desired color scheme, but it may be just as easy in most cases to run the macro, then double click on the shape to open the formatting dialog.
Shapes on a chart are drawn in front of other chart features. Plotted points, labels, and other elements will be obscured by the shapes. The shapes can be made transparent, but this is not as good as allowing it to be drawn behind other objects.
If the axis scales of the chart change, or if the chart is resized, the shapes will no longer match the XY series properly. In this case, the existing shapes must be deleted and redrawn.
To trace a different series in the chart, change the 1 in this line. To trace every series in the chart, run the following TraceXYMulti procedure, which loops through all series in the chart.
The same looping technique can be used like this in the other procedures in this tutorial. |
0.991928 | Can you pick the phrases from mythology from a description of their meaning?
Weak point in a person's character or any spot vulnerable to attack.
Something that causes trouble, alluding to the object the Greek goddess of strife threw into the midst of wedding guests.
A large & unpleasant task, or anything excessively filthy or corrupt or extremely difficult and distasteful.
In a difficult position between two perils, alluding to a monster that would devour sailors and a whirlpool in the Strait of Messina.
Asleep or in a deep sleep, alluding to the Greek god of dreams.
To fall passionately in love.
Distrust of the kindness of one's enemies, from the words Laocoön used to warn the inhabitants of Troy.
Ceaseless and futile task that is repeated again and again, from the story of the king of Corinth and his punishment in Tartarus.
Victory won at too great a cost, from the armed warriors that sprang from planted dragon's teeth; they fought amongst themselves until only five were left.
Writing poetry, composing music, or starting a career in the arts; allusion to a mountain sacred to Apollo and the Muses.
Done to perfection or adorned in one's best from head to toe, possible allusion to the Muses.
Daughter's unconscious fondness or desire for her father and hostility toward her mother, alluding to the daughter who helped plan the murder of her mother, Clytemnestra.
Faithful friend or companion, alluding to the devoted companion of Aeneas in Virgil's Aeneid.
To engage in a foolish undertaking, from the story of Icarus.
To offer a bribe to extricate oneself from a difficult situation, alluding to the three-headed guard dog of Hades who could be bribed with food.
Times of happiness, tranquility, and prosperity or times of peace and happiness that are gone and will never return, from the story of the kingfisher that had the power to quiet the winds and the waves during the winter solstice when it bred in a nest floating on the sea.
A remarkable or an unnatural ability to make money, from the story of a legendary king of Phrygia.
Extremely difficult assignment, from the story of the twelve labors of a Roman strongman.
An expression of surprise or shock, partly from the name of the plant the god Hermes gave Odysseus to protect him from the sorceress Circe.
Extremely warm, from the abode of the shades in Greek and Roman mythology, even though this was a place of gloomy, icy darkness.
So exceptional that there is no comparison, from the comparison of a radiant and majestic Titan considered to be the sun in Greek mythology to a creature known for its debauchery.
Prized belongings of a household or family, from the name of the Roman gods of the household.
Allusion to the powerful magic of Medusa and the other Gorgons.
To begin writing a poem, to do creative or inspired work, or to achieve great success, alluding to the winged horse of the Muses that created their spring called Hippocrene on Mt. Helicon from the touch of its hoof.
Son's unconscious desire for his mother and hostility toward his father, alluding to the son who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother.
To create a source of unforeseen troubles that should have been left alone.
Allusion to the wife of Odysseus who waited for him for twenty years.
Never-ending task, alluding to a shroud being woven for Laertes.
To add difficulty to difficulty, embarrassment to embarrassment, allusion to the mountains that the giants Otus and Ephialtes stacked up to try to climb to Olympus.
Any arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is required, often forcefully, alluding to the fate of the victims of the highway man of myth.
Extremely wealthy, alluding to the Greek god of wealth.
To return from an apparent defeat, from the story of the fabled Arabian bird.
An irresistible enticement, from the name of the sea nymphs.
To plant seeds of strife, especially by peaceful intent, from the story of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes.
Any person, thing, or group that tries to subvert from within.
Under my protection; from the shield or breastplate of Zeus or Athena.
An individual's destiny from birth to death, from the story of the three Fates. |
0.998886 | Over the many years of mentoring I can safely say that a good portion of my conversations are specifically about career advancement. A large subset of those conversations have to do with advancement into management. The question I invariably get asked in one form or another is "how do I become a manager?". The problem is that it's not the right question to ask. Certainly not at first.
The right question to ask, which I've rarely been asked, is "Should I become a manager?"
That is in fact the more important question.
I understand why this question doesn't get asked. In most companies the only path to career advancement is through management. There is no other path available so the question doesn't even come up. Unfortunately not everyone is cut out to lead people. And that's ok! Not everyone is cut out to be a brain surgeon or a teacher or an engineer or a fireman either.
When I'm being asked by a mentee about how to get into management my first response is a simple question back: "Why do you want to become a manager?"
None of these are the right reasons to get into management. In a mentee's response I need to hear some amount of energy and enthusiasm about working with people for me to think that this person is a candidate for management. Personally speaking I got into and stayed in management and leadership because I discovered during my career that while I love working in my industry the highlights of my day were the one on one meetings with team members. That is in fact a criteria I suggest to mentees seeking to become managers: are one-on-one meetings the highlight of their day?
Right now at companies all around the world individuals are promoted into management who don't have and are unlikely to attain that skill. If you've ever had a bad boss you know the havoc that person can wreak on a team and ultimately to the customer and to the business.
Mentoring is about helping people reach their full potential through self-awareness and self-realization. It's just as important to know what to step back from as it is to know what to move towards. By guiding certain people away from becoming managers we are helping them as well as future teams and companies.
The biggest difference is that coaching is usually targeted toward a specific skill. Just as in a sports you work with a coach to improve one area. Mentoring's scope is much broader than that. With mentoring your aim is to improve someone's life and support their growth as a professional and as a person. You could consider coaching more tactical and mentoring more strategic.
In other words, coaching is about skill development. Mentoring is about personal and career development.
The time frame around coaching is shorter and dependent upon how long it takes for someone to improve a skill whereas mentoring can last years or even span decades because topics discussed are as broad as life itself.
In mentoring the agenda is set by the mentee. The mentor generally has much more life and career experience than the mentee. With coaching the coach brings particular expertise and drives the discussions specifically to improve the targeted skill.
Coaching can be done by a direct line manager in the hopes of improving an employee's aptitude whereas mentoring should be done by someone outside of the mentee's reporting structure. This will encourage a more open and confidential environment.
Outside of the immediate manager's coaching role, coaching is done more often for pay by the coach as compared to mentoring which is done for free (or preferably in exchange for something a mentee could provide but not money).
While mentoring and coaching involve many of the same skills on the coach/mentor's part they are really two different activities with different focus, goals and time frames. |
0.946685 | Roman Catholic policies on castratism: Who's to say that his own mature intact male voice, with all the training he had, wouldn't have been magnificent. Once the child and they were children was castrated, what choice did he have? The society settled for a poor imitation of a woman's voice, when their was no need. Put in context though, with eunuchs, tail docking for dogs and genital mutilation , it shows that we humans have a fairly unique knack for extreme cruelty based simply on tradition. A castrato is a male singer with a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or alto voice. From about CE to the late 19th century, most were created by castrating boys before they reaching puberty.
A caning sentence being carried out in Banda Aceh , Indonesia in A display of rattan judicial canes from the Johor Bahru Prison museum, Malaysia. In some countries caning is still in use in the post-independence era, particularly in Southeast Asia where it is now being used far more than it was under British rule , and in some African countries. The practice is retained, for male offenders only, under the criminal law in Malaysia , Singapore and Brunei.
Contrary to what the name suggests, a birch rod is not a single rod and is not necessarily made from birch twigs, but can also be made from various other strong and smooth branches of trees or shrubs, such as willow. In some penal institutions, several versions were in use, which were often given names. The cat had acquired a nasty reputation because of its use in prisons, and was replaced by the birch, with which the wealthy classes were more familiar, having been chastised with it during their schooling. In an attempt to standardise the Navy's birches, the Admiralty had specimens called patterned birch as well as a patterned cane , kept in every major dockyard, as birches had to be procured on land in quantities.
The only thing of substance, yes. |
0.910971 | How would Germans feel if another country wanted land from Germany? You must be aware that the Armenians, whether they live in Armenia or elsewhere, are seeking land and compensation, as well as an official apology, from the Turks. Now, you can tell me that the Germans did give the Jews lots of money - in the form of "wiedergutmachung" and that they also accepted that they committed a genocide on the Jews during World War II. Of course, there were the Nuremberg Trials that proved that there was a genocide.
And, of course, the Germans paid the reparations. But then, the similarities between what happened to the Jews versus the Armenians end when one realizes that the Jews did not have an army; they did not attack German towns and villages, and they did not become a fifth column to the occupying forces.
Where is the verdict of an International court on what happened to the Armenians? A war-crimes tribunal was indeed held on the island of Malta after WW I, organized by the British Crown. !44 Turks were held on the island for about two years, during which time the Allies tried to find evidence that the Turks intended to exterminate the Armenians living in the Ottoman lands. No such evidence could be found, and the Turks were released.
Your article does not mention that the Turkish Government has opened its archives and offered to participate in a historical and judicial forum along with the Armenians and other interested participants. but the Armenians have thus far refused to open their archives in Yerevan, Lebanon, and Boston.
While the Turks deplored the murder of Hrant Dink, the Armenians tried to justify the killings of the Turks and were collecting money to defend the murderers of the dozens of Turkish diplomats around the world in the 1970's and 1980's.
Is this perhaps another reason as to why the Armenians are not at ease in Turkey? |
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