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A renewed rise in the jobless rate is likely to worry Australians more than a delay in the vague promise of being better off when the carbon tax goes.
The unemployment rate jumped to six per cent in June, coinciding with a state of confusion in the Senate that ended in the government having to sit out a few more days before it can scrap Labor's fixed carbon price.
Employment Minister Eric Abetz was adamant that rising unemployment demonstrated the need to abolish the tax.
"Getting rid of the tax is essential to rebooting the economy and promoting jobs growth," he said on Thursday.
The jobless rate returned to six per cent, a level last touched in February and rising from an upwardly revised 5.9 per cent in May.
The increase came as more people sought work and despite the number of people being employed growing by 15,900 in June.
A 19,700 increase in part-time workers was partly offset by a 3800 decline in full-time workers.
Senator Abetz put that down a soft labour market, arguing it underpinned the urgent need for the government's plan to create jobs and build a stronger economy.
But opposition employment spokesman Brendan O'Connor says the government has no plan for jobs, just plans for cuts.
The government was cutting $1 billion from training programs when youth unemployment has risen to 13.5 per cent, while telling young people to "learn or earn".
"Under this prime minister, unemployment rate has a six in front of it ... yet this government has no plans to create jobs," he said.
Data this week showed that while business has taken a downturn in consumer confidence in its stride, there's no rush to hire people.
National Australia Bank senior economist Spiros Papadopoulos expects the unemployment rate will get worse before it get better, forecasting a peak of 6.2 per cent by the end of the year.
That's roughly in line with government predictions in the May budget.
It also means the Reserve Bank will be holding its line on interest rates for "some time".
The government's carbon tax repeal legislation returns to parliament's lower house on Monday.
The government continues to predict its end will ease cost-of-living pressures on households by an average $550 a year.
It will be a year before consumers can gauge how close to the mark is that estimate, and even then it is only an average.
That suggests many people will get less.
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TENS of thousands of Victorian children have been ordered to stay home from school today in an unprecedented act of caution as the state braces itself for its most dangerous fire conditions since Black Saturday.
Authorities have also stepped up their warnings to residents in threatened areas, telling them to leave their homes before 10am or be prepared to stay and fight if fires flare up.
With several big fires still burning near populated areas, including Daylesford, authorities fear the return of strong northerly winds and temperatures up to 40 degrees across the state today could create another major emergency.
There are also fears that lightning strikes later in the day could spark new fires.
As a day of total fire ban was declared across the state, Premier John Brumby repeated his dire message from the lead-up to Black Saturday, warning people not to travel unnecessarily and to stay away from the bush, including the Great Ocean Road.
"We all need to exercise common sense. If you don't need to go out then don't," he said. "If you do need to go out, then leave early, but carefully consider your travel plans."
In an unprecedented step, the Government ordered the closure of almost 400 schools and children's centres for the day in bushfire-prone areas.
Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said 192 public schools and 176 licensed kindergartens, day care centres and creches would be shut.
Another 16 Catholic schools and 10 independent schools will also be shut.
Ms Pike said it was a "precautionary action" following advice from the Country Fire Authority and the State Emergency Service.
Three primary schools - Marysville, Strathewen, and Middle King Lake - were burnt down in the Black Saturday fires three weeks ago.
So far, the official death toll from the disaster stands at 210. But experts say the fatalities could have been much higher had the fires occurred on a school day.
"There will be several thousand people affected by (the closures), but that's a small price to pay compared to the risk that people potentially are at," Ms Pike said. "This is an extraordinary set of circumstances. We've got a tinder dry environment, we've got existing fires and we of course are now working through the process. This just happens to be an extraordinarily large number of schools."
School principals were working frantically last night to notify families of today's closures, sending home letters with students or calling parents individually. Posters will also be placed on school buildings today, and some principals will be at school gates turning children away in case families had not been notified last night.
At Daylesford Secondary College, principal Heather McIntyre said that after a week of imminent danger, staff and students were relieved about the decision to close today.
Of the school's 495 students, about 200 had already stayed away this week because of the fire threat.
Tension has also been high at Deans Marsh Primary, where the school's 42 students have spent the week practising fire drills. "The Otways has been pretty dry - any spark and I think it'll go," principal Iain Stoddart said.
Of the closed state schools, 61 are around the eastern metropolitan region, including Healesville High School, Emerald Secondary College and Ferntree Gully North Primary School. A further 35 public schools have closed in the Gippsland area, 30 in the Grampians, and 29 in the Loddon Mallee region.
Sixteen Catholic schools will close in areas including Bunyip, Belgrave and Yarra Junction. A further 10 independent schools will close on the advice of the Association of Independent Schools.
CFA deputy chief fire officer John Haynes said today was "prime fire weather", with temperatures nearing 40 degrees and a strong northerly wind, followed by a dangerous south-westerly change in the afternoon. "If you are going to leave, go to some of the relief centres set up in some of the high fire-danger areas or, if you want to, go to the movies for the day, see family members in the CBD."
"If you are going to stay, be prepared, make sure you drink plenty of water, wear your long sleeves, long pants, sturdy boots and listen to the radio for urgent threat messages."
Fears are greatest for towns in the Yarra and Warburton valleys, including Healesville, Yarra Glen, Warburton and Steels Creek, which are as close as four kilometres to the edge of a massive, uncontained inferno that has been looming over them since Black Saturday.
Other areas that could come under threat include Daylesford and surrounding towns near the Muskvale fire, which has been contained but could flare up. Residents of Whittlesea, Wallan, and those threatened by the Upwey blaze on Monday should also be alert.
The dangerous weather could resume next week, with strong winds forecast for Tuesday, as well as 32-degree heat, before a showery change.
Acting Superintendent Michael Sayer said traffic police across the state would be on the roads today to help motorists deal with the bushfire threat.
Information on road closures is available at the VicRoads website, www.vicroads.vic.gov.au, and on ABC radio updates.
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Jeremy Grantham, the 74-year-old chief investment strategist of Boston-based investment fund Grantham Mayo van Otterloo (GMO), has made his career forecasting market bubbles--with remarkable success. When writing an article on the slowing pace of global growth last week--for which Grantham's ideas provide significant fodder--my colleagues and I were spellbound by one statistic: of the 36 major bubbles GMO says it tracks, 33 have completely popped, or returned to their prior trends.
GMO won't say what most of these are, and according to the firm's quarterly letters, it also tracks a lot more less-major bubbles: 330 by its February 2013 count. For GMO, a "bubble" is simply when the price of an asset in relation to its real value (usually just the "price-to-earnings ratio" in investor-speak) has exceeded its average by a certain amount, and a "major bubble," a bigger amount (two standard deviations, for statistics aficionados.)
Among Grantham's accurate predictions: the 2006 housing bubble, the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, the Japanese stock bubble of the late 1980s. More recent predictions: the Australian and UK housing market bubbles, which have yet to pop. Perhaps most worryingly, GMO has been warning of what fellow strategist James Montier calls (pdf) the "foie gras" bubble or the "near-rational" bubble, in which "investors are being force-fed higher risk assets at low prices"--a product of central banks' loose monetary policies.
The 36 major bubbles GMO follows are pretty improbable, statistically speaking--but in real life, they turn out to be less improbable than expected. In an interview with US TV host Charlie Rose (pdf) earlier this year, Grantham explained (the transcript is unedited):
A bubble we had to make a definition long ago and we decided to have a statistical definition of the kind that would occur every 44 years in a random world. It isn't a random world but it's closer than you think. The kind of event that would occur randomly every 44 year occurs in the real world every 30 years. It's much closer than we expected.
In other words, based on his calculations, markets are more volatile than mathematics says they should be. Grantham accurately predicted the housing bubble--which went along with a bubble in profit margins for corporations--in 2005 (pdf). According to his statistical methodology, this was a 1-in-5,000 year event (pdf). He wrote in February:
It is just statistics, full as always of assumptions, which in this case we hope approach rough justice. What it does definitely mean, though, is that it was extraordinarily unlikely that the extremely diversified U.S. housing market would shoot up like it did and, frankly, even more remarkable that Bernanke and his timid or incompetent advisors could miss it.
According to Grantham, the Federal Reserve (among the world's other central banks) has gone about its business ignoring bubbles, at least for the 15 years leading up to the financial crisis. He criticizes this approach (pdf, registration required), arguing that central banks should be tasked with mitigating bubbles before they get out of control, instead of focusing on strengthening economies.
In the real world, major asset bubbles are easy to see. They are nearly impossible to miss, in fact. But we travel in a world with a systemic bias to optimism that typically chooses to avoid the topic of the impending bursting of investment bubbles...[The Fed] doesn't want to move against bubbles because Congress and business do not like it and show their dislike in unmistakable terms.
GMO's remarkable track record of spotting bubbles--not to mention the severe and lingering economic impact of the US housing bubble--does lend credence to this view. The Fed was thoroughly embarrassed by its failure to treat the US housing bubble before it got out of control. But perhaps, with its threat to dial back its easy money policy in the near future, the Fed is taking a page from GMO's book.
GMO declined to provide more details about its methodology or current bubbles it's tracking because those data are proprietary.
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Doctors Warn Brazilian Women: ‘Don’t Get Pregnant’
An outbreak of Zika virus, a relatively new mosquito-transmitted infection, has caused substantial alarm in Brazil.
Since its appearance in spring of this year, thousands of people have become infected. Though the disease is annoying, it is not really dangerous, causing aches and fever and rash for a few days.
Zika, though, may be contributing to a much more substantial problem. Brazilian authorities are concerned that it is causing not just a self-limited disease but rather is profoundly affecting fetal development.
In 2015, the country has seen a greater than tenfold increase—from 147 cases to more than 2,400—of the devastating neurologic and developmental condition called microcephaly (literally “small head”). This neurologic calamity is characterized by incomplete brain development, and profoundly compromising intellectual and motor-sensory development.
The connection between the two epidemics is only circumstantial right now; indeed, the United States’ CDC regards it as “under investigation” because no cause-and-effect link is yet established.
The facts favoring Zika as the cause of microcephaly are this: The virus has been found in a few placentas of children born with the condition and, more compellingly, at autopsy of one baby with microcephaly who died. In addition, according to CNN, “most” of the mothers of microcephalic infants reported developing the symptoms of Zika early in their pregnancy.
Against Zika being the cause of the 2,400 infants with microcephaly is the brief history of the virus in humans. First described in 1947 in monkeys from Uganda’s Zika Forest, the disease was identified in humans in the 1960s.
To date, there have been a few large outbreaks. The first was in the Yap Islands in Micronesia, where a 2007 outbreak affected about three-fourths of the population, including dozens with well-documented active viral infection. Of note, no abnormalities were seen among babies born during and after the outbreak.
A second large outbreak occurred in 2013 in French Polynesia. Here, an estimated 28,000 of the 270,000 residents of the French territory were sick enough to seek medical attention; likely tens of thousands more had mild or symptomless infection. But once again, there were no descriptions of an uptick in microcephalic births. (And the diagnosis of microcephaly does not require medical training: The baby is born with a tragically cartoonish tiny head. The intense emotionality of such an event too increases the likelihood that local medical or public health authorities would be informed.)
Though Zika is a virus from an admittedly rough family—its genetic cousins include the viruses that result in yellow fever, West Nile, dengue, and chikunguna—none of these is known to cause fetal defects.
Why then, after Zika outbreaks in two previous areas with no reports of microcephaly, do we now see it in Brazil and a concurrent surge of infant cases of the condition? Viruses usually cause the same things here as they cause there despite the rapid genetic turnover of any pathogen. Therefore, the possibility is low that that the Brazil Zika has a previously microcephaly-causing genetic twist not seen before.
So perhaps the sheer scale of the Brazil outbreak, with overall cases likely to number in the hundreds of thousands, explains the spate of microcephalic newborns. Maybe Zika-microcephaly occurs only in 1 percent or fewer of pregnant women and the number of pregnancies occurring in the Yap Islands and Polynesia during the Zika outbreak was too low for the association to be seen.
Perhaps the two rare events are coinciding in time for still-uncertain reasons. Though this seems unlikely, it remains plausible given the lack of microcephaly cases in previous outbreaks. The implications for the country would be enormous—the smoking gun they are investigating may be a false first step and another cause, still not investigated, may be behind the condition. Plus, there are all of those headlines.
It may be too late for rational discourse though. Consider the ripple claiming that Brazil is calling on women to not get pregnant: This is a tough admonition and one even more difficult to trace to the source. To my read, a single infectious-disease practitioner, Dr. Angela Rocha, who, by her titles is not a public health or government employee, has made the suggestion.
It is unclear whether Dr. Rocha is speaking out of exhaustion since she is caring for so many with the condition or indeed is the person whom Brazilian authorities have identified as a spokesman (my fierce Google search failed to find out anything about her). No matter—this has become semi-official Brazilian policy, despite incomplete evidence on causality.
Welcome to the impossible world of public health decisions where leaders are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The urge is always quite strong to do
something, especially in the long shadow cast by the Ebola outbreak. Then, many felt the WHO and the CDC and other groups dawdled long after compelling evidence was in. And indeed the CDC and others have met Zika with a dull and sober “avoid mosquito bites” bromide given to everyone heading to areas with dengue or malaria or chikungunya—an intervention unequal to the tragedy unfolding in Brazil.
Yet to react to incomplete evidence creates a problem—to tell women not to get pregnant for a while (in a mostly Roman Catholic country and just months from the Summer Olympics, which will bring hyper-focus on the country) is a mighty big deal. Should Zika turn out to be unrelated to microcephaly, well, that is some advice that will be tough to explain.
So in this holiday season, as you are thanking those who make the world a better place, consider sending a little love not only to the panic-stricken families of Brazil but to the poor decision-makers who have to decide just how far to go to prevent another case of microcephaly. For them, tonight will be conspicuously lacking in dancing sugarplums.
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A new report on justice reform in British Columbia is recommending sweeping changes that would drag the system into the modern age and address chronic failings that have led to backlogs, infighting and diminishing public trust.
The report – titled
A Criminal Justice System for the 21st Century – was written by lawyer Geoffrey Cowper and released Thursday. More than six months in the making, it contains more than 40 recommendations that impact every aspect of the justice system.
The report was commissioned in February amid a growing outcry from judges and others that the system was woefully underfunded and understaffed, particularly on the bench. A lack of resources was being blamed for producing an unconscionable trial backlog, which, in turn, was being held as the reason a growing number of cases were being stayed on the grounds of undue process.
In his review, Mr. Cowper proposes a number of reforms that fall across the entire system. They include a province-wide crime reduction plan, measures to resolve criminal cases earlier and reduce the number of delays and backlogged cases and a major overhaul of how prosecutors handle files.
Perhaps the most significant recommendation is the establishment of a new Criminal Justice and Public Safety Council that would exist within the justice ministry. It would be responsible for development of an overall strategy for the criminal justice system, one that ensures effective collaboration among the various stakeholders.
It is Mr. Cowper’s view that previous efforts at justice reform failed because of the institutional “silos” that have been established over the years among judges, prosecutors, defence and government itself. Consequently, the justice system has never truly operated as one overarching body but instead as several independent structures and quasi-institutions.
“What is fundamentally needed is a clear vision for the justice system as a whole,” Mr. Cowper writes in his report. “... A true systems approach to reform and project management discipline across the board.
“This means at the start that there must be clear and accepted goals, disciplined execution and clear performance measures that are monitored and evaluated.”
Despite falling crime rates and a decline in the number of cases going into the court system, Mr. Cowper says the court structure in B.C. is failing to meet the public’s expectations of a modern justice system. The public is particularly frustrated by how long cases take to get to trial, he says.
Mr. Cowper said the new council would establish system-wide measures and standards of performance.
“I think we need timeliness measures that will encourage early resolution of cases and I think we need to change systematically how we do our business in order to make that possible,” Mr. Cowper said in an interview.
One method to achieve that is by changing the way the Crown handles cases. Right now, one case can go through the hands of several different prosecutors as it winds its way through the system. The report recommends the same prosecutor handle one file from start to finish.
“That way they will have a stake in resolving it earlier than later,” he said.
The report also recommends that trial dates be set much sooner after charges are laid. Today, it can take a year to 18 months before a trial takes place, but in the meantime the accused can make several perfunctory appearances in court to deal with housekeeping matters related to his case. This is usually a complete waste of a judge’s time.
Mr. Cowper said a pilot project in Kelowna that experimented with an early trial date approach was extremely successful. Those dates were set within 60 days of the accused being charged. Out of 68 cases, all but two were resolved by way of a guilty plea or a stay of the charges.
“When you have a trial date that is only a couple months away the accused will come to the realization that there is no real benefit to him or her not addressing the charges now because they’re just going to have to deal with them in a few weeks anyway,” said Mr. Cowper.
“Whereas, if the system is delayed the accused can sit there and say: ‘I can think about this for a year and then make up my mind when the trial comes.’ If you’re a defence lawyer, what’s in your client’s best interest?”
Meanwhile, during that long delay the accused is usually subject to bail conditions that are routinely breached. Almost half the charges in the court system aren’t of a serious criminal nature but instead are related to breaches of bail conditions. This is another big waste of a judge’s time.
“In my view that is a huge dysfunction in the system and we need to get rid of them,” said Mr. Cowper.
At the time the report was commissioned, it was widely accepted that the number of judges on the provincial court was down by as many as 20. The government, however, disputed this figure. Mr. Cowper recommends that there be a “definite judicial complement” based on the best available evidence of the current and expected workload of the court.
“Such an approach should reduce the tension between the court and the government and enable both to focus on the challenges at hand,” the report says. That complement would be reviewed every three to four years.
The provincial court has suggested that 18 new judicial appointments be made to reduce the backlog of cases in the system. While not supporting that number, Mr. Cowper did agree with the court’s suggestion that the appointment of five judges immediately would enable an aggressive reduction of the case backlog.Report Typo/Error
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Last week, Adam Greenwood pointed out to me an essay by Sally Thomas in
First Things, titled “Home Schooling and Christian Duty.” Her article defends home schooling against a very particular kind of attack–specifically, the claim that educating one’s children in the home, away from the public schools, is a failure to be a witness to others as a Christian, a failure to be “in the world,” and more specifically be a light unto it. It’s an interesting claim, one which comes down to, as Ms. Thomas puts it, the idea that homeschooling is selfish, that “homeschoolers [have] enthroned the needs of their own children at the expense of the larger society…[and therefore have] truly turned [their] backs on the lost of the world.”
Frankly, I think this is a rather odd claim, and I think Ms. Thomas does a fine job in demolishing it on scriptural and prudential grounds. (Specifically, children are to be brought up in such a way that they can become spiritually strong enough to take on the task of witnessing in hostile environments–which is what Ms. Thomas clearly sees the public school system as being–through their own choice and wisdom; they ought not be sent into such environments out of some sort of misplaced Christian or liberal guilt on the part of parents.) Her demolishing, though, doesn’t especially interest me, because the original claim itself is not one I’ve ever heard or would likely take seriously. (Perhaps some of you homeschoolers out there, particularly those who live in communities with a large evangelical population, have heard something similar though.) What did really interest me about the article, however, was the language of one’s obligation to the “larger society.” How best to fulfill that obligation, to the extent that it exists? And what if it exists, in fact, in multiple, even contradictory ways? On my reading of ther essay (which, as you might guess, took the form of a long post about the ideal of equal public schooling and the uses to which families may be obliged–as both Christians and citizens–to make use of their “human capital”), Ms. Thomas makes a good defense of her decision to keep her children at home and thus be part of one kind of “larger society”–specifically, her immediate neighborhood, which is mostly empty during the day as all spouses depart for work and leave the streets available to whatever bad element may move in–rather than banging her head against the wall trying to “witness to” another, much less responsive larger project–specifically, the local school district.
I bring this up here, not because I want another throwdown regarding home schooling (we’ve done that a few times before), but because the more that I thought about it, the more that I felt that the whole matter of how one arranges one’s “larger” allegiances cuts to the heart of ordinary lived Mormon experience. Unlike home schoolers, Mormons do not, in fact, have the option of withdrawing their children from wards they don’t like and constructing a Sunday School entirely on their own. (Well, of course, they
do have such an option, but the word used to describe such a decision is “inactivity,” and so far as I know the church is not exactly busy responding to pressure from various “home churchers” to reconstitute the temple recommend questions so you can still get one without attending your ward, the way home schooled kids can still receive a high school diploma.) Unless you’re buying a new home or moving to a new city or in a fairly specific demographic category, you can’t even really “ward shop” much in the church, certainly not as much as you can strategize through the public school system, what with all the exceptions and special arrangements which parents keep clamoring for. Basically, we are expected to attend a certain ward, and are presumed to have a obligation–one which the church enforces through strict rules about membership records–to stick with it, for the sake of making the “larger project” of the gospel a reality wherever God has planted us. (Kaimi’s old but still moving post on our “duty to stick with a dysfunctional ward” remains must reading here.)
Why be beholden to dysfunctional ward, but not a dysfunctional school system? Why does one’s presence at church, even if one should have complaints with its functioning, loom so much larger in the thinking of your average potential homeschooling Mormon than does the similar call to support the local school system? Some likely answers: a screwed up ward cannot possibly hurt one’s children in three hours on one day a week as much as a screwed up public school could over a seven hour period five days week; as wards are lay organizations, one can get to know and become involved with repairing the defects of any given ward much easier and much more effectively than in the case in a professionalized school district; we basically trust and our familiar with what gets taught and what takes place in a ward, much more so than is the case in much less focused and more spread out school systems; etc., etc. But of course, none of these are the real reasons–the real reason is, quite simply, that we don’t put the public schools ane wards into the same category. The latter is a community structure we bind ourselves to by covenant, because we believe in and accept the ideal of Zion, however distant our present day lives as Mormons may be from that end. Whereas on the other hand, while many Americans may feel some general allegience to the ideal of equal public schooling for all, we aren’t in any serious sense
covenanted to that project–and moreover, there’s no teaching to suggest that the principals and administrators who set policies for that project our prophets guided by inspiration. Add to that the fact that we have fundamental responsibilities to our families, and it’s easy to say that when family and church collide, some complicated and painful negotiations and compromises may be necessary…but when family and the public schools collide, hey, we’ll happily be out the door and on our way home.
I don’t disagree with that sentiment, not ultimately: as I wrote three years ago, quoting Jonathan Alter, children should never have their education sacrificed on the altar of their parents’ principles. My commitments to my children and their education and happiness is bigger than the larger project of supporting, through potentially dysfunctional institutions, similar efforts on behalf of other peoples’ children. And yet…is it really always so easy to be clear as regards to which principles properly should pull you away from your own home and children and privacy, in the name of something larger? It used to be common to hear pacifist and rejectionist language when it came to politics and war from church headquarters; now such messages are few and far between–and yet why would should the call to support the military aims of the country one happens to live in (aims which may include, as sometimes is the case, unjust wars) be seen as an acceptable obligation despite its manifestly disruptive impact on the lives and families of ordinary saints, while the obligation to support the schooling and education of one’s neighbors’ children through common efforts be seen as an obligation easy to–maybe even
righteous to–shuck off? (Again, I can think of some likely answers here–but I’m not sure they are necessarily obvious ones.)
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland once stated that he was “not much of a joiner. I don’t remember belonging to many clubs or social units at school, and more recently I have been about as cautious in my professional affiliations. I give civic service to my community and country, and I try very hard to be a good neighbor, but in many other ways I am a private person.” But then he added that as a “veritable pacifist when it comes to social guilds or luncheon clubs, I turn into something of a militant on the subject of the only true and living Church on the face of the earth.” I like that line very much (though I’m much more opening to joining things than he is). It tells us where our primary membership–our most important “larger project”–lies. But it still leaves open how to negotiate, and why, everything else.
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By Chris Kramer
Public announcement of criminals has become more the norm since the rise of the Internet, as law enforcement agencies, both local and federal, can more easily and cheaply publish information. The sex offenders registry, for example, has transformed from a phone-book-style list to an interactive satellite map.
Los Angeles County has created a different sort of database, modeled after the FBI Top 10 Most Wanted list. Their version goes after so-called "deadbeat dads," or more specifically, the "most egregious" child-support-payment evaders, as the Los Angeles Times reports. In a nod to Post Office mug posters, the sheriff's office will be placing physical posters around the county as well.
All told, the ten men listed as the top ten evaders owe more than $2 million in back child support for 17 children. Individually, their past-due amounts range from $63,000 to $427,000. One of the top 10 was already arrested thanks to a tip, and will be forced to face the nearly $300,000 that he owes in child support.
The poster effort is one part of a countywide crackdown on child-support-payment evaders. Since it started early last December, a total of 61 evaders have been arrested, and 64 other evaders have been cited. 160 of 1240 outstanding warrants issued by the LA County Sheriff's Office have been cleared, according to the LA Times.
And early financial returns have been encouraging for officers as well. Around $1 million has been collected from the evaders arrested or those who voluntarily turned themselves in. With a 10 percent interest rate on past-due payments, it can be easy to fall behind and easier to stay behind if you've fallen behind on child support payments. But the county is interested primarily in getting the money to where it's needed, and can work with violators to set up payment plans.
The success of the LA County program may encourage other local agencies with child support problems to establish similar programs. And furthermore, the program seems to have accomplished its goals with as limited shaming as possible.
Shaming stunts have rarely been effective in dealing with criminal activity, from colored license plates for DUI offenders to even sex offender registries. Rather than discouraging behavior, such "scarlet letters" tend to marginalize the criminals. For things such as DUI offenses, it can turn a single-albeit serious-mistake into a stigma that can follow a person indefinitely.
These posters, however, are one of the simplest ways that law enforcement agents can get the word out about scofflaws whom they are seeking, and they do so without the "stigma" problem that follow shaming activities because they focus on just the facts.
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BuildingGreen Tells You Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Concrete Wikipedia/CC BY 2.0
Since Roman times, some of the world's most important and beautiful buildings have been made from concrete. Like the Pantheon in Rome, they can last for thousands of years. But there is a huge carbon footprint to the stuff, from the chemistry of turning limestone into cement, to the excavation and transport of aggregate. For years I have complained about the concrete companies claims of being "sustainable" and have gone on about insulated concrete forms being a poison sandwich.
Now the BuildingGreen people have produced a new guide, What You Need to Know About Concrete and Green Building; they describe it:
This special report takes a look at how these materials are made, presents the key environmental considerations relating to their prodution, use, and eventual disposal, and describes ways to reduce their environmental impacts.
The report is what they used to call "fair and balanced" before Fox News appropriated the term: they clearly and carefully go through both sides of the story. They acknowledge (as I do, under duress):
Concrete has many environmental advantages including durability, longevity, heat storage capability, and (in general) chemical inertness. For passive solar applications, concrete’s ability to function as a structural element while also providing thermal mass makes it a valuable material. Its ability to act as both structure and finish in interior was well as exterior applications is unique, and with good design can contribute to an overall reduction in use of building materials on a project.
On the other hand, making cement produces half a ton of CO2 for every ton of cement made. It is the largest industrial emitter of CO2 in America. Its production emits mercury and other heavy metals. But it is getting better; the the amount of portland cement in the mix is being reduced, replaced by recycling fly ash. While there is some concern about putting fly ash or slag into concrete, the consensus appears to be that it is bound in and is safe.
The authors make a lot of suggestions for using concrete wisely: reduce the cement content, look at different designs of foundation systems, avoid toxic admixtures. Given the material's benefits of thermal mass, its fire resistance, and its ability to be a final finish of floors and walls, they make a good case for its use, if it is used right.
© BuildingGreen
I have a few quibbles; the authors buy the concrete industry's party line that the material has a low embodied energy. That's because the table shows the embodied energy per pound. In real life, you want to compare the embodied energy of the material needed per square foot of construction; A concrete slab might weigh a hundred pounds per square foot while a steel structure might weigh a tenth of that. Fiberglass will be a couple of ounces. The embodied energy per pound is completely irrelevant.
Foodstock/Screen capture
I also think that the authors don't give enough exposure to the issue of the aggregate that makes up 65% of concrete. The excavation and transport of the stuff is a huge issue in many parts of the world. 20,000 people showed up last weekend north of Toronto to protest the proposed Melancthon Mega Quarry, and others have been fighting to protect the Niagara Escarpment, a recognized biosphere reserve, from being dug up for gravel. It is a big issue that doesn't get enough attention.
On balance, though, BuildingGreen's Guide not only tells you just about everything you need to know about concrete and green building, it gives great recommendations on how to get the best performance out of the stuff with the least environmental impact.
What You Need to Know About Concrete and Green Building is free to subscribers of BuildingGreen, and is $ 49 to non-members. Joining is a better bet; the site is full of great stuff about green building.
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With the amount of air pollution and toxic waste going into the atmosphere every day, it's always nice to try and reduce your consumption any way you can, and these eco-friendly automobiles are a great option when it comes to being more sustainable during your daily routine.
While many people may associate eco-friendly cars with automobiles that are weak and low-grade, these sustainable driving options are often more high-tech and futuristic than most gas-guzzling vehicles. Choosing to be more sustainable when driving is a huge way to give back to the environment. Driving is often a large part of people's days, and by opting for a vehicle that's powered by something other than gas or fuel, you can rest asure that what you're doing is actually helping reduce emissions rather than add to it. From cars that are emission-free to those that are solar powered, these wonderfully eco-friendly automobiles make the process of sustaining the environment much easier. 86 Eco-Friendly Automobiles
Score
More Stats +/-
Power-Sharing Concept Cars Fiery Insect EVs Streamlined Eco Supercars Emission-Free Solar Cars Dual-Engine Italian Supercars From Electric Crossover Cars to Solar Powered Rental Cars
Mar 8, 2013By: Tana Makmanee -
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How many of us know that April 22 is Earth Day? Is it just another one of those “calendar holidays” that is largely ignored, or may even have a negative connotation?
I guess every day should really be Earth day, since it’s where we live, and we naturally want to keep it in good shape for a long time!
Recycling and being mindful of keeping waste to a minimum doesn’t mean you have to become a fanatic, or be something that takes a lot of work. Even little changes can make a big difference. Most of us already are doing things like returning bottles or reusing plastic grocery bags.
Like its residents, the city of Trenton has a lot to be proud of when it comes to “being green!” The recycling program at the City Transfer Station (1801 Van Horn Road) is available free of charge for residents. Newspapers, plastic containers, glass, tin, aluminum cans, empty paint and aerosol cans, appliances and used motor oil are accepted.
The items don’t even have to be sorted, so it makes it that much easier! Yard waste such as grass clippings, leaves and tree branches may also be disposed of. Call (734) 675-8470 for further information. Proof of residency is required.
Although the city did try to implement curbside recycling in the past, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Service tells me that they could not get enough residents to participate, and the city cannot shoulder the cost. However, she said, the Transfer Station recycling is a very active program.
It’s never too early for me to start thinking about The Trenton Midsummer Festival! This year, the Festival is again making a big effort to make the event “green.” In 2008, Trenton was the first festival Downriver to provide a “Green Street,” including recycle bins for all kinds of materials, a solar-powered entertainment stage, and many earth-friendly sponsors. Again this year there will be a recycle truck trailer for plastic, bottles and aluminum. The Festival recycled 500 pounds of plastic, cans and paper in 2010 and 710 pounds in 2011!
The Midsummer Festival is looking for Green Team Leaders for this year’s event. If you want to make a difference in your hometown and maybe have something impressive to add to your resume, be a part of it! Volunteers are needed to help promote the Green Street, helping visitors find where to recycle, hand out prizes, and promote environmentally friendly ideas. If you are interested in joining this worthy effort, please call (734) 675-7300 for more information and to sign up.
Recycling and conserving is something that the children of Trenton will grow up doing, and will come naturally to them. We can definitely thank the school system for that. As an example, Hedke Elementary takes teaching kids about protecting the environment seriously.
Principal Vince Porreca tells me that the “students learn about recycling and conservation as part of school” and the school definitely implements recycling as part of the school day.
Hedke has been certified as a Michigan Green School now for the third year in a row. To receive this designation, a school earns points for each earth-friendly activity they have in place. “You have to earn at least 15 points to qualify — this time we got about 18 points,” Porreca said.
“The fourth graders are very involved in the recycling effort, as it goes along with their science curriculum.”
Teacher Angie Essenmacher’s fourth-grade science class also votes on an endangered animal to “adopt” each year. The class learns about the animal, and then on Earth Day, there are poster contests and donations made to their cause.
Each classroom also has paper recycling bins, and the fourth graders go to each classroom to collect the bins and empty them into the large bins located in the parking lot.
Porreca said this results in keeping hundreds of tons of paper out of the landfill and makes a few hundred dollars a year for the PTO.
The fifth-grade classes participate in an Outdoor Ed camp, learning about forests, rivers and streams, and composting. In addition, the school recycles water bottles, batteries, ink cartridges and juice boxes, receiving 2 cents back for every Capri Sun brand and 1 cent for others. He adds that the school building was recently renovated to be energy efficient.
We have only scratched the surface here about what we can do. I’d love to hear about how you and your family are recycling! Do you have or know of a business that is making a green effort? Tell me about it at tribterey@yahoo.com.
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What Are The Best Bodybuilding Foods?
Bodybuilding diet and eating the correct foods is essential.
Supplements alone won't do much unless you eat right. Some say that 80% of bodybuilding success if from nutrition.
Best Body Building Nutrition & Body Building Foods
The best bodybuilding foods come from animal sources like fish,
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but also in fat, which tends to form fat deposits under the skin,
causing loss of definition. The best raw foods from plant sources are
beans, nuts, seeds and grain products.
For additional information: Download Our Free Bodybuilding Food List E-book
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The Information contained herein reflects only the opinion
of the author and is in no way to be considered medical advice.
Specific medical advice should be obtained from a licensed
health care practitioner. Consult your physician before you
begin any nutrition, exercise, or dietary supplement program.
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I have previously stated that economists are like Jedis. However, I have recently realised the error of my ways – economists are obviously superior to Jedis.
In both disciplines you have a person trying to understand the nature of society and find what they can add.
Economists do the following:
They stand back, look for tendancies, and try to come up with an objective framework for discussing the tendancies and trade-offs that exist. They are trained from the age of 18, and are also allowed to interact normally with real people. They recognise that they only have the ability to work out trade-offs, and often only express them in an “ordinal” manner – they avoid passing judgment and are careful about quantifying result due to this.
Jedi do the following:
They stand around and meditate waiting for “the force” (voices in their head) to tell them what the trade-offs are. Following the Ruusan reformation they were trained from when they were children, and are allowed no equal interaction with non-Jedi. They think they can determine what is fair and right – and as a result will impose this “truth” on other people. To fix this they rely on what older Jedi’s have told them – these are the same people who also got trained as children, and a good number of them became Sith and tried to take over the galaxy anyway :/
Seriously, the Jedi are a bunch of spoiled kids who are endowed with awesome power – wouldn’t getting them to run society be the same as just telling well meaning businessmen who grew up in a wealthy family to run society (although the business man is likely to be more balanced – as he actually got the chance to grow up, and is unlikely to still treat society in the way an 8 year old would). They may make some good choices, and they may do so with the best intentions – but both these groups are equivalent … even if many of the people who would rise up against the business man would welcome in the Jedi with open arms.
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Sat 8 Mar 2014
Lent has begun and here in this old house, we are focusing in our daily readings on the battle between the good that we want to do and don’t, and the bad we don’t want to do and do. Even the weather is in a tug-of-war between winter one day, spring the next, and back to snow the following day.
On the first Sunday in Lent, the Church begins with the Gospel reading focusing on the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Living here in Colorado, wilderness is a lovely thing. We fight to protect our wilderness areas that are often breathtakingly beautiful: mountains, streams, forests. It wasn’t until about 15 years ago when I first saw the Judean wilderness in Israel that I understood the Biblical concept of wilderness. The Judean wilderness is stark, barren, monochromatic (except for a short time after the spring rains), desolate, deadly. The Dead Sea is in the heart of it and symbolizes the lifeless feeling of the area. The thought of spending forty days and nights in that place by myself with no provision or protection gave me a whole new appreciation for Jesus’ strength that came through his fasting as well as his ability to say no to rocks-turned-into-bread. I wonder if Satan made those rocks smell like a local bakery, heightening the hunger pangs Jesus was experiencing by then.
It took me a long time to not be afraid of the wilderness near my house, one that interfaces pretty closely with the urban environment but still has elements of wildness about it. I was raised to be afraid of the woods. My grandparents had a farm in Illinois and a small child lost in those immense cornfields is a dangerous situation. Children have died of dehydration before being found in the immensity of those tall, close together stocks. Unfortunately, I was kept from dashing into them to explore by frightening me with the idea of snakes in there (which there were but I don’t think I had ever even seen at that young age). This is a fear I have not fully overcome in my adult life. It used to be I couldn’t even see a picture of a snake in a book without a violent, visceral response but I am better now.
One of two times in 30 years that I have called my husband at work and demanded he come home immediately was when what I thought there was a small rattlesnake wedged between the screen and hardware cloth in our lower front door. By the time he drove the two miles home, I was starting to pack to move out. Because this old house has no foundation, I was sure there was a nest of rattlesnakes down in our dirt-walled crawl space.
It turned out to be a bull snake.
I learned to appreciate bull snakes, even as I didn’t want to see them or have them close to the house, because if you have bull snakes, you will not have rattlesnakes. Bull snakes kill rattlers. Rattlers don’t have to be as fast as they are poisonous and so a faster bull snake can kill a rattlesnake. I have never seen it happen, nor do I care to, but I would always rescue the bull snakes from the cats. I would spray the cat in the face with water so it would drop the snake, letting it escape to freedom, if a bit worse for the wear.
With that history, learning to walk in the woods everyday behind my house for exercise was an act of sheer will. I made myself go farther and farther until I had a 3 1/4 mile exercise loop. There are still days when I am up there with few to no other hikers around that I feel a bit spooked, more now by an awareness of mountain lions. I sing or call “here, kitty, kitty” just to let them and any bears, especially mothers with cubs, know that I am in the area. And it seems like once a year, I come across a huge bull snake in the path. They still freak me out. I must be quite a sight hopping up and down and yelling at the snake to move, which it never seems to be in a hurry to do.
But compared to what Jesus must have encountered in that wilderness in Judea, a five-foot bull snake seems pretty minor.
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Everything You’ve Heard About Trendy Baby Names Is Wrong
Met any Paisleys lately? How about Bellas? Or maybe Zaccarys? When it comes to naming their future children, U.S. parents cannot get enough of a good trend. And as Vocativ found in February, the “Oscars Effect”—naming kids after Academy Award winners—is a real, mathematically valid thing for expecting parents. But just as the Internet lost its mind over all the potential Khaleesis entering pre-K in 2016, the
actual trendiest popular baby names are a lot more standard that headlines would suggest.
Blogger and biotechnologist David Taylor set out last week to determine baby name trendiness the only way he knew how: via chromatography, which takes into account the speed at which something reaches peak volume versus its overall volume. Only this time, instead of breaking down liquids and gases, Taylor used data from the U.S. Social Security Administration’s baby name database.
Coupling a given name’s acceleration in popularity (in chromatography, its peak height) with its length of popularity (peak width), Taylor calculated the winners: Linda and Shirley for girls, and Jason and Mark for boys. “It’s a little esoteric,” Taylor says of his project, “but at least you can see it.”
While Social Security keeps tabs on annual naming data, determining the most popular names appears to be a fairly competitive enterprise. FlowingData published its own version last year of a most-popular list, defining the trendiest names in U.S. history as those with the quickest rises and falls. The site identified Catina and Jalen as the pinnacle of trendy for girls and boys, respectively, and determined that spikes in boys’ names were far less volatile than those for girls.
However, as Taylor notes in his post, Catina’s “flash-in-the-pan” victory accounts for only .00097 percent of all girls’ names; measuring year-over-year gains doesn’t incorporate overall name use. Taylor’s trendiness methodology, on the other hand, makes sense of both “size and sharpness.” And the difference between these two techniques is particularly clear in graph form, where Linda dwarfs Catina and Deneen—the second most trendy girl’s name, according to FlowingData:
“[FlowingData’s] technique is totally statistically valid,” Taylor says. “But I think mine better captures the idea of trendiness. If a name was really, really obscure and was quickly a little less obscure, that doesn’t sound like trendiness.”
Then again, putting math to the madness of baby naming goes only so far. As Taylor puts it: “There’s no official mathematical definition of trendiness.”
Well, this sounds like a start.
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Poverty- what is it?!
Victor Brown Omovbude
Se registró el día 9 de febrero de 2014
38 Artículos Edad 24
If we begin to fragment, or set apart the notions holding the foreground, then we have completely lost the essence why we have them. Poverty is the lack of knowledge and not the lack of funding! To kick out poverty, the importance of becoming wealthy (socially and economically) must be induced by a high proportion of a relevant education. Education is not just classroom work only, but it is a viable act set in place to trigger that unique part every poor individual has. There are youth - millions of them, wandering, suffering. They are trying to sort things out! How many have you talked to?
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If you are planning to work from home, then consider
jobs in healthcare. Working from home appeals to all the moms, as it allows you to decide your work hours, be home with your children and enjoy family life. One of the most popular industries for work-at-home moms is healthcare. Healthcare Jobs
Some of the work-at-home jobs in healthcare sector are
Telephone Triage Nurse Healthcare Writer Medical Transcription Healthcare Trainer Medical Coder Telephone Triage Nurse
Traditionally, the nursing profession means working long hours on your feet all day. As a telephone nurse triage, you have the opportunity to guide a patient over the phone and help the patient's family to address the medical issue.
Health insurance companies are also using part-time nurses for telecommuting positions. Occasionally, you might need to visit a patient at their home, but most of the interaction is done via telephone.
Healthcare Writer
If you have experience with both healthcare and writing, then you can try healthcare writing. Depending on your experience, the topics could include pregnancy, infants, toddlers, preschoolers, teens, young adults, and general health topics.
Medical Transcription
Medical transcription requires you to transcribe medical records which many include patient history, physical reports, clinic notes, operative reports, discharge summaries, psychiatric evaluations and lab reports. These are usually dictated by doctors and other medical professionals.
There is a level of knowledge and experience needed to be a medical transcriptionist, as you will need to be able to decipher the medical language used on the tapes.
Healthcare Trainer
As a healthcare trainer (or coach) you can teach people about healthy eating habits and the importance of physical activity.
Other areas you can specialize in are:
First-Aid Basic Food Hygiene Geriatric care Medical Coder
If you are good with numbers and have an eye for detail then the job of medical coder is for you. As a medical coder you will perform administrative jobs like reviewing, processing, and submitting medical claims to billing offices.
Occasionally, you may have to interact with the physicians or any other medical professional for additional information. You also may need to contact insurance companies to inquire about claims.
Where to Look For Jobs
Internet is the best way to scour the job openings. Just type in the keyword and you can find jobs. Here are a couple of websites to get you started:
Other option can be to search the local media, like a region specific healthcare magazine or newspaper. You can also advertise in the magazines of your area, or you can drop a copy of your resume at your nearby health insurance companies.
These are just a few of work-from-home jobs in healthcare sector. If you have a background in the medical field, there are lots of great opportunities for you to work from home.
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As financial advisors and wealth managers, our readers keep the best practices and strategies for their clients top of mind – but how do they invest their personal funds? We take a peek into the portfolios of some of the industry’s most successful wealth professionals.
Bhim Asdhir, CEO of Excel Funds, isn’t afraid of a global market shakeup. In fact, he relishes the opportunity to go on a buying spree amid a steady bull market-focused strategy.
“Look for bull markets, look for portfolio managers that are adding alpha, and whenever there are dips, double up. That’s what I do, and I find it’s not difficult to make money,” he says, adding that the Brexit is a prime example.
“With the Brexit I scrambled almost all my cash and I invested in the Excel India fund on the Friday, because I did my analysis and the Brexit was not going to impact India and many of the emerging markets,” he says. “It was going impact Europe, and it was going to impact England, but it wasn’t going to impact the other countries - so I actually deployed most of my money and it’s already up more than 10% since then.”
However, when Asdhir isn’t taking advantage of market dramatics, he takes a much calmer- and simpler – approach to his portfolio.
I believe that money is made in the long term. Market timing and short-term investing has not worked out for me,” he says. “My thinking on investing from day one is to look for long-term bull markets. Most markets, whenever there’s a world event, give you opportunity to buy, and I look forward to doubling up at that time.”
A big champion of emerging markets, Asdhir puts a great focus on India via mutual funds, working with a portfolio manager on the ground there. “Specifically, I’ve been investing in the Excel India Fund and since induction, it’s multiplied more than six times,” he says.
“That’s the trick in emerging markets – you need to have people on the ground, and that’s where you can add value.”
When it comes to fixed income, he eschews domestic bonds and U.S. Treasuries altogether for higher-yielding emerging market bonds, currently offering coupons between 7 – 8 %.”Emerging markets bonds’ rating have improved significantly over the last 10 years, and interest rates are coming down, so when we’re looking at developed countries, you’ve got negative and zero coupon, whereas in emerging markets, you can pick up yield at 7-8%,” he says, adding it “makes no sense” to him why anyone would pile into zero-yield bonds at this time.
Finally, he adds that it’s important to remain partially liquid, in order to take advantage market blips.
“It’s always good to have some cash on you, and whenever you see the valuations going up, it’s a good idea to take some money out. I’m taking some money out on the North American side and I’m deploying it in areas that are undervalued.”
Related Stories:
Excel releases new India fund
How ETFs can give insight on market risk appetite
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Global Macro Practice � PAGE �1�
Global Macro Practice in Human Services
Monique Cone and Ayeisha Johnson University of Phoenix
BSHS302
Denna Atkinson
October 19, 2009
�
Global Macro Practice in Human Services
How is it that in the country where formal slavery was abolished with the Civil War, slavery still exists with an estimated 50 thousand people and the number is growing. The slaves come from Africa, Asia, India, China, Latin America, the former Soviet Union, and from the ranks of native born and citizens of the United States. They are 'property' of the most prominent and respectable Americans, particularly new citizens who recruit the poor and helpless from the countries they escaped from to live the happy life. The lives these new citizens led are of utter misery, poverty, slavish work, and sexual harassment. Brought over by diplomats, coyotes, and on their own, they never climb out of poverty (Browne, 2009).
Most people in this country are totally ignorant to the fact that some form of slavery exists, not only in the United States, but also around the world.
Trafficking in humans comes in various forms; children are also trafficked for purposes of child labor and child soldiers. Men are also being trafficking, but it is more women and children. Between one and two million women and children are trafficked each year worldwide for forced labor, or sexual exploitation (Devi, undated). Trafficking women and children has become one of the most illegal thing that is going on in the economic right now (Salt, 2000). The nature of this 'business' is hard to pinpoint. Studies show that most of the women and children being put into servitude or modern day slavery are from poor or non-industrialized countries (Okojie, 2009).
The trafficking may have been stemmed from the...
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Nelson Mandela once said, "The millions of graves strewn across Europe which are the result of the tyranny of Nazism, the decimation of the native people of the Americas and Australia, the destructive trail of the apartheid regime against humanity-all these are like a haunting question that floats in the wind: why did we allow this to happen?" Throughout its history, the Republic of South Africa has translated inherent racism into national policy, resulting in a society, which promotes white domination in politics, economics, and daily life. Though white supremacy has been a constant in South Africa, the term Apartheid only became relevant in the late 1940s. Today, at the end of the Apartheid regime, the question is "Why?" Racial discrimination has been an inherent part of South Africa's culture and politics for over 300 years.
Apartheid is an Afrikaans word that, when translated into English literally means 'apart-hood.' In South Africa Apartheid was a political policy that separated the development of the races.
However racial segregation has been a constant part of South Africa's past since the late 1600s. The Dutch were the first Europeans to see the importance of South Africa's cape on the way to India; and built their colonies on the principles of slave labor. These principles were brought into the newly colonized area not because of necessity, but rather because it served to please the Dutch people. The natives of South Africa were the first people to experience racial discrimination. They were sold in slave trades and, if they were 'unfit' for slavery, they were sent to the least livable area of the country. Slaves became, in a short period of time, a labor force that transformed a small cluster of immigrants into a prosperous colony. On paper, they had no existence. They were...
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Dear Francine, My parents have read or are reading your book,
They're Your Parents Too! I am concerned that as they become less independent, they will ask me or my sister to care for them. Here's the rub... Any contact (email, phone, but especially in-person (which is rare)) is both physically and mentally painful for my sister and myself. Both my sister and myself have made it clear to them that neither of us will be caring for my mother. Their life choices have resulted in destitution in their "golden years" and they are not able to pay for private care. My father has repeatedly spoken of his role as a buffer between her and us. His "plan" has always been to outlive her (even at one point making a suicide pact). Unfortunately for all concerned, he continues to have more serious health problems and will probably die before my mother. While I would care for my father alone, I have little connection with my mother and do not feel any obligation to help her now or in the future.
Can you revise your next book (or blog) to include topics such as:
* How to change your phone numbers so your parents can't find you
* How to ease parents into being wards of the state
* Reflecting on your life choices that have led you to the point of being alone
* What states have assisted suicide laws
* How to contact Dr Jack Kevorkian
Maybe a title for a new book could be "They're Not Your Parents Anymore" (or alternately, "They're Not Your Kids Anymore").
I am, most seriously (going to hell), Brian
###
Dear Brian, What a refreshingly honest letter. There are more people who feel this way than will say so out loud. They usually feel “guilty” for having such “bad” feelings. I think that being realistic about your family and your relationships is a much better way to deal with the challenges of your parents’ aging.
But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook! Before the advent of social security, there were very few old people, and most of them were poor. Their children were not only expected by society to take care of them, but many states had laws requiring adult children to support indigent elderly parents. Some still have these laws on the books, and there is talk at least of enforcing them again!
Right now, you are imagining what you will feel if your mother is left on her own. You may never like your mother or want to spend time with her, but, if she is suffering and alone, you may be surprised by the complexity of your feelings. Compassion may be one ingredient. Or you may find yourself asking yourself, “What’s right for me to do to order to feel okay about myself as a person?”
That doesn’t mean that you have to do what your mother wants you to do, but you might consult with someone from your local area agency on aging (or a geriatric care manager or eldercare attorney)—while keeping a comfortable distance from your mother—to figure out some strategy so that she doesn’t die alone in a ditch by the side of the road. Whatever you say, I don’t think you’d feel good about yourself if an equivalent scenario ensued.
Although I wrote my book! primarily for adult children, some elderly parents have also read it. Other have come to hear me speak. The wisest have gained insights into how the arrangements they make (for their care, money, etc.) can affect their children positively or negatively. But a few have focused on just the sections that enforce their own positions and are using it to bludgeon their kids into feeling guilty. As they say, even the devil can quote scripture. If you read the book yourself, you will find in Chapter Two (“Acknowledging Our Parents’ Aging”) a story about a man named Larry who felt pretty much as you do about “MOM.” Here’s a brief passage:
“Something in her age and aloneness moved this polished player with a caustic wit. “I have a responsibility,” he told me. “I don’t know what it is, but I have it. I have a fifty-six year history with this woman. And,” he added significantly, “I no longer need her approval.”
So I recommend you “steal this book” (mine, not Abbie Hoffman’s) from your mother, and, in addition, you might want to check out a book by Jacqueline Marcell:
Elder Rage, or Take My Father... Please!: How to Survive Caring for Aging Parents. On the other hand, this author did choose to care for her parent; you might choose to flee to another jurisdiction—without extradition.
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by Kanife, Ejike Alphonsus
While buying the much I could, I joked some with the attendant concerning the prices of petroleum products and asked him if they have removed the subsidy from PMS too. His reply was apt and quite punchy: “Subsidy oshi ewo ni yen?”
A litre of black market fuel in my area costs between 150 and 180 naira so I reckoned if I took the time and the pain to visit a filling station I would get it cheaper. So wielding my jerry can, I blew a bike (thank God they didn’t ban those ones in my area) to the closest filling station where my heart jumped with glee because the signboard still read 97/litre.
Kpata-kpata (Eventually) it would be 100 naira or 110. With that on my mind I bounced into the filling station like I wanted to buy a whole tanker of fuel. The attendant quickly told me, “one-forty ni o.” What? So why didn’t I spare myself less stress and time and just search out a 150 naira-selling black marketer instead of taking bike and yet buying at 140? Wouldn’t I be spending more now?
While buying the much I could, I joked some with the attendant concerning the prices of petroleum products and asked him if they have removed the subsidy from PMS too. His reply was apt and quite punchy: “Subsidy
oshi ewo ni yen?” (What subsidy?)
Well, I gave his reply a big thought and concluded that we indeed needed to ask the Federal Government that has been ranting about the need for total removal of fuel subsidy that same question, which useless subsidy are we even talking about? With prices ranging from 120 to 150/litre in many filling stations and 150 to 200/litre in black markets, one can’t help but ask which subsidy they want to remove that hasn’t already been removed or that Nigerians haven’t been suffering from. Subsidy is supposed to cut down the price of a commodity or service, so if we are still enjoying the said subsidy yet we don’t even see the fuel and even when we do, it comes at a pocket-tearing price, then we should ask the questions; where is the subsidy? What is the subsidy doing? Is it supposed to reduce or increase the price of PMS? If it is supposed to reduce it as its name suggests, why then are we still paying so much for it? If with the said subsidy still in place and the price of fuel still sky-rocketing, yet we still buy the product for so much, when the subsidy gets totally removed and the price of the commodity reaches God-knows-how-high, how does the government really expect the average Nigerian to buy and use fuel?
Yet we still need to know, whatever happened to the funds accrued from the partial removal in January of subsidy? What is the SURE-P doing? Where are the said alternatives that were supposed to cushion the effects of the partial (and total) removal? The cost of transportation is on the rise, where are the diesel-powered buses and what-nots? Where are the rail lines and trains? The waters have receded and water level is going down. Consequently, power supply has reduced drastically and the season of darkness (which happens to be the dry season when power is most needed) is upon us again. With fuel getting scarcer and costlier by the day and the average man finding it hard to fuel his I-pass-my-neighbour, where is the 20 hour electricity promised us before the removal? Where are the good roads and hospitals and schools they promised to build with the partial subsidy funds?
Again, if the government isn’t fooling us and if Nigerians are really still enjoying the subsidy which should leave PMS price at 97 naira, where are the taskforce that are supposed to make sure filling stations sell at the recommended PPPRA price? Why are filling stations hoisting 97/litre on their sign boards while selling at over-bloated prices? What is happening with the said oil thieves whom have been caught? I thought the more oil thieves we caught, the more funds will be retrieved and made available to real importers and more fuel into the system. How come we’re catching more oil thieves yet suffering worse? What is happening to the urgent need to build one or more world class, state-of-the-art refinery which a country as big and as blessed as Nigeria so rightly deserve?
This whole charade reeks of a plot by the FG and their thieving friends to break Nigerians and force us to yield to their ungodly and inhuman plan of removing a subsidy most analysts agree doesn’t exist in the first place. But no matter what the president and his cohorts do, they will never justify any removal of fuel subsidy nor the hike in pump prices and the attendant sufferings it had subjected the masses to. The president vowed to catch oil thieves and make them return all they stole but the reverse has become the case as so-called oil marketers have somehow turned the table on the president and the country at large, insisting instead, and strongly too that it was the country that was in their debt and demanding that the government pay all they owe. Isn’t that a tragedy? So tragic that the president even confessed that the oil people are effectively holding the country to ransom, so who be the police and who be the thief?
This is definitely a plot, deliberately planned, meticulously executed and tactically sustained to gradually and systematically hike the price of PMS, so that the masses will subliminally adapt to the changing trend without attributing it to subsidy removal. If it is not, why would the president who has always been a die-hard advocate for subsidy removal, within days of his most recent advocacy that subsidy must go for the country to survive (November 15 when he received the report of the graduating participants of the Senior Executive Course of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Jos) had gone ahead to announce during his infamous media chat that subsidy remains in 2013 and that provisions have been made for it in the 2013 budget? I don’t know about you, but I think something stinks fishy in all that hot and cold doublespeak. Sadly, true to the Nigerian characteristic to adapt well to demeaning and otherwise unacceptable standards, we are already bearing with the president, withstanding long queues under the sun and in the rain only to be extorted of our hard-earned cash in the name of purchasing a supposedly subsidized product.
I ask again, subsidy
oshi ewo ni yen?
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Kanife, Ejike Alphonsus is a Lagos based creative writer, trained journalist and partner at www.Teksmobile.com. He tweets from @AktivIngredient
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.
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I suspect the problem might be the focus on objects instead of actions. If I may quote from Steve Yegge's Execution in the Kingdom of Nouns:
Verbs in Javaland are responsible for all the work, but as they are held in contempt by all, no Verb is ever permitted to wander about freely. If a Verb is to be seen in public at all, it must be escorted at all times by a Noun.
OOP focuses primarily on the object and expresses actions in terms of the object's abilities. A airplane object can be flown (Airplane.fly()). A door object can be opened (Door.open()). But we really don't view the world in terms of objects and what actions can be done to them. It's backwards. We view the world in terms of ourselves and our abilities. We are the
ultimate object. (And no, I don't mean a God object.)
Imagine you are returning from a trip to the local flower garden. Would you say "I smelled the flowers" or "The flowers were smelled by me?" Now you want to tell a friend to go and smell the flowers. Would you say "Go and smell the flowers" or "The flowers must be smelled by you?" When we convey instructions, we give them in terms relative to ourselves. What is programming but conveying instructions to a computer process how some sort of work should be done on our behalf.
How to make a Peanut Butter Sandwich:
Get Jar of Peanut Butter Get Loaf of Bread Get Knife ... class PeanutButterJar extends Jar ...Express them as such and they take on methods. PeanutButterJar.open() Knife.spread(PeanutButter, Bread)Whoa! In my world, peanut butter doesn't do anything but sit there and taste yummy. And I'd start looking for a good exorcist the moment a knife starts performing actions all by by itself. A more realistic transcription of the instructions would be: You.open(PeanutButterJar) You.spread(Knife, PeanutButter, Bread)Specifying You as a universal object would seem rather redundant as the scenario progressed, so a good language designer would remove the need to expressly identify it. This would yield open(PeanutButterJar) spread(Knife, PeanutButter, Bread)which starts to look vaguely procedural.
The truth is, procedural and OOP paradigms languages express the complexity of their problem space in different ways. Procedural code is flat and wide with functions. OO code is hierarchical with inheritance. OO-code is not inherently better organized than procedural code merely because it is encapsulated in objects. A reusable library can consist of functions just as easily as a collection of objects.
The way some OOP languages (like Java and C#) force objects on the programmer borders on the absurd. If I'm writing a library of reusable code that needs to maintain its own state, then of course writing classes with proper encapsulation and dating hiding makes sense. On the other hand, If I'm generating a web page with some data stored in a database, then some procedural code and a handful of function calls makes more sense. One of the things I like about PHP so much is that it allows the programmer to decide which paradigm is best suited for the task at hand.
Sadly though, that decision isn't left to the programmer who has been tasked with developing and maintaining a system. Management can tend to focus too much on buzzword compliance. A procedural programming language designed today would never receive wide-spread adoption if it didn't offer some sort of OO construct despite both paradigms having produced successful libraries and applications. And the programmers that don't learn to think beyond themselves will be unfairly left in the dust.
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Programme: Personal Effectiveness Course: Working with Others; Fair treatment and respect - for Managers Description: Who is this course for?
This course is suitable for all staff who manage others
Overview
When we are working together its is vital that we treat each other fairly and with respect.
As part of the 2012-13 Staff Survey, 15% of staff felt that they had personally experienced behavior that they considered to be bullying or harassment in the two years before the survey.
All employers are responsible for taking all reasonable steps to prevent bullying of staff. Managers require specific skills and behaviours to ensure that all staff are receiving fair treatment and respect as well understanding both LSE policy and employment legislation. Managers need the skills to appropriately support their staff. If claims of bullying or harassment are made, there is an inevitable cost in terms of morale, motivation and possibly financial.
This one day programme is designed to address the challenges facing Managers at LSE when communicating and working with others to reduce the risk of bullying and harassment occurring. The programme will also ensure that all employees are aware of both the legislative and corporate policies in place to protect them. Often, behaviour that is perceived as bullying or threatening is unintentional and, therefore, we will offer practical solutions that address communication and interaction to support real behavioural change. The Workshop is designed to be relevant and fun – whilst addressing key issues facing all organisations.
The course will cover By the end of this course you will Prerequisites:
none
Event information: No courses currently scheduled for your role. Additional Resources:
none
Training Provider:
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The President will flesh out details of his proposals in a speech at the port, which is undergoing $2 billion in upgrades paid for with government and private money. Obama, in the quick trip to South Florida, will try to show that the economy remains his top priority in the midst of high-profile campaigns on immigration reform and gun control.
Among the proposals Obama will call for:
-Higher caps on “private activity bonds” to encourage more private spending on highways and other infrastructure projects. State and local governments use the bonds to attract investment.
-Giving foreign pension funds tax-exempt status when selling U.S. infrastructure, property or real estate assets. U.S. pension funds are generally tax exempt in those circumstances. The administration says some international pension funds cite the tax burden as a reason for not investing in American infrastructure.
-$4 billion in new spending on two infrastructure programs that award loans and grants.
-A renewed call for a $10 billion national “infrastructure bank” – a proposal from his first term that gained little traction.
The administration official was not authorized to discuss the proposals before they were announced publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The President made private-sector infrastructure investment a key part of the economic agenda he rolled out in his State of the Union address last month. He also called in his address for a “Fix-It-First” program that would spend $40 billion in taxpayer funds on urgent repairs.
Obama’s focus on generating more private sector investment underscores the tough road new spending faces on Capitol Hill, where Republican lawmakers often threaten to block additional spending unless it is paid for by tax cuts or other measures.
The official said any increased spending associated with the proposals Obama was outlining Friday would not add to the deficit. But the official did not detail how the costs would be paid for, saying only that more information would be included in the president’s budget.
Obama will release his budget April 10.
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What matters with a new venture or business is that you’re not adding to the clutter, the noise. You’re adding something of importance. But what does that mean exactly?
If you’re bringing a new product to market, which is what we did with ECOBAGS Brand 22 years ago, these are the things that we think are important. They keep evolving every day.
It matters that your products are produced by people earning a fair wage and are working in fair labor conditions. Lots of promises can be made, overseas and domestically, but it takes building personal relationships which includes meetings face to face to be sure these basic principles are in place. And, there are things like SA8000 certifications, production facility reviews, that can give you that added comfort of knowing everything is good. But you still need to be diligent.
It matters that your product addresses a real need and not a made up need. Now, this is a tricky one since everyone has different perceptions of need and want. You have to figure this out for yourself. My personal litmus test is can I use it multiple times? Does it contain only natural or organic materials? Who made the product and where was it made?
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The Earth's Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change
In his latest book, Vaclav Smil tells the story of the Earth's biosphere from its origins to its near and long-term future. He explains the workings of its parts and what is known about their interactions. With essay-like flair, he examines the biosphere's physics, chemistry, biology, geology, oceanography, energy, climatology, and ecology, as well as the changes caused by human activity. He provides both the basics of the story and surprising asides illustrating critical but often neglected aspects of biospheric complexity.
Smil begins with a history of the modern idea of the biosphere, focusing on the development of the concept by Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky. He explores the probability of life elsewhere in the universe, life's evolution and metabolism, and the biosphere's extent, mass, productivity, and grand-scale organization. Smil offers fresh approaches to such well-known phenomena as solar radiation and plate tectonics and introduces lesser-known topics such as the quarter-power scaling of animal and plant metabolism across body sizes and metabolic pathways. He also examines two sets of fundamental relationships that have profoundly influenced the evolution of life and the persistence of the biosphere: symbiosis and the role of life's complexity as a determinant of biomass productivity and resilience. And he voices concern about the future course of human-caused global environmental change, which could compromise the biosphere's integrity and threaten the survival of modern civilization.
What people are saying - Write a review
This is an excellent book! A kind of modern update to Vernadsky's 1928 original.
The topic is immensely broad, but is covered with minute details. Lots of history of science; lots of tantalizing facts. An excellent reference
Evolution of the Idea
1
From Vernadsky to a Science of the Global 8 The Biospheres Dynamics and Organization
199
Life in the Universe 9 Civilization and the Biosphere
229
Lifes Diversity and Resilience 10 Epilogue
263
Energizing the Biosphere References
289 329 335 Other editions - View all
Globalisation and Sustainable Development: Environmental Agendas
Vladimir F. Krapivin
Limited preview - 2007
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IATA director general and CEO Tony Tyler addressed (17-Oct-2013) the FIATA World Congress in Singapore on the subject of the global air freight industry. Mr Tyler acknowledged the importance of air cargo to the airline business and as an essential driver of the global economy. He noted that when measured by value, a third of goods traded internationally are transported by air, accounting for USD6.4 trillion worth of business and 57 million jobs. Mr Tyler outlined how air cargo has stagnated since 2010, with the market share for air cargo decreasing and revenues shrinking. In 2010, air cargo attributed for 11.4% of airline revenues. The forecast for 2013 is that it will be 8.3%. In tandem with these factors, patterns of development, innovation and business intelligence have eroded much of the value that shippers see in speed. [more - original PR] IATA: Air cargo shrinking as a proportion of airline revenue
18-Oct-2013 10:10 AM
Tweet
© CAPA
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Boris Johnson likes to label himself as the “cycling mayor” who wants to kick-start a cycling revolution in London. 2010 was supposed to be “the year of cycling”. However, a lot of cyclists have the impression that their needs aren’t really respected by traffic planners in London.
Interestingly, figures released by Transport for London in their latest “Travel in London” report compellingly show that they have a point. According to data published in Chapter 9 (“Transport and quality of life: Customer satisfaction and perception”), cyclists in London are by far the least satisfied users of roads in the capital.
The authors of the report put it this way:
“Satisfaction levels were similar for users of all road modes except cycling, where satisfaction was significantly below average at 67 out of 100.”
How severe the level of frustation is becomes clear if you compare the statisfaction of cyclists to the statisfaction of Tube users. There is a lot of moaning and complaining going on about the Tube: fares, punctuality, crowding. However, the average cyclist in London is significantly less happy with the road network than the average Tube passenger is with the Tube. According to the report, the overall satisfaction of Tube users is at 79 out of 100. Even with regard to train crowing, Tube users are more satisfied than cyclists are with London roads (72 out of 100).
This frustration of cyclists is confirmed by other results. For example, the conditions of cycle lanes get the worst marks at all. Amazingly, this aspect even fares below traffic congestion! The satisfaction with the availability of cycle lanes and advanced stop lines is also significantly below average.
Here’s another evidence that London is massively neglecting cyclists:
Taken together, from my perspective these results are pretty devastating.
The report states that
“the Mayor has made it a particular priority to improve the quality of Londoners’ overall daily travel experiences. The substantive outcomes of these policies should be visible, in due course, in the various formal and informal performance measures considered elsewhere in this report”
If this pledge, the fuss about the “cycling revolution” and the results in the report were taken seriously by London’s policy makers, improvements to the cycle infrastructure would be of utmost priority. Why do I have a hunch that this is not the case?
Thanks to the “Love London, Go Dutch” campaign we talk a lot about making London more like Amsterdam. However, judged by the low satisfaction of cyclists with the road network, it would be nice to make London (for cyclists) at least like London (for cars).
Asked about our general satisfaction with their most recent journey, we are happier than the users of public transport and cars. This proves the vast benefits of cycling: It is quicker and cheaper than most other means of transport.
Even the wretched road network and the biased priorities of London’s traffic planner cannot botch this!
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Suggested Reading:
This post can be read along with the post titled Carl Jung’s experience with the Pueblos Indians. It relates Jung’s experience during his trip to Kenya and Uganda in 1925, one year after the trip he had in New-Mexico.
The two passages quoted here are also from the autobiography of
Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections, recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffe.
I am planning in a next post to share with you what these two experiences of Carl Jung in Africa and New Mexico evoke in me. I will speak about the loss of containing myth for the modern human being in the light of History of religions and Jungian Psychology. I also will point out the differences between Jungian psychology and the teaching tradition of Vedanta/Non Duality with reference to the purpose of human existence .
Before that, I would love to have your feedback on these excerpts !!
From Nairobi we used a small Ford to visit the Athi Plains, a great game preserve. From a low hill in this broad savanna a magnificent prospect opened out to us. To the very brink of the horizon we saw gigantic herds of animals: gazelle, antelope, gnu, zebra, warthog, and so on. Grazing, heads nodding, the herds moved forward like slow rivers. There was scarcely any sound save the melancholy cry of a bird of prey. This was the stillness of the eternal beginning, the world as it had always been, in the state of non-being; for until then no one had been present to know that it was this world. I walked away from my companions until I had put them out of sight, and savored the feeling of being entirely alone. There I was now, the first human being to recognize that this was the world, but who did not know that in this moment he had first really created it.
There the cosmic meaning of consciousness became overwhelmingly clear to me. “What nature leaves imperfect, the art perfects,” say the alchemists. Man, I, in an invisible act of creation put the stamp of perfection on the world by giving it objective existence. This act we usually ascribe to the Creator alone, without considering that in so doing we view life as a machine calculated down to the last detail, which, along with the human psyche, runs on senselessly, obeying foreknown and predetermined rules. In such a cheerless clockwork fantasy there is no drama of man, world, and God; there is no “new day” leading to “new shores” but only the dreariness of calculated processes.
My old Pueblo friend came to my mind. He thought that the raison d’etre of his pueblo had been to help their father, the sun, to cross the sky each day. I had envied him for the fullness of meaning in that belief, and had been looking about without hope for a myth of our own. Now I knew what it was, and knew even more: that man is indispensable for the completion of creation; that, in fact, he himself is the second creator of the world, who alone has given to the world its objective existence without which, unheard, unseen, silently eating, giving birth, dying, heads nodding through hundreds of millions of years, it would have gone on in the profoundest night of non-being down to its unknown end. Human consciousness created objective existence and meaning, and man found his indispensable place in the great process of being.
Further in this biography, Carl Jung explains what is the ‘destiny’ or the ‘task’ of human existence:
“Our age has shifted all emphasis to the here and now, and thus brought about a daemonization of man and his world. The phenomenon of dictators and all the misery they have wrought springs from the fact that man has been robbed of transcendence by the shortsightedness of the super-intellectuals. Like them, he has fallen a victim to unconsciousness. But man’s task is the exact opposite: to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious. Neither should he persist in his unconsciousness, nor remain identical with the unconscious elements of his being, thus evading his destiny, which is to create more and more consciousness. As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. It may even be assumed that just as the unconscious affects us, so the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious.”
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Europe’s largest battery capable of storing 10MWh of energy has been installed in Bedfordshire as part of a two-year trial aiming to protect the UK’s power grid from renewable energy fluctuations.
Consisting of 3,000 individual lithium-ion batteries, the complex in Leighton Buzzard is operated by UK Power Networks as part of its Smarter Network Storage project.
The £18.7m smart-battery system, built for UK Power Networks by S&C Electric, Samsung SDI and Younicos, will store wind and solar energy at times of generation surplus to be used later when demand exceeds production.
"Energy storage can play a major role in balancing the grid as it solves the problem of renewable intermittency by absorbing surplus power and releasing it when needed,” explained Andrew Jones, managing director, S&C Electric Europe, at the launch event on Monday.
“This function simultaneously helps to securely balance capacity and supply and protects the grid from stress events, such as power outages.”
The project partners believe the trial will prove that energy storage could further reduce costs for power network operators as it would remove the need to invest in traditional forms of grid reinforcement including building new transformers and laying cables.
“We will be testing a wide range of different services that storage can deliver to the network, and the wider electricity system,” said UK Power Networks’ director of Strategy and Regulation and chief financial officer Ben Wilson.
“The project will allow us to explore and improve the economics of electrical energy storage and assess the potential benefits to the electricity system in a number of sustainable and flexible ways. We have also been developing a first-of-a-kind platform to help us optimise and manage a wide range of different services that the storage can provide.”
The project was awarded £13.2m from Ofgem’s Low Carbon Networks Fund, to which UK Power Networks added £4m supplemented by a further £1m by the other project partners.
Berlin-based Younicos contributed custom-built intelligent software architecture and components. By providing frequency regulation as well as load shifting, the project will stabilise the grid more effectively than traditional thermal generators, providing more space on the grid for clean but intermittent renewable energies.
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I presented an api for location entity recognition and geocoding at fosdem 2016 Geocoding the World with openaddresses.
This API can extract and geocode locations from Wikipedia articles or microblog posts with a high confidence score in places where the data is available. The EU version running at geocode.xyz covers some countries pretty well (eg, Spain, The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark) and others not so well (Poland, Slovakia, Estonia) because in the later case openaddresses.io is missing street address names.
If you have your own address data get a copy of the server on the AWS and load it up on the local Mysql server. Then build your own real time twitter feed location tracker, or map the news of the day.
Or better yet, contribute to openaddresses.io to improve this tool.
A minimal location entity set is an alphanumeric description of a location which maps to a single point (Latitude, Longitude) without ambiguity, and is the shortest such description.
For example: La Fàbrica del Sol, Passeig de Joan Salvat Papasseit, 1, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
can be reduced to 1 SALVAT PAPASSEIT, BARCELONA, ES
While many geocoding systems attempt to return as much data as possible (such as alternative road names, neighborhood name, timezones, geohashes, Ordnance Survey gridrefs, calling codes, what3words, sunrise/sunset, and more) all this seems unnecessary since you may get this additional information of you perform a reverse geocoding lookup on the point.
Returning so much redundant information on an address lookup seems like a waste of space to me.
Let’s build a two step geocoding system, one that a) returns the most minimal info on the first request and b) returns all the rest of location details on the second.
http://geocoder.ca/?sued=1#updates
Geocoder.ca Lawsuit Update
CanadaPost’s lawsuit, now in its 4rth year, is ongoing and it looks like it is finally getting a court date soon (they have been quiet for a while, probably wishing to keep this under wraps until after the Federal Election.)
Either way, we are still here, and we are still providing a free database of postal addresses and postal codes that is bigger and better than ever.
The main database has grown considerably in the last 4 years, further proof that crowdsourcing works! As of the last update on 2015-09-30, 12613 new postal codes were added, with the total now approaching 1 million.
You may download all these data for free at http://geocoder.ca/?freedata=1 (under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada License.)
Will keep you posted as to the latest developments from the federal court. All the best and thank you for your support.
Ervin Ruci Geocoder.ca
@Yapc::EU 2015 explaining fuzzy geocoding with Geocode.xyz
I gave a talk at State of the Map openstreetmap.org conference on crowdsourcing. (The slides are posted on my twitter feed https://twitter.com/geolytica/status/531501476708114432 , also available on Vimeo)
One observation I took home from the conference is that the state of public data around the word is similar to that in Canada, in the sense that governments and their affiliate entities hold on to the data for as long a possible, despite the fact that doing so, adversely affects the state of their economies and goes against the public good. (According to OSM France “Bano” project, a country loses up to 0.5% of its GDP due to lack of publicly available addressing data. Source)
Crowdsourcing the data is not an optimal solution, in the face of the lack a data feed from its authoritative source, because it results in datasets that contain errors. Still, this seems the only way to open up the data in my view, when the decision makers are convinced that keeping the data closed is better for their budgets (an interesting figure of 0.5 billion pounds was thrown around as the value of a closed post code list by the Royal Mail CEO Moya Greene, in her arguments for keeping the dataset closed. She also happened to be Canadapost’s CEO at the time they started their legal efforts aimed at enforcing CP’s alleged intellectual rights over Canadian postal codes.)
In France on the other hand they don’t have such problems, as they have not yet made the effort to create a post code system like the Canadian or the British ones, hence it is hard to make the half billion dollar argument there, still that does not mean that whatever system they have is open. People from the “Bano” project had to lobby hard to get the list of up to 1000 postal codes created by the French postal service open to the public, and when they actually did it was full of errors. Not only that but the French postal service has 4 different street address datasets (one for regular mail, one for advertising mail, one for parcels and another one for a purpose I can’t remember now.) All 4 have quality issues, and the 4 different departments that created them do not talk nor cooperate with each other to improve their respective datasets. Funny stories of government inefficiency at the public’s expense. The Economist also wrote a piece on this topic a month ago.
In closing, public data all around the world is at various stages of unavailability because certain people of influence are convinced they are worth a lot of money. Nobody has yet shown how much money they are actually making from licensing this data. I doubt it is half a billion. Or 0.5% of the GDP.
I am certain it is more akin to a hidden tax we all have to pay.
11 of the 17 years I’ve been in Canada I’ve resided at this postal code: “K2C 1N5.” It is the only otherwise meaningless alphanumeric string I remember most clearly, having written it over the years on countless letters, web forms, tax forms, applications and the like. As of today I can no longer call it my ‘postal code.’ Because as of today I have been personally sued in federal court over the use of the trademarked word combination: ‘postal code.’ So, I am taking the personal decision to just call it my ‘zip code.’ You’ll still know what I mean.
Sounds incredible right? Wrong!
The Canadapost corporation has just amended their statement of claim against my company, geocoder.ca, to name me personally as a defendant in their ongoing legal action to assert copyright over everything ‘postal code.’ (Both the Amended Statement of Claim and the Amended Statement of Defense will be posted here soon).
These people do move slowly (it has been over a year since their original claim) but they do just when I thought they were ready to drop their claims, which were ridiculous to begin with. It is funny because just a few days ago I was reading in the news about the financial woes of the crown corporation that enjoys the position of monopoly in certain areas. It is also fitting though for a mismanaged company to spend their last dollars on lawyers, we’ve seen it before (remember SCO?)
Other than filling my mailbox with junk mail, misusing the legal system to pursue absurd claims appears to be to be the way those overpaid pencil sharpeners see as the way out of the woods.
Maybe they envision a world where every website that mentions the word ‘postal code’ or uses the postal code to identify a location, pays a fee to the corporation. They want me to be the first one to do so.
They even extended their claim to other websites I own, namely foodpages.ca, to sieze any profits this website makes by having people type various location entities (address, intersection, city, postal code) to find a nearby restaurant. Perhaps in their ideal world, these profits belong to them because of the ‘postal code’ option.
Alas, there are thousands of websites that let users look up information associated with a postal code. Some of them use the geocoder.ca free XML port. There are lots of other alternatives too. Those websites would operate just fine if they stop accepting postal codes mind you. The user would simply have to type in a few more letters te enter their address instead.
In my case though they overdo it a bit. The revised statement of claim also mentions as targets the so called “Ruci Websites”, (FoodPages.ca, FoodHouse.com, AussieSalon.com, Yelpus.com, DineHere.us, FoodPages.us and SalonPages.com)
This is just absurdly funny. Their $1000 an hour lawyers can not even muster the competence of a simple whois query which would reveal that at least three of these websites have nothing to do with me, indeed they are not websites at all, just domain names registered by some unknown spammer and plastered with ads. I just verified that.
Maybe someone at Canadapost just heard the proverbial sentence that “there is money on the internet” and they unleashed their lawyers to get it. Maybe they think that their ‘postal code’ (if the courts decide it is ‘theirs’ in the first place) is the backbone of the internet and these websites can not exist without this ingredient. So, they must pay the ‘postal code’ tax!
Seeing no end to this madness I am taking the following preemptive action. I am renaming the ‘postal code’ to ‘zip code’ on every website, blog, application or other publication I write.
I will also kindly ask the federal government to stop asking me about my postal code on tax forms, and any other communications they have with me. Due to copyright reasons I might not be able to answer that question and I also hold them responsible for bringing this situation to a head.
Finally, like I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, it is unfortunate that the corporation is facing financial problems. It is tough being short of a $1 billion a year. They will never get it from me though. From a very very large number of people in my position, maybe, but I doubt it. Taxpayers who cover their $1b shortfall, CIPPIC who is representing me pro bono, myself and those who have donated to my legal defense fund will bear the cost of such legal action.
A company founded and still operating on the mentality of the pre-internet age, or even the pre-transistor age, has to understand the realities of new technologies. Starting with the simplest fact that a ‘postal code’ is not solely for the purpose of sending mail via Canadapost’ as they claim. There are opportunities for this old company to make money in this new environment and they are much better positioned than a one-man company like geocoder.ca, to do so.
I do not know who advises the Canada Post CEO on all these matters, but I do have one advice for him. Fire them!
Or better yet. Fire Yourself!
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Golf course accessories play a vital role in any golf course’s playing conditions. They are seen and touched by golfers on every hole, they can create lasting impressions, they can reinforce your course’s reputation and they are the most
affordable way to immediately improve course conditions.
Unfortunately, when not maintained properly or replaced when worn, they can leave an unfavorable impression of your course as a whole.
If you want to allocate your budget in the most strategic way, consider these 5 tips that your golfers will notice. These are the places where the impact accessories make is most immediate and works out to be the greatest in relation to your overall budget.
1.) On The Tee FOR LESS THAN $20 – Any of your worn spike brushes can be replaced throughout your course. 2.) Practice Green FOR LESS THAN $250 – Makeover your practice green with all new Jr. Flagsticks, Jr. Flags and Practice Green Cups. 3.) Bunkers FOR LESS THAN $500 – Replace your 25 oldest bunker rakes with new Accuform Ace II or AccuCurv Bunker Rakes. 4.) Greens FOR LESS THAN $700 – Freshen up the most touched and seen accessories on your course with 18 new regulation cups, flagsticks and flags. 5.) On The Tee FOR LESS THAN $1000 – Switch out 4-5 of your most worn ball washers with new Par Aide Master or Deluxe models.
Golf course accessories are the only area of your facility where improvements to your course conditions can be literally be made overnight…and without a big hit to your budget. They contribute to golfer satisfaction and make your course more playable, enjoyable and beautiful.
“Because Golfers Notice”. Continue reading
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What are Natural Hazards An extreme natural event or process that causes loss of life and/or extreme damage to property and creates severe disruption to human activities. Tectonic Hazards-These are natural hazards caused by the movement of tectonic plates e.g. volcanoes and earthquakes Climatic Hazards-These are caused by the weather, they include tropical storms and drought. Constructive/Divergent Boundaries When plates . MOVE APART When the crust is pulled apart, it typically breaks along parallel faults that tilt slightly outward from each other. As the plates separate, the block between the fault cracks and drops down in to the mantle. The sinking of the block causes a rift. Magmaseeps upward to fill the cracks. New crustis formed along the boundaries.
EXAMPLE:
EURASIAN plate and the NORTH AMERICAN plate are moving apart at the mid Atlantic Ridge.
Destructive Boundaries Where two plates COLLIDEwith each other. Oceanic plate collides with a CONTINENTALplate, the OCEANICplate is forced downwards into the mantle forming a SUBDUCTIONzone. This forms a DEEP TRENCH, the edge of the continental plate is folded upwards into a mountain range. Repeated folding will cause plates to break and slip causing earthquakes.
EXAMPLE: Oceanic
NAZCA plate crashing with continent of SOUTH AMERICA. Crash formed the ANDES mountains, the long strings of volcanoes along the mountain crest, and the deep trench off the coast of PACIFIC OCEAN.
Conservative/Transform Boundaries Plates SLIDE PASTeach other, or are moving in the SAME DIRECTION. They dont slide past each other smoothly, often get stuck. PRESSUREbuilds up until suddenly the plates jump forward, sending out a shock of WAVESthat cause an Earthquake. EXAMPLE: SAN ANDREAS Fault. The area of California to the WEST of the fault is slowly moving north relative to the rest of CALIFORNIA
.
Hurricane/Cyclone
1)
EVAPORATION for the surface of the ocean, because of the usually HIGH ocean TEMPERATURES of 27 degrees.
2) Fast-rising, warm, moist air rises creating an area of very low pressure-the
EYE OF THE STORM-which sucks air in.
3) The
ROTATING WINDS cause LOW pressure close to the EQAUTOR and absorb the moisture from the oceans, creating hurricanes. FEATURES: Sea temp must exceed 27 degrees, 60m deep. Time of year- May to Novemberin the Northern Hemisphere, November to Aprilin the southern Hemisphere. Typical size 700kmin diameter and can exceed 13kmin height. Areasof the world-Carribean, Central America, South East Asia, indian subcontinents. Primary Effects of Hurricanes Buildings and bridges are destroyed. Riversand coastal areas flood. People drown, or are injured by debris. Infastructuredamaged. Crops are damaged and livestockis killed. Heavy rain causes landslides. Beaches are erodedand coastal habitats damaged. Secondary Effects of Hurricanes People are left homeless Shortage of clean water and a lack of proper sanitation-making it easier for diseasesto spread. Roads are blocked or destroyed making it difficult for aidto get through. Businnessesare destroyed causing unemployment. Shortage of food because crops and livestock are short. People may suffer psychologicalproblems from traumor. Human Causes of Drought Overgrazingreduces vegetation in an area. Makes soil erosioncaused by drought even worse-with fewer plants, the soil isnt held together as strongly making erosion easier. Excessive irrigation- Irrigationis where water is artificallysupplied from rivers or lakes to farmland to increase crop production, Excessive irrigation depletes rivers and lakes, increases impactof drought when there is no water. When irrigation water evaporates, salts are left in soil- SALTATION. Crops dont grow as well. Drought Drought occurs when there is less than normal rainfall over a set period of time also when evaporationis higher than precipitation.
Primary:
Vegetationdies People and animals die from dehydration Aquatic animals die when lakes and rivers dry up Soil dries out and is easily erodedby wind.
Secondary:
Animals die from starvationdue to lack of vegetation Shortage of food (no crops) and water Conflictover food and water supplies. Farms close causing unemployment
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As more and more of working life becomes virtual, there’s one bastion of face-to-face interaction that seems least likely to go remote – the executive off-site. If for no other reason than it’s hard to imagine the higher-ups giving up the chance to gather in Aspen or Miami, many folks a bit lower on the corporate ladder would have a hard time picturing their bosses exchanging their plane tickets for web cams, but at least one high-profile pundit thinks it’s time to rethink the annual executive get-together.
Keith Ferrazzi, author of bestseller
Never Eat Alone, reflected on his past experiences at off-sites on his blog recently. And while a visit to Orlando may sound pleasant, Ferrazzi recalls the actual events as often less than enlightening. He writes:
I remember people practicing their presentations far into the night, and the next day we’d sit for hours in uncomfortable chairs in a huge room listening to our leadership talk about the future of the business. Looking back at those meetings, I have to wonder, were they truly effective?
Today, I am convinced that videoconferencing and other virtual technologies give us a much better way to conduct strategic off-sites.
Ferrazzi’s interest in virtual off-sites isn’t just a matter of saving money, but instead the idea is to give the whole concept a top-to-bottom rethink to make these events accomplish more for organizations. “Just replicating traditional physical off-sites remotely results in a ‘poor man’s’ version of the real thing, like online training courses that consist of nothing more than a video recording of an instructor followed by a test,” he says. “Instead, companies need to be much smarter about how they conduct virtual off-sites.”
If they’re conducted properly, Ferrazzi goes on to say, virtual off-sites can involve more strata of the organization, which allows the top leadership to “get a better feel for the real challenges from all angles and levels.” Leaders should then candidly report back on which recommendations and ideas they’re moving forward with and which their rejecting (and why). “Such transparency and candor as the strategy is being modified and finalized can go a long ways in building true consensus for the final strategic initiative,” says Ferrazzi, who even suggests a follow-up contest where teams compete to offer the best idea to implement the strategy with the winner receiving an award at a social event (thus taking care of the bonding portion of an off-site).
It’s an interesting proposal and one that takes into account the need for occasional all-hands, in-person meetings reported by several of the managers of remote teams we’ve spoken to for our ‘Tales from the Trenches’ series.
What do you make of Ferrazzi’s rethink of the traditional leadership off-site? Image courtesy of Flickr user jeanine&preston.
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I have no credentials or medical training to recommend any therapy but the arena of bacterial infections using Bacteriophage Therapy looks interesting for the subset of immunocompromised patients that have intractable bacterial infections, refractory to antibiotics. Accessibility, cost and appropriate application are major factors to consider if exploring this path makes sense but progress is being made in the use of viral Phages in light of the growing threat of many pathogenic bacteria that are or have become antibiotic resistant. This path needs careful appraisal in concert with trusted medical professionals. Thanks to CLLer Lisa for bringing Phage Therapy to our attention. The following research papers I found with one discussing Phage use in an immunocompromised context supplied by Lisa. Never give up exploring possible options when you are up against a wall.
Wikipedia article - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage...
WWW
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The ROI on Learning is a frame that sheds light about the organization-learning relationship. At one end, there is an “organizational mission statement,” which is oftentimes simply profit. At the learning end, it’s not so clear cut because the possibilities are diverse and, seemingly, endless. As examples, we could pursue:
Skill Acquisition Service Quality Improvement Process Efficiency Improvement Staff Actualization Onboarding Requirements
… and these just scratch the surface of possibilities.
There is a clear, and significant, gap between learning and organization nodes. Analytics could be an bridge between them, but an investment in analytics could be wasted if there is also coordination, harmony and synergy. In a word: Alignment.
Zoola Analytics, by Lambda
Zoola wants to fix reporting for LMS (Learning Management Systems). Based on the finding that an important segment of users think their LMS has a “limited ability to access and analyze the wealth of [their] data” (23.2% according to Lambda), Zoola provides cloud-based, near-time reporting with robust visualization and sharing options.
Key Zoola features, as enumerated by Lambda are:
Control over data access, visualization, analysis and distribution. Crowd-sourced, out-of-the-box yet configurable reporting. Ad Hoc analysis capabilities, in sorting, filtering, and charting options. Tracking of students’ time spent in Moodle. Interactive dashboards. Data export to file. Automated scheduling.
The value of Zoola lies in its ability to create that bridge between the missions of different parts of an organization. Zoola seeks to become the beginning of a daily routine to train your organizations’ analytics muscle, giving you a way to evolve analytics as you match learning with performance.
Find out more about Zoola on their website. Information on pricing is available via contact form only.
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Finding the right forex trader for you can be a test of patience and frustration. The rapidly changing forex market produces more traders faster than it can dump discouraged ones right back on the street. With all this confusing action, it may seem that a good trader is as hard to find as becoming one […]
Anyone interested in the forex trading market is surely aware that it can be a daunting place of business. Books, movies and magazines are filled with tales of the many aspiring traders that are driven back in fear of the risks associated with stock markets. Truly great traders hear these tales and feel inspiration. They […]
The Reality of Day Trading In many recent interviews with academy teachers, such as Tim Sykes and Cameron Fous, we received a growing number of requests from students regarding interviews with real traders who weren’t marketers. Although there is nothing wrong with marketing your trading success, there is also a bit of bias information out […]
If you’re an investor, whether you’re managing daily trades or simply keeping track of a long-term portfolio, odds are the bulk of your assets are tied up in stocks. Indeed the most traditional ways to invest are to open an account through a broker and make your own trades or buy into a mutual fund […]
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Archive for May 2008
I started out bravely enough. Three weeks without the Internet, how bad could it be?
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with the Net. For every good thing it brought me, there was an equal measure of pain. The Internet brings us news, jokes and instant communication. It also brings us spam, paranoia and intimate contact with crazy people.
So when a medical emergency forced me to move in with my dad for a while, I figured it was no big deal.
The Internet has made me smarter, but it’s also wasted a lot of my time. So when the AT&T guy said installation would take three weeks, I wasn’t scared. I saw it as an opportunity. I wouldn’t spend hours wilting in front of a computer screen; I would exercise and read books. I would immerse myself in the real world and emerge, like Thoreau, from the woods.
I looked on this as the beginning of a spiritual journey. For three weeks, I would turn my back on technology and spend my days reading, walking and basking in the sun.
I would hang up my iPod and turn off the radio. For the duration, I wouldn’t even watch TV. I could rediscover the joys of conversation and get closer to my dad.
And that’s where things started to go wrong.
My father is a very curious man. He’s curious about everything, and he loves to ask questions. Religion, politics, philosophy, physics – my father wants to know everything. And somewhere down the line, he decided that I was smart.
I’m not sure when this happened. I thought I was pretty smart from the ages of 14 to 19, but I seem to get dumber with each successive birthday. By the time I hit 40, I’ll need a diagram to tie my shoes.
But every night I would sit at the dinner table and dad would ask me questions.
“Who invented the toilet?”
“How big is the universe?”
“Does the Bible contradict Texas marriage law?”
“Where can I find Woody’s Cook-In Sauce?”
I don’t know the answer to those questions, but Google does. I could look like a genius and answer all of dad’s questions; all I needed was an Internet connection. And that’s when it hit me. I hadn’t just taken a three-week vacation from the Internet, I had cut off access to an essential part of my brain.
I thought of Net access as a luxury, but trying to live without it was like trying to live without a dishwasher or a vacuum cleaner or a microwave oven. These devices may be luxuries in one sense, but they are an essential part of modern life.
The Internet gives me access to the collective store of human knowledge. With it, I’m as smart as an army of Ph.Ds. Without it, I’m just a dumb guy who can type fast.
Yes, the Internet can be a waste of time. It can disrupt relationships and deliver inappropriate material to children. But it’s also a tool, and just like a dishwasher or a vacuum cleaner, once you get used to it, it’s very hard to give it up.
I don’t use instant messaging as much as I used to, but I’m addicted to e-mail, and I can’t live without my RSS feeds. My desktop is like a NATO command center, constantly streaming in news alerts and live video. My day job keeps me immersed in local news, but stuck at home without a Net connection, all my usual sources were cut off. I didn’t know we had a new mayor until dad took his sign down. Is Bush still president? I should probably look that up.
Oh, and for the record: The flush toilet was invented by J.F. Brondel in 1738; human beings can measure the universe to a diameter of 28 billion light years; Romans, Chapter 13 says men should obey their rulers; and the best barbecue sauce ever made can now be found at United Supermarkets.
Thank God I have Net access at work.
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Since the time of the ancient Greeks, human beings have believed that hope is essential to life. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Harvard Medical School professor and
New Yorker staff writer Jerome Groopman shows us why.The search for hope is most urgent at the patient's bedside. The Anatomy of Hope takes us there, bringing us into the lives of people at pivotal moments when they reach for and find hope, or when it eludes their grasp. Through these intimate portraits, we learn how to distinguish true hope from false, why some people feel they are undeserving of it, and whether we should ever abandon our search. Can hope contribute to recovery by changing physical well-being? To answer this hotly debated question, Groopman embarked on an investigative journey to cutting-edge laboratories where researchers are unraveling an authentic biology of hope. There he finds a scientific basis for understanding the role of this vital emotion in the outcome of illness. Here is a book that offers a new way of thinking about hope, with a message for all readers, not only patients and their families. "We are just beginning to appreciate hope's reach," Groopman writes, "and have not defined its limits. I see hope as the very heart of healing."
"In this provocative book...Groopman successfully convinces that hope can offer not only solace but strength to those living with medical uncertainty." (
Publishers Weekly) "[Groopman] enters the paradoxical hope of cancer patients with a different sort of sympathy. His project is to dissect it meticulously, to find patterns behind it, and to understand its biology....Groopman contends that hope itself is in effect a vital organ, an entity that desperately needs sustenance, and that this sustenance is as essential to living as 'the very oxygen we breathe'." ( The New York Times Book Review)
We've sent an email with your order details. Order ID #:
To access this title, visit your library in the app or on the desktop website.
An elegant treatise on the power of hope
- S. Marie "S. Marie"
ONLY read the book narrated by the author
- Nicholas Grimaldi
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If I had to guess, he wasn't weighing it against the plea bargain, he had already decided not to take the plea bargain on principle and was weighing it against the cost of taking charity and bankrupting all his friends and family to fight it and even after all that still possibly losing and going to prison for multiple years. In other words, taking the plea would have had the additional cost to his integrity, which even in this day and age still means a lot to some people.
I don't know if I would go so far as to say that the decision was rational (and I know the suicide prevention people hate it when people talk about stuff like this), but I can see the road he took to get there. Being human isn't always rational and we have to make policies under the understanding that people will have feelings and principles rather than making all decisions as rational automatons.
>Would that it were--we'd save a fortune on federal prisoners by executing them all!
No we wouldn't. It costs more to execute someone than imprison them because of the cost of all the appeals and safeguards we have for death penalty cases.
But even though you're kidding, I think it raises a pretty reasonable point: Why do we even have prisons at all, other than as detention facilities for pending death penalty cases? If someone commits a sufficiently serious crime (or re-offends sufficiently many times), put them to death. If their crime was less serious than that, make them pay back their ill gotten gains, subject them to a fine or make them do community service 20 hours a week for however many hours or years. What good does it do to imprison someone if you ever intend to let them back out again? Prison costs the state money, it takes the convicts out of the economy and makes them parasites, and when they get out they have no skills and no job history which is one of the many reasons the recidivism rate is so high. Prison is a profoundly broken institution. I think there is a very strong argument for just getting rid of it as a method of punishment.
That's a great insight.
I would point out that prison is still an acceptable in-between for community service and death. E.g. what happens if the convict simply doesn't show up for their community service?
Depriving someone of their own free use of their time is a powerful motivational tool (just ask anyone who's ever had to "hurry up and wait" in the military).
However any possible positive effect you would get from prison, either for rehabilitation or non-recurrence, would be had within the first year, two at the most.
Any prison sentence beyond that and you have to wonder what the marginal additional value is (I would think none).
I'm not sure if you're entirely serious about the death penalty for sufficiently serious crimes, but the normal argument is that even if that were acceptable in theory, that it's been proven not implementable in practice, and we'd rather optimize for not accidentally putting something to death who is innocent.
This itself could be fleshed out further though... governments all the times do things (or don't do things) that may indirectly lead to fatalities later on. Things as simple as redirecting a road away from a cliff face to prevent people from driving over the edge at night can save lives, but we as a population generally accept that there is an economic reality that government can't pay to completely prevent all foreseeable accidents. So could you argue from there that if we already let people drive off of cliffs because it's cheaper, that we could let government accidentally execute innocents if it had a net positive outcome?
I don't know... even I'm pretty leery of that logic. Personally if I were to be fradulently convicted I'd rather a lifetime of prison than to be put to death (assuming I could still read, program, etc.)
It's possible he rejected the plea bargain out of hand, though Thoreau, Gandhi, King, and Mandela would all question the assumption that going to prison diminishes the integrity of someone with a noble cause. If he thinks his integrity was better preserved by hanging himself in his apartment and leaving his body there for his girlfriend to discover, he wasn't really thinking clearly at all, was he?
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In print or on dead trees, there's money in long-form journalism
Like others who got into journalism while print media was fading, I have been offering my theories about what has been going wrong. (Hint: newspaper circulation has been declining since the 1960s, so industry executives might want to stop blaming the Internet.)
Among the multiplicity of problems afflicting print is its failure to understand its role in a wired world. I keep saying thing that the Internet is for breaking the news.
Who won the game? What happened to stocks?
Print, on the other hand, is made for long-form analysis.
Why should you care about what happened? What will happen next? What does it mean?
As things stand, long-form journalism — essays over 2,000 words — is pretty much dead. Websites, obsessed with quick clickbait, don't run it. For the last 10 or 15 years, newspapers and many magazines have bought into the conventional wisdom that bytes go best in bits. At
The Los Angeles Times, for example, the number of pieces over 2,000 words has declined 86% during the last decade.
Now
Fast Company is out with something close to scientific proof that I've been right.
Publications that are thriving relative to their competitors, such as
The Economist and The New Yorker, are consistently committed to long-form feature writing. We love our tablets, but they can't compete with print's portability and lower eyestrain when it's time to delve into 8,000 words about whatever.
"Newspapers should stop trying to break news," I wrote a few years ago. "They can't compete with websites. They should publish a daily version of what
Time or Newsweek could be: lengthy analyses with charts and graphs, and opinions across the political spectrum." For the most part, however, editors still don't get it. Time and Newsweek are case studies in how not to run a weekly magazine in the online era. Post-Time-Life Time and the Newsweek even more ruined by Tina Brown have reduced their cultural imprints and circulations by trying to Web-ify themselves with those crummy short bits at the front of the book, Buzzfeed-inspired charticles and listicles, and lots of oversized photos. Why pay $5 for that shit when you can get it better online — in abundance, and free? Conversely, when I want a detailed 10,000-word analysis of the factors that contributed to the current state of disintegration in Iraq, I'll turn to The Economist, not Time next week. So will everyone else.
What makes
Fast Company's analysis interesting is its conclusion that long-form works online too.
"We decided to experiment with a new, super-long article format akin to 'slow live blogging,' Chris Dannen writes in
Fast Company. "When we looked at the traffic charts… our jaws dropped. Here's what we learned about long form stories — and why quality, not velocity, is the future of online news." (Go check out the charts. They're amazing.)
Dannen continues:
In mid-April, we went live with a half dozen articles which we call 'stubs.' The idea here is to plant a flag in a story right away with a short post--a 'stub'--and then build the article as the story develops over time, rather than just cranking out short, discrete posts every time something new breaks. One of our writers refers to this aptly as a 'slow live blog.'
Stub stories work like this: You write the first installment like any other story. But when more news breaks, you go back to the article, insert an update at the top, and change the headline and subheadline (known in our business as the "hed" and "dek") to reflect the update. Our system updates the story "slug" when the headline changes--check the URL of this story, and you'll see words from the headline in the URL:
/this-is-what-happens-when-publishers-invest-in-long-stories. But the number preceding the slug--on this article, it's 3009577--is a unique node ID which never changes. So essentially, every time we update an article, we get a fresh URL with a fresh headline, but pointing back to the same (newly updated) article. So, it's like having many URLs and many headlines which lead back to the same big, multi-faceted article. We called these 'Tracking' stories.FastCo's "bounce rate" plunged when it ran long-form pieces with updated information. Rather than come in, find themselves unintrigued and thus immediately leave, readers were attracted. They stuck around. Average visit duration jumped. Advertisers love this.
Dannen does offer a caveat, however:
Big-time disclaimer here--it's too early to tell how permanent these effects will be, and we can't know for sure that the changes are attributable to these stub articles. But we've racked our brains to think of other factors at work here--some big boost in inbound links? Some external event? A technical change? But after about a month, we've seen these changes stabilize, and we haven't been able to isolate any other contributing factors. We'reLong-form features are an important part of the journalistic mix. Yet many print editors continue to snub the format despite strong evidence, such as the success of Kindle Singles, that they've been mistaken. notsaying this is causation, because there's no way to be sure. But it sure as hell looks like it's working.
Now that online media is beginning to see the profit potential in going long, the Internet may be about to kick print's ass in a form that ought to have been print's natural advantage.
[illustration by Hallie Bateman]
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In Praise of Worry
Dear Belladonna Rogers,
I'm a worrier. My husband says worrying does no good, wastes time, and won’t help. Is he right?
Worried in Wyoming
Dear Worried,
No.
While too much worry creates stress, which
is hazardous to your health, too little worry can be just as dangerous. The anthem of the International Association of Worriers -- which doesn't exist, but one day might -- could be the popular song by Randy Newman in the YouTube clip above.
We all worry. The difference is not between worriers and non-worriers but between people who acknowledge they worry and those who don't. The second group may think they’re not worrying, but they’re unaware that they are. To err is human, as is to worry. Those who say they're not worried show their inner turmoil in many ways, from hair-pulling to beard-tugging, to drinking in excess, to sleeping or eating too little or too much.
Neurotic worry, or obsessive, repetitive thinking about a problem
is counterproductive. But wisely directed worry can solve problems and lead to vastly improved outcomes.
People who claim not to worry enjoy mocking those who recognize they do, calling them worrywarts, fussbudgets, fusspots, handwringers, and Nervous Nellies.
Even the otherwise judicious Roman rhetorician, Marcus Annaeus Seneca, said, “There is nothing so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it in expecting evil before it arrives?”
Right. Guess he never had to prepare for a hurricane, a blizzard, a flood, or a child’s college tuition payments.
Echoing Seneca, some people prefer to be what they consider “tough,” “mature,” “realistic,” or “stoic,” boasting, “I never worry because it serves no purpose. If something is out of my hands, there’s no point in my worrying about it.” Both assertions are inaccurate but the second sentence is more so. Rarely are situations completely beyond our ability to improve their outcomes. Believing that something is out of our hands doesn’t make it so: we can make an enormous difference for the better through actions we take after some beneficial worry.
But no situation will bend to our efforts to improve it if we believe “nothing can be done” and “it’s out of my hands.” Those responses aren’t merely dismissive of the benefits of worry, they’re hostile to the notion that worry can produce positive consequences. Such passive attitudes are far more detrimental to your health and happiness than is worrying.
Worrying
constructively can change the outcome of the troubling situation for the better. The productive worrier is often thinking about what options are available in difficult circumstances, choices that could make the source of worry less threatening -- less worrisome.
Case in point: after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Sigmund Freud’s daughter, the gifted psychoanalyst Anna Freud, was deeply and justifiably worried about her father’s safety. Both she and her 82-year-old father had been questioned at Gestapo Headquarters in Vienna, a terrifying experience that could have led to an immediate deportation order to transport them to a death camp. By worrying and using her worrying to come up with a successful escape to London, Anna Freud was able to save her mother and her father, as well as herself from certain death in concentration camps, which was the tragic fate of all of Sigmund Freud’s four older sisters.
More recently, Andrew Grove, the retired co-founder and CEO of Intel, the pioneering microchip company, titled his classic business book
Only The Paranoid Survive. He would know: while he and his mother, Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary, were sheltered by friends during World War II, Grove's father was imprisoned in a concentration camp, which he survived.
Grove’s book focuses on the need to stay competitive in business, where sudden changes in regulation, innovation, and market forces require pivoting on a dime. Worry in business and at many places of employment is essential: competition from other companies and from others within your workplace create the necessity for worry. Others are trying to surpass, supplant, and outdo you or your enterprise. Unruffled, over-confident complacency is unwise.
To skip through life with nary a care may seem to be an agreeable way to go, but you probably won’t go far. In his penetrating book,
The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker illuminates the critical importance of being realistically worried about the dangers that surround us.
While necessity is the mother of invention, worry is the parent of prudence. Not only in business, but also in our daily lives, being on the
qui vive can prevent disaster.
When you’re driving, for example, worry is as functional as knowing how to brake. If it never occurs to you on a Saturday night or on New Year’s Eve that other drivers could be drunk, you will be more likely to conclude your evening in an accident, a hospital emergency room, or on a marble slab at the morgue than if you’d worried and been hyper-alert.
If you’re in the woods and are happily unconcerned about poison ivy, you could discover the shiny three-leafed plant has left you with some maddeningly irritating souvenirs.
A happy-go-lucky unmarried man with a “What Me, Worry?” tattoo can go condomless as often as he pleases, until a gnawing itch is diagnosed as herpes, or other symptoms turn out to be syphilis, gonorrhea, or worse.
Being worried enough to wear a condom isn’t being a fussbudget. It’s being smart.
In family finances, not to mention the federal budget, worrying about disaster compels the prudent person or government to put aside money for a rainy day. Worry is the cause of saving, which can be the difference between having a home and being homeless, having a Triple A bond rating, or being downgraded.
In political life, if we weren’t worried, we wouldn’t vote at all.
Forward-thinking worry is part of a realistic person’s intellectual and emotional suit of armor in dealing with what Hamlet called the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Do not ask for whom worrying is indispensable. It's indispensable for you.
Worry isn’t just for worrywarts: it’s for us all.
-- Belladonna Rogers
Do you have questions? Belladonna Rogers has answers. Send your questions or comments about politics, personal or cultural matters, or anything else that’s on your mind, and Belladonna will answer as many as possible. The names, geographic locations and email addresses of all advice-seekers will be kept confidential. Names and places and other personal information will be changed to protect the identity of the questioner. Send your questions or comments to: [email protected]
https://pjmedia.com/blog/in-praise-of-worry/
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Kees van der Pijl, author of
The Foreign Encounter in Myth and Religion (Pluto, 2010) and Nomads, States and Empires (Pluto, 2007) has written an article for the New Left Project, ‘State Capture and the Democratic Movement’, in which he considers the need for (and absence of) a powerful democratic movement at a juncture where the neo-liberal project seems to have failed.
Van der Pijl’s analysis is a timely and astute one. We’ve reproduced an extract of the article below. For the full piece, go to the
New Left Project, here.
* * *
We are currently witnessing the collapse of the neoliberal project and yet, in the absence of a serious, purposeful democratic movement, it looks very much as if the combined forces of neoliberal capitalism are consolidating their hold on Western society. The last crisis, in the mid-seventies, was resolved only with Thatcher’s election in 1979 and Ronald Reagan’s a year later, and the launch of the neoliberal project. Prior to this, European society resisted this change of tack. NATO’s decision to deploy missiles in Western Europe and the Cold War response to Soviet support for its client modernisers in Afghanistan met with popular resistance and governmental scepticism, respectively. Moreover financial liberalisation, at the heart of the neoliberal project, was still regarded by most European and American policy-makers as ‘voodoo economics’.
However as Nikos Poulantzas argued in 1973, all capitalist states must necessarily adopt the practices of the most advanced centre in order to compete.[1] In addition, as Craig Murphy and Enrico Augelli note, the steady inflow of people trained in neoclassical economics surreptitiously created a mass base for Neoliberalism—whilst the hedonistic culture that was one part of the May 1968 post-war youth revolt also prepared the ground for a sea-change.[2] One by one the ruling blocs of Fordist mass production industry, in state-monitored class compromise with labour, were dislodged as post-war corporate liberalism unravelled.
Neoliberal financialisation is an Anglo-American project. It gives the state/society complexes of the Lockean heartland an advantage over societies in which the state historically has guided social development. ‘Contender states’ resisting the liberal West, especially those (Germany and Japan, Austria and Italy) that emerged when second-generation heavy industry made its appearance, lacked the capital to compete with the City and Wall Street, the centres of global finance. German investment banks, as well as their Austrian counterparts and the Japanese
zaibatsu, typically combined with national industries under state auspices into what Rudolf Hilferding in 1910 famously called ‘finance capital’.[3] So for over a century, people in these societies have looked to the state to ensure general well-being; this was only reinforced in the Fordist era. Seeing banks operate independently in global speculative ventures will still, even today, raise eyebrows.
Yet from the 1980s onwards the trend everywhere was to break up existing bank-industry combinations, liberalise finance, and privatise assets. The Anglo-American neoliberal drive profited from the Lockean antecedents of their state/society-complexes, property-focused political culture, and in the final analysis, their greater readiness to use force. These structural advantages of the Anglophone West in launching footloose finance gave it the upper hand in the transformation to neoliberalism. So did the vehemence with which its strategy of abrogating the class compromise with organised labour was executed—the miners’ strike in Britain, the air traffic controllers’ strike in the United States, and many other instances of provoked class struggle. A full analysis would also include the way in which the attacks of 9/11, unintentionally but not unwelcome, cut down to size what appeared at the time to be developing into a full-fledged anti-globalisation movement.
The contender state economies, including those of continental Europe, underwent a much more painful and intensely contested process of adjustment. In the first decade of the new century, Germany also launched a veritable assault on its working class to allow its strongest capitals to join the drive to world markets of their Anglo-American counterparts. Dutch, German and French banks were prominent players in the dubious sub-prime mortgage business, and like them were packaging titles into securities in the inter-bank market and other speculative operations. But in 2007-8, with the first signs of a slowdown, the transnational circuit of money capital ground to a halt, affecting banks on both sides of the Atlantic.
At the G-20 in London in May 2009 there was general acknowledgement that the crisis was a banking crisis. But the strong rhetoric about banks, bonuses and greed was not matched by serious surveillance measures. Instead the financiers demonstrated that they had a hold on policy-making that would not easily be dislodged. As François Chesnais writes in his book
Illegitimate Debts,
‘The massive aid extended to the banks and the investment funds in September-October 2008 expresses the social and political power of the shareholders and owners of the banks and the industrial groups, of fund managers and directors paid in stock options.
The success of the rescue operations has allowed them to preserve their domination.’[4]
Taking on a large slice of bank losses and translating them into sovereign debt, the states involved (including the Eurozone) helped transmute the crisis of speculative banking into a debt crisis. In 2009 the public debt of the ten richest countries was expected to rise from 78 per cent of GDP in 2007 to 114 per cent in 2014. Costas Lapavitsas and his co-authors, in their recent book on the Eurozone crisis, show how in the EU alone, sovereign debt in 2009 jumped by almost a trillion euros, whilst the level of debt of monetary financial institutions has declined proportionally.[5]
For the rest of the article, go to the New Left Project , here.
Modes of Foreign Relations and Political Economy, Volume I
‘Pioneering and ambitious … Kees argues [in favour of] a reformulation of IR theory and history as a whole.’ Fred Halliday, LSE
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Selenium in ecosystems within the mountaintop coal mining and valley-fill region of southern West Virginia-assessment and ecosystem-scale modeling Professional Paper 1803 By: Theresa S. Presser Links AbstractCoal and associated waste rock are among environmental selenium (Se) sources that have the potential to affect reproduction in fish and aquatic birds. Ecosystems of southern West Virginia that are affected by drainage from mountaintop coal mines and valleys filled with waste rock in the Coal, Gauley, and Lower Guyandotte watersheds were assessed during 2010 and 2011. Sampling data from earlier studies in these watersheds (for example, Upper Mud River Reservoir) and other mining-affected watersheds also are included to assess additional hydrologic settings and food webs for comparison. Basin schematics give a comprehensive view of sampled species and Se concentration data specific to location and date. Food-web diagrams document the progression of Se trophic transfer across suspended particulate material, invertebrates, and fish for each site to serve as the basis for developing an ecosystem-scale model to predict Se exposure within the hydrologic conditions and food webs of southern West Virginia. This approach integrates a site-specific predator’s dietary exposure pathway into modeling to ensure an adequate link to Se toxicity and, thus, to species vulnerability. Site-specific fish abundance and richness data in streams documented various species of chub, shiner, dace, darters, bass, minnow, sunfish, sucker, catfish, and central stoneroller (Campostoma anomalum), mottled sculpin (Cottus bairdii), and least brook lamprey (Lampetra aepyptera). However, Se assessment species for streams, and hence, model species for streams, were limited to creek chub (Semotilus atromaculatus) and central stoneroller. Both of these species of fish are generally considered to have a high tolerance for environmental stress based on traditional comparative fish community assessment, with creek chub being present at all sites. Aquatic insects (mayfly, caddisfly, stonefly, dobsonfly, chironomid) were the main invertebrates sampled in streams. Collection of suspended particulate material acted as an integrator of organic-rich, fine-grained biomass present in streams. The base-case food web modeled for streams was suspended particulate material to aquatic insect to creek chub, with comparative modeling of a direct particulate-to-stoneroller food web. Model species for a reservoir setting were based on an earlier study of bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus), green sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus), and largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides). Several reservoir food webs were considered based on a variety of invertebrates (insect, snail, clam). For stream and reservoir settings, predicted Se concentrations in exposure scenarios showed a high degree of correlation (r 2= 0.91 for invertebrates and 0.75 for fish) with field observations of Se concentrations when modeling was initiated from suspended-particulate-material Se concentrations and model transfer parameters defined previously in the literature were used. These strong correlations validate the derived site-specific model and establish sufficient confidence that the predictions from the developed model can be quantitatively applied to the ecosystems in southern West Virginia. An application of modeling used a metric describing the partitioning of Se between particulate material and dissolved phases (K d) to allow determination of a dissolved Se concentration that would be necessary to attain a site-specific Se fish body burden. The operationally defined K dquantifies the complex process of transformation at the base of a food web on a site-specific basis. The magnitude of this metric is known to vary with such factors as Se speciation, particulate-material type, and hydrology. This application (1) ties dissolved Se concentrations to fish tissue concentrations; (2) allows consideration of different choices for intervening site-specific exposure steps that set Se bioaccumulation, partitioning, and bioavailability; and (3) generates implications for management decisions that define protection through different regulatory pathways and guidelines. The range of model outcomes accounts for critical sources of variability and establishes whether site and food-web characterization were adequate to represent the dynamics of the system with certainty. This is especially true in terms of particulate-material phases at the base of the food web and utilization of K din different hydrologic settings. For streams, a range of field-derived K dds were applied to food-web exposure scenarios within a framework of locational and hydrologic variables (area of stream basin; stream gradient and discharge) that may affect the magnitude of K d. Overlaying even a coarse temporal scale that acknowledges variability in stream dissolved Se and Se speciation, such as through seasonal derivation of K d, can substantially narrow model uncertainty. Modeling that constrains the place and time of greatest ecosystem Se sensitivity within a specified food web gives insight into Se risk and identifies controlling management alternatives within a watershed or stream basin. If there is a range of hydrologic settings, specificity is needed to establish a hierarchy of in-stream and off-stream habitats for a watershed approach that takes into account Se-enriched water moving through different K dand food web environments. If there is a range of predator vulnerabilities (measured as a combination of food-web Se biodynamics and response in Se toxicity tests) within the site-specific community of fish species to be protected, then choice of fish species is critical to protection because it determines the food web and, hence, the magnitude of biotransfer through which Se is modeled. Whether creek chub is representative of the vulnerability to Se of all fish species encountered within the study-site ecosystems will require additional species-specific data and analysis. A range of site-specific scenarios illustrated here set model outcomes, but the final quantitative evaluation of alternatives and their implications will be those generated through choices and guidance formulated by state and other agencies in their decisionmaking processes. Proposed additions and refinements to the ecosystem-scale site-specific approach developed here include consideration of: measurement of temporally matched pairs of dissolved and suspended-particulate-material Se concentrations across a broader range of stream sites to expand the stream K ddatabase and to test the representativeness of a suspended-particulate-material sample within a stream; characterization of different phases of particulate material across seasons to better define the base of the food web and connect to invertebrate feeding; refinement of model assumptions concerning dietary preferences and composition for fish to develop additional trophic transfer factors (TTFs) (for example, calculation of TTFinvertebrate composite for mixed diets); expansion of modeling of fish species and their food webs to include Se-vulnerable species; temporal characterization of a predator’s life cycle and habitat use as additional model layers to integrate with Se biodynamics in streams; investigation of the effect of stream gradient on K dbased on a finer scale than presented here in terms of such variables as residence time, watershed dilution, and physical habitat attributes (for example, amount of ponding versus run or riffle within a stream); and linkage to discharge through use of stream gaging to record variability and enable model organization within water-year types and discharge seasons. Investigating the presence and variability of prey and predator species in demographically open systems such as streams also is key to model outcomes given the overall environmental stressors (for example, general landscape change, food-web disruption, recolonization potential) imposed on the composition of biological communities in coal mining and valley-fill affected watersheds Study Area Additional publication details Publication type: Report Publication Subtype: USGS Numbered Series Title: Selenium in ecosystems within the mountaintop coal mining and valley-fill region of southern West Virginia-assessment and ecosystem-scale modeling Series title: Professional Paper Series number: 1803 DOI: 10.3133/pp1803 Year Published: 2013 Language: English Publisher: U.S. Geological Survey Publisher location: Reston, VA Contributing office(s): National Research Program - Western Branch Description: vi, 86 p. Country: United States State: West Virginia Additional Online Files (Y/N): N
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I like learning languages, even if they’re not likely to be useful to me specifically. I may not visit the country, but if the language is fun, why not enjoy picking it up? I mean, I go running even though nothing I do for money requires running. It just makes me feel better and makes my body work better. I think that’s useful. Likewise, I think learning languages is useful, even if I don’t learn very much of a given language.
But what is a good way of learning a language? What things are useful? Different people will tell you different things and offer different approaches. It is likely to vary from person to person and depending on how the person intends to use the language. For instance, some people swear by audio-based acquisition methods – learn just by listening. However, if you’re in another country, my experience is that you will need the language most for reading signs and other instructions; spoken communication is both more flexible and longer in development. And if you have a strongly visual memory, having written forms to hang the words on may be a big plus.
I
have found that getting used to the sounds of the language helps a lot – listen to it in videos, music, et cetera. In fact, learning songs in the language can be very useful and memorable… but for some languages, the sung version departs notably from the spoken version. If I’m going to actually use the language in another country soon (as for instance Portuguese on my recent vacation), it is best to learn things first that I am most likely to use: buying drinks, buying tickets, finding bathrooms, getting through airports… But if I just want to learn the language for literary purposes, and to get to know the culture, well, it makes sense to learn the standard cultural literary background, doesn’t it? Or at least selected highlights? A chrestomathy? Chrestomathy. There’s a word you won’t see often; it is unlikely to show up in a chrestomathy of English. It is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable (and with the ch said as /k/). It means, per Oxford, “A collection of choice passages from an author or authors, esp. one compiled to assist in the acquirement of a language.” It has tastes for me of chrysalis, that intermediate form leading to a butterfly, and crest, a ridge point one must pass over, and stoma, which is basically a hole or a tube, and math, although this is more about language (still, why not be a polymath too if you can be a polyglot?), and more distantly of mastery and stretch and a few less pertinent things such as matches and Chester and torch.
But it comes from χρηστός
khréstos ‘useful’ and μαθεια matheia ‘learning’. There is a related word, chrestomathic, which means (again per Oxford) “devoted to the learning of useful matters.” It’s a bit presumptuous to hold choice literary passages to be the epitome of useful learning, more than songs, say, or “Excuse me, where are the washrooms?” This is a basis not in the business of life – perhaps this is a vision for thelemites, who have servants to see to such little things – but in the standard references of culture. Famous scenes from movies? Snippets of children’s books? Apparently we should think more of scenes from Shakespeare and lines by John Donne and Alexander Pope and (if there is any justice at all) Edna St. Vincent Millay. Or even a single-author chrestomathy (perhaps Hemingway for the introductory readers, Nabokov for the more advanced, and Joyce or Faulkner or Pynchon for the exceptionally odd).
Well, whatever. If I were to christen my own chrestomathy for English, my choice of passages certainly would include music (“There are places I remember…”), children’s books (“The night Max wore his wolf suit…”), movie clips (“…We’ll always have Paris…”), comic strips (“…Tyrannosaurs in F-14s!!”), and perhaps even an ad or two (“Where’s the beef?”), to go alongside “To be or not to be…” and “No man is an island…” and “A little learning is a dangerous thing…” and “I burn the candle at both ends…” (and perhaps “…yes I said yes I will Yes” and “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins…” and “A screaming comes across the sky…”).
Or, you know, just some paragraphs from my blog.
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No one would have thought that the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) Gas Pipeline project would come to life again after a gap of 20 years. The project, however, got a decisive push from all the involved parties on December 13 when the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the President of Turkmenistan, the President of Afghanistan, and the Vice President of India
gathered in Mary, Turkmenistan for the ground-breaking of this mega project. All leaders showed commitment from their respective countries to complete the project. The 1,800 km long TAPI pipeline will export 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India for over 30 years. Though concerns from critics still exist that are skeptical whether or not this project is viable, the TAPI gas pipeline project is a dependable, accessible, and manageable scheme.
It’s been more than a decade and Afghanistan is still facing a brutal insurgency and political disorder. President Ashraf Ghani is irrefutably an elected president, yet his government is not meeting the demands of all the ethnic factions in the country. The Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah, is another mainstream political leader in the government but is less vibrant in state affairs. His silence may bring a storm in a tea cup once he starts applying his authorities to a larger extent, the constitution may
stop him from exercising those because already Mr. Abdullah’s position was created by extra-constitutional arrangements.
Ghani’s strength withers when the Taliban rejects the central government and calls him an illegitimate president. Still, Ghani has put in considerable efforts for a peaceful political settlement. Earlier this month, the Afghan president
traveled to Pakistan and met Chief of Army Staff Raheel Sharif in GHQ and found full support of the Pakistan Army. This exercise, along with other political meetings with the Pakistani leadership, is intended to bring the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table. However, a complete process still remains unresolved.
As such, the security maze of Afghanistan is an irritation that multiplies the reservations regarding the TAPI project. Just when President Ghani was preparing to attend the TAPI groundbreaking ceremony, the Taliban stormed a guesthouse near the Spanish embassy in Kabul and killed
5 people. Prior to the guesthouse attack, the Taliban also launched a massive attack on Kandahar Airport leaving 70 people dead. A major portion of the pipeline has to travel through Afghanistan; therefore, attacks from the Taliban could disturb the gas supplies.
Another issue which triggers concerns regarding the TAPI project is the nature of the Indo-Pak relationship. The countries have never had cordial ties, and misunderstandings and discord have increased since the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has come to power in India. There are, however, gradual positive changes in the bilateral relationship. The National Security Advisors of both sides met last month. A secret meeting of Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi held in Nepal and Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Sawaraj’s visit to Islamabad. The Prime Ministers also met during Prime Minister Modi’s
surprise visit to Lahore last Friday. All these late developments show the ice is melting which can eventually facilitate the timely completion of TAPI project.
TAPI is a significant project for India because it provides Delhi an alternate to the
Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline. The continuous demand for energy from homegrown industry compelled the Indian government to hunt for other cheap and viable options. TAPI can be a significant contributor to India’s energy supply in a very short span of time. India has maintained good relations with Afghanistan over the last decade, thus transporting gas from Afghanistan would not be a major political challenge. The real issue, however, is India’s relations with Pakistan.
The pipeline is a win-win for all associated parties, but specifically for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. It could not only bring the entire region under the vortex of economic integration, but could also address the deficit of trust between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Moreover, Islamabad and Delhi can work collectively to reshape the Afghan peace process to ensure the project is completed – both have dire need of cheap and uninterrupted energy to feed their burgeoning energy shortfalls.
This month, Islamabad hosted the 5th
Heart of Asia Conference and addressed the security and political issues of Afghanistan. Happening coincidentally at a time when the TAPI project was about to kick off is indeed a welcoming step for regional economic activities and for the stable future of Afghanistan. The successful completion of the TAPI project in 2018 would show that economics can outmaneuver security challenges in the modern, globalized world.
***
Image:
Reza, Getty
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You still have five days left to comment
The last post to this blog was about the proposed replacement of the Massey Tunnel by a massive bridge. A small group of people have been getting together to try and co-ordinate activity opposing the province’s proposal. This is what we have so far:
Urgent Deadline for Public Comments on George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project Please Act Now DEADLINE FEBRUARY 15, 2016
The B.C. Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) is requesting public comments on the
valued components in the environmental assessment for the Massey Tunnel Replacement Project.
Click on the RealMasseyTunnelHearings link below. There is a form for you to submit your comments. You can write your comments there or prepare ahead and copy and paste into the space provided. The site provides some information for you consider and there is more below.
Visit Real Massey Tunnel Hearings to get a quick overview of some of the concerns people have identified with this project. You can send your comments to the EAO directly through the website, and they will be automatically forwarded to our municipal, provincial and federal elected representatives. This is our best chance for building awareness of public concerns about this proposal.
Some Points:
The impacts of this Project are far-reaching and should include a Review Panel federal environmental assessment. More information is needed and there should be a future opportunity for input on Scoping and Valued Components before the Application is allowed to proceed, The Project is too large and too expensive Traffic Congestion will increase at the Oak Street and Knight Street Bridges The Project information fails to recognize the national and international significance of the Fraser River Estuary for salmon, sturgeon, eulachons, endangered whales and migratory birds of the Pacific Flyway. A 45% percent increase in truck traffic in this region is unacceptable and credible alternatives are available. The Project will have a negative impact on regional air quality.
The following are more specific points for your information.
Definition of Valued Component
“For the purpose of environmental assessment in BC,
Valued Components (VCs) are components of the natural and human environment that are considered by the proponent, public, Aboriginal groups, scientists and other technical specialists, and government agencies involved in the assessment process to have scientific, ecological, economic, social, cultural, archaeological, historical, or other importance.”
Page 4: EAO: Guideline for the Selection of Valued Components and Assessment of Potential Effects
Valued Components Commentary
The Open Houses and public information document, ‘ Project Description and Key Areas of Study’have failed to provide sufficient information for the public to make informed comments on the Scope and Valued Components of the George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project (GMTR).
The B.C. Environmental Assessment process states scoping should be prepared by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office prior to request for public input on the scope and valued components:
“Issues scoping should begin early in project planning, before initial regulatory submissions, such as the Project Description and draft AIR, are made, as the information gained during issues scoping will inform not only the selection of VCs but also the determination of the scope of the assessment…”
(Note: AIR – Application Information Requirements) Page 8: EAO: Guideline for the Selection of Valued Components and Assessment of Potential Effects http://www.eao.gov.bc.ca/pdf/EAO_Valued_Components_Guideline_2013_09_09.pdf There needs to be a future opportunity for public comment on a credible document which clearly outlines the Scope and Valued Components as identified by the Proponent; the BC Ministry of Transportation; the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office; the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency; Transport Canada; the Canadian Ministry of Environment and Climate Change; and Health Canada; and Public Safety Canada.
While the document claims engagement has taken place with Provincial and Federal regulatory agencies, no information is provided as to Scope and Valued Components. It states that will come later. The public and municipalities cannot be expected to comment on Scope and Valued Components without any substantive information from the government agencies. As Scoping and identification of Valued Components are essential to the environmental assessment, the public must be afforded an opportunity to provide comment once these have been credibly identified with supporting documentation.
The information is incomplete as it does not include the requirement of environmental assessment pursuant to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.Due to the importance of the Fraser River Estuary and the cumulative impacts of this Project and several other past, current, and planned projects, a Review Panel Environmental Assessment should be required., Some reasons for the requirement of a federal assessment:
Ø Decommissioning of the Massey Tunnel
Ø Length of the new bridge
Ø Requirements under the
Fisheries Act, Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, Navigation Protection Act, Species at Risk Act, Migratory Bird, Environment Protection Act etc.
Ø Ecological and social upstream and downstream effects – scour and infill processes
Ø Endangered and threatened streams critical to viable fish habitats and migratory birds
Ø Watercourses that support fish and fish habitat
Ø Effects on the salt wedge
Ø Impacts on interactive, interdependent riparian habitats between the shoreline and the Fraser River critical to viable fish habitats and species at risk
Ø Impacts to water quality of the Fraser River and adjacent communities
Ø Permits and approvals that are required for the Project – need to identify and list
Ø Effects on navigation in the Fraser River and the shipping route to the open Pacific
Ø First Nations interests, information, land use, Fraser River use and claims
Ø National, provincial and international designations recognizing international ecological significance of the Fraser River Estuary
Ø Cumulative effects of past, current and planned Projects on the South Arm of the Fraser
Ø Hydro technical impacts
Ø Health of fisheries and potential impacts on commercial fishing
Ø Need for a risk analysis to address uncertain residual effect predictions
National and international significance of the Fraser River Estuary for fish species, migratory and resident birds and endangered whales needs to be included. The lower Fraser Estuary is a declared RAMSAR site which means it is an internationally- recognized Wetlands. The area is also a designated site in the Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network as well as the site of the top three Most Important Bird Areas in Canada.
The information is incomplete as it does not identify federal, provincial, regional and municipal land plans, codes, regulations, standards, and initiatives such as Official Community Plans, Regional Growth and Sustainability Strategies, Climate Action Plans, archaeological information and numerous other initiatives. The document states it is reviewing some of these documents but no specifics are provided.
The information is incomplete as it does not identify effects on cross boundary agreements and initiatives which may be affected by the Project.
The Project Rationale should include information on alternative options – continue upgrading and retaining the Massey Tunnel; twinning the tunnel; or building a much smaller bridge.
The section on traffic congestion claims truck traffic will double by 2045. This reason should not be supported in terms of air pollution and safety. Alternatives to increased truck movements (such as inland transloading at Ashcroft)should be presented to the public.
The section on traffic congestion should include the problem of moving congestion from the Massey Tunnel to the Oak Street and Knight Street Bridges.
Project Benefits are just descriptive. They need to be substantiated with credible studies. They ignore many public valued components such as clean air, protection of farmland, and use of tax dollars.
Impacts of Bridge Height should be included – safety, ice, interference with migratory birds of the Pacific Flyway, Sandhill Cranes, night hunters and the largest number of wintering raptors in Canada.
Impacts of preloading, highway construction, and decommissioning of the tunnel are descriptive and fail to identify valued components.
Specific information on the installation of pilings and potential impacts should be included – depth, procedures, safety, noise pollution and impacts on fish and wildlife habitat.
A safety risk assessment for the Massey Tunnel during construction needs to be included. Continuous drilling and vibrations have the potential to impact the tunnel making it potentially unsafe.
Project costs of $3.5 billion should be itemized with information of how the Project will be funded. A Cost/Benefit Analysis and a Feasibility Study should have been provided at the earliest stages of this assessment. Use of tax dollars is a valued component that needs to be transparent.
While the document claims Aboriginal Group Engagement, no information is provided for the opportunity to comment on valued components.
Changes in Fraser River hydraulics, water quality and sediment are identified. These valued components should include permits required by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the need for a federal environmental assessment.
Fish and fish habitat are not correctly identified. This section should include studies done over the years by the Fraser River Estuary Management Program that include habitat classifications. Areas of the bridge project include important riparian habitats. These are coded red which are shoreline areas having highly productive habitat. Credible evidence needs to be provided for blanket statements of “low aquatic habitat values.”
Species at Risk such as the White Sturgeon and Coho Salmon should be identified and included. This should trigger a federal environmental assessment.
Underwater noise may affect marine mammals. This section should include recent studies that find noise effects whales more than previously understood.
There will be negative Impacts on wildlife from noise and light pollution during construction and as a result of the Project. Night hunters will be permanently impacted. This is a valued component.
Vegetation in the area of the Project is varied. Ditches, old streams and water courses support rare or at-risk species. These valued components should have been identified in this section.
Habitat for endangered Pacific Water Shrew and Barn Owl will be impacted. This project will add to the ongoing loss of critical habitats in the Fraser River Estuary.
The following statement on air quality is an opinion:
“The Project is expected to result in an improvement in air quality, especially in the vicinity of the Tunnel, as a result of improved traffic flow, since vehicles driving at highway speeds consume less fuel and generate lower emissions. In addition, the new bridge is elevated above ground level, allowing airflow over the top and beneath the bridge, which contributes to improved dispersion of pollutants.”
Congestion will move to the Richmond bridges causing pollution in other areas. Doubling truck traffic by 2045 is not going to improve air quality as stated in this section.
Air quality is a valued component that needs more information than is provided here to the public. With all the studies and work over the past few years, the public deserves specific, credible, referenced information.
Impacted farmland and environmentally sensitive areas should be specifically identified. Anticipated no net loss of farmland and expected benefits are meaningless without substantive information.
Impacts on human health should include stress with ongoing construction: congestion, air pollution, light pollution, noise pollution.
An environmental risk assessment is a valued component that should be included.
The information provided to the public fails to meet the principles of transparency, participation, credibility, and purpose that have been established by the International Association for Impact Assessment.
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Surveyors comments generally Surveying steel vessels:
Most plate and frame material I inspect on steel yachts is low carbon mild steel and occasionally I will see core-ten steel. The welding techniques differ as mild steel cannot be welded hot and fast and core-ten cannot be continually welded as it can distort. So you will see more starts and stops and this type is much more difficult to weld. I use a welder’s chipping hammer often in my inspections to explore corrosion. Don’t be surprised if you happen to go through on older vessel, and be sure to have written permission from owners before and after to prevent some costly embarrassment. A metal hull inspector needs to know where to look and what to look for. You need to know how to identify three basic problems: deterioration, defects and damage. Deterioration is the largest single defect you will have to identify. This inherent problem is due more often than not to age. The older the vessel is, the more likely you are going to see this type of deterioration, be it rust or pitting. The next largest problem is lack of proper maintenance. The largest inherent problem with steel yacht construction, be they auxiliary sail or power, is the fact that most are not constructed with maintenance in mind. Cabin soles, ceilings, and insulation cover so much of a vessel’s structure and totally restrict internal inspections in many areas. Many steel yachts have integrated tanks--water, fuel or waste--and most do not have inspection plates to allow entry and most of your inspections will not involve entry. Hull defects are often easier to identify because they may be more readily evident. Plate deformation is reflective in nature. If you have plating deformation, you should suspect and look for reflective internal framing defects. Severe point loading from impact or hard grounding can cause cracking or tearing of the plate, frames or welds. A strong light and a keen eye are your best weapons here.
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| 0.995252
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Abra, a remittance service built on top of the Blockchain, has closed $12 million in Series A funding. Investors in the round include Arbor Ventures, RRE Ventures, and First Round Capital. Total funding to date by the company now totals $14 million.
The company’s app, which will launch soon to the general public, lets users around the world transfer funds denominated in any currency at a cost-effective rate.
Abra achieves this by instantly converting deposited currency to bitcoin, which are stored locally on the user’s device. This means that unlike services like Venmo, the company never actually touches any funds, meaning it isn’t required to deal with the regulatory issues of transmitting money.
Here’s how Abra works: Users can deposit money into the app either via a linked bank account, or by utilizing Abra’s network of Abra Tellers, which are like human ATM machines.
After setting their own fee, Tellers meet a user in person to accept a cash deposit and credit the user’s account with funds (or vice versa, if the user wants to cash out).
After a user’s account is credited with funds, the money is instantly converted to bitcoin behind the scenes, but still denominated in a traditional currency.
The important question is how does Abra combat bitcoin’s extreme volatility to allow the digital currency to always be pegged to fiat currency?
Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra, explained that Abra instantly creates self-settling contracts for users, which are built on the Blockchain and assigned to a counter-party that will share in the hedge.
Basically, users are given a short contract to protect the price, while the assigned counter-party is going long on the hedge. Barhydt explained that the company has found willing counter-parties from across the bitcoin ecosystem, and they range anywhere from exchanges to mining companies.
While the behind-the-scenes work is complex, Barhydt stressed that users will be able to use the service without knowing (or even seeing) any of the complexities of bitcoin and the Blockchain. So two users could send each other $100 USD, and even though bitcoin is actually being transferred, both will just see the transaction denominated in dollars.
The company generates revenue by charging a .25 percent fee to a user whenever they transacts with an Abra Teller, and by charging a small fee to the counter-parties involved with the smart contracts.
The company, which will launch soon, is currently accepting Teller applications, and says it currently has Tellers signed up in over 80 countries.Featured Image: Julia Zakharova/Shutterstock
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| 0.890078
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I’m reading through Yochai Benkler’s argument for a spectrum commons in
The Wealth of Networks, and so far I’m not impressed. His footnotes pointed to this fantastic working paper by Gerald Faulhaber and David Farber that I think makes the case better than I could:
Establishing property rights in spectrum is often portrayed as eliminating the commons (Benkler (1997), Reed (2002), Ikeda (2002)); this is not the
case. Commons (and more generally sharing) can exist within an ownership regime; our recommended ownership regime with an easement for non-interfering uses establishes such a commons via the easement. Should it be necessary to have a commons for potentially interfering uses, the most obvious avenue is for the Federal government can purchase a block of spectrum (which it then owns) and open the band to general use under terms and conditions similar to Part 15 (for example). In fact, any state or local government can do the same thing, establishing a “park” in which users are completely free to use the spectrum without permission provided they follow the rules laid down by the owner of the “park.” This is perfectly analogous to public lands, such as National and State Parks, National and State Forests, and municipal parks. Further, private foundations could establish such “parks;” for example, there are many horticultural parks open to the public that are maintained by private foundations. Local neighborhood cooperatives could achieve the same end, possibly requiring a one-time or monthly fee for use. Similarly, private firms could establish such “parks,” charging a one-time or monthly fee for use. We would expect that manufacturers of mesh network devices, for example, may choose to “prime the pump” by establishing spectrum parks in various localities to increase their equipment sales.
Any or all of these mechanisms would permit mesh networks to flourish. The authors cited above have alleged that an ownership regime is fundamentally incompatible with the deployment of mesh networks. In the paragraph above, we count at least six ways in which mesh networks can flourish in the ownership regime with non-interfering easement. While we agree with these authors that mesh networking is an exciting new technology that may well shape the future of communications, we have demonstrated that their assertion regarding mesh networking’s incompatibility with an ownership regime is incorrect.
If Benkler is right that new technologies will allow costless sharing of spectrum, then adopting a property regime will simply mean that society bears some unnecessary transaction costs as the manufacturers of equipment have to purchase spectrum rights for their products. The market value of a non-scarce resource tends toward zero, so we would expect the price of obtaining such a license to fall rapidly once efficient sharing technologies came onto the scene. You would still be able to do everything under a property regime that you would under a commons regime, the costs of administering the system would just be somewhat higher.
In contrast, converting the entire spectrum to a commons rules out many traditional uses, such as traditional radio and television broadcasting. If we adopted a commons regime all at once, and commons-based wireless technologies turn out to be inferior to exclusive uses for some purposes, there will be no easy way to reintroduce exclusive uses. Our only alternative will be to lobby Congress to change the rules.
With that said, I think Benkler’s concrete recommendations, laid out here, are fairly sensible. He understands that a “Big Bang” conversion to a commons regime would be disruptive and risky, and so he advocates gradual experiments with unlicensed bands. Benkler also agrees with Farber and Faulhaber that the law should permit anyone to transmit on any frequency provided the transmission does not interfere with the license holder on that frequency. That strikes me as sensible–analogous to allowing anyone to fly their airplane above anyone else’s property provided it doesn’t cause any harm to the property owner below. Most importantly, Benkler
also advocates that the FCC “increase the flexibility of current spectrum licensees to experiment with market-based allocation of their spectrum.”
I think it’s important to keep in mind that property and commons regimes are not inherently in conflict. Land in the United States is primarily privately owned for private use, but there are also roads, parks, shopping malls, and other public spaces managed as commons by the government or various private entities. Libertarians and leftists can debate exactly what fraction of spectrum should be propertized and how much should be held as a commons, just as we argue about whether there are too many or too few government-owned parks. But the existence of state parks doesn’t undermine the property rights of private owners.
Most importantly,
everyone agrees that flexible property rights would be superior to the command-and-control system we’ve got now. The disagreement seems to be simply a quantitative one, over what fraction of the spectrum should be propertized and what fraction should be unlicensed. Although it’s important to get that question right, it’s far more important to quickly and decisively dismantle our current, Soviet-style system.
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| 0.840941
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Developed the new structure of mobility, on the basis of the concept of the physical environment. This environment is through the concept of context. This is the basis of the modelling language, the properties of the mobility and the behavior of the application. In other words, you can say it is like a cross between the life of digital, social, physical and mobile world. It is a Supplement to the position data. The place can be used as a factor for the processes of the inhabitants, but in context can be applied more flexibly with mobile Computing and mobile agents, and carriers with intelligent communicators. The term comes in the time of Ubiquitous Computing, or complex calculations, trying to decide what changes in the environment with computer systems,
There are several context-dependent Mobile agents, which are suitable in the best case, for the realization of mobile applications. This type of calculations formed the System architecture of the Trend, aiming to constitute an integrated and interacting devices, databases, and Services, to communicate, to photograph, queries, and users. The context-specific calculations give millions of dollars per year in the possibility of making a profit for a number of industries, including travel and retail. In the context of the awareness for the relevance sharpens, if the device or service is responding to user-initiated action, such as, for example, search for products and Support calls. It also provides a quick link through an analysis of the conditions of operation and behavior. Such an active transmission of information, warnings, and advertising, offers significant commercial opportunities for all types of providers of services and content. The technology is GNAT experience of Mobile users beyond a simple search for information, and also about the current location-based Services, which will fit only the remnants of the broader context.
This Mobile Computer is completely different from a simple Sensor applications seen on Smartphones. For example, user applications such as yelp on the iPhone to search for nearby Restaurants and the kitchen, as well as place and order. Device context, would know a similar function, the know Restaurants, the user in the past, that the food of the user. Based on these preferences, the device offers for the surrounding Restaurants. He would even be in the cards built-in and other programs on your device.
In the context of the environment is known, many wireless devices such as environmental sensors, RF id Tags and Smartphones send the availability, location, and other information about the state of the entire network. A special Software, collected and analyzed the data and send it back to the grid, the necessary context at the end of the device. According to the computer industry, in the context of understand the phone can.for an optimization of the use of energy on the basis of what he knew about the everyday life of the user
In future devices know about the user, their day is, where you are, what you want, and even use the device to know likes and dislikes of the users. The main objective of awareness of the context, to show how the rules of multi-sensor information for Business applications, so that it can be correlated with the existing Business. Finally, it is what can help the people in making the decision faster.
Try developed many successful applications for many Fortune 500 companies around the world and is the most preferred, the company for the development of mobile applications for their valued customers. Customers of this approach, efforts for the deployment of Enterprise Mobility solutions were satisfied with the services you received. The leading newspaper of Satire from the us, the onion has congratulated pursuit of technical Team for their work on the newspaper App that is successfully launched in the Google Play market and iStores. The efforts produced some of the highest quality of mobile Apps in the world, but we also have the experience and possibilities for the Integration of mobile solutions on different platforms.
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| 0.960937
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In a metropolis of hierarchies – of prestige, glamour and chic – Queens has always come third, trailing Manhattan and Brooklyn in proximity, glamour and real estate prices. While this unofficial mid-range spot looks like comfortable turf for some time to come, some industry observers suggest that Flushing is leading Queens County out of the Archie Bunker doldrums and into the high-end luxury living arena.
Multi-use developments in Flushing, which is the borough’s largest densely settled neighborhood, are planned for the community over the next couple of years. The addition of 2,000 residential units, many of them at eyebrow-raising prices for the area, will mark another step in Queens’ evolution.
“Flushing for a very long time was considered a B-class neighborhood where prices were substantially lower than in the city and substantially lower than other parts of the boroughs,” said Michael Shvo, president of Shvo Marketing Group, which is set to work on an undisclosed project in the area. “Now Flushing has become the new affordable place. Neighborhoods evolve because, going down the food chain, there always has to be a place to go when people can’t afford pricier places.”
Indeed, high-rise buildings in Flushing with uninterrupted city views go for about $500 per square foot – a fraction of Manhattan and Brooklyn prices, but significantly higher than surrounding Queens neighborhoods, and much steeper than Flushing itself just a few years ago.
Thirty minutes away via the No. 7 subway train, Flushing is home to the largest Asian community in the city – a fact that has attracted the dollars and attention of Manhattan developers who say the inherent cultural characteristics of the local population make it immune from any bubble that may burst.
“The Asian population loves to own – that is our base market,” said Andy Gerringer, managing director of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s development marketing group. In 2004, Douglas Elliman bought the 100- agent Goldmark Realty, and is involved in a major development in bordering College Point. “Flushing will draw other people for its affordability and location. But the first customer is local.”
Shvo adds that the pan-Asian population tends to have a lot of cash on hand, which also makes the area attractive to developers.
Unlike other hot development areas like Dumbo or the West 30s in Manhattan, Flushing has long supported a commercial center. The area is replete with shops and gyms, and its restaurants get regular mentions in the New York Times and New York magazine.
Developers expect more of the same in the area, as large mixed-use properties get under way. Much attention has been paid to Boymelgreen Development’s plan to overhaul the landmarked 1927 RKO Keith’s Theater on Northern Boulevard. The $200 million, 18-story project will feature 200 condos, 10,000 square feet of retail space, a senior center, and 260 parking spots.
While the theater project is aimed to incorporate a rare architectural gem into the community’s vast expansion, Muss Development Co.’s Flushing Town Center on a 14- acre property has a more suburban feel. The $600 million, 3.2-million-square-foot expanse will include an 800,000-square-foot shopping center with anchor stores, 1,000 residential units and parking for 2,850 cars, all a five-minute walk to the No. 7 train.
Jim Jarosik, senior vice president for Muss, said that his company is confident that the market for both its residential and retail properties is tight, as Flushing families are doubling up in single-family homes in the face of 2 percent vacancy rates and retailers have been crying for more space. “There is such a scarcity of sites in New York, you have to be creative in integrating multiple uses on one site,” Jarosik said.
“Development can take 20 to 30 years for a project to come to fruition,” Muss Development president Joshua Muss told the New York Sun recently. The combination of a proposed new stadium for the Mets and the redevelopment of Willets Point as well as the waterfront are all factors driving the project forward now, he said.
The Rockefeller Group is spearheading another important project in the area and is in discussions regarding a 1-million-squarefoot development on what was a city-owned parking lot in Flushing’s downtown. The planned project includes retail, condos and affordable housing.
Prudential Douglas Elliman’s College Point project includes 86 town homes, which are expected to fetch $900,000 to $1.2 million and be available by the end of February, Gerringer said. While the two-family structures are typical of the building styles in Queens, the gated waterfront community should appeal to those who might otherwise shop in Manhattan.
Gerringer’s description of what’s been named Sound View Point mirrors that of other developers with area projects: “This is nothing like Queens has seen.”
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| 0.93454
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[Warning: Spoilers for the series finale of Breaking Bad ahead]
AMC’s award-winning and groundbreaking drama
Breaking Bad is, although complemented by a number of highly intriguing and well-played characters, primarily the story of its lead protagonist Walter White, a disillusioned high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with terminal cancer, who turns to cooking crystal meth in order to provide for his family’s financial security after he will have passed away. Thus, Breaking Bad is a reflection on the destructive potential of masculinity in our society.
Even though we as viewers start out as sympathetic to Walt, over the course of the show, we realize just how problematic Walt’s actions and motives are, and that – although he tries to justify his actions as selfless and as rooted in his commitment to serving his family – what really drives him are notions of masculinity deeply entrenched in our society. Even if we accept that his willingness to become a producer of illegal substances (and eventually kill repeatedly) stems from his urge to set his family up with a financial safety net in anticipation of his imminent deaths, this ability to put aside all moral convictions for the sake of achieving his goal is clearly more than a simple act of one man’s altruism but rather embedded in hegemonic notions of masculinity. Despite shifts in the gender order, our society still expects men to take on the role of the provider and rewards those men who can, while shaming those that cannot. It is no surprise then that Walter White would make a desperate if illegal final attempt at living up to this standard, given that he appears to be running out of time. In addition to these internalized self-identification as the provider of his family – even beyond his grave – the social arrangements and gender relations in our society, and those within the White family more specifically, exert very real and material pressures on Walt to take steps to ensure the financial future of his wife and kids. The White family adheres to dominant social scripts about family life in the US, with Walt filling the role of the primary breadwinner, while his wife Skyler is a mother and homemaker first, working odd jobs and in later seasons being employed as an accountant. Clearly, due to these unequal gendered relations of production – and against the backdrop of a healthcare system that is failing Walt, and a social security system that would most likely fail the White family sans Walt – the possible death of Walter will put the family in deep financial problems, prompting him to find a solution for these economic pressures.
The more we learn about the protagonist over the course of the series, however, the more we understand that Walt’s motives are, at least in part, darker and rooted in additional notions of masculinity. After having lied to his family, the viewers (and possibly himself) that he had committed all these atrocities and had put his family into danger only in order to provide for them, Walt finally admits in the series finale what the viewers have figured out a long time ago: He built his meth empire because he was was the best at what he did, because he took pride in his achievements and because the power it provided him with validated his sense of self. Or put differently, it made him feel like a man. Walt’s character can be described as what RW Connell calls an exemplar of complicit masculinity: Our society upholds hegemonic notions of masculinity, that are only ever achieved by a small minority of (white, upper/ middle class, powerful, able bodied, straight, Western, …) men, who reap the most benefits from these gendered arrangements, while other men relate in different ways to these hegemonic masculinities. However, it is not as though men outside the hegemonic position reject the hegemonic notions. Rather a majority falls within the category of ‘complicit masculinities’: These men hold on to the goal of achieving hegemonic status, buying into dominant conceptions and thereby legitimizing and reproducing them, while at the same time shouldering the dangers inherent in these constructions of masculinity. At the same time, by being complicit with hegemonic masculinities they receive at least some of the benefits of a gender order that overall privileges men vis a vis women. The Walter White we meet in the pilot episode is far from being able to lay claim to hegemonic masculinity: His work as a high school teacher is far below his aspirations and potential as a scientist, he has just been diagnosed with a disease that will make his 50 year old body weaker and weaker (and will ultimately prevent him from even fulfilling the most basic requirement of masculinity in our culture, that is, providing financially for his wife and children), and his sex life has been reduced to the occasional hand job by his wife – while she monitors her ebay auctions on the laptop screen.
It is being involved in the meth business (and the dangers and violence that comes with it) that, for the first time in years, enables Walt to approach hegemonic notions of masculinity. Walt takes pride in his meth cooking craftsmanship, and in the power his new profession provides him with. It is no coincidence that after Walt comes home from one of his first meth cooking sessions and the killing of a rival drug crew, he approaches his wife with a new found passionate-aggressive sexuality, feeling masculine for the first time in a long time.
The more we learn about Walt’s back story, the more we realize that Walt’s motive for entering (and later on choosing not to leave the drug business despite having made enough money to set his family up for life) is rooted in his repeated pattern of feeling emasculated. Before settling for a teaching profession at a high school, Walt had been a brilliant chemist and had co-founded a company that was soon to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits with his graduate school friends Elliot and Gretchen, his girlfriend at the time. Although Walt claims his two friends have betrayed him, we learn that it was Walt who had walked out on Gretchen; a decision clearly rooted in his claim to notions of masculinity as he was unable to cope with having a partner professionally his equal and superior in her class background. It is Walt’s adherence to and insecurity about masculinity that thus lead him to adandon his girlfriend and the opportunity to become rich and successful (and later blaming her for it), which, of course, results in an even deeper feeling of emasculation as he finds himself stuck in a mundane life, ultimately setting forth his transformation from Walt to the larger-than-life drug kingpin Heisenberg as a last ditch effort to achieve the standards of masculinity he buys into.
That these notions of masculinity matter culturally far beyond the fictional Walt’s individual motivations is also obvious in the audience’s response to Walt’s trajectory. Even though it is safe to say that many fans watching the show transitioned from empathizing with Walt to strongly feeling he deserves to die or end up in cuffs, the internet is nevertheless populated by a significant number of fans intrigued by his Heisenberg persona; as exemplified by the vast amount of paraphernalia adorned with Heisenberg’s face and his catchphrases. Rather than judging Walt for what he has done, these fans continue to root for him because of his badass masculinity and the fact that he is playing the game according to his rules, bowing to no one.
And like us viewers, even the show’s writers and producers ultimately cannot escape the appeal of Walt’s story of achieving masculinity. Although Walt has been stripped of everything that was once dear to him (his family, his meth empire, even avenues of providing his family with the remainder of his drug money), and is bound to find his fitting end and succumb to his cancer alone in a cottage somewhere in the New Hampshire backcountry, the show ultimately is not able to tell a story of his lonesome demise or the humiliation of his turning himself in to the police. Instead, we are presented with one last stand of Walt in Heisenberg-mode, as he not only comes up with a plan for secretly providing his family with his drug money but also executes Todd, the psychopath meth cook and his uncle’s white supremacist drug crew – probably the only form of antagonist that could be construed as clearly even more morally objectionable than Walter White – leaving Walt to go out on his own terms and perpetrating one more act of heroic-tragic vengeful violence. As Vince Gilligan, producer of the show, pointed out on the Breaking Bad Insider podcast, the writers felt that Walt had earned being able to die
‘like a man’, and, although redemption at this point is impossible, we thus get the closest thing to it: Although Walter is never able to achieve all-out hegemonic masculinity – since working toward it by building a meth empire comes with high risks, violence, murder and ultimately results in his own death – we are presented with an ending that shows the protagonist dying a relatively honorable death, at least given the alternatives, glossing over the fact that it was Walt’s hyperidentification with notions of masculinity that lead him down this road in the first place.
Ultimately, understanding Walter White as a character stuck in a hopeless version of complicit masculinity makes clear that the title of the show conveys more than it seems: Over the course of the show, Walter White’s masculinity is
breaking bad, transforming him from the average father and husband into a manipulative serial killer and drug kingpin. Rather than suffering from a case of inherently broken masculinity, it is hegemonic notions – and complicit embodiments – of masculinity in our society that are necessarily structured in a way that allow for this process of breaking bad, carrying with them the potentiality of destruction, violence and death. Walter White is not automatically and inherently Heisenberg. But the toxic notions of masculinity dominant in our society and the unequal class and gender orders that prevail at the very least carry the potential of him transitioning from one to the other.
Further Reading:
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| 0.900214
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commuting made cheaper and easier...
Here at
trentbarton we know it’s really important to keep the cost of travelling to and from work at a manageable level. That’s why we’ve created our super commuter range of money-saving ticket options to give you savings on bus travel.
We all know that driving to and from work can be a hassle. There’s the cost of fuel and parking, not to mention sitting in traffic and finding a parking space when you get there. Your time can be better spent somewhere else.
There is an alternative – catch the bus instead! We run high frequency bus services right across the East Midlands to get you to work quickly and comfortably. More and more of our buses are being fitted with the latest creature comforts, including fast, free 4G WiFi and USB power points, meaning that you can be surfing the web whilst gliding down the bus lane.
Our super commuter programme looks at the individual needs of each organisation and its employees to offer travel planning and the best options on ticketing to pay for bus travel to and from work, whether you work full or part time.
the benefits
How an organisation can benefit:
reduce parking problems, with fewer employees needing a parking space
doing your bit for the enviroment with less cars on the road reducing carbon emissions
offering staff perks with discounted travel may help to attract new staff and keep existing ones
How an employee can benefit:
make better use of time - catch up on work and emails rather than sitting in a traffic jam
savings on the cost of travel
employees arrive at work feeling relaxed and refreshed
saver offers unlimited travel at evenings and weekends when you're not at work
keep fit and healthy with your daily walk to and from the bus stop
getting started
We've got a range of ticket options to make sure employees and employers get the best deal.
saver
12 month travel cards paid for up front with a further discount for your company. These can also be used at evenings and weekends to give further discounts when travelling for leisure.
MANGO
A pay-as-you-go smart card loaded with credit to allow travel - 15% off single bus fares every time you travel. Load on credit for employees to use. You can even use MANGO on NET trams in Nottingham.
MANGO pool card
A MANGO loaded up with credit which employees can share between them with 15% off single bus fares every time you travel. You can even use MANGO on NET trams in Nottingham.
How do I pay?
We will invoice you after you have placed an order, you can pay by cheque, direct transfer or in person at a travel shop.
How much paperwork or admin is involved?
There’s not that much paperwork at all! We want to make applications as simple as possible, so all we need is a list of names and we’ll take it from there.
How much will it cost my company?
There are no set-up fees or minimum orders. You just pay for the zones or credit you require. The more employees that sign up to the scheme,the cheaper it becomes!
For more information...
To find out more or to get the scheme set up at your work place, please contact Stuart Booth on 07826 946418 or email stuart@trentbarton.co.uk.
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| 0.928881
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There’s a lot of news media about the Green Party’s push for recounts. Some is accurate, some is wildly alarmist, but most of what I’ve read misses a
really key point that you need to understand, in order to make up your own mind about these issues, especially claims of Russian hacking.
For example, University of Michigan’s Dr. Alex Halderman is advising the Green Party, and is considerably quoted recently about the possible attacks that could be made on election technology, especially on the “brains” of a voting system, the
Election Management System (EMS) that “programs” all the voting machines, and collates their tallies, yet is really just some fairly basic desktop application software running on ancient MS Windows. Though sometimes complex to explain, Halderman and others are doing a good job explaining what is possible in terms of election-result-altering attacks.
In response to these explanations, several news articles note that DHS, DNI, and other government bodies take the view that it would be
“extremely difficult” for nation state actors to carry out exploits of these vulnerabilities. I don’t doubt that DHS cyber-security experts would rank exploits of this kind (both effective and also successful in hiding themselves), as on the high end of the technical difficulty chart, out there with hacking Iranian uranium enrichment centrifuges. Here’s the Problem: “extremely difficult” has nothing to do with how likely it is that critical election systems might or might not have been penetrated.
It is a completely different issue to compare the intrinsic difficulty level with the capabilities of specific attackers. We know full well that attacks of this kind, while high on technical difficulty, are totally feasible for a few nation state adversaries. It’s like noting that a particular class of technical Platform Diving has a high intrinsic difficulty level beyond the reach of most world class divers, but also noting that the Chinese team has multiple divers who are
capable of performing those dives.
You can’t just say “extremely difficult” and completely fail to check whether one of those well known capable divers actually succeeded in an attempt — especially during a high stakes competition. And I think that all parties would agree that a U.S. Presidential election is pretty high stakes. So …
10 out of 10 points for security experts explaining what’s possible. 10 out of 10 points for DHS and others for assessing the possibilities as being extremely difficult to do. 10 out of 10 points for several news organizations reporting on these complex and scary issues; and 0 out of 10points for news and media organizations concluding that because some attacks are difficult, they probably didn’t happen.
Personally, I don’t have any reason to believe such attacks occurred, but I’d hate to deter anybody from looking into it, as a result of confusing level of difficulty with level of probability.
— John Sebes
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| 0.997015
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New Orleans is a hopping city full of good food, music, and rich culture. Located on the Mississippi River, this city is the birthplace of jazz and a melting pot of French, African, and American cultures.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans, striking a devastating blow to the livelihood of every resident. Nearly 80% of the city flooded, leaving a trail of destruction. Overnight, thousands of people became homeless and unemployed.
The nation rallied around relief efforts in the early days following the hurricane, but slowly national attention shifted further away from those whose lives were destroyed.
Residents of New Orleans feel discarded, and many struggle with loneliness and depression.
It takes far more than bricks and lumber to rebuild a devastated city. You can partner with those who are helping rebuild lives and restoring hope in New Orleans.
Ministry:
While in New Orleans, you will partner with two pastors who have made homeless and low income advocacy part of their daily routine the last 20 years. They will give you a firsthand look at the issues effecting homelessness in New Orleans. Ministry opportunities will include:
Homeless Feeding and Ministry: New Orleans has a high homeless population in different pockets of the city. You’ll have a chance to serve and engage with them through food servings and water distribution. This is a great way to hear people’s stories, learn from them, and offer encouragement when possible.
Rehabilitation Facility: Participants may also assist individuals in their daily responsibilities at a rehab center. Those who work and live at the center are recovering from a former addiction. You’ll assist either in facility projects (maintenance, painting, etc.) or alongside individuals at the thrift store in their daily job duties.
Katrina Relief: Even a decade after the hurricane, there are still areas of the city needing repair and people who are displaced, trying to start a new life. You might have the opportunity to help restore their homes while touching their lives.
Urban Plunge: This is a great chance to get to know the city and the different groups of people that are there. You’ll jump on the trolleys and head into the city. While on the trolley you’ll have chance to start conversations with people. Then you jump off and spend time in downtown NOLA, meeting people and learning their stories.
If you walk the streets of New Orleans with your prayer team, you may meet people who feel overwhelmed and abandoned. You’ll connect with these people’s pain as you listen to them share their stories.
Will you join those sharing the healing truth of God's love in a city seeking restoration?
Interested in reading more stories about what Adventures is doing in New Orleans? Click here to visit our blog and see the impact.
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Campaign shames breast-feeding moms who eat doughnuts and burgers Most mothers wouldn't voluntarily feed their babies junk food—or allow them to sip on sugary beverages. But if a woman chows down on unhealthy foods while pregnant or nursing, is that what she may be doing?
That's the gist of a provocative advertising campaign for the Pediatric Society of Rio Grande. The ads, which were created for the public health organization by Brazilian agency Paim, each depict a baby suckling on an unhealthy food instead of a breast.
One ad features a baby nursing on a burger, the second has an baby feeding on a doughnut, and the third has an infant nursing from a cup of soda. "Your child is what you eat," reads the campaign's tagline in large cursive letters across the woman's chest. "Your habits in the first thousand days of gestation can prevent your child from developing serious diseases," it continues. The society did not respond to TakePart's request for comment.
Diana West, a spokesperson for La Leche League International, the organization that promotes breast-feeding, expressed surprise and dismay over the ad's message. "It's absolutely not true that what you eat equals what the milk is," said West. "The underlying premise is just completely wrong and not supported by any science. It's just kind of shocking that the medical community would put this out."
Women are commonly advised to skip liquor, cigarettes, and double espresso shots while pregnant or nursing—alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine all cross the placenta and pass into breast milk. Recent studies have suggested that moms who indulge in fast food or processed crap while pregnant or breast-feeding might be elevating the risk of their children being obese later in life. Another study from 2009 found that eating junk food while breastfeeding cancels out its asthma-prevention benefits.
But while pregnant women are encouraged to eat a well-balanced diet in order to prevent low birth weight and birth defects—and breast-feeding is known to have numerous positive benefits for babies—West said that the body's milk production is designed to be relatively consistent so that the nutrients in whatever food a mother consumes go first into the milk. If there is any nutritional deficit, then it'll be experienced by the mother. "She's the one that gets robbed, not the milk," said West.
Indeed, a 1996 study published by Georgetown University Medical Center confirmed the findings of more than a dozen other previous studies. "Even when a mother's own supply of nutrients and energy is limited, she still is able to produce breast milk of sufficient quantity and quality to support the growth and health of her infant," the Georgetown researchers wrote.
RELATED: Women Are Going Wild for Target's Pro-Breast-Feeding Stance
The ad campaign comes as Brazil is battling a burgeoning obesity problem. In 2014, 54 percent of men and 48 percent of women in the South American country were overweight. Last fall health officials there revealed new dietary guidelines and a public education campaign designed to inform the public about the dangers of eating too many processed foods.
But if the ad campaign is successful in Brazil, it could end up producing an unwelcome result. "If you eat junk food, yes, it affects obesity. But breast-fed babies overall have considerably lower rates of obesity than formula fed babies." said West. "Doing something that drives people toward formula, epidemiologically they're going to see higher obesity rates in the population."
Another breastfeeding controversy arose last week after female soldiers posted this photo on their Facebook page. Watch the video below for more:
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Ethics in Business Darba fragments Aizvērt
Ethics and Human Resources Ethics commonly refer to the rules or principles that define right and wrong conduct. In the United States, many believe we are currently suffering from an ethics crisis (Ricklets, Robbins & Coulter, 1996). Behaviors that were once thought unacceptable -- lying, cheating, misrepresenting, and covering up mistakes -- have become in many people's eyes acceptable or necessary practices. Managers profit from illegal use of insider stock information and members of Congress write hundreds of bad checks. …
Ethics in Business Structure, Conduct, and Performance Approach of the Public Transportation Industry Tribal Body Techniques
Tavs vārds:
E-pasta adrese, uz kuru nosūtīt darba saiti:
Saite uz darbu:
https://www.atlants.lv/w/428020
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The California College of Ayurveda is pleased to introduce the Ayurvedic Health Practitioner Interns 2016. Interns have completed their academic studies and work under the supervision of experienced clinical instructors. This semester's talented group of interns comes from throughout the United States, Canada and United Kingdom.
Ayurvedic Health Practitioner (AHP) interns work on supporting patients to adopt a healthy lifestyle that is in harmony with their constitution. Patients learn about their constitution as well as the nature of any imbalances. They will also receive support to adjust their diet and lifestyle accordingly and to normalize your digestion and elimination. As part of the Ayurvedic program, an intern can include ayurvedic herbs, aromatherapy, color therapy, sound and mantra, and Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy. This is is the best of preventative health care! For those who have a specific condition and are looking for clinical management through Ayurvedic Medicine, they should consider having a consultation with an Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist intern or graduate.
From a young age I have been playing with plant medicine, making mint tea as a child from our garden and collecting wild plants to eat in salads. I was introduced to Ayurveda five years ago from a friend who went to the school in Albuquerque, the concept just sounded familiar in a way that I could not describe, I was drawn by the appropriateness and individuality of the process. Ayurveda is a medicine for all people who want to live in health by bringing harmony to their bodies and aligning with the elements of nature.
An Ayurvedic practitioner is a warm and gentle professional friend, they are your life counselor in more than just diet and lifestyle. Seeing an Ayurvedic practitioner in the west will give you an anchor for the business of life. It is appealing because the simplicity of the medicine. This system of Ayurveda is based on the elemental qualities that we all can relate to in one way or another, and the treatments bring clarity to the root cause of disease rather than masking the symptoms.
The future of Ayurveda is sitting in the palm of our hands. In the center of our palm sits the seeds for bountiful knowledge and healing to be sowed throughout the world. I see people choosing to pursue balance through Ayurveda and other ancient healing sciences, and these healing modalities changing the way healthcare is practiced and provided. We need to teach health rather than profit.
The therapy I adore is the self application of oil massage called abhyanga, this lymphatic massage nourishes dry skin and tonifies the nervous system, bringing rejuvenation and serenity to the entire body system.
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A number of case studies were developed as part of BCG's Creating People Advantage 2010 report, a global survey undertaken to explore HR practices and methodologies that enable companies to create competitive advantage. The studies examine how individual companies have addressed particular HR issues. Below is the first in the series. HR for “Googlers”: How a Giant Company Aims to Remain Intimate
Google has an impressive track record and an enviable reputation for people management. It routinely ranks first or near the top in “best places to work” reports. What ingredients account for Google’s success as an employer—beyond, of course, its financial and market success?
Google’s value proposition as an employer combines a laser focus on innovation and smart business practices with a small-company feel that includes direct access to top management. For instance, no one hesitates to pose questions directly to the founders at the weekly all-hands meetings.
The HR management system plays a critical role in keeping this value proposition well tuned and relevant for each successive generation of employees by embedding Google’s mission into daily work life. As Laszlo Bock, vice president of people operations at Google, said in an interview with BCG: “If you talk to anybody at Google and ask them what the mission is, they’ll say, ‘To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.’ It’s rare to find a place where everyone knows the mission—and then actually believes it.”
Google’s benefits and compensation packages, renowned for their largess, have a threefold purpose, Bock pointed out. First, to create a community—hence the microkitchens sprinkled around the offices, where people can interact informally. Second, to drive innovation: the more people interact, the higher the likelihood of creating serendipitous sparks of innovation. And third, to promote efficiency: on-site oil changes and dry-cleaning services help hard-working employees save time in their personal lives.
To keep a pulse on how “Googlers” are feeling, which informs talent-management and development programs, HR undertakes a variety of analyses, Bock said. The company monitors retention and attrition and looks for patterns. An annual employee survey plus focus groups throughout the year provide ample qualitative feedback. On the basis of this analysis, upward management feedback gets put into practice. “Every member of our executive team has goals for the year,” Bock said. “These are not amorphous goals, like ‘make the company feel more engaged,’ but very specific, like ‘there were three issues in the sales organization that we will address this year.’”
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Creativity, from the Individual to the Organization How do the tools to create ideas differ if they are used by only 1) one person, 2) a small group, or 3) a large audience?
One could argue that the fundamental tools are similar—doubt your preconceived notions; explore the world in front of you; diverge and then converge, etc.
But, of course if you’re one person, it can be much harder.
One tool that I find works well for a single person (other than finding a couple of trusted friends to join you) is to try putting yourself in the shoes of someone else, or even yourself at a different time. How would I have tackled this problem on my first day out of university? How would my grandmother tackle it? How would the CEO of Apple tackle it? And so on.
I do prefer small groups in general if the goal is to solve a specific problem: you want some diversity. But as with individuals, changing perspectives and trying new combinations or analogies are really at the root of all of the infinite number of ways to run a creative exercise.
In all cases, though, being very clear about the problem statement and any criteria and constraints before you get into any brainstorming is actually a really good thing (in contrast to the general attitude of “we need an unconstrained session”). It makes the brainstorm somewhat harder, I concede, but it dramatically increases the probability of the output being useful.
How can you get a generally conservative industry to view a nagging problem differently when there are no trend-setting companies willing to lead the way?
It is easy to say we need to foster a climate of doubt, where people are willing to challenge their perspectives and look at things through fresh lenses. That’s step one, which many people often skip in the traditional “blue sky” brainstorm—and missing this step can practically ensure that the end result isn't great. But, if you’ve ever tried to get someone you love to lose weight or quit smoking, you understand that you cannot simply tell them to do so. You have to understand their rationale and incentives, and then appeal to that.
It’s the same in business:
why is it that no one is willing to lead the way, to challenge the status quo? Is it because companies are making sufficient profits under the current system? Is it risk aversion? Is it because individuals aren’t willing to think about the long term? Or something else? Once you understand the underlying “boxes” driving the human beings who are at the center of the problem, you can begin to make progress.
There is a common conception that the “next big thing,” the disruptive solution that you are alluding to, comes from the likes of Zuckerberg in the dorm room, or Hewlett-Packard in the garage: and of course that’s anecdotally true! But I have a very firm belief that if people take the time to understand and thoughtfully challenge, or doubt, their existing “boxes,” then the next big thing can just as easily come from massive companies, like many of my clients. It just takes a willingness to challenge boxes such as “this has always worked for us” and “this is the way we do things around here.”
What are your thoughts on how—if at all—the creative process needs to be adapted to different contexts, such as the public and private sectors?
This is a great question. And of course, as a consultant, the answer is “it depends!” I believe that the five-step process outlined in
Thinking in New Boxes applies to a wide range of problems: professional/personal, public/private sector, and so on. But I also very naturally have to tailor what I do to the specifics of the situation—getting someone to lose weight and getting someone to adopt a new strategy require different tactics!
But it really does boil down to mental models or “boxes,” though. If people at a certain Indian client, or Japanese client, have a different approach or way of doing things than my New York-based clients, then I need to adapt if I want to get the job done. The same holds when it comes to the public and private sectors. I’m about to overgeneralize significantly, but sometimes in the public sector the pace is different, the type of employee is different, the overall objectives are different, and so on. Differences exist among government agencies, family businesses, traditional corporations, nonprofits, and others. The key is to understand, to the extent possible, the “boxes” of the people you are dealing with, and then adapt and challenge them accordingly.
That last comment, incidentally, is one of the strongest arguments I’ve seen in favor of diversity in the workplace—and I mean diversity along as many dimensions as you can think of! Kant taught that we don't see the world as it is, we see the world as we are. That is, we each see the world through the lens of our own box or boxes. And so if you try to be creative with people who have a different academic background, work experience, ethnicity, gender or country of origin, so much the better because you’ll broaden the range of perspectives, which helps push people outside of their usual ways of thinking.
One more thought along those lines. One of my favorite stories is about BIC. It was founded as a pen company and was doing well as a pen company. You can imagine that if somebody told BIC employees to “think outside the box” they might propose ideas like four-color pens, erasable pens, or customized pens with a customer’s logo. But if someone came up with the idea of lighters or razors the reaction might be, “You’re crazy—we’re a pen company!”
Indeed, if you are boxed in by the idea that “we’re a pen company,” then lighters and razors are bad ideas. But consider what happens if you shift your “mental box” entirely and adopt a new outlook—something like, “we make disposable plastic items.” When you look at BIC’s business capabilities from the perspective of “plastic items,” lighters and razors are perfectly logical ideas, and they lead to expanding profits and revenues.
But what about the
people at BIC? What had to happen in order to make that shift happen? Maybe the head of manufacturing needed to think about retooling the machines to make other plastic items. Maybe the head of sales needed to think about distribution channels. Maybe the CEO had a very emotional connection to the “pen company” box. My point is that even in a place where they held to the “we are a pen company” box, they came at it from different ways, and so to get them to make change happen, they had to be convinced in different ways, they had to come to the “new box” in different ways.
Also, just to be clear, I am well aware that it was reportedly the CEO of BIC, le Baron Bich himself, who had the original idea of moving beyond pens to disposable plastic objects. He was open to new boxes in a way that not all CEOs are!
Shifting “Boxes” and the Role of the CEO Could you explain your unequivocal statement “no idea is good forever”?
The logic behind that statement is as follows: our mental models or boxes change periodically, in a step function sort of way; for example, we see movement from “we are a pen company” to “we are a disposable plastic items object company,” or from “our strategy is x” to “our strategy is y.” But the world changes gradually, sometimes faster and sometimes slower, and it doesn’t stop. And so by definition, any one of our boxes will at some point be out of date. And hence no idea is good forever, not Ford's Model T, not the iPhone, not penicillin, not anything else. It’s just a question of when.
Which leads me to a thought exercise I often try with my clients: imagine a perfectly run company in which everyone in every department is doing his or her job well. In that case, what is the job of the CEO?
My answer is simply that the job of the CEO, then, is to determine what the next “new box” should be, and when. The timing is critical. For example, if the people who created YouTube had done so five years earlier, it would have flopped, since most people didn’t have access to a lot of bandwidth on their computers and devices. But if they had come up with it five years later, we’d be calling it something else—since someone else would have come up with the idea first.
Managing Creativity in Practice How do you balance creativity with the aims of operational excellence?
This is a beautiful and very practical question! Of course we should all think creatively, we should all challenge our perspectives, we should all think in new boxes. But we still must face earning pressures, day-to-day activities, and so on.
One part of my answer goes back to BIC again: when the company shifted to lighters and razors, it didn’t stop making pens—indeed the pens continue to be an important part of their revenues 40 years after their new box emerged! And so the point, within the creative process, is to balance both the incremental and the transformational, since they can both be valuable. Think of the first iPhone: it was relatively transformational and money-making; but the subsequent generations are arguably less transformational but very money-making.
But the question is also broader—it’s not just about incremental versus transformational creativity; it’s creativity versus operational goals. And the best answer I have is balance. We need to balance inductive and deductive thinking. We need to balance left brain and right brain, thinking and doing, however you want to phrase it. The balance will tilt in different directions at different points in the business cycle—and different people will be more comfortable with different sides of the equation. But in all cases it’s about balance.
That’s also why so many of the great partnerships—such as Hewlett-Packard, Gates and Allen, Rolls and Royce—generally feature people with different approaches and different strengths. To really succeed in business, I believe all of us need a bit of both.
What are the most common mistakes that companies or even managers are making that inadvertently stifle individual creativity?
The opposite of mistakes, I think, are companies that allow individuals to “speak truth to power”—to disagree with someone regardless of hierarchy—are off to a good start. They should value ideas regardless of where those ideas come from. They should methodically source ideas from a lot of different places, and give everyone (or almost everyone) room to experiment.
Not fearing failure can make you more creative—but is it a very practical approach?
Linus Pauling (who won two Nobel prizes, so he should know) said that the best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. This is logically true as well. Simply by the law of large numbers—whatever the criteria you set for a “good idea”—if you have a lot of ideas, you’ll have a lot of average ones and some lousy ones as well.
Even BIC, which had such phenomenal success with lighters, razors, and now disposable mobile phones (part of their “disposable plastic items” box) has also had some failures—I don’t think disposable plastic underwear or surfboards went over very well.
Again, for most of us it will come down to balance. If one goes to the extreme in terms of not fearing failure, then one might occasionally come up with something disruptive, do very well, and become famous. Last week I was speaking at a conference with Richard Saul Wurman, who founded TED and is the person furthest along that no-fear-of-failure spectrum I have ever met. But more likely, you will not become famous or change the world. Which is why for most of us, a healthy skepticism, a healthy dose of doubt, is a much more practical approach.
Can you give examples of how companies encourage creativity by rewarding so-called good failures?
Let me start by saying I agree that this kind of culture is critical to fostering a culture of creativity, one in which failure is not punished if it is the result of a thoughtful creative process.
One company that does this is LEGO (like BIC, the company likes its name to be capitalized). Its CEO has said that people should be rewarded not for failure, but for failure to help when asked, or for failure to ask for help. My friend and colleague Yves Morieux talks a lot about them in his exploration of cooperation and simplicity in organizations—but of course it’s relevant to creativity as well.
Another illustrative example is to think about R&D in the pharmaceutical industry. If a scientist spends years on a compound that ultimately doesn’t make it through the funnel of clinical testing and the like, that generally doesn’t torpedo her career; it’s seen as a natural part of the process. Can tech companies, consumer goods companies, and others say the same?
Conclusion Would you say that today ’ s companies are in a period of great creativity—or a period of great creative crisis?
My answer is simply “yes!” Like many questions (especially in social media), this is a false dichotomy.
To elaborate: there is certainly a lot of world-changing creativity taking place, but we need more of it. Whenever old ideas come into contact with a new world, or a new environment, it creates conflict and potentially a creative crisis. A good example is sustainability and climate change. There is certainly a “creativity crisis” there—caused by conflicting perceptions and outdated assumptions that are not keeping up with a changing world.
Some people just say, “Well, we’re just not sure yet about the science,” and use that as an excuse for not responding. Of course we’re not 100 percent certain that the earth will be uninhabitable in five years or ten years or twenty. Yet the problem has more to do with mental models and creativity. We are not doing enough to question current belief systems and to open ourselves up to new possibilities, which would help us be better prepared for whatever the future may bring.
There are many more of those types of crises where old mental “boxes” are no longer useful and need to be replaced to better fit a changing world. So it’s a crisis—but also a moment where things are changing faster than ever before, and hence there are a lot of new possibilities out there.
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Search has become embedded in our routines, and is continually expanding to simplify the process of locating information, products and services. Recently at the consumer electronics show, the topic of search stole the show-as it becomes integrated into nearly every device connected to the internet.
New search strategies include a Ford F150 model that allows contractors to check service manuals by browsing the web from an in-dash computer. There are also new televisions being introduced by Samsung, LG and others that allow viewers to watch movies from internet sites and Netflix.
Smart phones enable users to search for anything they encounter during their busy day, at the touch of a button. Palm Pre phone aims to make it easy to call your friends by looking up their phone numbers via social networking site Facebook. Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony projects that within two years 90 percent of all Sony products will connect to the internet.
Television is becoming a web browser, evolving into a user controlled environment, rather than a broadcasting platform. It is speculated that television will include web browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome within a relatively short period.
With search being integrated into an increasing number of products, it is vital that your website appear in the top search engine results in order to generate leads and expand your clientele base. When you are ready to drive new business to your website through search engine optimization, contact Blue Interactive Agency. Blue Interactive Agency is your Fort Lauderdale SEO friendly web design and interactive marketing firm, working diligently to ensure the success of their clients through search results placement.
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| 0.996202
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Application of the In Vitro Diagnostic Directive Training Course
This three day course has been designed to enable participants to explore the IVD Directive, gain a greater understanding of the requirements and thus enable IVD devices to be placed on the European market.
Who should attend?
Regulatory & quality personnel
People new to companies or roles impacted by the IVD Directive
Distributors of IVD’s
Virtual manufacturers
Start-up companies
R&D personnel
Internal auditors
Become an IVD Directive implementation expert today,
What will I learn?
On completion of this training, participants will be able to:
Explain the European CE marking approach for IVD’s including its legal and operational basis
Describe the structure and scope of the IVDD including classification and conformity routes
Apply the essential requirements including labelling and develop suitable technical documentation
Identify the regulatory significance of risk management and process validation
Combine knowledge gained from the course with audit qualifications to conduct compliance audits of their organization and suppliers
Explain the role and importance of performance evaluation including application of the Common Technical Specification (CTS)
Interpret the criteria for reporting adverse incidents under the vigilance system
Define the manufacturers regulatory responsibilities, including reporting of changes to products and QMS system to the Notified Body
How will I benefit?
Participants will be able to apply the requirements of the directive to create technical documentation to support the product throughout its lifecycle. Managers and quality/regulatory professionals responsible for all aspects of IVD CE marking as well as internal and external auditors, will benefit from attending this course.
What's included?
You will gain 24 CPD points on completing the course
Training course notes
Lunch
Refreshments
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The barrage of emails, voicemail, web pages to scan, books to read, and magazines and newsletters to digest leave people increasingly feeling overwhelmed and out of control in dealing with information overload as society spins even faster. This book offers a brief, seven-chapter practical guide to the "capture" approach. It teaches the skills of point, focus, and shoot to help the reader become more productive and overcome mental fatigue. This is not a gimmick for "neat desk" people or an expensive system requiring purchase of multiple resources or practice of rigid exercises. This practical, quick-read book shows how people of any temperament can keep from drowning in the sea of information. Features include interviews and insights from national leaders plus charts, cartoons, worksheets, and creative exercises. The book is not about how to speed up but how to gain time and focus and purpose and the mental space to be creative. You don't have to finish the book but can read it selectively at different times depending on your current needs. Feel free to skim-read, tear out pages, email small sections to a friend, or read from back to front. The goal is that you come away with ideas and help. The four sections are: 1. Finding the information you need: and getting results from it. 2. Clearing information clutter: less is more. 3. Creating space to think: finding oasis amid overload. 4. Discovering bonus stuff: it doesn't cost you anything extra. This clear, practical guide will help you to: -Sort and organize information in less time -Make space to be creative -Find just the information you need when you need it -Move from frantic to purposeful -Keep growing over a lifetime.
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Product Description
Undoubtedly, teacher occupies an important place in the development of the nation. The social well-being and growth of pupils depends to a great extent on the enthusiasm, efficiency and professional skills of the teachers. The future of education, its quality and ideals depend upon how and by whom young persons are educated. True enough, a large number of teachers of the present day have no interest in their profession. They continue in the profession only as mechanical wage earners. Lack of recognition of the teachers in our country is a very sore point. The significance of the role of the teacher is hardly recognized, though it has become a fashion to observe the Teachers Day. We always expect a lot from teachers who have little power and alarmingly meager facilities and resources to avail. The net result is a widespread dissatisfaction in the teaching profession as a whole. Many seem to repent over their wrong choice and would be, too, willing to change their job.Therefore, the job satisfaction of teachers is of much value to administrators and educationists, who frame policies, take decisions and create conditions in which teachers try to maximize their potential.
SKU : COC63207 Author Gurinder Kaur and Gursharan Singh Kainth Language English Binding Paperback Number of Pages 388 Publishing Year 2013-05-11T00:00:00.000 ISBN 9783659326837 Edition 1 st Book Type Legal profession: general Country of Manufacture India Product Brand LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing Product Packaging Info Box In The Box 1 Piece Product First Available On ClickOnCare.com 2015-07-08 00:00:00
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| 0.995022
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Fundamental Forecast for CAD: Neutral
Fundamental Forecast for Oil: Bearish
The Canadian Dollar put in a massive reversal move on Wednesday after the Bank of Canada took a ‘wait and see’ approach towards increases to further QE; moving the focus for future stimulus towards Fiscal Policy. After Wednesday’s Massive Reversal, Positioning is indicating that the Canadian Dollar may have hit a near-term low. If you’d like to stay up with positioning changes in real-time in the effort of cleaning trends and finding reversals, check out our real-time SSI.
The more that a rubber band is pulled back, the harder the corresponding snap forward will be. CAD traders saw that effect taking place in the currency markets this week. After gapping down to another new 13-year low against the US Dollar to start the week, it looked as though we were in for another week of sliding Canadian Dollar prices. And after weeks that had seen losses of -2.5% and -3% respectively against the US Dollar, little hope was in sight for any type of respite from the pain. This is a change of -5.7% in the Canadian Dollar against the US Dollar in two weeks. This may not sound very large when stock markets around the world are putting in 20%-like moves, but you have to keep this in scope: Currencies are leverage-able. Putting a trade on at 5:1 leverage would allow a 5.7% movement to become a 28.5% change in the trader’s position; and this can cut in both ways, both for and against the trader (leverage is a double-edged sword, and too much leverage is one of the most common reasons that traders fail when trading currencies). This is why stops and risk management is so utterly important when trading currencies – you choose how fast you want the trade to move based on the leverage you take on.
But on to more relevant matters: This was the week that the rubber band snapped the trend of the Canadian Dollar. We finally saw respite in the selling, and not just in the Canadian Dollar; but also that over-arching theme of drooping Oil prices. We’ll get into Oil here in a moment, but for now, let’s examine what actually went on in the Canadian Dollar that caused that rubber band to snap so aggressively.
The Bank of Canada held a rate decision on Wednesday, and this is one of the few rate decisions of recent in which investors weren’t fairly certain of what was going to happen. Given the persistent pressure in the Canadian economy brought upon by falling Oil prices, many had begun to expect another rate cut or perhaps even an eye or allusion towards more QE. It made sense. Canada is in a unique political situation with Justin Trudeau having recently been installed as the Prime Minster of Canada largely on a platform based around fiscal stimulus. This removes pressure from Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz, and we saw that flexibility come into play at Wednesday’s BoC rate decision when the bank took on a very neutral tone towards future monetary policy, alluding to the fact that the bank may be nearing the end of its easing cycle. This ‘wait and see’ approach from the bank could easily compel further intermediate-term strength in Canadian Dollars as traders unwind bearish bets after the panic-driven moves in both CAD and Oil.
So, to set this up properly: If this is successful, we may see a new model that the rest of the world can learn from. TARP and QE in the United States were largely designed and implemented to stop the bleeding in markets during and because of the Financial Collapse. For that, it worked. But for actual growth production, QE and TARP are ill-suited because there are numerous questions as to how much of that created capital is transmitted to actual consumers in an economy. And it’s not just in the United States where QE has been unable to produce lasting growth, as we’ve seen the same thing in Japan, Europe, and even Canada (which is somewhat of why we’re at where we’re at right now). For the purpose of actual economic growth in the ‘real economy,’ fiscal stimulus, by most estimations should bring far more value. Fiscal stimulus can produce jobs and once the labor force is robust enough, employers will have to increase wages to attract workers and then, we have inflation. But this is the road less traveled for a reason: Politicians generally have a hard time getting elected or re-elected by saying ‘we need to raise taxes (or take out massive amounts of debt) so that we can build jobs,’ especially when economies are already in a dire rut. This is one of the reasons that much of Southern Europe is still roiling in economic despair.
Think, Roosevelt’s New Deal versus six years of ZIRP. That’s what we could be seeing in Canada as the Central Bank takes a step back from the QE cannons to allow the government to install fiscally-designed stimulus measures. Will it work, nobody really knows. But it’s a different approach to a similar problem that the rest of the world is facing, and if it does show promise, it may be compelling enough to serve as a model to actually revive some growth in the global economy.
This move of CAD strength was further hastened on Friday when CPI numbers came out at 1.9% for core inflation (stripping of food and energy) and 1.6% for headline. Oddly, these numbers were both shy of expectations, but that didn’t stop the rampant strength that had already begun after Wednesday’s BoC Rate decision. Since that meeting, the Canadian Dollar has gained 3.64% against the US Dollar, and a whopping 5% against the Euro. This is in three days… again, huge moves in the currency world, and given the pivot by the Bank of Canada, this could certainly continue for a while.
But there is an exogenous driver here that is out of both the Bank of Canada and Mr. Trudeau’s hands, and that is the continued pain being seen in Oil prices. The CAD/Oil Correlation has continued to show a strong relationship, and this recent bout of CAD strength has been accompanied by a brisk reversal in Oil prices as well. So the pain trade in both
There’s a reason that the Canadian Dollar went into near-meltdown mode to kick off the year, and the primary reason for that is likely the ground-shaking movements seen in Oil prices. Frankly, the moves in Oil appear to have become divorced from direct supply/demand functions and are now incorporating the exogenous risk of ‘panic selling.’ This draws back to the idea of reflexivity, which is George Soros’ response to the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Mr. Soros posits that markets are least efficient after large, outsized moves; and this makes sense. Eventually selling becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as falling prices only encourage more selling, regardless of how positive any news or data points may be. The early portion of this week felt that way in Oil as we drove further and further below the psychological level of $30.
As an example of how emotions have begun to creep into the Oil market, we’ve seen Oil prices rise by 16.2% since the low on Wednesday, and this was after a -26.6% move to open the New Year. These aren’t small amounts by any stretch of the imagination, and they’re likely far too large to be driven purely from supply and demand characteristics. This is likely a lot of short covering, leading to a large short squeeze. The reason for pointing this out is to highlight the fact that fundamentals can largely become divorced from these types of moves after the moves get aggressive enough.
Does this mean that the down-trend is over? No. But it does mean that we’re likely in for heavy volatility while Oil prices attempt to carve out a bottom. But with the data that we have from here, it doesn’t look as though that bottom has been set yet.
Due to these varied circumstances, we’re taking a neutral rating on the Canadian Dollar for next week given this shift from the Bank of Canada, but for Oil, we’re retaining our Bearish forecast as we’re likely in for more pain from Oil producers in the coming months, and that can lead to even more emotionally-driven panic selling. - JS
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My operating partners in a previous company we built and sold used to call me "EBITDA Erick." We spent considerable time helping our operating partners understand what EBITDA was, its advantages and its limitations, so I suppose the name stuck. One of my main roles is to educate our operating partners about the various levers in a company that improve EBITDA and its "fraternal twin," EBIT. We often use EBITDA as a proxy for operating cash flow, but that doesn't always apply, so I like to remind the guys what the difference is between EBITDA, EBIT and free cash flow (FCF) because these differences matter in valuing a company. test
What is the Difference Between EBIT & EBITDA?The multiple of EBIT and EBITDA is often used to value companies. EBIT represents operating earnings before interest and taxes, but after depreciation. This is the difference between EBIT and EBITDA - how depreciation is treated. I always advise sellers and buyers not to use the multiple approach as the primary valuation approach, but rather use the approach (whether on EBIT or EBITDA) as a reasonability test or "gut check" to make sure the valuation, which uses a more formal method such as the capitalization of earnings, capitalization of cash flow or discounted cash flow, makes sense. When computing EBIT, with the exception of depreciation, basically the same top 10 adjustments for EBITDA need to be considered and usually include adjusting for fair market value rent, shareholder compensation, nonrecurring revenues and expenses, one time start-up costs, etc. Both calculations remove the debt structure by adding back interest, meaning that you are viewing the company as if it had an optimal capital structure, rather than the structure specific for the company under review. This is because it is assumed a corporate buyer will have a stable capital structure with significant borrowing capacity such that the capital structure of the target will look considerably different pre-transaction vs. post-transaction. EBITDA Limitations: Situations When the "DA" MattersThe multiple of EBITDA approach is the more traditional metric used and is often represented in terms of enterprise value (i.e., EV / EBITDA). However, there are some limitations to using EBITDA. The limitations are all based on the fact that EBITDA does not consider the company’s capital expenditure needed to sustain its business. Moreover, if the company has an asset that depletes until fully utilized (i.e., a gravel pit or a mine), EBITDA also may not consider this depletion in its calculation depending on how it is accounted for on the financial statements, even though this is a real cost of doing business and, ultimately, a future cash outlay if the asset is to be replaced. Using EBIT as a basis partially alleviates some of these issues, but not without some exceptions to watch for. By deducting depreciation, this takes into account the sustaining capital expenditure needs of the business, but only if annual depreciation and sustaining capex are similar. Often times, however, depreciation and capital expenditures are different, so this becomes a limiting factor. However, at least with the depreciation subtraction, there is an allowance made for capital requirements. Keep in mind that you are looking at what the future potential earnings and capex will be, so taking historical depreciation as a proxy for capex (even if they are basically the same) does not necessarily mean this is correct. You may be better off taking a hybrid calculation, being "EBITDA less future capex," which is often used by sophisticated buyers Does the Valuation Make Sense?If you are using the multiples approach as a reasonability test, you basically want it as a benchmark against some comparables. Which comparables? Basically, you can use either a public company multiple or a transaction multiple. Remember, though, that companies are like people and, therefore, no two are alike. Companies, even in the same industry, vary in terms of size, customer mix, management, product or service mix, etc. It’s worth repeating that you use a multiple of EBIT or EBITDA as a gut check to your primary valuation method, not as the primary method itself. There are specific shortcomings to using both the public and transaction comparables. With public companies, multiples would typically be higher, namely because of the stock’s liquidity. If a stock is more liquid, there should be a premium paid for the ability to sell quickly. Another shortcoming of a public company comparable is the access to information. With a public company, you only have access to information once it has been made public, but before that, access is limited and this can impact the company’s valuation and its multiple. With a private company, access to information for the parties doing the deal can and should be readily available, which would also impact its value and how the multiples ultimately benchmark. With transaction multiples, the biggest shortcoming is the deal structure itself. No deal is created equal and the company value can be affected by how much cash was paid, if any shares were issued, if there is vendor take back financing, the existence of an earnout, etc. A second shortcoming is based on who the acquirers are: strategic buyers or financial buyers. Strategic buyers usually work in cash flow improvements driven by revenue increases or cost savings, and this may impact the price paid for the business and, consequently, the multiple. The quantification and valuation of synergies can be as challenging as the actual business valuation.
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Insurance
The cost of care can be a barrier for people who need help recovering from mental illness. Linden Oaks Behavioral Health can help you work with your insurance company so treatment is appropriate, timely and financially covered.
Your treatment benefits are important to your recovery. Your costs are managed through insurance groups that identify Linden Oaks Behavioral Health as a premier treatment provider. These insurance carriers have partnered with us and trust our treatment success.
Understanding your benefits
We understand that hospital and physician bills along with insurance claims can be confusing. Linden Oaks is committed to helping you understand your insurance benefits and the financial aspects of behavioral health treatment.
Prior to starting any treatment, it is always recommended that you contact your insurance company (using the customer service number on the back of your card) for a detailed explanation of your insurance benefits. We will confirm your benefits when you start treatment at any level of care at Linden Oaks.
Learn more about understanding your treatment benefits.
Aetna HMO/Elect Choice EPO/Aetna Select
BCBS Blue Advantage HMO BCBS HMO Illinois Cigna HMO/POS
Aetna PPO (Aetna Behavioral Health)
Beech Street/Cappcare PPO (Multiplan) BC/BS PPO Caterpillar Cigna PPO / Great West Healthcare Cofinity Coventry / Personal Care First Health HFN HealthLink/Unicare Humana PPO Interplan Health Group (Preferred Plan) (Multiplan) Multiplan PHCS Physician's Benefit Trust Preferred Network Access Preferred Network Access PPO Three Rivers Provider Network Tricare (restrictions apply)
Aetna POS (Aetna Behavioral Health)
BC/BS BlueChoice BC/BS BlueChoice Select Cigna / Great West Healthcare POS Coventry (Personal Care) First Health (Coventry) Humana National POS
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois Medicare Advantage HMO
Humana Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO BCBS Medicare-Medicaid MMAI BCBS Medicare Advantage PPO
Aetna Behavioral Health
CIGNA Behavioral Health Comp Psych Humana-Life Synch Magellan Coordination of care
Care is coordinated by our team with communication between the therapist, the physician and the insurance company. With collaboration, it’s easier to ensure the right mode of treatment, the right length of stay and the right level of care. We focus on patient advocacy and care from beginning to end.
We help families understand the benefits available to them in each policy, and will make sure that the length of a patient’s stay doesn’t cause additional stress because of the cost. We will also alert you to any pending out-of-pocket fees so there are no surprises.
We want you to be a part of your treatment journey—ask questions about your care and get the answers you need to stay healthy.
Behavioral Care Management (BCM)
BCM manages the mental health benefit for members of Illinois Health Partners. There are more than 100 participating providers in the behavioral health network, including psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists. View a list of providers, or call
888-969-7874 for more information.
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An ERP system, or an Enterprise Resource Planning system, is a type of financial management and accounting software that integrates information concerning financial, manufacturing, sales, service, customer relations management, and other business activities that impact revenue or liabilities into a single package.
Usually, these applications rely heavily upon databases in order to store and retrieve large amounts of data. Initially, this kind of software was very popular with manufacturers, who relied on manufacturing resource planning, or
MRP software.
Today, those software suites have evolved in order to encompass business activities outside of the manufacturing sector, and generally seek to address
all core financial functions of a business.
ERP systems are used by government agencies, companies, and non profit organizations in order to manage their accounting needs.
Most ERP systems focus heavily on business processes that take place in “back office” departments – those departments that are essential to managing the organization, but do not interface with the public. Today, ERP systems are increasingly accounting for outward-facing processes, however.
For the most part,
ERP systems can be split into many different functions, each of which may or may not be utilized by a particular business. These functional areas are:
ERP suites usually integrate what are known in the business world as “best practices” – any particular company’s methodology for completing processes in the “best” possible way.
As such,
ERP systems much be quite flexible, and allow for their end users to tweak the steps of the processes that the ERP software is intended to automate.
This allows for easier compliance with standards like IFRS, Sarbanes-Oxley, and more. In addition,
ERP systems can help ensure that businesses adhere to standard industry practices whenever they interact with companies and individuals outside the organization.
Some ERP suites are modular, meaning that they allow their users to pick and choose software components that will be necessary for their business processes. In some cases, this does not affect the pricing of an ERP software suite. In other instances, each module (i.e., a module that handles all concerns related to manufacturing, including inventory, capital investments, etc.)
will cost the user an additional fee.
The best selling feature of many ERPs is the ability for the ERP system to directly
integrate with a businesses’ other information systems.
Usually, gaps between an ERP system and an organization’s other systems – i.e., inventory and warehousing equipment, manufacturing and assembly line equipment, etc. – will be bridged by technology professionals known as Systems Integrators, who will often use customized software and hardware solutions to ensure that
various technology systems within the company can pass usable data into the ERP system.
Deploying an ERP system relies heavily upon the knowledge of high level professionals working within a firm. If a firm attempts to implement an ERP system without having a detailed and intricate knowledge of the processes that serve to make up the core of the business,
the implementation of an ERP system will usually be riddled with setbacks and errors, since staff will usually find that the system leaves out key steps or necessary information during a particular process.
Prior to implementing ERP systems, or upgrading ERP systems,
it is essential that a business works with a business process analyst in order to codify (and perhaps optimize) existing business practices, so that the practices can be supported adequately whenever the ERP system is taken online.
Implementing ERP systems can be particularly painful for organizations with highly distributed clusters, i.e. businesses that run on a franchise model, or where regional offices have a high degree of managerial independence.
Implementation of a company-wide ERP system can often result in forcing many of these offices to make procedural changes that will irritate and / or confuse staff or management within various branches.
In some cases, this might mean that a particular regional office is forced to adapt unnecessary procedures that do not add any value to their particular branch’s profitability, so in some ways, implementing an ERP system might harm a particular department or branch’s profitability, or impede their competitive advantage.
Though ERP systems are designed to aspire to an ideal set of ‘best practices’ within various industries,
customers will inevitably need to make customizations. Almost all ERP systems are amenable to customization. Generally, customization is good because it allows for gaining competitive advantages over companies that use only standard ERP practices, and it can also be used to create an ERP system that employees are more comfortable with.
However, customization
requires additional investment in order to facilitate and maintain, and may actually impede the smooth transfer of data between one firm and another firm whose ERP system does not support customized features.
In addition, using too much customization in an ERP system defeats the entire purpose of ERP systems:
to standardize practices.
Most ERP systems
allow for third party software to interface with the ERP system. For instance, data capture devices (barcode scanners, RFID readers, etc.) can be used to log movement of inventory, or to log transactions. Third party utilities are often used to back up data. In addition, many firms rely on third party programs to provide analytical support, and to perform analysis on data and to generate reports. Other third party software might focus on projections and scheduling issues, or facilitate improved real-time resource management.
For businesses that go beyond the scope of very small businesses,
ERP systems are quickly becoming essential parts of the office environment. Not only are younger employees trained to deal with such systems, but they are trained to expect them.
Given that ERPs are now more or less an industry standard among mid and large-sized businesses,
failing to deploy an ERP system is an unforgivable mistake.
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Can you rate the world? Can you rate a virtual world? There are a few problems with the ESRB ratings for MMOs, and one of the biggest ones is that an MMO is bigger than a game; it's a virtual world. I can go into any big city here in the U.S. and spend the day at the Children's Museum with my kids. But it would be a completely different experience to go down the street to the Red Light District, and even though both are in the same city, one is very family friendly while the other is the polar opposite. You could say the same for MMOs as well. EverQuest II, for example, is rated T for Teen, which means it's meant for kids 13 and older. It's described as having violence, use of alcohol, and suggestive themes. Fair enough, but I recall many fun game sessions with my (then) four-year-old daughter as we worked together on her summer garden in her Qeynos home. She never once encountered any violence, use of alcohol, or suggestive themes. Interestingly enough, EQII's latest motto is "free-to-play your way," and I think it's perfect for this discussion because it sums up the square peg of ESRB with the round hole of MMOs. That's one of the flaws of the ESRB system because it really can't accurately assess an entire virtual world. If I were to completely follow the ESRB rating, I would have missed out on some fun moments of creativity with my daughter. The "people" factor Another problem with the ESRB ratings is that MMO publishers lack strict control over what happens in-game. A game like Wizard101 is rated E for everyone ages 10 and older (that means crude humor and mild fantasy violence). But even with a kid-safe rating and a lot of in-game safety features, there are always ways for other players to threaten, spam, cheat, and use inappropriate language toward other players. EVE Online is rated T for teen, ages 13 and older, and its only descriptor is violence. World of Warcraft, meanwhile, is also rated T and also has violence as a descriptor, but it's also described as having "blood and gore, crude humor, mild language, suggestive themes, and use of alcohol." If I didn't know a thing about either game, I'd draw the conclusion that my 13-year-old would be much safer playing EVE. I'm not sure many of us would draw the same conclusions, knowing what we know about both games. From store to screen
One caveat to this is that the trend away from physical product to digital download might actually reduce the presence of ESRB rated games. As ESRB President Patricia Vance described in a recent Gamasutra interview
, the system is voluntary, yet there are many storefronts that require games to have an ESRB rating, and there are penalties for game publishers that don't accurately represent their games to the ratings board (think Hot Coffee mod
).
If you're a publisher who relies on Gamespot for game sales, you're going to comply and file for a rating. But if you make a game that's available for digital download or for a mobile device, you have a better chance of avoiding the process and cost of filing for a rating. So an indie game like
Minecraft
, for example, is raking in the money and doesn't have an ESRB.
Second Life
also isn't listed in the ESRB database, although it's worked on its own set of content ratings. Not surprisingly, that's changing, and in the Gamasutra interview, Vance explained how the ESRB is working on arrangements with cellphone providers and digital distributors to encourage participation in the ratings system. But would an ESRB rating affect your decision on whether a game like
Minecraft
is suitable for your children? And how would you even rate a game like
Minecraft
, which has several types of game worlds and difficulty levels?
Mom and Dad know best
I'm probably stating the obvious, but no rating system can replace parents when it comes to judging what's appropriate for children. I'll admit that I don't pay much attention to the ESRB ratings, but that doesn't mean I don't scrutinize and preview games to make sure it's something that my kids could play. Perhaps it's helpful to adults who aren't familiar with video games, but it can't be the main tool to judge a game, just as the MPAA ratings aren't always a great barometer of what movies are suitable for kids. Parents know their children better than anyone; they know whether their kids are ready for more mature themes in games. And there are plenty of shades of grey when it comes to those descriptors as well. I think my kids will be able to handle watching a dwarf swig an ale in
EverQuest II
even though it's rated T (13+). But it's another thing entirely to allow them to see my Imp Sith slice an opponent in a
Star Wars: The Old Republic
cutscene (also rated T). Fortunately, as gamers age, we'll be carrying years of experience with MMOs and video games in general, and we'll be able to use that to screen appropriate games and weed out the ones that aren't. I'll take that over an ESRB rating any day.
The MMO Family column is devoted to common issues with families and gaming. Every other week, Karen looks at current trends and ways to balance family life and play. She also shares her impressions of MMO titles to highlight which ones are child-friendly and which ones offer great gaming experiences for young and old alike. You are welcome to send feedback or Wonka Bars to karen@massively.com.
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Problem: Channels are oftentimes subject to debilitating erosion due to the water contained by the channel walls. Depending on the velocity of the water flow and the frequency and degree of stormwater runoff, severe hydraulic stresses upon the channel walls can pose significant dangers to the system.
By Geo Products, L.L.C. - EnviroGrid Cellular Confinement (Geocell) based in
Houston, TEXAS (USA).
Need help finding the right suppliers?
Try XPRT Sourcing. Let the XPRTs do the work for you
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Why community solar is becoming big business
What is community solar?
At the most basic level, the term refers to a renewably powered energy system that benefits multiple members of a community — a middle ground between individual rooftop installations and utility-scale solar arrays.
But who owns the panels, who can claim the financial or environmental benefits of the project, and how big and how far away from the end user can a solar installation be to retain status as a "community" asset?
"It means a lot of different things to different people," said Amit Ronen, a professor of public policy at George Washington University and director of the GW Solar Institute. "It boils down a lot of times to this fight between utility-scale solar and distributed solar."
Solar installations at any scale hold promise to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, cut carbon emissions, lower long-term electricity costs and add resilience to power systems by diversifying generation sources. Still, how far community solar developments deviate from the centralized grid model that has dominated the U.S. market for the last century is extremely important to energy developers, utilities and ratepayers.
While the definition of "community" is far from set in stone when it comes to the solar, eye-popping indicators of the potential for growth in the market are piling up.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory projects that households and businesses that are unable to host a solar installation could represent an $8 billion to $16 billion market by 2020. The Obama administration already has marshaled $520 million to expand access to renewable energy, including community solar installations.
Policy imperatives such as the Clean Power Plan and extension of the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), plus extreme volatility in the price of fossil fuels, are also pushing state policymakers and energy companies to get more specific about how they plan to keep the lights on with climate change looming larger than ever.
For environmental justice advocates, community-owned renewable energy is often framed as a prime opportunity for low-income and minority residents to build resilience to climate change — with the added benefit of flipping the script on energy monopolies that long have contributed to disproportionate public health and financial burdens.
"Where are the opportunities to really strongly marry economic equity and clean energy?" said Michelle Moore, a former White House environmental adviser and chief executive officer of clean energy nonprofit Groundswell. "You can’t just wait for energy to trickle down."
If you ask an energy executive, though, community solar also might be a way for incumbent players — in particular utilities facing the decline of coal — to update their business models, offering consumers who can't put solar on their own roofs for financial or logistical reasons a chance to buy into mid-sized regional projects owned by their current power provider or an outside investment group.
"What we think is going to happen here in the coming years is, whether through utility initiatives or whether through regulatory initiatives, these solar programs will grow," Eran Mahrer
, senior director utilities for renewable energy developer First Solar, told GreenBiz. "We’re capable of bringing some great efficiency to these programs." A matter of scale
February already has ushered in two new examples of increased interest in community solar — albeit interest from very different corners of the energy world.
When it comes to efforts with an explicit social bent, Groundswell has partnered with the clean energy financiers at Sustainable Capital Advisors to reevaluate community solar financing models that often hinge on the high credit scores of individual applicants. Placing the emphasis on on other economic indicators, such as utility bill payment history, or experimenting with pooled solar purchases are two potential alternatives.
"You can really expand the universe of participants," said Sustainable Capital Advisors Managing Director Trenton Allen.
Also this month: Community solar got its first lobbying group, in the form of "a business-led trade organization" called the Coalition for Community Solar Access, or CCSA. Founding members range in size and market function, including First Solar, Canadian Solar subsidiary Recurrent Energy, retail renewable energy supplier Ethical Electric and solar developer Ecoplexus.
"As a burgeoning sector of the clean energy industry, there are more and more players getting involved," said CCSA Executive Director Jeff Cramer. "There was a need for a unique voice for the community solar industry."
Community solar also isn't new, though specific models do range in scope and target service markets.
A 2010 Department of Energy report (PDF) outlines three broad categories: a utility-sponsored model, where a utility owns or operates a project open to ratepayers; a Special Purpose Entity (SPE) model, when individual investors create a business to develop a community solar project; or a nonprofit "Buy a Brick" model, where donors contribute to a community installation.
Billing also differs depending on community solar project ownership and management structure.
States such as Vermont have tested group billing, where a utility subtracts combined solar output from participants' cumulative energy bill. Massachusetts, California and Maine, meanwhile, have gravitated toward virtual net metering, where renewable energy credits offset the load of retail electric accounts within a utility’s service territory.
"What actually is the relationship with the customer?" said Ronen of the GW Solar Institute. "Is a person actually buying five panels, or is it all about demand response? What is the goal?"
For utilities, he sees a potential opening to integrate more renewable power into the mix, helping them work toward state renewable energy portfolio standards. The issue is also timely and controversial, given the fights over solar rate hikes happening in places like Nevada.
"They see it maybe as a more comfortable space to be engaged in solar at the distribution level. They can own these assets themselves, still supply their customers and leverage the relationship that they have with them," he said. "When you start getting to models where it’s behind the meter, that’s where it gets a lot messier."
Meanwhile, as a nonprofit, Groundswell is intrigued by the potential for 1-2 megawatt projects deployed at centralized community locations, such as a church or another faith-based institution, Moore said. She also sees promise in vacant lots, underused industrial space and in rural markets dominated by power co-ops, such as the Southeastern U.S.
“We envision this being an investable model," she said. "Groundswell is working in the interest in the community to go out and create these projects, but these are market opportunities as well."
First Solar, meanwhile, through an investment and supplier deal with residential solar fixer Clean Energy Collective, so far has gravitated toward ways to work with utilities to give more customers access to bigger solar projects. Mahrer said the company is watching research on consumer sentiment closely to determine appropriate scale for community solar projects.
Although "not necessarily by going to the desert or wherever that mega-scale project might be," he said, "we can achieve a little bit better economies of scale" with projects closer to 10-20 MW.
Grid economics
As with almost all things energy, participating in community solar isn't as simple as plugging in and powering up.
In the commercial solar market, corporations such as Apple, Google, Facebook and Walmart are quickly pioneering convoluted arrangements such as Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (VPPAs), where clean power isn't consumed on-site but still added to the grid elsewhere (a concept referred to as "additionality").
As community solar models continue to evolve, the question is how direct or indirect power arrangements might be. Will consumers prefer 1 MW installations one mile away or 20 MW that are 20 miles away?
“The larger problem with distributed solar generally and community solar in particular is that we have 100 years of laws and regulations that are geared toward a very different business model — a centralized grid model where power is wheeled over long distances and people buy it as they use it," Ronen said. "Pretty much every place needs to have some enabling legislation in order for the community solar model to go forward."
In addition to broader clean energy policy fights around virtual net metering and retail power, questions specific to community solar remain to be answered around who can take advantage of tax incentives, how accelerated depreciation would count toward net metering and how such offerings might veer into the Securities and Exchange Commission's regulatory purview.
There's also the matter of how to pay for community solar. Aside from large up-front investments by utilities, energy developers or new local funding schemes, a slew of big banks and philanthropists have made 10-figure clean energy investment commitments in recent months.
"I know banks," said Allen, himself a veteran of Citi Group. "The commitments are lofty, but they need nitty-gritty details. They want to provide those on-the-ground opportunities."
While Allen works to hone new financial models, Mahrer added that the overall opening for community solar is big enough for experimentation.
"All of us are still kind of learning what works," Mahrer said. "At the end of the day, community solar nationwide is still measured in the very low triple digit megawatts."
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Did someone say “keto chocolate”? If you’re like me and have a weakness for chocolate, then this is your big day. Here is a bunch of keto chocolate dessert recipes that are dairy-free and low-carb. Yes, you can have your cake and eat it too! And be sure to share your keto chocolate indulgences with the rest of us in the comments below!
Chocolate-lovers rejoice! (That’s me included.) From the far reaches of the Internet, I have found your dream come true… keto chocolate desserts! This is not a trick. These are all dairy-free, sugar-free, paleo, and low-carb desserts with your favorite ingredient of chocolate. Need I say more? Not really, but I’ll elaborate a bit more anyway…
Sugar leads to cravings, which leads to more sugar, and… you get the picture. To combat these evil sugar cravings, you need to reduce your sugar intake (and increase your healthy fat intake). But that’s a tall order when you’ve got a nagging sweet tooth. Seriously, you are not alone. There are ways of beating those sugar cravings without caving into the call for something sugary.
Enter keto chocolate desserts! These desserts are chocolaty keto goodness, and they’re sugar-free! Even better, I’ve found or adjusted these recipes to fit the dairy-free, paleo, and keto low-carb high-fat diet. That way, everyone’s happy munching on deliciously and naturally sweet chocolaty scrumdiddlyumptious (and that is
definitely a word).
If you are intrigued by the awesomeness of keto, I suggest checking out my newest digital cookbook, The Keto Holiday Cookbook… for all of the holiday recipes you’ll need to stay keto through Christmas, and beyond. The book even comes with 4 complete keto dinner party menus.
Now for the chocolate! Bring it on!
KETO CHOCOLATE DESSERT RECIPES
Starting off with a bang are these delicious chocolate strawberries! To keep it keto, just use a stevia-sweetened chocolate bar instead.
No baking necessary? Count me in. Using hemp hearts instead of oatmeal works amazingly well! Now I’m wondering what other recipes I could replace oatmeal with hemp hearts…
Fluffy, rich, and most importantly chocolate. This recipe is just what you need for a little pick-me-up during those long afternoons… or just whenever. Super good with keto superfoods!
Anyone just adore chocolate? Everyone? Then you’ll want to take a look at this insanely tasty chocolate keto dessert. If this doesn’t give you your chocolate fix, I’m not sure anything will. For the dairy-free and keto options, use alcohol-free stevia (granulated and liquid) as the sweetener, coconut oil instead of butter, and coconut cream instead of heavy cream.
Get ready to chia! This keto chia pudding can be a great snack or even breakfast, so you can even start your day out with chocolate (and feel satisfied for quite a long time).
For the white chocolate fans, I’ve got you covered. These little snackable drops are great for preventing random binge eating rampages (you don’t have to admit it, but we’ve all been there). But with these keto goodies, those times will be a thing of the past.
Another white chocolate treat! These gorgeous yummies are perfect if you love the tanginess of berries and the creaminess of white chocolate combined. For keto happiness, replace the honey with alcohol-free stevia and use stevia-sweetened chocolate chips.
Can you believe that a vegetable was used to replace the sugar and syrup in this keto recipe? And that it tastes amazing? I’ll give you a hint: it starts with “z.” But don’t just take my word for it… try it out for yourself! (And I’d love to hear about it in the comment section.)
Spice it up a bit with this keto Mexican-style pudding! It’s got the creamy chocolate flavor with a hint of cinnamon and spicy cayenne pepper. I would use xylitol for the sweetener option to keep it keto.
Sometimes you just need quick and simple keto recipes. This is the keto recipe for those times. No baking and very few ingredients needed. A great staple keto dessert to keep stashed away in the freezer for those lazy days.
Berries and brownies… yum! You can have this ready in only 25 minutes, so you can get to munchin’ on this chocolaty keto dessert. Replace the butter with coconut oil or cacao butter to keep it dairy-free.
Now for the cookies! (*enter keto cookie monster*) Don’t mind me while I chow down on these keto cookies with some of my favorite ingredients, including these chocolate chips.
Are these keto cookies the best? That’s for you to decide! You can comment below with your opinion OR you can share it with your friends to see what they think. To stay dairy-free, replace the butter with coconut oil.
It’s getting crazy up in here! Amazingly, this keto cake has a great texture and flavor despite not having eggs or dairy. No allergens or sugar is a winning keto combo in my book! Just replace the sunflower oil with avocado oil to cut down on the omega-6.
How about a delicious yet guilt-free keto dark chocolate cake? Yes, please! You’ve got all the dark chocolate keto goodness right here in a personalized cake just for you (no sharing required). Of course, you could make enough for others too… if you were a very nice person.
I love cake pops. Not sure why putting it on a stick makes the cake even better, but these are definitely worth trying out! To keep this keto, just replace the honey with alcohol-free stevia, use stevia sweetened chocolate chips and omit the maple sugar.
This is the ultimate keto conqueror of chocolate cravings… complete with healthy fats and magnesium. Plus, it’s of course dairy-free, paleo, and sugar-free. Yay for going keto! As a side note, if you don’t have poudre douce for this recipe, you can always use ground cinnamon.
So, I’m curious… what are some more awesome keto and dairy-free chocolate cookie recipes? What do you like to munch on to satisfy that sweet tooth? The keto world will thank you. Just post it down in the comments below!
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It is easy to fall into the extremes of either believing that targeted cyber attacks rarely happen, or that it happens to you or your company all the time. The truth is that targeted cyber attacks are used to gain leverage in competitive areas, such as software development, or simply personal relationships. The more competitive advantage you have, the more frequent such attacks are going to be.
Preventing these attacks is more of a matter of good risk management rather than simply buying a few products to prevent specific well known attacks. Budgets certainly have their importance in helping prevent targeted attacks against your company. However, it is more important to have good planning from the administration’s part to effectively prevent targeted cyber attacks.
Download the paper in PDF format
here
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Presidential Debate of October 16, 2012: AHA Roundtable
"I Know What It Takes": The Uncertain Political Outcomes of Political Certitude Edward J. Blum, October 2012
After four years of terrible war, northern Americans in March of 1865 looked to President Abraham Lincoln to set an agenda not only for his next four years in the White House, but also for the postwar nation. They expected a political speech; they got a pastoral sermon. And not just any kind of sermon, but a sermon of uncertainty. Of the origins of the war, Lincoln used the passive voice. “All knew” that the slavery issue “was somehow the cause of the war.” Why was the struggle so long and terrible? Lincoln did not know and acknowledged the incomprehensibility of God: “The Almighty has his own purposes “Although historians and theologians have expressed admiration for Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, especially with the rise of Reinhold Niebuhr’s ethical theology of Christian realism, many of Lincoln’s age found the lack of clarity troubling. The
New York World, for instance, indicted Lincoln for taking “refuge in piety,” rather than in offering concrete direction.
Although Governor Mitt Romney invoked God in his second presidential debate with President Barack Obama (as Romney did in the first debate as well), the governor’s overall approach could not have been further from Lincoln’s. Within the first five minutes and then repeatedly throughout the debate, Governor Romney used the phrase “I know what it takes.” Whether it was the budget, the deficit, education, or health care, Romney assured the audience, “I know.” At my count, he used the phrase seven times.
Unlike Mitt Romney, President Obama often positions himself in line with ambiguity. When speaking of religious faith, for example, Obama has written that he is a “Christian and skeptic.” Even when his daughters asked him what happens to people when they die, he wondered if he should have answered truthfully, which meant admitting what he did not feel he know. “I wasn’t sure what happens when we die, any more than I was sure of where the soul resides or what existed before the Big Bang.”
The politics of certitude have their advantages and disadvantages. They can sound strong and assertive. James Monroe gave his name to an international directive the United States could not enforce, but the “Monroe Doctrine” inspired countless Americans, including Theodore Roosevelt, to believe in the nation’s hemispheric might. Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and demanded that Mr. Gorbachev “tear down this wall” and in so doing made himself a hero of the Cold War, especially since both the Berlin Wall and the USSR fell.
But if promises are broken or assertive claims fail to materialize, they can backfire badly. Herbert Hoover declared in 1928 that the nation was nearing “a final triumph over poverty.” He was wrong, depressingly so. Sixty years later, George H. W. Bush told Republicans and Americans to “read my lips: no new taxes.” Then in 1990, to compromise with Congressional Democrats, Bush agreed to some tax increases. For it, he became the butt of
Saturday Night Live spoofs and Bill Clinton (with the help of Ross Perot) defeated Bush with a new political certitude: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Mitt Romney’s repeated claims to “know” can be evaluated historically from numerous directions. One can hear within them the struggles between Modernists and Fundamentalists of the early twentieth century who battled over what they knew when it came to God, the Bible, and evolution. Romney’s “know” statements can also be placed within the contours of modernism’s and postmodernism’s questions of what is known or even, once again to quote Bill Clinton, “what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” The claim “to know” is a powerful one, and Romney was certainly playing it as part of his plan.
Edward J. Blum is an associate professor of history at San Diego State University and the author of several books on race and religion. His most recent is co-authored with Paul Harvey of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and titled The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race (Chapel Hill, 2012).
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3.3 UT Phased Array
Phased Array ultrasonic technique has been used last years in industrial area mainly at energy sector (nuclear and electric power stations), recent developments give chance to apply this technique as a quality control tool in pipeline construction.
Industry has applied massive investment to extent equipments life. Life extension or any equipment integrity studies need multi-discipline information about service condition history, fracture mechanic concepts and a perfect knowing about discontinuities that exists. Actual tolerable discontinuities dimensions are higher than that written in codes, because of safety incertitude multipliers and NDT associated errors. An approach different from fabrication quality assurance must be considered in equipment life extension and integrity calculation with respect to NDT. Later subject needs an NDT that is precise and reliable with respect to dimensioning significant structural discontinuities.
UT Phased Array application on FPSOs turret weld discontinuities has had the objective to give a precise and reliable characteristic to the weld in service inspection.
Phased array ultrasonic technology moved from the medical field to industrial sector at the beginning of the 1980s. By the mid-1980s, piezocomposite materials were developed and made available to manufacture complex-sharped phased array probes.
Advances in piezocomposite technology, micro-machining, microelectronics, and computing power (including simulation packages for probe design and beam-component interaction), contributed to the revolutionary development of phased array technology. Most conventional ultrasonic inspection use monocrystal probes with divergent beams. The ultrasonic field propagates along an acoustic axis with a single refracted angle. The divergence of this beam is the only “additional” angle, which might contribute to detection and sizing of misoriented small discontinuities.
Assume the monoblock is cut in many identical elements, each with a width much smaller than its length. Each small crystal may be considered a line source of cylindrical waves. The wave front of the new acoustic block will interfere, generating an overall wave front. The small wave fronts can be time-delayed and synchronized for phase and amplitude, in such a way as to create an ultrasonic focused beam with steering capability.
The main feature of phased array ultrasonic technology is the computer-controlled excitation (amplitude and delay) of individual elements in a multi-element probe. The excitation of piezocomposite elements can generate an ultrasonic focused beam with the possibility of modifying the beam parameters such as angle, focal distance, and focal spot size through software. The sweeping beam is focused and can detect in specular mode the misoriented discontinuities.
To generate a beam in phase and with a constructive interference, the .various active probe elements are pulsed at slightly different times. The echo from the desired focal point hits the various transducer elements with a computable time shift. The echo signals received at each transducer element are time-shifted before being summed together. The resulting sum is an A-scan that emphasizes the response from the desired focal point and attenuates various other echoes from other points in the material.
There are three major computer-controlled beam scanning patterns: Electronic scanning: the same focal law and de-lay is multiplexed across a group of active elements (see Figure 12); scanning is performed at a constant angle and along the phased array probe length (aperture). This is equivalent to a conventional ultra-sonic transducer performing a raster scan for corrosion mapping or shear wave inspection. If an angled wedge is used, the focal laws compensate for different time delays inside the wedge. Generally this scanning pattern is used at “in line“ fabrication inspection of plates, strips, bars and tubes. It could be used also in welding inspection.
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The Tooting rentals market has seen a huge shift in desirability over the past year and our branch is currently realising record rental values achieved on properties in the area. Rental values in SW17 have risen by 9% in the past two years to now average £1,533 per month.
The busy sales market in the early half of 2014 saw many of our Landlords cash in, especially on family houses which had seen a phenomenal rise in value. As a result, stock across all property sizes was greatly reduced and in the rental market competition for the limited stock available started to hot up. Towards the end of the year, anything coming on to the market was achieving over and above asking price and best and final bids were commonplace. Properties were letting as quickly as our branch could take them on. As a result, my branch has seen a 10% increase in the number of properties being let in the past 2 years.
Interestingly, we've begun to see tenants coming to Tooting from previously more desirable areas such as Battersea and Clapham which would have been unheard of before. Many have come to see how the area has changed though and a variety of trendy bars and restaurants (Soho’s Chicken Shop, Honest Burger etc), quality properties and the fact that they can get a seat on the Northern Line in the morning are key drivers. New developments are also helping the area’s desirability and schemes such as The Broadway and Fusion are providing the modern new build properties near to good transport links that offer many young professional tenants the low maintenance lifestyle they are looking for.
In the last few weeks, we’ve begun to see more stock coming available which is good news for tenants but competition is still high. We recently let a 2 bedroom flat on Garratt Lane for a record price for the area after just one day of marketing. In another example, a landlord who recently let his 3 bedroom investment property achieved £200 above asking price.
For further information about Tooting or to speak to the branch, please visit our branch page:
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Six Workflow Essentials of a Healthy Practice
As payers cut reimbursements and patients gain more options for where they receive care, your practice needs to evolve to these changes. Synchronizing workflow in better ways across your practice will be the key to a great experience for your patient — and is essential to achieve the compliance and revenue you need to thrive.
Synchronizing workflow is the driving concept behind MediLinks. Here are some of those guiding principles that you should also consider as you manage your practice.
Manage Referrals.You may already convert those sheets of paper from your physicians into digital files. But are you converting those images into actionable information? It’s still important to know where that original piece of paper is…when it was received…and confirm that the therapist understands the specific disciplines and programs ordered under the referral. In short: if you are asked for evidence that you complied of the referral, can you quickly and easily demonstrate every aspect of that compliance? Track authorizations.Verifying benefits is a great start, Schedule the patient.Does your practice schedule appointments before you receive an approved plan of care? If so, what safeguards do you have in place? And once care begins, what are you doing (beyond automated phone reminders) to ensure patient compliance with appointments and home exercise? Certify plan of care and update the referring physician.Do you have the necessary alerts in place to ensure 100% compliance with updates and recertification? If so, how long does the process take your therapists to complete for each patient? Capture and report outcomes.You’ve probably found workarounds to meet the CMS requirements for G-Codes, but do you know how much they are costing you in terms of productivity and lost patient care?. Can you benchmark your providers? Compare your practice to competitors? Sell your services to referrers based on compelling outcomes data? Discharge patients.What best practices do you have in place to manage the end of a patient’s treatment? Do you track patients who self-discharge when they have benefits remaining and would benefit from an extra session? How does your workflow synchronize end of benefits with end of care?
No two practices run exactly the same way; but every successful practice has mastered these six essentials of workflow. If you’d like to find ways to better equip your team, download our Practice Owner’s Guide at right to see how MediLinks can streamline your process.
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Kate Stonor and Rachel MorrisonTechnical Bulletin Volume 33, 2012 Abstract
Monticelli has long fallen from favour in art historical circles but was, in his time, admired by the young Cézanne, and later provided great inspiration for Van Gogh. Though we may no longer appreciate Monticelli’s aesthetic, his materials and techniques are of interest today because of their influence on these important figures. Study of the works in the National Gallery Collection, which span the 1870s and 80s, has shown an extraordinary consistency in the artist’s choice of pigments, so much so that two ‘fakes’ are thought to have been identified. The artist can be seen to favour a very specific palette which includes old fashioned pigments, such as verdigris in preference to viridian, possibly due to his interest in emulating Old Master painting.
Monticelli is said to have been a loyal user of Lefranc paints and systematic sampling of his relatively simple pigment mixtures allows inferences to be made regarding the possible content of the tube paints he was using and the influence commercial paint formulations had on artists’ working in the second half of the nineteenth century.
By contrast to his use of ready prepared tube paints, Monticelli, who suffered poverty throughout this period, does not appear to have used commercially produced supports. His works at the National Gallery are all on unprimed, re-used panels probably made from old furniture. Limited organic analysis has also been undertaken on his paintings and this suggests that the artist may have sealed the panels prior to painting and mixed additional medium into his tube paints. Several of his works have marked drying defects and this also has consequences for their conservation.
Keywords
Adolphe Monticelli, Vincent van Gogh, supports, panel preparation, painting technique, medium, varnish, Lefranc et Cie, commercial tube paints, pigments: lead white, zinc white, Prussian blue, French ultramarine, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, Naples yellow, chrome yellow, yellow ochre, verdigris, green earth, cobalt green, red lake, yellow lake, Indian yellow, extenders, fakes
Download article
To cite this article we suggest using
Stonor, K., Morrison, R. 'Adolphe Monticelli: The Materials and Techniques of an Unfashionable Artist'. National Gallery Technical Bulletin Vol 33, pp 50–72.
http://research.ng-london.org.uk/projects/technical-bulletin/vol-33/stonor_morrison2012
Problems opening files? Get Adobe Reader [External link]
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There are many arguments for why it is imperative we transition toward a sustainable future: energy efficiency, a relocalization of the economy and renewables. Often overlooked in the discussion are the deleterious impacts of pollution -- climate change, habitat destruction and resource depletion -- and the impacts here and now on the health and quality of life upon people of color and upon the poor.
The field of environmental justice questions the status quo. It makes explicit those impacts and seeks remedies on behalf of communities who may not have the resources to have their voice heard. Environmental justice is a pervasive theme of the church's social teaching. When I entered the keyword "environmental justice" on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops website, I found 1,430 references [1].
Environmental justice is at the core of Catholic social teaching because every major environmental challenge we face, from climate change to where to put oil pipelines, impacts folk of color and the poor much more profoundly than more affluent communities. The upshot is that environmental justice addresses the pathway from environmental and the accompanying social/economic distress toward healthy environments where one can experience full economic and social participation.
New book links race, class, pollution and health
A prophetic voice in the cause of justice has been Professor Bunyan Bryant of the University of Michigan. Bunyan Bryant has been one of the national pioneers in addressing the issue of environmental racism from both an academic and public policy perspective.
Bryant has, with Professor Elaine Hockman, published a new book,
Michigan: A State of Environmental Justice? (Morgan James, publisher). In a series of essays that incorporate the power of multivariate statistical analysis, the book challenges some of the prevailing stereotype of folk who are in distressed communities: It isn't only African-Americans who are victimized. Latinos are more heavily exposed to pollution from industrial discharge and hazardous waste sites than their white neighbors regardless of whether they live in big cities or in small towns. Public health effects [i.e. low birth weight, middle-age cancers and childhood asthma] of exposure to pollution are discounted or treated as externalities in distressed communities. However, the cost to the communities is enormous. Children in these communities face so many challenges, including poorer quality schools and fewer educational resources, broken family structure, drugs and violence. But perhaps the greatest challenges they face are the health and mental development impacts of heavy exposure to environmental toxins. In the Detroit Area Study survey cited in the book, blacks are just as interested in and committed to healthy environments and connection to nature as their more affluent suburban neighbors, and are more concerned about the health of their local community. When one factors in health care costs, it is less expensive for our nation to remediate pollution sources, whether through clean-up or controls on stacks, than to do nothing. There is no real conflict between economic development and environmental protection. In fact, where there is clean water and clean air, real economic growth, controlling for race and class, will be much more rapid. My involvement in the project
I was a student of Bryant's and a collaborator with Hockman. I co-author a couple of chapters of their book.
In the chapter "The Multifaceted Nature of Pollution, Environmental Cleanup and Issues of Disparate Impact and Health," Hockman and I use a statistical modeling system known as path analysis to examine the effects of race and class as well as different sources of pollution on the rates of middle-age cancers, asthma and low birth weight across the state of Michigan. [For purposes of confidentiality, we could only get public health data at the zip code level.] We used data of point source pollution from the state of Michigan data files and federal government. We found that race and income had both direct and indirect impacts on the likelihood of poor health impacts.
In particular:
Some forms of pollution have a stronger relation to race and income than others. People of color and the poor are much more likely to live near incinerators than landfills. Of all the major pollution sources -- from toxic release to hazardous waste sites -- airborne contaminants from incinerators are associated with the highest rates of health stressors. There is both a direct relationship between most minority groups -- African-American, Latino and Native American -- and areas of higher density of pollution sources [particularly strong with blacks]. All three predictive factors -- minority status, residing in polluted areas and low income -- are associated in one way or another with low birth weight, childhood asthma or middle-age cancers. When one breaks the minority groups into sub-groups of black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American, a direct relationship remains with at least one of the public health stressors, with the exception of Native Americans. Even with the Native American population, there is a strong indirect effect with Native Americans, showing the strongest correlation between area of residence and concentration of pollution sources.
Currently, Bryant and Hockman are looking at the correlation between the location of sources of lead in Detroit and its concentration in Head Start children who live nearby, and the health impacts on children with higher lead in their blood.
Moral implications
Beneath the myriad statistics in this and some of the other articles in
Michigan: A State of Environmental Justice?, one reality stands out. If each child, regardless of race or class, is made in the image and likeness of God, then to turn a blind eye and accept the status quo represents a robbery from these children who, through no fault of their own, suffer the most, both now and as they go forward toward the future.
To enter life with high concentrations of lead and mercury in your system means that your life chances -- from health and life expectancy to your capacity for learning -- is greatly impaired. Poor children and children of color who can least afford further roadblocks in their life's journey toward the promise of abundant life continue to have their future stolen. The great moral challenge for the church is that this story is repeated in state after state. It is, I believe, the call of the church to advocate on behalf of those who have yet to have their voices heard at the table.
After reading
Michigan: A State of Environmental Justice?, one no longer can drive by an incinerator or hazardous waste treatment facility without asking the question: Who is living in that neighborhood and what are the costs to that community does that facility carry? "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me" -- Matthew 25:45
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Apple fan and a lover of tattoos? That could present a problem according to numerous reports emerging from Reddit and other social media outlets earlier this week.
Apple confirmed the issue late yesterday on its heart rate information/support page.
Permanent or temporary changes to your skin, such as some tattoos, can also impact heart rate sensor performance. The ink, pattern, and saturation of some tattoos can block light from the sensor, making it difficult to get reliable readings.
Early adopters are reporting the Apple Watch seems to have issues with pushing notifications to the user. The issue extends to the heart rate monitoring, one of the prominent features of the smartwatch.
Hey, nothing says smart like a wearable thinking you’re dead.
Where do tattoos fit into the picture? The green light used by Apple Watch’s heart rate sensor is having difficulty penetrating through the darker inks.
Apple decided to use photoplethysmography over other methods of heart rate detection:
“Blood is red because it reflects red light and absorbs green light. Apple Watch uses green LED lights paired with light‑sensitive photodiodes to detect the amount of blood flowing through your wrist at any given moment. When your heart beats, the blood flow in your wrist — and the green light absorption — is greater. Between beats, it’s less. By flashing its LED lights hundreds of times per second, Apple Watch can calculate the number of times the heart beats each minute — your heart rate.”
Darker inks on tattoos could interfere with how the sensor reads your heart rate, giving you unusual readouts or not detecting skin contact at all.
The issue has already made the leap into ‘does it affect people with dark skin?’ Having a black tattoo is not the same as having dark skin. While Apple may have missed every variance of wrist tattoos, the company didn’t miss testing ethnicities.
Apologies to the click bait sites. You can put the pitchforks down. The watch isn’t racist. It’s just hipster.
Can Apple Fix This?
Apple has already confirmed the issue in its support area, so no. You can’t push an update to make green light penetrate various tattoos. Other options have been tossed around:
Ultraviolet light. This won’t penetrate the skin, so it’s a no go. Red light can penetrate, but can go all the way to the bone. Another no.
The most likely fix? If Apple is sold on photoplethysmography, it could be mixing green and yellow light. The issue is that no system is going to work perfectly.
Apple has billed its watch as a fitness companion and all around ‘special.’ If there’s a hang-up with the technology, the company may have to switch it out.
For now, Apple recommends using a Bluetooth chest strap for accurate heart rate readings. Yeah… More devices?
Just make me bionic.
Follow News Ledge This post may contain affiliate links, which means we receive a commission if you make a purchase using one of the affiliated links.
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Owning a kitten will be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding things you will ever do.
To enjoy all the benefits of owning a kitten, it is vital you take the steps to ensure he or she stays healthy and happy.
Kitten check list Vaccinations Microchip Flea & tick control Worming Premium kitten food Bedding Litter & tray Food & water bowl Training treats Toys Desexing Collar & lead ID tag Grooming brush Council Registration
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How a QA Team Helps Build Better Websites
by Kyra Dorsey | March 3rd, 2016
Solving web challenges and innovating website solutions can be stressful. Production teams often face scope changes and unexpected technology updates. But, there are some unifying factors that can keep the team focused, working together, moving forward. Enter: the quality assurance team (QA team).
The QA team at PINT understands the challenging facets of web development. To help address these challenges, we are adopting a team-oriented approach to our part in each project’s development. This means we are all on the web development ride together. But the hope is that it will result in a more complete and sound product.
The QA Team
The QA team’s responsibility is to conduct product testing based on a deep understanding of the site. This covers everything from the presentation layer to the inner workings of backend systems.
QA’s responsibilities also include facilitating communication within the team. This means asking questions throughout the entire development process. This benefits QA when it comes to formulating tests. However, itt also serves as a mechanism for highlighting potential issues along the way. Ideally, any issues can be dealt with early on in the development of a website or piece of software.
QA feedback should be clear when it comes to error reporting, including demos and use case presentations. QA is not an independent contributor: the team plays an integrated support role. The QA team helps along the way to fine tune the masterpiece. If you think about it, every member of a production team should share:
A commitment to quality Pride in the project’s craftsmanship A collaborative interest in the technologies used The satisfaction that comes from the synergy of working towards the same goal as part of a solid group effort
So, in a way, every developer in production is part of QA. But there are some specific QA roles, as well.
QA Team Roles
When it comes to the QA team’s role specifically, it’s key to keep that team perspective in mind. The team perspective means QA can’t approach the project blind. Having the QA team involved in the project’s development from beginning to end is key to keeping everyone on track.
Input from the team as a whole is necessary in formulating tests and systems for:
Presentation layer checks Functional tests End-to-end tests Monitoring systems
The QA team is also uniquely positioned to incorporate the different talents and perspectives of other production team members in the test process. Including the right people will not only help keep everyone on track, but it will also yield a more sound test plan, too.
Quality Assurance Challenges
Common challenges that can pose hurdles for QA teams during the development process include:
Tools Okay, we’re not using hammers and axes. But often there are differences between the technologies and tools used by the QA and development teams. For example, developers may build an application using one language while the QA team is writing their integration tests in another. Locations Sometimes the members of the team may be working across time zones. This can make scheduled functional tests tricky to organize and execute between rounds of development. Platforms The emergence and evolution of new devices is tough. New platforms can both increase testing time and cause the QA team to continuously re-evaluate testing routines. Sometimes this has to happen in the middle of a project. Reporting Communication in error reporting and bug tracking can devolve and become disjointed. This is most liable to happen as the project nears its release deadline.
All in all, it can be a lot to manage.
QA Solutions Communication
QA teams can lead an effort to standardize internal communication. For example, the QA manager can set parameters for how issues should be relayed to the developers. This may include agreeing upon a singular bug tracking system or homogenizing how issues are to be illustrated. Such agreement can help to relieve some of the stress associated with general discovery and logging of errors.
Dialogue
It is vital to maintain a consistent dialogue with the rest of the team throughout the entire process. This can mean participating in regular scrums or status update meetings. It could also involve incorporating technology that allows for continuous conversation, such as Slack or Hipchat.
Either way, a dialogue with the team as the project is being developed keeps QA up-to-date on both project expectation and performance details.
User stories
The QA team can leverage their bird’s eye view of both the project and PINT as an organization. They can engage the entire team in the creation of user stories. These function as a roadmap for future actual tests. We need input and perspectives from all team members for a complete set of user stories. A single individual could never think of all the possible scenarios for a product’s use. Therefore, a team approach highlights the value of each team member’s unique talents and project contributions. We’ve been trying to fill out our user stories more ever since PINT’s CEO encouraged us to read 50 Quick Ideas to Improve Your User Stories.
Total Team Value to User Stories
The QA team is not the only ones who can contribute to user stories. Everyone involved in the web development process can enhance this aspect of quality assurance. And they contribute different types of user stories.
Epics
PINT Project Managers are an incredibly valuable for creating user stories. They manage a direct line of communication with project stakeholders and provide a more comprehensive perspective. This helps us understand the expected performance. Product Owners and Project Managers are highly instrumental in the creation of
epics. These are the larger, more complex user stories. And PM’s can create them because of their unabridged understanding of the project. Routines
Visual Designers and UX Specialists have a keen sensibility for user behaviors and impulses. As such, they have a special vantage point for developing hypothetical routines of user action. They have already been tasked with providing the vision for clear paths of user navigation while using the product, so they can compose many user stories during the project’s design phase.
Technical Feedback
As the physical architects of the product, Developers can offer specialized guidance to QA teams. This guidance is based on their firsthand experience composing and testing the code during the project’s development. They should be able to alert QA to any environmental limitations or other technical parts of the product to which QA should pay special attention. Their familiarity with technical limitations means developers are also the best people to provide feedback on risk.
Themes
The entire team contributes to the
theme, or complete body of user stories. They are the combined effort of the team’s collaboration, and can then be translated by the QA team into a suite of actual tests. Better QA = Better End-Products
Team ownership and involvement in a website’s or web application’s life cycle fosters its own momentum. Team contributions to the testing process reinforce each member’s understanding of the end-product’s performance expectations. It also allows each team member to analyze their own contribution within the context of how it will serve the project.
In a way, QA reflects PINT’s team-oriented workplace. When everyone helps to create user stories, we are not only helping our QA team. We are also sharpening our own skill sets by developing new perspectives towards our coworkers’ individual contributions.
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ROME – Back in the late 1980’s, I attended a conference on “revenue management,” or the art of pricing airline seats to get maximize yield. Too high, and you lost business; too low, and you got less than people were willing to pay. Most of the speakers were from the airline industry, which already knew the tricks. Many of the listeners were from the hotel business; they were just learning. As a customer, I felt as if I had penetrated the enemy’s strategy session.
Over the years, I watched as more and more markets picked up two related concepts: time-based pricing and more efficient use of so-called “vanishing assets” – or capital goods that generate revenue only as they are used. In the old days, before computers, it was hard to manage complex pricing – or, for that matter, to reach the right customers with specific time-based or location-based offers. Hotels and airlines were a special case: their business is dependent on shared use of capital assets.
Of course, some businesses do use blunt versions of time-of-day or seasonal pricing. We take it for granted that health clubs charge more for memberships that include peak hours. But, in general, an asset is an asset, and you still hear complaints from people who don’t understand why the guy next to them in an airplane paid a lower price.
As real-time information about customers’ needs and vendors’ offers combines with a new concern for efficiency and optimization, there is a widespread shift to make use of the opportunities to personalize offers around location and time. The cost of complexity and targeting has dropped, even as the demand for return on assets has increased.
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Although many golfers focus most intently on improving their drives, other parts of the game are typically more important when it comes to turning in better scores. Most golfers probably derive the greatest benefit from time spent on the practice putting green, in fact, as that crucial part of the game is where many scores inflate in the most egregious and preventable of ways.
Nearly as important, though, are the approach shots that often determine where a golfer's ball will end up on the green or whether it ends up there at all. The approach is one of the most critical parts of the game, but few golfers give it its proper due when it comes to practice, and many of them have good excuses. Part of the reason for this is that many practice facilities are not equipped to make such practice rewarding. Many golfers find that the most convenient driving ranges in their areas force them to hit off artificial golf mats, since these are so much easier and cheaper to maintain than real grass. hese mats, though, are unforgiving and unrealistic compared to the grass that golfers actually play rounds of the game on. While they can be acceptable for hitting drives from a tee or swinging with long irons where a relatively flat, shallow swing arc is to be expected, they are almost useless for practicing with wedges, nine irons, and other shorter clubs that would normally be swung in such a way as to produce a divot. Recognizing this, one golf industry company with a website at www.realfeelgolfmats.com has attacked the problem. The company's Country Club Elite Golf Mats are designed from the ground up to be much more realistic than the mats that are common to most driving ranges, and the difference matters quite a bit when it comes to practicing approach shots. Golfers who practice on such mats, it turns out, can swing their short irons and wedges in the kinds of relatively steep arcs that are most conducive to producing backspin and causing the ball to climb high and land softly. Instead of developing the bad habits that would build up from trying to pick a ball cleanly from conventional artificial golf mats, then, these golfers can work on the divot-producing swings that will serve them best when they line up approach shots on the course, thereby being most likely to lower their scores over time.
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The VINE network, an automated victim notification service, publicizes the release dates of most paroled inmates. Some states, such as Georgia and Wisconsin, provide a tentative parole month lookup and a notification system to track offenders under the custody of the Department of Corrections or the Department of Health Services.Continue Reading
The VINE network allows the victim, the family of the victim, or a witness who testified against an incarcerated inmate to monitor the status of the offender currently serving inside a state prison. The network connects to the Department of Corrections of most states, allowing an online, centralized tool to check the inmate's location and tentative release date.
Aside from VINE, the state of Wisconsin also uses the VOICE for Victims service, which provides free online and telephone service to enrolled clients. Both services send automated notifications to enrolled members whenever there is a change in a tracked offender's status.
Similarly, most state prison websites publicly post the list of the inmates currently serving their sentences inside the prison facility. The list of and information about inmates incarcerated in county jails are usually available on county sheriffs' websites, while lists of prisoners in federal prisons are available on the Bureau of Federal Prisons' site.Learn more about Public Records
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From: Anonymous
I am a licensed insurance professional and variable product salesperson. I am writing to you concerning the suitability standard and principal review requirements pertaining to the sale of variable annuities contained in NASD proposed Rule 2821. Although the latest NASD proposal includes several amendments made to earlier versions of the proposal, the proposed rule's requirements are redundant, unnecessary, will provide no meaningful additional protection to consumers and will adversely impact my business. I urge the SEC to disapprove the proposal. The real question is whether this step will eliminate unsuitable sales by unscrupulous representatives. I believe the answer is "NO". If someone wishes to injure, they will figure out a way to get around rules. To legislate and regulate to the lowest common denominator is costly to our industry and can actually injure opportunities for our clients, the public. Isn't this all about THEM?
I firmly believe people who engage in misleading sales practices should be aggressively prosecuted and subject to appropriate sanctions. The NASD, however, has failed to adequately justify the need for the proposed rule. To the contrary, the available data does not support the NASD's claims that the level of sales problems in the variable annuity marketplace calls for the adoption of the proposed rule. Unsuitable variable annuity sales made up less than .50 percent of the NASD's disciplinary actions over the last five years, and complaints about mutual funds and individual securities far outnumber those concerning variable annuities. Furthermore, the vast majority of the comments received by the NASD and SEC regarding the proposal opposed the new rule, and the NASD has not adequately responded to the concerns raised by the vast majority of commentators.
Furthermore, proposed Rule 2821 duplicates current supervision and suitability requirements that are already in place. NASD rules (including Rule 2310) already contain suitability requirements that apply to all sales of securities, including variable annuities. If regulators really want to protect consumers, appropriate enforcement of the existing suitability rule rather than adopting a new rule is the answer.
In addition, the requirement for review by a principal found in the proposed rule deviates in several significant ways from the general supervision requirements found in Rule 3010. This requirement appears to present a bias against these products, and will lead to constant second guessing of my advice and recommendations (based upon less first hand information than was available to me).
The NASD proposal is a solution in search of a problem that could ultimately harm consumers by making these products less available to people who could benefit from them. For these reasons, I urge the SEC to disapprove NASD proposed Rule 2821. Thank you for your consideration of my views on this matter.
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Filter Results: Publication Year
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Publication Type Co-author Key Phrase Publication Venue
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Scope and Purpose—The location-allocation problem is a type of multifacility location problem in which both the location of new facilities and the allocation of existing facility requirements to the new facilities is determined. An example of a location-allocation problem involves the design of a distribution network where, in addition to determining the… (More)
Genetic algorithms (GAs) are very efficient at exploring the entire search space; however, they are relatively poor at finding the precise local optimal solution in the region in which the algorithm converges. Hybrid GAs are the combination of improvement procedures, which are good at finding local optima, and GAs. There are two basic strategies for using… (More)
A seven-step methodology is presented to determine a dimensionally correct optimal layout of a console panel for a single operator. This methodology integrates the steps in the layout design process and uses a mathematical optimization model from facility design to obtain the optimal panel layout. A major difference in this methodology from previous work is… (More)
To analyze the operation of an arbitrary AGV system under selected vehicle routing strategies, we present a simulation model that can handle multiple system layouts, a varying number of AGVs, and a varying number of pedestrians moving around the system. We introduce a dynamic vehicle routing strategy based on hierarchical simulation that operates as… (More)
We develop a simulation modeling framework for evaluating the effectiveness of breast cancer screening policies for US women of age 65+. We introduce a two-phase simulation approach to modeling the main components in the breast cancer screening process. The first phase is a natural-history model of the incidence and progression of untreated breast cancer in… (More)
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Channels RESOURCE GUIDE: Working with a Co-Packer
Co-packing is a common option for businesses interested in breaking into specialty foods—or expanding with new products or certifications—without high upfront investment costs. But, there are trade-offs to using a co-packer that companies must assess. In this new resource guide, manufacturers who use co- packers, as well as those offering co-packing services, share their insights on how to create a profitable, strategic relationship for both parties.
Today’s Specialty Food Consumer 2016 FULL REPORT
Gain a better understanding of how specialty foods drive retailer sales, profits, and customer loyalty.
Today’s Specialty Food Consumer 2016 – Summary Report
This year’s 16-page report examines who buys specialty foods, their purchasing preferences, shopping habits, and attitudes and opinions regarding these foods.
Summer Fancy Food Show 2016 Education Recordings Package
You couldn't make it to our education program at the Summer Fancy Food Show? Our speakers can come to you! Listen to the recorded sessions when it's convenient(...)
The Future is Now: Innovations That Will Change How We Produce, Sell, and Eat
This series of short talks is led by a group of problem solvers, disrupters, and thinkers who are taking on some of the food world’s most complex issues, closing(...)
What’s in a (Sustainable) Name? The Status of Value-Based Terms
What is the value of terms like farm-to-table, sustainable, and local on your products and in your stores? Have they lost meaning, or are the concepts behind(...)
Party of One: How Snacking and Single-Serve Trends Will Drive the Specialty Food Business
Once a stigma, eating alone is the new normal. Consumers are eating by themselves, and relying on snacks for their meal options, at a rapidly growing rate.(...)
Elevate Your Pitch: How to Sell to Buyers, Investors, and Media
Every person you present your product to is different, so you need to know how to sell yourself and products for each type of situation. In this workshop, you’ll(...)
Getting Started in Foodservice
Sales opportunities abound in the foodservice channel as chefs look for creative, high-quality ingredients that still allow them to meet their bottom lines. In this new resource, specialty food producers, importers, and distributors, as well as chefs and foodservice buyers, discuss the landscape of the channel and what a manufacturer needs to know to break into foodservice.
E-commerce Strategy Forum
Live Event: Chicago, IL April 11, 2016, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Are you getting your share of online sales? You're invited to attend a full day event hosted by the Specialty Food Association where you'll hear from experts in the industry and learn more about how to build your visibility and increase your sales online.
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There is a very important role of managers and supervisors in terms of employees' performance management. However, an important part of the employee performance management depends on their performance review and feedback. Without effective review and feedback process efficient performance management is not possible. In this regard it is essential that the managers have the required skills for managing employee performance through feedback skills. However, the main issue is that often the managers fail at providing effective feedback to the employees. It is why the management has decided to use a two day training workshop to impart training to the managers with regard to effective use of feedback skills when delivering one to one performance reviews. The training will be imparted at a physical location different from their workplace and large enough to hold 100 or more people conveniently. Modern tools and techniques will be used to impart training successfully. Specifically the learning objectives of this workshop are as follows:-
a. helping managers understand the importance of feedback.
b. Improve their feedback skills.
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March 5, 2014 at 1:27 PM
Anybody else out there marvel at someone because everything seems to come so easy to them? You know the ones who seem to have achieved career happiness. They seemingly have thought through each of life’s eventualities and have come up with the perfect answer before the question is even asked.
These folks ooze charisma while not going over the top to the level of being considered an obnoxious bore (re: think the Dos Equis guy and you’ve gone too far). They’re confident, clever and everyone wants to be around them because they have the world by the tail and they’re not letting loose any time soon.
Whenever I can glimpse into what makes these folks tick I jump at the chance because I’m a long way from being this sort of person. Rest assured I’m fairly confident that few people really have all the aspects of their lives under control, but they know how to keep up appearances.
I’ve never met Joel Gascoigne, the founder of the startup Buffer, but I’ve got to hand it to him because he’s captured a little bit of this lightning in a bottle. When his blog post “Six Simple Habits to Keep You Consistently Happy Every Day,” popped up in my LinkedIn feed the other day, I realized that Joel has the world by the tail.
Here are nine simple steps for you to achieve career happiness: Wake up Early: Scratch that one. I’m not a late riser, but you won’t find me milking the cows either. I can appreciate those people who meet the day with a 6 a.m. run or some “me” time found early in the day. Exercise Daily: Rule two I’ve got covered. Whether it’s running, biking or time spent just getting out and moving around, I crave that daily hour of exercise. Getting your heart rate up helps out in a variety of ways from fitness, strength and stress reduction to discipline, better sleep and a more positive self-image. Disengage: Run. Garden. Volunteer. Just do something that takes your mind away from the toils of work each day. All work and no play does make Jack a dull boy.
For many of us, however, this is easier said than done, especially in these times when we’re all electronically tethered to our work lives. It’s hard to tune out, turn off and drop out now that we’re all plugged in. Periodically I declare an “off-the-grid” day and make a point of not checking emails, Facebook or text messages.
Help Others: It’s important to put some good out in the world. I truly believe there is some sort of karmic payback when you help others. Learn New Skills: There’s self-satisfaction in learning how to do something for ourselves. Recently I was playing with a new remote camera, and while I was sharing it with some of my office friends when one of them said, “you really love what you do, don’t you?” “Yes,” I blurted out. Partly because of the appreciation I’ve gained from being unemployed, but mainly because taking the new things I learn and being able to use them to do my job better and more creatively results in success for my employer. Find Multiple Ways to Win: We need to cultivate victories because in our fast-paced get-it-done work existence we often take for granted the small things we do each day like meeting a deadline for a report, finishing an essential mailing or posting a social media update
Although it’s in our DNA to gain self-esteem by being defined by our work, it’s important to not let what you do define who you are. If all you do is focus on your role as a worker, you miss out on the goals you achieve as a human being.
I’d like to add three suggestions: 1) Don’t worry about what other people say about you; 2) don’t sweat the small stuff; and 3) be happy.
Don't Worry: Often times we feel like everyone, especially in our work lives, is talking about us. At the end of the day, you have very little control over what others say, so the key is to control the things you can control and let the others go. Don't Sweat the Small Stuff: As our kids were growing up, we seldom grappled with what they wore to school or how their hair was cut. As long as they were clean, got good grades and were respectful and nice we didn’t fight them on the small stuff.
We’ve all worked in and around micro-managers who not only control every minute of their own day but that of their underlings and co-workers. Makes you have to ask yourself, when was the last time they were truly happy? There are battles and wars and you have to decide the hills you choose to die on. I say live to fight another day, and you’ll live a joyful life
Be Happy: It’s taken me nearly 30 years of being employed to fully appreciate that you make you happy. When you look at those people who have the world by the tail, ask yourself “are they the smartest, brightest most well-educated people you’ve ever been around?”
My guess is your answer will be no. They do, however, exude self-confidence because they speak from a place of bliss.
Share your own tips on achieving career happiness in the comment section below.
AnnMarie Quintaglie McIlwain is a former marketing executive with Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson and consultant to several Fortune 100 companies. Now, as Founder and CEO of CareerFuel.net, she is a social entrepreneur who connects people with the information and inspiration they need in order to get jobs and start businesses. CareerFuel is the only site that gives people what they need to know to find jobs or start businesses plus blogs and short films about real people who made it happen.
A recipient of numerous civic and leadership awards, AnnMarie is a Board member of CFIRA.org, was a participant in the first White House Entrepreneurial Session, the recent WeOwnIt Summit, and the first Alley to the Valley Event. She is also a member of 85Broads and Startup America.
The opinions expressed herein are the writer's alone, and do not reflect the opinions of TAPinto.net or anyone who works for TAPinto.net. TAPinto.net is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the writer.
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Pete Roythorne explains instant messaging
By now you've no doubt mastered email, text messaging and maybe even had a go in a chatroom or forum. So do you really need another form of electronic communication? Well, obviously yes, as I haven't yet mentioned instant messaging.
Instant messaging, or IM, is a form of online communication that combines the live nature of chatrooms and the personalisedprivate contact of email. When you send a message it appears directly on the other person's screen, like email, but with IM you only communicate with people that you know are online so you're guaranteed an immediate response.
When you use IM you have a list of contacts you wish to exchange messages with, called a buddy list. You must invite people to be on your buddy list and agree to be listed on theirs (it shouldn't be possible to add anyone to your buddy list or for you to be added to anyone else's without consent).
When one of your buddies logs on to the internet their IM service registers them as being active and you will see that person as online.
To start using IM you need to download a piece of software called an IM client, as will anyone you want to communicate with. Popular packages include Google Talk, MSN Messenger and Apple's iChat. There are some factors worth noting at this point: not all IM clients are compatible with all others; some systems allow you to adjust the privacy settings; and some allow you to send attachments. So you need to decide what factors are important.
Although one normally associates this technology with young people socialising, it is being used increasingly to foster collaboration in school time. For example, you can host online chats with schools in other countries or with remote guest speakers. On top of this, students can work together on projects and IM gives them the opportunity to discuss topics arising from homework.
Some teachers create IM conference rooms to facilitate online study sessions for students. You could even use it to communicate with other teachers discreetly during school hours.
IM is not without its problems and it's worth reading Becta's Signposts to Safety report for advice on this, at www.becta.org.ukcorporatepublicationspublications_detail.cfm?currentbrand =1pubid=194cart=
Some IM clients are starting to offer voice and picture capabilities so full videoconferencing is not far away. So there's plenty more scope for its use in class.
Links
Clients:
www.apple.comukmacosxfeaturesichat
www.google.comtalk
www.msn.co.ukmessenger
General:
www.instantmessagingplanet.com
Safety: www.besafeonline.org
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A 53-year-old female presents to a pain management clinic several weeks after having a broken arm set by means of an ORIF procedure (Open Reduction Internal Fixation). She received multiple injections into the axillary region for nerve block. The patient immediately experienced an allergic reaction and went into shock. She experienced a grand mal seizure on the way to the hospital and a cardiac workup showed stress to the cardiovascular system.
Question(s) For Expert Witness 1. Is this reaction to anesthetic common and what may have been done to prevent such an event? Expert Witness Response E-000116
A severe reaction to anesthesia is not a common occurrence but it is reported in the medical literature. There is no fool proof method of predicting the response of patients to drugs but an extensive discussion with the patient about their medical history is crucial to avoiding such issue.
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A proposed additional assessment of research quality between research excellence frameworks based on metrics such as citations rather than peer review would not be seen as credible, according to one of the authors of a major government-commissioned report on the subject.
Despite
The Metric Tide report concluding in July that it was “not currently feasible to assess the quality of research outputs using quantitative indicators alone”, the idea of a “mini REF” that uses metrics has nonetheless made it into the government’s Green Paper on higher education.
The paper suggests “making greater use of metrics and other measures to ‘refresh’ the REF results and capture emerging pockets of research excellence in between full peer review”.
Stephen Curry, a professor of structural biology at Imperial College London and one of the authors of the metrics report, said that he did not think an intermediate assessment based on metrics “would have the credibility and support of the community”.
The “real problem” with metrics was that “on their own they can’t be reliable because we can’t have enough data across all the disciplines”, he said, citing arts and humanities as an area where “the information just isn’t there” in terms of citation coverage.
The Green Paper, released on 6 November, is only a consultation document, and a spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said that it would await responses on the future shape of the REF. The Green Paper says that it will “consider” the findings of
The Metric Tide.
Debate will now move towards how exactly metrics will be used in a new REF system. The 2014 REF did use metrics, but only in a small way. Fewer than a third of the subject panels requested citation statistics, and these data were generally used only where there was disagreement among the reviewers over quality.
In the natural sciences, citations metrics are more abundant, Professor Curry said, but running an intermediate assessment involving only some subjects would lead excluded disciplines to be seen as “second best”. And the more metrics were used, he said, the more universities would attempt to game them.
He added: “I would question whether you would need a mini REF. Does the research landscape really change in two to three years?”
James Wilsdon, professor of science and democracy at the University of Sussex and chair of the group that wrote
The Metric Tide, shared Professor Curry’s caution.
“Having looked at the question of metrics in exhaustive detail…I for one, and my committee, are not persuaded that there’s an easy solution here in moving overall from a peer-review process to a metrics process,” he said.
But publishers, which sell a variety of metrics tools, have pushed for their inclusion in the assessment process.
Earlier this year, Nick Fowler, managing director of Elsevier’s research management division, argued in a presentation to the Higher Education Policy Institute that greater use of metrics could drive down costs, and that multiple metrics made gaming the system “very hard”.
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Our Flowers and Farms
We've branched out!
Wild Hibiscus Flower Company now work with more than just hibiscus flowers. Applying our expertise we now also specialize in Bulgarian roses and butterfly pea flowers - all edible flowers of course.
Each of the flower varieties we have selected has its own unique color, flavor and uses in food and beverage.
We love our farmers. We grow together!
We have built important and genuine relationships with our farmers across the Australasian tropical belt and have a strong network of growers for year-round supply of premium seasonal flowers.
Together with our farmers we have developed quality standards and unique farming techniques. We visit our farmers regularly and are constantly improving together with a view for long-terms environmental, business and community sustainability.
Hibiscus Flowers
There are many types of hibiscus flowers. Most people are familiar with the non-edible, ornate garden varieties. We use the edible variety - Latin name
Edible hibiscus - also commonly known as Rosella flowers - grows on the fringes of rainforest and tall forest and is often found behind sand dunes in the tropical north of Australia. There are several native Hibiscus closely related to the rosella which are nearly as tasty.
Originally it is thought to come from Sri Lanka but can now be found growing on every continent. Proof of its wonderful flavor and appeal to people worldwide.
Health Benefits of Hibiscus Sabdariffa
Hibiscus is very high in anthocyanin antioxidants and has been linked to lowing blood pressure and cholesterol in several international health studies:
Hibiscus Flower Farms
Wild Hibiscus Flower Company Founder, Lee Etherington heads up our farming network, flower processing facility and logistics.
Pictured below is the process of our hibiscus flowers being farmed. Seedlings are planted at the perfect seasonal times to yield the best quality flowers.
Once the flower opens, the center fruity part (calyx) is hand-picked, de-seeded, quality checked and cleaned. (Sam Etherington, our Production Manager pictured below, checks the harvest). Depending on our production needs, flowers are either used whole in our Wild Hibiscus Flowers in Syrup products, juiced fresh for our Hibiscus Extract or laid out and sun-dried for Heart-Tea, Hibiscus Salt and other dried hibiscus products.
Using our system and techniques our farmers see the value in growing hibiscus as it becomes a cyclical “cash crop” which generates income within 3 months versus oil palm or fruit trees which can take up to 5 years to see a return.
Our hibiscus plantations are also done cleverly without pesticides or chemicals which is a big plus for the farmers and our consumers.
With our farmers, we have also developed ways for them to inter-crop hibiscus plantations with longer-term yielding crops. This helps sustain farmers steady income and therefore community stability.
Starting out with flowers from Queensland, Australia we have now expanded our growers network across the Australasian belt. With growing demand we now chase the sun for year round supply of premium flowers.
We have researched and developed how to grow the hibiscus sustainability, who could grow it, where to grow it, how to harvest it, how to prevent pests without chemicals or pesticides, how to manage it after harvest so the hibiscus remained in peak condition, and most importantly, how to consistently process the fresh flowers into the Wild Hibiscus Flowers in Syrup.
Under our supervision, our growers produce and hand pick the crops of flowers. The fresh flowers are individually picked, de-seeded, cleaned, graded and then packed into jars entirely by hand at our factory. Hibiscus flowers grow in several different shapes, so we place them in predetermined positions in the jar according to shape, to ensure that none are squashed.
With such a labor-intensive process (a labor of love, really), it's difficult to produce vast volumes of our product at speed, but the output of our careful but efficient production process meets the export demands of our international market.
Butterfly Pea Flowers
The butterfly pea flower is a native from Thailand where it is called Dok Anchan (Latin name is
The dried flowers are used in Thailand as a herbal ingredient to many foods (such as rice and desserts) and in drinks.
Butterfly peas have a neutral taste and very mild aroma kind of like peas. In some preparations there is no evidence of taste or aroma just the pure blue or purple color.
Health Benefits of Butterfly Pea Flowers
Apart from the alluring blue and purples colors and high antioxidant levels of the butterfly pea flowers, they are highly valued for the herbal benefits when consumed or used in cosmetics. Whilst no scientific research has been concluded, it is believed in Thai traditional herbal medicine that butterfly pea has many health attributes such as being an anti-depressant, a hair growth stimulant and assists in memory enhancement!
Bulgarian Roses
We source our essential rose oil only from the best rose region in the world, Bulgaria. The most premium roses are hand picked and of the world from Bulgaria. Prized for their eternal beauty, exquisite scent and flavor for food and beverage.
We use the essential oils extracted only from the petals - not from the rose hips.Whilst we have no scientific studies to verify health benefits, rose has long been used for its therapeutic benefits. For example, rose is used to uplift a feeling of well being, as an antiseptic / antiviral treatment, and an aphrodisiac to name a few.
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WEB DESK: As pollution levels continue to rise, we are bound to see its effects on our health, pour lifestyle, the food we eat and so on. The pollutants add to your food resulting in various diseases.
Cancer causing bread is the latest inductee, which has raised concerns in India after a study released by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), has found 84 percent of bread and bakery samples collected from across Indian capital Delhi containing cancer causing substances.
According to The Indian Express, the bread contains traces of potassium bromate, potassium iodate or both. While potassium bromate is said to be a Class 2B carcinogenic, which means it may cause cancer, potassium iodate can lead to “thyroid disorders, increase the incidence of autoimmune thyroiditis and increase the risk of thyroid cancer,” the report said.
But how did these dangerous chemicals enter into bread, at the first place, surprisingly the report informed that these chemicals are used in the process of bread making, potassium bromate helps bread achieve high rising and a uniform finish, while potassium iodate is used by bread-makers as flour agent.
According to
BBC, the All India Bread Manufacturers’ Association said the chemicals were “considered safe”.
Health Minister JP Nadda said that his ministry is preparing report on the issue, urging public not to panic.”I have told my officials to report to me on an urgent basis. There is no need to panic. Very soon we will come out with the [inquiry] report,” he said.
Source: Business Recorder
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| 0.965221
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Zach Asked: “Married/Together with my wife for 10 years. We have two young children. She’s declared that she loves me, but is not “in love” with me. We have a great partnership, get along wonderfully (with the exception of this dilemma), have two beautiful children, parent well together. What she claims to be lacking is the passion, the desire, the chemistry. We have been processing through this for six months. I fell deeply into the quicksand of inadequacy and introspection to really see where I was out of integrity. I have demonstrated my commitment to the marriage in many ways, from my presence with my family, to creating special time for us to connect. Nothing has shifted for her. Recently, she took up salsa dancing and found a new source of expression for herself. She “turned on” and it felt good. She also attracted another man, who she was beginning to have an affair with and lied and hid it from me until I discovered an email she wrote to him saying that she couldn’t wait to be in his arms again.” The affair is over, no infidelity, but it was going there. Recently, we’ve been discussing the option of a legal separation, but then she gets cold feet. There is a tremendous amount of back and forth, her coming close to me and wanting me to comfort her, but then her position of not desiring me or thinking that I cannot give her what she needs comes back and we’re right back where we started. My question is…with my family and my marriage at stake, where do I stand. I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t desire me. I want love to flow into our lives. But I do love her, desire her, and want to continue building the beautiful life we have. But it seems for her, this question of desire is a deal breaker and outweighs everything else. Part of me wants to move on, but I’m pulled back for my love and for the sake of our long term marriage and especially for our children. Where do I stand powerfully in this situation?” – Zach(U.S.A.) Our Experts Responded:
Dear Zach,
This is a tough one. It’s difficult to know what will work and what won’t…in terms of strategy. Because my dear, you are now in a tug of war. And in my view all is fair in love and war. You must strategize and fight for what you want.
Since every other area of your lives seem to be working out great, you must now focus your attention on stirring up those flames. You must woo her. Chase her, but don’t appear too eager or desperate. And somehow, through all this, you must make yourself desirable as well. I know, this is a lot.
But take a look at what really happened so that you don’t make this mistake again. Have you let yourself go? Do you work out? Do you make sure your feet don’t smell? I know this sounds strange, but it’s very difficult for a woman to want a man that stinks and sits on the couch night after night. Nothing turns us off more. If you’ve not kept yourself up, it’s time you do. Go get a new smart and sexy haircut (ask the hairstylist what would be sexy and cute on you) and buy a new cologne you think she might like. Shower often and wear the sexy cologne you bought all the time. Women love a man that smells sexy right out of the shower. Dress better and work out!!! Make a dinner and movie date with her and let her pick the movie. It’s about her. And try to be interested in what she picks out, even if it’s a chick flick.
Make her breakfast in bed. Send her red roses to work. Take a weekend off alone somewhere. Wash her car. Wash her hair. Give her a massage. Buy her chocolate. Buy her jewelry!
You know what she likes. Take those dance classes with her. Yes. You must do that. She’s looking for something hot and seductive. She needs to find YOU there.
But through all this, don’t forget to take care of yourself and the kids. Work out together playing basketball. Get a hobby you can all do together. Do things with her alone, but also do things as a family.
She has a lot to lose as well. She knows that.
I hope this works for you. Good luck and stay positive!
– Blanca Marquez
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Dear Zach,
1. Schedule an appointment with a counselor or therapist ASAP. A pastoral counselor may be a good choice if you’re religious; otherwise, there are many excellent marriage and family therapists.
2. Read the articles in the “Cheating” section — there’s a great deal of sound advice and experience there. 3. Take a “relationship inventory”. What’s good, what needs to change or improve, what needs to be removed entirely? Write it down and share it, first with someone you trust (preferably not biased towards or against either of you), then with your wife. Suggest that she does the same. 4. After doing the inventory and sharing it, write an amends letter to your wife, admitting where you may have been wrong (and I’m *not* saying that you were) and forgiving her for what she did and failed to do. Even if you choose to separate or divorce, this can be very healing.
Finally, whatever is going on with you and your wife, stay close to your kids. Children are very sensitive, and they need your reassurance that you still love them, regardless of what happens between you and Mom.
All the best,
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Zach,
Thanks for sharing of your painful situation with us. You have written a very thoughtful note, which clearly demonstrates that are no easy, “sound byte” solutions to such human dilemmas. What is a loving (and self-loving) husband to do? Here are a few thoughts.
*First, regarding the surface solutions of conventional versus open relationships and all the attendant boundaries/agreements: I will not comment on these, as so much has been said about these matters already. ( If you are so inclined, see the work of sex columnist Dan Savage for more.) Rather, I am going to operate with the assumption that either your wife makes an adjustment to where she can fully bond with you, or the two of you will separate. I am not foreclosing against other configurations; I am simply choosing not to go there in this limited space.
*We could go on and on about the “love you but not ‘in love’ with you” thing. Being “in love” with a relative stranger is easy enough, even for teens; being able to retain some degree of that passion in a committed, long-term relationship – this is harder and requires a greater commitment to human growth. If one partner doesn’t desire the other, it seems we can generally make one of two interpretations: Either she is with the wrong person – she chose badly when she got married – or she is experiencing some sort of emotional block. In the latter case, the problem is not with the choice of partner, but an “inner knot” which she has to unravel for her life to work.
The latter interpretation seems more operative, given that your wife claims love for you (not to mention that you have children) and that she cycles back to emotionally clinging to you. Unless you choose to endure this painful state of affairs for decades, she has the choice of either finding within herself desire for you or leaving you. So far she has been unable to do either.
*If this is correct, then your wife will need to do some work on herself, probably with the assistance of a competent therapist. You can help by telling her that as much as you love her, you are not okay with this situation remaining unresolved; if she fails to find within herself a more complete love for you, then you are going to end the relationship (or at least separate). Your firmness, which will require you not to lapse into self-inadequacy – will be necessary to support her in the possibility of her human movement.
In other words, you have done the “supportive and understanding” thing for some time now, and it has not worked. Some times what a partner needs from us is firmness and assertiveness, though it may initially trigger further pain and challenge for them.
*Further to the above point, sometimes separation is exactly what is needed. Sometimes human movement is not possible within the supportive (if strained) “comforts” of the existing relationship. Your wife has already demonstrated vulnerability in this regard, so at some point, if movement is not forthcoming, separating from her despite her “cold feet” may be what is needed. She may have to fall into the pain that she will experience when she separates from you for her heart to open sufficiently to remedy the central problem
*Regarding the kids, this of course complicates an already difficult situation. You will have to sort out what is right for you regarding this, but I would offer this point of view: Don’t stay in the relationship “for the kids’ sake”, as that is a dubious proposition. Yes, separation/divorce will be an acute trauma for them, but I don’t think you can spare them that by staying in a relationship that isn’t working – a chronic trauma which can be at least as damaging over time. Steps toward health and self-love, even when they may result in divorce, are likely in the kid’s best interest as well.
*Finally, regarding your felt sense of inadequacy: Certainly the circumstances of not being desired by your partner would be provocative for anyone. Initially we look toward ourselves for the answer; we inventory all our flaws which might explain our partner’s limitations. But with time we emerge with a greater self-acceptance, realizing that her failure to fully connect with you is likely more about her than about you. Certainly your note speaks well for you in that it is mature, thoughtful, and well-intended. In a short space you have demonstrated human qualities that surely will be attractive to other women, in the event that this relationship runs its course.
Just as your wife will need to own her failure to bond fully with you as her husband, you need to own the inadequacy that you feel in response to her rejection, not as an indicator of inadequacy, but as a lack of self-acceptance that warrants further attention. Therapeutic support through this process, whether your wife chooses to go that route or not, will no doubt help you to unpack as much value from this painful situation as quickly as possible.
In any case, good luck, and thanks for sharing so genuinely of your challenging circumstances!
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Dear Zach,
Understanding your wife’s feelings requires looking at the issue from several directions. First of all, people are motivated to marry for a variety of reasons and many women in particular select mates who provide them with a sense of security. All our actions and motivations are based in core beliefs that were ingrained in us from childhood. It is through the beliefs our parents taught us and those relationship dynamics that lead us to adult decisions and choices, especially in love.
Reading between the lines of your email, it is quite possible the initial attraction that led your wife to marry you was the financial security and stability you brought to the table. That need surpassed her desire for emotional validation and connection at that time. This does not mean she does not love you or that your relationship is not real, but she is hiding something from you and that is the barrier that prevents the two of you from emotionally connecting. So what is she hiding? She may have presented a certain façade in the beginning of your relationship to try and become the woman you perceive is the “perfect” wife and mother. People can go through the motions of a relationship for years – raising a family and creating a home life. That does not mean that inside they feel they are living a lie. From your perspective it may appear that after ten years she has changed overnight and all of sudden she sees your marriage in a different light, but I assure you this was not a recent feeling.
You use an interesting phrase in your email and say that you really wanted to see where you were out of integrity. Words are very powerful and feeling that your integrity was not where it should have been indicates that perhaps you slipped into an emotional affair as well. I am mindful that I only have a glimpse of what is going on in your relationship, but do understand that this issue is not “her” problem, but one that involves you too.
From my viewpoint, something happened recently that set the chain of events in motion whereas the façade was too difficult to maintain. There is a reason why she goes back and forth and believes you cannot meet her emotional needs. Your relationship provides a sense of security she must have in her life based on her core beliefs, but the need for real emotional connection cannot be suppressed any longer. So she does not really want a separation but neither does she want to feel emotionally empty.
The passion that your wife is seeking is an emotional connection she is not receiving from you in the manner that makes her feel important, special and desired. Each one of us wants to feel this way in our committed relationships and what we need from our mate is unique. What many people do is give their love in accordance to the way they want to receive love. While these gestures and expressions of love are more than likely appreciated, it is highly possible those are not the things that make your wife feel loved and desired. And it is my belief that is the reason why she was so vulnerable to an emotional affair.
It is the responsibility of both people in the relationship to clearly communicate what they want and for the other person to follow through. You stated that you have demonstrated your commitment to the marriage in many ways but from what you have written, it is not resonating with her. A marriage does not get to this place overnight, nor does it rebound with a few quick fixes. I understand that six months seems like forever, but I encourage you to look at the state of your relationship not in a self-critical mode (which is unconstructive) but in a manner that allows you to see the marriage from her perspective.
It will take mutual effort, determination and resolve to fight for your marriage and family – together. I strongly encourage you to take bold steps and make up your mind that your wife is the number one priority in your life (next to your relationship with God) –and then act on that declaration. An impartial third part such as a counselor is highly recommended to keep your progress on track. Nothing in this world is more important than your wife and children and I encourage you not to sit on the fence. Be forthright and strongly committed to not only saying that you want your marriage to work out but following those words up with actions.
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Dear Zach,
The question is not where you stand, but where your heart stands. What do you want? How do you want this to end?
You say you get along well, parent well, and have already been married 10 years…if those are your best reasons for staying married, then I can see how she thinks she’s missing out on that so called passion and desire.
Your wife says she’s not “in” love with you….that’s code for SOMETHING’S WRONG….
Of course she gets cold feet when you bring up the legal separation….that’s because she’s not blind —she sees you’re committed to the relationship, I don’t think she doubts your compatibility and commitment….but some small part of her..(maybe the salsa dancing part of her) … wonders what life would be like if she was adored, revered, and placed on a pedestal….that’s why people are vulnerable to affairs, because of the attention…because some other person stokes their egos in a way their spouse used to but hasn’t in a while.
So, the question is — WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
Are you going to let someone else sweep your wife off her feet and away from you….or are you going to put your dancing shoes on and salsa your way into her heart…..she needs needs to be reminded that you think she’s hot, smart, pretty, and the best thing since sliced bread….if you don’t think you can give her that…then she will find it elsewhere.
– Rebecca Allen
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Zach,
Woman naturally think more abstractly while we think objectionably and as far as “where you stand powerfully”, who cares. She is toying with your emotions. Give her more attention and ask more questions about her when you’re out. Part of her wanting to cheat is the mystery and the other part is letting go and letting someone else take over. Be as assertive as sexiness will let you. If you want to test her, go right ahead. All you have to do is strategically plan an outing and when her friends happen to be there try to create a friendly relationship with one of her friends. If she suggests that you build on it in any later conversations, you know you’re headed for trouble.
– Bill Wilburn
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Dear Zach,
The fact that your wife gets cold feet when discussing a legal separation means two things:
#1: She’s not SURE she wants to COMPLETELY GIVE UP on you two yet (there’s a lot of love and history there, and MAYBE it can be worked OUT)
#2: It is POSSIBLE (and some women are LIKE this) that she doesn’t want to end THIS relationship, until she totally has a NEW man in the picture (to be with).
And, unfortunately, no amount of effort on your part, can make up for her not DESIRING you anymore. It might make her APPRECIATE you, and she might WISH she felt more for you than she does, but you can’t “force” desire, or lust. That has to happen on its own. It has to be there because SHE FEELS it. And if this continues, she WILL want out. Or, she’ll just cheat again. And you don’t want that.
Now, MY question is, did she EVER desire you? If so, what CHANGED? What went wrong? Have you gained weight? Got too involved with your work? What?
If talking about this situation doesn’t work, try some other things. Try & turn her on. Be spontaneous. Do things you don’t normally do. Surprise her. Turn her on. If you CAN’T, then take DRASTIC measures. Go see a SEX therapist. Ask a female FRIEND of yours what to do. There are a number of different actions you can take if you really want to make this WORK. I’d suggest trying ALL of them, before completely giving up.
Good luck.
– Jason Love Rate This Post: Did you like this article? Submit it to your favorite social bookmarking sites:
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Exploring a Guided Meditation Exercise with Urban Breath Yoga
We’re not necessarily a high-strung bunch, but when the ALIVE staff found out that Urban Breath Yoga would be leading us through a guided meditation exercise specifically for the workplace, our collective interest was immediately piqued. And, once we discovered that the instructor would be Madeleine Webb—a pro with 500 hours of yoga teacher training and experience studying the Sivananda tradition in India—we were sold. (Webb also served as a yoga consultant for a mindfulness-based stress reduction study at Washington University, some of which she referenced in the meditation exercise.)
Great for the workplace, Webb led us through exercises that explored the idea of separateness and mindfulness—allowing the ALIVE team to take a step away from our everyday tasks to connect with both ourselves and our coworkers in a shared space.
Here are three of our favorite activities from the guided meditation exercise to try at home, or with your coworkers.
1. Check in with yourself. The practice of identifying only two words allowed us to vocalize exactly how we were feeling in a succinct way. Close your eyes and sit for a moment. Pick two words; one that describes your current state, and one at describes what you are hoping to cultivate within yourself. Take turns going around the room and saying those two words aloud. Activity to try: 2. Understand separateness and learn to bridge the gap. According to Webb, “We suffer because we confuse the ego, or protective outer shell, our social mask, with our true self, or soul. The ego gets bruised and stressed, not the soul. The soul is constant. We all just want to be seen, on the soul level, and this realization can help us to speak and work with others with more unity and understanding.” Remembering that an annoyance to you is sometimes just the ego, or social facade of another, and not their soul can help when your patience is being tried. Bridge the gap by looking beyond the protective outer shell. Sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes. Feel the space inside your body, and then feel the space around your body, realizing or visualizing that there is no separation between the two. It’s all energy. Activity to try: 3. Discover the importance of present moment awareness and mindfulness. “Mindfulness is being non-judgmentally aware of the constant, ever-changing orchestra of thoughts, feelings and sensations that are moving through us at all times. This has huge implications for how we deal with life, how we treat ourselves and our bodies, and how we deal with others. When we practice mindfulness, we are no longer at the mercy of life’s ups and downs; instead, we are able to see the ups and downs as temporary, affecting us on the ego level but not necessarily the soul level. We can see stress, pain, irritation, fatigue, energy, negativity, etc moving through us, without identifying with it. We can allow these experiences to be temporary guests in our home. Mindfulness helps us to get to know ourselves,” says Webb. Work on active listening, not listening while thinking of the correct response, but listening without speaking, truly soaking in the words and emotions expressed by the speaker. Activity to try:
Urban Breath Yoga specializes in yoga for beginners, classic hatha yoga and flowing vinyasa practices. They offer extensive specialty programming that includes prenatal yoga, workshops, weekend immersive experiences and yoga instructor trainings. Urban Breath Yoga has two studio locations, Maplewood and The Grove. Catch Webb at her Monday and Wednesday evening practices from 7:30-8:30pm at the Maplewood Studio location.
This post was created in partnership with Urban Breath Yoga.
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Amazon is showing strong growth, but we are yet to see how they can capitalize on it to grow exponentially. eBay continues to squeeze money out of its sellers. Could that cause a lot of them to migrate elsewhere? Alibaba has suffered a period through which it has fallen short of expectations. However, with a strong thirst for acquisitions, it could bounce back strongly.
The ecommerce industry is fiercely competitive, and this is driven by the low barriers to entry. As a result, the attrition rate is high. It is therefore commendable for a company to not just just stay in the industry for a long period of time but also to be able to generate billions of dollars in yearly revenue. As it stands, the giants of the ecommerce industry on a global level are Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), and Alibaba (NYSE:BABA). Walmart (NYSE:WMT) has plans to be a big player in this arena; however, that is something which we will have to wait and see. It is worth noting that Walmart's economies of scale and relationship with suppliers makes them a formidable prospect if they can execute on their plans.
Amazon
Amazon has a market cap of $289.3 billion (Oct 29th close), and is now the world's largest retailer after starting from very humble beginnings.
To put it in simple terms, Amazon has had an astounding year. Investors who invested in this ecommerce giant in January 2015 have gained over 100% on their investment. Amazon's domination of the ecommerce market is based on their constant innovation, good customer service, exceptional execution, and a view towards 'trimming the fat' and increasing profitability.
The New York Times published an article earlier this year which showed the amount of pressure Jeff Bezos places on his employees. There was an uproar when the findings were published; however, this quest for perfection reflects well on their bottomline.
Amazon's latest earnings call was a welcome surprise to investors. They were expected to announce a loss; conversely, profits were reported at $79 million. This isn't huge but Amazon isn't usually profitable. Moreover, sales shot up by 23%. The market responded with a 7% increase in Amazon stock price.
Moreover, Amazon's popular AWS offering had an operating margin of 25%. As a result, this boosted investors confidence in Amazon. Additionally, it is worth noting that these impressive numbers came without the all-important festive period.
It is also worth noting that a well executed 'Prime day' added 2% to their bottom-line. This is vital to the future profitability of Amazon, because Prime subscribers are more likely to be repeat buyers.
The good fortunes of Amazon mean that Jeff Bezos is now the 5th richest man in the world- which is a nice bonus.
eBay
eBay has a market cap of $34.41 billion (October 29th close)- which is much smaller than Amazon's. However, it is worth noting that eBay doesn't own the products it sells. As a result, its performance is volatile compared to that of Amazon. As an ecommerce platform, it struggles to maintain a consistent customer service experience for its buyers. There is a sentiment among some consumers that eBay is a 'riskier' place to buy as compared to Amazon. Therefore, eBay is more affected by competition, and market forces than Amazon.
eBay's stock price more than halved in July 2015 when it was revealed that eBay was under performing in some key metrics. Moreover, the sellers on eBay are the lifeblood of the company; however, the increasing costs of doing business on eBay means that sellers are forced to operate on very tight margins. For casual sellers, the costs can be a turn-off.
It seems that eBay has the strategy of milking its sellers for as much money as possible. At the end of the day, putting a popular product for sale on eBay almost gurarantees eyeballs. Therefore, eBay is a great place for buyers to gain exposure. However, the high costs are forcing many sellers to sell their products on their own websites. It isn't unusual to receive a package from a seller which includes a discount for your next purchase so long as you buy it on their own website.
eBay's stock climbed 9% on the 21st of October 2015 due to a stronger than expected third quarter. However, eBay's longevity in the industry will be based on its ability to manage its seller and buyer relationships while improving its core product. At the moment, the unique selling point of eBay is unclear, because Amazon offers low prices, fast shipping, and an unparalleled customer service.
eBay has some weaknesses which inhibit its chances of being a strong candidate for long term growth. These are as follows:
--- There is an opportunity for eBay to provide more services to its business sellers while increasing their own bottomline. For instance, they could handle the storage of stock and charge sellers for the priviledge.
--- In Europe, Gumtree is a viable option for sellers. Fortunately, eBay owns Gumtree. It would be nice to see more of Gumtree's business model integrated into eBay's main ecommerce offering.
--- eBay doesn't own the products it sells, unlike Amazon, which continues to grow in terms of acquisitions, products, and services.
Alibaba
Alibaba arguably had the most eagerly anticipated IPO in history. To give you a measure of the level of anticipation, two months after Alibaba went public on the New York stock exchange, its market cap stood at $294 billion. The euphroia surrounding Alibaba was based on the fact that they were a giant in the Chinese market, and China had a healthier economy last year, with a growing middle class. However, Alibaba halved in value by September of 2015.
Importantly, the company continues to strive to diversify its investments, and has made investments in sport, healthcare, and entertainment. The grand plan is for Alibaba to hold investments in a variety of industries which it can then leverage to grow their core products.
One of Alibaba's core products is Aliexpress which is an eBay-esque site for delivering relatively cheap goods to the public. The issue is that Aliexpress is fairly [un]popular for being the Mecca of counterfeit goods. As a result, Alibaba has been hit with lawsuits. Unfortunately, there is little action to 'clean up' the site because of the demand for such goods.
In its quest for growth, this Chinese ecommerce giant has left many stones unturned. For instance, it is vital that it rids the site of counterfeits so that it can grow more internationally. This is due to the fact that Western consumers are less open to the notion of buying from a site on which the authenticity of goods is questionable.
Additionally, Alibaba's diversification plans scream of a drowning man clutching at straws. They need to show investors that they can be incredibly profitable. However, their core products could do with more polish. After all, one cannot build a multi storeyed building on a weak foundation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Amazon continues to be the biggest giant of the e-commerce industry. On the other hand, eBay has a lot of untapped potential, which could make it a more formidable opponent. Alibaba needs to do more to solidify its core products before going on an acquisition spree. The rapid 'scattergun' approach rarely works, and besides, from an investor perspective it can take a while to see growth in terms of dividends.
No one really knows how big Amazon could get. Walmart is looking to get in on the action- but it could be a case of too little too late.
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Shoppers about to spend five months` salary on a car often devote less than five minutes checking to see if it really is the vehicle they want to live with for the next five years.
A number of problems that show up after the sale could be avoided if more attention is paid before the buyer signs on the dotted line. Some shoppers will do no more than take a spin around the block and then commit to 36, 48 or perhaps 60 monthly payments based on making four left or right turns.
The test drive is important, especially now that cars are in short supply and the best guarantee of getting a car by the end of the model year is to take one off the showroom floor.
Here`s some tips when shopping for that new car. Before you turn on the key, get in and survey the surroundings. If it`s going to be the family car, put the family inside, too. The kids often spot problems dad or mom overlook. Is the interior roomy and comfortable or cramped? Can you see safely out front, side and rear? Are the controls easy to reach? Some cars, especially small ones, fit like a $29 suit unless you get optional tilt steering that allows you to get behind the wheel. Will the trunk handle a week`s groceries or the vacation luggage?
Take the car out on the road. Keep the radio off. You want to listen for squeaks, rattles or unusual sounds. You don`t want a salesman chattering in your ear, either. Drive city streets and the open highway. How good is the acceleration from a stop light and when passing or merging? Are the brakes firm or spongy? Does it stop in a straight line?
If the car is a manual does it shift smoothly and quietly or do you have to fight each gear. Don`t go for the ``it will get better the more miles you put on it`` routine. Wine, not cars, improves with age. If you`re driving an automatic, does it lumber through the gears?
Don`t baby the car. Check cornering, handling, roadability. When you approach a turn, does the car body wander in, linger and then come back slowly, or does it snap into and out of each corner or turn? How does the car respond to bumps? Are you jarred or jostled? Don`t wait for dry roads. How does the car handle when the pavement is a bit wet?
When you`ve parked, get out and check fits and finish: doors and deck lid lining up; even hood, door, deck lid openings; evenly applied paint; screws tightened and all items fastened securely. If something isn`t to your liking, you have a better chance of getting it fixed while the check is still in your hand, not the salesman`s. If the salesman says to make a list of problems and bring the car back after 2,000 miles, ask him for the list of things the dealership was supposed to check during the prep which the dealer was already paid to do.
Don`t buy what you don`t test drive or have a chance to see in person. Don`t test a car with a V-8 then order the V-6 and wonder where the power went; or drive a car with automatic then order the five-speed and find you need a court order to get the lever out of second; or test the car with base suspension then order the stiff high performance shocks and stabilizer bars that jar your teeth with every bump. The same car with different equipment will perform in totally different ways.
Find out what is standard and optional, from the power equipment to the body moldings. The AM-FM stereo with six speakers sounded like a symphony in the showroom, but the AM with two speakers that`s standard leaves you disappointed. Be aware that most showroom cars are loaded with options to showcase the car at its best.
Volvo dealers are offering the ultimate test drive. Shoppers can take a new 740 series home with them for 24 hours for a service fee. The amount depends upon the dealer. One dealer said $25 to $35 is typical, and the fee is then applied to your purchase.
CHRYSLER PLANS
Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca says the much-heralded P-car coming out in 1986 was to have been a low-price replacement for the Omni-Horizon but now will be a larger, more luxurious sports car. ``It`ll be fully equipped,`` he said. ``You won`t see any stripped versions. We`ve moved it out of the subcompact market and will make it a nice, new sporty compact in two- and four-door versions.`` Also, a high-mileage, 1.8-liter, four-cylinder engine was to have been standard. ``We`ve tossed out the 1.8,`` Iacocca said. ``Our 2.2-liter four will be standard, and we`ll go heavy in turbos.``
He said Chrysler would focus more on upscale cars in the future, and as long as Chrysler meets federal mileage laws, it has some leeway to play with bigger cars. ``Our cars aren`t going to get ponderous,`` Iacocca said. ``I`m not talking big Cadillacs with V-8s. We`ll have a passel of 4s and V-6s. But compared with our present lines, we`ll go up a bit.``
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