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We're proud of our heritage as Teamsters and our Plan's commitment to you—"Providing Your Benefits. Protecting Your Future." We're here to serve you and your family, today, tomorrow and into the future.
The Plan was established following the June 2013 ratification of IBT-UPS master contract. A board comprised equally of Teamsters and company Trustees directs the Plan. The Trustees selected Southwest Service Administrators TPA, to administer the Plan and provide day-to-day Plan operations with offices in Phoenix, AZ, Albuquerque, NM and Salt Lake City, UT. Southwest Service Administrators is an independent third-party health benefits plan administrator specializing in labor-management funds. They have worked with Teamster funds and other unions' funds since 1995.
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August 1977 Politics & Ideas
The Totalitarian Temptation, by Jean-Francois Revel
Jean-Francois Revel is in the Orwell tradition-a European socialist implacably opposed to Communism-and The Totalitarian Temptation is, accordingly, an essay…
by Stephen Haseler
The Totalitarian Temptation.
by Jean-François Revel.
Translated By David Hapgood. Doubleday. 311 pp. $8.95.
Jean-François Revel is in the Orwell tradition—a European socialist implacably opposed to Communism—and The Totalitarian Temptation is, accordingly, an essay in heresy. Indeed, so central is its challenge to the accepted wisdom of those European intellectuals who are now busily in the process of discovering that socialism and Communism are but differing sects of the same orthodoxy that Revel might seem to be expelling himself from the church altogether. Thus he declares, in the very first sentence of the book, that "the main obstacle to socialism is not capitalism but Communism," and he proceeds to argue, in the teeth of all fashion, that the whole Communist world is—still, today—Stalinist at the core, and to explain why the advance of Communism meets with so little resistance.
The blame for the "docility toward Stalinism," at least in Western Europe, is placed by Revel firmly on the shoulders of the non-Communist Left. He wastes little effort on disguising his contempt for those European socialists who make ritual disclaimers about Stalin himself but increasingly embrace the tradition, the world order, which he alone made possible. This, for Revel, is the meaning of the "pidgin Marxism" that goes by the name of Eurocommunism.
Revel (once but no longer a member of the French Socialist party) is particularly dismissive of François Mitterrand for cravenness toward the French Communists. He simply does not accept that the French Communist party has been "de-Russified," and even if it were, he argues, the simple proclamation of "national roads" to Communism, roads unlinked to Moscow, changes nothing. China and Albania, which are even more totalitarian than the Soviet Union itself, have proved that. The key is not de-Russification, but rather democratization, and of this there seems precious little hope because any relaxation of "democratic centralism" would threaten the very existence of the Western Communist parties. And what is true of French Communism, according to Revel, is true of the Italian and Spanish varieties as well.
If Stalinism is on the march in Western Europe, then in much of the Third World, Revel finds, it has already arrived. He depicts many of the leaders of the less-developed nations as "history's most remarkable herd of new rulers who are freebooters in their origins and authoritarian in their practices." As against Daniel P. Moynihan, who in "The United States in Opposition" (COMMENTARY, March 1975) located the political ideology of those rulers in the tradition of Fabian socialism, Revel suggests rather that Third World leftism is a "Stalinist stew of reactionary statism and verbal socialism."
In one sense, Revel is simply an old-fashioned 1950's social democrat reacting to the new willingness of European socialists to work and enter into governing coalitions with the Communists. Yet what distinguishes Revel from the earlier generation of democratic (and therefore anti-Communist) socialists, and indeed from Orwell too, is his undeniable attraction to both capitalism and the United States. He is not only prepared to defend the United States against the more unbalanced and hysterical condemnations of the Left. He is actually pro-American—and not just by way of comparison with alternative systems. He believes that the United States represents the highest form of political civilization yet known to history, and believes too—as he argued in an earlier work, Without Marx or Jesus—that only in the United States can the next revolutionary advance take place. Revel, in effect, stands orthodox thinking on its head: he is a revolutionary who asserts that real change can only come out of a society that is open to change, that is not inert, bureaucratic, quasi-feudal, centralized, and dogmatized, as he believes all Communist societies to be.
As with the political system of the United States, so with its economic system. Capitalism, to the self-proclaimed socialist Revel, is the most materially abundant and morally acceptable economic system yet devised. He argues, like Marx, that socialism must take root within capitalism, but, unlike Marx, that it can only "develop by outgrowing—not destroying—capitalist civilization, while preserving its cornerstones: the capacity to produce, and political, individual, and cultural freedoms." He is very certain that capitalism and political democracy go together. In fact, he asserts that political democracy "clings to its [capitalism's] back" and that no other economic system has so far effectively carried democracy along with it.
All this points up a central ambiguity in Revel's position. Believing as he does that capitalism is so attractive, that political democracy coexists with it as it coexists with no other economic system, that the United States is a force for good, and that the United States and its economic system are under challenge all over the planet from Stalinism, why should he continue calling himself a socialist?
"We have a surplus of definitions of socialism," Revel writes; "what is lacking are examples of socialism." And again: "There is no such thing as socialism, there is only evidence of socialism. And no such thing as democracy, only evidence of democracy." Yet this finally begs the question. If indeed there are no examples of true socialism in practice; if, as Revel spends so much time proclaiming, all existing socialist systems have been twisted, distorted, and abused—then why bother with the term at all? Courageous as Revel is in taking on the myths of his contemporaries—and he is among the most courageous political intellectuals of our time—it may be that even he lacks the courage to risk a wholesale dissociation from the ruling socialist church. Be that as it may, however, Revel stands out as a shining force for reason and democracy amid a European intelligentsia which is rapidly rejecting both reason and the heritage of democratic freedom.
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The Dumb Ideas of the Bargaining Stage
A Long Overdue Response to Campus Antisemitism
We Are Totally Unprepared for a War in Europe
A Crisis of General Incompetence
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


(NYSCS Case # 2016-07) New York State Crime Stoppers working as a resource for the New York State Police, Hawthorne Barracks is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the Hit & Run of a Tow Truck Driver on I-95 in Harrison, NY.
On Thursday, December 29, 2016 at approximately 6:50 AM., a male tow truck driver was struck by a vehicle as he approached the driver side door of his flat bed truck. He had just loaded a disabled vehicle on to his truck and walked around to the driver's side of his truck when he was struck.
Anyone with information regarding this incident should immediately call the NYS Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-866-313-Tips (8477). Callers can remain anonymous. We don't need to know who you are, just what you know.
← Reward Offered Regarding Stabbing of 20 Year Old Male in Bar Fight in New Paltz, N.Y.


Bedroom cover-version of Depeche Mode classic done on guitar. From their 1987 album 'Music for the Masses'.
Written by Martin L Gore.
@user-888660817: Thanks very much. Very kind of you!
Very heady, and spatial…..great use of effects to produce that vibe…the guitar licks are smooth and simply beautiful. And as always….excellent voice!
@projectpagey: Thank you, mate. Glad you like it. We should maybe have a collaborative bash at 'Somebody' or 'A Question of Time'!


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SME's can now advertise on Twitter
If you're a small to medium sized business and looking to build your community of followers, you may be interested in Twitter's latest announcement that it has opened its advertising platform to SME's in the UK, Ireland and Canada.
In their blog post last week Twitter said "Twitter advertising lets you amplify your presence on the platform, while giving you total control of your message. Use Promoted Accounts to build an active community of followers who are advocates and influencers for your business. If you're looking to broaden the reach of message, try Promoted Tweets, which let you engage with users who are not yet following you based on a variety of powerful targeting options."
The advertising model works on a pay per click basis where you only pay per engagement, e.g. if someone follows, retweets, favourites, replies or clicks on your tweet. Also, like Google adwords, you can set a maximum budget and when you reach that limit your campaign stops, so there's no worry about going over.
Since launching on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this month, Twitter has made a number of announcements to attract advertisers and generate more revenue.
Twitter has partnered with O2 to mark the launch who will be offering a share of £1 million advertising credit, as well as educational content including best practice guides and case studies.
If you're an SME and interested in leveraging Twitter Ads, visit ads.twitter.com.
Blog Post by:
Measuring Effectiveness
Channel Attribution for Google Analytics Data
Attending CBC Conference 2019: Behaviour Change for Health: Digital and other Innovative Methods


We have appointed a team of highly skilled professionals, which helps us in offering a unique array of CZ Fashion Jewelery. We make use of high quality materials and pendants to design these jewelleries as per latest fashion trends prevailing in the global market. Accessible in rodium plating, our CZ Fashion Jewelery is ideal to be worn in special occasions and parties. In addition, our offered jewelleries can be custom made as per the needs of the clients.


Insignia Health is looking for a talented Client Services Coordinator who will listen to our clients to identify their needs, efficiently work to address those needs, and support the entire Client Services team.
The Client Services Coordinator will work with the Insignia Health Client Services team to ensure smooth, successful and ongoing support of Insignia's clients. The Client Coordinator will work with external client contacts, as well as the internal team to facilitate smooth day-to-day operations of clients using Insignia's products.
Facilitate ongoing client account support. Act as the point person for support, questions, client requests and needs, and triage product inquiries for those accounts.
Handle additional client support requests/projects as needed, which may include pulling reports, data review, managing Insignia's eLearning program, understanding functionality of the Flourish system and Dynamics, invoicing, demonstrating Insignia's products and services, and keeping Insignia leadership apprised of client status and updates.
Coordinate training needs with Insignia's corporate trainer for clients using PAM and CFA.
To apply for this position, please send your résumé and cover letter to Julie Niemann at jniemann@insigniahealth.com.
Insignia Health is fast-growing company developing innovative, scientifically based products that fundamentally change how people manage their health and healthcare. Today we have over 300 healthcare clients in across the United States, United Kingdom and other countries who are embracing our approach to health activation and the software we license.
Our passion for health activation stems from research with our proprietary and validated Patient Activation Measure® (PAM®). Over a decade of PAM research anchors our health activation model and suite of health management programs. As individuals progress along the continuum of activation, they experience fewer health crises and become better self-managers. Increased activation translates into better health and lower healthcare costs.
Check out a Wall Street Journal article, a TEDMed 'Great Challenges' session, or loads of other news to learn more about us.
Our team is comprised of independent thinkers who voice opinions, share expertise and celebrate accomplishments and in a casual, yet professional, work environment. Our roots have been growing since 2006 and we will continue to flourish with sensibility and purpose. We would greatly appreciate hearing from you if this position, and our company, feel like a good fit.


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Q: POSIX sh: How can I read an entire file into a single string using only the shell, while preserving whitespace and newlines in the original file? Before everyone freaks out and says this a duplicate, I would like to point out that while there are many questions about reading a file line by line, none that I've found are about storing an entire file into a single variable. Rather, most of the questions seem to be about performing some sort of operation on each line as they are being read in. As a example, consider the below:
#!/bin/sh

while IFS='' read -r line || [ -n "$line" ]; do
    echo "$line"
done < file

I can't seem to implement this for my specific purpose. When I do the below:
#!/bin/sh

newline='
'

string=''
while IFS='' read -r line || [ -n "$line" ]; do
    string="$string""$line""$newline"
done < file

echo "$string"

I almost get there, but now there is an extra newline at the end, and my string is not equal to my file. I've played with this for quite awhile, and I can't seem to read in the file such that my resulting string is completely identical to my file.

A: You're unconditionally adding a newline, with the string="$string""$line""$newline" assignment.
read returns true as long as it successfully reads a line, including a newline. Checking if $line contains anything deals with the possible final line fragment. But when you process it, you need to not add the newline since it wasn't there to begin with. As long as there's no final line fragment, your script works fine.
It's probably easiest to fix by moving the [ -n "$line" ] test outside the loop:
#!/bin/sh
newline='
'
string=
while IFS= read -r line; do
    string="$string$line$newline"
done < "$1"
if [ "$line" ]; then
    string="$string$line"
fi

echo "<$string>"       # markers for clarity

Of course it might also be that the input file only has complete lines, and the extra newline is the one that echo prints. Use printf "%s" "$string" to print just the contents of the variable, without a newline or anything else. Some shells have echo -n to inhibit the final newline, but that's nonstandard.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Jeffrey Masson has written a stunning coming-of-age story-an astonishing "prequel" to his critically acclaimed Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst.
Masson grew up in the 1940s and 1950s with a guru in his house - the celebrated mystic Paul Brunton ("P.B." to those who knew him), who numbered Masson's parents among his handful of close disciples and singled out young Jeff as a potential heir to his spiritual kingdom. In 1956, P.B. convinced the Massons that a third world war was imminent and recommended they move to Montevideo, a "safe" location. From Uruguay, Masson went off at P.B.'s bidding to study Sanskrit at Harvard, where he came to understand the man was not what he presented himself to be.
Written with wit and affection tinged with disillusion that is never bitter, My Father's Guru is a fascinating memoir in the tradition of Geoffrey Wolff's The Duke of Deception: a book not only about P.B., but about what it means to grow up in the shadow of a man who laid claim to such enormous power. In emerging from the hothouse world of spirituality, Masson began a journey through disillusion into a critical understanding of the roots of power and powerlessness.


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© Rex Shutterstock
Why Jeff 'The Dude' Lebowksi is a loser
By Matt Glasby 7 March 2016
As the Coen brothers' Hail, Caesar! hits cinemas, Matt Glasby looks back at the most overrated character in their oeuvre...
Back in the 2000s there was a period when no party was complete without some idiot in a dressing gown, White Russian in hand, telling non-existent Steve Buscemi's (Buscemae?) to shut the fuck up. But exactly what is it about The Big Lebowski (1998), the shaggiest of the Coens' shaggy-dog stories, and its ageing stoner hero (Jeff Bridges) that resonates so strongly with the time-rich and taste-poor? Sure, it's funny in places, and the supporting cast is unimpeachable (John Goodman, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Julianne Moore), but it so desperately wants to be a cult film, it forgets that's not how cult films work. You can't set out to create one. And, as viewers, they don't just land in your lap. You have to unearth them.
We've discussed the perils of giving yourself a cool-sounding soubriquet (see Sting, The Shermanator, or this, but even these guys aren't as precious about it as the supposedly laidback Lebowski. "Let me explain something to you," he says in a rare moment of actually being able to string a sentence together. "Um, I am not 'Mr Lebowski'… I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing…" Clearly not into the whole brevity thing either, the film spends an inordinate amount of time telling us how quite cool El Duderino is, while showing us the exact opposite. This is, after all, a man who writes out cheques for 69 cents (dated 11 September, as George Bush Sr talks war on the TV news, conspiracy fans), but doesn't pay his rent, keeps himself in Kahlua and Thai stick, but dodges the bill when it comes to – SPOILERS – his own friend's cremation, and spends his time bowling, driving round and experiencing "the odd acid flashback".
And what about those friends? Look closely and you'll see The Big Lebowski falls prey to what we'll call Happy Days Syndrome, whereby the hero looks cool only in relation to the people he hangs around with – in this case psychotic Walter (Goodman) and sadsack Donnie (Buscemi) – who are even bigger losers than he is. Perhaps that's the same reason students love The Dude: he makes it OK to not try. But it isn't OK, at least not if you're nearer 50 than 15.
There's always someone at the party who refers to himself in the third person, refuses to pay his way and parks in the disabled spot. You'd just better hope he isn't the coolest guy there. Or worse, he's you.
Now read
• Why Top Gun is the worst film ever
• 5 Reasons why you should never watch Entourage
You're not as healthy as you think you are
By Damon Young 9 December 2020
44 vegan grooming products that do as good as they feel
By Zak Maoui, Aaron Toumazou, Daphne Bugler 2 January 2021


text:
package com.google.cloud.securitycenter.v1p1beta1.samples;

// [START securitycenter_v1p1beta1_generated_SecurityCenter_SetFindingState_async]
import com.google.api.core.ApiFuture;
import com.google.cloud.securitycenter.v1p1beta1.Finding;
import com.google.cloud.securitycenter.v1p1beta1.FindingName;
import com.google.cloud.securitycenter.v1p1beta1.SecurityCenterClient;
import com.google.cloud.securitycenter.v1p1beta1.SetFindingStateRequest;
import com.google.protobuf.Timestamp;

public class AsyncSetFindingState {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    asyncSetFindingState();
  }

  public static void asyncSetFindingState() throws Exception {
    // This snippet has been automatically generated and should be regarded as a code template only.
    // It will require modifications to work:
    // - It may require correct/in-range values for request initialization.
    // - It may require specifying regional endpoints when creating the service client as shown in
    // https://cloud.google.com/java/docs/setup#configure_endpoints_for_the_client_library
    try (SecurityCenterClient securityCenterClient = SecurityCenterClient.create()) {
      SetFindingStateRequest request =
          SetFindingStateRequest.newBuilder()
              .setName(
                  FindingName.ofOrganizationSourceFindingName(
                          "[ORGANIZATION]", "[SOURCE]", "[FINDING]")
                      .toString())
              .setStartTime(Timestamp.newBuilder().build())
              .build();
      ApiFuture<Finding> future =
          securityCenterClient.setFindingStateCallable().futureCall(request);
      // Do something.
      Finding response = future.get();
    }
  }
}
// [END securitycenter_v1p1beta1_generated_SecurityCenter_SetFindingState_async]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Go to Digishop page, then settings.
We need to find out path to our file directory.
Take a look at root path. Yours will be different then mine.
What I want to do is create publically non-accessible secure directory.
and thats where I want to store my files.
So I will create an new folder in W:\ , and call it FILES.
Back to Digishop configuration, and enter new path.
Make sure the folder name is case sensitive.
And thats all to it.
Now your files will be secure and out of reach from illegal downloading.


Starting a small business from your cell phone can easily work… for a while. But as your business takes off, you will see that your flashy smartphone may not have all the bells and whistles you'll need for the growing demand. If you're in this position, it may be time to upgrade to a system that can manage your phone calls in an efficient manner. Not only will your business appear to be more professional, having more reliable options to handle the increase of calls may be a welcome relief. Here is what to do when your business outgrows your cell phone.
Changing your personal voicemail to a professional voicemail is the first step in making your business more professional. A personal voicemail isn't the best way to greet customers, and it may even confuse them into believing that they have dialed the wrong number. There are many ways that you can go about creating a professional voicemail greeting. But even as your daily calls increase, even your smartphone's mailbox won't be able to handle all the incoming callers.
Once your business has begun to grow, you'll notice that you're getting a lot more callers, from loyal customers, and new prospective buyers. It is crucial that your business has a high response to these callers. If you're on the phone with one customer and another customer calls, it will go to voicemail. If another customer calls at that exact moment, the call is going to receive a busy signal. A busy signal is the worst thing that your customer can get. It shows them that you're not available and that their call is not important to you. If your call volume has increased to the point where it is possible for three callers to be calling simultaneously, it is probably the right time to get a phone system that can handle multiple phone calls so no one gets lost in the abyss.
Now that you've realized that even the most polished voicemail greeting won't suffice in every situation, it's time to think about other options. A lot of business people have an extra cell phone that they use only when emailing or speaking to clients. But having an extra cell phone can feel clunky. Not to mention overwhelming, when you finally look over at your second smartphone to see that you've missed 1,000 emails. Getting a virtual phone number allows you to have a second phone line without having to purchase another device. Also, most virtual phone numbers can be set up to your tablet, smartphone, and computer. Which means that you can have access to your customers from more than one device, with total convenience.
Getting a virtual number is a simple process that offers many benefits to business owners. Virtual phone numbers come with a variety of fantastic features that will help you connect with your consumers more easily while making your business look even more professional. Some features that are available with virtual phone numbers include personalized voicemail greetings, local ringback tones, and time of day routing. If your workday is from 9-5, then you can easily set up your virtual phone number to forward over to voicemail or your email account so that way you can spend more time enjoying life. Instead of answering constant calls from customers during your son's soccer game, you can actually be there! If you have a business that employs more than one person, then you'll have the option of transferring the call to another member of staff who is better prepared to answer a customer's particular questions. For example, if you are the CEO of your company and your only employee is the head of sales, then you have the option to forward any calls to his line if they pertain to his particular line of knowledge.
There are several options available for choosing a call forwarding company, but none stand out more than Global Call Forwarding. You can even try a virtual phone number risk-free at GlobalCallForwarding.com. They are currently offering a 7-day free trial for prospective customers. If your business is ready to expand, take the next step and contact Global Call Forwarding today.


How can we procure innovative healthcare infrastructure?
Across the world, the use of service contracts and performance based contracting for capital projects has expanded widely since the 1990s. In the UK there was a shift from using government funds to procure healthcare infrastructure towards involving the private sector via the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). Despite the PFI's current decline, private sector engagement in the delivery and management of public sector healthcare projects is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. Moreover, its use outside the UK is growing.
HaCIRIC projects are exploring how these public-private partnership models have impacted on healthcare infrastructure, focusing especially on their role in stimulating innovative design and construction, and in performance improvement. This work provides useful lessons for future approaches to financing and procurement.
An initial study investigated innovation in several PFI and non-PFI hospital projects. This found that the design solutions in the PFI schemes showed little innovative thinking due in part to the PFI consortia's risk aversion and the hospital trust's unwillingness to pay for 'risky' innovations.
Increase power and knowledge of purchasers at key leverage moments?
Another project explored the balance of power between organisations involved in healthcare infrastructure procurement and the impact on innovation decisions. The key features included financial resources, time, formal authority, knowledge of hospital operation, knowledge of hospital design and construction and reputation. The research found the procurement process had three important stages: (1) from OJEC notice to evaluation and selection of preferred bidder, (2) from evaluation and selection of preferred bidder to contract award, and (3) from contract award onwards. The power of the bidders in relation to Trusts gradually increased through these three stages up to financial close, but the funders maintained a stable powerful position until the project construction was completed.
Innovation is poor in stage 1 because the Trust lacks design knowledge to exploit its superior power with respect to the bidder. In stage 2, delays, leading to shortages of time and money, undermine potential innovation. During stage 3, when the bidder is most powerful, significant innovation is unlikely because it will cost time and money.
Increase client power to influence supply chain?
We also investigated the role contracts or other mechanisms can play in incentivising innovative ideas or processes in the supply chain. We found that clients have surprisingly limited power to influence innovation adoption in the supply chain. No evidence of direct or standard incentives in various procurement models was found, nor was there any clear evidence of interfaces in the supply chain that facilitate innovation diffusion.
Increase contractors' knowledge of clinical operations?
Finally, we have investigated how the framework of guidance and statutory requirements for planning, design and construction of healthcare facilities impacts on hospital design. We found an unsatisfactory situation where infrastructure planning is typically driven by planners preoccupied by competing with colleagues for operational space. Project execution tends to follow their decisions and is done by contractors whose knowledge of clinical operations is minimal.


IDeeJazz is proud that on the first day of the sixth festival's main program, in the Estonian National Museum's new building you will be able to enjoy a top-notch concert by Poland's best-known jazz ensemble – Marcin Wasilewski Trio. On the same stage the magnificent Kadri Voorand and her quartet will offer the festival's audience unforgettable musical moments.
The Marcin Wasilewski Trio is one of the brightest stars of the Polish jazz scene, recognised for their unique talent in blending tradition with contemporary sound. The Marcin Wasilewski Trio is considered one of the most acclaimed and unique jazz formations of its generation, and it has garnered recognition in its native Poland as well as abroad.
The Trio is present on the jazz scene from the beggining of the 1994, first as Simple Acoustic Trio, and from 2008 as Marcin Wasilewski Trio travelling around all continents to present their music. They were members of Tomasz Stanko Quartet for 15 years, the longest collaborators of Stanko.
They are ECM recording artists also as a Trio ('Trio' 2003, 'January' 2007 and 'Faithful' 2011 and "Spark Of Life" 2014).
Marcin Wasilewski: "My aim and desire in music is to express myself and my emotions most freely as possible, and- with understanding my capabilities at the same time- to combine it with the highest possible artistry in my music approach and performance, while playing.
The leader, Marcin Wasilewski (piano), was nominated for the "Paul Acket Award" in 2009. This music prize is awarded annually to a young artist who has chosen his or her own way injazz music and hence deserves more recognition. The nominees are selected by an international committee of jazz critics. Paul Acket Award is associated with the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam. Another highlights of 2005 and 2011 was Down Beat Annual Critics Polls in which Wasilewski was listed as a "rising piano star".
Marcin and Slawomir Kurkiewicz began playing jazz together as 15-year old students at the Koszalin High School of Music. Their first trio was for medin the 1989 as SIMPLE ACOUSTIC TRIO. In 1993 drummer Michal Miskiewicz, son of noted Polish alto sax player Henryk Miskiewicz, joined them, and the group's line-up has been stable ever since. As the Simple Acoustic Trio they won awards in Poland and issued five albums on local labels. (Their early emphasis on Komeda awakened Tomasz Stanko's interest in the group, and through the 1990s they collaborated with the trumpeter on projects, beginning with theatre music; by the decade's end, they'd progressed to become his regular band. In 2001 their work together was documented, to public acclaim, on the Stanko Quartet album Soul of Things, recorded by ECM in 2001, followed by Suspended Night in 2003, and Lontano in 2005.
In addition to national and European concerts and festivals, tours in recent years have led the Marcin Wasilewski Trio to Latin American countries, Germany, the United States and Canada.
At the end of November 2014., just six weeks after release has obtained the status of "Golden Album" and received many honours: "Album of the Year 2014" and "ACOUSTIC BAND Of The Year" by Jazz Forum, and the most prestigious Music Award in Poland FRYDERYK: for BEST ALBUM of The YEAR, and Marcin Wasilewski has received his statue of FRYDERYK in ARTIST OF The YEAR category.


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text:
Q: Python Selenium 3.4.3 do not raise timeouts, and goes to hung state Using Python 2.7.12, Selenium 3.4.3, Chrome Version 62.0.3202.94 (Official Build) (32-bit).
While trying to ensure presence of element as follows but no exception is raised when x is not present:
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait as WDW
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
try:
    WDW(driver, 20).until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH, x)))
except Exception e:
    print(e)

2nd option:

try:
    we = driver.find_element(By.XPATH, x)
except Exception e:
    print(e)

Is there a issue with the syntax or a logical issue?

A: Implicit_wait was set to 10 mins, which caused this behaviour. Reducing the value gave expected results.


text:
Journey of Love
by Arnita R. Coles
Published: December 2, 2005 Pages: 136 Downloads: 331
Romance: Modern,
Fiction - Romance,
Romance - General,
Fiction / Romance / General
The Journey of the Heart Series were the first books written by Colleen Coble. Writing those books was part of the grieving process after she lost her brother Randy in a freak lightning accident. With a fresh edit and some changes, each installment of the Journey of the Heart will draw you in with mystery and romance. Regardless of any temporary setbacks, recovery is an ongoing process that brings joy and fulfillment back to life. While trapped in the bondage of addiction, both the addict and the family become hopeless and frustrated. Beginning with the intervention process, hope is rekindled and the journey of recovery begins. Read Third Part! from the story The Journey Of Love [Zanobia Book 2] by MakeupxJunkie with 3, up now! Zano Reviews: Buy a cheap copy of A Journey of Unconditional Love: A Love book by Michele Bell. Free shipping over $
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Catalogue of the extensive and valuable library collected at the end of the last and beginning of the present century by Michael Wodhull ...
Section-by-section analysis of Job Training Partnership Act
Phase Zero Report of the Core-Shell Treatment System Project
The Pantheon of the age, or, Memoirs of 3000 contemporary public characters
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Eat Fish, Live Better
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Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia is a memoir by American author Elizabeth Gilbert. The memoir chronicles the author's trip around the world after her divorce and what she discovered during her travels.
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Nurturing Healing Love: A Mother's Journey of Hope & Forgiveness by Scarlett Lewis with Natasha Stoynoff From the forward by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer When tragedy strikes, our first human response is to react in anger and with rage in our hearts, to attempt to end such dark behavior by throwing more darkness at the problem.This book is a must for all those who are caring for an ill or elderly loved one.
It not only contains a wealth of practical information, but also guides us through the spiritual journey and personal growth that is so often a the unrecognized benefit of caregiving.Love's Long Journey is a made-for-television Christian drama film based on a series of books by Janette was directed by Michael Landon Jr.
and was originally aired on Hallmark Channel on December 3, It is the third movie in the Love Saga, which includes Love Comes Softly (), Love's Enduring Promise (), Love's Abiding Joy (), Love's Unending Legacy (), Love Directed by: Michael Landon Jr.


text:
2020 ICE 61 CAT
EUR 1,474,168*
US$ 1,635,000 BTW niet betaald (EUR 1,474,168)
This NEW ICE CAT 61 and 67 Designs feature Dual Composite Steering Wheels, Carbon-glass Infusion Construction of both Hull and Deck, Carbon Spar, Carbon Chainplates, Volvo Penta 75 HP Diesel Engine w/Three Bladed Folding Prop x 2, Structural Fresh, Grey and Black Water Tanks, Flush Mounted Deck Hatches w/Screens and Blinds, Davits for Dinghy Storage, Delta Anchor, Swim ladder, LED Nav Lights, Interior LED Lighting, Interior in Ultra-Suede, Corian Counter Tops, 2,000W Inverter, 3 Burner Stove w/Oven, Refrigeration and Freezer and More ...
The ICE CAT 61 and 67 are developed through the collaboration between ICE YACHTS and the yacht Designer/Engineer Enrico Contreas, father of the legendary catamarans Mattia and one of the most experienced designers of catamarans.
Together ICE Yachts and Contreas began the design and development of a new generation of catamarans with the ICE CAT 61 and 67, a brand new multihull characterized by very pure and efficient lines. This represents a complete re-design of the legendary " SBANDATO", the Mattia 56 that amazed everyone for its' speed and manoeuvrability and established a reference for Cats of this size.
The lines are fashion forward with aft inclining bows. We believe that a boat which is a cruising boat, a very fast cruising boat at that, requires a convenient area in the bow for such menial but important tasks as recovering mooring lines from a buoy.
The bow is characterized by the "scimitar sword" shape as found on the new ICE 33 and ICE 52.
This spacious deck is high over the water with large volume in the hulls for added buoyancy when driving down wind. The deck height results in a dry deck for comfort and safety and whose aspects have guided technicians at ICE Yachts in every stage of the project.
Now, with the possibility of building hulls in newer technologies and innovative materials including epoxy resin construction with hybrid glass/carbon fabrics has yielded light but strong hulls and interior furniture.
The weight reduction translates into better speeds and manoeuvrability without sacrificing the high quality of the modernly designed interior and have optimized spaces with attention to finishing detail.
The ICE CAT 61 and 67 interior and finishes construction details are the same level as all ICE Yachts; a level that you can't find available in CAT boats currently sold in the market by mass production shipyards.
The Overall Length is 61' for the 61 and 67' for the 67 offering excellent performance and stability with generous volumes both internally and externally. The Beam is 24' 3" and with a max draft of 1' 4", the ICE CAT 61 and 67 easily enters ports and shallow bays without issue.
The cockpit, located on the same level as the saloon floor, offers a large area fully usable during the day, at night, at sea and at anchor in perfect continuity with the inner salon area.
The sail plan with an impressive carbon mast, the real driving force of the boat, is effective and easy to manage. The mainsheet and movement of the traveller can be automated with an electric motor, making it very simple to adjust the mainsail. The same is true for the self-tacking jib. The Gennaker is the only sail that requires manual management but is effected using an electric winch.
The anticipated Apparent Wind Angle is 30° because of the very clean water lines of the hulls, the finely tuned sail plan, and the efficiency of the appendages. The deck plan provides that the jib sheet slide along a recessed gunwale so there is ease of movement on deck.
Taking advantage of its size and its' power-to-weight ratio, the ICE CAT 61 and 67 are engineered to develop high apparent wind speeds and reaching abilities at high speeds that would be impossible for a cruising monohull to achieve.
The designed sailing speeds exceed 25 knots with a projected speed under power of 13.5 knots using two auxiliary engines of 80 hp each.
For enthusiasts there is consideration for a foiling upgrade, a FULL CARBON version in which under certain conditions you can literally fly over the water.
Among the options, there is consideration for a hybrid propulsion diesel/electric auxiliary power with a new patent pending solution. The innovation part of this system is that it can also be used in case of issues with the electronics.
The ICE CAT 61 and the ICE CAT 67 are the first in a family of ICE Yacht catamarans ranging from 51 to 69 feet which will be joined in the production lines with ICE Yachts monohulls from 33 to 100 feet. Currently, there are two ICE CAT 61's and 67's under construction at the ICE Production Facility.
Rick Johnson 586-530-7750 Rick@TurnerJohnsonYachts.com
Please contact Richard Johnson at (586) 530-7750
Kiel: Hefkiel
Merk motor: Volvo Penta
Type motor: 75 D2 SD x 2
Schroef: 3 bladschroef
Type aandrijving: Saildrive
RE: ICE 61 CAT, Italie
Turner Johnson Yacht Sales Group
704 53rd Avenue


text:
Jay Gabler
Writer, editor, etc.
Twin Cities Daily Planet Movie Reviews
Date:July 9, 2011
Author:Jay
← Twin Cities Daily Planet Book Reviews
Twin Cities Daily Planet Photography →
Garrison Keillor, our beloved prodigal son (10/22/2008)
Reviewing the documentary The Man in Red Shoes, I muse on Mr. Minnesota. "Keillor seems to be at peace with his current social and geographic station (he splits his time between Minnesota and New York), but although we hear him tell himself that it's just as well he didn't attain his youthful ambition of writing Talk of the Town pieces for The New Yorker, it's clear that—like his hero F. Scott Fitzgerald—he has mixed feelings about his association with the Gopher State."
Brett Gaylor's Remix Manifesto: A spectre is haunting your hard drive (5/27/2009)
"What makes Gaylor's film essential viewing is his convincing demonstration that appropriation is so pervasive in nearly all creative endeavors that to forbid the unauthorized republishing of copyright material, period, is to pursue an exercise in absurdity. Further, he points out that acts technically amounting to copyright violation—everything from making a mix CD to painting Mickey Mouse on the wall of a daycare center—are so commonplace that enforcement has become more or less arbitrary."
Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man: Best movie of the decade? (8/22/2009)
"What makes Timothy Treadwell such a compelling character is the poignant contrast between the extremely real circumstances of his life in the wilderness (it doesn't get any more real than being eaten by a bear) and the totally contrived nature of the story he told himself about it. […] Don't all of us, to some extent, use the indisputably real circumstances of our lives as the backdrop for a self-narrated story in which things appear in the light we wish them to appear, in which our actions are uniquely consequential and the beings around us grateful for our kind service to their welfare?"
Fargo, the Coen Brothers' snow-cold classic (9/23/2009)
"Fargo was the Coens' first film to be set here in their native state, and it remains their best by a wide margin. All the brothers' gifts are on full display in this darkly comic thriller, and for once they are at the service of a complete cast of genuine characters rather than showy performances. Riveting, funny, and most moving in the parts where you least expect to be moved, Fargo is one of the best films of its—or any—decade."
Science Museum's Omnifest 2010 brings you up close and personal with Vincent Van Gogh, Pink, and a parachuting SUV (1/24/2010)
"Ski to the Max is pure Omniporn. Like conventional porn, it employs stilted dialogue and implausible scenarios in the service of getting to the Good Parts as quickly as possible. The only difference between Ski to the Max and something you'd find on the discount rack at Sexworld is that instead of people performing staggeringly difficult and outrageously inadvisable stunts in the nude, they do so in snowsuits and parachutes."
Black Swan is a mesmerizing miracle from Darren Aronofsky (12/11/2010)
"The ballet being mounted (in more ways than one) is Swan Lake, as it has to be—for this material, Debussy wouldn't cut it. Not since Shine have I seen a movie so enthusiastically mud-wrestle with lugubrious orchestral classics: Tchaikovsky thunders on the soundtrack as Aronofsky's camera stays tight in on the dancers' spinning heads and limpid limbs. Aronofsky's approach to ballet is like George Lucas's approach to space combat: even if you wouldn't hear those loud wooshes in real life, they sure make for some exciting cinema."
Sofia Coppola's Somewhere is really, really, really boring (1/5/2011)
"Roger Ebert defines an Idiot Plot as 'a plot that requires all the characters to be idiots. If they weren't, they'd immediately figure out everything and the movie would be over.' This type of plot is usually found in brain-dead thrillers and overlong whodunits; Somewhere may be the smartest movie with an Idiot Plot ever to have been committed to celluloid. It looks and sounds like an art film, but if you strip away the exotic locales and languid silences, you're left with the bones of a Hallmark Movie. Should Johnny forsake at least a portion of his soulless jet-setting lifestyle to spend a little more time with his daughter? As my aunt Betsy would say, 'Gee, do you think maybe?!'"
Justin Bieber: Never Say Never: A giant 3D encounter with the Jesus of Pop (2/12/11)
"Justin Bieber is more God-fearing than me, and why wouldn't he be? It would be impossible to be Justin Bieber and not believe that there was some higher power that brought you into being, because how could a mortal womb birth such preternatural perfection? His nickname should be the Jesus of Pop."
Jane Eyre is a hottie—in that wind-swept, tortured way (3/26/2011)
This review sparked some controversy in Facebook comments: one reader did not appreciate my characterization of the madwoman in the attic as "a wild beauty that you'd totally be DTF if you met her at a rave."
Sorry, Miranda July: I walked out on The Future (8/12/2011)
"Just before I left, Sophie was backing vacuously into a situation that looked like it might lead to a sexual dalliance—if we had any indication that she or her boyfriend even knew what sex was. These characters are in their mid-30s, but from the way they interact with the world and one another, you wonder whether they know that 'sex' means something more than just kissing with tongues. If they do, you wonder whether it's ethical, or even legal, to have intercourse with a woman who carries a blankey with her at all times. (I kid. You. Not.)"
Copyright © 2019 Jay Gabler
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text:
Transmutations and isotopes
By Mike Sutton2006-04-26T14:07:17+01:00
Frederick Soddy's work with Ernest Rutherford on radioactivity shook the foundations of chemistry. Mike Sutton looks at Soddy's remarkable career.
Frederick Soddy's work with Ernest Rutherford on radioactivity shook the foundations of chemistry. Mike Sutton looks at Soddy's remarkable career.
In the spring of 1900, a young English chemist was struggling to get his foot on the bottom rung of the academic ladder. Since gaining his first-class honours degree, Frederick Soddy had received no worthwhile job offers. Hearing that the chemistry professor at the University of Toronto was retiring, he applied for the chair, and sailed to Canada to present his case in person, without success. However, a speculative visit to Montreal gained him the humbler post of laboratory demonstrator at McGill University.
Shortly afterwards Soddy began his historic collaboration with McGill's junior physics professor, Ernest Rutherford. Their research on radioactivity soon shook the foundations of chemistry, by demonstrating that one element could change into another. Soddy went on to make further important discoveries, win a Nobel prize, and put a new word - isotope - into the dictionary.
Source: © Murray Robertson
Soddy put the word 'isotope' in the dictionary
Soddy was born on 2 September 1877, the youngest child of a London corn merchant living in semi-retirement on the Sussex coast. Eighteen months after his birth, Frederick's mother died. Brought up mainly by his half-sister Lydia, he was a shy child who had difficulty relating to other people. This diffidence, together with an acute sensitivity to real (and imagined) attacks, was to cause Frederick problems throughout his life. At school in Eastbourne he disliked the team sports which dominated the boys' social world, preferring solitary two-mile swims in the sea. Thomas Huxley's books inclined him towards the sciences, and the teaching of Robert Hughes, a young Oxford graduate, inspired him to choose a career in chemistry.
A slow start
Soddy's first research paper, co-authored with Hughes, appeared in Chemical News in 1894. In January 1896, a term late because he had to retake the Latin entrance exam, Soddy began studying at Oxford. In 1898 his brilliant performance in finals impressed the external examiner, William Ramsay. However, his Oxford superiors did not offer Soddy the college fellowship he might reasonably have expected after this result. He stayed on another year, working at organic syntheses in an improvised basement laboratory and hoping something would turn up. Then Canada beckoned, and his career took off.
Soddy's research with Rutherford grew out of a formal debate at McGill's physics society in March 1901. Rutherford proposed that the energy emitted by radioactive elements came from the break-up of atoms. Soddy's polished rhetoric and caustic wit convinced the audience that there was insufficient evidence for this. Rutherford found the collision upsetting, but a few months later the two men were co-operating to resolve the question experimentally. Radioactivity was then a very new topic.
Five years previously, Henri Becquerel had announced that something emitted by a uranium-bearing mineral left traces on wrapped photographic plates. Others, including Rutherford, and Marie and Pierre Curie, quickly joined the hunt. By 1901 several radioactive minerals were known, and rays of three kinds - alpha, beta and gamma - had been identified, though their origin remained mysterious.
Some physicists argued that previously absorbed energy was being re-emitted, as happens in fluorescent substances. Yet mineral samples which had long been in darkness still radiated, apparently defying the law of conservation of energy. Meanwhile, some of the new radioactive elements did not seem to fit anywhere in the periodic table. By the time Soddy left Canada in 1903, he and Rutherford had made significant progress towards solving these puzzles.
Discovering emanation
They showed that radioactive thorium released a gas, itself highly radioactive, which they called 'emanation' (later renamed radon). Its refusal to combine with standard reagents indicated that it belonged to the same family as argon (discovered by Ramsay in 1894). Soddy and Rutherford also detected a new solid radioactive element, which they called thorium-X (later identified as radium). After the emanation and thorium-X were removed, the remaining thorium was still radioactive, and soon fresh emanation and more thorium-X appeared. It seemed thorium was continually giving birth to these two new elements as it emitted radiation.
Eventually, the emanation generated yet another new substance - a radioactive deposit on the walls of the containing vessel. Years later, Soddy recalled the moment when he exclaimed 'Rutherford, this is transmutation!' The reply came back 'For Mike's sake Soddy, don't call it transmutation. They'll have our heads off as alchemists.' Nevertheless, their experiments convinced all but a few die-hards that transmutation was happening. In several classic papers they tracked the sequence of radioactive decay, adopting the term 'half-life' for the period during which 50 per cent of any elementary sample was transformed into its daughter products.
In the spring of 1903 Soddy joined forces with Ramsay - by then Sir William - at University College London. Using the spectroscope, they proved that radioactive decay also generated helium gas. (Rutherford had already predicted this, because alpha particles had approximately the same mass as helium atoms).
However, finding Ramsay a difficult colleague and London an uncongenial workplace, Soddy moved on. In 1904 he became a lecturer at Glasgow University, with a lab of his own and several post-graduate students to support his research. While seeking homes in the periodic table for new radioactive elements, he acquired a more settled home himself, marrying Winifred Beilby in 1908. Her father was a scientific industrialist, and a generous benefactor of Glasgow University. Her mother was a feminist intellectual, at the centre of a lively social and cultural network into which Soddy was welcomed. Winifred and Frederick both loved mountains, and enjoyed hill-walking and skiing together. Neither of them feared championing controversial causes, and he soon joined her in campaigning for women's rights.
While the suffragettes battled to make the electoral system more sensible, chemists struggled to make sense of the radioactive elements. The new elements usually had short half-lives, and were available only in tiny quantities, so establishing their chemical properties proved difficult.
By 1910 Soddy had identified several anomalous groups of elementary substances - groups whose members had different radioactive characteristics but were chemically indistinguishable. He boldly declared that each group was a cluster of variant forms of a single element, which should therefore be located at a single point in the periodic table. At a dinner-party with the Beilbys in 1913, Margaret Todd suggested the name 'isotope' for these entities. (In classical Greek, iso means 'the same', and topos is 'place'.) Soddy immediately adopted and publicised the new word.
Others challenged the concept, but it was eventually vindicated by the ultra-precise atomic weight measurements of Theodore Richards and his co-workers at Harvard University, US. Lead is the final product of the radioactive decay of uranium, thorium and radium, but atomic weights of lead samples from these sources differed from that of lead extracted from non-radioactive ores. After 1919, as Francis Aston developed the technique of mass spectrometry, many other elements were found to exist in multiple isotopic forms.
Searching for a general law
Meanwhile, the search continued for a general law of radioactive decay. In 1911, Soddy asserted that when an atom of a radioactive element emitted an alpha-particle, its daughter element was located two places to the left in the periodic table. In 1912, Kasimir Fajans and Alexander Russell independently proposed that the emission of a beta-particle (an electron) produced a new element one place to the right in the table. Soddy combined these rules with his concept of the isotope to create a general 'displacement law' early in 1913.
Fajans had already reached similar conclusions, but he thought the emitted beta-particles were outer valence electrons. Soddy correctly stated that they were expelled from the atomic nucleus. The planetary model of the atom - a small, dense core encircled by a tenuous cloud of electrons - had been endorsed by Rutherford in 1911. It was supported by experiments on the scattering of alpha-particles done by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden under Rutherford's supervision. Like Rutherford, Soddy believed that the atomic nucleus was the source of radioactive energy. He was probably the first to appreciate what might happen if humanity gained control of that energy.
Glasgow has a long tradition of evening classes for working people. As Soddy's political views moved leftwards, he became involved in adult education, and in 1909 gave some lectures on radio-chemistry that were published as The interpretation of radium. He suggested that nuclear energy might one day provide abundant, cheap, clean power, ending pollution and poverty for ever. He also warned that its uncontrolled release could produce terrible destruction.
Soddy's book inspired HG Wells to write The world set free - a futuristic novel that concludes with the earth devastated by nuclear explosions and radioactive debris. It was published in 1914, and dedicated to Soddy. Later that year, Soddy became professor of chemistry at Aberdeen. The impact of war on the university, and his involvement with social and political issues, reduced his research output, but he had already achieved enough to earn the 1921 Nobel prize for chemistry for his work on radioactive substances and isotopes.
After accepting an Oxford chair in 1919, Soddy proposed radical changes to the university's teaching and research procedures. Most were accepted, but only after his term of office ended. The mixture of bluster and benevolence with which Rutherford ran the Cavendish laboratory at Cambridge was quite alien to Soddy, who never understood that simply being in the right was insufficient to push decisions through university committees. When he finally got funds to refurbish the old chemistry lab at Oxford, it was a success, but he never established a research group comparable with Rutherford's.
Pursuing other interests
Shattered by his wife's death in 1936, Soddy retired from his Oxford post and thereafter pursued his other interests outside chemistry. His numerous publications on mathematics, engineering, economics and politics were always original and provocative, though specialists in these fields usually dismissed them as unsound or irrelevant.
Soddy was inclined towards socialism by the poverty he witnessed in Glasgow before the first world war, and for some years he supported the Independent Labour Party. However, unlike many European intellectuals, he was not converted to Marxism by the apparent failure of traditional economic policies during the recessions of the 1920s and 1930s. Instead, he developed a novel economic theory from the laws of thermodynamics, arguing that money in the economic world is analogous to energy in the physical world. The Social Credit and New Britain movements were both sympathetic to his ideas, but he made no headway with the mainstream parties, or among academic economists. Nevertheless, his prediction that a single currency would unite Europe in peace and prosperity seems more plausible now than it did in the 1930s.
Source: © Photodisc / iStockphotos
Soddy spoke out in favour of nuclear power and a single European currency
Still more prescient was Soddy's warning that the world's fossil fuels would run out in the near future, after which only nuclear energy could preserve civilisation. This opinion is now widely (though not universally) accepted. However, his conviction that nuclear war would be utterly disastrous for humanity has become part of the conventional wisdom of our time. One of his last public acts was to join 17 other Nobel prize winners in signing an appeal to the world's leaders to renounce nuclear weapons.
Soddy died on 22 September 1956. He left most of his assets to establish a trust fund to enable teachers and students to visit communities different from their own, at home and abroad. It was a fitting memorial for a man who seldom found it easy to socialise, but who nevertheless believed that greater understanding and fellowship between peoples is essential if the human species is to survive the nuclear age.
Mike Sutton is senior lecturer in history at Northumbria University, UK
L Badash et al, Brit. J. Hist. Sci. vol XII part 3, 245
L Merricks, The world made new: Frederick Soddy, science, politics and environment, 1996, Oxford University Press
Omega-3s and brain health
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text:
The story behind our platform (Interview)
Stagent's launch is just around the corner. To get you ready for the exciting future ahead, we've done an interview with the founder of Stagent so that you can get to know all about the platform!
Stagent is almost ready to launch! To start off, how excited are you to get Stagent out there? "Very excited! It's exciting to see ideas I've had for a long time come alive. We started development in may 2019, almost one year later we have a pretty decent platform with many features already. But the feature roadmap is also growing day by day. I can't wait to see people start using Stagent."
What's the story behind Stagent? How did you get started, and why did you decide to create it? "Back in 2015, I was running an agency together with someone called VOID. We handled a few bookings per month for local DJs. At first, we did everything with spreadsheets but soon figured we needed something different. Then BeatSwitch came in. We're lucky that we won a giveaway and received a 1-year free BeatSwitch license. BeatSwitch lacked some features but admittedly was an excellent solution for us. BeatSwitch then contacted us to tell us they're pulling the plug and moving forward with their festival management software, which is currently the leading program in that field. We had to find another solution and started using Gigwell. We weren't happy with Gigwell, but it did its job. That's when the idea for Stagent started to grow."
Who is Stagent for? "Stagent is for everybody who works with music and touring. If you're an artist, we have a version for you that's nice and simple and lets you easily handle your bookings. If you work for an artist or have a team of artists, then we have a specially tailored agency version of Stagent for you too."
What does the company stand for? "We stand for excellence and professionalism. The music industry can be a chaotic place, and we want to bring some consistent quality to those that have to work with stressful touring schedules."
Please describe what the platform is like, and explain what the bookings process looks like "The platform is quite easy to navigate - everything is accessible and straightforward. You can enter bookings through the bookings page, and handle the entire booking there. Yes, this includes the contract and payment too! You add your bookings to your itinerary with travel information, which gets updated in real-time as you're on the go. You can always look back at your old bookings and see how much you've earned in one place too."
What separates Stagent from other forms of artist management software? "Stagent has a modern design and is less cluttered than other alternatives. We want to bring the technical excellence we're used to seeing in other industries to the music world."
Can you explain some everyday scenarios where you see Stagent being useful? "One particular scenario that comes to mind is on the road. Flights and travel schedules often get messed up due to things out of your control. The last thing you want to do is to be stuck at the airport trying to figure out how your flight has been rerouted. Stagent takes this weight off of your back by automatically updating your travel itineraries in real-time. If there's a delay or change, you'll be sure to be the first to know."
How do you see Stagent evolving in the future? "First on the list is the Stagent app. There's already a mobile website, but the app is the next step in making Stagent your go-to for artist management needs. We have a lot of fresh partnerships with companies in the festival sector, so we're very excited about the opportunities ahead!"
What do you think the future has in store for the music business? How will it change over time, and how does Stagent fit into that picture? "The music business is always changing, so this is a hard question. One thing we know for sure is that artists need to keep their business organized and to do that, products like Stagent need to exist. So, we aim to be a leader in innovation in the market and to face challenges head-on and adapt as needed."
Thanks, Mischa! Exciting times are ahead. We're looking forward the the future of the platform.
By Alan Mandel on Mar 3, 2020
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text:
Survey: Southern California Voters Want More Transit, Balk at More Highways
By Damien Newton
It's official. Southland residents are sick of sprawl and massive highway projects. Source: Key Findings from Recent Southern California Survey on Transportation and Land Use Planning
Even as Los Angeles embraces an expanded transit and bicycle program, the rest of Southern California is still pictured as a sprawling wasteland of highways and subdivisions. However, that's not what the people that live in the Southland want according to a new survey released by Move L.A., the American Lung Association and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Instead, Southlanders want the kind of dense mixed use development and short commutes over McMansions and sprawlways.
The survey, completed by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz and Associates, shows that voters in the six county region served by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) overwhelmingly support expanding and investing in transit over investing in highways. Even when voters backed highway spending, there was more support for a "Fix It First" approach than funneling more money into mammoth road expansion projects.
"If Southern California voters were in charge of our transportation plans, the region would look very different,"Amanda Eaken, NRDC's deputy director of sustainable communities, added. that "Voters understand what so many studies have told us: widening roads will not solve traffic congestion. Instead, designing communities that increase our mobility and freedom — helping us to get out of our cars — is what will ultimately solve the problem."
The survey was released just days before SCAG is scheduled to vote on the region's Long Range Transportation Plan this Thursday. The SCAG Region encompasses six counties: Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Imperial, 18 million people and 38,000 square miles. Organizations such as the three who commissioned this report and the Safe Routes to Schools National Partnership have lobbied SCAG officials and testified at public hearings helping to create a far more progressive transportation plan than SCAG has passed in the past.
Move L.A. has analyzed the plan and offers support for its passage:
While the plan is good and seemingly signals that a new era is dawning in Southern California — one which could result in more housing and transportation choices for residents — the question is whether SCAG's Regional Council will endorse it
Even so, the citizens of the SCAG region are well ahead of their elected leaders when it comes to a progressive transportation vision.
Many of those 18 million people are tired of the long commutes, tired of the endless highway spending, and anxious for a new way of looking at transportation. Survey respondents were asked to imagine they were in charge of their region's transportation budget, and to allocate a hypothetical $100 budget across five spending categories. Their responses indicate they would like to see a significant majority of the region's transportation dollars allocated to expanding and improving public transportation and providing more bike and pedestrian infrastructure. While voters would allocate about 25 percent of funding to repair and maintain existing roads and highways, they would allocate less than 20 percent of the budget to expanding roads and highways.
Let's just say that while the SCAG plan is a significant improvement over the current plan. The 2008 RTP calls for a $1.8 billion investment in bikeways over 30 years while the 2012 draft calls for $6 billion. However, the 2012 plan is allocating less than half of the 14.1% for bicycle and pedestrian projects that residents would allocate left to their own devices.
"Voters prioritize expanding public transportation as the most effective means of reducing traffic congestion and air pollution," said Denny Zane, executive director of Move LA. "The findings also show that voters would prefer living in communities that are walkable and mixed-use even if this means living in a smaller home."
Streetsblog will have an update on the Regional Transportation Plan after its passage on Thursday.
Filed Under: Car Culture, Urban Design, Walking
Regional Agencies Taking Slow Walk Towards Sustainable Funding
By Damien Newton	| Nov 9, 2011
In recent weeks, regional transportation agencies in Southern California have made some slow moves towards embracing a more sustainable transportation network throughout the Southland. Local "Metropolitan Planning Organization" the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is poised to pass a long term plan that would dramatically increase bicycle and pedestrian funding while its sister agency […]
"This Plan Will Make Air Pollution a Relic of Our History"
Earlier today, the Southern California Association of Governments unanimously passed the 2015-2035 Long Range Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy to guide local transportation planning and investment in the six county region SCAG oversees. While past SCAG plans have focused on building out the highway network, this plan conforms to new state laws requiring that transportation planning […]
Is California Ready to Raise Its Vehicle License Fee?
Every state has its "third rail" that politicians are afraid to touch. When I began my advocacy career in New Jersey in 2004, politicians were deathly afraid of raising any tax after Democratic Governor Jim Florio was ousted in the solidly blue state because of tax increases he pushed through. Florio had been defeated over […]
What Metro and Its Riders Will Lose in State Budget "Deal"
By Damien Newton	| Feb 17, 2009
Two articles written over the weekend highlight just how grim the new state budget is to transit riders, especially those in Los Angeles County. For those of you that took off early on Friday, the Governor and legislature's compromise budget, the one that continaully falls one vote away from passing, would completely eliminate the state's […]
Will the Metro Board Overload "30 in 10" with Highway Projects
By Damien Newton	| Apr 20, 2010
Photo of last week's Meaure R rally via the Mayor's website. Highways weren't mentioned. This Thursday, the Metro Board of Directors will debate and vote-on whether or not to formally support Mayor Villaraigosa's "30 in 10" program that would use federal loans to move the twelve largest transit projects contained in the 30 year Measure […]
Quantifying Transit Ridership, Some Lessons from UCLA's Transit Conference
By Joe Linton	| Apr 29, 2016
Earlier this week, SBLA attended UCLA's The Future of Public Transit conference. The one-day event was hosted by UCLA's Lewis Center and Institute of Transportation Studies. Numerous speakers spoke on the evolving landscape for public transit and broader mobility – from Houston to New York to Los Angeles. This article recaps two of the more […]


The Country Manager, Goole Nigeria, Juliet Ehimuan has said that Nigeria is now engrossed in the digital revolution. She made this statement at a recent seminar organized in Lagos by Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN).
The seminar with the theme; "The Changing Role of Marketing in a Digital Economy", witnessed large turnout of stakeholders ranging from advertisers, marketers, and business executives. Participants at the seminar brainstormed on various issues surrounding the advancement of technology and growth of digitalisation in Nigeria and its implication on marketing.
Declaring the seminar open, former President of ADVAN, now Commercial Director, Grand Oak Limited, Fatai Odeshile said the forum was one of the ways put together by the association in raising the bar in the industry since it is one veritable platform available to interact and learn from each other.
"The insight into this is to provide a forum, not just learning from the guest lecturer, even from you as well and that is why you will notice the way the programme has been designed. It is not a one-way affair, it's designed to take feedback and also learn from each other", Odeshile said.
Also speaking at the seminar, Brand Building Director, Unilever, David Okeme, advised brands to ensure they understand the demography of their target audience, come up with great content and purposeful ideas for their brands, and have a formidable platform to reach out and engage the target audience in order to remain significant in the digital era.
He further said brands must take into cognisance the income level of their target audience and must be able to appropriately balance the digital medium through which they intend to reach them.


Applications are invited on plain paper giving detailed bio-data for one post of "Junior Research Fellow/Project Fellow" in the Rajiv Gandhi Science and Technology Commission (RGSTC), Govt. of Maharashtra, Mumbai sponsored project entitled "Application of plant proteinaceous alpha amylase inhibitors in food processing and post-harvest preservation" sanctioned to School of Life Sciences, KBCNMU, Jalgaon.
The minimum qualification for the post is M. Sc. (Biochemistry) with first class or equivalent grade with UGC/CSIR - NET (for appointment as JRF).
The emoluments for the post is Rs. 24000/- p. m. plus HRA as per university rules. tf the candidate with NET qualification is not available, M.Sc. candidate can be selected with designation as project Feltow subject to approval by the funding agency.
The post is purely temporary and the selected candidate will be appointed only till the completion of the project (January 20221.
Suitable interested candidates fulfilling minimum qualifications should submit their application on plain paper along with contact details (mobile no and email id) to Prof. V.L. Maheshwari, pl (RGSTC project), School of Life Sciences on or before 3/4/2019. Shortlisted candidates will be called for interview and informed accordingly (only by mail). No T.A/D.A. will be paid for attending the interview.


text:
Q: In C# how can I deserialize an XML document containing a list of elements without a surrounding list element Hopefully a question with a very simple answer, but it's not one that I've been able to find. I have a small XML document that looks roughly like this:
<aa>
  <bb><name>bb1</name></bb>
  <bb><name>bb2</name></bb>
  <bb><name>bb3</name></bb>
</aa>

I have classes that represent aa and bb
[XmlRoot("aa")]
public class aa
{
  [XmlArray("bbs")]
  [XmlArrayItem("bb")]
  public bb[] bbs;
}

public class bb
{
  [XmlElement("name")]
  public string Name;
}

When I try to deserialize the document using an XmlSerializer I get an aa object with a null bbs property.
As I understand it this is because the attributes I've used on the bbs property tell the serializer to expect a document like this:
<aa>
  <bbs>
    <bb><name>bb1</name></bb>
    <bb><name>bb2</name></bb>
    <bb><name>bb3</name></bb>
  </bbs>
</aa>

Given that I cannot change the format of the XML I am receiving, is there a way to tell the XmlSerialiser to expect an array that is not wrapped inside another tag?

A: Try replacing your [XmlArray("bbs")] and [XmlArrayItem("bb")] attributes with a single [XmlElement] attribute
[XmlRoot("aa")]
public class aa
{
  [XmlElement("bb")]
  public bb[] bbs;
}

public class bb
{
  [XmlElement("name")]
  public string Name;
}

By putting the Array and ArrayItem attributes in, you were explicitly describing how to serialize this as an array with a wrapping container.

A: Change your [XmlArray]/[XmlArrayItem] to [XmlElement], which tells the serializer the elements have no wrapper, e.g.
[XmlRoot("aa")]
public class aa
{
  [XmlElement("bb")]
  public bb[] bbs;
}

public class bb
{
  [XmlElement("name")]
  public string Name;
}


Patient areas in hospitals across Morecambe Bay will soon undergo transformation and improvements, thanks to a £19m investment by University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMBT).
More than 100 people attended our Population Health Summit on 11 July, to look at how we can work together across the health and care sector to improve health and wellbeing across Lancashire and South Cumbria.
Healthier Lancashire and South Cumbria celebrated the 70th birthday of the NHS in partnership with the University of Central Lancashire on Thursday 5th July with an NHS7Tea party which brought together staff and volunteers from across health, care and academia.
Iconic buildings across the Lancashire and South Cumbria to light up blue to celebrate the NHS' 70th birthday!


There are many things to manage when you run your own business – for example, maintaining a healthy cashflow, balancing the books, growing sustainably and choosing the right kind of finance for your business needs.
One size doesn't fit all when it comes to accessing funds for your business – there's short and long term finance, internal and external finance and a number of different criteria to consider before choosing which best suits your situation. Let's examine some of the options.
Before you can determine which type of finance is right for your business, you need to establish what kind of loan you require and for what purpose. For example, how quickly do you need to access the funds? If the money is required for paying wages, rent or another bill to prevent the shutdown of your business, you'll need the money without delay and will likely have to pay a higher cost to get it. However, if you want funds for long term capital investment in machinery or new staff, you can afford to wait to get the best deal available.
The loan amount you require is also significant in deciding the right source as some types of finance are only feasible for small business loans. Similarly, the length of time you'll require for repayment is something you need to factor in before applying. You have to be realistic about your repayment goals so that you don't overstretch your business and damage its ability to operate satisfactorily. Another matter to weigh up is the risk factor. Higher risk ventures may be harder to attract financing for or they may come with higher costs involved.
One final consideration before deciding on a source of finance is the cost of the finance itself. This means the amount of extra money you'll need to borrow in order to secure the loan amount, typically calculated as interest. Whatever the total cost of repaying the loan with interest, it should be less than the projected profit you'll make from investing the loan amount. The more profit you can make on the money with the least associated repayment costs, the better you'll be leveraging that finance. Of course, this isn't an option if you're using the money to stave off closure – in this case, you simply need to ensure you can repay the loan while you find a way to stabilise the business and improve your cashflow.
Short term finance is money that you need to cover the day to day running of your company. This kind of finance is intended to be paid back in a matter of months rather than years, so there's less risk involved for the lender. Typical examples of short term finance include bank overdraft, working capital and suppliers' credit. In contrast, long term finance is generally used for larger projects or ventures that will be repaid over a longer period. As there is more risk involved with long term finance, lenders often ask for additional security to safeguard against bad loans. For example, mortgages are secured so that if you don't repay the loan amount, your property may be repossessed by the lender and sold to recoup the money owed. Bank loans, hire purchase, debentures and retained profits are all examples of long term finance.
Internal finance is money that comes from your business trading. This may include customer sales, credit extended by suppliers, the disposal of surplus business assets and reductions in stock. As you won't need to pay interest on money raised internally, it's the cheapest form of finance for businesses. However, raising money solely through internal sources may not provide enough revenue to fund a larger investment project. For these, you will probably need to seek external finance – for example, through a bank or building society loan, the sale of company shares or the release of equivalent equity in your business.
Just as there are many reasons why a business might need extra money, there are many sources of finance to choose from. Selecting the right kind of finance for your business requires you to weigh up the pros and cons of each and carefully consider your own business needs.


text:
module Tr8nClientSdk
  module ActionCommonMethods
    ############################################################
    # There are three ways to call the tr method
    #
    # tr(label, desc = "", tokens = {}, options = {})
    # or
    # tr(label, tokens = {}, options = {})
    # or
    # tr(:label => label, :description => "", :tokens => {}, :options => {})
    ############################################################
    def tr(label, description = "", tokens = {}, options = {})
      return label if label.tr8n_translated?

      params = Tr8n::Utils.normalize_tr_params(label, description, tokens, options)
      params[:options][:caller] = caller

      if request
        params[:options][:url]  = request.url
        params[:options][:host] = request.env['HTTP_HOST']
      end

      if Tr8n.config.disabled?
        return Tr8n::TranslationKey.substitute_tokens(params[:label], params[:tokens], params[:options]).tr8n_translated.html_safe
      end

      # Translate individual sentences
      if params[:options][:split]
        text = params[:label]
        sentences = Tr8n::Utils.split_by_sentence(text)
        sentences.each do |sentence|
          text = text.gsub(sentence, Tr8n.config.current_language.translate(sentence, params[:description], params[:tokens], params[:options]))
        end
        return text.tr8n_translated.html_safe
      end

      Tr8n.config.current_language.translate(params).tr8n_translated.html_safe
    rescue Tr8n::Exception => ex
      Tr8n::Logger.error("ERROR: #{label}")
      Tr8n::Logger.error(ex.message + "\n=> " + ex.backtrace.join("\n=> "))
      label
    end

    # for translating labels
    def trl(label, description = "", tokens = {}, options = {})
      params = Tr8n::Utils.normalize_tr_params(label, description, tokens, options)
      params[:options][:skip_decorations] = true
      tr(params)
    end

    # flash notice
    def trfn(label, desc = "", tokens = {}, options = {})
      flash[:trfn] = tr(Tr8n::Utils.normalize_tr_params(label, desc, tokens, options))
    end

    # flash error
    def trfe(label, desc = "", tokens = {}, options = {})
      flash[:trfe] = tr(Tr8n::Utils.normalize_tr_params(label, desc, tokens, options))
    end

    # flash warning
    def trfw(label, desc = "", tokens = {}, options = {})
      flash[:trfw] = tr(Tr8n::Utils.normalize_tr_params(label, desc, tokens, options))
    end

    ######################################################################
    ## Common methods - wrappers
    ######################################################################

    def tr8n_application
      Tr8n.config.application
    end

    def tr8n_current_user
      Tr8n.config.current_user
    end

    def tr8n_current_language
      Tr8n.config.current_language
    end

    def tr8n_default_language
      Tr8n.config.default_language
    end

    def tr8n_current_translator
      Tr8n.config.current_translator
    end

    def tr8n_current_user_is_guest?
      Tr8n.config.current_user_is_guest?
    end

    def tr8n_current_user_is_translator?
      not Tr8n.config.current_translator.nil?
    end

  end
end